The conscience of a fugitive: sheldon wolin and the prospects for radical democracy

Amidst increasing and seemingly intransigent inequalities, unresponsive institutions, and illegible patterns of social change, political theorists are increasingly faced with questions about the viability of democracy in the contemporary age. One of the most prominent voices within this conversation has been that of Sheldon Wolin. Wolin has famously argued that democracy is a ‘fugitive’ experience with an inherently temporary character. Critics have pounced on this concept, rejecting it as an admission of defeat or despair that is at odds with the formation of democratic counter-power. In this article, I push back against this view of fugitive democracy. I do so by contextualizing the idea within Wolin’s broader democratic theory, and especially his idea of the ‘multiple civic self’, in order to give a more coherent form to a conception of citizenship often concealed by the attention given to the supposedly momentary nature of democracy. This all too common misreading of fugitive democracy has significant stakes, because it shapes not only how we approach Wolin’s impact as a political theorist, but also how we approach practices of democratic citizenship and how we think about political theory and political science’s relationship to those practices.     

Norm Diffusion and Reputation: The Rise of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

Transparency in the extractives sector is widely seen as an important tool for improving accountability and deterring corruption. Yet for those very reasons, it is a puzzle that so many governments in corruption‐prone countries have voluntarily signed up to greater scrutiny in this area by joining the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). We argue that EITI serves as a reputational intermediary, whereby reformers can signal good intentions and international actors can reward achievement. International and domestic actors thus utilize EITI to diffuse the norm of resource transparency and to advance reformist aims in a highly problematic policy area.     

Settling the Office: The Australian Prime Ministership from Federation to Reconstruction

Settling the Office: The Australian Prime Ministership from Federation to Reconstruction. By Paul Strangio, Paul ‘t Hart and James Walter (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2016), pp. vi + 312. Thirty‐two illustrations. AU$49.99 (cloth).     

Who needed the October 1973 war?

Scholars and pundits believe that Anwar Sadat went to war in October 1973 because Israel left him no choice. The Israeli government rejected his peace proposals during 1971–73, and Sadat initiated the war in order to demonstrate his refusal to agree to the status quo and to the continuation of the Israeli occupation of the territories it occupied in June 1967. However, when the peace treaty signed between Israel and Egypt in March 1979 is carefully studied, it appears the terms of the treaty were in fact much closer to the Israeli position and terms as presented before the 1973 war than to those set by Sadat. Careful reading of the relevant documents in general and Sadat's claims and arguments in particular will show that it was actually Sadat who needed the war, and he needed it not in order to force Israel into a political process, but for himself, so as to accept terms he could not accept without a war.     

South Africa's bilateral relationships in the evolving foreign policy of an emerging middle power

This article introduces the special issue on ‘South African Foreign Policy: identity, directions, and intentions’. Here we seek to summarize key insights from the contributions to this special issue to deepen understanding of South Africa’s evolving post-apartheid foreign policy through an exploration of the nature and trajectory of key bilateral relationships from both the global ‘South’ (Brazil, China, Iran, the AU) and ‘North’ (Japan and the UK). This window on the country’s international relations enriches understanding of the normative and structural factors that influence not only South African foreign policy, but those of what Edouard Jordaan calls emerging middle powers as they seek to position themselves as influential actors in international affairs. We sketch the contours of these key South African relationships in four areas where the tendencies and tensions of emerging middle power foreign policies are apparent: regionalism, multilateralism, reform of global governance, and approach to moral leadership.     

Ethnographic filmmaking as narrative capital enhancement among Atauro diverwomen: a theoretical exploration

This article reports on a project involving the development and release of an ethnographic film about the women divers of Atauro Island, Timor-Leste, and suggests a theoretical framework to interpret its outcomes. It describes the project aims and the filmmaking process, and reports on its results. In doing so, the paper explores the potential use of an agent-based concept of narrative capital focused on collective agents. The article suggests that the ideas of narrative capital and transformations of capital by collective agents can provide a valuable interpretative framework for the design, implementation, and analyses of results of development interventions involving filmmaking.     

Linking Law and New Governance: Examining Gaps,Hybrids, and Integration in Water Policy

Since the 1980s there have been significant shifts from traditional environmental enforcement toward networks, cooperation, and more pluralized forms of governance. The most recent iterations of these new approaches are increasingly characterized as New Environmental Governance (NEG). A range of common characteristics that include collaboration, participation, adaptation, and nonbinding guidelines and agreements define NEG approaches. Despite a growing NEG literature, it is unclear whether and how NEG can be effectively implemented in the same policy domain as traditional hard law. This article empirically explores and theorizes the dynamics of NEG's interaction with conventional law. It proposes a spectrum of eight possible interactions between traditional law and NEG approaches, before evaluating three distinct perspectives, namely, gaps, NEG in the shadow of the law, and integration. It studies these relationships by empirically evaluating three case studies from Australia, New Zealand, and the United States that correspond to these interactions. The article explores the strengths and weaknesses of the three relationships. It finds that a significant barrier to achieving productive cohesion between law and NEG is the worldview of regulators, who eschew NEG collaboration as ineffectual or incompatible with hard law. Recommendations are offered on how to better achieve cohesive implementation between law and NEG.