Politics Of Commitment Research Articles

On Madness as Subjection: Fanon's Political Psychiatry

Frantz Fanon's contribution to psychiatry is foundational and constitutive to the politics of commitment. This political commitment can be seen in the manner in which Fanon made psychiatric interventions to counter subjection which was inherent in colonial psychiatry. The argument here is that madness in relation to black subjects is subjection. As such, colonial psychiatry, instead of apprehending madness, served as an auxiliary of the colonial enterprise which institutionalised, naturalised and normalised madness. So then, the facility of the psychiatric hospital in the colony which houses black subjects – who are at the receiving end of racist colonial psychiatry – is in fact trapped in the colony itself. This kind of psychiatric facility cannot be clinical as it is contaminated by subjection directed to black bodies as things inherently plagued by madness.

Pasolini vs. Calvino, One More Time: The Debate on the Role of Intellectuals and Postmodernism in Italy Today

From Dante on, writers and intellectuals have played a crucial role in Italy, acting as a sort of collective “critical conscience” and providing some sense of a common identity in spite of the country’s chronic socio-political, economic and cultural fragmentation. In recent years, the usual laments over the “decline” and failures of Italian intellectuals, bemoaning especially the disappearance of impegno in the postmodern era, have multiplied and turned into a peculiar genre of its own. Many scholars have repeatedly issued indictments against the postmodern in all its guises, taking it as a betrayal of Marxism, Gramscian theory, the politics of commitment and even of historical truth itself. In this article, I discuss recent works in light of the wider context of the current debate, and I highlight some of the pitfalls that derive from framing the question of intellectual commitment in oppositional terms, pitting “Pasolini” and his realist myth against “Calvino” and his putatively irresponsible postmodernism.

Fela Kuti and the oppositional lyrical power

The excess of power which plagues the postcolonial Africa was subject to Fela Kuti's politically engaged lyrical content, which is direct, confrontational and antagonistic. This article examines the oppositionality of Fela's lyrics and argues that his music is a weapon, and though it is not armed like the might of the state apparatus; but then, its power can be equated with it. The article then argues that his music was informed by a politics of commitment which cannot be reduced to a mere opposition but the subjectivity which articulates agency and structure. A politics of commitment means the steady force Fela had even when the state responded with violence, and he nevertheless continued his cause and could never be tamed or muzzled by the might of the state apparatus. The article will consider some of Fela's oppositional lyrics and make a case that the lyrical power can be found in the lyrical content, which is direct in style but ideologically ambivalent.

Development Effectiveness and the Politics of Commitment

International aid agencies have experienced a ‘political turn’ over the past decade, with political economy analyses becoming increasingly numerous as a means to drive development effectiveness. Yet aid agencies have so far failed to shift their aid modalities in response. The problem lies in an inadequate conceptualisation of ‘politics’. Most donors continue to see development as a public good, rather than as the focus of contestation in a context of societal struggle, and consequently fail to take oppositional forces sufficiently seriously. This facilitates the misapplication of terms such as ‘partnership’ and ‘ownership’, contributing to failures in efforts to promote reform. A more truly political analysis of aid intervention entails two innovations: the use of structural analysis to distinguish between interests in reform; and the use of this distinction, in turn, to inform the practice of taking sides in political struggles. Case studies of international aid programmes in Cambodia and the Philippines illustrate how the failure of donors to take sides with particular reformers has resulted in lost opportunities to achieve concrete outcomes from development projects.

Rosa Luxemburg on disappointment and the politics of commitment

This article explores the conceptual commitments underlying Luxemburg’s repudiation of the discourse of disappointment which had overtaken the European socialist movement during the First World War. My analysis brushes against the grain of the traditional interpretation of Luxemburg’s admonitions ‘to be cheerful despite everything and anything’ as arising from her allegiance to a Marxist philosophy of history which decrees that socialism must inevitably prevail and so refuses to give way to disappointment or despair. The philosophy of history which Luxemburg absorbed from Marx, notably through the Eighteenth Brumaire, prophesies the ultimate victory of socialism but ordains that the actual events and experiences through which this victory is prepared will consist in catastrophes rather than conquests. In Luxemburg, I suggest, we can see more clearly how the experience of failure could make the realization of socialism more rather than less certain, and in terms that refer more directly to the inner situation of the socialist activist than the abstract assurances on which Marx relied: failure occasions the opportunity for deeper learning but, more importantly, it is in the experience of failure that the commitment on which the realization of socialism depends is tested and, in Luxemburg’s hands at least, forged.

Sanction All Revolts: A Reply to Rebecca Pointer

This article is a reply to Rebecca Pointer’s response to our paper, ‘“But We Were Thousands”: Dispossession, Resistance, Repossession and Repression in Mandela Park’. It begins by making some remarks on the terrain in which academic interventions in elite publics are made in contemporary South Africa. In particular, it notes the general tacit support for a highly repressive response (discursive and material) to subaltern dissent. The article then goes on to argue for a politics of commitment to the act, but immediately proceeds to note, with reference to Fanon, two dangers inherent in the politics of the act. It then makes a distinction between militancy and scrupulousness as modes of resistance and argues that the latter often follows but must come to dominate the former. The article then turns to a more direct engagement with Pointer’s paper. It begins by defending a register in our writing described as ‘romantic’ by Pointer and then moves on to mount a sustained attack on her autonomism, which we accuse of, among other things, objectifying the poor. Finally, the article offers qualified support for Pointer’s feminist critique of the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign and our representation of the Campaign.

Commitment, Conservatism, and the Welfare State

Book Review| October 01 2002 Commitment, Conservatism, and the Welfare State Eric Patashnik. Putting Trust in the U.S. Budget: Federal Trust Funds and the Politics of Commitment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 246 pp. $54.95 cloth; $19.95 paper. Steven M. Teles Steven M. Teles Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google J Health Polit Policy Law (2002) 27 (5): 855–860. https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-27-5-855 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Steven M. Teles; Commitment, Conservatism, and the Welfare State. J Health Polit Policy Law 1 October 2002; 27 (5): 855–860. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-27-5-855 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsJournal of Health Politics, Policy and Law Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2002 by Duke University Press2002 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:David F. DeRosa, In Defense of Free Capital Markets: The Case against a New International Financial ArchitectureEric M. Patashnik, Putting Trust in the US Budget: Federal Trust Funds and the Politics of Commitment

Nation-State and Open Systems of Stratification: Making Room for the ‘Politics of Commitment’

L'A. analyse l'impact de l'emergence des systemes de stratification sociale ouverts sur l'evolution des Etats-nations. Il rappelle que selon Marx l'avenement du capitalisme marque la disparition des liens sociaux, des solidarites et des systemes de stratification fermes de type traditionnel. Il estime que le capitalisme tend a s'emanciper des frontieres nationales et a rejeter les formes traditionnelles d'identification et de differenciation sociale propres aux systemes de stratification fermes. Il analyse l'influence des ideaux nationalistes au sein des mouvements ouvriers du 19 e siecle. Il montre que l'avenement des Etats-nations est marque par l'arrivee des intellectuels sur le devant de la scene politique. Il examine ce que recouvre, d'une part, les notions de «stratification fermee» et de «stratification ouverte» et, d'autre part, les notions de «pouvoir» et d'«autorite». Il etudie le role joue par les mecanismes de rejet dans la formation de l'identite nationale. Il affirme que les systemes de stratification ouvert induisent une perspective politique qui repose sur la responsabilite

Hindemith, Hartmann and Henze

War and revolution dancing on a volcano the wellspring of artistic intuition a trail of unending misery ruin and resurgence new perspective the politics of commitment.

White Science and Methodologies of Separation: Politics of Commitment in Sport Sociological Research

White Science and Methodologies of Separation: Politics of Commitment in Sport Sociological Research

Reply to Lovell: Politics of Commitment or Calculation?

Reply to Lovell: Politics of Commitment or Calculation?

India: Politics of Commitment: A Study Based on Fifth General Elections in India By R.L. Gupta, Trimurti Publications, New Delhi. 1972. viii, 264p. Rs. 30.00

India: Politics of Commitment: A Study Based on Fifth General Elections in India <i>By</i> R.L. Gupta, Trimurti Publications, New Delhi. 1972. viii, 264p. Rs. 30.00

Democratic Politics and Political Development in India

The Indian political system is still in the making. With the change in the one party pattern after the general election of 1967, an historic phase in India's political development had ended. The country is now passing through an essentially transitional period of political polarization which is manifesting itself in what may perhaps be described, for want of a better caption, as the politics of individuation. The characterization is being made here both in the literal and the process sense, though the two, more often than not, tend to overlap each other. The phrase may be taken to signify in its literal sense the individualization of politics in terms of the personal quest for power and, consequent upon it, the setting apart of competing personalities and groups and the expected programmatic homogeneity and unity in the residuary power groups. Politics of individuation as a process stands, both for differentiation of contradictory and irreconcilable forces and for the synthesis into an organic unity of likeminded and mutually complementary elements; both these processes ultimately have the potential to operate on the ideological plane. The issue of congruence into a synthesis apart,' differentiation may in the long run help the political system in attaining a stage of equilibrium which may combine political stability with prospects of alternation of power among political parties and groups with clearer programmatic perspectives and firmer and more zealous commitment to their pursuit. The year 1969 marks a critical phase in the history of politics of individuation in India and thus also a land mark in the evolution of the syndrome of India's political development. The model envisaged here may be treated as a living and interacting continuum, with the one-party dominant situation as the formative phase, the period of politics of individuation with many intermediary phases as the interim stage, and politics of commitment as the