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Political Imagination (political + imagination)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences50%

Selected Abstracts

Beyond Constitutionalism: The Search for a European Political Imagination

EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 1 2001
Ian Ward
Two recent books, Joseph Weiler's The Constitution of Europe and Larry Siedentop's Democracy in Europe, seek to address one of the defining issues in contemporary European legal studies; the search for a European public philosophy. Both site their critiques within a particular jurisprudential tradition, the modernist; one that is bound up with anxieties about legitimacy and constitutionalism. This review article suggests that the ,new' Europe has been too easily distracted by the lures of constitutionalism, and more particularly by the temptations of Treaties. Public philosophies are not found in Treaty articles. Rather, a public philosophy is a state of mind, a product of the political imagination. And it is the absence of such an imagination which lies at the root of contemporary concerns regarding constitutionalism and legitimacy; the concerns which underpin Weiler's and Siedentop's books. A discussion of these books, in the first two parts of this article, is followed by a discussion of Godfried Wilhelm Leibniz's ,universal' jurisprudence. It is suggested that such a jurisprudence is better able to furnish a public philosophy for the ,new' Europe; just as, indeed, it was for the ,old' Europe. Moreover, such a jurisprudence is far more than a mere theory of laws and constitutions. Leibniz's jurisprudence requires that we think, not merely ,beyond' sovereignty, or even beyond democracy, but beyond constitutionalism. [source]

Europe in the Political Imagination

JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 4 2010
JONATHAN WHITE
Perceptions of the EU tend to be studied by examining responses to targeted opinion polls. This paper looks instead at how citizens draw Europe into a wider discussion of politics and political problems. Based on a series of group discussions with taxi-drivers in Britain, Germany and the Czech Republic, it examines the motifs speakers use to explain the origins of problems, the assumptions they make about their susceptibility to address, and how, when these patterned ways of speaking are applied to the EU, they serve to undermine its credibility as a positive source of political agency. [source]

The Populist Chola: Cultural Mediation and the Political Imagination in Quillacollo, Bolivia

JOURNAL OF LATIN AMERICAN & CARIBBEAN ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2000
Robert Albro
This argument situates the "image" of the popular woman in the emerging electoral context of Quillacollo, a Bolivian provincial capital. Even as "cholas" remain largely shut out from regional political power, their ubiquitous image culturally mediates political access to the popular sector for men. Hence authorities initiate token economic exchanges with cholas. both to participate intimately in the popular cultural milieu, and to solidify their claims to personal roots in this world. This argument examines the interrelated contexts of national structural adjustment, regional development, the domestic economy, agricultural fiestas, and sexual conduct, as these are "performed" within a regional folkloric calendar, that turn on the currency of the chola as a political "root metaphor." In turn, the role of the chola's image suggests limitations upon her status as historical actor. [source]

Beyond Constitutionalism: The Search for a European Political Imagination

EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 1 2001
Ian Ward
Two recent books, Joseph Weiler's The Constitution of Europe and Larry Siedentop's Democracy in Europe, seek to address one of the defining issues in contemporary European legal studies; the search for a European public philosophy. Both site their critiques within a particular jurisprudential tradition, the modernist; one that is bound up with anxieties about legitimacy and constitutionalism. This review article suggests that the ,new' Europe has been too easily distracted by the lures of constitutionalism, and more particularly by the temptations of Treaties. Public philosophies are not found in Treaty articles. Rather, a public philosophy is a state of mind, a product of the political imagination. And it is the absence of such an imagination which lies at the root of contemporary concerns regarding constitutionalism and legitimacy; the concerns which underpin Weiler's and Siedentop's books. A discussion of these books, in the first two parts of this article, is followed by a discussion of Godfried Wilhelm Leibniz's ,universal' jurisprudence. It is suggested that such a jurisprudence is better able to furnish a public philosophy for the ,new' Europe; just as, indeed, it was for the ,old' Europe. Moreover, such a jurisprudence is far more than a mere theory of laws and constitutions. Leibniz's jurisprudence requires that we think, not merely ,beyond' sovereignty, or even beyond democracy, but beyond constitutionalism. [source]