Calvin and Natural Rights

Abstract

This article applauds the recent rise of scholarly attention to studying the relation of religion to natural rights in general and Calvinism in particular. Against the strong belief in some quarters that appeals to nature, including the idea of rights, do not play a significant role in Calvin's thought, the article concurs with recent (and some not so recent) work to the contrary, arguing that such appeals do occupy an important, if ambiguous, place for Calvin. However, the article resists explaining the variations in his thought as the result of changing interpretations over time. Rather, it is contended that these matters were a source of tension throughout Calvin's career. He struggled not so much with the question of the natural knowledge of rights, but of the ability to choose to act on that knowledge. In conclusion, the article hints that Calvin's ambivalence on this issue sowed the seeds for significant divergence among his descendants.     

Community,state and power-relations in community-based tourism on Lekhubu Island,Botswana

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the results of a study investigating power relations between the local community and the state in the rural tourism development process in Botswana. The study was carried out in Mmatshumu and Letlhakane villages of the Boteti sub-district in Botswana. These villages act as the administrative centres of a community-based culture and heritage tourism project at Lekhubu Island. The Island is, itself, located about 45 kilometres to the north east of these villages. A qualitative research approach, utilising seven focus group discussions with members of the community and 17 individual interviews with key informants was adopted. To understand the power relations between the state (through the TAC) and the local community, the study focused on; the extent to which members of the local community feel they control tourism development process in Lekhubu Island; perceived level of power yielded by the state in the tourism development process at Lekhubu Island as well as; the implications of power differentials between the state and community for tourism development at Lekhubu Island. The results show that, contrary to the popular narrative about devolution of power in community-based tourism, the state remains a very powerful player in the overall decision-making process. Furthermore, the formation of local management structures (i.e. Trust) appears to simply create new power nodes which in turn continues the same legacy of community disempowerment.     

Other Political Animals: Aristotle and the Limits of Political Community

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the philosophical underpinnings of the human-animal distinction among political theorists, suggesting a possible sea change in how relationships between animals and humans are understood. Yet despite this interest, Aristotle’s famous dicta that “man is a political animal” and that only “beasts and gods” might live without politics persist as the best-known statements on humans and animals and how they relate politically. This essay draws on Aristotle’s biological writings in order to qualify these statements, outlining two opposing threads in Aristotle’s thought: one where humans are seen to be similar to other political animals and hence capable of sharing in political community, and the second where humans are seen to be unlike other animals by virtue of their relation with the divine. I argue that the problems that inform Aristotle’s way of understanding the similarities and differences between humans and animals and between members of a political community challenge recent theoretical attempts to include other animals in the human political community.     

尼克松的民权思想及政策实践

20世纪70年代,美国民权运动表现出一些新的特征：民权的含义从社会和政治权力扩大到经济权力;运动的领导权也从中产阶级温和派转移到年轻的激进派手中。在这种情况下,尼克松总统作为南方保守主义的代言人和民权的促进,必须找到一条解决这些问题的有效道路。通过探讨尼克松的民权政策是如何在他的个人信仰和政治需要之间保持平衡的,本力图揭示政治家和他们所生活的社会环境之间的互动关系。     

The Later Jefferson and the Problem of Natural Rights

Abstract

The late Jefferson presents a puzzle to scholars. In his last years the author of the Declaration of Independence strongly opposed the Missouri Compromise and set important precedents for the political strategy of the antebellum South. This essay argues that these problematic aspects of Jefferson's career are more closely linked to his natural rights doctrine than is generally recognized and extend tendencies already present in Jefferson's draft of the Declaration. Unlike previous scholars who explain Jefferson's problematic politics by his racism or the inherent selfishness of Lockean natural right, I argue that the core flaw in Jefferson's natural rights doctrine is the encouragement it gives to self-righteousness. Because he responded to the problem of slavery in a spirit of angry self-defense, Jefferson's understanding of natural rights blinded him to the ways in which his actions strengthened slavery and undermined his own most cherished political achievements.     

Gifts and Rights: Cautionary Notes on Community Self-help in Thailand

ABSTRACT A pervasive assumption in the critical literature and practice of development has been that capitalism and state-building has undermined relatively autonomous village communities in which there were equalizing institutions of mutual help or gift-giving. These assumptions tend to retain the dualisms of modernization theories by reversing them. The author argues that we should instead challenge these dualisms, and look for complexity and contradictions within both the past and the present. He then draws on a study in Thailand to show how the ‘village’ was a product of state-building, and how in the past the idiom of ‘helping’ constituted relations of domination and extraction as well as more egalitarian relations of mutual help. The use of the language of the gift confers power on the giver; since the 1930s, state officials have appropriated and transformed the language of ‘helping’ to coerce villagers into working on ‘development’ projects. Until the 1970s, villagers described ‘development’ as coerced serf labour, but since then, they have struggled with mixed results to redefine development as their right to participate in the national and global product. The author finishes by arguing that, in the context of the current global crisis of accumulation, we should reclaim rural development as a democratic right, opposing neoliberal attempts to redefine it as a gift which government and development agencies can discontinue at their will.     

政治合法性资源的重塑:从"三个代表"到"政治文明"

中国共产党执政的合法性资源,不但关系着党的生死存亡,更关系到社会主义制度的命运.中国共产党的政治合法性有其特殊性.新中国成立以来,中国共产党的执政合法性资源发生了很大变化,如何应对变化并寻求新的合法性资源以避免合法性危机是我们党面临的重大课题.“三个代表“重要思想和社会主义政治文明论断的提出及其实践,为中国共产党政治合法性资源的重塑提供了契机.     

19世纪英国的政治民主化与女权运动

工业化与政治民主化是19世纪英国历史的主旋律。在工业化的浪潮中,许多妇女走向社会,走进劳动力市场,成为独立的雇佣劳动,从而扩大了眼界,增强了独立意识。在社会政治民主化运动中,她们接受自由主义思想,参与党派活动、宪章运动和反谷物法斗争,甚至独立开展争取妇女选举权、与男性平等的经济权和社会立法权运动,向社会显示自身的实力,不仅改变了轻视妇女的传统社会立法,提高了女性的经济地位和社会地位,而且有力地推进了国家的民主化进程。     

Subdividing National Territories: The Drive to Live in a Political Community Whose Boundaries Are Congruent with the Cultural Community

Two ideals have dominated world politics for two hundred years. In one, conveniently called liberal, there are no real differences among peoples, and that they speak different languages and have different religions should not be allowed to affect their collaboration in a national state; the United States with its multiethnic, multinational composition has been the concrete expression of this. The opposite ideal, here called nationalist or reactionary, was that language and religion do matter and that people ought to be able to live in a political community whose boundaries reflect that; Iran is an extreme case of this. If the liberal ideal goes back to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, nationalism was given its impetus in nineteenth-century Romanticism. Nationalism has dissolved successively the British, Dutch, and French empires, and then gone on toward breaking down the constituents into which these separated. Despite attempted suppression of breakaway movements by better armed forces of existing states, the number of states in the world has more than doubled since the end of World War II. Only recognized governments can become members of official international bodies. Despite a lack of legitimacy, no right to speak in the councils of the United Nations, and no legal access to arms, the forces of separation seem on the rise, those of union of multicultural nations, on the decline. It is too early to predict ultimate victory for one ideal or the other.     

China,Natural Resources,Sovereignty and International Law

Abstract

This article explores China’s attitudes towards the regulation of key natural resources by international law, domestically and at the trans-boundary and international levels. It considers the impact of international law on China’s own practices, and the contribution of China towards shaping international law. The article suggests that popular conceptions of a relatively isolated, sovereign absolutist China do not accord with contemporary legal realities, including in its dealings with natural resources. While China’s construction of strong sovereignty shapes its attitudes towards legal regulation, practice also suggests that China adopts a nuanced approach which includes legal compromise, and a commitment to multilateral regulation or bilateral diplomatic settlement of issues previously within the competence of national governments. China is often an active and constructive participant in contemporary law-making, even if – like all countries – it also seeks to instrumentally use international law.     

On Physical-Geographic Regionalization and the Regionalization of Natural Resources

The author finds conventional physical-geographic regionalization inadequate for economic-geographic purposes, and proposes instead a “natural regionalization” or regionalization of natural resources. Such a regionalization would reflect the economic assessment of the natural environment of a given area and would be more appropriate in economic-geographic research. The principles underlying natural-resource regionalization are illustrated with a regional scheme for the Sudan, an area to which the author has devoted special study.     

China and Japan in Myanmar: Aid,Natural Resources and Influence

Abstract

This article highlights the parallels between Japan’s leveraging of foreign aid to secure access to strategic natural resources in the post-World War II period, and China’s similar use of foreign aid since the early 1990s. It then shows how both countries have applied similar strategies in their aid programs in Myanmar, and points out how dramatic shifts in Myanmar’s domestic politics have shaped their opportunities for economic engagement. China seized upon Myanmar’s political transition in 1988 to expand its aid program, while Japan has responded to Myanmar’s reform measures since 2010 by resuming its aid efforts. The article concludes by considering the potential for China–Japan cooperation through their aid programs in Myanmar.     

Human Rights and International Security: The International Community and the Greek Dictators

The Greek junta was notorious for its use of state torture as a means of control. Yet, for most Western governments and organisations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN), Greece's geostrategic location was considered to be a higher priority than the undemocratic behaviour of the ‘Colonels’. This article seeks to synthesise existing historiography with new research in order to examine the complex and interconnected processes that led Western states and key international institutions to tolerate human-rights abuses in Greece in the face of huge protest from international public opinion. It will look at why Western states failed to explain away the ‘Greek case’, as they had done with Portugal and Spain, as an anomaly on the road to defeating a mortal enemy, the USSR, which was committing far more numerous violations. It will also consider why international opinion focused on Greece so intently. It will show how many in the West were lulled by the regime into believing that human-rights abusers can act as agents of stability and security. The article's footnotes aim to draw attention to the many primary and secondary sources that provide additional information on the issue of human-rights abuses by the Greek junta.     

Economic Resources and Political Power at the Local Level in Post-Soviet Russia

In the 1990s in local government in Russia, the dominant trends might be described as neo-Soviet because of their apparent continuity with patterns that prevailed before the end of communist rule in that country. The promise of independence for "local self-government," as set forth in the Russian Constitution of 1993 and subsequent legislation, largely has been frustrated. The tendency of privatized economic enterprises to divest themselves of responsibility for social benefits, and the lack of an adequate base for financial independence for local governments, have made it necessary for local officials to rely heavily on the regional authorities for support. Within local government, the elected legislature usually is subordinate to a dominant executive leadership. Those features of contemporary local government in Russia are explained by the consequences of decisions adopted by the country's post-Communist leadership, including the method and content of economic reform. The results are unfavorable both for the resurgence of the local economy and the growth of democracy at the local level.     

Natural and Unnatural Disasters: Responding with Respect for Indigenous Rights and Knowledges

A key challenge for contemporary democratic societies is how to respond to disasters in ways that foster just and sustainable outcomes that build resilience, respect human rights, and foster economic, social, and cultural well‐being in reasonable timeframes and at reasonable costs. In many places experiencing rapid environmental change, indigenous people continue to exercise some level of self‐governance and autonomy, but they also face the burden of rapid social change and hostile or ambiguous policy settings. Drawing largely on experience in northern Australia, this paper argues that state policies can compound and contribute to vulnerability of indigenous groups to both natural and policy‐driven disasters in many places. State‐sponsored programmes that fail to respect indigenous rights and fail to acknowledge the relevance of indigenous knowledge to both social and environmental recovery entrench patterns of racialised disadvantage and marginalisation and set in train future vulnerabilities and disasters. The paper advocates an approach to risk assessment, preparation, and recovery that prioritises partnerships based on recognition, respect, and explicit commitment to justice. The alternatives are to continue prioritising short‐term expediencies and opportunistic pursuit of integration, or subverting indigenous rights and the knowledge systems that underpin them. This paper argues such alternatives are not only unethical, but also ineffective.     

Dilemmas of Counter‐Mapping Community Resources in Tanzania

Recent work has celebrated the political potential of ‘counter‐mapping’, that is, mapping against dominant power structures, to further seemingly progressive goals. This article briefly reviews the counter‐mapping literature, and compares four counter‐mapping projects from Maasai areas in Tanzania to explore some potential pitfalls in such efforts. The cases, which involve community‐based initiatives led by a church‐based NGO, ecotourism companies, the Tanzanian National Parks Authority, and grassroots pastoralist rights advocacy groups, illustrate the broad range of activities grouped under the heading of counter‐mapping. They also present a series of political dilemmas that are typical of many counter‐mapping efforts: conflicts inherent in conservation efforts involving territorialization, privatization, integration and indigenization; problems associated with the theory and practice of ‘community‐level’ political engagement; the need to combine mapping efforts with broader legal and political strategies; and critical questions involving the agency of ‘external’ actors such as conservation and development donors, the state and private business interests.     

旧金山媾和前后日本政治资源重组与结构演变

美国对日占领期间,日本社会政治结构初步完成军国主义法西斯政体向欧美议会民主政治的转型。在此期间,日本社会内各种政治资源经过重组,形成保守型政治势力和革新型政治势力,最终以“55年体制”方式完成日本战后政治结构的改造。