Politics and enlightenment: Kant and Derrida on cosmopolitan responsibility

Walter Benjamin once remarked of the enterprise of translation ‘that it is nowhere’: that the labour of transcribing the sense, inflection and difference of any particular language and text must always situate the translator in a space which is neither ‘of the original, nor ‘of the language into which it is to be transcribed. This ‘non‐position’ of the translator—between the original and its analogue, between the ‘spirit’ and the ‘letter’, the difference and the acceptability of the text—marks the labour of translation as an ethical responsibility: that of communicating the significance of something—a gesture, a story, a custom, a tradition—which has appeared to this/our socio‐linguistic culture as strange and unfathomably alien; and to achieve this communication without annulling its strangeness, its alterity. The purpose of my comparison of Kant and Derrida's remarks on cosmopolitical responsibility therefore, is fourfold. First, I want to suggest that it is this ‘stricture’ of translation—this difficult responsibility of both judging and respecting the difference of foreign’ cultures—which marks the (non‐Kantian, non‐situated) ‘territory’ of cosmopolitical responsibility. Second, by using Kant's remarks on the relationship between the political evolution of European Enlightenment culture and a possible world confederation of sovereign states, I want to point up the hierarchies and secondarizations involved in the determination of universal standards of moral, ethical and political conduct (even if these standards are originally prosecuted as the legislative conditions of a ‘radical democracy'). Third, I want to look at the ways in which the stricture of translation has been articulated as a theory of ‘global’ responsibility—particularly in the divergent ethical and political approaches of Jurgen Habermas and Jean‐Francois Lyotard. Fourth, I want to suggest that it is Derrida's idea of a ‘dual responsibility’ of critical thought to the political and philosophical resources of European Enlightenment and to the difference of non‐European nations and cultures, that marks the difficulty (the stricture) of acting responsibly within the global economics of power, identity and legislation. I want, in other words, to show that the ‘nowhere’ of Benjamin's translator, is a ‘place’ whose possibility demands a certain ‘Kantian’ right of reflection; that is, the right to pursue the ‘transcendent’ principle of respect for the other.     

Ideas,spaces and ‘sovereigntyscapes’: Dramatising Scotland's production of a new institutional fix

Abstract

As part of a general endeavour to ‘modernise’ Britain for the epoch of globalisation, Britain's New Labour government has sought to integrate wide‐ranging constitutional reform with new structures for regional governance. Perhaps the most radical proposal concerns the attempt to align continued UK sovereignty with an elected parliament for Scotland in what has been called a ‘new covenant with the people’. This paper draws on Jane Jenson's neo‐Gramscian discourse‐regulation theory and its stress on social agency and the politics of representation, to explore the political, economic and socio‐spatial tensions and the related ideas, discursive forms and political processes that have given rise to this emergent institutional and representational ‘fix’. The author argues that rather than being perceived of solely as some ‘modernisation move’ on the part of a New Labour project, this reconfiguration of power and representation also needs to be traced to the political and representational style of Thatcherism, in particular, the latter's continuous ‘testing’ of the 1707 Treaty between Scotland and England as a negotiated settlement of economic and political union. The paper concludes with some reflections on the future prospects facing any future Scotland‐UK institutional settlement, including the question of sovereignty.     

The politics of currency crises in Sweden: Policy choice in a globalised economy

In the two‐pronged debate on ‘globalising markets’ the ‘society‐centered’ perspective claims nation‐states are losing economic control whereas the ‘state‐centred’ perspective holds that ‘business as usual’ is possible. Both views are oversimplified. Looking at Sweden's 1992 currency crisis, we suggest that studies over time provide insights about the significance of political craftsmanship. We argue that market influence on domestic policy making should be regarded as a variable contingent on a fortuitous (from the point of view of market actors) confluence of political and economic circumstances. Our analysis suggests that this confluence, to some extent, can be controlled or manipulated by the state.     

Profoundly Un‐Conservative? David Cameron and the UK Bill of Rights Debate

This article considers David Cameron's proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA) and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. Cameron's proposal has been heavily criticised by a range of political, academic and non‐state actors and was described by a current senior Coalition Cabinet member as ‘xenophobic’ and ‘legal nonsense’. This article takes a slightly different direction to those lines of attack and critique that have been developed of the Conservative's proposals. The central proposition of the article is that Cameron's proposal is profoundly un‐Conservative at two levels. Firstly, at the level of Conservative approaches to constitutional reform and secondly, at the level of Conservative political philosophy.     

International political marketing: a case study of its application in China

• The practice of International Political Marketing can be seen increasingly in the foreign relations of independent states. A review of relevant Political Marketing and International Relations publications reveals close linkage between the two. Based on the review, this paper categorizes political marketing into three aspects: the election aspect, the governing aspect (permanent campaign) and the international aspect of political marketing. The focus of this study is on international political marketing which was defined based on the review. This paper then reports a case study of the utilization of International Political Marketing by the government of the People's Republic of China. It looks at the recent events of China's accession of the WTO in 2001, China's hosting of Sino‐African Summit in 2006 and the on going promotion of China's image of ‘Peaceful Development and Cooperation’. The paper advances the argument that practically all nation states and international organizations apply International Political Marketing to both their strategic planning as well as conduct of day‐to‐day affairs. The paper concludes that there is a great demand both at a theoretical as well as practical level for International Political Marketing, requiring further study.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eurocommunism and the Spanish communists

The DCs development from the mid‐1970s is examined in the light of its overall characteristics as a political party. A sceptical viewpoint is expressed about its prospects for change, in spite of talk of party reform since 1975 under Zaccagnini's secretaryship, if only because the ‘historic compromise’ confirms the DCs governing role even though in a modified policy setting. The main consequence of Moro's death is likely to be an accelerated change in leadership generation rather than a weakening of his ‘strategy’. At the same time, the DC has not yet found an alternative role to replace the political dominance it has lost. The new relationship with the PCI causes some confusion about the party's identity, so that DC leaders tend to view this in a short‐term perspective and to treat it as an empirical rather than ‘historic’ compromise.     

Tocqueville and Weber on the sociological origins of citizenship: The political culture of American democracy

While Alexis de Tocqueville's commentary on America is famous, Max Weber's is far less so. However, in scattered writings, he addresses two of the themes at the centre of Tocqueville's analysis of the ‘manners and mores’ of the American political culture: the potential for a ‘tyranny of the majority’ in the US and the critical role of civil associations. By reference to these two themes, this study seeks to examine the divergent perspectives of these classicial theorists upon the political culture of the US, contrast Tocqueville's more structural and interest‐based mode of analysis to Weber's emphasis upon the significance of values and beliefs, and comment upon, in light of the insights offered by both theorists, the sociological origins of citizenship. Unlike Tocqueville, Weber sees an odd juxtaposition—an accentuated, ‘world mastery’ individualism and an accentuated orientation to civic sphere ideals—at the centre of the American political culture.     

Fishing from the same schools: Parliamentary recruitment and consociationalism in the first and second Italian republics

This article addresses several issues surrounding the politics of flexibility in Spain. First, it argues that the strategic role of trade unions develop and condition public policies on labour market reform by couching their strategies in terms of the post‐war labour market strategies and structures of the state, especially as governments attempt to move away from established forms of fordist regulation. Hence, second, a broader political and historical perspective is required that understands the complex political dynamics of state‐labour relationships and their structuring over time. The state's role and its labour market presence becomes itself the object of distinct political interventions and calculations by unions, governments and employers. Any discussion of a ‘post‐fordist’ state, determined to increase the flexibility of the labour market, must look at the complex and difficult ‘transitional’ process.     

Work,Leisure, and Care: A Gender Perspective on the Participation Income

In ‘The case for a participation income’, Anthony Atkinson identified unconditionality as an obstacle to support for a citizen's income. He advocated prioritising the universality and individuality of a citizen's income but replacing its unconditionality with a ‘participation’ requirement. At the time, Atkinson's critique read as political realism: to eliminate means‐testing, make a concession to the fear of free‐riding. Ironically, Atkinson remained opposed to unconditionality despite his own critical contributions to documenting the growing income and wealth inequality that have increased support for an unconditional basic income. In this article I consider the ‘participation’ requirement from a gender perspective in order to uncover the problematic notions of ‘dependence’, ‘independence’, reciprocity, and free‐riding that underlie normative arguments for conditional over unconditional benefits. Employing such a perspective demonstrates the superiority of unconditional benefits in achieving more efficient and effective income support and reducing inequality—Atkinson's core commitments throughout his distinguished career.     

MPs and web technologies: an untapped opportunity?

MPs have not previously been assigned a major role in electoral campaigning, being considered only one element of a political party's ‘marketing’ tools for winning votes. Evidence now suggests that the relationship between MPs and their constituents is changing. The concept of ‘constituency service’ implies that individual MPs can have a much greater influence on local voters and so possibly buck national trends. At the same time the concept of the ‘permanent campaign’ is transforming political campaigning whereby the political elite needs ever‐greater control of the tools used to provide messages to voters. The internet is a potential battleground between MPs who want greater control of their own local campaigning and the party elite who want to ensure a consistent, coherent and controlled message. The Internet is a new addition to the campaigning armoury, yet the focus so far has been on e‐government, e‐democracy and election campaigns. By concentrating on how and why MPs use their websites this paper considers whether MPs have fully understood and utilised this new medium. Key questions include whether their websites are ‘sticky’, interactive and a means of creating a targeted message. The findings of this detailed study of MPs' websites show that apart from a few pioneers, MPs have not progressed beyond using the Internet as ‘shovelware’ — the vast majority view their website as an electronic brochure and not a new form of two‐way communication. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

What's an Elite to Do? The Threat of Populism from Left,Right and Centre

Anthony Painter's report for Policy Network correctly describes populism as a ‘democratic argument’ which sets up a morally pure ‘people’ against vilified ‘elites’, in binary opposition. This is an argument which is increasingly prominent in political discourse, whether the elites in question are political, financial or technocratic. Painter focuses on the now‐familiar ‘radical right‐wing’ version of populism, as reflected across Europe in the rise of parties such as the UKIP. He omits discussion of other types of populism (of the left and centre), which perhaps represent the future for populist politics.     

Strategic postures of political marketing: an exploratory operationalization

• In contrast to most political marketing theories which imply that such concepts as ‘voter‐orientation’ or ‘voter‐centric political management’ are trivial and uni‐dimensional, this article will take its starting point from an alternative perspective.
• It draws on the concept of political marketing ‘postures’, i.e. a multi‐faceted conceptual entity, based on varied dimensions of political marketing orientations. The main duality consists of the constructs of ‘leading’ and ‘following’, with an auxiliary (and complementary) dimension of ‘relationship building’.
• This article provides an exploratory methodology to operationalize this concept, which will also be initially tested empiricially, using expert judgements as well as electorate's perceptions.
• Changing postures will be exemplified within a longitudinal application of the concept to perceptions of Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tasmania's Tamar Valley Pulp Mill: A Comparison of Planning Processes Using a Good Environmental Governance Framework

In November 2004, the Tasmanian government requested the state's planning body, the Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC), to undertake an evaluation of a proposal to establish a pulp mill at Long Reach near Bell Bay on Tasmania's Tamar Estuary. In early 2007, Gunns Limited, the project's proponent, pulled out of the RPDC process and the government established an alternative, ‘fast‐track’ process under the Pulp Mill Assessment Act (PMAA). This article evaluates the RPDC and the PMAA assessment processes using a ‘good environmental governance’ framework composed of eight criteria – transparency, accountability, openness, balance, deliberation, efficiency, science and risk. The comparison reveals that although the RPDC process fell short of the ideal, it was markedly superior to the PMAA process that replaced it. The case highlights how political economic power can be used to the detriment of public planning and the communities and environment that rely on it.     

Denmark's referendum on the euro: The mouse that roared ... again

Just as they had almost a decade earlier, Danish voters on 28 September 2000 went to the polls and sent Shockwaves through the European Union by rejecting a government‐sponsored referendum on joining the EU's single currency, the ‘euro’. Danes said ‘Nej’ to the embattled currency, casting new doubt on their country's commitment to the European project and emboldening eurosceptics throughout the continent and across the English Channel. The decision to remain outside the eurozone is notable for the humiliation it caused Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and his government, as well as for the impetus is gives to a two‐tier EU. The ‘yes ‘ camp's failure to keep the campaign based on economic rather than political logic, the euro's precipitous decline, and the EU's sanctions against Austria contributed to the referendum's dramatic outcome.     

The Stein Rokkan Lecture 2016 Mission impossible? Reconciling economic and social Europe after the euro crisis and Brexit

During the crisis, the European Union's ‘social deficit’ has triggered an increasing politicisation of redistributive issues within supranational, transnational and national arenas. Various lines of conflict have taken shape, revolving around who questions (who are ‘we’? – i.e., issues of identity and inclusion/exclusion); what questions (how much redistribution within and across the ‘we’ collectivities) and who decides questions (the locus of authority that can produce and guarantee organised solidarity). The key challenge facing today's political leaders is how to ‘glue’ the Union together as a recogniseable and functioning polity. This requires a double rebalancing: between the logic of ‘opening’ and the logic of ‘closure’, on the one hand, and between the logic of ‘economic stability’ and ‘social solidarity’, on the other. Building on the work of Stein Rokkan and Max Weber, this article argues that reconciliation is possible, but only if carefully crafted through an extraordinary mobilisation of political and intellectual resources. A key ingredient should be the establishment of a European Social Union, capable of combining domestic and pan‐European solidarities. In this way, the EU could visibly and tangibly extend its policy menu from regulation to (limited, but effective) distribution, reaping the latter's benefits in terms of legitimacy. The journey on this road is difficult but, pace Rokkan, not entirely impervious.     

Scotland's Future Political System

Debates on Scottish constitutional reform go hand in hand with discussions of political reform. Its reformers use the image of ‘old Westminster’ to describe ‘control freakery’ within government and an adversarial political system. Many thought that the Scottish political system could diverge from the UK, to strengthen the parliamentary system, introduce consensus politics and further Scotland's alleged social and democratic tradition. Yet the experience of devolution suggests that Holyrood and Westminster politics share key features. Both systems are driven by government, making policy in ‘communities’ involving interest groups and governing bodies, with parliaments performing a limited role and public participation limited largely to elections. The Scottish government's style of policy‐making is distinctive, but new reforms are in their infancy and their effects have not been examined in depth. In this context, the article identifies Scotland's ability to make and implement policy in a new way, based on its current trajectory rather than the hopes of reformers.     

The Media,the Peace Dividend and ‘Bread and Butter’ Politics

In December 2007, Northern Ireland's newly elected First and Deputy First Ministers, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, were pictured sitting happily together on a read leather sofa at the new IKEA superstore in Belfast. It was an image that served as a powerful symbol of the region's political transformation and economic optimism. Yet, within months of this photo opportunity, global financial crisis and economic recession shattered hopes that a meaningful, economic ‘peace dividend’ would underpin the new political dispensation. This article takes a critical look at the media's role in conflict transformation in Northern Ireland; how they projected new and more positive images of life in the region and chronicled the daily business of ‘bread and butter politics’. However, it also identifies chronic decline among some sections of the regional media, particularly Belfast's daily newspapers, just when they are needed to monitor and debate political decision‐making in a time of austerity.     

In Defence of British Politics Against the British Political Tradition

This article explores some of the current themes round the perceived crisis in British politics in supposed an age of ‘anti‐politics’. Drawing on Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics, it offers a critique of what is referred to as a dominant British political tradition and in so doing seeks to challenge ‘demand‐side’ accounts that ostensibly defend the traditional arena politics of the Westminster system. Instead, it argues that developments around issues such as big data, social media and freedom of information have led to a more open society in recent years. It concludes by suggesting that if traditional political institutions wish to restore a greater degree of legitimacy, they need to ‘do’ or, more particularly, ‘supply’ politics differently, adapting to these changes by seeking out new modes of openness, engagement and accountability.     

Meso‐discourses,state forms and the gendering of liberal‐democratic citizenship

This article builds upon Michel Foucault's fleeting observation that ‘the state consists in the codification of a whole number of power relations’ and that ‘a revolution is a different type of codification of these same relations’ (Held et al., 1983, pp. 312–3). Specifically, the article uses the case of Canada to argue that distinct state forms rest on particular meso‐discourses which inform a logic of governance, historical configurations of the public and private and gendered citizenships. The meso‐discourses of separate spheres, liberal progressivism and performativity (the logics of governance for the laissez‐faire state, the Keynesian welfare state and the neo‐liberal state, respectively) have coded and recoded gendered citizenships, thereby providing women and men with differential access to the public sphere and to citizenship claims. The neo‐liberal state's meso‐discourse of performativity is especially challenging for women and all equity‐seeking groups because it prescribes the ascendency of market relations over political negotiation or ethical considerations, as well as the attrition of social and political citizenship rights. Social citizenship is being eclipsed by market citizenship.     

Managing business political activities in the USA: bridging between theory and practice — another look

This paper provides a review and reflection of Gerry Keim's fine paper on managing US business political activities (BPA). It begins by setting the larger context in which BPA is both practised and studied. It critiques the concept of market‐based competition and extends it by suggesting that non‐market competition can take on a myriad of forms dependent on strategy and structural considerations, among other things. It also provides some sober reminders about the nature of difficulties encountered between academics and practitioners in bridging the gaps of understanding between these constituencies. It also looks at the nature of ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’ in the public policy marketplace and expands upon the nature of the products being exchanged. Lastly, the paper reviews the nature of strategy and competitive advantage in the non‐market environment and recommends a practitioner focus on innovation and the acquiring of the resources needed for institutionalizing it in their public affairs and BPA efforts for achieving non‐market success. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications