‘Poisons Disguised with Honey’: European Expansion and the Sacred Trust of Civilization

For many centuries now, those considering themselves civilized have carried out numerous atrocities—from abductions to dispossession to massacres—against those thought to be less civilized, all in the name of civilization. This has particularly been the case in the last 500 years when Europeans came into contact with indigenous peoples in their voyages of discovery and subsequent settlement. One of the justifications for these offences was often couched in terms of the self-appointed duty of “civilized” Europeans to bring the blessings of civilization to the “savage” and “barbarian” hordes, also called the “white man's burden” or the “burden of civilization.” Many nations took up this sacred trust of civilization and the challenge of bringing enlightenment and salvation to the uncivilized peoples of the world, during which the latter were either subjugated or perished. In this article I trace the intellectual heritage of the sacred trust and note its inherent contradictions, ranging from debates between Sepúlveda and Las Casas over Spain's rights of conquest in the New World to the musings of key Enlightenment thinkers such as Locke, Hegel, Kant, and J. S. Mill. As some of its advocates acknowledge the sacred trust and concomitant civilizing missions were inevitably and invariably violent and went against the very idea of civilization. And as Las Casas deftly highlighted, much of the reasoning underpinning the sacred trust was in the form of “poisons disguised with honey.”     

On voodoo economics: theorising relations of property, value and contemporary capitalism

This paper reflects on how we can productively theorise the contemporary treatment of property, by a range of different economic agents, as a locus for the attempted creation of economic value. Its argument is that the theorisation offered by David Harvey (1982) in The limits to capital has a continued and arguably even heightened relevance in the present-day context, but that this theorisation can be embellished with insights from the sociology of finance, particularly in regard to the power of representation. This argument is developed with reference to two parallel empirical 'stories' from early twenty-first century capitalism: the economist Hernando de Soto's influential thesis about the 'mystery of capital' and his related policy ideas; and the attempts of western-based financiers to extract profit from companies with significant real estate assets by separating those property assets from the operational side of the businesses in question.     

Judging appearances: The continuing legacy of Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Politics. Edited by Craig Calhoun and John McGowan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), viii + 362 pp. $54.95 cloth $21.95 paper.

Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss: German Emigrés and American Political Thought after World War II. Edited by Peter Graf Kielmansegg, Horst Mewes, and Elisabeth Glaser‐Schmidt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), x + 208 pp. $49.95/£35.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.

Hannah Arendt: Twenty Years Later. Edited by Larry May and Jerome Kohn (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), viii + 384 pp. $40.00 cloth, $17.50 paper.     

Voluntary Agencies as Development Organizations: Theorizing the Problem of Efficiency and Accountability

Co-operatives, NGOs and community groups are being increasingly used as development agencies by policy-makers, because they are thought to provide more accountable, effective and equitable services in many areas than public or private agencies. This article attempts to consider some of the theoretical and practical implications of this growing role by treating them as ‘value-driven’ organizations, and asking how this differentiates them, in terms of efficiency and accountability, from public or private agencies. It notes the lack of developed theoretical models capable of dealing with this question, and examines the relevance of existing theories (neo-classical economics, public administration and especially varieties of organization theory including the New Institutional Economics) in dealing with agencies which claim to be dominated by motivations based on democracy and altruism rather than self-interest. The author looks at problems associated with the measurement of efficiency and enforcement of accountability in organizational life and at the need for effective incentives and sanctions which provide a stable basis for maintaining commitment. He then considers the issues involved in the enforcement of accountability to ensure the efficient use of resources in producer co-operatives on the one hand and service delivery NGOs on the other. In the former, the focus is on the strengths and weaknesses of market competition and the costs of collective management; in the latter on the varied relationships between ‘principals and agents' involved in the production and management of services.     

After Cloture: Vote Switching,Credit Claiming,and Position Taking in the United States Senate

Vote switching in the United States Senate is not an uncommon occurrence. Nearly one in 10 cloture-final passage vote pairs involves senators switching their vote. We find that this inconsistency in voting behavior is a result of the combination of electoral pressures and the impact of the traceability of consequences in light of party forces and personal preferences. In general, we find that electorally vulnerable members of the majority party are more likely to engage in vote switching. The same is true of more electorally secure members of the minority party. However, the traceability of consequences is also a governing force in that electorally vulnerable members of the majority party are more likely to use vote switching as a credit claiming opportunity during periods of low media scrutiny. Electorally vulnerable members of the minority party are more likely to engage in position taking when there is greater media scrutiny.     

Biblical Inspiration & Islamic Instrumental Causality: Thomas Aquinas on prophecy and the two authors of Sacred Scripture

Scripture, according to the Christian tradition, has two authors: God as the principal author and the Holy Fathers as instrumental authors. Thomas’s biblical inspiration is accomplished through instrumental causality—the theory of causal motion where the power of a principal agent works hiddenly through a lower cause to achieve an end beyond the lower cause’s natural powers. However, Thomas formulates a new account of instrumental causality by integrating Islamic causal accounts within Greek and Christian ones. After confirming that Thomas accounts for biblical inspiration with instrumental causality, I will show how Thomas’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard explains his theory of instrumental causality pertaining to the sacraments and how it neatly fits biblical inspiration. Finally, I will demonstrate that Thomas’s formulation of instrumental causality is novel incorporating Islamic influences through Arabic sources including: the Arabic Liber de Causis, Averroes’s two sources of motion, and Avicenna’s modes of efficient causation. The paper will thereby conclude that Thomas’s explanation on how Scripture comes to be is beholden to philosophical thinkers of the Arabic tradition.