Pub Date : 2024-04-08DOI: 10.1177/01914537241244823
Fidèle Ingiyimbere
Since the publication of his A Theory of Justice (TJ), John Rawls has revolutionized political philosophy in many ways, including the understanding of human rights. His theory of rights in TJ is drawn from a comprehensive liberal doctrine and is limited to the domestic society. However, his account of human rights developed in his last major work, The Law of Peoples, claims to be politically free standing, following the model of his Political Liberalism. For Rawls, human rights are necessary conditions for social cooperation. They are meant to serve as one of the principles of foreign policy of the reasonable liberal peoples, in their relations with non-liberal societies. Rawls believes that his category of human rights cannot be rejected by non-liberal peoples as parochial or particular to the Western tradition, because they are not based on any comprehensive doctrine. On the other hand, however, many African scholars have dismissed the current international human rights regime on the account of being too liberal, and not corresponding to the African communalist worldview. It is in that regard that The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and subsequent African human rights instruments were adopted to dress a list of human rights that take into account African history, civilization, and values. Thus, in three main sections, this article examines whether the Rawlsian account and the African view of human rights can enrich each other, or whether they are completely opposed.
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Pub Date : 2024-02-02DOI: 10.1177/01914537241230343
Paul Weithman
Though John Rawls's treatment of stability has received less attention than other parts of his work, it promises help in understanding how liberal institutions can reproduce themselves under non-ideal conditions like ours. But stability in Rawls's sense seems to depend ineliminably on society's justice, and Gerald Cohen powerfully criticized the connection Rawls drew between the two. Cohen contends that stability is ‘alien’ to justice rather than conceptually connected to it. It is therefore a consideration that should be studied separately. If we are to draw on Rawls's treatment, it needs to be defended against Cohen's critique. I argue that it can be. The defense depends upon establishing a conclusion that Cohen thought inconsistent with Rawls's theory and that might have discomfited Rawls himself: that the arguments he offered for the stability of a just society were more limited and tentative than he acknowledged. Locating those limits has two valuable payoffs. It sheds light on some of the more obscure and difficult, but neglected parts of Rawls's work. More important for our current political moment, it shows the points at which unjust societies such as our own need to be shored up.
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Pub Date : 2024-01-27DOI: 10.1177/01914537241230013
Giorgi Tskhadaia
Developing a plausible theory of political obligation is crucial for understanding our current political lives or constructing new ones. However, it proved to be hard to arrive at a theory that is universalistic and logically consistent. Without adherence to certain universalistic principles, such as freedom and equality, one might be tempted to justify individuals’ allegiance to authoritarian regimes based on particularistic reasons. Also, one may argue that if a general theory of political obligation cannot be devised, we are justified to resort to anarchism. Despite such high political stakes involved, a contention arose that universalistic approaches to political obligation are logically inconsistent because they run afoul of a particularity requirement. The latter is a demand that any plausible theory of individuals’ obligations toward a political entity should account for the reasons why they should obey the rules and orders of a specific authority. In this article, drawing on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s post-structuralist theory, I demonstrate that the dichotomy of universalism vs. particularism need not have destructive effects for a successful theory of political obligation. Indeed, it is possible to accept a particularity requirement but at the same time, argue that political obligations have a universalistic thrust.
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Pub Date : 2024-01-26DOI: 10.1177/01914537231225149
Johanna Chovanec
How does literature engage with the legacies of Empire? This article examines how imperial decline and nation building are reflected in textual production after the First World War. With Turkey as a case study, it focuses on the post-imperial narrative as a form of narration dealing with the experience of imperial loss, political contingency and possibilities of national belonging. I argue that Turkey’s post-imperial condition is shaped by coming to terms with the loss of the Ottoman Empire, on the one hand, and a nationalising present embedded in the experience of Western-dominated modernity, on the other. Against this backdrop, I examine essays from the compilations Yaşadığım Gibi (1970, ‘As I lived’) and Beş Şehir (1946, ‘Five Cities’) by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, a key intellectual of the early republican era. The analysis of these post-imperial narratives reveals how Tanpınar tries to root Turkey’s national modernity in selected elements of the imperial past. For Tanpınar, continuity with (Turkified) imperial heritage is a prerequisite for a strong nation-state.
文学如何处理帝国的遗产？本文探讨了第一次世界大战后帝国衰落和国家建设如何反映在文本创作中。文章以土耳其为例，重点探讨了后帝国主义叙事作为一种叙事形式，如何处理帝国丧失的经历、政治偶然性和民族归属的可能性。我认为，土耳其的后帝国主义状况一方面是由奥斯曼帝国的失落所塑造的，另一方面是由西方主导的现代性经验所蕴含的民族化现状所塑造的。在此背景下，我研究了共和国早期重要知识分子艾哈迈德-哈姆迪-坦佩纳尔（Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar）的作品集《雅萨德吉姆-吉比》（Yaşadığım Gibi，1970 年，"As I lived"）和《贝什-谢希尔》（Beş Şehir，1946 年，"Five Cities"）中的文章。对这些后帝国叙事的分析揭示了坦皮纳尔如何试图将土耳其的民族现代性植根于帝国历史的特定元素中。对坦皮纳尔而言，延续（突厥化的）帝国遗产是建立强大民族国家的先决条件。
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Pub Date : 2024-01-24DOI: 10.1177/01914537241229052
Yutang Jin
Han Fei was a central figure in Chinese Legalism, which was a leading school of thought in the Warring States period of China, and which left a huge imprint on political culture in imperial China. This article examines the complex duality of public and private interests in Han Fei’s political thought, a crucial aspect of his thinking. I argue that Han Fei adopted a sophisticated statist approach to understanding public and private interests. For Han Fei, public interests are embodied in the state while private ones have dual functions. On the one hand, private interests threaten public ones by inviting corrupt material interests, personal morality, and knowledge, as well as human relationships. On the other hand, self-centered human psychology plays a dialectic role in strengthening the state.
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Pub Date : 2024-01-20DOI: 10.1177/01914537241229055
Charles des Portes
This article offers to outline a direction for a decolonial political theory based on Aimé Césaire’s and Frantz Fanon’s thoughts. In doing so, I will first discuss some work of comparative political theory that could be associated with an attempt to decolonize political theory. Rather than a systematic critique of these works, this article aims to outline some of their limits from a decolonial perspective, such as their embedment in a continental ontology/logic, and their over-emphasis on methodology that can lead to an instrumental account of politics. In contrast, I will argue for a decolonial existential political theory that grounds its investigation in what Frantz Fanon called ‘the zone of nonbeing’ and that takes politics as first philosophy. To make my point, I will discuss Aimé Césaire’s Letter to Maurice Thorez and Frantz Fanon’s Political Theory of the Damnés.
{"title":"Towards a decolonial political theory: Thinking from the zone of nonbeing","authors":"Charles des Portes","doi":"10.1177/01914537241229055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537241229055","url":null,"abstract":"This article offers to outline a direction for a decolonial political theory based on Aimé Césaire’s and Frantz Fanon’s thoughts. In doing so, I will first discuss some work of comparative political theory that could be associated with an attempt to decolonize political theory. Rather than a systematic critique of these works, this article aims to outline some of their limits from a decolonial perspective, such as their embedment in a continental ontology/logic, and their over-emphasis on methodology that can lead to an instrumental account of politics. In contrast, I will argue for a decolonial existential political theory that grounds its investigation in what Frantz Fanon called ‘the zone of nonbeing’ and that takes politics as first philosophy. To make my point, I will discuss Aimé Césaire’s Letter to Maurice Thorez and Frantz Fanon’s Political Theory of the Damnés.","PeriodicalId":509762,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"2 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139523953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-20DOI: 10.1177/01914537241228805
Mark Kramer
This article discusses the significance of international borders in Europe and Northeast Asia during the Cold War (1945–1989) and after. Using the concept of ‘moral hazard’, the article examines what happens when great powers frequently violate the borders of neighboring countries without suffering adverse repercussions. Norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity are viable only if large countries are willing to uphold them most of the time. The Soviet Union used or threatened to use military force against East European countries on numerous occasions (1953, 1956, 1968, and 1980–1981) with impunity. The Russian Federation adopted a broadly similar policy toward neighboring countries that had been republics of the Soviet Union until 1991. Russian forces in Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Belarus, and Ukraine served as instruments of Russian hegemony in those countries. Until 2014, Western governments made little or no effort to deter or counter Russian military encroachments in neighboring republics. By the principle of moral hazard, leaders in the Kremlin came to believe that they could act with a free hand in the former USSR.
{"title":"Borders, states, and armed conflicts in Europe and Northeast Asia since 1945: The moral hazard of great-power encroachments","authors":"Mark Kramer","doi":"10.1177/01914537241228805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537241228805","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the significance of international borders in Europe and Northeast Asia during the Cold War (1945–1989) and after. Using the concept of ‘moral hazard’, the article examines what happens when great powers frequently violate the borders of neighboring countries without suffering adverse repercussions. Norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity are viable only if large countries are willing to uphold them most of the time. The Soviet Union used or threatened to use military force against East European countries on numerous occasions (1953, 1956, 1968, and 1980–1981) with impunity. The Russian Federation adopted a broadly similar policy toward neighboring countries that had been republics of the Soviet Union until 1991. Russian forces in Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Belarus, and Ukraine served as instruments of Russian hegemony in those countries. Until 2014, Western governments made little or no effort to deter or counter Russian military encroachments in neighboring republics. By the principle of moral hazard, leaders in the Kremlin came to believe that they could act with a free hand in the former USSR.","PeriodicalId":509762,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"3 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139523940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-02DOI: 10.1177/01914537231223845
Douglas Kellner
In this article, I argue that concern with the public sphere and the necessary conditions for a genuine democracy can be seen as a central theme of Jurgen Habermas's work that deserves respect and critical scrutiny in the contemporary moment, when throughout the world liberal democracies are in crisis. My study intends to point to the continuing importance of Habermas' problematic of the public sphere and its relevance for debates over democratic politics and social and cultural life in the present age, in an era in which the Occupy Movements, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the Trump Resistance Movement, and Ukraine and Palestine Solidarity groups use social media to struggle against multiple forms of oppression. At stake is delineating a concept of the public sphere which facilitates maximum public participation and debate over the key issues of the contemporary era and which consequently promotes the cause of radical democracy and social transformation.
{"title":"Habermas and the mutations of the public sphere","authors":"Douglas Kellner","doi":"10.1177/01914537231223845","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537231223845","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I argue that concern with the public sphere and the necessary conditions for a genuine democracy can be seen as a central theme of Jurgen Habermas's work that deserves respect and critical scrutiny in the contemporary moment, when throughout the world liberal democracies are in crisis. My study intends to point to the continuing importance of Habermas' problematic of the public sphere and its relevance for debates over democratic politics and social and cultural life in the present age, in an era in which the Occupy Movements, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the Trump Resistance Movement, and Ukraine and Palestine Solidarity groups use social media to struggle against multiple forms of oppression. At stake is delineating a concept of the public sphere which facilitates maximum public participation and debate over the key issues of the contemporary era and which consequently promotes the cause of radical democracy and social transformation.","PeriodicalId":509762,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy & Social Criticism","volume":"50 18","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139390219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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