Roman Politics Research Articles

상상력, 무로부터의 창조

This essay attempts to read three scenes of The Prelude by William Wordsworth, using as guiding thread what Kir Kuiken articulates with regard to the concept of imagination in his book, Imagined Sovereignties: Toward a New Political Romanticism. In order to bring Kuiken’s articulation of imagination to bear on the psychoanalytic concept of the void of the Thing, the essay will make a detour through the notion of creation ex nihilo that Jacques Lacan introduces in his book, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. The notion of creation ex nihilo should not be taken to imply the process in which something is created from nothing. At stake here is nothing less than the simultaneity between the construction of the symbolic meaning and the introduction of a void. What Lacan elaborates regarding the creation ex nihilo is worth dwelling upon in that it allows us to problematize the opposition of subject and nature, past and present, whole and part which has functioned as the basic theme in the previous readings of The Prelude. The analysis of Wordsworth’s recounting of his passage across the Alps in book six of the Prelude is centered primarily on the way in which the missed crossing of the Alps is (re-)constructed in the ode to the imagination that follows. The episode of the blind beggar in book seven is especially important for grasping the logic that makes the ‘whole’ and the ‘part’ inextricable from but at the same time irreducible to each other. The reading of book eight begins with a consideration of the two “nows” in the passage of Wordsworth’s entrance into London. This leads us to formulate the singular way in which the first “now” is intermingled with the second “now,” instead of trying to figure out the extent to which the significance of the first “now” can be restored through the second “now.”

WOMEN's REPRESENTATION IN LOCAL POLITICS OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: WOMEN MAYORS IN MODERN ROMANIA

The article attempts to analyze examples of women's representation in local Romanian politics and its role in the modern politics of the country. The author draws attention to the socio-demographic characteristics of female mayors of large Romanian cities in the last decade, and to the role of gender quotas in achieving gender equality in the political sphere of the country. The author uses printed publications, data from the websites of city halls, and official reports to analyze the social portraits of female mayors. The author comes to the conclusion that for more than a hundred years of the presence of Romanian women in local politics, their number in modern Romania is small compared to the European background. Female representation is gradually expanding, but it is difficult to conclude that there is a strong trend. The author reveals the image of a female mayor as a professional politician with a long political career, and a successful career and a high level of education preceding the entry into politics, a socially approved family model, and having support in the form of a party behind her. However, at the same time we note that the cases of female city mayors are an exception against the backdrop of extensive male representation.

"Political Romanticism" and "Aesthetic Politics": Content, Comparison, Criticism

Relevance. In Western political philosophy and political theory, the judgment that modern democracy does not have a satisfactory general ("synoptic") theory, has the status of (almost) universal significance ‒ the philosophical interpretation of this "situation" is an urgent research task for modern political philosophy.Purpose. The representation of the political in the "concept of the political" and the "economic paradigm of the political" reveals identical characteristic features; the configuration of their unity and the assessment attributed to them differ ‒ the goal is to understand the different meanings attributed to the same "phenomena" and "processes" of modernity in conceptual frameworks defined by opposite paradigms.Objectives. The method of determining the actual policy in the horizon of "metaphysical principles" is demonstrated. The fundamentals of the paradigmatic representation of the political and the principles of constructing the narrative of modern liberal democracy are revealed. The procedure of giving credibility to theoretical judgments about the political is analyzed. Methodology. The paradigmatic representation of the political can be understood, and only as a result explained; understanding refers to the real concept, explanation – to reality; the combination of the "real" and "real" distinguished in the tradition of Western philosophy takes place in a philosophical concept; the formation of the concept presupposes philosophical interest; philosophical hermeneutics and deduction provide tools suitable for understanding the political in unity: from "metaphysical foundations" to practical politics. Results. The statement about the romantic nature of the modern representation of the political in the liberal economic paradigm looks reliable. It is proved that historical and aesthetic representation, more than «mimetic», fulfills the imperatives attributed to the modern form of political – Western representative democracy. The evidence of the necessary replacement of the «center of political ontology» from the sovereign to an «empty place» is demonstrated.Conclusions. Representative democracy, romantic and postmodern, is a necessary and legitimate form of the modern liberal way of representing the political. The main task of aesthetic politics is supposed to ensure security: "keep to the middle and avoid extremes", exclude an event, normalize the political, that is, to banalize politics.

Competition and Corruption: Sodalicia in Late Republican Rome

Roman Republican elections especially during the Late Republic were a ubiquitous phenomenon. The small number of higher magistracies in comparison to the growing number of eligible candidates often led to a fierce competition within the political elite. To secure a win, competitors running for office made use of a whole spectrum of methods which often overstepped the legal and moral boundaries and eventually resulted in legal measures. The lex Licinia de sodaliciis enacted in 55 BCE is one of these measures. This article studies the lex by raising questions about its historic background, its target – electoral misconduct by organising sodalicia that is political associations within the voting districts – the trials conducted under the law, the effect associations had on Roman politics, and the Senate’s effort to regulate them thorough legislation.

Women in Romanian Politics between Desideratum and Historical Reality

Women in Romanian Politics between Desideratum and Historical Reality

Oltenia and the Idea of Regionalization – A Historical Perspective

Bănia Craiovei, despite the fact that it represented an institution with a certain degree of autonomy, contributed to ensuring the interwar cohesion of Wallachia. Its dissolution was made in the context beginning an approach of a centralist paradigm, in the Romanian politics and administration, this manifesting itself after 1831, until the moment when King Carol II reintroduced the regions, in 1938, for a short time, and then to return to the centralized system (with a short interruption in 1952–1968), after 1968.The article offers a general perspective, historical and not only, on Oltenia.

Reading Utopia in 2022

Abstract: This essay encourages eighteenth-century scholars to read John Lithgow's utopian fiction Equality—A Political Romance (1802). Set in the protocommunist, protofeminist and anti-individualist island of Lithconia, Equality offers readers a world without financial property, class hierarchy, or gender inequality. This essay argues that Lithconia is a radical model for a possible future America that helps us understand today's pandemic and postpandemic crises as part of a history of inequality but also asks us to imagine moving beyond them. The second part of this essay examines Equality 's lack of radical racial politics, which prompts readers to ask not just where and when a better world exists but who it is for.

Aspar and Apollonius–religion and politics in choosing the eastern consul for 460 CE

Abstract This article takes a fresh look at the identification of the East Roman consul for 460 CE. Although recent scholarship has favored a military candidate over a civil candidate of the same name, the author suggests that there is a better argument for the civil candidate based on an examination of East Roman political and religious issues in the 440 s and 450 s. If so, the choice may also shed new light on Aspar’s political strategy in the late 450 s and early resistance to the advancement of his son, Patricius.

Unutrašnja i spoljnopolitička terminologija antičkog Rima – dve strane iste medalje

The paper compares the advice that Quintus gave to his brother Marcus Cicero, on how to conduct an election campaign, with the instructions that Ulpian gave to the governors of the provinces on how to treat the provincials. On that occasion, the same or similar terms were identified. It can be said that the candidates in the elections used similar methods of manipulation in the campaign as were used in Roman politics in the provinces. After all, they are just two sides of the same coin.

Geç Roma Cumhuriyeti Dönemi nden Seçkin Bir Devlet Adamı: P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus

P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, who bore witness to a large part of the Late Republic Era and went on to have a long and successful military and political career during this time, has an important place in republican Roman history. Because he is one of the last major Roman statesmen of the traditional kind. Just like the famous Romans of the past, P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus too had gained his political influence within legal boundaries and had never put himself above the Senatus. However, his life had coincided with a period in Roman politics when mighty personalities with great military and political power had emerged, and he had inevitably been overshadowed in terms of reputation by such people. As a matter of fact, there is no comprehensive study that deals entirely with his life, even in modern historiography, contrary to these mighty personalities, about whom countless studies have been written from antiquity to the present. The aim of this study is to fill this gap in the literature to some extent.

Resilience Thinking and Landscape Complexity in the Basentello Valley (BA, MT), c. AD 300–800

Archaeological data for the transformation of late Roman rural landscapes in Southern Italy over the sixth to eighth centuries AD are often meagre. This record often provides little explanatory power in the context of understanding the collapse of Roman political and economic hegemony and the framework for the regeneration of these relationships in the early medieval countryside. Resilience thinking offers a robust suite of heuristics to help guide both method and theory in understanding the key socio-environmental relationships involved in this transformative process based on limited material evidence. Through insights gained from developing a panarchic perspective of the Basentello landscape between AD 300 and 800, both capacities for and strategies of resilience to landscape-scale shocks and stressors emerge as key patterns in this collapse process. To explain how these patterns emerge, resilience thinking employs narratives from complexity science by framing landscapes as self-organizing complex adaptive systems. It is through appreciating this complexity that archaeologists can revolutionize how we understand landscape-scale transformations, the role of resilience in landscape history and, more broadly, the nature of societal collapse.

Commoda Romani Populi and the Practice of Late Roman Politics

Commoda Romani Populi(public interest) played a prominent role in the political practice in Republican Rome. This preliminary study aims to provide an overview of the role of Commoda Romani Populi in Roman political culture and its political performance. The latest scholarships have shown that the Roman people played a far more critical role in politics than previous scholars thought. Thus it is necessary to reinterpret the role of the Roman people in politics. This essay adopts the theories of Almond and Verba to claim that the majority of Roman people in Rome was not simply politically passive at all time. When political elites have severe lapses in promoting the public interest, their level of political engagement can be dramatically be motivated that finally forces political elites to consider public opinion and hold their behaviours responsible. Moreover, this essay also offers a brief examination of how Commoda Romani Populi was perceived, reinterpreted and manipulated when there was a strong disagreement between political elites and Roman people during the late Roman Republic. Finally, this study argues that the Commoda Romani Populi has a real cultural and practical influence on public affairs instead of being an empty slogan.

Political Consciousness of Roman People in the Age of Tribune Tiberius Gracchus

The political career of Tiberius Gracchus embodies the mixed characteristics of aristocrat politics and popular politics, which is the incision to understand the connotation of the crisis of the late Roman Republic. After the ouster of M. Octavius and the passing of the decision to allocate Attalus’ legacy under the support of the Roman people, the relationship between Tiberius as the leader of the people and the opposers of him in Senatus suddenly became tense, and the Roman politics eventually led to a rupture and chaos. Therefore, the Roman people are the key to inflating the differences among the elites, and public action and its consequences are the keys to understanding the crisis. The consciousness of Roman people varied in different groups and interacted with different tactics of politician elites. The over-mobilized tactics aroused the Roman people’s political consciousness of popular sovereignty, which became an essential power source in Roman society. Out-controlled people’s politics would finally trigger the crisis in the late republic.

Boni Gone Bad: Cicero’s Critique of Epicureanism in De Finibus 1 and 2

Abstract This paper argues that Cicero’s critique of Epicureanism in De finibus is motivated by a concern about its degrading effect on the moral sensibility of Rome’s best men. In place of earlier objections to Epicureanism, which centered on its inability to explain or recommend the virtuous conduct of Roman maiores, De finibus focuses on its inability to do so properly and, more prospectively, to assist boni in the work of maintaining the dignity and respectability of Roman civic life. Responding to optimates like Cassius who claimed that Epicureanism was compatible with Roman politics because it treats virtue as being necessary for pleasure, Cicero holds that instrumentalizing virtue in this way is actually a grave corruption of it. Not only do Epicureans debase politics by reducing it to considerations of utility alone: they also introduce deeper forms of civic confusion by distorting and abusing the very idea of honorableness.

S. Kierkegaard and K. Schmitt: the Eternal Repetition of the Same Political

The review considers the main statements of Vladimir Bashkov’s research on the influence of S. Kierkegaard’s philosophy on the political concept of K. Schmitt. The review notes that the author consistently draws structural parallels between their ideas. It is determined that there is a “translation” of Kierkegaard’s images and conceptual row into Schmitt’s conceptual language in Bashkov’s study, As the best example of the connection between their ideas, the review suggests considering the connection of Schmitt’s criticism of “political romanticism” with Kierkegaard’s criticism of the aesthetic attitude from the ethical side. Also, the undoubted advantage of Bashkov’s book is the discovery of a common search for “authentic” by both Kierkegaard and Schmitt. The review also notes that the disadvantages of the study, which includes both the lack of consideration of some modern research on issues close to the topic of the book and the fact that the author eventually associates about the need to search for the “authentic” with Kierkegaard and Schmitt, which deprives him of distance in relation to the subject of research, turning him from a researcher to a follower of Kierkegaard and Schmitt. According to the reviewer, this is what leads the author to positivize the dictatorship. However, at the same time, the review notes that the positive side of the study is the justification of the possibility of the instrumentalization of Kierkegaard’s and Schmitt’s concepts.

P. Clodius Pulcher and the Praetorship That Never Was

According to Cicero, Clodius had been a candidate for the praetorship of 53 BCE suo anno but deferred his candidacy when the elections were excessively delayed. In an influential paper, Badian argued that Clodius’ proper year was 52 and that Cicero was guilty of misrepresentation. By reviewing the evidence and the workings of the lex annalis, this paper makes the case that Clodius did indeed postpone his praetorship, in order to have more time to pursue his legislative programme. That in turn has implications for our understanding of Clodius the politician and of the place of legislation in Roman politics.

Mithridates’ Letter in Sallust’s Historiae: Roman and Pontic Propaganda

According to the author of the article, Mithridates VI Eupator’s letter to the Parthian monarch Arsaces in Sallust’s Historiae does not reproduce the genuine document from the personal archives of the Pontic king as some researchers believe. The opinion that Sallust criticized Roman politics under Mithridates’mask is rejected; many scholars consider this letter to be a condemnation of deep moral decline of the Roman society. On the contrary, the Roman writer attributes to the Pontic king the weak and vulnerable arguments based on the false facts (at least from the Roman point of view) to discredit his (and not only his) criticism of Roman foreign policy. He calls the Romans “strangers without a homeland, without parents”, but it is naturally that Romans themselves did not think in this way. The author objects to E. Adler, who believes that most of Sallust’s readers did not know history well enough to mark the distortions of facts in Mithridates’ letter. There is every reason to believe that Sallust was counting on an educated public that would be able to appreciate these distortions and their meaning. The author thinks that Mithridates’ argumentation looks like a parody of the anti-Roman propaganda and it might have been perceived as such by Sallust’s readers.

DERGÂH MECMUASI’NDA ROMANTİZMİN İZDÜŞÜMÜ: YAHYA KEMAL’İN MUSÂHABELERİ (1921-1923)

Bu çalışmada Dergâh Mecmuası’nda Romantizm akımının izdüşümü, Yahya Kemal (Beyatlı)’in Mecmua’da neşredilen yazıları bağlamında incelenmiştir. Romantizmin “kayıp cennet” metaforu ile aynı zamanda Dergâh’ın kelime anlamlarından birini ihtiva eden “zaman kapısı” kavramı arasında zamanın muhasebesini içeren bir analoji kurulmaya çalışılmıştır. Bu analojinin mecmuanın hem isim koyucusu hem de baş yazarı olan Yahya Kemal’in yazılarındaki izdüşümlerinin ne olduğu, hangi noktalarda ve ne şekilde ortaya çıktığı çalışmanın temel sorunsalını teşkil etmektedir. Bu bağlamda içerik analizi yöntemi çalışmanın metodolojik çerçevesini oluşturmaktadır. Bu yöntemle Yahya Kemal’in musâhabelerinde Romantizme dair gömülü anlamın ortaya çıkarılması amaçlanmıştır. Çalışmada edinilen sonuçlar ise; Yahya Kemal’in yazılarında edebiyatçı kimliğinin daha fazla ön plana çıkmış; edebiyat ve tarih üzerine musâhabeleri, Siyasî Romantizmden ziyade sosyal ve kültürel alanlarda Romantizmin izlerini barındırmıştır. Yahya Kemal, yaşadığı dönemde Batılılaşma çerçevesinde gerçekleşen sosyal ve kültürel değişimleri eleştiriye tabi tutarken, Anadolu’da başlayan Millî Mücadele’yi geleceğin gelenek üzerinden restorasyonu bağlamında bir fırsat olarak değerlendirmiştir. Bu bağlamda köklere olan bağlılığı ve değişime olan tedrici tutumu, Onarıcı (restorasyoncu) Romantizm olarak değerlendirilebilir.

Bir Asker Siyasetçinin Doğuşu: Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius, Roma’nın Geç Cumhuriyet döneminde ortaya çıkan ve asker siyasetçi olarak da tanınan güçlü liderin ilkidir. Onun ortaya koyduğu yöntemler Roma’nın geleneksel iki kutuplu optimates- populares siyasetini başkalaştırmış, Sulla, Pompeius, Caesar, Marcus Antonius, Augustus gibi Cumhuriyet’in son dönemini şekillendiren figürlere rehberlik etmiştir. Marius’un siyaset tarzını şekillendiren ve dönüştüren unsurlar -Senato partisi optimates ve halk davasını savunan populares arasındaki çatışmada popularesin siyasi hareket alanının daraltılması, senato oligarşisinin Gracchus sonrası dönemde iç ve dış politikadaki başarısızlıkları- aynı zamanda kendinden sonraki populares siyasetini de etkilemiş, halkçı bir siyasetçi olarak başladığı siyasi kariyerinin asker siyasetçiye evirilmesine neden olmuştur. Bu makalede Marius’un ilk consullük yılı olan İÖ 107 yılına değin halkçı siyaset içindeki konumu ve bu süreçte senato oligarşisinin durumu bağlamında geleneksel siyasetten ayrılışı tarihsel veriler ışığında değerlendirilmiştir.

“They all are the red plague”: anti-communism and the Romanian radical right populists

ABSTRACT This paper examines how a radical right populist party uses anti-communism to produce an anti-establishment discourse and consolidate ultra-conservative political values. At the end of 2020 The Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) entered the Romanian Parliament, taking many by surprise. We indicate how they have capitalised not only on the “normalisation” of radical right themes, but also on pre-existing anti-communist discourses. After demonstrating how anti-communism has structured the post-socialist Romanian politics, we reveal how it was used as an identifier of the political establishment and how AUR operated a gradual replacement of “communism” with “neo-Marxism” in their discourse.