We know of the Atinian plebiscite only from a tantalizing reference of Gellius, apparently citing Ateius Capito: ‘nam et tribunis, inquit plebis senatus habendi ius erat, quamquam senatores non essent ante Atinium plebiscitum.’ Willems was able to note two interpretations, one of which held that the plebiscite required that all tribunes be senators already, the other that it allowed tribunes the enjoyment of senatorial rights. The first was rightly rejected; since all we know disallows the notion that an aedileship would (...) precede the tribunate, senatorial status could only come after the quaestorship and while there were only eight or less quaestors, clearly ten tribunes could hardly all be ex-quaestors. Consequently Willems adopted the second alternative: acquisition of the tribunate entailed the ius sententiae dicendae in the senate. (shrink)

We know of the Atinian plebiscite only from a tantalizing reference of Gellius, apparently citing Ateius Capito: ‘nam et tribunis, inquit plebis senatus habendi ius erat, quamquam senatores non essent ante Atinium plebiscitum.’ Willems was able to note two interpretations, one of which held that the plebiscite required that all tribunes be senators already, the other that it allowed tribunes the enjoyment of senatorial rights. The first was rightly rejected; since all we know disallows the notion that an aedileship would (...) precede the tribunate, senatorial status could only come after the quaestorship and while there were only eight or less quaestors, clearly ten tribunes could hardly all be ex-quaestors. Consequently Willems adopted the second alternative: acquisition of the tribunate entailed the ius sententiae dicendae in the senate. (shrink)

How does violence shape citizens’ preferences for conflict termination? The existing literature has argued that violence either begets sympathy for more violence or drives support for making peace. Focusing on the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement, this article finds that victimhood dissociation strongly shapes these preferences. With victimhood dissociation, a discrepancy exists between objective and subjective victimization, and the effect of violence on peace attitudes depends on citizens’ subjective interpretations of their personal experiences of violence. Citizens who do not experience violence (...) often see themselves as victims of the conflict and vice versa. Victimhood dissociation is linked to cultural stereotypes of victimhood as portrayed in elite narratives concerning the conflict. In Colombia, political leaders framed victimhood around rurality, business entrepreneurship, kidnapping, extortion, and disappearance. In 2016, this widespread narrative was instrumental for politicians opposing the peace agreement. Citizens who disassociated their personal experiences of violence from their self-understanding as victims were instrumental to the failure of the peace plebiscite. (shrink)

In order responsibly to decide whether there ought to be an international legal right of secession, I believe we need an account of the morality of secession. I propose that territorial and political societies have a moral right to secede, and on that basis I propose a regime designed to give such groups an international legal right to secede. This regime would create a procedure that could be followed by groups desiring to secede or by states desiring to resolve the (...) issue of secession. It would give territorial political societies a legally recognized liberty to conduct a plebiscite on secession, and, assuming such a plebiscite is won by the secessionist side, a qualified right in international law to create a state without interference. Alan Buchanan has argued that proposals of this sort would create perverse incentives. I argue that there is no good reason to believe this. The point is to allow the legal regulation of secession in cases where there are active secessionist movements with legitimate moral claims, and to attempt to dampen the desire for secession in cases where secessionist sentiment is not well grounded in social and geographic reality. (shrink)

In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)

In the mid fourth century b.c. some Roman gentes drew on a Pythagorean tradition. In this tradition, Numa's role of Pythagoras’ disciple connected Rome with Greek elites and culture. The Marcii, between 304 and 300 b.c., used Numa's figure, recently reshaped by the Aemilii and the Pinarii for their propaganda, to promote the need for a plebeian pontificate. After the approval of the Ogulnium plebiscite, the needs for this kind of propaganda fell away. When Marcius Censorinus became censor, Numa's pontificate (...) was no longer relevant for promoting the gens. For this reason, the Marcii used another genealogy for similar propagandistic effect: the figure of Marsyas, a symbol of plebeian ideals. (shrink)

There has been an increase in recent years in the use of empirical methods in healthcare ethics. Appeals to empirical data cannot answer moral questions, but insights into the knowledge, attitudes, experience, preferences and practice of interested parties can play an important part in the development of healthcare ethics. In particular, while we may establish a general ethical principle to provide explanatory and normative guidance for healthcare professionals, the interpretation and application of such general principles to actual practice still requires (...) interpretation and judgement. And many situations in healthcare practice are complex and may involve a variety of principles, each of which may conflict with the others. Simple surveys or interview studies may not be sufficient if we wish to develop a nuanced approach to ethical practice that can be set out in guidelines, codes or directives. We do not resolve moral questions by plebiscite. In this paper, the authors argue for the use of consensus methods to develop shared understanding of ethical practice, and they argue further for the combination of the Delphi method with the use of vignettes to illustrate the kind of situations that may occur in practice. They develop their argument in part by reference to their experience of using this approach in their recent research. (shrink)

I propose a theory of popular power, according to which a political order manifests popular power to the extent it robustly maintains an egalitarian basic structure. There are two parts to the theory. First, the power of a political order lies in the basic structure's robust self-maintenance. Second, the popularity of the political order’s power lies in the equality of relations between the society's members. I will argue that this theory avoids the perverse consequences of some existing radical democratic theories (...) of popular power which focus on mass expression, either in plebiscites or in social movements, as popular power's canonical instances. In particular, my theory does not valourise momentary expression over durable effect, and it offers a ready framework for conceptualising the sometimes-oligarchic substructure of the supposedly canonical instances of popular power. I will show that this theory has strong precedents within a certain republican tradition of political philosophy. (shrink)

The driving question behind Sandra Leonie Field's exciting new book, Potentia, is: what, exactly, constitutes popular power? Field turns to two seventeenth-century political theorists, Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, to try to extract an account that might avoid Joseph Schumpeter's dismal conclusion that we should abandon all pretenses to popular power. In the process, she exposes problems with recent populist interpretations of Hobbes and Spinoza, showing that both of these figures appreciated the problems with identifying plebiscites with popular (...) power better than their "radical" interpreters. The result is a rich and stimulating work on a topic—namely, power—that remains somewhat undertheorized, at least... (shrink)

The notion of Dignity of Creatures has been voted into the Swiss Federal Constitution by a plebiscite. Philipp Balzer, Klaus-Peter Rippe, and Peter Schaber have given an expert opinion for the Swiss government to clarify the notion of Dignity of Creatures. According to them, by voting this notion into the Swiss constitution, the Swiss have chosen for a limited biocentric approach towards biotechnology. In such an approach genetic engineering of non-human beings is only allowed insofar that their own good is (...) not impaired. It is, however, not clear when the good of a non-human being is impaired. I defend the position that – even if we confine ourselves to animals – their good goes beyond their well being. (shrink)

The article presents a systematic and detailed account of scholarly developments on the problem of studying the process of nation-building and the role of history, memory, language and culture in reflecting this process. The research reveals that according to the premordialist approach, nations are not formed instantaneously, by the relevant political will or by coincidence of circumstances; the process of creating and consolidating a nation is a long and meaningful one, full of historical events and national cultural tokens. The primordialist (...) concepts are considered unanimous in their recognition of the exceptional significance of psychological factors in the creation of a nation. The creation of a nation involves a sophisticated set of linguistic, religious, ethnic, territorial and myth-household factors that determine the formation of a corresponding type of sociality. The framework of the analytics of the phenomenon of a nation includes not only psychological, but also social, cultural, political, ethical, moral and axiological aspects. The new system-building concepts such as solidarity, habitus, plebiscite were added to the discussion of nation. In view of that, it is impossible to carry out the reduction of the phenomenon of a nation to a particular problem field and to localize it to invariant indicators. The formation and optimization of the capitalistic type of social system generates new factors in the interpretation and consolidation of a nation. The reasons for a political defeat in the development of a nation can be referedr to either conscious manipulative techniques, or spontaneous miscalculations. Elaborating the alternative versions of history is nothing but unjustified politicization, implementation of imperial and colonial ambitions, overcoming which is a necessary prerequisite for successful nation-building. The establishment and offsetting of such manipulative influence facilitate the stabilization of the social situation and the resolution of conflicts, and, consequently, contribute to national development. The key point is to establish a nation within the framework of the international and state policy, especially by distinguishing the consolidating and disintegrating influences of state and international politicies on nation-building. The policy of uniting the nation can become effective when the important reforms do not deepen the fragmentation of the nation, but rather neutralize it. (shrink)

No presents the television campaign for the 1988 plebiscite on whether the Pinochet regime should stay as the government for eight more years (‘Yes’) or hold democratic elections (‘No’). The ‘No’ campaign uses the Aristotelian idea that happiness is an intrinsic value and thus the best concept to galvanise a traumatised nation in favour of change. My paper examines the film’s presentation of how a response to the trauma of the regime becomes transformed into resistance through the idea of a (...) possible future happiness. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo se propone una relectura de ¿Qué es una nación?, de Ernest Renan (1882), a fin de rescatarlo para el debate contemporáneo. Para ello, propone no supeditar la interpretación de dicho texto a su concreta circunstancia histórica y leer a Renan más allá de la ideología nacionalista. A tal fin, enfoca la dinámica de olvido y memoria en la nación, según Renan, así como las “puestas entre paréntesis” que permitirían abordar metodológicamente “qué es” una nación, en el marco (...) general del humanismo de Renan.Palabras claveRenan, Nación, plebiscito, humanismo, democracia AbstractThis article proposes a re-reading of What is a Nation? by Ernest Renan (1882) in order to rescue it for the contemporary debate. Therefore, instead of submitting the interpretation of this text to its specific historical circumstances, we suggest reading Renan beyond the nationalist ideology. To fulfil our aim, we focus on the dynamics of Forgetting and Memory in the nation, according to Renan, as well as the “put between brackets” that would allow a methodological approach to “what is” a nation, within the general framework of Renan’s humanism.KeywordsRenan, Nation, plebiscite, humanism, democracy. (shrink)

The British Union of Fascists dealt with the contradictions between its fascist ideology and certain institutions and values dominant in Britain in the 1930s. The economic and social conditions in Britain provided the back-cloth from which the BUF's ideology and policies emerged.While critical of Parliament as inadequate for coping with a modern economy, the BUF had to take account of the depth of public attachment to elections and democracy. Corporate state proposals were presented as expressing the British habit of teamwork, (...) and popular control over fascist governments was envisaged via plebiscites. Unusually for fascists, the BUF distinguished between public obligations and private rights and this because of the dominance of individual liberty in the collective conscience.Finally, the specific co-existence of the modern and the archaic in the BUF's discours in terms of British social and historical factors has to be stressed. (shrink)

This article analyzes the functions and effects of direct democracy in Uruguay, especially in recent years. It studies the plebiscites and referendums that were actually carried out, and also those that were initiated but did not materialize because they did not achieve the necessary signatures or adhesions. The main objective of this research is to show that the mechanisms of direct democracy constitute an institutional way to channel and give voice to social discontent, contributing to avoid the democratic deficit (...) and the social outbreak. (shrink)

In any culture, and ultimately, philosophy, and in any kind of philosophy, metaphysics seems to always be hotly discussed subjects. Because philosophy itself is an argumentative knowledge, the most in line with human needs, and in the vast field of philosophy, metaphysics is fundamental to explore the ultimate question of the root or principle. In this reflection, only briefly on three issues: One, what is metaphysics? II, the core concept of metaphysics - there are problems with the nothingness. Parameters, and (...) why many people hate, exclusion metaphysics? In the history of Western philosophy, the metaphysics and ontology have its heyday, there is a period of decline, there has long been discredited and tried to set the kill time. But certainly metaphysics of academics, whether you deny it, both can not remain outside of metaphysics and metaphysics. As "yes" that is "yes", there can not always say "no" or "no." Its reasoning to that, if the world held a referendum in the world, I believe most people would agree: "There is is." This can be said: "People" as a spiritual animal, although his feet standing on the earth in a physical, his mental activity so that he can not admit the existence of the metaphysical. No cultures can dispense with philosophies, while metaphysics seems to be the most controversial subject in any philosophy. Since philosophy is a study not only scrutinous but also the most appropriate to human needs, among the different areas of philosophy, metaphysics is the one that explores the ultimate root or principle of the essential questions. In this article, the writer only discusses three questions succinctly: first, what metaphysics is; second, the central idea of ​​metaphysics - being and nothingness; third, why many people dislike and repel metaphysics . Throughout the development of western philosophy, both metaphysics and ontology have their ups and downs, being chronically besmeared and oppressed. Either for or against metaphysics, we can't discuss metaphysics from the outside, which is just as clear as "being" can be addressed neither as "nonexistence" nor "nothingness" but "being." If we hold a global plebiscite, it is believed most people would agree that "being is being." Therefore we can say: "Man" as a spiritual creature, while his feet stand on the physical ground, his mental activities make him have to recognize his metaphysical being. (shrink)

Kwame Gyekye seeks to address the complex question of political legitimacy particularly on the African continent. He argues that the justification for political legitimacy need not necessarily depend on the economic performance of any given regime. For him, justification for legitimacy merely lies in whether all correct processes and procedures were properly followed in the assumption of power. He is of the view that military coups should not be tolerated as they lack legitimacy although they might have justification usurping power. (...) He also argues that popular uprisings may have the justification to assume power but should subject themselves to a plebiscite to have legitimacy. In this paper I seek to argue that Gyekye's distinction between legitimacy and justification of exercise of political power is unsustainable. In contrast to Gyekye I seek to argue for a more plausible account of legitimacy that takes the substantive requirement much more seriously. I do this by showing the importance of the function of institutional checks on power in traditional African societies and seek to argue for the urgent need of such institutionalised checks on power in post-colonial Africa. (shrink)

Cet article tente de penser le geste esthétique des communautés concevant la politique comme un lieu de rencontres plutôt que de définitions. Il cherche dans la production musicale et sonore de la période entre le 18-O et le plébiscite de sortie les relations micropolitiques nécessaires pour que de telles productions existent, soient publiées et circulent à travers les canaux très différents qui ont rendu possibles leur participation et leur rencontre.

Le politique et le chanteur : deux figures qui semblent bien éloignées mais que l’auteur rassemble en partant de la scène kinoise. Stratégie de subversion, culte de la personnalité, culture du clash, soutien de supporters, fonctionnement en factions : avec humour, l’auteur dresse des parallèles entre les univers musicaux et politiques pour, d’une part, souligner combien la musique porte une large part de politique et pour, d’autre part, déconstruire l’autorité du champ politique par la dérision. La dictature est ainsi lue (...) comme le plébiscite, par les masses, d’hommes de scènes, passés maîtres dans la gestion des slogans et des bonnes répliques. Les stars de la chanson, de leur côté, sont partie prenante des campagnes électorales et participent aux stratégies de marketing de la scène politique. Au-delà des jeux de rapprochement, l’article interroge la fabrication des élites, l’espace médiatique, la création des « stars » et l’usage de la parole politique. (shrink)

This chapter examines a foundational democratic practice by considering how it expresses concepts of the Enlightenment. The practice is that of the vote or plebiscite as it appears in governance. The leading enlightenment concept is rationality as it is expounded by Kant. Kant did not participate in national democratic processes. He expected decisions of any consequence to be made in Berlin and thrived when his City was invaded by the Russians and their officers became his students, until they left suddenly (...) in 1762 (Kuehn, 2001, p.126). Kant participated in political debate where the issues were in the main constitutional and about the processes of government reform. He became known for his theory of natural law and the justification of positive law. He advocated the separation of powers, but denied the right of revolution. This latter onclusion was in apparent contradiction of his support for republicanism, including the French, English, and American revolutions (Beck, 1971, p.413). The term “republican” in Kant’s writings is sometimes interpreted to mean “parliamentary democracy”. This is probably a mistake, and Reiss suggests Kant’s term does not carry the “connotation” of modern Western democracy (Reiss's "Introduction" in Kant, 1991a, p.25). Kant himself wrote that he wanted to prevent “the republican constitution from being confused with the democratic one, as commonly happens” (Kant, 1991a, .100). So it is that, whilst Kant wrote about the interaction of morality and politics, he did not write on the topic of the present chapter which focuses on those mechanisms or mechanics that democracy displays when it works. (shrink)

I elicit some of Foucault’s insights to provide a more realistic picture than is the norm in social and political theory of how best to identify and overcome domination. Foucault’s vision is realized best, I argue, by combining his account with two related conceptions of domination based on human needs and realistic accounts of politics that focus on agency, power and interests. I defend a genealogical, inter-subjective account of how the determination of needs and interests forms the basis of ascertaining, (...) on a continuum, the extent to which relations of power generate states of domination. To that end I propose institutional changes that would empower citizens in positive and negative ways: power over legislation in district assemblies and via veto and repeal; real control over representatives through various means; and decennial constitutional plebiscites. (shrink)

This paper inaugurates a discussion about the phenomenology of union decision-making. Phenomenology provides a new lens that may enable us to gain penetrating insights into how unions function in the fractious world of human resources management. The present paper is preliminary to any fieldwork that may be undertaken. Its main purposes are to identify theory that could be the foundation of further practical work, relate recent work in the phenomenology of management to union practices and to propose directions of enquiry. (...) The relevant theory is that of Edmund Husserl who provides us with a practical method of enquiry into the real world of human resource practice. Husserl’s work has already been applied in relation to local government functioning and some of the findings there appear relevant to the present enquiry. In particular, the nature and role of plebiscites. (shrink)

What is virtuous citizenship? Is it possible to be a virtuous citizen whatever the form of one's state? Is it possible to be a virtuous citizen in the new South Africa? In this article I defend some Republican ideas on civic virtue and popular sovereignty, especially as found in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to suggest that popular sovereignty is a necessary condition for active and virtuous citizenship. For it is only under conditions of popular sovereignty that the right kind (...) of political agency is possible. I discuss these ideas in the context of modern constitutional democracies, and argue that constitutional democracy in South Africa is not an instance of popular sovereignty and thus does not provide the possibility for virtuous citizenship. I end the article with a proposal for addressing these deficiencies: effective citizen control over the constitution by means of a decennial plebiscite—a carnival of citizenship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Even now, now, very now"Mimesis's and Imitation's TemporalitiesJoão Cezar de Castro Rocha (bio)Had we but world enough and time.—Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"THE EMPIRE OF NOWNESSIn the contemporary world our lives seem to become ever more Girardian, and to such an extent that even everyday language speaks of this circumstance. I think especially of a tool that is omnipresent in our societies: One just has to listen carefully (...) to the concepts employed daily by billions of users of the digital universal, and more particularly pay attention to the naturalization of an extremely aggressive behavior by the users of social networks.Is it not true that we all want our posts and tweets and photos to go viral? Haven't we all have lost some precious time looking at an infinity of memes scrolling down mechanically screen after screen? In political science, there is even a new approach, memetic, specialized in the study of the production [End Page 47] of memes and above all in understanding the overwhelming impact of their reception—notably in the political arena. Among so many possible examples, the Italian movement Cinque Stelle, the election of both Donald Trump in the United States (2016) and Jair Messias Bolsonaro in Brazil (2018), and the outcome of the Brexit plebiscite (2016) are events intrinsically (although not exclusively) related to a sort of mass production of memes and other gadgets typical of social networks.And that is not all: The word contagion is commonly employed by users in almost a technical Girardian sense. The paroxysm of a world for which social relations are dominated by aggravated internal mediation also deepens the mimetic drive underlying the digital universe. What is one to say of a new "profession" that is flourishing nowadays? I am referring to the digital influencer, whose only possible parallel is given by the uncontrollable multiplication of coaches for every single aspect of life. The reader of René Girard's fundamental work cannot but close her eyes and anticipate the next step. Digital influencers and coaches are only successful if they present themselves as an authentic skandalon to billions of users around the globe, for their lifestyle, although seemingly inaccessible or precisely because of it, becomes the explicit object of desire of their followers. Girardian concepts come naturally to mind: Metaphysical desire defines the profile of such followers—they want to be exactly like the coaches and influencers they admire. The double-bind nature of this predicament is a perfect recipe for the escalation of symbolic violence and abusive language that permeates the digital universe. Influencers and coaches are, so to speak, active nonreaders of Gregory Bateson's work, urging their followers to adopt them as undisputable models, but at the same time, because they are the coaches and the influencers, they are making it clear that the followers will not be able to achieve what nonetheless they are led to covet because of the same influencers and coaches. Otherwise, if every follower became a coach, the "profession" would at once reach its apogee and its destruction!(You understand that redundancy imposes itself here because it is a powerful mimetic machine.)In Bateson's words, the double bind is "a situation in which no matter what a person does, he 'can't win.' It is hypothesized that a person caught in the double bind may develop schizophrenic symptoms."1 This paradoxical structure evokes the classic situation of the fable, in which the character who desires everything [End Page 48] gains nothing; finding himself midway between two treasures, he is unable to settle on one for fear of losing the other. This is a conflictive situation provoked by the digital universe on a daily basis and on a planetary scale in an unprecedented manner.The "best" is yet to come: This troubling escalation of mimetic rivalry and therefore mimetic violence, although entangled in embarrassingly trite matters, has a shocking outcome: the obsessive repetition of the mimetic resolution offered by the so-called "virtual lynching," and the omnipresence of the "cancel or call-out culture," an obvious variation of the scapegoat mechanism, widely employed and rendered properly epidemic due to an... (shrink)

Resumen El artículo se propone una relectura de ¿Qué es una nación?, de Ernest Renan (1882), a fin de rescatarlo para el debate contemporáneo. Para ello, propone no supeditar la interpretación de dicho texto a su concreta circunstancia histórica y leer a Renan más allá de la ideología nacionalista. A tal fin, enfoca la dinámica de olvido y memoria en la nación, según Renan, así como las “puestas entre paréntesis” que permitirían abordar metodológicamente “qué es” una nación, en el marco (...) general del humanismo de Renan.Palabras claveRenan, Nación, plebiscito, humanismo, democracia AbstractThis article proposes a re-reading of What is a Nation? by Ernest Renan (1882) in order to rescue it for the contemporary debate. Therefore, instead of submitting the interpretation of this text to its specific historical circumstances, we suggest reading Renan beyond the nationalist ideology. To fulfil our aim, we focus on the dynamics of Forgetting and Memory in the nation, according to Renan, as well as the “put between brackets” that would allow a methodological approach to “what is” a nation, within the general framework of Renan’s humanism.KeywordsRenan, Nation, plebiscite, humanism, democracy. (shrink)

Le processus qui a conduit aux événements d’octobre 2019 au Chili a généralement été interprété comme l’effet explosif d’une « accumulation » de troubles, qui s’est développée au cours des trois décennies qui ont suivi la fin de la dictature de Pinochet. Avec le résultat négatif du plébiscite du 4 septembre 2022 la métaphore de l’« accumulation » est tombée. Qu’est-ce désormais que cette révolte sans révolution? La révolte est-elle un moment interne au néolibéralisme?

Le printemps austral au Chili a été le théâtre d’un grand soulèvement qui a mis fin à la politique néolibérale de Piñera tout en critiquant le cadre constitutionnel, héritage de l’époque Pinochet. Au départ, le mouvement était une grève métropolitaine contre l’augmentation du prix du ticket des transports publics. Face à la répression qui a suivi la grève s’est transformée en un soulèvement des multitudes pour la démocratie et un nouveau système de protection sociale. Même les tentatives de médiation institutionnelles (...) ne semblent ne pas avoir de succès pour bloquer le mouvement qui tout de même rentre en hibernation à cause de la pandémie. Mais le résultat du plébiscite pour une nouvelle constituante qui montre que le pays s’émancipe du cadre pinochetiste. (shrink)

The nature and factors of the existence of the nation-state in the doctrine of H. Ortega y Gasset are revealed. Ortehovoyi in interpreting the nation-state is a metaphysical strength and unity of past and future, tradition and consolidating new purpose-idea alloy democratic institutions and subconscious zovu blood, land, language, mature nation. As an instrument of the nation, the nation state is a political entity that legitimizes the idea of social order and public self is an initiative of the people and (...) personality. The democratic nature of the nation-state is its indispensable advantage - it gives real grounds separate individual and values harmonious collective resist oppression. Simultaneously, the nation state is the result of integration of peoples to new historical stage of development, volitional act elite, which determine the call-idea and transform it into a state-based form of "call" world capabilities of the people. This creative process is not possible without a high level of social elasticity without close consolidate elites with public miles, without the democratic principles of cooperation, which together store representations, symbolic and real-institutional unity of the body politic of the nation, and is the key to the dichotomy of nation-state - its dynamics and statics. Thus, the concept of nation-state process of reconciliation Madrid provides citizens with the idea of a sovereign political body which defends freedom and respects their interests and concluded lifestyle. Thus, the concept of the nation state H. Ortega y Gasset is the liberal-conservative trait. It is presented as a result of historical passages mature nation and a compromise individual rights of the person will and ability of elites. (shrink)

A political theorist considers the interface between political and moral theory. Drawing freely from classical theories of human nature and morality, Professor Ryn argues that constitutional, representative democracy coheres better with human social ethical aspirations than does democracy by plebiscite, unqualified majority rule.