Suchergebnisse

Argues that the greatest problem with democracy is the "adequate application of democratic principles to social reality." The two main principles of democracy are those that underlie the rules of universal election & public discussion. These principles must be applied by social actors who inhabit democratically organized public spaces & participate in public communication that is institutionally regulated through rituals/ceremonies, making citizenship vulnerable to the logic of public theater. The theoretical perspective of "new institutionalism" is drawn on to propose a nonidealizing notion of public space characterized by a state-market-civil society triangulation in which competent citizens can exercise the control required to maintain a democratic society. Examples of environmental & ethnic mobilizations are used to develop a framework for a form of citizenship that involves considerably more than membership in a national community. It necessitates abandoning the idea of democracy as a set of objective principles in order to make it part of the everyday culture of modern political institutions by ritualizing participation & communication in thousands of arenas. 1 Table, 38 References. J. Lindroth

Argues that the greatest problem with democracy is the "adequate application of democratic principles to social reality." The two main principles of democracy are those that underlie the rules of universal election & public discussion. These principles must be applied by social actors who inhabit democratically organized public spaces & participate in public communication that is institutionally regulated through rituals/ceremonies, making citizenship vulnerable to the logic of public theater. The theoretical perspective of "new institutionalism" is drawn on to propose a nonidealizing notion of public space characterized by a state-market-civil society triangulation in which competent citizens can exercise the control required to maintain a democratic society. Examples of environmental & ethnic mobilizations are used to develop a framework for a form of citizenship that involves considerably more than membership in a national community. It necessitates abandoning the idea of democracy as a set of objective principles in order to make it part of the everyday culture of modern political institutions by ritualizing participation & communication in thousands of arenas. 1 Table, 38 References. J. Lindroth

Based on the premise that the construction of a collective identity is one of the main constituents of a social movement, it is shown how redistribution-oriented movements in the early 20th century (eg, labor unions) constructed their identity against the state as their main opponent, whereas the more socially oriented social movements at the end of the 20th century (eg, peace movement) increasingly selected other movements as their main antagonists. It is argued that, at present, the state serves as a transnational institution of regulation rather than as a primary identity, offering social movements the opportunity to establish transnational regulatory & "civilizing" bodies as their opponent. In this framework, social movements are forced to use symbolic politics through the media rather than identity-confirming protests. It is observed that the aptitude of modern social movements to use communicative possibilities will secure their importance in the future. 2 References. S. Paul

"Diskurs" ist zum großen Modewort in der Sozialwissenschaft wie in der Politik geworden. Dabei beschränkt sich "Diskurs" nicht allein auf Umweltpolitik, sondern ist zu einer möglichen Form der institutionellen Behandlung jedweder Art von Problemen in der modernen Gesellschaft geworden. Der Beitrag expliziert das Konzept im Rahmen der "Bewegungsgesellschaft". Der Diskurs paßt in eine Gesellschaft, die permanent Probleme thematisiert und kommuniziert. Er ist auch funktional für moderne Gesellschaften, die dauernd neue Probleme thematisieren und damit Entscheidungszwänge auslösen. Diskurs hat also eine doppelte Bedeutung: es ist ein sozialer Prozeß, in dem ein Universum von Bedeutungen für alle am Diskurs Beteiligten erzeugt wird, und Diskurs ist das Ergebnis dieses Prozesses. Der Autor resümiert: "Es ist immer rational, in Diskurse einzutreten, doch es hängt vom Kontext ab, ob dies auch funktional ist." (pre)

Explores the relationship between the mobilization of collective identities & symbolic relations of power & violence. Drawing on Talcott Parsons, symbolic power is defined as the blocking of communication chances. Such power is related to processes of symbolic exclusion, in which the drawing of boundaries leads to exclusion in terms of belonging, recognition, & collective identity construction. It is hypothesized that physical violence increasingly gives way to symbolic violence, because of the increasing relevance of a politics of identity, eg, in ethnic conflicts. 26 References. Adapted from the source document.