Liberal Forms Research Articles

The Biopolitics of Liberal War: Humanity, Temporality and Cosmology

What is the relationship between war and liberalism? Over the last two decades, an extensive and influential literature inspired by Michel Foucault’s conception of biopolitics has argued that the ‘war on terror’ is defined by distinctly liberal forms of government. Underpinning this approach is an assumption of the primacy of contingency to the contemporary biopolitical imaginary. Through this governing cosmology, the ‘war on terror’ is said to be motivated by a politics of fear and uncertainty. This article contests this account of liberal war by demonstrating the biopolitical significance of potentiality. By illustrating how a specific configuration of potentiality informs contemporary governing understandings of humanity and temporality, this article argues that liberal war is also waged according to a politics of hope and certainty. Adopting a cosmological approach allows this article to develop the case for a pluriversal conception of biopolitics which better reflects the complex and contradictory character of liberal war in the 21st century. Such a perspective invites us to see how the ‘war on terror’ is not only a reflection of our darkest fears but also of our highest hopes.

The curious genealogy of the “executive state”: A critical review of the latest administrative reform in Greece

Abstract This article critically discusses the latest reform of the Greek administration system, which took the form of an Act establishing an “executive state.” It intends to make two contributions to the existing literature. First, it offers a critique of the executive state. Existing critiques generally focus on the bureaucratic concentration of powers in the office of the Prime Minister or the abandonment of positive elements found in previous reform attempts. However, they largely accept the reform as a technical response to the crisis. In contrast, this article presents a comprehensive critique that fully addresses the historic origins and contemporary significance of the notion and institutional forms of the executive state, revealing it as a political, rather than technical, measure that reflects deeper views about the relationship between the state, the economy, and society. Additionally, the article assesses the two main effects of this administrative reform—the centralization and depoliticization of policymaking—as manifestations of an authoritarian shift. The second contribution concerns the literature on authoritarian liberalism, which examines the authoritarian tendencies inherent in liberal forms and ideals. While several authors have explored the authoritarian tendencies of institutional reform in the face of crisis, this article seeks to explore the authoritarian phenomenon as part of a process of market capture and to examine its effects specifically on administrative law and structures. Ultimately, this article argues that administrative reform in Greece follows a rather sinister genealogy, and must be understood as an essential counterpart to the generalized and sustained attack on social and political rights following the dictates of the market.

The normative stakes of Foucault's engagement with neoliberalism: Seduction, invention, and normalization

AbstractThis article critically examines Foucault's engagement with neoliberalism. While Foucault declares that his analysis of this tradition is primarily descriptive, I argue that he continually questions whether neoliberalism is less disciplinary and biopolitically normalizing than traditional forms of liberalism. Although Foucault does not endorse neoliberalism as a prescriptive solution to these problems of normalization, his interest in such problems is consistent with his tendency to privilege freedom over other values like justice and equality. This helps to clarify the normative stakes of Foucault's analysis while rejecting any suggestion that he was invested in neoliberalism as a comprehensive political program. Indeed, I repudiate the claim that he was “seduced” by neoliberalism. Furthermore, I reject the idea that he was trying to “invent” a distinctively socialist governmentality through the prism of neoliberalism. Finally, I consider the broader significance of this discussion for normative political philosophy.

Hermann Heller’s critique of liberalism

ABSTRACT Hermann Heller’s critique of liberalism was both theoretical and conjunctural. He derided liberalism’s erosion of the concept of sovereignty and lamented liberalism’s complicity with the substantive inequality of his time. It its place, he argued for a restoration of the concept of popular sovereignty, as a dialectical formation of political unity and material equality through the democratic process. As a matter of political practice and strategy, however, Heller equivocated in his stance on the constitutional politics of the Weimar Republic. He initially tolerated the abrogation of parliamentary democracy due to his faith in the neutrality of the state, before diagnosing the regime as a form of authoritarian liberalism determined by the capitalist economy. This article examines Heller’s theoretical and political critique of liberalism. It outlines Heller’s conception of popular sovereignty against both Kelsen’s legal rationalism and Schmitt’s political decisionism. It also examines the significance of the interwar conjuncture, highlighting that the turn of the bourgeoisie to authoritarianism and ultimately to fascism represented a continuity of the liberal elision of the principle of popular sovereignty.

Étienne Parent, the Demise of the Mixed Constitution, and the Rise of Liberalism of Government in French Canada

Abstract Between the adoption of the Act of Union in 1840 and the British North America Act in 1867, French-Canadian elites had to reconceptualize the nature and virtues of the British constitutional system. Étienne Parent, an early defender of the ‘mixed constitution’ and one of the most influential thinkers among French-Canadian reformists, turned to the civil service to give the new constitutional regime a stable foundation. His theory of the ‘sovereignty of intelligence’ borrowed French liberal ideas to build a distinct model of constitutionalism out of British constitutional institutions. Parent’s thought also exemplifies how the idea that the constitution is the principal integrative force of the polity continued to shape French-Canadian constitutional imaginary in the mid-nineteenth century. Recovering this dynamic and historical approach to constitutionalism sheds light on this distinct constitutional model, obscured by the later influence of AV Dicey and his retrospective interpretation of nineteenth-century constitutionalism. Putting the emphasis on the administration, Parent’s theory of the ‘sovereignty of intelligence’ offered a form of government liberalism which differed from the liberalism associated with parliamentary sovereignty, and republicanism and popular sovereignty. In many respects, Parent participated directly in the consolidation of the constitutional model he defended, and his thought allows us to recapture the synergy and generative tension between the cabinet and the civil service that endures in the contemporary constitutional practices of Westminster parliamentary systems.

Is Democracy Bad for Lgbt+ Rights?

Abstract: The historical bond between democracy and LGBT+ rights is unraveling globally. With gender and sexuality issues gaining political prominence, anti-LGBT+ forces are exploiting democratic institutions—both majoritarian and nonmajoritarian—to successfully curtail LGBT+ rights. Can democracy still protect and advance LGBT+ rights? This essay contends that as recent empirical developments challenge the longstanding connection between democracy and LGBT+ rights, they also call for a conceptual reassessment. Rather than viewing LGBT+ rights as an outcome of democracy, this essay proposes treating them as constitutive of democracy, particularly in its liberal form. It further offers normative as well as pragmatic justifications for this conceptual shift.

Critical Contextual Empiricism and the Politics of Knowledge

What are philosophers doing when they prescribe a particular epistemology for science? According to science and technology studies, the answer to this question implicates both knowledge and politics, even when the latter is hidden. Exploring this dynamic via a specific case, I argue that Longino’s “critical contextual empiricism” ultimately relies on a form of political liberalism. Her choice to nevertheless foreground epistemological concerns can be clarified by considering historical relationships between science and society, as well as the culture of academic philosophy. This example, I conclude, challenges philosophers of science to consider the political ideals and accountability entailed by their prescribed knowledge practices.

KARMA SEBAGAI PRAKSIS PEMBEBASAN DALAM BHAGAVAD GĪTĀ

This research is a literature study, using qualitative data. The hermeneutic method was used to analyze data regarding the teaching of karma as a practice of liberation in the text of the Bhagavad Gītā. Where, the Bhagavad Gītā has an important position in Hinduism because it contains the teachings of Brahmavidyā (divine knowledge) and yogaśāstra (yogic knowledge). The Bhagavad Gītā not only guides humans ethically, but also directs humans to carry out practical actions through karma (effort, work, action). In this case, the Bhagavad Gītā makes karma a praxis through the teachings of yoga, as a way to connect oneself (individual soul) with God (Universal Soul). The teaching of karma in the Bhagavad Gītā emphasizes work or actions carried out based on dharma (duty), and awareness of God as the owner of actions (karma). In this case, all the actions he performs will be directed towards God, so that he will no longer be bound by the results of the actions he performs. This is expressed in the Bhagavad Gītā, II.47: karmaṇy evadhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana, mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo ‘stv karmaṇ. The result of this research is that the Bhagavad Gītā teaches karma as a path to material and spiritual liberation. Where material liberation is interpreted not as an effort to accumulate material possessions, instead it frees humans from the shackles of material attachment by offering all the results of actions or work to God. Complete surrender to God of all karmic results and Unity with God is a form of spiritual liberation.

Partisan of the Absolute State: Arnold Ruge, Liberalism, and the Hallische Jahrbücher

Abstract This article considers the political theory and political theology of Arnold Ruge during the years he edited the Hallische and Deutsche Jahrbücher, paying special attention to his relationship with a variety of “liberalisms” circulating at the time. It argues that Ruge's central and consistent commitment was to the “absolute state,” which he described as “an end in itself.” Such a state, Ruge believed, would constitute a space in which citizens could realize their public freedom. I show how Ruge constructed this approach through critical engagements with three forms of liberalism: the Romantic nationalist liberalism of Ernst Moritz Arndt; the ethical pluralist liberalism of Franz von Flourencourt; and the pragmatic economic liberalism of Karl Biedermann. I conclude with reflections on Ruge's 1843 “Eine Selbstkritik des Liberalismus.”

Bill 7633 on the restriction of the use of Russian text sources in Ukrainian research and education: analysing language policy in times of war

AbstractFor centuries, Ukraine has been a site of conflicts over language rights. During 70 years of Soviet leadership, Ukraine experienced’relentless Russification’ (Reznik in Language of conflict: discourses of the Ukrainian crisis (pp. 169–191). Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2020 p. 170). After breaking from Soviet rule, the Ukrainian language became an increasingly powerful symbol and means of national identity. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the language issues have gained yet more public and political attention. Addressing the urgency, the Ukrainian parliament adopted, in the first reading, Bill 7633, aiming to restrict the use of any Russian sources in Ukrainian school and academia, a bill that was met with criticism and experienced intensified debates. This article analyses a range of text sources (both governmental and non-governmental) debating Bill 7633, using Discourse Analysis, and reveals how ‘liberal values’ and ‘lived liberalism’ (Fedirko et al. in Social Anthropol/Anthropol soc 29(2):373–386, 2021) are practiced or violated through problematising or justifying the Bill. Thus, the article contributes to the (recently emerged, i.e. since the start of Russian annexation of the Crimea in 2014) body of research on political and public discourses of the Ukrainian conflict (Epstein in Studies in East Eur Thought 74(4), 475–481; Jones, 2020; Lanvers and Lunyova in Eur J Lang Policy 15(1), 25–68; Slobozhan et al. in Soc Netw Anal Min 12(1), 1–12, 2022). Results show a comprehensive range of arguments both for and against Bill 7633 in both governmental and non-governmental texts which is interpreted as a form of liberalism in fragments (Fedirko in Social Anthropol/Anthropol Soc, 29(2), 471–489, 2021). The conclusion debates the unreserved applicability of western conceptualisation of liberal language policy in the context of war and prolonged linguistic contestations.

Can Conversational Thinking serve as a suitable pedagogical approach for philosophy education in African schools?

Abstract This article investigates whether Conversational Thinking can suitably serve as a pedagogical approach for philosophy education in African schools (primary and secondary levels). We argue that there is a need to introduce and teach philosophy in schools in Africa. Additionally, we argue that it would be apropos to adopt a decolonial approach in developing such curricula, which, amongst others, could accommodate African approaches to philosophy. We contend that African homegrown frameworks, such as Conversational Thinking, can serve as appropriate decolonial strategies for philosophy education in parts of Africa. Our reason is that the proposed approach can train the emerging young generations in Africa, not only to be critical, creative, and innovative, but also to view reality from African epistemic perspectives. This stems from the fact that Conversational Thinking is one strategy amongst others that can promote African culture-inspired approaches to knowledge that combine with basic thinking skills to offer truly African forms of epistemic liberation.

“She Trafficked On Her Own Account”: Black Women’s Abolitionist Geographies in Robert Wedderburn’s Horrors of Slavery (1824) and History of Mary Prince (1831)

ABSTRACT Robert Wedderburn self-published Horrors of Slavery (1824) within ultraradical networks in London, so his life narrative was not shaped by the political ambitions of white, middle-class abolitionists. By celebrating the communal, place-based resistances of his enslaved mother and grandmother as the source of his own emancipation from slavery, Horrors reworked the Romantic figuration of sorrowful, enslaved Black mothers. Wedderburn’s mother, Rosanna, demanded that his enslaver father manumit him. His grandmother, Talkee Amy, was a higgler and obeah woman who “trafficked on her own account.” Wedderburn’s description of Rosanna and Talkee Amy’s place-based abolitionist geographies then serves as an illuminating intertext for History of Mary Prince (1831). Like Wedderburn’s mother and grandmother, Prince entered and navigated spaces in a way that asserted her humanness by rebelliously claiming kinship and higglering in unofficial local economies. In both narratives, Black women cultivated communal, material, and place-based forms of liberation from slavery, and their stories supplement and even challenge current understandings of Romantic-era abolition and women’s activism.

(Political) political liberalism and the constitutional project

Abstract This review essay follows Alessandro Ferrara and Frank Michelman’s dialogic journey into the legitimation-by-constitution idea, which they submit as the institutional expression of political liberalism in Legitimation by Constitution: A Dialogue on Political Liberalism, to illustrate the challenges for contemporary philosophy of political liberalism in its transposition to the constitutional project. It argues that Ferrara and Michelman’s liberal endeavor to answer the fundamental questions surrounding political liberalism rests on a normative conception of identity, which eventually leads them to a dilemma: the project of constitutional democracy they defend and justify is sustained by a liberal ethos, while it is tasked to accommodate those who do not value the liberal form of life. Instead of choosing between the project of constitutional democracy and their liberal soul, Ferrara and Michelman eventually offer a thin constitutional account of political liberalism resembling the international legal order amidst the retrenchment of the liberal ethos. It contends that what liberal democracies need from political liberalism in battling antiliberal forces is not more political philosophy but rather something akin to what Jeremy Waldron calls “political political theory.” It is suggested that political liberalism take a political turn to confront antiliberal forces with an enriched rather than diluted constitutional project.

The Possibility of Applying Total Quality Management at the Higher Institute of Science and Technology – SUSA

In this study, an attempt was made to determine the possibility of applying total quality management in the Higher Institute of Science and Technology (SUSA) and to explain what needs to be done to create high-quality and qualified education and educational institutions in individuals and regions. Institutional aspects of education management. Within this framework, a number of domains from different sources are defined, different characteristics are highlighted, and efforts to improve the understanding of quality are discussed. The management model will enable educational institutions to survive under the conditions of global competition, cooperation should be developed in the form of innovation, modernity, liberalism, openness, development, change and catch-up. Quality is most clearly defined as customer satisfaction. In educational institutions, especially educational administrators, lecturers, teaching assistants, students, parents and educational institutions, the purpose is to improve the quality of lecturers as an overall environmental education.

“What is the Orbit of Our Dreaming?”: Hale County This Morning , This Evening and Black Time Studies

Abstract: This article delves into the profound connection between Black life in Alabama, the temporal qualities of Southern geographies, and emerging formulations of time from the interdisciplinary field of Black Time Studies. The paper positions RaMell Ross’ 2019 experimental documentary, Hale County This Morning, This Evening , within an emerging field that examines radical representations of time in experimental Black art, aesthetics, and everyday life. Black Time Studies underscores the critical role of time in the ordering of Black life and labor, acknowledges modes of resistance, and envisions forms of liberation within the unique temporal landscape of the South, inviting this discussion of abstraction, framing practices, waiting, and patience. Hale County This Morning, This Evening explores and enacts an intricate interplay between time, place, and Black aesthetics, offering a generative contribution to theories of time in the South. Situating the film within this particular interdisciplinary discourse enables us in turn to draw from the methods, traditions, and analytical tools of poetry, experimental prose, sound, and music—fundamental elements of Black Time Studies, to create an expanded reading of the film. It is through this lens that we will ponder the film’s central question: “What is the orbit of our dreaming?”

Legitimising green monetary policies: market liberalism, layered central banking, and the ECB’s ongoing discursive shift from environmental risks to price stability

ABSTRACT Through the analysis of ECB Executive Board member speeches, we have identified three main narratives about the consequences of the environmental crisis in the monetary authority's spheres of influence: The first emphasises environmental phenomena as financial risks; the second highlights the green investment or financing gap; and the third focuses on the impacts of climate change on price stability. These narratives lead to different forms of legitimisation in terms of why and how the central bank should intervene to tackle climate change. We show that the third narrative is displacing the first as the dominant discourse around ECB climate policy. The shift in focus from the central bank's duties to maintain financial stability to its responsibilities regarding price stability under the primary mandate could lead to far-reaching green monetary policies. However, based on the concept of layered structures, we argue that this change does not signal a departure from market liberal central banking but rather a shift within the prevailing system. What we are witnessing is a new form of market liberalism adapted to climate change, or market liberalism in climate crisis mode.

Идея автономии в свете республиканской крити­ки современной либеральной концепций свободы

In the European philosophical tradition, there are two trends in the understanding of freedom – the negative concept of freedom, which grew out of the mechanicism of the 17th century, which formed the basis of the liberal political tradition, and the con­cept of freedom as autonomy, established in a modern form in the works of Benedict Spinoza and Immanuel Kant, and later becoming the basis of the Republican politi­cal tradition. Historically, the negative concept of freedom has assumed a dominant position, in certain periods completely replacing all alternatives. However, the appeal to the idea of freedom as a state of autonomy can become one of the significant ap­proaches to critique of the liberal understanding of freedom, way of understanding its limitations. The historical analysis of the formation of the liberal concept of freedom al­lows us to identify those features of it that prevent this conceptualization of freedom from fully comprehending all forms of external influence leading to a state of unfree­dom. These include, in particular, the limited understanding of interference in free choice, characteristic of liberalism due to the spirit of mechanicism embedded in it at the early stages of its development. This limitation in the liberal concept of freedom can be identified by referring to the Republican tradition of understanding freedom that inherited its definition of freedom from the legal tradition of Antiquity and postulates the need for the absence of not only arbitrary interference in an individual’s free choice, but also the very possibility of such an interference (something that is allowed in some forms of liberalism). At the same time, the appeal to the concept of autonomy in the form of a comparative analysis of the republican understanding of freedom and freedom as autonomy allows us to reveal the limitations of the republican understanding of free­dom, the reliance on which does not allow us to consider the external restrictions of freedom associated with the inculcation of certain values and their subsequent inter­nalization.

Liberalism against itself.

The task for liberals in our time is to imagine a form of liberalism that is altogether original. If they don't, it does not seem likely that they will see their creed survive-and anyway, survival is not good enough.

"The Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea as historic backgrounds of a modern notion of resistance

The Anthropocene has proven to be an epoch that is shaped by protest and resistance. It therefore makes sense to approach an anthropology of resistance on the basis of historical examples. The historian and demonstrative anti-soldier Erdmann, the Danish journalist Bergstrøm and the Croatian Jew and resistance fighter Goldstein – each of them had to deal with ambivalence and repression during the German National Socialist occupation and ended up in the resistance. In contrast to the right-wing techniques of blocking and insulting that are common today, the three stood up for a humanistic and liberal form of resistance.

Nalar Sufisme dalam Pengarustamaan Moderasi Beragama di Indonesia

The mainstreaming of religious moderation in Indonesian is not welcomed positively by all elements of society. This is because there are some views that consider the mainstreaming of religious moderation as a form of liberalization or secularization of religion in state life. Through a normative-philosophical approach, this qualitative study aims to identify and explore the content of Sufism values on the four indicators of religious moderation formulated by the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia. Data collection of this study through documentation. Data analysis includes the stages of reduction, presentation, and verification. The results of this study show the dimensions of Sufism values in indicators of religious moderation in Indonesia, including the value of mahabbah in indicators of tolerance and anti-radicalism, namely in the formation of Islamic religion full of compassion, love, and peace. Then, the value of itsar on the indicator of national commitment, namely in the formation of Islamic religion that maintains mutual benefit for the integration of social life. Furthermore, the value of futuwwah on indicators accommodating to local culture, namely in the formation of Islamic religion that is fair and non-discriminatory against cultural plurality. The theoretical implications of this study emphasize that there is a meeting point related to the manifestation of the value of Sufism teachings with indicators of religious moderation in Indonesia. The limitation of this study is that it has not examined the program of the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia in socializing the integration of Sufism values with various indicators of religious moderation that it formulated.