Political Theory Commons^™

Jochen Schmon, Absolute Ethical Life. Michael Lazarus On The Normativity Of Marx’S Critique Of Capitalism (An Interview By Jochen Schmon), Jochen Schmon, Michael Lazarus

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

The Dangers Of Social Media In Political Theory, Eden M. Shimanek

Global Tides

Increasing political polarization is a prominent feature of the twenty-first-century political landscape, with social media playing a significant role. This essay evaluates social media as a political platform through Hannah Arendt’s notion of the Vita Activa, which describes the political realm and the ideas of totalitarianism. Using this framework, I argue that the surging political use of social media creates digital “echo chambers” that result from the loss of human plurality, which ultimately marks the diverse nature of the political realm. I would continue to argue that these chambers evolve into the notion that Arendt notes as world alienation or …

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 …

Normative Orientations To Housing Activism And The Uneven Path To Nonprofitization In New York City, 1964–1989, Andrew Wilkes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What are the distinct contributions of normative orientations (including theological and ideological ones) in the public policy process? While the literature on policy formation in the past three decades has embraced at least some idea that ideology matters, little has focused on whether the content of their specific normative orientations leads groups to contribute to, and engage in, a policy process differently. By examining Paul Sabatier’s advocacy coalition framework in conversation with Rev. Dr. Gayraud Wilmore’s tripartite, theoethical framework of liberation, elevation, and survival, this dissertation contends that the normative commitments of advocacy stakeholders within New York City’s tenant movement …

Plato's Republics: A Dramatic Interpretation Of The Early Cities In Plato's "Republic", Simeon Burns

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation will demonstrate a new methodological approach to reading Plato’s Republic. I develop and apply a dramatic, dynamic hermeneutic to Book II and part of Book III in the text. This method holds that each speech is the product of a preceding agreement or disagreement between two speakers. Agreements lead to the argument’s advancement and disagreements result in a regression to a previous agreement from which to restart the exchange. The focus section is largely on the early exchange Socrates has with Adeimantus. I argue that Socrates is an unwilling participant in the famous discussion on the meaning …

Niccolò Machiavelli: How One Florentine Man Continues To Haunt Political Theorists Beyond The Grave, Victoria Jaqueline Amezcua

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay……………………………….3

II. Primary Documents and Headnotes………..25

III. Textbook Critique……………………………..39

IV. New Textbook Entry…………………………..45

V. Bibliography………………………………….....24

Feminism And Women's Representation In Argentina, Devyn Murphy

Honors Theses

The theory of feminism has proved essential in the transformation of the patriarchal society in Argentina. Feminism paved the way for the emergence of various women’s movements, such as the Encuentros and Movimiento Nacional de Mujeres. These movements redefined the roles that women could play in society. It was because of this theory, and the movements, which made the theories a practice that advanced the political rights of Argentine women.

An Exploration Of Secular And Christian Political Thought, Elizabeth Bradley

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Through the evaluation and comparison of Machiavellian, Nietzschean, and Christian political thought, this thesis argues that Christian thinkers effectively meet the challenges posed to them by Modern philosophers. Modern philosophers reject the teaching that ethical principles have a transcendent origin in God and instead believe that morality is merely a matter of human convention. Christian philosophy was once dominant in influencing political thought. Modern thinkers such as Machiavelli and Nietzsche wrote with the express purpose of challenging and replacing Christian thought. The Christian political tradition promotes more noble qualities in leaders than the modern philosophies which proposed to challenge it. …

Lucidity And Moral Action In The Theater Of Albert Camus, Stephen Savage

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study addresses a gap in scholarly research on Albert Camus, first by exploring the place of his theater within his corpus. It divides Camus’s corpus into a set of three mythopoeic cycles: an absurd cycle focused on the Myth of Sisyphus, a cycle on revolt centered on the Myth of Prometheus, and a cycle on judgment centered on the Greek goddess Nemesis. This structure is used to examine how his Camus’s original plays (Caligula, The Misunderstanding, State of Siege, and The Just Assassins) and dramatic adaptations of the works of William Faulkner (Requiem for a Nun) and Fyodor Dostoevsky …

A Historical Analysis Of The Causes Of The French And Indian War, Jake Althouse

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The current study attempted to answer the following research question: what were the causes of the French and Indian War between Great Britain and France in 1754? To do so, the current study researched secondary sources from a historical perspective, political theories regarding the causes of war, and primary sources from individuals involved in the build-up to conflict. Previous research by historians and political scientists have mainly attributed the causes of the French and Indian War to a security dilemma and the spiral theory of war. The current study does not support this assertion. Instead, the current study asserts that …

Politics For Angels, William Kanwischer

Honors Projects

How many idealizing assumptions may we make when doing political philosophy? May we assume our citizens more rational than they are, or our governments more efficient than in reality? These questions lie at the center of the debate between ideal and non-ideal theorists. Ideal theorists believe it permissible to engage in counterfactual assumptions about citizens and states when doing political philosophy, and non-ideal theorists think the opposite. In this paper, I will argue against a particular defense of ideal theory given by David Estlund, who argues that the low probability that a standard of justice will be met does not …

Caring Without Sharing: Philanthropy's Creation And Destruction Of The Common World, Amy B. Schiller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores multiple ways philanthropy builds and undermines the common world. Political science treatments of philanthropy have focused mainly on its role in the development of civil society, with a recent turn towards critiques of philanthropy as an instrument of elite power and tension between private wealth and democratic governance. In this dissertation, I examine how philanthropy can foster enduring spaces of human flourishing, or reduce beneficiaries to objects of pity, surveillance and domination. I trace philanthropy's evolution from ancient to contemporary contexts and propose a framework for philanthropy to, under certain conditions, build and care for the common …

Of First Principles & Organic Laws, Pietro Poggi

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

The First Principles and Organic Laws of the United States ought to be part of a daily discussion at every water cooler and every dinner table in the country. Instead, it is entirely possible there have been days, weeks, months—or even years—when neither term has been spoken anywhere in America. Yet, during the first several decades of the country’s existence, the concepts of First Principles and Organic Laws were commonly discussed; in fact these notions were crucial to the founding of the country and its political organization. Works concerning the foundation of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the …

“God Is Near": American Theocracy And The Political Theology Of Joseph Smith, Alan P. Koenig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Mormon prophet Joseph Smith established the quintessentially “American religion” according to religious critics like Harold Bloom, perhaps the last major religion to emerge in the Western world. Founded during the rise of Jacksonian Democracy, early Mormonism espoused many populist and egalitarian tenets, yet behind Smith’s theology of an ever more exalted path to individual godhood lay an extraordinary politics demanding a new, theocratic hierarchy. This dissertation will discuss how Smith’s apocalypticism and exceptional politics of continual revelation confronted a pluralistic Protestant society with the superseding aim of creating a uniquely American kingdom. As a political theorist, Smith’s apocalyptic theology …

Toward A Political Theory For Private International Law, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

Private international law presents a dilemma for legal and political philosophy. Legal and political philosophers have ignored private international law, with only a few scattered attempts to evaluate its claims. Private international law offers a powerful set of counterexamples that put into serious doubt attempts to link law’s authority only or primarily to relationships between states and citizens. No society, state, or other practice-mediated relationship can serve as grounds for the authority of private international law to persons to whom it applies but who are outside of such relationships. Private international law affects the normative situations of persons entirely outside …

Polycarp's Dilemma: A Discussion Of Nicholas Wolterstorff's The Mighty And The Almighty: An Essay In Political Theology, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

The Mighty and the Almighty: An Essay in Political Theology. By Nicholas Wolterstorff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. 190. $94.00 (cloth). ISBN: 9781107027312. $29.99 (paper). ISBN: 9781107673809.

From the Review

In March of 2014, a distinguished group of scholars from a variety of institutions and disciplines gathered at Notre Dame Law School to discuss and appreciate Nicholas Wolterstorff's 2012 book, The Mighty and the Almighty: An Essay in Political Theology. This stimulating conversation, like several other similar events at Notre Dame in recent years, was convened and supported by the Law School's Program on Church, State, and …

Invisible Ink: Intersectionality And Political Inquiry, Dara Z. Strolovich

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Theology Of Global Citizenship: Belonging Beyond Boundaries, God Within Boundaries, Jisoo Hong

Political Science Honors Projects

Though creating identity and belongingness under the sovereign requires an enclosure by boundaries, the very act of drawing boundaries imposes inevitable challenges. The limitations of the Westphalian system based on territorial boundaries are becoming more tangible with transnational flows threatening individual’s sense of belonging and the state’s exercise of sovereignty. Global citizenship is suggested as a possible “solution” transcending these arbitrarily drawn boundaries. Nonetheless, my political theological examination concludes that global citizenship is yet another translation of the human beings’ old wish for belonging to, protection from, and unity under a “god,” albeit with new boundaries that differentiate us from …

Populism And Human Rights In Theory And Practice: Chavez's Venezuela And Fujimori's Peru, Joseph P. Braun

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Despite ample literature on the topic of populism itself, much less has been written on the specific relationship between populism and human rights. First, I discuss the relationship between populist ideology and human rights in theory. I argue that populism is inconsistent with human rights accounts because of its rejection of pluralism and vilification of the ‘other.’ Second, I explore the relationship between populism as a political strategy and its impact on human rights under two Latin American regimes. I argue that despite its tendency to produce short-term gains in economic and social development, a review of the two cases …

'Wars The Like Of Which One Has Never Seen', Tracy B. Strong

Research Resources

'WARS THE LIKE OF WHICH ONE HAS NEVER SEEN': READING NIETZSCHE AND POLITICS

Tracy B. Strong

Soviet National Security Decision Making, Kurt M. Campbell, Jeffrey W. Legro

Political Science Faculty Publications

Winston Churchill's characterization of the Soviet Union as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma may overstate Western understanding of the USSR's national security decision-making. The evidence in this domain is sparse, and what we do have is incomplete. Indeed, the Soviets have taken extraordinary steps to maintain the black box that shields how and why their decisions are made. With these caveats in mind, knowledge of Soviet decision-making can be summed up in a few general statements. First, the Soviet leadership is an integrated political-military body, where political authority is dominant, but where the professional military retains …

The Political Thought Of José María Luis Mora, 1794-1850, Morris L. Simon

Latin American Studies ETDs

This work undertakes a study of some aspects of the thought of one man, Doctor José María Luis Mora, a Mexican liberal of the nineteenth century. Naturally, selection by the writer has narrowed considerably the scope of this study. Two factors have conditioned the choice of material from Dr. Mora's breadbasket of ideas: (1) its relevancy to the Mexico of Mora's day, and (2) its value in revealing Mora as a political thinker.