Modern Liberal Research Articles

Daoist feminist leadership for international peace: the case of Jeannette Rankin

ABSTRACT Introducing the concept of Daoist–feminist hybridity to international relations (IR) scholars, this article makes a novel contribution to current debates over global feminism concerning the relevance and attractiveness of feminism in non-Western societies, the need to build transnational feminist solidarities, and the urgent need to decolonize feminism. Drawing upon the Daoist philosophy of Laozi’s Daodejing, which expresses an early and Indigenous form of non-Western feminism, the article constructs a model of Daoist feminist pacifist leadership as illustrated through the case of Jeannette Rankin (1880–1973), an influential women’s suffrage advocate and global peace activist who was the first elected congresswoman in the United States (US) and the only congressional representative to vote against US involvement in both World Wars I and II. As the article demonstrates, Rankin’s unwavering commitment to pacifism not only reflects core values of Daoist philosophy intermeshed with her twentieth-century feminism, but also illustrates the value of empathic engagement between Daoist thought and modern feminism, as making such connections can help to build alliances and partnerships among international feminist peace leaders today in the US, China, and elsewhere.

The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision, Erika Bachiochi

Erika Bachiochi, in her groundbreaking book The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision, makes novel contributions to feminist thought, rooted in the concerns of the earliest women’s rights advocates. First, Bachiochi gives us a more complete account of the legacy of Mary Wollstonecraft, an eighteenth-century philosopher whose insights on virtue, politics, and the family shaped the first feminists and hold promise for our contemporary political debates. Bachiochi’s careful analysis makes way for a second original argument: that in Wollstonecraft, we find a healthy corrective to flaws in modern feminism, particularly (for Bachiochi) its coupling of women’s equality with abortion rights. Third, by finding a present-day Wollstonecraftian approach in the scholarship of Harvard Law professor emerita Mary Anne Glendon, Bachiochi offers common ground for feminists of all stripes, something hard to find in the wake of Dobbs (the Supreme Court’s recent reversal of Roe v. Wade). The Rights of Women’s crucial challenge to a prevailing narrative, accessible to any educated reader, should be central to any college or graduate-level course on feminism and politics.

Feminism in Modern Manchu Female Literature: Analysis of Female Image in Caisangzi by Ye Guangqin

This thesis stems from the perspective of feminism and probes into the family theme novel - Caisangzi, by Ye Guangqin, a Manchu female writer. It develops a deep understanding of the female consciousness implied in the novel through close examination of Ye Guangqin's work, Caisangzi, and analysis of the female images in the text. By focusing on the hidden inner world of the author and the characters in the book, Ye Guangqin's concern and thinking about women groups in the modern Manchu cultural context are unfolded. Analysis of the literary works of minority female writers has an profound research significance and has the potential to promote development of feminism among minority groups and the development of local feminism in China. This thesis unveils the awakening degree of female consciousness of the female images in Caisangzi from era, nationality and family perspectives, explores differences and causes of female consciousness from the female images in Ye Guangqin's novel. In so-doing, new ideas for studying Chinese minority female literature and Chinese modern feminism are presented.

The Contemporary Reception of a Feminist Icon: Translations of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in Twenty-First Century Spain

Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), is nowadays presented as a foundational text for modern feminism. Its rapid rendering into European languages such as French and German contrasts with the late translation into Spanish, which was not published until 1977. Nevertheless, the twenty-first century has witnessed a renewed interest in the figure of Wollstonecraft and her role as a precursor of the first feminist wave in Europe. Within this framework, this study examines Wollstonecraft’s public reception in Spain through contemporary (re)translations of her work. For this purpose, attention is paid to translations into Spanish and other co-official languages published during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, as well as the author’s public reception in Spanish newspapers. This research, thus, attests to the recent process of recovery of Wollstonecraft’s work in Spain and underscores her iconic role in contemporary local and international feminist discourses.

HISTORY OF FEMINIST THOUGHT: THE BIRTH AND CONSOLIDATION OF THE MOVEMENT

Any cause which challenges the established order faces an uphill battle and history has demonstrated that it is a long road to success, particularly if the goal is nothing less than equality among human beings. This paper offers an overview of the first steps of the modern feminist movement and its eventual successes, tracing the history of feminism from its initial unity to later atomisation due to the conflicting liberal, socialist and communist ideologies that swept Europe and America throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The movement, in the modern sense of the term, began in 1789. By the 20th century, the feminist cause had achieved notable successes thanks to its ability to unite countless individuals, while overcoming ideological divisions, to achieve a single objective: women’s right to vote. Subsequently, within the new international order arising out of the Second World War, these latent divisions played out on the international stage. However, gender equality and the rights of women has now become a central issue in international debate.

Hayek’s theory of mind and the origins of the neoliberal critique of modern liberalism

ABSTRACT Although it is broadly accepted that neoliberalism emerged as a reaction to what its foundational thinkers believed was a crisis of modern liberalism, little work has been done to understand either the timing or the nature of the intellectual shift that gave rise to it. Through an assessment of Friedrich Hayek’s thought, this article claims that the neoliberal critique of liberalism is primarily grounded in an epistemological dispute about the capabilities of mind that can be traced to the early nineteenth century and the development of Jeremy Bentham’s universal principle of self-preference. Hayek’s epistemological perspective, anchored in a theory of the understanding, and Bentham’s conception of mind as plastic, knowable, measurable, and reformable, led each thinker to embrace vastly different constitutional models. This epistemological dispute is critical to grasp, not merely for historical precision, but also because many of its essential features lurk at the heart of contemporary debates about the rise of an anti-democratic neoliberalism, and the future of liberal democracy.

Republicanism versus liberalism: towards a pre-history

ABSTRACT This essay argues that the “republicanism versus liberalism” debate that came to prominence in the 1980s was largely an artificial construction made possible by the recent genealogies of its constituent terms. The first section suggests that the idea of “early modern liberalism” took shape from the 1930s, and identifies three broad schools of thought: Marxist, democratic and classical. Despite their differences, they pioneered a stereotype of “liberalism” that was well established – especially in the United States – by the 1950s. The second section examines the so-called “republican tradition,” arguing it did not acquire that identity until the early 1970s, and that earlier work excavating the “commonwealth tradition” did not intend it as an alternative to liberalism. That only came into focus as a result of Wood’s work. The third section looks at elements of the debate in the 1970s, stressing the attempt to displace Locke and exploring the contribution of Pocock. He increasingly argued for the complex and interwoven nature of both “republicanism” and “liberalism,” partly as a response to revisionist work on the natural law origins of liberalism. By contrast, Appleby restated the older “liberalism” and pitted it against “republicanism,” thereby reinforcing the binary.

Research on the Role of Social Media in the Modern Feminist Movement

Research on the Role of Social Media in the Modern Feminist Movement

Marx’s Destruction of the Private by Criticism and Force

This essay contends that Marx sought to destroy privacy, analyzes his conception of it, and explains why he thought privacy impedes the full development of human beings. Central to his argument is a critique of constitutional states and modern liberalism, which, he maintains, by protecting and justifying individual rights, fail to recognize citizens as species beings.

Criticism of Modern Liberal Ideas about Political Modernization and the Imperial Tradition of Russia

Criticism of Modern Liberal Ideas about Political Modernization and the Imperial Tradition of Russia

Expressivism, Pluralism, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “A Suggestion on the Negro Problem”

Expressivism, Pluralism, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “A Suggestion on the Negro Problem”

The linguistic stylistic analysis of yetunde akorede's, the threaded beads

The “Threaded Bead” explores the societal perception of a career woman. This paper, therefore undertakes a linguistic stylistic analysis of the text with the aim of establishing its style in addition to interpreting its meaning. The method used is descriptive and analytical. The work appraises linguistic features such as: the grammatical, graphological, phonological and lexicon semantic features embedded in the text. In doing so, it explores themes such as: loose moral life, career woman, cultural alienation, female exploitation, marriage failures. The study concludes that modern feminist writers like Akorede use appropriate stylistic techniques to explore the role and perception of educated women in a typical African patriarchal society.

“Time Is Out of Joint”: EU and Russia in Quest of Themselves in Time

The current direct confrontation between Russia and the Western countries in Europe was not unexpected, but its possible consequences are frightening. In this article the author suggests looking at the conflict between Russia and the EU through the lens of Aleida Assmann’s concept of “temporal breach” in the “modern time regime” (modernity). One of the reasons for the escalation is that the conflicting sides have different visions of the past, present and future, as well as of their place in the new world. The author also traces the development of modernization theory and analyzes the modernization practices Russia and EU countries chose to use after 1991 Russia has largely been practicing conservative modernization, where the state is the main actor relying on certain public demand. The EU countries have been implementing a multi-vector liberal modernization model in line with the goals of post-industrial society, with a variety of state and non-state actors involved and the focus put on the human rights value.

From sovereignty to social liberalism: Two new dimensions of constitutional identity in Ireland

From sovereignty to social liberalism: Two new dimensions of constitutional identity in Ireland

Education as a Tool for Women Empowerment in Zaynab Alkali and Abubakar Gimba’s Selected Novels

The dominance of patriarchy as a cultural mainstay of the people and Islam as a religious philosophy and practice in northern Nigeria did not prioritise the education of the girl child until recently. The result of these is the diminished contribution of the woman to the welfare of northern Nigerian. This paper examines the plight of northern Nigerian woman and how education as a tool brings social development, empowers the woman to be an agent of change. The feminist critical approach to literature and Marxist literary theory are used as a tool for the textual assessment of Zaynab Alkali’s The Descendants and Abubakar Gimba’s Sacred Apples in this paper. Besides, many females do not have access to education in their community; this lack of access to educate the woman is the result of cultural, religious and economic factors. Furthermore, the paper reveals the importance of education to the woman, since no society progresses by the efforts of a segment of its population. The paper concludes that the emancipator power of education is a tool for social liberation, self-actualisation and development for the individual in particular and the society in general. It is the most important tool in addressing women problem in Nigeria, especially in the northern part.

Marcuse's Critical Theory of Technical Rationality

As a representative of the Frankfurt School, Marcuse has repeatedly discussed the relationship between technology and freedom. He attributes human alienation to the fact that technological rationality has become a covered ideology in developed industrial society, thus making people lose negativity, transcendence and criticism, and then become 'one-dimensional people '. This paper takes Marcuse's "comfortable non-freedom" as the starting point, and discusses Marcuse's critical theory of technical rationality from three aspects: loss of freedom, paralysis of freedom and return to freedom. It further analyzes how Marcuse reshapes subject freedom and achieves social liberation from the perspective of aesthetics and art.

일하지 않을 자유에 관하여

This study examines ‘the freedom not to work’ dealt with in the debate between T. Carlyle and J.S. Mill, which is said to have given economics the nickname “dismal science”, by taking a look at the thoughts of modern liberals on this issue and reviewing the meaning of the duty to work clause of the Korean Constitution and the validity of conditional livelihood benefits subject to work prescribed by the National Basic Living Security Act. T. Carlyle and J.S. Mill thought that everyone had a duty to work, but they differed over whether such a duty could be enforced. Carlyle argued that labor should be forced upon people, but Mill opposed such servitude. Among modern liberals, Hayek, a right-wing liberal who supports negative freedom without interference, affirms ‘the freedom of the poor not to work,’ while Rawls, a left-wing liberal who emphasizes guaranteeing the substance of equal freedom, denied such freedom. Such differences in views seem to be in tandem with the underlying difference that exists between negative liberalism and positive liberalism. Article 32, Paragraph 2 of the Korean Constitution provides that “all citizens shall have a duty to work” and various thoughts and opinions have been put forward as to whether, in light of such constitutional provision, the state could enforce work or labor by law. This study reiterates and reinforces the view that direct coercion is not to be allowed; indirect coercion is also not to be considered, especially in conjunction with the right to receive social security benefits, given the underlying value of freedom and the importance of human dignity. According to Hohfeld’s analysis of rights and Berlin’s two concepts of freedom, granting conditional livelihood benefits subject to work restricts freedom, violates negative freedom, and forces or compels certain positive freedoms to be realized. However, the positive concept of freedom has the risk of suppressing and violating individual freedom, and, from the perspectives of morality, it is autonomy, not coercion, which takes precedence, and rightfully so. In addition, in order to give realistic normative power to Article 10 of the Constitution, which declares that every citizen has ‘dignity and value as a human being,’ it is imperative that one seeks the value of freedom as passively and the meaning of human dignity as humbly as one possibly can. In other words, the value of freedom should be found whilst recognizing that ‘doing what you want and not doing what you don’t want’ is, in itself, good, and the meaning of human dignity should be a quest for respect for life no matter how ‘non-autonomous or unreasonable’ such life may be. Therefore, imposing work or labor as a condition for granting livelihood benefits should be avoided, as it would otherwise perpetuate an unjust system that represents a violation of freedoms and a threat to human dignity, both of which are underscored as the very values that the Constitution aims to protect and uphold.

Walter Benjamin’s Critique of Violence

This article addresses the history of police violence and extra-legal killings of Black people and argues that social contract theory plays an ideological role to legitimate the coercive power of the state over the African-American community. The article first looks at the alarming numbers of Black Americans killed in the United States over the past few decades and compares police violence to the extra-legal lynchings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Using Walter Benjamin’s Critique of Violence, his classic 1921 essay, the article then describes the obfuscation of an underlying truth: that, far from being a neutral arbiter between its citizens, the state is the primary inscription of violence in the body politic. The police are the face of that state, both in its law-making violence (die rechtsetzende Gewalt) and law-preserving violence (die rechtserhaltende Gewalt). In contrast to the mythology of a social contract in which all members are treated equally before the law, the state targets African-Americans to legitimate its monopoly on violence, thereby unmasking the social contract as a racial contract, which has excluded Black people from the country’s very inception. The power of the state rests in part on the psychology of police officers who see themselves as its very embodiment and believe that any resistance to their authority is both a personal and symbolic challenge to their monopoly on violence. Yet, the article dissents from the view of many who believe that the country may transcend its history of institutional racism and violence and restore the promise of the social contract. The article concludes that, despite the hopes of modern liberalism, Benjamin’s theory leads to the conclusion that there is little possibility for either the redemption of the social contract or the rehabilitation of the state.

HOW DOES THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFFECT LATE WORKING LIFE? EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT TRAJECTORIES FROM 2011 TO 2021

Abstract Background One of the immediate impacts of the pandemic was the increase in unemployment and the reduction of working hours - especially among women, those with lower job security and in countries with a weaker social welfare system. The aging society is at further risk, which is already challenged by a growing shortage of workers and the rising costs of pensions. To understand the long-term consequences of COVID-19 for the aging workforce, this paper advances existing research by exploring from a life-course perspective how employment after the COVID-19 outbreak is anchored in larger employment histories (2011–2021). Methods Sequence-analyses are applied using retrospective life history data combined with both COVID-19 Surveys (2020–2021) from SHARE including respondents aged 50+. Using cluster-analyses, the resulting sequences are classified into six groups. By applying descriptive-analyses, I examine how these groups differ by gender, work quality, and country. Results Older workers – especially men – with continuous full-time employment histories are less frequently affected by unemployment and fewer working hours during COVID-19. Whereas those – especially women – with disruptive employment and part-time work histories are more frequently affected by unemployment after the outbreak of COVID-19. Respondents in countries characterized by social democratic welfare compared to liberal welfare regimes are less likely affected by unemployment during the pandemic. Discussion: The pandemic particularly puts older workers with disruptive employment histories at additional risk of labor market exit. Therefore policymakers need to address inequalities in earlier life to prevent long-term consequences of social inequality caused by the pandemic.

Health among workers retiring after the state pension age: a longitudinal and comparative study

BackgroundIn recent decades, many countries have observed increasing labor force participation beyond the state pension age (SPA). However, there is a lack of research on employment beyond SPA and how it relates to older workers’ health. Moreover, there is a need to better understand how institutional factors affect the relationship between older workers’ employment and health. In this study, we examine simultaneous employment and health trajectories over 11 years in 12 countries from Europe and the Americas, and study how these trajectories differ by welfare state regime and level of old-age pension redistribution.MethodsWe used a harmonized pooled-country dataset of 3699 older workers based on four representative panel surveys: the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), and the Chilean Social Protection Survey (EPS). We conducted multichannel sequence analysis to estimate the types of simultaneous employment–health trajectories, and multinomial regression analysis to examine the relationship between trajectory types and institutional factors.ResultsWe found that late retirement was equally associated with poor and good health. There is also a higher prevalence of late retirement trajectories in combination with poor health in liberal welfare regimes and in countries with lower levels of old-age pension redistribution.ConclusionOur study indicates that nonliberal welfare regimes and redistributive old-age pension policies may be better suited to protect vulnerable workers while providing those in good health with the opportunity to work beyond the SPA.