Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy
Land grabbing intensified as a global phenomenon between 2007 and 2009, driven by entities from major economic centers acquiring vast parcels of land in low-income regions across Africa, Asia, and South America. Proponents argue that large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) deliver significant socioeconomic and environmental benefits by replacing inefficient smallholder practices and supporting climate change initiatives. Critics, however, contend that these acquisitions often seem speculative, lack robust justifications, and fail to consult or fairly compensate local communities. Recent evidence suggests that this commodification has disproportionately harmed marginalized communities, especially in areas lacking robust regulatory frameworks, leading to displacement, deforestation, and unfulfilled promises. We explore the mechanisms by which proponents of LSLAs justify these acquisitions despite significant local resistance. Our analysis focuses on the rhetorical strategies these actors use to construct land as an economic commodity available for exchange. We identify four key strategies: rhetorical axiomatization, rhetorical commensuration, rhetorical impersonation, and rhetorical dystopianization. These strategies illustrate the paradoxical use of language by LSLA proponents, ostensibly aimed at addressing grand challenges, yet often leading to collective action problems. We conclude with considerations of the practical and policy implications of our findings.
2024 was a jubilee year for the Frankfurt School. On July 24, the Institute for Social Research ( Institut für Sozialforschung), the birthplace of critical theory, marked its centennial. A month earlier, Jürgen Habermas, who is often seen as the intellectual leader of the second generation of the Frankfurt School, celebrated his 95th birthday. In Germany, these overlapping anniversaries have been met with the publication of a number of books on Habermas and the critical theory tradition more generally. Despite the globalization of theorizing within the tradition of the Frankfurt School over the past 50 years, much of its intellectual history of it is still produced in Germany by German scholars based on sources and archives held in the Federal Republic. This Spotlight reviews the main findings and conclusions of this literature for an international, English-speaking audience. It concludes by reflecting on whether critical theory has succeeded—and if so, how.
In this paper, I set up three thought experiments that mobilize nonmodern ontologies and epistemologies to explore the possibility of spiritual sociology. These experiments engage with Pierre Bourdieu as a Buddhist quantum physicist, Emile Durkheim as a New Age transpersonal psychologist, and Michel Foucault as a daemon-inspired revolutionary. The three experiments illustrate that, while many worlds (consisting of objective and subjective structures) exist, they tend to collapse into a few through “echo effects” produced by the powerful; these powerful echo effects are counteracted by the evolution of Spirit or Collective Consciousness growing more enlightened; and the more individuals reconnect with Spirit, the more echo effects are transformed into resonances, pointing to the pluriversal future that permits many worlds to co-flourish. This spiritual–sociological experimentation not only articulates an immanent–transcendent critique of modernity (or any society), but also suggests that contemplative practice be incorporated into undergraduate and graduate education because the quality of sociological research depends fundamentally on that of the researcher's mind.
Esse artigo pressupõe a existência de uma crescente aproximação entre as Ministras e os Ministros do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) e certos sujeitos da opinião pública. Essa relação apresenta aspectos positivos para a atividade jurisdicional do STF, a exemplo do aumento da transparência, ou seja, a ampliação da visualização e da potencial compreensão dos processos decisórios. O artigo estrutura-se em duas partes e tem o objetivo principal de compreender teoricamente como as notícias jornalísticas podem ser utilizadas na fundamentação de uma decisão judicial. Primeiro, analisa-se a ideia de razão pública de acordo com John Rawls e, na sequência, situa-se o conceito de esfera pública segundo Jürgen Habermas. Utiliza-se a revisão sistemática de literatura para a análise e a confrontação dos temas referentes à esfera pública e a razão pública conforme seus expoentes teóricos. Os resultados obtidos sustentam a conclusão da maior adequação teórica entre a razão pública e a de ampliação da transparência nas decisões judiciais do STF.
The possibility of steering social change through law has long been a central topic in the socio-legal literature. This article revisits the debate between Luhmann and Teubner on the matter and argues that it is possible to find a contextual and contingent common ground between their views. For this purpose, it proposes a new approach to reflexive law through a combination of Spencer-Brown’s “laws of form” and Luhmann’s theory of socio-legal evolution. The initial step is to develop the notion of “legal forms”, contending that it facilitates the observation of different combinations of normative and cognitive orientations of law thereby increasing our capacity for observing and assessing the interactions between law and society. It argues that the understanding and observation of “legal forms” sheds new light on the possibility and limits of social steering through law. This lays the foundation for introducing the notion of “reflexive legal forms,” that is, legal forms that have higher learning dispositions and are, therefore, better prepared to steer social change. Subsequently, the article applies the Luhmannian understanding of socio-legal evolution to explain the possible emergence and operation of reflexive legal forms as mechanisms that increase the probabilities of socio-legal evolution. Finally, it presents a case in which this new approach to reflexive law was applied: the conservation right, a new property right for environmental conservation recently enacted as law in Chile.
This chapter argues that discussing facts in public discussion is depoliticizing. At the same time, presenting facts in public discussion is always politically motivated, which means that, in public discussion, we are not trying to uncover the truth, but we use claims about facts as a rhetorical means. To counter the fact-claiming rhetoric sometimes utilizing mis- and disinformation and to reveal the political elements in public discussion in media, I suggest that we ought to speak dialogically: not presenting facts but stating our values and aims. I do not question the view that the spread of false information is a problem for public discussion, but I question the view that concentrating on information is the best way to deal with this problem.
This chapter continues characterizing the public discussion in media in the twenty-first century as a democratic space. The chapter argues that public discussions are often perceived as a characteristic of democratic societies, but public discussion—where it exists—is also itself characteristically a place of plurality of voices governed by no sole authority. Thanks to the Internet, media-based public discussions have become more plural than in the times of exclusively produced mass media, making the ordinary media users both potential content creators and consumers. However, the contradiction between the capitalist economy and the democratic society materialized in the commercial media sphere disrupts the plurality of the contemporary media-based public discussion.
This chapter argues that informal learning is crucial for a functioning public discussion and for a democratic society. However, public discussion is characteristically a plural situation without teacher-like epistemic authorities, which makes the learning from public discussion in media epistemically plural. Therefore, by analyzing the experience of learning, I argue that the experience of learning may not always correspond to reality: a subject may have a genuine experience of learning, while the “learnt” content is actually false information or harmful attitudes. The false experience of learning may be applied to the spread of mis- or disinformation in public discussion in media: many persons may experience learning while they have actually acquired false information.
While reshaping the operational environment of tourism, short-term renting (STR) has also transformed Finnish Lapland into a battle arena for the struggle of competing interests. Since the current law on STR is perceived as an ambiguous grey zone, influencing the law has become a central means for the different stakeholders to legitimize their interests as legally acceptable conduct and objectives. This chapter provides a legal perspective into the process of institutionalization of interests by examining the constitutive interrelation of law and society. By combining an empirical understanding of the local field of interests and doctrinal legal research with institutionalist and legal-theoretical notions, this multidisciplinary case study illustrates how competing interests are (re)constructing the positions of legal responsibilities and the normative reality of law. The study stresses the importance of comprehensively identifying competing interests and positions of influence constituted by law and societal power structures to reveal inequalities reaffirmed by law.
In a society driven by clock time and technology, it is no suprise that a robotic working pace is often viewed as inevitable, even ideal. However, ultimately discussions regarding robotic pace are shaped by different perspectives and contexts. In this paper, content-frame analysis was used to examine how ‘working at a robotic pace’ is addressed in academic discourse across scientific disciplines. The statements (N=22) were coded and examined for their positive, negative, or neutral appraisal, as well as the value base derived from either a human(e) or efficiency perspective. In academic communication, the concept has been framed by justifying, criticizing, and problem-solving discourses. The criticising frame was not found exclusively in the social sciences but across disciplines. It was the most common discourse frame, with its subjective perspective focusing on people and well-being. The problem-solving frame included a neutral, constructive and more objective approach associated with socio-technical ideals emphasized in engineering disciplines.
A critical methodology of cosmopoliticization describes a new theoretically guided approach of empirical analysis to capture phenomena and quality of cosmopoliticization. The study and interpretation of cosmopoliticization and cosmopolitanism needs a critical pivot that draws on empirical issues and social facts to some extent to advance the theorizing of notions of cosmopolitan governance and democracy. First, I substantiate the rationale behind a new critical methodology of cosmopoliticization. Then, I argue that the sources of real-world insights of cosmopolitan practices and experiences can be derived from empirical analyses of three major subject matters, namely the formation of cosmopolitan solidarity, ethos, and belief, the role of cosmopolitan public spheres, and international democratization through civil society participation and deliberation. These analytical categories and units can convey cosmopolitan values and principles that are critical of a significant cosmopolitan departure from dominant nation-state related paradigms and politics because they embody an impetus for recognition and esteem of the ecological and ethical value and meaningfulness of the entire earth system for humankind in terms of a right conduct and practice in present and future.
This final chapter discusses how this volume has explored the dynamics that shape the composition, trajectories, and societal influence of Italian civil society elite. By bridging civil society studies and elite studies, it unveils the complexities characterising this elite stratum, illuminating their socio-demographic profiles, ideological orientations, career pathways, and subjective perceptions. The findings highlight a paradox between the socio-demographic privilege and progressive ideological leanings of Italian civil society elite. The volume has also examined professionalisation trajectories and contrasting leadership models across national contexts. It explored the career mobility and boundary-crossing patterns, as well as the historical legacies, ideological divides, and subjective realities that shape the Italian third sector. By integrating civil society studies and elite studies, this work challenges theoretical frameworks, confronts the tension between inclusivity rhetoric and stratified realities, and contributes to a nuanced understanding of the role of civil society elites in democratic governance and social change.
Over the past century, the administrative state has vastly expanded its power and political independence of Congress. Some prominent academic voices, such as Cass Sunstein and Joseph Heath, have argued that we should endorse the administrative state’s large and growing powers to reap the benefits of technical expertise. We introduce an important qualification to that claim by highlighting the contingency of expert knowledge. The reliability of expertise is institutionally sensitive, and the centralized administrative state is plagued by epistemic drawbacks. The contingency of expert knowledge means that, although experts supply crucial inputs into intelligent policy design, without the correct epistemic ecosystem, expert rule is likely to produce expert failure. After presenting that qualification, we show how introducing competition, contestation, and diversity into the bureaucracy’s epistemic ecosystem facilitates the discovery, communication, and implementation of useful knowledge. The institutional structure we prescribe therefore resembles the Ostromian idea of polycentric governance. Such an institutional structure, we argue, is better able to harness the benefits of expertise while mitigating the pathologies of the centralized administrative state. We argue that polycentric political systems can enhance the effectiveness of expertise.
The Frankfurt School thinkers are concerned with practical aspects of the society that contribute to domination and subversion of masses not just through visible forces but also through subtle propaganda. The aim of these thinkers is to understand the modus-operandi of this subversion and to suggest ways of resisting this domination. Being a major thinker of the School, Jürgen Habermas critiqued a vast number of aspects that also include several issues related to urban subcultures. Habermas’s basic objective behind these critiques is to understand the modus-operandi of social domination and to suggest ways of emancipation and resisting the subversion. This paper is aimed at understanding the ways in which urban subcultures are related with issues pertaining to subversion and control and how they can be used as tools for resistance and human emancipation. For this, the paper evaluates the views of Jürgen Habermas regarding European Urban Subcultures including but not limited to Art and Music Performances, Radio and Television, Professional Subcultures, and the inherent qualities of these subcultures for understanding the role of these subcultures viz a viz social subversion and resistance.
Many demands for democratic inclusion rest on a simple yet powerful idea. It's a principle of affected interests. The principle states that all those affected by a collective decision should have a say in making that decision. Yet, in today's highly globalized world, the implications of this 'All-Affected Principle' are potentially radical and far-reaching. Empowering Affected Interests brings together a distinguished group of leading democratic theorists and philosophers to debate whether and how to rewrite the rules of democracy to account for the increasing interdependence of states, markets, and peoples. It examines the grounds that justify democratic inclusion across borders of states, localities, and the private sector, on topics ranging from immigration and climate change to labor markets and philanthropy. The result is an original and important reassessment of the All-Affected Principle and its alternatives that advances our understanding of the theory and practice of democracy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Many demands for democratic inclusion rest on a simple yet powerful idea. It's a principle of affected interests. The principle states that all those affected by a collective decision should have a say in making that decision. Yet, in today's highly globalized world, the implications of this 'All-Affected Principle' are potentially radical and far-reaching. Empowering Affected Interests brings together a distinguished group of leading democratic theorists and philosophers to debate whether and how to rewrite the rules of democracy to account for the increasing interdependence of states, markets, and peoples. It examines the grounds that justify democratic inclusion across borders of states, localities, and the private sector, on topics ranging from immigration and climate change to labor markets and philanthropy. The result is an original and important reassessment of the All-Affected Principle and its alternatives that advances our understanding of the theory and practice of democracy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Social media platforms have become gateways to information and news. These platforms potentially offer discursive arenas where individuals can participate in rational critical discourses, resembling with the public sphere. Nonetheless, the threats linked with social media platforms stymie the public sphere potential of the latter. This article attempts to provide an overview of threats namely disinformation, ideological polarization and concomitant extremism and hate speech propagated through social media platforms. Drawing from multidisciplinary literature, we reflect upon solutions which include (1) strengthening of mainstream and professional journalism; (2) fact-checking; (3) platform-driven and technology-based solutions; (4) law enforcement and social media regulations; and (5) media literacy and care for truth. This article contributes to the literature on strengthening the public sphere potential of social media platforms.
The paper comprehensively responds to critical comments by F. Michelman, D. Rasmussen, J. van der Walt, S. Winter, P. Niesen, and B. Schupmann on Sovereignty Across Generations. Constituent Power and Political Liberalism. The themes debated include: whether Rawls’s dualist view of democracy, including his idea of legitimation by constitution, intimates or calls for a concretistic view of a subject of constituent power as creator of the constitutional order (Michelman); the relation of the normative to the historical in political liberalism and whether Plato’s allegory of the cave is helpful for elucidating the meaning of the ‘most reasonable for us’ (Rasmussen); Rawls’s stance vis-à-vis the unbridgeable divisiveness of pluralism, the virtuality of overlapping consensus, and the dissolution of constituent power into a panoply of constituent powers (Van der Walt); democratic sequential sovereignty contrasted with serial sovereignty, the sensibleness of distinguishing legal principles from the cognitive assumptions undergirding their application, the justification of sequential sovereignty, and the nexus of vertical reciprocity and freedom across generations (Winter); the implications of the gap between ‘the people’ and the population for constitutional legitimacy, and the distinct prospects for a Habermasian and a political liberal conception of constituent power to be applicable at a supranational level (Niesen); the cogency and effectiveness of ‘implicit unamendability’ for safeguarding constitutional essentials compared with entrenching them via eternity clauses, the extent to which measures of militant democracy are compatible with political liberalism (Schupmann).
Although much research has been devoted to how political interest is related to different political outcomes, little is known about its influence on attitudes toward immigration. In line with deliberative theory, political interest should facilitate greater exposure to various perspectives via political discussions and other forms of political engagement that, in turn, should contribute to more positive attitude toward those with differing views or backgrounds. Using data from the European Social Survey, including 39 countries across 10 survey rounds 2002–2021, this study shows that political interest is positively related to immigrant acceptance. However, there is moderation effect of conservative values. Being politically interested is associated with a higher probability of holding pro-immigrant attitudes among weak conservatives, while there is no significant association among strong conservatives. This finding can be explained by the motivated cognition theory, which states that individuals tend to seek out and pay more attention to information that supports their strong pre-existing ideologies. For individuals with ideologies that predispose them to adopt very negative attitudes toward immigration (strong conservatives), being politically interested might entail a greater exposure and attention to ideology-congruent perspectives and, as a result, confirmation of initial predispositions.
Background
Our interdisciplinary team initiated a project to inform the COVID-19 vaccination programme. We developed a novel research co-creation approach to share emerging findings with government.
Aims and objectives
We critically assess the ‘Functional Dialogue’ (FD) programme for future research translation practices in time-limited policy-making scenarios. We identify what factors helped us to put the FDs together and consider their effects on all aspects of the research programme. We draw out key moments of impact, weaknesses and challenges and identify how future FDs might be enhanced.
Methods
Between January 2021 and June 2022, we conducted 14 FDs with state and federal government, exploring attendees’ attitudes, beliefs, experiences, roles and observations regarding our research. FDs and research team debriefs were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically.
Findings
FD processes proved invaluable to the timeliness, impact and flow of our research project by creating systems that helped to bridge the evidence–policy gap. Relationships and reciprocity helped, but other professional commitments of our government partners posed challenges and produced fluctuating engagement. FDs built the capacity of the research team, strengthening communication skills and creating opportunities to contribute to pandemic policies.
Discussion and conclusion
We struggled to quantify the impact of FDs on policy decisions due to the ethical requirements of academic research, barriers for policy makers in isolating and/or acknowledging impact, and the collaborative nature of dialogue. Nevertheless, the structures of knowledge transfer that we foresaw as necessary to ensure impact became the central plank of the project’s broader success.
Beauty as the manifestation of aesthetic responses and valuations is a human universal. All societies operate with (a version of) the category of beauty. We all navigate the world aesthetically. Architecture and the design disciplines together shape the outward appearance of the social world. Therefore, beauty as the engaged response to appearances should be an indispensable category of all design discourses, including architectural discourse. However, beauty is an increasingly embattled and by now nearly extinct category within a conscientious architectural discourse that is rightly aspiring to rational accountability and evidence-based propositions. Beauty has been eliminated from the discipline’s discourse because it is seen as subjective and irrational, as an irresponsible diversion or distraction from architecture’s societal tasks. However, beauty is clearly not being abandoned by the end-users of design. Nor are aesthetic choices absent from actual contemporary design practice. Beauty is just no longer being explicitly referred to.
This article analyses three historical fiction films, Footloose, Land and Freedom and The Beguiled, to help illuminate aspects of politics and political theory. We study them to explore the relationship between Habermas’s concepts of the lifeworld and political spheres, which analysts have critiqued as opaque. Drawing on Habermas’s theory of communicative action, we debate prevailing understandings of the implications of his work for deliberative democracy via an exploration of the films. By expanding the definition of the term ‘motion’ (otherwise known as ‘draft resolution’), we relate this concept to these Habermasian themes. Thus, this paper analyses feature film case studies as they incorporate motions into fictionalised accounts. We suggest that focusing on these movies’ motions, embedded in unfolding narratives, can help reconceive Habermas’s work to illustrate fluidity in how people and ideas may move between informal and more formal spheres. Ultimately, by showcasing the importance of motions in political participation, via these movies, we advance the idea that motions may be seen as part of a ladder of involvement, providing further opportunities for encouraging participation.
As a field, ethics is driven by the desire to help guide human life and human activities. Yet, what are the standards or guideposts indicating that a given policy or practice change actually contributes meaningfully to such desires and aspirations? In other words, how do we know if we have achieved meaningful ethical outcomes and enactment processes? Unfortunately, there are many examples of ethically oriented actions that were well intentioned but carried out in a way that undermined some of the values they intended on promoting or led to unexpected undesirable outcomes. In this paper, building on an account of ethics as a pragmatist pursuit of deliberative wisdom, I identify and discuss four procedural guideposts which can help evaluate if a process of inquiry is an ethical one oriented toward human flourishing. First, situational awareness and continuity designates the need to keep in sight the nature of the situation at stake to ensure that the enactment process does not derail from a cardinal human flourishing orientation. Second, a meaningful ethical enactment should distribute opportunities for participation such that it is not only one’s autonomy (e.g., the ethicist) that is developed and exercised but that positive relationships are also fostered through the growth of others. Third, enactments must strive for more than simple avoidance of encroachment of wrongs but aim for the promotion of praiseworthy practices that pursue what is envisioned as being the better and most compelling vision. Fourth, an ethics process should be conducive of personal growth and mutual learning.
This essay examines the work of Syed Hussein Alatas and his concept of the captive mind as it relates to psychoanalysis in the non-Western context. I argue that psychoanalysts have to go through a two-part process to decolonize psychoanalysis so as to avoid trapping analysts and analysands within the confines of the captive mind, as detailed in Syed Hussein Alatas’s many writings.
This article discusses the long-standing philosophical challenge of integrating disposition, free will, and contingency. We place the above three realities into a coherent theoretical framework. Various disciplines have extensively studied the concepts of disposition, free will, and contingency. Nevertheless, their complex interrelationships still need to be more adequately explored. The result is a persistent dichotomy that gives rise to debates about causation, agency, and the reality of modalities. Thus, this article proposes a new framework called triadic relations to explain the mutual dependencies and emergent properties of the interaction of these fundamental ideas. The article uses a systematic synthesis approach of recent developments in dispositional essentialism, compatibilist theories of free will, and the metaphysics of the modal. We aim to show how dispositions provide the ontological foundation for free will and contingent possibilities. After all, free will operation actualizes specific potentials and introduces original novelty. This method offers an exciting resolution to the compatibilist-libertarian debate by providing a new perspective on mental causation, moral responsibility, and the nature of contingency. Our findings suggest a dynamic ontology that transcends traditional philosophical categories. The findings redefine metaphysics, philosophy of mind, ethics, and interdisciplinary areas. Triadic relations emerge as a new paradigm for reconceptualizing the structure of reality and human agency to reshape the landscape of philosophical inquiry.
Drawing on a critical review of the existing literature on computational propaganda and disinformation, and employing a three-stage process—addressing the “New Wine in Old Bottles” problem, extracting foundational concepts, and constructing a four-pillar framework—this article proposes an expanded theory of propaganda. The theory posits that digital propaganda is shaped by four key dimensions: politico-economic, sociocultural, technological, and socio-psychological, further delineated by the forces of commodification, privatization, connectivity, and virality. Broadening the analytical scope, it encompasses intricate interactions among politics, content, actors, platforms, and goals, recognizing the dynamic complexities inherent in the digital landscape. Furthermore, it sheds light on how commercial interests impact the production and dissemination of propaganda, offering insights into the propagation of popular ideologies such as patriotism and populism. This advances the understanding of digital propaganda’s pervasive impact on political discourse and societal attitudes, encouraging broader global research beyond a focus on state actors.
Anthony Giddens focuses on the relationship between individual identity and modern institutions, arguing that the reflexivity of modernity reaches the very core of the self. The self thus becomes a reflexive project, one that is clearly influenced by institutional changes. Giddens writes:Modern institutional reflexivity, or “the regularized use of knowledge about circumstances of social life as a constitutive element in its organization and transformation”, influences identity by mediating its institutional dimension. This leads to the intertwining of personal and social transformation, with law playing a significant role. Giddens also argues that individual subjectivity conditions one’s identity. In other words, an individual possesses identity precisely through personal relationships with oneself and others, and through the ability to direct one’s own life. He suggests that changes in identity need to be experienced, shaped and sometimes reconstructed through a reflexive process—in which personal and social transformation are intertwined. In my view, this is closely related to the legal sphere and discovering authentic subjectivity through and within modern law. This process is associated with empowering the individual by granting them certain rights, and by assigning them duties and responsibilities for their actions. This means that personal identity is a right that is bound up with being human, as every human being becomes a person from the moment they acquire legal subjectivity.
Nowadays it is recognized that an individual’s identity is constructed through reflection. So it has to be borne in mind that a human individual is a being that not only exists over time, but also that the development which this being constantly undergoes is one of its essential ontological features. This leads to the assertion that the individual’s identity and ontological structure are ongoing processes; issues requiring constant updating and refinement. Reflexivity and thinking are thus the fundamental factors that constitute an individual’s identity. The concept of narrative helps us understand this, as a narrative creates a temporal structure, and so evolves over time, has a beginning and an end. In this sense, a story is a sequence of statements, the elements of which are arranged in linear interdependence and are ordered chronologically. In other words, a story is a structure that unfolds over time, that reproduces the passage of time, and as such it can reveal the temporal relation between two states of affairs and how a situation changes as time goes by. The concept of narrative is of course complex, and it is understood in various ways which focus on different defining aspects. It has been pointed out that a narrative includes descriptions of actions and past events that are deemed noteworthy—by the narrator and listener—because they deviate from ordinary events or situations. It has also been emphasized that a narrative statement is constructed on the basis of at least two appropriately related sentences, so there are no absolute or independent narrative sentences. Finally, Hayden White significantly expanded the concept of “narrative structure”, by introducing emplotment:
Este estudo aborda a crise de paradigmas que afeta o Estado moderno, com ênfase nas implicações do uso de um modelo ultrapassado de aplicação do direito no contexto brasileiro. O objetivo geral da pesquisa é analisar as consequências jurídicas e sociais da manutenção de um sistema de interpretação do direito que já não atende às demandas contemporâneas da sociedade. Como objetivos específicos, a pesquisa pretende: investigar as lacunas entre o modelo jurídico vigente e as necessidades atuais; identificar os impactos sociais desse descompasso; e sugerir caminhos para a renovação do pensamento jurídico. O problema de pesquisa centraliza-se na seguinte questão: como a adoção de um modelo ultrapassado de aplicação do direito impacta a sociedade brasileira e a efetividade do Estado moderno? A metodologia utilizada foi de natureza bibliográfica, permitindo uma análise crítica das teorias jurídicas e sua relação com a realidade social brasileira. Os resultados indicam que a insistência em um modelo tradicional de aplicação do direito gera insegurança jurídica, impede a inovação no sistema legal e perpetua desigualdades sociais. A conclusão sugere a necessidade urgente de reformulação do pensamento jurídico no Brasil para um modelo mais dinâmico e adaptado às transformações sociais contemporâneas.
In philosophical work on the ethics of conversational exchange, much has been written regarding the speaker side—i.e., on the rights and duties we have as speakers. This paper explores the relatively neglected topic of the duties pertaining to the listeners’ side of the exchange. Following W.K. Clifford, we argue that it's fruitful to think of our epistemic resources as common property . Furthermore, listeners have a key role in maintaining and improving these resources, perhaps a more important role than speakers. We develop this idea by drawing from Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber's “interactionist” picture of reason, which suggests that reasoning is essentially dialogical and relies on the epistemic vigilance of listeners. The paper defends an imperfect, prima facie duty to listen, one that is sufficiently strong to place substantial demands on individuals, but not so overly demanding as to be implausible.
This essay contrasts the trajectory of Engin Isin's work since Being Political (2002) with a very different intellectual path pursued among scholars of a younger generation. Isin moves away from his initial critiques of citizenship and 10 years later proposes “citizenship without frontiers,” a way of understanding emancipatory interventions of active citizens in opposition to state violence. During this same time frame, other political theorists began to reject “citizenship” entirely. Whereas, Isin's oeuvre since Being Political incorporates the principles of creativity and resistance of “being political” into a more expansive concept of “citizenship,” other theorists began denouncing citizenship as of a piece with colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberalism. Such reactions expressly rejected efforts to recuperate citizenship for causes that oppose domination and oppression. This essay analyzes arguments antagonistic to citizenship claims through the lens of Isin's work, focusing in particular on competing views on nativism, Indigeneity, and nationality. The Conclusion considers recent examples of activist citizens and citizens without frontiers pursuing political solidarities along the lines Isin proposes.
The neologism “mansplaining” captures an insidious dynamic in which men explain things to women that women already understand, assuming that, by virtue of being a woman, she lacks the man’s knowledge. Mansplaining has started to receive some attention in contemporary scholarship, conceptualizing the phenomenon and identifying its epistemic harm. My purpose is to consider mansplaining and its harms from the perspective of democratic theory. Setting the problem of mansplaining against the norms we expect of democracy—equality, inclusion, and recognition—I argue that mansplaining poses harms that are not only individual and epistemic but also collective and relational. I distinguish two types of mansplaining based on women’s expertise and experience to elaborate on its collective epistemic harms to decision making and its relational harm of political exclusion. Mansplaining poses further relational harms of inequality and misrecognition, undermining the equal social relations and social trust required for deliberation.
Este livro aborda os conceitos de Mediação e Midiatização, levando em consideração suas limitações, potencialidades, articulações e contribuições para as análises dos processos comunicacionais contemporâneos. Divide-se em duas partes: Mediação e midiatização: conexões epistemológicas, que discute aportes teórico-metodológicos e conceitos-chave da área, e Percursos investigativos, que aborda as noções de midiatização e mediação no campo da pesquisa empírica e na análise dos processos e produtos midiáticos.
Would randomly selecting legislators be more democratic than electing them? Lottocrats argue (reasonably) that contemporary regimes are not very democratic and (more questionably) that replacing elections with sortition would mitigate elite capture and improve political decisions. I argue that a lottocracy would, in fact, be likely to perform worse on these metrics than a system of representation that appoints at least some legislators using election – a psephocracy (from psēphizein, to vote). Even today's actually existing psephocracies, which are far from ideally democratic, are better suited than a lottocracy would be to meet the demands of democratic citizenship (politics must be legible to ordinary people, who must have low-cost opportunities to participate) and the demands of democratic leadership (powerful representatives should be specialized and constrained by competitions for popular support). Democrats therefore have weighty instrumental reasons to reject lottocracy and work to democratize psephocracy, instead.
Populist parties place the people at the centre of polity and politics. Such parties refer to direct democracy as a suitable avenue to involve people in the decision-making process but much less is known about their approaches towards deliberation. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature and analyses how populist parties talk about deliberation in their election manifestos. It tests empirically how much they speak about deliberation and whether they have a generic discourse as opposed to specific references to forms of deliberation and levels of implementation. Our qualitative content analysis draws on the election manifestos of 84 political parties from the Manifesto Project Dataset in 23 European democracies in the national elections between 1996 and 2021. The results indicate that populists talk considerably less and use vague language about the levels of implementation compared to non-populists.
In this study, we theoretically conceptualize and empirically investigate translocal spatial arrangements of networked public spheres on social media. In digital communication networks, actors easily connect with others globally, crossing the borders of cities, nations and languages. However, the spatial notions evoked in public sphere research to date remain largely territorial. We propose a theoretical framework drawing on Löw’s sociology of space, which highlights the relational and translocal nature of spatial arrangements. In a case study of the translocal interaction network of Berlin Twitter users, we demonstrate how this framework can be leveraged empirically using network analysis. Despite the overall network of Berlin’s Twittersphere spanning the whole world, we find territorialized as well as deterritorialized translocal communities. This points to the simultaneity of territorial and networked spatial logics in digital public spheres.
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