The Emergence of Political Parties and Political Dynamics in Afghanistan, 1964–73

The 1960s in Afghanistan's history were marked by the emergence of a number of political parties, from monarchist to radical left and right. They played an important role in the social, cultural and political dynamics of the time and even the future of the country. This paper explores how political parties emerged in a country which was characterized as a tribal-peasant society with only a very small number of educated people. It also discusses why the monarch would not sign the Political Parties' Bill and how this influenced Afghanistan's political culture and led to the radicalization of the political parties. In addition, it examines how the anti-government and radical political parties managed to mobilize people and dominate the political scene while the pro-government and nationalist parties had little influence.     

Understanding Modern Philosophy through Political Philosophy: The Unity of Ideal Subjects—Political,Epistemological, and Moral

Francis Slade offers a view of modern philosophy through the prism of political philosophy, thereby departing from the more traditional interpretive route of epistemology. For Slade, reason understood as rule proves the key to the unity of the modern project of philosophical idealism. Modernity's political form, the state, is an ideal entity that is constituted by the rule of a pure, disembodied, and sovereign reason, paralleling the same employment of reason that generates the epistemological cogito of Descartes, the moral legislator of Kant, and the “disinterested and benevolent spectator” of Mill. The rule of modern reason effects what Slade calls the political, epistemological, and moral ideal subjects of modernity.     

Education and Political Socialisation of a National-Colonial Political Elite in French West Africa, 1936–47

Much has been written about the first generation of political leaders of French West Africa, their leadership skills, personal resources and networks. Their attachment to, and close links with, France played a crucial role in determining the pattern of decolonisation in the colony. Through a study of their political socialisation, this article seeks to throw light on the experiences and influences that fashioned their thinking about politics and created a common stock of ideas, norms and values. Focusing in particular on their education at the William Ponty School and two key moments that shaped their political thinking—the Popular Front period (1936–38) and the immediate post-war period (1944–47)—it will be argued that an appreciation of their process of political socialisation enhances our understanding of their political choices. A final section reflects on the legacy of this process in the postcolonial period.     

The Political Consecration of Community in Mauritius, 1948–68

The paper is concerned with the problem, amelioration and contestation of a ‘majority community’ in a decolonising political culture. The late-colonial administration in Mauritius employed repeated and increasingly elaborate constitutional innovation to counter-balance the perceived inability of Mauritians to distinguish between political preference and community affiliation. These measures raised the constitutional profile of the ‘community’, ostensibly in order to offset it politically. The colonial state's determination to derive community definitions from census data was soon frustrated by the calculated identification and sensitisation of corporate identities by political entrepreneurs. The definition and defence of community became a compelling preoccupation of post-war political campaigns on the island. However, this communalism – misunderstood and condemned by Imperial social science as apolitical or even antithetical to politics – concealed a political culture of considerable flexibility and pragmatism. At no point did the colonial administration address the fact that the locus for the generation of communalised political propaganda lay in a political rivalry for leadership of one community – that of the Hindu Indo-Mauritians.     

Beyond Nussbaum’s Ethics of Reading: Camus,Arendt, and the Political Significance of Narrative Imagination

The article contributes to current theoretical debates about the political significance of narrative imagination by drawing on Camus’s and Arendt’s existential aesthetic judging sensibility. It seeks to displace the prevalent tendency to probe literature for its moral-philosophical insights, and instead delves into the experiential reality of our engagement with literary works. It starts from Martha Nussbaum’s recognition of the literary ability to account for the fragility of human affairs, yet finds her reduction of narrative imagination to the role of furthering moral lessons wanting politically. Against this background, the article reclaims Camus’s and Arendt’s dialogical-representative judging orientation and its insight into the narrative ability to respond to the intersubjective character of politics. As such, their aesthetic sensibility reveals the potential political significance of literary imagination in its capacity to open a public space where the contradictions of our situated existence can be confronted through politics between plural equals.     

The Political Discourses of three Contemporary Muslim Scholars: Secular,Nonsecular, or Pseudosecular?

It is well‐known that the quest for an Islamic state was a desire common to most Islamists of the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries. This article discusses three contemporary political theories that stand in sharp contrast to the Islamists’ theory of an Islamic state. These political theories are developed by three prominent contemporary Muslim scholars, Nasr Hamid Abū Zayd, Ablodkarim Soroush, and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari. The article attempts to discuss the common themes between the views of these scholars concerning governance. It argues that the political theories presented by them significantly differ from those developed by most Islamists, who share the idea that Islam is a self‐sufficient political system. It also argues that while these political theories challenge the idea that incorporates the maximal role for government in religious matters and thus are close to certain aspects of regulations of governance in Western countries, they are different from those political theories in the West that focus on a sharp distinction between religion and state because religion, for such scholar, plays an important role in developing civil society.     

The Colonial Sinews of Imperial Power: The Political Economy of Jamaican Taxation, 1768–1838

This article uses a new data-set to calculate the ‘political economy’ or nature and purpose of taxation and spending in Jamaica between 1768 and 1839. It argues that these levels increased considerably, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the population and economy of the island, and that the assembly raised taxes mainly to protect the white elite and the plantation economy against slave revolts and foreign invasion. Although the balance of spending shifted after Emancipation in 1834, the purpose did not, since military spending was simply redirected to subsidise policing and the cost of public order. Depending on how the national income or gross domestic product of the island is calculated, levels of taxation rose from 2 per cent in peacetime to about 4–6 per cent in wartime, peaking at 6–8 per cent in moments of crisis. White elites therefore made a significant contribution to the cost of their own defence, and to the wider projection of imperial power, and were willing to tolerate increasingly high levels of taxation because it was spent in ways that suited their interests. They thereby formed the colonial sinews of imperial power.     

Autonomia and the Political: An Italian Cycle of Contention, 1972–1979

Sidney Tarrow has identified a ‘cycle of contention’ taking place in Italy between 1966 and 1972; Tarrow characterises the left-wing terrorism of the late 1970s as an after-effect of this cycle. However, there was a second cycle of contention between 1972 and 1979, incorporating the left-wing ‘armed struggle’ milieu alongside a group of related mass movements (notably the ‘area of Autonomia’, the ‘movement of 1977’ and the ‘proletarian youth movement’). The second cycle, unlike the first, was met with repression, and with the exclusion of its ideological and tactical innovations from the political mainstream. The difference between the two cycles relates to the role played by the Italian Communist Party, which functioned as a ‘gatekeeper’ in each case; the party's engagement with the first cycle can be characterised as inclusive, while its engagement with the second cycle was unremittingly exclusive.     

Mouzinho da Silveira and the Political Culture of Portuguese Liberalism, 1820–1832

Summary

Liberalism as an identity and as a political ideology was non-existent in Portugal, as in most of the countries of Ibero-America, before the beginning of the nineteenth century. But the semantic development of the term ‘liberal’ in Portuguese underwent a clear and rapid mutation in the following decades. It became associated with specific meanings in relation to constitutional issues and civil law matters. While the former prevailed between 1820 and 1823, the latter were dominant in the writings of Mouzinho da Silveira and his Civil War legislation of 1832 to 1834.     

Michael Oakeshott’s Theological Genealogy of Political Modernity

This essay attempts to provide a historical account of Michael Oakeshott’s famous distinction between civil and enterprise association. As such, it demonstrates that Oakeshott’s political skepticism and his concomitant view of civil association can in part be explained by his reliance on Augustinian theology. In a similar vein, Oakeshott’s linkage of enterprise association with the rationalism of Bacon must be considered in terms of Oakeshott’s understanding of Pelagianism and Gnosticism. Unsurprisingly, it will be demonstrated that despite Oakeshott’s disagreements with the political philosopher Eric Voegelin, he was very impressed by Voegelin’s work on the Gnostic origins of modernity. Consequently, a major claim of this essay is that Oakeshott’s speculative understanding of modern political thought constitutes a theological genealogy of political modernity in all but name.     

Litigation against Political Organization? The Politics of Dalit Mobilization in Tamil Nadu,India

This article examines contemporary Dalit assertion in India through an ethnographic case study of a legal tool being mobilized by Tamil Nadu's lowest‐ranking Arunthathiyars in their struggle against caste‐based offences. The Arunthathiyars of western Tamil Nadu are increasingly taking recourse to the 1989 Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA Act) in an attempt to bring members of higher castes to justice. The article explores how Arunthathiyars are employing the law and how their litigation is reshaping the politics of caste in this region. The authors document how a process of litigation by Arunthathiyars is countered by a politicization of caste by the dominant Gounders of the region, who recently entered electoral politics with a new caste‐based party. Even though the litigation route further antagonizes caste relations, it is argued that the PoA Act has provided Dalits with an invaluable tool to seek justice, democratize public space, and challenge the power of the dominant caste in the region. Dalit social movements, it is concluded, are more likely to be successful if they are backed by a legal weapon and accompanied by Dalits’ growing economic independence.     

“In the Truth of Our Political Nature”: Pierre Manent's Defense of Political Reason in Cours familier de philosophie politique

Abstract

Throughout the 1980s, Polish trade unions generated enormous interest among researchers as a vivid example of the power and influence of mass social movements in politics. Following the reemergence of Solidarity and the downfall of the communist regime in 1989, the focus of attention has shifted. Analyses of elite choices and strategies, rather than studies of social groups and organizations, have begun to dominate the scholarship on postcommunist Eastern Europe. Although the new perspectives have made it possible to compare democratization in Poland and other former Marxist-Leninist states with postauthoritarian transitions in Southern Europe and Latin America,¹ they often fail to provide an accurate assessment of the actual significance of the trade union movements and organizations in this process.