History of Political Thought

Contrairement aux interprétations coutumières il y a un dialogue permanent entre la République, le Politique et les Lois et non une rupture ou un changement substantiel de la pensée politique de Platon. Une analyse minutieuse de Leg. V 739a1-740a2 montre clairement cette cohérence, en particulière la tournure "dieux ou fils des dieux" qu'y apparaît se rattache à l'état ordonné de l'âme et plus spécifiquement à la connaissance philosophique et n'indique pas l'abandonnement des positions de la République. De cette façon sont réfutées les thèses soutenues par A. Laks depuis quelques années sur le rapport entre la République et les Lois.
In spite of the usual interpretations there is a continuous dialogue between the Republic, the Statesman, and the Laws and not a break or a substantial change in Plato's political thought. A detailed analysis of Laws V 739a1-740a2 shows beyond all doubt this strict coherence, especially the expression "gods or children of gods" that appears in this passage is related to the ordered state of the soul and more specifically to the philosophical knowledge and does not point to a revision of the doctrines defended in the Republic, so that the interpretation of the relationship between the Republic and the Laws defended since the beginning of the 90'ties by A. Laks can be considered as definitively refuted.

""Ancient Greece is famous as the civilization which "gave" the world democracy. Democracy has in modern times become the rallying cry of liberation from supposed totalitarianism and dictatorship. It is embedded in the assumptions of Western powers who proclaim their faith in the global spread of democratic governance and at the same time wielded by protesters in the developing world who challenge what they view as the West's cultural imperialism. Thus, a lively and well informed treatment of the nexus between politics in antiquity and political discourse in the modern era is both timely and apposite.

As Kostas Vlassopoulos shows, much can be learned about the practice of politics from a comparative discussion of the classical and the contemporary. His starting point is that the value of looking back to a political system with different assumptions and elements can help us think, and even shape, what the future of modern politics might be. He discusses the contrasting political systems of Athens, Sparta and Rome; the political theories of thinkers like Plato, Aristotle and Cicero; how great events like the Peloponnesian War or the Roman civil wars shaped the course of political theory; and the discovery of freedom, participation and equality as political values in antiquity. Above all, the book shows how important and surprising an analysis of the ancient world can be in reassessing and revaluating modern political debates.""""

This article argues that Rousseau’s autobiographies outline an account of personal happiness as an Epicurean memorial practice. For Rousseau, happiness is secured by an attitude to pleasure cultivated by practices utilizing the powers of memory and imagination. In describing these practices autobiographically, he hoped to teach his readers to avoid the false pleasures of vulgar sensuality and pursue instead the true pleasures of what he called ‘temperate sensuality’. This orienting idea of the autobiographies is a distinctly Epicurean ascetic practice—combatting the constant threat of vulgar hedonism to bring about a new relationship to the self. By reconstructing this account, the article provides a basis to reconsider the relationship between solitude, sociability, and citizenship in Rousseau’s political thought.

Quentin Skinner is the Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary, University College London. He is the author of numerous books and articles on early modern political thought and is a founder of the so-called ‘Cambridge School’ of the history of political thought.

This interview, conducted by Teresa Bejan with Professor Skinner at his home in London in March 2011, is our longest yet. We’ll be publishing it in two parts: the first on Prof. Skinner’s research and method is below, and the second, on his own intellectual context, will follow in December.

On the History of Political Philosophy is a lively and lucid account of the major political theorists and philosophers of the ancient Greek, Roman, medieval, renaissance, and early modern periods. Topics include discussions concerning human nature, social justice, the origin of law and human rights, the rise and development of different forms of government, idealism and realism in international relations, the distinction between just and unjust war, and the sources of public authority and the nature of legitimate sovereignty. The organizing principle of the book is the idea that the great political thinkers were searching for the best political order and a criterion for human conduct in both domestic and international politics. Demonstrating the continued relevance of historical ideas to today's problems, the author traces ongoing discussions about politics by examining the ideas of key political theorists. The book is intended for use in courses on political philosophy or the history of political philosophy.
https://www.routledge.com/On-the-History-of-Political-Philosophy-Great-Political-Thinkers-from-Thucydides/Korab-Karpowicz/p/book/9780205119745

The paper explores the evolution of meritocratic ideas in pre-imperial China. I show that these ideas, embedded in the concept of “elevating the worthy,” appeared first in the wake of the disintegration of the pedigree-based aristocratic order of the Springs-and-Autumns period (770-453 BCE), and proliferated rapidly throughout the Warring States period (453-221 BCE), being shared by every major intellectual current. Yet the proliferation of the concept of “elevating the worthy” generated manifold tensions, among which the most significant one was between the conflicting notions of “worthiness” and “merit.” For some, e.g., Confucius and his followers, “worthiness” was primarily related to one’s morality; yet other thinkers claimed that morality cannot be objectively measured and warned that unless precisely defined, “worthiness” can be manipulated to promote hypocrites and one’s partisans rather than truly capable public servants. From analyzing conflicting views of “worth” and “merit” I explore such crucial problems of meritocratic system as its relation to the idea of social fairness, to the government’s efficiency, and to the possibility to enhance the morality of public servants. The experience of pre-imperial and early imperial China remains highly relevant for possible implementations of meritocratic principles of rule well into our days.

En la teoría política cristiano-occidental se ha entendido al
político como a un servidor que debía prestar a su señor auxilio y consejo.
Lo primero empezó siendo ayuda militar para después derivar hacia la
fórmula del servicio económico. Lo segundo era apoyar a dicho señor (casi
siempre un rey) en sus labores de gobierno y gestión. Así, los políticos, los
ministros, los oficiales, eran, primordialmente, consejeros, administraban o
intermediaban dicho servicio real o público. Las reflexiones sobre el particular,
desde la óptica del habitus, servirán para entender mejor los grupos
dirigentes y oligárquicos, y de su labor y justificación frente al aparato
real. De hecho, la tratadística sobre el consejo y los consejeros constituyó
todo un subgénero de la literatura política de la que participaron junto a
los castellanos otros tantos súbditos de la Monarquía Hispánica. En este análisis se trazan dos líneas no siempre fáciles de deslindar. Por una parte,
la consideración de los consejeros desde arriba, como apoyo al gobierno
principesco mediante el sistema polisinodial; aquí encontraremos a autores
como Furio Ceriol, Madariaga, Ramírez de Prado, Álamo de Barrientos
y Mártir Rizo, los cuales acusan numerosas influencias de Erasmo, Vives,
Bodin, Lipsio, Chokier de Surlet y Simancas. Y, por otra parte, los que
propugnan posturas más republicanas o ciudadanas, entre los que hay
que destacar a Costa Beltrán, Castilla Aguayo, Ballesteros Saavedra y
Acevedo Salamanca.

In the Christian-Western political theory has been understood
as a political server should provide his lord help and advice. The first
began as military aid and then drift into the economic service. The second
was to support this lord (usually a king) in their governance and management tasks. So, politicians, ministers, officers were primarily councillors, administered or intermediated this royal or public service. The reflections on the matter from the perspective of the habitus, helps understanding social leaders and oligarchies, and its work and justification against the real device. In fact, the treatises about the councillors was an entire subgenre of political literature of which the castilians participated with other subjects of the Hispanic Monarchy. In this work two not always easy to delimit lines are drawn. On the one hand, consideration of the councillors from above as support for the princely government by polisinodial system; here we find authors like Furio Ceriol, Madariaga, Ramirez de Prado, Álamo
de Barrientos and Mártir Rizo, all have numerous influences of Erasmus,
Vives, Bodin, Lipsius, Chokier de Surlet and Simancas. On the other hand,
those who advocate more republican or civic positions, among which we
should mention to Costa Beltrán, Castilla Aguayo, Ballesteros Saavedra
and Acevedo Salamanca.

The First of the Modern Ottomans blends biography with intellectual history. On the one hand, it is the story of an Ottoman life – the life of the scribe, ambassador, and prolific historian Ahmed Vâsıf (ca. 1735-1806), a man who improbably rose from obscurity in Baghdad to travel the empire, fight its wars, advise its sultans, and, in time, write its history. As a full-scale biography, the book is a rarity for the field of Ottoman history and reconstructs Vâsıf’s life, career, and opinions through meticulous research in both Ottoman and European sources. On the other hand, The First of the Modern Ottomans is also one of the first detailed intellectual studies of the early modern Ottoman Empire. Weaving together Vâsıf’s life and thought with the larger intellectual currents of the day – especially at the court of Sultan Selim III in Istanbul – it explores central debates among the Ottoman ruling elite over Europe, political reform, war and peace, justice, and the empire’s renewal. Vâsıf’s life reveals a vital response to the empire’s challenges at the turn of the nineteenth century – one that was novel and deeply enmeshed in Islamic philosophy, ethics, and statecraft.

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

In the introduction to the volume, the editors explain the overarching aim of the volume and contextualize the main themes of its chapters. Even if the notions of biopolitics and biopower have played a crucial role in philosophy, the humanities, and the social sciences over the last decades, they have been used in various and at times diverging senses, which has also produced different narratives about the history of biopolitics. The main aim of the volume is to clarify whether and to what extent the concept of biopolitics is applicable to antiquity. To answer such questions, the chapters collected in the volume address three main topics, namely the possible presence of biopolitical discourse in ancient thought, the extent to which the application of a biopolitical approach to ancient thought requires qualifications, and some influential contemporary interpretations of the relation between biopolitics and antiquity.

מאמר זה בוחן את המושג רפובליקניזם, בפרט אל מול המושג לאומיות, ומסיק שישראל זקוקה לתודעה רפובליקנית אך כזו המחזקת את הלאומיות ולא באה תחתיה.
חלקו הראשון של מאמר זה (סעיפים א-ג) מתאר את ליבת העמדה הרפובליקנית ואת הגרסאות השונות לה זכתה במחקר ובהגות הנאו-רפובליקנית בעשורים האחרונים. עיון זה מלמד שהעמדה הרפובליקנית איננה בהכרח חלופה ללאומיות ובגרסאות מסוימות שלה היא אף השלמה נדרשת עבורה.
בחלקו השני (סעיפים ד-ה) המאמר בוחן את את היתכנותו של רפובליקניזם לאומי מתוך המסורת היהודית ומתוך המחשבה הציונית. הוא מתאר את קיומם של יסודות רפובליקניים במחשבה היהודית אך גם מבהיר מדוע נדרש מאמץ פרשני וחינוכי לשם הטמעתם בחשיבה הישראלית.
חלקו השלישי של המאמר (סעיפים ו-ז) מנתח את השימוש הכושל בשיח על רפובליקניזם סביב הדיון על לימודי האזרחות בישראל, וכן בוחן את המשמעות המיטיבה האפשרית של תודעה רפובליקנית עבור מיעוטים במדינת לאום ובפרט עבור ערביי ישראל.

The article discusses uses of xiu shen, one among a number of terms referring to practices of moral and mental discipline in early China. It sketches out the contexts and discourses in which the term appears and hopes thus to contribute, albeit in a limited way, to eventual broader assessments of the role which different concepts, ideals, and practices of self-discipline played in political and social thought.

We tend to think of freedom as something that is best protected by carefully circumscribing the boundaries of legitimate state activity. But who came up with this understanding of freedom, and for what purposes? In a masterful and surprising reappraisal of more than two thousand years of thinking about freedom in the West, Annelien de Dijn argues that we owe our view of freedom not to the liberty lovers of the Age of Revolution but to the enemies of democracy.

The conception of freedom most prevalent today—that it depends on the limitation of state power—is a deliberate and dramatic rupture with long-established ways of thinking about liberty. For centuries people in the West identified freedom not with being left alone by the state but with the ability to exercise control over the way in which they were governed. They had what might best be described as a democratic conception of liberty.

Understanding the long history of freedom underscores how recently it has come to be identified with limited government. It also reveals something crucial about the genealogy of current ways of thinking about freedom. The notion that freedom is best preserved by shrinking the sphere of government was not invented by the revolutionaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who created our modern democracies—it was invented by their critics and opponents. Rather than following in the path of the American founders, today’s “big government” antagonists more closely resemble the counterrevolutionaries who tried to undo their work.

Transcendence and Power. Carl Schmitt's Political Theology

L' opera di CarI Schmitt (1888-1985) rappresenta una delle più forti provocazioni del pensiero del Novecento. La sua ricerca intellettuale e politica spazia nei diversi ambiti del diritto costituzionale e internazionale, della filosofia e della scienza della politica, della storia delle istituzioni, della letteratura e della teologia e si intreccia singolarmente con le vicende più drammatiche della storia contemporanea, in particolare
con la fine della repubblica di Weimar e con i primi anni del regime nazista, che lo vedono coinvolto in ruoli di primo piano. Il suo pensiero, riscoperto in questi ultimi anni, si trova oggi al centro di un serrato dibattito e di accese controversie.
Una delle provocazioni più significative di Schmitt è quella legata alla sua interpretazione del concetto di "teologia politica", un concetto destinato, pur con diverse interpretazioni, ad avere notevole fortuna nel pensiero teologico del '900, tanto da essere ancora oggi al centro dell'attenzione. Questo volume ricostruisce analiticamente, a partire dai primi
scritti fino alle ultime elaborazioni, la genesi, lo sviluppo e le applicazioni del concetto di "teologia politica" collocandolo sullo sfondo della sua ricerca e analizzando le reazioni e le critiche suscitate negli ambienti filosofici e teologici. Dall'angolo visuale della "teologia politica" l'intera opera schmittiana riceve una nuova e suggestiva luce e assume in certo senso valore di simbolo dell'itinerario della riflessione contemporanea sul politico, sul potere e sul suo ineliminabile riferimento alla trascendenza.

This contribution analyses the first of three speeches that according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 4, 71-75), L. Junius Brutus pronounced after the violence suffered by Lucretia, causing the expulsion of the Tarquins. In this circumstance, he spoke in reply to his fellow citizens who had been asked to decide which of the three forms of government they considered best between monarchy, aristocracy and democracy and they had expressed their preference for democracy. In the passage, according to the arguments the historian attributed to him, Brutus suggested a political model where the powers belonging to the monarchic model were transferred to a magistracy as consulship which was double and time-defined, and had to cooperate with the senate and whose decisions would be subject to ratification by the people. On the whole, his discourse seems to reflect the wish for an institutional reorganisation inspired by the theory of mixed constitution, able to preserve the positive aspects of the monarchic model while correcting its defects and on the other hand reconciling the competencies of the monarchic model and the democratic model. Bearing in mind the years in which Dionysius composed his work, we may suppose that through the fiction of the first oratio delivered by Brutus, the historian was trying to give some advice to Octavian Augustus, who meanwhile continued to obtain renewals of his consular office but took care to “transfer the res publica from his own dominion back to the authority of the Senate and the Roman People”, encouraging him to guarantee a form of government able to create harmonious relations between the different state powers.

Besides showing a strong interest in ancient Rome and its institutions, 15th century historiography gives a special place to the theme of the Western Roman Empire’s decline. In this light, some sections of the Laudatio Florentinae urbis and the Historiae Florentini populi by Leonardo Bruni as well as of the Decades by Biondo Flavio deserve mention. Unlike Bruni’s works, where the first cause of Rome’s decline was identified in the rejection of the republican model and the exercise of freedom that had embodied its foundations, Biondo’s treatises reveal the inclination to focus from a more structured perspective on the process which led to the end of ancient Rome’s Empire, without looking for a univocal cause. In general, beyond some parallel points of view between the two authors, such as, among others, a positive evaluation of Theodosius’ reign and the idea that, thanks to Rome’s decline, the conditions that allowed other cities in the Italian peninsula to later increase autonomously were created, Biondo’s considerations more particularly show a longue durée historiographical approach and the tendency to perceive Late Antiquity as an important transition phase as well as to remark the meaningfulness of some crucial historical episodes which characterized it.

The paper focuses on Tacitus’ account of the speech made by Claudius in 48 CE in favour of the admission of the primores of ‘long-haired’ Gaul to the senate, examining arguments used by the historian to clarify the reactions to their request and the reasoning adopted by the emperor to convince the senators to accept it. Besides expressing awareness of the efficacy of the criteria used by Romans to create a supranational imperial order, the passage shows Tacitus’ ability to highlight the political meaningfulness of Claudius’ intervention, making it a model worthy of surviving and being mentioned many centuries later in modern culture. In this vein, the second part of the paper analyzes some 16th and early 17th century references to the emperor’s speech in authors such as Justus Lipsius, Scipione Ammirato, Jean Bodin, Traiano Boccalini, Hugo Grotius. Within their works, also dedicated to examining the birth, development and decline of States, we see that besides recalling an episode occurring many centuries before, some key-intellectuals made utilized the story into a valid exemplum to promote a model of efficacious government favouring integration as a means of consolidating modern states.

Introduction and first chapter of a new book: Even though ‘the crisis of secularism’ was declared decades ago, it remains unresolved. This book argues that its roots are internal to the liberal model of secularism, which emerged from the religious dynamics of the Protestant Reformation. In Europe and India, this model has gone hand in hand with an intolerant anticlerical theology that rejects certain traditions as evil ‘political religion’. Consequently, liberal secularism often harms local forms of coexistence rather than nourishing them.

The tale of a meeting between Leonardo and Savonarola in the summer of 1495, later reported by Vasari (1550 and 1568) but confirmed by a memorandum remained in Leonardo's possession (Codex Atlanticus, f. 628 r), which refers explicitly to a "mission" assigned to him (presumably by Ludovico Sforza) to go to Florence, in order to get (through a competent mediator, probably Bernardo Rucellai) a detailed report about the new political rules promoted by the friar, lends credibility to a hypothesis of comparison between their anthropological conceptions, especially as they emerge from their "transfigured" use of the prophetic semantics, despite their shared repudiation of astrological quackery. If, on the one
hand, Savonarola's preaching does not have any properly predictive character, in terms of intentional "divination", standing rather as a projection or representation of the contingency of the current days, in purely political terms, Leonardo's riddles, which he literally called "prophecies", on the other hand - and similarly - transform the genre of presages or predictions into entertainment tools for courtly audiences, that, however, in some cases, become a vehicle for a critical evaluation of the troubles of contemporary society. The likelihood that, on the occasion of his convocation in Florence in 1495, Leonardo was able to listen to Savonarola's sermons, so steeped in apocalyptic prophecy, may provide an
explanation to the appearance of writings called "prophecies", among his notes, just in the last five years of the century. Their underlying vision of man, clearly pessimistic, offers significant points of contact with the negative anthropology advocated by Savonarola's preaching, which also makes use of animal apology, especially in the conceptual and ideological interpretation of the "anti-human" conflictuality among men, that makes them "beasts" towards themselves, in a sort of anticipation of Hobbes' famous motto homo homini
lupus.

Кресін О.В. «Історія Малоросії» Миколи Маркевича: історична праця та політичний трактат // Studia politologica Ucraino-Polona. Т. 7. 2017. С. 271 – 286.
М. Маркевич був людиною свого часу. Як історик він з методологічної точки зору навіть відстав від свого часу, що не пройшло непоміченим для сучасників та нащадків.
На противагу «Історії Малої Росії» Д. Бантиша-Каменського, написаній в об’єктивістському стилі, він створив публіцистичний твір, де історія виступає лише тлом для політичних ідей автора.
До того ж, твір цей насправді, як уже відзначали дослідники, є переважно компілятивним, у якому, до того ж, ступінь обробки запозичень був дуже низьким. Завдяки М. Маркевичу до історичного обігу під виглядом справжніх документів було
введено низку фальшивок та неавтентичних текстів. Дотепер частина істориків продовжує послуговуватися його працею без застережень, як достовірним джерелом. Парадокс полягає в тому, що М. Маркевич відомий як визначний архівіст та археограф
свого часу. В третьому-п’ятому томах «Історії Малоросії» він опублікував низку важливих джерел, проте при підготовці монографічної частини своєї праці Маркевич практично не використовував достовірних документів.
Отже, «Історія Малоросії» М. Маркевича як історична праця не становить особливого інтересу. Ми розглядаємо «Історію Малоросії» як пам’ятку літератури, а також політичної та правової думки, в якій доволі яскраво відобразився комплекс ідей та
естетичних смаків як самого М. Маркевича, так і цілого періоду в історії української культури. Окрім того, ми вважаємо цю працю однією з ключових для розуміння ідейних витоків творчості Т. Шевченка та інших діячів українського національного відродження
ХІХ ст.
Історики української політичної думки мало звертаються до умовного періоду між кінцем XVIII та серединою ХІХ ст. Саме цей час аж донедавна залишався у відповідних дослідженнях практично не концептуалізованим. Певні позитивні зміни сталися з
появою схеми національного відродження східноєвропейських народів у ХІХ ст. М. Гроха, розвиненої і адаптованої до українських реалій Р. Шпорлюком. Згідно з їх висновками, період, у який творив М. Маркевич, в усіх недержавних на той час народів Східної Європи пройшов під знаком впевненості в етнічному колапсі, розчиненні у
великих поліетнічних націях. У Наддніпрянській Україні це виявилося в уявленні про етнічну монолітність єдиного східнослов’янського російського народу, в Галичині – у
австрофільських ідеях.
Перед обличчям такої невідворотності етнографи та історики виявляли бажання зібрати та зберегти для нащадків духовну та матеріальну пам’ять про народ, що зникає. Через це період, який у Східній Європі умовно займав першу половину ХІХ ст.,
називають академічним. М. Маркевич якраз і був виразним представником цього періоду, який зробив важливий внесок у витворення цілісного історичного та етнографічного образу українського народу. Стверджуючи існування зв’язку між
природою, етнологією, історією та політикою, він, можливо навіть несвідомо, поставив під сумнів ідею про можливість повного злиття українського та російського народів.
Цим він проклав місток до наступної фази розвитку української національної ідеї, що розпочалася у 1840-х рр. і відповідала центрально- та східноєвропейським тенденціям, найповніше втіленим у революціях 1848 р., а саме в запереченні концепції
про злиття народів у суперетнічних спільностях, розквіту слов’янофільства та ідеї про слов’янську федерацію тощо.
У такому контексті виразно виступає велич М. Маркевича як дослідника, який доводив, що український народ як окремий та самобутній існував. А молодше покоління – Т. Шевченко, П. Куліш, М. Костомаров на цій основі дали ствердну відповідь на питання про подальші перспективи розвитку українського народу.

This article intends to answer the questions as to why " Bot Lakhon Reung Inao " is chosen to reflect political thoughts, and what political thoughts appear in this major literature. Primarily a documentary research, this article employs " Bot Lakhon Reung Inao " , the royal composition in King Phutthaloetla Naphalai, as the main text. The textual analysis and the contextual analysis are done, and it is found that within the historical contexts of the time when this literature was composed and then reworked, the core messages of this literature are consistent with at least two conditions, including (1) the state's political ideology and (2) the society's consumption of literatures. Not only is " Bot Lakhon Reung Inao " considered a " good book " for a script of dancing play and a " textbook " for studying Thai traditions, but it is also a " political teaching " for governors. Illustrated in the literature are examples of what governors shall not do or the seven Raja-adharma, which include (1) lust in women, (2) selfishness, (3) speaking or acting without thinking, (4) lying or telling untruths, (5) being rash and quick-tempered, (6) using brute force to solve problems, and (7) failing to uphold traditions.

Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws principally argues that each society has its own customs and organisational systems which are socio-culturally specific to their politico-economic context, and therefore any attempt to impose a political or legal system that is not derived from these customs may lead to state failure generally or tyranny specifically.

In recent years there has been a marked effort in American democracy to make engaging the formal democratic process more difficult. Laws have been passed that restrict constituents’ ability to vote by mail, that reduce the number of polling places and shorten their hours, that require strict forms of identification to cast a ballot, that limit early voting, and ban imbibing snacks and beverages in line at polling locations. Similarly, the judiciary at both the state and federal level has issued decisions signaling its reticence to embrace a deeper and more egalitarian vision of what American democracy could be. In this paper I will argue that these practices might usefully be understood as an expression of destituent power to both complement and contest that concepts understanding and growing body of literature.

Afghanistan masih belum terlihat akan mencapai stabilitas politik pasca Taliban kembali menguasai hampir seluruh wilayahnya. Bahkan sebenarnya instabilitas politik bukan hanya terjadi sejak Mei dan pertengahan Agustus ini sebagai puncaknya, tetapi selama hampir setengah abad terakhir jika dihitung dari mulainya invasi negara lain terhadap mereka. Beberapa ahli atau pemerhati politik berharap momentum perubahan kekuasaan pemerintahan kepada Taliban menjadi momentum yang tepat untuk melakukan diplomasi internal diantara  mereka sendiri. Tetapi, mungkin saja tidak sama sekali

Providing an innovative conceptualization to extremist political movements founded upon "world-historic" populations and vanguard party organizations, Vanguardism sets out a new path in investigating the intellectual and historical influences that created extremist politics, the totalitarian movements and regimes of the twentieth century, and a framework for interpreting extremism in the present.

Expanding its view across the turbulent intellectual currents of the nineteenth century, Philip W. Gray illustrates how these ideas shaped the shared ideational and organizational structures that would develop into Leninism, Fascism, and Nazism in the early twentieth century. Moving beyond the Second World War, the book explicates how vanguardism did not vanish with the war’s conclusion, but was modified throughout the period of national liberation movements and Western extremist groups over the ensuing decades. Concluding in the present with an eye to the future, Gray presents a framework for comprehending the extremist movement of today, and how organizational shifts can give us clues to the forms of totalitarian politics of tomorrow.

Original and provocative, Vanguardism will become essential reading for everyone looking to understand totalitarianism and extremist politics of our time.

In this paper, I argue that the Norman Anonymous's Christocentric idea of kingship constitutes essentially a variety of that ancient conception of royal mediation which is hallmarked by the Hellenic and early Imperial idea of nomos empsychos. In the first part of my paper, I outline the basic features and sources of this Greek concept and, in line with Kantorowicz's still authoritative analysis, I claim that the Norman Anonymous did know some of those sources that handed this idea down to the latter ages. Then, in the second part of my paper, I offer a systematic overview of the Anonymous's idea of politics with a special view to his idea of kingship.

It is widely known fact that during the conflict between the American Colonies and Great Britain, which resulted in independence and the birth of the United States of America, the insurgents presented their collective actions as a lawful form of resistance and defence against an unjust government in the motherland, which threatened their freedoms. They therefore did not consider themselves either disobedient or rebels. These views and these claims had, moreover, charachterized early modern European history for centuries, on the basis of a shared politico-juridical culture.
This volume analyzes some Italian urban rebellions that occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries (Urbino, Messina, Mondovì, Castiglione delle Stiviere) from this percpective, emphasizing the resemblances with the Catalan (1640) and the Neapolitan (1647) revolts. Fundamental problems emerge from all the cases under consideration: the borderline between loyalty and obedience, between unconditional and conditional obedience, the issue of sovereignty and its limits.
Originally published as Tumulti. Moltitudini ribelli in età moderna, Bologna, il Mulino, 2013.

Autorica analizira natpis Obliti privatorum publica curate iz Kneževa dvora u Dubrovniku. Donosi osnovne koordinate za njegovu dataciju, raščlanjuje poruku u kontekstu dubrovačke političke epigrafike, te upozorava na dosad nepoznati natpis iz dvornice Malog vijeća. Razmatra maksimu kao temu i topos, prisutnu u nizu filozofskih djela, političkih govora i propovijedi, od antike (Platona i Cicerona) do prosvjetiteljstva, posebno prateći njihovu recepciju i preradbu u dubrovačkoj sredini. Na temelju istovjetnih natpisa iz vijećnice u Baselu (Holbein ml., 1521/2.) i talijanskog sela Lustrole (1690.), zaključuje da ta politička maksima nije sročena u Dubrovniku, već je vjerojatno preuzeta iz nekog popularnog florilegija.

The article presents Lord Acton’s notion of liberalism and citizenship. Liberalism, as ordinarily understood, treats the individual as the founding stone of civil society and the measure of political order—man and woman and their rights are supreme. In the past, this allowed liberalism to delegitimize society of estates and absolutism, yet it raised the insoluble dilemma of how to reconnect the self-sufficient individual with the society and the state. Furthermore, social engineering employed in service of equality and individual rights, made liberalism an abstract doctrine, hostile to any tradition and illiberal in its nature. Unlike this doctrinaire liberalism, Actonian liberalism is organic, thriving on national tradition and having only one arbitrary element—higher law that is the yardstick of good and evil. Organic liberalism knows not the contradiction between the individual and the polity. It balances the rights of the individual with the respect for the national tradition, and stresses individual and communal liberty as the ultimate aim of politics. Further, man and woman participate in a multitude of intermediate organizations in which they can truly exercise their citizenship. Organic liberalism, as Acton claims, is a constant element of Western Civilization, even if it achieves its maturity sometime in the seventeenth-eighteenth century. It then become a characteristic feature of Anglo-American liberalism.