Government

This article argues that the 2026 constitutional referendum conferred a powerful but limited democratic mandate rather than unlimited constituent authority. By distinguishing derivative authority from constitution-founding power, it contends that referendum legitimacy is constrained by the scope of the question presented to voters. Democratic reform, therefore, requires faithful implementation within the authorised framework rather than expansive reinterpretation that exceeds the mandate granted by the electorate.

Humans need to survive in order to reproduce, so, thus, the intersection of fintech and biotech (finance and biology and technology). Government steps in. -/- .

When public officials act in ways that unjustly harm or otherwise burden someone, how may we, as ordinary citizens, respond? This essay contrasts familiar philosophical answers (which focus either on the political outcomes our response achieves, or on procedural values of civility, democracy, etc.) with an overlooked alternative concerned with what this chapter calls “justice in the administration of justice.” Making, enforcing, being subject to, or resisting political decisions gives rise to benefits and burdens, both on those who make political (...) decisions and on those who are subject to these decisions. Who should, as a matter of fairness, bear the burdens of this process—especially when it misfires, and gives rise to unjust laws, verdicts, and so on—is an important, yet largely neglected, question in political ethics. The chapter distinguishes two different approaches to the matter: one focused on who performs the unjust act, the other on whose interests justify and guide the practice of which the unjust act is a part. It shows that they have importantly different implications for two practical questions raised by official injustice: what we may do to the officials who commit the injustice, and what we may do to the citizens of the community for whom the official acts. Along the way, the chapter sketches an account of public officials as servants (or fiduciaries) of the citizens, which explains why, in certain (quite demanding) circumstances, citizens rather than officials should bear the burdens associated with preventing or correcting unjust political decisions. (shrink)

Democratic Peace Theory has been an important discussion topic in the International Relations field since the mid-twentieth century, a time when the number of demo-liberal societies rose sharply on the international stage, as a direct consequence of worldwide decolonization processes, eventually becoming the predominant form of government towards the end of the 20th century. In this essay, I will trace back the Kantian origins of this theory to the famous essay Toward Perpetual Peace (1795), which is widely regarded as the (...) philosophical core of the aforementioned theory, since it presented the three tenets that are key aspects of current research projects: republicanism, federations of republics and universal hospitality. I will also address common misunderstandings of Kant’s writings and explore the institutional and normative flaws of the claims proposed by Democratic Peace Theory proponents. (shrink)

Das tagesaktuell brisante und zugleich philosophische Buch analysiert die aktuellen Krisensymptome, die sich in vielen westlichen Demokratien zeigen. Dafür unterscheidet der Autor grundsätzlich zwischen Republik und Demokratie und zeigt, dass im Prinzip der Republik Tendenzen angelegt sind, die sich gegen die Demokratie wenden können. Das Buch zeigt zugleich, was getan werden kann, um die Demokratie in der modernen Republik lebendig zu halten, ohne dass die Republik im Populismus einer angeblichen Volksherrschaft zerstört wird.

This essay advances a structural thesis concerning the crisis of American constitutional democracy under the second Trump administration: that the present assault on republican self-governance represents a historically novel synthesis combining the structural objective of Julius Caesar — the replacement of distributed republican authority with personalist autocratic rule while preserving institutional forms as empty vessels — with the tactical methods of Adolf Hitler — systematic epistemological destruction through the Big Lie, the manufacture of emergency through scapegoating and dehumanisation, institutional capture (...) through a process analogous to Gleichschaltung, the politicisation of the military, and the cultivation of a quasi-religious cult of personality — driven by the same motive that impelled Caesar across the Rubicon: the existential need for power as a shield against criminal prosecution. Drawing on the republican political philosophy of Polybius, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and the American Founders, and informed by Arendt's analysis of the epistemological conditions of totalitarianism, the essay develops each element of the synthesis through detailed historical and contemporary analysis. It identifies a three-layered mechanism by which the movement's popular base was manufactured over more than a decade: the domestic cultivation of xenophobic resentment under the guise of Christian patriotism by organisations such as Turning Point USA; the amplification and identity-fusion operations conducted by Russia's Internet Research Agency; and the weaponisation of performative cruelty toward immigrants as the primary bonding mechanism between the leader and his following, a mechanism whose effectiveness derives not from policy conviction but from the leader's unique willingness to transgress norms of political decency in the service of ethnic persecution. The essay argues that the motive for the autocratic consolidation is not ideological but personal, grounded in the threat posed by the Jeffrey Epstein files, which contain, according to congressional testimony, more than one million references to the president in their unredacted form, including FBI interview materials relating to allegations of sexual abuse of a minor that the Department of Justice has withheld or removed from the public record. The launch of the Iran war on February 28, 2026, is analysed as the motive made operational: a diversionary conflict serving simultaneously to suppress the Epstein revelations, relieve strategic pressure on Russia in Ukraine, and generate the rally-round-the-flag effect that renders domestic opposition politically hazardous. The role of Vladimir Putin is theorised as structurally analogous to that of Marcus Licinius Crassus in the fall of the Roman Republic: the foreign patron whose financial and operational support underwrites the domestic seizure of power. The thesis is tested against established democracy measurement indices including V-Dem, Freedom House, the Century Foundation, Bright Line Watch, and Polity, all of which confirm unprecedented democratic deterioration. The essay engages the strongest disanalogies, conceding that Trump lacks Caesar's military genius and Hitler's genocidal programme while demonstrating that the structural logic of republican destruction operates independently of the personal qualities of its agents. Written from Canada by a Canadian physicist and scholar of history and philosophy, this essay simultaneously represents a sincere warning to Americans from a concerned non-partisan outside observer and loyal democratic ally, an attempt to convey to Americans the growing seriousness of the determined threat their republic now faces to its continued existence as the Land of the Free, and an act of solidarity and support for Americans already fighting to preserve their republic. (shrink)

Samuel Bagg's The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy is an excellent book. It lays out and defends, in detail, an ambitious new account of the significance of democratic institutions and practices, which it sees as centrally concerned with avoiding state capture. That account powerfully illuminates many important topics in democratic theory, responding in persuasive and novel ways to old questions as well as offering new areas to explore. However, its near-exclusive focus on domination by the very (...) wealthy may limit the insights it can provide. The idea of state capture's full power may only be made available though by adopting a more varied account of the common good that it stymies, and of the interests that may mobilize against those shared interests. (shrink)

Current American populism—an endogenous product of liberal capitalism—functions less as an interruption of liberal democracy than as the political form through which its contradictions are expressed. Starting from that premise, this essay traces how citizens, rendered economically superfluous and politically abstracted, reach for meaning through affective grievance—grievance that populism captures, reroutes, and converts into allegiance. By placing C.B. Macpherson’s critique of possessive individualism in dialogue with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s analysis of moral incapacitation, A.N. Whitehead’s insights on simplified ideals, and Kant’s republican (...) account of public right, this essay reconstructs the mechanisms by which structural dispossession is transformed into cultural antagonism. Through political-theoretical argument augmented with empirical illustrations, this essay provocatively demonstrates that American populism’s emotional economy reinforces the very structure it claims to resist and why any democratic renewal ought to begin with a reconstruction of personhood itself. (shrink)

One Party One Government Conservation of the Circle as the Structure Self-Sufficiency as the Assumption All Humans: Independents with Two Opinions, Agnostic to the Opinion, Underneath it All, Personal Freedom Goal for All Humans, All of the Constituents, All of the Behavior, in Nature -/- .

This book discusses political corruption and anticorruption as a matter of a public ethics of office. It shows how political corruption is the Trojan horse that undermines public institutions from within via the interrelated action of the officeholders. Even well-designed institutions may go off track if the officeholders fail to uphold by their conduct a public ethics of office accountability. Most current discussions of political corruption and of why it is wrong have concentrated either on explaining and assessing it in (...) terms of an individual’s corrupt character and motives or a dysfunction of institutional procedures. This book brings out the common normative root of these two manifestations of political corruption. It discusses them as instances of the same relationally wrongful practice that consists in an unaccountable use of the power of office by officeholders in public institutions. From this perspective, political corruption is an internal enemy of public institutions that can only be opposed by mobilizing officeholders to engage in answerability practices. In this way, officeholders are responsible for working together to maintain an interactively just institutional system. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates that the Trump administration's repeated claim of a U.S. “trade deficit” with Canada is unfounded, even were "trade deficit" an economically meaningful term, which it demonstrably is not. The term “deficit,” properly applied to budgets, is conceptually incoherent in the context of international trade, in which every transaction is, by definition, an exchange of equal value. At the same time, using 2024 data, the analysis shows that while aggregate trade values between the United States and Canada were (...) nearly equal (450 Billion USD vs 460 billion USD), with the Canadian population and GDP being approximately one tenth that of the United States, Canadians spent about 8,500 USD per individual Canadian purchasing American goods and services in 2024, compared with roughly USD 1,200 per individual American spent purchasing Canadian products. This shows unambiguously that on a fair, per capita basis the average Canadian supports U.S. producers at seven times the amount the average American spends supporting Canadian producers. The paper combines formal logic, empirical trade data, and a calibrated Armington–CES welfare model to quantify the costs of tariffs imposed under deficit rhetoric. Results show that such tariffs reduce U.S. real income and create deadweight losses regardless of any bilateral balance. The analysis further exposes the logical consequences of deficit framing, including treating customers as adversaries and inverting the benefits of imports. The conclusion is clear: there is no U.S.–Canada "trade deficit," even were the term to refer to any type of actual deficit, which it does not. Furthermore, when analyzed rationally on a per capita basis with relative population size and GDP taken into account, Canadians invested in American producers over seven times more than Americans invested in Canadian producers in 2024. Moreover, Canadians have historically been the largest and most loyal foreign customers of American producers, with the historic American-Canadian economic partnership being the highest-volume, most mutually lucrative trade relationship in human history, across the longest peaceful, undefended border in human history; a sparkling jewel in the crown of human civilization on earth and a shining exemplar of what can be achieved by peaceful people working together by engaging in voluntary free trade. The "trade deficit" rhetoric is a political fiction that misrepresents balanced exchanges, punishes America’s most loyal trading partner, undermines sound trade policy, and threatens geopolitical stability. The paper recommends retiring deficit terminology in serious policy discourse and evaluating trade policy through valid metrics by its effects on real incomes, prices, and alliances. Although produced under the Golden Physics Project, this work is part of its Investigative Features Initiative, which analyzes sociopolitical systems, cognitive manipulation, and information warfare as they relate to collective decision-making, scientific integrity, and public trust. Understanding how narratives are engineered and weaponized is critical for preserving open inquiry, democratic institutions, and evidence-based policymaking. (shrink)

The Citizens’ Revolution in Ecuador (2007–2017), led by President Rafael Correa, remains the subject of intense political and academic debate. A dominant traditionalist narrative depicts this decade as one of authoritarianism and economic mismanagement, thereby justifying the post-2017 push for institutional “reconstitution.” In contrast, heterodox accounts interpret the period as a project of democratic development—marked by the expansion of rights, social justice, and economic improvement—and as a rupture from the exclusionary neoliberal model of “minimal democracy” that preceded it. This study (...) adjudicates between these competing interpretations through a comparative analysis of political, economic, and social indicators across three periods: the pre–Citizens’ Revolution era (1996–2006), the Revolution itself (2007–2016), and the post-Revolution years (2016–2023). It evaluates democratic legitimacy, living standards, and development outcomes within Ecuador and compared against ten other Latin American countries to control for global commodity price shifts. The findings reveal substantial improvements during the Citizens’ Revolution in areas such as education, income inequality, infrastructure, security, and citizen consent, across internal, historical, and regional dimensions. These results support the view of the Citizens’ Revolution as a democratizing and developmental force, despite certain authoritarian tendencies. By contrast, like the regime prior to the Citizens’ Revolution, subsequent administrations have overseen a marked regression, characterized by diminished public consent, economic deterioration, and rising violence. The study concludes that the Citizens’ Revolution constituted a significant departure from neoliberal minimalist democracy, offered an alternative model of inclusive development, and left a legacy—both of accomplishments and contradictions—that continues to shape Ecuador’s political, social, and economic trajectory. (shrink)

Este capítulo explora la sociedad contemporánea como un sistema patológico influido por el capitalismo digital y las redes sociales, utilizando marcos teóricos de Deleuze, Guattari, Berardi y otros pensadores. Se divide en secciones que analizan el inconsciente social, la vigilancia paranoica y la manipulación psicótica de emociones, destacando cómo el control se ejerce a través de mecanismos invisibles como algoritmos y datos.

Standards of democratic competence are implicit in many areas of democratic theory, playing a role in debates about the responsibilities of citizens, civic education, and more. The importance of establishing minimal requirements for democratic competence that all those committed to democracy can endorse is thus clear. In recent work, Alexandra Oprea and Daniel J. Stephens argue that a democratically competent voter is one who both knows how to and intends to vote in such a way that, if the relevant candidates (...) or policies were chosen, the predictable end of electoral democracy would not follow. In this paper I outline and discuss two complications for their account. First, I argue that in some cases a democratically competent voter may vote for an option that, if chosen, would bring about the predictable end of democracy. Second, I challenge their claim that democracy must involve the use of free and fair elections, urging instead that sortition—that is, the selection of public officials by lottery—can be legitimately democratic. Consequently, a democratically competent voter can intend to vote for an option that ends electoral democracy without intending the end of democracy entirely, provided that they intend to vote for a suitably democratic alternative based on the use of sortition. (shrink)

This essay mobilizes popular insights about the 'law of the jungle' to conceptualize and critique prevalent consumption and policy attitudes in urban environments, with a focus on residential infrastructure. A phrase used metaphorically to describe a given situation where competition, aggression, and 'survival of the fittest' prevail, it is here used in order to formulate a new characterization of contemporary cities as environments where there is minimal housing regulation or oversight (architectural occupation as survival-of-the-fittest battle), and where individual dwellers are (...) left to operate without significant constraints. In the first section of the paper, I introduce a commonplace interpretation of the 'jungle metaphor', commenting on sets of characteristics and values which are associated with it. In the second section of the paper, I paint a portrait of contemporary socio-economic environments, with a focus on urbanity and its distributive ordering of housing resources. I describe these environments as constructed (formal arrangements; architecture and urbanism) and policed (institutional arrangements; governments and state authorities) in manners which acutely—and problematically—emphasize market laissez-faire and self-interest. In the third section of the paper, I link this portrait of the contemporary city to survival-of-the-fittest jungle-like spaces, commenting on rivalrous competition between dwellers and, in the fourth and concluding section, I briefly propose one possible, normatively desirable form of urban market regulations. (shrink)

The use of artificial intelligence for political decision-making is in an early stage of development; however, there are several questions that arise about its current and hypothetical uses. These questions often come from areas of philosophy, such as ethics, political philosophy, and logic. In this article, first, the theoretical approaches from which the current and hypothetical uses of artificial intelligence for political decision-making can be interpreted will be presented. These approaches include realistic politics, bureaucracy theory, and conflict theory. Then, the (...) possible uses that artificial intelligence could have in politics, as well as the attempts that have already been made, will be discussed. Subsequently, the logical, ethical, and political problems that the use of artificial intelligence for political decision-making could cause will be outlined. Next, a basic experiment will be presented on what kind of political decisions artificial intelligence could suggest. Finally, the points previously discussed will be analyzed from the mentioned theories. The conclusion reached was that, at the present time, the use of artificial intelligence for political decision-making could align more with the approaches of Machiavelli, focusing primarily on achieving goals such as maintaining power, while downplaying moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Politics is a complex subject. There are many ways of governing with numerous types and subtypes. In this paper we attempt to first simplify politics by defining its main features. We show that political ideologies can fit into a dimensional space and define three major contemporary styles. Following this we compare and contrast fascism and communism and introduce totalitarianism using North Korea as an example. We then turn our attention to democracy, showing that the strength and weakness of democratic institutions (...) lies in how they deal with diversity. The classical liberal approach is presented as a model for effective democratic governance. We end with the current most serious threat to democracy: populism and nationalism. These are both forms of tribalism that pit group identity against individualism. Dictators succeed by appealing to tribalist tendencies. Democracies can win only if they are representative and pluralistic. (shrink)

This book addresses a systematic weakness in contemporary political theory and philosophy. Most contemporary political theorists and philosophers are unable to explain, vindicate, or justify the authority of the liberal democratic institutions most of them live under. Instead, they endorse moralist accounts of the right to rule which require governments to meet impossibly high standards to avoid condemnation as illegitimate usurpers. This is true not just of the dominant Rawlsian mainstream, but of many of its radical critics, whose membership of (...) more critical traditions leaves them sceptical of the value of existing institutions, even where they provide stable, decent rule. The book instead provides a realist account of the authority of liberal democratic rule focused on impersonal rule and regulated democratic competition. It uses groundbreaking work in political economy to explain how, at least under reasonably favourable conditions, these two mechanisms can be expected to combine to generate a growing surplus whose fruits will be made widely available. The prosperity and protection provided by liberal democratic rule to most of those it governs forms the basis of its authority, even though the hierarchies and exclusions that remain leave liberal democratic societies a long way from justice. Understanding liberal democratic authority in this way allows us to reassess challenges to it. Protest and resistance must accept impersonal rule and regulated democratic competition. While anger, and even violence, may then be acceptable and even appropriate, even peaceful attempts to remove the winners of democratic elections must be condemned. (shrink)

The reconciliation of high medieval philosophical theories and its praxis is expressed in this opus. The “oust Duterte” petition is a move not of an individual political being but rather of a political sphere upon which the individual is subjected to. The role of philosophy has always been subjected to the endeavor of continuously seeking the truth. The truth is categorized as logical and ontological, where it is hermeneutically subjected to the philosophical engagement proponents of ontology and logic, St. Anselm (...) of Canterbury, and St. Thomas Aquinas respectively. The highlight of this paper is explicating the inviolability of the ruler – constituent relationship under the interpretation of ontology and logic. The contribution of this opus is its pure philosophical engagement into a situation which is material, as such that the latter is viewed by its antecedent vis a vis the evolution of the philosophical theories presented as modalities. (shrink)

There is no good human life outside of a state, and the good state enables us to live well together – so says Constitutivism, the theory developed in this book. Reinvigorating Aristotelian ideas, the author asks in what sense citizens of modern, populous and pluralistic societies share a common good. -/- While we can easily find examples of cooperation that benefit each member, such as insurances, the idea that persons could share a common good became puzzling with modernity – a (...) puzzlement epitomised in Margaret Thatcher’s ‘What is society? There is no such thing!’ Aristotle describes the state as the end of human development, both chronologically and normatively, but modern philosophers, from Thomas Hobbes to Carl Schmitt, conceive the relation between state and citizen as instrumental. Either the state is a means of advancing each member’s individual good or the individual is a means of advancing some collective good. From both perspectives, the Aristotelian idea that human individuals somehow realise their own good in realising some communal good appears metaphysically puzzling, even nonsensical. -/- This puzzlement, the author argues, results from our profoundly modern understanding of rational actions, which we generally see as means toward outcomes. If we allow that not only outcomes but also histories and identities can be good reasons for actions, then it makes sense to see a person’s good and the common good of their political community as constitutive of one another, as Aristotle thought. Building on this idea, the author argues that individual actions and lives exist only in conjunction with a political community. In designing our institutions, we hence also give ourselves an identity and, in that sense, constitute ourselves as persons. Her arguments shed new light on a range of traditional topics of political theory, such as the justification of state authority or the question of how to justify or challenge the design of social institutions. (shrink)

A citizens’ movement in Berlin advocates for the expropriation of housing corporations and has won a significant majority in a popular referendum in September 2021. Building on this proposal, this paper develops a general account of expropriation as a measure for corporate reform and thereby contributes to the ongoing debate on the democratic accountability of business corporations. It argues that expropriation is a valuable tool for intervention in a dire situation in some economic sector to enable a re-structuring of the (...) governance of the assets in question. Compared with other tools available, expropriation is a more forward-looking, genuinely political measure that does not depend on the legal assignment of guilt but rather proceeds in a pragmatic and problem-oriented manner. It also allows us to reconsider in how far the market mechanism should be employed in the administration of assets. Objections from private property rights against expropriation fail as corporations generally are privileged, quasi-public institutions that can justifiably be subject to democratic interventions. Expropriation is thus an important addition to the arsenal of corporate reform proposals, especially for those concerned with a broad democratization of the corporation. (shrink)

The paper argues that the concept of a civilizationally transformed state envisions a new governance paradigm that emphasizes moral values, collective responsibility, and compassion over traditional ideas of sovereignty and legality. This model emerges from the failure of conventional states to address global crises like climate change, economic instability, and democratic erosion. It proposes a state that prioritizes human dignity, justice, and the common good. Drawing from philosophical traditions such as Ubuntu, it seeks to foster mutual accountability and elevate compassion (...) as a guiding principle of governance to ensure care for the vulnerable. The 2024 Bangladeshi student-public uprising reflects this vision by rejecting repressive governance and demanding moral accountability. Realizing this transformation requires a cultural and ethical shift where the state serves as a moral authority inspiring pluralism, collective growth, and humanity's highest aspirations. (shrink)

The Passenger Name Record (PNR) Directive has introduced a pre-emptive, risk-based approach in the landscape of European databases and information exchange for security purposes. The article contributes to ongoing debates on algorithmic security and data-driven decision-making by fleshing out the specific way in which the EU PNR-based approach to security substantiates core characteristics of algorithmic regulation. The EU PNR framework appropriates data produced in the commercial sector for generating security-related behavioural predictions and does so in a way that gives rise (...) to a paradoxical normativity directly dependent on empirical states. Its ‘securitisation move’ is moreover characterised by an inherent tendence to expand. As a result, the PNR Directive poses challenges for existing check and balance mechanisms and for human autonomy. These challenges could be partially addressed by strengthening ex-post control procedures and independent auditing. Yet in the decision to adopt a risk-based security model, something more fundamental seems to be at stake, namely, the preservation of the idea of human beings as moral agents able to direct and modify their behaviour in accordance with an intelligible, reliable and predictable normative order. (shrink)

The piece delves into the political and philosophical complexities surrounding the Bangladesh Awami League's future following the 2024 student-public uprising. It explores the challenge of reconciling the party's foundational philosophies of Bengali nationalism and secularism with the movement's collective calls for democracy and pluralism, and considers whether redemption is possible through ideological transformation or a pragmatic focus on regime change.

We should drop the marketplace of ideas as our go-to metaphor in free speech discourse and take up a new metaphor of the connected city. Cities are more liveable when they have an integrated mix of transport options providing their occupants with a variety of locomotive affordances. Similarly, societies are more liveable when they have a mix of communication platforms that provide a variety of communicative affordances. Whereas the marketplace metaphor invites us to worry primarily about authoritarian control over the (...) content that circulates through our communication networks, the connected-city metaphor invites us to worry, more so, about the homogenization of the tools and formats through which we communicate. I argue that the latter worry demands greater attention under emerging technological conditions. (shrink)

Chilling Effects occur when the risks surrounding a speech restriction inadvertently deter speech that lies outside the restriction’s official scope. Contrary to the standard interpretation of this phenomenon I show how speech deterrence for individuals can sometimes, instead of suppressing discourse at the group level, intensify it – with results that are still unwelcome, but crucially unlike a ‘chill’. Inadvertent deterrence of speech may, counterintuitively, create a Heating Effect. This proposal gives us a promising explanation of the intensity of public (...) debate on topics for which there is, simultaneously, evidence of people self-censoring, for fear of breaching speech restrictions. It also helps to pinpoint two problems with existing theoretical analyses of the Chilling Effect: (i) in how they construe the relation between individual- and group-level discursive phenomena; and (ii) how they characterize the distinctively wrongful nature of inadvertent speech deterrence. (shrink)

Governments are increasingly using wellbeing frameworks as a primary way to measure economic and social progress. These frameworks aim to measure a population’s wellbeing in order to develop policies that improve its wellbeing. However, there’s strong disagreement as to what wellbeing consists in, both among philosophers and the general public. So, what is it exactly that governments should be trying to promote when they aim to measure and promote wellbeing? My method is to identify the primary conditions for an account (...) of wellbeing for wellbeing frameworks and find the account of wellbeing that best meets those conditions. When we do this, we find that no existing account of wellbeing used for this purpose is satisfactory. I describe an account of wellbeing that has not been used in wellbeing frameworks, which I call the Reflective Value account. I argue this account succeeds in meeting our conditions and so is the best account of wellbeing for this purpose. (shrink)

Chapter 9 analyzes the political discourse and performance of the Greek populist radical left party SYRIZA in government since 2015. To this purpose, it examines its leader Alexis Tsipras’ discursive construction of antagonisms, his articulation of social demands and political style, as well as SYRIZA’s policies while in government. The analysis shows that in office Tsipras continued to use people-centred populist appeals to create and maintain a political antagonism between the Greek people on the one hand and the traditional political (...) establishment and neoliberalism on the other, while at the same time the government enacted the austerity measures prescribed by the EU, ECB, and IMF “troika” Memorandum that SYRIZA had rejected while in opposition. The chapter also examines how SYRIZA set up an alliance with the radical right party ANEL based on a shared national-popular antagonism against the Memorandum and how this alliance unravelled regarding the issue of Macedonia that evidenced two different conceptions of “the people”: a nationalist-nativist one by ANEL and an inclusionary and heterogeneous one by SYRIZA. (shrink)

The ascendance of populism to power in various liberal democracies around the world triggered vigorous public debates. More often than not, scholars, politicians and analysts warn of the dangers populism poses to democracy and its institutions, expecting populism to turn authoritarian once in government. Viewing populism as a feature of the opposition alone, others argue that populism in government is not meant to last - but rather consolidated into the mainstream of political and party systems. This chapter provides a critical (...) overview of the literature on populism in power, putting into scrutiny dominant theoretical paradigms in the field of so-called populism studies. It discusses the multi-faceted trajectories populist actors globally may take in their transition from opposition to power. It concludes that distinct types of populist actors have distinct implications on democracy depending on factors such as ideology and context. (shrink)

In his collection of articles, "Where Are We Now - The Epidemic as Politics", Giorgio Agamben appears to make some very startling (if not downright outrageous) claims concerning the political situation in Italy and elsewhere in Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this piece [in German] I analyse how these claims are rooted in the philosophy of Agamben's "Homo sacer" project. Focussing on three central notions (Schmitt's "state of exception", Foucault's "biopolitics", and Agamben's very own "bare life"), I show how (...) Agamben's illegitimate identification of the bare life with the subject of biopolitics leads to the derailment of his theory as well as to some of the grave political misjudgments he makes regarding the pandemic. (shrink)

According to Joseph Heath, privatizations should be judged on a case-by-case basis with appeal to the Pareto criterion. This approach, or so I argue, amounts to a depoliticization of privatization. While Heath’s approach is effective and at times illuminating, I show that a consistent application of his methodology is self-defeating in that it eventually requires a politicization of privatization. With appeal to transaction cost theory, I show there are social costs associated with affirming the competitive pressures of the market. Subsequently, (...) I argue that while private actors may, according to Heath, pursue efficiency with appeal to an adversarial morality, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are much more constrained in how they may achieve such gains. Due to the pressures of liberal neutrality, SOEs may chase efficiency only without setting actors back. Conversely, the private sector’s potential for success is predicated on its ability to compete for Kaldor-Hicks efficiency, which specifically allows for win-lose interactions. While SOEs are often no more able than the private sector to achieve Pareto optima, this discrepancy makes it so that SOEs produce gains that are ex-ante lower but more equal, whereas the private sector produces gains that are ex-ante higher but more unequal. Thus, the social cost of affirming the competitive pressures of the market is ex-ante inequality. If this premise is accepted, there is no way to avoid the conclusion that a consistent case-by-case approach requires a structural, political view on how privatizations affect the state’s ex-post Pareto-enhancing abilities. (shrink)

Authority is an important feature of military life. Political and military superiors claim the power to give binding orders to their subordinates. If they have the authority they claim (and that many citizens and soldiers take them to possess), then the subordinates are morally required to do as commanded. Tadros’ To Do, To Die, To Reason Why challenges the authority claims that political and military superiors make in giving orders: the kinds of considerations ordinarily thought to underpin their authority – (...) in particular, the instrumental benefits of authoritative decision-making in politics and military life – cannot justify it. Tadros’ claim is not that subordinates are never required to do what their superiors order. Trivially, superiors may order subordinates to do what they are anyway required to do. (The captain orders the privates not to kill the prisoners.) Less trivially, superiors’ orders may change the subordinates’ factual or epistemic circumstances, which results in their having duties that they would otherwise have lacked. (The captain orders a private to jump into the sea. His order startles a child on the shore so it loses its balance and plunges into the water. The private may now have a duty to jump in to save the child, and he may have that duty because the superior gave the order.) Yet this way of changing the subordinates’ duties is not, for Tadros, a genuine exercise of authority: authority brings about normative change directly, rather than by changing the subordinate’s factual or epistemic circumstances. It is authority so understood that, according to Tadros, military and political superiors claim and yet lack. Tadros offers two complementary arguments for this anarchist conclusion. First, he argues that superiors have practical authority over subordinates only if the subordinates have duties to obey (or follow) the superiors’ orders, rather than merely to conform with them (by doing something which happens to be what they were ordered to do). There must be a suitable link between order and action. But, Tadros argues, soldiers don’t have a duty to obey their superiors’ orders. (Call this the Obedience Claim.) So military superiors lack practical authority vis-à-vis their subordinates. (Call this the Authority Claim.) Second, Tadros argues that authority is either unjustified or otiose. Exercises of practical authority, by imposing duties, restrict their subjects’ freedom. Moral duties are difficult to justify precisely because they are freedom-restricting in this way; and only certain kinds of considerations suffice to make an action morally obligatory. Tadros argues that there are sufficient reasons for a superior to have and exercise the power to make ving morally obligatory by issuing a directive only if there are already sufficient reasons for ving being independently morally obligatory. (We call this the No Duty, No Authority Claim.) We challenge both arguments. Sections 2 and 3 show that, even if the Obedience Claim is true, it does not entail the Authority Claim. Section 4 casts doubt on the No Duty, No Authority Claim. (shrink)

Joseph Raz criticizes John Rawls for a procedure supporting a non-adaptable constitution. This paper considers how a non-adaptable constitution can seem not so counterintuitive and also when.

Accusations that some political movement or policy is totalitarian or is pushing a nation towards a totalitarian state are always popular in the speech of political firebrands, but this is obvious hyperbole. This was, broadly speaking, the political project that Hannah Arendt engaged with in the middle of the 20th century. Using her worry about mass society as the starting point for my analysis and contrasting that with Herbert Marcuse’s critique of mass consumerist society I will argue that the worry (...) facing modern consumer capitalism is what I term the ‘complete’ domination of all modes of human activity by the social realm and the activity of work. Moreover, the crystallization of this domination (and potentially any sort of total domination) results in the creation of a State that is necessarily violent. (shrink)

Democracy is widely praised as a great achievement of humanity. However, in recent years there has been an increasing amount of concern that its functioning across the world may be eroding. In response, efforts to combat such change are emerging. Considering the pervasiveness of technology and its increasing capabilities, it is no surprise that there has been much focus on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to this end. Questions as to how AI can be best utilized to extend the (...) reach of democracy to currently non-democratic countries, how the involvement in the democratic process of certain demographic groups (e.g. ethnic minorities, women, and young people) can be increased, etc. are frequent topics of discussion. In this article I would like not merely to question whether this is desirable but rather argue that we should be trying to envisage ways of using AI for the exact opposite purpose: that of replacing democratic systems with better alternatives. (shrink)

In response to the growing social discontent at what is perceived as generational injustice, due to younger generations of voters facing long-term negative consequences from issues disproportionately decided by the votes of older generations of voters, there have been suggestions to introduce an upper age voting threshold. These have been all but universally dismissed as offensive and contrary to basic democratic values. In the present article, I show that the idea is in fact entirely consonant with present-day democratic practices and (...) far from without a precedent. Hence, I describe how the aforementioned generational injustice can be rectified using a simple vote weighting scheme which is easy to implement and interpret. Lastly, I discuss the societal effects that this alteration of the voting system would have on the distribution of the origins of political power. (shrink)

Should officeholders be held individually responsible for submitting to systemically corrupt institutional practices? We draw a structural analogy between individual action under coercive threat and individual participation in systemic corruption, and we argue that officeholders who submit to corrupt institutional practices are not excused by the existence of a systemic coercive threat. Even when they have good personal reasons to accept the threat, they remain individually morally assessable and, in the circumstances, they are also individually blameworthy for actions performed in (...) their institutional capacity. (shrink)

This chapter argues for a structural injustice approach to the governance of AI. Structural injustice has an analytical and an evaluative component. The analytical component consists of structural explanations that are well-known in the social sciences. The evaluative component is a theory of justice. Structural injustice is a powerful conceptual tool that allows researchers and practitioners to identify, articulate, and perhaps even anticipate, AI biases. The chapter begins with an example of racial bias in AI that arises from structural injustice. (...) The chapter then presents the concept of structural injustice as introduced by the philosopher Iris Marion Young. The chapter moreover argues that structural injustice is well suited as an approach to the governance of AI and compares this approach to alternative approaches that start from analyses of harms and benefits or from value statements. The chapter suggests that structural injustice provides methodological and normative foundations for the values and concerns of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The chapter closes with an outlook onto the idea of “structure” and on responsibility. The idea of a structure is central to justice. An open theoretical research question is to what extent AI is itself part of the structure of society. Finally, the practice of responsibility is central to structural injustice. Even if they cannot be held responsible for the existence of structural injustice, every individual and every organization has some responsibility to address structural injustice going forward. (shrink)

The transdisciplinary Assisted Living project conducts research within, health science, social science and ethics. The overall aim of the project is to advance responsible research and innovation in the field of welfare technology. By adapting an RRI framework, the project aims to: map how stakeholders and experts perceive the state-of-the-art of responsible welfare technologies, focusing on assisted living technologies, in Norway and internationally; develop ALT solutions for users with mild cognitive impairment and dementia, through an RRI approach; judge by an (...) integrated HTA approach whether technologies introduced through an RRI process score better than currently implemented technologies; and d) create a wider dialogue on responsible welfare technologies for the future, reflecting on alternatives and options. In the project RRI is operationalized as involving four dimensions: A specific focus on addressing significant societal needs and challenges, A research and development process that actively engages and responds to a range of stakeholders, A concerted effort to anticipate potential problems, identify alternatives, and reflect on underlying values, and A willingness from relevant actors to act and adapt according to 1–3. These dimensions are built into the project’s design in different ways. The project, funded by the Research Council of Norway, started December 2015 and we have by now had substantial experience with working with these dimensions in practice. This paper will describe the experiences with including needs assessment, engagement, anticipation, reflection and responsiveness in the project, after 1.5 years operation. The paper will highlight several challenges that have appeared in the project when doing RRI in practice, related to transdisciplinarity, communication, project planning and control, and quality. We believe that the challenges experienced in our project are typical of RRI projects, so it is important to create open discussions about the pros and cons of RRI projects in the community of RRI practitioners. (shrink)

The ability of videos to serve as evidence of racial injustice is complex and contested. This essay argues that scrutiny of the Black body has come to play a key role in how videos of police violence are mined for evidence, following a long history of racialized surveillance and attributions of threat and superhuman powers to Black bodies. Using videos to combat injustice requires incorporating humanizing narratives and cultivating resistant modes of looking.

There is widespread consensus that the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) environment has contributed to the subpar quality of public sector service delivery in South Africa. Hence, the aim of this paper is to ascertain how the South African government can enhance service delivery in a VUCA world. This article presents a comprehensive study of a number of secondary literature sources. The author makes an effort to draw attention to knowledge gaps that might serve as the foundation for more (...) research in the future. The main finding is that for the South African government to provide good service in a VUCA environment, its employees must be proficient in Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation, Strategic Planning, Programme and Project Management Methodology, and Change Management Methodology. There is a severe lack of empirical study on the delivery of public sector services in an environment characterized by VUCA. As a result, there is a need for more research on this topic. Specifically, in order to establish the effect that the VUCA environment has on the governments of emerging nations. The research will be beneficial to the governments of developing countries, notably South Africa, as well as to those who work in the field of public administration. (shrink)

The paper examines one of the considerations that determines the extent to which policymakers pursue the objec- tives demanded by constituents. The nature and extent of their ignorance serve to determine the incentives confronted by policymakers to pursue their constituents’ demands. The paper also considers several other consequences of policymaker ig- norance and its relationship to expert failure.

What makes democracy valuable? One traditional answer holds that participating in democratic self-government amounts to a kind of autonomy: it enables citizens to be the authors of their political affairs. Many contemporary philosophers, however, are skeptical. We are autonomous, they argue, when important features of our lives are up to us, but in a democracy we merely have a say in a process of collective choice. In this paper, we defend the possibility of democratic autonomy, by advancing a conception of (...) it which is impervious to this objection. At the core of our account is the idea of joint authorship. You are a joint author of something when that thing expresses your joint intentions. Democracy may not make any one of us sole author of our political affairs, but it can make us their joint authors. It is in such joint authorship, we claim, that the intrinsic value of democratic self-government consists. (shrink)

Adam Ferguson’s imperial thought casts new light on the age-old republican dilemma of the tension between empire and liberty. Generations of republican writers had been haunted by this issue as the decline of Rome proved that imperial expansion would eventually ruin the liberty of a state. Many eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers regarded this as an insoluble conundrum and thus became critics of empire. Ferguson shared their basic views but, paradoxically, was still able to defend the British Empire in the debates over (...) the American Revolution. His argument effectively offered a viable solution to the republican dilemma, which distinguished him from his contemporaries. In light of this, I argue that political representation was the pivotal conception for Ferguson to make empire and liberty compatible. It was on this ground that he could advocate the union with Ireland, which he believed would lead to a lasting balance of power in Europe. -/- ; British Empire; liberty; balance of power; political representation; American Revolution; Anglo-Irish Union. (shrink)

This essay proposes that legitimacy (on at least one understanding of the protean term) is centrally a right to err: a right to make mistakes that harm interests of others that are ordinarily protected by rights (Section 1). Legitimacy so understood is importantly distinct from authority, the normative power to impose binding (or enforceable) rules at will (Section 2). Specifically, legitimate institutions have a distinctive liberty right to harm others’ interests that other agents normally lack. Their subjects in turn lack (...) certain permissions to avoid, or redirect, the costs of the institutions’ mistakes in ways that would otherwise be permissible (Section 3). Legitimate institutions have this liberty right because, and insofar as, they act for their subjects (in a specific sense), and do so only for the subjects’ sake. As a matter of fairness, (some of) the costs of the institutions’ actions are borne by the subjects for whom they are undertaken (Section 4). In turn, where an institution fails to act for its subjects in the relevant way, it (and its officials) may have to bear the costs of its errors, which the subject is morally permitted to redirect by acts of resistance (Section 5). (shrink)

With the coronavirus pandemic and the Omicron variant once again forcing countries into lockdown (as of late 2021), this essay seeks to outline a Foucauldian critique of various legal measures taken by the Danish government to cope with COVID-19 during the first year and a half of the pandemic. The essay takes a critical look at the extra-legal measures employed by the Danish government, as the Danish politicians attempted to halt the spread of the, now almost forgotten, Cluster 5 COVID-19 (...) variant. This situation will serve as a critical point from where to start using Foucault’s writings on life and biopolitics in order to expose various legally problematic governmental decisions that became visible during the handling of COVID-19 in general and the Cluster 5 mutation in particular. Reframing the pandemic within Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, this essay concludes that the state of exception has led to an increase in biopolitical logic, where some lives have come to matter more than others. As a critical counterpoint to this logic, the conclusion suggests that the notion of biocommunism could provide a suitable reconfiguration of communism. A reconfiguration that could mitigate some of the issues related to biopolitics is uncovered earlier in the essay. (shrink)

Climate change activists sometimes engage in protests that exert coercion on governments, businesses, and citizens, instead of protests that just attempt to persuade them. I argue that these coercive protests are sometimes undemocratic, despite recent attempts in the literature to describe them as democratic. Coercive climate protests do not always improve deliberative decision-making, and they are a means of exerting control over official decisions that is not available to all affected. I then claim that the fact that some of these (...) protests are undemocratic is not a decisive objection against them. Climate change poses such an extremely serious threat to basic rights worldwide – risking hundreds of millions of lives – that people's right to democracy is outweighed when infringing it is a necessary means for achieving climate change mitigation. (shrink)

Universal Basic Income has become a popular idea in the last few decades even though one can find its roots in the earlier centuries. In this thesis, I have examined the position of UBI in the works of the most influential contemporary philosophers. By connecting the idea of UBI with some certain concepts from different philosophers, I aimed to improve the overall understanding of UBI. I have mentioned the concepts such as "labor", "leisure", "idleness", "boredom", "poverty", "inequality", "distribution", "happiness", "power", (...) "needs", "truth", "alienation", etc. I have used a literature methodology for my research. I have tried to read and relate the concept of UBI with the works of 10 philosophers: Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Marx, William James, Bertrand Russell, Michel Foucault, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Zizek, Peter Singer. (shrink)