Karl Loewenstein,Max Lerner,and militant democracy: an appeal to ‘strong democracy’

ABSTRACT

In the 1930s Loewenstein responded to the ease with which the Nazi Party rose to power within parliamentary democracy. In America Lerner echoed Loewenstein’s call for a ‘militant democracy’, but identified a different ‘enemy within’ – rogue capitalist interests. Loewenstein’s response to populism was an ‘authoritarian democracy’, whereas Lerner wished to embrace the people in a public engagement. This paper seeks a middle path towards a conception of democracy that avoids the vicissitudes of transient majorities without yielding the ground to either transient or entrenched minorities. In its modern guise of ‘neoliberalism’, corporate capitalism has made inroads into the sensibilities of democrats, and needs to be confronted by a notion of ‘strong democracy’ expressed through the engagement of whole populations.     

Richard Oastler,Toryism, Radicalism and the Limitations of Party,c.1807–46

Richard Oastler (1789–1861), the immensely popular and fiery orator who campaigned for factory reform and for the abolition of the new poor law in the 1830s and 1840s, has been relatively neglected by political historians. Few historians, however, have questioned his toryism. As this article suggests, labelling Oastler an ‘ultra‐tory’ or a ‘church and state tory’ obscures more than it reveals. There were also radical strands in Oastler's ideology. There has been a tendency among Oastler's biographers to treat him as unique. By comparing Oastler with other tories – Sadler, Southey, and the young Disraeli – as well as radicals like Cobbett, this article locates him much more securely among his contemporaries. His range of interests were much broader (and more radical) than the historiographical concentration on factory and poor law reform suggests. While there were periods when Oastler's toryism (or radicalism) was more apparent, one of the most consistent aspects of his political career was a distaste for party politics. Far from being unique or a maverick, Oastler personified the pervasive anti‐party sentiments held by the working classes, which for all the historiographical attention paid to popular radicalism and other non‐party movements still tends to get lost in narratives of the ‘rise of party’.     

营造党内民主讨论环境问题探析

营造党内民主讨论环境对于发展党内民主,实现党的团结和统一,对于科学决策、民主决策、依法决策具有重要意义。但是,当前党内仍然存在着影响党内民主讨论环境的诸多因素。对这些因素进行分析并探求营造党内民主讨论环境的对策是推进党内民主的重要环节。     

党内民主视野下党员意见表达刍议

发展党内民主要以党员为本。以党员为本必须尊重党员主体地位,而尊重党员主体地位需要提高党员的民主意识,保障党员的参与权,这一切都有赖于党员的意见表达。党员意见表达是发展党内民主的一种内在生成力,是发展党内民主的天然成分,它有利于提高党员对党内民主的参与度,有利于营造党内民主的环境。     

执政党建设与中国政党制度的民主价值

当代中国正处于剧烈的社会转型期,多元利益诉求引发的政治参与膨胀,对政党制度民主价值的进一步挖掘和发挥提出了更高的要求。执政党党内民主的发展,直接影响到社会民主以及整个国家民主政治发展的进程,而加强执政党的建设则是充分发挥中国政党制度民主价值的关键路径。     

A Christian democratization of politics? The new influence of Catholicism on Italian politics since the demise of the Democrazia Cristiana

A paradox exists in relation to contemporary European Christian democracy. Its ideological influence has increased as Christian democratic parties have declined. This is particularly evident in Italy since the demise of the Democrazia Cristiana (DC). By investigating the ideological development of Italian parties and some key policy reforms that they introduced after the fall of the DC, this article explains this ‘Christian democratization of politics’, a process by which Catholic ideals and symbols acquire a decisive impact on the Italian party system. Three types of Christian democratization are individuated and analyzed: the gradual replacement of liberal values with Catholic political ideas in the positions taken by liberal-oriented parties; the novel synthesis between social Catholicism and social democracy by moderate left-wing coalitions; and the Lega Nord’s use of Catholic values to stress populist positions and identity issues.     

论江泽民关于发展党内民主的思想

党内民主历来是党的建设的一个重大问题。江泽民同志在我们党的领导实践中,对党内民主问题深谋远虑,并形成了内涵丰富而深邃的关于发展党内民主的思想。学习和研究江泽民同志关于发展党内民主的思想,对于推进新时期党的建设新的伟大工程有着重要的理论和实践意义。     

Early Socialism in Canada: International and Regional Impulses

International and regional impulses have shaped Canadian socialism from the movement’s origins in the nineteenth century to the present. Many of Canada’s early socialists arrived as ready-made socialists from abroad. From the British Isles, continental Europe, and the United States, these idealists and dissidents imported radical political ideals, which they subsequently adapted to meet the emerging conditions of an industrializing, urbanizing Canada. Directed at a broad cross-section of society, the early Canadian socialist rainbow featured many colours: Chartists, Christian socialists, cooperators, and, by the nineteenth century’s end—communists, anarchists, and other adherents of European radical movements. This process of importation, adaptation, and change took different forms in the distinctive regional contexts of Canada’s multi-ethnic federal state. Building on an interdisciplinary literature, the authors illuminate the ways in which international and regional impulses shaped Canada’s socialist tradition, helping to explain persistent tensions and forces within contemporary Canadian politics.     

Taqiyya as Polemic,Law and Knowledge: Following an Islamic Legal Term through the Worlds of Islamic Scholars,Ethnographers, Polemicists and Military Men

Taqiyya is an Islamic juridical term whose shifting meaning relates to when a Muslim is allowed, under Sharia law, to lie. A concept whose meaning has varied significantly among Islamic sects, scholars, countries, and political regimes, it nevertheless is one of the key terms used by recent anti‐Muslim polemicists such as Robert Spencer or Daniel Pipes, and has been used by US Prosecutors to explain terrorist behavior. This paper seeks to summarize the complex uses of the term and show how a specific concept in a legal system can be used and interpreted by both adherents of that system and enemies in a wide variety of ways, taking on different meanings while referring to effectively the same set of practices. The term is debated in a scholarly way in the scholarly literature, as an ethnographic term, and finally, as an operational concept used as a tactic in a war and demanding countertactics tailored to it. The paper will discuss the social purpose of having such ambiguous concepts available within one's society, and the idea that making the ambiguous specific can be a valuable weapon in polemical attack.     

浅析十七届四中全会对党内民主建设的创新

中共十七届四中全会关于党内民主建设提出了很多新思想、新观点,主要有：党内民主是党的生命,集中统一是党的力量保证;在党内民主建设中要坚持和完善党的领导制度;以保障党员民主权利为根本,以加强党内基层民主建设为基础;完善党代表大会制度和党内选举制度;完善党内民主决策机制等。     

中国特色政党制度与社会的关系

政党与社会的关系是政党政治的基本关系之一。政党制度作为政党政治的实现形式,是社会不断发展的产物,同时它又对社会发展产生着重大影响。在我国,中国特色政党制度与社会主义社会的关系,除具有一般政党制度与社会的关系外,还具体表现为中国特色政党制度与社会利益群体、社会资源和社会意识形态的关系。     

From Populism To Protagonism (and Back?) in Bolivarian Venezuela: Rethinking Ernesto Laclau’s on Populist Reason

Ernesto Laclau’s On Populist Reason, now over a decade old, is one of our generation’s most nuanced contributions to debates on political community and social change in the era of mass democracy. Against critiques of populism as illiberal demagoguery, Laclau’s conceptualization emphasizes the discursive nature of power and politics and considers populist sequences as radical democratic openings in an era of consolidated global neoliberal capitalism. This article considers the shifting terrain of democracy – from liberal, to populist, and finally to protagonistic forms – in the context of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. I argue that despite Laclau’s important contributions, the formulations of power that underlie his populist reason are symptomatic rather than critical of contemporary liberal politics. The article offers an analysis of Bolivarian Venezuela that emphasizes popular experimentation with protagonism as an expression of democracy based in grassroots collective autonomy and direct democracy over the representation and managed development of the modern state.