Between the "Already" and the "Not Yet": A Peace Perspective and a Catholic Theological Viewpoint on Religion and Politics

Abstract

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article questions the mainstream idea about the relationship between religion and politics that associates the church and state separation with a strict private—public division. Agreeing with the former distinction, we criticize the latter from the perspectives of both Catholic theology and peace and conflict studies. Both fields offer adequate reasons to challenge this narrow dualism, envisioning the spheres of religion and politics as complementary and mutually enriching. In response to increased violence involving religions across the globe, "religious peacebuilding" is currently developing approaches to explain such conflicts and inform peacebuilding methods and strategies. Additionally, the theological-emphasis on the eschatological presence of the "already" appeals to Catholic faith to pertinently reflect upon and frame public life. Consequently, we plead for the critical and beneficial engagement of religions in the public sphere as "not yet" sufficiently acknowledged.     

Machiavelli against Method: Paul Feyerabend's Anti-Rationalism and Machiavellian Political ‘Science’

Contemporary scholars seeking to advance the study of political phenomena identify their inquiry as a ‘science' that attains success through rigorous method. Thus the ‘methodological anarchism' of Paul Feyerabend's philosophy of science might seem an inauspicious place to find a fruitful disciplinary vision. Nonetheless, it echoes a longstanding conception of the ‘science' of politics articulated by Niccolò Machiavelli. Looking to Feyerabend, we propose to surmount the impasse between Machiavelli's account of politics and the demands of modern science and recover his contribution to the scientific study of politics. In doing so, Machiavelli illustrates the potential of a Feyerabendian political science.     

On the current absence and future improbability of political Catholicism in Italy

Clerical ‘non-negotiable values’ were actively promoted by right-wing governments in the 2000s, the Monti government that replaced them was strongly supported by the Vatican and the Italian bishops, and the current left-wing government is led by a former member of the Catholic popolari who attends Mass every Sunday. But this article argues that, rather than a new golden age of political Catholicism, the return of Catholicism to Italian politics has taken a ‘low intensity’ form which lacks the robust combination of ideas, leaders, organizations, and interests that informed earlier, genuinely political forms of Catholic engagement. The article demonstrates this by focusing on the ‘Todi movement’, which played a crucial role in the Monti government, and on Matteo Renzi’s current leadership of the Partito democratico and the national government. It also proposes a theoretical framework to explain the apparent contradiction between the high visibility and the low political relevance of Catholicism in Italian politics.     

Australian political studies and the production of disciplinary innocence

ABSTRACT

While Australian political studies often appears to have neglected engagements with Indigenous peoples and politics, we argue this is not a simple question of omission. In fact, the discipline is deeply implicated in imperial knowledge production and the authorisation of racialised colonial governance. As non-Indigenous scholars working within Australian political studies, in this paper we reflect on our own discipline in light of several decades of critical scholarship, identifying the production of disciplinary innocence through a theoretical and institutional analysis of Australian political studies knowledge practices. We explore this production via canonical knowledges, institutional processes that contain Indigenous people and knowledge to subjects of policy, and the operation of disciplinary divisions which neutralise scholarship on policy and political institutions.     

The Ruini system and ‘Berlusconismo’: synergy and transformation between the Catholic Church and Italian politics in the ‘Second Republic’

This article aims to correlate the political rather than the pastoral action of Cardinal Camillo Ruini with the rise and consolidation of the politician Silvio Berlusconi from 1994 to 2007, set in the context of the major changes that occurred in the Catholic Church and in Italian republican politics during the 1980s and 1990s. The main theme is an ‘instrumental interaction’ between the two systems, Ruinismo and Berlusconismo, which only coincided at the level of political opportunity and gave rise to important synergies between two men who otherwise had nothing in common.     

The politics of the ‘Church’ in the Italy of Pope Wojtyła

Abstract

This article analyzes the development of different political tendencies with the Italian Church during the pontificate of John Paul II. Two different strategies enabled the episcopal conference to maintain stability for a long period, in which time Cardinal Ruini played a key role, first as secretary and then president of the bishops. In his years the conference of bishops accepted that the political unity of the Catholic world was over, but it still tried to retain a strong political influence even though the mediation of the Christian Democratic Party was no longer available. With the end of Wojty?a's pontificate, however, this period came to a close and the different tendencies that make up the rich and complex world of the Italian Catholic Church have become more visible.     

"Silently Farting in the Face of the Empire." Review of Paul and the Imperial Roman Order

Abstract

As the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy ventures more frequently into the sphere of environmental ethics and makes pronouncements on large-scale environmental problems, its effectiveness will consistently be undercut by its commitment to what is traditionally called "Catholic act analysis," which when used to evaluate a host of commonplace actions leads Catholics to believe that they are morally unproblematic. Yet when these same actions are performed day after day and year after year, they contribute to many large-scale environmental problems that are unquestionably harmful—and are often viewed negatively by the Catholic hierarchy. At some point, this pattern of approving morally of certain actions the cumulative, corporate side effects of which cause pernicious environmental problems will strain the Catholic Church's credibility on environmental matters—and until the hierarchy reexamines its commitment to Catholic act analysis, this dilemma will be unavoidable.     

Women,gender and feminism in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This review article, written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Journal of Political Science (formerly Politics), analyses articles focusing on women, gender and feminism that were published in the journal. The analysis demonstrates that the study of gender is relevant to a broad range of fields, and methodological approaches used, in political science. It also demonstrates that political science knowledge is itself historically and socially constructed, reflecting both traditional social power relations and the influence of the social movements that challenge them. Consequently, key articles have drawn attention to the ways in which the frameworks of mainstream forms of political science were gender-biased and have sometimes continued to be so, particularly in terms of narrow constructions of the ‘political’. Such narrow constructions may still be contributing to some ongoing gaps in the literature, despite the important contributions made by work published in the journal.     

A Review of “Church,State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine”

Abstract

The Mandragola is a microcosm of Machiavelli's thought. As a comedy, every detail is under Machiavelli's control, and there are no losers: private vices yield public benefits. All Machiavelli's characters are not equal in either the choice worthiness of their goals or abilities. Who is the hero of this comedy? Machiavelli's clues prompts exploring his allusions to classical and patristic sources but, most importantly, to Livy. Parallels in The Mandragola and Livy connect Nicia with the Roman founder, Brutus. In his ambitious goal, freedom from conventional shame, and consequent triumph over misfortune, Nicia emerges as exemplifying Machiavellian virtue.     

The Dichotomous Legacy of the Catholic Church’s Opposition to the Philippine Revolution of 1896

ABSTRACT

This article examines the repositioning of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the Philippine Revolution of 1896–98, during the transfer of Spanish to American colonial rule. It reviews the consultations between the outgoing Spanish bishops and the Vatican’s Apostolic Delegate, Placido Chapelle, in January 1900, and the subsequent religious settlement promulgated in the Vatican’s Apostolic Constitution for the Philippine Church, Quae mari Sinico, in 1902. The Delegate’s identification with the Spanish bishops and their opposition to Filipino nationalist aspirations and the Filipino secular clergy confirmed the anti-Filipino position of the Church in the American colonial period. Both the Filipino bishops and the American bishops opposed independence and distrusted the nationalist leaders as anti-clerical Masons. This is followed by a discussion of the claimed reconciliation of Church and Filipino political aspirations in the post-Vatican II period in the 1960s, which culminated in the Church’s role in bringing down President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Committed to a theology of social justice, the bishops now aligned the Church with progressive democratic nationalists. In its successful opposition to the Marcos dictatorship in the name of “People’s Power,” the hierarchy claimed that through the “Miracle of EDSA” the Church had identified with and indeed represented the political will of the Filipino people.     

Thomas Fitzherbert's reason of state

Thomas Fitzherbert's two-part Treatise concerning Policy and Religion (1606, 1610) was a rebuttal of unidentified Machiavellians, statists or politikes and their politics and policies. The work was apparently still well-regarded in the following century. Fitzherbert's objections to ‘statism’ were principally religious, and he himself thought the providentialist case against it unanswerable. But for those who did not share his convictions, he attempted to undermine Machiavellism on its own ground. Like both ‘Machiavellians’ and their opponents, he argued by inference from historical examples, but with a particularly copious knowledge of historians ancient, medieval and modern to draw on. Equally, however, he deployed the principles of speculative (principally Aristotelian) ‘political science,’ as well as theology and jurisprudence, to demonstrate that the kind of knowledge that Machiavellians required to guarantee the success of their ‘reason of state’ policies was simply unobtainable. A particularly striking strategy (perhaps modelled on that of his mentor and friend Robert Persons) was Fitzherbert's attempt to demonstrate, on the Machiavellians’ own premises, that they advocated policies which were very likely to fail, and would be visited with divine punishments sooner as well as later, whereas policies that were compatible with faith and morals were also much more likely to succeed, even judged in purely human and ‘statist’ terms.     

Feature Reviews

Abstract

Rosanvallon, Pierre; trans. Barbara Harshav The New Social Question: Rethinking the Welfare State Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 139 pp. + xii. $22.95, ISBN 0-691-01640-2. Publication Date: 2000

UNITED STATES. Politics and Public Policy: Perry, Michael J. We the People: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press. 288 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-19-512362-X

Bamberger, Michael A. Reckless Legislation: How Lawmakers Ignore the Constitution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 233 pp., $32.00, ISBN 0-8135-2732-5 Publication Date: January 2000

Wolbrecht, Christina. The Politics of Women's Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 241 pp., $55.00 cloth, $17.95 paper ISBN 0-691-04856-8 cloth ISBN 0-691-04857-6 paper Publication Date: September 2000

Ledeen, Michael A. Tocqueville on American Character. New York: St. Martin's Press. 229 pp., $23.95, ISBN 0-312-25231-5 Publication Date: July 2000

Shaiko, Ronald G. Voices and Echoes for the Environment: Public Interest Representation in the 1990s and Beyond. New York: Columbia University Press. 300 pp., $49.50 cloth, $21.00 paper ISBN 0-231-11354-4 cloth ISBN 0-231-11355-2 paper Publication Date: January 1999

Burke, Sheila; Eric R. Kingson; and Uwe E. Reinhardt, eds. Social Security and Medicare: Individual versus Collective Risk and Responsibility. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. 218 pp., $20.95 paper ISBN 0-8157-1283-9 paper Publication Date: April 2000

Karabell, Zachary. The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 308 pp., $27.50, ISBN 0-375-40086-9 Publication Date: April 2000

Pratt, Richard C., with Zachary Smith. Hawai'i Politics and Government: An American State in a Pacific World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 310 pp., $57.50 cloth, $27.50 paper ISBN 0-8032-3724-3 cloth ISBN 0-8032-8750-X paper Publication Date: February 2000

Thurber, James A.; Candice J. Nelson; and David A. Dulio, eds. Crowded Airwaves: Campaign Advertising in Elections. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. 187 pp., $39.95 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 0-8157-8456-2 cloth ISBN 0-8157-8455-4 paper Publication Date: July 2000

Stephenson, Donald Grier, Jr. Campaigns and the Court: The U.S. Supreme Court in Presidential Elections. New York: Columbia University Press. 363 pp., $49.50 cloth, $19.50 paper ISBN 0-231-10034-5 cloth ISBN 0-231-10035-3 paper Publication Date: May 1999

Craycraft, Kenneth R. The American Myth of Religious Freedom. Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing Company. 202 pp., $27.95, ISBN 1-890626-13-9 Publication Date: May 1999

Lammers, William W., and Michael A. Genovese. The Presidency and Domestic Policy: Comparing Leadership Styles, FDR to Clinton. Washington, DC: CQ Press. 383 pp., $38.95 cloth, $28.95 paper ISBN 1-56802-125-9 cloth ISBN 1-56802-124-0 paper Publication Date: 2000

Dollinger, Marc. Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 288 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-691-00509-5 Publication Date: July 2000

Spitzer, Robert J., ed. Politics and Constitutionalism: The Louis Fisher Connection. Albany: SUNY Press. 285 pp., $57.59 cloth, $18.95 paper ISBN 0-7914-4639-5 cloth ISBN 0-7914-4640-9 paper Publication Date: June 2000

Powe, Lucas A., Jr. The Warren Court and American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press/Belknap Press. 566 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-674-00095-1 Publication Date: March 2000

Popkin, William D. Statutes in Court: The History and Theory of Statutory Interpretation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 340 pp., $54.95, ISBN 0-8223-2328-1 Publication Date: September 1999

UNITED STATES. Foreign Policy and National Security: Haass, Richard N., and Meghan L. O'Sullivan, eds. Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. 212 pp., $39.95 cloth, $16.95 paper ISBN 0-8157-3356-9 cloth ISBN 0-0157-3355-0 paper Publication Date: September 2000

O'Hanlon, Michael. Technological Change and the Future of Warfare. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. 208 pp., $42.95 cloth, $17.05 paper ISBN 0-8157-6440-5 cloth ISBN 0-8157-6439-1 paper Publication Date: 2000

Deitchman, Seymour J. On Being a Superpower: And Not Knowing What to Do about It. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 350 pp., $32.00, ISBN 0-8133-6775-1 Publication Date: February 2000

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA: Frieden, Jeffrey; Manuel Pastor Jr.; and Michael Tornz, eds. Modern Political Economy and Latin America: Theory and Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 348 pp., $65.00 cloth, $24.00 paper ISBN 0-8133-2417-3 cloth ISBN 0-8133-2418-1 paper Publication Date: May 2000

Crisp, Brian F. Democratic Institutional Design: The Powers and Incentives of Venezuelan Politicians and Interest Groups. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 274 pp., $55.00, ISBN 0-8047-3370-0 cloth Publication Date: July 2000

López-Alves, Fernando. State Formation and Democracy in Latin America, 1810-1900. Durham, NC; Duke University Press. 295 pp., $49.45 cloth, $17.95 paper ISBN 0-8223-2450-4 cloth ISBN 0-8223-2474-1 paper Publication Date: March 2000

EUROPE/COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES: Mayer, Arno J. The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 705 pp., $35.00, ISBN 0-691-04897-5 Publication Date: May 2000

Deák, Istvan; Jan T. Gross; and Tony Judt, eds. The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 337 pp. + xii, $65.00 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-691-00953-8 cloth ISBN 0-691-00954-6 paper Publication Date: May 2000

Tiersky, Ronald. Europe Today: National Politics, European Integration, and European Security. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 492 pp. + x, $25.95 paper ISBN 0-8476-8591-8 paper Publication Date: 1999

AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST: Cobban, Helena. The Israeli-Syrian Peace Talks: 1991-1996 and Beyond. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press. 235 pp., + xiii, $19.95 paper ISBN 1-878379-98-4 paper Publication Date: December 1999

Hartman, David. Israelis and the Jewish Tradition: An Ancient People Debating Its Future. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 192 pp., $18.50, ISBN 0-300-08378-5 Publication Date: October 2000

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC: Dittmer, Lowell; Haruhiro Fukui; and Peter N. S. Lee, eds. Informal Politics in East Asia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 308 pp., $59.95 cloth, $19.95 paper ISBN 0-521-64232-9 cloth ISBN 0-521-64538-7 paper Publication Date: July 2000

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, LAW AND ORGANIZATION: Boyle, Francis Anthony. Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations, 1898-1922. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 220 pp., $54.95 cloth, $18.95 paper ISBN 0-8223-2327-3 cloth ISBN 0-8223-2364-8 paper Publication Date: August 1999

THEORY AND METHODOLOGY: Anderson, John C. Why Lawyers Derail Justice: Probing the Roots of Legal Injustices. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 236 pp. + xii, $40.00 cloth, $18.95 paper ISBN 0-271-01842-9 cloth ISBN 0-271-01843-7 paper Publication Date: January 1999

Engeman, Thomas S., ed. Thomas Jefferson and the Politics of Nature. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 218 pp., $17.00 paper ISBN 0-268-04211-X paper Publication Date: June 2000: Browning, Gary K. Hegel and the History of Political Philosophy. New York: St. Martin's Press. 185 pp., $59.95, ISBN 0-312-22023-5 Publication Date: May 1999

Voegelin, Eric; ed. Gilbert Weiss; trans. Ruth Hein. Collected Works, Vol. 4: The Authoritarian State: An Essay on the Problem of the Austrian State. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 396 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0-8262-1235-2 Publication Date: May 1999

Cliffe, Lionel; Maureen Ramsey; and David Bartlett. The Politics of Lying: Implications for Democracy. New York: St. Martin's Press 236 pp., $45.00, ISBN 0-312-23139-3 Publication Date: May 2000

Slomp, Gabriella. Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory. New York: St. Martin's Press. 194 pp., $65.00, ISBN 0-312-23419-8 Publication Date: March 2000

Eisenstadt, S. N. Paradoxes of Democracy: Fragility, Continuity, and Change. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center. Press/Johns Hopkins University Press 120 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0-8018-6309-0 Publication Date: September 1999

Newell, Waller R. Ruling Passion: The Erotics of Statecraft in Platonic Political Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 288 pp., $70.00 cloth, $24.95 paper ISBN 0-8476-9726-6 cloth ISBN 0-8476-9727-4 paper Publication Date: June 2000

GENERAL: Becker, Ted, and Christa Daryl Slaton. The Future of Teledemocracy. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. 230 pp., $65.00 cloth, $24.95 paper ISBN 0-275-96632-1 cloth ISBN 0-275-97090-6 paper Publication Date: June 2000

Sparrow, Malcolm K. The Regulatory Craft: Controlling Risks, Solving Problems, and Managing Compliance. Washington, DC: Council for Excellence in Government/Brookings Institution Press. 314 pp., $20.95 paper ISBN 0-8157-8065-6 paper Publication Date: July 2000

Dunn, Seth. Micropower: The Next Electrical Era. Washington, DC: World Watch Institute. 94 pp., $5.00 paper ISBN 1-878071-53-X paper Publication Date: July 2000

Morton, F. L., and Rainer Knopff. The Charter Revolution and the Court Party. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. 227 pp., $19.95 paper ISBN 1-55111-089-X paper Publication Date: January 2000     

Born in Melbourne? Considerations on the origins of Australian political science

In a pioneering academic discussion of Australian politics written just before the First World War, William Harrison Moore reinforced the image of Australia as an increasingly autonomous part of a slowly evolving but essentially liberal British Empire. In this 34-page account of ‘Political Systems of Australia’ published in George H. Knibbs, ed., Federal Handbook (Melbourne, 1914), the Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Melbourne arguably created the ur-text of the Australian Politics textbook. It is argued that there is an unbroken thread of Cambridge-inspired political science teaching and writing at Melbourne from Harrison Moore onwards. The early Australian politics textbooks and ‘Political Systems of Australia’ are cut from the same cloth, making the latter an important precursor.     

“Living together separately”: Thoughts on the relationship between political science and political geography

In their provocatively titled book, Living Together Separately, Michael Romann and Alex Weingrod argue that the shared terrain of Jerusalem obscures deep divisions in the physical and social lives of its Arab and Jewish ethnic communities (Romann & Weingrod, 1991). Multiple divisions exist not only among peoples sharing a common space; they are also found among communities of scholars sharing common intellectual interests. This has certainly been the case of Political Science and Political Geography during much of the twentieth century. Members of both disciplinary communities seek insights into the role of politics and political structures in human society, yet until recently they have pursued their work within orbits that only rarely intersected. They attended different conferences and symposia, they employed different methodological tools, and they did not draw heavily on each others published work.Recent theoretical and empirical developments have begun to erode the barriers separating Political Science and Political Geography, and a discussion of the relationship between the disciplines is thus both timely and welcome. Professor Elazar is an appropriate person to place at the center of this discussion, for his work as a political scientist is unusual sensitivity to geography. Professor Elazar's comments about research orientations and career constraints provide an interesting point of departure for such a discussion, but to understand the nature and depth of the divide between the disciplines it is important to consider the core intellectual constructs and practices that have characterized Political Science and Political Geography during the twentieth century. These have fostered theoretical orientations and research approaches that are sufficiently different from one another to create significant barriers to interdisciplinary contact.     

The Presidency and the News Media

Abstract

Leo Strauss, often considered a critic of modernity, is famous for his claim that Machiavelli, in turning away from the classical tradition, is its originator. Yet his “Restatement on Xenophon's Hiero” presents a concise indictment of that tradition and a remarkably sympathetic account of the political and philosophic motives that led to the rupture. In light of this tension, Strauss's interest in Xenophon appears as a useful counterweight to both.