The article deals with the doctrine of the returning of the powers of the Government upon the election of the President of the Republic formulated in the Constitutional Court ruling of 10 January 1998. Attention is focused on the arguments of the Constitutional Court upon which this doctrine is based–these are the arguments regarding the expression of no-confidence in the Prime Minister and the new empowerment of the Government (after more than a half of the ministers are changed). (...) In the opinion of the author, some of such arguments are subject to discussion. The constitutional regulation regarding the returning of the powers of the Government upon the election of the President of the Republic is inexhaustive and unclear. Although the wording of the provisions of the Constitution regarding the returning of the powers of the Government after the elections of the Seimas and after the elections of the President of the Republic is almost the same, there is one essential difference: the Constitution provides that after the elections of the Seimas the Government must return its powers to the President of the Republic and must resign, whereas the Constitution does not provide that the Government must resign after the elections of the President of the Republic as well. (shrink)

In contrast to his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, Russia's President Vladimir Putin continues to successfully neutralize legislative opposition and push his reform agenda through the State Duma. His success is due in large part to the transformation of the party system during the 1999 electoral cycle. In the face of a less polarized and fragmented party system, the Kremlin-backed party of power, Unity, became the foundation for a stable majority coalition in parliament and a weapon in the political battle to (...) eliminate threatening opponents such as Yuri Luzhkov's Fatherland-All Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. (shrink)

Under Article 74 of the Constitution, for gross violation of the Constitution or breach of oath, or if it transpires that a crime has been committed, the President of the Republic may be removed from office under procedure for impeachment proceedings. In the article the content of the constitutional delict is analysed. The President of the Republic may be brought to constitutional responsibility only for the actions which he committed while in office of the President of the (...) Republic. The President of the Republic may be removed from office not for any violation of the Constitution, but only for gross violation thereof. While implementing the powers established to him in the Constitution and laws, the President of the Republic may not breach the oath. Under Article 74 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic may be removed from office “if it transpires that a crime has been committed” – this provision means that the Constitution provides for the right of the Seimas to remove the President of the Republic from office in the absence of a court judgement recognising that the President of the Republic is guilty of commission of a crime. The Constitution commissions only the Constitutional Court to establish the fact of violation of the Constitution – whether there has been a gross violation of the Constitution and breach of oath by actions of the person. The Seimas may not change or question the conclusion of the Constitutional Court. On the grounds of the conclusion of the Constitutional Court that the actions of the President of the Republic are in conflict with the Constitution, it is only the Seimas that decides whether to remove the President of the Republic from office. The removal of the President of the Republic from office under procedure of impeachment proceedings due to a suspicion that the crime has been committed is not binding upon a court of general jurisdiction which considers the criminal case. (shrink)

The Czech Republic today belongs to the minority of European republics whose presidents are elected indirectly. It is a paradox that, even when direct election of the President has stable support not only of the majority of Czech society but also of the majority of parliamentary parties, this issue is constantly only discussed. Should direct election gain passage in the Czech Republic, there are formally better preconditions for this than there were in the past. With regard to the fact (...) that a change in the manner of the election of the Head of State hides in itself the potential to impact the functioning of the whole constitutional system, it is worth it to follow how this problem conceived in the Czech Republic. This article is devoted to the standing of the President of the Republic in the contemporary Czech constitutional system and to considerations about direct election from the year 1918 to the present. Attention is also devoted to the difficulties which it is necessary to come to terms with during a potential change in the manner of the election of the President if the current balance of powers between the constitutional organs is to remain preserved. (shrink)

Relationships between self-ratings and expectations of an ideal U.S. president, were studied in 43 men drawn from a university setting in the eastern coast of the U.S.A. The men first rated themselves on personality variables, life choices (agentic and communal), peacefulness, spirituality, and morality. Then they were presented with a vignette requesting that they describe an ideal U.S. president on inventories measuring personality variables, life choices, peacefulness, spirituality, and morality. For the rating of the ideal U.S. president, (...) they also were asked to respond to a 20 item questionnaire that was a composite of several factors on organization and leadership, morality, spirituality, and peacefulness. The respondents belonged to one of seven different political persuasions, similar in some ways to different cultures. Self-ratings of the men and expectations of the president were highly correlated for extraversion, openness, trait morality, agentic and communal life choices. However, no significant correlations were found between the self-ratings and expectations of the president for neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, peacefulness, nor state morality. The men were also presented with vignettes for the ideal physician and ideal automechanic and asked to rate each of them on the inventory items. Overall, the U.S. President was rated as more neurotic and immoral in terms of ingrained ideas of right and wrong, but also as more caring for others, transcendent, seeking goodness and truth, forgiving, cooperative, and most concerned with matters of justice and mercy, and more concerned with both agentic (power-seeking) and communal (community-minded) life choices than were either the ideal physician or ideal automechanic. The ideal physician was rated as highest in extra-version, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and overall peacefulness, and lowest in neuroticism. The ideal automechanic was rated as highest in state or situational immorality, and lowest in both agentic (power-seeking, business-mindedness) and communal (community-mindedness) life choices, and also lowest in caring for others well-being, transcendence, seeking goodness and truth, forgiveness and cooperation, being concerned with justice and mercy, overall expectations, overall spirituality, and overall organization and leadership. In general, the self-ratings were significantly related to ratings/expectations, of the U.S. President, ideal physician, and ideal automechanic. The men seemed to identify more with the automechanic than with the present or physician. (shrink)

The president’s science advisor was formerly established in the days following the Soviet launch of Sputnik at the height of the Cold War, creating an impression of scientists at the center of presidential power. However, since that time the role of the science advisor has been far more prosaic, with a role that might be more aptly described as a coordinator of budgets and programs, and thus more closely related to the functions of the Office of Management and Budget (...) than the development of presidential policy. This role dramatically enhances the position of the scientific community to argue for its share of federal expenditures. At the same time, scientific and technological expertise permeates every function of government policy and politics, and the science advisor is only rarely involved in wider White House decision making. The actual role of the science advisor as compared to its heady initial days, in the context of an overall rise of governmental expertise, provides ample reason to reconsider the role of the presidential science advisor, and to set our expectations for that role accordingly. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the creation of a Knowledge Zone in Curaçao to provide an insight into how a Knowledge Zone is established. After devising a vision, strategic alliances were formed. This created synergy and momentum, giving the project and process a life of their own.Design/methodology/approachThe project of creating a K‐Zone is based on a theoretical framework which draws upon the notion of a creative class, and how it can be attracted to (...) a specific location. It also deploys change management methodology, which describes how change is implemented. The theory states that creativity will drive the economy in the future and that societies that are able to attract the creative class will excel. It is not clear what attracts the creative class but it is believed that a certain life style, concentrations of peers and virtual and physical connectivity are essential. To create these conditions some changes must be implemented and these changes are often resisted in the beginning.FindingsKnowledge Zones can be created if there is a clear shared vision, leadership and alliances that forge synergies. The project was started in 2010 by the UNA under the presidency of Dr Miguel Goede, the Rector Magnificus of the University of the Netherlands Antilles. With the support of the Board of Supervisors, the UNA entered/sought alliances with the nearby Carmabi Research Institute and the neighbouring school for nurses, which opened a new school building within the designated zone. The UNA also provided the impetus to start a campaign to construct a new hospital that was planned for the area neighbouring the university and to start a school of medicine. But the breakthrough came when the local telecom provider, United Telecommunication Services, decided to provide the university with dedicated internet connections that were capable of the highest speed available on the island.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to a framework for understanding the creative economy of Small Islands Developing States in the Caribbean and how change can be implemented in these settings. (shrink)

The point of departure for this article is that the current white backlash over the use of the framing device “Black Lives Matter” is a correlate of the diminished capacity to make race-based claims fostered by neoliberal conceptions of race. The article attends to how President Obama, paradoxically, has deepened color-blind forms of racism and thus weakened the ability for grass-roots Black challenges to the discursive and political status quo. His implicit conception of whiteness as invisible, singular and of (...) transcendent power, is discussed as a theo-politics and assessed via two examples: the rhetoric he uses with Black audiences, and his foreign policy choices in Africa. This article hopes both to show that Obama's management of the complex conditions he inherited have not been fruitful for African Americans, the group that offered such unmitigated supported for his campaigns; and to inspire momentum against neoliberal ways of thinking about race and its concomitant color-blind whiteness. (shrink)

The Tulis thesis becomes even more powerful when the constitutional revolution he describes is put in its Progressive‐Era context. The public had long demanded social reforms designed to curb or replace laissez‐faire capitalism, which was seen as antithetical to the interests of ordinary working people. But popular demands for social reform went largely unmet until the 1910s. Democratizing political reforms, such as the rhetorical presidency, were designed to facilitate “change” by finally giving the public the power to enact social reforms. (...) The resulting political order has created systemic pressure for policy demagoguery in place of rational deliberation. Mass political mobilization seems to be better achieved by contests of grand principle that pit the well‐meaning supporters of obviously needed reforms against “villains and conspirators,” than by technical discussions of the possibly counterproductive effects of those reforms. (shrink)

This review examines issues relating to biomedical ethics and literature in the African drama The President’s Physician by Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale. The play investigates the psychological dilemma of Doctor Bituki Warunga, a personal physician to General Kalunga Ntibantunganyah who brutally and inhumanely rules Wavaria, a fictional African country. The doctor is faced with deciding to uphold the ethics of his profession versus terminating the tyrant’s life to set the nation free. The play aims to help budding medical doctors rightly (...) inculcate the principles of medical ethics—autonomy, beneficence, competence, and power—by providing a fictional platform to investigate difficult issues that can arise in clinical practice. The play highlights Warunga’s complex dilemma as he struggles to uphold the Hippocratic Oath and at the same time satisfy his conscience towards his contribution to his country’s freedom. This review explores the difficulties in decision-making when professional duties not only clash with personal preferences but also with the well-being of an entire nation. This discussion is done alongside the ethical concept of utilitarianism and also highlights significant literary concepts such as satire, symbolism, intertextuality, utopian aesthetics, and authorial vision as conveyed in the text. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:538 Feminist Studies 41, no. 3. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Doreen J. Mattingly The Limited Power of Female Appointments: Abortion and Domestic Violence Policy in the Carter Administration In 1977 in the United States, Second Wave feminists were poised to make a meaningful impact on federal policy. Jimmy Carter’s successful 1976 presidential campaign had included an open wooing of feminist support : he had created a “51.3 (...) Percent” committee to address women’s issues and he had told feminist audiences that he “wanted to be known as the President who achieved equal rights for women, just as President Johnson had won civil rights legislation for blacks.”1 Once elected, Carter appointed an unprecedented number of feminist women to high office, many of whom were committed to addressing the concerns of marginalized women and advancing policy on issues such as sexual violence and reproductive rights. These appointees were linked to a dense feminist organizational presence in Washington that was unprecedented in its size and diversity. Not surprisingly, many feminists had high expectations for the new administration. 1. Cynthia Harrison, “Creating a National Feminist Agenda: Coalition Building in the 1970s,” in Feminist Coalitions: Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States, ed. Stephanie Gilmore (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 30. See also John Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency: A Re-evaluation (New York: Manchester University Press, 1993); and Sara Evans, Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century’s End (New York: Free Press, 2003). Doreen J. Mattingly 539 Despite these promising conditions, feminists made little headway on policy during the Carter administration (1977–1981). Federal funding for abortion was eliminated; no permanent offices that would have advocated for women’s issues were created; and bills supporting domestic violence shelters, support for “displaced homemakers,” and quotas for female-owned businesses were defeated or extremely diluted. In addition, no additional states ratified the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and several states rescinded earlier ratification votes. Some of these failures can be attributed to the general loss of feminist momentum and the emergence of a conservative backlash in the late 1970s. Anti-ERA organizing fueled the rise of a conservative “family values” movement that would shape social policies for more than a generation, and neoliberal economic conservatives were challenging the welfare-state programs that feminists sought to expand. But in Washington, there was an addition challenge —the unreliable support of Carter himself. Despite his promises, Carter felt that by appointing women he had met his commitment to feminists and did little to support feminist policy goals that went beyond eliminating discrimination. This paper makes an important contribution to the history of feminist action by looking in detail at the efforts of Jimmy Carter’s feminist appointees to influence policy. In particular, it discusses the actions of the most visible feminist in the White House, Margaret “Midge” Costanza. Carter named Costanza director of the Office of Public Liaison, a department that was created to manage relations between the White House and citizens’ groups. Her position as the first woman to serve as Assistant to the President, in concert with her gregarious nature and strong support for women’s issues, made Costanza a very visible symbol of affirmative action for Carter. Yet Costanza, like many other high-level feminist appointees, met opposition within the White House when she tried to advance women’s issues. Her persistent advocacy contributed to her marginalization within the White House. Just twenty months into the administration she resigned in frustration.2 This paper begins with a discussion of the unique circumstances surrounding Carter’s feminist appointees, followed by a detailed exploration 2. For Costanza’s complete story, see Doreen J. Mattingly, A Feminist in the White House: Midge Costanza, the Carter Years, and America’s Culture Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 540 Doreen J. Mattingly oftwomeetingsheldbyCostanzainJuly1977.Thefirstwasanimpromptu meeting of roughly forty prochoice Carter appointees, all deeply troubled by a statement made by Carter in support of the Hyde Amendment banning federal funds for abortion. The same month, Costanza hosted a groundbreaking White House meeting about battered women, in which high-level bureaucrats heard testimonials from domestic violence victims and shelter advocates. While both meetings broke new... (shrink)

The impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 was the result of a coup of the economically dominant conservative oligarchy against the leftist Partido dos Trabalhadores, in power since 2003. The right wing Brazilian media played a crucial role in this coup by manipulating public opinion as well as the politicians who voted against Dilma. In particular, the media of the powerful Globo Corporation, such as O Globo newspaper, and especially Globo’s Jornal Nacional, the pervasive TV news program, (...) systematically demonized and delegitimized Dilma, as well as ex-President Lula and the PT, in their news reports and editorials by selectively associating them with pervasive corruption and attributing the serious economic recession to them. After a summary of this sociopolitical context, and a brief theoretical definition of manipulation, this article examines some of the manipulative strategies of O Globo’s editorials during March and April 2016. (shrink)

Jeffrey Tulis’s The Rhetorical Presidency should not be read as a tale of decline. It is not a call for an “un‐rhetorical” presidency so much as an exploration of the fundamentally uneasy place that popular rhetoric occupies in constitutional governments. Popular rhetoric is one way that executives exercise their prerogative power, and the dilemmas about rhetoric that Tulis exposes arise from a fundamental fact about prerogative power that all presidents must confront: Strong constitutional governments seem almost necessarily to grant their (...) chief executives more discretionary authority than is consistent with the idea of constitutional government. Whatever rhetorical style or strategy a president adopts, he must respond in one way or another to this fact. (shrink)

This dissertation argues that the current tendency to define liberal constitutionalism in terms of the impersonal and formalistic ideals of the rule of law diverges from early liberal theories of constitutionalism, which were sensitive to the occasional need for extra-legal discretionary exercises of power to deal with the unpredictable contingencies of politics. This understanding of politics shaped the constitutional and political thought of liberal thinkers from John Locke, David Hume, and William Blackstone to Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and other Federalists (...) who defended the extraordinary powers of the American presidency. Since these early liberals recognized that it would sometimes be necessary for an executive to perform extraordinary actions in response to unforeseeable events, they were reluctant to place excessive legal checks on executive power. Consequently, they emphasized the importance of limiting executive power to those with "fit characters." In particular, they looked to those politico-moral virtues associated with republicanism to supplement and enhance the constitutional machinery of government that was designed with the ordinary course of politics in mind. Although early liberal theorists and the designers of the American Constitution abandoned many of the core principles of republicanism, particularly its reliance on a virtuous and active citizenry as the best guarantee of free government, they preserved a place for distinctively republican virtues such as patriotism and disinterestedness in the office of the executive. In fact, the Federalists made the American presidency the primary repository of republican virtue in the new government. The first century of liberal constitutional theorists was actually skeptical of the ability of impersonal institutional devices such as the separation of powers and checks and balances to secure a free and effective government without the presence of fit characters. Since formal institutions are imperfect and often inadequate---both in dealing with political contingencies and in checking the executive---these thinkers supplemented legal and institutional safeguards with character requirements to minimize potential abuses of largely indeterminate executive powers irreducible to law. An abiding conviction that uncertainty is the only certainty in politics led them to prefer flexible approaches rather than the rigid formulas in theorizing constitutionalism. (shrink)

The article describes the powers of the President of Ukraine as the Head of the security sector and national defense and the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The paper explores the legislative framework corresponding to real opportunity of exercising the power in this area by the President of Ukraine. The research focuses on the quality of implementing certain powers in the field of Ukraine's security and defense by the acting President.

This paper analyses the international media coverage of the dispute surrounding the pardons the Polish President granted in 2015 to two politicians, arrested almost a decade later. However political this case has become, it is underlain by a specific interpretive problem concerning the presidential pardon power under the Constitution, particularly whether it can be exercised before a final conviction (the so-called ‘individual abolition’). This question has long been controversial in scholarship and, in recent years, has been addressed by top (...) Polish courts, passing conflicting rulings. Attempting to probe into the intersection of journalism, politics, law and linguistics, this paper evaluates the issue’s portrayal in 37 articles published on major news websites around the time of the arrest. It is argued that when reporting local legal news, international media engage in a dual translation, rendering legal communications in one language into media communications in another. While ‘lossless’ transfer cannot be expected, this research shows that certain limits should not be crossed to maintain journalistic standards. In particular, most articles entirely omit the scholarship and rulings confirming the validity of the pardons. Consequently, readers are not given an opportunity to become aware of all relevant facts and perhaps seek further information. On the positive side, it has been found that simple and accessible language does not necessarily mean material distortions in the coverage of legal issues. The research thus suggests that reporting domestic legal news for international audiences requires understanding the source context, conscious language use and a reliable selection of information. (shrink)

The modern presidency emerged not from an effort to escape constitutional propriety, as Tulis argues, but, rather, to emancipate presidents from the localized political parties of the nineteenth century, which had come to be viewed as sites of provincial and corrupt forms of popular rule. As the troubled tenure of George W. Bush suggests, contemporary presidents are torn between the public expectation that they stand apart from party politics and act as the chief executive of the administrative state; and their (...) role as party leaders, which links them to political allies in Congress and loyalists in the electorate. In its contribution to the development of a “new” national programmatic party system, the Bush administration reveals the potential for a novel, disturbing meld of party and administration, in which presidents seek to exploit the powers of the modern executive office for partisan gain. (shrink)

The article is a critical examination of the crisis in the rule of law in the context of contemporary politics in the USA. It sorts out some examples of American national and foreign policy regarding the so called ‘cult of democracy’. The article is divided in two parts. The first part consists of the report, which concerns, respectively, official US government relationships to international law; the power of the Presidency; and the role of the Supreme Court. The second part examines (...) some philosophical implications of American policy, concerning the questions of democracy and the rule of law. (shrink)

After the Provisional Basic Law (Provisional Constitution) had been adopted on 11 March 1990, it soon became clear that it did not meet the new needs of the society and the state. It became clear that the new Constitution had to be drafted promptly. Its drafting was taking place at the time of heated discussions about various things, but especially about the structure of branches of state power, the empowerment thereof and their interrelations. The author of the article was a (...) member of the working group drafting the new Constitution. In his article, the author presents passages from the notes made by him about the sittings of the Provisional Commission for Drafting the Constitution and those of its working group. The notes disclose the variety of the views of the deputies and legal specialists and show the difficult way of emergence of the draft Constitution. This is confirmed by the time-line of drafting the Constitution. In 1990 and at the beginning of 1991, the first draft Constitutions were published, which had been drafted by the members of the societies of Lithuanian philosophers and lawyers, by the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party, etc. Prior to the resolution of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania of 7 November 1990, a group of deputies was formed for drafting an outline of the concept of the Constitution. On 22 October 1991, the Council of the Seimas of the Lithuanian Sąjūdis Movement made a statement “On the Restoration of the Institution of the President of the Republic”. On 5 November 1991, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania adopted a Resolution “On the Development of the Lithuanian Constitutionalism”, whereas by its resolution of 10 December 1991 it formed the Provisional Commission for Drafting the Constitution. On 3 March 1992, the said Provisional Commission approved the draft Constitution that it prepared; it was submitted to the Supreme Council. Three members of the Provisional Commission had submitted alternatives to a number of articles of the Constitution. On 21 April 1992, the Supreme Council assented to the work done by the Provisional Commission and decided to publish the draft Constitution so that it could be discussed by the public. On 6 May 1992, the Lithuanian Sąjūdis Movement, the Democratic Party, the Christian Democratic Party, and the Lithuanian Nationalist Union formed a coalition for drafting an alternative draft Constitution; soon the press published the alternative draft Constitution prepared by the Sąjūdis Movement Coalition “For the Democratic Lithuania”. On 23 May 1992, the referendum on the restoration of the institution of the President of the Republic took place—that referendum did not approve the proposal. Thus, two alternative draft Constitutions appeared. The essential difference between those drafts was a different approach to the system of branches of state powers, their empowerment and their interrelation. The draft Constitution prepared by the Provisional Commission was based on the parliamentary republic form of governance, whereas in the draft prepared by the Sąjūdis Movement Coalition “For Democratic Lithuania” the model of half-presidential republic was dominant. In order to prepare a single draft Constitution, which could then be proposed for the referendum of the Nation, political and legal compromises were sought. For this purpose, the Group for the Adjustment of Constitutional Issues was formed. At the end of September and at the beginning of October 1992, one single (the so-called “compromise”) draft Constitution was prepared from the existing two alternative drafts. The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania was adopted by the Nation in the referendum of 25 October 1992 and came into force on 2 November 1992. (shrink)

“Civilization” is back at the forefront of global policy debates. The leaders of rising powers such as China, India, Turkey, and Russia have stressed their civilizational identity in framing their domestic and foreign policy platforms. An emphasis on civilizational identity is also evident in U.S. president Donald Trump's domestic and foreign policy. Some analysts argue that the twenty-first century might belong to the civilization state, just as the past few centuries were dominated by the nation-state. But is the (...) rise of civilization state inevitable? Will it further undermine the liberal international order and fuel a clash of civilizations, as predicted by the late Samuel Huntington? Or might ideas from East Asian and other non-Western civilizations contribute to greater pluralism in our thinking about world order and the study of international relations? (shrink)

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the characteristics of the post-career of high-ranking PA officials who left their positions under President Yeltsin and in the post-Yeltsin period - and the factors that determine them. The empirical basis of the study is a database that includes biographical questionnaires on AP figures who at least once left a key position in this body. The study showed that the role of federal executive authorities (including the government of the Russian (...) Federation and law enforcement agencies) as a channel of post-career has increased. Transitions to the federal parliament are rare in both eras, but the proportion of officials who ended up in the State Duma after their resignation (especially a year later) slightly decreased, while the proportion of those who moved to the Federation Council, on the contrary, slightly increased in the post-Yeltsin period as a whole. While transitions to regional administrations were rare in both periods, PA officials were noticeably more likely to become governors in the post-Yeltsin era, which was facilitated by a centralization of power. Finally, the share of transitions from government to business is similar in both periods, as are their other characteristics: the dominance of big business as a place of work and the distribution of firms that have adopted officials by form of ownership. The pantouflage was aided by high salaries in big business and the firms' interest in recruiting officials in the context of crony capitalism. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present the most important voices on the role of the US in the international order during Donald Trump’s presidency in the debate held in the Foreign Affairs. The authors assume that Foreign Affairs expresses the opinions of the most crucial organisation bringing together the elites of American foreign affairs – the Council on Foreign Relations. The paper proposes a hypothesis according to which there is a difference of opinion due to the adopted theoretical (...) perspective regarding Trump’s role in the destruction of the liberal international order among the American power elites, even though they agree that the ideological conflict between democratic and authoritarian countries around the world is escalating. (shrink)

_How constructions of time shape political beliefs about what is possible—and what is inevitable_ To secure power in a crisis, leaders must sell deep change as a means to future good. But how could we know the future? Nomi Claire Lazar draws on stories across a range of cultures and contexts, ancient and modern, to show how leaders use constructions of time to frame events. These frames carry an implicit promise to secure or subvert an expected future, shaping belief in (...) what is possible—and what is inevitable. “Ranging imaginatively across history and geography, this elegant book probes temporal sources of order and transformation. Its analytical wisdom discloses how calendars and representations of time shape political legitimacy, dispositions, and action.”—Ira I. Katznelson, author of _Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time_ “Great political leaders, for good or ill, seek to shape our daily lives by playing with time itself. That is the central insight of this elegant, erudite volume, one that means I will henceforth listen to speeches and manifestos with new ears and new tools to rebut them.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO, New America “Nomi Lazar gives us a fascinating exploration of the political construction of time itself, as structured by calendars, dating systems, and other mechanisms used for legitimation, revolution, and a myriad of other political purposes. A memorable and endlessly interesting book.”—Adrian Vermeule, Harvard Law School. (shrink)

_A many-faceted exploration of spoken eloquence: how it works, how it has evolved, and how to tap its remarkable power_ We all know eloquence when we hear it. But what exactly is it? And how might we gain more of it for ourselves? This entertaining and, yes, eloquent book illuminates the power of language from a linguistic point of view and provides fascinating insights into the way we use words. David Crystal, a world-renowned expert on the history and usage of (...) the English language, probes the intricate workings of eloquence. His lively analysis encompasses everyday situations as well as the oratory of great public gatherings. Crystal focuses on the here and now of eloquent speaking—from pitch, pace, and prosody to jokes, appropriateness, and how to wield a microphone. He explains what is going on moment by moment and examines each facet of eloquence. He also investigates topics such as the way current technologies help or hinder our verbal powers, the psychological effects of verbal excellence, and why certain places or peoples are thought to be more eloquent than others. In the core analysis of the book, Crystal offers an extended and close dissection of Barack Obama’s electrifying “Yes we can” speech of 2008, in which the president demonstrated full mastery of virtually every element of eloquence—from the simple use of parallelism and an awareness of what _not_ to say, to his brilliant conclusion constructed around two powerful words: _dreams_ and _answers_. (shrink)

This paper examines the role and power of the state in modernity and its transformation throughout it and into the present. First, it recognizes the centrality of the role of information control for the modern state constitution, which allows sovereign power to extend to the national level. Secondly, it discusses the shift of state power from a purely informational power to an informational and bargaining power, as well as the gradual transformation of sovereignty into governmentality. Finally, it analyzes the transformations (...) that have led to a critical loss of both powers by the state and have enabled their acquisition by tech corporations. It examines the implications of this shift in power and the consequent disempowerment of the state, defining the mode of operation of the power embodied by tech corporations as a regime of performativity, rephrasing the Foucauldian regime of truth, which presided over the ways in which governmental power was performed. Such a regime bases its power not on the ability to order discourse and knowledge, but on the ability to automate it, and to predict and manipulate human behaviors. In this way, it has disintermediated not only the state in its role as the primary informational agent, but also, to some extent, the ability of individuals to assert rights through their actions. (shrink)

Throughout the 2016 US presidential election, pundits repeatedly described Donald Trump as a performance artist and his campaign as performance art. Meanwhile, his alt-right supporters were mounting performance art shows, debating the meaning of Marina Abramović’s work, and developing their own theories of political performance. For experts in performance theory, such punditry and provocation is like the image in a funhouse mirror. It’s hard to make sense of such bizarre, distorted images—let alone to recognize ourselves in them. This article insists (...) that, nonetheless, we should try. Trump and his movement pose special challenges to American political culture—and also to academic performance theory. His rise has revealed the limitations of a politics (and performance theory) based on norms and their transgression. It has also given the lie to politicians’ false belief that they (and only they) are not performing their politics. The challenge now—for academics, activists, citizens, and journalists alike—is to articulate how performance works, how it provides models of cultural power. (shrink)

In the fall of 1998 Trent Lott used his power as Senate Majority Leader to prevent the confirmation of James C. Hormel, an openly gay San Francisco philanthropist who was then President Clinton’s nominee for Ambassador to Luxembourg.[2] Mr. Lott made it clear that his opposition to Hormel was based on his opposition to homosexuality in general. Asked by a television interviewer during the controversy whether homosexuality is a sin, Mr. Lott answered "Yes, it is"; he went on to (...) compare gay people to alcoholics, sex addicts, and kleptomaniacs.[3] Shortly thereafter, Dick Armey, the House Majority Leader, seconded Lott’s view, adding that “[t]he Bible is very clear on this…Both myself and Senator Lott believe very strongly in the Bible.”. (shrink)

A raw, gripping, true-life saga of one mans quest to overcome homelessness, abuse, and extreme poverty to rise to the heights of success. On his epic journey, Marvin learned how to stare down suffering and banish pity and fear, despite dire circumstances. In the midst of tragedy, he rose and discovered life-changing truths about perseverance, self-awareness, and Oneness. Harnessing this hard-earned wisdom, Marvin began sharing his revolutionary message about the true meaning of self-worth, the healing power of interconnectedness, and the (...) keys to authentic wealth, peace, and happiness. Out of the Tunnel offers Marvin Peakes distilled wisdom, life stories, proven solutions, and channeled passions while spotlighting insights and conversations with some of todays wealthiest influencers and most spiritually aware people. Notables featured in Out of the Tunnel includes: Tony Robbins, Michael Jordan, Deepak Chopra, the late Wayne Dyer, former President George W. Bush and many more. Reviewers describe Out of the Tunnel as a hip-hop-flavored Celestine Prophecy meets modern-day Think and Grow Rich. Those who liked Who Moved My Cheese? and A New Earth will also enjoy Marvin Peakes Out of the Tunnel. (shrink)

The author of the article analyzes the constitutional doctrine of the dismissal of a judge from office upon the expiration of the term of powers. The author discusses the guarantees of the independence of courts and judges, one of which is the guarantee of the inviolability of the length of powers of judges. The previously valid Law on Courts used to provide that the President of the Republic could appoint a person as a judge of a local (...) court when such an appointment is made for the first time, for a five-year term, and that upon the expiration of the five-year term, the President of the Republic could appoint such a person as a judge of a local court without examination or selection until the person reaches the age of 65. Under the Law on Courts valid at present, judges of all courts are appointed at once for the term until they reach 65 years of age. It is asserted in the article that the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania has not established the right of a person, who was for the first time appointed as a judge of a local court for a five-year term, to be appointed as a judge until he reaches 65 years of age. (shrink)

An analysis of how Mitterand came to power in France and how political power seduced the French Left and became a simulacrum. First published in French in 1985, The Divine Left is Jean Baudrillard's chronicle of French political life from 1977 to 1984. It offers the closest thing to political analysis to be found from a thinker who has too often been regarded as apolitical. Gathering texts that originally appeared as newspaper commentary on François Mitterand's rise to power as France's (...) first Socialist president and the Socialist Party's fraught alliance with the French Communist Party, The Divine Left in essence presents Baudrillard's theory of the simulacrum as it operates in the political sphere. In France, the Left, and even the ultra-Left, had been seduced by power. This scenario—dissected by Baudrillard with deadpan humor and an almost chilling nonchalance—produced a Socialist Party that devoted itself to rallying the market economy and introducing neoliberalism, and replaced an intellectual class with the media stars and hyper-professionals of the spectacle. Starting from the elections of 1977, Baudrillard analyzes—in “real time,” as it were—how the Left's taking of power had in fact been an enaction of not just its own death throes, but those of power itself. The Divine Left outlines a simulation of politics that offers discomfiting parallels to our political world today, a trajectory that has only grown more apparent in recent years: the desire and intention to fail. (shrink)

Problem’s statement. This article is the result of a study of the historical context in which Isidore of Seville is inserted as an author, as the creator of a unique method, which became the result of his hard work. But in order to describe the method of Isidore of Seville, it is necessary to outline the range of problems that arise before us. Due to serious political and social upheavals in the Western Roman Empire, the preservation of education comes to (...) the fore. The need for “Christianization,” on the contrary, fades into the background. The authors of this period perceived the works of the church fathers and apologists as a legacy, as part of tradition. On the other hand, representatives of the intellectual culture of the era under consideration were part of the aristocracy of Roman (in the broad sense) origin and in this sense, like their predecessors, were bearers of ancient education and culture.The purpose of the study. Analyze the historical context in which the method of Isidore of Seville developed and to consider the influence of the method of Isidore of Seville on the development of knowledge and ideas in the dark ages.Methods. To achieve the goal of the study, a number of general and specific methods were used that contributed to the study of the creative heritage of Isidore of Seville: the etymological method used in the practice of Isidore for the classification and origin of sciences and arts; togoria method for understanding the symbolism of medieval language and judgments; historical-retrospective, contributing to the study of the contribution of Isidore of Seville to European education from the first monastic schools to the formation of universities; terminological selection – for the purpose of selecting, clarifying and modernizing the system of individual terms used in the educated circles of Visigothic Spain; reconstruction – to reproduce the events of the cultural and historical process on the Iberian Peninsula during the Visigothic Kingdom.Results. The reception of the ancient heritage in the works of the authors of this era – and these are primarily Boethius, Cassiodorus and Isidore of Seville – occurs in a different vein than that of the church fathers (Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine) and the German kings of the Carolingian revival. This question concerns a narrower issue that is discussed in the article, and it is connected with Isidore as the author. Isidore of Seville (560-636) is known primarily as an encyclopedist, indicating the wide coverage of topics in his works, on the other hand, in a certain way characterizes the level of these works.However, Isidore was not only and not so much an antiquarian – a collector of ancient knowledge. If we use the “intellectuals and power” scheme, then Isidore was, so to speak, an intellectual in power. He occupied the position of bishop of Seville (the episcopal rank was considered the best conclusion for the cursus honorum even in the 5th century, his authority significantly exceeded the authority of the constantly changing Visigothic kings of Spain. Isidore presided over the IV Council of Toledo (633), whose priests formulated an order with its significant the influence of the episcopate on public affairs.We can say that Isidore, through his works, in a certain sense constructed an ideology. (or what might be called ideology) and the educational program inextricably linked to it.Discussion. First, the era of the “Dark Ages” is a period of permanent military-political struggle between the local nobility and kings, the German kingdoms and Byzantium, which occurred as a result of the height of the Western Roman Empire. The second question is religion, since there were several religions in the territory of the Visigothic kingdom; Christianization of culture and education and, as a consequence, a contradiction with ancient philosophy. Hence the problem of preserving and transmitting knowledge. It was these reasons that complicated the creation of a high-quality educational system. Thirdly, Isidore was not a methodologist, but created a unique method, he was not a scientist, but wrote an encyclopedic work, was not a philosopher, but wrote about philosophy, distinguished it from dialectics, constructed a certain type of knowledge of the real world known to him, was not even a philologist, but he knew Visigothic, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.How did Bishop Isidore create an effective method? Fourth, after the authors of the “Golden Age” of patristics in the 6th–7th centuries. A new generation is emerging, which is faced with slightly different tasks. How does Isidore “construct” knowledge and what impact has his work had on society? Another important problem is the question of the scale and nature of Isidore’s influence on the intellectual culture of the Middle Ages. At the same time, special attention was paid to “etymologies, or principles,” its distribution, influence on the presentation of the seven liberal arts, etc. On the significance of Isidore’s method for medieval education.Conclusions. The method of Isidore of Seville was an important contribution to the preservation and transmission of knowledge in the Middle Ages and influenced the further development of encyclopedic knowledge. (shrink)

A considerable amount of academic attention has been paid to John Kennedy and to his group of advisors during the Cuban missile crisis. Next to no attention has been accorded other bodies of the Kennedy White House that had daily access to a President's most private moments and possibly to his important deliberations. Drawing on Richard Reeves' account of President Kennedy: Profile of Power, I revisit the early 1960s looking for bodies of power that are culturally sexed female (...) by others and compelled into being as workaday secretaries and confidants, and para-Everythings for Kennedy. In doing so, I draw on the feminist body theorizing of Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti and Elizabeth Grosz, as well as the evocations of bodies in important but abjected places featured in Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. After constructing the historically broad category of the handmaid to Washington power, I reread constructions of decision-making in the Cuban missile crisis offered by Graham Allison and conclude that the feint of mancentred Washington masks bodies given the locations, skills and resources to ooze into spaces of decision and power canonically forbidden to them. (shrink)

Thomas Kjeller Johansen presents a new account of Aristotle's major work on psychology, the De Anima.

One of the most striking features of the South African polity, as the 20th anniversary of democratization draws closer, is the intensity of public arguments about race that show no signs of abating any time soon. In the midst of worsening socio-economic inequality, it’s the economic question – of the terms of access to wealth, status and economic power, and of how to erase the residues of apartheid’s economic dispossession – that dominates these arguments. In recent years, the ANC Youth (...) League – a renewal of the Youth League originally created in 1944 and then banned in 1960 – effectively positioned itself at the forefront of this politicization of race. I argue in this essay that from 1994 to early 2012, the contemporary Youth League retained its predecessor’s political persona of precocious provocateur, particularly on matters of race – but differently styled, and deployed to different political ends in the new conjuncture. The repertoire of the Youth League during this period was shaped by a clientelist politics, informed by a version of freedom as a freedom to consume, and the concomitant spectacles of conspicuous consumption that infused the iconography of the ‘new’ South Africa. These tendencies were most dramatically illustrated during Julius Malema’s controversial tenure as Youth League president. Largely disconnected from discursive, deliberative notions of the political, the Youth League’s version of politics became an amalgamation of angry street protest, patronage, and lavish partying, which produced a racialized iconography of being well-heeled and down-trodden in a seamless narrative of black solidarity. (shrink)

The Critique of Pure Reason—Kant’s First Critique—is one of the most studied texts in intellectual history, but as Alfredo Ferrarin points out in this radically original book, most of that study has focused only on very select parts. Likewise, Kant’s oeuvre as a whole has been compartmentalized, the three Critiques held in rigid isolation from one another. Working against the standard reading of Kant that such compartmentalization has produced, The Powers of Pure Reason explores forgotten parts of the First (...) Critique in order to find an exciting, new, and ultimately central set of concerns by which to read all of Kant’s works. Ferrarin blows the dust off of two egregiously overlooked sections of the First Critique—the Transcendental Dialectic and the Doctrine of Method. There he discovers what he argues is the Critique’s greatest achievement: a conception of the unity of reason and an exploration of the powers it has to reach beyond itself and legislate over the world. With this in mind, Ferrarin dismantles the common vision of Kant as a philosopher writing separately on epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics and natural teleology, showing that the three Critiques are united by this underlying theme: the autonomy and teleology of reason, its power and ends. The result is a refreshing new view of Kant, and of reason itself. (shrink)

Powers of Horror is an excellent introduction to an aspect of contemporary French literature which has been allowed to become somewhat neglected in the current emphasis on para-philosophical modes of discourse.".

In this paper we study the distribution of power in the Basque Parliament since the restoration of the Spanish democracy. The classic simple games do not fit with the particular voting rule that it is used to invest the president of the regional government. In order to model this voting mechanism we incorporate coalitional externalities to the game. We use the extensions of the most popular power indices to games with externalities that have been proposed in the most recent (...) literature. Moreover, we propose a method to estimate the probability of a given coalition based on the ideological positions of its members in a two-dimensional political spectrum. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:736 Feminist Studies 44, no. 3. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Carol Giardina MOW to NOW: Black Feminism Resets the Chronology of the Founding of Modern Feminism The first meeting of feminist protest in the 1960s was called to order by Dorothy Height, the president of the 800,000-member National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), in Washington, DC, on August 29, 1963. It was the day after the (...) historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (MOW).1 “We could hardly believe that after all we were doing in the Civil Rights Movement,” Height recalls, “the women came to feel that they were getting a kind of runaround” as they sought and were denied fair representation in the march because of their sex.2 “I was determined,” she said in her 2003 memoir, “to bring wise women together to learn and gather strength from the experience.”3 As “women talked freely of their concern about women’s participation,” Height observed, “we began to realize that if we did not... demand our rights, we were not going to get them. The women became much more aware and much more aggressive in facing up to sexism in our dealings with 1. Dorothy Height, Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), 146. 2. Dorothy Height, “We Wanted the Voice of a Woman to Be Heard,” in Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement, ed. Bettye Collier-Thomas and V. P. Franklin (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 88. 3. Height, Open Wide, 146. Carol Giardina 737 the male leadership in the movement.”4 “That moment,” Height recalled, “was vital to awakening the women’s movement.”5 Black women’s fight for representation in the MOW appears narrowly framed in scholarly literature as a specific and isolated reaction to the sexism of male MOW planners. I argue, however, that the campaign of feminist protest meetings surrounding the MOW—and the political lessons that emerged—was a starting point in the chronology of the rebirth years of feminist upheaval in the 1960s. Why? Because the lessons of that campaign provided the crucial conceptual model of an “NAACP for women” that would be consciously and purposely adopted by the newly forming National Organization for Women (NOW). Together with Height, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, the only woman on the MOW planning committee, and longtime co-conspirator Pauli Murray, who spearheaded the MOW protests, were critical actors in NOW’s formation and brought the model to NOW’s more well-known white organizers. This model, and the Black women who developed it, opened the trajectory that led to NOW’s establishment in 1966, the first feminist organization of the decade. Black scholar activist Bernice Johnson Reagon called the Civil Rights Movement the “borning” struggle of its time.6 By the early 1960s, the impact of this phase of civil rights mobilization was felt nationwide from lunch counters in small towns to Congress and the Supreme Court. Since at least the 1955–1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, many thousands of African American women had been protesting, organizing, staging sit-ins and jail-ins, writing treatises, and giving speeches for Black civil rights. Although some white women did participate in the Civil Rights Movement, there were far fewer of them than African American women. Because of African American women’s collective confrontation with white supremacy, more of them were positioned to grasp the systemic nature of male supremacy and the need to fight it collectively. They understood sexism sooner than most white women because they 4. Height, “We Wanted the Voice,” 88–89. 5. Height, Open Wide, 145. 6. Mary King, Casey Hayden, Jean Wheeler Smith, Joyce Ladner, Prathia Hall, Kathie Sarachild, Michael Thelwell, and Bernice Johnson Reagon, “SNCC Women and the Stirrings of Feminism,” in A Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC, ed. Cheryl Lynn Greenberg (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998), 150. 738 Carol Giardina had already learned the operations of power and exploitation. They were best prepared to challenge female oppression, as were the white women who participated in the Civil Rights Movement. After all, if the established order could be pushed back when it... (shrink)

In bioethics, discussions of justice have tended to focus on questions of fairness in access to health care: is there a right to medical treatment, and how should priorities be set when medical resources are scarce. But health care is only one of many factors that determine the extent to which people live healthy lives, and fairness is not the only consideration in determining whether a health policy is just. In this pathbreaking book, senior bioethicists Powers and Faden confront (...) foundational issues about health and justice. How much inequality in health can a just society tolerate. The audience for the book is scholars and students of bioethics and moral and political philosophy, as well as anyone interested in public health and health policy. (shrink)

When David Souter was nominated by President Bush to the Supreme Court, he cited John Marshall Harlan as his model. It was an interesting choice. Admired by conservatives and deeply respected by his liberal brethren, Harlan was a man, as Justice William Brennan lamented, whose "massive scholarship" has never been fully recognized. In addition, he was the second Harlan to sit on the Court, following his grandfather--also named John Marshall Harlan. But while his grandfather was an outspoken supporter of (...) reconstruction on a conservative court, the younger Harlan emerged as a critic of the Warren Court's liberal expansion of civil liberties. Now, in the first biography of this important but neglected jurist, Tinsley Yarbrough provides a detailed account of Harlan's life, from his privileged childhood to his retirement and death. Yarbrough examines the forces and events which shaped the Justice's jurisprudence--his early life and often complex family relationships, education at Princeton and Oxford, his work as a prosecutor during Prohibition, Republican Party activities, wartime service in the Army Air Force, and years as one of the nation's preeminent corporate lawyers. The book focuses, however, on Harlan's years on the high bench. Yarbrough weaves together discussions of the Justice's relations with his brethren, clerks, and staff, an examination of Harlan's role in the decision-making process on the Court, and an analysis of his jurisprudence. The Justice's approach to constitutional interpretation exalted precedent, deference to governmental power, and narrow decisions closely tied to case facts; but he also accepted an evolving, creative model of constitutional construction which permitted expansive readings of constitutional rights. Yarbrough's details Harlan's close relationship with Justice Frankfurter, showing how--despite their friendship and alliance--Harlan strongly marked out his own position, both personally and judicially, on the Warren and Burger courts. And he examines the substance and significance of his dissents in such famous cases as Miranda and the Pentagon Papers. Intensively researched, smoothly written, and incisively argued, Yarbrough's biography offers an absorbing account of the life and career of a great dissenter, hailed by admirers as a "lawyer's lawyer" and a "judge's judge." Coming at a time when the high court has begun to adopt many of Harlan's principles, this account provides an essential perspective on the Court, civil liberties, and a pivotal figure in the history of both. (shrink)