Изкушен? Относно обвързването на Фуко с неолиберализма. Коментар върху неотдавнашната „теза за съблазняването“

Author(s): Magnus Paulsen Hansen / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3-4/2016

The essay questions the recent wave of authors claiming that Foucault became ‘seduced’ by neoliberal thought and ended up endorsing it. It does so by a thorough examination of two books that makes the claim, but with radically different explanations for the fact that Foucault engaged himself with neoliberalism. By analyzing the textual ‘evidence’ of the proponents of the ‘seduction theses’ the essay shows that its premises are rather flawed. Firstly, the lack of normative denunciations in Foucault’s writing on neoliberalism cannot be taken as an endorsement, but as integral to a specific way of conducting ‘non-normative critique (Hansen 2016). Secondly, Foucault’s supposedly anti-statist position is questionable when one reads his lectures carefully. In fact, Foucault’s explicitly distanced himself an “inflationary” critique of the state, identifiable on the extreme left as well as in neoliberal thought.

Биовластта днес

Author(s): Paul Rabinow,Nikolas Rose / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3-4/2016

Една различна биополитика: Фуко чете Мойо

Author(s): Luca Paltrinieri / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3-4/2016

This article discusses the concept of “biopower” in the light of Michel Foucault’s courses at the Collège de France, especially his lectures between 1978 and 1980. After having offered a definition of “biopower” and “biopolitics”, I will discuss in more details Foucault’s reading of the great book of the French protodemography Recherches et Considérations sur la population de la France [Researches and Considerations on the Population of France] by Jean-Baptiste Moheau. I will try then to answer the question: Why has Foucault defined this book being “the first great text of biopolitics”? My answer points out that in Moheau the government of the human life is not restricted to a technique of intervention in the vital human milieu; it rather formulates explicitly the principles of a “government of morals” – one that addresses particularly the human reproduction. As a result, it is getting clear that the “biopolitical governmentalization of life” must have already been a response of another project of mastering one’s own body and one’s own descendance – a project that was visible namely by the extension of the contraceptive techniques in the popular milieus in France, starting in the middle of the 18th century. To sum up, my thesis has not been designed as a discussion of the Foucauldian thesis; it is rather an extension of his theorizing on biopower, and it has been made possible namely through the lectures Foucault had done at the Collège de France.

Биополитика на раждането: Мишел Фуко, Групата за здравна информация и борбата за правото на аборт

Author(s): Stuart Elden / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3-4/2016

This piece is an edited and abridged excerpt from Chapter Six of Foucault: The Birth of Power, Polity Press, 2017. It discusses the work of the Groupe Information Santé, an activist organisation established in France in 1972 on the model of the more famous Groupe d’Information sur les Prisons. The GIS comprised doctors, sociologists and philosophers, and its most famous member was Michel Foucault. There were many projects that the group worked on, including industrial accidents and sickness, the health of immigrants, and the struggle for abortion rights. Drawing on their publications, pamphlets, archival material and news reports, this piece discusses the importance of the group, especially concerning reproductive rights and sexual politics more generally. One of the group’s key aims was to provide people with free access to information so they could make informed choices. The piece therefore provides another example of Foucault’s involvement in radical activism in the early 1970s, though his was only one voice in the movement and it stresses the collaborative nature of the project.

Биополитики на дискурса за превенцията на ХИВ

Author(s): David M. Halperin / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3-4/2016

Запрещение и идентичност: философия по време на право

Author(s): Stoyan Stavru / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3-4/2016

The article examines the philosophical and legal questions raised in connection with the proposed with Draft Natural Persons and Support Measures Bill change in the legal status of persons with intellectual disabilities and mental disorders. The “interests” and “presumable will” as leading criteria for preserving the identity and authenticity of persons placed under interdiction are opposed. Various approaches to identity and how to implement them in the context of the legal framework of incapacity are examined.

Гражданско участие и медиен дебат в условията на членство в ЕС: (не)очаквани траектории на европеизацията

Author(s): Linka Toneva-Metodieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1-2/2017

The accession of the ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe to the European Union has unanimously been pronounced by political and economic researchers as the most significant success of European integration in the field of foreign policy. Nevertheless, the escalation of the problems in the fights against corruption and in the reform of the judiciary system in countries like Bulgaria (but also Hungary and Poland) puts into question the argument of the mainstream theories about a gradual and irreversible process of Europeanization as a result of EU accession. The recent process of Brexit and the reactions to the refugee crisis in some Member States also show that Europeanization can be problematized even beyond the Central and Eastern European context. The academic discussion needs to continue to search an answer to the questions as follows: what is the role of EU membership as regards the quality of democracy and governance, under what conditions are informal rules and cultural norms adopted in an accession country, and are there any perspectives when conditionality policy loses its effectiveness. This paper is a small step in this direction. It aims to outline the trends of development of the civic and media debate in Bulgaria in the context of EU membership as the basis for problematizing our understanding of the Europeanisation process. It does not seek a solution but rather systematizes questions regarding the preconditions for low representativeness of the civil sector, low effectiveness of the engaged civic action, limited public debate and deteriorating media environment in Bulgaria, ten years after EU accession.

Трудната европеизация: българските медии в контекста на ЕС

Author(s): Orlin Spassov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1-2/2017

The article traces some of the basic developments in the Bulgarian media sphere after the country’s accession to EU in 2007. The author highlights the mutual connections between several key trends: the crisis of the media economy, the deterioration of media freedom, the growing influences on the media, including by the state, the deficit of quality content, the increase of nationalism and hate speech in the traditional and online media. The high expectations that the media environment would improve after 2007 were not fulfilled. The reasons for this are analyzed. Several alternative developments are pointed out, which may potentially promote a change in the culture of journalism and in the basic values defended by the media.

Foucault, the History of Truth and the Genealogy of the Modern Subject

Author(s): Daniele Lorenzini / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4 EN/2016

This article explores the articulation between two of the main projects that characterise Michel Foucault’s work in the 1970s and the 1980s: the project of a history of truth and the project of a genealogy of the modern subject. After addressing the meaning and ethico-political value of Foucault’s history of truth, focusing above all on the shape it takes in 1980 (namely, a genealogy of a series of “regimes of truth” in Western societies), it offers an analysis of the related project of a genealogy of the modern (Western) subject, and more precisely of Foucault’s account of the processes of subjection (assujettissement) and subjectivation (subjectivation) within the Christian and the modern Western regimes of truth. It eventually argues that the essential political and moral issue that Foucault raises is not whether the subject is autonomous or not, but rather whether he or she is willing to become a subject of critique by opposing the governmental mechanisms of power which try to govern him or her within our contemporary regime of truth and striving to invent new ways of living and being.

The Demise of Yugoslavia. Introduction

Author(s): Ivo Banac / Language(s): English Issue: 03/1992

On June 13, 1992, with the help of the Joint Committee on Eastern Europe of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council, this journal sponsored a small conference on "The Demise of Yugoslavia." The editor's intention was not to provide any grand synthesis on the causes, course, and consequences of Yugoslavia's sanguinary end, which would in any case be premature, but rather to hear some preliminary views on these matters by a group by distinguished scholars and commentators. We were guided by the need to hear responsible voices of various provenances. Indeed, the intellectual rubbish wrought by the Yugoslav conflict, often from the cabinets of people with scholarly pretensions, simply defies comprehension and constitutes a separate chapter in the conflict's history. [...]

Slovenes and Yugoslavia, 1918-1991

Author(s): Peter Vodopivec / Language(s): English Issue: 03/1992

The French scholar Louis Leger, in the eyes of his admirers "one of the oldest friends of the Slavs" in Western Europe, predicted the disintegration of Austria-Hungary and the rise of Yugoslavia in his 1915 book La Liquidation de l'Autriche-Hongrie. But he stated that an "Illyrian Federation" would only be successful if it were organized as "some form of Slavic Switzerland," composed of autonomous cantons, which would be made up of "the Slovene lands, Croatia, Dalmatia, central Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; Belgrade, as the seat of the central government, should have the same role as Bern in the 'Helvetian community.'" The Nis Declaration, with which Serbia proclaimed the founding of a strong "Serb-Croat-Slovene state" as its war aim, was in Leger's eyes a significant political act, but he cautioned the Serbs about the Swiss "confederative" model, warning them not to have overzealous Piedmontian or unitarist ambitions. [...]

Apathy and the Birth of Democracy: The Polish Struggle

Author(s): David S. Mason,Daniel N. Nelson,Bohdan M. Szklarski / Language(s): English Issue: 02/1991

Apathy, from the Greek words meaning "without feeling, " is at once a term denoting an individual's impassivity or indifference and a form of collective political behavior. Our concern is the latter form of apathy in Poland from the Solidarity period of 1980-81 to the present. Political apathy is the lack of psychological involvement in public affairs, emotional detachment from civic obligation, and abstention from political activity. But it is not any of these things alone, and these may be regarded as necessary, but not sufficient, components of political apathy. Political apathy is evidenced in mass, collective behavior but has its origins at the level of the individual psyche. [...]

Socialism and Nationalism in the East German Revolution, 1989-1990

Author(s): Helmut Walser Smith / Language(s): English Issue: 02/1991

History teaches us that people do not always measure up to the expectations of revolutions. Brecht once suggested that in such cases it might be easier "to dissolve the people and elect another." But in 1989 the leaders of the East German revolution did not have this choice. Instead, they watched their socialist revolution become a national revolution. In the beginning East German demonstrators shouted, "we are the people"; in the end they insisted, "we are one people," and exclaimed, "Germany united is my fatherland." Not without pathos, the wellknown East German author Christa Wolf reportedly said, "these are not my people." [...]

Class and Nation: Competing Explanatory Systems

Author(s): Gale Stokes / Language(s): English Issue: 01/1989

The series of articles that follows confront a fundamental question of socio-political development-the nature of social allegiances, and the two main classification systems that have been proposed to explain them-class and nation. All of the articles revolve around issues raised by Roman Szporluk in his book Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx versus Friedrich List, published by the Oxford University Press in the spring of 1988. Readers who would like to enter fully into the themes of the articles may wish to read Szporluk's book first, but this is not a prerequisite, since the issues raised are of such far-reaching importance in the debate over the relationship between social and political explanations, not to mention the theory of nationalism, that each article stands on its own as a commentary on these issues. [...]

A Look at the Evolution of the Right to Self-determination in International Law

Author(s): Paweł von Chamier Cieminski / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

The article takes stock of the historical development of the notion of the right of a people to self-determination in international law. It provides a coherent review of the main international treaties, customary rules, and legal rulings that shaped the evolution of the term over the course of the twentieth century. In doing so, it focuses on the main historical and political events, which had an impact on that process as well as the preconditions that have to be met in order for a people to have the legal capacity to execute the right to self-determination. Three main processes, which it focuses on are: decolonization, the establishment of a number of new countries following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the recent developments following ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo. It also delineates the subject of the legal definition of a “people” as opposed to a “minority”, describes the legal tension between the right to self-determination and the principle of territorial continuity in international law, and discusses potential further development of the term.

Lands In-between: The Politics of Cultural Identity in Contemporary Eastern Europe

Author(s): Melvin Croan / Language(s): English Issue: 02/1989

Today's Eastern Europe came into existence as a distinct geopolitical entity only after World War II. Many observers-critical East European commentators foremost among them-chalk it all up to Yalta. However one may feel about code words, the 1945 Yalta agreements surely did foster the establishment of a novel "supranational space," comprising a conglomeration of peoples and cultures knowing little and caring less about one other. The ensuing disarray, in turn, greatly facilitated the region's Sovietization which the West, for its part, effectively failed to counter. [...]

Pacesetters of Integration: Jewish Officers in the Habsburg Monarchy

Author(s): István Deák / Language(s): English Issue: 01/1988

This is the story of the unique relationship between a confessionally and ethnically tolerant monarchy and the Jews who were among its most loyal citizens. The Habsburg government had opened the way to emancipation of its Jewish subjects with various toleration patents in the late 1780s, and Austria-Hungary formally emancipated the Jews in 1867. The monarchy outdid the other European powers in admitting Jews into its most prestigious institution, the military officer corps, and especially into its reserve officer branch. By granting the officers' golden sword-knot (porte-epee) to thousands upon thousands of Jewish civilians, the emperor set an example for society as a whole. Without it, the process of Jewish integration into business, industry, education, the arts, and the administration would have been much more difficult. This essay will attempt to analyze the causes and consequences of this extraordinary development. [...]

The Dilemmas of Dissidence: The Politics of Opposition in East-Central Europe

Author(s): Tony R. Judt / Language(s): English Issue: 02/1988

Although ostensibly confined to the issue of opposition and dissent in contemporary East-Central Europe, this article is also intended as a contribution to our understanding of the transformation of this region in the last two decades. In this period so much has happened that many of the old categories of description and analysis are sterile, perhaps redundant. New issues have arisen about which little is written in the West, and of particular importance is the way in which the very terms of social debate in Eastern Europe have undergone radical transformation. By restricting myself to a consideration of the developments within the opposition, I hope nonetheless to cast some light on wider matters. [...]

Georg Lukács on Stalinism and Democracy: Before and After Prague, 1968.

Author(s): David Pike / Language(s): English Issue: 02/1988

Georg Lukács spent the greater part of his life at odds with the party. Real deviations from the prevailing doctrine or disputes over tactical matters created some of the problems, for instance at times when Lukács knew exactly what the party expected from its intellectuals and risked testing those expectations anyway. Then again he often fell out of step either because he overlooked the subordinate relationship between interests of state and doctrine altogether or simply missed the internal political dynamics of an outwardly theoretical debate. But the party itself caused many of the difficulties with Lukács by frequently shifting its tactics and then flailing those intellectuals picked to serve as scapegoats for the failures of the earlier orthodoxy (or the ones who simply hedged too long before furnishing the expected doctrinal corollaries for the next). Still other disputes between Lukács and the party fit more into the category of confrontations caused when his rivals dredged up Lukács’ checkered past as a means of enhancing their own stature at the expense of his. [...]

Toward a Framework for Considering Nationalism in East Europe

Author(s): John Alexander Armstrong / Language(s): English Issue: 02/1988

The mere suggestion of a category "East European nationalism" may appear artificial. This is especially true if, as in the present consideration, the category embraces all of what is commonly termed "East Central Europe" and the Balkans, plus the European portions of the Soviet Union. Unquestionably there are pragmatic reasons for considering simultaneously the strength of nationalist forces throughout the bloc dominated by Moscow, and even within polities (Yugoslavia and Albania) which were once but are no longer part of this bloc. [...]