Diana Knight (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197266670
- eISBN:
- 9780191905391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266670.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The disciplinary range of Barthes’s work is unusually diverse, as is that of its reception. An energetic contributor to the human sciences in postwar France, Barthes is credited with a pivotal role ...
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The disciplinary range of Barthes’s work is unusually diverse, as is that of its reception. An energetic contributor to the human sciences in postwar France, Barthes is credited with a pivotal role in the emergence of interdisciplinarity. But Barthes was alert to its recuperation by the technocratic higher-education reforms of 1968, referring to ‘the myth of interdisciplinarity’. He was equally wary of a federation of disciplines that would leave each one comfortably unchanged, rather than overturning the intellectual landscape. A more fertile interdisciplinarity originates in Barthes’s intensive reading of Michelet in the sanatorium. It is tracked through his euphoric discovery of structuralism to his teaching at the École pratique des hautes études, and his idiosyncratic aspirations for a ‘peripatetic’ chair of literary semiology at the Collège de France. Barthes was interested in the historically shifting hierarchies of disciplines, noting the equal status of the trivium and quadrivium within the medieval septenium, and bemoaning the downgrading of language to mere instrumentality within the contemporary human sciences. Literature, which already contains within it all forms of knowledge, is proposed as a transformative discipline despite its current exclusion, a corrective for the refusal of the human sciences to pay attention to their discourse.Less
The disciplinary range of Barthes’s work is unusually diverse, as is that of its reception. An energetic contributor to the human sciences in postwar France, Barthes is credited with a pivotal role in the emergence of interdisciplinarity. But Barthes was alert to its recuperation by the technocratic higher-education reforms of 1968, referring to ‘the myth of interdisciplinarity’. He was equally wary of a federation of disciplines that would leave each one comfortably unchanged, rather than overturning the intellectual landscape. A more fertile interdisciplinarity originates in Barthes’s intensive reading of Michelet in the sanatorium. It is tracked through his euphoric discovery of structuralism to his teaching at the École pratique des hautes études, and his idiosyncratic aspirations for a ‘peripatetic’ chair of literary semiology at the Collège de France. Barthes was interested in the historically shifting hierarchies of disciplines, noting the equal status of the trivium and quadrivium within the medieval septenium, and bemoaning the downgrading of language to mere instrumentality within the contemporary human sciences. Literature, which already contains within it all forms of knowledge, is proposed as a transformative discipline despite its current exclusion, a corrective for the refusal of the human sciences to pay attention to their discourse.
Peter A. Hall
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199250158
- eISBN:
- 9780191599439
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199250154.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
The purpose of this chapter is to place contemporary debate about European democracy in a wider historical context by considering how analyses of the institutions that underpin democracy in Europe ...
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The purpose of this chapter is to place contemporary debate about European democracy in a wider historical context by considering how analyses of the institutions that underpin democracy in Europe have evolved over time in tandem with political developments. It is said that those who neglect history are doomed to repeat it, and that can be also true of social science. We depend on the insights of successive generations of scholars for much of what we know about democracy, and by examining how their analyses shifted as European governance itself evolved, we can develop perspectives with which to understand the problems confronting Europe today. The survey is necessarily brief survey, but references are provided that lead to deeper debates. The different sections of the chapter are: The Feasibility of Popular Government; The Importance of Culture, Organization, and Social Conditions; Technocracy, Neo–Corporatism, and the Romantic Revolt; The Move to the Market; and Contemporary European Democracy.Less
The purpose of this chapter is to place contemporary debate about European democracy in a wider historical context by considering how analyses of the institutions that underpin democracy in Europe have evolved over time in tandem with political developments. It is said that those who neglect history are doomed to repeat it, and that can be also true of social science. We depend on the insights of successive generations of scholars for much of what we know about democracy, and by examining how their analyses shifted as European governance itself evolved, we can develop perspectives with which to understand the problems confronting Europe today. The survey is necessarily brief survey, but references are provided that lead to deeper debates. The different sections of the chapter are: The Feasibility of Popular Government; The Importance of Culture, Organization, and Social Conditions; Technocracy, Neo–Corporatism, and the Romantic Revolt; The Move to the Market; and Contemporary European Democracy.
John O. McGinnis
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151021
- eISBN:
- 9781400845453
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151021.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
Successful democracies throughout history have used the technology of their time to gather information for better governance. Our challenge is no different today, but it is more urgent because the ...
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Successful democracies throughout history have used the technology of their time to gather information for better governance. Our challenge is no different today, but it is more urgent because the accelerating pace of technological change creates potentially enormous dangers as well as benefits. This book shows how to adapt democracy to new information technologies that can enhance political decision making and enable us to navigate the social rapids ahead. This book demonstrates how these new technologies combine to address a problem as old as democracy itself—how to help citizens better evaluate the consequences of their political choices. As society became more complex in the nineteenth century, social planning became a top-down enterprise delegated to experts and bureaucrats. Today, technology increasingly permits information to bubble up from below and filter through more dispersed and competitive sources. The book explains how to use fast-evolving information technologies to more effectively analyze past public policy, bring unprecedented intensity of scrutiny to current policy proposals, and more accurately predict the results of future policy. But he argues that we can do so only if government keeps pace with technological change. For instance, it must revive federalism to permit different jurisdictions to test different policies so that their results can be evaluated, and it must legalize information markets to permit people to bet on what the consequences of a policy will be even before that policy is implemented. This book reveals how we can achieve a democracy that is informed by expertise and social-scientific knowledge while shedding the arrogance and insularity of a technocracy.Less
Successful democracies throughout history have used the technology of their time to gather information for better governance. Our challenge is no different today, but it is more urgent because the accelerating pace of technological change creates potentially enormous dangers as well as benefits. This book shows how to adapt democracy to new information technologies that can enhance political decision making and enable us to navigate the social rapids ahead. This book demonstrates how these new technologies combine to address a problem as old as democracy itself—how to help citizens better evaluate the consequences of their political choices. As society became more complex in the nineteenth century, social planning became a top-down enterprise delegated to experts and bureaucrats. Today, technology increasingly permits information to bubble up from below and filter through more dispersed and competitive sources. The book explains how to use fast-evolving information technologies to more effectively analyze past public policy, bring unprecedented intensity of scrutiny to current policy proposals, and more accurately predict the results of future policy. But he argues that we can do so only if government keeps pace with technological change. For instance, it must revive federalism to permit different jurisdictions to test different policies so that their results can be evaluated, and it must legalize information markets to permit people to bet on what the consequences of a policy will be even before that policy is implemented. This book reveals how we can achieve a democracy that is informed by expertise and social-scientific knowledge while shedding the arrogance and insularity of a technocracy.
Luis Moreno-Caballud
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381939
- eISBN:
- 9781781382295
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381939.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This book studies the emergence of collaborative and non-hierarchical cultures in the context of the Spanish economic crisis of 2008. It explains how peer-to-peer social networks that have arisen ...
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This book studies the emergence of collaborative and non-hierarchical cultures in the context of the Spanish economic crisis of 2008. It explains how peer-to-peer social networks that have arisen online and through social movements such as the Indignados have challenged a longstanding cultural tradition of intellectual elitism and capitalist technocracy in Spain. From the establishment of a technocratic and consumerist culture during the second part of the Franco dictatorship to the transition to neoliberalism that accompanied the ‘transition to democracy’, intellectuals and ‘experts’ have legitimized contemporary Spanish history as a series of unavoidable steps in a process of ‘modernization’. But when unemployment skyrocketed and a growing number of people began to feel that the consequences of this Spanish ‘modernization’ had increasingly led to precariousness, this paradigm collapsed. In the wake of Spain's financial meltdown of 2008, new ‘cultures of anyone’ have emerged around the idea that the people affected by or involved in a situation should be the ones to participate in changing it. Growing through grassroots social movements, digital networks, and spaces traditionally reserved for ‘high culture’ and institutional politics, these cultures promote processes of empowerment and collaborative learning that allow the development of the abilities and knowledge base of ‘anyone’, regardless of their economic status or institutional affiliations.Less
This book studies the emergence of collaborative and non-hierarchical cultures in the context of the Spanish economic crisis of 2008. It explains how peer-to-peer social networks that have arisen online and through social movements such as the Indignados have challenged a longstanding cultural tradition of intellectual elitism and capitalist technocracy in Spain. From the establishment of a technocratic and consumerist culture during the second part of the Franco dictatorship to the transition to neoliberalism that accompanied the ‘transition to democracy’, intellectuals and ‘experts’ have legitimized contemporary Spanish history as a series of unavoidable steps in a process of ‘modernization’. But when unemployment skyrocketed and a growing number of people began to feel that the consequences of this Spanish ‘modernization’ had increasingly led to precariousness, this paradigm collapsed. In the wake of Spain's financial meltdown of 2008, new ‘cultures of anyone’ have emerged around the idea that the people affected by or involved in a situation should be the ones to participate in changing it. Growing through grassroots social movements, digital networks, and spaces traditionally reserved for ‘high culture’ and institutional politics, these cultures promote processes of empowerment and collaborative learning that allow the development of the abilities and knowledge base of ‘anyone’, regardless of their economic status or institutional affiliations.
Eric Jabbari
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199289639
- eISBN:
- 9780191730863
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199289639.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The advocacy of corporatism found a receptive audience in interwar during the thirties, as many of Laroque’s contemporaries had come to believe that the Third Republic had failed to resolve the ...
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The advocacy of corporatism found a receptive audience in interwar during the thirties, as many of Laroque’s contemporaries had come to believe that the Third Republic had failed to resolve the social, political and economic problems which confronted interwar France. It was in this context that he participated in various intellectual forums which sought to develop solutions to these questions, such as the Groupe du 9 Juillet and X-crise, while publishing articles in likeminded reviews such as L’Homme Nouveau and Les Nouveaux Cahiers, activities which associated him with the neosocialist and technocratic movements of the time. By the end of the decade Laroque had become an expert in the field of industrial relations, as was demonstrated by the publication of Les rapports entre patrons et ouvriers in 1938. It was during this same period, moreover, that he came to believe that it was incumbent upon social policy to address the cultural and psychological aspects of industrial strife, since it was a sense of inferiority which accounted for the alienation of labour in contemporary France.Less
The advocacy of corporatism found a receptive audience in interwar during the thirties, as many of Laroque’s contemporaries had come to believe that the Third Republic had failed to resolve the social, political and economic problems which confronted interwar France. It was in this context that he participated in various intellectual forums which sought to develop solutions to these questions, such as the Groupe du 9 Juillet and X-crise, while publishing articles in likeminded reviews such as L’Homme Nouveau and Les Nouveaux Cahiers, activities which associated him with the neosocialist and technocratic movements of the time. By the end of the decade Laroque had become an expert in the field of industrial relations, as was demonstrated by the publication of Les rapports entre patrons et ouvriers in 1938. It was during this same period, moreover, that he came to believe that it was incumbent upon social policy to address the cultural and psychological aspects of industrial strife, since it was a sense of inferiority which accounted for the alienation of labour in contemporary France.
Luis Moreno-Caballud
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381939
- eISBN:
- 9781781382295
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381939.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter examines some distinctive characteristics of the forms of cultural authority prevailing in Spain during a period of neoliberal crisis. It first traces the genealogy of these forms of ...
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This chapter examines some distinctive characteristics of the forms of cultural authority prevailing in Spain during a period of neoliberal crisis. It first traces the genealogy of these forms of cultural authority, focusing on the ways in which big communications media, experts, politicians and intellectuals have presented the crisis. It then considers the tendency of agencies of cultural authority to promote a competitive, individualistic way of life that lies at the heart of neoliberalism. It also discusses the cultural elites' attempts to make the rest of the population adapt to the capitalist mode of production and distribution of value, a practice that occurred during the second phase of Francoism and enshrined through the technoscientific legitimacy of certain expert elites who claimed to be modernizing the country. The chapter concludes by assessing the impact of capitalist ‘modernization’ and technocracy on the traditional rural community-based peasantry.Less
This chapter examines some distinctive characteristics of the forms of cultural authority prevailing in Spain during a period of neoliberal crisis. It first traces the genealogy of these forms of cultural authority, focusing on the ways in which big communications media, experts, politicians and intellectuals have presented the crisis. It then considers the tendency of agencies of cultural authority to promote a competitive, individualistic way of life that lies at the heart of neoliberalism. It also discusses the cultural elites' attempts to make the rest of the population adapt to the capitalist mode of production and distribution of value, a practice that occurred during the second phase of Francoism and enshrined through the technoscientific legitimacy of certain expert elites who claimed to be modernizing the country. The chapter concludes by assessing the impact of capitalist ‘modernization’ and technocracy on the traditional rural community-based peasantry.
Chris J. Bickerton
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199606252
- eISBN:
- 9780191751639
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199606252.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union, International Relations and Politics
European integration has traditionally been understood as a struggle between national sovereignty and pan-European supranational governance. Optimists see in the EU’s evolution an inexorable step ...
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European integration has traditionally been understood as a struggle between national sovereignty and pan-European supranational governance. Optimists see in the EU’s evolution an inexorable step towards a federal Europe. Pessimists point to enduring national rivalries and conflicts, made all the more bitter by the ongoing economic crisis in Europe. This book argues that both sides to this debate fail to explain key features of today’s EU. Whilst cooperation between national governments becomes deeper and more extensive, we see no grand leaps towards supranationalism. At the same time, though national representatives entrench their role in European integration, they act in ways different from what we would expect from traditional national politicians. They seek consensus rather than conflict and they identify with each other as much as with their own domestic populations. In order to grasp these developments, the book argues that we need to go beyond the clash of national sovereignty versus supranationalism and to understand European integration as a process of state transformation. Focusing on the post-1945 Keynesian consensus and its dismantling in the 1970s and 1980s, this book argues that European states have undergone a profound transformation—from nation states to what it calls member states. Developing the argument both historically and theoretically, and engaging with a wide variety of different literatures, the book argues that by understanding European integration as a process of state transformation we are better able to grasp those mysteries of the EU that have long puzzled researchers and have so frustrated citizens.Less
European integration has traditionally been understood as a struggle between national sovereignty and pan-European supranational governance. Optimists see in the EU’s evolution an inexorable step towards a federal Europe. Pessimists point to enduring national rivalries and conflicts, made all the more bitter by the ongoing economic crisis in Europe. This book argues that both sides to this debate fail to explain key features of today’s EU. Whilst cooperation between national governments becomes deeper and more extensive, we see no grand leaps towards supranationalism. At the same time, though national representatives entrench their role in European integration, they act in ways different from what we would expect from traditional national politicians. They seek consensus rather than conflict and they identify with each other as much as with their own domestic populations. In order to grasp these developments, the book argues that we need to go beyond the clash of national sovereignty versus supranationalism and to understand European integration as a process of state transformation. Focusing on the post-1945 Keynesian consensus and its dismantling in the 1970s and 1980s, this book argues that European states have undergone a profound transformation—from nation states to what it calls member states. Developing the argument both historically and theoretically, and engaging with a wide variety of different literatures, the book argues that by understanding European integration as a process of state transformation we are better able to grasp those mysteries of the EU that have long puzzled researchers and have so frustrated citizens.
Albert W. Dzur
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199874095
- eISBN:
- 9780199980024
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199874095.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This book concludes by considering Socrates’ critique of the jury in the Apology, which misleadingly contrasts expert justice with democratic injustice. While producing an unjust outcome, Socrates’ ...
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This book concludes by considering Socrates’ critique of the jury in the Apology, which misleadingly contrasts expert justice with democratic injustice. While producing an unjust outcome, Socrates’ trial was nevertheless thoroughly public because of the court’s lay membership: It addressed the people, was transparent, well understood, held the people accountable for justice, and influenced public discourse on punishment for centuries. Though a failure of justice, it was a public failure, a lesson for Athens and the wider world. The enduring need for public engagement in criminal justice explains why the jury form persists, why it is being reintroduced in Japan and elsewhere. The jury brings people together not as an assumed public, a voice of an already existing community, but as a deliberately constructed public; it provides a procedural rather than substantive foundation for the public interests represented in criminal adjudication. Contemporary proponents of Socrates’ expert justice, like Whitman, fail to see the threats this technocratic model poses to the civic capacity of a democracy. Reviving the jury in the fashion suggested in the previous chapter, or developing related institutional forms of load-bearing lay participation, would increase public sobriety about contemporary punishment and broaden responsibility for more humane criminal justice.Less
This book concludes by considering Socrates’ critique of the jury in the Apology, which misleadingly contrasts expert justice with democratic injustice. While producing an unjust outcome, Socrates’ trial was nevertheless thoroughly public because of the court’s lay membership: It addressed the people, was transparent, well understood, held the people accountable for justice, and influenced public discourse on punishment for centuries. Though a failure of justice, it was a public failure, a lesson for Athens and the wider world. The enduring need for public engagement in criminal justice explains why the jury form persists, why it is being reintroduced in Japan and elsewhere. The jury brings people together not as an assumed public, a voice of an already existing community, but as a deliberately constructed public; it provides a procedural rather than substantive foundation for the public interests represented in criminal adjudication. Contemporary proponents of Socrates’ expert justice, like Whitman, fail to see the threats this technocratic model poses to the civic capacity of a democracy. Reviving the jury in the fashion suggested in the previous chapter, or developing related institutional forms of load-bearing lay participation, would increase public sobriety about contemporary punishment and broaden responsibility for more humane criminal justice.
Jeffrey Friedman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190877170
- eISBN:
- 9780190909505
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190877170.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, Comparative Politics
Technocrats claim to know how to solve the social and economic problems of complex modern societies. But this would require predicting how people will act once technocrats impose their policy ...
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Technocrats claim to know how to solve the social and economic problems of complex modern societies. But this would require predicting how people will act once technocrats impose their policy solutions. Power Without Knowledge argues that people’s ideas, w hich govern their deliberate actions, are too heterogeneous for their behavior to be reliably predicted. Thus, a technocracy of social-scientific experts cannot be expected to accomplish its objectives. The author also shows that a large part of contemporary mass politics, even populist mass politics, is technocratic, as members of the general public often assume that they are competent to decide which policies or politicians will be able to solve social and economic problems. How, then, do “citizen-technocrats” make these decisions? Drawing on political psychology and survey research, the author contends that people often assume that the solutions to social problems are self-evident, such that politics becomes a matter of vetting public officials for their good intentions and strong wills, not their knowledge. Turning to the more conventional meaning of technocracy, the author argues that social scientists, too, drastically oversimplify technocratic realities, but in an entirely different manner. Neoclassical economists, for example, theorize that people respond rationally to the incentives they face. This theory is simplistic, but it creates the appearance that people’s behavior is predictable. Without such oversimplifications, the author argues, technocracy would be seen by technocrats themselves to be chimerical.Less
Technocrats claim to know how to solve the social and economic problems of complex modern societies. But this would require predicting how people will act once technocrats impose their policy solutions. Power Without Knowledge argues that people’s ideas, w hich govern their deliberate actions, are too heterogeneous for their behavior to be reliably predicted. Thus, a technocracy of social-scientific experts cannot be expected to accomplish its objectives. The author also shows that a large part of contemporary mass politics, even populist mass politics, is technocratic, as members of the general public often assume that they are competent to decide which policies or politicians will be able to solve social and economic problems. How, then, do “citizen-technocrats” make these decisions? Drawing on political psychology and survey research, the author contends that people often assume that the solutions to social problems are self-evident, such that politics becomes a matter of vetting public officials for their good intentions and strong wills, not their knowledge. Turning to the more conventional meaning of technocracy, the author argues that social scientists, too, drastically oversimplify technocratic realities, but in an entirely different manner. Neoclassical economists, for example, theorize that people respond rationally to the incentives they face. This theory is simplistic, but it creates the appearance that people’s behavior is predictable. Without such oversimplifications, the author argues, technocracy would be seen by technocrats themselves to be chimerical.
Daniel A. Crane
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195372656
- eISBN:
- 9780199893287
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372656.003.0004
- Subject:
- Law, Competition Law
This chapter describes antitrust's 20th-century shift towards “technocracy”. This shift was considered dramatic, but only partial, as it disappeared from the public's imagination and lost the ...
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This chapter describes antitrust's 20th-century shift towards “technocracy”. This shift was considered dramatic, but only partial, as it disappeared from the public's imagination and lost the interest of political leaders, but through daily implementation it once again became the province of bureaucrats and private sector specialists. There were relatively few formal changes in the institutional infrastructure of antitrust that gave it reason to retain its populist institutions, even while shifting on an ideological level toward technocracy. This shift has important implications for the functioning of antitrust's institutions as well as the possible direction of future development.Less
This chapter describes antitrust's 20th-century shift towards “technocracy”. This shift was considered dramatic, but only partial, as it disappeared from the public's imagination and lost the interest of political leaders, but through daily implementation it once again became the province of bureaucrats and private sector specialists. There were relatively few formal changes in the institutional infrastructure of antitrust that gave it reason to retain its populist institutions, even while shifting on an ideological level toward technocracy. This shift has important implications for the functioning of antitrust's institutions as well as the possible direction of future development.
Anders Esmark
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781529200874
- eISBN:
- 9781529200898
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529200874.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
The introduction provides a starting definition of technocracy as a form of government based on a vision of politics as a form of (post-) industrial management, technological progressivism, social ...
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The introduction provides a starting definition of technocracy as a form of government based on a vision of politics as a form of (post-) industrial management, technological progressivism, social engineering, scientism and the politics of depoliticization. The transition from industrial technocracy to the anti-bureaucratic and pro-democratic form of new technocracy is introduced and situated in relation to key debates. Also includes an overview of the book.Less
The introduction provides a starting definition of technocracy as a form of government based on a vision of politics as a form of (post-) industrial management, technological progressivism, social engineering, scientism and the politics of depoliticization. The transition from industrial technocracy to the anti-bureaucratic and pro-democratic form of new technocracy is introduced and situated in relation to key debates. Also includes an overview of the book.
Les Beldo
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226657370
- eISBN:
- 9780226657547
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226657547.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explore an affinity that many Makah people recognize between local conceptions of the environment and the utilitarian, quantitative ontology of the state, reflected in avibrant local ...
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This chapter explore an affinity that many Makah people recognize between local conceptions of the environment and the utilitarian, quantitative ontology of the state, reflected in avibrant local discourse that suggests Makah leaders were prepared by their traditional and spiritual teachings to contribute as fisheries managers. Complicating the anthropological view that modern resource management inevitably undermines the authority and legitimacy of traditional ecological knowledge (so-called), this chapter examines how and why many Makahs feel they are able to merge their knowledge and mastery of the federal management system with more traditional, spiritual discourses on whaling, effectively utilizing both registers in pursuit of their political aims.Because of the moral consonance between the two ways of seeing whales—each viewing whales, in the most abstract sense, as killable resources—Makah leaders have been able to pursue federal legitimacy in the form of resource co-management without disrupting or undermining the spiritual and ontological commitments of Makah whalers, while still mostly pushing back against the persistent misrecognition of the noble ecological Indian.Less
This chapter explore an affinity that many Makah people recognize between local conceptions of the environment and the utilitarian, quantitative ontology of the state, reflected in avibrant local discourse that suggests Makah leaders were prepared by their traditional and spiritual teachings to contribute as fisheries managers. Complicating the anthropological view that modern resource management inevitably undermines the authority and legitimacy of traditional ecological knowledge (so-called), this chapter examines how and why many Makahs feel they are able to merge their knowledge and mastery of the federal management system with more traditional, spiritual discourses on whaling, effectively utilizing both registers in pursuit of their political aims.Because of the moral consonance between the two ways of seeing whales—each viewing whales, in the most abstract sense, as killable resources—Makah leaders have been able to pursue federal legitimacy in the form of resource co-management without disrupting or undermining the spiritual and ontological commitments of Makah whalers, while still mostly pushing back against the persistent misrecognition of the noble ecological Indian.
Les Beldo
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226657370
- eISBN:
- 9780226657547
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226657547.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
Antiwhaling activists in the Makah whaling conflict are driven by moral and aesthetic arguments against whaling as well as a stated desire to “speak for the whales.” How does one convince others not ...
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Antiwhaling activists in the Makah whaling conflict are driven by moral and aesthetic arguments against whaling as well as a stated desire to “speak for the whales.” How does one convince others not to harm something because they find it beautiful or magnificent? This would be difficult in any case, but it is nearly impossible within the moral economy of NMFS. Whales may have served as charismatic icons of the global environmental movement since its emergence, the imperative to “save them” a metonymic rallying cry for the Earth in its entirety, but the US federal government continues to manage whales as if they were large fish. For the National Marine Fisheries Service, the agency charged with overseeing Makah whaling, whales exist not as individual beings but as natural resources and fungible elements of statistical models—in short, as "stocks." Out of a sense of practical necessity, antiwhaling activists in the Makah whaling conflict have adapted their tactics to fit within the language and logics of federal fisheries management. This engagement with the state’s interpretive framework comes at a cost, however, as it tacitly affirms a moral economy of stock-based management that excludes the activists’ preservationist aims in the long run.Less
Antiwhaling activists in the Makah whaling conflict are driven by moral and aesthetic arguments against whaling as well as a stated desire to “speak for the whales.” How does one convince others not to harm something because they find it beautiful or magnificent? This would be difficult in any case, but it is nearly impossible within the moral economy of NMFS. Whales may have served as charismatic icons of the global environmental movement since its emergence, the imperative to “save them” a metonymic rallying cry for the Earth in its entirety, but the US federal government continues to manage whales as if they were large fish. For the National Marine Fisheries Service, the agency charged with overseeing Makah whaling, whales exist not as individual beings but as natural resources and fungible elements of statistical models—in short, as "stocks." Out of a sense of practical necessity, antiwhaling activists in the Makah whaling conflict have adapted their tactics to fit within the language and logics of federal fisheries management. This engagement with the state’s interpretive framework comes at a cost, however, as it tacitly affirms a moral economy of stock-based management that excludes the activists’ preservationist aims in the long run.
Les Beldo
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226657370
- eISBN:
- 9780226657547
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226657547.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
The chapter revisits the book’s main claims and considers what the analysis of the Makah whaling conflict has to contribute to an anthropology that seeks to take itself beyond the human. Political ...
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The chapter revisits the book’s main claims and considers what the analysis of the Makah whaling conflict has to contribute to an anthropology that seeks to take itself beyond the human. Political representation for nonhumans is not only a question of having a voice and of who speaks for whom, but in what language, literally and figuratively, one is compelled to speak. This chapter includes an extended discussion of the politics of recognition, arguing that state recognition does not necessarily undermine indigenous interests as some scholars have asserted. The chapter concludes with a description of a recent public meeting of the National Marine Fisheries Service to discuss the draft environmental impact statement on Makah whaling, which shows the continued difficulty the parties to the Makah whaling conflict experience in translating their agendas into the language and logics of federal fisheries management.Less
The chapter revisits the book’s main claims and considers what the analysis of the Makah whaling conflict has to contribute to an anthropology that seeks to take itself beyond the human. Political representation for nonhumans is not only a question of having a voice and of who speaks for whom, but in what language, literally and figuratively, one is compelled to speak. This chapter includes an extended discussion of the politics of recognition, arguing that state recognition does not necessarily undermine indigenous interests as some scholars have asserted. The chapter concludes with a description of a recent public meeting of the National Marine Fisheries Service to discuss the draft environmental impact statement on Makah whaling, which shows the continued difficulty the parties to the Makah whaling conflict experience in translating their agendas into the language and logics of federal fisheries management.
Ian Johnstone
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195394931
- eISBN:
- 9780199894543
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394931.003.0009
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This chapter looks at whether the World Trade Organization (WTO) really is a “technocracy” through the lens of “trade-environment” issues, focusing on the Shrimp-Turtle case. It begins with an ...
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This chapter looks at whether the World Trade Organization (WTO) really is a “technocracy” through the lens of “trade-environment” issues, focusing on the Shrimp-Turtle case. It begins with an overview of the democratic deficit critique as it applies to the WTO. It then turns to describing the deliberative features of two of the three principal functions of the WTO-dispute settlement, and what has been called the “missing middle” between the negotiation of treaties and dispute settlement. The fourth section is devoted to an analysis of the Shrimp-Turtle case. The chapter concludes with an assessment of how “technocratic” the WTO really is. It argues that it is not dominated by a “trade elite” to the extent that critics have charged, but the impact of environmental activists does not necessarily make it a more deliberatively democratic institution.Less
This chapter looks at whether the World Trade Organization (WTO) really is a “technocracy” through the lens of “trade-environment” issues, focusing on the Shrimp-Turtle case. It begins with an overview of the democratic deficit critique as it applies to the WTO. It then turns to describing the deliberative features of two of the three principal functions of the WTO-dispute settlement, and what has been called the “missing middle” between the negotiation of treaties and dispute settlement. The fourth section is devoted to an analysis of the Shrimp-Turtle case. The chapter concludes with an assessment of how “technocratic” the WTO really is. It argues that it is not dominated by a “trade elite” to the extent that critics have charged, but the impact of environmental activists does not necessarily make it a more deliberatively democratic institution.
Michael Hebbert
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781447345244
- eISBN:
- 9781447345633
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447345244.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter examines the planning histories associated with writings on technocracies. It highlights some of the core distinctions that exist between different schools of thought over the form, ...
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This chapter examines the planning histories associated with writings on technocracies. It highlights some of the core distinctions that exist between different schools of thought over the form, character, and roles of technical knowledge in the planning of cities and reflects on the extent to which we are now living in an era within which ‘new’ technocracies can be said to exist and what these might consist of. To make sense of the new technocracy, the chapter thus offers an understanding of the old. It puts the present critique of expert knowledge into historical perspective, looking back to the interplay of planning and technocracy in the century of two world wars, the New Deal, the Welfare State, and the Modern Project. It traces the roots of the technocratic critique to planning up to the mid-1980s.Less
This chapter examines the planning histories associated with writings on technocracies. It highlights some of the core distinctions that exist between different schools of thought over the form, character, and roles of technical knowledge in the planning of cities and reflects on the extent to which we are now living in an era within which ‘new’ technocracies can be said to exist and what these might consist of. To make sense of the new technocracy, the chapter thus offers an understanding of the old. It puts the present critique of expert knowledge into historical perspective, looking back to the interplay of planning and technocracy in the century of two world wars, the New Deal, the Welfare State, and the Modern Project. It traces the roots of the technocratic critique to planning up to the mid-1980s.
Anders Esmark
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781529200874
- eISBN:
- 9781529200898
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529200874.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, the book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines ...
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Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, the book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today. The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.Less
Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, the book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today. The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.
Jonathan White
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198791720
- eISBN:
- 9780191834011
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198791720.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
Prominent in the EU’s recent transformations has been the tendency to advance extraordinary measures in the name of crisis response. From emergency lending to macro-economics, border management to ...
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Prominent in the EU’s recent transformations has been the tendency to advance extraordinary measures in the name of crisis response. From emergency lending to macro-economics, border management to Brexit, policies are pursued unconventionally and as measures of last resort. This book investigates the nature, rise, and implications of this politics of emergency as it appears in the transnational setting. As the author argues, recourse to this method of rule is an expression of the deeper weakness of executive power in today’s Europe. It is how policy-makers contend with rising socio-economic power and diminishing representative ties, seeking fall-back authority in the management of crises. In the structure of the EU they find incentives and few impediments. Whereas political exceptionalism tends to be associated with sovereign power, here it is power’s diffusion and functional disaggregation that spurs politics in the emergency mode. The effect of these governing patterns is not just to challenge and reshape ideas of EU legitimacy rooted in constitutionalism and technocracy. The politics of emergency fosters a counter-politics in its mirror image, as populists and others play with themes of necessity and claim the right to disobedience in extremis. The book examines the prospects for democracy once the politics of emergency takes hold, and what it might mean to put transnational politics on a different footing.Less
Prominent in the EU’s recent transformations has been the tendency to advance extraordinary measures in the name of crisis response. From emergency lending to macro-economics, border management to Brexit, policies are pursued unconventionally and as measures of last resort. This book investigates the nature, rise, and implications of this politics of emergency as it appears in the transnational setting. As the author argues, recourse to this method of rule is an expression of the deeper weakness of executive power in today’s Europe. It is how policy-makers contend with rising socio-economic power and diminishing representative ties, seeking fall-back authority in the management of crises. In the structure of the EU they find incentives and few impediments. Whereas political exceptionalism tends to be associated with sovereign power, here it is power’s diffusion and functional disaggregation that spurs politics in the emergency mode. The effect of these governing patterns is not just to challenge and reshape ideas of EU legitimacy rooted in constitutionalism and technocracy. The politics of emergency fosters a counter-politics in its mirror image, as populists and others play with themes of necessity and claim the right to disobedience in extremis. The book examines the prospects for democracy once the politics of emergency takes hold, and what it might mean to put transnational politics on a different footing.
Eric Schatzberg
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226583839
- eISBN:
- 9780226584027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226584027.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The new meaning of technology spread among English-speaking academics in the early 1900s, often in ways that can be traced directly to Veblen. Yet even as the concept of technology spread, it lost ...
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The new meaning of technology spread among English-speaking academics in the early 1900s, often in ways that can be traced directly to Veblen. Yet even as the concept of technology spread, it lost much of the critical edge that Veblen had used to analyze capitalism. Most social scientists, even those directly influenced by Veblen, jettisoned his antideterminism and his emphasis on human agency. Instead, they embraced technology as an autonomous, largely beneficent agent of social change. In this way, technology became linked to the ideology of progress. At the same time, scholars continued their unconscious appropriation of the German discourse of Technik, even when they were familiar with Veblen’s work. This engagement with the German concept of Technik added confusion about the meaning of technology.Less
The new meaning of technology spread among English-speaking academics in the early 1900s, often in ways that can be traced directly to Veblen. Yet even as the concept of technology spread, it lost much of the critical edge that Veblen had used to analyze capitalism. Most social scientists, even those directly influenced by Veblen, jettisoned his antideterminism and his emphasis on human agency. Instead, they embraced technology as an autonomous, largely beneficent agent of social change. In this way, technology became linked to the ideology of progress. At the same time, scholars continued their unconscious appropriation of the German discourse of Technik, even when they were familiar with Veblen’s work. This engagement with the German concept of Technik added confusion about the meaning of technology.
Sigrid Schmalzer
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226330150
- eISBN:
- 9780226330297
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226330297.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The Introduction begins by contrasting the technocratic vision for the green revolution as it was conceived in the U.S. with the radical perspective on science and politics that informed the Mao-era ...
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The Introduction begins by contrasting the technocratic vision for the green revolution as it was conceived in the U.S. with the radical perspective on science and politics that informed the Mao-era “scientific experiment movement.” It then lays out the patchwork of traditional and modern technologies that constituted “scientific farming” in socialist China. A section on source interpretation explains the challenges and opportunities afforded by the diverse array of published, archival, and interview sources for the study of the Mao era. Finally, the Introduction suggests that the political fluctuations of Mao-era China cannot be characterized as struggles between pro-science and anti-science factions. Technocrats and radicals had different perspectives on how science should work, but both groups embraced science as a core value. By the same token, excessive faith in the possibilities of science and modernization presented very similar dangers in the hands of radicals and technocrats. The radicals' insistence on putting "politics in command" of science and technology did not result in the kind of critique of green revolution technologies that was needed from the standpoint of environmental health, and it fell short also in the realm of labor and social justice.Less
The Introduction begins by contrasting the technocratic vision for the green revolution as it was conceived in the U.S. with the radical perspective on science and politics that informed the Mao-era “scientific experiment movement.” It then lays out the patchwork of traditional and modern technologies that constituted “scientific farming” in socialist China. A section on source interpretation explains the challenges and opportunities afforded by the diverse array of published, archival, and interview sources for the study of the Mao era. Finally, the Introduction suggests that the political fluctuations of Mao-era China cannot be characterized as struggles between pro-science and anti-science factions. Technocrats and radicals had different perspectives on how science should work, but both groups embraced science as a core value. By the same token, excessive faith in the possibilities of science and modernization presented very similar dangers in the hands of radicals and technocrats. The radicals' insistence on putting "politics in command" of science and technology did not result in the kind of critique of green revolution technologies that was needed from the standpoint of environmental health, and it fell short also in the realm of labor and social justice.
