Suchergebnisse

This study examines explanations for the success or failure of planning efforts of the 1945 British Labour Government and the French Government of the Fourth Republic. Most conventional views of British postwar planning depict it as hopelessly weak and disorganized while French planning is seen as reasonably well-armed and effectively organized. However, these views reflect excessive attention on purely administrative as well as political–cultural explanations and tend to ignore the critical underlying role of domestic politics and power. The French planning effort was only one element of a broader, relatively uncoordinated collaborative process, carried on among bureaucratic state elites and large industry, which effectively accelerated industrial investment and economic growth. Its success hinged on the inability of organized labour effectively to defend its wage interests within the political structure. In the British case, manipulation of capital markets was only marginally productive given the power and autonomy of the finance sector while the alternative attempt to plan through manpower direction failed due to the ability of organized labour to defend its wage interests in the face of chronic inflation. In each case, the structure of political power was most important in determining the success of the divergent technical approaches to planning.

This paper discusses and proposes random selection as a component in decision-making in society. Random procedures have played a significant role in history, especially in classical Greece and the medieval city-states of Italy. We examine the important positive features of decisions by random mechanisms. Random processes allow representativeness with respect to individuals and groups. They significantly reduce opportunities to influence political decisions by means of bribery and corruption and decrease the large expenses associated with today's democratic election campaigns. Random mechanisms can be applied fruitfully to a wide range of fields, including politics, the judiciary, the economy, science and the cultural sector. However, it is important that random selection processes are embedded in appropriately designed institutions.

AbstractThis article addresses Jim Bulpitt's innovative approach to conceptualizing the relationship between the external realm and domestic politics in Territory and Power in the United Kingdom. The first part draws out the argument that Bulpitt made about the relationship between the external world and domestic politics to explain the historical development of the UK's territorial politics. In doing so, it fleshes out Bulpitt's own account. It also adds empirical detail and integrates arguments from his later work on the Thatcher governments into his analysis of where the UK's territorial politics went after the early 1980s. Second, the article demonstrates how Bulpitt's analytical framework about the external–domestic political relationship can help us make sense of another state's territorial politics at a crucial historical moment, namely Weimar Germany and the Bavarian problem between 1919 and 1924.

1. Introduction -- 2. Political Moderation and Practical Conservatism -- 3. Liberal Education and Classical Republicanism -- 4. Historical Interpretation and Philosophical Intention -- 5. The Philosophical Intention and Legacy of Hobbes -- 6. Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojève on Tyranny and Theory -- 7. Michael Oakeshott and Alexandre Kojève on Play and Practice -- 8. Leo Strauss and Socratism after Heidegger -- 9. Michael Oakeshott and Augustinianism after Hobbes -- 10. Conclusion

Attempting to create greater understanding of the political dynamics that influence domestic disaster relief and management (DRM) in Thailand, this article takes a closer look at these dynamics by outlining the main actors involved in flood-related DRM. It acknowledges the importance of international and military actors but emphasises the role of national and subnational authorities. The article then identifies the central issues of DRM governance as capacity and bureaucracy and discusses these through a chronological assessment of the flood crisis in Thailand in 2011, interweaving the colourful domestic politics with various political cleavages and dichotomies, and thereby distinguishing between three main dichotomies which it considers as the central drivers of the political dynamics and institutional development of DRM. These issues can be summarised as old versus new institutions, technocracy versus bureaucracy and centralised (but with direct people-orientation through greater channels of citizenry participation) versus decentralised bureaucracy with an indirect orientation towards people. (JCSA/GIGA)

This article explores the similarities and differences concerning the extent to which electoral politics addresses the concerns of Basque and Moro nationalism. These demands mainly focus on the factors that have brought about their political, cultural and, for the Moros, also economic marginalization. In terms of similarities, electoral politics in the form of plebiscites and referendums are used to gauge the sentiments of the Basques and the Moros with regards to approving a national constitution with provisions affecting them as well as the establishment of an autonomous region for the Moros and the strengthening of a federal form of government in the case of the Basques. Elections are also used to choose their leaders at the local, provincial, regional and national levels. As for the differences, among the major ones are the following: One is that electoral politics in the Basque region mirrors the class divide in society and reflects the interests of the constituencies. This is not the case in Muslim Mindanao whereby patronage politics rules and electoral results are generally dictated by the Muslim elites who have close ties with the national elites. And secondly, the ideological bias of the elected leader and his political power in Spain has a direct impact on Basque nationalism. In the case of the Philippines, it is the personality of the elected leader that determines whether peace negotiations will be pursued or not. But this does not impact on national or local electoral politics as in the case of Spain.

The politics of natural resource access, control and exploitation assume fundamental relations of social power; they imply them and consolidate them. Environmental issues reflect broader patterns of domination and social exclusion at work in global politics which enable us to understand who benefits from the current distribution of environmental benefits and which social groups shoulder a disproportionate amount of the burden of pollution. The task, however, is not merely to identify those global structures that produce environmental inequities and injustices, but to show how, in some cases, those structures are supported and entrenched by the institutional configurations that we continue to assume are generating the solutions to environmental degradation. Towards this end, I connect debates about the global managerial class and critiques of the prevailing sustainable development historical bloc with more localized studies of the consequences of organized inequality and the strategies adopted by marginalized groups to contest their fate as victims of environmental injustice. Such an approach builds upon the project which Marian Miller began with her enquiries into the Third World in global environmental politics, emphasizing the importance of the global political economy in shaping those political relations. Political and social cleavages of race, class and gender are shown to be key to understanding the global organization of environmental inequality and justice, though it is the neglect of the first two dimensions, in particular, that forms the core concern of this paper. Their importance in understanding patterns of causation (distribution of benefit), process (access, voice, representation) and distribution (of harm) is highlighted through reference to a range of contemporary case studies in the global North and South.

The first comprehensive study of plastics, from the moment they were invented to the present day Expands the existing research on the materiality of plastic, considering it as both a disposable and durable productAn essential read in times of environmental and health crises, when humanity must find new ways of existing and transform, among other things, our culturePacked with insight from 24 contributors across 17 chapters Plastics, Environment, Culture and the Politics of Waste examines plastic as a distinct cultural, political, and environmental phenomenon. It outlines the intricate relationship with plastic that humanity has been building over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, drawing on examples from history, the arts, and literature, as well as examining the place of plastics in the current health, environmental, and energy crises. The aim of this book is to reveal the complex nature of plastics, from their rapid incorporation into our advancing ways of life, to the reenvisioning of plastics' role in human life and how, through abundant production, consumption, and disposal of plastics, humanity has initiated a toxic invasion of natural environments and human and nonhuman bodies. Bringing together various perspectives from the humanities, this edited collection contributes to the ongoing research on plastics and petrocultures and emphasizes the crucial significance of addressing the plastic crisis through culture

Current conceptions of "arbitrary and capricious" review focus on whether agencies have adequately explained their decisions in statutory, factual, scientific, or otherwise technocratic terms. Courts, agencies, and scholars alike, accordingly, generally have accepted the notion that influences from political actors, including the President and Congress, cannot properly help to explain administrative action for purposes of arbitrary and capricious review. This means that agencies today tend to sweep political influences under the rug even when such influences offer the most rational explanation for the action. This Article argues that this picture should change. Specifically, this Article argues for expanding current conceptions of arbitrary and capricious review beyond a singular technocratic focus so that credit would also be awarded to certain political influences that an agency transparently discloses and relies upon in its rulemaking record. Such an expansion of arbitrary and capricious review could yield many benefits. First, it would help to bring arbitrary and capricious review into harmony with other major doctrines, such as Chevron deference, that seem to embrace the "political control" model of agency decisionmaking. Second, it could help to create a more effective separation between science and politics. Third, giving politics a place could give courts another reason to defer to agencies, thereby softening the "ossification" charge frequently levied against arbitrary and capricious review. Finally, such a change would facilitate greater political accountability and monitoring. Ultimately, whether an expanded conception of arbitrary and capricious review can be attained will rest in the hands of courts and agencies. Agencies would need to begin openly acknowledging political influences, and courts would need to become comfortable acknowledging that an agency's reliance on political influences involving policy considerations and value judgments, such as a President's desire to push a specific ...

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Part One The situation in law and politics and the new vision -- Chapter 1 Sovereignty and cosmopolitanism: Pluralism of pluralisms and a multidimensional analysis -- Introduction -- General structure -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 Sovereignty -- Chapter 3 Cosmopolitanism -- Chapter 4 Agents and players -- Chapter 5 Contexts and realms -- Chapter 6 Dimensions and variables -- Chapter 7 Territorial disputes -- Chapter 8 Conclusive remarks, limitations and implications -- Aims, rationale and objectives -- Methodology -- The notions of sovereignty and cosmopolitanism in this monograph -- The notions of pluralism of pluralisms and multidimensional analysis in this monograph -- Choice of examples -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Chapter 2 Sovereignty -- Introduction -- Sovereignty -- Normative and factual sovereignty -- Factual sovereignty or de facto sovereignty -- Normative sovereignty or de jure sovereignty -- Limitations to factual and normative sovereignty -- The axiological choice: value sovereignty -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Chapter 3 Cosmopolitanism -- Introduction -- Cosmopolitanism -- Kinds of cosmopolitanism -- Legal cosmopolitanism: natural and positive law -- Positive law cosmopolitanism -- Cosmopolitanism and universal law -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Part Two The theory of multidimensionality and the pluralism of pluralisms -- Chapter 4 Agents and players -- Introduction -- Agents -- Types of agents: individuals, communities and states -- Self-ownership and sovereignty -- Peoples: natives, implanted populations and divided societies -- Players -- Players and their characteristics -- a) Rationality -- b) Strategies -- c) Information -- Players, game theory and territorial disputes -- Conclusion.