OAKESHOTT AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF PHILOSOPHICAL POLITICS

Abstract. Oakeshott offers a radical version of the thesis that philosophy cannot evaluate or recommend political ideas. We criticize each stage of his argument that practical life excludes philosophy's desire for ultimate truth and demands a distinctive form of reasoning. Believing that practice is not susceptible to philosophical guidance because it is composed of actions, subject to change and necessarily inconsistent and uncritical of assumptions, he exaggerates its contrast with theory. Moreover, he wrongly supposes that philosophy has no practical aspect, arguing that while all practical thought must be in terms of certain concepts, philosophy transcends those which it analyses. We contend that the distinctiveness of philosophy and practice does not imply they are separate; rather philosophy is a necessary part of any reasoned evaluation of political concepts.     

Does Rawls Support the Procedural Republic? A Critical Response to Sandel's Democracy's Discontent

In Michael Sandel's latest book entitled Democracy's Discontent (1996), he argues that the prevailing public philosophy (what he calls the procedural republic) that informs America's institutions undermines self-government and a sense of community. Does John Rawls support the procedural republic? Contrary to what Sandel contends, I argue that it is not fair to label Rawls as a leading proponent of the procedural republic. Rawls's egalitarian liberalism does not endorse the public philosophy that has informed American Constitutional Law and the political economy for the past half a century.     

Idealism,realism, and immigration: David Miller’s Strangers in Our Midst

David Miller’s Strangers in Our Midst is an important contribution to the debate among political philosophers about how liberal democratic states should deal with the issue of migration. But it is also a thoughtful statement concerning how best to do political philosophy and, as such, contributes also to the growing debate within Anglo-American political theory about the relative merits of ‘ideal’ versus ‘non-ideal’ normative theorising. Miller’s argument in the book builds on his earlier published work in suggesting that political philosophy should be ‘for Earthlings’: it should not be understood as a process of ideal theorising which ignores political reality. He argues that normative theorists should seek to resolve complex political problems by taking seriously the political context that makes these problems complex, rather than putting aside that context in the interests of deriving first principles. This is a controversial approach, which requires political philosophers to take more seriously than they often do the expressed concerns of citizens living in democratic states and the practical problems associated with applying normative principles in ways which actually help address the issue at hand. This piece discusses some of these themes, and the issue of migration more generally, in order to help frame the debate which follows.     

Christianity and political thought: Augusto Del Noce and the ideology of Christian Democracy in post-war Italy

This article engages with the thought of Augusto Del Noce (1910–1989), the most important Italian Catholic philosopher and political thinker of the 20th century. The focus is on how Del Noce came to elaborate a Catholic ‘modernity,’ bridging a positive encounter between Catholicism, democracy and freedom. This philosophical project had a considerable impact on modern Italian culture and politics. At the theoretical level, the argument is embedded within the larger aim of recognizing attempts within Catholic philosophy to articulate an Italian political trajectory that does not simply accept the tale of a singular path to modernity based on the Enlightenment model but instead tries to articulate an alternative vision of the modern, grounded within a transcendental perspective.     

The Political Importance of Analogical Argument

Is there a form of reasoning somehow specially suited to political philosophy and political life? I contend that for a variety of reasons analogical argument is eminently apt for politics. Although the significance of analogical reasoning for law has been largely recognized (Levi, Dworkin), its similar suitability for morality and politics has mostly been ignored, though insights from Hampshire and others point the way.
An eventual implication of my argument is that an analogically developed liberal tradition provides rational, non-relativist 'foundations' for normative claims, as firm as are feasible and necessary. This larger question about the roots of political and moral principles is commented upon throughout, but the main purpose is to establish the nature and legitimacy of analogical reasoning in political argument.     

Europe and the Common

Significant attention has been given to the necessary conditions for a viable and legitimate European polity. Drawing on traditions in political philosophy, a central strand of this debate has concerned what must be common to a set of people such that they may be ruled through the same institutions, with various types of collective bond proposed as possible bases for political community. The argument of this article is that many such approaches, which conceive a bond in terms of shared interests, cultural attributes or shared values and principles, are liable either to underplay or to overplay how much the citizens of a polity must have in common, tending either to empty public life of the pursuit of shared ends or conversely to downgrade the importance of adversarialism. Both may be seen as depoliticising moves. The article goes on to explore how a more explicitly political bond, based on the appraisal of political problems, might be conceived for a European polity.     

How to argue about the new public management

Hood and Jackson's (1991) distinction between administrative argument and administrative philosophy has been largely overlooked in writings on NPM. This seemingly subtle distinction flows from the more obvious one between “practical argument” and “social scientific explanation.” These terms refer to different scholarly practices. Practical reasoning is a highly-developed form of scholarship in law, public policy, and political theory. Explanation is a highly-developed scholarly activity in political science and related disciplines. The fact that practical argument and explanation are, in principle, complementary scholarly activities in practically-oriented fields such as public management is not a reason to overlook the distinction between them. If scholars writing on NPM made more of this distinction, it might prove easier for their readers to see precisely how social science explanations and practical arguments are interrelated. Discussion of how well claims have been supported would then be facilitated. Also, it would be easier for writers to decide how to engage the NPM literature. Not only would the issues be clearer, but it would also be easier to discuss the merits of alternative approaches to tackling them. If more weight is given to the distinction between practical argumentation and social scientific research by scholars of NPM, an urgent question is: how should the scholarly practice of practical argumentation be characterized?     

Word and Deed: A Deweyan Integration of Deliberative and Participatory Democracy

This article draws on the political philosophy of John Dewey as one way to re-think the relationship between deliberative and participatory democracy. Rather than focusing on differences, Dewey's ideal of democracy allows us to bridge these two theories while still being attentive to the tensions between them. In particular, Dewey helps us conceptualize deliberative and participatory practices as distinctive yet complementary phases within a larger circuit of cooperative inquiry. To illustrate the argument, a case study of one democratic experiment that effectively combined different forms of practice is presented. In doing so, it is contended that we might be able to recover and incorporate some of the more radical features of participatory democracy into deliberative practices. Participatory theory's focus on political action and structural inequality, in addition to deliberation, as essential to citizen-centered democratic practice is specifically emphasized.     

Strauss and 'Straussianism': From the Ancients to the Moderns?

Do scholars inspired by Leo Strauss adhere to, or diverge from, his teachings as they contribute to turn of the twenty-first-century American conservative thought and new conceptions of the American political executive and constitutional order? Analyzing Strauss' view of the twofold task of political philosophy, as well as his position that modern political philosophy inexorably leads to philosophic and moral crises, the scaffolding of Strauss' political outlook – and the dimensions of its contemporary relevance – will begin to take shape. Turning to the writings on America by many of Strauss' most notable students, we discover that most of them point back to the admittedly liberal theories of John Locke and the American founders as the starting point for defining a new conservative outlook that will address the problems of modernity. We are thus confronted by a quandary. How can an important current of Strauss-inspired scholarship put forth that the theories of Locke and the American founders provide the foundation for addressing a crisis that Strauss states is rooted in that very modernity? We will discover that the thought of Strauss and an important strand of Straussianism are not the same, because Strauss-inspired scholarship on America adheres to only a facet of Strauss' two-pronged political philosophy. Strauss, however, cannot disavow responsibility for these students and followers, who embrace an important current of his thinking.     

Constitutionalism and common knowledge: Assessment and application to a future European constitution

The purpose of the paper is to advocate that constitutions should be established through a contractarian process, rather than through conventions. To achieve it, they are studied from the perspective of the concept of common knowledge. We refer to its political philosophy and game theory dimensions. The making of common knowledge relates to communication and induction problems. The argument is applied to European constitutional integration, with a particular focus on administrative law.     

Locke, Sincerity and the Rationality of Persecution

According to the most influential contemporary reading of John Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), his main argument against religious persecution is unsuccessful. That argument holds that coercion is ineffective as a means of instilling religious beliefs in its victims. I propose a different reading of the Letter . Locke's main consideration against persecution is not the unsuccessful belief-based argument just outlined, but what I call the sincerity argument . He believes that religious coercion is irrational because it is ineffective as a means of inculcating the right intentions in people. Once this alternative argument is placed at its centre, the Letter is seen to be a more fertile source of political argument than is suggested by alternative readings. In particular, the sincerity argument gives us a powerful reason for rejecting state moral paternalism, the doctrine that the state may use coercion to make people morally virtuous. If moral virtue depends upon people having the right intentions, and if coercion is ineffective as a means of instilling the right intentions in people, then state moral paternalism is ineffective and hence irrational.     

In Defence of Associative Political Obligations: Part Two

This article continues the defence of associative political obligations begun in Part One. It does so by sketching an argument that supports commonplace ideas about our having a special, ethical relationship with the polity of which we are members. The argument begins by showing how non-voluntary groups in general can have value, and then seeks to identify the generic good of a polity: that good is the provision of order and security. While this is a necessary condition of associative political obligations, it is not sufficient. It needs to be supplemented by an argument explaining why we have obligations to the particular polity of which we are members. This 'associative' argument has two sides to it. The first explains how membership of a polity is for most people something like an ascribed status; that is, an identity or role that a person is taken to occupy without having chosen it. The second suggests how, through a process of identification, we incorporate membership within our self-understanding. The article concludes with some brief remarks about anarchism and why political obligation matters.     

Back to the populist future?: understanding nostalgia in contemporary ideological discourse

Abstract

Nostalgia is regularly depicted as an indication of a flawed political argument or allegiance, and framed as a virus more likely to take hold in places that are ‘left behind’. Its prevalence has been linked to the rise of populism in Western politics, the vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. This paper seeks to challenge the normative depiction of nostalgia as an alien presence within ‘normal’ political discourse, and critically evaluates theoretical attempts to distinguish between positive and negative forms of it. Instead, it sets out to explore some of the different affective, sentimental and ideational roles that various kinds of nostalgia practice perform, and highlights the particular importance of forms of political argument that accuse opponents of nostalgia while simultaneously employing some of its prevalent modalities and motifs. The paper finishes by exploring these themes in relation to the career and ideas of the iconoclastic and populist British politician, Enoch Powell.     

Populism and technocracy: opposites or complements?

Although populism and technocracy increasingly appear as the two organising poles of politics in contemporary Western democracies, the exact nature of their relationship has not been the focus of systematic attention. This article argues that whilst these two terms – and the political realities they refer to – are usually assumed to be irreducibly opposed to one another, there is also an important element of complementarity between them. This complementarity consists in the fact that both populism and technocracy are predicated upon an implicit critique of a specific political form, referred to in this article as ‘party democracy’. This is defined as a political regime based on two key features: the mediation of political conflicts through the institution of political parties and a procedural conception of political legitimacy according to which political outcomes are legitimate to the extent that they are the product of a set of democratic procedures revolving around the principles of parliamentary deliberation and electoral competition. This argument is made through a close analysis of works by Ernesto Laclau and Pierre Rosanvallon, chosen as exemplary manifestations of the contemporary cases for populism and technocracy, respectively.     

Global equality of opportunity and self-determination in the context of immigration

David Miller’s political philosophy of immigration employs two complementary argumentative strategies to challenge open border theories. The first strategy is to defeat the principled case for open borders, such as the global equality of opportunity argument for more lax immigration control. The second strategy is to establish the democratic community’s prima facie right to determine the shape of its future, including membership and the right to exclude. First, I argue that Miller’s conception of global equality of opportunity is overly narrow and that his objections to the principle, to the metric and to what counts as feasible political action misfire against other, more plausible, accounts. Second, I argue that his democratic interpretation of collective self-determination does not solve the pressing question concerning the morally justified scope and content of self-determination and the moral limits of the right to exclude. I conclude by questioning Miller’s general strategy: whether theories of immigration should be engaged in an exercise of shifting the burden of proof between open and closed borders. By contrast, I argue that a more desirable task for the political philosophy of immigration is to find ways in which the joint requirement of global equality of opportunity and collective self-determination can be coherently upheld.     

Formal Procedures, Informal Processes, Accountability, and Responsiveness in Bureaucratic Policy Making: An Institutional Policy Analysis

This study examines the role of public notice and comment in the development of 42 rules. These procedures can provide useful information to policy makers about the preferences of those who stand to be affected by agency actions. More importantly, they serve as cues for the accommodation of interests and the resolution of conflict through processes that are grounded in agencies' accountability to political officials. Yet, an examination of the interrelationship between formal, procedural constraints and the informal processes surrounding them reveals that the effects of notice and comment in promoting bureaucratic responsiveness are limited in ways that have received little systematic analysis. A consideration of the tension between the instrumental goal of procedural accountability and the political tasks that often dominate bureaucratic policy making suggests that it is desirable to return to the original use of notice and comment as a device for exposing agencies to the views of affected interests.     

The problem with English(es) and linguistic (in)justice. Addressing the limits of liberal egalitarian accounts of language

Van Parijs’s Linguistic Justice for Europe and the World furthers a nascent examination of multilingualism within political philosophy, drawing on continental European contexts where multilingualism is the norm. Van Parijs argues, in effect for linguistic cosmopolitanism via English as the current world language, and this seems ostensibly to be a considerable improvement on ‘the untrammeled public monolingualism’ of Anglo-American political theory. However, Van Parijs’s account is flawed in four key respects. First, there is the fundamental problem of his reductionist account of language – by which language is viewed only in terms of its communicative uses and reach and not in relation to its symbolic and identity functions. Second is his simplistic advocacy of English as a global lingua franca, which ignores issues of power and inequality, along with related delimited access to high-status English language varieties. Third are the inherent limitations associated with his advocacy of linguistic territoriality, which recognizes state-sanctioned languages but little else, thus failing to mitigate existing linguistic hierarchies. Finally, the wider argument for English as a global lingua franca is inevitably underpinned by a monolithic/hegemonic view of English itself. This monolithic conception of English stands in contradistinction, not only to the actual plethora of Englishes in the world today, but also, more importantly, to their widely varying status and use in furthering cross-communication and related notions of social and economic mobility. The latter thus fatally undermines Van Parijs’s central argument linking social and economic mobility ineluctably to access to English.     

Volunteering in the Arab World: Bringing Back People into Politics?

This article analyzes the concept of volunteering in the Arab world. The main argument is that the nature of the Arab world in addition to the historical development of civil society directly affected the philosophy of volunteering in the region. Since civic services were not framed nor included in the national agendas of the state, this had a direct negative effect on the development of the act. However, due to social, economic, and political factors, this trend is changing: As of 2000, organizations and societies started to understand the importance of volunteering and its link to the social and economic revival of societies; Arab states started to encourage the act by providing the right legal and political environment. However, these different policies are not building democratic societies nor encouraging civic engagement. The article concludes with recommendations for how to bring people back into civic and political society as well as suggestions for future research.     

The Brownlow Committee, Regulation, and the Presidency: Seventy Years Later

Analyzing Robert E. Cushman's study within the context of the Brownlow Report substantiates the argument that the immediate failure of the committee's recommendations—and their influence in the longer term—is best explained within the conceptual framework of changing political orders in American political development. Seventy years later, the field has the historical perspective to see that the committee's work was buffeted by tensions between competing political orders. Today, far from being just an interesting episode in American public administration, we see that the Brownlow Committee's work on regulation, as much as work on executive organization, heralded and enabled a new era of presidential administration.