Political Theory Commons^™

Mutual Recognitions Across Generations, Steven L. Winter Walter S. Gibbs Distinguished Professor Of Constitutional Law

Law Faculty Research Publications

“Sovereignty,” Arendt says, “is contradictory to” the human condition. It is not, in any event, the kind of thing that can be shared across generations. Subsequent generations lack sovereignty to the precise degree that they are bound by the decisions of their predecessors. It is no answer to say that contemporary citizens participate in the sovereignty of a whole, transgenerational people. To paraphrase de Tocqueville, later generations are not free because they are not entirely equal, and they are not equal because they are not entirely free.

Where “sovereignty” is a metaphysical concept that transcends time, recognition is an act …

Un/Learning To Disagree. A Response To "Pragmatist Thinking For A Populist Moment: Contingency And Racial Re-Valuing In Education Governance", Edda Sant, Marta Da Costa

Democracy & Education

How should education governance respond to increasing polarized perspectives? Drawing on contemporary African American pragmatism, Knight-Abowitz and Sellers’s article "Pragmatist Thinking for a Populist Moment: Contingency and Racial Re-valuing in Education Governance" interrogated the critical case of Black Lives Matters and anti-critical race theory protests in the USA education governance and concluded that inquiry and deliberation are needed to embrace more pluralistic forms of democracy. In our response, in which we engage with decolonial, agonistic, and speculative theories, we share Knight-Abowitz and Sellers’s analytical framings. Yet we wonder to what extent inquiry and deliberation can push off racial habits and …

Notes From The Editor

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

International Dialogue

NOTES FROM THE EDITOR

INTERVIEW

Analysis of the PLO and Hamas: Interview with Sir John Jenkins Raphael Cohen-Almagor

REVIEW ESSAYS

What Freedom? Edward Sankowski and Betty J. Harris

Ethnocratizing the “Holy Land” Curtis Hutt

BOOK REVIEWS

Rochelle Terman The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works—and When It Backfires Brett J. Kyle

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origin of Durable Authoritarianism Joseph L. Derdzinski

POETRY

Arabic قصیدة بلا عنوانأسماء عزایزة

English Untitled Poem Asmaa Azaieh

What Freedom? Freedom-A Disease Without Cure. Slavoj Žižek. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2023. Pp. 328., Edward Sankowski, Betty J. Harris

International Dialogue

Slavoj Žižek's outpouring of books continues, including the volume, Freedom-A Disease Without Cure (2023). The title is somber, but the contents do not signal an unrelievedly depressed attitude on the part of the author. Rather, the book manifests expanding curiosity and far-reaching originality. That is, however, supplemented by some self-criticism, e.g., when the author broods about the apathy in himself and others that he claims is a result of the hyperactivity enjoined by and observed in contemporary capitalism. We hope to go beyond critical interpretation and evaluation of Žižek, to express our own new insights beyond those formulated or hinted …

The Geopolitics Of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works—And When It Backfires Rochelle Terman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023. Pp. 216., Brett J. Kyle

International Dialogue

In The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works—and When It Backfires (Princeton University Press, 2023), Rochelle Terman takes on the important and interesting question of the effectiveness of states’ denunciation of each other in the enforcement of human rights. “Naming and shaming” states for their human rights abuses has long been a feature of international relations. Despite its consistent presence in the international arena, it is often met with skepticism by IR scholars and seen as nothing more than power politics in disguise. Rather than seeking to downplay or push back against this criticism of norm enforcement, Terman …

Ethnocratizing The “Holy Land” The Politics Of Sacred Places: A View From Israel-Palestine Nimrod Luz. London, New York And Dublin: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. Pp. 223., Curtis Hutt

International Dialogue

In this review essay, I will engage with some critical issues raised by Nimrod Luz in his recent book, The Politics of Sacred Places: A View From Israel-Palestine. This is a follow up to earlier articles that I have written for ID: International Dialogue and elsewhere related to holy sites as well as pilgrimage to, from, and within what is commonly known in the Western Christian world for the last one thousand years as the “Holy Land.” 1 It is also a companion piece to a recent review I have written of Marshall J. Breger and Leonard M. Hammer’s landmark …

Revolution And Dictatorship: The Violent Origin Of Durable Authoritarianism Steven Levitsky And Lucan Way. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. Pp. 656., Joseph L. Derdzinski

International Dialogue

W h y do s o m e ––a nd not other, of course— regimes survive? Surveying a comprehensive range of historical and more contemporary examples, Levitsky and Way's Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism is an important contribution to scholarship that seeks to answer this fundamental question. While much of comparative political specifically, and political science more broadly, centers on democratic regimes and their fragility (and cases of stability, to be fair), why some authoritarian regimes "succeed" over multiple generations is less well understood. By focusing on the authoritarian regimes that emerge from social revolutions, Levitsky …

Untitled Poem (In Arabic), Asmaa Azaizeh

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Untitled Poem (In English), Asmaa Azaizeh

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of The Plo And Hamas: Interview With Sir John Jenkins, Raphael Cohen-Almagor

International Dialogue

Sir John Jenkins is currently a Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange, the London-based think tank, for whom he has written extensively on Islamism and extremism more generally. Between 1980 and 2015 he served as a British diplomat, initially in Abu Dhabi (1983–86), Malaysia (1989–92) and Kuwait (1995–98) before being appointed Ambassador to Burma (1999–2002). He was subsequently HM Consul-General, Jerusalem (2003–06), Ambassador to Syria (2006–07), FCO Director for the Middle East and North Africa (2007-09), Ambassador to Iraq (2009–11), Special Representative to the National Transitional Council and 1subsequently Ambassador to Libya (2011) and Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia …

Psci 102: Political Controversies: Democracy, Politics, And Freedom., Antonia Cucchiara

Open Educational Resources

This course aims to provide students with an introduction to the analysis of political controversies stemming from issues related to freedom and democracy in America today. Students will first engage with questions central to the understanding of the concepts above, such as: What is freedom? What is the relationship between freedom and democracy? How have thinkers, from the ancient to modern era, defined freedom? How can we compare and contrast the varied definitions of freedom put forward by thinkers across time? Students will then apply the theories of freedom and democracies to analyze a series of case studies from the …

Theistic Illiberal Constitutionalism: A Review Of Adrian Vermeule’S Common Good Constitutionalism, Kyron J. Huigens

Articles

Adrian Vermeule’s Common Good Constitutionalism drew a remarkable amount of attention from constitutional law scholars when it was published in 2020. About eighteen months later, Vermeule published a piece complaining that the critics had missed the point, that they had ignored the natural law jurisprudence that grounds the work. He was correct. This Review addresses Vermeule’s natural law jurisprudence, emphasizing the fact that it is a religious natural law jurisprudence. His arguments are in the tradition of ScholasticismAristotelian logic incorporated into Christian theology by St. Thomas Aquinas. Scholasticism is a remarkably weak foundation for constitutional jurisprudence. It is a vast …

End Or New Beginning Of The 'Miracle Of Chile'?, Avery S. Holzworth

SURE (Stonehill Undergraduate Research Experience)

This project explores political, economic, and constitutional developments in Chile. We focus on domestic perceptions of the failure to see the “Chilean economic miracle” produce a large middle class. The catalyst for this inquiry was the 2019 wave of protests across the country that led to the decision to adopt a new constitution. After 30 years of democratic stability and economic prosperity, from 1990 to 2019, Chile seems to be dividing over the legacy of the former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, and the future direction of Chile’s democracy and economy. This project explores the nature of these divisions and debates.

الأمن الوطني الأردني المفهوم والعناصر العامة, Hussein Suleiman Al-Touqah

Journal of the Association of Arab Universities for Research in Higher Education مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للبحوث في التعليم العالي

هدف البحث إلى مناقشة مفاهيم الأمن الوطني الأردني والأمن الوطني الشامل، وأهم الجوانب المرتبطة به، والتعرف الى دلالات تلك المفاهيم، ومناقشة العناصر العامة له والجوانب المتعلقة به، وبيان أهم المحاور الرئيسة والخصائص للأمن الوطني الأردني، وكذلك معرفة المرتكزات والثوابت والأبعاد والإتجاهات العامة الأمن الوطني الأردني. اعتمد الباحث على المنهج الوصفي التحليلي لوصف بعض وجهات النظر والأفكار حول مفاهيم الأمن والأمن الوطني، وكذلك المنهج التاريخي لتتبع مراحل تطور هذه المفاهيم وجوانب الأمن الوطني الأردني. توصل الباحث لنتائج عديدة في بحثه كان أهمها: أن الأردن يعتمد في تحقيق أمنه الوطني الشامل على جميع العوامل التي تسهم في استقراره، وتشمل العوامل السياسية والإقتصادية …

The Crisis Of Market Society And The Fascist Solution In The Work Of Karl Polanyi, Nicholas E. Reynolds

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The revival of interest in the work of Karl Polanyi, which has generated valuable lines of inquiry across disciplines, has largely neglected Polanyi’s extensive writings on fascism. This dissertation argues that Karl Polanyi should be considered a theorist of fascism, one whose thinking revolves around the concept of a “fascist solution” arising as a consequence of a terminal deadlock of market society. This dissertation surveys two decades of Polanyi’s work to construct a full picture of his theory of fascism and its importance for his broader theorizing about the dynamics of capitalist societies. Polanyi makes at least three specific contributions …

Bodies For Catastrophe: A Montage Study Of Palestinian Digital Labor, Francisco Ramos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis investigates Palestinian digital labor through the method of montage. Digital labor, understood as bodily activity transfigured by digital machines into exploitable information, is examined within the context of Israeli surveillance technologies used against Palestinians. The study critically explores the dual political functions of these technologies: as tools of settler-colonial domination aiming to dispossess Palestinians, and as neoliberal mechanisms seeking to profit from the surveillance of Palestinian bodies. The second half of the thesis turns to the ways Palestinians engage with such technologies and unsettle the economic and colonial logics embedded in them.

The research is structured nonlinearly using …

Co-Production Process Of Kampung Warna-Warni: Societal Active Participatory In The Urban Slum Management, Faqih Alfian, Alvinda Putri Ruriana, Galuh Anissa Sekar Ayu, Bayu Galen Adiputra, Nethaneel Yobel Marpaung, Ken Arya Fauzan Alwan

Jurnal Politik

This research analyses the Co-production process in developing Kampung Warna-Warni Jodipan, Malang City, and its implications for city government regulations regarding urban slum areas. The author uses descriptive qualitative data to explore the co-production process based on primary data obtained through semi-structured interviews with residents of Kampung Warna-Warni and the local Malang city government. Research findings show that the active participation of the community, students, private sponsors, and government agents can create a balance between community autonomy and the need for supervision and assistance from the government, as well as strengthening the bargaining position of the residents of Kampung Warna-Warni. …

Voices Of Freedom: Dialogue, Plurality, And The Shape Of Democracy, Muhamad Pelengkahu

Jurnal Politik

Creating Democracy: Arendt and Bakhtin in Dialogue is an important contribution to political theory and social philosophy. By connecting Hannah Arendt's and Mikhail Bakhtin's thoughts, Hersch offers an innovative perspective on understanding democracy as a dynamic and participatory process. Although coming from different disciplinary backgrounds, Arendt and Bakhtin share fundamental ideas about the importance of freedom, social interaction, and meaning-making in political life.

Second International Marxism And The Finnish Revolution, Luke Brodersen

University Honors Theses

This paper will consider the Finnish revolution of 1917-1918 as it was understood by Second International Marxists--not because these Marxists were right, but because the revolution was led by Marxists of a socialist party formed in the Second International. By dint of the constraints of time, of resources, and of a language barrier, this paper cannot be an exhaustive historical account of the activities of the Finnish socialists, nor a comprehensive explanation of Marxism, nor would it assume to provide a proper 'Marxist' analysis of this history. Of the two 20th century English language histories of this revolution--the work of …

Review Of Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned The Work Ethic Against Workers And How Workers Can Take It Back, By Elizabeth Anderson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023)., Tedd Siegel

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

The (Im)Possibility Of Anti-Systemic Politics: Uprisings, Exilic Spaces, And Alain Badiou, Jason C. Mueller

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The world-system is in crisis, and a flurry of uprisings challenge the mantra that 'there is no alternative' to capitalism. However, some questions remain. What will replace the global capitalist mode of production, and how will those aspiring to transform the system do so? These questions are of relevance to three separate but related domains of research: (1) the study of anti-systemic movements by world-systems analysts; (2) the study of exilic spaces by scholars using an anarchist perspective; and (3) the work of French Philosopher Alain Badiou. This article stages a discussion between these three areas, locating areas in each …

Contrary To Yogendra Yadav's Dim View, Indian Political Thought Is Alive And Thriving, Salmoli Choudhuri, Moiz Tundawala

Popular Media

Generating considerable public debate, Yogendra Yadav has recently pronounced the demise of political thought in India [attributing this] to the complete absence of any new imagination in the field of politics. This article is a response to Yadav's claim.

Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices Against State Violence, Andrea Michaels

Feminist Pedagogy

The following book review of Shreerekha Pillai’s Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices against State Violence (2023) is an expansive and timely collection of essays on the carceral state in its implications for feminist educators. This review focuses on the connections and connectivity of two essays in the collection that attempt to address a minor examination of the person as political.

Thinking Blue / Writing Red: Marxism And The (Post)Human, Stephen C. Tumino

Publications and Research

Thinking Blue/Writing Red interrogates contemporary culture across a range of texts, from the pandemic (‘Covid’ and ‘Trump Speak’) to high theory (Melville's narratives) and popular culture (Beyoncé's ‘Formation’ and Super Bowl performance, Twin Peaks , metamodern ‘cli-fi’ films). Inspired by Derrida’s idea of the secret, Tumino examines the significance of social movements (Black Lives Matter, Occupy, alter-globalization) and naïve art (Darger, Ryden) to argue that these texts speak of the secrets that capitalism cannot speak. Contending that the cultural surfaces narrate only the ‘nonsecret,’ that to see the social logic of the culture one must dig into what Bruno Latour …

On Critical Geneaology, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

Today most critical theorists who deploy history use a genealogical method forged by Nietzsche and Foucault. This genealogical approach now dominates historically inflected critique. But not all genealogical writings today, nor all philosophical debates surrounding genealogy, advance the goals of critical philosophy. It is crucial now that we assess the value of genealogical critiques. The proper metric against which to evaluate such work is whether it contributes to transforming ourselves, others, and society in a valuable way. In this article, I propose that we use the term “critical genealogy” to identify those genealogical practices that positively nourish our activity and, …

The Security Dilemma And Arms Race Dynamics In Europe’S Response To The Russia-Ukraine Conflict, Brice Tseen Fu Lee, Filip Komšić, Juan Pablo Sims

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

This paper examines the escalation of military expenditures in Europe in response to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, through the lens of the security dilemma. The security dilemma, a fundamental concept in international relations, describes how the defensive actions of one state can provoke perceptions of threat among others, potentially leading to an arms race. By analyzing military spending data from 2019 to 2023 for key European countries including Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Azerbaijan, Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP, this study highlights how nations closest to the conflict, …

Jewish Nationalism In Israel: A Measurement, Hannah M. Ridge

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

Since Israel’s founding, being a “Jewish state” has been central to its self-representation. However, Israel has struggled to identify what that means. This article examines the strength of Jewish nationalism in Jewish Israeli public opinion. It draws on a recent survey of 200 Jewish Israelis for a qualitative and quantitative investigation of public responses to religious nationalist statements. These findings offer a utilizable survey short scale for measuring Jewish nationalism and to understand how Jewish Israelis are interpreting these statements. This study is a necessary step to empirically evaluating religious nationalism in the “Jewish state”.

Sentimental Empiricism: Politics, Philosophy, And Criticism In Postwar France, Davide Panagia

Politics

Sentimental Empiricism reconsiders the legacy of eighteenth and nineteenth century empiricism and moral sentimentalism for the intellectual formation of the generation of postwar French thinkers whose work came to dominate Anglophone conversations across the humanities under the guise of “French theory.” Panagia’s book first shows what was missed in the reception of this literature in the Anglophone academy by attending to how France’s pedagogical milieu plays out church and state relations in the form of educational debates around reading practices, the aesthetics of mimesis, French imperialism, and republican universalism. Panagia then shows how such thinkers as Jean Wahl, Simone de …

Intersectional Marxism And The Dialectic: Interpreting Marx For Our Times, Lilia Monzó, Cristal B. Flores

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"Many on the radical left are increasingly seeking a humanist alternative to the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy that has produced immeasurable suffering and destruction. Amidst the fascism ignited within this era’s supra-conservatism, many of us turned to the Democratic Party to ensure Trump’s defeat only to be reminded that both major political parties in the United States have always moved to the tune of capitalist interests.¹ Thus, at this time, especially, we must remain hopeful in order to continue our struggle to develop a viable alternative to the current system.

This new PM Press edition of Karl Marx’s Critique …