On Kukathas' Liberalism and elite (capture) Theory
digressionsimpressions.substack.com
This is not because the characterization of political society Walzer offers is untrue to reality. Political society is a substantive community, for there is no such thing as a purely procedural association. And associations with long histories will invariably develop substantial norms, and acquire deep allegiances. And yet, this is not so different from international society and, more particularly, that form of international society that is an empire. Thirty years ago every Australian school child recognized Empire Day, and Australians generally celebrated their membership of the former British Empire. Today, almost all school children are entirely unaware it ever existed. The polity whose history is taught has been contracted in size, and the story itself is being retold to place it more securely in the Asia-Pacific region and to sever the ties with Europe. But this is nothing new. Very few countries were never parts of empires; and some have grown so large as to subsume the parts the empire occupied. In many of these political societies the polity is the product of domination rather than the construction of the people.
On Kukathas' Liberalism and elite (capture) Theory
On Kukathas' Liberalism and elite (capture…
On Kukathas' Liberalism and elite (capture) Theory
This is not because the characterization of political society Walzer offers is untrue to reality. Political society is a substantive community, for there is no such thing as a purely procedural association. And associations with long histories will invariably develop substantial norms, and acquire deep allegiances. And yet, this is not so different from international society and, more particularly, that form of international society that is an empire. Thirty years ago every Australian school child recognized Empire Day, and Australians generally celebrated their membership of the former British Empire. Today, almost all school children are entirely unaware it ever existed. The polity whose history is taught has been contracted in size, and the story itself is being retold to place it more securely in the Asia-Pacific region and to sever the ties with Europe. But this is nothing new. Very few countries were never parts of empires; and some have grown so large as to subsume the parts the empire occupied. In many of these political societies the polity is the product of domination rather than the construction of the people.