Modern Political Concepts Research Articles

Modernization Process in Iran: Historical Overview

Modernization process in Iran began in 19th century by Iranian officials like Abbas Mirza Ghaem Magham and Amir Kabir in order to change the traditional structure of government and replace it with a new and modern one. After the establishment of Pahlavi dynasty, the process of modernization continued by Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah. After the victory of Islamic revolution of 1979 modernization didn’t stop and continued until now. This paper examines the process of modernization in Iran from 19th century up to the present. Research shows that although 100 years have passed since the victory of Iran’s Constitutional Revolution and in spite of 150 years passing since modern political concepts introduced by intellectuals and inclusive struggles to establish modern political system, none of these have been incarnated in a tangible way. As a result, Iranian society is still in search of the rule of law, freedom and democracy, which had been introduced for the first time more than hundred years ago.

Republic in early modern China: The cross-cultural dissemination of a political concept

ABSTRACTThe English term republic and the Chinese term Gonghe (共和, “joint harmony”; i.e., “republic” in modern Chinese) stem from different conceptual origins and carry different connotations. When they first encountered the term republic, the intellectuals of China and Japan could only understand it by drawing on the political knowledge of Chinese antiquity. But soon after, two different concepts corresponding to the term republic emerged in the form of Chinese characters within the Chinese and Japanese linguistic environments—minzhu (民主, “people's rule”) and gonghe, which gradually shed their ancient Chinese significations. After its coining as an early modern political concept in the Japanese language, the term gonghe sporadically filtered into the Chinese linguistic context during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1898–1902, the concept of gonghe rapidly gained popularity in China, primarily due to its introduction by Liang Qichao (梁启超, 1873–1929) and other figures, with a clearly demarcated line separating the term from its ancient Chinese significance. As the concept of gonghe spread in China, it became embroiled in the contemporary tide of political reform, both influencing and being influenced by this trend. In the first decade of the 20th century, two competing interpretations of the term gonghe appeared. The moderates, represented by Liang Qichao, maintained that the evolution of the political system had a natural order; that their contemporary China did not yet have the conditions to adopt a republican system; and that it was necessary to first improve the citizens’ character, and cultivate the habits of self-governance among the people. The radicals, represented by Sun Yat-sen (孙中山, 1866–1925), held that China should overleap a constitutional monarchy, overthrow the Manchu emperor through violent revolution, and directly establish a republican form of government. The views of the radical party won discursive power, but their discussions and deliberations on the implications of a republic were clearly inadequate. Following the outbreak of the 1911 Revolution, a republican form of government was quickly established, but its functional results fell far short of people's expectations, causing the concept of a republic to be distrusted, criticized, and even shelved.

Accumulation as eternal recurrence: theology of the bad infinity

The paper re-evaluates Schmitt’s (Political theology: four chapters on the concept of sovereignty, trans. George Schwab. Chicago University Press, Chicago, 2005: 36, 48, 65) claim that although all “significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts”; the theological was replaced in the nineteenth century by “exclusively scientific thinking”; leading in the twentieth, to “the onslaught against the political,” in which it “vanishes into the economic or technical-organizational”. Some modern political concepts, especially sovereignty, have theological origins; and economics claims to be pure positive science. Nonetheless, the political is necessarily worldly, whereas economics is theological in its origins and remains so. The political is worldly in accepting the principle of plurality as “the law of the earth,” taking worldly freedom as its aim (Arendt 1968: 146–50, Arendt in The life of the mind. Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1978: 19). Economics is theological first, because, like the one god, it is essentially singular and postulates an order beyond human knowledge and agency. Three stages of economic theology are sketched: the primitive theology of Adam Smith; the pseudo-theology of neoclassical economics; and the true theology of Marx’s account of capitalist accumulation. The paper uses Eliade’s (The myth of the eternal return or, cosmos and history, trans. Willard R. Trask, Bollingen Series XLVI. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1965) account of the “archaic ontology” of pre-modern societies in which order is beyond human knowledge and agency; realizes itself through the eternal recurrence of archetypal agents and acts; and abolishes history. It also uses Agamben’s (The kingdom and the glory: for a theological genealogy of economy and government, trans. Lorenzo Chiesa. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2011) description of the development of the word oikonomia. It argues that the line of modern political thought based on sovereignty and regarded as central by Schmitt, is a politics that has been colonized by economics, and must be a form of domination. Liberation from economic theology can only come from a revival of a true politics that aims at freedom. It is true that such a politics has never yet succeeded in separating itself from domination (Clastres in Society against the state, trans. Robert Hurley. Urizen Books, New York, 1977); but that is the subject of another discussion.

Should happiness guide social policy?

Since the 1970s, and especially since the 1990s, the concept of happiness has grown in importance in both the academic and popular domains. This article focuses on studies that collect empirical data on happiness with the aim of informing public policies that maximise collective happiness. These studies are characterised by two assumptions that are mostly taken for granted: that happiness is a psychological state and that it has a moral and ethical value. In this contribution, I will question this conception of happiness as a social goal from the point of view of political philosophy. I begin by examining the historical origin of the modern political concept of happiness. Following this, I evaluate the principle of happiness maximisation, comparing it to other wide-ranging principles (justice, equity, freedom and plurality), and bringing to the fore some implications of happiness maximisation that place it in conflict with democratic rights and freedoms. Finally, I sum up my line of reasoning and briefly reflect on some proper uses of happiness in public policy.

Political Modernity and Its Musical Dissociation: A Study of Guomin and Geming in Liang Qichao’s Historical Biographies

After the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), leading late Qing intellectuals such as Liang Qichao introduced modern political concepts in a highly affective fashion, making the passionate interest in and adoption of western-imported political concepts a hallmark of Chinese modernity. What are these highly personalized affective experiences like? What have given rise to them? How can the study of these experiences broaden our understanding of modernity, and myriad modernizing experiences, in China and other similar cultural contexts? More importantly, how can the use of affect and emotion as analytical categories offer us better insights into some of the most radical intellectual and political transformations that have taken place in China? To answer these questions, perhaps we need to look elsewhere than the semantic content of language. This article focuses on the incipient moments of this affective trend in late Qing China and studies the formation of discursive “text” as the production of sensational “object.” It examines musical and visual appeals Liang Qichao generated for two recently translated political concepts, “national citizen” (guomin) and “revolution” (geming), in historical biographies published in New Citizen Journal in 1902. By exemplifying that Liang’s semantic text was intended to be circulated as an audio text and pictorial text, and that modern concepts had been received as literary as well as auditory and visual experiences, I argue that Chinese modernity often teeters in a state of aesthetic ambivalence. It is displaced and suspended from discursive meanings of the constructed discourse resulting from cross cultural exchanges and consolidated by power relations on both the local and the international levels.

Editorial: Charisma after Weber

[MWS 12.2 (2012) 155-158] ISSN 1470-8078 Editorial Charisma after Weber Sam Whimster Thomas Gottschalk, recalling a reception at the White House, de scribed in glowing terms his meeting with President Barack Obama. Gottschalk's son had worked on the Obama election team and Obama sent his best regards 'and thereby gave the impression that at this moment he was only interested in you alone. The man has real charisma' (Bild 9 June 2011). Gisela Stuart, a Labour MP in the UK Parliament, in an opening address to the 'Charisma—After Weber' conference at the University of Birmingham in June 2011 (and orga nized by Dr. Gëzim Alpion) noted that the successful modern politi cian had to be photogenic, have a likeable personality. This worked against Gordon Brown (the last Labour Prime Minister) since he was grumpy, did not smile and was tribal, but it did work for his prede cessor Tony Blair who defined the relationship with his audience at each encounter. Blair had charisma, Brown did not and that disad vantaged Brown with the electorate. Stuart went on to point out that political ground rules still applied. The electorate could not be pa tronized or lied to. A close reading of Weber7 s writings on charisma shows that he rarely applied the concept to modern political personalities. Charisma belonged to pre-modern, less rationalized societies, and it could apply to both religious and political personalities. The scope for irrational abandonment of a following to a charismatic leader is circumscribed in the modern world by rational based legitimacy (law, democracy, constitutionalism) and the deadening affects of routinization of all aspects of life. Clearly, after Weber, there has been a decisive and irreversible semantic shift in the sense of the term. From the viewpoint of politics this has restricted our vocabulary, for where do we place the effec tive leader, the great leader or the demagogic leader? Weber used all these expressions and also the plebiscitary leader or 'caesarist'© Max Weber Studies 2012, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. 156 Max Weber Studies leader without resorting to the charisma label, though as J.G. Green has pointed out plebiscitary leadership democracy (Führerdemokra tie) does provide a training ground for the acquisition of charismatic qualities by politicians seeking popular support (Max Weber Studies 8.1:190). But today any leader is liable to be portrayed 'charismatic'. Celebrity culture and its supporting media of Facebook, Twitter, tabloids, 'celeb' magazines, rolling news programmes and talk radio have transformed the field in which personalities are represented. Or perhaps we should say that these media have flattened the field, allowing minor celebrities and barely adequate political leaders to be served up as radiating 'charisma'. There is a Weberian analysis of this flattening of the field. Modern civilization has created saturation levels of material and ideal 'goods' (Heilsgüter). There is a market place not only of material goods but also of ideal goods—religions, political parties, social movements. Weber only half glimpsed this re-enchantment of the world, seeing the industrialized and routinized world contemporary to him as disenchanted—no need for religious salvation in a materially secure existence and no unknown depths to be overcome by magical powers. There is no longer any profound psychic depth that binds charismatic leader and following together, and heroes become dangerous eccen tricities in the modern world. Hence, applying charisma to politicians under conditions of moder nity is somewhat contrary to Weber's ideal type. Politics is meant to be normalized and as Karl Mannheim argued in Ideology and Utopia (1929) politics had become pragmatic, and Utopias and world-views had been superseded. Mannheim's timing might have been better if he had published in 1959 (though his book did acquire a post-war rel evance) for 1929 was the year of the international crisis of capitalism, the Great Crash, and the rise of fascism. The analysis of fascism by political scientists and sociologists has given rise to a serious engage ment with charisma as a valid modern political concept. In the hands of Stefan Breuer and Ronald Glassman and others, major amend ments have been introduced so that some features of...

Indigenous Rights, Modern Political Concepts, and the State

This paper considers the relationship of indigenous rights to four foundational principles of modern political theory: sovereignty, the nation, property, and constitutionalism. All took their familiar intellectual forms as the European state was crystallizing – and as European states were embarking on their imperial projects around the world. All were reshaped by both the development of the state and the European encounter with indigenous peoples. The absolutist idea of state sovereignty, developed as the modern Weberian state was crystallizing in Europe, was deeply connected with the justifications of imperial power that could lawfully conquer, expropriate, and kill indigenous peoples. The subsequent joining of the idea of the nation to state sovereignty heightened the latter's absolutism. Settler states conceived as sovereign unitary nation-states left no normative legal space for indigenous rights, and indeed were profoundly hostile to them. By contrast, property and constitutionalism drew on natural law ideas and pluralist political traditions and were sometimes developed in ways that made room for indigenous rights, even as rival interpretations were developed in ways that subordinated both property and constitutionalism to state sovereignty. The paper argues that both nationhood and sovereignty are problematic ways to conceive of indigenous rights today, and that property and constitutionalism offer the more promising foundation.

A Sovereign Act of Negation: Schmitt’s Political Theology and its Ideal Medievalism

This article argues that Carl Schmitt’s political theology is premised on an idealised and totalising vision of the Middle Ages. That is, he casts modern political concepts as debased and corrupt in comparison to the proper politics of the Medieval Church, as he sees it. Drawing on a historically contextualised reading of the Fourth Lateran Council, which took place in 1215, the article’s author argues that Schmitt’s medieval comparison is much more complicated than he suggests. Schmitt’s historical vision is, thus, a wilful projection of unity onto a diverse and distant past.

The Benchmark Analysis Modern Political Concept on Border of the Ages

On border of the age, old political theories as base manipulate has shown its insolvency. The world fell into the political crisis, connected with global political and civil landmark. This thesis analyzes the current political condition while evaluating the political theory, concerned with the issue of modernization as well as globalization. The thesis is divided into five parts: Liberals on start again, the intellectual institutes - a myths and reality of the political paradigms, the history political manipulate - The Principles of the building catalogue coalition and The Regional policy aspects and global world. Key words: benchmark; manipulate; criterion; politics Resume: A la frontiere de differentes epoques, les vieilles theories politiques ont montre leur insolvabilite. Le monde est tombe dans la crise politique, liee aux reperes politiques et civils globaux. Cette these a analyse la situation politique actuelle, tout en evaluant la theorie politique, concernee par la question de la modernisation et de la mondialisation. La these est divisee en cinq parties: les liberaux au nouveau demarrage, les institutions intellectuelles- les mythes et la realite des modeles politiques, l'histoire politique de manipulation, les principes de la coalition et les aspects de la politique regionale et du monde global. Mots-Cles: benchmark; manipulation; criteres; politiques

Republic, Nation and Democracy: The Challenge of Diversity

AbstractThis paper analyzes how cultural diversity in Argentina is calling into question modern political concepts like republic, nation or democracy. The phenomenon of population movements, the demand for recognition of indigenous people's rights, or the conflicts arising from claims to regions' right to life and identity - as in the case of the town of Gualeguaychú in Argentina - challenge the logic of the nation-state and its sovereignty as well as the republican principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. The author examines how far the representation of the Argentinean republic at the time of its foundation included a standardizing vision of diversity, and how the legacy of this representation brought about an ambivalence between a universalist wish to take part in the progress of humanity and the reality of an exclusive democracy that valued one culture over others. It studies the narrative of national identity and attempts to describe how, proceeding from this narrative, the opposition between civilization and barbarity affects the way Latin Americans see the great challenges presented by the future of democracy, and by the recognition of the plurality of cultural allegiances.

¿Qué conceptos políticos para Europa?

This paper aims to face up the problem of the method in connection with the political concepts which are necessaries to think about Europa. That involves a philosophical- political reflection and a table of historical- conceptual orientation. Becomes also necessary the reference to an extensive critical work about modern political concepts, which raises questions about their supposed universality, but that manages at the same time to discuss with the thought of a long tradition which has in the Greek world her origin. It seems not possible to face up and to understand the problems which come up from the process that leads to the European Union with the concepts that have resulted in the State doctrine and that are the backbone of modern constitutions. These concepts are born in the heart of the doctrines of social contract and natural right and they are useful to a political form which has as inseparables poles the rights of individuals and the sovereignty of the political corps. Europe, because indeed of the plurality of the members which make her up, requires on the one hand the superseding of the concept of sovereignty of the States but on the other hand should not think about herself as a new sovereignty, or as a new and wider state magnitude. The superseding of the political conceptuality which is condensed in the sovereignty involves at the same time the fact of rethinking about those concepts —such as individual, equality, liberty— that, in the way in which have been thought starting from the modern iusnaturalism, appear as the logical foundations of sovereignty.

Democracy and the Islamic State: Muslim Arguments for Political Change in Indonesia

The main argument of this article is that there has been a significant development in Muslim acceptance of democracy in Indonesia. By comparing two generations of Muslim intellectuals, this paper shows the congruence between the decline of the Islamic political agenda with the rise of a new Muslim generation often dubbed as liberal Muslims. I argue that there is a significant role played by this new Muslim generation in advocating and promoting the idea and practice of democracy. By developing Islamic arguments in dealing with the modern political concepts mostly imported from the West, they are able to vindicate the compatibility of Islam and liberal democracy.

LA AMBIVALENCIA DE LOS CONCEPTOS. OBSERVACIONES ACERCA DE ALGUNAS RELACIONES ENTRE BEGRIFFSGESCHICHTE E HISTORIOGRAFIA DEL DISCURSO POLITICO

This essay deals with the ambivalence and wealth of concepts in general, and with the political concepts in particular. Modern political concepts are complex and controversial, being the formulation of their meaning an important requirement to solve the problems of present age. This essay collates the diferences and similarities of the History of Concepts and the historiography of political discourse, and hints the aporetical nature of the political concepts.

The Covenantal Basis for the Development of Swiss Political Federalism: 1291–1848

This study argues that the modem political philosophy offederalism is directly linked to the Swiss Reformed idea of religious covenant, which was first formulated in the 1520s and 1530s by Heinrich Bullinger in Ziirich. Bullinger's concept of religious covenant had roots both in the Old Testament and in the early federal ideal and reality that had come out of the Swiss Middle Ages; it therefore had important social and political implications as well as theological meaning. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, this theological idea offederalismfed into and helped to create the modern political concept offederalism, especially in the thought of Philippe Duplessis-Mornay and Johannes Althusius. Political federalism became a reality in the Constitution of the United States in the late eighteenth century. The Swiss federal Constitution of 1848 was instructed by the mature concept of political federalism, by the Constitution of the United States, and by the long tradition of Swiss federalism. All of these influences had some basinin the uniquely Swiss idea of religious covenant.

The ideological conditions for Khomeini's doctrine of government∗

The Islamic movements and ideologies labelled ‘Fundamentalist’ share an oppositional stance to their respective governments rather than common doctrinal positions. The Islamisation of society and the state is planned on the model of the ‘original’ Islamic community of Muhammad and his immediate successors, but the interpretation of their principles in relation to modern socio-political contexts gives rise to political ideologies which represent marked departures from traditional Islamic doctrines and incorporate implicity or explicity modern political concepts. Khomeini's doctrine of government is an interesting example in that it is entirely based on traditional Shi'ite, premises and modes of reasoning and yet it reaches novel conclusions. It is argued that these conclusions presuppose the modern ideological notions of ‘the nation’ and the ‘nation-state’.