Many commentators today lament the politicization of bioethics, but some suggest distinguishing among different kinds of politicization. This essay pursues that idea with reference to three traditions of political thought: liberalism, communitarianism, and republicanism. After briefly discussing the concept of politicization itself, the essay examines how each of these political traditions mani...

Scholars of science and society have long understood that in all but the most trivial of cases science cannot compel specific political outcomes. Rather, scientific understandings are frequently either intrinsically uncertain or diverse enough to be used to justify a range of competing political agendas. This paper argues that despite these understandings the use of science by scientists as a m...

This paper develops a theory of bureaucratic influence on distributive politics. While there exists a rich literature on the effects of institutions such as presidents, electoral systems, and bicameralism on government spending, the role of professional bureaucrats has yet to receive formal scrutiny. In the model, legislators bargain over the allocation of distributive benefits across districts...

Humanitarian aid's psycho-therapeutic turn in the 1990s was mirrored by the increasing emotionalization and subjectivation of fund-raising campaigns. In order to grasp the depth of this interconnectedness, this article argues that in both cases what we see is the post-Fordist production paradigm at work; namely, as Hardt and Negri put it, the direct production of subjectivity and social relatio...

Elected governments and states have delegated extensive powers to non-majoritarian institutions (NMIs) such as independent central banks regulatory agencies, courts, international trade investment organizations, which become actors in governance. But, far from having resolved the balance between political control governing competence or removed certain issues debate, NMIs faced challenges their...

Even though having some credibility in trans-disciplinary research (see e.g., Stehr and von Storch 1995, Bray and von Storch 1999, von Storch 2009, Bray and von Storch 2009 or Stehr and von Storch 2010), we may not have fully grasped the conceptions and arguments of S. Keller. What stuck to us was the complaint that the IPCC, mainly under the influence of Bert Bolin, would have failed to issue ...

carl schmitt (1985-1888), is one of the most controversial legal and political thinkers and one of the leading theorists of the twentieth century. schmitt’s views can be criticized from some aspects: ignoring friends and enemies, reducing human and dominance of an individualistic perspective, de-politicization and de-humanization (loss of identity of the subject due to political suspension, eme...

This article introduces an analytical framework for studying and interpreting the sometimes surprisingly different ‘shapes’ (key topics approaches) of donor-funded responses to sexual violence in after armed conflict. Our highlights processes politicization, depoliticization, technicalization their influence on interventions. Drawing available studies, published documents, our own field researc...