Sensing the nation's law historical inquiries into the aesthetics of democratic legitimacy : introduction

We are said to live in an age of democratic legitimacy. The rightfulness of a political and legal order is meant to reside in a widespread belief in the rightfulness of democracy. Contemporary democratic legitimacy is tied, among other things, to consent, to representation, to the identity of ruler and ruled, and, of course, to legality and the legal forms through which democracy is structured. The nation, its unity, and whatever democratic legitimacy its form of rule enjoys, become tangible and emerges as much in shared taste, in the pre-supposition and generation of aesthetic con-sensus, as in the formation or execution of a common will or the inculcation or reasoning of a common reason. This introduction presents the ten chapters of the edited volume, each of which engages with the intersection of aesthetics and law, and, more specifically with the question of how the nation – and its (fundamental) law – are ‘sensed’ by way of various aesthetic forms

A Cacophony of Speech, Law, and Persona: Battling Against the Vortex of #MeToo in France and the U.S.

The pervasive proliferation of rumors, through #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc, communicates meaningful and meaningless-making processes on misconducts both in the French and U.S. con-texts. Such rumors have transformed the online practices by culti-vating both verbal and non-verbal hate speech free and/or free speech. This cacophony of speech, law, and persona has led to a debate relayed on social media platforms, exposing people to a dan-ger zone mostly based as shame, hate, fear, or even destruction, as anonymity and due process no longer prevail

The Israel Lobby and the European Union

The Israeli state and wider Israel lobby have diligently sought to divert attention away from Israel’s crimes. This report examines a number of groups in the lobby in Europe, seeking to cast light on their activities, personnel and networks as well as how they are funded and whom precisely they represent.Western politicians’ acquiescence to the Israeli narrative is made possible partly because there is a significant international network of groups dedicated to preserving the notion that ‘a democratic Israel is merely acting in self-defence against Palestinian rocket fire’. These groups often work together or are aligned and many have close connections with the Israeli government and its diplomats. Collectively, they make up what is often known as the Israel lobby. In this report we use the term Israel lobby to refer to a range of think tanks, lobby groups, media related organisations and those that stand behind them in the Israeli government or in conservative foundations or other sources of funding

Faith, Religious Rationality And Resistance: The Charitable Practices Of Shi`i Movements In Lebanon

This dissertation is about Islamic charity and social justice in Lebanon, focusing on the role of rationality and faith. The Western intellectual framework separates rationality and faith as two different ways of understanding the world, privileging the former over the latter. Thus Western secular states are considered rational and modern, whereas Islamic movements are viewed as irrational and against modernity. This framework not only misrepresents Muslims and Islamic activism, but also fails to acknowledge the revolutionary potential of a faith-based politics. So rather than accepting that rationality and faith are mutually exclusive, this dissertation analyzes the many intersections between them. I look at the emergence of Shi\u27i activism throughout the Middle East in the mid-twentieth century, drawing comparisons with liberation theology in Latin America. I then use interviews, participant observation and document analysis to illustrate how the charities affiliated with Hizbullah, al-Mabarrat Association and the Imam al-Sadr Foundation in Lebanon are integrating faith and rationality in a direct challenge to Western secular modernity, while at the same time embracing many of the liberal principles also practiced in the West. So in effect, they are re-mystifying liberalism. Using a Gramscian framework, I then examine the social projects of Hizbullah and al-Mabarrat Association and find that their affiliated charities are using these re-mystified liberal principles as a means of empowering the resistance community in Lebanon, whereas the Imam al-Sadr Foundation is primarily employing the same principles to promote a more liberalized society. The objective of this research is to enhance our knowledge in the West of Islam and the everyday ideas and practices of pious Muslims

Politics of the parking space: Rights, identity, and property

In the tradition of legal pluralism, I explore the various notions of a right influenced by claims on little bits of contingent space. As a consequence of this territoriality, the municipal regulation of and local politics surrounding parking spaces produce competing notions of legality. The jurisprudence of the parking space examines a type of governing that is local and often contested. In spaces where formal law is evident, yet dominantly absent, social law become judge and jury. Right and its regulation are culturally dependent and politically malleable. The right to park is a special right, considered to be a presumption of expectation connected, literally, to a person driving a car and lines on the pavement. Jurisprudentially, this special right is enacted between individuals in everyday parking environments where often the social norm operates as \u27the law.\u27 In many cases, formal law is distanced. Feeding the meter manages the threat of a ticket. The appeal of a ticket is the pronouncement of right. Yelling angrily at a driver who parks triumphantly in a coveted space is a noisy but weak attempt to assert a right. The fundamental issues that I explore in the project involve the hybridization of right, identity, and property. My study of the parking space is complex, as I consider the semiotics of the terrain, the embodiment of jurisdiction, and expertise as governance as factors of legitimacy focused on the visibility of who is parking. This notion of belonging is central to the frameworks of community and citizenship in which parking spaces become site of politically constructed architecture. These sites are policed officially by the sexualized authority of parking enforcement and unofficially (and often violently) by other parkers. In this way, law is personified, with the administration of authority inviting closer scrutiny into the nature of constitutive legal theory. At both the level of the United States Supreme Court and in the everyday parking area, the parking space engenders disputes over equal protection guarantees, acts of free speech, and assertions of reserve that reach beyond the stated scope of policy