Political Power

The thesis explores potential challenges and opportunities for blockchains and International Relations (IR). The thesis also explores how IR can help understand blockchains as new conceptual phenomena. The thesis broadly questions: what do blockchains mean for IR? And, what does IR mean for blockchains? Institutions and power are taken to be significant for the exploration because they represent crucial IR concepts. Blockchains are explored as regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutions and as compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive power. Blockchains are argued to provide challenges and opportunities for discipline of IR and the practice of international relations. IR can understand blockchains through the concepts of institutions and power.

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

Au moment de son élection, Emmanuel Macron a été présenté comme l’homme d’un « nouveau monde » qui devait remplacer les pratiques anciennes. Mais, du point de vue de ses rapports avec la presse, c’est au contraire avec un très ancien monde que ce jeune président a d’emblée voulu renouer. Il apparaît en effet comme l’héritier assumé des monarques républicains qui l’ont précédé, au point que le terme « Jupiter » lui-même est emprunté au double septennat de François Mitterrand.
Après un quinquennat Hollande marqué par des échanges incessants avec les journalistes, la « saine distance » voulue par Emmanuel Macron a dans un premier temps été bien accueillie. Mais cette attitude s’est très vite transformée en mépris et elle a conduit le Président à des erreurs, tel son comportement impérieux au moment de l’affaire Benalla. Son cas est loin de constituer une exception, puisque la logique même des institutions de la Ve République se prête à des rapports tendus entre le chef de l’État et la presse : du général de Gaulle à François Hollande, tous les prédécesseurs d’Emmanuel Macron ont ainsi été tentés, un jour ou l’autre, de mettre les journalistes au pas.
Le risque est cependant réel, lorsque Jupiter cherche à imposer ses vues à Mercure, de saper les fondements de sa propre légitimité. Conscient sans doute de ce péril, et comme l’ont fait ses devanciers les plus habiles, le Président a consenti à de réelles inflexions après les épreuves qui ont marqué le début de son mandat. Mais, comme le montre cet essai, son attitude envers la presse n’a changé qu’en surface : même s’il a renoncé à employer ce mot, Emmanuel Macron restera sans doute jusqu’au bout un président « jupitérien ».

[Resumen] Los fundamentos de la política moderna han cambiado desde las visiones de la Grecia clásica, centrados en una visión más expansiva del ser humano como un ser político, hasta las visiones modernas, basadas en la teoría del contrato social, el consentimiento político y la creación de instituciones representativas. Hay dos conceptos clave que articulan los fundamentos de la política moderna. Por un lado, el concepto de Poder. En este capítulo se analizan distintas teorías sobre cómo funciona, cómo se organiza y cómo se estudia el poder político en las sociedades modernas. Por otro lado, el concepto de Legitimidad. En el texto se describe cómo la Legimitidad es un mecanismo normativo y práctico que ha servido para intentar superar las limitaciones del concepto de Legalidad política propio de los clásicos Estados de Derecho.

The Social and Economical Bases of Evolution in the Hegemonic Political Discourses of the Islamic Republic of Iran


مبانی اجتماعی و اقتصادی تحول در گفتمان های سیاسی مسلط در جمهوری اسلامی ایران

Abstract:
Iran's revolution was a prelude to the rise of a modern system in the world's contemporary political history. This new system emerged without having any sample or version. This article in addition to identifying the sub-discourses of this system, is trying to find the roots of their rise and fall. In fact this research has focused on this question that what is the main reason of the hegemonic discourses' becoming and evolution in the political system of Iran's Islamic Republic area? The research's hypothesis, to answer this question, searches the root of these becoming and evolutions in the social and economical fields and shows that the society's social and economical evolutions, cause the evolutions in its political discourses. From the other hand, it shows that in the shade of the international interactions, these processes have been affected and reinforced. The research's hypothesis has been investigated in the framework of Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe's discourse theory with some roots of Fairclough's discursive reading.



Key words:
Hegemonic political discourse, Islamic Revolution, Islamic Republic, social bases, economical bases

History never repeats itself but it is surprising how often it rhymes. Although the ‘new politics’ narrative, promoting a stark institutional and cultural shift away from the power-hoarding and adversarial system of politics and government, has been a constant theme of British politics for several decades there has been surprisingly little change at the national level. This might, at first glance, appear a counterintuitive line of reasoning in light of, inter alia, the introduction of devolution, incorporation of the European Charter of Human Rights (ECHR) and the establishment of a Supreme Court. And yet the critical dimension of the reform agenda does not lie in the individual institutional reforms, but in the superstructure: the reform agenda was constructed within and conditioned by the precepts of the Westminster model.

... View all references; Lebow 200332. Lebow, Richard Ned. 2003. The tragic vision of politics , Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. [CrossRef] View all references) or even postpositivists (see Peterson 199951. Petersen, Ulrik Enemark. 1999. ...

La personnalisation charismatique du pouvoir, l’emploi de la télé-politique désormais sur internet, l’antiélitisme rampant, les débats participatifs (face-à-face ou en ligne), la fièvre référendaire, les flash-mobs citoyens et populaires, la « people-isation » de l’espace publique, l’exaltation des vertus des gens ordinaires – voilà une liste trop courte des évolutions qui ont eu lieu tant en Russie qu’aux Etats-Unis, tant au Brésil qu’en Indonésie, tant en France qu’en Roumanie. Avec cette prolifération des formes alternatives d’expression collective et de communication publique, la logique populiste (ou plutôt néo-populiste) se fraye un large chemin grâce à sa flexibilité (« fourre-tout ») et à sa disponibilité de prendre les individus et, donc, le Peuple, tel qu’il est.
Dans cet essai, l’auteur offre une grille d’analyse du phénomène populiste et du passage du populisme au néo-populisme en employant une méthodologie qui relève de la théorie du discours.

In this paper I will present and also analyze the context of the elections from December 1937. I perceived the context of the elections as a game of power involving many variables and in which the main actors were, on the one hand, the King Carol II, who tried to control the political parties, and, on the other hand, some of the leaders of the traditional political parties who acted as a counterparty and chosen to maximize their chances in relation to the growing influence that the Sovereign manifests on the political scene.

This chapter seeks to understand the concept of new media in the Arab world and how politics in the information age has changed Arab politics and moved citizens to the streets. However, the evolution of new media social networks and the cause of political information in particular during the revolution will not be studied alone. In fact, the evolution of the Arab Spring and the effects of new media social networks will be taken into account, by exploring how politics in the information age has influenced Arab citizens and allowed them to use information for the greater good and established such a new social movement. This chapter takes the Arab Spring as a case study and an empirical example to understand the transnational protests and global movements, the concept of global media and global politics in the case of the Arab Spring, new media and new politics regarding the Arab Spring, city and street and public sphere as people power in the information age, finally, the chapter distinguishes between the new social movements through social networks and the roles of ICTs to aim revolution and whether such a revolution will erupt without new media social networks. http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/political-information-political-power-and-people-power/110668

In this paper I examine how Hobbes’ philosophy can be read from an Arendtian perspective. I argue that Arendt provided two different interpretations of Hobbes: one set down in The Origins of Totalitarianism, where Hobbes is depicted as the spokesman of the emerging bourgeoisie; and another that she developed later, scattered among various texts such as The Human Condition and Between Past and Future. I focus on this second interpretation and on her analysis of concepts such as common sense, authority and sovereignty. Firstly, I examine how she changes the meaning of common sense, and how this shift is linked to what Arendt understands by the expression “estrangement from the world.” Secondly, I explain how Hobbes redefined the concept of authority and how his notion of sovereignty deliberately conflated the dual concepts of authority and power.

Link: https://brill.com/abstract/journals/hobs/32/1/article-p71_71.xml

Further research on this topic can be read here:
https://www.academia.edu/30502447/Ph._D._Hannah_Arendt_on_the_question_of_authority_Concluding_Remarks_

Or here: https://www.academia.edu/31488906/Hannah_Arendt._Una_lectura_desde_la_autoridad_Tesis_doctoral_

Russia's premier, Vladimir Putin has garnered various opinions regarding his leadership and handling of state affairs with many arguing that he is bringing Russia to be a major player in power politics. This paper examines the motivations behind Putin's foreign, arguing that the main motivation behind Russian foreign policy today is the drive to restore Russia as one of the world's great powers. This paper will take into account all the events that unfolded during both of Putin's tenancy as president.

This article draws on identity construction, emotions and a notion of productive power to address the question of why Swedish policymakers and public opinion are becoming increasingly supportive of NATO membership. It contributes theoretically by arguing that such textual phenomena intertwine with 'disciplinary power', which operates on the bodies of the subjects of power, exposing them to verbal and physical sanctions, a host of complex feelings and enhanced levels of self-disciplining. The article analyses 354 editorials and op-eds related to Sweden and NATO, published in the four biggest Swedish newspapers in 2014-2018; 1408 tweets, with a focus on 14 selected NATO campaigners and their advocacy; and semi-structured interviews with 12 such influencers. It concludes that Swedish NATO campaigners produce and negotiate emotional discourses in a way that targets other influencers and potential influencers by exposing them to ridicule and allegations of treason. While tendencies are similar on both sides of the debate, the article demonstrates that productive power currently intertwines with disciplinary power in a way that makes anti-NATO advocacy seem more fraught with personal risk than pro-NATO campaigning, and joining NATO appear to be the most normal, realistic and responsible policy option.

The actorness of the European Union (EU) has been an ongoing debate in the literature since the first years of the EU's foundation. Putting the debate of the EU's being a civilian or military power aside, this study tries to answer the question of whether the EU is a 'normative power' as claimed or this discourse is just a matter of meta-narrative. Through the example of the farewell speech delivered by Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the Commission from 2014 to 2019, during a debate in the European Parliament (EP), the study aims at understanding and exposing the sings of the fall of normative power Europe discourse. The speech is analysed on the basis of the relevant literature on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and normative power Europe. As defined in the literature, discourse is a practice that is more than representing or signifying the world; it is also used to construct the world in meaning, as seen in the example of normative power Europe discourse. In this context, discourse is a sort of power that can result in dominance or inequality, which CDA makes visible or more visible for the people. To base the arguments of the study, CDA is used along with the prominent views on normative power Europe discourse.

Questo articolo parte dalla ricostruzione del modello aristotelico di amicizia fornita nel ‘Brief of the Art of Rhetorique’ e dai motivi della critica hobbesiana a questo modello per esaminare il modo in cui l’amicizia lavora nel discorso antropologico, etico e politico di Hobbes. In un primo momento mostra che l’amicizia rappresenta un potere e che la specificità dei rapporti amicali è costituita dalla loro natura egualitaria ed extra-contrattuale, nonché dalla corrispondenza di dono e gratitudine attraverso la quale si compie lo scambio di poteri e di onori. In un secondo momento si concentra sull’aspetto morale del problema, mettendo in evidenza il nesso tra l’amicizia e quella capacità di mettersi l’uno al posto dell’altro che costituisce il cuore di tutta la concezione hobbesiana della legge naturale. Infine, sottolinea il possibile pericolo politico dei vincoli particolaristici che l’amicizia è in grado di cementare e dalle forme di cooperazione che essa è in grado di promuovere nonostante e contro lo Stato.

Keywords: Hobbes, amicizia, potere, dono, legge naturale, politica

This study starts from the ‘reconstruction’ of the Aristotelian model of friendship, found in the ‘Brief of the Art of Rhetorique’, and the reasons behind Hobbes’s criticism of this model. It then moves on to examine the way friendship works in Hobbes’s anthropological, ethical and political discourse. First, Hobbes’s discourse shows that friendship represents power, and that the specificity of friendly relationships is their equalitarian and non-contractual nature, as well as, the correspondence of gifts and gratitude through which an exchange of power and honours is achieved. Second, it focuses on the moral aspect of the problem highlighting the link between friendship and the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, which constitutes the heart of the whole of the Hobbesian conception of natural law. Finally, it emphasises the possible political danger of the bonds which friendship can cement and the forms of cooperation that it is able to promote in spite of and against the State.

Keywords: Hobbes, friendship, power, natural law, politics

The concept of soft power occupies a prominent place in International Relations, foreign policy, and security studies. Primarily developed by Joseph S. Nye, the concept is typically drawn upon to emphasize the more intangible dimensions of power in a field long dominated by overtly material (i.e. military) power. Recently, some scholars have reframed soft power — specifically the key notion of attraction — as a narrative and linguistic process. This literature, however, has downplayed some of the other deep-seated underpinnings of soft power, which this article argues lie in the dynamics of affect. Building upon the International Relations affect and aesthetics literatures, this article develops the concept of soft power as rooted in the political dynamics of emotion and introduces the concept of affective investment. The attraction of soft power stems not only from its cultural influence or narrative construction, but more fundamentally from audiences’ affective investments in the images of identity that it produces. The empirical import of these ideas is offered in an analysis of the construction of American attraction in the war on terror.

An analysis (in Croatian) of the discourses articulated in public and the politics surrounding the affirmative parliamentary voting on the Istanbul Convention in Croatia, which was then ratified. The article maps four key discourses as well as four peripheral ones in the process, and then traces the formation of a strange discourse coalition of the nominally left and right forces, which formed around the dominant discourse of violence against women. Some paradoxical precepts from Foucault’s The Will to Knowledge seem to be corroborated: rationality of tactics which precedes those of strategies as well as the idea of tactical polyvalence of discourse. Anyhow, the article is a part of much larger and more explicitly normative research which argues for penal republicanism against witch-hunts and recent trends of ideologically driven feudalization of penal policy. I hope it will one day be published as a sequel to my earlier book State and Crime.

Unlike the previous administrations, Duterte veers away from leaning towards or depending to United States. Last November 20-21, Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed 29 deals during the Chinese leader’s state visit. These agreements include MOU of cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, oil and gas development, MOU between the Foreign Service Institute of the Philippines and the China Foreign Affairs University, Infrastructure cooperation program, and the other 25 deals. Current administration has been blatant in expressing their tolerance on the recent aggressions of China in the disputed area.

I will discuss the past foreign policies of Philippines and its current state under the regime of Duterte. The paper also provided a glimpse of implications of this policy shift towards the global powers specifically US and China. US can lose its established allies with China’s strategic foreign policy especially towards the states involved in the maritime disputes such as Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. However, even though China got Philippines’ side, Japan, a strong ally of US, is still there strengthening its military ties with Philippines. Consequently, despite Duterte’s reasoning that bilateral diplomacy with China, his decision to separate from US in military and economic aspect is a risky move because there is no assurance that US perceive Philippines as a crucial actor in the power race with China. The country might end up helpless, sacrificing our sovereignty and economic stability, after a certain period of time.
Duterte has aggressive and firm pronouncements on its close relations with China and separation from US. Duterte might be taking advantage of the clashes between the two global powers knowing that Southeast Asian countries are crucial areas for dominance; however, as a small country, if war happens, the country will always end up entrapped with no upper hand in place.

The festive dinners featured special occasions of interaction while establishing friendly connections between hosts and guests. In Moldavia and Wallachia, during the 17th and 18th centuries, these were a reason of great joy and several opportunities for relaxation, both culinary and artistic. The artistic side, manifested mainly through music and dance, included several ways of conveyance. One of them was represented by the military music, aiming at introducing diners, announcing the arrival of various dishes and marking various stages of the meal, such as the toasting ritual. Another one was the varied environmental Turkish music dedicated to the prince's reign, the waiters' music or peasants' acapella, while various indigenous or foreign dances, together with the accompanying music, represented a means of artistic expression. Regardless of the political context and the diversity of the people, the music was a symbol of the ruling power and a way to manifest it during the meals.

Rentier state theory has often been used by scholars to understand Arab Gulf states’ policies. Yet, this dissertation argues that rentier state theory does not fully explain how oil is employed as a political tool by the Arab Gulf states to benefit their regimes. Rentier state theory cannot effectively examine the political nature of oil outside of domestic politics, particularly in state development and economic diversification and foreign policy.
To articulate this point, the dissertation will apply rentier state theory, realism, and neoliberal institutionalism across these aforementioned subject areas pertaining to Gulf government policies. First, by examining the 2011 Arab Spring, rentier state theory will be applied to understand the significance of oil in domestic politics. Second, in order to expose rentier state theory’s gaps, both realism and rentier state theory will analyse the use of oil in state development, while realism will explain the Gulf states’ economic diversification attempts from the 1970s onwards. Third, realism and neoliberal institutionalism will examine the foreign policies of Gulf states, both from a regional perspective and from a wider external perspective. Ultimately, the dissertation will expose the shortfalls of rentier state theory in its analysis of oil and Gulf politics.

Communication decisively impacts upon all our lives. This inherent need to connect may either be soothing or painful, a source of intimate understanding or violent discord. Consequently, how it is brokered is challenging and often crucial in situations where those involved have quite different ways of being in and seeing the world. Good communication is equated with skills that intentionally facilitate change, the realisation of desirable outcomes and the improvement of human situations. Withdrawal of communication, or its intentional manipulation, provokes misunderstanding, mistrust, and precipitates the decline into disorder. This international collection of work specifically interrogates conflict as an essential outworking of communication, and suggests that understanding of communication’s potency in contexts of conflict can directly influence reciprocally positive outcomes.

Publicado en el libro "Aporías de la democracia", Ricardo Espinoza y Jordi Riba (editores). Ediciones Terra Ignota.
Un mayor desarrollo de esta cuestión puede ser leído aquí: https://www.academia.edu/31488906/Hannah_Arendt._Una_lectura_desde_la_autoridad_Tesis_doctoral_

Eurovision since its establishing date 1956, beyond being a music entertainment show, but more like as a global event,  it has always been important since it has served as a place for countries to cultural struggle and prove their existence in European Union which serves as a crucial factor for all countries to ensure their place in Europe and for branding their identity. This study examines the soft power in Eurovision, in the context of politics and political blocs that have arranged among European Countries over the years among with how voting system turns out to be an advantage or disadvantage for various EU countries. The most influential EU member countries, in other words, “Big Four” countries play an executive role every year when it comes to voting, we can understand that what it means to be European, as geographically and culturally has shaped by the “Big Four” in a large manner. When in voting, countries can become a “bloc” mainly for protecting their political and financial interest and that can lead to an unequal exchange of points that can be seen as a huge issue.
Soft power has always been there for countries to hold prestige, political power and open new priveledges depend politically such as EU membership, or financially and they also prove their political strength by the hidden messages in their performances on the stage or in their song lyrics. The results they get eventually reflect the media coverages and this makes sense. So Turkey’s 2003 Eurovision Victory was examined in order to find that what kind of opportunities did Turkey like a non-EU country get, how soft power worked there and how the ranking happened that night, how the voting blocs shaped like and how was it discussed among the national and international media. By understanding Turkey’s 2003 position, we can better understand and thus fill the gaps in the problem of the invisible political power game and the related advantages and disadvantages that every participating country faces.

Keywords: soft power, identity politics, Eurovision Song Contest, Europeanness, national identity, political power, cultural struggle