Res publica: revista de filosofía política Nº27 (2012)

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Disputing the ‘(Un)parliamentary’:Learning Rules of Debate in the Early Finnish Eduskunta
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Pekonen, Onni
The article examines the learning and adoption of international parliamen-tary rules and practices in the work of the Finnish parliament, the Eduskunta. The article concentrates on the rules of debate in the early Eduskunta and analyses how the character and quality of plenary speech was disputed within the framework of the Parliament Act of 1906 and the Eduskunta’s Rules of Procedure. By analysing debates of the early Eduskunta from 1907 and 1908 as well as Finnish newspaper material, the article illustrates how the learning and establishment of Finnish parliamentary practices evolved around disputes over the notions of ‘parliamentary’ and ‘unparliamentary’
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Language Rights as Collective Rights:Some Conceptual Considerations on Language Rights
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Toscano Méndez, Manuel
Stephen May holds that language rights have been insufficiently recog-nized, or just rejected as problematic, in human rights theory and practice. Defending the “human rights approach to language rights”, he claims that language rights should be accorded the status of fundamental human rights, recognized as such by states and international organizations. This article ar-gues that the notion of language rights is far from clear. According to May, one key reason for rejecting the claim that language rights should be consid-ered human rights is the widespread belief that language rights are collec-tive rights. In order to address this kind of objection, the collective character attributed to language rights must be carefully assessed, distinguishing two different views of what a collective right is
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Paradoxes of Emancipation
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Lasa Ochoteco, Cristina
This paper relates the concepts of servitude, censorship and emancipation, the point of contact between them being the idea of the necessary consent of the subject and his paradoxical wish not to be free. Étienne de la Boétie, in the middle of the sixteenth century, called it “voluntary servitude”, and claimed that the master’s supremacy does not lie in his power, but in the legitimacy conferred on it by the consent of the servant. During the seventeenth century, the censorship of the Holy Office took the place of the master and regulated free thought and the editing of books. Baltasar Gracián was one writer who confronted this difficulty with ingenuity. A century later, the ideal of emanci-pation reverts to Étienne de La Boétie’s proposal in the sense of pointing out that the cause of not abandoning the old doctrinal tutelage does not ascribe to an external reality. One response to this paradox was the collective project of the Encyclopédie, led by Denis Diderot
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Democracy as a Way of Life: Critical Reflections on a Deweyan Theme
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Rosales, José María
This article aims to critically assess John Dewey’s ideal of “democracy as a way of life”, an evocative though elusive moral and political ideal linked to both his communal notion of democracy and his reformist view of liberal-ism. Beyond the school, where citizenship education begins, Dewey claims that individuals learn democratic habits when they associate and participate in political activities, which are not solely confined to political institutions. Exploring Dewey’s democratic theory invites a twofold account. It takes to contextualize Dewey’s views in light of the political debates of his time, in particular the interwar debates on the crisis of liberalism and democracy. And it takes to examine his democratic thought in terms of educational theory and policy. Both aspects integrate into the argumen
Open Access
Parliamentary Procedure as an Inventory of Disputes:A Comparison between Jeremy Bentham and Thomas Erskine May
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Palonen, Kari
Parliamentary politics is inherently procedural. The parliament debates and decides only questions that have been put on its agenda. Two famous tracts on the British parliamentary procedure, Jeremy Bentham’s Essay on Political Tactics and Thomas Erskine May’s A Treatise upon the Law, Privi-leges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament provide an inventory of con-troversies for competent parliamentarians. Both tracts regard parliamentary procedure itself as controversial, and both discuss how to deal with the con-troversies in a fair manner. The tracts differ in style: Bentham, relying on his own parliamentary imagination, is able to identify possible items of dispute, whereas May’s interpretation of parliamentary procedure includes the history of parliamentary controversies. For both, playing with time is an inherent part of the Westminster procedure, based on a combination of spending and saving time, in linking the parliamentary itinerary of the motions to the parliamen-tary calendar. Both strongly defend the Parliament as an exemplary delibera-tive assembly. May, however, thematises the increase of agenda items and the increasing scarcity of parliamentary time as well as ways of preventing par-liamentary paralysis due to obstruction. This leads May to revise the fair play principle to include the fair distribution of parliamentary time
Open Access
John Stuart Mill’s Idea of History: A Rhetoric of Progress
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) López, Rosario
This paper examines the crucial role the idea of history plays in John Stuart Mill’s social and political thought. Insofar as Mill argues that histori-cal change and progress are synonyms, the latter deserves a careful attention. However, academic literature has mostly regarded Mill’s philosophy of histo-ry a topic of minor importance. Some of his philosophical views on history, it will be argued, clearly affect his political views, but they also inform his sci-entific study of society. Accordingly, historical research aims both at under-standing the past to guide society’s future. By analysing the different sources from which Mill draws inspiration, the paper considers his views against the background of his personal and intellectual context. Mill’s temporary depres-sion, along with Macaulay’s criticism of the utilitarian ahistorical conception of politics, triggers an enquiry into the appropriate method to study society, which eventually places history at its core. His reading of Coleridge and a number of French thinkers reflects a renewed interest in the discipline. The article discusses, first, Mill’s interpretation of Coleridge as Bentham’s op-posite pole. Later in the article, I highlight Mill’s debts to Comte and Saint-Simon, especially as regards what he calls the “Inverse Deductive Method”. Some remarks on French historiographers, like Mignet, Dulaure, Sismondi, Michelet and Guizot, also support my argument.
Open Access
Are We at Home in a Liberal Democracy?Metaphorology and Political Philosophy
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Rivera García, Antonio
Drawing on both Agnes Heller’s paper “Where Are we at Home?” and Hans Blumenberg’s metaphorology, this article discusses the meaning of the home metaphor as applied to the realm of politics. It examines particularly whether or not liberal democracy can be considered a home. In principle, the article argues that the home metaphor is a better image to think premodern, conservative and communitarian politics. Yet its usage in a liberal context at-tests to some of the profoundest human anxieties
Open Access
The Lost Language of Democracy:Anti-rhetorical Traits in Research on Democratisation and the Interwar Crisis of Democracy
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Kurunmäki, Jussi
The article points out that the concept of democracy as used by people at large has been ignored in the research on democratisation and interwar de-mocracy. It also shows some of the ways in which the rhetoric of democracy has been sidestepped, discussing some structuralist and other preconditional-ist accounts in which the focus has been on the questions of modernisation and legitimacy as well as on political culture and ideological traditions. The article shows, furthermore, that studies of democratic transition have dis-played some interest in the rhetorical aspect of politics, although this potential has not been fully played out. The article points out the difficulty of doing comparative research on the language of democracy, but nevertheless calls for a rhetorical perspective to the study of democracy.
Open Access
Debating Societies, the Art of Rhetoric and the British House of Commons: Parliamentary Culture of Debate before and after the 1832 Reform Act
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Haapala, Taru
British debating societies are here looked at a parliamentary perspec-tive. The main emphasis is on the rhetorical practise of parliamentary debate, which, it is argued, constitutes the main framework of the British culture of debate. This will be approached from the perspective of how the parliamenta-ry practises were reflected in the activities of various debating societies before and after the 1832 Reform Act. I will highlight that the rhetorical traditions of the British House of Commons were not formed in a vacuum, but, rather, shaped and adapted to constitutional changes. After the 1832 reform the prac-tises in debating societies imitated the procedure and rules of the House of Commons more closely than before. The latter part of the essay concentrates on William Gladstone’s interpretation of parliamentary debate, himself hav-ing actively contributed to various student debating societies. Gladstone’s approach on debate in Parliament illustrates a more general shift in rhetorical practise away from the category of public speaking and towards a more pro-ceduralised way of understanding parliamentary eloquence
Open Access
The Concept of ‘Human Dignity’in the Post-War Human Rights Debates
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Kivistö, Hanna-Mari
The paper explores early post-war human rights language by looking at the drafting of the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), with a focus especially on the concept of ‘dignity’. ‘Human dignity’ has been regarded as a central, even undisputable concept in discourse related to human rights since the Second World War. The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states how “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”. By looking at the preparatory work on thefirst article,and the related political choices and conceptual disputes, the paper will emphasise the political and rhetorical character of the concept of ‘human dignity
Open Access
Intentions and Cooperative Activity:Explaining Cooperation in Light of Bratman’s Notion of Shared Intention
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Boragno, Irene
This paper focuses on one of the major controversies about the explana-tion of collective action. The discussion revolves around the possibility of ascribing intentions to groups, understanding these intentions as distinct from the mere sum of group members’ individual intentions. In the literature on this subject we can identify two main lines of explanation of collective inten-tions: one that reduces group intentions to the sum of individual intentions and another that appeals, through a variety of strategies, to some kind of plu-ral subject or collective consciousness. Based on the notion of shared inten-tion, Michael Bratman has offered an interesting and successful alternative to both views. My goal is to present and analyse that notion of shared intention, explaining why it is interesting to consider Bratman’s proposal
Open Access
Introduction: Rhetoric, Ethics and Democracy
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Rosales, José María; Toscano, Manuel
Open Access
Emergency Rhetoric in the US Congress: Debating the National Emergencies Act of 1976
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Kronlund, Anna
From the Constitutional Convention onwards the question of emergency powers has been central to political discussions in the United States. The debates on the National Emergencies Act of 1976 (“NEA”) can be seen, however, as specifically relevant to the conception of the state of emergency in US constitutional politics. The law placed the process of declaring, executing, and terminating a state of emergency on a statutory footing and established new procedures for dealing with further emergencies. The paper examines, through the debates, the question of to what extent president’s war/emergency powers are contingent on Congress exploiting its own constitutional powers. The problematic of dealing with emergency powers through the framework of a statutory delegation of power is also addressed
Open Access
Of Locke’s Presence
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2012) Turkka, Tapani
This article is about Locke’s presence in politics. In this context the pre-vailing understanding is that the heyday of Locke’s presence is dated to the turn of 1670s and 1680s. This interpretation was launched by Peter Laslett in 1960 in the “Introduction” to his critical edition of Locke’s Two Treatises. Today this understanding directs scholars’ efforts in Locke studies; it is a major component of the prevailing Locke-paradigm. Because of this, chal-lenges to the Laslettian understanding merit especial attention. To this effect is e.g. Mark Knights’s recent paper (2011) in which his objective is to contrib-ute to the development of an alternative understanding of Locke’s presence in politics. This article critically reviews Knights’s study. I ask in what sense his contribution is a challenge to the Laslettian paradigm. It will be argued that Knights’s proposition is paradoxical, and as such opens us a perspective to further Locke studies

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