Ideological Debate Research Articles

Constructing Disraeli in Twentieth-Century Conservatism

Abstract Since the 1960s, when historians first dethroned the dominant view of Benjamin Disraeli as a Tory democrat and social reformer, his association with an interventionist, socially inclusive Conservatism has largely been considered an exercise in political myth-making. This focus on the Disraeli ‘myth’ has tended to obscure the myriad and substantive ways in which Disraeli’s life and works were interpreted and put to work in Conservative ideological debates and political practice in the twentieth century, reducing them to social policy and state intervention in the economy and overlooking the lineages of his political career in Conservative political economy debates, conceptions of the nation and the constitution, and imperial and foreign policy thinking. This article examines interpretations of Disraeli, and how his legacy was constructed, by conservative biographers, historians and public intellectuals from the decades after his death until the historiography of the 1960s. It traces how Disraeli was memorialised and celebrated in the Conservative movement and popular culture; how his life and works were interpreted for popular audiences by an important group of conservative historians in the inter-war period; and how Disraeli was mobilised in Conservative and Unionist Party debates on tariff reform, social reform, the nation and empire, concluding in the aftermath of the Second World War, when his legacy and statecraft were consistently evoked in Conservative debates on post-war Britain. It demonstrates that Disraeli was interpreted in much more diverse ways, and with more diverse political objectives, than the standard readings of the Disraelian tradition have hitherto appreciated.

Mapping Histories: An Environmental Perspective for Writing Local History in Pakistan

Local history in Pakistan has a complex relationship with national historical narratives that are derived from ideological debates on Muslim nationhood in South Asia. This article discusses how ‘local’ is understood in Pakistan’s historiography and puts forth an argument for the adoption of an environmental framework to enhance our understanding of local history. Mapping methodology used for a project on the Rachna Doab is discussed in order to demonstrate how local environmental history can give new insights into history by eschewing preconceived frames of reference and using a different concept of space and time defined by environmental change.

Decentralised autonomous organisations: targeting the potential beyond the hype

ABSTRACT Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) aim at innovating the organisation forms for business activities. They are complex blockchain-based smart contracts, which allow token holders to participate directly in decision-making processes and decentralised entrepreneurial activities as much as possible. The advocates of this new kind of digital organisation argue that DAOs enjoy significant operational efficiencies and can effectively work outside of any legal recognition. This paper analyses DAOs through the lenses of the economic and legal theories on the firm and on business organisation. The analysis makes three contributions: first, it contributes to the literature on the theory of the firm, looking at the role of digital technology in innovating the organisation of business activities. Second, it enriches the literature on the legally recognised forms of business organisation, analysing the tension between the essential role of the law and the limitations of tamper-resistant technologies, such as the blockchain. Third, it overcomes the largely ideological and dichotomic debate on the promises of DAOs, providing analytical guidelines as to why current forms of sector-specific regulation fail to leverage the potential of DAOs.

“We are a rehabilitation unit, at least on paper” – Competing representations of recovery-oriented rehabilitation in dual diagnosis treatment policy and practice

Within dual diagnosis treatment, principles of recovery are increasingly acknowledged. Nevertheless, recovery-oriented rehabilitation often becomes an abstract concept, leaving professionals in various dilemmas. This article examines competing representations of recovery-oriented rehabilitation across Danish dual diagnosis treatment policy and practice from a post-structural, analytical perspective inspired by governmentality and problematization studies. The empirical foundation consists of a qualitative ethnographic study including conducting and examining 12 national policies relevant to contemporary Danish dual diagnosis treatment practice and 23 interviews with health/welfare professionals employed at a Danish in-patient, dual diagnosis rehabilitation unit. The analysis points to a complexity between three sets of competing representations reflected in 1) the conceptual relationship between rehabilitation and recovery, 2) perceptions of knowledge based on experience or evidence, and 3) ideals of optimization and emancipation. Finally, the article discusses convergences between the competing and, at times, conflictual ideals, attempting to explain the conceptual fluffiness, discrepancies, and dilemmas experienced by professionals in dual diagnosis treatment within broader epistemological and ideological debates in social sciences and humanities.

The collective-man of res publica. Norwid and the civic society

The intellectually and politically tempestuous crystallization of the civic ideal in the nineteenth and twentieth century manifested not only in Europe (especially Western), but also in North and Middle America, and in time – all over the globe. An intense search for the “civic ideal” is clearly discernible in societies comprising the former Polish Republic, whose demise towards the end of the eighteenth century and the subsequent phases of its increasingdecompositionnot only failed to annihilate the republican tradition but in fact intensified authentic debate on possible roads toward modern society in the future independent state. A key role in this important dialogue was played by representatives of the landed gentry and the intelligentsia, the latter emerging in the nineteenth century as a new social formation that basically had no exact counterpart in other countries. In time, a few representatives of other classes also joined this dialogue on the shape of the future Polish state. What is the meaning of the phrase “civic society”? Today, it is used almost naturallyby columnists and politicians representing various positions, but it was virtually non-existent during Norwid’s lifetime, although the very ideaof organizing collective life on the basis of “civic” virtues has an almost immemorial provenance. This article attempts to describe Norwid’s civic thought, mainly by analysing his discursive statements, chiefly in journalism. Norwid was decidedly opposed to any doctrinaire elevation of “humanity” (which he called a “holy abstraction”) over “nation” and “Church,” through which individuals can actually partake in “the work of ages.” Another area in which Norwid struggled to develop clear civic categories comprises visions of humanity’s universal happiness and/or its apocalyptic fall, many of which were promulgated at the time. In his polemics with utopias of “fulfilled history” it is possible to discern clear echoes of ideological debates held at the time, especially ones between mystical and political visions used by various “prophets” to describe the ultimate perspectives for the development of current events whose subject is “humanity” – a category replacing “nations,” which would be thus seen as ending their historical “mission.”From this angle, Norwidwould criticise Skład zasad[A collection of principles] by Adam Mickiewicz– a manifesto of revolutionary transformations of civic rights, which are part of the legacy of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.In a letter to Józef Bohdan Zaleski, dated 24 April 1848, Norwid expressed his outrage at most theses contained in Skład, which he saw as undermining traditional values such as “homeland,” “property,” “lineage,” “nation,” etc.

One thing I do know: John 9, Citizen Ruth, and bodily autonomy

In John 9, an unnamed man born blind receives sight only to find himself at the center of various controversies and theological questions that concern identity and belonging. In the center of the swirling debates, the newly sighted man does not give the theological and political answers his interlocutors demand. He insists instead on his physical well-being as the centrally relevant reality. This article reads John 9 intertextually with the 1996 film Citizen Ruth, in which a pregnant White woman similarly finds herself in the center of a vigorous debate about abortion and often baffles the ideologically motivated groups that seek to persuade her to their side. She, too, insists on her right to act in her own best interests as she perceives them and is subjected to intrusive questions, social stigma, and shame. This reading finds sources for an ethic that centers human flourishing, bodily autonomy, and the ability of marginalized individuals to say what they know to be true about themselves. Such an ethic is surely needed for such a time as this, when fierce ideological debates and political manipulations place marginalized bodies at risk.

Self-Determination and the Limits on the Right to Include

States’ right to exclude prospective members is the subject of a fierce debate in political theory, but the right to include has received relatively little scholarly attention. To address this lacuna, we examine the puzzle of permissible inclusion: when may states confer citizenship on individuals they have no prior obligation to include? We first clarify why permissible inclusion is a puzzle, then proceed to a normative evaluation of this practice and its limits. We investigate self-determination – a dominant principle in theories of the right to exclude – as a normative ground for limits on the right to include. We argue that states’ duties to respect one another’s self-determination yield limits on permissible inclusion. When inclusive policies for citizenship undermine the permissible scope of self-determination of other states, they are impermissible; they should either be prohibited, or require compensation.

Motherhood, wet-nursing and nation: nineteenth-century Brazilian medical perspectives

This paper explores the viewpoints of nineteenth-century Brazilian physicians regarding women’s roles as the ‘propagators of the race’. It emphasises their perspectives on reproduction, breast feeding, and the involvement of...

Communism, Nationalism, and the State: Ideological Debate between Sukarno and Isa Anshary, 1945-1970

Communism, Nationalism, and the State: Ideological Debate between Sukarno and Isa Anshary, 1945-1970

Ecology for the rich? Class aspects of the green transition and the threat of right-wing populism as a reaction to its costs in Poland

This article sheds light on the class determinants of ecological attitudes and, at the same time, tries to emphasize the general importance of class differentiation for the implementation of sustainable development policies. This is particularly important in Eastern European countries where, for financial reasons, a green transition raises concerns among social groups that may feel threatened by additional socioeconomic costs. Using empirical data collected in Poland, we point out that the challenges, implementation, and social costs of a green transition can be used by populist and nationalist right-wing politicians. At the same time, right-wing populists depict ecological activists as a threat to the interests of “ordinary people” and identify them with the liberal metropolitan elites, detached from the worries of people with lower incomes and residents of traditionalist provinces. In the current conditions, the fear of increases in energy and fuel prices may be another source of support for an anti-ecological right-wing agenda against the “global pressure” of the liberal establishment. This narrative may be particularly attractive in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries in Europe and around the world as it refers not only to ideological arguments but also to the economic interests of “ordinary people.”

Challenges of Inclusion of Almagirai in Nigerian School Feeding Scheme

Almagirci has recently become an ideological battlefield debate about the roles of government to support them, which sometimes often focuses on feeding. It is expected that all children should equally attain the highest standard of education and nutrition through a school feeding scheme, but in the context of Nigeria, the commitment is different, especially for Almajirai. This study aims to examine the likely challenges in including Almagirai in Nigerian school feeding schemes with an emphasis on people's perceptions. The use of a survey research method through a questionnaire was adopted by the researchers, administered in Mubi North and South local government area of Adamawa State, Nigeria. The survey area represents only two out of hundreds of local governments in the country where Almajirai are sited. The findings revealed that out of 220 respondents, 166 (75.45%) and 174 (79.09%) strongly disagree with the current situation of Almajirai in terms of their feeding and the government commitments toward Almagiranci respectively. It was also revealed that 188 (85.45%) of respondents strongly agreed and in support of governments to include Almajirai in the school feeding scheme, simultaneously, 198 (90.00%) respondents responded that the inclusion will have a positive impact on their learning. In response to these challenges, It is expected that governments should move urgently to bring Almagirai under their oversight and regulation to enable her to take care of nutrition and the standard of their education.

Who's being elitist? A debate about the enregisterment of Singlish

Abstract This article is a rejoinder to Lee (2023) who makes certain claims about the enregisterment of Singlish via a case study of Spiaking Singlish. In challenging Lee's key claim that Spiaking Singlish deploys a form of elitist language, I argue that the Singlish features in the book need not demand a solely ludic reading and actually draw from everyday practices. Accordingly, enregisterment ought to be understood as a diachronic and evolving process in the vein of Butler's (1999) notion of sedimentation. Moreover, Lee's characterization of the ‘monolectal Singlish user’ is classist and reductionist, unsupported by recent research and census data. Consequently, Spiaking Singlish need not be seen as an elitist work, but as contributing to ever-changing attitudes towards Singlish in the public sphere. This article is an alternative iteration to Lee's (2023) that has implications for the way we understand enregisterment in Singapore and choose to represent it as a process. (Enregisterment, Singlish, Singapore, sociolinguistics, language ideological debates)*

New views on price-making markets and the capitalist impulse: beyond Polanyi

Anthropologists have persistently diminished the importance of the market and marketplace exchange in premodern, preindustrial times. This strident anti-market mentality, derived largely from the writings of Karl Polanyi, underpins an ideological and politicized argument that neither sets useful guideposts to advance anthropological research, nor does it yield the necessary insights or empirically valid foundations to comprehend the deep historical origins of modern economies or polities. In fact, by envisioning the past that is categorically caged from the modern, the school of thought crystalized through Polanyi's perspectives circumvents the role of diachronic processes that are at the heart of a truly historical social science. Although it is not our principal aim to relitigate the vast literature pertaining to the rise and fall of Polanyian thought, our approach expands on prior arguments about his project both by highlighting critical perspectives on capitalism that long predated Polanyian thought and by identifying a veritable bounty of new evidence and theory concerning premodern and contemporary marketplace economies that enable us to transcend these now-entrenched claims. The scheme we present that distinguishes between open and competitive marketplaces, on the one hand, and the capitalist impulse, on the other, we believe, adds depth and breadth to the analysis of price-making markets and their divergent social and economic outcomes across time and space.

The Laws of Rollo as a Primitive Constitution for Normandy: Writing and Rewriting Legal History in France during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract The laws of Rollo are regularly evoked in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Norman historiography. As a result of a renaissance of interest in, and the study of, medieval Norman sources, notably the gestae of Dudo of Saint-Quentin and Guillaume of Jumièges, early modern jurists and historians located the legal particularism of Normandy in Rollo’s laws. They exploited these sources in order to preserve Norman rights and liberties and to use the history of their medieval origins to justify ongoing legal provincialism. But as the Revolution approached, the memory of Rollo’s laws also became an essential issue in emerging political and ideological debates, because they served as much to defend absolute monarchy as to challenge it.

The representation of migration in parliamentary settings: critical cross-linguistics corpus-assisted discourse analyses

This study examines migration representation in three parliamentary chambers: the Spanish Chamber, the European Parliament, and the British House of Commons. The time span of its analysis coincides with the eighth Legislature of Spain (2004–2008). The reasons for this decision are straightforward. If parliaments portray or construct ideological debates in democratic societies, it seems logical to turn our attention to them as a means of assessing the nature and quality of comparable but different multicultural environments in which migration is a major defining feature. Furthermore, this time span allows for an examination of such societies at different ideological phases, for example, Spain’s conceptualisation of migration in the initial stages of parliamentary representation. The study expands the method of corpus-assisted analysis through a critical theoretical framework proposed by the socio-political scientist Zapata-Barrero. Data were obtained from the European Comparable and Parallel Corpus Archive of Parliamentary Speeches. Well-established tools in corpus linguistics, such as frequency and collocation, were employed, leading to an examination of Zapata-Barrero’s reactive and proactive discourses. The quantitative methods used were especially in-depth, undertaking an exhaustive descriptive and statistical treatment and aiming to strengthen the validity of subsequent qualitative analyses. Consequently, a virtuous circle was achieved: the corpus linguistic procedures reached higher levels of theoretical abstraction, while Zapata-Barrero’s framework gained robustness and more potential for generalisation. The study’s originality, thus, lies in the mutual synergies activated by this theoretical and methodological combination.

이승만의 농지개혁과 교육개혁

Although it is receiving mixed evaluations according to the camp's logic, it is undeniable that Lee Seung-man has succeeded and failed at almost every juncture of modernization in Korea. He himself was one of the chaotic modernization of his country. However, Rhee Syng-man is still an ill-fated leader whose credits are covered and only his mistakes are highlighted. Rhee Syng-man gave us a great gift of liberal democracy along with the importance of economic equality in a space of liberation from severe confrontation. His achievements were often distorted or overlooked due to excessive ideological debates.
 However, we can meet the decisive moments of Rhee Syng-man in the process of the birth of the Republic of Korea, ranging from the Manmin Community to farmland reform, the signing of the Korea-U.S. mutual defense treaty, and education reform, which led to the first step toward a democratic republic. Recently, the evaluation of the first President Rhee Syng-man has been newly made. The mood is to properly evaluate such contributions as the Korea-U.S. alliance and farmland reform. There is no doubt that the Korea-U.S. alliance is the number one contributor to preventing communization across the Korean Peninsula. Farmland reform is generally evaluated as an opportunity to transform society as a whole from modern to modern. If you add one more to this, it is a ball that laid the foundation for Korea's physical and human infrastructure. Rhee Syng-man made efforts to expand infrastructure despite the poverty of relying on aid.
 The present Republic of Korea is called the era of the most abundance in its half-million-year history. This era of abundance was not created all of a sudden one day. It is the product of more than 70 years of accumulation since the establishment of the Korean government. The secret to its success lies in making liberal democracy and a market economy the foundation of the state. Based on this, it succeeded in reforming farmland and prevented North Korea's invasion. The mutual defense treaty with the United States also played a major role. This credit cannot but be attributed to Rhee Syng-man more than anyone else.
 Based on this awareness of the problem, this paper will examine Rhee Syng-man's track record leading up to the enactment of the Constitution and conduct a constitutional evaluation of land reform and education reform.

Religious History in Portugal from Lusitania Sacra (1720) to the Enciclopédia de História Religiosa (2023): An Overview

The religious history in Portugal remains fragmented despite the progress made, especially in the last four decades, compared with other European historiographies. This article intends to identify factors that explain the Portuguese religious history landscape through an exhaustive diachronic presentation of the main works and authors. It aims to present the fundamental milestones of the field’s evolution, both thematically and institutionally. The ambiguous relationship between national memory and the hegemonic Catholic religious tradition, the ideological and political debates surrounding the late modern reset of national identity benchmarks, and the impacts of a dictatorial experience that conditioned the academic landscape for almost 50 years are the reasons for the late emergence of religious history in Portugal and its discreet presence in the academy. After establishing the essential chronology and underlining the main results, this article will outline Portuguese religious historiography’s most pressing tasks and challenges.

Ideological debates around the script of collateral languages: the case of Kashubian and Silesian in Poland

ABSTRACT Our paper discusses the modes of creating normalised orthographies for two collateral languages of Poland, Kashubian and Silesian. In both cases, the creation of a literary form is a way of raising their prestige and an argument for their legal recognition. While Kashubian has the status of a ‘regional language’ of Poland, Silesian is still contested despite large community support for its linguistic autonomy. We analyse how different orthography systems are created, promoted and what ideological debates they provoke. We distinguish between two kinds of scripts. The first option is a ‘compromise’, closer to the standard Polish, which aims to facilitate learning collateral language in formal education for those who are Polish first language speakers. The second is a ‘classical’ or ‘identity-strengthening’ version that builds upon the historical forms of local scripts. It aims to distinguish it from the standard Polish to reinforce the groups’ identity as separate from the dominant society. Based on an analysis of in-depth interviews with language activists and the context in which the Kashubian and Silesian languages function, we explore the ideological debates around the creation of collateral languages’ writing systems.

슬라브주의와 서구주의의 논쟁

This paper is a study on Slavicism in the debate between Slavophilism and Westernism, which was an ideological debate that engulfed Russian intellectual circles in the early and mid-19th century. The development history of Russian written language, starting with славянский (Slavicism) in the 9th century and moving toward славянорусский (Slavyanorossiysky) in the mid-18th century, is a journey of weakening the position of славянский and increasing the status of русский.
 The superiority of the former over the latter was maintained for several centuries, but cracks in the relationship between the two languages began to appear during the reign of Peter the Great in the late-17th and early-18th centuries. From the mid-18th century, they fused into one national literary language, namely славянорусский. Slavicism, which started out as a category in origin, transitioned into a stylistic category from this period and functioned as a stylistic component within the stylistic system of Russian literary language. This study examines the characteristics of Slavicism from the mid-18th century to the early-to-mid-19th century by classifying it in terms of form and function. After introducing the conflicting views of Slavophilism and Westernism on Slavicism, as well as a compromise view of these two views, the paper expresses the following views: The debate between Slavophilism and Westernism only ended in different interpretations of the linguistic reality of Russia at the time and had no effect on the linguistic reality. Slavicism, which had undergone continuous changes for several centuries, was following its own path of change, regardless of the ideologies and ideals of intellectuals regarding language, especially in the 19th century.

Environmental NGOs and Protected Area Conservation in Australia: The Political Consequences of Aligning with Private Interests

This article examines the political consequences of environmental nongovernment organization (ENGO) involvement in protected area conservation in Australia. Rapid growth of a nongovernment protected area (NGPA) estate this century has involved a range of individuals, communities, First Nations, and ENGOs, and has been closely tied to government policy and private finance. Although NGPA conservation achievements have been profound, there has been limited examination of what expanded nongovernment involvement, responsibility, and leadership mean for the practice and governance of nature conservation. Thematic analysis of twenty-four key informant interviews and selective gray literature identifies how financing, accountability, and partisan politics are emerging as key domains in shaping an NGPA estate that reflects a closer alignment with capital and market forces. ENGOs are playing a key role in crafting new political conditions for protected area conservation, where their role in neoliberal governance is not just service delivery, but statecraft and agenda setting. ENGOs are increasingly casting protected area conservation as apolitical, and thereby a bipartisan activity, driven by a “pragmatic” agenda that seeks to secure private financing for land ownership and management obligations. Frameworks of accountability to donors shape ENGO practices and conceptions of conservation through exposure to novel market mechanisms. As a result, ENGO operation permits limited space for plural, ideological, and structural debate about protected area conservation, the public interest, and the root causes of ecological crises to which it responds. The embrace of conservation led by nongovernment actors marks a substantive shift from the formative politics of ENGOs in Australia.