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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions
This groundbreaking comparative study rediscovers the socialists of
Russia's borderlands, upending conventional interpretations of
working-class politics and the Russian Revolution. Researched in
eight languages, Revolutionary Social Democracy challenges
long-held assumptions by scholars and activists about the dynamics
of revolutionary change.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which
commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and
impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes
high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using
print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in
1978.
The public space of democracies is constructed in a context that is
marked by the digital transformation of the economy and society.
This construction is carried out primarily through deliberation.
Deliberation informs and guides both individual and collective
action. To shed light on the concept of deliberation, it is
important to consider the rationality of choice; but what type of
rationality is this? References to economic reason are at once
widespread, crucial and controversial. This book therefore deals
with arguments used by individuals based on the notions of
preferential choice and rational behavior, and also criticizes
them. These arguments are examined in the context of the major
themes of public debate that help to construct the contemporary
public space: "populism", social insurance, social responsibility
and environmental issues. Economic Reason and Political Reason
underlines the importance of the pragmatist shift of the 2000s and
revisits, through the lens of this new approach, the great
utilitarian and Rawlsian normative constructs that dominated
normative political economics at the end of the 20th century.
Alternative approaches, based on the concept of deliberative
democracy, are proposed and discussed.
The Cultural Political Economy of the Construction Industry in
Turkey analyses the growth of the popularity of the 'Justice and
Development Party' (official acronym: AK Parti or AKP) of Turkey's
president Erdogan, through the lens of the construction sector. It
provides a comprehensive analysis of the question of hegemony and
the electoral success of the AKP - despite frequent economic
downturns and ferocious political conflicts including a coup d'etat
attempt and rekindled armed struggles. In this book, Ismail Doga
Karatepe critically examines the AKP's ability to satisfy the needs
and wishes of different social classes and groups. By taking the
construction sector as an example, the book analyses these in the
context of the changes in the urban landscape of modern Turkey.
Visions of the Buddha offers a ground-breaking approach to the
nature of the early discourses of the Buddha, the most foundational
scriptures of Buddhist religion. Although the early discourses are
commonly considered to be attempts to preserve the Buddha's
teachings, Shulman demonstrates that these texts are full of
creativity, and that their main aim is to beautify the image of the
wonderous Buddha. While the texts surely care for the early
teachings and for the Buddha's philosophy or his guidelines for
meditation, and while at times they may relate real historical
events, they are no less interested in telling good stories, in
re-working folkloric materials, and in the visionary contemplation
of the Buddha in order to sense his unique presence. The texts can
thus be, at times, a type of meditation. Eviatar Shulman frames the
early discourses as literary masterpieces that helped Buddhism
achieve the wonderful success it has obtained. Much of the
discourses' masterful storytelling was achieved through a technique
of composition defined here as the play of formulas. In the oral
literature of early Buddhism, texts were composed of formulas,
which are repeated within and between texts. Shulman argues that
the formulas are the real texts of Buddhism, and are primary to
full discourses. Shaping texts through the play of formulas
balances conservative and innovative tendencies within the
tradition, making room for creativity within accepted forms and
patterns. The texts we find today are thus versions-remnants-chosen
by history of a much more vibrant and dynamic creative process.
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