Ecology and Revolution: Global Crisis and the Political Challenge is an in-depth exploration and analysis of the global ecological crisis (going far beyond the issue of global warming) in the larger context of historical conditions and ...

This article presents possible answers, and their respective probabilities, to the question, ‘What are the consequences of the present global crisis in the proximate future of the World System?’ It also attempts to describe the basic characteristics of the forthcoming ‘Epoch of New Coalitions’ and to forecast certain future conditions. Among the problems analyzed in this paper are the following: What does the weakening of the economic role of the USA as the World System centre mean? Will there (...) be a leader in the future World System? Will the deficit of global governance and world fragmentation continue to worsen? How can national sovereignty be transformed? (shrink)

Much has been written since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. The way in which we refer to this and other diseases has been commented and criticized in the media and in public online forums. Several linguists have referred to the different metaphors with which we refer to the disease appealing to our social responsibility towards the words we use to refer to sensitive subjects and have compiled alternative forms to “the war metaphor”. There is a linguistic, political, and even (...) health concern about the possible consequences of referring to Covid-19 as a war. However, the conceptual metaphor DISEASE IS WAR is ubiquitous, the key is: it is conceptual, it is a metaphor of the mind and not of language. Moreover, its variations and changes are a reflection of human creativity, but there is nothing wrong with the metaphor per se. In any case, it is a means to criticize certain discourses and there, as in everything, the context of the communicative act is ineludible. In this article we will see some examples of how we refer to SARS-CoV-2 in different media and explain the ubiquity of the metaphor. We shall also note that there is nothing wrong with the metaphor itself, which is, in fact, based on a biologically hooked form, present in human cognition, to refer to something that threatens us and that we must avoid or combat. (shrink)

In a recent keynote speech Paul Standish noted ‘there is agreement in judgments. But how the response to those judgments is realised is always cultural’. Making judgments about what constitutes ‘crisis’ for children is not necessarily agreed universally, though clearly there are some commonalities across many countries, as evident in United Nations on the Convention of the Rights of the Child agreements. This article examines the local rhetoric and reality of ‘crisis’ for children in countries across the world. (...) What constitutes a crisis for children, and how this plays out in the contexts of nine countries is explored by the authors based on the insights of each countries’ Chapter representatives. Policies will be juxtaposed with provision based on the experiences of OMEP members reporting from their various contexts. Taken together they provide a contextualised perspective on ‘crisis’ and its relationship to a non-absolutist foundation to children’s rights. The article concludes that what constitutes crisis from a global perspective warrants consideration in the context of local reality—in this locale the concept of every child as having access to ‘rights’ is far from realisation. (shrink)

This essay revisits the metanormative version of the motivational critique of contemporary conceptions of cosmopolitan justice. I distinguish two ways of understanding this critique as leveling the charge of infeasibility against cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitan motivation can be understood to be infeasible because it is impossible or because it is not reasonably likely to be achieved if tried. The possibilistic understanding is not persuasive, given that examples show that cosmopolitan motivation is possible. The conditional probabilistic understanding is more compelling, by contrast, because (...) under certain social conditions it may not be reasonably likely that cosmopolitan motivation is achieved if tried. I argue, however, that whether cosmopolitan motivation is infeasible in the conditional probabilistic sense depends on malleable social conditions, given that, according to a plastic account of the human moral mind developed by Allen Buchanan, social conditions can undermine or favor the formation of cosmopolitan motivation. I illustrate this plastic account by showing how it can explain recent anticosmopolitan orientations as “tribalistic” reflexes to global crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, which involved competition for survival resources and (existential) threats. I conclude that cosmopolitan motivation is not infeasible under all social conditions and that cosmopolitanism therefore requires bringing about and maintaining those social conditions under which cosmopolitan motivation is feasible. (shrink)

This article proposes that autocratic democracy represents the natural political form of right-wing populism. It argues that while the emergence of autocratic democracy as a genuine political alternative to liberal democracy may be currently located primarily in states where liberal democratic norms were not well-consolidated, there are reasons to hold that structural features of contemporary politics in consolidated democracies relating to the decline of mass parties and the globalisation trilemma create the space for the right-wing mobilisation of populism. It is (...) further claimed that the dilemmas of the EU in conjunction with the politics of immigration and multiculturalism provide resources for the right-wing mobilisation of populist discontents such that we should not be sanguine about the ability of liberal democracy to be resilient in the face of continuing populist pressures. (shrink)

This paper is a critique of the present mode of capitalist democracy from the ethico-moral viewpoint. The crisis of values is identified as the great bane of free market-led globalization. This trend has aggravated worldwide inequality, promoted terrorism and violence, created psychological anomie and triggered eco logical disasters. Only a few business interests in the wealthier economies are gaining at the expense of humankind. The moral dimension of the government's role has been undermined by such profit-making free market gospel. (...) The author contends that more than beingjust secular, democracy is a pre-social moral force and, as such, is perceived more proximately in the religious temper of a non-industrial society than in a mass industrial society. In the latter democracy is almost a farce with the periodic ritual of public voting as its main act. The paper castigates the global economy and global media which cleverly mastermind our lives, and pleads for a change of values which will make humans self-conscious and will restore their autonomy. (shrink)

In order to gain greater insight into the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) during a time of crisis, the study examines the commitment of firms to continue to engage in CSR activity despite financial pressures to divert their slack resources elsewhere. The setting of the study is CSR activity during the perhaps unprecedented global crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a qualitative research method approach, both a variety of media sources and the relevant academic (...) literature are reviewed in order to identify examples of CSR activity related specifically to COVID-19. The examples are then categorized and situated according to Professor Archie Carroll’s well-known CSR Pyramid framework describing the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic domains of CSR. As such, this study is the first to extend the rich literature stream utilizing Carroll’s CSR Pyramid within the unique context of a global pandemic. (shrink)

German philosophers and political thinkers of the last century – Jaspers, Arendt and Strauss prominent among them – express shared frustration with the modern situation and candid assessments of its dangers. Jaspers reflects on the atomic age and the modern dissolution of values; Arendt criticizes the bureaucratic machinery of modern society as anti-political; and Strauss expresses distrust of modern logics of science and history as tending towards historical forgetfulness. In this paper, I examine the formative effects of these tendencies in (...) relation to emotional and epistemic considerations of identity and the social and cultural relations which frame them. I argue that, in their audacity to engage with modern crisis in global terms, Jaspers, Arendt and Strauss provide thoughtful perspectives on a thoughtless age, perspectives not only German but germane. (shrink)

This text constitutes a reflection on politics, women, feminism and the future in the current global crisis. The civilizing crisis is total, universal and unstoppable. Here we try to sketch some ideas of what I think is really at stake: the definition of subject, person and rights, the idea of the future desirable society, and the foundations and regulation of social life, the concept of good life. In the context of an escalating global crisis and (...) the growing feeling of being in transition to nowhere, the question of whether the arrival of this new order will resist our rights is vital, ethical and politically fundamental. This document tries to collaborate with the process of answering it. The order of the world to come is being built today, in increasingly adverse conditions for the rights and freedoms of women and it is important to anticipate the reflection on some of its foreseeable consequences. (shrink)

To help raise and renew consciousness about this threat to the world, Ethics and AIDS: Compassion and Justice in Global Crisis summarizes the basics of the AIDS epidemic and presents key themes and insights based on the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. This ethical perspective is the result of decades of dialogue among Roman Catholics and other Christians, building on the strengths of the various traditions. This book offers a Christian view, with special emphasis on Roman Catholic thought; many (...) of its ethical insights, however, can be shared by other faith traditions and by all people who desire to respond to the AIDS epidemic. (shrink)

The article presents a verbal and mathematical model of medium-term business cycles (with a characteristic period of 7–11 years) known as Juglar cycles. The model takes into account a number of approaches to the analysis of such cycles; in the meantime it also takes into account some of the authors' own generalizations and additions that are important for understanding the internal logic of the cycle, its variability and its peculiarities in the present-time conditions. The authors argue that the most important (...) cause of cyclical crises stems from strong structural disproportions that develop during economic booms. These are not only disproportions between different economic sectors, but also disproportions between different societal subsystems; at present these are also disproportions within the World System as a whole. The proposed model of business cycle is based on its subdivision into four phases: – recovery phase (which could be subdivided into the start sub-phase and the acceleration sub-phase); – upswing/prosperity/expansion phase (which could be subdivided into the growth sub-phase and the boom/overheating sub-phase); – recession phase (within which one may single out the crash/bust/acute crisis subphase and the downswing sub-phase); – depression/stagnation phase (which we could subdivide into the stabilization subphase and the breakthrough sub-phase). The article provides a detailed qualitative description of macroeconomic dynamics at all the phases; it specifies driving forces of cyclical dynamics and the causes of transition from one phase to another (including psychological causes); a special attention is paid to the turning point from the peak of overheating to the acute crisis, as well as to the turning point from the downswing to recovery. The proposed mathematical model of Juglar cycle takes into account the following effects that are typical for the market economy: • positive feedbacks between various economic processes; • presence of a certain inertia, time lags in reactions of the economic subsystem to the change in conditions; • amplification by the financial subsystem of positive feedbacks and time lags in the economic subsystem; • excessive reaction to changing conditions during the acute crisis sub-phase. The authors suggest that the current crisis turns out to be rather similar to classical Juglar crises; however, there is also a significant difference, as the current crisis occurs at a truly global scale. Yet, due to this truly global scale of the current crisis, the possibilities of regulation with the national state's measures have turned out to be ineffective,whereas the suprastate regulation of financial processes hardly exists. It is shown that all these have led to the reproduction of the current crisis according to a classical Juglar scenario. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the psychosocial functioning of children and families. It is important to consider adversity in relation to processes of positive adaptation. To date, there are no empirically validated multi-item scales measuring COVID-related positive adaptation within families. The aim of the current study was to develop and validate a new measure: the Family Positive Adaptation during COVID-19 Scale. The sample included 372 female and 158 male caregivers of children ages 5–18 years old from the United Kingdom, (...) the United States, Canada, and Australia, who completed measures in May 2020. Participants responded to a 14-item survey indexing a range of perceived coping and adaptation behaviors at the beginning of the pandemic. An exploratory factor analysis yielded an optimal one-factor solution comprised of seven items related to family cohesion, flexibility, routines, and meaning-making. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated measurement invariance across female and male caregivers, demonstrating that the factor structure, loadings, and thresholds did not vary by caregiver sex. There was evidence for concurrent validity with significant bivariate correlations between the Family PACS scores and measures of caregiver positive coping, parenting practices, couple satisfaction, and family functioning, but not negatively-valenced constructs. Findings inform our conceptualization of how families have adapted to adverse pandemic-related conditions. Further, we provide preliminary support for the Family PACS as a practical tool for evaluating positive family adaptation during this global crisis, with implications for future widespread crises. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic and climate crisis have highlighted the power of governments in relation to people and the societies in which they live. This article looks at two sociological approaches that together capture the core features of the relationship between sovereignty, society and individual safety. Sociologists of human rights point to the importance of sovereignty for the enforcement of human rights and draw on the work of Arendt, who argues all rights are lost to those who find themselves outside (...) the protection of the state. Wickham’s Hobbesian sociology adds an important social dimension to these ideas. He adopts Hobbes’ argument that sovereignty secures both society and the protection of people. The article recovers additional ideas in Hobbes’ theory of rights that further link these two approaches. For Hobbes, governments hold a responsibility to protect their citizens’ right to survive. The article discusses the relevance of these ideas to the coronavirus pandemic and climate crisis. It argues sociology is well-placed to explore ways in which the continued exercise of sovereign power in relation to society and human survival is shaping humanity’s response to these global crises. (shrink)

Ethical leadership is the best response in the crisis state of postmodern man. Ethical leadership is a construct that leads to personal transfiguration, organizational effectiveness, improved interpersonal communication, and the achievement of a joint platform for professional action. Its development has also a beneficial effect as it brings ethics back to the core of public action, to the front line of organizational life and personal development. Whether it follows a religious model or a model resulting from laicized religious values, (...) leadership construing is based on a personal development process that follows an initiating structure in the world of values and their practice in personal ethical action. This is doubled by an ethics institutionalization process in which the organization itself becomes a structure of ethical and effective communication both inside and outside. An authentic leadership supposes positing the leader in the center of an ethical edifice in which achieving public good is done through instruments of personal development, ethics management and managerial ethics, ethical responsibility and sustainability, human condition improvement, spiritual transfiguration and authenticity. Added to this is the leader’s personal effort of involvement in the organization. Ethical leadership relies on a person’s vocation of developing an ethical culture in professional situations and in all life experiences. (shrink)

This article analyzes the global causes of the contemporary crisis and the possibilities to eliminate the most acute problems that have generated this crisis. It analyzes both the negative role of the world financial flows and their important positive functions including the ‘insurance’ of social guaranties at the global scale. In connection with the outcome of the crisis it analyzes the conditions of possible transformations of the world system and the possibility of various global (...) scripts of its near future. It gives a characteristic of the coming ‘epoch of new coalitions’; it gives some futuristic prognosis. (shrink)

Are countries especially entitled, if not obliged, to prioritize the interests or well-being of their own citizens during a global crisis, such as a global pandemic? We call this partiality for compatriots in times of crisis “crisis nationalism”. Vaccine nationalism is one vivid example of crisis nationalism during the COVID-19 pandemic; so is the case of the US government’s purchasing a 3-month supply of the global stock of the antiviral Remdesivir for domestic use. (...) Is crisis nationalism justifiable at all, and, if it is, what are its limits? We examine some plausible arguments for national partiality, and conclude that these arguments support crisis nationalism only within strict limits. The different arguments for partiality, as we will note, arrive at these limits for different reasons. But more generally, so we argue, any defensible crisis nationalism must not entail the violation of human rights or the worsening of people’s deprivation. Moreover, we propose that good faith crisis nationalism ought to be sensitive to the potential moral costs of national partiality during a global crisis and must take extra care to control or offset these costs. Thus, crisis nationalism in the form of vaccine nationalism or the hoarding of global supplies of therapeutics during a global pandemic exceeds the bounds of acceptable partiality. (shrink)

The European Stability Mechanism is the rescue fund that may grant loans to struggling euro zone governments by issuing bonds, collectively by the euro zone members. The implementation of the ESM spawned a lot of legal challenges brought to higher judicial authority in Ireland, Austria, Estonia, Germany and Poland. In the fall of 2012 the ESM was subject to legal analysis in the Estonian National Court, the German Constitutional Court, and in the European Court of Justice. Delivering much anticipated rulings (...) in legal challenges to the legal provisions establishing the ESM, courts avoided upsetting the complex arrangements in question by producing legal decision of direct political import and letting EU bailout measures go forward. In looking over different critical responses, we have seen an argument raised by media and legal scholars, according to which courts’ capitulation before the power of financial markets in the EMS rulings represents “a sign of judicial crisis” that marks the weakness of modern European jurisprudence. In light of their importance, we undertake a preliminary semiotic analysis of the ESM rulings of the Estonian National Court, the German Constitutional Court, and in the European Court of Justice. Our analysis aims at discerning the crucial aspects of those rulings is performed on the basis of different semiotic methodologies combined with the refined ideas of the Scandinavian analytical school of the doctrinal study of law. In traditional legal studies there seems to be a taken for granted assumption that there is one analytical way to dissect judicial reasoning of the supreme courts. This paper argues that the manner of analyzing the constitutional reasoning needs to be congruent with the particular research methodology. (shrink)

This new, long awaited study, is the first and defining volume in which Roy Bhaskar, originator of the increasingly influential, interdisciplinary and international philosophy of critical realism, systematically presents and expounds the principles of his new philosophy of meta-Reality, a philosophy which is already the subject of worldwide attention and debate. Building on a radically new analysis of the self, human agency and society, Roy Bhaskar shows how the world of alienation and crisis we currently inhabit is sustained by (...) the ground-state qualities of intelligence, creativity, love, a capacity for right-action and a potential for human self-realisation or fulfilment. He then demonstrates how transcendence and non-duality are necessary and ubiquitous features of all social interaction and human agency; and how these and connected features of human being and activity sustain the totality of the structures of the world of duality and oppression in which we live. Moreover, meta-Reality argues that any objective an agent chooses in life will ultimately set him or her on a process or dialectic to self-realisation, entailing a commitment to universal self-realisation; and it shows how these goals or ideals are explicit or implicit in all emancipatory projects, of whatever political, social or religious declension. Furthermore they all imply the same principles of clarity and commitment to social transformation (on all the planes of social being), which Roy Bhaskar articulates here. In a very real sense he demonstrates how these principles, for the first time clearly elaborated here in meta-Reality, are indeed the culmination of all traditions of thought and practice oriented to human well-being, emancipation or flourishing. (shrink)

The relevance of Marx’s theory of value and his ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ to the analysis of the financial crisis of 2007–8 and the ensuing global slump is affirmed. The hypertrophic growth of unproductive constant capital, including the wages of ‘socially necessary’ unproductive labour and tax revenues, is identified as an important manifestation of an historical-structural crisis of capitalism, alongside the increasing weight of fictitious capital and the proliferation of fictitious (...) profits in the lead-up to the financial crisis. These phenomena have obscured the deepest roots of the global slump in the long-term profitability problems of productive capital – that is, in a crisis of surplus-value production. With these considerations taken into account, a better empirical assessment of trends in the composition of capital becomes possible, and with it a more accurate understanding of the impact of the ongoing displacement of living labour from production on the average rate of profit and the future of US and global capitalism. (shrink)

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the legitimacy of bonuses for senior executives. Two hundred eight participants, with various levels of training in economics, were presented with a number of concrete scenarios depicting the circumstances in which senior executives have received bonuses of variable amounts, and they were asked to indicate the extent to which such bonuses may be considered as legitimate. The scenarios were created by varying four factors likely to have (...) an impact on people’s views: the extent to which the objectives fixed by the company have been met or not, the global economic context in which the company has performed, the availability of experienced senior executives in the sector under consideration, and the amount of money that has been awarded, in terms of both the euros and multiples of the average worker’s pay. Five qualitatively different personal positions were found. The most common positions were that executive bonuses were either never legitimate or not very legitimate. People without any background in economics were more likely to hold these views than people with a background in economics. The remaining 45 % of the participants supported the awarding of bonus, but their support was conditional, and the main condition was the extent to which the company’s objectives were met. Thus for most participants, the practice of awarding extra pay to senior executives was either never legitimate, or legitimate only when the company’s objectives have been attained, or legitimate only when, even in a time of economic crisis, the company’s objectives have been surpassed. (shrink)

For almost half a century the democratic and social state has solved the twofold problem of growth and social exclusion through social inclusion within the borders of the national state. This solution since the 1970s came under threat of multiple crises of the environment, secular stagnation, under-consumption, legitimization and constitutionalization. There might be a social solution of present crisis possible through massive redistribution plus decent basic income plus green growth. However, after globalization of capital there are no longer national (...) social alternatives available. Therefore, there is no alternative to transnational democratic state-formation. But are there actors relevant, strong and motivated enough to do that? nema. (shrink)

This article explores the use of interactive and kinetic technologies in contemporary art practice as a means by which artists engage with conditions of social and ecological crisis. In a context in which the perpetual exploitation of human and natural resources threatens the sustainability of the planet and all earthy life, the language of interactivity provides perspective into the interconnectivity of organisms and the interdependence of biological, social, economic and political systems. The interactive, kinetic work affords a distilled set (...) of relationships and movements that rely on connection and participation and, as such, serve as simple and relatable models of complex and interrelated systems. By engendering a sense of fragile suspension between sustainability and collapse – a felt experience of the present ecological crisis – the artists discussed incite affective responses through their works that are argued to be distinctly empathic in nature. Contemporary environmental theory provides insight into a shifting relationship between human and ‘nature’ that dissolves the previously instated binary in favour of an empathic consciousness, at the core of which is a recognition of the interdependence of living organisms. Art historical insight of interactivity as a means of production reveals a notable link between interactive art, destruction and trauma. The affective response engendered in contemporary works that grapple with concepts of transience and mortality relies on the very human knowledge of the body as a relatable site of experience, particularly pain and trauma. The idea of empathy as prefigured by violence and loss is particularly resonant in relation to contemporary ecological trauma. Works by artists including Rebecca Horn, Theo Jansen, Natalie Jeremijenko, Alan Rath, Lygia Clark, Alexandra Karakashian and Robert Krishner are discussed in terms of interactivity and kineticism as prompting empathic engagement in the context of environmental entropy. (shrink)

The Global Financial Crisis is acknowledged to be the most severe economic downturn since the 1930s, and one that is unique in its underlying causes, its scope, and its wider social, political and economic implications. This volume explores some of the ethical issues that it has raised.

What can theology offer in the context of neoliberalism, globalization, growing inequality, and an ever more ecologically precarious planet that disproportionately affects the poor? This book, by one of the country's best-known Latino theologians, explores possibilities for liberation from the forces that would impose certain forms of knowledge on our social world to manipulate our experience of identity, power, and justice. Beautifully written in a refreshingly direct and accessible prose, Maduro's book is nevertheless built upon subtly articulated critiques and insights. (...) But to write a conventional academic tractatus would have run counter to Maduro's project, which is built on his argument that ignorance is masked in the language of expertise, while true knowledge is dismissed because it is sometimes articulated in pedestrian language by those who produce it through the praxis of solidarity and struggle for social justice. With a generosity and receptivity to his readers reminiscent of letters between old friends, and with the pointed but questioning wisdom of a teller of parables, Maduro has woven together a twenty-first-century reply to Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach." Neither conventional monograph nor memoir, neither a theological nor a political tract, but with elements of all of these, Maps for a Fiesta arrives as Maduro's philosophical and theological testament--one that celebrates the knowledge-work and justice-making of the poor. What Maduro offers here is a profound meditation on the relationship between knowledge and justice that could be read as a manifesto against the putatively unknowable world that capitalist chaos has made, in favor of a world that is known by the measure of its collective justice. His fiesta grants us the joy that nourishes us in our struggles, just as knowledge gives us the tools to build a more just society. What Maduro offers is nothing less than an epistemology of liberation. (shrink)

In Nuu-chah-nulth, the word tsawalk means "one." It expresses the view that all living things - humans, plants, and animals - form part of an integrated whole brought into harmony through constant negotiation and mutual respect for the other. Contemporary environmental and political crises, however, reflect a world out of balance, a world in which Western approaches for sustainable living are not working. In Principles of Tsawalk, hereditary chief Umeek builds upon his previous book, Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview, to elaborate (...) an alternative framework for responding to global environmental and political crises and to indigenous peoples' poverty, dispossession, and displacement in the realms of education and politics. These problems, Umeek argues, stem from an historical and persistent failure to treat all peoples and life forms with respect and accord them constitutional recognition. By contrast, the Nuu-chah-nulth principles of recognition, consent, and continuity, embodied in songs, language, and ceremonies, hold the promise of achieving sustainable lifeways in this shared struggle for balance. By weaving together Nuu-chah-nulth and Western worldviews, hereditary chief Umeek creates a new philosophical foundation for building more equitable and sustainable communities. Umeek (E. Richard Atleo), a hereditary Nuu-chah-nulth chief, is a research liaison at the University of Manitoba and an associate adjunct professor at the University of Victoria. He is the author of Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview. (shrink)

Michael Williams: Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis, an Abridgment Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10806-010-9294-y Authors Doug Seale, 21 Turner Ridge Road, Marlborough, MA 01752, UK Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863.

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1103, Page 3-6, January 2022.

In this topical book, Boudewijn de Bruin examines the ethical 'blind spots' that lay at the heart of the global financial crisis. He argues that the most important moral problem in finance is not the 'greed is good' culture, but rather the epistemic shortcomings of bankers, clients, rating agencies and regulators. Drawing on insights from economics, psychology and philosophy, de Bruin develops a novel theory of epistemic virtue and applies it to racist and sexist lending practices, subprime mortgages, (...) CEO hubris, the Madoff scandal, professionalism in accountancy and regulatory outsourcing of epistemic responsibility. With its multidisciplinary reach, Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis will appeal to scholars working in philosophy, business ethics, economics, psychology and the sociology of finance. The many concrete examples and case studies mean that this book will also prove useful to policy-makers and regulators. (shrink)

The contemporary age is approaching the downfall of human civilization due to the rapid collapse of the global ecology. As the popular obsession with industrial development, triggered by the Western modernization of the 18th century, expands across the entire world, minor regional environmental crises have merged intoan irremediable global ecological crisis. This suggests that human society has lost its ability to harmonize with nature and is driving itself to a crisis of survival, dangling on the brink (...) of a fatal cliff. The resolution of the global ecological crisis, which has been exacerbated primarily by Western civilization, requires an alternative thought paradigm that appeared in Korea over 100 years ago, one that can be characterized as ‘the ideology of Gaebyeok.’ This ideology proclaimsthat the global ecological crisis of our times is not simply a crisis of civilization sparked by energy over-consumption, but is rather an inevitable cyclical phenomenon stemming from a change in the universe’s natural order. The ideology of Gaebyeok, refined by a Korean Philosopher, Gim Il-Bu (1826-1898) in his work Jeongyeok (Right Change) and eventually brought to full blossom by Gang Jeung-San (1871-1909), suggests an excellent alternative way of thinking which offers a new hope to the citizens of the contemporary world who cannot ind an escape from their risky societies. My paper will discuss this enlightened vision of global hope. (shrink)

Democratic Crisis and Global Constitutional Law explains the current weakness of democratic polities by examining antinomies in constitutional democracy and its theoretical foundations. This book argues that democracy is usually analysed in a theoretical lens that is not adequately sensitive to its historical origins. The author proposes a new sociological framework for understanding democracy and its constitutional preconditions, stressing the linkage between classical patterns of democratic citizenship and military processes and arguing that democratic stability at the national level (...) relies on the formation of robust normative systems at the international level. On this basis, he argues that democracy is frequently exposed to crisis because the normative terms in which it is promoted and justified tend to simplify its nature. These terms create a legitimising space in which anti-democratic movements, typically with a populist emphasis, can take shape and flourish. (shrink)

This groundbreaking collection on global leadership features innovative and critical perspectives by scholars from international relations, political economy, medicine, law and philosophy, from North and South. The book's novel theorization of global leadership is situated historically within the classics of modern political theory and sociology, relating it to the crisis of global capitalism today. Contributors reflect on the multiple political, economic, social, ecological and ethical crises that constitute our current global predicament. The book suggests that (...) there is an overarching condition of global organic crisis, which shapes the political and organizational responses of the dominant global leadership and of various subaltern forces. Contributors argue that to meaningfully address the challenges of the global crisis will require far more effective, inclusive and legitimate forms of global leadership and global governance than have characterized the neoliberal era. (shrink)

The biodiversity crisis should be a key issue within debates on global justice – but to date it has not been. This article aims to provide a stimulus to further engagement. First, it provides a brief introduction to the notion of a biodiversity crisis, and to its origins. Second, it distinguishes our various reasons for caring about the crisis. Third, it shows why the biodiversity crisis raises important – albeit hitherto neglected – issues of (...) class='Hi'>global justice. Fourth, it sketches some of the most important questions scholars of global justice should be in a position to engage with, in order to move the debate forwards and help ensure that collective political responses to the crisis are just ones. (shrink)

The moral value of health : health as a basic human need -- The human right to health and its corresponding responsibilities -- States and natural persons as subjects of justice -- Pharmaceutical transnational corporations as subjects of justice -- The global health governance of the global health crisis.

The emerging global climate crisis threatens human health in unprecedented ways, yet global health concerns have not been sufficiently considered within international climate change efforts. A more collaborative pathway could advance efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change while protecting public health and social justice.