The State, Compartmentalization and the Turn to Local Community: A Critique of the Political Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre

Alasdair MacIntyre condemns modern politics, specifically liberalism and the institutions of the liberal state, as irredeemably fallen. His core argument is that the liberal state encourages a disempowering ‘compartmentalization’ of people’s everyday roles and activities that undermines the intersubjective conditions of human flourishing. MacIntyre’s alternative is an Aristotelian politics centred on the notion of “practice.” Defined by justice and solidarity, this politics can only be realized, he claims, within local communities which oppose and resist the dictates of the administrative state and capitalist market. Here it is argued that MacIntyre’s notion of “practice” represents a compelling ethical-political ideal. However, the belief that this ideal is best realized within local communities is rejected. In privileging local community, MacIntyre relies on a reductive view of modern states and overlooks the institutional conditions of a just polity. Against this, it is argued that a politics of human flourishing cannot succeed without an emancipatory transformation of large-scale, trans-communal institutions, in particular the state.

MacIntyre and Havel as green political thinkers: Unreasonable thinking in turbulent times

Purpose This chapter explores the ideas of Alasdair MacIntyre and Vaclav Havel and what these two thinkers can contribute to green political theory. Design/methodology/approach This chapter includes examination of some of the key works of Havel and MacIntyre and analysis of these works from the point of view of green political theory. Findings The section ‘Havel and the Imperative to “Live in Truth”: Dissent and Green Politics’ explores Havel’s thought with a particular emphasis on his ethicised notion of political action and critique (‘living in truth’) and his focus on the centrality of dissent (both intellectually and in practice) as central to political critique and action. The section ‘MacIntyre as a Green Thinker: Vulnerability in Political and Moral Theory’ offers an overview of MacIntyre interpreted as a putative green thinker, with a particular emphasis on his ideas of dependence and vulnerability. The Conclusion attempts to draw some common themes together from both thinkers in terms of what they have to offer contemporary green political thought. Research limitations/implications What is presented here is introductory, ground clearing and therefore necessarily suggestive (as well as under-developed). That is, it is the start of a new area of exploration rather than an analysis based on any exhaustive and comprehensive knowledge of both thinkers. Practical implications This chapter offers some initial lines of exploration for scholars interested in the overlap between green thinking and the work of Havel and MacIntyre. Originality/value This is the first exploration of the connections between the works of Havel and MacIntyre and green political theory.

Nationalist Multiculturalism in Late Imperial Austria as a Critique of Contemporary Liberalism: The Case of Bauer and Renner,

This article evaluates Bauer's theory of the nation and the debateon national-cultural autonomy in late imperial Austria. It finds important similarities with contemporary liberal debates on multiculturalism and the rights of ethnic and national minorities. It argues that the debate on national-cultural autonomy went in some respects beyond the contemporary debate on multiculturalism. National-cultural autonomy rejects the idea of the nation-state and proposes instead a multi-nation-state that recognises differential rights for ethnic and national minorities. It seeks to break the limitations of liberal democracy and the territorial principle of the nation-state by organising national communities as deterritorialised national corporations, and multination-states as territorialised non-national identities.

Green Political Theory

Ecologism or green political theory is the most recent of schools of political thinking. On the one hand, it focuses on issues that are extremely old in politics and philosophical inquiry – such as the relationship between the human and nonhuman worlds, the moral status of animals, what is the ‘good life’, and the ethical and political regulation of technological innovation. Yet on the other, it is also characterised as dealing with some specifically contemporary issues such as the economic and political implications of climate change, peak oil, overconsumption, resource competition and conflicts, and rising levels of global and national inequalities. It is also an extremely broad school of political thought covering a wide variety of concerns, contains a number of distinct sub-schools of green thought (here sharing a similarity with other political ideologies) and combines normative and empirical scientific elements in a unique manner making it distinctive from other political ideologies.

Germany and the New Global History of Secularism: Questioning the Postcolonial Genealogy

Secularism has emerged as a central category of twenty-first century political thought that in many ways has replaced the theory of secularization. According to postcolonial scholars, neither the theory nor the practice of secularization was politically neutral. They define secularism as the set of discourses, policies, and constitutional arrangements whereby modern states and liberal elites have sought to unify nations and divide colonial populations. This definition is quite different from the original meaning of secularism, as an immanent scientific worldview linked to anticlericalism. Anthropologist Talal Asad has connected nineteenth-century worldview secularism to twenty-first century political secularism through a genealogical account that stresses continuities of liberal hegemony. This essay challenges this account. It argues that liberal elites did not merely subsume worldview secularism in their drive for state secularization. Using the tools of conceptual history, the essay shows that one reason that “secularization” only achieved its contemporary meaning in Germany after 1945 was that radical freethinkers and other anticlerical secularists had previously resisted liberal hegemony. The essay concludes by offering an agenda for research into the discontinuous history of these two types of secularism.

Demanding Recognition: Equality, Respect, and Esteem

This article argues that we must distinguish between two distinct currents in the politics of recognition, one centred on demands for equal respect which is consistent with liberal egalitarianism, and one which centres on demands for esteem made on behalf of particular groups which is at odds with egalitarian aims. A variety of claims associated with the politics of recognition are assessed and it is argued that these are readily accommodated within contemporary liberal egalitarian theory. It is argued that, pace Taylor, much of what passes for `identity' or recognition politics is driven by demands for equal respect, not by demands for esteem/affirmation. Given the inherently hierarchical nature of esteem recognition, no liberal state can consistently grant such recognition. Furthermore, these demands pose the risk of intensifying intergroup competition and chauvinism. Esteem recognition is valuable for individuals, but plays a problematic role for egalitarian politics.

Resilience

Over the past decade the concept of ‘resilience’ has been mobilised across an increasingly wide range of policy arenas. For example, it has featured prominently within recent discussions on the nature of warfare, the purpose of urban and regional planning, the effectiveness of development policies, the intent of welfare reform and the stability of the international financial system. The term’s origins can be traced back to the work of the ecologist Crawford S. Holling and his formulation of a science of complexity. This paper reflects on the origins of these ideas and their travels from the field of natural resource management, which it now dominates, to contemporary social practices and policy arenas. It reflects on the ways in which a lexicon of complex adaptive systems, grounded in an epistemology of limited knowledge and uncertain futures, seeks to displace ongoing ‘dependence’ on professionals by valorising self-reliance and responsibility as techniques to be applied by subjects in the making of the resilient self. In so doing, resilience is being mobilised to govern a wide range of threats and sources of uncertainty, from climate change, financial crises and terrorism, to the sustainability of development, the financing of welfare and providing for an aging population. As such, ‘resilience’ risks becoming a measure of its subjects’ ‘fitness’ to survive in what are pre-figured as natural, turbulent orders of things.

Islamismo e terrore: un grande Jihad contro il senso comune (essay)

What implies the conversion to fundamentalist Islam? What are the repercussions and implications of ‘political Islam’ in specific contexts? The relation between Islam, democracy and violence is often represented in a reductive or simplistic way. In order to contribute to a reasoned debate on these pressing questions, this essay covers some key dynamics stemming from long-term ethnographic observation regarding the conversion to neo Salafism among Arab Bedouin citizens in southern Israel, placing them in the context of contemporary developments of Islamic political thought. The ethnographic sensitivity, combined with the voices of some eminent Islamic intellectuals, allows to go beyond both the rhetoric of cultural complexity and the common-sense view that Islamic terrorism would be a kind of ‘anti imperialism of the losers’, arguments employed often to contest emerging neo-orientalist discourses. In this sense, the essay states the need to shed light on coordinates and interpretative categories that are not placed in an essentially different but in often unexpected ways.