Suchergebnisse

Historical and political science research into the role and significance of elections in state-socialist societies points to the variety of functions that these elections fulfilled, notwithstanding their deficiency if compared to liberal democratic conceptions such as the legitimation of the political regime and the mobilisation and socialisation of the population. This paper takes a novel approach towards the social significance of state-socialist elections, arguing that they conveyed imaginary understandings of the societies and polities of which they were part. The concept of the imaginary is discussed in conversation with Charles Taylor, who argues that public social practices are informed by mostly latent "understandings" that render them subjectively meaningful in the first place. Referring to historical research on state-socialist elections, imaginary understandings are identified that pertain in particular to the relationship between officially proclaimed "truths" and unofficial positionings towards them.

Artykuł proponuje konceptualizację pojęcia "wartości" w odniesieniu do problematyki integracji europejskiej. W politycznej retoryce Unii Europejskiej "integracja" to zwykle zarówno poszerzenie zakresu różnych polityk oraz obszarów społecznych, które objęte są rządzeniem ponadnarodowym, jak i pogłębienie regulacji. Natomiast termin "wartość" zwykle stosowany jest w liczbie mnogiej i oznacza określone zasady, często uznawane za nieodłączną część europejskiego dziedzictwa kulturowego i projektu politycznego Unii Europejskiej. W odróżnieniu od tego rodzaju dyskursów ten artykuł proponuje analizę integracji poprzez spojrzenie skierowane ku transnarodowym relacjom społecznym w Unii Europejskiej, a także konceptualizację "wartości" jako kategorii, która nie odnosi się do zasad i przekonań, lecz do wartościowań wbudowanych we wspomniane transnarodowe relacje. Socjologia Unii Europejskiej, mimo znacznego dorobku w postaci licznych studiów nad transnacjonalizmem w Europie, nie rozwinęła póki co określonej koncepcji pojęcia "wymiany". Przedłożony artykuł stara się wypełnić tę lukę poprzez konceptualizację opracowań antropologicznych, które łączą kwestie społecznego wartościowania z analizą praktyk wymiany. Rezultatem tych poszukiwań jest ujęcie wartościowania społecznego jako zjawiska wyłaniającego się z wymiany wywodzącej się z logiki "daru". Taka konceptualizacja jest następnie zastosowana do analizy jednej z doniosłych, powszechnych i mających długą tradycję praktyk wymiany w Unii Europejskiej – partnerstwa miast. Odnosząc się do wyników jakościowego projektu badawczego przeprowadzonego przez autora, artykuł wskazuje na to, jak określone interpretacje wymiany partnerskiej skutkują wartościowaniem transnarodowych relacji europejskich, a jakie czynniki takiemu wartościowaniu przypuszczalnie przeczą. Artykuł zamykają konkluzje dotyczące ogólnych implikacji zaproponowanego podejścia.

AbstractThis article argues that the temporality of the financial economy ought to be seen as radically synchronistic. 'Synchronism' refers to both an epistemological and practical approach that addresses finance neither with a view to the past nor to the future, but is instead focused on the moment that a financial transaction is settled (i.e., the horizon of trading). From this perspective, the article expands the scope of current social theorizing on financial markets, which is characterized by a preoccupation with the futurity of financial markets and products. It suggests that financial synchronism can be traced back to certain developments in economic theory since the so-called 'marginalist revolution', which enabled the transfer of a certain optics informing market theories into financial practices. On these terms, financial synchronism is interpreted as a powerful social imaginary that crucially mediates the way contemporary societies face the contingency of the future.

What were the effects of securities markets' dynamics on the issue of political securitization, in the sense of the Copenhagen School, in the context of the sovereign debt crisis in the European Monetary Union (EMU)? This article addresses that question in an attempt to bring together the theory of political securitization and the financial securitization of government bonds. In conceptual terms, the article argues that the intervention of securities markets into the securitization of the euro can be understood as a confrontation between two types of validity claims. Securitizing moves, and the response they elicit, together constitute symbolically a political collectivity; this provokes a struggle between the adequate representation of that collectivity and its security concerns. In contrast to this, market communications – in fact, price signals – neither invoke a political collectivity nor can they be semantically refuted. Because of this quality, market signals can amplify or weaken securitizing moves. In the case of the EMU sovereign debt crisis, market communications triggered a privileging of supranational securitizations while impairing national ones.

AbstractThe Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) is a political mechanism that aims at 'multilevel governance' of state indebtedness in the European Union. As such, it has become the concern of research that asks how sovereignty becomes articulated in this process. This article approaches this question through the conceptualization of a modular notion of sovereignty elaborated through a discussion of work on the finance-security nexus. The article argues that existing accounts of the formation of sovereign power in relation to state debt can be combined into a notion of modular sovereignty when seen through the prism of critiques of contractualism that take issue with liberal notions of state sovereignty and credit security. This way, the indebted state becomes visible as the referent object of multiple, and potentially contradictory, invocations of sovereignty as exercised in the EDP. First, it figures as the seat of budget sovereignty, holding its social substrate liable for its debts while ignoring inequalities in that substrate. Second, it is appealed to, within a biopolitical rationality, as the sovereign guarantor of the financial wellbeing of its population. Third, it is seen as the executor of financial wisdom that is mobilized in struggles between different levels of financial governance in the EDP.

The Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) is a political mechanism that aims at 'multilevel governance' of state indebtedness in the European Union. As such, it has become the concern of research that asks how sovereignty becomes articulated in this process. This article approaches this question through the conceptualization of a modular notion of sovereignty elaborated through a discussion of work on the finance-security nexus. The article argues that existing accounts of the formation of sovereign power in relation to state debt can be combined into a notion of modular sovereignty when seen through the prism of critiques of contractualism that take issue with liberal notions of state sovereignty and credit security. This way, the indebted state becomes visible as the referent object of multiple, and potentially contradictory, invocations of sovereignty as exercised in the EDP. First, it figures as the seat of budget sovereignty, holding its social substrate liable for its debts while ignoring inequalities in that substrate. Second, it is appealed to, within a biopolitical rationality, as the sovereign guarantor of the financial wellbeing of its population. Third, it is seen as the executor of financial wisdom that is mobilized in struggles between different levels of financial governance in the EDP.

Using the example of the current sovereign debt crisis in the European Monetary Union, the article raises two questions: how does sovereign debt contribute to the constitution of modern political sovereignty and the viability of the polity? And what are the recent changes in this mutual articula¬tion of political sovereignty and financial debt? In genealogical terms, it is argued that in modernity the sovereignty of polities has been hinged to the capacity to raise their budgets without an explicit collateral, that is, without having to clearly define what the values are that serve as a financial coun¬terweight to their debts. This constellation, which is characterized by an utterly unlikely and yet op¬erative effacement of state collateral, is termed 'sovereign trust.' The recent Eurozone crisis, in turn, displaces sovereign trust in the creditworthiness of some states as their collateral is being forced into constant interrogation, turning them into 'collateralized polities'.

Using the example of the current sovereign debt crisis in the European Monetary Union, the article raises two questions: how does sovereign debt contribute to the constitution of modern political sovereignty and the viability of the polity? And what are the recent changes in this mutual articulation of political sovereignty and financial debt? In genealogical terms, it is argued that in modernity the sovereignty of polities has been hinged to the capacity to raise their budgets without an explicit collateral, that is, without having to clearly define what the values are that serve as a financial counterweight to their debts. This constellation, which is characterized by an utterly unlikely and yet operative effacement of state collateral, is termed 'sovereign trust.' The recent Eurozone crisis, in turn, displaces sovereign trust in the creditworthiness of some states as their collateral is being forced into constant interrogation, turning them into 'collateralized polities'. ; Using the example of the current sovereign debt crisis in the European Monetary Union, the article raises two questions: how does sovereign debt contribute to the constitution of modern political sovereignty and the viability of the polity? And what are the recent changes in this mutual articulation of political sovereignty and financial debt? In genealogical terms, it is argued that in modernity the sovereignty of polities has been hinged to the capacity to raise their budgets without an explicit collateral, that is, without having to clearly define what the values are that serve as a financial counterweight to their debts. This constellation, which is characterized by an utterly unlikely and yet operative effacement of state collateral, is termed 'sovereign trust.' The recent Eurozone crisis, in turn, displaces sovereign trust in the creditworthiness of some states as their collateral is being forced into constant interrogation, turning them into 'collateralized polities'.

"Die Hauptthese des vorliegenden Essays lautet wie folgt: Die Formulierung finanzwirtschaftlicher Prozesse bei den genannten soziologischen Klassikern entsteht in Auseinandersetzung mit, und unter Einfluss von, wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Analysen, die Konsequenzen für die Konzeptualisierung gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts zeitigen (Abschnitt 2). Die sich daraus ergebenden Spannungen werfen die Frage normativer Geltung und ihrer Stabilisierung als Kernproblem nicht nur (finanz-)wirtschaftlicher Stabilität und Fragilität, sondern auch der Konzipierung gesellschaftlicher Ordnung als solcher auf (Abschnitt 3). Deswegen sind jene Spannungen, die die Theoretiker in Kalamitäten führen, instruktiv für eine Abschätzung einiger Problematiken, die in der derzeitigen Finanzkrise zum Vorschein kommen (Abschnitt 4)." (Textauszug)