The scale and asymmetry of commercial technology firms’ power over people through data, combined with the increasing involvement of the private sector in public governance, means that increasingly, people do not have the ability to opt out of engaging with technology firms. At the same time, those firms are increasingly intervening on the population level in ways that have implications for social and political life. This creates the potential for power relations of domination, and demands that we decide what constitutes (...) the legitimacy to act on the public. Business ethics and private law are not designed to answer these questions, which are primarily political. If people have lost the right to disengage with commercial technologies, we may need to hold the companies that offer them to the same standards to which we hold the public sector. This paper first defines the problem and demonstrates that it is significant and widespread, and then argues for the development of an overarching normative framework for what constitutes non-domination with regard to digital technologies. Such a framework must involve a nuanced idea of political power and accountability that can respond not only to the legality of corporate behaviour, but to its legitimacy. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider three different conceptions of ‘the people’ and what it means to ‘respect’ their collective will and wisdom: (a) the democratic conception of the people as a sprawling demos, (b) the populist conception of the people as an authentic folk (c) and, finally, the vanguardist conception of the people as the semi-mute masses who stand in need of revolutionary transformation. Although my ultimate aim is to defend the democratic conception of the people over both the populist (...) conception and the vanguardist conception, much of this essay is taken up simply spelling out each of these conceptions of the people and outlining their consequences for the conduct of politics. I begin by contrasting the democratic conception with the populist conception. I then turn briefly to the vanguardist conception. I close with a brief, and admittedly incomplete defence of a particular form of democracy – what I call transformative or ameliorative democracy – which conceives of the people as a self-transformative totality. (shrink)

Judith Butler’s influential work in feminist theory is significant for its insight that sexist discourse in popular culture affects the agency and consciousness of individuals, but offers an inadequate account of how such discourse might be said to touch, shape, or affect selves. Supplementing Butler’s account of signification with a Deweyan pragmatic account of meaning-making and selective emphasis enables a consistent account of the relationship between discourse and subjectivity with a robust conception of the bodily organism. An analysis of the (...) popular discourse surrounding Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Presidential campaign demonstrates why this hybrid pragmatic/poststructuralist account is necessary. (shrink)

Confucianism’s long historical association with despotism has cast doubts on its compatibility with democracy, and raise questions about its relevance in contemporary societies increasingly dominated by democratic aspirations. “Confucian democracy” has been described as a “contradiction in terms” and Asian politicians have appropriated Confucianism to justify resistance to liberalization and democratization. There has been a lively debate over the question of whether democracy can be found in Confucianism, from ancient texts such as the Analects and Mencius, to Confucian institutions such (...) as those recommended by Song dynasty Huang Zongxi. Philosophers have examined similarities and differences between Western ideas, such as autonomy, liberty, and rights, that are central to democratic theories on the one hand and Confucian ideas of virtue, ren , yi , li , zhi , exemplary person and authority. Scholars have studied the biographical accounts of prominent Confucians to understand the Confucian ideal person and society. Works arguing that there are elements of democracy in Confucianism, or that some Confucian ideas could provide the basis for a contemporary Confucian democracy, differ in the kind of democracy they choose as models. Liberal democracy was the model of earlier works; with increasing criticisms of liberal democracy in the past decades, a growing number of works arguing for Confucian democracy seek alternatives to liberal democracies, many proposing some kind of communitarian democracy as having affinity with the Confucian philosophical orientation. Besides conceptions of democracy that view it in terms of political systems, Dewey’s conception of democracy as the idea of community and primarily a moral ideal has also inspired attempts to reconstruct Confucian democracy. (shrink)

This paper argues for the pragmatic construction of Confucian democracy by showing that Chinese philosophers who wish to see Confucianism flourish again as a positive dimension of Chinese civilization need to approach it pragmatically and democratically, otherwise their love of the past is at the expense of something else Confucius held in equal esteem, love of learning. Chinese philosophers who desire democracy for China would do well to learn from the earlier failures of the iconoclastic Westernizers, and realize that a (...) Chinese democracy cannot come about by ignoring or dismissing such an important part of China's history, its Confucian tradition. The best chances for democracy in China lie in transforming that tradition without destroying it. Eagerness to learn from others must be united with a proper appreciation of one's own past to nurture democracy as a way of life. (shrink)

Since the early 20th century, advocates of public relations professionalism have mandated that practitioners serve the public interest making it an ethical standard for evaluating the morality of public relations practice. However, the field has devoted little research to determining just what it means for practitioners to serve the public interest. Most research suggests practice-oriented solutions. This article focuses what practitioners must do to serve the public interest. It reviews theories of the social contract and the public interest to identify (...) an approach to serving the public interest that will help practitioners reconcile moral obligations to themselves, their client organizations, and the public. It concludes that combining superior individual interests with John Dewey's public philosophy will contribute to the moral development and improvement of practitioners and the public. (shrink)

(2005). Deleuze and Guattari's Last Enigmatic Message. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the french tradition issue editor: andrew aitken, pp. 151-167.

Can civic organizations be both locally rooted and globally connected? Based on a survey of 1,002 of the largest civic organizations in Hungary, we conclude that there is not a forced choice between foreign ties and domestic integration. By studying variation in types of foreign interactions and variation in types of domestic integration, our analysis goes beyond notions of footloose experts versus rooted cosmopolitans. Organizations differ in their rootedness according to whether they have ties to their members and constituents, whether (...) they have ties to other organizations in the civic sector, and whether they associate with actors from outside the civic sector. Similarly, we specify different types of foreign ties. In both domains our emphasis is on the type of action involved in the tie–especially relations of accountability and partnership. By demonstrating a systematic relationship between the patterns of foreign ties and the patterns of domestic integration, we chart three emerging forms of transnational publics. (shrink)

The nectar is in the journey, |3dotnld| ultimate goals may be illusory, nay, most likely are but a gossamer wing. Day by day, however, human life triumphs in its ineluctable capacity to hang in and make things better. Not perfect, simply better." John McDermott, Streams of Experience I investigate one manner in which classical American pragmatism might be utilized by theorists and practitioners interested in addressing urban environmental problems. Despite the widespread adoption of the sustainability moniker within the environmental movement, (...) evidence suggests that progress toward implementing urban environmental sustain ability proposals has been minimal. To address this inaction, I undertake an analysis of the philosophy of progress guiding efforts to transition urban environments toward sustainability. I argue that one of the reasons so little has been accomplished in terms of implementing existing urban environmental sustainability proposals is that a disproportionate emphasis has been placed on values that stem from economic-centered indicators of progress. I argue that the value of progress ought to be less about how much of a certain type of economic growth sustainability proposals ultimately can generate for urban environments and more about ensuring that continual incremental societal progress takes place. (shrink)

This paper aims at providing an epistemic defense of democracy based on John Dewey’s idea that democracies do not only find problems and provide solutions to them but they also articulate problems. According to this view, when citizens inquire about collective issues, they also partially shape them. This view contrasts with the standard account of democracy’s epistemic defense, according to which democracy’s is good at tracking and finding solutions that are independent of political will-formation and decision-making. It is also less (...) vulnerable to the criticisms that have been raised against the standard account. To show this, the paper develops a theory of expressive domination and argues that problem-articulation works best when it is inclusive and domination-free. It also shows that democratic conflict represents a fundamental element for problem-articulation. (shrink)

A growing genre of ‘crisis studies’ traces liberal-democratic instability to technocratic reformism and populist reaction to it. Most contributions recommend restoring economic growth, rebuilding civic culture and eschewing populist ‘us-versus-them’ narratives. This literature relies on a problematic way of thinking we label irenicism, and show to be a contemporary variant of what political realists call progressive moralizing. Irenicism portrays liberal-democracy as the product of voluntary consensus among rational individuals to sustain institutions that, by promoting endless economic growth, support universal interests (...) and values. By way of a synthesis of realist thinking and Dewey’s pragmatic approach to experimental theory-building, irenicism is shown to preserve a lacuna for political interpretation. The task for current political theory should not be to affirm old ideas in the face of new challenges. Rather, it should be to do away with ‘traditionalized’ ideas, to clear the field for experimental responses to democratic political thought and action. (shrink)

Unlike our counterparts in Europe who have rewritten their specific cultural philosophical heritage, American feminists have not yet critically reappropriated our own philosophical tradition of classical American pragmatism. The neglect is especially puzzling, given that both feminism and pragmatism explicitly acknowledge the material or cultural specificity of supposedly abstract theorizing. In this article I suggest some reasons for the neglect, call for the rediscovery of women pragmatists, reflect on a feminine side of pragmatism, and point out some common features. The (...) aim is to encourage the further development of a feminist revisioning of pragmatism and a pragmatist version of feminism. (shrink)

This article takes a parsimonious conception of a developed State operating under a minimalist conception of democracy and asks whether such a State must fully resource any tertiary (post-compulsory) education for its citizens A key public policy barrier to arguing an absolute obligation for the State to resource any tertiary education is considered; namely, the fact of scarce resources creating competing obligations for the State. This article argues even a minimalist conception of democracy requires that States fully resource some tertiary (...) (post-compulsory) education, regardless of whether directing resources away from other public needs results in the non-prevention of some avoidable suffering and death. A policy recommendation for resourcing this education is considered, and an alternative policy proposed. (shrink)

This article takes a parsimonious conception of a developed State operating under a minimalist conception of democracy and asks whether such a State must fully resource any tertiary education for its citizens A key public policy barrier to arguing an absolute obligation for the State to resource any tertiary education is considered; namely, the fact of scarce resources creating competing obligations for the State. This article argues even a minimalist conception of democracy requires that States fully resource some tertiary education, (...) regardless of whether directing resources away from other public needs results in the non-prevention of some avoidable suffering and death. A policy recommendation for resourcing this education is considered, and an alternative policy proposed. (shrink)

The pragmatist revival of recent decades has in some respects obscured the radical emancipatory potential of Deweyan pragmatism. The author suggests that neo-pragmatists such as Richard Rorty have too often failed to grasp the ways in which Dewey's notion of social intelligence was bound up with the case for participatory democracy, and that recent efforts to bring out the potential of pragmatism for supporting certain forms of feminist and gay critical theory make for a more compelling reconstruction of pragmatism.

Democratically inspired critics identify a number of problems with the contemporaryidentification of survey research and public opinion. Surveys are said tonormalize or rationalize opinion, to promote state or corporate rather thandemocratic interests, to constrain authentic forms of participation, and to forcean individualized conception of public opinion. Some of these criticisms arerelatively easily answered by survey researchers. But the criticisms contain acomplaint that survey researchers have largely failed to address: that surveyresearch discourages the public, visible, and face-to-face generation of opinion.Public opinion (...) researchers who use surveys paradoxically seek the opinions ofcitizens in private, nonpolitical situations. But nothing inherent in the methodsof survey research requires this private focus. The author argues that by reframingthe survey's unit of analysis and considering alternatives to standard,national samples in political surveys, new democratic possibilities within surveyresearch may be found. (shrink)

In this global village, it is relevant to look at two educational visionaries from two continents, John Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore. Dewey observed that the modern individual was depersonalized by the industrial and commercial culture. He, thus, envisioned a new individual who would find fulfillment in maximum individuality within maximum community, which was embodied in his democratic concept and educational philosophy. Tagore's educational vision was based on India's traditional philosophy of harmony and fullness. It focused on self-realization within the context (...) of international education. This article compares the educational visions of Dewey and Tagore and demonstrates that Tagore's international educational perspective adds to Dewey's concepts of social individual and democracy and that their perspectives have implications for contemporary education. (shrink)

Since the 1960s, scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals have developed brain–computer interface (BCI) technologies, connecting the user’s brain activity to communication or motor devices. This new technology has also captured the imagination of publics, industry, and ethicists. Academic ethics has highlighted the ethical challenges of BCIs, although these conclusions often rely on speculative or conceptual methods rather than empirical evidence or public engagement. From a social science or empirical ethics perspective, this tendency could be considered problematic and even technocratic because (...) of its disconnect from publics. In response, our trinational survey (Germany, Canada, and Spain) reports public attitudes toward BCIs (N = 1,403) on ethical issues that were carefully derived from academic ethics literature. The results show moderately high levels of concern toward agent-related issues (e.g., changing the user’s self) and consequence-related issues (e.g., new forms of hacking). Both facets of concern were higher among respondents who reported as female or as religious, while education, age, own and peer disability, and country of residence were associated with either agent-related or consequence-related concerns. These findings provide a first look at BCI attitudes across three national contexts, suggesting that the language and content of academic BCI ethics may resonate with some publics and their values. (shrink)

This article will highlight the distinctive role of Cavell in renewing a dawn of American philosophy. Following Emerson’s remark, ‘the inmost in due time becomes the outmost’, Cavell develops his distinctive line of antifoundationalist thought. To show how unique and valuable Cavell’s endeavor to resuscitate Emerson’s and Thoreau’s voice in American philosophy is, this paper discusses the political implications of Cavell’s Emersonian moral perfectionism. This involves a reconsideration of what measures justice and what justifies happiness. While Cavell is sometimes said (...) to be too personal and too subjective to be political, I shall argue that his Emersonian perfectionism, with its concomitant idea of the conversation of justice, is in fact thoroughly political and democratic. I shall illustrate this by examining his writing on a Hollywood film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). The film shows vividly that happiness is a condition for achieving democracy from within. In conclusion, I shall propose that a readiness for the risk inherent in speech, rather than, say, acquiescing in received ideas or hiding behind the words of others, is at the heart of perfectionist education for globally minded citizens. (shrink)

Contemporary scenes of democracy and education exemplify a real scepticism about the point of political participation, and by implication about one's place in society in relation to others. What is called for is a recovery of desire per se ? of people's desire to say what they want to say and their desire to participate in the creation of the public. In response, this article examines Stanley Cavell's ordinary language philosophy. The way he reconstructs philosophy from the perspective of ordinary (...) language provides us with an alternative route to citizenship. Cavell's philosophy is turned towards our existential need to recover political passion, the mainspring of a desire to think that affirms humanity as necessarily political. And in the end this existential need dovetails with the need of the polis: that people speak in their own voice. That, I shall conclude, must be the basis of education for citizenship and political literacy. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the meaning of political action by way of a dialogue between Dewey, Thoreau, and Cavell. These philosophers demonstrate possibilities of political engagement and participation. Especially in response to the psychological and emotional dimensions of political crisis today, I shall claim that American philosophy can demonstrate something beyond problem-solving as conventionally understood in politics and that it has the potential to re-place philosophy in such a manner that politics itself is changed. First, I shall draw a contrast between (...) the ways of political action demonstrated respectively by Dewey and Thoreau. Some points of divergence are revealed within American philosophy. I shall then explore the partially different sense of political action implied by Cavell’s ordinary language philosophy, identifying this as the politics of acknowledgment. Finally, I shall propose the idea of challenging inclusion as an alternative political education for human transformation, taking this as a key to changing politics. (shrink)

This paper wishes to problematize the foundations of production governance and offer an analytical perspective on the interrelation between agents’ preferences, strategic choice, and the public sphere . The value is in the idea of preferences being social in nature and in the application both to the internal stakeholders of the organisation and its impacts on people outside. Using the concept of ‘strategic failure’ we suggest that social preferences reflected in deliberative social praxis can reduce false beliefs and increase individual (...) wellbeing. From this approach, the paper offers a taxonomy of production organisations, based on social preferences about two variables: the governance form other strategic decisions that characterize the management of a company at a more operational level, once its fundamental legal form has been chosen. Each dimension is then categorised alongside two basic preferences: towards inclusion or exclusion of ‘publics’ that have no substantial access to decision power about these variables. Our framework explains governance heterogeneity by contrasting exclusive and inclusive social preferences in cooperatives, social enterprises, as well as traditional corporations. A discussion of the evolution of social preferences and organizational forms is addressed through examples and regional experiences. (shrink)

Much of what makes Hayek so controversial can be found in The Road to Serfdom, the theoretical basis of which is provided by The Counter-Revolution of Science. The first book, a polemic against the “planning mentality,” did not defend complete laissez faire, but argued that planning disrupts the coordination between prices and supply and demand; that effective planning is thus impossible in a modern industrial society; that it is coercive; and, of course, that it leads to totalitarianism. In The Counter-Revolution (...) of Science, Hayek argued that the “planning mentality” is the result of the hubristic attempt to reconstruct society along scientific lines. But the likes of Edward Bellamy envisioned a planned but free society, while John Dewey contrasted planning, where people collectively choose their goals, against a planned economy that is coercively imposed. Hayek's welcome strictures against a scientistic society and an overly ambitious social science aside, his binary approach to intellectual history distorted through oversimplification. (shrink)

The traditional distinction between basic and applied science has been much criticized in recent decades. The criticism is based on a combination of historical and systematic epistemic argument. The present paper is mostly concerned with the historical aspect. I argue that the critics impose an understanding at odds with the way the distinction was understood by its supporters in debates on science education and science policy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And I show how a distinction that refers to (...) difference on several epistemic and social dimensions makes good sense of representative historical cases. If this argument is tenable it suggests more continuity in the epistemology and politics of science than has been claimed by a new paradigm of science studies and politics during recent decades. (shrink)

Social positioning theory, in defending a general social ontology, is a particular extension of critical realism. It is a theory of social constitution that clarifies how items including human bein...

: One of the most influential branches of nineteenth-century American feminism was a resistance movement committed to the idea that the key to social reform was the recognition and maintenance of human differences. This approach, which became central to American pragmatism, had its roots in a tradition of American women writers including Lydia Maria Child. This paper examines Child's work and focuses on her conception of pluralism and its role in sustaining diverse communities.

Growth, the central concept in Dewey's ethical naturalism, is typically ignored in commentary on his philosophic analyses. When growth is overlooked, as it is by some of Dewey's most competent reviewers, his treatment of other concepts such as democracy and equality cannot be fully appreciated or understood. Underestimating the pivotal role of growth in Dewey's thinking weakens his account of philosophic naturalism, in which there is current interest in the philosophic literature. It is Dewey's concept of growth and the analyses (...) radiating from it that makes his work significant for the present century. (shrink)

John Dewey’s famous early twentieth-century account of the relationship between education as growth and democratic societies, presented in Democracy and Education, was later rejected by him, because it failed to properly identify the role of societal structures in growth and experience. In the later Ethics, Dewey attempts to correct that omission, and adumbrates the argument required to reconstruct his theory, which is an appeal to the role of institutions in individual growth and experience. It is the contention of this paper (...) that the inadequacy Dewey finds in his early account is more comprehensively explained by means of recent analyses in philosophy of society, especially John Searle’s ontological analysis. Following in Dewey’s direction, a more complete analysis of the role of society in the theory of growth is presented in terms of the deontological analysis of institutions. It is suggested that the current analyses in philosophy of society provide the means for the completion of Dewey’s views of both growth and experience, making Dewey’s account more useful today than it was a century ago. (shrink)

The article questions concepts of ‘democratic peace’ that presuppose an intrinsic relation between pacifism and democracy. This view lacks from both, empirical evidence and historical insight. Instead, pacifism as political and personal virtue can be better linked to the Deweyan idea of democracy as the basic way of life, that is, mutual cooperation and self-realisation. But not only pacifism but also warfare and aggressive conduct often are rooted and result in an ethos of solidarity and cooperation. Therefore, the task for (...) any realistic concept of democratic pacifism is at least two-fold: finding ‘moral equivalents’ to war and cultivating an ethos of self-criticism and self-restraint as already the Old Testament’s prophets have proclaimed. (shrink)

This article intervenes in the debate on populism and democratic reform. Assuming that neither progressive populist counter-projects nor reforms broadening participation or deepening deliberation provide an immediate and realistic solution to the problematic political condition, the article engages with John Dewey’s work and presents a democratic praxis focused on problem solving as the most promising remedy to the populist challenge. The analysis shows that Dewey conceptualizes human action as inherently focused on problem solving, which allows him to think democracy as (...) an associated activity to articulate and solve problems through public inquiry. Drawing on the critique that powerful groups prevent democratic problem solving activities, I develop his argument that a problem-centred democratic project must attach itself to ‘wants and interests that are actually operating’. Against this backdrop, the pragmatic way forward to the repression of populist authoritarianism lies in the expansion of democratic problem solving, which, I conclude, can be realized by interweaving intelligent action into the habits of democratic parties. (shrink)

In this special issue, we draw on pragmatist political and social theory and philosophy to illustrate the creative potential of this intellectual tradition for thinking about the numerous crises that haunt liberal democratic societies today. The introduction identifies five overlapping problem constellations (demise of public power, lasting consequences of inequality, pluralization of society, return of authoritarian practices and globalization of the world) that have driven the recent rise of undemocratic or authoritarian patterns of social organization and political rule. Against this (...) backdrop, we conclude that the revitalization of certain dimensions of liberal democracy will not suffice to overcome these problems, which means that democratic practices need radical rethinking and reconceptualization. For this intellectual and political endeavour, we argue, pragmatism provides a suitable framework to identify problems that require resolution and define and mobilize collective problem solving capacities from already existing practices. All eight contributions to this special issue draw on pragmatist political and social theory and philosophy to illustrate to what extent, and to what ends, this intellectual tradition can revitalize the political and social discourse on the past, present and future of democracy. The articles are organized in two sections : (1) Pragmatist critique and the critical potential of pragmatism, (2) pragmatist politics and theories of democratic practice. (shrink)

This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of ‘publics’, including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of ‘publics’ might create competing normative demands, its (...) acknowledgment is necessary to withstand the monopolization of the process of technology appraisal. The paper presents four ways in which such an appropriation of publicness takes place. The creation of dedicated ‘local publics’, in contrast, helps to overcome these problems and allows for more responsible forms of decision-making. We describe ‘local publics’ as those in which stakeholders from the different publics that are related to the process of technology implementation are brought together, and in which concerns and issues from these publics are deliberated upon. The paper will present eight conditions for increasing the effectiveness of such ‘local publics’. (shrink)

This essay explores the conception of the individual in Dewey's democratic writings. Following Dewey's lead, I argue that it is human individuality, including our impulses, habits, and capacities, along with an appropriate environment, that represents the uniqueness and power of every individual. In achieving our individuality, we form habits to live and to grow; we strive toward a fully realized human being, while we perform a unique function in keeping the community growing. Dewey's theory of self-construction provides a theoretical foundation (...) for an active-individual as-a-societal-contributor-always-in-the -making that in turn contributes to the improvement of educational opportunities for all people. (shrink)

Political consumerism is consumer choice beyond self-interest. Allegedly blurring the public–private threshold and overcoming the limits of traditional politics, it epitomizes in many respects late modern governance. Reflecting on the meaning and scope of consumer political agency, scholarship has engaged with the governmentality perspective. Important studies have ensued, together with irresolvable disputes and a neglect of the relationship that consumers establish with their objects of concern. To address this question, and drawing on the philosophical contributions of Roberto Esposito, the article (...) elaborates on the notion of immunization. Being immune means having nothing in common with others, no obligations towards them. This analytical register may significantly broaden our understanding of current changes in political agency. A review of three main issues (responsibility-taking, downshifting, and the public) shows that the paradox of political consumerism – like other forms of governance that replace political obligations with private autonomies – is that it endeavours to (re)establish or strengthen the communal ties while at the same time using immunization as its fundamental resource. (shrink)

This article gives voice to student activists who participated in the 2014 Hong Kong pro-democracy Occupy movement, also known as the Umbrella Movement. It provides an alternative perspective from which to view those events. We want to examine how the activism impacted students’ understanding of their involvement and identity. We argue that it is necessary to interpret the experiences and voices of the leaders of the movement in light of other Asian student movements. We start by establishing parallels with various (...) student movements across Asia over the last century: the May Fourth student movement ; the Beijing student movement preceding the Tiananmen incident ; the Sunflower Movement of Taiwan and its rejection of the very notion of ‘Cross-Strait’; and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. We argue that civil disobedience by Hong Kong students existed before the street barricades of the Umbrella Movement, and already constituted a public, in a Deweyan sense. We further argue that the Umbrella Movement brought about a deep change in the self-image of Hong Kong students, and other education stakeholders’ political culture, and that its impact was felt beyond local boundaries. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to see how Jon Stewart and his Daily Show colleagues hold traditional broadcast media accountable. This paper suggests Stewart is holding those who claim they are practicing journalism accountable to the public they claim to serve and outlines the normative implications of that accountability. There is a journalistic norm that media practitioners, and the media as a whole, should be accountable to the public. Here, accountability “refers to the process by which media are called (...) to account for meeting their obligations” (McQuail, 1997, p. 515). However, the government cannot enforce this accountability due to privileges afforded to the press by the First Amendment. Further, while national press councils have been effective in other countries, specifically India, there is no national press council in the United States. Enforcing accountability, then, falls to journalists—along with press critics. The researchers suggest that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart holds traditional broadcast media accountable in four distinct ways. (shrink)

We consider the prospect of a trans-Atlantic alliance for a social theory of critical pragmatism, seeking the specific value that French critical pragmatism can offer American pragmatists, and vice versa. We proceed through a discussion of the ontological and metho- dological keys to French critical pragmatism: the architecture of justification, the treatment of conflict in public disputes, the dynamics of argumentation, and the play of acts defined analytically as ‘test’ and ‘compromise’. At each level, we compare this approach to Deweyan (...) pragmatism. (shrink)

The dominant social scientific approach to studying judicial behavior treats judges as strategic actors pursuing their political preferences under institutional constraint. The intellectual roots of this rational choice approach are in American law’s long but sporadic engagement with pragmatist ideas. This article challenges that approach: a fully pragmatist account of judicial action provides a better description of the intellectual and social work of judging, and better explains how judges reach a decision in difficult cases that most affect the development of (...) law and its relationship to society. The article argues that the foundational intellectual problem for appellate judges is how to define the legal questions presented in a case. Definitions of legal questions arise from the interplay of habitual and creative action in the local social context of an appeals court. Professional and local interpretive habits and legal forms ordinarily do a great deal to define the key questions, which are not strictly determined when a case comes before a court. Unscripted small group interactions at oral arguments also figure in question definition; oral arguments are most important in the rare but legally important cases where habitual practices alone are insufficient to delimit the legal question judges must answer. Supported by extensive interviews with federal appeals judges and clerks, the article illustrates judges’ creative, interactional efforts to define an answerable question in a major asylum case decided in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Building from this case, the article describes the factors that shape judicial question definition, and describes the conditions when creative judicial action is likely to be most prominent. (shrink)

The challenge of realizing the democratic power of publics through public sphere remains acute but not hopeless. While claiming that Habermas communicative social theory offers a way forward in spite of a productive but constraining turn towards a modified social liberal frame, nonetheless three limitations of the theory are identified. The first bears on the insufficiency of the sociological evolutionist description of society relevant to the public sphere drawn from classical sociological accounts of differentiation and integration. The second identifies learning (...) theoretical limitations of the normative interactionist, proceduralist account of democracy and democratization potentials. And the third observes on the disconnection between the theory of communicative reasoning from, on the one hand, the critique of pathologies of reasoning, and, on the other, from its implications for lifeworld rationalization. These identified limitations are intended to provide new impetus to radically rethink the public sphere as intrinsic to solving contemporary problems of democracy that Habermas’s more recent account of deliberative theory, with the public sphere merely supplementary, cannot fully do. Yet, with Habermas, this should be on the basis of advancing the communication theory of democracy. (shrink)

National Action Plans on business and human rights are a growing phenomenon. Since 2011, 42 such plans have been adopted or are in-development worldwide. By comparison, only 39 general human rights action plans were published between 1993 and 2021. In parallel, NAPs have attracted growing scholarly interest. While some studies highlight their potential to advance national compliance with international norms, others criticise NAPs as cosmetic devices that states use to deflect attention from persisting abuses and needed regulation. In response to (...) wider critiques of international human rights norms, and their failure to exact universal state compliance, experimentalist governance theory highlights the dynamic, dialogic and iterative character of human rights implementation as well as the role of stakeholders. In this article, we apply experimentalist governance theory to evaluate the role and character of business and human rights NAPs. Rather than attempting to evaluate NAPs’ ultimate consequences for rights-holders, which appears premature, we focus on NAPs processes. Specifically, we analyse NAPs processes in twenty-five states against five experimentalist governance criteria relating to stakeholder participation; agreement on a broad problem definition; local contextualisation; monitoring and peer review and periodic revision and learning. According to our findings, NAPs on business and human rights in most states demonstrate resemblance to the traits of experimentalist governance. In particular, our analysis points to the emergence of relatively sophisticated and demanding institutional governance mechanisms within NAPs — including the institutionalisation of complex deliberative processes. Nevertheless, our paper also identifies some significant shortcomings in NAPs, related to the lack of inclusion of vulnerable groups and the lack of explicit indicators and targets. (shrink)

This paper explores the marginalized practice of sportswriting to demonstrate the limited ways in which the question "who is a journalist?" has been answered within the profession. Following John Dewey and Raymond Williams, we offer an alternative view of democratic culture that values narrative as well as information. We also discuss how "New Journalists" (and other writers since), in their quest for fresh, sophisticated storytelling strategies, turned to sports as a cultural activity worthy of serious examination. Our goal is to (...) demonstrate that sportswriting fundamentally resembles other forms of reporting and that journalism should not use sports as an ethical straw man against which to defend the virtue of its serious work. This suspension of our usual ethical judgments would deepen our sense of the moral significance of sportswriting and allow us to rethink journalism's relation to democratic culture in productive new ways. (shrink)

Inspired by the thinking of authors such as Andrew Feenberg, Tim Ingold and Richard Sennett, this article sets forth substantial criticism of the ‘social uprooting of technology’ paradigm, which deterministically considers modern technology an autonomous entity, independent and indifferent to the social world (practices, skills, experiences, cultures, etc.). In particular, the authors’ focus on demonstrating that the philosophy,methodology and experience linked to open source technological development represent an emblematic case of re-encapsulation of the technical code within social relations (reskilling practices). (...) Open source is discussed as a practice, albeit not unique, of community empowerment aimed at the participated and shared rehabilitation of technological production ex-ante. Furthermore, the article discusses the application of open source processes in the agro-biotechnological field, showing how they may support a more democratic endogenous development, capable of binding technological innovation to the objectives of social (reducing inequalities) and environmental sustainability to a greater degree. (shrink)