Liberal Position Research Articles

The Ambiguities of Christian Sexual Discourse in Post‐War Britain: The British Council of Churches and Its Early Moral Welfare Work

This article extends and develops recent historical discussion on the relationship between British Christianity, sexuality, and modernity, proposing some ways forward for future scholarship. Recent accounts have concentrated on liberal Anglican positions on issues of sexuality, but here the focus is on the British Council of Churches, its early moral welfare work, and interdenominational efforts to reconsider Christian sex teaching in the immediate post‐war years. While examining broader trends towards positive statements about sex and attempts to assemble self‐regulating sexual citizens in Christian moral welfare thinking, the article suggests that, far from a narrative of relatively untroubled and gradual acceptance of progressive Christian views on sex, this was a halting and uncertain process. The article reflects closely on the complexities of post‐war Christian attempts to work with new ideas about sexuality and to formulate their own version of them, the difficulties and ambiguities involved in developing a cogent position in a debate where Christian opinion was so fiercely divided, as well as the complicated nature of institutional decision‐making. As a case study, the British Council of Churches reflects earlier, problematic attempts to alter Christian sex teaching, as well as the unfolding of later difficulties for the British churches.

W. S. Cooper As I Knew Him: Teacher, Mentor and Friend

W. S. Cooper As I Knew Him: Teacher, Mentor and Friend

Secular and Islamic feminist entrepreneurship in Turkey

Purpose– This paper aims to highlight secular and Islamic feminist approaches to entrepreneurship as potential means to challenge gender inequality in the Turkish context. In Turkey, gender equality remains elusive in a nation where secular and Islamic ideologies compete and produce different solutions to ongoing economic, socio-cultural and political issues. Women’s entrepreneurship has emerged as an important solution toward gender equality and economic development.Design/methodology/approach– Using two women’s organizations that exemplify secular and Islamic feminist ideologies, the author examines whether the entrepreneurship activities they promote give way to challenging patriarchal norms, values and practices widespread in Turkish society.Findings– Through their distinct practices and engagement with entrepreneurship, both secular and Islamic feminist positions allow for praxis and represent an ethico-political commitment to dismantling neo-liberal development ideologies in the Turkish context that perpetuate gender inequality.Social implications– Secular and Islamic feminist practices and entrepreneurship practices have different implications for achieving gender equality including changes in gender norms, economic development policies and women’s empowerment in a Muslim-majority country. In addition, it raises questions around the popular notion of “entrepreneurship as women’s empowerment”.Originality/value– This paper is of value to scholars who want to understand secular and Islamic feminisms and their implications for challenging gender inequality. The Turkish context with its traditional and modern societal norms and values provides a rich case study to examine these issues through the exemplars of entrepreneurship. It is also of value to scholars who want to understand structural constraints associated with gender equality beyond individual-level challenges.

Miscarriage and Intercorporeality

Miscarriage and Intercorporeality

The world of Rituparno Ghosh: texts, contexts and transgressions

In this article we introduce the queer Bengali auteur Rituparno Ghosh (1961–2013), who had a significant role in reviving the Bengali film industry that was going through a dark phase for a little more than a decade. As an iconic feminist film-maker and queer cultural figure, Ghosh has been an influential icon within Bengal and more widely in India and the diasporas. In seeking to examine his vast oeuvre of work we focus on its various elements. First, we examine Ghosh’s feminist position, and how he shocked his middle-class audience through his transgressive discourses. Second, we investigate the influence and inspiration he received from figures such as Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath Tagore. We argue that Tagore’s sensibility and philosophy imbued all his films. In doing this he was also uncritically referencing the other great Bengali film-maker Satyajit Ray. Third, an examination of Ghosh is incomplete without referencing his uninhibited performance of queerness both in his films and in the public domain. Over here we look at his final queer film trilogy but also the impact he left on Calcutta’s LGBT community. Finally, this article ends by focusing on Ghosh’s legacy on other Bengali film-makers.

Feminist Perceptions and the Challenges for Women’s Education in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in the 21st Century

This article aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion about women’s education. Conflicting discourses, regarding the positions of women as student learners, create an educational challenge that faces the GCC countries in the 21 st century. This study explores the prevalent feminist positions in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and presents the findings to the public and to decision makers in KSA. The data is generated in two ways: focus group and a questionnaire. Aside from the information they yield, the results of the focus group interviews were used to develop a questionnaire that was distributed among students from various departments at King Abdelaziz University women’s main campus. The article finally discusses the results of this survey and also explores the debatable concepts of fairness vs. equality in the context of the findings. Keywords: women, feminism, education, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, feminist perception, pro-Islamic feminism, pro-western feminism

Igualdad, equidad, diferencia:análisis de categorías conceptuales que ayudan a fundamentar una revisión del tema del ingreso universitario

The present work runs on the review of the conceptual categories equality, equal opportunity, equity, difference and inclusion, which are implicit in ideological positions supported by educational policies. For considering them to be pertinent, they are articulated with the approaches worked in the University Admission in Argentina. The study is fixed to the analysis of the admission in the Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry teacher training faculty in a science academic unit of a public university. It is observed a procedure of entry in which the teacher training faculty remains subject to homogenizing moulds with which continues teaching without adapting itself to a new subject in a changing society. The post modern revision suggests that the liberal and neo-liberal positions, translated into the practices, purposefully seek to conserve positions. It is advocated for its improvement and solutions are risked on the matter.

Elastic, Yet Unyielding: The U.S.-Mexico Border and Anzaldúa’s Oppositional Rearticulations of the Frontier

Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of mestiza consciousness is presented in this article as a form of epistemology that makes non-binary and non-discriminatory reinterpretations of the Western concept of the border possible. Anzaldúa’s rearticulation of the U.S.-Mexican border is contrasted with established U.S. national myths of westward expansion. The writer’s project is further illustrated by a gender- and race-sensitive analysis of the poem “We Call Them Greasers,” carried out from a postcolonial perspective and a feminist position.

The Uncanny Sacrifice: Sex Trafficking in Chris Abani's Becoming Abigail

This article argues that Abani's representation of sex trafficking aligns with the variously classified human rights/sex work/liberal feminist positions on trafficking and shows that the novella stages its intervention into anti-trafficking debates at the ideological level through the protagonist's rejection of the stereotypes surrounding the trafficking victim in mainstream discourse and policy. Moreover, the novella's critique of the moralistic and neocolonial agendas of many mainstream anti-trafficking positions is examined.

Different relational models underlie prototypical left and right positions on social issues

AbstractSocial issues are important dividing lines in the “culture wars” between the political left and right. Despite much research into social issue stance and ideology, little research has explored these with Relational Models Theory (RMT). RMT proposes four distinct models that people use to construe social relations, each entailing distinct moral considerations. In two studies, participants read summaries of the models, rated how relevant each was to their positions on several social issues (e.g., capital punishment), and expressed issue positions. In Study 1, Communal Sharing and Equality Matching construals predicted prototypical liberal positions across a range of issues; Authority Ranking and Market Pricing construals predicted prototypical conservative positions. By using multilevel modelling in Study 2, individual differences in average Communal Sharing and Authority Ranking construals predicted prototypical liberal and conservative positions, respectively, independent of several factors known to predict social issue stance. In issue‐specific analyses (e.g., focusing on euthanasia), all models showed effects independent of self‐reported ideology, while for certain issues (same‐sex marriage, animal testing, gun control, and flag burning), issue construal using different models predicted opposing positions, implicating relational models in moral disagreement. This paper provides novel tests of Relationship Regulation Theory and suggests that RMT is relevant in understanding political ideology, social issue stance, and moral judgement. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Projects Suggestion for Maritime Industry under Korea-Turkey FTA

Korea and Turkey concluded FTA of goods trade in 2013 and service trade in 2014. Although both parties have taken liberal position in maritime sector in the international negotiations such as GATS, WTO-DDA, and TISA, Korea undertook commitment of 11 sub-sectors in maritime industry in Korea-Turkey FTA; Turkey 4 sub-sectors including passenger transportation, freight transportation, ship maintenance and management, rental of vessels. Therefore Korean related businesses obtained additional legal base for entering into maritime trade, chartering business, ship maintenance and management and cruise in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Middle East. In addition, Turkish shipping companies can use potential of new business in North-east Asia and the Black Sea regions. Analysing each commitment schedule of maritime services of both countries in GATS, WTO-DDA and Korea-Turkey FTA, the present paper tries to find mutually benefitting points in which both parties can enjoy the fruits of FTA in maritime services. The present paper suggests some collaborative agendas of the maritime industry between the two countries under Korea -Turkey FTA, covering a joint venture of shipping for project cargoes between Asia and the Black Sea.

Alte und neue Polarisierungen. Zur aktuellen Kontroverse über die Prostitution

The essay reconstructs the recent controversial debate on prostitution in Germany, reaching from a rigid position of prohibition to extremely liberal positions of groups, claiming prostitution as part of a modern sexual culture, if prostitutes can work without coercion. The immediate background of this debate is the reform of the German legislation of 2002, but beneath it lays the unresolved problem of situating prostitution in modernized gender relations. The essay follows these deficiencies through theories of prostitution and sexuality and pleads for the opening of the debate instead of a policy of prohibition.

Assessing Mass Opinion Polarization in the US Using Relative Distribution Method

Through an analysis of the cumulative data of the American National Election Studies between 1984 and 2008, this study presents evidence of growing mass polarization in terms of standard ANES measures of ideological orientation using the public policy issue dimensions. The empirical findings here suggest that the degree of polarization among US citizens increased as the distributional center of measures of political ideology have progressively declined, though the opinion distribution of the later periods do not dramatically exhibit a text-book style polarized distribution (e.g., bimodal distribution). According to the findings, attitudes toward government guarantees have shifted back and forth between more liberal and more conservative positions while public opinion on cultural issues has generally moved more liberal positions over years.

From species ethics to social concerns: Habermas's critique of "liberal eugenics" evaluated.

Three arguments of Habermas against "liberal eugenics" -- the arguments from consent, responsibility, and instrumentalization -- are critically evaluated and explicated in the light of his discourse ethics and social theory. It is argued that these arguments move partly at a too deep level and are in part too individualistic and psychological to sufficiently counter the liberal position that he sets out to criticize. This is also due to limitations that prevent discourse ethics from connecting effectively to the moral and political domains, e.g., through a discussion of justice. In spite of these weaknesses, Habermas's thesis is of major relevance and brings up neglected issues in the discussion about eugenic reproductive practices. This relevance has not been duly recognized in bioethics, largely because of the depth of his speculations of philosophical anthropology. It is argued that Habermas's notion of the colonization of the lifeworld could provide the analytical tool needed to build that bridge to the moral and political domain.

Communism, Federalism, and Ethnic Minorities: Explaining Party Competition Patterns in Eastern Europe

Scholarship on East European politics expects that party competition in the region is determined by various communist legacies, juxtaposing state-centric authoritarianism to a liberal market economy. Recent empirical evidence, however, uncovers significant variance of party competition patterns across East European countries. To explain this variance, this article argues that an interaction between communist institutional framework and partisan responses to ethnic minorities determines party competition structure in the region. While experience with communist federalism determines partisan affinities with ethnic minorities, tolerance or support for ethnic minorities leads the political actors associated with those minorities to general socially liberal positions. Consequently—and contrary to received knowledge—ethnic politics influence the ideological content of party competition and structure party systems in Eastern Europe.

A progressive strategy for Bioethics

In this paper, we aim to show that behind the utilization of a progressive rhetoric always lies a progressive existential behavior. Therefore, starting from the linguistic level of rhetoric, we move to the anthropological one. Here we present three fundamental elements for promoting a progressive strategy for bioethics: 1. to strongly desire that the world should develop in a specific way, which represents the starting point for any further progressive attitude towards life. For this reason, we react against any standardized way of thinking, which really destroy the necessity of a personal thinking; 2. to have a long-term-mission in bioethics, or “Meta-Project”. The Meta-Project shows a clear target and orients every single project toward the global target; 3. to translate medieval terms of the debate into more understandable and common terms. It is a worthwhile goal, if bioethics wish for a real dialogue with modern sensitivity. In conclusion, we underline the importance of having a deep and personal way of thinking, from which a progressive attitude towards life should properly grow. For this reason, the analytic methodology may help in facing classical problems.

A Feminist Position on Sharing Governmental Power and Forging Citizenship in Cyprus: Proposals for the Ongoing Peace Negotiations

On 12 August 2013, a feminist stood up at a podium and declared that she would work for the benefit of ‘everyone living in Cyprus, [irrespective] of language, religion, race, birthplace, class, age, physical ability, gender, or sexual orientation, to create an environment of fairness and equality, to replace the culture of conflict and violence with that of peace and reconciliation, while staying committed to the principles of democracy, social welfare, human rights and freedoms, and to establish a federal Cypriot state’. Her words were noted because the podium was a parliamentary one, albeit internationally shunned since it represents the unrecognised Turkish Cypriot state in northern Cyprus, and because the context in which she uttered them was her swearing-in ceremony as a newly elected people’s representative. The session was stopped mid-oath, live broadcasts went silent, questions of ‘treason’ were raised, and she reappeared, reading the ‘normal’ oath. Dogus Derya later stated that she had wanted to swear according to her conscience and principles first, before reading out the given script. In Cyprus, this was the first of such public reformulations of constitutional tenets (isn’t this what a legislature oath points to?). It remains to be seen how they might be followed up, especially in the current context of recently resumed peace negotiations.

¿Utopía o leviatán? El papel del Estado en el magisterio social y en el pensamiento liberal

La actual situación de crisis nos obliga a preguntarnos sobre los límites del Estado de bienestar de las sociedades occidentales. De cara a iluminar esta reflexión este artículo presenta la reflexión sobre el papel del Estado en la sociedad tal como se ha desarrollado en el magisterio social. Para ayudar a concretar estas intuiciones a continuación se ponen en diálogo con dos pensadores de la escuela liberal: Friedrich Hayek y Amartya Sen. Este diálogo nos ayudará a entender la incompatibilidad de la postura del magisterio social con posiciones liberales radicales por suponer éstas una visión del hombre y de la sociedad opuesta a la de la tradición social católica. Por otra parte, la visión de Sen sí resulta muy compatible y nos puede ayudar a desarrollar principios de discernimiento para juzgar la presencia del Estado en la sociedad.

The Role of Religious Reasons in a Liberal Democracy

There is a long tradition of political thought that takes the use of religious reasons for supporting public policy to be a violation of one’s duties as a citizen. I refer to this as the ‘liberal position.’ But is this line of thought correct? In this paper, I examine three philosophers’ views on the matter, before staking out my own. First, I examine the position of John Rawls, the most influential contemporary heir of the liberal tradition. Then, I look towards Nicholas Wolterstorff for his charges against Rawls and this tradition, as well as his own view of the duties of citizens. Thirdly, I use Richard Rorty to examine how an antifoundationalist (like Wolterstorff) might respond to Wolterstorff in defense of the liberal position. Finally, I offer my own position, which uses the virtue of agreeableness to strike a balance between Wolterstorff and Rorty. The thrust of my argument is that this debate should transfer from one concerned with “religious” versus “secular” reasons to one concerned with fundamentalist versus pragmatist attitudes.

Contra Sartre: El marxismo estructuralista de López Aranguren y los límites de la Transición

This essay explains that López-Aranguren’s intellectual relationship with Marxism is quite symptomatic of a whole generation of young but influential fascist figures that eventually evolved towards liberal and reformist positions. Although he never was a Marxist thinker, Aranguren published El marxismo como moral in 1968 as a strategic intervention in some of the cultural and political debates that galvanized the Spanish intellectual life during the last years of Franco’s regime. On one hand, it is evident that this philosopher did not want to lose any relevance among a young generation of (more or less) radicalized university students, writers and activists. Marxism was, in the late 1960s, the theoretical idiom to establish this dialogue. On the other hand, Aranguren did not sympathize with those humanist and existentialist trends of Marxism that had an important moral, behaviorist, operational, revolutionary and individual dimension. According to this thinker, who gained his philosophical prestige in the field of moral philosophy, one had to purge Marxism of its ethical, utopian, and even emotional-psychological aspects in order to embrace a more sober, austere, realist, and limited version of this school of thought. Aranguren found this version in Althusser’s recently and successfully published texts in Paris. However, Aranguren’s approach to Althusser is revealingly idiosyncratic since its function in El marxismo como moral consists in emphasizing a centrist type of political possibilism that could counteract a left-wing, radical Marxism, eager to conceive the end of the dictatorship as a revolutionary opportunity for a voluntarist and collective political subjectivity.