Neoconservative Agenda Research Articles

Evangelicals, ‘neoconservative agenda’ and women’s health policy: a narrative review (2016-2021)

RESUMO O objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar a literatura sobre o crescimento demográfico e a atuação política dos evangélicos, especialmente no âmbito do Congresso Nacional, em particular, com relação à política de saúde das mulheres e dos Direitos Sexuais e Reprodutivos (DSR). Trata-se de uma revisão narrativa da produção científica nacional registrada no portal de periódicos da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes), no período 2016-2021, usando os descritores “evangélico”, “agenda neoconservadora” e “saúde das mulheres”. Foram selecionados 80 artigos que tratam da relação entre o crescimento do número de igrejas evangélicas e de fiéis vinculados a essas organizações religiosas no Brasil. Do conjunto do artigos analisados, 42,5% analisam a agenda defendida pelos setores religiosos do campo conservador, incluindo um conjunto de temas, tais como política, sexualidade e reprodução, ‘ideologia de gênero’, direitos humanos da população LGBTQIA+, DSR, aborto, educação sexual nas escolas, casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo, estatuto da família, estatuto do nascituro, violência sexual, frentes em defesa da vida e da família, religiões de matriz africana, racismo religioso e intolerância religiosa. Assim, enfatiza-se a importância desse tema nas pesquisas em saúde coletiva, principalmente na área de política, planejamento e gestão em saúde.

Imagining the End of Official Social Work: Thinking Beyond the Possible and Probable

Abstract This article seeks to critically engage Chris Maylea’s 2020 provocative call to end official social work by suggesting that the debate it sparked has the potential to expand the contemporary social work discourse. This article explores the complexities and potential dangers of Maylea’s radical call, particularly its susceptibility to co-option by neo-conservative agendas. Whilst the idea of calling for the end of official social work may seem absurd, the article maintains that it might serve as an intellectual tool to overcome the ‘imaginary inertia’ that arguably plagues discussions about reforming the profession. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘episteme’ and Gaston Bachelard’s ‘categories of the real’, it suggests that Maylea’s call for abolition challenges the established boundaries of what is considered possible and probable in the critical social work discourse. This might open new avenues that might otherwise remain invisible to reimagine the future of the profession. Consequently, it is posited that imagining the end of official social work may align with and expand opposing calls for reformation of the profession.

A Critique of the Discursive Turn of Australian Multicultural Policy in the Globalisation Era

This article examines the changing discourses of Australian multicultural policy from the late 1990s until now and discusses their ideological significance under the twin-frames of globalization and Australian political culture. By systematically analyzing the series of policy papers launched by successive governments, it becomes clear that the multicultural policy has completed a discursive turn, deviating from its progressive trajectory of cultural diversity and substantive equality to suit the neo-conservative agenda of national unity and economic productivity. While the strengthened national identity based on the civic model corresponds with the surging tide of social conservatism, the shrinking government funding in this policy area and the utilitarian perception of cultural diversity are tied up with market-oriented reforms, indicating the government's shifting interests from minimizing the existing cultural barriers to maximizing cultural dividends through diversity management strategies.

Fake news, moral panic, and polarization in Brazil: A critical discursive approach

Abstract This paper aims to discuss the motivations and effects of the production, distribution and interpretation of fake news stories, which draw on moral panics in contemporary Brazilian society. To do so, the article combines recent research on fake news, mainly from Media Studies, Sociology and Political Science, with the Critical Discourse Analysis perspective on meaning-making. The main hypothesis advanced is that this kind of fake news story lies in the tension between the evident and the absurd, as they seem to be oriented towards eliciting different readings and reactions from the endo and the exogroup. In terms of the endogroup, they may function as a means both to foster social cohesion and induce affective responses that intensify the dichotomization of identities. Regarding the exogroup, they may act as a means of drawing antagonism towards progressive groups and political parties, in a process that aims at diverting public debate to topics that not only keep the polarization aflame, but also shift the focus of attention away from the issues and policies that the neoconservative agenda deems problematic.

The Failure of Foreign Policy Entrepreneurs in the Trump Administration

AbstractOne of the most important decisions a president will make after an election is what kind of relationship he/she will have with cabinet secretaries and agency heads. Will the president be controlling or autonomy giving? George H. W. Bush created a contractor presidency, one that subcontracted management to important officials, giving them considerable freedom, making them policy entrepreneurs. Yet, when it came time to support initiatives, Bush did not back his policy entrepreneurs, which ultimately led to policy failure. Bush's approach to government is informative because of its similarities with Donald J. Trump's strategy, who also created a contractor presidency. But Trump prevented those same executives from building their own teams and gave equivocal, or even contradictory, responses to their policy initiatives. Just as Bush's unsupportive relationship with his policy entrepreneurs led to policy defeat, Trump's contradicting connection with his policy entrepreneurs also resulted in policy failure.Related ArticlesDolan, Chris J. 2008. “The Shape of Elite Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy, 1992 to 2004.” Politics & Policy 36 (4): 542‐585. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2007.00121.x/abstractHaar, Roberta. 2010. “Explaining George W. Bush's Adoption of the Neoconservative Agenda after 9/11.” Politics & Policy 38 (5): 965‐990. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2010.00265.x/abstract

Plural Governmentalities: Governing Welfare Fraud in Sweden

AbstractThe criminalization of welfare and policing has often been analysed as being indicative of the global rise of a neoliberal political agenda. The current paper examines how governmental power is organized to govern investigators responsible for policing welfare in Sweden. Using empirical illustrations from the Swedish case, it shows how multiple governmental logics are enacted in the context of a broader political will to crack down on welfare fraud. Specifically, it demonstrates how so-called control investigators are tasked to realize a neoconservative agenda. To this end, these investigators are themselves governed using an amalgam of neoliberal and bureaucratic rationalities and technologies. The paper argues that examinations of the articulation of multiple governmental rationalities offer one route for thinking intelligibly about power and criminalization and by extension about the limits of neoliberal rule.

Introduction

Portuguese Studies vol. 37 no. 1 (2021), 1–4© Modern Humanities Research Association 2021 Introduction Márcio Seligmann-Silva Let us exploit our full critical and creative capacity to make colourful parachutes. Ailton Krenak, 2019 This dossier features seven contributions that compose a current portrait of Brazil from the viewpoint of the difficult construction of its democracy in the twenty-first century. The works cover different areas such as law, psychoanalysis, literary and image studies, human rights and the pressing indigenous issue. The proposal to present this multidisciplinary outline is founded on the idea that such transdisciplinarity alone is up to the task of minimally representing the complexity of twenty-first-century Brazil. The contemporary challenges, given that these lines are written in complete isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, extend beyond the frameworks of subject areas of knowledge and require interdisciplinary transcendence and dialogue. This dossier trusts in the critical and creative capacity of academic production and its strength in the face of new challenges that present themselves as seemingly insurmountable. Starting out with the contribution from the historian Janaína Teles, we have a detailed view of a key moment in the struggle for the right to memory, justice and truth in relation to the past of Brazil’s military dictatorship of 1964–85. The article stresses the role played by the relatives of dead and missing politicians in the attempt to set up a National Truth Commission, ultimately created in 2011 but with severe limitations, considering the country’s needs. This chapter in the history of our democracy explains why Brazil still lags behind its Latin American neighbours when it comes to building spaces for expressing and hearing the testimonies of the dictatorship’s victims, to constructing authentic justice aimed at investigating crimes against humanity, to creating spaces of memory and landmarks that guarantee the establishment of ethics and politics based on human rights. The ‘logic of reconciliation’ that guided the transition to democracy after 1985 enabled the constitution of a veritable legal and memory blockade, extending the state of exception beyond 1964–85. This obstruction of the work of justice and memory is largely responsible for the election in 2018 of a government that denies the crimes perpetrated by the dictatorship regime. Such denialism also underpins modern-day torture, as we see in the article in this dossier written by the psychoanalyst Paulo Endo. The contribution from Eduardo Bittar, of the Law School of the University of São Paulo, focuses precisely on the current debility of Brazilian democracy. He stresses the precariousness of our political practice stemming from Márcio Seligmann-Silva 2 unconditional privileges granted to the economic sector, as a consequence of which ‘instrumental reason is placed above anything else’. Such instrumental reasoning, which is perfectly consistent with neoliberalism, has been linked to a neoconservative agenda based on a series of ‘retro-topias’, as Bittar calls them, aiming at ‘the preservation of family, of religious values, of order and of progress’. This movement culminates today in the militarization of politics, the persecution of political opponents, the criminalization of politics, the moralization of public debate and an attempt to reduce the state’s role in the economy to a bare minimum, aiming at unprecedented privatization. Bittar concludes with a series of suggestions that, if followed, should assist in redirecting Brazilian politics towards the construction of an authentic democracy. Paulo Endo analyses the meaning for our current political context of the election of a president who openly defends the torture now taking place in prisons, an issue that is not given the attention it deserves on the political agenda. If I stated above that the failure to address the crimes against humanity committed during the civil-military dictatorship of 1964–85 means a continuation of the state of exception in the field of memory and justice, Endo’s article reveals that such a state persists also in Brazilian prisons, but now aimed mainly at the poor, marginalized and black population. The author also stresses the importance of the ‘domestic enemy’ ideology that underlies Brazilian politics nowadays and ‘justifies’ the use of force by the state. As it was during the dictatorship period, so it...

Book on Sakharov raises issues

Kojevnikov replies: My understandably disappointed respondents have not addressed the main criticism formulated in my review, namely that many contributors to Andrei Sakharov: The Conscience of Humanity cited Sakharov’s moral authority only to advance ideas and agendas that fundamentally contradict his humanitarian values. Here are some examples from the book: Retired general Jim Mattis invoked Sakharov while extolling the morality of the US military’s continuing engagement in the Middle East. Retired admiral James Ellis Jr, who commanded the 1999 NATO attack on Yugoslavia, used human rights as a justification for that and subsequent wars. He also suggested that a preemptive strike can “be viewed as an ethical imperative” against possible nuclear proliferation. Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes referred to Sakharov and human rights as the basis of her own work, which the media has since exposed as fraudulent corruption of science by commercialization.In contrast, Sakharov stood up against the high-level scientific frauds, hawkish politicians, and trigger-happy generals of his time. He resolutely opposed warmongering and preventive strikes, championed human rights as the basis for peace and reconciliation of ideological tensions but not for war, and criticized as “flagrant crimes against humanity” the superpowers’ military interventions in other countries, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan.In today’s world, the misuse of human rights arguments for violent ends has become widespread, and I felt obliged to remind readers that it contradicts Sakharov’s worldview. The letters call my summary “flawed,” “dubious,” and “questionable” but were not able to specify a single idea of Sakharov’s that I got wrong. I trusted his own writings rather than wishful misinterpretations by some later biographers, and although there was no space for long quotations, I did indicate how Sakharov’s ideas developed over time. The true legacy of the great humanist is absolutely incompatible with hawkish and neoconservative agendas and must not be used for such purposes.© 2017 American Institute of Physics.

Pedagogies for justice in health and physical education

ABSTRACTIn developed economies, such as Australia, schooling is heavily impacted by neo-liberal and neo-conservative agendas. Policies suggest a homogeneity in students that fails to reflect regional contexts of inequality. For the new Australian Curriculum, which includes Health and Physical Education (AC: HPE), this logic prioritises consistency in content and standards for students no matter location or socio-economic circumstances. Little is known about the ‘lived’ realities of such aspirations as they relate to teaching students from disadvantaged regions. This paper reports on practitioner inquiry into a redesigned dance unit, as part of a broader investigation into the implementation of AC: HPE with disadvantaged students. We draw on literature around student engagement and Nancy Fraser’s theorisation of justice to explore the pedagogical redesign. We conclude in arguing that enhanced learning outcomes for disadvantaged students are dependent upon rich and contextualised pedagogical practices.

Revisiting IR in a Time of Crisis

The sense of crisis, fueled by military conflicts, the failures of neoliberal globalization and ecological degradation, is everywhere. Neoconservative agendas and cuts in educational spending are shrinking space for critical thinking necessary for understanding the impacts of these crises on ordinary people's lives. This article examines some indigenous responses to these various crises. It reexamines IR's Westphalia triumphalist narrative about the origins of the nation-state system from the perspective of those who suffered the consequences of European expansion. Emphasizing the importance of rewriting their histories, indigenous peoples are offering very different models of world order and ways of life that are more sensitive to resource and ecological constraints. Although indigenous women have a complex relationship with feminism, indigenous knowledge is strikingly similar to certain feminist thinking. Indigenous epistemologies are hermeneutic and reflexive, seeking to uncover hidden histories and new knowledge from those whose voices have rarely been heard. The article outlines some visions of world order and national sovereignty offered by indigenous peoples in Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Central and North America, demonstrating parallels with feminist thought. It concludes by reflecting on obstacles, similar to those faced by feminists, standing in the way of alternative forms of knowledge being taken seriously by the discipline of International Relations.

Criminalizing the Political in a Digital Age

There is an emergent interest by criminologists in theorising problems that arise when states breach conventional legal norms. This article considers the criminalisation of ‘whistleblowing’ by Manning, Assange and Snowden that revealed illegal actions by the state and major breaches of US and western security intelligence operations. The article asks what such developments mean for the conceptual and normative status of politics and crime constituted in the western liberal frame? It is about criminologists who rely on that paradigm and the need to counter neo-conservative agendas. The article analyzes liberal constitutional democracies with an emphasis on the US. It draws on the work of German theorists Schmitt and Benjamin who stand outside the liberal tradition to highlight how modern states frequently suspends the rule of law and relies on their own sovereign power to declare ‘states of emergency’ to render their own criminal conduct lawful.

Prognosis Critical: Resilience and Multiculturalism in Contemporary Australia

Prognosis Critical: Resilience and Multiculturalism in Contemporary Australia

Unending crisis: national security policy after 9/11

In Unending Crisis, Thomas Graham Jr. examines the second Bush administration's misguided management of foreign policy, the legacy of which has been seven major--and almost irresolvable--national security crises involving North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict in Palestine, and nuclear proliferation. Unending Crisis considers these issues individually and together, emphasizing their interrelationship and delineating the role that the neoconservative agenda played in redefining the way America is perceived in the world today.

The Position of Algeria in the Neoconservative Agenda From Bush to Obama

The U.S.-Algerian relations have long been subject to fluctuation and uncertainty since Algeria’s independence. However, recently after a cabal of neoconservatives was swarmed into the Bush Administration there had been an increasing interest in the country. This paper looks into the rationale of the American unexpected shift of interest towards Algeria in the dawn of the 21st century. It situates the place of this so long neglected country in the design of American neoconservative foreign policy agenda following the 09/11 attacks. The terrorist attacks on the United States and the rise of the neoconservative cabal, undoubtedly changed international relations in significant ways. Those events pushed the United States to alter its policies toward a number of regimes by building a broad “coalition against terrorism”. Washington reached out to countries that until recently were considered hostile or at least not so friendly. In foreign policy, the neoconservatives do differ from other American politicians and pundits in their intense commitment to the projection of American military and economic power. The agenda of the neoconservatives was based on stretching American influence to protect its vital economic interests by establishing friendly relations with countries that correspond to America’s perspectives. Although it never constituted a priority for the United States in the past, in recent years Algeria has increasingly become a region of great interest to policymakers in Washington. However, an outstanding interest in the country came with the rise of neoconservatives to power in the Bush Administration. This new significance attached to the country derives from a number of considerations that fall into two broad sets: political and economic energy interests, and military, strategic and security interests. The first are linked to America’s energy needs from oil and gas; and interest in a potentially important market for U.S. businesses, especially since competition has heightened with China in Africa. The second motives are relatively connected to Washington’s reshuffle of strategic and security policies. These increased the need for new ways of managing issues related to security, terrorism and democratization.

Jürgen Habermas and Bush’s Neoconservatives: Too Close for Comfort?

In his recent political writings, Habermas has opposed his cosmopolitan project to that of the Bushite neoconservatives. However, this article argues that in some respects Habermas's works come closer to the neoconservative agenda than he realizes and that this poses a potential danger of its being appropriated by precisely the camp he opposes. These problems particularly come to the fore in his analysis of Islamic fundamentalism, democracy and the Middle East, but also in his recommendations concerning UN-based internationalism and his appeals to Woodrow Wilson. By tracking these problematic areas in Habermas's work, this article argues that Habermas needs to engage in a more carefully articulated, concrete and empirical analysis if he is to avoid these problems.

Democratic education in neoliberal and neoconservative times

Given the increasing power of neoliberal and neoconservative agendas in education internationally, critically democratic policies and practices are now even more important. Yet, one of the major problems with critical work in education has been the fact that some of the academic leaders of the ‘critical pedagogy’ movement and of critical and democratic education in general in many nations have not been sufficiently connected to the actual realities of schools and classrooms. Yet, only when it is linked much more to concrete issues of educational policy and practice – and to the daily lives of educators, students, social movements and community members – can a critical and democratic education succeed. I point to a number of such linkages and suggest that because of this the ways we think about the role of education in social transformation needs to be made more nuanced and complex.

Doubting the Global War on Terror

Soon after Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the Bush Administration described its new grand strategy: the "Global War on Terror". This article examines the 'two-track' process that US neoconservatives and 'echo chamber' media used, to promote the GWOT grand strategy. It re-examines why many experts and institutions expressed doubt about specific claims the Bush Administration made to support the 2003 Iraq War. Historical counterfactuals suggest that the Bush Administration's Global War on Terror could have evolved very differently . . . or not occurred at all.

Explaining George W. Bush's Adoption of the Neoconservative Agenda after 9/11

This article provides an explanation for the George W. Bush Administration's decision to use military force in Iraq. It first considers the neoconservative foreign policy advocacy coalition, finding that as the advocacy coalition framework suggests, neoconservatives functioned like other coalitions but with some interesting qualifications. The study then considers Bush's role in the decision-making process, establishing that his motivations, combined with key components of his character, determined policy. The events of 9/11 aroused in the president a desire to cast himself in the mold of an American hero, one that would remake the Middle East and bring it into the fold of democratic states. It is the convergence of neoconservative belief and Bush's motivations that explain the decision. This article thus advances the discussion regarding the importance of individual characteristics in decision making and the possibility of joining two methods of inquiry that are often handled independently. Este articulo proporciona una explicacion de la decision de la administracion de George W. Bush de utilizar fuerza militar en Irak. Primero considera la politica exterior de una coalicion de apoyo neoconservadora, encontrando que como el marco de la coalicion de apoyo sugiere, los neoconservadores funcionan como otras coaliciones pero con algunas interesantes caracteristicas. El estudio entonces considera el rol de Bush en el proceso de toma de decision, estableciendo que sus motivaciones combinadas con componentes claves de su caracter, determinaron la politica. Los eventos del 11/9 despertaron en el presidente un deseo de asumir el papel del heroe americano, uno que reconfiguraria el Medio Oriente y lo democratizaria. La convergencia de la creencia neoconservadora y las motivaciones de Bush explican la decision. Este articulo entonces avanza la discusion con relacion a la importancia de las caracteristicas individuales en la toma de decisiones y la posibilidad de unir dos metodos de investigacion que son a menudo manejados independientemente.

Democracy Promotion

The objective of this article is to develop a novel distinction among four IR approaches and especially to highlight the approach which will be called here ‘offensive liberalism’. This four fold division is based not only on a distinction between realism and liberalism, but also on an internal division inside each camp between offensive and defensive approaches. Indeed, besides the distinction between offensive and defensive realism, there is also an overlooked parallel distinction between offensive and defensive liberalism. As I will show, this distinction goes deeper and has lasted much longer than the recent debate on the neoconservative agenda during the Bush presidency. While sharing the same liberal objectives, offensive and defensive liberals diverge sharply in the means they are willing to deploy to advance these objectives, especially the use of force to democratise non-democratic societies. I evaluate the advantages and the shortcomings of each approach as an avenue to fulfilling a durable world or regional peace and security. Each approach has some appeal but also major disadvantages. I will examine what the different perspectives suggest on the road to accomplishing security and peace. I will also briefly contrast the liberal and realist approaches with some constructivist ideas on peace. Finally, in order to clarify the differences among the four approaches, I apply their logic to a concrete issue, which led to major debates recently: democracy promotion and regime change by the leading superpower — the US. Thus, I open the discussion in this article by presenting the variations of ideal-type strategies towards regime change and conclude the article by linking these strategies and relevant examples to the approaches.

“Act locally, publish globally”: international/multi-disciplinary research efforts needed to understand the impact of globalization on science education

As I sit to write this editorial, I cannot help but reflect on my experiences over the last year serving as Lead Editor for this issue. Inviting different members of the editorial Review Board to serve as Lead Editors for upcoming issues is a new way CSSE is seeking to expand participation to a greater number of scholars in science education and to expand readership of the journal to a wider network of social scientists. By way of introduction to this issue, I describe what I have learned about the editorial process that is unique to this journal—as well I share how this experience has helped me to recognize the critical need for more international and multi-disciplinary research efforts, if we, as science educators are to both understand and actively inform/reform the ways in which globalization is shaping science education around the world. For the past 4 years, the Editors and Board Members of the journal have invited other science educators to meet and discuss sociocultural issues and research in science education. Each year there is a theme for the meeting and several of the manuscripts for this issue originated from research presented in 2007 at the inaugural Springer Forum held in Chicago. This issue contains four sets of papers organized around four original manuscripts that are loosely developed around the theme of Glocalization and is the second of three special issues to focus on science education in a global context. The first paper, co-authored by Lyn Carter and Ranjith Dediwalage, examined a school-based project entitled Sustainable Living by the Bay through the lens of globalization and offered a critical analysis of how neoliberal and neoconservative agendas in Australia are being expressed through government funding policies, which in turn, informed the development and implementation of K-12 science curricula that (re)produced Western canonical scientific knowledge at the expense of all other ways of knowing and doing science. Tali Tal and Iris Alkaher, in the second paper, examined the experiences of Bedouin and Israeli students who participated in an education for sustainability (EfS) project designed to bring together Arabic and Jewish youth and their teachers to engage in a cross-cultural exchange about a socio-environmental conflict related to the disputed use of a local creek and