马克思恩格斯意识形态批判及其意义——《德意志意识形态》中的意识形态批判思想

“从天上降到人间”是德意志意识形态虚假性的根源,正确理解意识形态产生发展过程及其实践意义的思考路径是“从人间到天国”;意识形态具有阶级性和历史性,对德意志意识形态的批判是消灭旧世界、发现新世界的重要理论支点.马克思恩格斯关于德意志意识形态批判的论述和思想,对当前我国意识形态的维护与发展以及文化建设有重要的指导意义.     

Representing the People: Laclau as a Theorist of Representation

Going beyond conventional conceptions of political representation, Ernesto Laclau takes representation to be a general category and not just limited to formal political institutions, and he takes representation to be performative in that it also brings about what is represented. This article examines the implications of this conceptualization of representation for Laclau’s theory of populism. Laclau takes populism to be exemplary of his conception of representation because populism is a discourse that brings into being what it claims to represent: the people. This is important for current debates about populism and the crisis of democratic institutions, whether domestic or international. I show how our conceptions of representation inform how we think about populism and liberal democracy, and specifically about populism as a threat to liberal democracy at the domestic or global level. I show this in the context of a reading of Jan-Werner Müller’s influential critique of populism.     

An Archaeology of Political Discourse? Evaluating Michel Foucault's Explanation and Critique of Ideology

The resurgence of interest in the concept of ideology and its empirical application neglects the important contribution of Michel Foucault. Despite Foucault's epistemological reservations about the concept of ideology, both his archaeological and genealogical writings develop original approaches to the analysis of concrete ideologies. This article evaluates Foucault's archaeological approach by applying it to the case of Black Consciousness ideology in South Africa. When translated into an appropriate form, archaeology provides a useful set of tools for the analysis of concrete ideologies. However, it should not be taken as a free-standing approach for its employment exposes important methodological and substantive difficulties. Archaeology thus needs to be supplemented by a genealogical investigation of discursive practices and by a post-Marxist theory of hegemony.     

Attitudes on the Size of Unemployment Benefits: Ideology and Numbers

The divide separating the political left from right is often expressed in specific numbers. The proper size of unemployment benefits is a key example of such a disagreement, with the left generally favoring higher levels of benefits than the right. However, little is currently known about how voters make up their mind on such policy relevant numbers. Using two survey experiments, this article shows that while Danish voters’ attitudes on unemployment benefits are correlated with their ideological position, they may also be strongly affected by the ways in which politically relevant numbers are presented and elicited. Specifically, when making up their minds on such numbers, voters are highly susceptible to anchoring effects and a unit effect. Furthermore, voters are affected more by precise numbers than by round numbers. Together, these results suggest that political actors may in some cases move public opinion closer to specific policy positions simply by presenting the relevant numbers in certain ways.     

Why We Love to Hate the Wolf (of Wall Street): Using Georges Bataille and Friedrich Nietzsche to Critique the Function of Moral Ideology Under Late Capitalism

The release of Martin Scorsese’s film The Wolf of Wall Street in late 2013 helped to reignite a public conversation about corporate greed and the moral excesses and violations of Wall Street firms and executives. A barrage of articles, reviews, and criticisms of the film emerged throughout popular media that sought, for the most part, to single out and condemn the immoral actions and behaviors of individuals (for example, Jordan Belfort, whose actions constitute the primary subject matter of the film) within a pre-given and non-negotiable context of capitalist economic and social relations. This article uses the writings of Georges Bataille and Friedrich Nietzsche to critique this popular discourse. It reads the discourse as structured by a false identity of opposites, whereby the normal, moral, legal, and “peaceful” state of things is depicted as constitutive of a separate world from that of Belfort and the “criminal” excesses and expenditures of Wall Street. As a result of this conceptual maneuver, a mode of moralizing is enabled. In a fit of ressentiment, critics unleash their moralizing sentiments, single out and constitute guilty subjects, and hold these subjects responsible in order to repair the “secondary malfunctions” of capitalism. They do this so that capitalism can continue to survive and so they can have a good conscience while it does.     

Inquiry as Critique: on the Legacy of Deweyan Pragmatism for Political Theory

This article provides a critical reconstruction of John Dewey's theory of social and political inquiry. Clearing away some misconceptions about this theory allows us to grasp its practical and political focus, and to see its similarities to other strands of anti-positivist social thought, including hermeneutics and critical theory. I go on to examine the relationship between democratic values and the theory of inquiry. Like recent proponents of discursive conceptions of democracy such as Habermas he sees a connection between democracy and the conditions for rational procedures of problem solving. What connects democracy to inquiry for Dewey is primarily ethical and political, rather than epistemological. The article considers what may be usefully taken from Dewey's conception of social inquiry, without accepting his full ethical agenda.     

Governing beyond the Centre: A Critique of the Anglo-Governance School

One of the more intriguing theoretical discussions of recent years involves the concept of governance. There is now a substantial body of work concerning the way governance has affected the contribution of central government to the policy process. Possibly the most prominent and influential account of governance theory in British political science is offered by Rod Rhodes. His most recent writings have employed governance theory to explore the institutions, actors and processes of change within the core executive. His 'Anglo-governance' model has emerged as a prevalent and authoritative account of how new methods of governing have emerged in society. Significantly, it is maintained that a distinct shift has taken place in government, from a hierarchical organisation to a fragmented and decentralised entity that is heavily reliant on a range of complex and independent policy networks. There is undoubted evidence that government is a fractured institution that is dependent on state and non-state actors beyond the centre. This paper questions whether such features entail the emergence of a new form of governance. Central government is still highly resourced and has, at its disposal, a range of powers with which to retain influence over public sector agencies. Historical evidence also shows that the British polity has long been decentralised. Thus, it is difficult to see how recent developments have in any way transformed the capacities of the core executive. It seems that alternative ways of conceptualising the institutions, actors and processes of change in government are required. Recent efforts to develop 'organising perspectives', within the intellectual parameters of governance theory, offer a more 'conceptually cautious' treatment of the central state.     

Fictitious Freedom: A Polanyian Critique of the Republican Revival

Prominent republican theorists invoke anonymous orders such as the market as mechanisms that secure freedom as non‐domination. Drawing on Karl Polanyi's account of fictitious commodities and demonstration of the impossibility of a just and rational market society, this article critically scrutinizes neo‐republican assumptions regarding the market, develops an alternate social theory within which to situate the ideal of non‐domination, and illustrates the importance of this reconfiguration for the kind of collective agents and political strategies that can be expected to advance republican freedom in the economy.     

Dialectics and the Megamachine: A Critique of Ersatz Education

This article proposes that the learning environment matters, and that there are qualitative differences in online versus face-to-face classes. While online education provides some benefits, they also narrow the opportunities for dialectical conflict that thoroughly challenge student thinking, an interaction more likely to be found in real-time conversations. In person, there is more opportunity for an instructor to challenge the reasoning of students in real time, and for students to ask probing and follow-up questions. The article considers the structure of educational dialectic suggested by important thinkers including Galtung, Habermas, and Buber. Online education is then situated as a technology that interferes with human relations and dialectical reasoning and fits within the notion of technics and the megamachine advanced by Lewis Mumford, which dehumanizes personal interactions with instrumental processes for growth and efficiency. Students follow suit by focusing more on the instrumental absorption of course content to pass the course, instead of higher order critique. Of particular interest to political science education is that if conversational dialectics are weakened in universities, and therefore polities—and the technics are simply considered a natural replacement for in-person conversation—the opportunities to teach critical reasoning required for critique of complex political phenomena are also narrowed. We might temper the dangers of the megamachine by reflexively discussing the political economy of online teaching itself with our students and by starting to expect synchronous conversation, which will open dialectical opportunities.     

马克思对资本主义理性化的分析和批判

马克思作为影响后现代理论家对资本主义批判的无法绕过的重要人物,虽然他没有使用过“理性化”或“工具理性”等词语,但他的著作中也蕴涵着对资本主义理性化批判的丰富思想。本文拟从工具理性张扬及其导致的非理性后果,资本主义价值理性的发展和局限,理性化与对内奴役和对外侵略扩张在逻辑上的互补、一致,理性化导致非理性的根源及其解决等方面进行挖掘和梳理,从而与韦伯的理性化思想进行比较,以回应西方学者对马克思的批评．对当前的全球化形势有更清醒的理解。     

Reflections on Devolution: Twenty Years on

May 2019 marks twenty years since the first elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. This report discusses a paper published by the Institute for Government (IfG) that reflects on the experience to date of devolution, drawing on interviews with thirteen individuals who have served as ministers in the devolved governments. Reflecting the structure of the IfG paper, there are three main themes in this report: governing without a majority, institutional change, and—in the light of Brexit—relationships between the devolved governments, Westminster and the EU. The conclusion is that the report, although limited in coverage, provides a useful addition to the literature on devolution.