ABSTRACT This paper deals with two cases of acquisition and construction of Van de Graaff accelerators in 1950s Latin America, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of São Paulo, respectively. A comparative approach allows us to appreciate the significance of this particular technology within scientific, cultural, commercial, and political processes. Van de Graaff accelerators appeared as an affordable technology to engage in experimental nuclear physics and to be part of the atomic age. The circumstances that motivated (...) physics communities in Brazil and Mexico to choose this specific technology took shape in close interactions with US institutions and scientists. These inter-American alliances involved precisely the main companies and groups that competed for the market of this technology around the world. These accelerators also intertwined with the building of campuses for two major Latin American universities, occupying then a singular place (physically and symbolically) within their execution. This paper engages with comparison for the common goal of going beyond frameworks and methodologies tied to the nation, while integrating the study of connections and interactions, as well as the interplay of multiple scales. (shrink)

The article discusses the rights of minorities in the system of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It establishes a conceptual distinction between universal rights, specific rights of minorities in general and specific rights of particular minorities. Universal rights correspond to all individuals (e,g,, “no one shall be subjected to torture”) or all groups of a certain class (e.g., “all families are entitled to protection”). Minority groups and their members are entitled to these rights in the same (...) way as any other individual or group. Specific rights of minorities in general are granted to minority groups (e.g., “minority groups have the right to speak their own language”) or their members (e.g., “persons belonging to a minority group have the right to speak the language of the group”). Finally, specific rights of particular minorities are granted to specific groups identified by their characteristics (e.g., “the linguistic minority X has the right to speak the X language”) or their members (e.g., “any member of the linguistic minority X has the right to speak the X language”). Treaties and international declarations often refer to universal rights and specific rights of minorities in general. However, these rights are usually recognised in broad terms, and their implementation may lead to the recognition of specific rights in favour of particular minorities or their members. Protection of minorities (in the broad sense of the expression) is based on two pillars: on the one hand, the protection against discrimination; on the other hand, the protection of minorities in the strict sense. The first pillar is an aspect of the general principle of nondiscrimination and requires respect for both formal and substantive equalities. The protection of minorities in the strict sense involves the preservation of their particular identity. The purpose of the equality in a formal sense is achieved through universal rights, to the extent that these are granted to minority groups and their members. On the contrary, to achieve equality in a substantive sense, it could be necessary to implement positive measures. The implementation of these measures will usually lead to the recognition of specific rights of minority groups or their members. Finally, the protection of the distinctive characteristics of the minorities will also be done through specific rights. Thus, on the one hand, there are rights, which are intended to protect the minority forms of life (i.e. to protect differences), and, on the other hand, those that are intended to allow minorities equal access to different uniform social goods (i.e. to protect equality). Whereas the former ones seek to protect and promote the particularities of the minority culture (e.g., the right to receive education in their own language), the latter ones are recognised to overcome the disadvantages that minority groups and their members face and are not intended to promote peculiarities, but rather to permit equal access to resources and social opportunities. Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights enshrines specific rights of minorities intended to protect and promote their own forms of life. Although economic rights are not mentioned (the article refers to the rights “to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, [and] to use their own language”), they may stem from the explicitly recognised rights. The rights recognised by the Covenant are not collective, but individual rights (“in those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right [...]”). The rights recognised in the Declaration of the United Nations General Assembly on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities are of the same nature. The principle of equality and non-discrimination is contained in Articles 2.1 and 26 of the Covenant. This principle forbids direct and indirect discrimination, be it de iure or de facto. As this is a universal right, minorities can also benefit from it. According to the Human Rights Committee, Article 27 imposes on States the adoption of positive measures that exceed an attitude of mere abstention. In the same way, positive measures may be necessary to make the principle of equality and non-discrimination effective. Although neither Article 27 nor Articles 2.1 and 26 refer to individuals belonging to a specific minority, the concrete implementation of these articles through positive measures may produce specific rights for persons belonging to particular minority groups. (shrink)

Policies allowing some minors to consent to receive recommended vaccines are ethically defensible. However, a policy change at the federal level expanding minor consent for vaccinations nationwide risks triggering a political backlash. Such a move may be perceived as infringing on the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s health care. In the current post-COVID environment of heightened anti-vaccination activism, changes to minor consent laws may be unadvisable, and policy makers should proceed with caution.

Through an exploration of the representation of ethnic minorities in the museums of Kunming, Yunnan Province of China, this article discusses the active role that museums play in the processes of memory and identity engineering, whereby museum images and narratives are used to support collective imagination about ethnic minorities' identities and past. Drawing from a comparative analysis of museum displays in Kunming, I discuss how the image of ethnic minorities is conveyed through a selective process of i) remembering and emphasizing (...) specific cultural elements, ii) forgetting other elements, and lastly, iii) modifying the perception of ethnic minorities relation to the Han majority. By revealing the extent and modalities through which museum representations manipulate ethnic minorities' identities in China, the analysis aims to contribute to our understanding of the multiple ways in which museums act as sites for the enactment of collective memory and imagination. (shrink)

This paper address the challenges that have emerged in the attempt to codify and enforce international standards of minority rights. Without offering any magic solutions for overcoming all of these difficulties, my aim is to more clearly identify the challenges they raise and the pitfalls ahead of us if we ignore them. These include conceptual confusions, moral dilemmas, unintended consequences, legal inconsistencies and political manipulation. The paper concludes with some ideas about how international minority rights might be institutionalized (...) more successfully. (shrink)

This paper address the challenges that have emerged in the attempt to codify and enforce international standards of minority rights. Without offering any magic solutions for overcoming all of these difficulties, my aim is to more clearly identify the challenges they raise and the pitfalls ahead of us if we ignore them. These include conceptual confusions, moral dilemmas, unintended consequences, legal inconsistencies and political manipulation. The paper concludes with some ideas about how international minority rights might be institutionalized (...) more successfully. (shrink)

이 글의 목적은 한나 아렌트와 아이리스 영의 이론을 중심으로 사회적 약자의 정치적 의 사소통을 위하여 민주주의 사회가 고려해야 할 사항이 무엇인지 검토해 보는 것에 있다. 아 렌트는 특수한 정체성의 차이를 인정하는 가운데, 공적 삶과 공공의 가치를 중시하는 보편 적 소통을 중시하였다. 그녀는 공론장에 참여한 모두가 동등한 입장으로 의견교환을 통해 ‘민주적 공공성’을 형성해 간다고 보았지만, 여기에서 참여자들이 겪을 수 있는 경제적 여 건의 어려움이나 ‘담론 자원’의 격차를 염두에 두지 않았다는 점은 한계로 지적된다. 이에 비해 영은 사회적 약자 입장에서 ‘정의’와 ‘민주주의’를 논의한 (...) 철학자이자 페미니즘 이론가 로서, 분배적 패러다임에서 분명히 드러나지 않는 ‘구조적인 부정의’에 주목한다. 그녀는 억압과 지배를 교정하는 ‘차이의 정치’와 ‘소통적 민주주의’를 제안하며, 의사결정에 관여하 고 영향을 받는 모든 특정하고 구체적인 사회집단들에게 목소리와 표결권을 확실하게 보장 하는 제도로서의 민주주의를 옹호한다. 이 글은 약자의 입장에서 의사소통이 더 유리하게 이루어져야 한다고 주장하지는 않는다. 그러나 다양한 관점의 공존이라는 측면에서 그들의 공론장의 진입과 목소리가 배제되지 않는 것에 대한 적극적인 고려가 필요하며, 소통적 민 주주의를 향한 구체적인 실천으로서 ‘정치적 책임’과 ‘연대’가 중요하다고 주장할 것이다. (shrink)

In 1990, Antonio Negri pointed out some problems with Deleuze's political philosophy. Substituting infra-structures for life or desire, as constitutive dimensions of power formations, did not imply giving up on Marx, but it certainly did imply a change in the table of conceptual analysis and a profound renovation of the questions that pertain to militant praxis. Taking this into account, we intend to explore the sense of a rare fidelity to Marx, and a certain idea of intellectual commitment that, reframing (...) its objects and its instruments, pretends to renew political thinking in order to confront the unforeseeable of new knowledge, new techniques and new political facts. (shrink)

Se examina el trasfondo subjetivo de Respuesta a la pregunta: ¿qué es la ilustración?, que anuncia la condición antropológico-política de la minoría de edad; mostrándose que su objetivo es lograr la ilustración del Estado a partir de dicha condición. Finalmente, se expone cómo la minoría de edad es la traslación antropológica del despotismo político, y cómo este se traduce lógico-subjetivamente en los prejuicios. The article examines the subjective background of Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? A text in which the (...) anthropological and political condition of minority is announced. It is shown that the objective of Kant's article is to achieve the enlightenment of the State taking such condition as starting point. Finally, it is shown how minority is the anthropological translation of political despotism and how it is logically and subjectively translated into prejudices. (shrink)

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In Equal Recognition, Alan Patten argues that in a proper relationship between normative political theory and democratic politics, we must make a clear distinction between two questions related to cultural rights: authority and the substance of deliberation. The question he wants to explore, however, is not the authority question but the substantive question. The aim of this article is to show that an account of equal recognition cannot bracket (...) out the democratic element. It argues, first, that Equal Recognition does not live up to its initial promise, as it contains a number of reflections and recommendations that either explicitly or implicitly include the democratic element. Second, it points at other important areas of political decision-making–such as electoral system design, districting, referendums, quotas–in which it is quite clear that in order to extend equal recognition to minority cultures, we are obliged to take decisions related to the design of democratic institutions. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present a renewed reading of ethical-normative debates on recognition of cultural differences, by interrogating the initiatives that have constituted the international minority rights framework. The article is divided into three sections: 1. The first section approaches an introductory definition of minority rights. 2. The second section presents the philosophical reading of Charles Taylor on minority rights, within the ethical framework of his communitarian conception of freedom and individual development. 3. The (...) third section presents the philosophical reading of Bhabha on minority rights, within the ethical framework of his humanistic critique to the political construction of cultural differences. (shrink)

This article considers the morality of children's activism, in particular via participation in political protests. In Section 3 of the article I consider whether children can be competent to engage in activism. I argue that even if we believe children are not competent to vote it will still be true that many children are indeed competent to engage in activism. In Section 4 I consider the wellbeing effects of activism on children. I argue that political activity stands in tension with (...) achieving the intrinsic goods of childhood, meaning there is an important sense in which activism is bad for children. However, I show that these negative outcomes flow from being made aware of the injustices in society, and that for politicised children activism is often highly beneficial. (shrink)

The cultural determination of politics drives the reflection on minority rights in a paradoxical direction, as it either reduces those rights to almost nothing, or allows for what can appear to be a politics of indifference, in the sense that what happens to individuals within minorities is not to be judged from a universalistic perspective, but in relation to a particular "culture". On the contrary, a politics of human rights, which at first sight seems to be (...) dismissive of culture and politics, might well appear at closer examination to be a fairer way of dealing with minority questions. The present paper shows that the reference to culture politics in the case of minority issues can be a useful way of getting rid of human rights, whereas a more stubborn, and less attractive, defence of human rights, even in the case of minority self-determination movements, does not necessarily gets rid of politics, replacing it by bureaucratic procedures or military interventions. (shrink)

This paper examines the internal dynamics of Korean political parties to understand why the minority coalition government of Kim Dae-jung suffered from political stalemate or deadlocks in the legislature. It shows that a focus on the size of the government in terms of a majority status in the legislature does not offer a convincing explanation of why the Kim Dae-jung administration slid towards ungovernability. Instead better insights come from an analysis of party organization, an aspect of party politics (...) rarely examined through in-depth analysis. The paper shows that in terms of the key dimensions of organization (leadership type, factionalism, funding, linkage role) Korean political parties fail to connect citizens to the political system. (shrink)

To do minor activist research is to create and make use of critical neologistic vocabularies hopefully balancing the ascetic impoverishment of direction and syntax in majority vocabularies when conceptualized as universals. To do minor activist research is therefore to unsettle received discourses, narratives, and material social practices of power to develop means of resistance in new and different registers. To do minor activist research is to train the imagination for a collaboratively accomplished re/presentation of data through creating points of encounters, (...) thus engendering an affirmative perspectivist’s ethos. Re/presenting data as a space in which one’s own thinking is challenged, hence providing a perspective of the storying practices across participants and across different disciplinary, ideological, or personal boundaries within the researcher’s and the researched specific positioning. This requires getting everyone to participate in the “analysis” of data, and then getting everyone “inside” the text: situating data-inquiries in immanence. It therefore demands a liberation from old scripts, and challenges how everyone is transformed into text, with perspectivism being simultaneously means and objective for avoiding the reproduction of both old scripts and ethics. Our goal is to enhance (self)reflexivity regarding knowledge production and research methodologies, to influence actual research practices through fostering a more inclusive, open, and collaborative approach to research that transcends traditional boundaries and embraces the fluid and hybrid nature of knowledge production. Ultimately, turning the concept of ethics through minoring into a thinking hub and pedagogy for change. The first and theoretical section is on how to ethically represent data in a new-empiricist and post qualitative environment. We call it data-philosophy. Our ontological approach brings its own concepts, which reflect the perspectives from which we argue. In the three next sections, we follow up by looking more closely into these ideas in re/presenting empirical qualitative research to invite hybrid and fluid configurations. Here, activist research refers to bringing actors into our thinking about the data, to accentuate the collaborative, open to thinking differently through staying close to the data. We then bring it all together in a section on the rebirth of language, to open for what we refer to as a storying personifying, thereby storying data together as a process of becoming, of mutuality and affect as a source of agency. We argue that this creates a theory of science and ethics in data analysis, and in re/presenting data, which are closely entangled. (shrink)

This article aims at commenting in a novel way on the concept of political correctness, by showing that, even if adopting a politically-correct behavior aims at promoting a precise moral outcome, violence can be still perpetrated, despite good intentions. To afford in a novel way the problem of political correctness, I will adopt a theoretical strategy that adheres to moral stoicism, the problem of “silence”, the “fascist state of the mind” and the concept of “overmorality”, which I have introduced in (...) my book Understanding Violence. The Intertwining of Morality, Religion, and Violence: A Philosophical Stance. I will demonstrate that political correctness certainly obeys the stoic moral rule, which teaches us that we have to diminish conflicts and, so, the potential for derived violence, by avoiding to pronounce words and expressions that can be offensive and so conflict making. Unfortunately, political correctness often increases the so-called already widespread overmorality, typical of our era, and postulates too many minor moral values to be attributed to individuals and groups, which must be respected. Therefore, engaging in political correctness obscures more serious issues regarding social, political and economic life, committing a sin of abstractness and idealization. At the same time, by discouraging the use of words and expressions, the intrinsic overmoralization at work creates potential new conflicts and potential derived violence. (shrink)

Strategies for tackling educational inequality take many forms, though perhaps the argument most often invoked is school integration. Yet whatever the promise of integration may be, its realization continues to be hobbled by numerous difficulties. In this paper we examine what many of these difficulties are. Yet in contrast to how many empirical researchers frame these issues, we argue that while educational success in majority-minority schools will depend on a variety of material and non-material resources, the presence of these (...) resources does not require school integration; indeed sometimes the most crucial resources are easier to foster in its absence. To that end, we briefly canvass the evidence from the United States on high performing majority-minority schools serving poor and minority students. Yet because these debates are so contentious in the American context, we pivot away from the U.S. to consider a different country, the Netherlands. We invite the reader to consider an analogous case where racial injustice and educational inequality are just as serious, yet where differences in the state school system might prove instructive concerning how some majority-minority schools choose to respond to existing segregation, but more importantly how educational success can occur in the absence of integration. (shrink)

The majoritarian conception of democracy implies that counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism—and even representative institutions—are derogations from democracy. The majoritarian conception is mistaken for two reasons. First, it is incoherent: majoritarianism ultimately stands against one of democracy’s core normative commitments—namely, political equality. Second, majoritarianism is premised on a mistaken view of power, which fails to account for the power of numbers and thereby fails to explain the inequality faced by members of persistent minorities. Although strict majority rule serves the democratic (...) values of political agency and equality as interpreted by a set of formal conditions, an adequate conception of power shows why in real-world conditions formal-procedural inequalities, instantiated by counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism, are sometimes required to serve democratic equality. (shrink)

The comparative study of Romanian and Hungarian Neopagan organizations with an ethnocentric or "Ethno-pagan" ideology is an exploratory research aimed at mapping the similarities and the differences between these religious minorities, with a highlight on their level of institutionalization, their core values and degree of political mobilization. Zalmoxian groups and organizations promote the revival of Romanian spirituality through a process of reconnection to its ancient, supposedly Dacian and Thracian roots; by the same token, Hungarian Shamanist movements are aimed at recovering (...) a supposedly lost spirituality, built-in into the deepest layers of Hungarian language and cultural practices. A web rhetoric analysis of these organizations is carried out in order to assess audience involvement, communication style and the use of multimedia tools to convey their messages. (shrink)

This much-anticipated work is a rich and insightful collection of essays that restores women and minorities to the arena of political theory and debate.

The term “sexual minority” functions in social, cultural, and political contexts as a catchall for minority sexuality categories. Yet, apart from serving as an umbrella term, its uses are contradictory. On the one hand, the term emphasizes “sexuality,” which serves the purposes of religious fundamentalist and political groups that demonize minority sexualities to the exclusion of identity, background or family status. On the other hand, the term can be useful for readers and researchers in sexuality studies to (...) become more globally aware of, and to reconceptualize, sexuality outside of tightly contained LGBT boxes. Such a contradiction has implications for education practice and policy. We suggest, for instance, using the term cautiously when describing same-sex sexualities because, as an umbrella term, it can homogenize people who represent a highly diverse spectrum of racialized categories, class backgrounds, genders, sexualities, and other social markers of difference. As a pedagogical heuristic device, the term is useful in delineating the differences between queer and sexual minority pedagogies when deciding upon the approach that will best draw an audience into the discussion. Our overall goal through this critical exploration is to support new understandings and insights of sexual diversity in ways that effectively challenge heterosexism and homophobia. (shrink)

Populistic political discourse often portrays ethnic minorities as threats to the majority society. However, the deeper characteristics of perceived threats have not been sufficiently empirically investigated. The goal of this study is to identify the similarities and differences in intergroup threats perceived by Slovak majority from Roma, Muslims, and ethnic Hungarian minorities. The participants included 1244 adults who were instructed to write the first five associations that came to mind when thinking about one of the minorities. Our findings indicate that (...) power threat was dominant from the Hungarian minority and safety threat from the Roma and Muslim minorities. Moreover, the safety threat from the Roma minority related mainly to theft and violence, while from Muslims it was terrorism. Mapping and addressing specific threats associated with different minorities can help explain misperceptions and reduce prejudice against them. (shrink)

Minority governments in parliamentary democracies are conventionally considered to be unstable and ineffective aberrations from the principle of majority rule. Through analysis of over 350 postwar governments, the author shows that minority governments are neither exceptional nor unstable but in fact a common feature of parliamentary democracies and frequently perform as well as, or better than, majority coalitions. Using the Italian and Norwegian governments as case studies, he suggests that minority governments are particularly likely to form when (...) parties anticipate competitive elections and when opposition parties are able to influence legislative decisions. As an attempt to document and explain a very common form of government in parliamentary democracies, this book will contribute significantly to the understanding of the importance of electoral competition in democratic politics. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the new millennium, initiatives known as roundtables have been developed to create voluntary sustainability standards for agricultural commodities. Intended to be private and voluntary in nature, these initiatives claim their legitimacy from their ability to ensure the participation of all categories of stakeholders in horizontal participatory and inclusive processes. This article characterizes the political and material instruments employed as the means of formulating agreement and taking a variety of voices into consideration in these arenas. Referring to (...) the specific case of the “Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil”, I undertake a detailed analysis of the tensions relating to different forms of participation, which create a gap between “local minority voices” and international stakeholders—either non-governmental organizations or industries. Local communities and small-scale farmers face difficulties when making their voices heard in the form of debate proposed. Firstly, some participants attempt to re-impose a vertical hierarchical relationship between small-scale farmers or affected communities and company managers/directors in order to deprive the former of their powers of representation and of being able to transform reality. Secondly, the liberalism of interest groups in the roundtable accords value to experts, global knowledge, strategy, and detachment, at the expense of other capabilities of rooted or attached people who come to defend their real lives with a desire to raise critical issues of injustice. In this context, I highlight the capacity of local NGOs to relieve some of those tensions and to help locally affected communities and small-scale farmers introduce public stages for debates, by accommodating other forms of participation apart from the liberal one. By being close to and by restoring their dignity through a specific work of solicitude and care, local NGOs prepare affected people for public speaking. (shrink)

This article advances three claims. The first is that the standard instrumentalist case for minimal age and sanity requirements for voting is weak and inconclusive in such a way that the evaluation of such requirements should be made exclusively on the basis of procedural fairness considerations. The second claim is that fairness requires the inclusion of all and only those persons who have the franchise capacity: the minimum necessary cognitive and moral powers to experience the benefits of enfranchisement. The third (...) and final claim is that current age and sanity prerequisites for voting in most places fail to comply with the demands of fairness and ought to be revised. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to examine critical ways of displacing the meaning of journey – as minor rhythms and motions of everyday life. The everyday and its cyclical nature embedded in a productive life within the capitalist social regime is seen as an unexotic site of quotidian struggle. It warrants our attention only when the body asserts its presence at the site of rebellion or resistance. This is frequently reported as an exception to the given norm. The concrete reality (...) of our given material conditions is always fermenting and churning towards the “not yet”. Patterns of the everyday are seen as an extraordinary event or rupture only when the body rebels. My contention is that this journey of the body-politic is not embedded in a certain moment of its arrival or departure, from point A to B, but marked by dynamic, shifting vectors that are capable of a “leap”. In, against and beyond the spectre of capital, this paper will try to outline and discuss these minor perforations in time through the Shaheen Bagh protests and the migrant exodus during the pandemic in India. (shrink)