Communitarianism

The Emerging Neo-Communitarianism

by Will Davies

Forthcoming in Political Quarterly, 83: 4 Oct-Dec 2012 http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0032-3179

The financial crisis which began in 2007 has been widely interpreted as a crisis of neoliberalism, akin to the crisis... more The financial crisis which began in 2007 has been widely interpreted as a crisis of neoliberalism, akin to the crisis of Keynesianism of the 1970s. But there is little sign of a major paradigmatic alternative, either in theory in practice. This article looks at how the crises and failures of neoliberalism are occurring at a micro-policy level, where they are interpreted in terms of the fallibility of individual rational choice. Policy responses to this crisis, drawing on more psychologically nuanced accounts of economic behaviour, can be described as ‘neo-communitarian’, inasmuch as they echo the communitarian critique of the liberal self. Where neoliberalism rests on a vision of the individual as atomised and rational, neo-communitarianism treats individuals as governed by social norms and incentives simultaneously. And where neoliberalism subjects individuals to periodic audit organised around targets and outputs, neo-communitarianism conducts a constant audit of behavioural fluctuations in real time.

Comunità, immunità, apertura verso l’alterità: una biopolitica affermativa e oltre-umana?

by Giacomo Pezzano

Published in "Trópos. Rivista di ermeneutica e critica filosofica”, IV, 2, 2011, pp. 167-184

Roberto Esposito claims that biopolitics characterizes the entire modernity, and that it is built on the immunity... more Roberto Esposito claims that biopolitics characterizes the entire modernity, and that it is built on the immunity dispositive. Im-munity is the negation of the munus which animates and builds com-munity: inside the immunitarian paradigm, thinking politics and ontology is considering men as ab-solutes beings, without any kind of engagement to each other, inhabited by a vacuum to deny. Esposito believes this means shaping an anthropological paradigm (systematized by philosophical anthropology in the 20th century) in which man is thought to be distinct from the animal since he is capable of denying his own nature and, more generally, his relationship with the world and the other beings – that is, a paradigm in which community has no ‘positive’ place. In order to overcome the immunitarian paradigm, we need to define the outlines of an affirmative biopolitics, a politics ‘of ’ life and not ‘on’ life. This biopolitical shift requires the understanding of the ‘flow of life,’ of its everlasting and unprotected openness: Esposito claims that life is impersonal and intrinsically normative, over-human and perpetually exposed to the ‘outside.’ Finally, this perspective leaves open a crucial question: can over-man exist without man?

Is John Dewey a Communitarian?

by Jason Kosnoski

Contributo alla critica della giuridsizione del bene comune a partire dal diritto romano

by Giacomo Pezzano

Published in “Koiné”, XVIII, nn. 1-3, gennaio-giugno 2011, pp. 211-220

Il paradigma dell’antropologia filosofica tra immunità e apertura al mondo

by Giacomo Pezzano

Published in in “Dialegesthai. Rivista telematica di filosofia”, XIII, luglio 2011

The paradigm of the Philosophical Anthropology is not an "immunitarian" one: in fact, it makes possible to... more The paradigm of the Philosophical Anthropology is not an "immunitarian" one: in fact, it makes possible to think the human being as characterized by "Mitweltoffenheit"

Review of 'Virtue and Politics: Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Arsitotelianism' edited by Kelvin Knight and Paul Blackledge

by Jan Kandiyali

This review if forthcoming in the Journal of Moral Philosophy

What is Jewish (If Anything) about Isaiah Berlin’s Philosophy?

by Arie Dubnov

part of a Special Issue: " Between Religion and Ethnicity: Twentieth-Century Jewish Émigrés and the Shaping of Postwar Culture". Published in Religions vol. 3, no. 2: pp. 289-319.

This paper has two central aims: First, to reappraise Isaiah Berlin’s political thought in a historically... more This paper has two central aims: First, to reappraise Isaiah Berlin’s political thought in a historically contextualized way, and in particular: to pay attention to a central conceptual tensions which animates it between, on the one hand, his famous definition of liberalism as resting on a negative concept of liberty and, on the other, his defense of cultural nationalism in general and Zionism in particular. Second, to see what do we gain and what do we lose by dubbing his philosophy Jewish. The discussion will proceed as follows: after describing the conceptual tension (Section 1), I will examine Berlin’s discussion of nationalism and explain why comparisons between him and Hans Kohn as well as communitarian interpretations of him are incomplete and have limited merit. I will continue with a brief discussion of Berlin’s Jewishness and Zionism (Section 3) and explain why I define this position “Diaspora Zionism”. The two concluding sections will discuss Berlin’s place within a larger Cold War liberal discourse (Section 5) and why I find it problematic to see his political writings as part of a Jewish political tradition (Section 6).
Keywords: Berlin, Isaiah (1909–1997); Kohn, Hans (1891–1971); Namier, Lewis B. (1880–1960); Shklar, Judith N. (1928–1992); nationalism; communitarianism; Cold War liberalism; Jewish political tradition

Social Housing Renewal and the Private Sector: Tenant participation as an invited space

by Dallas Rogers

5th Australasian Housing Researchers’ Conference
17-­19th November 2010,
University of Auckland, New Zealand

This paper argues that place-based participation strategies, deployed by housing authorities as components of public... more This paper argues that place-based participation strategies, deployed by housing authorities as components of public housing estate redevelopment projects, are increasingly positioned within market-centric, technocratic and neo-communitarian (deFilippis, 2007) understandings of urban governance. This neoliberal understanding creates certain ‘conditions of possibility’ (Foucault,1969) that shape and constrain the participation and consultation strategies deployed by housing authorities. These place-based participation strategies render invisible the ideological effects of neoliberalism, the market and the workings of capital by seeking to build a ‘consensus seeking community’ based on a functionalist approach to community building. To better understand these participation strategies a spatio-temporal research tool is put forward drawing on Cornwall’s (2004) spatial metaphor of invited space. The research tool is deployed in this paper to investigate a public housing estate redevelopment project by public-private partnership in southwest Sydney. It calls into question participation strategies that consult public housing tenants within, and not about, place-based neoliberal redevelopment projects, suggesting this focus leaves aside broader questions of markets, capital and politics (deFilippis et al., 2006). The paper concludes by arguing if neoliberalism and market logic are going to continue to inform urban governance and policy, then public housing tenants should also have the opportunity to question and inform the ideological underpinnings of this urban logic (Shragge, 2003).

Which Communitarianism?

by Ryan Newson

This is an excerpt from a paper done at Wake Forest University, which placed Stanley Hauerwas' work in the context of... more This is an excerpt from a paper done at Wake Forest University, which placed Stanley Hauerwas' work in the context of liberal-communitarian, Rawls-MacIntyre debates, and sought to show to what extent Hauerwas both is and is not "communitarian." It is only meant to be a sample and thus, an excerpt; major sections of the paper have been cut, and some parts of the argument are missing.

From Environmental Utopianism to Parochial Ecology: Communities of Place and the Politics of Sustainability

by Michael Northcott

New Labour's Communitarianisms

by Luke Martell

This article argues that communitarianism can be analysed on different levels -sociological, ethical and meta-ethical... more This article argues that communitarianism can be analysed on different levels -sociological, ethical and meta-ethical - and along different di¬mensions - conformist-pluralist, more conditional-less conditional, progressive-conservative, prescriptive-voluntary, moral-socioeconomic and individual-corporate. We argue that New Labour's communitarian¬ism is a response to both neo-liberalism and old social democracy. It is sociological, ethical and universalist rather than particularist on the meta-ethical level. Labour increasingly favours conditional, morally pre¬scriptive, conservative and individual communitarianisms. This is at the expense of less conditional and redistributional socioeconomic, progress¬ive and corporate communitarianisms. It is torn between conformist and pluralist versions of communitarianism. This bias is part of a wider shift in Labour thinking from social democracy to a liberal conservatism which celebrates the dynamic market economy and is socially conserva¬tive.

« Le rôle de l'Histoire dans la pensée politique de Charles Taylor », Raison Publique, n°15, novembre 2011, p.283-300.

by Martin Deleixhe

Afin de répondre aux critiques libérales qui l'accusaient de faire plier la raison face à la tradition communautaire... more Afin de répondre aux critiques libérales qui l'accusaient de faire plier la raison face à la tradition communautaire au nom d'impératifs métaphysiques, Charles Taylor sépare nettement son ontologie de ses prises de position normatives. Si les conceptions de la nature de l'agent moral ou de la réalité des valeurs structurent effectivement le champ des possibles des orientations politico-morales de la philosophie, elles ne la déterminent pas pour autant de part en part. Néanmoins, en ce qui le concerne, Taylor ne précise pas plus avant ce qui nourrit son engagement normatif en faveur de la reconnaissance dans l'espace public d'identités collectives, suggérant implicitement que ses considérations normatives ressortent d'une catégorie indépendante d'arguments. Cet article cherche à rectifier cette impression première d'isolation. Selon la lecture alternative que l'on se propose d'explorer, la pensée morale et politique de Taylor ferait fond sur une conceptualisation de l'Histoire qui joue un rôle normatif important. Taylor appuie discrètement toute son argumentation philosophique sur une Histoire dont on cherchera à démontrer qu'elle se déroule selon une dialectique interne et qu'elle s'oriente en fonction d'une téléologie singulière. Cette structuration de l'histoire dépasse la simple reconstruction historiographique du passé dans la mesure où les éléments de son organisation interne font système et se répondent mutuellement pour esquisser une philosophie spéculative de l'histoire qui permet non seulement la compréhension du passé mais autorise également l'énonciation de prescriptions pour le futur. A ce titre, l'histoire chez Taylor n'est pas un outil neutre d'exposition de ses arguments mais bien plus le milieu qui détermine les orientations morales et politiques de sa philosophie. On terminera en observant comment cette reconstruction de l'histoire sous les traits d'un schéma explicatif englobant est mobilisée pour restaurer la légitimité endommagée de certaines sources morales et tenter de leur (ré)octroyer une place de premier plan au sein de la réflexion philosophique.

Multiculturalism and Recognition

by Nicholas H Smith

Pre-proof version, without references. Published in Duncan Ivison, ed. The Ashgate Research Companion to Multiculturalism, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2010, pp. 159-178

Mixing economics and ethics: Carl Menger vs Gustav von Schmoller

by Markus Haller

Doing justice to multiculturalism

by Markus Haller

Review of Michael Walzer's Thinking Politically

by Jan Kandiyali

A slightly altered version of this review was published in the 'Marx and Philosophy Review of Books', October 2010.

Beyond Communitarianism and Consumerism

by Will Davies

Embedded Identities and Dialogic Consensus: Educational implications from the communitarian theory of Bhikhu Parekh

by Michael Merry

Taylor on solidarity

by Nicholas H Smith

co-authored with Arto Laitinen, pre-publication version, published in Thesis Eleven, vol 99, 2009, pp 48-70

After characterizing Taylor’s general approach to the problems of
solidarity, we distinguish and reconstruct... more After characterizing Taylor’s general approach to the problems of
solidarity, we distinguish and reconstruct three contexts of solidarity in which this approach is developed: the civic, the socio-economic, and the moral. We argue that Taylor’s distinctive move in each of these contexts of solidarity is to claim that the relationship at stake poses normatively justified demands, which are motivationally demanding, but insufficiently motivating on their own. On Taylor’s conception, we need some understanding of extra motivational sources which explain why people do (or would) live up to the exacting demands. Taylor accepts that our self-understanding as members of either particular communities or humanity at large has some motivational power, but he suspects that in many cases the memberships are too thin to resonate deeply and enduringly within us. In Taylor’s view, a realistic picture of what moves people to solidarity has to account for the extra motivation, when it happens. We propose an alternative view in which morality, democracy and socio-economic cooperation can be seen as separate spheres or relations which are normatively justifi ed, motivationally demanding, but also suffi ciently motivating on their own.

Freiheit und Verantwortung: Amitai Etzioni (Freedom and Responsibility: Amitai Etzioni, in German)

by Daniel Rotstein

Short overview about Etzionis life and communitarian theories Short overview about Etzionis life and communitarian theories