What reflective conservatives see as the attenuation and destruction of tradition and traditionalism in Western societies has proceeded apace along a variety of paths. In this cogent study, Paul Gottfried looks at the shape this process has taken in the United States, where ruling elites have directed a so-called “conservative movement” that would capture the efforts and resources of many of those at least putatively opposed to the present-day regime. Gottfried describes how the initial founding of the “ (...) class='Hi'>conservative movement” in the 1950s (mainly by William F. Buckley, Jr., and Russell Kirk) was based on some authentic traditionalist impulses. Nevertheless,…. (shrink)

Introduction -- A significant life -- Constructing a methodology -- The method under assault -- Politics as practice -- Political theory as political practice -- Conclusion.

Despite recent strides in the direction of achieving a more equitable and genuine place for Indigenous voices in the conservation conversation, the conservation movement must more deliberately and thoroughly grapple with the legacy of its deeply settler colonial history if it is to, in actuality and not merely in rhetoric, achieve the aim of being more equitable. In this article, we show how the conservation movement, historically and still largely today, traffics in certain ethical and political values that (...) are, in principle or in effect, anti-Indigenous. Through this examination, we hope to reveal how present-day conservation efforts, even if ‘well-meaning’ or nominally deferential regarding Indigenous peoples and perspectives, in fact reinforce settler colonial structures. In particular, we critique the notion of the uninhabited wilderness as a conservation ideal and the disavowal of originary violence (along with a parallel positing of settler nativism) in the articulation of conservation historicity and the founding of conservation movements. We conclude by offering some steps conservationists can take to alter their practices, methods, and values in ways that recognize, respect, and reciprocate with Indigenous peoples. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between the novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand (TheFountainhead,AtlasShrugged) and the broader conservative movement in the twentieth-century United States. Although Rand was often dismissed as a lightweight popularizer, her works of radical individualism advanced bold arguments about the moral status of capitalism, and thus touched upon a core issue of conservative identity. Because Rand represented such a forthright pro-capitalist position, her career highlights the shifting fortunes of capitalism on the right. In the 1940s, she was (...) an inspiration to those who struggled against the New Deal and hoped to bring about a new, market-friendly political order. As a second generation of conservatives built upon these sentiments and attempted to tie them to a defense of Christian tradition, Rand's status began to erode. Yet by the late 1960s, Rand's once-revolutionary defense of capitalism had become routine, although she herself remained a controversial figure. The essay traces the ways in which Rand's ideas were assimilated and modified by key intellectuals on the right, including William F. Buckley, Jr, Whittaker Chambers, and Gary Wills. It identifies the relationship between capitalism and Christianity as a fundamental dilemma for conservative and right-wing thinkers. By treating Rand as an intellectual and cultural leader of significant import, the essay broadens our understanding of the American right beyond the confines of conservatism, and re-establishes the primacy of the 1930s, and 1940s, to its ideological formation. Responding to a paucity of scholarship on Rand, the essay offers an analysis and summary of Rand's ideas, and argues that despite her outsider status, Rand's work both embodied and shaped fundamental themes of right-wing thought throughout the century. (shrink)

From its inception with the first number of the magazine of opinion National Review and up to the advent of the Presidency of Richard Nixon the early American conservative movement struggled with the rising tide of civil rights protest and reform. This article examines the correspondence and published primary sources penned by leading members of the American conservative movement so as to offer a comprehensive, chronologically ordered assessment of the evolution of the views on racial inequality (...) offered by the key constituent ideological subcommunities within the American conservative movement: the traditionalists gathered around the pages of National Review, the “neoliberals” led by Milton Friedman y Friedrich von Hayek, the Southern, white conservatives and, lastly, the neoconservatives, which headed by Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz articulated much of such views in a manner palatable to a significant segment of the American political mainstream. (shrink)

The current Republican ascendancy in American government has generated considerable scholarly interest in the conservative movement. Through an ethno-graphic study of the widely publicized but seldom-observed “Wednesday meeting” of conservative activists, this article inquires into the bases of the conservative movement’s internal cohesion and successful management of alliances with state officials. I argue that the meeting functions as both an instrument of material power and a ritual of symbolic maintenance by establishing relations of reciprocal exchange (...) and sustaining a moral community of conservative activists and their allies. More broadly, the article examines the mutual conditioning and genetic linkage of two dimensions of social reality: relations of force and relations of meaning. (shrink)

From the 1910s through the 1930s, the American naturalist and photographer Arthur C. Pillsbury made time-lapse and microscopic films documenting what he, in common parlance, called the “miracles of plant life”. While these films are now mostly lost, they were part of Pillsbury’s prolific work as a conservationist and traveling film lecturer who used his cameras everywhere from Yosemite National Park to Samoa to promote both public understanding of plants and a desire to protect the natural world. Guiding this work (...) was Pillsbury’s belief that the nonhuman optics of the film camera, which revealed the animacy of plants, could also incite viewers to sympathize with them. In the context of the early American conservation movement, that sympathy stemmed in complicated ways from longstanding transcendental and pastoral ideas of nature that were entangled with imperialist visions of controlling nature. With an eye to that context, I show that Pillsbury’s filmmaking was not simply about using motion picture technologies to shape attitudes toward plants and nature more broadly; it was also about using nature to think through the techno-scientific possibilities of the cinema in the early part of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Shortly after the October Revolution, Semenov-Tian-Shanskii prophetically remarked that voices in defense of nature in Russia under the new regime might be nothing more than “miserable voices crying in the wilderness.”52 Alas, this turned out to be all too true: by the end of the 1930s the voices of the aestheticethical approach had become silent in the wilderness of “socialist construction.”Nevertheless, I would not like to conclude my talk on this mournful note. Instead I would like to emphasize that, although (...) the history of Russian environmental ethics turned out to be tragically brief, its basic ideas seem to me to be still relevant and important today. What I consider perhaps most important is the idea that is best expressed in Semenov-Tian-Shanskii's words: “freedom is necessary for nature as it is necessary for humans.”53 This outlook calls us to surrender our pretensions to ontological superiority over the rest of nature. It calls us to recognize that nature is valuable in itself, and to live in harmonious cooperation with nature. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A8402064 00008. (shrink)

While from a late twentieth- and early twenty-first century perspective, the ideologies of eugenics (controlled reproduction to eliminate the genetically unfit and promote the reproduction of the genetically fit) and environmental conservation and preservation, may seem incompatible, they were promoted simultaneously by a number of figures in the progressive era in the decades between 1900 and 1950. Common to the two movements were the desire to preserve the “best” in both the germ plasm of the human population and natural environments (...) (including not only natural resources, but also undisturbed nature preserves such as state and national parks and forests). In both cases advocates sought to use the latest advances in science to bolster and promote their plans, which in good progressive style, involved governmental planning and social control. This article explores the interaction of eugenic and conservationist ideologies in the careers of Sacramento banker and developer Charles M. Goethe and his friend and mentor, wealthy New York lawyer Madison Grant. In particular, the article suggests how metaphors of nature supported active work in both arenas. (shrink)

The Australian nature conservation movement is effectively entering its second century of existence and this transition has prompted a degree of reflection about the strategies used hitherto. After going through boom years – as part of a broader environmental movement – from the 1970s until the early 1990s, a more difficult political environment in the second half of the 1990s has sparked a semi-public discussion about priorities and future strategies. This article argues that the debate about future conservation (...) strategies needs to tackle two important legacies that have become increasingly problematic: a lingering 'frontier mentality' that fosters a separation between people and 'pristine nature'; and a heavy reliance on scientific expertise and rational arguments for conservation. This dual legacy has blinded the movement to the aesthetic appeal of the romantic philosophical tradition in ecology and the importance of sensuous, embodied experiences of the 'more than human' world. In rethinking the legacy of the romantic philosopher Henry David Thoreau, the article argues for a shift of emphasis from wilderness to wildness in order to bring conservation home to more people. It suggests that we can learn from the ability of Australian Aborigines to listen to the land in order to 'sing up' the stories that are embedded in landscapes. Learning to read and create landscape stories provides creative ways of building more affective bonds between people and the land. Non-rational approaches to nature conservation can help to re-enchant conservation ' work '. (shrink)

The book that launched the modern American conservative movement, now available in trade paperback.

The increasing impact of humans on the earth might be expected to unite campaigners on behalf of animals and the environment. This is not always the case. There's more than a difference between animal welfare and conservation movements: identifying and understanding these differences will be an important factor in attempting to reconcile these two groups of people. Such reconciliation is worth aiming for, since the human threat is in many ways a real one, and animal and environmental campaigners would be (...) better off allied than divided. (shrink)

The most important figure among Russia's radical Marxists was A.A. Bogdanov (the pseudonym of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovskii). Not only was he the prime exponent of a proletarian cultural revolution; it was Bogdanov's ideas which provided justification for concern for the environment. And his ideas are not only important to environmentalists because they were associated with this conservation movement; more significantly they are of continuing relevance because they confront the root causes of environmental destruction in the present, and offer what (...) is perhaps the only way to overcome these causes. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a growing humanitarian movement with a track record of success in evaluating the effectiveness of charitable spending across a wide range of projects. We suggest ways in which the foundations of this movement can be applied to the complex world of conservation.

In science and environmental studies, there is a general concern for the democratization of the expert-lay interplay. However, the democratization of expertise does not necessarily lead to more sustainable decisions. If citizens do not take the sustainable choice, what should experts and decision makers do? Should the expert-lay interplay be dissolved? In thinking about how to shape the expert-lay interplay in a better way in agro-biodiversity conservation, I take the case of the MST (Movimento Sem Terra/Landless People’s Movement), possibly (...) the largest rural movement in Latin America. The MST is in a process of turning towards environmentalism. It has adopted agroecology, a democratically oriented knowledge field. However, not all of the farmers were willing to adopt new environmentalist ideas and practices. Through ethnographic research, I analyze how expertise was recognized and redistributed within the MST, attending particularly to the role of MST coordinators and technicians. I explore how participation was framed and put into action. The adoption of agroecology brought to the MST a new and more inclusive map of expertise, but it also influenced new social distinctions within the communities. In part, farmers’ knowledge was labeled as ignorance. This may close down possibilities for dialogue as well as for sustainability. The paper suggests that experts’ power for discriminating among lay knowledges should come together with a responsibility for opening spaces for dialogue and action. One way of doing so could be by adding “interactional reflexivity” to experts’ expertise. (shrink)

The American conservative movement is a force of anti-reflexivity insofar as it attacks two key elements of reflexive modernization: the environmental movement and environmental impact science. Learning from its mistakes in overtly attacking environmental regulations in the early 1980s, this counter-movement has subsequently exercised a more subtle form of power characterized by non-decision-making. We examine the conservative movement’s efforts to undermine climate science and policy in the USA over the last two decades by using (...) this second dimension of power. The conservative movement has employed four non-decision-making techniques to challenge the legitimacy of climate science and prevent progress in policy-making. We argue that reflexive modernization scholars should focus more attention on similar forces of anti-reflexivity that continue to shape the overall direction of our social, political and economic order, and the life chances of many citizens. Indeed, better understanding of the forces and effectiveness of anti-reflexivity may very well be crucial for societal resilience and adaptation, especially in the face of global environmental problems like climate change. (shrink)

Environmental historian Kevin Armitage’s new book offers welcome relief to readers grown weary of anthropocentrism versus nonanthropecentrism debates and Muir-Pinchot-Leopold “third way” arguments. It will also find a receptive audience among those who have maintained all along that education is the key to addressing our environmental woes. In the United States, environmental education has a vibrant history. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a critical mass of policy makers, educators, scientists, and philosophers shared the belief that a curriculum (...) based on the careful observation and study of nature should be taught in primary and secondary school classrooms. The “nature study movement,” as it was called, advanced an ambitious agenda for education reform based on a simple theory: children who develop a deep and abiding interest in the natural world mature into environmentally conscious adults and good citizens. Organized thematically, Armitage’s book lays out the meaning of nature study as well as its scientific and sentimental interpretations (introduction and chap. 1), the influence of progressive education on nature study (chap. 2), the connection between recapitulation theory and nature study (chap. 3), nature study and bird conservation (chap. 4), school gardening as an extension of nature study (chap. 5), the growth of nature photography in tandem with nature study (chap. 6), and finally nature study’s role in promoting agricultural reform (chap. 7). In case the significance of this progressive-era movement is still in doubt, the movement’s legacy can still be felt, Armitage contends, in the ideas of perhaps two of the most influential environmental thinkers of the past century: Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson (conclusion). (shrink)

Wildlife conservation seems unaffected by decolonization movements that recently led to removing or vandalizing several statues of geographers and colonizers worldwide. Instead, we observe an increased emphasis on total protection of species and habitats that, although strategic in a period of environmental crisis, may have grossly negative impacts on living standards of local indigenous communities. In this regard, we should decolonize society, and specifically conservation, by adding new metaphoric statues to the old ones, preferably of those living side by side (...) with wildlife. In this essay, we suggest that zoos, as popular places where urbanized people meet biodiversity, should change their messages that too often reinforce the subtle colonial ideology pervading international environmentalism and often driven by increasing animal rights activism. For example, a new storytelling ethos in zoos should communicate that, in some sensitive contexts (e.g. most tropical countries), the current over-emphasis on protected areas and military law enforcement is also causing serious human rights violations. We need ‘humanised zoos’, i.e. places where conservation of biodiversity is put in a broader socio-ecological context and a central role for the future of ecosystems is given to local communities, ethnic minorities and ‘wise people’ (i.e. people having local traditional knowledge). Zoos should direct more resources toward community-based conservation; foremost, they should shape urban and ‘Western’ attitudes toward wildlife with a less colonized perspective, including spreading the importance of traditional ecological knowledge in ecosystem management. (shrink)

Siona-Secoya hunters of the northwest Amazon strive to maximize short-term yields to provision their households with meat. The observed patterns of hunting more closely resemble the predictions of optimal foraging theory (OFT) than they do a conservation ethic. In the past the Siona-Secoya worried little about conservation because they believed that good shamans attracted abundant game. When hunting was poor, shamans performedyagé ceremonies and appealed to supernatural gamekeepers for the release of more animals from the underworld. The sustainability of Siona-Secoya (...) hunting was aided by factors such as low human population density, dispersed settlements within large hunting territories, settlement movement, and limited hunting technology. Today, increasing involvement in the national economy is leading the Siona-Secoya to invest more time in agriculture and wage labor, and less in traditional foraging activities. Colonization, deforestation, and industrial pollution now pose the greatest threats to wildlife in eastern Ecuador. Because of these changes, the Siona-Secoya are becoming interested in environmental protection and conservation. Several of their efforts to protect forest resources and mitigate pollution are discussed and evaluated. (shrink)

Amanda Hollis-Brusky shows how the Federalist Society serves as the hub of a complex circulatory system and how the ideas it generates have become the lifeblood of the conservative movement.

The chapter examines Russian political theorist Aleksandr Dugin’s (b. 1962) challenge to the Western liberal order. Even though Dugin’s project is in many ways a theoretical epitome of Russia’s contemporary attempt to profile itself as a regional great power with a political and cultural identity distinct from the liberal West, Dugin can also be read in a wider context as one of the currently most prominent representatives of the culturally and intellectually oriented international New Right. The chapter introduces Dugin’s role (...) on the Russian right-wing political scene and his international networks, Russian neo-Eurasianism as his ideological footing, and his more recent “fourth political theory” as an attempt to formulate a new ideological alternative to liberalism as well as the two other main twentieth-century ideologies, communism and fascism. Dugin’s fourth ideology, essentially meant as an alternative to a unipolar post–Cold War global hegemony of victorious liberalism, draws inspiration from the German conservative revolutionary movement of the Weimar era. In particular, Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of history, with its thesis of the end of modernity and another beginning of Western thought, and Carl Schmitt’s pluralistic model of geopolitics are highlighted as key elements of Dugin’s eclectic political thought, which is most appropriately characterized as a form of radical conservatism. (shrink)

In this paper, the endeavour to understand how to think of education ‘after progress’, viz. in an age in which progress has become problematic, is undertaken by focusing on the theme of time. Dovetailing Klaus Mollenhauer’s reflections on the rise of the Bildungszeit at the dawn of modernity with Thomas Popkewitz’s analyses of ‘cosmopolitan time’ presiding over pedagogical reform from the 19th century to the present, I shall, first, explore this temporal configuration of modern schooling (which goes hand in hand (...) with a specific understanding of the child). Against this backdrop, I shall, second, advance an interpretive hypothesis, that of substituting what will be called the ‘child-as-migrant’ for the ‘cosmopolitan child’, by appropriating, in an educational key, some insights of Thomas Nail’s ‘migrant cosmopolitanism’. I shall thereby suggest an alternative view of ‘progressivity’, construed not along modern-developmentalist lines but as a form of non-conservativeness, linked with a recognition of the ekstatikon (that is, destabilizing) character of time. This will require a revisiting of some Aristotelian intuitions about time as the rhythm of movement, reinterpreted as the affective experience of that ek-statikon without which there is no potential for the new. Accordingly, ‘progressive’ education (in the different interpretation investigated here) is the concern to allow all of us as ‘migrants’ to live actively in the abode of our ek-static and unpredictable condition and, therefore, to be vulnerable to the new, without merely remaining in a taken-for-granted ethos, cosmopolitan, inclusive, and progress-oriented though it may be. (Editor's note: This paper forms part of the suite entitled ‘Education After Progress’.). (shrink)

Conservatism, as a political movement, is familiar. Conservatism as a philosophy, however, remains obscure. Attaining its modern form in reaction to the French Revolution, conservatism has been an intellectual-as well as a moral and political force for two centuries.

?Packaging the Conservative Revolution? assesses the role of conservative think?tanks, particularly the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Heritage Foundation, in engineering conservative prominence in national affairs. While AEI and Heritage have been particularly effective in promoting conservatism to legislators and the public, serious problems emerge from their analyses. The anti?welfare state bias of AEI projects reflects the dominance of Fortune 500 executives on its Board of Directors. Theoretical manipulation by AEI project directors raises questions about the (...) purpose of their work. Heritage, for its part, has proposed analogues to governmental programs. Notably, Heritage has provided important intellectual support to the traditionalist movement. As conservative think?tanks grow and influence national affairs, the impartiality and quality of their work become important factors in understanding national politics. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to systematize and generalize information about the political right-conservative movement in modern Poland. In the course of the study, the potential for support for right-wing parties exists in every society. It can grow due to two groups of factors. The first concerns issues related to the difficult economic situation, the modernization of societies or cultural aspects, which are called demand-related in the literature. The second large group consists of supply factors: factors of (...) possible political success (structure of political opportunities), electoral rules, inter-party competition, the role of the mass media, the structure of political divisions or the role of the winning ideology. Polish right-wing conservatism and nationalism is characterized, both in the past and in the present, by a powerful influence on the social and political life of the Republic of Poland, acting as a fundamental element of the unification of the Polish people. This movement retains its traditional features, which are reflected in the ideology of the Polish ruling party “Law and Justice”, which adheres to a national-conservative orientation with elements of clericalism, maintains close ties with the Catholic Church and organizations close to it. In the period after coming to power (2015), “PiS” slowly but steadily lost its Christian-democratic character and evolved into a conservative political force. This allowed “PiS” to win elections for a long time, and in 2023, it allows it to maintain leading positions in public opinion polls regarding support for political parties. In the field of international relations, supporters of “PiS” operated with judgments that expressed the ideas of nationalism, presenting the Poles as a strong nation that should occupy an important place among other countries. The process of creating right-wing conservative political parties and associations in Poland continues on an ongoing basis. The strengthening of nationalist movements in Poland takes place with the support of the state authorities of the Republic of Poland and is accompanied by a gradual shift of emphasis on controversial historical issues in the direction of nationalist ideology. Despite official Warsaw providing political support to Kyiv in the international arena in connection with the Russian military threat, the authorities of the Republic of Poland have no intention of blocking anti-Ukrainian activities carried out by Polish national-patriotic right-wing movements. This is due to the preparation of the ruling elite for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the tragic events in Volyn in 2023, as well as the parliamentary election campaign. In the future, the activation of radical right-conservative formations on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth may lead to protest actions in Poland, the purpose of which will be the dissemination of information unfavorable to our state in the Polish information space, which will have a negative impact on the formation of the foreign policy vector of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Ukrainian direction. (shrink)

To start thinking about the Gregory Skovoroda phenomenon and its promising interconnectedness with the culture of the hoped for, we want from a series of somewhat unexpected considerations and parallels that we hope will reflect both the subject matter itself and the prospects for the future. It is well-known that Kharkov entered the modern history of Ukraine as the “second capital of our statehood, as the capital of constructivist modern Ukraine of the 1920s, which, and this is often forgotten, favoring (...) Kyiv and the West of Ukraine, became the birthplace and epicenter of a powerful national-cultural movement Ukrainianization. It was in Kharkov that a unique aesthetic phenomenon was born and flourished - literature and art of the firing Renaissance. (shrink)

A new political movement has arisen in bioethics, self‐consciously distingushed from the rest of the ield and characterized by a new way of writing and arguing. Unfortunately, that new method is mean‐spirited, mystical, and emotional. It claims insight into ultimate truth yet disavows reason.

Drawing from our interdisciplinary qualitative study of LGBTI conservative Christians and their allies, we name an especially toxic form of shame—what we call sacramental shame—that affects the lives of LGBTI and other conservative Christians. Sacramental shame results from conservative Christianity's allegiance to the doctrine of gender complementarity, which elevates heteronormativity to the level of the sacred and renders those who violate it as not persons, but monsters. In dispensing shame as a sacrament, nonaffirming Christians require constant displays (...) of shame as proof that LGBTI church members love God and belong in the community. Part of what makes this shame so harmful is that parents and pastors often dispense it with sincere expressions of care and affection, compounding the sense that one's capacity to give and receive love is damaged. We foreground LGBTI Christian movements to overcome sacramental shame by cultivating nonhubristic pride, and conclude by discussing briefly their new understandings of love and justice that could have far‐reaching benefits. (shrink)

Coastal wetlands are among the most productive and valuable ecosystems worldwide, although one of the main factors affecting their survival is the coexistence between agriculture and conservation. This paper analyses the complex balance between agriculture and conservation coexistence in El Hondo Natural Park coastal wetland by examining stakeholders’ narratives, perceptions, and interactions. The aim is to highlight the concurrence between socio-economic progress and socio-environmental justice perspectives by identifying those driving factors motivating stakeholders’ conflicts while expanding stakeholders’ behaviour and interaction when (...) discussing the current and future management of this socio-ecological system. Data were collected between April and June 2019 from semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to river basin authorities, regional governments, municipalities, irrigation communities, union farms, regional and local ecologist groups, and social movements; and scrutinized through qualitative data analysis and descriptive statistics. Stakeholders discussed the main driving factors identified through the local newspapers to motivating current conflicts and confronting perspectives in El Hondo Natural Park: the origin and evolution of the coastal wetland, the provision and value of ecosystem services, the management of water scarcity and water quality standards, the guarantee and management of public and private investment, and consequences of a natural park declaration. Likewise, the triple-loop analysis of stakeholders’ representativeness, relevance and collaboration highlighted examples of stakeholders’ underrepresentation and power imbalance, a negative assessment of the stakeholders’ actions, and how agreements are based on both stakeholders’ predisposition to collaborate and affinity. (shrink)

There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of the Trump presidency and right-wing movements in Europe. Yet, little research has been devoted to divisions among conservatives themselves, especially among conservative academics. Although Trump has maintained remarkable unity within the Republican Party for electoral reasons, he has fostered sharp divisions among conservative intellectuals and academicians. This article compares 102 politically conservative professors who are Trumpists and 80 conservative professors who are (...) anti-Trumpists. All 182 function as public intellectuals who advocate their views in print and digital media. Drawing on recent research in the sociology of intellectuals and particularly Pierre Bourdieu’s analytical field perspective, this article proposes a fielding political identities and practices framework to show how these two groups of professors (Trumpists and anti-Trumpists) differ in where they teach, their intellectual orientations, their scholarly productivity, where they network with think tanks, scholarly professional associations, and government agencies, and their stances on key issues surrounding the Trump presidency. The academic Trumpists embrace the right-wing populist wave mobilized by Trump and the conservative academic critics resist this move. This polarization of views between these two groups of conservative professors is enduring and rooted in two distinct social networks that connect positions in the academic field to affiliations with think tanks, government agencies, and professional associations in the field of power that reinforce their respective political identities. This research contributes to political sociology, the sociology of intellectuals, and the sociology of conservative politics in American higher education. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt has been depicted long and inaccurately as one of Weimar's foremost conservative revolutionaries. In the early literature he was not merely categorized as a thinker belonging to that “motley” group of writers associated with the conservative revolution; he was identified directly with neo-romanticism, irrationalism, völkisch thinking, and the call for a vague “national revolution.” He was associated with Oswald Spengler, Moeller van den Bruck, and Ernst Jünger. Even George Mosse described Schmitt as a leading “spokesman for (...) the general consensus of ‘German revolutionaries', “ whose movement was founded upon völkisch ideology. Mosse went so far as to assert that Schmitt viewed die Volk in racial terms, diat he was nothing less man an advocate of die dieory of me “Aryan race” as the “common denominator.”. (shrink)

Network Democracy uses the contemporary tools of ecology and network thinking to unearth the ancient, intellectual ruins of traditional conservative thought. Questioning the West’s veneration of freedom, equality, contractual citizenship, economic progress, cosmopolitanism, secular institutionalism, and reason, Jared Giesbrecht illuminates how these ideals fuel violence and insecurity in our high-speed lives. While the modern age witnesses the rise of a violent conservatism in the form of revolutionary movements enacting terror and vengeance for the interventions of the liberal West, this (...) study reveals a different kind of conservatism - one that has emerged in direct conversation with liberal thought. Giesbrecht highlights the need for intermediate institutions and civil enterprises that form relations and traditions independent of the state in order to develop resistance to the insecurity of the liberal age. This book offers not only a poignant critique, but a constructive and peaceable alternative to the violence of both liberalism and reactionary anti-liberalism. Attuned to the new realities of globalization, advanced technology, and social acceleration, Network Democracy is a masterful hybrid of ancient and cutting-edge political philosophy that casts a new light on the values underlying western civilization. (shrink)

Since the 1990s, most Latin American countries have significantly expanded noncontributory pension programs. In explaining this wave of expansion, research has focused on the protagonism of left parties and social movements and on electoral competition, generally disregarding the roles of organized business and conservative policy experts. This article demonstrates, through a detailed analysis of Chile’s 2008 noncontributory pension reform, that conservative economists played active roles in formulating a noncontributory pension policy characterized by moderate, targeted, and “incentive-compatible” benefits and (...) financed by the general budget. The conservative design of the program facilitated broad support from employers and private pension funds, critical for the eventual passage of the reform. The analysis illustrates the need to incorporate business interests into explanations of welfare state reforms in Latin America and the broader Global South, in particular by distinguishing the interests of employers and private providers and by focusing on their interaction with conservative policy experts. (shrink)

Indigenous environmental movements have been important actors in twentieth- and twenty-first-century global environmental politics and environmental justice. Their explicit foci range from the protection of indigenous environmental stewardship systems to upholding and expanding treaty responsibilities to securing indigenous rights in law and policy. This chapter suggests that these movements open important intellectual spaces for thinking about the function of environmental governance institutions in addressing complex environmental issues such as clean water and forest conservation. Different from institutional functions based on market (...) mechanisms or appeals to human psychological tendencies, a variety of indigenous environmentalists suggest that institutions should function to convene reciprocal responsibilities across relatives as diverse as humans, non-human beings such as plants, entities such as water, and collectives such as forests. (shrink)

In the summer of 2015 the governor of Wisconsin signed an omnibus budget bill that, among other things, removed tenure from state statute—forcing the Board of Regents to rewrite it into board policy documents—and attempted to undermine aspects of shared governance that had been part of life at the university since the founding of the system in the early 1970s. Two years later, the Wisconsin Assembly passed a bill that directed the university to "strive to remain neutral on the public (...) policy controversies of the day". These actions and others like them in Wisconsin are part of a wider trend for states, particularly in those dominated by conservative legislatures and governors, to... (shrink)

The elimination of gatekeepers for scientific publication has been represented as a means to promote the core moral values of open science, including democratic decision-making and inclusiveness. I argue that this framing ignores the reality that gatekeeping is a way of structuring prestige hierarchies, and that without gatekeeping, some other structuring would be needed: the flattening of prestige hierarchies is not possible given scientists’ need to navigate information overload. I consider two potential restructurings of prestige hierarchies, one based on citation (...) count and the other on search algorithm rank. These are shown to simply reintroduce status biases and hierarchies in ways that either do not further the open science ideals of democracy and inclusiveness, or else involve some de facto gatekeeping. Gatekeeper elimination should not be thought of as an intrinsic part of the open science movement. In fact, insofar as gatekeeping is guided by professional ideals of impartiality and diligence, it can be thought of as an ally of open science values. (shrink)

This article develops a framework for cross-national comparisons of contemporary women's movements. The article focuses on the international context and cross-national influences, the nature of the state, the absence or presence of other movements, the effects of conservative or liberal political environments, the effects of centralization or dispersion within the movement itself and on feminist involvement in political parties and elections. Because each of these factors shapes a particular movement, the article concludes that there cannot be one (...) correct feminism. (shrink)

In the early 20th century, after hundreds of years of gradual decline, the California condor emerged as an object of intensive scientific study, an important conservation target, and a cultural icon of the American wilderness preservation movement. Early condor researchers generally believed that the species' survival depended upon the preservation of its wilderness habitat. However, beginning in the 1970s, a new generation of scientists argued that no amount of wilderness could prevent the condor's decline and that only intensive scientific (...) management - including captive breeding - could save the species from certain extinction. A bitter and highly politicized battle soon developed over how to best preserve the condor. For 5 years the condor was extinct in the wild; however, by the time that officials released the first captive-bred birds the condor recovery program had garnered widespread public support, even among its former critics. Today, condor advocates from the scientific and activist communities work together to manage the species and protect its habitat. The condor's story illustrates some of the tensions, problems, and successes that have accompanied the rise of conservation biology as a scientific field and environmental movement in the United States. (shrink)

Le mouvement appelé Conservative ou massorti est le courant le plus florissant du judaïsme depuis le début du siècle aux États-Unis, d’où il s’est répandu en beaucoup de pays . Cherchant à se frayer une voie entre les tendances « réformée » et « orthodoxe », qui se sont affrontées en Allemagne depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle, puis aux Etats-Unis, ce courant est significatif des tensions et des évolutions qui traversent le judaïsme contemporain. Reprenant l'intuition fondamentale de Frankel, (...) pour qui la tradition est un dynamisme de changement, le Conservative entend garder l’identité juive dans la fidélité à la Halakha tout en lui permettant de s'adapter aux temps nouveaux. Mais comment tenir alors et garantir l'origine juive de la Halakha ? S'inspirant de Rosenzweig et de Buber, les théologiens du Conservative conçoivent la révélation comme l'expression de la Parole de Dieu dans l'histoire d'Israël, au présent ; comme un enseignement avant tout ordonné à l'action éthique et toujours en quête d'interprétation ; elle est véhiculée par l'histoire du peuple et son autorité réside dans la communauté . Ainsi se confirme l'évolution de ce mouvement vers des positions plus « libérales », qui ne manquent. pas de susciter bien des questions : qu’est-ce qui justifie l'obéissance à une tradition humaine, comment autoriser, discerner, imposer des changements de pratique ? À travers ces interrogations, le judaïsme apparaît comme la religion de l'incessante élaboration de la Loi.The most flourishing movement in Judaism since the beginning of century in the United States has been the Conservative or massorti. From there it spread to other countries, including France. Seeking a way between the « reform » and « orthodox » tendencies, which have been in conflict since the middle of 19th century in Germany, and subsequently in the United States, this continuing debate is indicative of the tensions and evolutions that traverse contemporary Judaism. Taking up the fundamental intuition of Frankel, for whom tradition of a dynamism of change, the Conservative wishes to keep a Jewish identity in fidelity to the Halakha, white allowing the possibility of adapting to modern times. But how can one maintain and guarantee the divine origin of the Halakha ? Inspired by Rosenzweig and Buber, the Conservative theologians see revelation as the expression of the Word of God in the history of Israel : in the present ; as conveyed by the history of a people, and whose authority resides in the community . The evolution of this movement towards more « liberal » positions is thus confirmed, but raises many questions: what justifies obedience to a human tradition, how can it authorize, discern, or impose changes of practice ? Through these interrogations, Judaism appears as a religion of unceasing elaboration of the Law. (shrink)

School effectiveness research together with what is now described as the 'school improvement movement' has captured both the Conservative and New Labour imaginations as a basis for educational planning and policy making in the UK. Internationally school effectiveness enjoys and expanding and enthusiastic audience. This book provides a critique of this research genre, particularly in the light of the recent calls for teaching to go 'back to the basics'. The editors argue that this school effectiveness research is simplistic (...) in its analysis of educational problems. Far from getting to the bottom of the problem of failing students and schools, they argue, these 'movements' are merely scratching at the surface of the problems and coming up with notions for superficial improvements. (shrink)

The Telos editorial board has not been unaffected by the progressive disintegration of the left over the last few years, a disintegration precipitated by the rapid fading of the Marxist model — whether Western, Marxist-Leninist, or other — and the inability to substitute a new one to confront the rise of neo-conservatism. Various factions, consequently, have developed that can roughly be identified as Habermasian, post-Adornian (the artificial negativity wing), proto-Freudian, or even post-structuralist. At the same time, the journal's turn toward (...) more political themes has also generated heated internal debate over the German peace movement, feminism, the nature of the Soviet Union, etc. (shrink)

Sociologists studying gender have debated West and Zimmerman’s premise that “doing gender is unavoidable,” seeking to ascertain whether people can “undo” or only “redo” gender. While sociologists have been correct to focus on the interactional accomplishment of gender, they have neglected one of Garfinkel’s key insights about interaction: that people hold each other accountable to particular narratives. Neglecting the narrative aspect of doing—and undoing—gender impedes our ability to recognize processes of social change. Based on a qualitative study, we show how (...) the movement for LGBTQI acceptance within U.S. conservative Protestant churches works to make gender not “omnirelevant” by challenging conservative “complementarity” narratives that posit two complementary, opposite sexes as a commandment preceding the Ten Commandments in time and importance. We explore this movement’s ambivalent relationship with homonormativity, highlight three ways this movement resists projecting binary gender narratives into scripture, and examine how some in this movement see the pursuit of social justice as a Christian mandate. The efforts of LGBTQI conservative Christians exemplify how reshaping sex/gender/sexual narratives can create possibilities for undoing gender. (shrink)

Gender ideology has quickly developed as a response to fostering human rights, especially in the case of gender equality. Gender policy thus became a political and ideological instrument that subjects human rights to another contest – a new form of crusade pursued by anti-gender movements which advocate traditional and conservative ideologies against gender equality and gender theories. In this paper, we seek to track and map the recent development of anti-gender movements and their mobilisation. We apply critical discourse analysis (...) to several doctrines of antigenderism in order to understand the global popularity and mass appeal of these movements. (shrink)

Slow Food is an Italy-based international organization that aims to save the varieties, breeds, and foods threatened by the standardization and homogenization of agriculture resulting from the widespread use of conventional practices. Through an analysis of one of Slow Food’s projects, a Basque Presidium, this paper examines the effects of Slow Food’s efforts on the products, producers, and agrobiodiversity it is trying to save. Drawing upon Igor Kopytoff’s descriptions of commoditization as process, this paper argues that the products and the (...) values they embody, which Slow Food has identified for their singularity, are commoditized through a variety of mechanisms. This paper then argues that commoditization makes the endeavors of Slow Food resemble the conventional agricultural system it is trying to oppose, as well as undermining the very agrobiodiversity the organization seeks to protect. These effects create a disconnect between the organization’s goals and its actions on-the-ground, indicating that Slow Food is not as alternative as it claims to be. This paper ends by examining Slow Food’s role within the overall agricultural system, and suggests that the organization’s producers are important guardians of the global agrobiodiversity which conventional production erodes. (shrink)