Civic integration in Western Europe: three debates

Since the late 1990s, civic integration has become the dominant immigrant integration policy in Western Europe. This article reviews three debates surrounding the new policy: first, whether there is policy convergence or persistent variation along national models of integration; secondly, whether civic integration marks a retreat from multiculturalism, or is merely layered on resilient multiculturalist policies; and, thirdly, whether the new policy is liberal or illiberal, and whether it entails a return of cultural assimilation. It is argued that civic integration converges cross-nationally with respect to policy goals and instruments, while extant variation is often incoherent or touching more on the form than the substance of policy; that civic integration is national-level policy that tends to coexist with ongoing de facto multiculturalism, especially at local level; and that civic integration mostly remains in a liberal register, as it is still integration and not assimilation, which would connote forced identity change.     

Taxpayer governmentality: governing government in Metro Vancouver’s transit tax debate

In a 2015 plebiscite, voters in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia rejected a proposed sales tax dedicated to funding a regional transportation plan. Opposition was spearheaded by a taxpayer group that focused on the perceived incompetence and wastefulness of the region’s transportation authority. Exercising a liberal imperative of ‘permanent critique of government’, the taxpayer group assembled evidence addressed to ‘taxpayers’. Developing a theoretical account of ‘taxpayer governmentality’, the paper analyses how people are addressed and fashioned as taxpayer subjects, empowered and responsibilized to govern government, and their own political conduct, as sceptical, calculating, non-political, economic actors. The paper concludes by suggesting that this taxpayer subject may be productive for understanding the practice of liberal critique and limitations of the state.     

The Narrative History of the Chocolate Wars: A Short and Tasty Bargaining Game

ABSTRACT

This single lesson classroom game is designed to test student knowledge of Realist and Liberal concepts through an imbalanced resource bargaining mechanic. The game is designed for approximately 20 students divided into state teams of three to four students each and uses chocolate to represent the state teams’ economic capacity, military capability, and human security. Each state team had competing goals, over which they must cooperate or conflict for additional pieces. This game also uses an abstract design to maximize active learning through a short course of play while also making the game useful for testing concepts at any point in an International Relations course. In addition to offering a complete yet easily modifiable game for classroom use, this article also describes the game’s pedagogical contribution to the discipline, game design notes, and techniques for preventing students from stuffing their faces with game pieces.     

黑格尔悲剧理论的社会思想基础

18世纪的德国，温和的自由主义思潮、浪漫主义化的民族主义思潮以及浪漫主义化的保守主义思潮，深刻影响了德国历史文化的发展进程。黑格尔的悲剧理论深深植根于18世纪后期、19世纪前半期的德国乃至欧洲的历史文化发展过程中，和这三股思潮的发展紧密联系在一起。     

Liberalism and religion: the plural grounds of separation

ABSTRACT

In what sense, and to what extent, should a liberal state be secular? Many interpret liberal-egalitarian political theory as dictating a radical separation between church and state. Against this view, Cécile Laborde has powerfully argued that, in fact, liberal-egalitarianism is not committed to strict separation as such. Laborde understands the liberal-egalitarian commitment to separation as ultimately grounded on a principle of neutrality. However, she argues that the conception of neutrality to which liberal egalitarians are committed is much more ‘restricted’ than it is often thought. If a commitment to separation is derivative from a commitment to neutrality, then, if neutrality is restricted, secularism is minimal. This means that not all forms of religious establishment should be regarded as impermissible from a liberal-egalitarian perspective. Contra Laborde, I argue that restricted neutrality should not be understood as the only ground of separation. Separation has plural grounds. Forms of religious recognition that do not violate any of the requirements of restricted neutrality may still be regarded as impermissible from a liberal-egalitarian perspective, if they (1) violate a basic commitment to fairness, (2) treat citizens in a patronizing way and/or (3) violate, in their justification, a requirement of sincerity, as grounded on reciprocity.     

A Liberal Marxism? Mutual Care,Global Humanity and Minimum Utopia

This article surveys The Norman Geras Reader: ‘What’s There is There’, a recent collection of the work of Norman Geras, edited by Eve Garrard and Ben Cohen. The article explores the relevance of Geras’s attempted reconciliation between liberalism and Marxism to some of the key issues confronting the contemporary left: foreign policy and the failures of humanitarian intervention and non-intervention; internationalism and the necessity for solidarity across borders in an age of nationalist populism; left approaches to totalitarianism and antisemitism; the possibilities and limitations of alternatives to and critiques of liberal capitalism; and the reinvigoration of utopian imaginaries and the futures they promise. It suggests that important lessons for the left can be unpicked from the contested legacy of the ‘decent leftism’ Geras represents, where reapplied in the wake of new political and diplomatic challenges.     

正确认识并有力引领新自由主义思潮

正确认识并有力引领新自由主义思潮对于推进中国特色社会主义事业具有重要意义。要准确把握新自由主义思潮的发展及其基本主张,尤其要正确认识我国的新自由主义思想的实质,从而加强社会主义核心价值体系建设,采取针对性强的措施对新自由主义思潮实施有力有效的引领。     

论新自由主义与我国青年的主流意识形态认同

作为影响当代中国最为主要的西方社会思潮之一,近年来,新自由主义在我国的传播表现出传播领域生活化、传播方式大众化、传播内容感性化等特点。新自由主义的观点和主张会对我国青年群体的主流意识形态认同造成负面影响,这些影响主要包括消解部分青年对于马克思主义的信仰、动摇部分青年对于社会主义制度的信心、改变部分青年的集体主义价值取向,以及扭曲部分青年的公平正义观念等等。为加强我国青年群体的主流意识形态认同,可以考虑从创新模式、传播方式和本土化这样三个方面来推进主流意识形态领域的改革,以此来确保马克思主义在我国青年群体精神生活领域的主导地位。     

法益理论的发展源流及其启示

法益概念的产生对大陆法系国家刑法理论的发展有重大的意义。法益理论在不同的历史时期被赋予不同的内容。自由主义始终是法益概念的精神内核,坚持法益论就必须坚持刑法的个人主义与规范主义。基本法实现了法益概念规范性与非规范性之间的平衡,现代刑法必须强调宪法的重要作用。宪法和刑法规定是对刑法保护客体的规范限制,此外,刑法的谦抑性原则及实害原则也是对刑法保护客体的重要的限制原则。     

Uhlin,Anders. Post-Soviet Civil Society: Democratization in Russia and the Baltic States. London and New York,Routledge, 2006, ISBN: 0-415-36804-9.

The Baltic German politician and political thinker Paul Schiemann (1876–1944) is widely recognized as the most prominent defender of liberalism in the Baltic states during the interwar period. However, his liberal ideas have rarely been interpreted in their own right. This article explores the main presuppositions of Schiemann's liberalism: his conceptions of individual freedom, democracy, and cultural development. Although Schiemann's main intentions are liberal, his theory of the anational state includes significant Marxist elements, which call into question the potential of the democratic state. In my conclusions, I will argue that Schiemann's ideas still have theoretical relevance, which must be further explored in the context of contemporary liberal theory.