Liberal nationalism and Central American refugees: What is America's national responsibility?

In an era of unprecedented numbers of migrants from the global south to the global north, nationalism has become synonymous with liberal states' ethnocentric, xenophobic, and racist immigration policies. The Trump administration's treatment of Central American refugees has been taken as a prime example. By focusing on liberal cultural nationalism, this paper demonstrates that these prevailing perceptions about nationalism are unfounded. Although liberal cultural nationalism has been accused of endorsing restrictive immigration policies, the degree to which liberal cultural nationalism's immigration policies are restrictive is context dependent; under certain circumstances, liberal nationalism may call for relaxing immigration policies to admit certain types of immigrants by invoking the idea of national responsibility. Consequently, liberal cultural nationalism offers one of the strongest liberal arguments for admitting certain kinds of migrants from the global south. The Central American refugee crisis at the U.S. southern border is analysed as a case study to illustrate this.     

What is Social Economics?

During the 1950s at the latest, Max Weber became a ‘founding father’ of sociology, chiefly on the basis of a restricted set of canonical writings and without any consideration of his wider relationships to law, economics and politics. During the last ten years of his life he was responsible for a major collaborative work, the Grundriss der Sozialökonomik—Outline of Social Economics. The title was of his own choosing; and so it might well shed new light on his work if we consider how this work was organised, and how Economy and Society, written as a contribution to this handbook, was intended to form part of it.     

A Relocated Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?

The idea that the public needs enlightenment is generally formulated by people who consider themselves in possession of the enlightenment the public supposedly needs. Herein lies the paternalism problem of popular enlightenment. Some seventy years after Immanuel Kant formulated his famous answer to the question What is enlightenment?, a Norwegian philosopher reaches for his pen on a similar errand. The Norwegian context, however, is different, and the reflection takes a different turn. The questions become: What is popular enlightenment? Who is in a position to decide what kind of enlightenment ‘the people’ need and to define what is enlightenment as opposed to darkness? The text takes a closer look at the Norwegian reflections, published as three articles in two newspapers in 1852 and 1855. The newspaper articles are written by the philosopher Marcus Jacob Monrad (1816–1897). He finds support in Kantian insights when reflecting upon how a concrete initiative for the enlightenment of the public, in which he himself participates, should be understood. Monrad addresses the problem of paternalism in popular enlightenment, and he does this by using his reason publicly, which is what is required, according to Kant, in order for man to escape from tutelage.     

What is a Salafi Reformist?

Abstract

Tariq Ramadan is one of the most prominent and controversial Western Muslim political thinkers today. He has been called everything from a moderate liberal Muslim thinker to a radical Islamist in disguise. He calls himself a Salafi reformist. According to him, Salafi reformists read the sacred texts of Islam dynamically, using reason, and reject literalist readings. Yet Ramadan also calls Sayyid Qutb a Salafi reformist. The problem is that, by most accounts, Qutb is the quintessential radical Islamist. This raises the question of what Ramadan thinks actually makes someone a Salafi reformist, and what this can tell us about his political teaching. To answer this question, I put Ramadan and Qutb into conversation. I argue that, while Ramadan meets his own criteria for being a Salafi reformist, Qutb does not. I suggest some reasons why Ramadan may not share this view; his political theology tells a different story.     

What is a Territorial-Production Complex?

A territorial-production complex must satisfy three criteria: diversification of the economy, interrelations between its components, and territorial unity. The term should not be applied to industrial nodes or industrial centers because they do not satisfy all three conditions. Industrial nodes lack the necessary diversification and industrial centers are distinguished only by territorial unity.     

What is national self‐determination? Nationality and psychology during the apogee of nationalism*

Abstract. The idea of national self‐determination propounded at the 1919 peace conference centred in Paris marked a new era in international relations. In this article I re‐examine the history of the idea of national self‐determination in this period by situating it in the context of ‘the psychological turn’. I argue that national self‐determination came to serve as a popular philosophical basis for post‐war democracy among Entente liberals at a time when the Enlightenment equivalence between democracy and ‘self‐determination’ was under challenge from new scientific depictions of the unconscious and irrational, and the biologically determined self. The focus of my discussion is the psychological discourse that threaded through the versions of national self‐determination articulated by British and French intellectuals during World War I.     

What is worth teaching in geography?

Abstract

To be efficient, geographers must teach not facts, but how to learn. This means teaching theories, methods and models, and also the languages of investigation, which include mathematical languages. These are important because some human knowledge and discourse, including growing conceptual areas in geography, cannot be translated from mathematics. Mathematical languages are tools of inquiry, the teaching of which can quickly open up new lines of thinking. Mathematical geographers can make a unique contribution to applied areas through their ability to model and clarify complex problems. An example of teaching mathematical languages is given using a simple directed connectivity matrix, which in turn can be manipulated to introduce advanced ideas. During this process, students are learning naturally about mathematical languages.     

The Modi lahar (wave) in the 2014 Indian national election: A critical realignment?

In India's 2014 general election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured an outright majority of seats, the first time any party has done so since 1984. This has led to claims that this is a ‘critical’ or ‘realigning’ election. Yet, most Indian elections are initially described as ‘critical’ elections, which suggests that this concept needs to be further refined to be analytically useful in India's electorally volatile and regionalised political context. This commentary conceptualises critical elections in India as those that enable the winning party to build lasting regional social coalitions. Such coalitions need to be consolidated in subsequent elections for a realignment to take place. A mastery of regional politics was crucial to the BJP's 2014 win, which does mark this as a potentially realigning election. Yet, questions remain about its ability to consolidate the coalitions that delivered this result.

2014年的普选中,印度人民党获得了绝对多数的议席,破了1984以来各政党的记录。这被看作一次“关键性”的、改弦易辙的选举。不过,印度的选举一开始也多被说成“关键性”的选举。所以,这个概念尚需推敲,以便能够用来分析印度变幻不定的选情以及地区化的政情。本文将印度的“关键性”选举界定为获胜党得建立长久的地区社会联盟。这个联盟需要在日后的选举中加固,才谈得上改弦易辙。把握好地区政治对于人民党2014年选举的胜利至关重要,它使得这次选举成为潜在的改弦易辙。但它是否有能力加固联盟以释放改弦易辙的效果,则还是一个问题。