Liberal Character Research Articles

The politics of the web: the case of one newsgroup

The internet is often portrayed as a borderless liberal space of equal opportunities and unconstrained communication. By contrast, this article emphasizes the profoundly contested nature of the communication on ‘the web’. Based on a short period of close observation of one internet newsgroup, this study illuminates specific discursive strategies by means of which domination, cooption, resistance and exclusion enter the virtual space of internet communication. In addition, the liberal character of the internet is observed to be not so much due to the reign of liberal principles as due to the strategic advantage enjoyed by ‘liberal actors’ in newsgroup exchanges. Hence, the study illuminates major mechanisms of the ‘liberal domination’ in the net as well as the operations of power in contemporary liberal societies at large.

The liberal character of ethological governance

This paper examines the liberal government of ‘character’ from the perspective offered by those practices, strategies and techniques I term ‘ethological governance’. Ethological governance is neither an ideology nor a tradition of thought, but denotes an orientation to human conduct that is organized by an explicit concern with character and its formation. The paper argues that ethological governance, especially in its Anglo-American strain, subscribes to a developmental notion of human conduct (i.e. character) and serves as a standard for liberal government by judging the responsible exercise of freedom. To this end, the paper examines how ethological governance establishes a context of government that harnesses character as a tool for social and political transformation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by (1) explaining how character establishes a normative scale against which the capacity for individuals to practise their freedom is measured and (2) offering a symptomatic reading of those aspects of John Stuart Mill's work that deal with ethology in order to show how character indexes the judicious limits of government and serves as a basic test of citizenly competence.

Linhagens do pensamento político brasileiro

The objectives are to investigate the characteristics of conservatism and liberalism in Brazil, verify whether the concepts of organic idealism and constitutional idealism are capable of describing and evaluating the principal forms of which have dominated Brazilian political and social thinking since the last quarter of the 19th century, and formulate a hypothesis on the way these currents of thought respond to the challenges raised by the country’s political development. The analysis will focus less on the substantive content of ideologies and worldviews than on describing the underlying forms of thought: intellectual structures and theoretical categories based on which reality is perceived, practical experience is elaborated, and political action is organized.

The reconstruction of American liberalism, 1865-1914

Tracing the transformation of liberal political ideology from the end of the Civil War to the early twentieth century, Nancy Cohen offers a new interpretation of the origins and character of modern liberalism. She argues that the values and programs associated with modern liberalism were formulated not during the Progressive Era, as most accounts maintain, but earlier, in the very different social context of the Gilded Age. Integrating intellectual, social, cultural, and economic history, Cohen argues that the reconstruction of liberalism hinged on the reaction of postbellum liberals to social and labor unrest. As new social movements of workers and farmers arose and phrased their protests in the rhetoric of democratic producerism, liberals retreated from earlier commitments to an expansive vision of democracy. Redefining liberal ideas about citizenship and the state, says Cohen, they played a critical role in legitimating emergent corporate capitalism and politically insulating it from democratic challenge. As the social cost of economic globalization comes under international critical scrutiny, this book revisits the bitter struggles over the relationship between capitalism and democracy in post-Civil War America. The resolution of this problem offered by the new liberalism deeply influenced the progressives and has left an enduring legacy for twentieth-century American politics, Cohen argues.

Eldon J. Eisenach (ed.), Mill and the Moral Character of Liberalism, University Park, Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, pp. 336.

Eldon J. Eisenach (ed.), Mill and the Moral Character of Liberalism, University Park, Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, pp. 336.

Kantian Liberalism and the Collective Defense of Democracy in Latin America

This article highlights a systemic aspect of the liberal peace that has been underemphasized by the existing literature. It argues that the liberal peace is constructed in part by the active efforts of a variety of liberal states and international organizations to promote democracy within states. This article examines the collective defense of democracy regime in the Americas to illustrate this political dynamic and applies Immanuel Kant's original formulation of the liberal pacific union to understand the contemporary inter-American system. The combination of a stronger Organization of American States built on a liberal democratic consensus among member-states, increasing trade interdependence, and a more liberal regional hegemony has transformed the inter-American system. One of the principal manifestations of this enhanced liberalism is that states in the Americas have agreed to intervene collectively in the domestic affairs of member-states to ensure the continuation of democratic regimes. For elected leaders and economic elites throughout the region and US policymakers, this support for democratic rule reflects material self-interest more than liberal idealism. While this collective defense of democracy regime, codified in the `Santiago Commitment' of 1991, clearly reflects the increasingly liberal character of the inter-American system, this regime also challenges the principled commitment to self-determination that was essential to Kant's original formulation of the liberal pacific union. We examine the regional response to the first three overt challenges to the Santiago Commitment, in Haiti (1991), Peru (1992), and Guatemala (1993) to show how the collective defense of democracy has become a crucial element of how liberalism shapes international politics in the Americas.

The Short-lived Influence of the Napoleonic Civil Code in 19th Century Greece

During the Greek War of Independence (1821-1827) from the Ottomans - which had a nationalistic and liberal character - and for the first decades after the liberation, a number of liberal French-educated politicians and scholars attempted unsuccessfully to introduce the Napoleonic Civil Code (or some clone of it) as the Greek Civil Code. Despite the fertile political and intellectual ground for such an introduction, they failed to achieve their goal due to the 'temporary' introduction of Justinian's Roman law as the Greek civil law. This led the Greek academic community to the Pandektenrecht and the predominance of the 19th century German legal theory (boosted by its organized propagation on the part of a number of German-educated legal scholars).

The Short-Lived Influence of the Napoleonic Civil Code in 19th Century Greece

During the Greek War of Independence (1821-1827) from the Ottomans - which had a nationalistic and liberal character - and for the first decades after the liberation, a number of liberal French-educated politicians and scholars attempted unsuccessfully to introduce the Napoleonic Civil Code (or some clone of it) as the Greek Civil Code. Despite the fertile political and intellectual ground for such an introduction, they failed to achieve their goal due to the 'temporary' introduction of Justinian's Roman law as the Greek civil law. This led the Greek academic community to the Pandektenrecht and the predominance of the 19th century German legal theory (boosted by its organized propagation on the part of a number of German-educated legal scholars).

Powers of Life and Death Beyond Governmentality

The work of Foucault on liberal government, and that of his followers, is subject to two dangers. The first is to regard the critical character of liberalism (as governing through freedom) as providing safeguards against the despotic potentials of biopower and sovereignty. The second is to regard these heterogenous powers of life and death as somehow simply relocated or reinscribed within the field of liberal governmentality. The latter point is a major methodological error; the former closes the gap between the analytics of government and the normativity of liberalism itself. By working through these dangers, our understanding of the ethos of liberal government is transformed. That ethos today requires us to link governing through freedom to the powers of life and death, the exercise of choice to the sovereign decision, the contract to violence, economic citizenship to moral discipline and obligation, and rights and liberties to enforcement.

Israel's ‘constitutional revolution’

In the early 1990s Israel underwent a so-called constitutional revolution. According to the champions of this revolution, Israel has essentially become, as a result of this momentous event, a constitutional democracy, upholding individual freedom and liberties and allowing for judicial review of parliamentary legislation. Despite the congratulatory rhetoric, it is generally agreed upon that the constitution is still in need of some essential supplements before Israel can qualify as a fully constitutional democracy. The main question addressed in this paper is the following: is it ‘reasonable’ that Israel take the further necessary steps that qualify it as a fully constitutional democracy? The doubts raised in this regard stem from the very concerns that lead political philosophers (mainly Rawls) to stress the unique value of liberal democracy. As they argue, liberal democracy provides deeply divided societies with the best means to secure their legitimacy and political stability. Israel's political realities, I argue, defy this claim. Moreover, Israel's political realities may also carry a valuable lesson to other states, even to seemingly robust liberal democracies. It is not the purpose of the paper, of course, to argue that Israel's existing rule of government should be embraced by other states – far from that. Israel should undergo some radical changes so that it can protect the rights and interests of all its citizens. Yet, to achieve this purpose, it should transcend, I will argue, liberal democracy. As matters stand, simply strengthening its liberal character, Israel's political system may be exposed to a growing challenge to its legitimacy and stability. It should, therefore, reject liberal democracy and especially the principle of neutrality that is intimately connected with a liberal rule of government and embrace, instead, the ideal of multicultural democracy. This ideal, I argue, is better equipped to answer the need of deeply divided societies to secure their legitimacy and stability.

Media and Elusive Democracy in China

This paper delineates the multiple meanings of democracy and offers a social historical analysis on media and democratisation in China. Notwithstanding conventional perceptions about a disjuncture between economic liberalisation and political repression in China, the suppression of popular quests for political participation and the deprivation of media freedom for a majority of the Chinese population preceded waves of capitalistic developments in post-Mao China. The notion of democracy, meanwhile, has undergone significant transformations. Many activists in the late 1970s advocated popular and participatory democracy. By 1989, democracy had taken an elitist and liberal character among its advocates. Since the mid-1990s, Chinese discourses on democracy have assumed more complicated dimensions with accelerated capitalist developments, deepened social stratification, and the replacement of students and intellectuals by disenfranchised workers, peasants, and Falun Gong practitioners as the main forces of social contestation. Many regime protesters no longer appeal to the liberal democratic discourse. Some reformers, meanwhile, embrace liberal democracy as a means of popular containment. Today, China’s state-controlled and commercialised media are deeply embedded in the established market authoritarian social order. While the Party makes every effort to prevent horizontal communication between disenfranchised groups and established intellectuals confine their debates to elite journals and cyberspaces, the role of Chinese workers and peasants and their voices remain a key problematic for media and democratisation in China.

Book ReviewsEldon J. Eisenach, , ed. Mill and the Moral Character of Liberalism. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. Pp. vi+336. $48.50 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook Reviews Eldon J. Eisenach, , ed. Mill and the Moral Character of Liberalism. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. Pp. vi+336. $48.50 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).Henry R. West Henry R. WestMacalester College Search for more articles by this author Macalester CollegePDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 111, Number 2January 2001 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/233482 Views: 3Total views on this site Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The crisis of representation: the limits of liberal democracy in the global era

In liberal thought, democracy is guaranteed by the unity of community and government. The community of citizens elects its government according to political preferences. The government rules over the community with powers which are limited by unalienable human, civil, and political rights. These assumptions have characterized Classical Liberalism, Revisionist Liberalism and contemporary Neo-liberal theories. However, the assumed unity of community and government becomes problematic in Global Post-Fordism. Recent research on the globalization of the economy and society has underscored the increasing inability of nation-states to exercise power over their communities which, in turn, limits the ability of communities to express their will at the nation-state level. The current phase of capitalism is characterized by socio-economic relations which transcend the jurisdictions of nation-states and local spaces. This paper addresses the issue of the fracture of the unity of community and government by introducing feature characteristics of Classical Liberalism, Revisionist Liberalism and Neo-liberalism. Moreover, it analyzes the contribution of the theory of Reflexive Modernization which represents a novel attempt to rethink democracy within the liberal tradition. The paper concludes that the inability of governments to control economic and non-economic environments creates a crisis of representation which implies serious limits to liberal democracy. This situation is particularly important for rural regions as their socio-economic development, and programs for its democratization have been historically based on the intervention of agencies of and control by the nation-state.

The State of Liberal Sovereignty

This paper outlines the features of a reconceptualised sovereignty. It offers an alternative to the view of sovereignty which has been pronounced dead, diminished or redundant. Two points in particular represent a contribution to the contemporary debate on sovereignty. First, the paper details the liberal character of orthodox state sovereignty. It identifies the correspondence between liberal principles and the features of state sovereignty and extends a critique of liberalism to those features. It then becomes possible to indicate the liberal basis of several intractable problems with state sovereignty. Second, the paper brings together aspects of the work of an important and heterogeneous group of writers, whose insights are employed to develop an alternative conceptualisation of sovereignty and to highlight some of the lacunae of the liberal conception.

“It All Depends... on How One Understands Liberalism”

A LONG WITH NUMEROUS OTHER self-appointed liberal theorists, Stephen Macedo acknowledges and professes to value what John Rawls calls the of pluralism. The fact in question is that in any politically organized society that accords substantial degrees of freedom of thought and action to its members, there will be a diverse plurality of beliefs and values and a plentiful array of groups and associations that express and otherwise act on this variety of outlooks and orientations. Because, according to this view, it is implausible to expect that philosophical argumentation, socialization, acculturation, or education would or could bring about unity or homogeneity concerning conceptions of the good and related matters of belief and value, that objective could be achieved, if at all, only by excessive uses of state authority and power, thereby destroying the liberal character of the polity. Because Macedo values as well as recognizes this fact, he favors respect for First Amendment rights and freedoms generously construed, prefers indirect means of influencing the range and distribution of beliefs and values, and, where more direct uses of public authority and power cannot be avoided, wants them to be deployed in ways that are as gentle as possible. As will be evident to every reader of this and Macedo's other recent writings, however, the foregoing summary omits and thereby deflects attention from the most salient features of his argumentation. He acknowledges and professes to value pluralism, but it is clear that his worries concerning it exceed his enthusiasm for it. His preoccupation is with the question of how polities, presumably liberal polities, can achieve and sustain what Rawls has called stability or a reasonable pluralism and what Chantal Mouffe and

Nacionalismos e reforma agrária nos anos 50

O artigo visa recuperar os elementos fundamentais do ideário nacionalista durante a década de 1950, destacando a centralidade do conceito de desenvolvimento auto-sustentado. A diversidade política e ideológica do movimento nacionalista é problematizada através da análise de duas correntes preponderantes do período em foco: o nacional-desenvolvimentismo, de caráter liberal, e o nacionalismo econômico, isto é, a vertente defendida pelas esquerdas. Finalmente, é focalizado a importância da reforma agrária dentro do projeto social defendido sobretudo pelos nacionalistas econômicos, enquanto fator indispensável a uma industrialização com cidadania.

A Constructivist Interpretation of the Liberal Peace: The Ambiguous Case of the Spanish-American War

This article uses the Spanish-American War, one of the only possible cases of war between democracies, to demonstrate the power of a constructivist approach for explaining the liberal peace. A `structural idealist' argument suggests that the liberal peace must be conceived of as an `intersubjective consensus' of the leaders and citizens of liberal states. A Gramscian perspective interprets the liberal pacific union as an effort by the United States to exercise its global leadership through an ideological hegemony rather than through coercion. US perceptions that Spain was not a liberal democracy in 1898 and US efforts to legitimate its expansionism as necessary for the spread of democracy to the island of Cuba explain how two states that appeared to share liberal characteristics could nevertheless find themselves at war. In the aftermath of the war, the contrasting experiences of the USA in the Philippines and Cuba demonstrated the utility of pursuing a liberal policy for legitimating an expansionist policy at home and abroad. US efforts to impose colonial rule in the Philippines generated opposition in the United States and an insurgent movement in the Philippines. US efforts to craft a protectorate relationship with a Cuban government chosen in US-sponsored elections, however, met with widespread support in the USA and was accepted by Cuban nationalists.

O Sterijinom "Prirodnom pravu"

The author considers that Sterija followed Kant's trail. The liberal character of his work is the most expressive on the point of view of an individual person. Sterija's work, except cultural and scientifical, also has a practical importance as an antipode to the law which in our area is marked by the confidence in force and prohibition and is based on the so-called revolutionary legislature.

Community, Diversity, and Civic Education: Toward a Liberal PoliticalScience of Group Life

Although liberals too often forget it, the health of the liberal publicorder depends on our ability to constitute not only political institutions and limits on power, but appropriate patterns of social lifeand citizen character. Liberal character traits and political virtuesdo not, after all, come about “naturally” or by the deliverance of an “invisible hand.” Even Adam Smith did not think that, as we will see below. Harry Eckstein gets closer to themark by suggesting that “stable governments…are the productof 'accidental' (extremely improbable) conjunctions of conditions which do sometimes, but rarely, occur in actual societies.”

Uma política de cultura para o Brasil de hoje

The article explains relevant characteristics of liberalism so as to give a view of its neo-contractualism dimension. Then, on the basis of an ex parte populi perspective, the article sustains the relevance of a politics of culture as a strategic institution of liberty since it offers the opportunity for positive-liberty, negative-liberty and liberty as building . The principle of a politics of culture (thruthfulness, publicity, critical spirit, honesty) are discussed having as an axiological foundation the value of tolerance , a most relevant value to enable us to deal with the dilemma of the contemporary world.