DAVINA COOPER, Fiduciary Government: Decentring Property and Taxpayers' Interests
| Date | 01 June 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399700600210 |
| Published date | 01 June 1997 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
304
GREGORY
S.
ALEXANDER,
Civic
Property
This
article
explores
an
old
question
in
what,
hopefully,
is
a
new
way.
The
old
question
concerns
the
relationship
between
property
and
democracy:
are
individual
property
rights
consistent
with
or
do
they
undermine
democracy?
The
relationship
between
property
rights
and
democracy
has
long
been
a
controversial
topic
between
the
politi-
cal
Left
and
Right.
Theorists
on
the
Right,
like
Friedrich
Hayek
and
Milton
Friedman,
have
considered
the
existence
of
strong
private
property
rights
absolutely
indispens-
able
to
democracy.
On
the
other
end
of
the
political
spectrum,
critics
of
capitalism
have
often
condemned
property
rights
as
the
basis
of
economic
privilege
which
itself
is
unde-
mocratic.
My
aim
is
to
avoid
both
of
these
extreme
positions.
Both
of
these
responses
make
the
same
mistake
of
supposing
that
there
is
a
necessary,
even
a
priori,
relation-
ship
between
property
and
democracy,
either
mutually
compatible
or
mutually
antag-
onistic,
depending
on
which
side
of
the
political
fence
the
speaker
occupies.
Rather
than
abstractly
asking
what
relationship
democracy
has
with
the
very
concept
of
private
property
tout
court,
I
suggest
that
a
more
fruitful
path
would
be
to
revise
the
question,
to
ask
instead
whether
any
particular
sorts
of
property
institutions
might
contribute
to
revitalizing
civic
life
and
what
the
characteristics
of
those
institutions
would
be.
DAVINA
COOPER,
Fiduciary
Government:
Decentring
Property
and
Taxpayers’ Inter-
ests
This
article
explores
fiduciary
duty
in
the
context
of
local
government.
It
focuses
on
the
way
the
duty
currently
functions -
owed
to
local
taxpayers -
and
the
discursive
possibilities
of
alternative
formulations
for
progressive,
critical
local
government
prac-
tice.
The
article
argues
fiduciary
duty
to
the
taxpayer
has
been
deployed
to
promote
neo-conservative
and
neo-liberal
norms.
This
is
not
simply
a
consequence
of
appli-
cation
but
goes
to
the
very
heart
of
the
way
taxpayers’
interests
and
the
fiduciary
relationship
have
been
conceptualized.
The
article
therefore
considers
alternative
par-
adigms,
including
the
implications
of
developing
a
fiduciary
framework
which
centres
the
most
vulnerable
interests
within
a
non-property-based
relationship.
However,
while
a
more
progressive
model
can
clearly
be
developed,
it
does
not
by
itself
resolve
difficult
political
questions.
Radical
reformulation
may
be
useful
at
the
level
of
critique,
however,
its
combination
of
legal
form
and
radical
idealism
may
prove
less
productive
(even
counterproductive)
as
a
normative
strategy
of
political
and
legal
re-visioning.
SOL
PICCIOTIO,
Fragmented
States
and
International
Rules
of
Law
Globalization,
as
the
latest
phase
in
the
development
of
the
world
system,
involves
a
fragmentation
and
restructuring
of
state
forms,
in
which
law
is
being
called
upon
to
mediate
shifts
in
the
structures
of
power.
A
historical
and
empirically
rich
analysis
is
needed
to
help
understand
the
nature
and
changing
forms
of
statehood,
as
well
as
the
possibilities
and
limits
of
international
law,
and
the
article
explores
these
in
the
context
of
some
aspects
of
business
regulation,
especially
income
taxation.
TONY
JEFFERSON,
The
Tyson
Rape
Trial.
The
Law,
Feminism
and
Emotional
’Truth’
This
article
takes
issue
with
traditional,
feminist
and
legal
discourses
on
rape,
arguing
that
their
assumptions
of
unitary,
rational
subjectivity
fail
to
do
justice
to
the
complex
emotional
dynamics
of
particular
date-rape
cases.
The
result
in
this
case,
the
Tyson
rape
trial,
is
a
reductive,
either
(predator)/or
(victim)
reading
of
events.
The
assumption
of
contradictory
subjectivities
in
which
ambivalence
is
a
central
concept,
enables
a
re-
interpretation
of
the
available
evidence
that
allows
fuller
sense
to
be
made
of
many
evi-
dential
inconsistencies
and
contradictions.
The
resulting
explanation
aims
to
get
closer
to
the
emotional
’truth’
of
the
encounter.
By
offering
more
recognizable,
hence
con-
vincing,
accounts
of
the
meanings
and
practices
through
which
male
power -
femin-
ism’s
enduring
insight -
gets
reproduced
at
the
level
of
individual
subjects,
it
should
facilitate
feminism’s
political
project.
The
legal
challenge
remains
to
find
meanings
and
practices
commensurate
with
the
social
and
psychic
complexity
of the
issues
outlined.
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