From domination to emancipation and freedom: reading Ernesto Laclau's post-Marxism in conjunction with Philip Pettit's neo-republicanism

© Bristol University Press 2019. In this paper, I bring Ernesto Laclau’s post-Marxist approach into conversation with the analytical thinker Philip Pettit, who has developed an influential neo-republican conception of freedom as ‘non-domination’. Both thinkers aim to reconfigure power and domination towards more democratic and egalitarian relations and I evaluate the political implications of their respective conceptions of domination/non-domination, emancipation and freedom. I show that despite these common points of reference, the two authors exhibit considerable differences which manifest in their respective conceptions of structure and agency. In the opening section, I compare Laclau’s and Pettit’s respective conceptions of ‘domination’ where I highlight the differences between them in two alternate readings of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House. In the second section, I examine their respective understandings of ‘emancipation’ and ‘freedom’, and I demonstrate that Pettit does not model his conception of freedom as non-domination on the idea of emancipation. This stands in contrast to Laclau, for whom emancipation remains the focal point of political struggle, despite formal equality, and who maintains the idea of the possibility of a more radical transformation in the underlying structures of society. In the final section, I consider Laclau’s and Pettit’s alternative conceptions of politics where both thinkers place a premium on democratic contest in challenging and overturning arbitrary power. I show that for Pettit political freedom is a mode of contestability within the established institutions, while Laclau’s notions of emancipation and freedom functions at the level of competing hegemonic projects, and this facilitates a form of political struggle that might transcend the existing regime to instantiate a new institutional order. I conclude by amalgamating the respective strengths of both thinkers to provide a multi-layered analysis of contemporary forms of domination to better aid our understanding about the kinds of struggle needed to contest them

Clinical Outcomes of Laparoscopic Versus Open Appendectomy

Results of this study suggest that laparoscopic appendectomy offers the benefit of a shortened hospital stay, decreased need for postoperative anesthesia, and early return to normal activities

Water Management in Pakistan: Roots of Interprovincial Conflicts

Increasing water scarcity over the years since independence has caused numerous controversies about water distribution mechanism in Pakistan among its federating units. Pakistan being a predominantly agrarian economy relies heavily on Indus River System where all its units share water of this system for irrigation purpose. Environmental changes, population increase and increase in industrial use of water has led to water scarcity on one hand, while this scarcity has contributed to increase of mutual distrust among the provinces on the question of Water Management System in Pakistan. This paper analyses the present Water Management System in Pakistan in the context of growing conflicts over water distribution mechanism and water apportionment formulae. It has been argued that the present water apportionment practices have failed to resolve issues and controversies surrounding water distribution and management and the situation demands fresh policy initiatives to control further damage in future

Exact string matching algorithms : survey, issues, and future research directions

String matching has been an extensively studied research domain in the past two decades due to its various applications in the fields of text, image, signal, and speech processing. As a result, choosing an appropriate string matching algorithm for current applications and addressing challenges is difficult. Understanding different string matching approaches (such as exact string matching and approximate string matching algorithms), integrating several algorithms, and modifying algorithms to address related issues are also difficult. This paper presents a survey on single-pattern exact string matching algorithms. The main purpose of this survey is to propose new classification, identify new directions and highlight the possible challenges, current trends, and future works in the area of string matching algorithms with a core focus on exact string matching algorithms. © 2013 IEEE

Prevalence of active hepatitis c virus infection in district mansehra pakistan

Prevalence of active hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in apparently healthy inhabitants of District Mansehra, Pakistan was surveyed during September, 2009 to May, 2010. Subjects of different age and gender groups were analyzed through random blood sampling from people of three areas viz; Tehsil Mansehra, Tehsil Balakot and Tehsil Oghi. Sum of 400 individuals, 300 male and 100 females with age groups from 10 years to 50 and above were included in the study. All the individuals were screened for antibodies against HCV. The positive samples thus screened, were subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis for detection of HCV-RNA. The results showed that 3.5% of the people of District Mansehra are actively infected with HCV whereas 7% of the population in general, has the presence of antibodies against HCV in their blood. It was also concluded that the prevalence of active HCV infection was high 4% in males as compared to females (2%). The prevalence of HCV proportionality increases with the increase in age of the people. Its incidence was highest (7.69%) in the people of the age group of 51 years and above, whereas no sign of infection was recorded for the age group of 10-20 years