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The genocide in Darfur, Sudan is the first major humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. Over 2 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands have been killed. Popular explanations of the conflict root it in racism and prejudice orchestrated by the Sudanese government and abetted by the world community's negligence. While the complicity of the Sudanese government is evident, a closer analysis of the sequence of events suggests that the crisis is rooted in local conflicts over material resources brought about by an ecological crisis. Standard social theory has proven inadequate for analyzing the grass roots nature of the Darfur crisis. We have developed a flexible agent-based computer simulation of pastoral nomad/sedentary peasant interaction (NOMAD) that can be adapted to particular environmental and social settings. Our focus on how environmental and material factors condition individual agent response allows us to model how collective behaviors (mass raiding, genocide) can emerge from individual motives and needs. Many factors influence the conflict in Darfur (ethnicity, global politics, Sudanese politics). However, our simulations reinforce the analyses of some social scientists that argue the Darfur crisis is the inevitable result of the breakdown of land use in the face of growing populations, marginal habitats, and an unprecedented ecological crisis.

[ES] Tres elementos combinan para darle forma y contenido a la relación entre religión y política hoy y en el futuro: el hecho de la pluralidad y el pluralismo religioso; el desarrollo de un pluralismo social y político en contexto de democracia y la creación y difusión de un vocabulario práctico de derechos, que incluye la defensa de los derechos humanos, pero va más allá para promover la creación de sujetos autónomos, capaces ellos mismos de reclamar voz y participación en la vida pública. La creación de un vocabulario de derechos, con base en ideas y prácticas sociales, religiosas y políticas, proporciona un puente teórico y empírico entre religión y política. ; [EN] Three elements combine to shape the relation of religion and politics now and in the future: the facts of religious plurality and pluralism; the emergence of real social and political pluralism in a context of democracy and the creation and difusion of a practical vocabulary of rights that includes the defense of human rights but goes further to promote the creation of autonomous subjects able to claim voice and participation in public life. The creation of a vocabulary of rights, with roots in social, religious and political norms and practices, provides a theoretical and empirical bridge between religion and politics.

Judith Butler's contribution to feminist political thought is usually approached in terms of her concept of performativity, according to which gender exists only insofar as it is ritualistically & repetitively performed, creating permanent possibilities for performing gender in new & transgressive ways. In this paper, I argue that Butler's politics of performativity is more fundamentally grounded in the concept of genealogy, which she adapts from Foucault &, ultimately, Nietzsche. Butler understands women to have a genealogy: to be located within a history of overlapping practices & reinterpretations of femininity. This genealogical understanding of femininity allows Butler to propose a coalitional feminist politics, which requires no unity among women but only loosely overlapping connections. For Butler, feminist coalitions should aim to subvert, not consolidate, entrenched norms concerning femininity. Butler has been criticized, however, for failing to explain either how subversive agency is possible or why the subversion of gender norms is desirable. Reviewing these criticisms, I argue that Butler offers a convincing explanation of the possibility of subversive agency, but that the normative dimension of her political thought remains relatively underdeveloped. I explore how the normative aspect of Butler's thought could be strengthened by recasting her notion of genealogy along more thoroughly Nietzschean & materialist lines, in terms of an idea of active & multiple bodily forces. 40 References. Adapted from the source document.

The article offers a brief account of the history of Hungarian sociology during four decades of communist rule in Hungary. Beginning with the brief existence of the first department of sociology in Hungary (the 'Szalai Institute', 1946-1948) the author describes the field in the 1950s, when for political reasons sociology was marginalized to the point of extinction. The revival of sociology in Hungary during the 1960s is devoted considerable attention from an institutional, a personal & a doctrinal point of view. The author analyses the main branches of study in Hungarian sociology at the time, including critical sociology & the study of social stratification, which overcame the rigidity of official Marxist-Leninist doctrine. She characterizes the last two decades of state socialism in Hungary as a period when sociology both suffered from increased political repression (stronger in the early 1970s than later) & at the same time became more & more professional. She argues that a determining feature of the history of Hungarian sociology between 1948 & 1989 was its strong connection to politics. However, sociology & politics had a mutual influence on one another during this period, as sociology also had an impact on the way Communist Party officials approached the structure of Hungarian society. In the process, sociology evolved & was professionalized, enabling its existence as an autonomous discipline today.

In societies divided by a history of political violence, political reconciliation depends on transforming a relation of enmity into one of civic friendship. In such contexts, the discourse of recognition provides a ready frame in terms of which reconciliation might be conceived. Yet social theorists are divided in their assessment of the emancipatory potential of the struggle for recognition. For Charles Taylor, it establishes the possibility of reconciliation through a reciprocal dialogue oriented towards a fusion of horizons. Yet Frantz Fanon highlights the violent appropriation inherent in the logic of recognition that curtails the possibility of reconciliation. I demonstrate that Taylor's optimism about the possibility of reconciliation through a struggle for recognition is unwarranted. For, although recognition provides the rough ground in terms of which an ethical encounter between former enemies becomes possible, it tends to fix the terms on which a reconciliatory politics might be enacted in a way that reduces the prospect of community between them. This argument is developed through a consideration of the legal-politics of reconciliation in Australia. But against Fanon's pessimism, I advocate an agonistic reconciliation, according to which political actors would indefinitely postpone the moment of positive recognition while staking the prospect of community on the non-identity of the other, i.e. that quality in the other that cannot be reduced to the terms of identity or otherness.

The following exchange builds upon, and reassesses, the intellectual trajectory of Robert Jervis since The Logic of Images. It is organised around three interrelated sections that, tentatively, squeeze out the gist of Jervis' contribution to IR during his three and half decades of remarkable scholarship. The purpose, however, is not to offer a comprehensive view of Jervis' work; instead I want to set signposts that will help us get smoothly into his 'system of thought' and substantiate the salience of his account. In the first section, we concentrate on issues of images and (mis)perceptions. Here, Jervis reasserts that political psychology, a crucial site of relevance of actors' behaviour, is perfectly amenable to a rigorous analysis, and should thus be granted a pivotal role in understanding the dynamics of world politics. Insights of political psychology, with their various implications, are taken up into the next section, the rationale of which is to dialogically sketch out the paradoxical ethos of deterrence theory. The third section, on complexity theory, brings forward the breadth of Jervis's reorientation, characterised by a systematic integration of various ideas that have been at the centre of his endeavour since the 1980s. We use contemporary world politics as a thread that connects the aforementioned segments of the discussion and thereby gives the journey its overall coherence.

Nordic modernity is often understood in terms of enlightened and progressive welfare politics and social equality. There is a more or less implicit connotation to images of a social democratic model. The aim of this article is twofold: to discuss the historical preconditions and construction of that model of progressive politics, and to discuss its relevance today and its future prospects. Concerning the first aim, the argument is that there is nothing historically predetermined of a progressive development path. Nordic modernity should not be understood as teleology or as given by a natural state of egalitarian peasant communities. Historically, all the Nordic societies except Iceland were under authoritarian or absolute rule. However, there were factors underpinning a more progressive and egalitarian development in the North, in particular the strength of the peasant freeholders and of the urban middle classes. The argument in this article is that these forces finally broke through in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression. Everywhere in Norden redgreen Social Democratic-Farmers' Party reform coalitions emerged in attempts to cope with the economic crisis, and extreme political alternatives were marginalized. The Social Democrats were, with the exception of Iceland, the larger party in the coalitions. In that sense there is a Scandinavian Sonderweg .

Morality in general election 2004, a long way off from expected. Various actions which dissolute political indication see clearly in course of and result of general election. Money politics, administrative collusion and crime by some of all legislative candidates, bureaucracy which not yet neutral politically, manipulation of voice enumeration, showing process of general election still not yet full respect the moral. General election also did not yet shown to yield all politician owning high binding (commitment) to respect the political morality. Its indication, general election not yet earned to yield the leader owning inner calm and trusted by people, general election tends to yield the politician principled weak politics party at ideology so that progressively strengthen to expand "political of corruption. " Not yet strength of political morality in general election 2004 represented factor which did not conducive for civic education, because real reference of citizen about how politicians have moral. This circumstance if let it can conducive to the belief crisis to existing political system. Therefore, study of civic education agreed with general election which require to be developed critically to form the rational and proportional attitude in general election. If this matter is done will be able to assist to overcome to expand belief crisis to general election and national of political system.

Military interest-organisations of soldiers in active duty represent a marginal part of the whole spectrum of interest-groups operating in the political system of the Czech Republic. Activities of these organisations don't deviate form the general theoretical frame used to describe and analyse roles of interest-organisations in democracy. Even though military interest organisations have some influence on the processes of politics in the Czech Republic, it cannot be compared to the influence of key organisations and associations. The liberal-corporate influences have been so far rather week in the analysed segment of organised interests. The system of military interest-organisations has not been consolidated as yet. ; Military interest-organisations of soldiers in active duty represent a marginal part of the whole spectrum of interest-groups operating in the political system of the Czech Republic. Activities of these organisations don't deviate form the general theoretical frame used to describe and analyse roles of interest-organisations in democracy. Even though military interest organisations have some influence on the processes of politics in the Czech Republic, it cannot be compared to the influence of key organisations and associations. The liberal-corporate influences have been so far rather week in the analysed segment of organised interests. The system of military interest-organisations has not been consolidated as yet.

Nordic modernity is often understood in terms of enlightened & progressive welfare politics & social equality. There is a more or less implicit connotation to images of a social democratic model. The aim of this article is twofold: to discuss the historical preconditions & construction of that model of progressive politics, & to discuss its relevance today & its future prospects. Concerning the first aim, the argument is that there is nothing historically predetermined of a progressive development path. Nordic modernity should not be understood as teleology or as given by a natural state of egalitarian peasant communities. Historically, all the Nordic societies except Iceland were under authoritarian or absolute rule. However, there were factors underpinning a more progressive & egalitarian development in the North, in particular the strength of the peasant freeholders & of the urban middle classes. The argument in this article is that these forces finally broke through in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression. Everywhere in Norden red-green Social Democratic-Farmers' Party reform coalitions emerged in attempts to cope with the economic crisis, & extreme political alternatives were marginalized. The Social Democrats were, with the exception of Iceland, the larger party in the coalitions. In that sense there is a Scandinavian Sonderweg. 27 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications and Thesis Eleven Co-op Ltd, copyright 2004.]

▪ Abstract  Over the past two decades, academic feminism has differentiated and fragmented substantially in light of a wide range of new approaches in theory. This overview and assessment of the wide, diverse, and changing field of feminist theory gives particular attention to contestations surrounding the political theorizing of gender, identity, and subjectivity. Three divergent and oppositional perspectives—difference feminism, diversity feminism, and deconstruction feminism—frame current discussions regarding the "construction" of the female subject; the nature of sexual difference; the relation between sex and gender; the intersection of gender, race, class, sexuality, etc.; and the significance of "women" as a political category in feminism. The problem of epistemic identification (locating or dislocating the female subject, analyzing gender difference, politicizing identity) is also a central element in the theorizing of feminist politics, multicultural citizenship, justice, power, and the democratic public sphere. Within this domain, we find equally intense debates among feminist theorists concerning the meaning of feminist citizenship and the politics of recognition, as well as the relations between gender equality and cultural rights, feminism and multiculturalism, democracy and difference. Although the field is far from convergence even on the meaning of feminism itself, we might take its current state as a sign of its vitality and significance within the discourses of contemporary social and political theory.

The relationship of trust or distrust that binds citizens to politics is nurtured by a range of factors, which depend on the social position of citizens, the undermining of their interests by public policies, and their normative perception of the political world. Using qualitative material provided by discussion groups of somewhat politicized French citizens, this paper identifies the common arguments for political trust and mistrust. What the members of the discussion groups say expresses a relationship to politics that has been built up endogenously with a highly normative dimension, and which demonstrates an argumentative capacity based on various principles. ; Le rapport de confiance ou de défiance unissant les citoyens à la politique se nourrit d'une variété de facteurs relatifs à la position sociale des citoyens, à la mise en cause de leurs intérêts par les politiques publiques comme à leur perception normative de l'univers politiques. En se fondant sur un matériel qualitatif composé de groupes de discussion réunissant des citoyens français faiblement politisés, cette contribution vise à cerner les motifs argumentatifs de la confiance et de la défiance politique. Leurs propos expriment un rapport au politique construit de façon endogène, à dimension fortement normative et manifestant une capacité argumentative fondée sur différents types de principes.