Authoritarianism,revolution and democracy: Egypt and beyond

The pro-democracy Arab popular uprisings have been spontaneous, but perhaps not all that unpredictable. They have come against the backdrop of a growing gulf between the rulers and the ruled, political repression, social and economic inequalities, demographic changes, unemployment and foreign policy debacles. Although the uprisings began in Tunisia, it is the case of Egypt that illustrates the situation more compellingly and the impact that it has had on the rest of the Arab world. It is not clear at this stage what will be the ultimate outcome. But what can be said with certainty is that the Arab peoples have set out on a long journey in pursuit of genuine self-determination. The journey will be arduous and unsettling for the Arabs and outsiders, but this has to be treated as part of a transition from a dictatorial past to a politically pluralist future.     

论辛亥革命中的陈夔龙

陈夔龙是清季政局中的关键人物,然“时抱慊慊之惧,而不愿居赫赫之名”。1909年11月调任直隶总督。1911年10月武昌起义爆发后,政治态度极为保守的陈夔龙一方面积极为清廷建言镇压武昌的革命者,一方面在直隶地区采取一系列措施消减革命带来的恐慌心理以维护社会稳定,坚决拒绝立宪派士绅的独立请求,防范和镇压新军及革命党人的活动。陈夔龙于清帝退位前挂冠而去。作为一名具有名教纲常思想的中国传统士大夫,忠清和守土安民之信念,是其在辛亥革命中行为动机的归依。     

戴戡试评

戴戡是辛亥革命时进入政界的显要人物,数十年来对其评价多持否定态度。本文认为戴戡在护国运动和反对帝制复辟的历史关键时刻立场正确坚定,应作实事求是的评价。     

论信息技术革命给党的统战工作带来的机遇

信息技术革命的发展为加强对统战成员的思想工作、扩大统战成员的政治参与、促进统一战线的民意整合、增强民主监督的实效、变革统战工作的方式带来了难得的机遇。面对信息网络技术飞速发展的新形势,党的统战工作必须抓住机遇,积极探索改进和完善党的统战工作的新途径和新方法,以不断推动和实现党的统战工作的新发展。     

Political Theology,Democracy, and the Exception in the Egyptian Revolution

As the sixth anniversary of the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square passes, those uprisings and the events that followed continue pose important challenges not only for students of Middle Eastern and North African politics, but also for students of political theory and political theology. While scholars debate the extent to which the “Arab Spring” has amounted to a truly revolutionary turn of events, it is commonly accepted that the protests that swept the region were exceptional in their unanticipated and profound disruption of ordinary affairs. Under the influence of Carl Schmitt's theory of sovereignty, “the exception” has become a key figure in contemporary reflections on political theology, but attention to events in Egypt suggests that the familiar figure of the exception has not yet been mined for all of its implications for democratic practice. Slipping below grand articulations of the exception as a moment of sovereign decision, or as the suspension of the law, this essay turns its attention to the minor, everyday, background patterns of exceptionality that accompany the emergence of democratic practices outside the purview of the sovereign state. I argue that there is an intimate connection between the forms of exceptionality produced by longstanding practices of Egyptian secularism, the forms of exceptionality peculiar to the 2011 uprisings and their aftermath, and the forms of exceptionality that both make and unmake democratic practices. My argument has three parts: first Egyptian secularism is a process that manages and transforms authorized forms of Islamic practice, while at the same time producing exceptional formations, of which the Muslim Brotherhood is a key example; second that revolutionary politics can be understood as a matter of opening and sustaining the kind of exceptional circumstances that attended the 2011 uprisings, and that this can be usefully framed as an open-ended process of conversion; third that democratic practice requires courting both kinds of exception, despite their challenges, ambivalences, and potential dangers.     

Consumption of Chinese goods in southwestern Europe: a multi-relational database and the vicarious consumption theory as alternative model to the industrious revolution (eighteenth century)

This article discusses the application of new technologies, software coding and computer analysis in the social sciences and humanities, mainly in the field of economic history. In the last two decades, the use of new computer technologies among historians to develop theories and solve questions has fostered a vibrant historiographical debate. However, these new digital tools have largely been used as an end in themselves, rather than as a means to develop hypotheses and answer questions. This has prevented researchers from fully exploiting such technologies in their field. In this article, I discuss how I designed a new multi-relational database using the “Access” package and SQL language to test the “industrious revolution” hypothesis and present the “vicarious consumption” theory as an alternative model for analyzing the eighteenth-century circulation of Chinese goods in the Western Mediterranean region. It presents the cross-referencing method I used to analyze the historical information I collected, mainly from probate inventories and trade records. This method makes it possible to navigate through the data in a way that goes beyond the traditional use of “excel” tables.     

Participation and Passive Revolution: The Reproduction of Neoliberal Water Governance Mechanisms in Durban,South Africa

Abstract: This article demonstrates that Gramsci's concept of passive revolution can be utilised to help unearth some of the contradictions of participatory development within neoliberal governance systems in the global South. I argue that some approaches to “participation” within neoliberal governance systems can, in part, be understood as moments within a protracted process of passive revolution. The argument is traced through eThekwini municipality's Community Participation Programme and the related extension of Free Basic Water (FBW). This article contributes to existing scholarship by demonstrating how a Gramscian analysis is indispensable to understanding the way in which state–civil society relations are conceived in participatory development strategies and the implications this might have for radical social change. I argue that a Gramscian approach compels us to reconsider current understandings of state–civil society relations so that we might overcome the impasse of passive revolution and move towards a more progressive form of politics.     

From collinearity to structure: San Francisco and Pittsburgh, 1860

The author argues that giving a name to any period of history is a complicated process for historians, requiring careful consideration of many factors. Applying the extensive presence and use of computers as an example of the process at work, he suggests that it may be too early to name our time the information age.     

近代中国自由主文视域中的革命观念——以“胡适派学人群”为中心的考察

辛亥以来,革命浪潮席卷国中。在近代中国救亡图存的特殊历史情境下,自由主义者对革命表现出了颇为复杂的实际认知。从自由主义者的十月革命观感、对革命内涵的认知、对暴力革命的批评、质疑及推崇渐进改革道路等方面来看,自由主义者是"广义的革命"论者,他们并不一般地反对社会革命与政治进步。在近代中国的不同历史时期,自由主义者对革命表现出了一定程度上的灵活性和变通性,而非绝对地加以反对。近代中国自由主义视域中的革命观终究受其渐进改革的政治理念所支配,而其与近代中国国情与社会实际的隔膜则是其难以产生重大社会影响的主因。     

Renewing the Political Perspective: Reflections on James Ceaser,Political Science,and Liberal Democracy

Abstract

This is a response to the contributions to the symposium on David Walsh's trilogy on modernity: After Ideology (1990), The Growth of the Liberal Soul (1997), and The Modern Philosophical Revolution (2008). After expressing appreciation for the careful reading the work has received, it enters into a reflection on the underlying unity of the studies. This is intended to address the common concerns that center on the issue of how the modern world is to be understood. It emphasizes the impossibility of separating the attempt to understand modernity from the need to take responsibility for it. This is the perspective that has illuminated the totalitarian catharsis, the durability of liberal political regimes, and the existential turn within modern philosophy. In the latter part of the essay, a response is offered to specific objections and characterizations that individual symposiasts raise.