Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Coalitions Of Convenience: United States Military Interventions After The Cold War, Jeffrey A. Griffin

International Dialogue

Sarah Kreps’ Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War provides a timely comparative analysis of military intervention in the context of a continuously globalizing world. Kreps endeavors to shed light on an important facet of international society today—military intervention. The study explores the question of why states, when they have the capacity to act unilaterally, often choose to take a multilateral approach. More specifically, Kreps questions why coercive and powerful states, particularly the United States, intervene multilaterally when the capacity exists for unilateral action. As the sole superpower in the international system, the way in which …

Balkan Genocides: Holocaust And Ethnic Cleansing In The Twentieth Century, Marko A. Hoare

International Dialogue

The sudden explosion of interest in genocide as a topic of academic study over the past decade or so has involved academics rushing to produce “big” general theories in their efforts to have their voices heard. But more often than not, their haste has produced books that are insufficiently researched and theses that strain to be profound. In Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, Paul Mojzes has attempted something more moderately ambitious: an overview of the Balkan genocides of the twentieth century, focusing principally on the territory of the former Yugoslavia but involving forays into other …

Islam In Denmark: The Challenge Of Diversity, Aje Carlbom

International Dialogue

In public debates contemporary Denmark stands out as an extraordinary nationalist and racist country. This is particularly so on issues concerned with Islam and Muslim immigration. The growth of the nationalist political party Dansk folkeparti, the Muhammad caricatures and harsh laws regulating family reunion are often used as examples by outside observers trying to describe political transformations in the country. These, and some other themes, are discussed in the anthology Islam in Denmark: The Challenge of Diversity (2012), edited by Jørgen S. Nielsen, professor and director of The Centre for European Islamic Thought at the University of Copenhagen. What kind …

Ethical Decision Making And Leadership: Merging Social Role And Self-Construal Perspectives, Crystal L. Hoyt, Terry L. Price

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This research extends our understanding of ethical decision making on the part of leaders by merging social role and self-construal perspectives. Interdependent self-construal is generally seen as enhancing concern for justice and moral values. Across two studies we tested the prediction that non-leading group members’ interdependent self-construal would be associated with lower levels of unethical decision making on behalf of their group but that, in contrast, this relationship would be weaker for leaders, given their social role. These predictions were experimentally tested by assigning participants to the role of leader or non-leading group member and assessing the association between their …

Methodological Nationalism, Migration, And Political Theory, Alexander Sager

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Political theorists of migration have largely operated within a conceptual scheme that treats the nation-state as the natural political unit for analysis at the expense of transnational, regional, and local analyses. Migration is discussed in the contexts of nation-building or in an international framework of autonomous, sovereign states. I show that this paradigm of “methodological nationalism” ignores transnational networks, associations, and organizations and global social and economic structures. This in turn, blinds political theorists to questions of agency and structure and to causal relations that entail moral responsibilities. My aim is to show how debates on migration and distributive justice …

The Fragility Of Consensus: Public Reason, Diversity And Stability, John Thrasher, Kevin Vallier

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

John Rawls's transition from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism was driven by his rejection of Theory's account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see Rawls's account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that Rawls's solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public reason relies on a condition of consensus that we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls's conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect …

Modern Libertarian: Philosophy An Uncertain Lineage, Ian Ludd

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This study examines the true nature of libertarian political philosophy, avoiding reductive arguments and attempting to present these positions in a holistic manner that cuts to the core of what distinguishes this philosophy as being unique. The study then challenges the libertarian claim that many highly praised and well-respected historic political and economic philosophers are their philosophical antecedents.

The study examines the political philosphies of Classical Liberal thinkers and well-respected economists, presenting their positions in the same holistic manner and avoiding any selective quoting that serves only to oversimply the complexity of their arguments. The challenge of the study will …

The State Of Nature X: Why Leave? A Preface On The State Of Nature Theory, Zachary S. Stirparo

Senior Honors Theses

Great minds have addressed the issue of forming a polity, dating back to Plato. Yet, most of these great minds, such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, argue for the need to escape the state of nature into a civil form of government. However, after taking the three essential elements of man that these philosophers all comment on, self-preservation, reason, and will, a new state of nature model is created that is stronger. It is stronger because of its definition of man and the analytic inferences that flow from that definition. Therefore, the state of nature theory does …

Social Media And The Transformation Of The Humanitarian Narrative: A Comparative Analysis Of Humanitarian Discourse In Libya 2011 And Bosnia 1994, Ellen Noble

Political Science Honors Projects

Within humanitarian discourse, there is a prevailing narrative: the powerful liberal heroes are saving the helpless, weak victims. However, the beginning of the 21^st century marks the expansion of the digital revolution throughout lesser-developed states. Growing access to the Internet has enabled aid recipients to communicate with the outside world, giving them an unprecedented opportunity to reshape discourses surrounding humanitarianism. Through a comparative discourse analysis of Libyan Tweets, 1994 newspaper reports on Bosnia, and 2011 newspaper reports on Libya, this paper analyzes whether aid recipient discourse can resist the dominant humanitarian narrative and if that resistance can influence dominant …

Uniqueness And Symmetry In Bargaining Theories Of Justice, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

For contractarians, justice is the result of a rational bargain. The goal is to show that the rules of justice are consistent with rationality. The two most important bargaining theories of justice are David Gauthier’s and those that use the Nash’s bargaining solution. I argue that both of these approaches are fatally undermined by their reliance on a symmetry condition. Symmetry is a substantive constraint, not an implication of rationality. I argue that using symmetry to generate uniqueness undermines the goal of bargaining theories of justice.

Sheltering Xenophobia, Ronald Sundstrom

Philosophy

What is xenophobia? Why is xenophobia immoral? How is xenophobia’s conceptual and moral meaning diminished? Investigations of these questions would invigorate xenophobia as a topic in public morality and discourage the public’s acquiesc- ing to xenophobia’s new prominence. This paper focuses on the third question, the diminishment of xenophobia. In the first sec- tion, I outline a general conception of xenophobia. In the second, I explain how theories of membership in liberal democratic soci- eties relegate xenophobia to a minor moral concern. And, in the third, that the conflation of xenophobia with racism disadvantages the former. How liberal Democratic nations …

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …

Politics And Philosophy In Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Laws, Kevin M. Cherry

Political Science Faculty Publications

Whether on matters of politics or physics, Aristotle's criticism of his predecessors is not generally considered a model of charitable interpretation. He seems to prefer, as Christopher Rowe puts it, "polemic over accuracy" (2003, 90). His criticism of the Laws is particularly puzzling: It is much shorter than his discussion of the Republic and raises primarily technical objections of questionable validity. Indeed, some well-known commentators have concluded the criticisms, as we have them in the Politics, were made of an earlier draft of the Laws and that Plato, in light of these criticisms, revised the final version. I hope …

Afterword: The Libertarian Middle Way, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Libertarianism is sometimes portrayed as radical and even extreme. In this Afterword to a symposium on "Libertarianism and the Law" in the Chapman Law Review, I explain why, though it may be radical, libertarianism is far from extreme in comparison with its principal alternatives: the social justice of the Left or legal moralism of the Right. Social justice posits that everyone should get a certain amount of stuff; legal moralism posits that everyone should act in a certain way. But because there is no consensus about how much stuff each person should have or how exactly everyone should act, …

Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between …

The Social And Political Philosophy Of Bertolt Brecht, Anthony Squiers

Dissertations

Bertolt Brecht is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in Twentieth Century literature. An acclaimed poet, he is best known as a playwright and director. His 'epic theatre' revolutionized the theatre by creating radical breaks from traditional literary and theatrical form. These radical breaks were done in an effort to facilitate radical social change. Specifically, Brecht designed his epic theatre as a revolutionary aesthetic which would help bring about the advent of a Marxist revolution. There is a broad corpus of academic work which analyzes the formalistic elements of his work. However, this body of work …

The Hanford Advisory Board: A Case Study In Democracy, Technology, And Representation, Alexander Sager, Alex Zakaras

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Highly technical policy decisions present daunting challenges for democracy. In order to hold public officials accountable, citizens must be able to see how policy decisions stand to affect their interests. If they are unable to do so, they can find themselves exposed to bureaucratic domination through the discretionary power of bureaucrats, scientists, or policy experts. One of the major tasks of empirically informed democratic theory is to analyze and evaluate practices and institutions that use public participation to try to render highly technical public decision-making more accountable to the public, and therefore more legitimate. This paper presents a case study …

Foreign Front: Third World Politics In Sixties West Germany, Bruce Garver

International Dialogue

In Foreign Front, Quinn Slobodian presents a thorough, critical, and well documented account of how West German and foreign students cooperatively organized and led large public demonstrations from February 1961 onward against repressive policies of Third World dictatorships and imperialistic great powers. Simultaneously this joint activity accelerated the political radicalization of German students while enlarging their understanding of international affairs. Foreign students initiated many of these demonstrations in order to protest injustice and suppression of dissent by their home governments. In doing so, they were helped by their German fellow students to utilize the free press and civil liberties in …

On The Other: A Muslim View, Mile Babić

International Dialogue

The original Bosnian title of Rusmir Mahmutćehajić's book, Malo znanja, means “Little Knowledge” and comes from the Qur’an (17:85). It encapsulates the author’s fundamental insight and the fundamental thesis of the book, a thesis that places him securely in a current of thinkers conscious of their own ignorance that runs from Socrates to Nicholas of Cusa, from Socrates’ “I know that I know nothing” to Cusanus’ docta ingnorantia (learned ignorance). It is not accidental that I mention no thinkers of the modern period, caught up as they were by modernity's will for power, carried off into the realms of absolute …

International Relations In The Post-Industrial Era [Rephrasing The Third World], Owen Mordaunt

International Dialogue

Arthur Natella begins his book by stating that the concept of the “Third World” is out of date. The dominant attitude is that Third World people would to see things as they are seen by First World nations and do things their way if they are better educated. But the standard for measuring social values, according to Natella, is outdated, for various reasons. Among these is the fact that the United States is a debtor nation. Secondly, it is no longer a “manufacturing-based society” but one that is “service-based” or an “information-gathering nation, with its advanced technology often more geared …

Globalectics: Theory And The Politics Of Knowing, Annika Hughes

International Dialogue

“Life after theory is a text.” —Derrida, “Following Theory: Jacques Derrida,” 27

A bit like Schrödinger’s cat, it is unclear to me whether or not theory has died and if it has, whether or not it should be resurrected. If it has indeed died and needs to be brought back to life, future theorists should certainly read Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o before trying to revive it. For if Derrida’s theory is correct and life after theory is a text, one of the texts on that reading list should include Thiong’o’s account of a …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Table of Contents for Volume 2

Images Of Muslims In Evangelical Christian And Secular Right-Wing Discourse, Kristian Steiner

International Dialogue

This is a comparative content analysis of the construction of Islam and Muslims in two Swedish publications—the newspaper Världen idag and the journal SD-Kuriren, the official organ of the Sweden Democrats—representing the Swedish Evangelical Christian right and the Swedish political right, respectively. The aim is to see both agreement and differences in their Muslim-related discourse from 2006–2007. Both news products share basic assumptions about Muslims and Islam. The main theme in the editorials and articles is the Muslim threat, in some cases combined with a Western retreat. Världen idag also focuses on Islam’s alleged incompatibility with democracy. In both media …

Living Beyond The End Times: Living In The End Times, Edward Sandowski, Betty J. Harris

International Dialogue

In Living in the End Times, Slavoj Žižek takes up themes many of which he has explored elsewhere in his numerous works embodied in varied media. This Slovenian origin cosmopolitan philosopher and cultural critic uses many types of outlets and modes of expression (books and scholarly journal articles, but also journalistic publications, TV interviews, appearances in documentary films, etc.) to explore variegated subject matter. He responds to politics in an age of increasing globalization by taking up a global range of issues, and responds to the multimedia environment which conveys ideology as false consciousness with his own multimedia works, possibly …

When Is It Best To Remember? Maintaining The Sacred Center: The Bosnian City Of Stolac, Ed Marques

International Dialogue

The town, Stolac, has a long history of vibrancy as a strategic commercial town and a Center of culture in the southern part of Bosnia—spawning writers, poets, scholars and artists, an amount disproportionate to its size. Maintaining the Sacred Center: The Bosnian City of Stolac, is the latest book of Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, who carries on the heritage of his own hometown: Stolac. His book begins with a quote from the Quran and a line of poetry by Stolac-native Mak Dizdar—Bosnia’s leading poet in the 20th century. Both the Quran and the poetry of Mak Dizdar are returned to throughout the …

The Invisible Arab: The Promise And Peril Of The Arab Revolution, Daniel G. Acheson-Brown

International Dialogue

Marwan Bishara’s The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution (2012) is a must-read for students and scholars of the Middle East and the Arab world. The author is a senior political analyst for Al Jazeera English channel, and is also editor of Al Jazeera’s show “Empire.” Bishara spent many hours doing first-hand reporting from the streets of the Arab uprisings of 2011. He presents an intense book, organized in an essay format, with relevant topical sections.

Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues On The Left, Leonard Harris

International Dialogue

Three concepts occupy each author: universal features of human nature, hegemonic social conditions, and social identities considered as universal kinds. The authors present their individual views and note where they are in agreement and address differences. The result is an intellectual conversation among the authors that takes the reader through fascinating ideas and distinctions; ideas and distinctions that have continued to occupy the authors since the publication of their conversation.

Readings In Globalization: Key Concepts And Major Debates, Paul C. Sondrol

International Dialogue

George Ritzer and Zeynep Atalay’s unique anthology introduces students to major concepts in globalization via chapters from a variety of disciplinary approaches to familiarize the reader with the broad sweep of globalization in the 21st century. Readings in Globalization integrates easily digested synthesis into well-crafted essays. More experienced tastes will appreciate the mixing of new primary research in with older data found in some of the chapters. These findings by distinguished authors offer a rich assessment of the globalization in international relations.

Notes From The Editor, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Notes from International Dialogue's Editor-in-Chief, Rory J. Conces

Pilgrimage In Turbulent Contexts: One Hundred Years Of Pilgrimage To The Holy Land, Curtis Hutt

International Dialogue

In this paper, I review select developments in the last one hundred years of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic pilgrimage to sites found today in Israel and the Occupied Territories. I argue that only by viewing the pilgrimages under analysis as dissipative systems, is one able to explain historical change in this most turbulent of contexts. When combined with an understanding of pilgrimage as social action, this approach enables historians of religions to account for not only the restructuring of pilgrimages over time but also to understand dynamics surrounding ritual birth and death. Furthermore, the political strategies of traditionalists and revivalists …