Category: politics

• July 18, 2011

  ‘The choice is to join an institution or die on the vine’

  No, Jacoby, it isn’t. Five years ago I would have assumed that Jacoby was right. Three years ago I would have agreed with Jacoby. Two years ago I would have despaired with him. A year ago I floated the question: “Is it possible to live otherwise today?” That little question has made all the difference.…
• July 16, 2011

  On history and premodernity: A clue to the peasant’s life

  So certain stormy conquests looked at retrospectively, through the eyes of men today, seem like episodes, whatever their duration. They are achieved quickly or slowly. Then, one fine day, they collapse like stage sets. (102) Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism, 1500-1800. Volume 1. *   *   * If history is only…
• July 13, 2011

  In these unsettled times: a brief case

  1. An unsettled time is characterized by the transition from workable habits to new ideas. Ann Swidler distinguishes between settled and unsettled periods. (“Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 273-86.) A “settled culture,” she observes, is defined by “traditions and common sense.” The agent “refines and reinforces skills, habits, modes…
• July 12, 2011

  Fukuyama on institutional development & institutional decay

  “Rapid transformation destroys old coping mechanisms, old safety nets, while it creates a new set of demands, before new coping mechanisms are developed.” –Joseph Stiglitz, Forward to Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformations — Notes on Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order (2011) Overview of Institutions “Institutions initially appear for what in retrospect were historically contingent reasons. But…
• July 9, 2011

  On the question of political decay

  I’m reading Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order. Of less interest is his conclusion (he plucked it from his End of History book: namely, that the rule of law, the modern state, and the consent of the governed are the 3 pillars of modern political society), of greater interest his question of “political decay.”…