Love and Responsibility: a Political Ethic for Hannah Arendt

This paper argues that those critics of Hannah Arendt's thought who have protested at her disavowal of 'moral standards' as being appropriate in the judgment of political action have, in fact, misjudged the structure of her thought. My argument is, however, a constructive one: the paper seeks to demonstrate how Arendt arrives at her sweeping rejection of conventional standards of moral judgment, and what solution she proposes. I do this in three stages. First, I address Arendt's understanding of self as opposed to world : especially how the moral absolutes which may be claimed by the former may threaten the very structure of the latter. Second, I draw upon her model of action to discover the idea of a worldly ethics, one of principle . And third, I consider the fate of our goals when we act into the world, paying particular attention to the idea of responsibility and the on-going responsiveness to the world that belongs to action under a principle.     

Taking Wrongs Seriously: Acknowledgment, Reconciliation, and the Politics of Sustainable Peace, Trudy Govier

Calls for truth commissions and similar public processes topromote social reconciliation after national conflicts oftenreflect admirable aspirations but muddy thinking. This subtleand careful analysis of the processes of political reconciliationafter periods of mass violence opens for analysis the spectrumof potential meanings associated with ‘reconciliation,’ranging from social unity and harmony to the cessation of physicalviolence. Informed by philosophic analysis, social psychological studiesand historical case studies, Taking Wrongs Seriously     

The Ambiguities of Reconciliation and Responsibility in South Africa

This paper traces the ways in which the language of reconciliation promotes and detracts from responsibility. What it means to be responsible and to take responsibility is explored through a reading of J. M. Coetzee's novel, Disgrace . Coetzee provokes a nuanced examination of the nature of reconciliation and responsibility in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly how deep a moral transformation is needed and of whom it should be expected. The tensions between pro forma acknowledgement and deep moral transformation are examined with respect to the competing narratives of reconciliation and responsibility that took place during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and afterwards in South African civil society. The paper concludes with a warning about the delicate balance between responsibility and vilification, reconciliation and denial.     

Politics and the Political in Castoriadis

This paper explores the distinction of politics and the political in Castoriadis’ work. Whereas the political refers to the instituted as the management of society in accordance with established laws, politics refers to the instituting as the capacity of the imaginary to constantly challenge established laws on the basis of individual and collective autonomy. The politics of autonomy identify with the regime of direct democracy, established first and foremost at the level of economy and expanding accordingly in all spheres of society. Democracy contains both a psychoanalytical and educational perspective inasmuch as it aims at the conscious self-reflective harmonisation of individual and collective autonomy by means of collective deliberation.     

The Politics of Studying Politics: Political Science Since the 1960s

The field of political science has undergone significant change since the 1960s. The major shift was toward far greater quantification in the scholarly analyses. That movement sparked enduring controversies. These include disputes pitting scientific detachment against political relevance; specialization against accessibility; and quantitative against qualitative analysis. This article traces the contours of these controversies and offers some reflections on the discipline’s possible future.     

Constructing Subjects and Making Experts: Reading the Politics of the Psychotherapy Novel

This paper examines the ideological and political basis of the practice of psychotherapy in contemporary culture. Psychotherapy is argued to be both inherently political and intimately concerned with the construction of subjectivity. These arguments are examined through interrogating the representation of psychotherapy in the works of Lindner ( The Fifty-Minute Hour , Bantam, New York, 1955) and particularly in Yalom's fictional text Lying on the Couch (HarperPerennial, New York, 1996). The implications within psychotherapy for representing normality, negotiating power, and locating and constructing subjectivity are highlighted through the critical treatment of these texts.     

Political Theory and the Agony of Politics

Mouffe, C. (2005) On the Political. Milton Park: Routledge.
Walzer, M. (2005) Politics and Passion: Towards a More Egalitarian Liberalism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Arendt, H. (2005) The Promise of Politics , ed. J. Kohn. New York: Schocken Books.     

Politics and the Public in Rawls' Political Liberalism

This paper is a critical discussion of a number of related themes in John Rawls' Political Liberalism. First, it considers whether Rawls' recent statement of his position proceeds from an adequate methodology for political theory. In particular, it questions whether Rawls has succeeded in accommodating both universalist, analytic and particularist, interpretive aspects of the political theoretical enterprise. Second, it engages in critical analysis of the conceptions of the political and the public which lie at the core of Rawls' theory. In this part of the paper, an important though not exclusive focus will be certain questions raised by Susan Moller Okin and other feminist critics of Rawls about the internal consistency of his conception of justice. It is argued that Political Liberalism neither addresses these questions explicitly nor, contrary to Okin's view, provides implicit conceptual tools which could allow a sympathetic interpreter of Rawls to do so. The direction of the argument will suggest certain preconditions for the development of a more substantively and methodologically adequate approach to political theory.     

The Political Quarterly, 2009 Lecture: Doing Politics Differently

A discussion of how politics is done in Britain, and how it could be done differently. It explores the relationship between culture and structure in politics, and between strong government and effective accountability. The argument is that the concentration on structures can lead to a neglect of the importance of political culture. It suggests that there are three democratic levels, and that Britain does better on one than on the others; and identifies a range of democratic issues to be tackled. It concludes by suggesting that even without major instrumental changes there are cultural changes that would make a difference to how politics is done in Britain.     

The Messianic,Sovereignty and the Camps: Arendt and Agamben

Abstract

After centuries of relative neglect, the notion of the messianic is again in vogue in radical discourse. This paper explores the meaning and significance of this concept in the work of Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben. They have been chosen not only because of their biographical and theoretical linkages to the thinker most responsible for the current resurgence of the concept of the messianic – Walter Benjamin – but also because they offer two alternative readings of precisely this concept. After exploring the meaning of this concept in Benjamin, Arendt and Agamben, the analysis turns to the related concepts of sovereignty and the “camps” in our principals in order to further elaborate the difference between them and to bring into focus the strengths and weaknesses of the theoretical/political deployment of messianism in contemporary leftist thought.     

Political Cleavages and Political Realignment in Norway: The New Politics Thesis Reexamined

The question of political realignment and dealignment in advanced industrial democracies has been the subject of considerable comparative analysis. The present study takes the literature regarding the 'new politics' thesis as the point of departure and examines the relative importance of different political cleavages. The traditional socio-structural cleavages in the Rokkan/Lipset model for political polarization in industrial society are contrasted with an extended ideological cleavage model which includes five different dimensions. Using data from a nationwide Norwegian survey, the findings indicate that although there is a clear tendency towards a generation-based structural de-alignment process in accordance with 'new politics' literature. the thesis that the materialist/post-materialist dimension has taken over as the dominant polarization pattern in Norway is not generally confirmed. The 'old left-right' ideological cleavages - which we have called Leftist/Rightist Materialism - appears to be of greater importance. even in the post-war generations.     

行政问责制:政治意蕴、现实困境与制度创新

行政问责制蕴涵着深刻丰富的政治价值与理念,是民主政治发展的逻辑必然,是改善中国政治生态的现实需要.但目前各级政府在实施行政问责制的进程中面临着问贲要素界定不合理、问责环境发育不全、问贲配套制度缺失等诸多困境,因此亟须创新其制度设计,通过合理界定优化问责要素,培育良好的问责环境,健全配套制度等途径实现行政问责制度创新,使行政问责真正走向规范化、制度化、法制化.     

问责制中政治责任内涵的四维审视

政治责任的模糊性和不确定性源于政治内涵的广泛包容性。从政治多元涵义的角度来检视,我们把政治责任内涵界定为:掌握国家公共权力的政治责任主体应履行好对政治、经济、文化等事项的管理义务,正确处理好人民内部矛盾,以服务于经济建设的大局,最终实现人民群众的根本利益。反之,就要承担接受谴责、处罚直至丧失行使国家公共权力的消极后果。其中,掌握国家公共权力是承担政治责任的前提,有无违背人民群众的根本利益是是否承担政治责任的核心标准。     

Political Culture and the Study of Chinese Politics

It is both a truth and a truism that Chinese politics cannot be understood without reference to Chinese culture (a truth and truism that would apply to any other society as well). But within the academic discipline of political science political culture has lost status over the past generation as not conducive to the development of empirical political theory. The usual candidate for replacement is rational choice theory. But properly understood, political culture is compatible with rational choice, inasmuch as there is no single standard of rationality, but, rather, it will vary from society to society and era to era. Considerations of the cultural background are necessary to provide content to rational choice theory, since without consideration of culture context rational choice threatens to reduce to a set of colorless banalities.

Liberal Democrat Councillors: Community Politics, Local Campaigning and the Role of the Political Party

Liberal Democrats have long displayed the success of community politics since its adoption at the Liberal Party Assembly in 1970. Community politics, however, brings with it not only electoral success but an expectation amongst voters that Liberal Democrat councillors will act in certain ways as local representatives. The article presents the results of national research conducted amongst councillors of the three main parties, and compares the attitudes of Liberal Democrat councillors to aspects of local democracy with those of their Labour and Conservative counterparts. It identifies two types of Liberal Democrat councillor and uses these to explain the attitudinal differences and similarities found with Labour and Conservative councillors.     

Nonalienation among peoples: Symposium on Catherine Lu’s Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics

ABSTRACT

This contribution gives an appreciation of Catherine Lu’s book Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics and introduces some concepts and motifs, themes and arguments that play a role in the discussion by the three commentators Reinhard Wolf, Alasia Nuti, and Kimberly Hutchings in this book symposium. The discussion adds to the development of the categories of structural injustice, alienation, and reconciliation, and especially of the systematic relations among them. I conclude that the notion of nonalienation as reconciliation in world order will be worth investigating even independently of questions of historical injustice.