The language of politics and the politics of language: Unpacking ‘social exclusion’ in new labour policy

Since the election to power of New Labour in 1997, the concept of social exclusion has played a defining role in framing welfare policy. The rapid absorption of its terminology in government discourse has signalled a shift away from existing notions of inequality and disadvantage to a broader understanding of material poverty, which also includes (or instead prioritises) other social, cultural and political factors. This has important implications for New Labour policy-making. In particular, it allows for problems of inequality and disadvantage to be reinterpreted and new political measures to be introduced. Such measures produce different effects across space and society, which may be argued to disadvantage policy subjects. The aims of this paper are to explore how social exclusion has become installed as the primary framework of welfare policy in the UK and to examine the key assumptions embedded within specific policy formulations using discourse and content analysis. It thus points towards the importance of language in stipulating relatively enduring and stable sets of socio-political connections, and its role in mediating a particular (political) vision of the relationship(s) between state, economy and society as implicit in New Labour's ‘Third Way’.     

Conspicuous Consumption,Croyance, and the Problem of the Two Timons: Shakespeare and Middleton’s Timon of Athens

The article investigates the astonishing volte-face that Timon performs in Shakespeare and Middleton's Timon of Athens. The main character is not, as is often claimed, unaware of what is going on around him, he is not simply the naïve victim of his avaricious guests, but rather complicit in his own delusions. My reading is informed by two different theoretical concepts: Thorstein Veblen’s concept of “conspicuous consumption” on the one hand (supported by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic capital), and Octave Mannoni’s concept of “croyance” (belief) on the other. By combining these two distinct theories, I want to account for the characteristics of both Timon’s individual (psychological) and public (economic) behaviour, and its radical change between Acts 1–2 and Acts 3–5 of the play. I argue that in Timon of Athens, Shakespeare and Middleton explore the different forms of capital and its limited convertibility in the early modern mercantilist society.     

The Administration’s Retreat and the Party’s Advance in the New Era of Xi Jinping: the Politics of the Ruling Party,the Government,and Associations in China

Journal of Chinese Political Science - In the new era of Xi Jinping, the Party has become more assertive, reclaiming the function of managing social organizations that the government agencies had...     

‘A curious relationship’: Barack Obama,the 1960s and the election of 2008

ABSTRACT

Ward explores the diverse ways in which memories, understandings and misunderstandings of the 1960s were mobilized during the 2008 election cycle. At the time, Barack Obama's campaign and triumph were hailed by many as marking a series of a decisive breaks with the past, notably with the culture wars and fiercely ideological political partisanship unleashed in the late 1960s. Others suggested that Obama represented a new kind of candidate who somehow transcended, or might even heal, the racial divisions in the United States, in a fanciful vogue for ‘post-racialism’ that Ward argues was also connected to popular conceptions of the 1960s and, in particular, to a misreading of the social philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr and his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. While some commentators stressed rupture and discontinuity with the past in interpreting Obama's victory, others—friend and foe alike—were keen to stress continuities with the past, often explicitly with a 1960s routinely, if simplistically, parsed into ‘good’ early and ‘bad’ later periods. ThusWard considers Obama's connections to the civil rights and black power movements, as well as to other 1960s organizing traditions, charismatic leaders and conceptions of federal government, arguing that the decade continues to offer an important, if ambiguous touchstone in contemporary American politics and social memory.     

Public health as an agent of internal colonialism in interwar Czechoslovakia: shaping the discourse about the nation’s children

Shmidt’s text discusses the specifics of internal colonialism in the discourses and practices of the dominant group (Czechs) concerning Slovaks and Rusyns, ethnic groups from the peripheral, eastern areas of interwar Czechoslovakia. By targeting the reproductive patterns of these groups, seen as undesirable by the authorities, internal colonialism shaped the discourse about children by consistently opposing the normalized childhood inside the nation to the supposedly abnormal child development outside the civilizing process. Shmidt focuses on three interwar projects aimed at introducing new public health practices as an ‘infrastructure of dependence’ with regard to the peripheral groups. Being directly supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, these projects contributed to building the new Czechoslovak nation and securing its international legitimacy.     

Mexico’s cartels and the rule of law

The threat to public security and the rule of law posed by drug cartels has been the defining domestic issue for Mexico’s presidents for over a decade. The Mexican people hoped security would improve when they elected an outsider president in late 2018 who promoted a new idea for pacifying the cartels – ‘hugs, not bullets’ – but the situation continues to deteriorate.     

The perils of multinational intelligence coalitions: Britain,America and the origins of Pakistan’s ISI

This article examines how Great Britain helped create Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) with two goals: (1) establishing a Pakistani branch of a Commonwealth intelligence network; (2) ensuring information security within that network. Ultimately, this endeavor failed because of perceived deficiencies in Pakistan’s security institutions and Britain’s inability to address Pakistan’s security needs. By the mid-1950s ISI forged close ties with the United States which offered more and with fewer political strings attached. This article offers new insights on intelligence alliance formation during the cold war. It also provides a useful case study in the weaknesses of multilateral intelligence coalitions.     

In the Aftermath of Earth,Wind, and Fire: Natural Disasters and Respect for Women’s Rights

Though much research has been devoted to a range of socioeconomic and political consequences of natural disasters, little is known about the possible gendered effects of disasters beyond the well-documented immediate effects on women’s physical well-being. This paper explores the extent to which natural disasters affect women’s economic and political rights in disaster-hit countries. We postulate that natural disasters are likely to contribute to the rise of systematic gendered discrimination by impairing state capacity for rights protection as well as instigating economic and political instability conducive to women’s rights violations. To substantiate the theoretical claims, we combine data on women’s economic and political rights with data on nine different natural disaster events—droughts, earthquakes, epidemics, extreme temperatures, floods, slides, volcanic eruptions, windstorms, and wildfires. Results from the data analysis for the years 1990–2011 suggest that natural disasters have a detrimental effect on the level of respect for both women’s economic and political rights. One major policy implication of our findings is that disasters could be detrimental to women’s status beyond the immediate effects on their personal livelihoods, and thus, policymakers, relief organizations, and donors should develop strategies to prevent gendered discrimination in the economy and political sphere in the affected countries.     

Herbert’s Herbivore: One-Dimensional Society and the Possibility of Radical Vegetarianism

Abstract

Careful reading of Herbert Marcuse’s texts, including Counterrevolution and Revolt, One-Dimensional Man, An Essay on Liberation, and Eros and Civilization, reveals his subtle attention to the human–animal dialectic and its role in human liberation. More specifically, animals mark the irrationality of advanced industrialized society for Marcuse, and his subtle but keen treatment of the animal question in politics provides an opening to radically rethink politics for animals and humans. Working from Marcuse’s critical theory, I explore the contemporary one-dimensional animal, which I argue imbricates both animals and humans in the violence and destruction that characterizes advanced industrial society. Using Marcuse’s concept of one-dimensional society and his discussion of animals as my theoretical framework, I specifically consider vegetarianism in its capacity to militate against the contemporary political economy of meat. I conclude that Marcuse’s insights point to a radical vegetarianism aligned with anti-capitalist politics that offers the development of sensuous, pleasurable, life-affirming sensibilities that support true liberation for both animals and humans.     

Marcuse’s Hegel: Hope and Despair in the Logic of Negation

Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution found a rich reception in the 1960’s field of Hegel/Marx commentary. This rereading challenges Marcuse’s reduction of Hegel’s dialectical logic to a logic of negation. It describes weaknesses in Marcuse’s Hegel paraphrases, and argues that Marcuse’s bold leap to a Revolutionary logic rejects Hegel’s method: turning instead to Kant’s transcendental logic, and leading his readers into an antinomy of hope and despair.     

District magnitude and representation of the majority’s preferences: a comment and reinterpretation

Drawing on new data that combine recorded votes from the Swiss National Assembly with canton-level referendum results on identical legislative proposals, Portmann et al. (Public Choice 151:585–610, 2012) develop an innovative strategy to identify the effect of district magnitude on the relationship between representatives and their constituents. We replicate PSE’s central result and also estimate a related model that allows for the possibility of non-monotonicity in the relationship between district magnitude and representatives’ deviance from referendum median voters. Our results indicate that representatives elected in low-magnitude multi-member districts deviate from canton-level majorities less than either MPs from single-member districts or those from high-magnitude multi-member districts.     

Explaining the Failure of Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights (Ombudsman’s Office) after Democratization: Elections, Incentives, and Unaccountability in the Mexican Senate

Mexico??s ombudsman??s office (the Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH)), established in 1990 by a nondemocratic government, posed no threat to the then ruling party. Counter to expectations, even after Mexico democratized in 2000, the CNDH remained unwilling to challenge officials for human rights violations. I argue that this is because the ombudsman (the head of the CNDH) is chosen by Mexican Senators who are not accountable??due to secret voting and a prohibition on reelection??to the Mexican public. While civil society wanted a powerful ombudsman, the three main parties did not. Ignoring the public, Senators responded to their parties and appointed a compliant individual to serve as ombudsman, thereby ensuring that the CNDH would not challenge those who held political power. The paper suggests that where accountability institutions, such as human rights offices, are chosen by unaccountable actors (in this case the Mexican Senate), the development of such accountability institutions will be limited.     

It’s not me,it’s you: the functioning of Wall Street during the 2008 economic downturn

Public officials have blamed Wall Street and its complex financial products for causing the 2008 economic downturn. This article addresses three popular claims saying that complex financial markets are at fault and need more regulation. It argues that even in the midst of a major economic downturn, the much-maligned mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and unregistered hedge funds functioned almost exactly as designed. When macroeconomic conditions worsened, firms and investors that were paid to assume certain risks had to assume them. Those that opted for safer investment vehicles with more levels of private protection faced fewer problems. Although many investment vehicles lost money, one must differentiate between problems that manifested themselves in markets and problems with the market itself. Even though government policies caused many of the problems, public officials always have an incentive to point the finger at Wall Street and to argue for more regulations when their policies negatively affect markets.     

Domestic terrorism: Notes on the state system of oppression∗

Abstract

Twenty‐five years after the Watergate affair culminated in the resignation of Richard Nixon, the country continues to be animated by the spirit of scandal—even if the alleged offenses against William Jefferson Clinton involved sexual misconduct rather than illegal bombings, break‐ins, and other non‐"crimes and misdemeanors.” In this article, Noam Chomsky discusses a more basic threat to the Constitution than Watergate found in the pattern of FBI break‐ins and illegal actions first revealed to the public in 1973. (Illegal actions by the national police are known to have continued in the 1980s as a tactic used against activists in the Central America solidarity movement.) Not only does Chomsky locate a pattern in the FBI's actions since the founding of the Bureau, he discusses historical antecedents in the Alien and Sedition Acts, the judicial murder of the Haymarket anarchists, and the Palmer raids. For Chomsky, the real meaning of these actions is that the system routinely works to stifle dissent using means far more problematic than those employed by the Watergate burglars. In Chomsky's view, the purpose of these criminal actions is to frustrate preliminary stages of organization before more advanced forms of “revolutionary radicalism” can develop.