Deleuze and Guattari's Historiophilosophy: Philosophical Thought and its Historical Milieu

Abstract

This paper will examine the relation between philosophical thought and the various milieus in which such thought takes place using the late work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. It will argue that Deleuze and Guattari's assessment of this relation involves a rearticulation of philosophy as an historiophilosophy. To claim that Deleuze and Guattari promote such a form of philosophy is contentious, as their work is often noted for implementing an ontological distinction between becoming and history, whereby the former is associated with the act of creation and the latter with retrospective representations of this creative process. Furthermore, when elaborating on the creative nature of philosophical thought, Deleuze and Guattari explicitly refer to philosophy as a geophilosophy that is in contrast to history. Nevertheless, this paper will demonstrate that far from abandoning the category of history, Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of the relations between philosophical thought and relative milieus suggests to us an historical ontology and methodology that is a critical part of philosophy's nature.     

Rancière and revolution

This paper explores what role Rancière's work can play in the struggle for a more democratic world. It highlights the strength of Rancière's conception of democracy, which clearly identifies democracy as a popular disruption of the prevailing police order. This order claims to have assigned a proper role to all parts of society. Democracy for Rancière is when an element emerges that has not been taken account of and demonstrates the police order's claim to be false. Among the many benefits of this way of understanding democracy, it upsets any easy association between hegemony and democracy – as in Laclau & Mouffe – and it refuses utterly the ideological fusing of democracy, capitalism, and the state offered by the liberal-democratic-capitalist consensus. However, Rancière's approach also introduces significant limits on democracy because it denies that democracy can ever do more than disrupt the prevailing order. It does not allow for the possibility that democracy can grow and spread to the point that it becomes pervasive in the polity. This paper uses the case of the Egyptian uprising to show how this limitation closes off important political possibilities. The paper argues that Deleuze & Guattari's theorisation of revolution, when used carefully, is a necessary corrective to Rancière's too-restricted concept of democracy     

From clichés to slogans: towards a Deleuze–Guattarian critique of ideology

When thinking about ideology as a form of practice, Deleuze and Guattari show how ideology can circulate through the social as cliché, where clichés are themselves ideological tools that function to order the world or ideologically pattern social action and social relations. Against clichés Deleuze and Guattari insist on the power and political significance of what they call slogans, where slogans or the practice of sloganizing can imply a critique of the forms of ideology we encounter in everyday life. Put differently, a Deleuze–Guattarian critique of ideology implies a clearing-away of the clichés that ideologically play through the canvas of our social–political world.     

Beyond ‘kawaii’ pop culture: Japan’s normative soft power as global trouble-shooter

Abstract

Many studies of Japan’s soft power are premised on the ‘affective’ dimensions of its kawaii pop culture that generate liking or interest. While entirely warranted, emphasising cultural attraction does not do sufficient justice to the multi-faceted foundations of Japanese soft power. Neither does it recognise other components of Joseph Nye’s soft power framework stressing the ‘normative’ appeal of policies that reflect global norms. This article investigates the ‘normative’ dimensions of Japan’s soft power on climate change, and whether it translates into international influence, as Nye predicted. The first section examines the Cabinet’s 2010 New Growth Strategy, identifying a potential source of ‘normative’ soft power in its self-proclaimed desire to reinvent Japan as a ‘trouble-shooting nation on global issues’, specifically environmental challenges. Next, it analyses how Japanese entities (government, corporations, and NGOs) can transmit ‘normative’ soft power, and obstacles encountered. These transmission mechanisms include ‘Cool Earth Partnership’ programmes, the ‘Future City Initiative’ and the values-based Satoyama Initiative. The final section addresses conceptual implications that arise, and assesses whether Japan’s ‘normative’ soft power has paid dividends. Drawing from literature on pioneer states and external reviews of Japan’s alignment with key climate norms, the paper suggests that Japan’s normative soft power is lacking in driving agendas at global climate forums. At a pragmatic problem-solving level, however, Japan is increasingly perceived as an attractive source of transferable solutions, reflecting climate norms such as developing eco-friendly technologies and providing assistance to help vulnerable countries mitigate climate change     

Foucault Contra Honneth: Resistance or Recognition?

This article deals with the relationship between the thought of Michel Foucault and that of Axel Honneth, arguing in favour of the former against the latter. I begin by considering Honneth’s early engagement in The Critique of Power with Foucault’s thought. I rebut Honneth’s criticisms of Foucault here as a misreading, one which prevents Honneth from coming to grips with Foucault’s position and hence the challenge that it poses to Honneth’s project. I then move on to offer a Foucauldian critique of Honneth’s own position, arguing for a Foucauldian alternative to Critical Theory.     

Doing Without State and Civil Society as Universals: ‘Dispositifs’ of Care Beyond the Classic Sector Divide

This article poses questions of power to social services provided by voluntary organizations. In particular, it examines the assumption that voluntary and local organizations represent ‘containers’ for a radically different social work rationality, where the marginalized are met in a more equal and attentive fashion, ‘on their own terms’. Thus, the world of volunteering and ‘friendly amateurism’ has been seen as a source of instructive ethics from which government policies should take their lead. While recognizing that this discourse on voluntary rationality has had a number of positive effects, it has almost completely blocked discussions of the forms of power exercised in voluntary services. It is suggested that questions of power, rationality and organized welfare can be fruitfully re-formulated within a Foucauldian register. Applying Foucault's concept of ‘dispositif’ to services for the homeless, the article demonstrates that social work rationality is not linked to the public/private divide but rather to a specific service domain. The article questions the widespread belief that public social services are always permeated by power, whereas those of civil society provide a more power-free domain where ‘genuine human’ meetings may take place.     

Political Planomenon and the Secret Thereof

Abstract

Taking Derrida's notion of the ‘secret’ and Deleuze's immanence' as its starting point, this essay proposes a reading of Marx's living labour' that critiques Hardt and Negri's understanding of political subjectivity. In doing so, the essay examines the possibilities of rethinking political agency in terms of a ‘powerless power’.     

Climate Adaptation in Canada: Governing a Complex Policy Regime

Climate adaptation is a complex policy area, in which knowledge, authority, and resources are fragmented among numerous public agencies, multiple levels of government, and a wide range of nongovernmental actors. Mobilizing and coordinating disparate public and private efforts is a key challenge in this policy domain, and this has focused research attention on the governance of adaptation, including the dynamics of interaction among interests and the institutions that facilitate collective action. This paper contributes to the study of adaptation governance by adopting the policy regimes perspective, an analytical framework designed to make sense of the loose governing arrangements surrounding complex, fragmented problems. The perspective's constructs are applied to a longitudinal case study of adaptation governance in Canada, which identifies, analyzes, and evaluates the policy ideas, institutions, and interests that comprise Canada's adaptation policy regime.     

Is there an obligation to reduce one's individual carbon footprint?

Moral duties concerning climate change mitigation are – for good reasons – conventionally construed as duties of institutional agents, usually states. Yet, in both scholarly debate and political discourse, it has occasionally been argued that the moral duties lie not only with states and institutional agents, but also with individual citizens. This argument has been made with regard to mitigation efforts, especially those reducing greenhouse gases. This paper focuses on the question of whether individuals in industrialized countries have duties to reduce their individual carbon footprint. To this end it will examine three kinds of arguments that have been brought forward against individuals having such duties: the view that individual emissions cause no harm; the view that individual mitigation efforts would have no morally significant effect; and the view that lifestyle changes would be overly-demanding. The paper shows how all three arguments fail to convince. While collective endeavours may be most efficient and effective in bringing about significant changes, there are still good reasons to contribute individually to reducing emission. After all, for most people the choice is between reducing one's individual emissions and not doing anything. The author hopes this paper shows that one should not opt for the latter.     

Theorising Power and Resistance among “Travellers”

This paper (re-)examines the literature on Traveller communities in the United Kingdom by combining parts of Michel Foucault's and Michel de Certeau's theoretical legacies. Following an ethnographic summary, I demonstrate the relevance of Foucault and Certeau for a critical understanding of the Travellers’ structural predicaments and ideological resistance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I argue that Foucault's outline of modern power, surveillance and classification sheds new light on the impact of social control agencies and the implementation of legislative changes, such as the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, on (semi-)nomadic and/or self-employed groups. The implications of more recent legal developments are discussed as symptoms of postmodernity and the further ideological marginalisation of “non-consuming nomads”. I then argue that some of Certeau's key concepts, including the “strategies/tactics” distinction, illuminate the Travellers’ modalities of resistance and symbolisms of difference. Completing a two-way dynamic between theory and data, the article also shows that existing empirical material on Travellers highlights some of the weaknesses in Foucault's and Certeau's respective thought. Finally, I turn to Foucault's “analytics” to account for intra-group power and resistance, and hence to challenge the common portrayal of Foucault as a “theorist of domination” in juxtaposition to Certeau as a “theorist of subversion”.     

我国乡镇服务型政府对行政生态环境变化的回应——基于城镇化进程的视角

随着我国城镇化进程的推进,乡镇政府所处的行政生态环境发生了深刻的变化,突出体现在乡镇经济、政治、文化和社会环境的变化。其变化对乡镇服务型政府作用的方向、方式、范围和程度提出了挑战。乡镇服务型政府对此积极作出回应,以保持乡镇行政生态的动态平衡。     

Comparative Analysis of Sweden’s Wind Energy Policy: The Evolution of “Coordinated” Networks

Abstract

In search of an appropriate institutional structure for successful environmental policy, many researchers focus on network governance. And while it provides the flexibility and adaptability needed for climate change initiatives, the paper argues that many networks collaborate too loosely to have the capacity to reach strategic goals or mobilize local players. There is often a disconnect between national policy goals and on-the-ground dynamics. Instead, government should adopt a network perspective which does not eliminate state action, but involves network management institutions at arm’s length of government. As an example for this mode of network governance, the research looks at the Swedish “National Network for Wind Power”, which was initiated by government and is now led by four wind coordinators managing the development of on- and off-shore wind electricity. The paper compares Swedish performance before and after the introduction of the wind network and shows how these government efforts have transformed Sweden from a weak performer to being a frontrunner in Europe.     

A Political Defence of Kant’s Aufklärung: An Essay

The aim of this essay is to analyse the potential for political emancipation that lies within Kant’s conception of Aufklärung, in critical dialogue with enlightenment critics and specialised Kantian literature. My thesis is that Kant’s concept of enlightenment is intrinsically political and so it must be studied from the point of view of his political philosophy, which was fully developed in the decade of the 1790s. From this standpoint, I propose we study the role and place of Aufklärung within Kant’s central political thesis, to wit: that only the united will of the people can be a legitimate authority.     

The Politics of Climate Policy: Strategic Options for National Governments

This article summarises the results so far of an international investigation aimed at identifying political strategies that make it easier for national governments to take more effective action against climate change while avoiding significant political damage. The numerous strategic options identified included strategies involving unilateral action by governments, strategies of persuasion, damage limitation strategies, strategies that can be used in political exchange with other political actors, and strategies designed to improve the bargaining position of governments by altering the terms of political exchange. The article concludes with a shortlist of especially promising strategies.     

The Era of State Energy Policy Innovation: A Review of Policy Instruments

U.S. energy and climate policy has evolved from the bottom‐up, led by state governments, and internationally recognized for the use of unconventional and innovative policy instruments. This study focuses on policy instruments adopted throughout the era of state energy policy innovation that aim to diversify, decentralize, and decarbonize the electricity sector. Specific attention is devoted to the renewable portfolio standard, net metering, interconnection standards, tax incentives, public benefit funds, and energy efficiency resource standards. This analysis synthesizes the findings from the energy policy literature and provides a summary of the current state of understanding about the effects of various state energy policy instruments, and concludes with a discussion of broader trends that have emerged from the use of policy instruments in the state energy policy innovation era.     

Is There Now a Political Climate for Policy Change? Policy and Politics after the Stern Review

Climate change is fuelling a significant renaissance in the national environmental movement in the UK. The broad aim of this article is better to understand the extent to which the 2006 Stern Review on climate change marked a decisive turning point in the battle against climate change or just another missed opportunity. Labelled as the most comprehensive review of the economics of climate change ever produced, the Stern Review was commissioned by the Chancellor in the summer of 2005 as part of the G8 Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change. The main themes of and reactions to the Stern Review are analysed against the backdrop of changing domestic party politics. Then, the follow through in terms of new political and policy pronouncements is examined. It is concluded that finding a way to tie together domestic and international actions on climate change represents an enormously tricky political challenge for whoever succeeds Blair as prime minister.     

Connecting social and environmental policy in Australia: Collateral gains or collateral damage?

Climate change research relating to “co‐benefits” suggests that the facilitation of social‐welfare outcomes through environmental policy offers a powerful means of incentivising climate change action. Concerns about social‐welfare, however, are often used to undermine climate change policies, typically through political claims that low‐to‐middle‐income households should not shoulder the costs of greater policy alignment between social and environmental objectives. Integrating the social into the environmental can therefore, on the one hand, lead to “co‐benefits” as each agenda promotes the other in political discourse, or alternatively to collateral damage if the policy objectives are framed as incompatible. This article explores both scenarios through two case studies of energy policy in Australia. The findings show that social‐welfare concerns can be a powerful discursive tool with the potential to facilitate political consensus, but also that this potential is not being fully realised, primarily because environmental concerns suffer when attempts are made to integrate the two areas discursively.