Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory: A New Synthesis

ABSTRACT

Critical Theory and contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives share many compatibilities in offering a constructive critique of society. Psychoanalysis teaches us that whatever values and ideals societies adopt, they are always mediated through unconscious psychic processes that condition the collective in both positive and negative ways, and in terms of relations of recognition and patterns of social justice. Contemporary critical theory may benefit from engaging post-classical and current trends in psychoanalytic thought that have direct bearing on the ways we conceive of and observe how individuals operate within social collectives. In particular, Axel Honneth relies on psychoanalytic sources that are dated. Critical theory would profit from engaging post-object relations schools such as self psychology, analytical psychology, psychoanalytic intersubjectivity theory, relationality, and contemporary attachment theory that are more nuanced yet can supplement Winnicottian perspectives. Implications for contemporary theory need to reflect upon how the psychosocial matrix of self and society both facilitate and hinder optimal social arrangements and fabrics of justice as it takes up the question of normativity. It is within this context that I hope to introduce contemporary psychoanalytic paradigms that move beyond classical models yet complement redirecting shifts in emphasis both psychoanalysis and Critical Theory attempt to accomplish. I suggest that an applied psychoanalytic explication on social phenomenology can expand the interpretive depth and breadth of human relations and open up a permissible space for interdisciplinary discourse. Here new vistas emerge for a proposed synthesis between the two schools of thought.     

Book reviews

This article addresses the concern that democratization may contribute to the reproduction of neo-patrimonialism, rather than to counteract it. The article reports the result of a survey among members of parliament in Ghana regarding their election campaigns. Total spending, sources of funds, and their usage are analysed in the context of the consolidation of liberal democracy. The survey results are supplemented with data collected in 34 interviews with MPs. The data show that MPs are involved in patron-client relationships to a significant degree to reproduce their political power. Furthermore, the prevalence of patronage politics among MPs in Ghana has increased throughout the period of democratic rule. This persistent pattern of patronage politics threatens the very heart of democratic consolidation. Vertical accountability and legitimacy is threatened by alternative pacts of loyalty, expectations of corruption, and tendencies to delegative mandates. Horizontal accountability risks pervasion by 'big man' interventions, and by insufficient allocation of time to monitoring the government and legislative activities.     

False confessions: The relative importance of psychological,criminological and substance abuse variables

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the relative importance of psychological, criminological, and substance abuse variables in differentiating between alleged false confessors and other prison inmates. The participants were 509 inmates newly admitted to all Icelandic prisons over a four-year period. Sixty-two (12%) of the inmates claimed to have made a false confession to the police sometime in the past. A discriminant function analysis was used to identify the variables that best discriminated between the alleged false confessors and the other prison inmates. Out of 17 psychological variables and 16 criminological and substance abuse variables, two variables (number of previous imprisonments and the score on the Gough Socialisation Scale) correctly classified 93% of the non-false confessors and 32.3% of the alleged false confessors, with a total classification rate of 82.7%. The findings suggest that among Icelandic prison inmates, antisocial personality characteristics and the extent and severity of criminal behaviour, as judged by number of previous imprisonments, are the best predictors of offenders claiming to have made a false confession to the police. The implication is that among some prison inmates, making a false confession is a part of their criminal life style.     

Why negotiate a legally binding mercury convention?

The purpose of this paper is to explain how and why consensus was reached on a legally binding approach given the opposition of powerful actors. Why did the United States and key emerging economies change their positions? We apply tools from the regime formation literature—classical perspectives on power, interests and knowledge—and the use of different leadership tools to shed light on the issue. Knowledge-based intellectual leadership was exercised by the UNEP Secretariat, providing new information on the seriousness and scope of the problem. Power-based leadership through unilateral action was provided by the United States. When the United States changed position after change in domestic leadership, political costs increased for other opponents. Finally, interest-based instrumental leadership was provided by many proponents, with UNEP and among others the EU in the lead. Still, conflicts remain on control measures and the form of financial mechanism.     

Labour and Its Discontents: The Consequences of Orthodox Reform in Venezuela and Mexico

The negative impacts of orthodox liberalisation policies on labour in Venezuela and Mexico were representative of outcomes elsewhere in Latin America. Untheorised increases in precarious informal work, unemployment, and emigration as well as a growing breech between wages and productivity followed trade, capital, and labour market reforms and the prescribed macro stabilisation policies. Orthodox reforms in both countries paradoxically facilitated market failures given the forms or modes taken by foreign direct investment (FDI), which introduced ever more increasing scale economies with their attendant information imperfections. In addition, the growing competition from tradeable goods faced by domestic producers in both countries and the decision to buy rather than make technologies by way of FDI undermined job creation and induced inter-sectoral flows toward service sector and informal work.     

Accountability by Professionalism or Managerialism? Exploring Attitudes Among Swedish and Norwegian Local Government Leaders

Most developed countries continue to experience problems with malfeasance and corruption, making accountability a fundamental concern of the public government. Still, the mechanisms which ensure accountability are not given. This article explores two different and apparently conflicting principles of accountability in public organizations: “Professionalism” based on values and internalized incentive structures and “Managerialism” based on externalized incentives and hierarchy. The empirical analysis is based on a comparative survey among local government leaders in Sweden and Norway. The analysis shows that both professionalism and managerialism are regarded as important means for accountability and tend to be understood as complementary more than competing principles.     

War,the Presidency,and Legislative Voting Behavior

An extraordinary body of scholarship suggests that war, perhaps more than any other contributor, is responsible for the emergence of a distinctly modern presidency. Central to this argument is a belief that members of Congress predictably and reliably line up behind the president during times of war. Few scholars, however, have actually subjected this argument to quantitative investigation. This article does so. Estimating ideal points for members of Congress at the start and end of the most significant wars in the past century, we find consistent—albeit not uniform—evidence of a wartime effect. The outbreaks of both world wars and the post‐9/11 era—though not the Korean or Vietnam wars—coincided with discernible changes in member voting behavior that better reflected the ideological leanings of the presidents then in office. In the aftermath of all these wars, meanwhile, members shifted away from the sitting president’s ideological orientation. These findings are not confined to any single subset of policies, are robust to a wide variety of modeling specifications, and run contrary to scholarship that emphasizes ideological consistency in members’ voting behavior.     

Managing North Sea Pollution Effectively:Linking International and Domestic Institutions

Most pollution problems arise as by-products of domestic activity. The effectiveness of international environmental regimes thus depends on the operations of domestic political and administrative institutions. However, the study of regime effectiveness tends to overlook the operation of domestic institutions as well as the interests and preferences of sub-national non-state actors. In this article, a framework for combining the study of regime effectiveness with domestic institutions and actors is initially presented. The merits of this framework within the context of the North Sea regime is then explored. The article concludes that the effectiveness of this regime depends on the operation of both international and domestic institutions. Of particular importance are those sub-national actors actually causing the problem in the first place as well as domestic institutions influencing the behaviour of target groups.     

Cap-and-trade or carbon taxes? The feasibility of enforcement and the effects of non-compliance

One of the proposed alternatives to Kyoto’s cap-and-trade approach is a regime based on an internationally harmonized carbon tax. In this paper, we consider and compare the enforcement problems associated with a tax regime and a cap-and-trade regime, respectively. The paper tries to convey two main points. First, both types of regime require an_. effective enforcement mechanism. However, such a mechanism is unlikely to be adopted as part of a regime with full participation, because the political process leading up to its adoption tends to water down the enforcement mechanism to a point where it no longer has much bite. And even if this is somehow avoided, countries expecting compliance to be difficult or costly will almost certainly decline to sign—not to mention ratify—the resulting agreement. Second, the implications of non-compliance in a tax regime differ in important ways from the corresponding implications in a cap-and-trade regime. In a cap-and-trade regime emissions trading can make inaction legitimate for buyers of emission permits. In particular, overselling of permits by one (or a few) permit exporting countries might completely undermine the regime’s environmental effect. In a tax regime, by contrast, one country’s non-compliance can not make inaction by other countries legitimate. It follows that an agreement based on a harmonized carbon tax will always have some effect, provided that at least one country complies.