Real Opposition Research Articles

“Platon contre Homère” : l’antagonisme des mensonges selon Nietzsche

Nietzsche's obsession with Plato has little parallel in the history of philosophy other than Plato's obsession with Homer. In both cases, admiration is matched by exasperation and, if we are to believe Nietzsche, even by “aversion” (KSA 11, 25 [103]). From his earliest works in Basel, Nietzsche seems to have sided with Homer, with “the whole Olympus of appearances” (GS, Preface for the Second Edition, § 4) and superficiality “out of profundity”, against Plato, “a man of many back caves and foregrounds” (KSA 11, 34 [66]). “Plato versus Homer: that is the complete, the genuine antagonism”, On the Genealogy of Morals solemnly sums up (GM, III, § 25). It sounds like a declaration of war. On the one hand, the will to truth and belief in morals ; on the other, the will to deception and beautiful, misleading images: two “natural antagonists”, two competing ideals. But how does the anti-dualist thinker of Beyond Good and Evil, who rejects any idea of real opposition, understand this antagonism? Is it really a question of pitting art against science? According to Nietzsche, the school of lies is where these formidable educators clash, their battle of models shaping European culture. “But education for what?” (KSA 12, 5 [50]). It is by learning from Homeric transfiguration and Socratic ruses that Nietzsche develops his understanding of the oppositional logic of the will to power, and raises the question of the future task of the authentic philosopher.

An Empirical Study on Roles and Their Information Correlations for Interdisciplinary Peer Reviewer

Peer review has always been known as the gatekeeper for the academic quality of papers. Traditional peer review is mostly carried out in a singular discipline, while peer review for interdisciplinary scientific research must go across the boundaries of multiple disciplines, and there is a real opposition between disciplines ‘differentiation’ and ‘de-differentiation.’ Due to this opposition, the practice of interdisciplinary peer review has more research value. Through an empirical study using Publons data, this article introduces the role theory from sociology as a theoretical support, studies role characteristic information of interdisciplinary peer reviewers, extracts their roles, measures the gaps between the roles according to their correlations, and proposes countermeasures to narrow the gaps through role construction to improve the quality of peer review in general. Specifically, this study adopts the empirical analysis method to obtain the behavioural characteristics data of the reviewers in the top 1 per cent in Cross-Field of the Global Peer Review Awards in 2018 and 2019 from the Publons platform and uses the exploratory factor analysis method to extract the roles of the reviewers. Using structural equation modelling to fit the role information association model, the authors compare and analyse the data models of 2018 and 2019 by using the comparative analysis method. The results found are as follows: The ‘researcher’ role, ‘reviewer’ role, and ‘editor’ role are all positively correlated, and the correlations are getting higher. It indicates that the correlations between the three are getting stronger, which will make transitioning between roles less difficult.

Deliberative democracy and the digital public sphere: Asymmetrical fragmentation as a political not a technological problem

Deliberative democracy and the digital public sphere: Asymmetrical fragmentation as a political not a technological problem

A Sociological Analysis of the Social Role of Female Artists during COVID-19

During the pandemic, artists have created new works, initiated political actions and civil activism, supporting the health prevention policy with the “I stay at home” campaign, but also organizing, at a later stage, protest movements, in defence of the right to perform one’s work, broadening the criticisms to a macro vision: in defence of the environment and the weakest groups, against violence against women, increased by 30%, for aid to immigrants, in denouncing urban marginality (street art), and the depopulation of small towns. The lack of attention on the part of politics, in Italy, and in other European countries, has then generated real opposition movements, an exemplary case being the song “Danser encore,” whose lyrics expressed a protest against government-imposed restrictions, and which turned into flash mob events in many countries. The depoliticization of contemporary art, of which Yves Michaud wrote, is a past concept, because we can see artistic movements shifting towards the safeguarding of universal rights and duties, up to the latest interpretations of what justice is and how to overcome social inequalities according to the visions of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.

Everybody wants to be a manager: On masculinity, microfascism and the manosphere

ABSTRACT The emergence of the manosphere with its online promotion of a blinkered view of masculinity associated with the alt-right, its hostility to feminism and explicit misogyny has been characterized as aberrant in relation to mainstream psychological and cultural values. Partly expanding on Guattari’s Everybody Wants to be a Fascist, this paper argues that there is instead a profound continuity between the two. They both share an ideology of resilience: a misleading notion dominating current representations of masculinity. They both share the ideology of dataism, i.e. the view that the world can be reduced to abstracted data and measurable logic. They both share practices of microfascism, i.e. a yearning for more management, order and control in relation to the intrinsic ambivalence of being human. In our post-civil-rights era of identity politics, white ‘injured’ masculinity masquerades as a ‘different’ and ‘marginalized’ identity in relation to which the bland slogans of woke capitalism and woke consumer-culture present no real opposition. At present, most cultural representations of masculinity are essentialist. Can psychotherapy theory and practice help construct new representations of masculinity as performative, fluid and as a turning point to a deeper form of inquiry?

Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 and Prospects of the Belarusian Statehood

One of the most important outcomes of the First World War was the collapse of empires that existed in Central and Eastern Europe. The Entente countries and the United States at the final stage of the war put forward the slogan of the right of nations to self-determination. This created prerequisites for building of their statehood by a number of peoples of the region. Belarusians were among them. The BPR (Belarusian People's republic) and SSRB were proclaimed. The process of formation of the Belarusian national statehood took place in the context of new system of international relations formation and its success largely depended on foreign policy conditions. The main elements of a new international order for Europe were laid down at the Paris Conference. The "Belarusian" question did not receive an independent sound in Paris. The interests of Belarus were touched upon when the participants of the conference discussed "Polish" and "Russian" issues that were closely related to each other. The problem of defining the Polish eastern borders was of crucial importance for Belarus. The Entente states stood for the formation of an independent Polish state within ethnic borders. This created prerequisites for preserving the territorial integrity of Belarus. However, the Polish ruling circles overcame the negative attitude of the Entente towards the expansion of Poland beyond its ethnic borders with the help of a fait accompli policy. At the same time, the Poles positioned the concept of the federation in front of the Entente as realization of the right of the "Eastern Kresy" peoples, including Belarusians, to self-determination. The Polish expansion to the east did not meet real opposition from the Entente, as it was interested in Poland as an anti-Bolshevik force, an element of the "sanitary cordon". The BNR delegation, which arrived in Paris, did not find support from Western politicians in recognizing the independence of the Belarusian state. The decisions of the Paris Conference provided for the preservation of the integrity of Belarus, but not as an independent state, but as part of Russia.

The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Political Situation in France before 2022 Elections

The article explores the political situation in modern France the year before the next presidential election. It is revealed that during Emmanuel Macron’s presidency, a social divide between wealthy and poor social groups has taken root in the country manifested in the “yellow vests” movement and a wide-range public disagreement with the reforms proposed by the government. The negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which overlapped with the previous contradictions and aggravated them, is discussed. The article also shows that, apart from the “National Rally”, no other political forces now represent a real opposition to Macron’s policy, thus helping him to keep relatively high chances for re-election. This is especially true in case of two traditional parties – the Republicans and the Socialists – which have suffered from a profound internal crisis. In conclusion, regarding a likely contest between Macron and Le Pen in 2022, prospects of changes in domestic and foreign policy of France after the election are formulated. The author concludes that even in the “Le Pen wins” scenario, any innovations will have a limited impact, taking into account the role of continuity in the French state policy and the growing moderation of the far right platform.

POWER, OPPOSITION AND SOCIAL MEDIA IN RUSSIA

In this article, the relations and contradictions between the opposition, social media, and power in Russia are examined. These relations and contradictions were considered important in terms of pointing out the function of social media in authoritarian regimes. The article presents the subject from an objective point of view. First of all, the definition of opposition in Russia and the concept of ‘real opposition’ is discussed. Indeed, in order to understand what real opposition especially in Russia is, it is necessary to understand what it is not. Then, by using the descriptive analysis method, it is revealed what social media means for both opposition and Kremlin. Power categorically sees social media as an instrument of an ideological war against itself. According to the Kremlin, social media is an “American mischief.” On the other hand, social media is accepted as the only option for the opposition, who are almost completely devoid of traditional media opportunities. Therefore, social media discussions continue on the axis of westernism-Americanism in terms of power. In terms of opposition, social media discussions are handled within the framework of freedom of expression, and social media is seen as the ‘last castle’.

Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality by Uygar Abaci

Reviewed by: Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality by Uygar Abaci Ralf M. Bader Uygar Abaci. Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 287. Cloth, $85.00. Uygar Abaci's Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality starts with a helpful and illuminating historical contextualization of Kant's theory of modality. It sets out the ontotheological debates that form the backdrop of Kant's pre-Critical modal theorizing. Abaci covers the proofs of the existence of God by Anselm and Descartes, as well as Leibniz and Wolff. The first two start from the idea of God as the ens perfectissimum and then try to establish the existence of God by arguing that existence is a perfection. The last two, by contrast, consider God to be the ens necessarium, such that God exists necessarily, provided the concept of God is not self-contradictory; they then attempt to establish the possibility of God by identifying the ens necessarium with the ens perfectissimum, which allows them to argue that this concept only contains positive predicates that cannot contradict each other. [End Page 334] The second part of Abaci's book covers Kant's pre-Critical modal theory, both his critique of the ontological argument in terms of existence not being a real predicate and his own attempt to establish the existence of God in "The Only Possible Ground of Proof for a Demonstration of the Existence of God" of 1763 (OPA). Kant is standardly taken to depart decisively from his logicist predecessors by introducing a conception of real modality in the OPA. Once real possibility is not merely a matter of conformity to the logical law of noncontradiction and, correspondingly, real necessity is not a matter of logical necessity, room opens up for Kant's argument that, even though God's existence is not logically necessary (given that existence is not a real predicate), it is nevertheless really necessary, since God is the ground of all possibility such that God's non-existence would cancel all possibility. Abaci argues that Leibniz and Wolff already had a conception of real modality and that Kant's pre-Critical work on modality is, accordingly, merely revisionary and belongs to the same paradigm as that of his predecessors. He correctly points out that some rationalists, most notably Leibniz, accepted material conditions on possibility in the form of an actualist principle, according to which every possibility must be grounded in something actual. These material conditions, however, have no bearing on what possibility consists in—that is, on what it is to be possible—but only on which things are possible. In other words, they concern what material there is to which the conditions of possibility can apply. A genuine account of real modality would also include nonlogical formal conditions on what it is to be possible, something that neither Leibniz nor Wolff countenances. Attributing a conception of real modality to them is thus somewhat tenuous. Abaci's claim that Kant's OPA theory is broadly continuous with that of his predecessors can nevertheless be sustained. In particular, one might think that Kant himself does not have a genuine conception of real modality in the OPA and that this is one of the crucial innovations of his Critical modal theory. Abaci provides strong arguments against the standard interpretation that Kant recognizes metaphysical incompatibilities in the OPA. He nicely illustrates how real opposition, which involves opposed grounds that cancel each other's consequences, implies a logical contradiction in the case of the ens realissimum, insofar as real opposition results in a lack or defect that is logically incompatible with having all perfections to a maximal degree, thereby illustrating that countenancing real opposition need not imply countenancing real modality. Whereas Abaci considers the pre-Critical modal theory to be merely revisionary, he finds its Critical counterpart revolutionary (though he recognizes that the core ideas are already, at least implicitly, present in the OPA and that their systematic development naturally leads to the Critical modal theory—in fact, Abaci nicely sets out how theorizing about real modality plays an important instrumental role in prompting the Critical turn). The third part of the book comprehensively covers the core...

Некоторые особенности демократизации государственно-политической системы в республиках Северного Кавказа в постсоветский период

This article reveals the features and main trends of the process of democratization of the statepolitical system in the North Caucasus republics in the post-Soviet period. It is noted that the state-political systems of the North Caucasus republics are characterized by both democratic and authoritarian tendencies. The author emphasizes that in recent decades, the opportunities for democratic change of the political elite in the North Caucasus region have been significantly limited, which is primarily due to changes in legislation at the Russian and regional levels, primarily related to the actual abolition of direct national elections of heads of republics and municipalities. The national republics of the North Caucasus are characterized by a high concentration of power in the hands of top officials, which is due to the poorly established work of government bodies with appeals from citizens, the inefficiency of public chambers, the underdevelopment of the middle class, the unstructured civil society, and the lack of an effective multi-party system that can form a real opposition.

اتفاقیة القواعد العسکریة عام 1947م بین الولایات المتحدة الأمریکیة والفلبین

تعد اتفاقية القواعد العسکرية الموقعة بين الولايات المتحدة الأمريکية والفلبين عام 1947م ترجمة حقيقية لحالة التقارب بين الدولتين، ورغبة کل منهما في تحقيق المصالح المشترکة بينهما. وبينما کانت الفلبين تطالب بالاستقلال عن الولايات المتحدة الأمريکية في منتصف ثلاثينيات القرن العشرين کان الخطر الياباني آخذا في التعاظم بمنطقة الشرق الأقصى، وبدت الفلبين بالنسبة للولايات المتحدة الأمريکية خط الدفاع الأول في مواجهة الأطماع اليابانية. لذا؛ أخذت الولايات المتحدة الأمريکية في وضع ترتيبات دفاعية معهم لإقامة قواعد عسکرية جديدة؛ حتي وقع الهجوم الياباني علي أراضيهم عام 1941م. وقد تلاقت المصالح بين الدولتين بصورة کبيرة بعد نجاح الولايات المتحدة الأمريکية في اخراج الوجود الياباني من الأراضي الفلبينية عام 1945ولتبدأ مرحلة جديدة في العلاقات بين الدولتين تمثلت في الدخول في مفاوضات خاصة بالتوقيع علي اتفاقية القواعد عام 1947م . هذا وقد اثبتت المفاوضات الخاصة بالاتفاقية نجاح الولايات المتحدة الأمريکية في تحقيق عدد من الأهداف ؛ من خلال حل المسائل الخلافية، بما يضمن الحفاظ علي جوهر الاتفاقية، لخدمة الأهداف الأمريکية، وإقناع الفلبينيين بأهمية القواعد للحفاظ على أمنهم، وإبعاد صفة الهيمنة الأمريکية على أراضيهم. ولم تلق اتفاقية القواعد العسکرية الموقعة عام 1947م أية معارضة حقيقية على المستويين الرسمي والشعبي؛ نتيجة لوجود رغبة فلبينية في الحصول على الحماية الأمريکية في مواجهة الأخطار الخارجية، واستمرار بقائها في بؤرة الاهتمام الامريکي. الکلمات المفتاحية: اتفاقية، الاستراتيجية، المفاوضات، القدرات العسکرية، الأطماع التوسعية، اتفاقيات، التقارب، مواقع، المصالح المشترکه. Military Bases Agreement in 1947 Between the USA and the Philippines Wail Mohammed Mahmoud Ali El-Refae Assistant professor of Modern History- Faculty of Arts-King Faisal University. Email: wael.m.elrefae@gmail.com Abstract: This paper examines the 1947 Military Bases Agreement between the United States of America and Philippines, which constitutes a true interpretation of the state of accord between the two countries, and their common desire to achieve shared interests. While the Philippines was seeking independence from the United States of America in mid of 1930s; the Japanese threat was growing in the Far East region, thus Philippines seemed to the United States of America as the first line of defence in the face of Japanese ambitions. Consequently, The United States of America arranged defence arrangements with Philippines to establish new military bases; Until the Japanese attack on their lands in 1941 AD. The two countries had mutual interests grown greatly after the success of the United States of America in dismissing the Japanese presence from the Philippine lands in 1945; thus a new stage in the relations between the two countries commenced, which was represented in commencement of negotiations for the military bases agreement in 1947. The negotiations on this agreement proved the success of the United States of America in achieving several goals, through solving the quarrelsome issues, to keep the kernel of the agreement, in order to serve the American objectives, and, at the same time, convince the Filipinos of the importance of the Us Basses to preserve their security, as well as to eliminate the feature of American hegemony on their lands. The Military Bases Agreement signed in 1947 did not face any real opposition at the official and popular levels, due to the Philippine desire to acquire American protection in the face of external dangers, and ensure their continuous existence on focus of US attention. Key words: agreement, strategy, negotiations, military capabilities, expansionist ambitions, agreements, convergence, positions, common interests.

COVID-19, Economic Depression, and the Black Lives Matter Protests

Crisis reveals the fault lines in society. COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on our health and killing us in large numbers, bringing with it the most massive and steep economic collapse in U.S. history. Then, there was the murder of George Floyd and the resulting astonishing global protests against racism. Anyone can see that capitalism, facing no real opposition in decades, has reverted to its default position: only profit rules us and those with money will beat down those with none, without mercy or remorse.

DOVEVA MORIRE? L'ATTENTATO DI ZANIBONI A MUSSOLINI: FRA VERITà E MENZOGNE

The purpose of this work is to demonstrate the political weakness of the socialist party in the face of fascism, its compliance and inability to organize a real opposition, left to individual initiative, easy to control and exploit. To this end, we focus on Zaniboni's attack on Mussolini, an isolated and desperate gesture that highlighted the lack of a true opposition policy. The present essay then analyzes both the pacification pact of 1921 signed by fascists and socialists and the genesis of the attack and its organization are analyzed. This attack was the first of four, all in 1926. From the beginning it appeared so anomalous that the international press spoke of a farce; in fact it was soon learned that the security services knew everything, indeed they had partly facilitated it. Mussolini was very skilled in managing the attack, useful both to demonstrate the need for restrictive measures, and to demonstrate the political irrelevance of the opposition, which even reached terrorism: the same night the unitary socialist party and the invisible Masonic Lodges were dissolved. to Mussolini. In the conclusions, thanks to the documents recovered in the state archive, the figure of the bomber is resized: not a man who lives his detention with pride, without the shadow of a doubt or an afterthought, but a man left alone, grateful to the Duce for the financial help given to his daughter, to make her follow her studies. For this reason he said he was ready to “make himself available”.

With a Permanently Pro-cyclical Fiscal Policy We Could Lose Democracy and Monetary Policy

This article shows that if, in a young democracy with weak institutions, one and the same party governs in virtually all upswings of the business cycle and promotes each time pro-cyclical fiscal policies, three serious negative effects emerge. The first is the loss of fiscal policy; fiscal policy remains pro-cyclical during the downturn as well, deepening the recession and extending the period in which output stays below potential. The second effect is the loss of democracy; unable to use fiscal policy to help exit the recession and speed up economic growth, the parties governing during downturns compounded by the pro-cyclicality of fiscal policies are perceived by the public as impotent and are penalized accordingly through a lower share of parliamentary seats, until the party that governs exclusively during business cycle upturns finds itself without a real opposition. The third effect is the loss of conventional monetary policy, manifesting if interest rates and inflation are low when recession sets in. Under these circumstances, lowering the monetary policy rate to zero might no longer suffice to stimulate the exit from recession and the quick return of output to its potential level, leaving central banks no option but to resort to unconventional monetary policies, such as quantitative easing.

The Political Economy of Primary Education: Lessons from Rwanda

Summary When it comes to the state’s ability to deliver services to the poor, politics matter. This paper applies a political settlements framework to examine primary education quality in Rwanda. Formal education features prominently into the post-genocide government’s social and economic development project. Rwanda’s political elite have staked their claim in the development of the country, one which is relatively free from rent-seeking. But education quality remains surprisingly low. Enrollment has surged, but primary school dropout and repetition are high. Most children have not acquired age-appropriate literacy or numeracy skills. We sought to investigate why the education sector hasn’t done better in terms of improving quality than we might have expected. This paper draws from interviews and literature review to investigate how policy development and implementation shape the provision of quality education. Our study finds that education priorities were as much political as they were developmental. A lack of real opposition or pushback enabled the government to introduce profoundly transformative educational policies, such as switching the language of instruction from French to English. Often these decisions occurred outside the sector’s strategic planning processes. Performance-based incentives tended to focus on aspects of quality that are measurable, such as the construction of classrooms, rather than improving the capacity of the teaching workforce. We did not find evidence of an effective, sustained strategy to improve education quality. It is thus debatable to what extent Rwanda’s approach can be considered as inclusive development when quality for most children remains so low. This study makes an empirical contribution through evaluating how the education sector has been situated within Rwanda’s broader political settlement, what kinds of outcomes it has led to, and why. It also makes a theoretical contribution by understanding the nature of the relationship between the national political settlement and the education sector.

O sądach wojskowych dla osób cywilnych w Polsce (1946)

At the end of WWII (1944), Polish citizens living on Polish territory were judged predominantly by the military courts of the Soviet Red Army and of Soviet secret security forces – NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs). In addition to that, Polish civilians were judged by the military courts of the Polish Army entering Poland from the east, from the Soviet Union. The military court system of the Polish Army was in fact under the control of the Soviet Union. As the war finished, the martial law was officially finished on 17 December 1945. And in January 1946, the communist regime set up military courts for civilians in each administrative district. Those military courts for civilians were dealing exclusively with the civilians and not with the military staff – neither officers nor soldiers – affairs. They had a special task: to fulfill the concept of the class struggle and to physically destroy the opposition – both real opposition and fictional one. Military courts were following the orders of the communist party and finished their activity in 1955. They were the most important and the most tragic institutional phenomenon in the whole history of the so-called judicial system of communist People’s Poland.

L’extension de la conscription des Juifs dans l’Europe napoléonienne

The conscription of the Jews in republican France was linked to equality of the civil rights. Napoleon, willing to give more consideration to religions, made military service the crucible of national identity and at the same time a religious duty, first not allowing exemption to the draft by replacement for Jews, then reversing this policy. The extension of the conscription of the Jews in Napoleonic Europe generated various models, often inspired by imperial France, but trying more and more to free themselves from a system which did not always suit Judaism. The conscription of the Jews aroused in Poland a real opposition because the Jewish community was important, of a traditional religious spirit, and furthermore did not enjoy full civic rights. Holland and Westphalia, whose kings were Napoleon’s brothers, had different policies, levying an entirely Jewish unit in Holland, complete integration of the Jews in the military apparatus, with high offices for some of them, in Westphalia.

The Law of Politics and the Politics of Law: The Changing Relationships Between the Political Branches and the Legal Institutions in Israel

The paper tells the story of Israel’s public legal institutions, particularly the Supreme Court and the Attorney General office, their increasing pivotal role in collective decision making and their relationship with the political branches of government – the law of politics and the politics of law. Between 1948 and the 1990s the public legal institutions in Israel established and crystalized their independence and, invigorated by the high public’s trust (the Supreme Court, until recently, enjoyed the highest approval rate by the public, save the IDF, among all public institutions), gradually and significantly increased their input into public decision-making, and their review of government and of other political institutions. This gradual process has not met real opposition or resistance by the political branches until the 1990s. However, in the last two decades increasing tensions have arouse between the political branches and the public legal institutions, especially the Israeli Supreme Court, which prompted increasing attempts by politicians to curtail the powers, independence and influence of state legal institutions. These resulted recently with a more conservative and deferent approach of the legal institutions, which could affect the vigor of Israel’s liberal democracy.

Why do Helvétius's writings matter? Rousseau’s Notes sur De l’esprit

ABSTRACTDe l’esprit was read and commented on by Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire, in 1758. So was De l’homme when it appeared posthumously in 1773. We will go into this series of books, marginalia, and refutations, to address the question: what exactly was widely discussed between the three authors during the 1750s? Is it ‘materialism’? Our first point is to interpret the potential distortions, re-workings or re-appropriations in Rousseau’s marginalia, known as Notes sur De l’esprit, especially here about the so-called theory of passive judgement. We will then see that there certainly is, in the discussion between Rousseau and Helvétius, a real opposition on the question of matter and its properties, as the examination of the Favre manuscript and the revised version of Émile would easily prove it. But this question is not the key to Rousseau’s first reaction to Helvétius's De l’esprit. I shall focus on the moral and anthropological dimensions of the discussion in the Notes. From this point of view, we will suggest that the experience of real friendship has been part of the refutation of Helvétius by both Rousseau and Diderot, even long after their former very close friendship had been so definitely broken.

Understanding the Resurgence of Traditional Authorities in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Drawing their power not from the ballot box but from a supposedly ancient wellspring of power, hereditary traditional authorities in postcolonial Africa have frequently posed challenges for incoming ‘democratic’ governments. The situation in post-apartheid South Africa is no different. However contentious their role under the colonial and apartheid systems of government was, the Constitution of the new South Africa (1996) recognised traditional authorities and afforded them opportunities for a political resurgence. This article reviews the changing status of traditional authorities in the Eastern Cape province over the 20 years since 1994. It explores the resurgence of the chiefs in relation to the consolidation of democratic processes and of emergent, neo-patrimonial modes of government. It briefly considers the role of traditional authorities in three key and closely related spheres, namely the institution of the Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders, the question of how gender is handled by and within traditional institutions, and the continuing challenges of land administration and development in rural areas. In all these spheres, and in the face of real opposition, the voice and influence of traditional authorities have emerged stronger than ever. We conclude by suggesting that, as they are drawn deeper into governance and have to play a formal role in addressing the myriad institutional challenges, new questions will and should be asked about the status and influence of traditional authorities, and their substantive contribution to democracy in South Africa.