Liberal Outlook Research Articles

Association and Enlightenment: Scottish Clubs and Societies, 1700-1830, ed. Marc C. Wallace and Jane Rendell

<i>Association and Enlightenment: Scottish Clubs and Societies, 1700-1830</i>, ed. Marc C. Wallace and Jane Rendell

Higher Education and Cultural Liberalism: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Romania

Some studies suggest that university attendance exerts a liberalizing effect on attitudes toward cultural issues such as sexuality and sexual identity, prostitution, drug addiction, abortion, capital punishment, divorce, parenting, gender, race, religion, science, and technology. Other studies find only a weak effect or no effect. Divergent findings may stem from research designs that rest largely on observational data when assignment to treatment is nonrandom and there are many threats to inference. In this study, we enlist a unique research setting in Romania that allows for a fuzzy regression discontinuity design separating those qualified to matriculate to university from those unqualified to do so. We find that university attendance contributes to a more liberal outlook as measured by our composite index, corroborating the main (preregistered) hypothesis. Evidence for subsidiary hypotheses is mixed.

Redefining the Russian Empire: The turn to liberal imperialism through the letters of Prince Nikolay A. Orlov at the height of the Great Reforms

Prince Nikolay Alexeyevich Orlov (1827–1885) was an aristocrat, a war hero and a prominent diplomat of the Russian Empire who enjoyed a prestigious position from a very young age. In his correspondence with Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich in the early 1860s, Prince Orlov expounded his views on Russian politics, putting forward his liberal outlook of what the empire ought to be. His most crucial proposals were (i) revising Russian foreign policy and redefining imperial borders (which included solving the ‘Polish Question’); (ii) adopting federalism with local representative institutions based on a notion of ‘legitimate power’; (iii) introducing bottom-up reforms; (iv) abolishing ‘backwards practices’ (in particular, corporal punishment) and (v) guaranteeing civil rights and equality before the law. Based on letters and other writings that remain vastly under-researched in Russia and practically unknown to English-speaking audiences, I analyse Prince Orlov’s correspondence as illustrative of a broader ideological turn to liberal imperialism and contextualise it from Russian and European perspectives. By positing that Russian liberalism was strongly impacted by the successes and shortcomings of the liberal imperialism of the 1860s, I invite the reader to rethink some ideological and chronological boundaries that are routinely taken for granted in discussions regarding liberalism, imperialism and their interconnectedness.

Towards a minimal conception of Transitional Justice

AbstractTransitional Justice (TJ) focuses on the processes of dealing with the legacy of large-scale past abuses (in the aftermath of traumatic experiences such as war or authoritarianism) with the aim of fostering domestic justice and creating the basis for a sustainable peace. TJ however also entails the problem of how a torn society may be able to become a self-determining member of a just international order. This paper presents a minimal conception of TJ, which departs from Rawls' conception of normative stability of the international order, which suggests disentangling the two goals of fostering democracy within torn societies and TJ itself. The scope of TJ is therefore limited to enabling these societies to create minimal internal conditions for joining a just international order on equal footing. This paper makes an original contribution to two different debates, namely normative research on TJ, and post-Rawlsian literature in general. First, it provides a new direction for normative theorizing about TJ which takes both its domestic and international dimensions seriously into consideration. Second, it extends Rawls' political liberal outlook to an area where it is not usually understood to apply.

UNDER THE SAME ROOF: RECONCILIATION OF THE OPPOSITE ENDS IN E. M. FORSTER S HOWARDS END

The twentieth century marks the beginning of a new period in England during which the norms and the traditions pertaining to the Victorian age start to be questioned. While the echoes of this change have been audible from the 1890s onwards, they reach their climax with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 because it announces not only the physical death of the Queen but also the symbolic death of the Victorian mindset. With the reign of King Edward VII, therefore, the literary texts of the period illustrate a liberal outlook that questions the outdated ideals of the previous era. Within this context, this article examines E. M. Forster’s Howards End (1910) by foregrounding and analysing the clash between the ideals of the past and those of the present, which in the wider perspective demonstrates Forster’s modernist agenda to go beyond the strict dualities and to introduce a totally fresh synthesis. Epitomising the cultural inheritance of the country, Howards End is more than a house; it represents the future of England. Thus, it is important that Howards End should function as a unifying force that will bring these opposite ends together – as represented through different socio-economic classes embodied through three families whose lives get connected to one another at the end of the novel. Thereby, Forster aptly weaves the stories of the Schlegels, the Wilcoxes, and the Bast family by counterbalancing the intellectual and the material; the spiritual and the physical; the feminine and the masculine; the past and the present, and he presents a modern synthesis that, he believes, will shape England in the future.

Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem (1783) and The Jewish Vision of Tolerance

Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) wrote Jerusalem with his back to the wall. His Jewish identity and liberal outlook were challenged in the public sphere of the German Enlightenment, and this was his last opportunity to write a book that would perpetuate the essence of his faith and his values as the first modern Jewish humanist. The work, which moves between apologetics for his faith and political and religious philosophy was primarily a daring essay that categorically denied the rule of religion and advocated tolerance and freedom of thought. Neither the state nor the church had the right to govern a person’s conscience; and, no less far-reaching and pioneering: these values are consistent with Judaism. In the summer of 1783, seven years after the resounding voice of protest against tyranny and in favor of liberty and equality was heard in the American Declaration of Independence, less than six years before the French Revolution, but only two years and two months before his death, the man who was called the “German Socrates,” a highly prominent figure in the Enlightenment, published one of the fundamental documents in Jewish modernity.

World Governance In Selected Writings By Bertrand Russell:, Utopia Or Ideology

This article studies the idea of “World Government” as envisioned in a series of essays published by Bertrand Russell in the period of the Cold War. It draws upon the theoretical categories introduced by Karl Mannheim in Ideology and Utopia (1936) to account for the nature of the reconstruction schemes the author advances to spare human society a possible apocalyptic nuclear confrontation. The study has shown that Russell’s liberal outlook is utopian insofar as it has shown advanced positions regarding self-determination, the dissemination of progress and cooperation toward the reconstruction of a peaceful and prosperous world. However, given the technological abyss separating the industrial West in the 1950s from the rest, an open “World State” would be another form of imperialism in disguise. The risk involved is that this “global utopia” whose rulers monopolize military, legislative as well as economic power, would turn into an institutional and ideological instrument of control in the hands of the technologically powerful few.

Debating Capital and Ideology: An introduction to the special issue.

Debating Capital and Ideology: An introduction to the special issue.

ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE SCOPE OF GOVERNMENT: DO WE HAVE A GENERATION GAP?

Today an impact of government on citizens’ daily life is bigger than ever before. The extent to which people support governmental actions is related with their support of the whole political system. The scope of government varies across different states as well as people’s attitudes towards it also vary considerably. The scope of government, according O. Borre and E. Scarbrough (1998), is referred to both the range of government activity and the degree to which governments engage in activities, such as spending on services, taxing, regulating citizens and regulating their behaviour, providing resources for defence, improving the environment and sometimes doing nothing what concerns societal problems. Depending on the role of government in economy and social sphere we can distinguish how small or big the government is. The ISSP Role of Government module data provides a wide range of variables indicating people’s attitudes towards different elements of governments’ actions. Recent research, e. g. a study of Pew Research – The Generation Gap in American Politics (March, 2018) – shows the important difference in generational attitudes towards the scope of government. According to this study two younger USA generations, Millennials and Gen Xers, stand apart from the two older cohorts, Baby Boomers and Silents – especially Millennials (those, who were born in 1981 and later) have increasingly liberal outlook. Thus, the main question of this article - does the same generational divide might be observed in other countries and what are the main differences in generational attitudes towards the scope of government from the cross-national perspective?

Young Mr. Mises and younger historicists: origins of Mises’s liberalism

Mises’s very first expression of a liberal outlook is usually associated with the 1919 Nation, Economy, and State because very little is known about his earlier work. Several recent studies, however, suggest that the Viennese social space and the Habsburg’s socioeconomic reality influenced Mises’s liberalism during his studies at the University of Vienna. This paper shows that Mises’s liberal outlook traces back to his early work, influenced by Younger Historicist members of the Verein fur Sozialpolitik, such as Knapp and Grunberg. We argue that Mises’s early work expressed a rationalist liberal outlook that intertwined with the social policy reform aspirations of the Verein fur Sozialpolitik.

The Fatal Deceit of Public Policy: Can Austrian and Public Choice Economics Complement each other?

The Fatal Deceit of Public Policy: Can Austrian and Public Choice Economics Complement each other?

Writing without Bias

Enlightened persons look upon all human beings as their kith and kin. Liberal outlooks and good manners forbid them from harboring any preconceived idea about anybody on grounds of gender, race, religion, caste, community, age and disability (physical or mental). Yet some writers every now and then slyly hint at the presumed superiority of one group of people over another without any rational basis. They tend to judge others by their own cultural yardsticks. They are too insular to realize that anyone who may just be different from them in some ways are as important members of human society as any of their own kind.When bias exists in attitudes, it seeps through language. Language often turns out to be the cultural filter through which we construct what we consider as ‘normal.’ Our choice of words and expressions are often loaded with implicit prejudice. They betray our insensitivity to the feelings of others. If you are not mindful about weeding out hurtful expressions from your writing, your message will offend a large section of your readers.

"Comparisons are Odious?" Revisiting the ancient fable of the ant and the grasshopper adapted in Maugham's short story

The article seeks to locate a comparative study of the meanings and the morals of a popular ancient fable, adapted by William Somerset Maugham in his short story, The Ant and the Grasshopper. The comparison and contrast in adapting the fable generated an intense academic debate about the appropriate policies of life, a human should undergo. Alike the ancient fable, the setting of the story opens with the conversation between an industrious ant and its reluctant counterpart, a grasshopper. Although the story of the fable is embodied with a moral where industry is rewarded and giddiness punished, we see a completely different scenario at the end of the story. Therefore, it is an irony of the moral conflict between two Ramsay brothers, namely George Ramsay, a man of ethics and Tom Ramsay, a man of a fantasy world. Throughout the story, The Ant and the Grasshopper, Maugham's effort to portray the themes of justice, trust, fear, morality, embarrassment, happiness and struggle is indeed praiseworthy. But, at the same time, it has aroused a hypothesis of seeking out the ultimate principles of life. The paper considers the development of the Greek fable from its origin to the later adaptations, including the version of La Fontaine, a French fabulist, and the final reversal to a counter-fable by Maugham. It also includes a web of researches in the corresponding fields, and a synthesis resulting from the causes and effects of indebtedness and unemployment that can eventually affect the economy through fluctuations in confidence. The further objective of this work illustrates the misconception and mockery of a man of letter and the eventual paradoxes he has to face in reality. Finally, it concludes with an inception that a post modern world like ours needs not only a determined and preset humane policy, but also a new narrative, and liberal outlook to survive or live in luxury.

Art, Human Condition and Beyond …

Philosophers of different ages have made rigorous attempts to define art aiming to establish a set of characteristics applicable to all kinds of fine arts. However to point a definite meaning of art is elusive task. Similarly the question whether art can be didactic to provide knowledge, or insight is as old as philosophy itself. Art can be appreciated, enjoyed and loved for the powerful emotional values it reflects to the beholders. The production of art deals with creativity, imagination and innate ability of an artist. Art evolves from the culture that inspires artistic expression and art is born from the inner necessity of the artist. To determine the coherent ontological status of works of art has been a problematic issue despite the consistent philosophical practices. The metaphysical categorization of art as “the imaginary experience of the total activity" of the artist recreated by competent viewer is not all inclusive perception of art. The more liberal outlook of art as abstract cultural entities that are created at certain time through human activities seems convincing and relevant.

Karl Mannheim and the liberal telos of realism

The renaissance of classical realism in International Relations (IR) has highlighted the close historical and conceptual connection between realism and liberalism. In this essay, I consider an underexplored epistemological dimension of this connection using Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia – an influential work for classical IR realists and an important treatise on political theory in its own right. Based on Mannheim’s argument, I make the case that (a certain kind of) liberalism is the telos of (a certain kind of) realism: that the natural endpoint of the inherent logic of realism is a form of liberalism. I argue that completing the epistemological and political critique that leads to realism by also putting the realist position itself under (self-)examination, unearths a liberal outlook as its foundation. Explicating this dialectic adds a new dimension to the many other points of contact between realism and liberalism that have been explored by IR scholars in recent years, and it provides a new link between this scholarship and the literature on the epistemological foundations of classical realism. Finally, the essay is an argument for a closer engagement with Mannheim in an IR context, both as a philosopher of knowledge and as a political thinker.

Crisis, capitalism and common policies: Greek and Norwegian responses to common shipping policy efforts in the 1960s and 1970s

ABSTRACT This article argues that the global liberal outlook of the major European maritime powers and the international framework of international organizations and regimes already in place made any strictly regional Common Shipping Policy, under the auspices of the European Community, superfluous. Alliances among Shipowners and associations ran across the member- and non-member divide, and were informed by global economic considerations such as the oil shock, competition from South East Asia and structural changes in the sector, rather than integrationist efforts. Instead, the Commission came to act as an interlocutor alongside a liberal alliance, with particular European aims within a global context. This alliance was an unlikely one, seeing Greek–Norwegian hopes in Britain as a possible guarantor of a liberal shipping regime within the enlarged Community in the early 1970s. In the end, the European response to the crisis and structural changes of the 1970s proved unsatisfactory, and only those who fully embraced the ‘new’ rules of the game (like Greece) reaped the benefits of the structural changes.

Regionalismo e desenvolvimento na América do Sul

O objetivo do presente trabalho é discutir os diferentes modos de entender o desenvolvimento periférico que tiveram expressão nas variadas experiências de integração na América do Sul a partir de meados do século XX. Buscamos, em um primeiro momento, entender os significados atribuídos pela literatura à integração regional, bem como à noção de desenvolvimento. Em um segundo momento, analisamos a trajetória dos regionalismo sul-americano à luz dos conceitos e ideias trabalhados na seção anterior, evidenciando uma prevalência da noção de desenvolvimento exógeno nas experiências integracionistas. Concluímos que, apesar de que com o tempo a noção de desenvolvimento tenha evoluído para um conceito muito mais complexo do que o mero crescimento econômico, o olhar mercantilista e liberal tem predominado nos objetivos dos processos integracionistas sul-americanos.

The abortion referendum of 2018 and a timeline of abortion politics in Ireland to date

ABSTRACTIn 2018, Ireland voted to remove its constitutional ban on abortion in almost all circumstances. This overturned a previous decision by referendum to institute such a ban in 1983. The scale of the change in Irish society that this vote has displayed is significant, representing an even further shift towards a more socially liberal outlook than that seen in the marriage referendum of 2015. As with the previous referendum, this referendum is also of interest to scholars of deliberative processes, given the key role played by Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly in progressing the debate and shaping both the referendum question and the draft legislation that was to follow. This report provides the historical context of this referendum with regard to Ireland’s previous abortion regime and antecedent referendums on this topic, as well as discussing the deliberative processes and the dynamics of the referendum campaign itself.

Politics of multicultural education in post-Suharto Indonesia: a study of the Chinese minority

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of schools in responding to the ambivalent relationships between the Chinese and non-Chinese in Indonesia. It examines the multicultural position that Indonesian teachers adopt and the pedagogical strategies they employ in promoting positive inter-ethnic relations. Through interviews with teachers in three schools with different student ethno-religious compositions in Medan, the article argues that the multiculturalism paradigm embraced by the majority of teachers leans towards a liberal multicultural outlook, employing mostly content integration and prejudice reduction. The heterogenous school in the study has more potential to empower a multicultural school culture due to the school demography compared to the homogenous school. However, such efforts still focus heavily on maximising intergroup contact and less on engaging students critically. This article considers theories of multiculturalism in tandem with Indonesian’s concept of nationalism and national identity, including the vision of diversity enshrined in the national motto Bhinneka-Tunggal-Ika (Unity-in-Diversity).

The Terrible Beauty of Transcendence: A Reflection on Easter 1916

The Terrible Beauty of Transcendence: A Reflection on Easter 19161 David Walsh The challenge of understanding the 1916 Easter Rising emerges from our own existence in a post-nationalist era. We subscribe to a multicultural version of society in which the state maintains the neutral role of securing the liberty of all who come under its authority. The age of nationalist passions has receded, even if there are still notable flare-ups. We have difficulty understanding the motivations of those who marched out on that Easter Monday morning to launch their assault on the temporarily unguarded bastions of empire. The theatrical and doomed character of the affair, lasting all of six days, only underlines its incomprehensibility. Despite the obligatory commemorations, we are almost as far from understanding it as the denizens of Dublin who awoke to discover that rebels had seized the most prominent buildings of their city. The bemused onlookers hardly considered they were in need of liberation, when they already enjoyed one of the freest regimes in the world. With personal liberties secured and political representation in parliament, there was little to demand politically, even if living conditions could always be improved. The gulf between the liberal and nationalist outlooks could scarcely be greater, and it must be conceded that we too find ourselves unprepared to bridge it. Perhaps the best homage we can render to the men and women of that astonishing outburst is to contemplate the chasm they opened in Irish – and, by extension, modern – political thinking. Our excursion will not follow the familiar narrative of the Rising but will instead undertake the more philosophic search for its meaning. Categories of historiography must be enlarged if we are to reach what eluded both participants and successors in their self-understanding of events. A first step is the admission of the incompatibility of the dominant modes of discourse. The ethos of national self-determination is perennially in tension with the elevation of individual liberty. The second stage is to apply this realisation to the concrete historical circumstances of Irish and British political life. It is only in this way that the anomalies come clearly into view, rather than Studies • volume 106 • number 422 159 The Terrible Beauty of Transcendence: A Reflection on Easter 1916 slide unremarked away. Once we have conceded the deeper tensions it will be possible, third, to suggest a way in which the character of the 1916 Rising provides a way of resolving them. A fourth and final section will then consider the Catholic inspiration as both a means of moderating revolutionary demands and promoting the path of constitutional liberty. The contradiction inherent in the nation state contains the possibility of its self-overcoming. Conflict between liberal and national The first thing that strikes us about the impassioned band of rebels in 1916 is their extensive rejection of the liberal outlook that defined late Edwardian society. These were men and women for whom the private liberty of being left alone was not enough. They sought a greater public purpose and they found it in the cause of national independence. Political liberty had definitively trumped individual liberty in their estimation. Turning their backs on the pursuit of material gain that the modern progressive economy had ushered in, they sought to return to a more primordial community of those who were united by the deeper bonds of language, culture and tradition. The soil and not the market was to be their lodestar. In this way they would find the enlargement of the heart that the cramped horizon of self-satisfaction could never provide. Rejecting the promise of security and comfort, they had turned to the irrevocability of self-sacrifice. From the distance of our own cocoon of comfort this may seem almost mad, but it is not so remote that we cannot sense the nobility that drew them. Action on the public stage supersedes the narrower fulfilments of private life. It is a theme with which we are familiar in contrasting the ancient and modern forms of liberty, the one public and the other private, without fully admitting their irreconcilability. For now, all that needs to be conceded is that in a regime of private liberty...