II: Political Thinkers and Ideas Penseurs et Idées Politiques
| DOI | 10.1177/002083451806800302 |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
343
II
POLITICAL THINKERS AND IDEAS
PENSEURS ET IDÉES POLITIQUES
68.3368 ALLEN, Nicholas — Great expectations: the job at the top
and the people who do it. Political Quarterly 89(1), Jan.-
March 2018 : 9-17.
A. King thought and wrote a great deal about British prime ministers and
political leadership more generally. But in contrast to the way in which
single papers embodied his contribution to our understanding of ‘gov-
ernment overload’, ‘executive legislative relations’ and ‘career politi-
cians’, his contribution to our understanding of the prime ministership
was defined by a body of work. This essay explores that body of work
and identifies some of the themes that characterised it. It then relates
King's work to claims about the ‘presidentialisation’ of the office, as well
as the importance of the expectations surrounding contemporary prime
ministers. As Britain grapples with the challenge of Brexit, we should all
take note of his counsel against expecting too much in the way of ‘strong’
prime ministerial leadership. [R] [See Abstr. 68.3383]
68.3369 AVGOUSTI, Andreas — An overlooked form of demotic
power: reputation in Plato's Republic. History of Political
Thought 39(1), Spring 2018 : 1-15.
This article challenges the customary view that the ruled have no political
power in Plato's Kallipolis. It attends to the role reputation (doxa) plays in
the relationship between philosophy and power. Reputation is a position-
al good determined in part by the judgments of those who attribute it,
namely, the many. The article first draws attention to the many in the
persuasive task Socrates agrees to undertake. It then establishes that
the pursuit of reputation is constitutive of political life in the regimes of
Books 8 and 9. These findings are used to discuss reputation in the
institutional design of Kallipolis, which transforms philosophy from some-
thing regarded as useless or harmful, to that which saves the city. [R,
abr.]
68.3370 BALE, Tim — Change — and scepticism — as a constant:
Anthony King on parties and party systems. Political
Quarterly 89(1), Jan.-March 2018 : 38-46.
A. King had a healthy disrespect for conventional wisdom but a deep
appreciation for common sense. Drawing on an eclectic mix of sources,
both qualitative and quantitative, he wore his learning lightly, the better to
highlight and explain to academic and non academic audiences how
shifts in society and public opinion drove change inside parties and in the
party systems in which they operated. King asked great questions and
provided answers that simultaneously captured complexity and the big
picture. His provocative interpretations and analysis were always stimu-
lating — and many of them proved highly prescient. [R] [See Abstr.
68.3383]
68.3371 BOTTING, Eileen Hunt — The early Rousseau’s egalitarian
feminism: a philosophical convergence with Madame
Dupin and "The Critique of the Spirit of the Laws". History
of European Ideas 43(7-8), Oct.-Dec. 2017 : 732-744.
Feminists have long criticized Rousseau for his patriarchal political
theory. But when his lesser-known writings on women from the 1740s
are taken into account, including a nearly 900-page manuscript critiquing
Montesquieu from a feminist perspective, we see how the early Rous-
seau robustly converged in feminist ideas with his employer Madame
Louise Dupin, before he gradually diverged from this egalitarian school of
thought over the course of the 1750s. I add to the evidence of the early
Rousseau’s egalitarian response to "the woman question" by showing his
philosophical convergence with the feminist arguments of the anony-
mous "Critique of the Spirit of the Laws" (c. 1749) as well as Madame
Dupin’s "Ouvrage sur les femmes" (c. 1745-1751) — manuscripts largely
in his secretarial hand. [R, abr.]
68.3372 ÇINAR, Meral Uǧur — Rousseau and Kant on perpetual
peace and the European Union. Ankara Avrupa Çalişmalari
Dergisi 16(1), 2017 : 61-80.
In this article, Kant and Rousseau's views on a federation of Europe that
would lead to continental peace are compared. While both thinkers
desire such a peace, their views differ on the prospects of it. The article
first establishes the differences and similarities and then traces the
reasons for the different conclusions they reach. It argues that their basic
assumptions on human nature and societal dynamics play important
roles in this process. It turns to the EU to test the predictions of both
authors. It shows that the current conditions of the EU are in fact a
synthesis of both scholars' predictions. [R, abr.]
68.3373 CRETTEZ, Bertrand — On Hobbes’s state of nature and
game theory. Theory and Decision 83(4), Dec. 2017 : 499-
511.
Hobbes’s state of nature is often analyzed in two-person two-action non-
cooperative games, focusing only on duels. Yet, if we consider general
games, i.e., with more than two agents, analyzing Hobbes’s state of
nature in terms of duel is not completely satisfactory, since it is a very
specific interpretation of the war of all against all. We propose a definition
of the state of nature for games with an arbitrary number of players. We
show that this definition coincides with the strategy profile considered as
the state of nature in two-person games. Furthermore, we study what we
call rational states of nature. We show that in rational states of nature,
the utility level of any agent is equal to his maximin payoff. [R, abr.]
68.3374 DZIUBKA, Kazimierz — A postmodern public man and his
mental-cultural markers. World Political Science 13(2),
2017 : 273-301.
The article describes the fundamental principles of the postmodern
concepts of public life viewed from the perspective of neuroscience and
cognitive science. Considering the fact that both systems of theories are
focused on the psychobiological aspects of human mind and body, and
in consequence they both endeavor to understand and explain the
relations between brain, mind, and social environment (sphere), I decid-
ed to use this particular assumption as a starting point to analyze catego-
ries such as: public man, public sphere, space of life, modern and post-
modern normative patterns, and heuristic paradigms of relationships
between Nature, Society, and Culture. As a leading cognitive and inter-
pretative approach I selected the theory of mental and cultural markers,
based on somatic marker hypothesis presented by Antonio R. Damasio
and the first-person ontology developed by John R. Searle. [R, abr.]
68.3375 ENGLAND, Christopher — John Dewey and Henry George:
the socialization of land as a prerequisite for a democrat-
ic public. American Journal of Economics and Sociology
77(1), Jan. 2018 : 169-200.
J. Dewey frequently praised H. George, author of a plan to confiscate
land values with a “single tax.” Scholars have failed to account for Dew-
ey's support of George. Some have argued that it should not be taken
seriously because it is at odds with their interpretation of Dewey's philos-
ophy. This article demonstrates that Dewey perceived the socialization of
land values as an essential step toward creating a true democracy.
Furthermore, Dewey's interest in George was not an aberration; it was
exemplary of his faith in ideology, theory, and transformative social
policy. Despite contentions to the contrary, pragmatists of the early 20th
c. never emphasized skepticism, moderation, or rote empiricism. Dewey
embraced the philosophy of H. George as a general theory of history of
society. [R, abr.]
68.3376 ENGLAND, Christopher — Land, power, and democracy.
American Journal of Economics and Sociology 77(1), Jan.
2018 : 13-27.
Today, it is hard to imagine that as recently as the 1990s many intellec-
tuals believed that we were on the cusp of the “universalization of West-
ern liberal democracy as the final form of human government” (F. Fuku-
yama, “The end of history?”, National Interest 16, Summer 1989: 3-18).
Now that Western democracies themselves seem to be slipping away
from liberalism, the author of that statement, F. Fukuyama, acknowledg-
es that his “end of history” thesis was flawed. It never occurred to Fuku-
yama, however, that democracies might contain within themselves the
mechanisms for their own destruction. Fukuyama now admits that
“[t]wenty-five years ago, I didn't have a sense or a theory about how
democracies can go backward” (Ishan Tharoor, “The man who declared
the ‘end of history’ fears for democracy's future”, Washington Post 9 Feb.
2017). [R, abr.]
68.3377 FANOULIS, Evangelos ; MUSLIU, Vjosa — Sovereignty a-
venir: towards a normative understanding of sovereign-
ty. Global Society 32(1), Jan. 2018 : 70-87.
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