Theory and Concept Development in Political Marketing

Abstract

In this article we argue that the state of theory and concept development in political marketing needs to be related to several epistemological as well as topical themes and issues. Seven meta-theoretical issues are discussed with regard to current theoretical position of political marketing research and some initial recommendations are made on how these issues can be developed further. The second part of the article focuses on topical aspects of theory and concept development in political marketing and highlights nine themes for further research. These themes of political marketing are singled out because of their characteristics which show them to be significantly distinct from commercial marketing practice, and therefore need more careful modelling in concepts and theories of political marketing.     

The epistemological crisis of counterterrorism

This article describes the nature, origins and consequences of the epistemological crisis at the heart of contemporary counterterrorism. The epistemological crisis of counterterrorism is an identifiable epistemic posture towards knowledge about, as well as a way of acting towards, the terrorist threat. It manifests itself discursively in the manner in which officials, scholars, pundits and others speak about the threat of terrorism, and the way counterterrorism and security practitioners then act in pursuit of security against that threat. The article argues that many of the bizarre counterterrorist practices regularly observed in many Western countries, as well as costly and counterproductive counterterrorist practices such as preemptive war, targeted killings, mass surveillance, torture, control orders and de-radicalisation programmes, among others, are neither anomalous nor irrational in the context of the new paradigm. Rather, they flow logically and directly from the particular paranoid logic, which is constitutive of the epistemological crisis. The article concludes with a discussion about how and why critical scholars can and should attempt to resist and deconstruct it.     

Critics Within: Islamic Scholars' Protests Against the Islamic State in Iran

Islamic scholarship, in Iran and elsewhere, has a long tradition of debate and critique. This tradition has come to pose a challenge to the constitutional order of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as a number of seminary-trained scholars have applied their critical methods to basic issues of state legitimacy, in particular the state's right to insist on interpretive closure. The regime has responded with force, convening special clergy courts to silence and imprison scholars, in violation of seminary norms of scholarly debate. These conspicuous acts of discipline seem to have backfired, as each escalating punishment has generated new critics within.     

一种激进的知识论:女性主义立场论

女性主义立场论是一种批判的女性主义知识论,它以统一的女性主义立场为出发点,以女性和其他边缘人群的生活经验为背景和来源,以强调女性认知特权为手段,以追求语境化知识和价值负载的强客观性为目标,力图消灭包括性别压迫在内的一切压迫和等级制度,建构一种真正解放的知识论.女性主义立场论虽有不少困境,然而作为一种新兴的主流的女性主义知识论却有重要的知识论贡献.     

后现代法学思潮的哲理渊源探析

通过运用法学与哲学交叉研究的方法,探究后现代主义代表人物福柯、利奥塔、德里达和罗蒂等学者的法哲学思想及其对法学研究的深刻影响,以揭示后现代法学思潮得以孕育和发展的哲理渊源.藉此,加深对这一新兴法学思潮的认识.     

Dialogical approaches to struggles over recognition and distribution

This paper contrasts three non-skeptical ways of explaining and reconciling political struggles: monologue, instrumental dialogue, and a comparative dialogical approach promoted by Charles Taylor and James Tully. It surveys the work of Taylor and Tully to show three particular family resemblances: their emphasis on practice, irreducible diversity, and periodic reconciliation. These resemblances are evident in the way they employ dialogical approaches to explain struggles over recognition and distribution. They describe these as dialogical actions, and suggest that a form of dialogical comparison might reconcile their various contested demands.     

Studying Agaciro: Moving Beyond Wilsonian Interventionist Knowledge Production on Rwanda

Twenty years after the end of the Rwandan genocide, knowledge production on the small country of a thousand hills remains a clamorous battle ground of post- and decolonial power and influence. This essay critically engages with the knowledge production on Rwanda in the West by conceptualizing it as a Wilsonian intervention in the post-colony: paternalistically well-intended at the service of the peace, democracy and free trade liberal triad, while at the same time silencing, self-contradictory and potentially counterproductive. The Wilsonian interventionist form of knowledge production is coated in a language of critical engagement and care. At the same time it is and allows for a continuous external engagement in view of this Wilsonian triad—a highly particularist view on the good life, cast in universal terms. As a former journalist and a researcher from the Belgian Rwandan diaspora and building on a decolonial research strategy, in this essay I reflect on potentially different avenues to produce and consume knowledge on the country. I do this by discussing the challenges and creative opportunities of a recently started research project on Agaciro (self-worth): a philosophy and public policy in post-genocide Rwanda rooted in its precolonial past, centred on the ideals of self-determination, dignity and self-reliance. Rather than inscribing itself firmly into the canon that aims at informing on Rwanda, this research project seeks to contribute to a different mode of imagining, studying and enacting sovereignty in today's academic and political world, both permeated by the hegemonic principle of the responsibility to protect (R2P).     

从侦查认识论的角度解读“命案必破”

“命案必破”是公安部在全国侦破命案工作会议上提出的命案侦破的努力方向,其出发点是鉴于目前重特大刑事案件侦破率低的情况,号召全国公安机关加大对命案的侦破力度,给犯罪分子以震慑,维护社会稳定。从侦查学的基础理论——侦查认识论的角度来解析“命案必破”,肯定其积极意义的同时,指出命案必破的含义应着眼于“命案必须全力侦破”,强调侦破应建立在实事求是的基础上,将“命案必破”与破案质量挂钩。     

Gradual and Sudden Enlightenment: The Attainment of Yogipratyakṣa in the Later Indian Yogācāra School

Journal of Indian Philosophy - In the later Indian Yogācāra school, yogipratyak?a, the cognition of yogins is a key concept used to explain the Buddhist goal of enlightenment. It...