Reformist Position Research Articles

Tim Renkow’s <em>Jerk</em>: Cringe Comedy, Disability and Political Correctness

This paper examines how the British BBC 3 sitcom Jerk (2019–2023) challenges contemporary liberal orthodoxy, mobilising the comic license of its disabled protagonist to interrogate the social prescriptions that breed both hypocrisy and opportunism. Jerk examines the ways in which the codified structures of ‘correct politics’ can ultimately work against progressive aims: the ‘politics of injury’ defining minority groups by their trauma alone, and identity politics devolving into tribal thinking and niche marketing. Jerk’s plotlines examine howsupposedly reformist positions can reinforce stereotypes, expressive conventions learned by rote can obviate more complex examination of moral questions, and belief in liberal virtue can result in complacency and imperviousness. Jerk’s ‘cringe comedy’ thereby disrupts the piety around liberalpositions, reinforcing the right to challenge and critique.

An Aesthetics of Isolation: How Pudumaippittan Gave Pre-Eminence to the Tamil Short Story

The influential Tamil writer Pudumaippittan turned to the short story to theorise the relationship between literature and society in the late colonial era. He used the genre’s brevity to compress his portrayals of well-known female types—such as widows, prostitutes and goodwives—into singular emotional events. This enabled Pudumaippittan to evoke the wider debates about tradition and modernity that these female types commonly represented without affirming the social reformist positions to which they were linked. Through the short story, Pudumaippittan dislodged his portrayals of the Indian woman from existing gender norms, prompting a shift from social realism to modernist realism within the Tamil literary sphere.

‘Our Archaic System’: Debating and Reforming Military Justice in Argentina, 1905–35

AbstractThe treatment of draft dodgers and miscarriages of justice by Argentine military courts provoked mobilisations by families, communities and the major political parties. An examination of the debates and discussions around these issues reveals a widespread sentiment that rarely questioned neither the right of the armed forces to draft young men nor the legitimacy of the armed forces. By adopting the language of patriotism and civic obligation, individual and community petitioners and politicians who represented them challenged the state's broad claim of power over the bodies of young men from a reformist position. Military justice formed a critical platform through which citizens debated the meaning of citizenship and the place of the armed forces in society.

Global Reordering and China’s Rise: Adoption, Adaptation and Reform

While much of the debate over the implications of China’s rise tends to dichotomise around either status quo or revisionist predictions, the reality seems to lie somewhere in between. In broad terms, China has embraced multilateral forms of cooperation and governance. This does not mean, however, that it is satisfied with the distribution of power in many international institutions, or some of the norms and principles that underpin them. This has resulted in a reformist position, with China increasingly willing to offer its own supplementary alternatives. China’s rise has also provided an important economic alternative to dealing with the West, and considerably undermined the ability of others to establish their preferences and world views. China’s lack of commitment to democracy and the external promotion of human rights remains a key reason why some analysts remain unconvinced about the long-term ambitions of an illiberal actor in a global liberal order.

Reform and Revolution: Juvenile Detention Center Libraries in the 1970s

ABSTRACT Librarians working with incarcerated populations during the 1970s drew from and contributed to ongoing movements against oppression based on race, gender, and sexuality. These movements shaped the ideologies and actions of librarians working with incarcerated youth. Librarians' ideological approaches were not always articulated through publications. This article examines publications in special issues of library journals during this period alongside associational archives and the revolutionary newsletter Inside-Outside to interrogate how ideologies of reform or revolution shaped library practice in juvenile detention facilities during this time. Inherent in this undertaking is an evaluation of how mainstream avenues for publication and association proceedings may have favored reformist positions. Available publications and records that relate to juvenile detention center libraries in the 1970s are framed in a larger discussion of youth incarceration.

Emerging powers and the creation of the UN: three ships of Theseus

What role did the present emerging powers play in the creation of the United Nations? Drawing on Plutarch’s ‘ship of Theseus’ paradox, this article analyses how, and the extent to which, Brazilian, Chinese and Indian representatives influenced key debates leading up to the UN’s foundation. At the time Brazil was ruled by a fascist-inspired military regime, yet it had supported Allied efforts during World War II; China was split among Nationalists and Communists; and India was still a British colony. These national delegations reflected the main social and political struggles of their respective countries. While these three countries were able to influence the design, procedures and substance of the burgeoning organisation, their agency was limited by their primary focus on internal issues. By comparison, in the present era they have been able to extend their influence in global governance debates by coordinating certain reformist positions.

EU actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness in environmental affairs

ABSTRACTThis contribution analyses the actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness of the European Union (EU) in international environmental negotiations and examines the impact of the external context on the relationship between cohesiveness and effectiveness. Based on comparative data of nine international negotiations resulting in a multilateral environmental agreement, the paper shows that the EU's cohesiveness is higher in global negotiations than in regional ones. It argues that the relationship between cohesiveness and effectiveness is not straightforward, but is affected by the relative bargaining power and the relative position of the EU. When the EU's relative bargaining power is high, cohesiveness can be counterproductive for effectiveness, but a lack of cohesiveness is not a necessary condition for effectiveness. Furthermore, not having the most reformist position increases the likelihood of effectiveness for the EU; yet effectiveness can also be achieved with the most reformist position if the EU succeeds in making that position externally feasible.

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.

El Informe Linowitz y las relaciones Estados Unidos - América

The second Linowitz Report is a short document that was released in December 1976 by the "Commission on Relations between the United States and Latin America." It begins from the conclusions of the previous one and adds some new considerations and proposals for rectifications and improvements, especially in the economic area. Although the new Report is an honest and objective contribution to improve relations between the United States and Latin America, is based on the assumption that the statu quo is basically correct. It does not consider a reformist position. And it is that the bases of American power in Latin America are the local elites and their growing co-option by world capitalism, as peripheral members of it. It is, therefore, a matter of maximizing the reciprocity of interests between central and peripheral capitalism.

Hacia un ecologismo liberal

From the perspective of a German sociologist, who lived and worked in Catalonia since several years, the author comments the discussion between Garnier and Capel. As the author does not belong to the branch of geographers nor of urban sociologists, his observations are limited general topics. The discussion between Garnier and Capel takes the city as a paradigm of capitalist society and turns around general themes as: Revolutionary versus reformist position; Current Liberal Democracy; Education; Forms of political action. The author stresses that the starting point of discussion is the current relevance of Marxism and the implications for policy analysis. But it seems remarkable that it does not debates freedom, as one of the most important issue of the today's society is the balance between individual freedom and social commitment. The article expresses the opinion that the traditional – reformist or revolutionary - left policies are not any more appropriate ways to transform the current European society. The transformation should be worked out from an ecological liberal perspective.

Quest for Divinity

This important book critically examines the religious and political thoughtof Mahmud Muhammad Taha, a significant twentieth-century reformistthinker who is hardly known outside of Sudanese studies. Other works inEnglish on Taha include Abdullahi al-Na`im’s translated The SecondMessage of Islam (Syracuse University Press: 1987), written by a disciplewhose own reformist positions derive from Taha’s methodology andthought. This study provides an introduction to Taha’s thought for scholarsof twentieth-centuryMuslim reformers. It highlights the radical nature of hisSufi-grounded thought and the originality of his interpretations of theQur’an and the hadith based upon Muslim scholars as well as westernDarwinian and Marxist-Hegelian thought. The author stresses the importanceand originality of Taha’s thoughtwithin the broader context of the contemporaryMuslim world. His appearance on the scholarly “radar screen”has not yet fully been realized; indeed, al`Na`im has drawn more attentionin theWest than his mentor Taha ever did.As the founder of the nationalist al-Hizb al-Jamhuri in 1945, whichlater became the Republican Brotherhood (al-Jamhouriyeen), Taha wasboth a significant political figure and a controversial theologian who wasfamously tried and executed for the “crime” of apostasy in 1985. His executionis widely viewed as having sparked the democratic uprising (intifada)that overthrew Numeiri’s military dictatorship, which had engineered hisexecution ...

Rurality discourses and the role of the social enterprise in regenerating rural Scotland

Social enterprises are businesses with primarily social objectives that reinvest their surplus in the community rather than seeking to maximise profit for shareholders. However, there is a debate regarding the drivers and the role of the social enterprise, the outcome of which is expected to have serious implications for the future of the institution [Brady, C., 2003. Social Enterprise development and the Role of the Social Economy in Scotland. CBS Network, Edinburgh]. A ‘reformist’ view supports the position that social enterprises are simple extensions of existing economic systems, whereas a ‘radical’ stance sees them as the embodiment of an alternative vision of running local economies. Development Trusts (DTs) are social enterprises that focus on community regeneration. Our research explored DT stakeholder views regarding the role of DTs in regenerating rural Scotland. Using Q methodology [Barry, J., Proops, J., 1999. Seeking sustainability discourses with Q methodology. Ecological Economics, 28, 337–345], we drew on ‘rurality’ discourses [Frouws, J., 1998. The contested redefinition of the countryside. An analysis of rural discourses in The Netherlands. Sociologia Ruralis 38(1), 54–68] expressed by DT stakeholders in order to investigate how these discourses informed their views. Radical positions were mostly associated with a hedonist rurality discourse and were split into three sub-discourses, whereas reformist positions mostly reflected a utilitarian rurality discourse. There was consensus between discourses in rejecting a primary DT contribution to rural regeneration by substituting state and local authority functions in rural Scotland. Results suggest that stakeholders prefer that DTs develop their own agendas and activity rather than try to substitute unsuccessful state or local authority provision of rural services. Social enterprise strategies and support policies promoting a service-providing role for DTs in rural Scotland should consider this issue if they are to avoid stakeholder objection and contribute to the success of DTs in becoming active vehicles of rural regeneration.

From Script to Stage in Early Modern England by Peter Holland, Stephen Orgel

io86 Reviews holy alliance between Archbishop Rowan Williams and St Thomas Aquinas-which is whether the given medieval writer could think of the Church, founded amidst betrayal and dependent on flawed ministers, as 'acommunity both immersed in sin and yet also the divine gift inwhich [thewriter] received the sacraments' (p. 96).William Thorpe's critique of apersecuting Church 'could have opened out towards' the insight of Rowan Williams, but 'did not' (p. 97). This, tome, is a quite amazing might-have-been. Sanctifying Signs, merciless towards the 'exorbitance' of doctrines enforced at the time by the ecclesiastical hierarchy but also alert for paradoxes and divergences in the reformist position, will certainly claim a place in the burgeoning investigation of latemedieval constructions of the Church. The book's claim would be stronger but for two drawbacks. One is that at some points it is outrageously repetitive. Chapter 4 flagrantly repeats material on pp. 72, 73, and 75 from pp. 3I, 32, 49, and 46. While it is one symptom of Aers's strong personal investment in his arguments that he cultivates a rhetoric of vehement iteration, these repetitions are exasperating and might be frowned upon in a student's work. The second drawback, arising from the same high level of personal investment, is quite simply that the author seems actually to be urging-not just investigating-particular definitions of the Church and of Christ's ministry and the sacraments. GOLDSMITHS COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ALCUIN BLAMIRES From Script toStage inEarly Modern England. Ed. by PETERHOLLAND and STEPHEN ORGEL. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. Xiii + 25 IPP. ?I4.99. ISBN I 4039-3343-X. For all those weary of a theatre history that fails to take account of the theatre his torian's own history and practice, this collection offers awelcome antidote. It is the first in the Redefining British Theatre History series, which brings together major practitioners in theatre history to review 'where we are and what we think we are doing' (p. xiii). Over the last half century, our understanding of early modern theatre has changed profoundly. Most significantly, there has been a shift from a playwright centred focus of the theatre to theatre as an institution-to plays as 'performances and events' as viewed from the perspective of 'audiences, actors, theatre companies, patrons, architects and designers' (p. i). While reminding the reader of just how much is overlooked when we focus merely on the texts of plays, this book argues for a quasi-compulsory rethinking of the nature of early modern theatre history as a discipline, pointing especially to the necessity for a revision of our thoughts on what constitutes evidence. Revisiting (and in some instances raising serious doubts over) time-honoured assumptions about the early modern stage, the volume yields new insights into the collaborative nature of dramatic production. The collection is organized in four parts: Questions of Evidence; Interrogating Data; What is a Play?; Women's Work. Altogether eleven essays are brought together under these headings and a truly absorbing range isprovided. Of particular interest is R. A. Foakes's discussion of the staging of Tamburlaine in relation to the archaeology of the Rose playhouse, calling for a radical revision of our understanding of public theatres. In a splendidly comprehensive challenge to the notion of the play-text as an integral whole, Tiffany Stern reveals how plays in print are 'patchworks' comprised of different elements (songs, prologues, epilogues), 'each raising the possibility of dif ferent authorship, and each capable of having other existences in other books, other places, and other contexts' (p. i66). Also suggestive isClaire Sponsler's essay on the particular problem of recognizing medieval plays in the archives. Using the example of John Lydgate's work, her fine argument is that medieval drama often entered MLR, I0 I .4, 2006 Io87 the written record in ways that erased its performative markers. Natasha Korda's authoritative narrative on the role that women performed in the networks of com merce surrounding the theatre is especially insightful. She provides the reader with an abundance of interesting factual information and cogent analysis about females in the needlework and second-hand clothingtrades who supplied and maintained the theatre company's most...

The 10th CSEAR summer school 17th ‐ 19th September 2001 at the Kelvin Conference Centre, Glasgow University

The Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research has been running Summer Schools since 1992, when the first was arranged as part of the British Accounting Association’s Summer School programme to encourage new researchers to embark on a research career. Whilst the programme has developed over the ten schools so far held, the ethos has remained the same ‐ encouragement and stimulation in a co‐operative, academic environment. The summer schools have given new and experienced researchers the opportunity to present their ideas ‐ whether as completed papers or as some form of work in progress ‐ to a sympathetic audience in tune with the general themes presented. Mostly, the research forms part of the more general critical approach to accounting research, and participants are more comfortable both with presenting and critiquing ideas using a critical framework. This involves exposing ’conventional’ accounting wisdom and using different frameworks with which to examine what transformations may take place if other perspectives are applied. Having said that, there is a place to air research carried out from a managerialist outlook too, so that a reformist position may also be taken.

Television Violence and You

Television Violence and You

On the Development of Islamic Jurisprudence

This article examines the state of Islamic jurisprudence with regard to many sensitive issues, such as the status of women and minorities in Islam, Islam and Democracy, hudud punishments. The author explores the current state of Islamic discourse on jurisprudence and identifies three approaches-traditional, secular and reformist. The paper explores the positions of the traditional ulama and the reformist muj­tahids on the mentioned topics and finds the reformist position more sensible and closer to the position of ihe Qur'an and Sunnah. This paper while advocating neo-ijtihad, makes an impressive case for the merit???? and Islamic credibility of the reformist jurisprudence.

"Songes of Rechelesnesse": Langland and the Franciscans

William Langland's Piers Plowman provides a highly charged picture of England near the end of the fourteenth century, a time of political, religious, and moral crises. The period in which Langland wrote was volatile and full of colorful and contentious people: Edward III, Richard II, Chaucer, Wyclif--and Langland. In Songes of Rechelesnesse, Lawrence M. Clopper presents the voice of this powerful disputant who lived in a period marked by dissent and discontent.In the late Middle Ages, Franciscan friars had a significant impact on all levels of society.But because of the apparent discrepancy between the poverty the Franciscans claimed and the life they lived, a large body of antifraternal literature arose, including, supposedly, Piers Plowman. Since the sixteenth century, when it was first put into print, Piers Plowman has been understood to be a proto-Protestant work that revealed the failures of the medieval clergy, but especially of the mendicant orders. In Songes of Rechelesnesse, Clopper establishes the presence of a Franciscan reformist position in Piers Plowman.Clopper maintains that the poem articulates a reformist agenda, presenting the internal Franciscan debate, in a bid to return the order to its initial foundation. Clopper believes that Langland is deeply imbued with a Franciscan mentality that reaches deep into the structure of the poem. It manifests itself at the level of the alliterative long line in his exemplarist poetics and is the source of his imagery and politics. In short Clopper identifies Franciscanism as holding the poem together.Songes of Rechelesnesse is a historical, political, and religious history of late fourteenth-century England. It will be of interest to literary scholars, historians of the late Middle Ages, and scholars in religious studies.Lawrence M. Clopper is Director, Medieval Studies Institute, and Professor of English, Indiana University.

The dilemmas of re-organizing the bureaucracy in Poland during the democratic transformation

During the democratic transformations in post-communist states, one of the key issues has been the formation of a politically neutral civil service. Poland made some limited steps in this direction during the pre-transition stage of the 1980s, but the formation of a civil service remained one of the tasks of the new democratic regime. Although several reforms were blueprinted by the last Solidarity-based cabinet of Hanna Suchocka, the Cabinet did not last long enough to have them passed through parliament. After the defeat of the post-Solidarity parties in the parliamentary election of September, 1993, the new governing coalition was divided on the issue of a politically neutral administration, with the Union of the Democratic Left (SLD) adopting a more reformist position than the Polish Peasant Party (PSL). This experience demonstrates the importance of political will in reforming public administration in the post-communist states.

Saúde pública, rede básica e o sistema de saúde brasileiro

This article focuses on the development of public health in Brazil, with the aim of analyzing the present process of decentralization of health care. The authors argue that the neoliberal or conservative position is unable to offer a reasonable solution to problems in the health care system. On the other hand, the reformist position concentrates its attention on the health system and its administration, taking as its model a positivistic approach to natural and administrative sciences. The authors further argue that only a radical change in the prevailing medical paradigm and a predominance of social over biological aspects would meet the health needs of the population.

London Debating Societies in the 1790s

Of the popular societies that government repressed in the 1790s, the public debating societies in London are probably the least known although some of them had been meeting without interruption for over fifty years. Since these societies admitted all who paid the weekly entrance fee and allowed anyone to stand up and speak, they were quite different from the private, limited debating clubs where new members had to be approved and where the speeches were often prepared orations. Because of their size, the public debating societies attracted men who wanted to practise speaking before a large audience. Burke is said to have gained his first experience in public speaking at one of these debating societies. Pitt not only spoke at them; he helped found one. Boswell and Goldsmith attended them. Most of the speakers and auditors, however, were men of a lower class; and in the 1790sin reaction to the French Revolution, these societies were repressed. Although they constitute a significant social phenomenon, their history has not beenj traced, as has that of the London Corresponding Socie-ty (LCS) or the United! Irishmen (UI). In a sense the debating societies form an adjunct to, and complement the history of the declared reform societies of the 1790s: Members of the Corresponding Society might go from their meeting to a debating society in order to hear an LCS member speak. The few known managers of debating societies were also prominent members of the LCS or the UI or both; 1 and when a political topic was debated, most of the speakers would take a reformist position.