Political Conjuncture Research Articles

Идеология и война

The article explores the discursive means of expressing ideologies. It is postu­lated that a person in the conditions of a changing political situation is at the same time able to hide his ideological preferences, but find means to express them. A distinction is made between the use of rational constructs, which is changed under the influence of political conjuncture, and an emotionally colored assessment of facts. It is argued that ideology is more often transmitted through emotionally expressed communication. The concepts of “quasi-science” and “quasi-religion” are introduced, which complete the completeness of the ideo­logical discourse in the communicative space. A formal method is introduced to identify four modern ideologies. It is fixed that the main goal of ideology is to encourage joint social action. The conditions under which the change of ideo­logical constructs takes place are described. The ideas about the ideology of modern Russian politicians are analyzed. It is shown how the ideological support of a special military operation changes during the year. Conclusions are drawn about the dependence of the concept of war on the social stratum of a person in modern Russian society.

'Protecting the NHS' - and its limits

There are limits in articulating political struggles around the NHS and the imagined geographies of the nation: struggles based on nostalgia for the post-war welfare state risk co-opting the NHS for an exclusionary, nationalist politics. In tracing the times and spaces of the health service the article asks: when was the NHS? and where is the NHS? The idea of universal healthcare - and changing ideas of nation, state and welfare - are articulated in particular political conjunctures. The whereabouts of the NHS is more than a question of devolution and territorial politics in an increasingly disunited Kingdom; there are also questions of borders, and of workers who are trained and drawn into the NHS from overseas: it is impossible to imagine the NHS without grappling with the ways in which colonialism is integral to the formation of the post-war national welfare state. As both a residual of the national welfare state, and as an emergent site of political and cultural work, the NHS is continuously reworked within dominant politics; while it also offers an emotionally powerful political resource to galvanise popular public support that resists such tendencies. We therefore insist on the need to get to grips with the complex and partial embedding of private interests and market logics within the organisation of healthcare - often framed, rather crudely, in terms of the 'Americanisation' of the NHS. But we also warn of the analytical limits, and political dangers, of framing political struggles around national spatial imaginaries when seeking to 'protect' the NHS in these times of crisis.

Ideological crystallization: rethinking the alternative-mainstream binary in times of populist politics

This paper assesses if and how alternative news media manifest their counter-hegemonic potential within the current conjuncture of populist politics in Western liberal democracies. Based on the method of critical discourse analysis, it compares the ways in which the yellow vests movement is discursively (re)constructed by two Flemish legacy newspapers and five alternative news media. Analytically, it engages with an agonistic pluralist perspective. Findings show how both newspapers and alternative media reproduce the same discursive constructions that legitimize the yellow vests’ socio-economic and political grievances. What distinguishes alternative from traditional media is not so much their counter-hegemonic potential but their ideological crystallization, as they reproduce only one discursive construction each. With legacy media now also operating as sites of contestation, this paper makes the importance of the role of political context all the clearer in the assessment of the counter-hegemonic potential of alternative news media.

Family policy and transformation of family and marriage relations in post-revolutionary Russia, 1917 - 1920s: main results and topical issues of study

The article focuses on the main trends, discussions and prospects for studying the family policy of the Soviet state and the transformation of family and marriage relations in the post-revolutionary period. The main focus is on the historiography of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The author characterizes the specifics of study of the problem today, its dependence on the political conjuncture, he draws particular attention to controversial and contradictory trends in modern historiography, as well as to the prospects for further study of the topic. The author concentrates on the issues of historiographical continuity and scientific novelty of works.

Variegated forms of corporate capture: The state, MNCs, and the dark side of strategic coupling

AbstractMainstream literature on global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks (GPNs) has increasingly demonstrated how the state and political conjunctures play a central role in strategic coupling. Nonetheless, scholarly attention still remains on the role of firms and their strategies. By focusing on firms, GVC and GPN scholars often underestimate the influence that non‐firm actors such as the state have on strategic coupling, especially concerning its negative development implicationsits “dark side”. To contribute to this literature, this article proposes an approach and research agenda to examine how processes of corporate capture evolve via strategic coupling. This approach is based on the interplay of three variables: the strategic selectivity of states; the strategic action of firms; and states' predominant mode of insertion into GPNs. I argue that corporate capture is much more common and variegated in capitalist states and consequently in strategic coupling than often assumed in mainstream literature.

Річард Стіл - публіцист i організатор англійської періодичної друкованої преси

The journalistic activity of Richard Steele, the British journalist and educator at the beginning of the 18th century and his role in organization of English print periodicals are considered. He is one of the four leading essayists of that time and competes only with Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addison for the right to be called the founder of English professional journalism. Picking up Defoe‘s idea of creating perhaps the first edition in the world, where the news and the analysis would be combined, as well as Swift‘s idea of a literary mask, on behalf of which the readers can be educated through entertainment, Steele, together with Addison, published the magazine “The Tatler” in 1709 – 1711, which immediately gained popularity in the homeland and the overseas colonies, as well as on the European continent. In 1711 – 1712, the idea of literary masks was perfected and embodied in the pages of the even more popular magazine “The Spectator”. In 1713, the third magazine of the co-founders and the co-authors was published – “The Guardian”, but it was inferior in popularity to the previous editions, especially “The Spectator”. In 1714, this gave reason to Addison to publish independently a continuation of this magazine, which in terms of popularity and circulation ranked third in the English-speaking world after the Bible and the works of W. Shakespeare. Since then, the creative paths of peers, friends and co-authors diverged, each of them published their own editions. And if Defoe and Addison had enough enthusiasm for each of their several projects, then Steele founded and published ten magazines during the different periods of their existence from 1713 to 1720. The political conjuncture, working for the interests of the Whig party and the parliamentary factional activity dictated Steele to have at hand several of his own printed bodies that could be used for one purpose or another. Thus, Richard Steele became an outstanding organizer of the English periodical print media in the first twenty years of the 18th century.

Role of Educational Centers in the Formation and Development of the Transnational Shi‘ite Movement

The article is devoted to identifying the influence of Shi‘ite educational centers located in Iraq and Iran on the formation of transnational Shi’ite movements in conditions when Iran is faced with accusations of trying to create a “Shi‘ite Crescent” or to consolidate Shi‘ite communities living across the Middle East. Educational centers play a decisive role in shaping the political outlook of ordinary Shi‘ites, since it is in the course of training that Shi‘ites fall under the ideological influence of one or another religious authority – marja‘ al-taqlid. Subsequently, upon returning to their homeland, Shi‘ites who are actively involved in political activities continue to promote the views instilled in them by their teacher at the educational center. The rivalry of educational centers for attracting students is natural, as well as the competition of views on the participation of Shi‘ite religious leaders in political processes, aggravated by the split into supporters and opponents of “governmental Shi‘ism” in Iran itself. This rivalry determines the lack of unity within the transnational Shi‘ism, which suggests that even if Iran has ambitions to create a “united Shi‘ite front”, they currently have no ideological basis. This conclusion supports the thesis of the “information war” unfolding around the Islamic Republic, aimed at preventing Iran from becoming a regional leader. At the same time, it is fundamentally important that scientific research does not follow the lead of the political conjuncture, considering Iran’s activities to create Pax Islamica Shi‘a for granted, but identify the real possibilities and limitations of Tehran in this area.

Государственный интерес: рефлексивно-практическая призма Мишеля Фуко

Domestic literature on the problem of state interests (hereinafter SI) reflects, with a few exceptions, the history and modern moment of existence and vision of the political conjuncture of the country and the world dominating minorities of Russia. There are more than 11 million sites in Runet. Most of these publications have no scientific value. They can serve as many examples as possible of how the viewpoint of the public interest depends on the country’s political fluctuations and the arbitrariness of its minorities. Dependence and arbitrariness consist in the interpretation of the MI in relation to the national interests of Russia, although “…what means this expression of national interests, nobody knows exactly”. The author of the article develops the approach of K. Marx to the SI as an element of the bureaucratic attitude of the authorities towards citizens, the state towards the general state. This approach makes it possible to give permanence to the treatment of the SI, since there are still no States free from bureaucracy as a social parasite, reflecting social differences and embodying political exclusion. To take power, the USSR’s innovators had created economic, social, political, and ideological preconditions for the total bureaucratization of the State. This tradition is inherited and reinforced by the ruling minority of modern Russia. Therefore, the author proposes to raise and discuss the problem of violence and political lack of talent of the dominant minorities of Russia as a set of products of bureaucratic domination in all spheres of state policy and administration. In recent years, this approach has received a specific sociological justification4, including the qualification of the present Russian state as a parasitic one5. This article continues the author’s reconstruction of the heuristic potential of Michel Foucault’s SI concept.

El cuerpo como territorio de violencia en la novela Rosario Tijeras de Jorge Franco

Literature as a cultural product refracts socio-historical and political conjunctures. Therefore, the political and social crises that began in Latin America in the 20th century, which printed a new cartography of cities, is reflected in the Latin American narrative from the mid-twentieth century to contemporary literature. It is important to highlight that in this new social cartography emerge minorities and marginalized groups, which are being focused in order to show that they are characters crossed by surreptitious violence, which has accompanied the Colombian nation since the 40’s. A violence towards that different other, who becomes the target of a society that establishes borders in the face of ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity. The goal of this paper is to show how in the novel Rosario Tijeras by Jorge Franco, published in 1999, the urban space – Medellín – represents a body territorialized by the violence of drug trafficking, and the protagonist – Rosario Tijeras – constitutes a body crossed by the violence of the hitman and the violence of the masculine.

TÜRKİYE’DE DEVLET VE SURİYELİ MÜLTECİLER: ÇELİŞKİLİ POLİTİKALAR VE ARAÇSAL RASYONELLİK

Amaç: Bu makalenin amacı Türkiye’nin Suriyelilere yönelik iç ve dış politika alanlarında ortaya çıkan çelişkili politikaları, devletin “araçsal rasyonellik” (instrumental rationalism) bakış açısından kaynaklanan politika tutarsızlığı teorik çerçevesi ile açıklamaktır. Yöntem: Araştırmanın yöntemi, politika belgelerinin ve internet haber sitelerinin sistematik ve kapsamlı bir nitel analizine dayanmaktadır. Makale süreç izleme (process tracing) metodu ile, “araçsal rasyonellik” teorik çerçevesinin Türkiye devletinin Suriyelilere yönelik politikalarını açıklamaktaki geçerliliğini test etmektedir. Bulgular: Bulgular son on senede Türkiye’de devletin Suriyelilere yönelik uyum üçüncü ülkeye yeniden yerleştirme ve geri gönderme politikalarını zaman içinde değişen - hatta çelişen - söylemlerle birbirlerini alternatifi olarak dile getirdiği yönündedir. Başlangıçtaki Suriye’deki krizin kısa süreceği ve gelen sığınmacıların ülkelerine geri döneceği beklentisi ile edinilen “misafir” bakış açısı; daha uzun süre kalacakları anlaşılınca, önce “geçici koruma” statüsü verilerek (2014), sonra da çok sınırlı da olsa “çalışma izni” ve “vatandaşlığına geçiş” sağlanarak (2016) nerdeyse onlar için bir entegrasyon sürecinin öngörülmesine evirilmiştir. 2017 yılından sonra ise devlet söyleminde, Suriyeliler için hızla “geri gönderme” eğiliminin yükselişine tanıklık edilmiştir. 2019 yılında bir yandan bu “geri gönderme” söylemlerinin somut politikalara doğru evirildiği, diğer yandan ise “11. Kalkınma Planı”(2019-23) ve “Uyum Strateji Belgesi ve Ulusal Eylem Planı” (2018-23) gibi temel politika belgelerinde Suriyelilerin entegrasyonu için somut planlamalar yapıldığı görülmüştür. Bu örneklerden de deneyimlendiği gibi Türkiye’de devlet sığınmacıların geleceğini çoğul bir dizi politika seçeneği ile uluslararası iltica rejiminde normatif kabul gören üç politika seçeneğine paralel olarak düzenleme eğiliminde olmuştur. Bu politika ve söylemlerdeki iç ve dış politik konjonktüre cevaben ortaya çıkan ani değişiklikler, göç politikalarındaki birbiri ile çelişen uyumsuzluğun, Türkiye’de devletin göç politikalarını araçsal bir rasyonalite ile şekillendirmesinden kaynaklandığını göstermektedir. Ana bulgu bu rasyonalitenin Türkiye’de devletin Suriyeli mülteciler üzerine olan politikalarında bir tutarlılık problemine yol açtığı yönündedir.Özgünlük: Makalenin özgün değeri, Türkiye’de devletin Suriyelilere yönelik ulaşılabilir kıldığı politika seçeneklerine yönelik eleştirel bir bakış açısı sunmasıdır. Türkiye’de devletin Suriyeli mültecilere yönelik, uyum ya da geri gönderme gibi mevcut tüm politika seçeneklerini ulaşılabilir kılma çabası, politika yapıcılar tarafından olumlu bir durum olarak ortaya konulmaktadır. Bu politika tutarsızlığının olası siyasi, toplumsal ve bireysel sonuçları bu makalede irdelenmiştir.

The Supply Side of Climate Policies: Keeping Unburnable Fossil Fuels in the Ground

Abstract As the urgency of responding to climate change and the insufficiency of current demand-side policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions become clearer, supply-side initiatives are beginning to gain prominence and acceptance globally. Policies such as moratoria and compensation for leaving fossil fuels unextracted in exchange for financial compensation of rights owners are likely to be effective and complementary to existing policies. A number of unknowns remain regarding the operationalization of supply-side policies, such as how to establish a binding international agreement and how to raise and allocate financial compensation for nonextraction. Nevertheless, the need for supply-side policies only emphasizes the importance of imaginative and bold initiatives within the current conjuncture of global environmental politics.

빅데이터 시대의 비평이론

This essay discusses the rise of neoliberalism and globalization and its effects on the reconstruction of critical theory. This consideration will be about how the desire for critical theory, or the desiring critique, could intervene in the cognitive or surveillance capitalism phase based on big data technology. For this purpose, I will clarify the fact that the revival of critical theory should be the reconsideration of French philosophy (or French theory) and its political foundation since the 1950s. The vital link between critical theory and political conjunctures is revealed in the CIA’s report on French philosophy in the 1980s. The failure of radical French philosophy led to the decline of intellectuals and the reification of critical theory. I will relate this situation to the advent of cognitive or surveillance capitalism and its changed mode of accumulation. My conclusion will focus on the role of critical theory in understanding the function of big data capitalism and imposing its political implication on the celebration of technological advances.

EU - China relations and data governance policies: the role of civil societies in overcoming geopolitical challenges in cyberspace

EU and China are the global powers that can affect and alter international relations at the political, economic, and societal levels. While the EU shapes the foreign policy in Europe, China has a critical role in Asian politics. In Asia-Europe interregionalism and interregional relations, the EU-China relations are essential in consolidating global and regional stability. However, in the current political conjuncture, the security issues in cyberspace challenge both actors. Hence, cybersecurity and digitalization policies are a potential conflict area in EU-China relations. As the impact of technological and digital developments increases on the global political economy, global powers are developing policies to breast the tape in technological development. The European Commission has set “A Europe fit for the digital age” as one of its priorities for the 2019-2024 term. Meanwhile, since 2015 China has been promoting the Digital Belt and Road Initiative to foster digital connectivity among the Belt and Road countries. However, big data analytics are important in developing new technologies, especially in digital connectivity, automation, and robotics. In this context, data governance has become a geopolitical concept in international relations. Consequently, differences between China’s and the EU’s approach to data – access, process, and collection – may result in geopolitical confrontations. In this paper, we argue that both actors should involve civil society in the policymaking process to address the dynamics of information technologies, cooperate on adapting a global approach and avoid geopolitical confrontations. Civil society organizations can help the actors understand the underlying risks in cybersecurity and form a non-conflicting approach in data governance frameworks. Furthermore, while investigating the EU and China’s data governance models, we shed light upon the role of civil society organizations in addressing the potential risks and opportunities in cyberspace. Finally, we conclude our paper with policy recommendations for China and the EU to cooperate in cyberspace by involving civil society organizations.
 Received: 18 May 2022Accepted: 25 July 2022

Why in the Modern World the Future is Replaced by the Past: is History Coming Back?

In the last two or three decades, there has been a progressive increase in interest in history. Scientists see the reasons for this in the political situation, the growth of nationalist sentiments, and “memory wars.” The article proposes a hypothesis according to which the causes of the origins of this phenomenon lie much deeper: in global changes in human culture related to ideas about time, changes in views on the role of the past, as well as the relationship between the past and the present and the possibility of predicting the future. History is being replaced by historical memory, the functionality of which lies mainly in the sphere of historical politics and social practices. Hence, the paradoxical nature of what is happening: the role of historical science is diminishing, and the role of historical knowledge is growing. The current information situation and total digitalization play a huge role here. Thanks to them, the past and the future turn into an “expanded present,” and historical knowledge becomes a giant palimpsest that is constantly being rewritten. Hence, the trend towards the repoliticization of history, calls for the restoration of its ethical component, its role as a “teacher of life,” the legal and ethical relevance of historical knowledge, which acts as an argument in the accusations and justifications of countries and peoples (this process is called the legitimization of history). The conjuncture for the sake of “correct” modern politics is no longer considered a discrediting circumstance for historians. On the contrary, historians are charged with the duty to act as judges or lawyers at the trial of descendants over the past. All these trends, in the context of the end of the temporal regime of modernity and universal digitalization, lead to the blurring of the distance between the past and the present and the transformation of history into an “expanded present,” because it is the goals and objectives of the present that determine the endless revision of the past, rewriting history. This conclusion is important for understanding the ongoing processes. The modern growth of retrotopia, the changing role of historical knowledge, the trend towards the repoliticization and rehabilitation of the presentism is not a negative political conjuncture that can be corrected nor can its onset be contained. This is the result of global trends in the field of culture in the broadest sense of the word. Ultimately, they can lead to the rebirth of historical science and historical knowledge into a new meta-system that differs from the role of the history of the modern era that is familiar to us.

The Rise and Fall of Agrarian Populism in Post-colonial India: Farmers’ Movements and Electoral Politics at Crossroads

This article argues that the ostensibly desirable separation between farmers’ movements and electoral politics is historically produced in post-colonial India, and it suggests that the current conjuncture of authoritarian politics in India demands a rethinking of this separation. It traces how agrarian populism has been practised in post-colonial India across social movements and party politics. In particular, it examines anti-Congress farmer mobilisations and formation of non-Congress state governments in the 1960s–1970s, the rise of Other Backward Caste (OBC) politics and new farmers’ movements in the 1970s–1980s, the mobilisations around liberalisation since the 1990s and mobilisations since 2014, including the farmers’ protest of 2020–2021. Through this long view of agrarian mobilisations in post-colonial India, we contend that apolitical agrarian populism has lost much of its political potency, and farmers have to pursue anti-authoritarian politics that lies at the intersection of progressive political parties and social movements to realise some or all of their demands.

Some ecological problems of providing the population with high-quality drinking water

Issues of state policy in the field of improving the availability and safety of drinking water supply are focused most often on water treatment technologies. Tariff policy, being hostage to the political conjuncture, limits the possibilities of sustainable development of water supply, which requires a very balanced approach to the choice of technologies. To justify the choice of water treatment technologies in certain local conditions, an assessment of technological approaches based on the methodology of assessing the risk to public health together with a proper feasibility study should be carried out. Assessment of the population’s satisfaction with water supply services makes it possible to form various trajectories of drinking water supply to the population. Based on the analysis, taking into account modern international experience, it is necessary to consider the factor of formation of behavioural practice of safe water supply. Thus, the justification of solutions for the organization of drinking water supply for the end user requires taking into account the formed behavioural motives.

A SOCIAL ECOLOGICAL READING OF H. G. WELL'S THE SLEEPER AWAKES

H. G. Wells, one of the pioneering utopian and dystopian authors of the late Victorian Age, delineates a political conjuncture into which London and the rest of the world may evolve two centuries later. The novel depicts a future in which the working class is socially oppressed in a new order where a world government that holds the reign of power globally and capitalism has gained an ultimate victory historically. Moreover, in this dystopic representation, the social life in the countryside has ended and the whole population is concentrated in the city. This study aims to demonstrate that, in The Sleeper Awakes, the mechanism of domination does not only have a formative power in the social sphere but also is extended towards nature. Furthermore, it is manifested that the domination over these two spheres is far from being independent of each other; on the contrary, they are mutually supportive processes. In this context, this paper uses social ecology, led by Murray Bookchin, as the theoretical framework in reading the novel. Departing from this theory, the reasons for the alienation of second nature from first nature, and the political and social outcomes of this alienation in the work have been demonstrated. Correspondingly, the implications of the centralization of both the population and political power with respect to human-nature relationships have been delved into. In addition to these, nature is shown to be objectified within a hierarchical web of relations in a system that cements the social hierarchies. Thus, this study puts forward that The Sleeper Awakes, a text that foregrounds the ideological and political discussions, may also address the ecological preoccupations.

The Changing Ideology of Hasmonean Family

Makedonyalı Büyük İskender’in, günümüz Filistin, İsrail ve Ürdün topraklarının bir kısmından ibaret olan Yahudiye’yi MÖ 332 yılında fethetmesiyle bölge Yahudileri, Helenistik hâkimiyetin altına girmiştir. Büyük İskender’in ölümünün ardındansa geride bıraktığı devasa imparatorluk üzerinde generalleri birbiriyle mücadele etmeye başlamış ve nihayetinde çeşitli Helenistik krallıklar kurulmuştur. Yahudiye, MÖ 301 yılında bahsi geçen Helenistik devletlerden Ptolemaios Devleti hâkimiyeti altında kalmışsa da devam eden mücadeleler kapsamında MÖ 200 yılında bir diğer Helenistik Devlet olan Seleukoslara tabi hâle gelmiştir. Seleukos hâkimiyetinin başlangıcı itibariyle dinî ve idari anlamda nispeten rahat bir ortama sahip olan Yahudi ahali, ilerleyen dönemde özellikle dinî ve idari bazı yaptırımlara maruz kalacaktır. Bahse konu yaptırımlar sebebiyle bölgede Modeinli Mattathias ve beş oğlu önderliğinde literatürde Makkabi İsyanı olarak bilinen isyan hareketi başlamıştır. Hareketi yürüten aile Haşmonayim Ailesi veya Makkabiler olarak bilinmektedir. Haşmonayim adı, ailenin kaynaklarda varlığı tespit edilebilen büyük atasından ötürü kullanılmaktadır. Makkabi adı ise esasen, Mattathias’ın oğlu Ioudas Makkabaios’un epitheti olup, onun gösterdiği başarılar sebebiyle hem isyanı hem de aileyi anmak için kullanılır hâle gelmiştir. Haşmonayim veya Makkabiler olarak bilinen aile ilk olarak MÖ 167 yılında, Seleukos idaresi altında bulunan Yahudilerin dönemin kralı IV. Antiokhos Epiphanes’in dinî dayatmalarına karşı Mattathias tarafından başlatılan isyan hareketiyle tarih sahnesine çıkmıştır. Mattathias’ın ölümünün ardından hareket, geride kalan beş oğlu ve sonrasında ise torunları tarafından devam ettirilmiştir. Başlangıç itibariyle yerel bir isyan hüviyetinde olan hareket, zaman içerisinde ailenin bir hanedanlığa dönüşmesine yol açmıştır. Hanedanlık olarak mücadelesini sürdüren Haşmonayim Ailesi, Seleukoslar karşısında çeşitli vesilelerle elde ettikleri kazanımlarla önce vassal bir yapıya ve nihayetinde ise bağımsız bir siyasi yapıya sahip olmuştur. Aile hakkında birincil kaynak niteliğindeki bilgiler genel itibariyle apokrif Makabeler Kitapları ile Yahudi tarihçi Flavius Iosephus’un eserlerinden edinilmektedir. Mevcut bilgiler doğrultusunda MÖ 167 ile MÖ 63 yılları aralığını kapsayan ailenin faaliyet dönemi üzerine özellikle yabancı literatürde, ailenin ve hareketin siyasi tarihi ile dinler tarihi özellikle Yahudilik açısından önemi ve etkileri hususunda çeşitli incelemeler yapılmıştır. Ancak ailenin faaliyetlerini yürütürken benimsediği hareket motivasyonu ile meşruiyet kazandıkları dayanak noktaları üzerine pek fazla çalışma bulunmamaktadır. Hâlbuki ailenin tarihi seyri takip edilirken sahip oldukları hareket ideolojisinin, mücadele gerekçelerinin ve meşruiyet dayanaklarının süreklilik arz edecek şekilde değişiklik gösterdiği ve güncellendiği dikkat çekmektedir. Bu çalışmada, Haşmonayim Hanedanlığının siyasi tarihi ve bir din olarak Yahudiliğe ifade ettiği anlamdan ziyade, ailenin tarih sahnesine çıkışından sahip oldukları bağımsız devletin yıkılışına kadar geçen süre içerisindeki ideolojisi, meşruiyet dayanakları ve bahse konu ögeler üzerinde meydana gelen değişiklikler sebepleriyle beraber incelenmeye çalışılmıştır. İncelemeler neticesinde meydana gelen değişimlerin özellikle ailenin hareket kapsamında edindiği kazanımlara ve mevcut siyasi konjonktüre göre gerçekleştiği belirlenmiştir. Ailenin hareket ideolojisi üzerinde gerçekleşen değişimler belli hadiseler neticesinde meydana gelmiştir. Bu yönüyle ailenin hareket motivasyonunu isyan dönemi ideolojisi, hanedanlık dönemi ideolojisi ve devlet dönemi ideolojisi olmak üzere üç kısımda incelemek mümkündür. Hareket henüz isyan dönemindeyken ailenin ideolojisi millilikten oldukça uzaktır ve din temelli bir zeminde bulunmaktadır. Aile hareket meşruiyetini, aynı ideolojisi gibi, bu dönemde dinî dayanaklardan almaktadır. Makkabi İsyanı’nın hedeflerinin başarıya ulaştığı sonraki hanedanlık döneminde ailenin ideolojisi ve meşruiyet zemini büyük bir değişime uğramıştır. Artık ortada dinî bir hedef kalmaması sebebiyle aile milli bir ideolojiyle hareket ederek siyasi bağımsızlık hedefleri güder hâle gelmiştir. Siyasi bağımsızlığın tesis edildiği devlet döneminde ise artık siyasi bağımsızlık gibi bir hedef mevcut olmadığı için hanedanlığın bekasını koruma ve kişisel iktidar güdüsüyle hareket edildiği dikkat çekmektedir.

Robert Bellah’s Legacy in Time of Trial

Matteo Bortolini’s biography of Robert Bellah, A Joyfully Serious Man, is a rich and stimulating treatment of one of the greatest sociological thinkers of the twentieth century. As such, it is bound to raise questions about the interpretation of Bellah’s life, changes in his thinking over time, and the relevance of Bellah’s ideas to current concerns. Three questions are raised here. The first question concerns the role of Freudian psychoanalysis in biographical work. A second question concerns the role of individualism in American culture, which was an enduring concern for Bellah. A third and final question concerns the implications of Bellah’s ideas, nearly a decade after his death, for our current political conjuncture.

Arun Kolatkar’s Bhijakī Vahī: Sacrifice and residues

ABSTRACT Arun Kolatkar (1932–2004), the bilingual Indian poet, deploys a series of female figures – some from mythology and folktales, others from contemporary history – in his collection Bhijakī Vahī (Sodden Notebook), first published in 2003 a few months before his death. The poems, each devoted to a different woman and sometimes narrated from their point of view, articulate tales of suffering, grief, and loss. The subjects include mythological figures such as the Egyptian goddess Isis, and Helen of Troy, but also real women such as the “napalm girl” Kim Phuc, photographed by Nick Ut during the Vietnam War. The symbolic apparatus of sacrifice, with its notions of residues, substitution, victims, and apotheosis, is consistently deployed around these figures as a way of approaching modern conflicts, and especially projects of mass extermination. These questions gain particular salience in the contemporary political conjuncture in India, defined by the rise of violent, majoritarian ideologies.