Liberal Pluralism Research Articles

Contemporary Drift: Genre, Historicism, and the Problem of the Present, by Theodore Martin; Minor Characters Have Their Day: Genre and the Contemporary Literary Marketplace, by Jeremy Rosen

Contemporary Drift: Genre, Historicism, and the Problem of the Present, by Theodore Martin; Minor Characters Have Their Day: Genre and the Contemporary Literary Marketplace, by Jeremy Rosen

The foundations of pluralism in modern Western liberal political thought

Research tackles the bases that pluralism based on . in the western liberal thought for example many of lebral opinions that of called for pluralism were discussed so research divided to for mian aspects : first aspect the theoritical political .liberal and political pluralism concepts of the research . the second aspects : tackles the descussion relativity of the truth and right and the pluralism of the contemprory western liberal thought . third aspect : tackles the equality and emphasizing of the pluralism in the contemprory western liberal . thought fanally the fourth aspect tackles the political respresentation and pluralism in the western liberal thought . the research also has ended with many of conclusions .

Foreground Liberalism, Background Nationalism: A Discursive‐institutionalist Account of EU Leverage and ‘Democratic Backsliding’ in East Central Europe

AbstractThis article argues for a fresh approach to debates on democratic backsliding and European Union (EU) influence in East Central Europe (ECE), drawing on the discursive institutionalism of Vivien Schmidt. Underlying assumptions about backsliding in CEE largely reflect a set of ideas derived from the rational institutionalist and historical institutionalist schools. Moreover, the same theoretical assumptions were previously deployed to explain the apparent success of democratization and EU leverage in CEE. A discursive institutionalism perspective, stressing the role of actors and their discourses in making and unmaking institutions, suggests that democracy in CEE was always less secure than assumed. It also highlights the key role of liberal mainstream parties in embodying democratic institutions. Case studies of the liberal centre‐right in Bulgaria and social democrats in the Czech Republic highlight the way background ideas of ethnically exclusive titular states have increasingly impinged on foreground ideas of liberal pluralism.

Western ‘Civic Totalism’, Sovereignty of the People, and the Need for Limited Government

In a fascinating, comparative philosophical article, Sungmoon Kim attempts ‘to revamp Confucian democracy, which is originally presented as the communitarian corrective and cultural alternative to liberal democracy, into a robust democratic political theory and practice that is plausible in the societal context of pluralism’. The same source of inspiration that Kim uses to reconstruct Confucian democracy – William Galston’s notion of liberal pluralism – can be used to critically appraise the current state of Western liberal democracy, to consider, more specifically, the extent to which Western liberal democracy still manages to realize the principle of expressive liberty, defined by Galston as ‘the absence of constraints, imposed by some individuals on others, that make it impossible (or significantly more difficult) for the affected individuals to live their lives in ways that express their deepest beliefs about what gives meaning or value to life’.

Queer As Subalterns

Queer As Subalterns Yün Peng (bio) QUEER MARXISM IN TWO CHINAS BY PETRUS LIU Duke University Press, 2015 In Queer Marxism in Two Chinas Petrus Liu makes three related claims. First, Chinese queer Marxism is a critique of and an alternative to the "familiar intellectual paradigm" of queer theory in the United States (7). In particular, a queer Marxist critique of the latter's tendency toward neoliberal pluralism and "dematerializing" subjectivism promises to restore to queerness its radical potential (10). Second, queer Marxism presents a new definition of queerness that is both theoretically significant and practically consequential. Rather than a preexisting identity category, queerness is redefined through Marx's labor theory of value as a product of the distribution of social resources, as social norm is understood in terms of the capitalist social reproduction. Third, if bringing Marxism to bear on queerness offers a needed way out of the neoliberal impasse, this is conceivable only if we confront the Cold War thinking that automatically attributes queer rights to the liberal state as both originating in the West and developmentally more advanced. The book's theoretical framework is laid out in the first two of the five chapters. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction and a map. The queer Marxist analysis is further developed in chapter 2, where it is fleshed out through two examples: the PRC filmmaker Cui Zi'en's queer cinema practice and the theory and practice of Taiwan's antistatist feminist and queer movements. Chapter 3 reads Chen Ruoxi's 1986 novel Paper Marriage as "an exemplary work of queer Marxism in the two Chinas" and makes a counterargument against the Foucauldian [End Page 201] histories of sexuality that attribute Chinese queer identity to the influence of "translations of Western knowledge" (88, 86–87). Chapter 4 takes on "the liberal myth of the self-fashioned bourgeoisie" and argues, through the example of Song of Dreams, a novel by the popular Taiwanese writer Xiao Sa, that "queer culture is not a product of liberal-ism's promotion of human diversity; rather, it comes into being as a social critique of the liberal fable of self-invention" (115). Chapter 5 engages the human rights discourse and proposes a queer Marxist recuperation of the human as "neither the agent of social transformation nor the subject of universal rights" but rather "ek-stasis" and grounded in Marx's understanding of the "constitutive sociality of the self" and "the moral equality of human time" in his labor theory of value (142–43, 165, 150–51). The heart of the book's argument is an analysis of queerness through Marx's labor theory of value. The first key point in this connection is that value is determined by "abstract labor, the aggregate production of commodities in society as a whole"—in other words, by the reproduction of society as a whole, which includes both economic and noneconomic factors (80). The second, related point is that capitalist reproduction necessarily depends on the reproduction of "the moral and intellectual conditions" that lie "outside the capitalist reproduction scheme" narrowly defined (81). This is the Althusserian formula that "the reproduction of capital is both the reproduction of the material forces and the reproduction of 'the social conditions of production' that include … what he calls the ideological state apparatuses" (81; original emphasis). Within this framework, queerness is understood in terms of capitalist reproduction of society "along asymmetrical lines" (82). Drawing on Marx, Liu argues that abstract labor, which reproduces society, "at once homogenizes individuals and places them into discrete identity groups and ineluctable classes" (80). Such structurally determined asymmetry explains why pluralism doesn't work: the production of a universal equivalent of value simultaneously creates distinctions and assigns stigmas. One way to look at it is that queerness is a matter of the social production of value, an instance of what Gayatri Spivak describes as the "irreducibly complicitous" relationship between "the Value-form in the general sense and in the narrow" or, in other words, between "cultural" and economic forms of value (Spivak 82; original emphasis).1 [End Page 202] Value, then, serves as a sort of index pointing to the social totality. While liberal pluralism "has...

The I in My Text: Revisiting Critical Feminist Identity Politics, Refusing the Allures of Purity

In this essay, I return to the moves to the first person I made in Jews and Feminism: The Ambivalent Search for Home (Routledge, 1997) in order to consider what this approach has to offer us in the present. By insisting on the kinds of complexity that informed this feminist, decidedly impure enactment of critical identification, I make clear that identity is not about purity. Instead, I call attention to the hybrid, messy, and even contradictory lived realities so many of us inhabit. By returning to my own early engagement with placing myself in my writing as a scholar of Jewish studies, I consider the implications of reanimating these practices in the present. In other words, by interrogating what it meant in the 1990s to claim a Jewish feminist position, I consider anew how we position ourselves in our work in the present. Along the way, I challenge alt-right claims to "identity politics" as well as certain forms of liberal pluralism. By revisiting what it meant to write in the first person and to embody this feminist critical scholarly legacy, I hope to revive a strand of that feminist genealogy to imagine a more capacious future for embodied Jewish feminist scholarship.

Candlelight for Our Country’s Right Name: 
 A Confucian Interpretation of South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution

The candlelight protest that took place in South Korea from October 2016 to March 2017 was a landmark political event, not least because it ultimately led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. Arguably, its more historically important meaning lies in the fact that it marks the first nation-wide political struggle since the June Uprising of 1987, where civil society won an unequivocal victory over a regime that was found to be corrupt, unjust, and undemocratic, making it the most orderly, civil, and peaceful political revolution in modern Korean history. Despite a plethora of literature investigating the cause of what is now called “the Candlelight Revolution” and its implications for Korean democracy, less attention has been paid to the cultural motivation and moral discourse that galvanized Korean civil society. This paper captures the Korean civil society which resulted in the Candlelight Revolution in terms of Confucian democratic civil society, distinct from both liberal pluralist civil society and Confucian meritocratic civil society, and argues that Confucian democratic civil society can provide a useful conceptual tool by which to not only philosophically construct a vision of civil society that is culturally relevant and politically practicable but also to critically evaluate the politics of civil society in the East Asian context.

Katolicy w państwie liberalnego pluralizmu. Miesięcznik Znak wobec sekularyzacji (lata 1989-2000)

Catholics in the liberal pluralism state. Facing secularisation in the monthly Znak (1989–2000): The aim of this paper is to analyse the philosophical, sociological, politological, theological and press articles on the issue of secularisation that were published in the monthly Znak during 1989–2000. A definition of secularisation is employed that was coined by Charles Taylor in A secular age (Taylor, 2007). It is understood as the endurance of religion in a plural society. The paper delineates three stands that the Znak Catholics have taken when facing secularisation: (1) an open catholicity; (2) a liberal faith; and (3) an ambiguous one. (1) The first approach involves confronting one’s liberal, secular partners in public debates, with a focus on finding some of their points acceptable according to the Church doctrine. Nevertheless, it is burdened with the anxiety of losing one’s own identity. (2) The second approach emphasises some of the connections between liberal and Christian ideas. A particular meaning of liberty and authenticity in human existence is stressed. (3) In the third approach, although it does not admit to its malevolence, the liberal ideas are treated with sharp criticism. Liberalism is accused of limiting the role of religion in a plural society. In the conclusion to the paper, an attempt is made to present the current relations between liberalism and Christianity in Po‑ land. A deep recent transformation is revealed. It is believed that Znak will lose its function as a continuity sustainer in the next few years.

Shirt Movements in Interwar Europe: a Totalitarian Fashion

The article deals with a typical phenomenon of the interwar period: the proliferation of socio-political movements expressing their “mood” and identity via a paramilitary uniform mainly composed of a coloured shirt. The analysis of 34 European shirt movements reveals some common features in terms of colour, ideology and chronology. Most of them were consistent with the logic and imagery of interwar totalitarianisms, which emerged as an alleged alternative to the decaying bourgeois society and its main political creation: the Parliamentary system. Unlike liberal pluralism and its institutional expression, shirt movements embody the idea of a homogeneous community, based on a racial, social or cultural identity, and defend the streets, not the ballot boxes, as a new source of legitimacy. They perfectly mirror the overwhelming presence of the “brutalization of politics” (Mosse) and “senso-propaganda” (Chakhotin) in interwar Europe.

(Prevention Mechanisms of Inter-Ethnic Tensions in the Context of Migratory Population Growth)

Russian Abstract: Настоящее исследование сфокусировано на контекстной верификации теории этнокультурной справедливости, cформировавшейся в рамках процедурного либерального плюрализма, – ее апробации на конкретных примерах Северной Америки, Западной и Восточной Европы, а также России. Указанная теория базируется на возможности совмещения индивидуальных прав с коллективными правами меньшинств. При таком подходе межэтнические отношения рассматриваются, в первую очередь, как феномен публичной сферы, в рамках которой те или иные группы требуют от государства признания их права на идентичность. От наличия подобного признания зависит набор прав и институциональных возможностей, которыми располагает то или иное сообщество. Авторы рассматривают государство в качестве центрального субъекта межэтнических отношений, опосредующего взаимодействие между теми или иными этнокультурными объединениями. Государство – единственный актор, обладающий легитимным правом фреймировать те или иные взаимодействия как «межэтнические», а, следовательно, в его отсутствие мы имеем дело с частными явлениями. Изучая различные примеры, авторы исследуют механизмы предоставления прав автохтонным (национальным) и аллохтонным (иммигрантским) сообществам, их адаптацию к доминирующей социетальной культуре. Особое внимание уделяется процессам интеграции второго поколения иммигрантов – как потенциально наиболее уязвимой с точки зрения потенциальной радикализации группе населения. В работе демонстрируется первостепенная значимость образовательных механизмов в деле интеграции и адаптации мигрантов. Помимо этого, авторы показывают, что проблематика защиты прав меньшинств вышла за пределы компетенции отдельно взятых государств. В исследовании выявляется роль международных организаций, в том числе, МНПО в указанной сфере. Наконец, авторы обнаруживают отличительные черты восточноевропейских обществ в контексте проявлений ксенофобии, что в известном смысле затрудняет применение подходов Уила Кимлики и других представителей либерального эгалитаризма. Тем не менее часть положений теории Кимлики представляется релевантной российскому контексту в связи с выработкой политики интеграции иммигрантов. English Abstract: This study focuses on the contextual verification of the theory of ethno-cultural justice, formed in the framework of procedural liberal pluralism - its testing on specific examples of North America, Western and Eastern Europe, and Russia. This theory is based on the possibility of combining individual rights with collective rights of minorities. With this approach, interethnic relations are considered, first of all, as a phenomenon of the public sphere, within which certain groups demand from the state to recognize their right to identity. The set of rights and institutional capacities which certain communities dispose directly depends from such a recognition. The authors consider the state as the central player in interethnic relations, while it mediates the interaction between different ethno-cultural associations. The state is the only actor that has the legitimate right to frame certain interactions as interethnic. In the absence of the state we are dealing with private phenomena. Studying various cases, the authors explore the mechanisms for granting rights to autochthonous (national) and allochthonous (immigrant) communities, their adaptation to the dominant societal culture. Particular attention is paid to the integration of the second generation of immigrants - as potentially the most vulnerable group (from the point of view of potential radicalization). The study demonstrates the paramount importance of educational mechanisms in the processes of integration and adaptation of migrants. In addition, the authors claim that the problem of protecting the rights of minorities goes far beyond the competence of individual countries. The study identifies the role of international organizations, including INGOs in this area. Finally, the authors reveal the distinctive features of Eastern European societies in the context of xenophobic manifestations, which in a way makes it difficult to apply the approaches of Will Kymlicka and other representatives of liberal egalitarianism. Nevertheless, some of the provisions of Kymlicka's theory seem to be relevant to the Russian context in connection with the development of a policy of the integration of immigrants.

Nationality in the open society: Popper versus Hayes and Kohn

AbstractPopper's attitude to nationalism can be analysed by comparison with the position taken by Hayes and Kohn, who distinguished between a communal, malevolent form of nationalism, and a civic and constitutional variant that could coexist with liberalism. By contrast, Popper welcomes communal affiliations whose diversity he perceives as essential to liberalism, while rejecting sovereignty, whether or not invested in a representative body, as a threat to the liberal open society. This perspective reverses the normative priorities that Hayes and Kohn attribute to liberalism. Its basis is Popper's adherence to a pluralist liberalism, which centres on protecting social ties rather than on representation and state organs. This denotation of liberalism competes with the legalist individualism that Hayes and Kohn identify with liberalism and therefore accommodates nationalism differently.

Perpetuation of Whiteness Ideologies in U.S. College Student Discourse

Utilizing discourse from college students who participated in a three-day seminar on systemic racism, intersectionality, and white privilege, this study examines and critiques ideologies within college students’ discourse that are foundational to whiteness. Three ideological discourses emerged before, during, and after the seminar – Liberal Pluralism, Meritocracy, and “Reverse Racism.” The discourses were analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis and findings are presented from the study that include the implications of ideological discourses that perpetuate the pervasiveness of whiteness and white privilege. The paper concludes with implications for communication scholars and educators, most specifically those who teach intercultural communication.

Culture and Crisis in the Age of Tolerance

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the concept of culture as it has functioned in the discourse of crisis across the social sciences and humanities. As part and parcel of contemporary globality’s restructuring, culture as an ontological and ideational entity continues to structure the syntax of worldly antagonism even as its precise definition is ever expansive and elusive and without geographical centre. By canvassing the varying work of theorists from Matthew Arnold and W.E.B. Du Bois to Raymond Williams and Homi Bhabha, this discussion attempts to bridge several appropriations of culture in order to submit a rereading of culture’s textuality at the intersection of interdisciplinarity and the lineaments of conflict. It then traces this genealogy up to today’s deployment of culture, which rests on a discourse of tolerance that, as Wendy Brown has shown, allows for power and violence to materialise within a framework of liberal democratic pluralism.

Liberal Pluralism and Multiculturalism in Central and Eastern Europe (W. Kymlicka Views’ Analysis)

Will Kymlicka is widely known in the world for the research in the field of the theoretical principles of liberal pluralism and justification of the policy of multiculturalism. In his scientific work, he pays attention not onlyto his native Canada but also draws attention to other regions of the world, including Central and Eastern Europe. The scientist asks whether the export of Western model of liberal pluralism and multiculturalism policies available in the region? Are Western models of multiculturalism and minority rights relevant for the post-Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe? In the following article, we analyze Will Kymlicka’s views on this issue. Kymlicka explains why conventional ways of distinguishing between ethnic relations in the East and West do not help in understanding or responding to ethnic conflicts in the post-Communist world. He argues why the states of Central and Eastern Europe are not inherent in the territorial autonomy in their state building. He also argues why federalism as a form of government is not the solution of interethnic interaction’s problems. In addition, Will Kymlicka tries to highlight the unique characteristics of the region, which do not suggest the possibility of the introduction of liberal pluralism and multiculturalism in Central and Eastern Europe in the near future.
 Keywords: Liberal pluralism, multiculturalism, territorial autonomy, federalism, minorities

The Ethnic Avant-Garde: Minority Cultures and World Revolution

The Ethnic Avant-Garde: Minority Cultures and World Revolution

Мирополитическое влияние глобальных СМИ в современном мире: конструктивистский подход

Global media, its functioning and its influence on world politics is a popular topic of research. Media is traditionally seen among instruments a state uses in its foreign and domestic policies. Liberal pluralists identify global media outlets as relatively independent actors that interact with other states and non-state actors and have the potential to influence global political processes. However, neither of these two main approaches seems to fully answer the question about what shapes the specific nature of modern media in its media-media interaction as well as interaction with other non-state actors and states? And their specific nature taken into consideration, how can modern media impact world politics? This article aims to answer both of these questions. The article analyzes the existing theoretic approaches to studying media and its influence on world politics, identifies the key features of functioning of the modern global information space, observes the main aspects of interaction between the media, on the one hand, and states and non-state actors, on the other, and studies global media’s means of influencing world politics. The constructivist paradigm shapes the theoretical and methodological framework of the study. The author makes a conclusion about ‘dual nature’ of modern media, which may be among means (used by states and non-state actors) of constructing the ‘reality of world politics’ and act as a relatively independent participant of this ‘reality’. Global media outlets are the main actors in global information space, they shape it and define the dynamics of its development, and at the same time they are influenced by the processes unfolding within it. Moreover, the author stresses that the current state of IT development makes the global information space as an integral organism functioning in accordance with its own internal logic. This functioning is based on interaction and interinfluence of various media outlets (of all shapes and levels) that broadcast and exchange competing visions and cultural stereotypes, i.e. ‘social constructs’. The result of this dynamic interaction is a specific – media – reality, which has become one of the key dimensions of modern world political processes.

Populism, Exclusion, Post-truth. Some Conceptual Caveats Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy"

In their editorial, Speed and Mannion identify two main challenges "the rise of post-truth populism" poses for health policy: the populist threat to inclusive healthcare policies, and the populist threat to well-designed health policies that draw on professional expertise and research evidence. This short comment suggests some conceptual clarifications that might help in thinking through more profoundly these two important issues. It argues that we should approach right-wing populism as a combination of a populist down/up (people/elite) axis with an exclusionary nationalist in/out (member/non-member) axis. And it raises some questions regarding the equation between populism, demagogy and the rejection of expertise and scientific knowledge.

The Far Right Challenge Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy".

Speed and Mannion make a good case that the rise of populism poses significant challenges for health policy. This commentary suggests that the link between populism and health policy should be further nuanced in four ways. First, a deconstruction of the term populism itself and a focus on the far right dimension of populist politics; second, a focus on the supply side and more specifically the question of nationalism and the ‘national preference’; third, the dynamics of party competition during economic crisis; and fourth the question of policy, and more specifically the extent to which certain labour market policies are able to mediate demand for the far right.

Community Psychology as a Process of Citizen Participation in Health Policy Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy".

This brief commentary discusses a recent paper by Speed and Mannion that explores "The Rise of post truth populism in liberal democracies: challenges for health policy." It considers their assertion that through meaningful democratic engagement in health policy, some of the risks brought about by an exclusionary populist politics can be mediated. With an overview of what participation means in modern healthcare policy and implementation, the field of community psychology is presented as one way to engage marginalized groups at risk of exploitation or exclusion by nativist populist policy.

This Is My (Post) Truth, Tell Me Yours Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy".

This is a commentary on the article ‘The rise of post-truth populism in pluralist liberal democracies: challenges for health policy.’ It critically examines two of its key concepts: populism and ‘post truth.’ This commentary argues that there are different types of populism, with unclear links to impacts, and that in some ways, ‘post-truth’ has resonances with arguments advanced in the period at the beginning of the British National Health Service (NHS). In short, ‘post-truth’ populism’ may be ‘déjà vu all over again,’ and there are multiple (post) truths: this is my (post) truth, tell me yours.