Myth-Free Space Advocacy Part II: The Myth of the Space Frontier

Space advocates commonly compare the settling of the “space frontier” to the settling of the “western frontier” in the United States, arguing that space settlement will realize the same benefits purportedly realized by the western expansion of the United States: the generation of new cultures; the development of new technologies; and the empowerment of democratic governance. However, much of the reasoning here is based on a faulty understanding of history and on an overly optimistic view of what it will be like to live in a space settlement. Thus, I argue that ardent faith in the promises of settling the space frontier is a mythological belief, rather than a well-confirmed one.     

The Tragedy of Liberal Diplomacy: Democratization,Intervention, Statebuilding (Part I)

Since the end of the Cold War, democracy promotion, intervention and statebuilding have once again been explicit features of American foreign policy. Current assessments of this return, however, overlook both their longer term history and their roots in liberal (and not just American) ideology. The contradictions and dynamics entailed in the liberal philosophy of history have already played themselves out once before, in the modernization theories and policies of the early Cold War period. Despite their academic and political failures at the time, the same assumptions now underpin democracy promotion in the post-Cold War period and show signs of the same dynamics of failure. In this two part essay, I argue that the repetition of such counterproductive policies constitutes a recurring ‘tragedy of liberal diplomacy’ in which the shaping of US foreign policy by assumptions deeply rooted in the liberal philosophy of history plays a central part in producing the very enemies that policy is designed to confront and transform.     

The Tragedy of Liberal Diplomacy: Democratization,Intervention, Statebuilding (Part II)

Abstract

The first part of this paper (in the previous issue) showed that the democracy promotion policies often perceived as characteristic of the New World Order are not so new. Rather, they were an integral part of the modernization theories and policies of the Cold War era. This second part of the paper shows that the democracy transition paradigm is based on precisely the same liberal assumptions as its predecessor and that, like the former, its theories and policies have widely been identified as failing. This failure leads to interventionist and statebuilding policies which in turn trigger resistances in target countries; a pattern already familiar from the Cold War period. We are confronted, thus, neither with a new world order nor with the end of history but rather with its repetition. And this repetitive cycle of counterproductive theories and policies, the paper concludes, will continue for as long as the liberal ideology underpinning it remains essentially unchallenged.     

In Defence of Associative Political Obligations: Part One

Part One of this article seeks to defend the idea of associative political obligations against a number of criticisms that have been advanced opposing it. The purpose of this defence is not to demonstrate that the associative account is therefore the best explanation of political obligations, but only that the principal reasons which have been given for rejecting it are much less compelling than its critics maintain. The argument focuses in particular on the various criticisms advanced by A. John Simmons. Two general lines of defence figure especially prominently. First, it is shown how many of the criticisms in one way or another ultimately rest on the assumption that political obligations must be voluntarily acquired, when it is just this assumption that is contested by an associative account. Secondly, it rebuts the charge that the idea of associative obligations faces a particular problem because it entails the view that members must have obligations to associations or groups that are evil. While it is not claimed that the idea of associative political obligations is entirely without difficulties, it is contended that stories of its demise are greatly exaggerated, and in this respect the ground is laid for Part Two of the article, which sketches a particular account of associative political obligations.     

The Myth of Postmodernity

In this paper the claim that the advanced market economies have entered a new era of postmodernity (or a postmodern turn) is critically assessed and found to be unjustified by the changes at the economic, political, cultural, or scientific and theoretical levels of the last quarter of a century or so. These changes in no way reflect a kind of break with the past, similar to the one marking the transition from the 'traditional' society to modernity. It is therefore argued that advanced market economies, following the collapse of liberal modernity in the 19th century and that of statist modernity (in both its versions of social democracy and Soviet statism) in the 20th century, have in fact entered a new form of modernity that we may call neoliberal modernity , rather than a postmodernity. Neoliberal modernity represents a synthesis of the previous forms of modernity and at the same time completes the process which began with the institutionalisation of the market economy and representative 'democracy' that have been presently universalised in the form of the internationalised market economy and the developing supra-national forms of governance respectively.     

The Presence of Tragedy

Abstract

This paper argues that modernity can only be properly understood when tragedy is viewed as one of the conditions internal to it. Modernity and tragedy are not mutually exclusive, as Hegel and Schlegel, for example both argue, but mutually inclusive. Each is determined by the other—as tragic modernity and as modern tragedy.     

Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of a Sociological Morality

Recently Philip Gorski has argued that sociology can help us answer moral questions such as how to live and how to organize societies. Gorski rejects “value-free sociology” and the distinction between factual statements and value judgments, but actually factual statements and value judgments are distinct and sociology can be value-free.  The practice of value-free sociology is ethically imperative, even, if we are to be honest with our audiences and if we are to fulfill our vocation as sociologists.     

The Common Root of Commitment,Resistance and Power

Abstract

This essay responds to some of the questions raised by Infinitely Demanding from the perspective of tragic conflicts. On this view, the struggle for power cannot be disentangled from the freedom at stake in liberalism and capitalism, nor from the efforts of individuals and groups to resist the powers that be. I suggest, moreover, that this entanglement threatens to divide from within not just the ethical subject, but groups and institutions as well.     

Democracy in an Age of Tragedy: Democracy,Tragedy and Paradox

Abstract

Democracy and tragedy captured a delicate poise in ancient Athens. While many today perceive democracy as a finite, unquestionable and almost procedural form of governance that glorifies equality and liberty for their own sake, the Athenians saw it as so much more. Beyond the burgeoning equality and liberty, which were but fronts for a deeper goal, finitude, unimpeachability and procedural norms were constantly contradicted by boundlessness, subversion and disarray. In such a world, where certainty and immortality were luxuries beyond the reach of humankind, tragedy gave comfort and inspired greatness. The purpose of this article is to draw explicit links between democracy, tragedy and paradox. Given that tragedy's political ascendancy coincided with the birth of democracy in ancient Athens, we may assume that democracy was somehow, if not implicitly, tragic. But what was it that made democracy and tragedy speak so intimately to each other and to the Athenians who created them? The answer, at least the one which this article entertains, is paradox.     

Myth and reality: The causes and persistence of poverty

Policies directed at alleviating poverty rest on a set of assumptions regarding the demographic composition of the poor and the psychological dispositions of poor individuals. Evidence from a long-term study of a representative sample of low-income individuals shows that poverty is very widespread but not usually very persistent, and that the characteristics of the persistently poor do not conform to the conventional wisdom. Furthermore, the economic status of the poor does not appear to have been caused by psychological dispositions. Intergenerational data from the same study show generally weak links between the poverty or welfare status of parents and that of their children. Public policies for dealing with poverty can be properly devised without attempting to resocialize poor people and without undue concern that poverty programs will generate dependency among the majority of those they help.     

Power in Public Implementation: A Complex, but Important Part of Power Studies

Based on data disclosing differential treatment of regulated companies, this article shows that it is important to look at the implementation phase as well as the political decision-making phase when one talks about distribution of power in Western democracies. Doing so gives a more nuanced picture of the distribution of power. However, explaining differential treatment throughout the implementation phase with variation in the possession of different power resources gives a more or less kaleidoscopic picture and calls for a complex theory of power. Local economic strength, networks, knowledge and organizational similarity do lead to more lenient regulatory inspection, but the effect depends on whether the company is public or private. Therefore, to have power and influence, one must possess the right resources, understand how to use them and be able to handle the fact that people might expect something different from you than they expect from others – not because of what you do, but because of who you are.