底层视角及其知识谱系——印度底层研究的基本进路检讨

文章立足中国,对印度底层研究进行了知识社会学的检讨。与印度底层研究者重塑底层历史、批判后殖民主义意识形态形塑下的精英主义史观不同的是,当下中国的底层问题主要关涉改革开放以来社会结构的变迁和社会分化的事实及其后果。如何开放底层讲述的空间,倾听底层的微声,记录底层的言说,并从日常生活世界中把握底层形象,将底层民众的日常生活作为学术知识生产和再生产的基础性资源,这是印度底层研究对我们的重要启示,也是将处理印度底层历史问题的理论框架运用到分析中国底层现实问题中来的前提。     

苏俄意识形态教育的变迁与重建

从社会主义苏联到当代新俄罗斯的转轨过程．不仅涉及其社会制度、政治经济等诸多方面，亦触动了这些转轨领域的深层次背景即政治文化，其中以意识形态为标志的社会思潮变迁最为引人注目和发人深省。在原来信奉的共产主义意识形态被打破之后，用什么去填补业已形成的思想真空。是俄罗斯政治经济发展过程中不可忽视的问题。历经一段盲目追求西方民主的狂热时期之后，俄罗斯社会本身已开始对其进行反思．并转向关注思想建设问题．有可能从一个方面为俄社会走向平稳发展创造条件。就当前的俄罗斯而言，思想混乱的状态还未发生根本转变，完成统一思想的创建也非一朝一夕所能做到。本文从苏俄意识形态教育的变迁与重建为视角研究其变化的阶段特点，为中国意识形态教育提供警示意义，以期有助于加强和改进我国的思想政治教育，更好地为社会主义现代化建设及改革开放服务。     

阿尔都塞“意识形态国家机器”理论解读

阿尔都塞的意识形态国家机器理论,是在继承和发展马克思和葛兰西等人关于国家和意识形态相关理论的基础上创建的。在他看来,资本主义统治阶级通过意识形态国家机器培养出与现实社会相适应的具有资本主义意识形态的生产力,并为资本主义的再生产创造了基本条件。阿尔都塞的独到分析,为我们认识现代资本主义国家提供了一个新的视角,为西方马克思主义研究意识形态理论作了突出贡献,也为当前中国的社会主义建设提供了借鉴。     

生态社会主义思潮对大学生的影响研究

生态社会主义是当代西方社会中的一股左翼思潮,也是一种新的社会主义思潮。生态社会主义提出把保护生态环境、解决生态危机等生态运动与争取社会主义运动结合起来以实现生态社会主义,这种非马克思主义的、不成熟的社会主义思潮严重影响了大学生思想政治教育的效果。因此,要加强对大学生的马克思主义理论教育,强化社会主义意识形态等方面的教育,全力克服这一西方社会思潮中的负面因素对大学生的不利影响。     

全球化社会学的基础

本篇文章在承认以前的全球化理论的价值的同时,提出一种新的关于全球体系的社会学理论,它以经济、政治和文化意识形态的跨国实践为基础,对跨国公司、跨国资产阶级和“消费主义文化—意识形态”这一整套概念系统做了详尽的阐述。本文还对“消费主义文化—意识形态”提出了一份研究纲要。在结论中,作者简要地论证了对消费主义文化—意识形态的批判怎样典型地表现了对全球资本主义本身的挑战。     

课堂之外的职校生：对底层子弟“混日子”文化的再思考

近年来，学界在底层子弟“反学校文化”的学术传统之外提出了迈向积极青少年文化研究的倡议。基于在两所职业院校的田野调查，文章比较了职校生在课堂上的“混日子”行为和在课堂之外的“不混”努力，剖析这一看似矛盾的行为背后所隐藏的动机和价值观。研究发现，职校生的“混日子”行为是在特定场景下产生的消极抵抗和习得性无助，而非该群体内在品质的文化表现。职校生在专业社团和工作场所等课堂之外的场域中有着诸多积极的尝试，突显出他们对自立自强、互帮互助等道德价值的追求和认同。文章所采用的多场景、沟通式和多元价值的理论框架有助于社会重新认识和理解职校生复杂的“主体性”和创造性。     

加强建设主流意识形态,巩固中国特色社会主义制度

民主社会主义源于西方社会理论政治与学说.民主社会主义越来越广泛流传于中国,更多人开始认识、研究甚至信仰民主社会主义,特别是其民主观更为人们大范围接受和传播,这极大得挑战了我国主流意识形态的安全.我们有必要从本质上深刻研究民主社会主义民主观及其对我国主流意识形态的不利影响,以探究应对之策,保证我国意识形态安全,使我国继续坚定不移得走中国特色社会主义道路.     

新时期高校意识形态工作问题研究及对策

以新时代大学生为研究对象,综述高校意识形态工作面临的新环境和新挑战,研究高校意识形态教育工作的新策略,进一步强化把握高校意识形态主导权的重要性,引发社会如何对学生开展意识形态教育的思考。     

草根动员与农民群体利益的表达机制——四个个案的比较研究

本文首先提出研究农民群体利益的表达机制是事关社会稳定和社会和谐的一个重大问题,然后从一个特定的角度——草根动员——来切入对这个问题的分析。作者通过四个个案的比较研究,突破了西方社会运动研究范式与印度底层社会研究范式在有组织的精英场域与无组织的底层场域之间的简单对立;作者拓展了对“依法抗争”概念的理解,并批判了国内目前流行的农民群体利益表达已进入“以法抗争”新阶段的观点。作者认为草根行动者是一个既不完全认同于精英、也不完全代表底层,而是有着自身独特行动目标和逻辑的行动者。草根行动者所进行的草根动员,使农民群体利益表达机制在表达方式的选择上具有权宜性,在组织上具有双重性,在政治上具有模糊性。草根动员既是一个动员参与的过程,同时也是一个进行理性控制并适时结束群体行动的过程。     

意识形态话语权研究文献综述

意识形态话语权属于国家的上层建筑,是政党执政的思想基础,关系到国家的安全和统一,影响着国家的国际话语能力和政治地位。如何建构起中国的话语体系,关系到国家的长足发展。笔者通过对相关词语的检索,归纳整理了近年来国内外关于意识形态话语权的相关研究及基本观点。     

Trust and rule

Over most of history, participants in trust networks such as clandestine religious sects and kinship groups have shielded them from rulers' intervention, rightly fearing dispossession or exploitation. Yet no substantial regime can survive without drawing on resources held by trust networks. In particular, democratic regimes cannot operate without substantial integration of trust networks into public politics. Rulers' application of various combinations among coercion, capital, and commitment in the course of bargaining with subordinate populations produces a variety of regimes. Contemporary democracies face a threat of de-democratization if major segments of the population withdraw their trust networks from public politics.     

“There are traitors among us”: On the Emotional Vicissitudes of Populist Politics

This article examines fellowship and accusations of betrayal among members of a populist movement in contemporary Argentina. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among self-described “militants” of the Kirchnerist movement, a contemporary iteration of Peronism, this work makes a uniquely anthropological intervention into existing literature on populist politics, which tends to focus on populism’s demonization of the enemy of “the people.” In contrast, this article argues that a focus on the demonization of an external enemy misses essential dimensions of the social world of Peronist politics, which is primarily characterized by loving bonds of fellowship between Peronist militants. I show how, in moments of uncertainty, this emphasis on fellowship morphs into a preoccupation with treachery, such that concern with the potential insubordination of one’s fellow Peronists eclipses animus towards external enemies. This article argues for greater attention to the lived experiences of adherents to populist movements to encourage a more holistic and nuanced understanding of the social world of populist politics.     

A cultural studies without guarantees: Response to Kuan-Hsing Chen

Abstract

This article is a short response to Chen's critique of our article ‘Asianing Australia: notes toward a critical transnationalism in cultural studies’. It is argued that Chen's attack on our article is misdirected. Furthermore, we are in substantial agreement with Chen on many issues, most importantly that the nation-state should not be the uninterrogated site for the development of a ‘local’ cultural studies. However, we find Chen's politics, and his use of a reductionist Marxist theory, overly simplistic. Moreover, the core/periphery binary which he uses is not adequate to express the complexities of a global capitalist world order in which the sites of power are becoming increasingly decentred. Similarly, the politics of resistance are also more complex than Chen suggests; resistance must be understood in relation to local situations and local tactics, as well as the imperatives of global capitalism. Finally, a properly localized and left-politicized cultural studies must reflexively interrogate the politics of theory, including Marxism, considering its specific ‘western’ history and recognizing the necessary partiality of theory in a post-colonial world of differentiated modernities.     

Public Relations and Symbolic Politics

In German-speaking countries public relations scholars emphasize the role of public relations (PR) in society in their theorizing. These scholars seek to understand PR as a macro-level, or sociological, phenomenon in contrast to the micro-level, or management, emphasis of scholars in the United States. This article builds a sociological theory of PR by comparing it with the practice of symbolic politics as conceptualized in political science. The theory states that both PR and symbolic politics develop and use symbols—signs that influence and guide conceptions—to achieve their purposes. They also rely heavily on journalistic media. Media reality, however, frequently departs from extramedia reality. The difference between these two types of reality makes it possible for symbolic politics and PR to influence the gap and perhaps to separate the symbolic world from the external world. On the other hand, attention is a scarce resource, and increased activity in PR and symbolic politics eventually will have a declining marginal social utility.     

Religion and Comparative Political Sociology

In the last decade, religious politics seemed to sweep the world. Calls have been issued for religion to regain its rightful place in the study of politics. We contend that the influence of religion on politics is hardly novel and that religious beliefs and organizations have had a profound effect on polities both in the developed democracies and in developing societies. Drawing widely on the comparative sociology of politics, we trace the role of religion in the generation of political attitudes and preferences, in the process of democratization, in the formation of interest organizations and confessional parties, and consider the contemporary debate concerning religious violence. We will demonstrate the importance of religion in inspiring political behavior, including both electoral and non-electoral politics, and in the shaping of political institutions and the regulatory framework surrounding the religious sphere. Our survey indicates that neither arguments concerning the secularization of polity and society nor for the recent return of religious fervor to politics is persuasive. Religion is, and has been, fundamental to modern politics.     

Assessing Television’s ‘Political Dramas’

Because drama is so important to the television schedules, and because television remains a ubiquitous and pervasive medium, TV drama is a constant cultural presence. Some of its stories are about politics, featuring the work of government, the contestation of elections, party rivalry and negotiation, and so on, with a cast of characters including leaders, advisors, journalists, celebrities and citizens: they echo, refract, replay, model and feed into narratives about real‐world politics in a variety of ways. Dramatic stories of this kind are important for the sake of their potential contribution to what citizens believe ‐ and feel ‐ about politics itself. Dramatised political stories and characters appear in a wide range of genres, from factually based docudramas to situation comedy and soap opera, and have become the focus of international academic attention for a number of scholars in politics departments as well as those working from within media and cultural studies. This article looks at a range of approaches to studying political drama on television, raising questions about generic variety, the ideas and the kinds of analysis that have been applied and the varying assessments that have been put forward.     

Kenyan women in androcentric political culture: from Julia Auma Ojiambo to Affirmative Action

This paper presents the oral history of Julia Auma Ojiambo as representative of the struggles of Kenyan women in androcentric politics and a reflection of their subordinate position in the state and post-colonial society. The oral history is derived from a series of interviews conducted with Ojiambo by the author in 2012. It also traces the development of formal and informal women-centred initiatives like women’s self-help groups and the National Gender Machinery as coping mechanisms adopted by women to subvert gender discrimination in politics from the colonial era to date. Further, it evaluates how provisions in the Constitution of Kenya like the one-third gender principle and Affirmative Action have impacted on political practices regarding women. The paper postulates that women display strong leadership in women’s movements that is not reflected in national politics. Their presence in national politics is low compared to men, mainly due to the destabilisation of the women’s movement in the post-colonial era, through co-optation and gender discrimination that prevents women from forming a strong force to combat androcentric politics. Therefore, women’s political participation is hampered by the androcentric nature of Kenyan politics and culture, but also patriarchy and gender and class inequalities in the social sphere.     

Cosmopolitics: towards a new articulation of politics,science and critique

This paper explores how Ulrich Beck's world‐risk‐society theory (WRST) and Bruno Latour's Actor‐Network Theory (ANT) can be combined to advance a theory of cosmopolitics. On the one hand, WRST helps to examine ‘cosmopolitan politics’, how actors try to inject cosmopolitanism into existing political practices and institutions anchored in the logic of nationalism. On the other hand, ANT sheds light on ‘cosmological politics’, how scientists participate in the construction of reality as a reference point for political struggles. By combining the WRST and ANT perspectives, it becomes possible to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of cosmopolitics that takes into account both political and ontological dimensions. The proposed synthesis of WRST and ANT also calls for a renewal of critical theory by making social scientists aware of their performative involvement in cosmopolitics. This renewal prompts social scientists to explore how they can pragmatically support certain ideals of cosmopolitics through continuous dialogues with their objects of study, actors who inhabit different nations and different cosmoses.     

Reason, Politics, and the Politics of Truth: How Science Is Both Autonomous and Dependent

The concept of "science" usually includes commitments to reason, objectivity, and disinterest in the search for truth about the nature of the world. In this view, politics, in the sense of maneuvering to gain power, corrupts both the process and the product of science. However, we show that science is political through and through—in the process of constructing scientific knowledge, in maintaining disciplines, and in being responsive to partisan sponsorship. Nevertheless, the practitioners of both science and politics maintain the boundary between the two fields; in fact, the disciplines most dependent upon government support tend also to be the most autonomous. This situation becomes understandable when both fields are considered as discursive practices. Then, scientific debates can be seen as productive precisely because they derive from an objective agreement about science as an autonomous intellectual enterprise, and science itself can be seen as a politics of truth .     

Friends or Enemies?: Generational Politics in the Korean American Community in Los Angeles

This paper examines generational politics in the Korean American community in Los Angeles. After outlining how the Immigration Act of 1965 led to the acceleration of generational transition in the contemporary immigrant experience, the paper focuses its attention on the entry of the post-immigrant generation into Korean American community politics. Relying on interviews and case studies, the entry of the post-immigrant generation is examined both as a source of new political resources for community mobilization as well as a new source of intra-community conflict. As greater numbers of the post-immigrant generation reach adulthood and become active in political affairs, the issue of generational politics will play an increasingly important role for shaping not only the political developments in immigrant communities but also the broader politics of the American society.