One Concept of Liberty

In this paper I argue in favour of a single conception of liberty, that picked out by Berlin as negative liberty. However, Berlin's defence of liberty so understood seems to rest on a view not open to the moral realist.
The first half of the paper explains this and suggests an alternative defence compatible with such a moral position. The defence rests on an account of why we value freedom. In the second half of the paper this negative conception is defended against recent criticism from Charles Taylor. His appeal to qualitative distinctions within freedom is queried, as is the conception of the self that seems required for his outlook.     

Between Integration and Freedom: School Segregation in Critical Perspective

In the Danish case, school segregation is recognized as a crisis of society, but it is also a crisis in the deeper sense that central actors disagree about in what sense it is a crisis. This raises the general questions: In what sense is school segregation a problem? What exactly is the crisis? Though these are partly normative questions, in Scandinavian contexts we can interpret them in light of the internal value‐commitments of society. Accepting this premise allows us to build on the empirically informed and philosophically rigorous work of Elizabeth Anderson according to which segregation should be viewed in light of the imperative of social integration. The demand for citizens’ equal participation in the main institutions of society is, according to her, already entailed immanently if a society is broadly commitment to democracy. Finding this immanent democratic approach to be insufficient considering widespread concerns with respecting parental freedom, this article discusses the more value‐integrative approach found in the political philosophical work of Hegel. According to this approach, our value‐commitments to both social integration and individual freedom can be integrated if central public institutions reflect a complex structure of recognition. On the basis of both of these two steps, the article suggests ways of understanding and tackling the crisis of school segregation in a Scandinavian setting.     

Multiculturalism and Free Speech

Anthony Lester tackles the complex and sensitive issues of multiculturalism and free speech. He explores the various meanings given to multiculturalism, integration and assimilation, as well as the relationship between the right to equality and dignity for ethnic and religious minorities and the right to freedom of expression. Placing our multicultural society in its historical context, he considers the treatment of Commonwealth immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s and discusses more recent confrontations involving racial or religious groups which have raised the right to free speech. He argues that our approach to integration and cultural diversity should promote equality and individuality but resist unreasonable demands to respect customs and practices which, for example, harm the rights of women and children, in the name of misguided multiculturalism. We must guard against political correctness that panders to the thin-skinned but remember that the right to offend does not mean a duty to do so.     

Objectification and the contraditions of bourgeois power: Sartre and the modern prison

The state, it is often and correctly said, is a social relation. The apparatuses of the state are not simply instruments for the use of one class or another, not just techniques of domination, but are themselves embodiments of bourgeois power relations. Thus the modern prison, for example, is bourgeois, not because of its uses or control, but in the very organisation of power that pervades it. Uncovering the bourgeois character of this power relation through an examination of Bentham's model prison, the Panopticon, is one task of this paper. Sartre's critique of objectification appears as a critique of the tyranny of society in general, and this is the way in which Sartre himself sees it. However, its real object of analysis is precisely the power relations of bourgeois society. Sartre's genius lies in the clarity of his perception of the contradictions inherent in these relations; his failure lay in his inability to see their historical character. As a result, his critical humanism reflects, but never gets beneath the surface of these contradictions. Separating the rational kernel from the mystical shell of Sartre's critique is the route taken here toward an understanding of bourgeois power.     

Still ‘like birds on the wire’? Freedom after neoliberalism

In this paper I suggest that we might understand some features of contemporary populism by reworking the concept of ‘authoritarian populism’ first proposed by Stuart Hall in his analysis of ‘Thatcherism’. Following a brief review of my earlier analytics of ‘governing through freedom’, I suggest that while the political movements identified by the names of Trump, Wilders, Le Pen, the Austrian Freedom Party, the True Finns etc. may be ephemeral, it is worth considering whether they are beginning to articulate a new set of rationalities and technologies for governing ‘after neoliberalism’. I analyse some key elements of these movements, the new epistemologies that they employ and the ethopolitics that they espouse, and suggest that the key operative concepts may be ‘the people’, security and control. We may still be ‘birds on the wire’ as Leonard Cohen once put it, but perhaps what we are enjoined to seek in these strategies for ‘governing liberty’ is not so much freedom but security.     

Factionalism and political discourse in the Islamic Republic of Iran:The Case of the Hujjatiyeh Society

The revolutionary Islamic government of Iran is dominated by clerical forces organised for the most part in the Islamic Republic Party. After defeating and banishing its secular opponents, notably the first President of the Republic, Bani-Sadr, the clerical party and regime developed factional struggles within their ranks. The issue of these struggles is what we consider to be the central dilemma of the revolutionary regime: the radical, populist slogans and policies of the revolution vs. routinised government maintaining order and protecting property. Khomeini's doctrine of Wilayat-i-Faqih which required the politicisation of religion and the sacralisation of politics has become closely associated with revolutionary populism. The radical forces, self proclaimed Maktabis, have insistently defended the original principles and policies of the revolution in the name of Khomeini and his ‘Imam line’ against the forces which they claimed to be infiltrating the regime to subvert the revolution and restore capitalist-imperialist control. The Maktabis with the vocal support of the Tudeh (communist) party, identified subversive forces with the Hujjatiyeh, a shadowy society, apparently with close connections to the clerical establishment

We examine the attacks upon and the defences of the ‘Hujjatiyeh’ to distinguish the styles, discourses and directions of factional struggles in relation to the central conflict between populism and order     

Constructing and Deconstructing Liberty: A Feminist and Poststructuralist Analysis

Debates about liberty have been dominated by discussion about the relationship between its negative and positive conceptions. In accepting this framework, political theorists have left unquestioned certain foundational ideas that both concepts share but which actully constrain our thinking about freedom. This relates in particular to subjectivity and our assumptions about the free self. This critique uses feminist and poststructuralist approaches and explores the implications of the spatial metaphors which both concepts of liberty invoke.     

Examining Honneth’s Positive Theory of Recognition

ABSTRACT

In this article I examine Axel Honneth’s positive theory of recognition. While commentators agree that Honneth’s theory qualifies as a positive theory of recognition, I believe that the deeper reason for why this is an apt characterisation is not yet fully understood. I argue that, instead of considering only what it is to recognise another person and what it means for a person to be recognised, we need to focus our attention on how Honneth pictures the practice of recognition as a whole, which according to him works to make societies into places of greater freedom. This conception of recognition as a freedom-enhancing practice is supposed to provide a solution to a key problem of Frankfurt School critical theory, namely of how to determine the emancipatory practice in which critical theory is rooted, which becomes apparent as soon as one turns to the context in which Honneth originally develops his theory of recognition. At the end of the article, I offer a few reasons for doubting the overly positive picture of the practice of recognition that Honneth provides us with.     

The problem of stability and the ethos-based solution

Can unconditional basic income policies be designed to generate the motivational conditions that make possible their own support? Unconditional redistributive schemes do not take formal precautions to deal with potential motivational problems that may affect their stability. For example, they are designed to give people the freedom to decide whether or not to participate in the job market. However, scholars like Philippe Van Parijs and Simon Birnbaum think that the promotion of an ethos of justice can potentially do the necessary motivational work to secure the stability of unconditional redistributive institutions. Their solution lies in changing people’s behavior through an informal motivational mechanism rather than through a formal rule or institution. This paper argues against that ‘ethos-based solution.’ It presents three reasons to distrust that solution. First, it argues that even broader and more inclusive ethoi of justice can become oppressive and violate people’s freedom. Second, it suggests that the formal and informal strategies to generate that ethos may be difficult to implement, monitor, and control. Finally, it argues that the difficulties associated with implementing and developing that ethos of justice may lead us to either preserve an undesirable status quo or to implement suboptimal redistributive policies.     

Republicanism, Freedom from Domination, and the Cambridge Contextual Historians

Philip Pettit, in Republicanism: a Theory of Freedom and Government (1997), draws on the historiography of classical republicanism developed by the Cambridge Contextual Historians, John Pocock and Quentin Skinner, to set up a programme for the recovery of the Roman Republican notion of freedom, as freedom from domination. But it is my purpose to show that classical republicanism, as a theory of institutional complexity and balanced government, could not, and did not, lay exclusive claim to freedom from domination as a defining value. Positive freedom was a concept ubiquitous in Roman Law and promulgated in Natural Law as a universal human right. And it was just the ubiquitousness of this right to freedom, honoured more often in the breach than the observance, which prompted the scorn of early modern proto-feminists like Mary Astell and her contemporary, Judith Drake. The division of society into public and private spheres, which liberalism entrenched, precisely allowed democrats in the public sphere full rein as tyrants in the domestic sphere of the family, as these women were perspicacious enough to observe. When republicanism is defined in exclusively normative terms the rich institutional contextualism drops away, leaving no room for the issues it was designed to address: the problematic relation between values and institutions that lies at the heart of individual freedoms.     

Selling Oneself into Slavery: Mill and Paternalism

'Voluntarily acceding to slavery', Joel Feinberg has written, 'is too much for Mill to stomach', and so Mill espouses strong paternalism and contradicts his famous principle of individual sovereignty. Mill's critics have found incoherence where none exists, largely because they have failed to take seriously his own claim that the non- enforcement of slavery contracts is required by the principle of liberty. The refusal to enforce such contracts arises not from Mill's espousal of paternalism, but from the paradox of sovereignty. Reconstruction of Mill's solution to this paradox not only dispels the charge that he abandoned the sovereignty of the individual, but also contributes to the reinterpretation of his defence of freedom, as a result of which his entire doctrine of antipaternalism emerges as a coherent and defensible position.     

Tony Blair's 'Media' Speech: The Commentators

Tony Blair's speech challenged the media over its standards in his valedictory lecture. Many of his charges about the absence of balance, attacks on motive and a pack mentality stand up, even if some are exaggerated and also applied well before his arrival in 10 Downing Street. Mr Blair's solutions did ot match his critique. What is required is a more self‐questioning media, being held to account on the internet and on specialist blogging sites. Vigorous criticism, requiring justification, is a more credible rout than tighter regulation. Tony Blair's speech on the changing pressures on the media is both interesting and convincing in its diagnosis (although generally reported in ways that did not reveal this). It is less convincing in suggestions for change: the fact that on‐line media will fall under Of‐com, and so under its minimal ‘content regulation’ will have little impact. Effective change could begin with other types of (self or other regulation). Some steps towards change might include minimal requirements for journalists and editors to accept elementary forms of accountability, such as disclosing conflicts of interest and payments made for ‘stories’. The scale of media coverage may be crucial in determining the allocation of aid, yet the attention the media pays to particular causes is arbitrary. Many serious disasters are not reported and as a consequence do not receive adequate aid, so that the victims of the crisis will lose out. Chronic long term problems, like famine, are ignored in favour of ‘sudden emergencies’. Reporting seeks sensation and simple stories which influences the way that aid agencies respond to the media. The complex background to a faraway disaster is often overlooked and not properly reported. Tony Blair's speech describing some of the news media as ‘feral beasts’ contained one paragraph which contained an insight into his views on new media. It was known that the outgoing Prime Minister was uncomfortable with some aspects of new technology but his remarks reveal a wider disappointment with how new media has failed to deliver changes which he had hoped for in political communications.This paper records Mr Blair's problems with new media and argues that by focusing on how the new technologies might provide a better way for politicians to by‐pass the traditional media he has missed the point of their wider benefits.     

Rousseau's General Will: Freedom of a Particular Kind

Had Rousseau not been centrally concerned with freedom, some of the structural features of his political thought would be unaccountable. Above all, the notion of general will would not have become the core of his political philosophy. Rousseau's reasons for using 'general will' as his central political concept were essentially philosophical. The two terms of general will - 'will' and 'generality' - represent two main strands in his thought. 'Generality' stands for the rule of law, for civic education that draws us out of ourselves and towards the general (or common) good. 'Will' stands for Rousseau's conviction that civil association is 'the most voluntary act in the world', that 'to deprive your will of all freedom is to deprive your actions of all morality'. And if one could 'generalize' the will, so that it 'elects' only law, citizenship, and the common good, and avoids 'willful' self-love, then one would have a general will in Rousseau's particular sense. The distinctiveness of Rousseau's general will is further brought out through a comparison with Kant's 'good will' about which Rousseau would have felt severe doubts.     

Reassessing the Impact of Civil Society: Nonprofit Sector,Press Freedom,and Corruption

The notion that a strong civil society helps to fight corruption has become a cornerstone of governance policy. Yet, a continuing dearth of empirical research, which tests this general proposition and probes the relevant causal mechanisms, feeds rising skepticism of current policy initiatives. This study theorizes the relationship between civil society and corruption, arguing that civil society's impact depends to a large extent on its ability to generate sufficient public pressure which, in turn, depends on the press being free. Analysis of cross‐national and longitudinal data shows that civil society strength is indeed inversely linked to the level of corruption, but the impact is highly dependent on press freedom. This conditioning effect affirms the importance of the public pressure mechanism. These results explain the need for policy to target both civil society and press freedom in promoting accountable governance and sustainable development.     

Public pensions and return migration

In a median-voter framework with pensions and immigration we show that only few unskilled immigrants are allowed into the country because the unskilled native median voter is concerned with negative effects on his or her wage, but not with the positive effects to other groups in society. When return migration is allowed for, the median voter is more willing to accept immigration because he or she can shift some of the burden to future generations.     

Adorno and the Problems of a Critical Construction of the Historical Present

Abstract

This paper argues that Adorno's metaphysics can be rescued from the constellation of his messianic materialism. The recovery of metaphysics in this context also means that it is rescued as the basis of possible critique. Rescue here entails that the ideas of truth, freedom, justice and democracy should be seen as transcending whatever is empirically given, while remaining immanently operative within society. These ideas can still be drawn on for a critique of the present, thus renewing the original project of critical theory.     

Human nature,freedom and political community: An interview with Noam Chomsky

For Noam Chomsky ‘human nature’ is a clearly defined concept, biologically endowed and largely independent of social and historical conditions. Because its deepest properties are genetically determined, for Chomsky the study of human nature ought to proceed in much the same way the functions of other bodily organs are examined. His ground‐breaking research into the language faculty, which he claims is one of the more accessible attributes of human nature, revolutionised the study of linguistics and cognitive science generally in the 1950s and 1960s. However, this approach has put him at odds with those, such as behavioural scientists and existentialist philosophers, who have long argued that physical and mental development should be understood as separate processes because of the overwhelming influence of environmental conditions on the latter. It also sets him apart from some recent post‐modern thinkers who deny the existence of an intrinsic human nature, arguing that our moral and political values are socially and historically determined. For his part, Chomsky still finds it odd that what we take for granted in explaining physical growth becomes so ‘controversial’ in a discussion of the psychological aspects of human nature.

Noam Chomsky's understanding of human nature underwrites his conception of desirable social and political arrangements. A good society, according to Chomsky, is one ‘that leads to [the] satisfaction of intrinsic human needs, insofar as material conditions allow’ (Peck, 1988, p. 195). It should give expression to an ‘instinct for freedom, the consciousness of which gives us ‘the opportunity to create social conditions and social forms to maximize the possibilities of freedom, diversity, and individual self‐realization (Chomsky, 1973, pp. 395–6). Libertarian socialists and anarchists like Chomsky believe complex industrial societies can be organised within a framework of free institutions and structures leading to, in Rocker's words, a federation of free communities which shall be bound to one another by their common economic and social interests and arrange their affairs by mutual agreement and free contract’ (Peck, 1988, pp. 191–2). An appreciation of Chomsky's understanding of human nature provides some important clues to his political values, specifically his attitudes towards human rights, the nation‐state and alternative form of political community. These topics are explored in the interview below which is divided into two parts: human nature and moral behaviour; and political community and globalisation.     

Tinpots,Totalitarians (and Democrats): An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Economic Growth on Civil Liberties and Political Rights

Ronald Wintrobe (1990, 1998) has recently provided atheoretical foundation for estimating equations that attemptto explain the dependence of civil liberties and politicalrights in non-democratic regimes on the history of economicgrowth. This theory suggests that data from different kinds ofnon-democratic countries should not be pooled without allowingcoefficients to vary with regime type. It also placesinteresting restrictions on the signs of the coefficients ofeconomic growth in equations explaining freedom in the typesof regimes Wintrobe identifies. In this paper, we employ theserestrictions to test Wintrobe's theory. Some additionalhypotheses about the difference between democratic andnon-democratic regimes and about the role of education, notconsidered by Wintrobe, are also investigated.The results indicate clearly that the relationship between thedegree of freedom – as measured by the sum of the Gastilindexes of civil liberties and political rights – andeconomic growth varies significantly across all types ofregimes. Totalitarians (that attempt to maximize power) areclearly different than tinpots (that just attempt to maintainpower) in this respect, and non-democratic regimes differ fromdemocracies. Other aspects of the theory are partiallyconfirmed. In particular, in totalitarian regimes, positivegrowth reduces freedom, and negative growth increases it insome specifications. The theory predicts the opposite patternfor tinpots, and we do find that negative growth reducesfreedom in tinpot regimes. However, positive growth in tinpotsalso appears to reduce freedom in some cases, which is not inaccord with the theory. Secondary schooling has a positive effect on freedom, as inprevious empirical work, a result that is shown here to holdeven when each type of regime is considered separately. Butthe effect of primary schooling is different: in tinpot andtotalitarian regimes, but not in democracies, primaryschooling is associated with reduced freedom.     

Oakeshott's Claims of Politics

Michael Oakeshott is most commonly thought of as a political philosopher. Thinking of his work in these terms can distract attention from his main arguments in which he outlines his conception of civil association. Civil association is a much broader idea than Oakeshott's idea of politics. But in refocusing attention away from politics and towards civil association it is important that we do not forget Oakeshott's positive account of politics.
Politics, as Oakeshott understands it, is an activity which is indispensable to the practice of civil association. Politics considers civil rules, neither as authoritative conditions nor in the deliberative or injunctive idioms of adjudication or ruling, but in the persuasive idiom of their desirability. This paper explores the character of Oakeshott's conception of politics and the relation of this activity, both positive and negative, to the practice of civil association.