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This paper examines urban resilience theory and practice under authoritarian urban governance. Urban resilience is framed as a unifying translocal concept for governing cities worldwide. However, urban resilience research expresses largely democratic ideals. This tendency is expressed through the assumption of data-driven decision-making and popular participation in practice and the validity and integrity of data sets, access to formal government proceedings, and elite interviews in scholarship. However, authoritarianism is presently on the rise worldwide. Therefore, it would be wise to evaluate closely the ways in which authoritarianism influences urban resilience. In this paper, I aim to open a discussion about the relationship between urban resilience and urban authoritarian governance. I characterize the ways in which regime types are relevant to theories, planning, and implementation of urban resilience through a discussion of Singapore and Tianjin, China as models of authoritarian urban environmental governance. I evaluate the controversial claim that authoritarianism is more capable of responding to the complex, multi-scale, socio-ecological problems associated with environmental degradation and climate change. In other words, greater concentration of political economic power and corresponding restriction on individual liberties may be needed to transition toward resilient futures. Then I discuss the practical and methodological challenges that rising authoritarianism raises for the planning and implementation of resilient cities. I conclude by posing a series of questions and challenges for urban resilience scholarship in an increasingly authoritarian era.

The consensus among most Americans that there is too much money in politics should represent a powerful call for action. Yet campaign finance reform is notoriously tricky to pull off. Our campaign finance system is intricate and complex, and any popular reform effort must account for the jurisprudence that nurtures the system in the first place. The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a number of controversial campaign finance decisions in recent years that have buttressed the role of money in American politics, legalizing the abuses that most Americans deplore. As a result of these rulings, the role of big money in politics has grown, the system has become more resistant to change, and popular frustration has risen. In a 2016 poll, nearly 95 percent of Americans stated that legislators are more attentive to wealthy donors than voters. A solid 80 percent added that the problem is “worse now than at any other time in their lives.” Essentially the same portion of respondents from both major parties — 81 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of Republicans — said that they want their representatives to cross party lines in order to reduce the influence of money in politics. This rare example of bipartisan agreement in today’s political climate points to something profound. Though Americans may be divided, they come together on the essential questions concerning their democracy. As Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, the United States stands for a system of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. However, when elections come under the dominion of a small class of individuals and interest groups, however, Americans perceive a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy. Do we want democracy by the people or democracy by the wealthy? That is the issue bound up in campaign finance reform. Though public support for campaign finance reform is overwhelmingly bipartisan, surveys suggest that Americans know very little about campaign finance law — and this little about the options for improving it. This introductory chapter to DEMOCRACY BY THE PEOPLE: REFORMING CAMPAIGN FINANCE IN AMERICA aims to familiarize Americans with our campaign finance system. We believe if the influence of money on politics were reduced, the voices and efforts of ordinary citizens would not be as easily countered by special interest groups and expensive ad campaigns. Understood in this context, our book concerns the fate of American democracy in our time, and its goal is to restore to the United States a form of government consistent its democratic ideals. The book’s center of gravity lies in the American people and their long experience with self-government. within our book's pages, we sought to bring together reform proposals from leading election law scholars who understand the intricacies of American campaign finance law and have written extensively about it. In bringing together these contributors, we were inspired by the belief that scholars can play a critical role in changing politics by connecting public demand with powerful ideas. Our hope in offering the many solutions put forth by our contributors is to provide a blueprint for social change in the United States — indeed, many blueprints. We hope that through the ideas found in our volume, Americans will be able to take a step toward restoring the belief among their fellow citizens that having a meaningful democracy is still possible. When it comes to our campaign finance system, it is high time for American citizens to stand up and demand change. Our book provides a number of unique proposals for how such change can be achieved.

As white nationalists have come to increasing prominence in recent decades, their presence presents a significant challenge to democratic societies. Motivated by a sense of racial imperilment, and opposed, sometimes violently, to core democratic ideals, white nationalists cannot be meaningfully incorporated into the political life of societies which promote inclusiveness and pluralism without threatening those values. Yet democratic theory, which seeks to offer ideal visions of what democratic societies could look like, provides no means for contending with the active presence of white nationalism in contemporary democratic societies. This article uses the concept of voice to explore these shortcomings in several theories of democracy, including deliberative, agonistic, and empowerment theories. In doing so, it draws on a wealth of white nationalist media, both physical and digital, to demonstrate how attitudes regarding racial imperilment, often articulated in terms of a ‘white genocide’, foreclose on any possibility of incorporating white nationalist voices into democratic societies. Moreover, an examination of white nationalists’ ongoing project to shift the boundaries of what is permissible in popular discourse, a process which is amplified by digital media technologies, suggests that they are nevertheless a pressing problem for democratic societies which should be addressed. In doing so, it is important to move beyond the focus on voice which underlays much democratic theory, exploring instead the experiences of social life to which white nationalist voices speak so that we might gain a better understanding of what motivates white nationalist voice and, potentially, how it might be addressed.

The research is devoted to the analysis of the Russian and foreign practices of countering the dissemination of socially dangerous information by means of the Internet, as well as the forms of the limitation of fundamental rights and freedoms to protect the foundations of the constitutional order, morality, health, rights and legitimate interests of others, to ensure the country’s defense and state security. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the phenomenon of socially dangerous information transmitted with the help of the Internet; to identify the essential features of the proliferation of negative content; to study the legal approaches and the world experience of restricting access to the Internet resources; to consider domestic and foreign practice of detecting and suppressing the dissemination of socially dangerous information by means of the Internet. The necessity of a complex and interdisciplinary approach to understanding the phenomenon of negative content is substantiated. Such approach will allow, in accordance with the modern scientific methodology of cognition, to construct a model explaining the specifics, structure, and dynamics of the dissemination of socially dangerous information in the context of its information-procedural conditioning. The necessity of proportionality of legal measures used for counteracting the threat of socially dangerous information and its real danger is proved, considering that the Internet is an information space symbolizing freedom of action and freedom of self-expression that are inherent in democratic states. The system of monitoring, searching, tracking and analyzing links on the Internet should not conflict with democratic ideals, such as freedom of speech, open communication, and personal privacy. The implementation of any measures to improve the legal regulation of the counteraction to the dissemination of socially dangerous information by means of the Internet should be aimed at harmonization and unification of international norms in this field. Measures are proposed to improve the legal regulation of countering the dissemination of socially dangerous information transmitted through the Internet, as well as to harmonize international norms in this area.

Hussain claims that ethical consumers are subject to democratic requirements of morality, whereas ordinary price/quality consumers are exempt from these requirements. In this paper, we demonstrate that Hussain’s position is incoherent, does not follow from the arguments he offers for it, and entails a number of counterintuitive consequences.

Applied experience of democratic participation during a multi-agent integrated planning, organized from the bottom up in a territorial mosaic of Vast Area. The debate was feed through the weaker and local actors of governance (understood as “conversation”, landscape), feeding awareness, and improve of endogenous processes of sustainable development. The Strategic Plan as a conscious mode to dilate time, and not like a final goal, a spontaneous harmonious link between hierarchies of the territorial attraction centers. A polycentrism of continuity and proximity to the creation of a territorial identity that leans on the environmental and cultural strategy to is determine. A real experience inspired by non-deterministic theoretical scientific approaches (and subordinated to the result); but it based on democratic ideals, while respecting the role of the institutions, ensuring a high value to the cardinal principle of consultation between the government bodies at various levels and encouraging their participation in the territory in a planned and orderly manner in respect of all local actors. The experience is certainly interesting for today’s and future operators who will contribute to enhancing the sustainable development of the area, finding utopian guide and inspiration for democratization processes, with the hope that it can become a concrete best practice for developing good democracy and the determination of a coordinated and strategic planning of territories within the European Economic Space.

This chapter explores the extent to which practices in Australian schools reflect democratic ideals. It presents a justification for building more democratic practices in schools. The chapter suggests that principals in particular, through their leadership, management and organization of schools can exercise a substantial influence on the extent to which their schools are democratic. Elements of democracy are reflected at classroom level in two ways — through curriculum subject content and the teaching-learning process. Teachers and principals are often ambivalent about fine but important differences between consultative and democratic decision-making. A principal who is goal-driven but neither too authoritarian nor too democratic, and is able and willing to share ownership of the school with colleagues is important. Building more democracy into the curriculum and school organization at both classroom and whole-school levels demands an ability to promote change.

Taking sociological and psychological functions of humor seriously, this chapter explores the cultural psychology of political cartoon in contemporary Egypt. Political cartoon is approached as a form of art and resistance, in which the artists speak for a ‘cherished community’. In a political system that aspires to democratic ideals, but bears features of an authoritarian system, political cartoonists assume the role of activists. By analyzing what they are fighting for (the constitution), whom they are fighting for (the citizen), and how they picture themselves (as inseparable from their subject matter), we arrive at a view of Egyptian cartoonists as socio-psychoanalysts, who link past, present, and potential futures, share in the pain of their cherished community, and transform it, if only for a moment, into laughter.

Without sounding like a dissenter or an arch pessimist, it is pertinent to assert that indigenous African cultures are today at the brink of extinction due to marginalization and the imposition of European values made possible largely by advanced information technology that is a function of globalization. This erosive tendency, if unchecked, has the potential to obliterate African cultures and ways of life particularly given the rate at which globalizing trends that aim at international integration and interchange of world views, products and ideas, including democratic ideals, are fast enveloping African states, even at traditional levels. Already, African cultures are dubbed primitive, African democracy plastic and unsophisticated, even by Africans themselves. To attempt to reverse this trend and focus attention on the upliftment of the African image and identity, this paper explores the role oral literature can play within the current context of globalization and the attainment of democratic ideals. The paper therefore posits that the neglect of oral literature accounts for the continuous enslavement of the African mentality leading to the excessive reliance on Eurocentric paradigms for the interpretation of reality. It concludes that for Africa and Africans to impact democratically in todays globalized context, Africans should have recourse to the liberating potential of oral literature to strengthen their image and identity which can then be bandied positively in the modern capitalist market economy driven by globalization.

Governments enact laws to protect their citizens. With the advent of hydraulic fracturing, local governments have asserted themselves by adopting laws delineating management practices to augment health and safety. Drilling firms inconvenienced by local laws espoused new state legislation to preempt time-consuming localized requirements. In Pennsylvania, the state legislature preempted local governance of fracturing activities in 2012, but a court subsequently ruled the state preemption provisions unconstitutional. An analysis of drilling activity before, during, and after the adoption of Pennsylvania’s preemption suggests that local governance does not curtail drilling activity. The benefits of preemption need to be balanced with the democratic ideals represented by local governance and the possible need for additional management practices to reduce negative externalities.

Popular uprisings across the Arab world from late 2010 soon transformed its political geography. Authoritarian regimes were confronted with challenges from their citizens. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak's security forces, epitomised by the Interior Ministry, had formerly managed to contain outbreaks of protests in the opening decade of the twenty-first century. However, the organising and mobilising of protests by groups such as Kefaya led to a wider social awareness of the looming prospect of the political inheritance of the office of president from father to son, cultivation of democratic ideals and values, and cross-ideological links expressed in a coalition of different political actors. The arrival of the Arab Spring in Egypt was inflected in this dissenting context. Broader regional trends held the promise of democratic transitions, at least persisting in Tunisia, which was somewhat dashed in the commotion generated by the rise of a secular-Islamist divide in Egypt's political scene. Familiar objections we...

In contrast to sterile forms of apology or the evasions of color-blind political discourse, calls for reparations explicitly link the realization of democratic ideals to a history of antiblack violence and exploitation. I explore three dimensions of Ida B. Wells's antilynching writings that anticipate and enrich contemporary demands for reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. First, Wells's commitment to truth-telling, a centerpiece of reparations efforts around the world, models how to criticize received understandings of both past and present and revise them in the service of more democratic ways of life. Second, her gender- and sexuality-conscious analysis of the political and economic causes and effects of antiblack violence adds a dimension that is missing from many reparations arguments. Third, Wells both advocates an active citizenry and demands collective responsibility for the protection of black citizenship; in so doing, she reveals the racial and gendered underpinnings of contemporary disavowals of responsibility for racial justice, dressed up as “personal responsibility,” and offers a powerful rebuttal.

International audience; Poland was divided among three empires—Russia, Austria–Hungary, and Prussia—for over a century until 1918. The partition brought about divergence in culture, institutions, and economic development. We use spatial regression discontinuity to examine, which empire effects are persistent. We find that differences in incomes, industrial production, education, corruption, and trust in government institutions disappeared with time as they were smoothed by economic forces and policy intervention. In contrast, differences in intensity of religious practices and in beliefs in democratic ideals, i.e., democratic capital, persist presumably via inter-generational within-family transmission. Differences in railroad infrastructure built by empires during industrialization persisted to this day. Cultural empire legacies have an effect on the political outcomes in contemporary Poland.

The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It. By Timothy Noah. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2012. v + 276 pp. $16.00 (paper).This book elegantly traces the history, economics, and ethos of income inequality in the United States. Timothy Noah, an astute financial journalist, offers a comprehensive summary of the back-stories and front-end analyses of the worst years of income inequality, showing how the ethos of massive income gaps arose and wove its way into the social and political fabric of America.Noah's book prepares ethicists and theologians to provide frameworks that can help Christians interpret and seek solutions to the great divergence in the earnings of the various classes in the United States. He paints a compelling portrait of a country whose ruling and upper classes have abandoned the least of their fellow citizens with unprecedented impunity. Rarely in the history of this country has the gap between the rich and poor been wider. There is "a dramatic departure from the status quo that prevailed in the United States from the end of World War II through the early 1980s. Although top income shares are rising in many developed countries, nowhere are they rising as fast as in the United States" (p. 151).Noah tells the story of inequality that is no longer about statistical gaps between what various social groups make or what is necessary to reward or signal differentials in efforts, skills, and natural talents, but one that crushes the poor, the have-nots, the marginalized, and the neglected. Alongside this, reading between the lines one is gripped by the fact that inequality in the United States is no longer about unacceptable gaps in earnings, but has been raised to the level of ideology. Some conservatives now put forward the argument that "ever-greater inequality is either necessary or desirable" for the health of a capitalist economy (p. 165).Indeed, arguments in support of inequality in the United States have taken the form of "rational legitimation of the existing" social and economic structures that engender and perpetuate obscene levels of income disparity. The great divergence in earnings that gives a lie to the democratic ideals of the country is now presented as the truth of free enterprise which must be embraced and experienced by the disadvantaged in society in the name of better future job opportunities. Or, more precisely, Americans are told that income inequality is the small price they all must pay for living in an open, free society that allows every individual to pursue her dreams in her own way. …

There is a growing narrative that the outcome of the UK referendum on European Union membership was the product of disenfranchisement and disillusionment wrought by the uneven consequences of economic restructuring in different UK regions, cities and communities. Those most likely to vote ‘leave’ were concentrated among those ‘left behind’ by globalisation, whilst those voting ‘remain’ were clustered within more affluent areas and social groups. These uneven geographies of leave and remain voting have been taken to reveal two diametrically opposed groups in British politics, obscuring the messy and contradictory ways in which votes are cast. In seeking to bring these complexities to light, this paper explores the motivating factors behind the Brexit vote amongst older working-class white men in Sunderland, England. The paper shows how economic stagnation and the experience of different forms of marginality led to a nostalgia for times past and a mistrust of political elites amongst this cohort. The paper documents how the feelings expressed by research participants became linked to the European Union project and its real and perceived impacts on the local area. In doing so, it shows that the referendum shaped and changed the electorate by asking them to align themselves with those either for or against Britain’s membership of the EU. The paper concludes by reflecting on the possibilities for creating an inclusive form of politics that treats different responses to the referendum question as the basis for an open conversation about democracy and democratic ideals.

In this chapter we explore the ethic of ‘community’ that is central to sustaining healthy transnational relationships within the EU. This invites an examination into the democratic ideals that underpin the EU—in particular, solidarity and sovereignty. The issue, in this context, is to ask why these are so central, and how they can be discharged in a manner that fosters the national autonomy of individual member states while simultaneously attending to the ongoing stability of the wider community. A key existential crisis that is assailing the EU at present is continued internal dissonance and the threat of further fragmentation. This will put at risk the extraordinary and providential achievements of Schuman, Monnet, Adenauer, and De Gasperi—and threaten a possible Balkanisation of the EU. A reluctance to challenge the prevailing Conventional Wisdom underpinning these developments will, inevitably, lead to continued fracturing. Our proposition is that rediscovering these foundational democratic ideals (with a particular emphasis on solidarity and subsidiarity) is indispensable to the resolution of the deeper existential crisis that the EU is undergoing.

Straipsnyje aptariami pastarųjų metų humanitarinių ir socialinių mokslų tyrimai, galintys daryti ir darantys įtaką labiau diferencijuotai parlamentarizmo raidos analizei, tarp jų Artūro Svarausko ir Mindaugo Tamošaičio darbai, skirti dviejų pagrindinių Lietuvos partijų – krikščionių demokratų ir liaudininkų – istorijos analizei. Krikščionių demokratų kaip normalios politinės jėgos vertinimas ir pirmenybės teikimas valstybės stabilumui prieš galimą jos suirimą ir chaosą, taip pat Modesto Kuodžio ypatingosios padėties įvedimo tyrimai leidžia patikslinti daugelį svarbių partijų darbo Seimuose aspektų. Antrojoje straipsnio dalyje per šią prizmę apžvelgiamos kelios kontroversijų keliančios Valstiečių liaudininkų partijos istorijos problemos: partijos rinkimų programų atitiktis valstybės raidos realijoms, koalicinių susitarimų sudarymo sąlygos ir jų nutraukimo, valdžios galių nesubalansuotumo konstituciniuose dokumentuose priežastys ir galima jų įtaka demokratijos netvarumui, pasaulėžiūrų priešpriešos kilmė ir įtaka dviejų didžiųjų politinių jėgų perskyrai. This article reviews the recent historical, legal and sociological researches on Lithuanian system of parliament during the democratic period (1920–1927). Researches reveal some controversial aspects of Lithuanian Popular Peasants’ Union’s work in Lithuanian parliament; the party’s electoral program corresponded with the development of Lithuania; the conditions for the coalition agreements between Lithuanian Christian Democrats and Lithuanian Popular Peasants’ Union and also the reasons for dissolving it; the impact of constitutional imbalance of powers to the instability of democracy; the origins of ideological disagreements and it’s influence on the division of two important political powers. Main conclusions: 1) although the coalition of Lithuanian Popular Peasants’ Union and Lithuanian Christian Democrats used state of emergency legislation, they managed to consolidate a multi-ethnic Lithuanian society for the aim of statebuilding. The strongest disagreements in the coalition was affected by different worldviews; 2) Before the parliamentary elections Lithuanian Popular Peasants’ Union raised democratic ideals and their establishment to the system of the state. But for the patriarchal and catholic society democratic ideals seemed far-fetched and incomprehensible. So the attempt to implement it together with Lithuanian Social Democratic Party after the elections to the III Parliament caused a threat for the stability of the state.

Modern liberal democracies invest great hopes and resources under the heading of “higher education”: along with their role as motors of national economic growth, employability and technical innovation, universities are expected to inculcate and promote equality, tolerance, social and environmental awareness and democratic values. “Higher education” is to lay the foundations for a shared sense of civic responsibility, democratic ideals and active citizenship. Mill’s” On Liberty” opens with an epigraph from Humboldt’s Sphere and Duties of Government: “The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.” In this essay, the relationship between higher education and liberalism as a political philosophy is examined in terms of this “essential importance of human development”. With that aim, I consider the role of the university as what Arendt called “an institution of truth” as necessary for the perpetuation of a liberal (democratic) form of life, and connect it to what Ortega y Gasset described as “the mission of the university”. The viability of the institutions in and through which we negotiate, establish and communicate “truth” is today an acute political question.

Digital technologies have been considered as generating new opportunities to enhance democratic politics. However, political parties have generally been latecomers in appropriating digital media in their every day life. The case of the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) represents an interesting example of innovative use of digital technologies in politics. Adopting a mixed-method research design, this article contrasts the democratic vision of the M5S with its online participatory platform. First, the discursive production of its leaders on democracy is analysed and complemented with an examination of a law proposal focusing on direct democracy. The core elements of the M5S’ democratic conception are identified in a criticism of representative democracy and the elaboration of a cyberutopian narrative. Second, the concrete realization of democratic ideals through online instruments of participation is taken into consideration. Sixty-five online ballots and 326 discussions of draft laws that took place on the Rousseau platform between 2012 and 2017 are critically inspected and discussed, singling out explanations of a continuing decline in participation over time.

Initiatives designed to increase transparency have become a tool for improving governance and fighting corruption in the natural resource sector. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is an international organisation that administers a voluntary standard for natural resource revenue transparency. In line with liberal democratic ideals, EITI aims to empower citizens through the dissemination of information supporting governance improvements, public scrutiny and accountability in the sharing of benefits from resource extraction. Adopting a critical lens to transparency, the article examines EITI's efforts to disseminate natural resource revenue data in rural Liberia. By focusing on how transparency is performed through dissemination workshops, the article creates a nuanced understanding of transparency by analysing how it is operationalised and practiced in encounters with people in areas where resource extraction takes place. The paper begins with an overview of relevant research and the conceptual framing of the study focusing on the performance in and of transparency and continues with a discussion of EITI internationally and in Liberia. Then follows a discussion of the ethnographic approach - travelling with the Liberian EITI-team on their dissemination trip. Through the analysis the article enables an understanding of the workings of transparency by examining how practitioners perform transparency through the performance in the workshops: the structure and orchestration of the workshops; and the performance of transparency by understanding the ways in which the workshops become spectacles that help to legitimise, rationalise and camouflage the fragmented and contradictory realities of extractive industries and their implications for people.

Ethiopia is an aid-dependent Horn of African country that is known to have received various forms of assistance, especially the humanitarian one. With the Cold War getting over, the country started receiving democracy assistance being pledged to realize democratic ideals. This article is concerned with foreign aid and its impact on democracy in Ethiopia in the post-1991 period. Its overall objective is thus to explore issues pertaining to the impact of foreign aid on Ethiopia’s democratization drive in the stated period. To substantiate my explanations and analyses, both primary and secondary data are used once generated through key informant interviews and document analysis. In this article I argue that issues of ideology, sovereignty, national interest, and geopolitics have significantly challenged democracy assistance in Ethiopia in the post-1991 period. I also contend that weak rules and laws, corruption, and weak mechanisms that govern relations between the Ethiopian government and donors have had a negative impact on foreign aid in the country. The study concludes that the contribution of foreign aid in fostering democracy in Ethiopia in the post-1991 period has been negligible in spite of the fact that an institutionalized form of democracy assistance, which is currently provided by the Democratic Institutions Program (DIP) to some governmentally established institutions, underscores the evolving face of democracy assistance in Ethiopia, albeit it is criticized by some for favoring governmental institutions at the expense of non-governmental organizations.

There is much that William Wordsworth does not have in common with the George W. Bush, American President (2001-2009). Here is just one: Wordsworth, in the political context, is remarkably chaste in his use of the word "terror." Recalling his visit to the "fierce metropolis" of Paris in 1793, just after the September Massacres, Wordsworth resorts (in the climactic tenth book of The Prelude) to a relatively sober vocabulary of "fear" and "dread." (1) Terror is invoked, but only as the emotion felt by the foreigners invading France who had "shrunk from sight of their own task, and fled/ In terror" (10: 1920). The young republic here inspires terror in its enemies, which is more or less in line with the self-descriptions of the French themselves, and indeed of the Robespierre faction, for whom terror was the outward companion of virtue. The 1850 text mentions that after Robespierre's downfall "Terror had ceased" (11: 2), but that is the total of Wordsworth's use of the word in his most densely attentive account of events leading up to and including the Terror occupying the months between August, 1793, and July, 1794. Robespierre's violence is attributed not to innate evil but to "clumsy desperation" (1805, 10: 546). Unlike Francois Furet and his followers, Wordsworth does not suggest that the Terror is a culmination of the necessary logic of the Revolution, and thus the sinister truth behind its claim to democratic ideals, but rather a deviation from a trajectory established in 1789 and restored to its direction after the fall of the Montagne. He thus delivers a strong endorsement of the philosophical Enlightenment as the core of the revolution, a view recently endorsed once again by Jonathan Israel. (2) In this view the Terror is not only not the product of the inner logic of 1789 but also an absolute deviation from it; its populist (and hypocritical) claim to enact the will of the people involved an anti-intellectualism entirely at odds with the Wordsworthian (and rationalist) faith in "the virtue of one paramount mind" (10: 179) as able in principle to provide a "solid birthright to the state" along the lines devised by "ancient lawgivers" (10: 186, 188). It is important to notice these carefully modulated judgments because Wordsworth is, of course, on the popular record as something of a turncoat on these matters. But his core position here is that the Terror did not turn him against the Revolution; that would come later, with the invasion of Switzerland the rise of Napoleon. Wordsworth is here distancing himself, retrospectively, of course, from the patriotic hysteria of the mid-1790s. If he were committed to a faith in a single "paramount mind" to come, whoever that might be, as the best hope for setting French politics in positive directions, he is not in the business--yet--of demonizing Robespierre. He is rather more in the business, in fact, of demonizing William Pitt, thereby adding his voice to those who found Britain significantly responsible for bringing on the Terror in France. (3) And it is entirely characteristic of this most self-conscious of writers that he would understand and confess to the mediated nature of his responses to events that he did not, after all, witness himself. Recall that, at the sight of the drowned man of Esthwaite, the poet invokes the power of books, the "shining streams/ Of fairyland, the forests of romance" (5: 476-77), as what protected him from trauma, whether immediate or recollected. Reading about something prepared him for the sight of death and softened its effects--one of Rousseau's arguments against literature. (4) So too in Paris, in 1792, the poet avers that whatever he felt of immediate "dread," something more and perhaps something other "was conjured up from tragic fictions/ And mournful calendars of true history" (10: 66-68). He had, in other words, been reading about it, and that reading influenced his feelings to the point that he could not say what portion of them (if any) might have derived from his own punctual experience. …

In A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), Mary Wollstonecraft takes aim at Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a text that attempts to preempt political disease by pointing out the deleterious invasiveness of the democratic ideals fostered by the French Revolution. Burke comments on the "dreadful contagion" of the Revolution's "principles," a sentiment shared by a number of commentators during the pamphlet wars of the 1790s.1 Though significantly different in their opinions on the most desirable form of government, both writers employ medical discourse to discuss, and respond to, important political questions raised by the French Revolution: What constitutes a healthy state? How do healthy states function? What role does the individual occupy in the maintenance of robust constitutions or the overthrow of diseased ones? The links between pathology and politics established by Burke in his Reflections are continued in Wollstonecraft's texts; both writers make explicit connections among health, medicine, and politics. Their debate signals a concern for political health, a state that must be maintained by avoiding social diseases of various kinds. However, they differ specifically in their treatment of the means by which state health is fostered and sustained. While Burke views state health as possible only by barring the inoculation of foreign political ideas into the British political body, Wollstonecraft maintains that health must be nurtured from within the body politic; oppression should be corrected by internal reform. Importantly, what begins as an analogy between medical and political terms, inaugurated in the modern period by Thomas Hobbes's formulation of the "body politic" in Leviathan (1651), ceases to function on a strictly metaphorical level. Burke's Reflections interweaves analogical and literal versions of concepts like health, contagion, and organic growth, while Wollstonecraft breaks almost completely with a purely analogical connection between the body of the individual and the body of the state, by emphasizing the material implications of health at various levels of political society.2 In what might be properly termed her "medico-politics," Wollstonecraft outlines the simultaneously medical and political behaviors which combine to form and maintain the components of "a healthy state."3A central concern for both writers is the process by which states expel and/or exclude injurious elements from their systems. Burke envisions a form of immunity, or protection, that strives to thwart revolutionary infection by protecting the British body politic from external contagion.4 He advocates a sort of poultice, or surface remedy, which in Wollstonecraft's view, ultimately defies its intended effects by ignoring the body politic's internal infections. Wollstonecraft argues that Burke's focus on external sources of political contagion (i.e. French principles), elides the internal problems that plague England. As Tom Furniss notes in Edmund Burke's Aesthetic Ideology, "Burke seeks to immunize England by preventing the importation of radical ideas," which he fears will damage English political standards inherited from the Glorious Revolution.5 As other commentators make clear, however, Burke's attempts at ideological quarantine remain troubled because "the claim for a purely external threat. . . proves elusive."6 When he targets the French-influenced radicalism of Richard Price in the early sections of the Reflections, Burke reveals that the revolutionary threat he so fears may have already been partially absorbed into the English body politic. In response to Burke, Wollstonecraft proffers her own version of immunity, which locates the agents of disease within the state itself. She prescribes a series of regimental reforms which aim to improve the health of a state already afflicted by a number of ills, the worst of which includes an almost complete exclusion of one-half of the population from public positions of any kind. …

As a Jesuit and an American intellectual, John Courtney Murray believed that U.S. society in the post–World War II era lacked a public philosophy and that intellectuals could reformulate the societal consensus so crucial to the early Republic. Invoking St. Thomas Aquinas, Murray formulated the concept of a city composed of democratic ideals and believed that Catholics could challenge the academy to preserve this city and the consensus that built it. Murray committed his life to work within Catholic and other intellectual circles and to the interpretation of U.S. democracy that could reveal the truths held by Americans.

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty argues that markets, absent political intervention, tend toward economic divergence and that this has deleterious consequences for democratic ideals of equal voice and meritocracy. His goal is to foster a public conversation about what a society dominated by wealth—which we already beginning to experience as the twenty-first century begins—would look like if we wish to maintain an egalitarian ethos. His work will contribute to and further motivate several discussions in feminist bioethics, namely, on the funding and organization of care labor, reproductive rights, global health, and commodification.

The truth and reconciliation commissions of Latin America and Africa are paradigms of transitional justice, often regarded as part of the process of transitioning from authoritarian to democratic rule. But truth commissions are also common in first-world settler states, which raises the question of what “transition” such commissions effectuate in Canada, Australia, and the United States. This paper examines the efforts of Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to resolve a controversy over a government relocation of Inuit families in the 1950s for which the relocatees were demanding compensation. Concurrent with historical controversies in the Canadian courts concerning Aboriginal rights and title, the historical controversy over the relocation raised questions about the Canadian state's ability to “hear the voices” of First Nations people, who objected that their accounts of the past had been disregarded by government-contracted historians and courts alike. I argue that the Royal Commission's efforts to hear the voices of Inuit relocatees, showcased in nationally televised hearings, was a phatic ritual in which communicative contact between marginalized citizens and the state was ritually established. The ritual was presented as a remedy for failures to achieve phatic communion among citizens and state—a condition of communicative contact held up as essential to the realization of liberal democratic ideals. The work of the Royal Commission and other truth commissions highlights the growing prominence of communication, particularly liberal communicative events construed as “open,” “equal,” and “free,” as a concern of both theory and practice in liberal democratic polities.

Scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo signal alarming changes in America's attitudes toward criminals, punishment, and democratic ideals The statistics are startling. Since 1973, America's imprisonment rate has multiplied over five times to become the highest in the world. More than two million inmates reside in state and federal prisons. What does this say about our attitudes toward criminals and punishment? What does it say about us? This book explores the cultural evolution of punishment practices in the United States. Anne-Marie Cusac first looks at punishment in the nation's early days, when Americans repudiated Old World cruelty toward criminals and emphasized rehabilitation over retribution. This attitude persisted for some 200 years, but in recent decades we have abandoned it, Cusac shows. She discusses the dramatic rise in the use of torture and restraint, corporal and capital punishment, and punitive physical pain. And she links this new climate of punishment to shifts in other aspects of American culture, including changes in dominant religious beliefs, child-rearing practices, politics, television shows, movies, and more. America now punishes harder and longer and with methods we would have rejected as cruel and unusual not long ago. These changes are profound, their impact affects all our lives, and we have yet to understand the full consequences.

In democratic societies, the gap between the existing social order and its claim to universal inclusion (i.e. equality) generates politics. Some commentators have claimed this gap is now closed, dissensus being barred by an institutionalized presupposition of equality. This chapter examines the spatial and urban implications of this reading of politics. We argue that the idea that politics requires dissensus presumes a stage for politics exists. Following this, we show that although we might pre-suppose common spaces where politics happen, these spaces are not fixed or contained. Just as there are no predestined political actors, there are no spaces that are definitively political. In conclusion, we consider how our reading of urban politics informs understanding of urban change and democratic ideals.

This chapter engages with three important themes of the larger report: the meaning of progress, its uneven nature, and obstacles to future progress. It also considers a number of political and economic alternatives aimed to overcome these obstacles, emphasizing the need for diverse strategies, open-minded experimentation, and scientific assessment. While it may be impossible to ever reach agreement, the effort to calibrate different interpretations of progress remains an important exercise for political deliberation about how to make the world a better place. The very hope of moving forward implies some agreement on a destination. All of us must take responsibility for the future. Our discussion emphasizes the complexity and multidimensionality of the interpretive debate, but also calls attention to its ideological character. Social actors-individuals, groups, and even academic disciplines-tend to define progress in ways that serve their own interests. In a way, distributional conflict undermines our very efforts to better understand and mediate such conflict. The uneven character of progress is manifest in many different domains. Increases in the global reach of formally democratic institutions have been accompanied by growing concerns about their stability, efficacy, and consistency with democratic ideals.

The continued controversy over the presence of American bases in Okinawa has once again raised the question of whether the issue will ultimately be resolved by the Japanese courts. An examination of the history surrounding the judiciary’s involvement in previous base-related disputes in mainland Japan suggests that the court is itself deeply conflicted over its proper role in mediating these cases, leading to continued uncertainty over the ultimate legal status of the U.S. military presence. Unwilling to take a strong position in support of either the state or of increasingly active local officials, the court’s rulings have repeatedly given way to stalemate, which has ultimately benefitted local opponents to the bases. Local politicians such as mayors and prefectural governors have successfully used anti-base rhetoric to their advantage, promoting local resistance as legitimate expressions of Japan’s postwar democratic ideals, and local and national identities of peace.

Would ordinary citizens benefit if public decisions were increasingly based on an inclusive and fair exchange of reasons rather than mere voting or choices in the market? Debates amongst deliberative democrats often proceed as though this process of public reasoning is precisely what the democratic ideals of freedom and equality require. Less attention has been paid to whether an inclusive and fair exchange of reasons is possible in any realistic modern setting, and what the effects would be of trying to move democratic institutions in a deliberative direction. To examine these effects, the contributors to this collection of essays bring together a number of analyses of the practical implications of expanding deliberative processes. Some consider the prevailing epistemic conditions in modern societies and their likely effects on deliberative reasoning. Others discuss the politics of these societies, and especially the likely effects of existing political divisions on democratic deliberation. Lastly, the question of what we might hope to see – and what we might hope to avoid – from political argument is addressed. Considered together, these three foci should equip readers to decide whether deliberative democracy is feasible and, if so, if it is desirable.

This paper holds the view that the burgeoning phenomenon of immigration control sits uncomfortably on the fault line separating the prerogatives of State sovereignty from the rights of non-citizens regardless of the broad discretion of States to control immigration. Using liberal democratic ideologies, the paper expresses that, there is in existence, a tension between the right to liberty of migrants against the broadly unfettered rights of States to control the admission and expulsion of migrants conferred on States by national and international law. Drawing from law and policy, this paper considers in perspectives, immigration practices in selected liberal democratic states-the United States of America, Australia and France whose deportation reality offers significant similarities with the UK in immigration control and detention pending expulsion. Finding as it did, the paper illustrates that crimmigration in particular and immigration enforcement and control in general, serve as vehicles for enhancing and sustaining expulsion of migrants. This practice, it is argued, queries the liberal democratic ideals of fairness in particular and compliance to international human rights standards in general.

The practice of political party banning and dissolution seems at odds with democratic ideals. Since 2006, however, Thailand has witnessed the dissolution of seven parties and the banning of hundreds of politicians. This article seeks to address the causes of party banning in Thailand and its effects on party institutionalization between 2006 to 2008. Its findings show that party banning not only affected the banned parties, but also the rest of the parties in the political system. Party banning and dissolution — a factor largely overlooked in the existing literature — unevenly impacts different dimensions of party institutionalization. As such, the Thai case shows that party banning greatly weakens the “autonomy” of party institutionalization, while it has differential effects on the party system’s “legitimacy”. While the bans reveal that many political actors view the electoral process as illegitimate, the findings show little effect on voter’s attitudes towards the legitimacy of the party system. Moreover, this article breaks new ground in the study of party institutionalization in new democracies by relying on context-based, qualitative measures of party institutionalization, not electoral volatility which is used in most studies.

This article analyses the way Norwegian authorities facilitate and expect immigrant organisations to serve as schools of democracy – and to what extent there are elements of bureaucratic schooling. Moreover, it examines how immigrant organisations’ adaptation to these expectations can be understood as an adaptation to an administrative culture. The article concludes that adaptation to democratic ideals is emphasised in the political rhetoric, while in practice street-level bureaucrats educate members of immigrant organisations in how to establish and run a formal, hierarchical, rule-based and impersonal organisation in Norway. The emphasis on bureaucratic schooling is especially relevant in a Nordic context, where the voluntary sector functions as a parallel bureaucratic structure to the government administration. Most immigrant organisations formulate written statutes the way the authorities expect of them and in accordance with these statutes they construct their own democratic and bureaucratically structured organisations. By formulating their statutes, the immigrant organisations are socialised into the Norwegian administrative culture.

Sociologist Michael A. Haedicke explores the world of organic foods co-ops and examines how these countercultural stores are defending their democratic ideals and practices in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

This article explores the extent of authoritarian durability and public opinion towards democracy in Southeast Asia drawing on findings from the Asian Barometer. While Freedom House indicators rank many countries in the region as not free or partially free, a high proportion of citizens within the same countries report that they live in a democracy. Conversely, countries ranked as electoral or liberal democracies have high proportions of citizens who report that they do not live in a democracy. These findings reveal quasi-thermostatic concerns that, when satisfied, open the way for the expression of other concerns. Views about democratic experience reveal differing expectations about democracy among the general public. In general, the results suggest that a high proportion of citizens in Southeast Asia have a rather instrumental view of democracy that is underpinned by perceptions of good governance rather than democratic ideals. Still, while economic growth is considered to be very important, whe...

The introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) in England and Wales has reignited discussions about police governance. This paper contributes to these debates by focusing on the role liberal values play within liberal democratic ideals of policing. It suggests, policing principles historically have been informed primarily by liberal goals; that is to say these principles are liberal before they are democratic. Policing in England and Wales today, however, is increasingly informed by democratic values at the expense of liberal principles. The spectre of illiberal democracy is considered here as a warning in light of this development. The paper argues that there is a growing disparity between the rhetoric of liberal policing principles, historically rooted in pre-democratic times, and the reality of contemporary policing in societies that are increasingly sensitive to democratic expectations. Police independence is used to illustrate this argument. Police independence is still revered in rhetoric today, but the liberal origin of this concept is not recognised. But the idea that the police should retain a degree of freedom from political interference makes sense from a liberal perspective, one that is increasingly difficult to defend as liberal values decline in importance, and democratic aspirations come to the fore. The paper concludes by suggesting that liberal values are, on the one hand, increasingly difficult to accommodate within contemporary ideas of policing, but are at the same time becoming more necessary, especially following the introduction of PCCs.

This study examines the significant influence of the early Korean Protestant churches in general and the Korean Presbyterian Church in particular on the early phases of Korea’s democratisation. Firstly, the Western Protestant mission works in general were visibly conducive for dissemination and cultivation of egalitarian and democratic ideals, with the mission churches becoming sites of do-it-yourself democracy. Secondly, the Nevius (Mission) Methods of the Korean Presbyterian Church came to foster the democratic spirit of self-support and self-government, resulting in its rapid growth. Thirdly, with the implementation of a nationwide, representative and democratic polity (presbytery) with a constitution, the church even facilitated law-binding and institutional democracy for Koreans in general and Korean Christians in particular. Fourthly, the church’s democratic working deeply inspired Korean democratic politicians, especially Mr Changho Ahn, who had an important influence on the making of the Provisional Government of Korea and its Constitution.

This study examined the association between political ideology and linguistic indicators of integrative complexity and opinion leadership in U.S. political blog posts (N = 519). Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis, we found that the posts of conservative bloggers were more integratively simple than those of liberal bloggers. Furthermore, in support of a proposed opinion leadership model of integrative complexity, the relationship between ideology and integrative complexity was mediated by psychological distancing (an indicator of a hierarchical communication style). These findings demonstrate an ideological divide in the extent to which the blogosphere reflects deliberative democratic ideals.

How might Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) communities in the UK, Europe, Australasia and elsewhere go about researching the implications of neoliberalism and increasing privatisation of Education for the entitlements of young people to a common, comprehensive, high quality, equitable Physical Education (PE)? Our analyses suggest that research attention to the politics of identity, essentially, how pupils are positioned within institutions in ‘relation to’ various discourses, cultures and values given by the curriculum, pedagogical and assessment practices of schooling and Initial Teacher Education Physical Education (ITEPE) is a necessary but insufficient research agenda if the profession's project is social justice and pursuit of democratic ideals. The paper calls for some refocusing and expansion of sociological and educational research interests so that equal regard is paid to the political economy of education including ‘relations between’ PE and the new forms of governance and school org...

Peer production projects like Wikipedia have inspired voluntary associations, collectives, social movements, and scholars to embrace open online collaboration as a model of democratic organization. However, many peer production projects exhibit entrenched leadership and deep inequalities, suggesting that they may not fulfill democratic ideals. Instead, peer production projects may conform to Robert Michels' “iron law of oligarchy,” which proposes that democratic membership organizations become increasingly oligarchic as they grow. Using exhaustive data of internal processes from a sample of 683 wikis, we construct empirical measures of participation and test for increases in oligarchy associated with growth in wikis' contributor bases. In contrast to previous studies, we find support for Michels' iron law and conclude that peer production entails oligarchic organizational forms.

As a form of communication that can inspire solidarity through appeals to democratic ideals, literary journalism can play a constitutive role in social and political struggles for justice and freedom in democratic societies. In 1963, at a pivotal moment in the US Civil Rights Movement, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time helped many Americans, including those in the highest offices of the federal government, understand the moral good of the goals of the African American freedom struggle and the democratic imperative to enact and protect the civil rights of all Americans. In this way, Baldwin’s work, along with other key historical forces, helped to expand the civil sphere and build a more just and democratic society in the United States. Civil sphere theory helps explain the role of such communication in social struggles for democracy.

O artigo parte de entendimentos teóricos sobre capacidades estatais para desenvolver o conceito de capacidade estatal de comunicação, instrumento pelo qual o governo divulga suas ideias e ações à sociedade através de veículos de mídia de massa de propriedade do Estado. Em seguida, analisa-se como essa capacidade foi pensada pelo Partido dos Trabalhadores antes de ocupar o governo federal brasileiro (1980- 2002) e como foi implementada durante as presidências de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) e Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016). Verifica-se que um discurso de democratização dos meios de comunicação, favorável a uma melhor distribuição de poder entre os setores estatal, público e privado de mídia, muito presente nas décadas iniciais do partido, foi amenizado nos treze anos de exercício do poder federal em favor de ações de conciliação com a grande imprensa privada. Desse modo, ações tomadas no sentido de aumentar a capacidade estatal de comunicação foram insuficientes para reduzir a hegemonia do setor privado no sistema brasileiro de mídia, o que compromete ideais democráticos.

Much recent work on empathy assumes that one cannot give non-question-begging reasons for empathizing with others. In this article I argue that there are epistemic reasons for cultivating empathy. After sketching a brief general account of empathy, I proceed to argue that empathic information is user-friendly, fostering the achievement of widely held cognitive goals. It can also contribute to social knowledge and the satisfaction of democratic ideals. The upshot of my analysis is that there are strong, but defeasible, epistemic reasons for empathizing with others.

Margaret Fuller's journalism took a radical new shape when she traveled to Europe to report on the Italian revolution in the late 1840s as foreign correspondent for the New-York Tribune. As America's first woman journalist to report on a major international revolution, Fuller established herself as the primary source of information on the Italian Revolution, a role that grew out of her bold social reform writing for the Tribune that exposed institutional and government corruption. Her compassion for the populist Italian uprising known as the Risorgimento would significantly overlap with that of Herman Melville. Both writers viewed the plight of the Risorgimento as a representation of social progress instructive for an American audience. Unlike their contemporaries, Fuller and Melville did not use the Italian revolution as an opportunity to glorify America's own revolutionary struggle for a republic, but instead measured it against the shortcomings of their nation's democratic ideals.

As many critics have pointed out, Louis Althusser's theory of ideology shifts focus from a validating framework (i.e., truth vs. falsity) to a discursive one through which the individual incorporates him/herself into the symbolic social order. (1) For Althusser, ideology is "a system (with its own logic and rigour) of representations (images, myths, ideas of concepts, depending on the case) endowed with a historical existence and role within a given society" (.For Marx 231). Althusser maintains that one adopts the society's dominant knowledge and values, such as "images, myths, ideas of concepts," in order to represent social reality and define his/her position within the social order. As a result of this process, ideology turns a pre-social individual into a socialized subject by '"recruiting]' subjects among the individuals (it recruits them all), or 'transform[ing]' the individual into subjects (it transforms them all)" (Lenin 118). Thus, Althusser's theory acknowledges both the representative and the incorporative dimensions of ideology. His theory is representative in that it rearticulates the cultural vocabularies commonly used within the society, and it is incorporative in that it sutures individuals to the society's dominant mode of thought. Ideology, represented as a discursive means of social suturing, is likewise a key element in Sac van Bercovitch's critique of American literature and its political implications. According to Bercovitch, ideology establishes "the ground and texture of consensus ... the system of ideas interwoven into the cultural symbology through which 'America' continues to provide the terms of identity and cohesion in the United States" (355). Through the consensus process of incorporating social values and rhetoric, "America" becomes a symbolic terrain whereby the nation's dominant logic is reiterated and thus its ideological cohesion is reassured. Bercovitch defines this consenting impulse as a distinctive pattern in American literature, from Puritan writings to the American Renaissance works. He particularly directs attention to the antagonistic relation between self and society, which is offered in these works as a form of social criticism. In his view, this kind of social subversion is already part of the main lexicons in American political discourses, in which individual dissent has been acknowledged as a socially consented form of harnessing a better national future. Therefore, the surface-value of rupturing from the social ironically serves to buttress the unified significances of "America": The immemorial response of ideology ... has been to redefine protest in terms of the system, as a complaint about shortcomings from its ideals, or deviations from its myths of self and community. Thus the very act of identifying malfunction becomes an appeal for cohesion. (366) For Bercovitch, this mechanism of absorbing radical impulse into the national identity is the very basis of how ideology functions within American literature. The political criticism offered in it serves to testify to the cultural hegemony of liberal democratic ideals, and in this process, the authors construct politically subversive narratives in such a way that the latter becomes culturally identified with the nation's fundamental logics: in Bercovitch's own words, "the classic American authors...were imaginatively nourished by the culture, even when they were politically opposed to it" (16). Bercovitch's argument provides a theoretical framework crucial to appreciating E. L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel. To discuss this matter, we need to turn first to the novel's reception history. While widely disagreeing about the value of its political intention, most critics invariably agree on its radical reconfiguration of national identity. The text's description of the Rosenberg Trial as well as its unrelenting attack on Cold War politics has led Joseph Epstein to label it as a typical representative of "the adversary culture. …

The Oresteia ends with the trial of Orestes for matricide, a foundation myth of the first homicide court in Athens. The court of the Areopagus replaces a form of justice that consisted of individual reprisals, a blood feud constantly renewed but never resolved. Although there are intimations of some archaic remedies for homicide, such as exile and public curses, the text gives virtually nothing to suggest that any institutionalized legal system existed before Athena selected the jury for Orestes' trial. Justice predates law in Aeschylus' legal imagination. Justice is a concern for every character in the trilogy, but law is born in Athens as the product of divine intervention and human deliberation. The defining moment in its creation occurs when Athena selects dikastai or citizen jurors, who appear silently in the acting space to cast their ballots. My concern in this paper is with the silence of those dikastai, which is both a dramaturgical necessity in the original production (because Aeschylus was limited to three speaking actors) and a symbol for the integrity and sacrosanct nature of the new court.The citizen jurors do not make a unanimous decision; at least half vote for condemnation. The goddess presides over the court but she also participates with a vote for acquittal. After Athena casts her ballot she announces that if the votes are equal, Orestes will go free (Eum. 734-35); when the votes are tallied Athena declares that Orestes has been acquitted. The Furies, who act as prosecuting family members on behalf of Clytemnestra, are appeased with cultic honors that absorb them into the polis, and the institutionalized process of the homicide court replaces the cycle of intra-familial murders that have been the climax of the first two plays of the trilogy.This essay will explore how the Oresteia negotiates two elements of Athenian law that finally come together in this trial scene: divine authority and human decision-making. The convergence is exemplified by the voting process in the Eumenides, which incorporates the vote of the jurors, played by mute extras, and the vote of Athena. But as I argue, the jurors do not emerge ex nihilo: their role has been intimated since the very beginning of the trilogy. In order to fully appreciate the importance of the Athenian jury's verdict we need to apprehend the meaningful connection between the silent jurors of the Eumenides and a more vocal group of old men whom the jurors would physically resemble, the Argive Elders who constitute the Chorus of the Agamemnon.Accordingly, my objective is to analyze the implications of the silence of the Athenian jurors, whose verdict is not unanimous, in comparison to the increasingly fractured voices of the Chorus of the Agamemnon, which are eventually silenced. Embedded within the narratives of the Argive Chorus are other voices, usually in the form of direct quotations. The narrative strategy both enlivens the Chorus's accounts of the past and, more importantly for my analysis, suggests a democratic polyphony. The Argive Elders seem to give voice to a heterogeneous social group; while such heteroglossia, to use Bakhtin's term, might be freighted with democratic ideals, it works in this context as an index of social disintegration. Studied as a series, the choral odes reveal the increasingly shattered unity of a conventionally unified persona. At the same time, because they use certain legal terms and because they bear similarities to the Athenian jurors of the Eumenides, the old men of the chorus function as a kind of proto- jury. They introduce vocabulary and ideas that reappear in the final play, but they cannot act as proper jurors because of the political flaws in Argos. As we shall observe, the Argive Elders seem incapable of making a decision. In this respect they notionally share another quality with the Athenian jurors of the Eumenides, whose vote results in a tie (if we accept that they are an even number of men). …

This article examines Hanama Tasaki’s antiwar novel, Long the Imperial Way (1950), as a key text in the postwar era. Based on the author’s own experiences, the book focuses on a disillusioned Japanese soldier in the Imperial Army as it occupies China in the late 1930s. This English-language work by the Hawai’i-born Nisei writer explained the destructiveness of Japanese imperialism in East Asia for an American nation now reasserting its own presence in the region. Offering lessons about the limits of imperial desires, the novel resonated with audiences wary of US overseas involvements. As a public figure, Tasaki embodied “Japanese” and “American” identities, negotiating between them by playing on the “absent presence” of his Nisei subjectivity. His life story thus raised questions about race, empire, and national loyalties, even as he aspired to transcend them in his plea for universal rights based on democratic ideals.

This paper aims to further address what we regard as the detrimental influence that neoliberalism has had on any and all commitments to democratic ideals in educational settings. The argument is simply that a robust pluralism and cosmopolitanism in educational theory sits in tension with the neoliberalism of contemporary western mass-society. Our argument has two parts. First, we argue that the neoliberal hegemony of contemporary North American schooling is oppressive insofar as it negates and stifles any effort to enact democratic practices within classrooms settings, while simultaneously producing systemic inequities, dehumanization and instrumentalization of teachers and students in schools. We then argue for an educational ethic of subversion, an ethic that we see as warranted, justified and often necessary in the face of systems of schooling that are organized according to the logic of neoliberalism.