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On tradition
(1992)
Theses against occultism
(1974)
Considering migration to be a gendered experience, in this article, I focus on the gender-specific processes of cultural production and tradition-building in the context of migration and pose the following questions: What happens to gendered biographies in a migration context? What role does gender play with respect to the rupture, renewal, or building of traditions in migration processes? Drawing on the basic assumption that "gender fundamentally organizes the social relations and structures," which in turn shapes the processes of migration (cf. Curran, 2006, 199), I make use of the concept of gender defined as an accomplishment, as a performance in daily interaction practices:
When we view gender as an accomplishment, an achieved property of situated conduct, our attention shifts from matters internal to the individual, and focuses on interactional and, ultimately, institutional arenas. (West et al., 1987, 126)
This essay presents contributions by Jürgen Habermas and Paulo Freire for the constitution of critical-reflexive subjects and the implications in the teaching-research-extension processes in the field of Organizational Studies. We show that intersubjectivity and dialogicity are conditions for the understanding between subjects and it is precisely through these conditions that the subjects are constituted, in a process that is dialogical, pedagogical and political. Freire and Habermas offer elements to deconstruct dominant instrumental logic and provide the basis for the reconstruction of unprecedented-viable possibilities of ways of organizing and managing. Therefore, this article highlights the importance of Organizational Studies to broaden the focus of teaching-research-extension possibilities and directs them to a communicative and dialogic engagement, beyond the borders of universities. This reconstruction indicates that researchers participate in different public arenas, debate and build public problems, processes of resistance, visibility, and dramatization of problematic issues. Observing the contributions of Freire and Habermas, Organizational Studies as a field cannot be limited to developing a critique, from a distant point of view: it is necessary to co-participate, co-act, co-operate and co-construct with its public.
In ‘Justice and Natural Resources,’ Chris Armstrong offers a rich and sophisticated egalitarian theory of resource justice, according to which the benefits and burdens flowing from natural (and non-natural) resources are ideally distributed with a view to equalize people’s access to wellbeing, unless there are compelling reasons that justify departures from that egalitarian default. Armstrong discusses two such reasons: special claims from ‘improvement’ and ‘attachment.’ In this paper, I critically assess the account he gives of these potential constraints on global equality. I argue that his recognition of them has implications that Armstrong does not anticipate, and which challenge some important theses in his book. First, special claims from improvement will justify larger departures from the egalitarian default than Armstrong believes. Second, a consistent application of Armstrong’s life planfoundation for special claims from attachment implies that nation-states may move closer to justify ‘permanent sovereignty’ over the resources within their territories than what his analysis suggests.
Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant fiscal costs on democracies and exacerbate preexisting distributive and political inequalities. Yet much contemporary tax sheltering occurs within the letter of the law, rendering criminal sanctions ineffective. In response, I argue for the creation of Citizen Tax Juries, deliberative minipublics empowered to scrutinize tax avoiders, demand accountability, and facilitate concrete reforms. This proposal thus responds to the wider aspiration, within contemporary democratic theory, to secure more popular control over essential economic processes.
Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant fiscal costs on democracies and exacerbate preexisting distributive and political inequalities. Yet much contemporary tax sheltering occurs within the letter of the law, rendering criminal sanctions ineffective. In response, I argue for the creation of Citizen Tax Juries, deliberative minipublics empowered to scrutinize tax avoiders, demand accountability, and facilitate concrete reforms. This proposal thus responds to the wider aspiration, within contemporary democratic theory, to secure more popular control over essential economic processes.
A reply to my critics
(2021)
It is a real pleasure to reply to so many thoughtful and probing responses to my book. In what follows, I will focus on six key themes that emerge across the various pieces. Some of them call into question core commitments of my theory, and in those cases I will try to show what might be said in its defence. Quite a number of the critics, however, present what we might call expansionist arguments: though they endorse some of the arguments I make, that is – or pick up some of its key concepts – they seek to push them in new and interesting directions. I will suggest that many of those arguments look likely to be successful, though I will also express caution about one or two of them. I doubt, however, that I will be the final judge of their success. Early on in the book I express the hope that it might provide a set of conceptual tools capable of advancing discussions about resource justice more broadly, even for scholars who reject my own idiosyncratic approach. Having made that gambit, I cannot now claim to have a monopoly on the use of the tools in question. Witnessing the use that others have already made of them has been a refreshing and rewarding experience.
The COVID-19 pandemic has both highlighted and exacerbated global health inequities, leading for calls for responses to COVID to promote social justice and ensure that no one is left behind. One key lesson to be learnt from the pandemic is the critical importance of decolonizing global health and global health research so that African countries are better placed to address pandemic challenges in contextually relevant ways. This paper argues that to be successful, programmes of decolonization in complex global health landscapes require a complex three-dimensional approach. Drawing on the broader discourse of political decolonization that has been going on in the African context for over a century, we present a model for unpacking the complex task of decolonization. Our approach suggests a three-dimensional approach which encompasses hegemomic; epistemic; and commitmental elements.
Interview with Dario Azzellini, author of The Business of War and the new documentary film, Comuna Under Construction. What is it about Venezuela that is so interesting? Since 2003 I have practically lived in Venezuela. What motivates me is that I am interested in the social transformation process happening here. It’s a different type of revolution, a new left that draws from all the experiences of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. ...
In this article, I question the use of the notion of ‘constituent power’ as a tool for the democratization of the European Union (EU). Rather than seeing the absence of a transnational constituent power as a cause of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, I identify it as an opportunity for unfettered democratic participation. Against the reification of power-in-action into a power-constituted-in-law, I argue that the democratization of the EU can only be achieved through the multiplication of ‘constituent moments’. I begin by deconstructing the normative justifications surrounding the concept of constituent power. Here I analyze the structural aporia of constituent power and question the autonomous and emancipatory dimension of this notion. I then test the theoretical hypothesis of this structural aporia of the popular constituent power by comparing it with the historical experiments of a European popular constituent power. Finally, based on these theoretical and empirical observations, I propose to replace the ambivalence of the concept of popular constituent power with a more cautious approach to the bottom-up democratization of European integration: that of a multiplication of transnational constituent moments.
In left critiques of globalization, it is often argued that liberal-egalitarian principles are inadequate for thinking about and struggling for global justice; that they are, in fact, part of the problem. For the case of identity politics as a left alternative, the paper points at two fallacies in this notion, regarding two ‘liberal’ elements: individualism and universalism. The paper examines groupidentity claims in far right conceptions of global injustice, and shows that cultural diversity of groups does not necessitate or even favour equality and democratic participation. It then examines the left group-based claims in the global justice discourse, showing that the aspirations for equality and freedom assume the liberal notions that have been often rejected as inadequate. The paper concludes that this ambivalent position undermines the democratic and egalitarian aspirations of left critiques of the global order. The analysis is based on manifestos and publications of political parties and movements in Western Europe (France, Germany and Austria).
nvestor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) is an arbitration mechanism to settle disputes between foreign investors and host-states. Seemingly a technical issue in private international law, ISDS procedures have recently become a matter of public concern and the target of political resistance, due to the power they grant to foreign investors in matters of public policies in the countries they invest in. This article examines the practice of ISDS through the lenses of liberal-statist theories of international justice, which value self-determination. It argues that the investor-state arbitration system illustrates how liberal-statist theories of international distributive justice ought to care about relative socioeconomic disadvantage, contra the sufficiency principle that they typically defend. The sufficiency principle draws on a questionable conception of the freedom that self-determination consists in.
Parties should develop a consistent issue profile during an electoral campaign. Yet, manifestos, which form the baseline for a party’s programmatic goals in the upcoming legislative period, are usually published months before Election Day. We argue that parties must emphasize policy issues that are of key relevance to their likely voters in the last weeks of the election campaign, in which an increasing share of citizens make up their minds in terms of which party they will choose. To test this notion empirically, we draw on a novel data set that covers information on party representatives’ statements made during the final weeks of an election campaign in nine European countries. Focusing on the campaign messages of social democratic and socialist parties, we find that these parties indeed intensify their emphasis of unemployment policy, which is a salient issue for their core voter clienteles, particularly in times of economic hardship.
This paper argues that the Fairtrade certification system represents an illuminating example of the challenge of systematically determining consumer and entrepreneurial responsibilities in our global age. In taking up the central question of what, if anything, may be called ‘just’ or ‘fair’ in Fairtrade, I more precisely argue for a two-fold thesis: that (1) a meaningful evaluation of Fairtrade must consider both an interactional and an (arguably prior) institutional understanding of global responsibilities to promote justice and that (2) Fairtrade can be better defended against several popular objections from the perspective of a theory that adequately differentiates between interactional responsibilities and institutional responsibilities of promoting justice under unjust circumstances.
From reparations for slavery to international racial justice: a critical republican perspective
(2017)
This paper focuses on demands for reparations for colonial slavery and their public reception in France. It argues that this bottom-up, context-sensitive approach to theorising reparations enables us to formulate a critical republican theory of international racial justice. It contrasts the critical republican perspective on reparations with a nation-state centred approach in which reparations activists are accused of threatening the French republic’s sense of homogeneity and unity, thus undermining the national narrative on the French identity. It also rejects the liberal egalitarian perspective, which itself rejects reparations in favour of focusing on present disadvantages. In so doing, this paper illustrates how the notion of non-domination offers a superior way of conceptualising global racial injustices compared to more traditional distributive outlooks.
Starting from the observation that substantively free migration is impossible in a world where millions lack the resources to move country, this article evaluates two contenders for the second-best alternative. On the face of it, arguments from freedom of association and material inequality appear to commend formally open borders, while those from liberty and equality of opportunity seem to favour a migration lottery. However, the argument from liberty gives us only a presumption in favour of freedom of movement, rather than an equal human right. This is not enough to make a compelling case for a migration lottery. Moreover, the idea that equality of opportunity requires a migration lottery rests on the belief that this will facilitate self-realisation. Yet it is free movement which better promotes self-realisation. Therefore, it is concluded that the case for a migration lottery is ultimately unpersuasive.
The article “Ganging up on Trump? Sino-German Relations and the Problem with Soft Balancing against the USA”, written by Sebastian Biba, was originally published Online First without Open Access. After publication in volume 25, issue 4, pages 531–550 the authors decided to opt for Open Choice and to make the article an Open Access publication. Therefore, the copyright of the article has been changed to © The Author(s) 2021 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. The original article has been corrected.
In ethnographic research and analysis, reflexivity is vital to achieving constant coordination between field and concept work. However, it has been conceptualized predominantly as an ethnographer’s individual mental capacity. In this article, we draw on ten years of experience in conducting research together with partners from social psychiatry and mental health care across different research projects. We unfold three modes of achieving reflexivity co-laboratively: contrasting and discussing disciplinary concepts in interdisciplinary working groups and feedback workshops; joint data interpretation and writing; and participating in political agenda setting. Engaging these modes reveals reflexivity as a distributed process able to strengthen the ethnographer’s interpretative authority, and also able to constantly push the conceptual boundaries of the participating disciplines and professions.
This paper discusses two possible difficulties with Catherine Lu’s powerful analysis of the moral response to our shared history of colonial evil; both of these difficulties stem from the rightful place of shame in that moral response. The first difficulty focuses on efficacy: existing states may be better motivated by shame at the past than by a shared duty to bring about a just future. The second focuses on equity: it is, at the very least, possible that shame over past misdeeds ought to be brought into the conversation about present duties, in a manner more robust than Lu’s analysis allows.
The paper broaches the issue of unfair trading practices (UTPs) at the expense of, economically spoken, weaker actors among the food supply chain in context of the EU. For illustrating the concept of UTPs and delivering a theoretical basis for scrutinizing the term of fairness in respective trading practices the paper suggests the three variables 1) bargaining power, 2) market power/anti competitive practices and 3) unequal gain distribution. Subsequently the article presents selected national food-specific legislative based reactions towards UTPs evolved in context of the three variables. Ultimately the paper presents a qualitatively generated hypothesis which presumes that legislative food-specific measurements focussing on protecting suppliers lead to a beneficial monetary share for farmers, by means of influencing the producer price to a monetarily advantageous extent. The hypothesis was generated unprejudiced in the run-up to the paper. The research design which led to the hypothesis mentioned will be presented.
This paper explores how University as social entity has great potential to confront epistemic injustices by expanding epistemic capabilities. To do this, we primarily follow the contributions of scholars such as Miranda Fricker and José Medina. The epistemic capabilities and epistemic injustice nexus will be explored via two empirical cases: the first one is an experience developed in Lagos (Nigeria) using participatory video; the second is a service learning pedagogical strategy for final year undergraduate students conducted at Universidad de Ibagué (in Colombia). The Lagos experience shows how participatory action-research methodologies could promote epistemic capabilities and functioning, making it possible for the participants to generate interpretive materials to speak of their own realities. However, this experience is too limited to address testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. The Colombian experience is a remarkable experience that is building epistemic capabilities among students and other local participants. However, there is a hermeneutical and structural injustice that tends to give more value to disciplinary and codified knowledge at the expense of experiential and tacit knowledge.
Many theories of global distributive justice are based on the assumption that all humans hold common ownership of the earth. As the earth is finite and our actions interconnect, we need a system of justice that regulates the potential appropriation of the common earth to ensure fairness. According to these theories, imposing limits and distributive obligations on private and public property arrangements may be the best mechanism for governing common ownership. We present a critique of the assumption that this issue can be solved within the private–public property regime, arguing that the boundaries of this regime should not be taken for granted and that the growing literature on the democratic commons movement suggests how this can be accomplished. We consider that, if the earth is defined as a common, the private– public property paradigm must be open to questioning, and democratic commoners’ activities should be considered.
Sublimity, negativity, and architecture. An essay on negative architecture through Kant to Adorno
(2015)
Architecture defines and consumes people. It exposes them to a multitude of varieties of different aesthetic engagements. Architecture becomes a lived experience. However, this lived experience is always caught in the inner workings of the social and more specifically within cultural ideology. In modern capitalism, culture pervades every aspect of our lives. It shows its presence everywhere from our own homes to the public streets. Culture is everywhere, and architecture is a tool used for both the benefit and detriment of the “culture industry”. Kant speaks of the sublime as a profound moment of reason realizing its ability to overcome its own limits. In this experience is it possible to be completely ravaged and descend into hades and melancholy? Is there a beauty in this descent? More specifically, can architecture become banal or pedestrian, uplifting or depressing? According to Theodor Adorno, our subjectivity is defined by the constant dialectical struggle between freedom and unfreedom (among other things). It is realizing our freedom in the face of our unfreedom that makes us truly able to attain some form of resistance. The sublime experience can be transformed into a spirit of revelation and beautifully allow us to in a way resist the one-dimensional tendencies of modern capitalism. Architecture, which is immersed in our societal being and contributes to many of our own subjective unfreedoms, comes to define our lives as inhabited space. When does architecture produce a sublime experience? Can architecture’s authentic “aura” stand out amongst the reproduced city and produce a sublime feeling that can be a form of resistance against the culture industry? Does Grand Central Terminal provide the key to an architecturally sublime experience? Using dialectical experience and examining the sublime feeling (in a critique of the Kantian sublime) as the key to breaking through the culture industry’s banal architectural hold on our subjectivity, this essay will examine the experience of the sublime as a key to unfolding resistance in the face of the banality of modern architecture in the city and opening our minds to the Great Refusal through the exploration of Grand Central Terminal.
Megaregional trade negotiations have become the subject of heated debate, above all in the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In this article, I argue that the justice of the global order suffers from its institutional fragmentation into regime complexes. From a republican perspective, which aspires to non-domination as a guiding principles and idea of global justice, regime complexes raise specific and important challenges in that they open the door to specific forms of domination. I thereby challenge a more optimistic outlook in regime complexes, which paints a positive normative picture of regime complexes, arguing that they enable the enhancement of democracy beyond the state and, consequently, have the potential to reduce the democratic deficit in global governance. By drawing attention to how regime complexes reinforce domination-related injustice, this article contributes an original perspective on megaregionals and to exploring the implications of global justice as non-domination.
The digitalization of financial services opened a window for new players in the financial industry. These start-ups take on tasks and functions previously reserved for banks, such as financing, asset management, and payments. In this article, we trace the transformation of the industry after digitalization. By using data on FinTech formations in Germany, we provide first evidence that entrepreneurial dynamics in the FinTech sector are not so much driven by technology as by the educational and business background of the founders. Furthermore, we investigate the reactions of traditional banks to the emergence of these start-ups. In contrast with other emerging industries such as biotechnology, a network analysis shows that FinTechs have mostly engaged in strategic partnerships and only a few banks have acquired or obtained a financial interest in a FinTech. We explain the restraint of traditional banks to fully endorse the new possibilities of digitalized financial services with the characteristics of the technology itself and with the postponed fundamental decisions of banks to modernize their IT infrastructure.
Feasibility, nationalism, migration, justification, and global justice : some further thoughts
(2011)
Brock and justification
(2011)
Voting advice applications (VAAs) are online tools providing voting advice to their users. This voting advice is based on the match between the answers of the user and the answers of several political parties to a common questionnaire on political attitudes. To visualize this match, VAAs use a wide array of visualisations, most popular of which are the two-dimensional political maps. These maps show the position of both the political parties and the user in the political landscape, allowing the user to understand both their own position and their relation to the political parties. To construct these maps, VAAs require scales that represent the main underlying dimensions of the political space. This makes the correct construction of these scales important if the VAA aims to provide accurate and helpful voting advice. This paper presents three criteria that assess if a VAA achieves this aim. To illustrate their usefulness, these three criteria—unidimensionality, reliability and quality—are used to assess the scales in the cross-national EUVox VAA, a VAA designed for the European Parliament elections of 2014. Using techniques from Mokken scaling analysis and categorical principal component analysis to capture the metrics, I find that most scales show low unidimensionality and reliability. Moreover, even while designers can—and sometimes do—use certain techniques to improve their scales, these improvements are rarely enough to overcome all of the problems regarding unidimensionality, reliability and quality. This leaves certain problems for the designers of VAAs and designers of similar type online surveys.
In the recent decades, privacy scholarship has made significant progress. Most of it was achieved in monodisciplinary works. However, privacy has a deeply interdisciplinary nature. Most importantly, societies as well as individuals experience privacy as being influenced by legal, technical, and social norms and structures. In this article, we hence attempt to connect insights of different academic disciplines into a joint model, an Interdisciplinary Privacy and Communication Model. The model differentiates four different elements: communication context, protection needs, threat and risk analysis, as well as protection enforcement. On the one hand, with this model, we aim to describe how privacy unfolds. On the other hand, the model also prescribes how privacy can be furnished and regulated. As such, the model contributes to a general understanding of privacy as a theoretical guide and offers a practical basis to address new challenges of the digital age.
The article presents an analysis of the development of labour market risks in Germany in light of changing working poverty risks. Low hourly wages and part-time employment are identified as the main demand-side-related mechanisms for household poverty. Their measurement and development are discussed as well as their contribution to trends in working poverty risks. A rise in low wages, especially among part-time employed households, was decisive for the increase in working poverty risks in Germany by 45% between the end of the 1990s and the end of the 2000s. We therefore study these trends more closely in the multivariate analysis. The results show that while low wages are unequally distributed across occupations and industries, shifts in employment between sectors explain only a minor part of the change in low wages. However, they reveal a polarization of low-wage risks by skill-level and sector of employment, on the one hand, and full-time and part-time employees, on the other hand.
The paper addresses the problem of justifying ethically sound dimensions of poverty or well-being for use in a multidimensional framework. We combine Sen’s capability approach and Rawls’ method of political constructivism and argue that the constitution and its interpretative practice can serve as an ethically suitable informational basis for selecting dimensions, under certain conditions. We illustrate our Constitutional Approach by deriving a set of well-being dimensions from an analysis of the Italian Constitution. We argue that this method is both an improvement on those used in the existing literature from the ethical point of view, and has a strong potential for providing the ethical basis of a conception of well-being for the public affairs of a pluralist society. In the final part, we elaborate on the implications for measuring well-being based on data, by ranking Italian regions in terms of well-being, and pointing out the differences in results produced by different methods.
Scholars are coming to terms with the fact that something is rotten in the new democracies of Central Europe. The corrosion has multiple symptoms: declining trust in democratic institutions, emboldened uncivil society, the rise of oligarchs and populists as political leaders, assaults on an independent judiciary, the colonization of public administration by political proxies, increased political control over media, civic apathy, nationalistic contestation and Russian meddling. These processes signal that the liberal-democratic project in the so-called Visegrad Four (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) has been either stalled, diverted or reversed. This article investigates the “illiberal turn” in the Visegrad Four (V4) countries. It develops an analytical distinction between illiberal “turns” and “swerves”, with the former representing more permanent political changes, and offers evidence that Hungary is the only country in the V4 at the brink of a decisive illiberal turn.
With the significant disconnect between the collective aim of limiting warming to well below 2°C and the current means proposed to achieve such an aim, the goal of this paper is to offer a moral assessment of prominent alternatives to current international climate policy. To do so, we’ll outline five different policy routes that could potentially bring the means and goal in line. Those five policy routes are: (1) exceed 2°C; (2) limit warming to less than 2°C by economic de-growth; (3) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation only; (4) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation and widespread deployment of Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs); and (5) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation, NETs, and Solar Radiation Management as a fallback. In assessing these five policy routes, we rely primarily upon two moral considerations: the avoidance of catastrophic climate change and the right to sustainable development. We’ll conclude that we should continue to aim at the two-degree target, and that to get there we should use aggressive mitigation, pursue the deployment of NETs, and continue to research SRM.
Responsiveness is a core value in democratic politics. Individual legislators are important mechanisms for implementing this concern in real‐world settings and thus facilitating responsive government. This introduction to the special section on this topic starts out by highlighting the special relevance of individual legislators in this regard and by sketching important theoretical considerations that emerge from the political science literature on this issue. In its main part, it summarizes the key findings of the contributions in relation to its main theme, namely the personal sources of responsiveness. We end with a short conclusion that reflects on possible tensions between responsiveness and the personalization of representative systems.
Children from upper-class families have better cognitive outcomes and fewer behavioural problems than those from working-class families. Previous studies highlighted that the class gap in child development is partially driven by differences in parenting styles, but they rarely looked at multiple, more specific dimensions of parenting, i.e., inductive reasoning, parenting consistency, warmth and anger. This study provides a systematic account of how parental social class shapes these four dimensions of parenting, and how these dimensions affect children’s cognitive outcomes and behavioural problems. Using high-quality, longitudinal data, and both hybrid models and the generalized methods of moments, this study reports two main findings. First, upper-class parents significantly differ from lower-class parents in two parenting dimensions, displaying more inductive reasoning and parenting consistency, but no relevant class differences are found in the two emotion-type dimensions of parenting (i.e., warmth and anger). Second, all four parenting dimensions have a strong impact on children’s behavioural problems, while they do not affect cognitive outcomes. An exception is consistency, the only dimension that affects both types of child outcomes. The study underscores the relevance of analysing parenting and child development from a multidimensional approach to better understand how upper-class parents transmit advantage to children.
The intergenerational transmission of gender: paternal influences on children’s gender attitudes
(2022)
Objective: This study provides the first systematic longitudinal analysis of the influence of paternal involvement in family life—across childhood and adolescence—on the gender-role attitudes of children by the age of 14 or 15.
Background: Recent research suggests that, in post-industrial societies, paternal involvement in family life is increasing. Although previous studies of paternal involvement have considered paternal influences on children's cognitive or socio-emotional development, such studies have not yet addressed paternal influences on children's attitudes toward gender. Relatedly, previous studies on the intergenerational transmission of gender attitudes have analyzed maternal influences, but have neglected the significance of paternal influences. This study engages both strands of the research by analyzing the effects of paternal behaviors on children's attitudes toward gender roles.
Method: Multivariate linear regressions models were estimated on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC); a survey with biannual observations over 10 years for 2796 children born between 1999 and 2000.
Results: Fathers' time spent on childcare during childhood was associated with gender-egalitarian attitudes in children by the age of 14 or 15. The most powerful predictor of children's gender-role attitudes, however, was the amount of time fathers spent on housework during children's adolescence, both absolute and relative to the amount of time mothers spent on housework. Fathers' unpaid labor at home was as relevant for children's gender-role attitudes as mothers' paid labor in the workforce. These results held after controlling for maternal domestic behaviors and for the gender-role attitudes of both parents.
Conclusion: Father involvement in childcare and housework during childhood and adolescence play an important role in shaping children's gender-egalitarian attitudes.
To imitate all that is hidden. The place of mimesis in Adorno’s theory of musical performance
(2017)
The article examines the use of the concept of mimesis in Adorno’s notes towards a theory of musical performance. In trying to idiosyncratically define the latter as “reproduction”, Adorno relied on a framework elaborating on concepts introduced by Arnold Schoenberg, Hugo Riemann and Walter Benjamin – a framework that the article discusses insofar as it deals with the problem of mimesis. Specific attention is devoted to the relation between Benjamin’s essays on language and translation and Adorno’s theory of notation, that soon became the crucial aspect of his theory of reproduction. Given the shortcomings of Adorno’s theory, which in the end did not achieve its goals, the article proposes to capitalize on his terminology while at the same time rethinking his framework in the light of recent musicological paradigms for the study of musical performance. On the whole, the article shows that it was Adorno’s philosophical assumptions – in particular the theses of music’s non-intentionality and of its non-similarity to language – that prevented him from convincingly theorizing musical performance, and suggests an alternative framework for future research.
Scholars and international organizations engaged in institutional reconstruction converge in recognizing political corruption as a cause or a consequence of conflicts. Anticorruption is thus generally considered a centrepiece of institutional reconstruction programmes. A common approach to anticorruption within this context aims primarily to counter the negative political, social, and economic effects of political corruption, or implement legal anticorruption standards and punitive measures. We offer a normative critical discussion of this approach, particularly when it is initiated and sustained by external entities. We recast the focus from an outward to an inward perspective on institutional action and failure centred on the institutional interactions between officeholders. In so doing, we offer the normative tools to reconceptualize anticorruption in terms of an institutional ethics of ‘office accountability’ that draws on an institution’s internal resources of self-correction as per the officeholders’ interrelated work.
The present contribution defends that remittances should be taken into account and integrated into an ethical framework on migration. This main thesis is two-fold. First, we argue that if a normative approach to migration is to claim practical relevance, it should integrate remittances as a relevant empirical parameter into an ethical framework. The empirical assessment of the scientific evidence available on remittances therefore proves to be extremely important. Secondly, assuming that remittances have to be taken seriously, we consider their positive and negative impacts against two backgrounds. First, we emphasize the increased autonomy of persons who pull themselves and their dependents out of economic hardship. Second, affluent states who enable this process through their labor legislation contribute to the fulfillment of their duty of assistance. In this respect, our thesis is to claim that remittances should be considered as an amplifying factor for normative arguments in favor of a liberalization of labor migration. Remittances stand for a liberal way of fulfilling a responsibility to help, namely through the elimination of obstacles which in turn allow people to support themselves and lead an autonomous life.
This paper discusses the sustainability impact (contribution to sustainability, reduction of adverse environmental impacts) of online second-hand trading. A survey of eBay users shows that a relationship between the trading of used goods and the protection of natural resources is hardly realized. Secondly, the environmental motivation and the willingness to act in a sustainable manner differ widely between groups of consumers. Given these results from a user perspective, the paper tries to find some objective hints of online second-hand trading’s environmental impact. The greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the energy used for the trading transactions seem to be considerably lower than the emissions due to the (avoided) production of new goods. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for second-hand trade and consumer policy. Information about the sustainability benefits of purchasing second-hand goods should be included in general consumer information, and arguments for changes in behavior should be targeted to different groups of consumers. Keywords: online marketplaces; online auctions; consumer; electronic commerce; used products; second-hand market; sustainable consumption
Some realists in political theory deny that the notion of feasibility has any place in realist theory, while others claim that feasibility constraints are essential elements of realist normative theorising. But none have so far clarified what exactly they are referring to when thinking of feasibility and political realism together. In this article, we develop a conception of the realist feasibility frontier based on an appraisal of how political realism should be distinguished from non-ideal theories. In this realist framework, political standards are feasible if they meet three requirements: they are (i) politically intelligible, (ii) contextually recognisable as authoritative, and (iii) contestable. We conclude by suggesting that our conception of realist feasibility might be compatible with utopian demands, thereby possibly finding favour with realists who otherwise refuse to resort to the notion of feasibility.
In this article, we propose to develop a realist interpretation of political progress—that is, an analysis of what it means to achieve better conditions of life in society under political power according to realist standards. Specifically, we are interested in identifying the criteria according to which political realism defines a change in the status quo as a desirable change...
However far we are from either in practice, basic global and intergenerational justice, including climate change mitigation, are taken to be theoretically compatible. If population grows as predicted, this could cease to be the case. This paper asks whether that tragic legacy can now be averted without hard or even tragic choices on population policy. Current generations must navigate between: a high-stakes gamble on undeveloped technology; violating human rights; demanding unbearable sacrifices of the already badly off; institutional unfairness across adults; institutional unfairness across children; failing to protect children’s basic interests; and threatening the autonomy of the family. We are not yet forced to choose between bequeathing a tragic choice and making one, by adopting basically unjust measures. However, even the remaining options present a morally hard choice. The fact we face it is yet another damning indictment on the combined actions and collective failures of the global elite.
Introduction - Issue 7
(2014)
Climate justice
(2015)
Rising powers are fundamentally shifting the relations of power in the global economic and political landscape. International political theory, however, has so far failed to evaluate this nascent multipolarity. This article fills this lacuna by synthesizing empirical and normative modes of inquiry. It examines the transformation of sovereignty exercised by emerging democracies and focuses especially on the case of Brazil. The paper shows that – in stark contrast to emerging democracies' foreign policy rhetoric – the "softening" of sovereignty, which means that emerging powers gain as well as lose certain aspects of sovereignty, has become the norm. The paper explores this softening of sovereignty from the perspective of global justice by assessing it on the basis of globalist, statist, and internationalist conceptions of global justice. We find that the emergent multipolarity contributes in various ways to the realization of the distinct socioeconomic and political criteria of these three conceptions of global justice. However, we also point out that the transformation of sovereignty generates particular problems for the realization of all three conceptions.
With a growing Muslim population, many European countries need to integrate Muslims into their societies. One aspect that can hinder successful integration are substantial differences in human values. This is because such values are consequential for attitudes as well as behavior. We compare basic human values between Muslim immigrants and non-Muslim natives in four European countries with distinct immigration histories and integration politics: Belgium, France, Germany, and Sweden. For most insightful comparisons, we contrast values of Muslim immigrants with those of Christian natives as well as those of non-religious natives. We employ data of more than 50,000 individuals based on the first eight waves of the European Social Survey. Our findings reveal significant differences in value priorities between Muslims, Christians and non-religious individuals in all four countries. Amongst other things, Muslim immigrants score particularly high in conservation values (security and tradition/conformity). At the same time, they also score higher in self-transcendence values (benevolence as well as universalism). While many of these findings are in line with theory and previous research, the higher score in universalism is unexpected. A potential explanation is the combination of religious traditionalism and discrimination experiences. In other words, religious traditions are associated with more conservative views, but being subject to marginalization can still result in an appreciation of equal opportunities. We find only limited support for differences in hedonism. Religiosity correlates with values of tradition/conformity for Muslim immigrants as well as for Christian natives. Thus, accounting for religiosity renders differences in these values between Muslims and other groups statistically insignificant. While most of these findings hold in all countries, differences are most pronounced in Sweden and lower in the other three countries, which is also true after accounting for differences in socio-economic status and religiosity between the three groups. This suggests that a combination of a country's history of diversity and national integration policies either encourages the convergence of values or leads to a solidification of value differences between groups. We discuss these political and social implications of our findings.
Rule is commonly conceptualized with reference to the compliance it invokes. In this article, we propose a conception of rule via the practice of resistance instead. In contrast to liberal approaches, we stress the possibility of illegitimate rule, and, as opposed to critical approaches, the possibility of legitimate authority. In the international realm, forms of rule and the changes they undergo can thus be reconstructed in terms of the resistance they provoke. To this end, we distinguish between two types of resistance—opposition and dissidence—in order to demonstrate how resistance and rule imply each other. We draw on two case studies of resistance in and to international institutions to illustrate the relationship between rule and resistance and close with a discussion of the normative implications of such a conceptualization.
The main sources for the discussion of the category “relation” were Aristotle’s Categories and Metaphysics. Before their translation into Arabic in the 8th and 9th centuries, Christian theologians and in their footsteps Syriac scholars considered Aristotle’s works to be a useful tool in Christological discussions. This article analyzes the category of relation and its development in Arabic-Islamic philosophy in authors such as Kindī and his student Aḥmad Ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib as-Saraḫsī, Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, Ghazālī, Ibn Rušd, the Sufi Ibn ʿArabī and others.
Traditionally, in deciding whether some strategy or action in war is proportionate and necessary and thus permissible both international law and just war theory focus exclusively on civilian deaths and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. I argue in this paper that any argument that can explain why we should care about collateral killing and damage to infrastructure can also explain why collateral displacement matters. I argue that displacement is a foreseeable near-proximate cause of lethal harm to civilians and is relevant for proportionality and necessity calculi. Accepting my argument has significant consequences for what we are permitted to do in war and for what obligations we have towards refugees that result from our actions in war.
The theory and practice of urban governance in recent years has undergone both a collaborative and participatory turn. The strong connection between collaboration and participation has meant that citizen participation in urban governance has been conceived in a very particular way: as varying levels of partnership between state actors and citizens. This over-focus on collaboration has led to: 1) a dearth of proposals in theory and practice for citizens to engage oppositionally with institutions; 2) the miscasting of agonistic opportunities for participation as forms of collaboration; 3) an inability to recognise the irruption of agonistic practices into participatory procedures. This article attempts to expand the conception of participatory urban governance by adapting Rosanvallon’s (2008) three democratic counter-powers—prevention, oversight and judgement—to consider options for institutionalising agonistic participatory practices. It argues that these counter-governance processes would more fully realise the inclusion agenda that underpins the participatory governance project.
Participatory policy making is a contested concept that can be understood in multiple ways. So how do those involved with participatory initiatives make sense of contrasting ideas of participation? What purposes and values do they associate with participatory governance? This paper reflects on a Q‐method study with a range of actors, from citizen activists to senior civil servants, involved with participatory initiatives in U.K. social policy. Using principal components analysis, supplemented with data from qualitative interviews, it identifies three shared participation preferences: participation as collective decision making, participation as knowledge transfer, and participation as agonism. These preferences demonstrate significant disagreements between the key informants, particularly concerning the objectives of participation, how much power should be afforded to the public, and what motivates people to participate. Their contrasting normative orientations are used to highlight how participatory governance theory and practice frequently fails to take seriously legitimate diversity in procedural preferences. Moreover, it is argued that, despite the diversity of preferences, there is a lack of imagination about how participation can function when social relations are conflictual.
Beyond radicalism and resignation: the competing logics for public participation in policy decisions
(2016)
Participation – like justice or freedom – is a term that can be constructed in multiple ways. However, existing typologies of participation pay little attention to the alternative logics for public participation in policy decisions: either they assume one particular normative bias or categorise by institutional design features without reference to the broader ideology that informs the use of these designs. This paper outlines an alternative approach that connects the variety in participatory practices to competing theories of democracy and public administration. It identifies four archetypes of participation: knowledge transfer; collective decision-making; choice and voice; and arbitration and oversight.
What does it mean to design democratic innovation from a deliberative systems perspective? The demand of the deliberative systems approach that we turn from the single forum towards the broader system has largely been embraced by those interested in designing institutions for citizen participation. Nevertheless, there has been no analysis of the practical implications for democratic innovation. Is it possible to design differentiated but interconnected participatory and deliberative settings? Does this better connect democratic innovations to mass politics? Does it promote greater legitimacy? This article analyses one such attempt to design a systems-oriented democratic innovation: the ambitious NHS Citizen initiative. Our analysis demonstrates, while NHS Citizen pioneered some cutting-edge participatory design, it ultimately failed to resolve (and in some cases exacerbated) well-known obstacles to institutionalisation as well as generating new challenges. To effectively realise democratic renewal and reform, systems-oriented democratic innovation must evolve strategies to meet these challenges.
The notion that democracy is a system is ever present in democratic theory. However, what it means to think systemically about democracy (as opposed to what it means for a political system to be democratic) is under-elaborated. This article sets out a meta-level framework for thinking systemically about democracy, built upon seven conceptual building blocks, which we term (1) functions, (2) norms, (3) practices, (4) actors, (5) arenas, (6) levels, and (7) interactions. This enables us to systematically structure the debate on democratic systems, highlighting the commonalities and differences between systems approaches, their omissions, and the key questions that remain to be answered. It also enables us to push the debate forward both by demonstrating how a full consideration of all seven building blocks would address issues with existing approaches and by introducing new conceptual clarifications within those building blocks.
The starting point of Demirovic's text is Adorno's idea that concepts as forms of thinking are constellations of power. Differently from many interpretations of Adorno as resigned, Demirovic shows that this assumption enables Adorno to give his own theory the character of interventions in the ideological consensus of everyday life with regard to emancipation.
In my paper, I intend firmly to criticize Taubes' interpretation of Benjamin's Theology as a modern form of Gnosticism (Benjamin as a modern Marcionit). In a positive way, I sustain rather the thesis that Benjamin's Messianism is in close connection with his conception of reason (“the sharpened axe of reason”) and, in particularly, with the paradoxical unity of Mysticism and Enlightenment, which, according to the famous definition of Adorno, distinguishes his thought. As a radically anti-magical and anti-mythical conception of the historical time, Benjamin's Messianism has to be considered as an original synthesis between motifs of the mystical tradition of the Jewish Kabbalah and motifs belonging to the rationalist tradition of the Jewish philosophy. Moving from Cohen's standpoint of a continuity between Maimonides and Kant, I consider therefore the affinity between his messianic conception of history and that of Benjamin. Both, Benjamin and Cohen, share, together with the reference to the a priori of the idea of justice, the reference to the Kantian connection between rationality and hope. Hence originates the non-eschatological Messianism of both. Motives of difference between Cohen and Benjamin’s messianic idea are to be found, conversely, in their different way to consider the idea of "the infinite task" and of its infinite fulfillment in the context of the historical time. Unlike the fundamentally ethical interpretation that Cohen gives of this relationship, Benjamin understands it ontologically in a monadological sense. This explains the constitutive relationship that exists, in Benjamin's philosophy, between Origin, Fragment and Revelation. In the light of this connection, Benjamin's messianic understanding of the historical time exceeds the Scholemian alternative between a restorative and a utopian conception of Messianism. Consequently, the Krausian motto “Ursprung ist das Ziel” (“The Origin is the Goal”) displays its truth in the idea of the messianic fragment or spark.
Hamlet or Europe and the end of modern Trauerspiel. On some shakespearians motifs in Walter Benjamin
(2019)
Hamlet’s character sets, under different shapes and extents, the benchmark against which a large part of the European philosophy of the very long «short twentieth-century» behind us has had to measure. In the name of Hamlet as the most enigmatic among Shakespeare’s creatures, even Europe, its spirit and destiny, is identified, according to the well-known claim by Paul Valery.
Common trait to a big part of these interpretations – from the juvenile works of Pavel Florenskij and Lev S. Vygotskij (respectively written in 1905 and 1915) to Carl Schmitt’s Hamlet oder Ekuba. Der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel (1956) – is offered by the detection, in Hamlet’s figure, of the contradiction inherent to an epochal transition: the time of an unresolved passage between two ages that only knows the endless pain of an “interim”. My paper concerns the possibility to interpret Hamlet’s time as the time of an “interim” in light of Benjamin’s claims about Shakespeare’s drama contained in his book on the German Trauerspiel.
While Florenskij interprets Hamlet’s time as tragic and the figure of Hamlet as a tragic one, in my essay - moving from some observations on the " Hamlet Problem " by the young Franz Rosenzweig - I consider the original Benjaminian thesis about the character and the drama of Hamlet as the end of the modern Trauerspiel. Starting from a statement by Theodor Adorno in the famed Hornberger Brief to Benjamin of August 2, 1935, I outline, therefore, how Benjamin characterizes the figure of Hamlet. This, from his early writings on the relationship between tragedy and Trauerspiel up to the great book on the Origin of the German Trauerspiel.
In the frame of Benjamin’s interpretation, exactly by virtue of its distance from the thesis on the duality of tragedy (evoked by Florenskij’s interpretation as well as other ones), the Shakespearian theatrum of consciousness, paradigmatically represented in the figure of Hamlet and in the intimately dialectic character of his drama, is accounted for as necessary correlate of the Cartesian’s theatrum of consciousness. From a theoretical point of view, the Benjaminian characterization of Hamlet's figure reveals, therefore, something of the nature of modern consciousness and of consciousness in general in relation to the problem of truth and its representation. Hence the end of modern Trauerspiel coincides with the original incompleteness of its time. Consequently, I also claim Hamlet's dramatic figure to represent the aporetic characters of modern politics. This contrasts the thesis of Carl Schmitt who (in direct controversy with Benjamin) speaks, instead, of the Shakespearean drama as an expression of a pre-modern barbaric time.
Disagreement among philosophers over the proper justification for political institutions is far from a new phenomenon. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that there is substantial room for dissent on this matter within democratic theory. As is well known, instrumentalism and proceduralism represent the two primary viewpoints that democrats can adopt to vindicate democratic legitimacy. While the former notoriously derives the value of democracy from its outcomes, the latter claims that a democratic decision-making process is inherently valuable. This article has two aims. First, it introduces three variables with which we can thoroughly categorise the aforementioned approaches. Second, it argues that the more promising version of proceduralism is extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, and that extrinsically procedural accounts can appeal to other values in the justification of democracy without translating into instrumentalism. This article is organised as follows. I present what I consider to be the ‘implicit view’ in the justification of democracy. Then, I analyse each of the three variables in a different section. Finally, I raise an objection against procedural views grounded in relational equality, which cannot account for the idea that democracy is a necessary condition for political legitimacy.
Background: Dengue fever (DF) is the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne viral disease in the world. In this decade it has expanded to new countries and from urban to rural areas. Nepal was regarded DF free until 2004. Since then dengue virus (DENV) has rapidly expanded its range even in mountain regions of Nepal, and major outbreaks occurred in 2006 and 2010. However, no data on the local knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of DF in Nepal exist although such information is required for prevention and control measures.
Methods: We conducted a community based cross-sectional survey in five districts of central Nepal between September 2011 and February 2012. We collected information on the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants and their knowledge, attitude and practice regarding DF using a structured questionnaire. We then statistically compared highland and lowland communities to identify possible causes of observed differences.
Principal findings: Out of 589 individuals interviewed, 77% had heard of DF. Only 12% of the sample had good knowledge of DF. Those living in the lowlands were five times more likely to possess good knowledge than highlanders (P<0.001). Despite low knowledge levels, 83% of the people had good attitude and 37% reported good practice. We found a significantly positive correlation among knowledge, attitude and practice (P<0.001). Among the socio-demographic variables, the education level of the participants was an independent predictor of practice level (P<0.05), and education level and interaction between the sex and age group of the participants were independent predictors of attitude level (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Despite the rapid expansion of DENV in Nepal, the knowledge of people about DF was very low. Therefore, massive awareness programmes are urgently required to protect the health of people from DF and to limit its further spread in this country.
Recent trade negotiations such as TTIP include investor protection clauses. Against the background of an analysis of the case for trade, the paper asks whether such clauses can be justified from a normative perspective. More specifically, what is the impact of investor protection on the domestic distribution of the gains from trade between labour and capital, and how should we assess this impact from the perspective of justice? In order to answer this question, the paper develops a series of ideal-type scenarios that reflect the consequences of investor protection on employment on the one hand, and on the distributive conflict between labour and capital on the other. While no claim is made which of these scenarios corresponds to TTIP or other trade agreements, they provide a useful normative framework to analyse such agreements.
There is a consensus that transnational soft governance has unleashed the forces of change in higher education. However, individual national HE systems are still anchored in country-specific regulatory regimes, which reflect national-historical, institutional, and cultural developments. Against this background, three crucial questions guide our study: How does the state react to transnational pressures for change? How is transnationally inspired policy change ‘digested’ by the preexisting country-specific governance structures? And to what extent have national HE systems converged on a common governance model? To address these questions, we conduct a multilevel comparative analysis of developments in Germany, France, and Italy. We first break down the concept of higher education governance into sub-dimensions and derive concrete policy indicators for three historically embedded governance ideal types. Drawing on historical institutionalism and institutional isomorphism, we explore how historical legacies and transnational communication have impacted policy pathways over the past 30 years. We graphically illustrate the policy trajectories using our ‘governance triangles’, which encompass the balance of power between multiple actors, including the state and universities, university management and the academic profession, and external stakeholders.
This paper addresses the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. I argue that there is scope for an account of asylum as compensation owed to those displaced by the impacts of climate change which needs only to appeal to minimal normative commitments about the requirements of global justice. I demonstrate the possibility of such an approach through an examination of the work of David Miller. Miller is taken as an exemplar of a broadly ‘international libertarian’ approach to global justice, and his work is a useful vehicle for this project because he has an established view about both responsibility for climate change and about the state’s right to exclude would-be immigrants. In the course of the argument, I set out the relevant aspects of Miller’s views, reconstruct an account of responsibility for the harms faced by climate migrants which is consistent with Miller’s views, and demonstrate why such an account yields an obligation to provide asylum as a form of compensation to ‘climate migrants.’
This contribution develops a defence of a universalist conception of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) against three prominent critiques, which are, among others, put forward by postcolonial scholars. The first critique argues that GCE is essentially a project of globally minded elites and therefore expressive both of global educational injustices and of the values and lifestyles of a particular class or milieu. The second critique assumes that GCE is based on genuinely ‘Western values’ (e.g., in the form of a conception of human rights or conceptions of rationality or the self), which are neither universally accepted nor universally valid and therefore unjustly forced on members of non-Western cultures and societies. GCE, according to this critique, is assumed to be another version of the educational justification of a hegemonic and unjust global Western regime. The third critique focuses on the epistemological preconditions of GCE. It assumes that GCE relies on a particular, culturally embedded ‘Western epistemology,’ which perpetuates historically grown global educational and epistemic injustices by dominating and subjugating alternative epistemological approaches. With respect to the first critique I argue that it is to a certain extent sociologically plausible, but wrong when it is applied to the educational and political legitimacy of GCE. The second critique overestimates the consensus within the ‘Western tradition’ and underestimates the transnational dissemination of universalist ideals and values as well as its own reliance on universalist validity claims. I argue that in order to provide a plausible criticism of historically grown global educational and political injustices, it is imperative for GCE to integrate central insights provided by the postcolonial critique, without giving up on universalist ideals and values. The third critique is, according to my argumentation, based on flawed epistemological assumptions, which do not withstand critical scrutiny. Instead of identifying epistemic and scientific claims as the expressions of a particular ‘culture’ or geographical location (the ‘West’), I defend the position that philosophical and scientific research should ideally be conceived as a democratic and universalist project, whose emancipatory potential can only be realized on the basis of a universalist epistemology.
European energy policy dates back to the founding days of integration, yet the emergence of supranational governance is a recent development. The article examines the extent to which European policymakers have succeeded in building up governance capacity, and what the facilitating and impeding factors were that have shaped the governance mix. The conceptual framework differentiates between orders of governance in the multilevel context, and between policy modes involving hierarchical and non-hierarchical settings and varying actor constellations. The article finds that governance capacity has emerged where second order governance (institutional and procedural rules) is concerned, while first order governance (the concrete policy process) remains the remit of national and private actors. This becomes even more obvious once the interaction between policy modes is taken into account: governance networks enhance governance capacity in the area of competition policy and agency governance; self-regulation by industry constitutes a fall-back option in case of insufficient governance capacity on cross-border issues; soft governance helps to bridge multiple policy areas and levels of governance. The article concludes that second order governance may prove effective where it combines with hierarchy but that it may fail to overcome both trade-offs between contradicting goals and resistance at lower levels.
This article examines whether restrictions on access to welfare rights for EU immigrants are justifiable on grounds of reciprocity. Recently political theorists have supported some robust restrictions on the basis of fairness. They argue that if EU immigrants do not immediately contribute sufficiently to the provision of basic collective goods in the host state, restrictions on their access to the welfare state are justified. I argue that these accounts of the principle of reciprocity rely on an ambiguous conception of contribution that cannot deliver the restrictions it advocates. Several strategies open to those advocating reciprocity-based restrictions are considered and found wanting. This article defends that verdict from a number of objections.
Populists in the EU often call for restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights. These calls are often demagogic and parochial. This paper aims to show what exactly is both distinct and problematic with these populist calls from a normative point of view while not necessarily reducible to demagogy and parochialism. The overall aim of the paper is not to argue that all populists call for such restrictions nor to claim that all calls for such restrictions are populist. The purpose of the paper is rather humble. It only aims to show that populist calls for restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights are characterised by two normatively problematic arguments that target two different subsets of the citizenry: what I dub for the purpose of this paper the moralists and the immoralists. It is the way populists address these two subsets of the citizenry, as well as the fact that they could simultaneously appeal to the concerns of both groups, that makes populist approaches to welfare rights both conceptually distinct to other approaches as well as potentially politically appealing to a more diverse population of voters.
This article critically discusses the role and place of migrants' rights in the EU’s evolving migration and development policy under the Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM) pursued by the EU.1 The GAMM, which aims to govern migration flows from outside of the EU more effectively, incorporates the field of migration and development as one of four pillars. Only in November of 2011, however, the human rights of migrants were explicitly acknowledged as a cross-cutting theme within the GAMM, which before paid little attention – not to say neglected – the protection of such rights. This contribution analyses how the linkage between migration and development evolved on the international and European level, highlights the EU’s interests in such a policy, and explains the pitfalls of disregarding the protection of migrants’ rights in this context. The article argues that the ‘development burden’ should not be placed on immigrant populations without guaranteeing their secure legal status in the host countries.
The Methodological seminar was conducted by the scientific journal “Philosophy of Education” (Institute of Higher Education, National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine). The participants of the seminar were Prof. Panos Eliopoulos (University of Peloponnese, Greece), Lyudmyla Gorbunova, Mykhailo Boychenko, Olga Gomilko, Mariia Kultaieva, Volodymyr Kovtunets, Sergiy Kurbatov, Anna Laktionova, Tetiana Matusevych, Natalia Radionova, Iryna Stepanenko, Maya Trynyak and Viktor Zinchenko. On March 30, 2016, a methodological seminar was conducted at the Institute of Higher Education NAES of Ukraine. This seminar was devoted to the discussion of educational problems in the area of mass culture, and relative opportunities for the development of individuality. The report «Mass culture, education and the perspective of individuality» was made by Panos Eliopulos, professor of Peloponnese University, a member of journal’s «Філософія освіти. Philosophy of Education” editorial board. The scientists from the Institute of Higher Education, Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Skovoroda National Pedagogical University of Kharkiv participated in this event. Designated issues were observed primarily from the point of view of the Frankfurt School representatives, as well as representatives of modern critical philosophy of education and critical pedagogy. It was emphasized that T.Adorno’s ideas and ideas of other Frankfurt School members, which were developed in the middle of the last century, continue to be relevant in current socio-cultural contexts. The technical rationalism which became the rationalism of dominance in the context of technological civilization, could not provide the way toward the liberation of man and the development of his or her individuality. Market society with its instrumental rationality leads to homogenization and standardization of mass culture and as a result, we have a semi-education, leading to destruction of personality and social pathologies. The panelists agreed that semi-education reflects the crisis of ideals of education and training as far as a suspension of human emancipation process. Due to suspension of the creative process of a person formation, replacing it by the processes of stereotyping based on mimetic rationality, culture itself loses creative potential. The process of degradation of education and culture in the semi-education eventually leads to its destruction at theoretical level and the elaboration of the practice of anti-education. Only through returning of the individual and maintaining his or her social importance due to the tools of holistic education it is possible to overcome such stereotyping. For Frankfurt School members, and those who share their ideals, true education in its meta-theoretical sense becomes the important factor, contributing to the emancipation of society and individual. This idea is particularly important in the context of contemporary challenges and threats from instrumentalization of approaches to the process of transformation of the Ukrainian culture and education.
This paper examines and rejects two normative justifications for low-fee private schools (LFPS), whose expansion throughout the Global South in recent years has been significant. The first justification – what I shall call the ideal thesis – contends that LFPS are the best mechanism to expand access to quality education, particularly at the primary level, and that the premise of their success is that they reject educational equality and state intervention in educational affairs, traditionally associated with public schools, embracing instead educational adequacy and unregulated markets for education. Against this thesis, the paper argues that an ideal educational arrangement must not do away with educational equality and some degree of state interference. The other justification for LFPS – the secondbest thesis – contends that although LFPS do not represent the ideal state of affairs, they nonetheless bring us a step closer to the ideal of universal primary education; they are a ‘realistic’ approximation to that goal. Against the second-best thesis, the paper argues that this justification commits the approximation fallacy: by deviating from the ideal educational arrangement LFPS may obstruct rather than facilitate its achievement.
Psychotherapists in mental health institutions as a professional group are part of the medical system, and from this perspective, as representing an occupation that serves the public health interests, as well as those of the individual seeking help. Despite the different existing therapeutic approaches and diverse forms of therapy deriving from these approaches critical theories, however, consider psychotherapy as a profession with a specific jurisdictional claim and own highly specific interests. In contrast to most of the recent discussion around therapy culture, in this article, I argue that sociology and social theory could benefit from an understanding of psychotherapy as a profession with a separate logic and claim for jurisdiction for mental health. Moreover, I present some general trends showing that, regarding psychotherapy, we face a concurrence of a professionalisation, and simultaneously, an already ongoing deprofessionalisation. To develop my argument, I first discuss the perspectives of sociology of the psychotherapy professions. Second, I present the potential lack of professionalism in four dimensions. Third, I discuss possible tendencies of deprofessionalisation. Finally, I conclude by pointing out the importance of theorising the psychotherapy professions for medical sociology.
Theodor W. Adorno’s criticism of human beings’ domination of nature is a familiar topic to Adorno scholars. Its connection to the central relationship between art and nature in his aesthetics has, however, been less analysed. In the following paper, I claim that Adorno’s discussion of art’s truth content (Wahrheitsgehalt) is to be understood as art’s ability to give voice to nature (both human and non-human) since it has been subjugated by the growth of civilization. I focus on repressed non-human nature and examine Adorno’s interpretation of Eduard Mörike’s poem ‘Mausfallen-Sprüchlein’ (Mousetrap rhyme). By giving voice to the repressed animal, Mörike’s poem manages to point towards the possibility of a changed relationship between mice and men, between nature and humanity, which is necessary in order to achieve reconciliation amongst humans as well.
This article elucidates the spatial order that underpins the politics of the Anthropocene – the ecological nomos of the earth – and criticizes its imperial origins and legacies. It provides a critical reading of Carl Schmitt’s spatial thought to not only illuminate the spatio-political ontology but also the violence and usurpations that characterize the Anthropocene condition. The article first shows how with the emergence of the ecological nomos seemingly ‘natural’ spaces like the biosphere and the atmosphere became politically charged. This challenges the modernist separation between natural facts and political norms. It then underlines the imperial origins of this nomos by introducing the concept of air-appropriation understood as the colonization of atmospheric space by CO2 emissions. Instead of assuming that the ecological nomos represents a transition from a colonial to an ecological and cosmopolitan world order, focusing on air-appropriation highlights forms of ecological imperialism that go along with the new nomos. Accordingly, the article calls for a just redistribution of ecospace that takes into account the imperial legacies and ongoing effects of air-appropriation.
Allen Buchanan argues that a particular set of false factual beliefs, especially when part of a comprehensive ideology, can lead persons to develop ‘morally conservative’ convictions that stand in the way of realising justice even though these persons have a ‘firm grasp of correct principles of justice and a robust commitment to their realisation’. In my remarks, I raise some questions concerning the core argument: How ‘firm’ can a grasp of principles of justice be if a person is blind to the realities of injustice? And how ‘sincerely committed’ to justice can such an injustice-insensitive person be? Alternatively: How firm is that grasp or commitment if one has a radically pessimistic view about human nature so that one does not believe that (egalitarian) justice can or could ever be realised? Secondly, I ask: If such ideologies or false beliefs are in play in reproducing injustice, do they not also ‘mask’ existing injustices?
As a network researcher, sociologist Professor Christian Stegbauer also deals with communication in social media. That people prefer to stay in a bubble with like-minded others rather than get to grips with different opinions and ways of thinking was in his view inherent to digital communication from the outset. He considers many of the utopian ideas of a digital culture of participation to be exaggerated.
The purpose of the text is to present an interpretation of Theodor Adorno’s critical reading of authors considered revisionists of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, particularly Karen Horney. We discuss critically Adorno’s favorable positioning to the Freudian conception of the individual psychic nucleus in contrast to the hasty sociologization of psychoanalysis practiced by the revisionism of Karen Horney. In the final part we try to show how the Adornian perspective ends up by making, in his own way, the same mistake of a hasty sociologization of psychoanalysis he imputed to the revisionists and advocates an theoretical emphasis on the sociological realm that seems also problematic.
One striking observation in Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the remarkable gender difference in incidence and prevalence of the disease. Data on gender differences with regard to disease onset, motor and non-motor symptoms, and dopaminergic medication are limited. Furthermore, whether estrogen status affects disease onset and progression of PD is controversially discussed. In this retrospective single center study, we extracted clinical data of 226 ambulatory PD patients and compared age of disease onset, disease stage, motor impairment, non-motor symptoms, and dopaminergic medication between genders. We applied a matched-pairs design to adjust for age and disease duration. To determine the effect of estrogen-related reproductive factors including number of children, age at menarche, and menopause on the age of onset, we applied a standardized questionnaire and performed a regression analysis. The male to female ratio in the present PD cohort was 1.9:1 (147 men vs. 79 women). Male patients showed increased motor impairment than female patients. The levodopa equivalent daily dose was increased by 18.9% in male patients compared to female patients. Matched-pairs analysis confirmed the increased dose of dopaminergic medication in male patients. No differences were observed in age of onset, type of medication, and non-motor symptoms between both groups. Female reproductive factors including number of children, age at menarche, and age at menopause were positively associated with a delay of disease onset up to 30 months. The disease-modifying role of estrogen-related outcome measures warrants further clinical and experimental studies targeting gender differences, specifically hormone-dependent pathways in PD.
International politics is characterized by a lack of women. The few women holding high political positions are more likely to be criticized and judged based upon, what the author calls, ‘the construction of masculinity in international relations’. Tracing the origin and logic of this construction, the article critiques the dominant theories of international relations (namely, realism and liberalism) and argues for the aptness of a radical feminist social constructivist approach to the study of international politics. The article also illuminates the strong focus on men and men’s perspectives of these influential mainstream theories on their conception and interpretation of war. An examination of the concept of war reveals how masculinity and femininity are portrayed on matters of war and national security and what side effects this has on women in politics, particularly women with political positions.
This paper analyses economic power, state power and ideological power in the age of Donald Trump with the help of critical theory. It applies the critical theory approaches of thinkers such as Franz Neumann, Theodor W. Adorno and Erich Fromm. It analyses changes of US capitalism that have together with political anxiety and demagoguery brought about the rise of Donald Trump. This article draws attention to the importance of state theory for understanding Trump and the changes of politics that his rule may bring about. It is in this context important to see the complexity of the state, including the dynamic relationship between the state and the economy, the state and citizens, intra-state relations, inter-state relations, semiotic representations of and by the state, and ideology. Trumpism and its potential impacts are theorised along these dimensions. The ideology of Trump (Trumpology) has played an important role not just in his business and brand strategies, but also in his political rise. The (pseudo-)critical mainstream media have helped making Trump and Trumpology by providing platforms for populist spectacles that sell as news and attract audiences. By Trump making news in the media, the media make Trump. An empirical analysis of Trump’s rhetoric and the elimination discourses in his NBC show The Apprentice underpins the analysis of Trumpology. The combination of Trump’s actual power and Trump as spectacle, showman and brand makes his government’s concrete policies fairly unpredictable. An important question that arises is what social scientists’ role should be in the conjuncture that the world is experiencing.
his articles discusses and contextualises tripleC's republication of Franz L. Neumann's essay Anxiety and Politics. It provides some background information on Neumann's life and works. The essay ascertains that in the age of new nationalisms, rising right-wing authoritarianism and authoritarian capitalism, Franz L Neumann's works can help us to critically understand contemporary society.
This article sheds light upon the role of the audience in the construction and amendment of populist representative claims that in themselves strengthen representative-represented relationships and simultaneously strengthen ties between the represented who belong to different constituencies. I argue that changes in populist representative claims can be explained by studying the discursive relationship between a populist representative and the audience as a conversation in which both poles give and receive something. From this perspective, populist representative claims, I also argue, can be understood as acts of bonding with the intended effect of constituting ‘the people,’ and inputs from the audience can be seen as conversational exercitives. Populist appeals therefore may change when the audience enacts new permissibility facts and signals to populist representatives that there is another way to strengthen relationships between several individuals belonging to otherwise-different constituencies.
Political realists claim that international relations are in a state of anarchy, and therefore every state is allowed to disregard its moral duties towards other states and their inhabitants. Realists argue that complying with moral duties is simply too risky for a state’s national security. Political moralists convincingly show that realists exaggerate both the extent of international anarchy and the risks it poses to states who act morally. Yet moralists do not go far enough, since they do not question realism’s normative core: the claim that when national security is really at risk, states are allowed to disregard their moral duties. I contend that there is at least one moral duty that states should not disregard even if their inhabitants are at risk of death by military aggression: the duty to reduce extreme global poverty. The reason is that even granting that national security is about securing individuals’ right to life, global poverty relief is about that as well.
Public opinion towards welfare state reform: The role of political trust and government satisfaction
(2021)
The traditional welfare state, which emerged as a response to industrialization, is not well equipped to address the challenges of today's post-industrial knowledge economies. Experts and policymakers have therefore called for welfare state readjustment towards a ‘social investment’ model (focusing on human skills and capabilities). Under what conditions are citizens willing to accept such future-oriented reforms? We point at the crucial but hitherto neglected role of citizens’ trust in and satisfaction with government. Trust and satisfaction matter because future-oriented reforms generate uncertainties, risks and costs, which trust and government satisfaction can attenuate. We offer micro-level causal evidence using experiments in a representative survey covering eight European countries and confirm these findings with European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We find that trust and government satisfaction increase reform support and moderate the effects of self-interest and ideological standpoints. These findings have crucial implications not least because they help explain why some countries manage – but others fail – to enact important reforms.
Most political systems consist of multiple layers. While this fact is widely acknowledged, we know surprisingly little about its implications for policy-making. Most comparative studies still focus exclusively on the national level. We posit that both “methodological nationalism” and “methodological subnationalism” should be avoided. We argue instead that in multilevel systems national and subnational governments jointly affect policy-making. Their respective influence is, however, conditional on the distribution of policy authority. Moreover, we identify power asymmetries, as subnational governments hardly affect policy-making in centralized systems whereas national governments shape subnational policy-making even in decentralized polities. Empirically, we study the case of education policy. Novel data on regional education spending, regional and national governments’ ideology, and regional authority over education in 282 regions in 15 countries over 21 years reveals strong support for the interplay between ideology and the distribution of authority across levels. We conclude by sketching a resulting research agenda.
Gender and attitudes toward welfare state reform: Are women really social investment promoters?
(2021)
This article contributes to the study of the demand side of welfare politics by investigating gender differences in social investment preferences systematically. Building on the different functions of social investment policies in creating, preserving, or mobilizing skills, we argue that women do not support social investment policies generally more strongly than men. Rather, women demand, in particular, policies to preserve their skills during career interruptions and help to mobilize their skills on the labour market. In a second analytical step, we examine women’s policy priorities if skill preservation and mobilization come at the expense of social compensation. We test our arguments for eight Western European countries with data from the INVEDUC survey. The confirmation of our arguments challenges a core assumption of the literatures on the social investment turn and women’s political realignment. We discuss the implication of our findings in the conclusion.
Despite the popularity of direct democracy in recent decades, research on the actual output effects of popular decision-making is rare. This is especially true with regard to equality, where there are at least three major research gaps: 1) a lack of cross-national analyses; 2) insufficient investigation of the differential effects of different direct democratic instruments on equality; and 3) a failure to distinguish between different aspects of equality, i.e., socioeconomic, legal and political equality. This article takes a first step to tackle these shortcomings by looking at all national referenda in European democracies between 1990 and 2015, differentiating between mandatory, bottom-up and top-down referenda. We find that a large majority of successful direct democratic bills—regardless of which instrument is employed—are not related to equality issues. Of the remaining ones, there are generally more successful pro-equality bills than contra-equality ones, but the differences are rather marginal. Mandatory referenda tend to produce pro-equality outputs, but no clear patterns emerge for bottom-up and top-down referenda. Our results offer interesting, preliminary insights to the current debate on direct democracy, pointing to the conclusion that popular decision-making via any type of direct democratic instrument is neither curse nor blessing with regard to equality. Instead, it is necessary to look at other factors such as context conditions or possible indirect effects in order to get a clearer picture of the impacts of direct democracy on equality.
Recently, many democracies have developed towards more citizens’ involvement in direct democracy or public deliberation. Are these developments linked to different types of democracy? Can public deliberation be mainly found in consensus democracies, whereas direct democracy prevails in majoritarian democracies? By analysing OECD countries around the year 2012, we examine these assumptions. The answer is surprisingly clear. The choice of a democracy to opt for direct democratic instruments or for public deliberation is neither dichotomous nor is it related to the respective pattern type of democracy. Based on these findings, a new typology with four participatory models of democracy is suggested.
Moral refugee markets
(2018)
States are increasingly paying other states to host refugees. For example, in 2010 the EU paid Libya €50 million to continue hosting the refugees within its borders, and five years later Australia offered Cambodia $31.16 million to accept asylum seekers living in Naru. These exchanges, which I call ‘refugees markets,’ have faced criticism by philosophers. Some philosophers claim the markets fail to ensure true protection, and are demeaning, expressing just how much refugees are unwanted. In response, some have defended refugee markets, claiming they can ensure refugees have protection and are not demeaned. I argue that many markets do demean refugees, and therefore have moral costs, but can still be all-things-considered preferable to alternative schemes if they protect refugees more than these alternative schemes.
This essay focuses on the relationship between solipsism and aesthetic subjectivity, as outlined in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. As he mentions, according to dialectical materialism, solipsism gained actuality within (radical) modernism as general “standpoint”, realized in atomistic society through “reified division of labor”. This also applies to artistic production. At the same time, solipsism constitutes a long standing philosophical hypothesis, which concerns the truth value of perception, thus imitating the “subjective point of reference in art”. Therefore, Adorno’s brief statements on the relationship between epistemological solipsism and immanent artistic subjectivity designate different phenomena under the same heading; these concern sociological, cognitive and existential aspects of artistic creation and aesthetic experience, sedimented in the artwork’s content. However, he often undertakes abrupt conceptual transitions within them. In this essay, I mainly focus on the cognitive aspect, especially on the relationship between solipsism and art’s “subjective point of reference”. For this purpose, I reconstruct Adorno’s relevant ideas on the role of subjectivity within art and relate them to his elaborated analysis of the process of aesthetic experience. Finally, I scrutinize the value of this non-apodictic truth and its relationship to particular aspects of “truth-content” and to Adorno’s redemption of the artwork’s fragile ontological status, its semblance character.
Unemployment and political trust across 24 Western democracies: evidence on a welfare state paradox
(2021)
Set against the backdrop of the Great Recession, the paper explores the interplay of unemployment experiences and political trust in the USA and 23 European countries between 2002 and 2017. Drawing on harmonized data from the European Social Survey and the General Social Survey, we confirm that citizens’ personal experiences of unemployment depress trust in democratic institutions in all countries. Using multilevel linear probability models, we show that the relationship between unemployment and political trust varies between countries, and that, paradoxically, the negative effect of unemployment on political trust is consistently stronger in the more generous welfare states. This result holds while controlling for a range of other household and country-level predictors, and even in mediation models that incorporate measures of households’ economic situation to explain the negative effect of unemployment on trust. As expected, country differences in the generosity of welfare states are reflected in the degree to which financial difficulties are mediating the relationship between unemployment and political trust. Overlaying economic deprivation, however, cultural mechanisms of stigmatization or status deprivation seem to create negative responses to unemployment experiences, and these render the effect of unemployment on political trust increasingly negative in objectively more generous welfare states.