Suchergebnisse

Collective "memories" of the original democracy of classical Athens have inspired the formation of the direct-democracy, "Syntagma Square" movement. The movement, a reaction to the ongoing social crisis in Greece, challenges the legitimacy of the liberal, representative, democracy accusing the "memorandum party system" for immoral contact and treasonous collaboration with Greece's foreign debtors. Taking this development as an opportunity to examine in situ a modern version of "direct democracy" and the cognitive patterns that animate it, the essay compares ancient and current democratic processes and reflects on their ontological and cosmological presuppositions. Employing the Weberian concept of "acosmistic brotherhood" the essay analytically explores and compares the two democratic instances and reflects on the foundations of a stable democratic regime.

Collective "memories" of the original democracy of classical Athens have inspired the formation of the direct-democracy, "Syntagma Square" movement. The movement, a reaction to the ongoing social crisis in Greece, challenges the legitimacy of the liberal, representative, democracy accusing the "memorandum party system" for immoral contact and treasonous collaboration with Greece's foreign debtors. Taking this development as an opportunity to examine in situ a modern version of "direct democracy" and the cognitive patterns that animate it, the essay compares ancient and current democratic processes and reflects on their ontological and cosmological presuppositions. Employing the Weberian concept of "acosmistic brotherhood" the essay analytically explores and compares the two democratic instances and reflects on the foundations of a stable democratic regime. ; La memoria colectiva de la democracia de la Antigua Grecia ha sido la inspiradora de los movimientos de democracia directa de la plaza Sintagma. Estos movimientos, entendidos como una respuesta a la creciente crisis en Grecia, cuestionan la legitimidad de la democracia liberal representativa, a la que se acusa de "memorándum del sistema de partidos" debido a su relación inmoral y alevosa con los acreedores extranjeros de Grecia. Tomando estos hechos como una oportunidad para examinar in situ una versión moderna de la democracia directa, este trabajo compara los procesos democráticos antiguos y modernos y reflexiona sobre sus presupuestos ontológicos y cosmológicos. A partir del concepto weberiano de "Liebesakosmismus", el ensayo explora analíticamente y compara los dos momentos democráticos y reflexiona sobre las bases de un régimen democrático estable.

The possibility of rejecting naturalism & restoring a meaningful God in contemporary Western society is explored in a response to Oliver's (1999) comment on Marangudakis's (1998) analysis of environmental engagement in Left & Right political thought. Three problems with Oliver's contention that technology will collapse the nature-culture divide are identified: the assertion that technology & nature are separate entities; the support for the return of Thomist theology & notion of a nonbracketed God; & the impossibility of recuperating the notion of a nonbracketed God using Thomist theology. The relationship between God & nature throughout the history of Western civilization is documented. The following historical periods & trends are highlighted: emergence of Ionian cosmology in ancient Greece; the influence of Augustinian theology on the culture-nature relationship; appearance of rationalism during the medieval period; Duns Scotus's late-13th-century introduction of the notion of a bracketed God; & Eastern alternatives to Western religion. The return of traditional understandings of God to Western society is deemed highly unlikely. J. W. Parker

Intro -- Dedication -- Series Editor Preface -- Preface -- Introduction -- References -- Contents -- About the Author -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Part I: A Historical Analysis of the Greek Political Culture -- Chapter 1: An Analytic Model of Culture and Power -- 1.1 Cosmological and Ontological Principles -- 1.2 Discourses, Code Orientations, and Organizational Ground Rules -- 1.3 Methodical Ways of Life and Substantive Rationality -- 1.4 The Binary Codification of Morality -- 1.5 Collective Effervescence -- 1.6 Demarcating Between Power and Meaning -- 1.7 Conclusions and Concomitant Suppositions -- Bibliography -- Chapter 2: The Greek Self in Social Analysis -- 2.1 The Anarchic Individualism of the Greek Self -- 2.2 Amoral Familism and the Moral Content of Collectivism -- 2.3 Mythical Collectivism: The Modernization of Collectivism -- 2.4 From Amoral Familism to Anarchic Individualism -- 2.5 Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Chapter 3: Clientelistic Social Structures and Cultural Orientations -- 3.1 State Formation and Clientelism in Greece -- 3.2 Social Power and Clientelism -- 3.3 Culture and Generalized Clientelism -- 3.4 America and Ireland: Two Examples of Limited Clientelism -- 3.5 Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Chapter 4: Religion and Collective Representations of Communitas -- 4.1 Temporal Continuity of Symbolic Classifications -- 4.2 Symbolic Classifications and the Theory of Multiple Modernities -- 4.3 The Greek Orthodox Ontology in a Weberian Framework of Analysis -- 4.4 Orthodox Cosmology -- 4.5 The Greek Orthodox Cognitive Mode -- 4.6 The Icon -- 4.7 Ceremonies and Rituals -- 4.8 Greek Orthodox Effects on In-Worldly Constitutive Goods -- 4.9 The Ramfos' Thesis -- 4.10 The Greek Orthodox Conundrum -- 4.11 Orthodox Religiosity and the 'Order-Taking' Classes -- 4.11.1 The Non-charismatic Religiosity of the 'Little Traditions'.

The relationship between ethnic communities who share a common national space is often affected by factors above civil society, such as inter-state relations, political and economic alliances, and geopolitical interests. The relevance of ethnic minorities' identity and behaviour to the international political environment becomes clear whenever an ethnic minority occupies territory of geopolitical and/or geo-economic importance to countries with conflicting interests in the area - we will call such a minority, 'strategic minority'. Using a model of 'network compatibility' we could delineate the mechanisms and factors which affect the social outlook of a given minority. To highlight the paramount importance of national and international relations in shaping ethnic minorities' identity and behaviour the paper examines and compares two strategic minorities situated at the fringes of Europe: The Northern Irish Catholic minority and the Muslim minority in Western Thrace, North Eastern Greece. Using as our analytic tool the theory of 'networks of social power' we tentatively conclude that the formation as well as the current identity, status, and behaviour of the two minorities cannot be fully understood unless we examine the role of the two sets of neighboring countries (G. Britain - Ireland, and Greece - Turkey), as well as the two major Western political powers, i.e., the European Union, and the United States, in the two contested regions.

"This book considers the current striking rise of 'outsider' political leaders, catapulted, apparently, from nowhere, to take charge of a nation. Arguing that such leaders can be better understood with the help of the anthropologically based concept of 'the trickster', it offers studies of contemporary political figures from the world stage - including Presidents Macron, Tsipras and Bolsonaro, among others - to examine the ways in which charismatic and trickster modalities can become intertwined, especially under the impact of theatrical public media. Looking beyond the commonly invoked notion of 'charisma' to revisit the question of political leadership in light of the recent rise of new type of 'outsider' leaders, Modern Leaders: Between Charisma and Trickery offers an account of leadership informed by social and anthropological theory. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in political thought and the problem of political leadership"--

The essay is a quantitative analysis of a questionnaire distributed to a sample of 775 worshipers immediately after the Sunday Liturgy in a random number of churches in Athens, Thessaloniki and Mytilini. The questions addressed to them try to grasp feelings and thoughts felt during liturgical experience and effervescence as such, as well as reflections concerning the religious and the political self. The findings suggest that the liturgy has profound effects on those who attend service often, but it is not irrelevant even to those who attend service less often. Those who attend service often and feel strongly the liturgical rite tend to identify religion, both doctrinal and vernacular (the 'little traditions'), with politics, consider themselves to be rightist and hold political beliefs revolving around antinomian egotism and authoritative paternalism. Those who attend service rarely and do not experience any effervescence, as the mirror-image of the former, tend to identify themselves as leftist and hold political beliefs revolving around revolution, defiance and the like, and reject democratic institutions. The study underlines the very close connection of church attendance to 'magical' aspects of the Orthodox religion, as well as the very strong presence of icons in the life of the believers irrespective of their frequency of liturgical attendance.