‘Them’ and ‘us’: demonising politicians by moral double standards

The distance between politicians and those they are supposed to represent is substantial. Almost invariably, it is politicians themselves who are made to shoulder the responsibility for this ‘gap’, their actions being demonised. This paper assesses some ‘ordinary’ ethical lapses that politicians are often accused of: lying, breaking promises and being self-serving. It is argued that the public tend to apply double standards when it comes to the moral expectations that they have of their representatives, inasmuch as they far more readily accept ethically dubious actions when they apply to other social and public roles. The moral singularity of the political sphere is called into question, with the effect of helping to narrow the gap between the two categories, and encourage more empathy on the part of the public.     

Putting the City on the World Art Map: Star Curators and Nation Branding

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society - Over the last two decades, we have seen a worldwide expansion of the concept and practice of cultural diplomacy, along with the emergence...     

Social Learning,Self-Control,and Offending Specialization and Versatility among Friends

American Journal of Criminal Justice - While it is generally understood that people tend not to specialize in specific types of deviance, less is understood about offending specialization and...     

Why Have Chinese Reforms Come to a Halt? The Political Economic Logic of Unfinished Transformation

This study approaches the Chinese reform process from a political-economic point of view, focusing primarily on institutional changes. Besides revealing the main factors behind the different phases of the reforms, it argues that in the framework of the current authoritarian regime, vested interests work against the continuation of the reforms, making it impossible to fully establish the institutional framework of a market economy. Current rents and privileges also deter the elite from implementing serious political reforms, leading to a trap that prevents the completion of the transition process.     

Integrated Web-based marketing communication: An institutional tracking study

ABSTRACT

Online media have had a great impact on communications and given birth to new paradigms of marketing and marketing communication. Most significant amongst these is the paradigm of integration. Web-based communication permits comprehensive integration and it has raised integration to the status of a business imperative. If integration is indeed so central to the success of the corporate endeavour it becomes increasingly important to evaluate its application and quality. This article explores the assessment of Web-based marketing communication integration. Integrated Web-based marketing communication (IWMC) is conceptualised and the theoretical assumptions of integration are related to Web-based communication. The methodology of the investigation, the analysis of the data and the results of the tracking study are presented and discussed.     

Connolly and the never-ending critiques of liberal peace: from the privilege of difference to vorarephilia

Over the last decade, a dominant critique of international interventions underlines the problem that interventionary strategies have denied the political, societal and cultural heterogeneity of conflict-affected societies, excluding the interests of the majority of their population. A deeper engagement with the everyday life of these societies is understood to expose the errors of international missions and animate an alternative way of thinking about peace: ‘hybrid peace’, which is formed contextually and from below. Engaging with William Connolly’s work on pluralism, this article clarifies the nature of this critique, which rests securely on the assumption that local alterity cannot be fully understood, respected or treated sensitively by international governance approaches. However, as much as this assumption enables the thinking of an emancipatory hybrid peace, it is in turn the source of its critique, as hybrid peace is also seen as reproducing binary schemas and thus considered incapable of caring for the societies intervened in. At the conclusion, the metaphor of vorarephilia—paraphilia where sexual arousal occurs in the idea of being eaten or eating another person—will be used to warn against the tragic direction that critiques seem to be travelling to: critical scholars would be increasingly tempted to welcome the inevitable failures of international interventions.