Democratic authority to geoengineer

ABSTRACT

Does any existing single actor have, or could any existing single actor come to have, the authority to geoengineer? In this paper, I will focus on Solar Radiation Management strategies (leaving at least some Carbon Dioxide Removal strategies on the table). I’ll argue that global democratic authorization is possible in principle, and could be obtained on the basis of large-scale representative sampling. I present experimental findings from the Australian context showing that democratic authorization would not be granted, and conclude that if we can expect this result to generalize, then the deployment of SRM by a single actor is impermissible.     

Toleration,neutrality, and exemption

ABSTRACT

I focus on some controversial features of Peter Balint’s stimulating and provocative reassessment of the place of toleration in contemporary diverse societies. First, I question his argument that we must enlarge the concept of toleration to include indifference and approval if toleration is to be compatible with state neutrality. Secondly, I suggest that his idea of active neutrality of intent risks encountering the same difficulties as neutrality of outcome, although these will be mitigated the more the state’s neutrality takes a ‘hands-off’ form. Thirdly, while accepting his claim that exemptions depart from neutrality insofar as they attribute a significance to religious and conscientious convictions that they deny to mere preferences, I argue that that departure is not arbitrary and remains within the spirit of neutrality of intent.     

The future of the intelligence analysis task

Abstract

Information technology will have a significant impact on the intelligence analysis workflow, skills, and organization in the next couple of decades. In future, instead of ingesting information themselves, analysts will use a range of information tools to add value to data. Future analysts will need less knowledge of subject matter, and more general reasoning skills. The future task will involve more creativity, and less focus on detail, than today.     

Race as Category Crisis: Whiteness and the Topical Assignation of Race

In this essay, I examine whiteness along two different axes. First, I discuss, in the context of Richard Dyer's White , the manner in which discussions of whiteness tend to be decontextualised and dehistoricised. Fundamentally, in White , whiteness is represented in terms of a homogeneous and self-identical category. In the second part of my essay, I focus on how racialised bodies, once they are situated within a specific historico-cultural context, complicate and problematise unitary and homogenised concepts of whiteness. I argue that the power and endurace of whiteness emerges out of its historical dispersions and geo-political mobility.     

Pluralism in the Mind and the Structure of Cognitive Minorities

In his book The Many Altars of Modernity Peter L. Berger (2014) called for the replacement of secularization theory, which in his view no longer has much relevance today, with a theory of (religious) pluralism. Such a theory must encompass two levels, the level of the mind and the level of society. In this paper I will focus on the level of mind and explain some of the conceptual linkages with the level of society which Berger only touches upon in his book. The paper’s main purpose, however, is to sketch out a framework in which Berger’s ideas on “pluralism in the mind” could be investigated empirically. I will argue to focus on “cognitive minorities”, that is, on groups of people whose understanding of the world differs significantly from that of their social environment. As concrete cases I suggest a comparative study of a religious group (Evangelical Protestants) in a strongly secularized city (Leipzig, Germany) and a group of skeptics and seekers (Unitarians) in a city characterized by evangelical religiosity (Dallas, Texas). With the help of these settings – that is my thesis – it will be possible to investigate what Berger formulated as the central issue in his pluralism theory: How is it possible for people to integrate religious and secular worldviews in their minds, more or less simultaneously?     

Rethinking the epistemic case against epistocracy

ABSTRACT

In this article, I focus on arguments which suggest that disenfranchising persons on the grounds of incompetence is likely to produce epistemically sub-optimal decisions. I suggest three ways in which such arguments can be strengthened. First, I argue that they can be untethered from the controversial ‘best judge’ principle, according to which each person is the best judge of his or her own interests. Second, I suggest that epistemic arguments against epistocracy are currently insensitive to the nature of the groups that would be excluded on the grounds of incompetence. Such arguments would remain unchanged were epistocracy to disenfranchise privileged persons rather than already disadvantaged persons. I argue that a stronger critique of epistocracy ought to focus on distinctive epistemic obstacles faced by socially privileged persons. Third, I argue that current epistemic critics of epistocracy ignore how its basis for exclusion entails consequences that are relevant to our assessment of its justifiability. Their criticisms would, for instance, remain the same had this exclusion been brought about in a random manner. Instead, I emphasise the deliberative costs that follow from the exclusion of disadvantaged groups qua incompetent.     

A Revenge of the Generals. The Rebalancing of the Civil-military Relations in France

ABSTRACT

While academic debate on the political control of military forces tends to oppose the poles of ‘integration’ or ‘separation’, the French military tradition is most often described as a case of subordination to political authorities. I examine the indicators of the rebalance of power in favour of the military by adopting an inductive approach based on the observation of the institutionalization of Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC). The focus on o?cers’ professional trajectories and collective resources, gives an alternative explanation of the adaptation of the military organizations to the security environment, that no longer only relies on usual realist and functionalist theories.     

The Quest for Certainty and the Demise of Political Theory

In this paper, I contribute to the ongoing conversation in New Political Science regarding the status of political science in general, and political theory in particular. I argue that the quest for certainty and desire to quantify knowledge has not been limited to empiricist political scientists. The emphasis on quantification and deductive logic is found in many places within the political theory tradition itself. Time and again, mathematics and the physical sciences are held up as the model for all knowledge. I argue that this focus has led theorists to distance themselves from politics, either out of despair or disdain for the ambiguity and variability present in political life. While I do not propose that Aristotle provides a magic remedy for the current problems in the discipline, I suggest that his combined interest in logic and the close examination of material detail provides a perennially viable framework for political theory.     

Malaysia's new economic policy and the global economy: The evolution of ethnic accommodation

Abstract

Developing countries commonly must deal not only with issues of economic development, but also with the problems associated with a multi‐ethnic population. Most analyses of ethnic programs, however, focus on the domestic political economy and fail to appreciate the importance of international factors. In this essay, I note that Malaysia's New Economic Policy (NEP) and its successors have been affected not only by the domestic ethnic situation but also by the global economy. Furthermore, I argue that current international pressures and constraints have forced a re‐evaluation of the NEP in the past decade. While a concern for ethnic factors is by no means absent from the policy‐making process today, ethnic concerns are now overshadowed by the realities of the international economic order and the government's realization that ethnic accommodation can only be successful within the confines of an outward‐looking, expanding economy.     

The Pluralistic Public Sphere from an Ontological Point of View

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide a rationale for a ‘model of the public sphere’ in terms of hermeneutic ontology that begins from Heidegger's Being and Time. However, this Heideggerian hermeneutic ontology will both be weakened and extended through a dialogue with social theory, which occupies a central place in this paper. More specifically, the main aim of this paper is to suggest some ideas to bridge the gap between the ontological focus on the hermeneutic fore-structure of being-in-the-public-sphere and the focus of social theory on the nexus between constructing identity and narrative, the result of which is the idea of the public sphere as an open-ended intercultural dialogue.     

On Liberalism’s Religion

ABSTRACT

This chapter addresses two crucial issues raised by Laborde’s superb Liberalism’s Religion. The first pertains to where the liberal democratic modern state draws the line between the self-governing prerogatives of religious nomos communities and their regulation by the civil law; the second pertains to the prerogative of the state to do the relevant line drawing. Theorists concerned with religious freedom focus on the first set of questions under the rubric of ‘accommodation.’ The issue is unfair discrimination. I focus on Laborde’s approach to the second. This is again an important issue due to the recent revival of jurisdictional political pluralism: an approach that challenges the supremacy of the civil law and of the authority of the sovereign state over domestic religious authorities. I suggest more work must be done to parry those challenges.     

What undermines solidarity? Four approaches and their implications for contemporary political theory

Abstract

Solidarity is crucial for realizing justice, securing public goods, and reducing domination. Yet there have been few theoretical studies of its threats and vulnerabilities. In this paper I fill this lacuna, outlining four approaches to what undermines solidarity and considering their implications for contemporary political theory. I begin by reviewing the empirical literature on solidarity, noting that its focus on diversity and individuation has yielded inconclusive results. I then develop four alternative threats to solidarity by drawing from the history of political thought, social theory, and religious studies: interpersonal dependence (Jean-Jacques Rousseau); radical evil (Immanuel Kant); self-dissolution (Émile Durkheim); and moral spectatorship (Emmanuel Levinas). Taking these threats into account, I conclude, should significantly impact our normative theorizing about solidarity. In particular, it should encourage a research agenda that attends to solidarity’s affective, esthetic, and non-rational sources.     

Why states have no right to privacy,but may be entitled to secrecy: a non-consequentialist defense of state secrecy

ABSTRACT

Despite an increase in initiatives aimed at enhancing political transparency, democratic states claim the right to withhold information from citizens: classified intelligence and military programs, diplomatic discretion, closed-door political bargaining, and bureaucratic opacity are examples. Can the state’s claim to restrict access to information be justified? In the first part of the essay, I focus on the arguments that defend the state’s claim to restrict access in terms of the state’s right to privacy where the state privacy is presented as a species of group privacy. While I concede that group privacy may be defended, I argue that governments and parliaments are not the kind of groups that may exercise privacy against citizens because of the relation of accountability in which they stand to citizens. In the second part of the essay, I propose an alternative argument to the effect that the scope of openness required in democratic governance is less extensive than traditionally assumed. I focus on the concept of democratic authority and argue that we can understand the practices of classification as an exercise of a special right to secrecy that is implied in the democratic state’s right to rule in a content-independent way.     

Mutant Enunciations: Feminist Practices and the Anoedipal

Feminist theory and practice, and in particular Julia Kristeva's theory of the semiotic in language and Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger's explication of the matrixial, provide a basis from which to extend the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari concerning domains of signification that operate beyond the Oedipal structure. In the first part of this paper, I will discuss some relationships that may be traced between the ideas of these theorists and processes in creative practice that have the potential to constitute an alternative stratum of subjectivity not wholly dependent on Oedipalisation. This will be followed by a brief analysis of two paintings by West Australian artist Linda Banazis incorporating what I have termed the ‘X Function', an additional and transversal system to those outlined in Michael O'Toole's (1994) model of semiotic analysis of visual texts. The X Function provides a means of mapping nomadic or non-Oedipal currents, those ‘non-discursive' or resistant dimensions of texts which deny fixity or closure of interpretation.     

Foam architecture: managing co-isolated associations

Abstract

This article analyses Peter Sloterdijk's grand trilogy on spheres which re-conceptualizes our being-together and its spatial conditions. After a brief outline of the main objectives of sphereology, I analyse the notion of foam which, Sloterdijk argues, should replace the concept of society. I here explore the sociological theories that form the backdrop to Sloterdijk's idea of foam sociality, in particular Gabriel Tarde's monadological sociology of imitation but also the vitalist impulse that is central to the immunology of the foam theory, and which Sloterdijk inherits from Hermann Broch. The following section examines one of the important contributions of the foam theory, namely, its explicit engagement with architecture. In the final part, I offer a foam-theoretical interpretation of environmental crime prevention. This case study brings together foam theory, immunology and the focus on architecture.     

Why Governments Innovate: Adoption and Implementation of Open Source Software by Four European Cities

ABSTRACT

A growing number of governments will consider and even choose to migrate to an alternative operating system that uses Free/Open Source Software (FOSS). This research examines why governments choose to migrate and what factors affect implementation. Drawing on a comparative case study of four cities, I find that governments decide to migrate for a range of factors, but are driven more by democratic values such as independence and self-determination than by a desire to cut costs or save money. I also find that implementation is affected by a variety factors but in particular by information technology's place within a city's organizational structure.     

Knowledge and the economy: some critical comments

Abstract

In the 1990s central banking in Europe and the United States witnessed a paradigm change. A central tenet of the new paradigm was that a central bank which acts in a transparent and predictable manner reduces uncertainty for economic actors and will be better able to control inflationary expectations. Thus, central bankers set out to enhance their institution's transparency. In this paper, I argue that transparency is not limited to the release of economic data or information about decision-making procedures. It entails producing a new type of market order and results in a new agencement. This paper focuses on the European Central Bank (ECB) and on one actor it relies on: the media. Based on ethnographic data, I analyse the role of the media in the production of a transparent market order. I find that prevailing new rules, new frames and reward systems preclude journalists from playing the role the ECB would like them to play: the instrumental role of a neutral transmitter of information. The struggle between the two actors is a struggle with words, in which both journalists and central bankers want to manipulate markets with their communicative utterances, albeit in different and frequently opposing ways.     

Beyond Civil Society: An Organizational Perspective on State–NGO Relations in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

This article discusses the transformations in terms of participation brought about by the change of tides in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The key focus will be an analysis of the interaction between states undergoing reformulation and the social movements in these countries. To this end, the article first presents some theoretical and analytical frameworks. In what follows, it refers to the experiments of participative and direct democracy in these societies carried out amidst the above-mentioned process of refoundation, with a particular emphasis on state–society relations.