Against Recognition

In this book, Lois McNay argues that the insights of the recognition theorists are undercut by their reliance on an inadequate account of power.

Also available as an e-book Private international law is normally discussed in terms of rules applied in litigation involving parties from more than one State. Those same rules are fundamentally important, however, to those who plan crossborder commercial transactions with a desire to avoid having a dispute arise — or at least to place a party in the best position possible if a dispute does arise. This makes rules regarding jurisdiction, applicable law, and the recognition and enforcement of judgments vitally important to contract negotiations. It also makes the consideration of transactional interests important when developing new rules of private international law. These lectures examine rules of jurisdiction and rules of recognition and enforcement of judgments in the United States and the European Union, considering their similarities, their differences, and how they affect the transaction planning process.

Axel Honneth is best known for his critique of modern society centered on a concept of recognition. Jacques Rancière has advanced an influential theory of modern politics based on disagreement. Underpinning their thought is a concern for the logics of exclusion and domination that structure contemporary societies. In a rare dialogue, these two philosophers explore the affinities and tensions between their perspectives to provoke new ideas for social and political change. Honneth sees modern society as a field in which the logic of recognition provides individuals with increasing possibilities for freedom and is a constant catalyst for transformation. Rancière sees the social as a policing order and the political as a force that must radically assert equality. Honneth claims Rancière's conception of the political lies outside of actual historical societies and involves a problematic desire for egalitarianism. Rancière argues that Honneth's theory of recognition relies on an overly substantial conception of identity and subjectivity. While impassioned, their exchange seeks to advance critical theory's political project by reconciling the rift between German and French post-Marxist traditions and proposing new frameworks for justice.

Now more than ever, “recognition” represents a critical concept for social movements, both as a strategic tool and an important policy aim. While the subject’s theoretical and empirical dimensions have usually been studied separately, this interdisciplinary collection focuses on both to examine the pursuit of recognition against a transnational backdrop. With a special emphasis on the efforts of women’s and Jewish organizations in 20th-century Europe, the studies collected here show how recognition can be meaningfully understood in historical-analytical terms, while demonstrating the extent to which transnationalization determines a movement’s reach and effectiveness.

In Ecclesial Recognition, Hegelian philosophy, group social psychology, and Axel Honneth’s recognitional politics provide insights to facilitate the churches’ progress to recognize each other as legitimate, true churches. Yves Congar’s oeuvre confirms the intersubjective dynamics of ecclesial inclusion and exclusion.

When considering strategies to address violent conflict, scholars and policymakers debate the wisdom of recognizing versus avoiding reference to ethnic identities in government institutions. In Diversity, Violence, and Recognition, Elisabeth King and Cyrus Samii examine the reasons that governments choose to recognize ethnic identities and the consequences of such choices for peace. The authors introduce a theory on the merits and risks of recognizing ethnic groups in state institutions, pointing to the crucial role of ethnic demographics. Through a global quantitative analysis and in-depth case studies of Burundi, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, they find promise in recognition. Countries that adopt recognition go on to experience less violence, more economic vitality, and more democratic politics, but these effects depend on which ethnic group is in power. King and Samii's findings are important for scholars studying peace, democracy, and development, and practically relevant to policymakers attempting to make these concepts a reality.

The 15 sovereign states that emerged from the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991, having all adopted the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, today are drawing increasing attention from international law firms and global arbitral institutions. This book, compiled under the editorship of the Secretary General of the Russian Arbitration Association, is the first full-scale commentary in English on the application of the New York Convention in Russia and the other 14 former USSR states, with attention also to the various relevant national laws and procedures. A total of 71 contributors, all leading experts on arbitration and litigation in the covered jurisdictions, provide in-depth research encompassing the following approaches: article-by-article commentary on the New York Convention with emphasis on the practice of Russian state commercial (arbitrazh) courts; commentary on the relevant provisions of the Russian International Commercial Arbitration Law and the Code of Commercial Procedure; analysis of law and practice on setting aside, recognition, and enforcement of arbitral awards in all non-Russian former USSR states, state by state, written by experts in each jurisdiction; and a unique statistical study of all international commercial arbitration cases under the New York Convention conducted in Russia between 2008 and 2019, showing which grounds of the New York Convention are widely used by the Russian courts in different instances. With this detailed information, practitioners will be able to understand how judicial developments in the covered jurisdictions have impacted the enforceability of arbitral awards, and how parties can take steps to ensure that they secure enforceable awards. In addition, they will clearly discern the enforcement track record for arbitral awards in Russia and former USSR states and how each jurisdiction treats enforcement applications, greatly clarifying decisions on choices by parties and determination of seat of arbitration. Because this book makes arbitration law and procedure in Russia and the former USSR states accessible for the first time in English – thus assisting evaluation of prospects of enforcing foreign arbitral awards in that part of the world – it will be warmly welcomed by in-house counsel, arbitrators, arbitral institutes, judges, researchers, and academics focused on international arbitration.

This book examines claims for recognition of cultural difference from immigrant and Indigenous minorities, highlighting the ways in which they intersect with ideas of national community. Busbridge argues that there is an important, albeit under-explored, relationship between nation and multicultural politics of recognition. Drawing on the Australian context, the book explores how nation features as a productive, if somewhat ambivalent, discursive resource in contemporary Muslim and Aboriginal struggles to be recognised. In demanding recognition, minorities enter into the business of ‘making the nation’ by positing alternative conceptions of national identity, culture and belonging that are more attentive to their differences and claims. This dynamic is engaged as an expression of ‘postcolonial citizenship’. Postcolonial citizenship is imagined in terms of the ways in which minority groups actualise multicultural realities through rewriting ideas of national community. It underlines the critical importance of revising the power relations that deem some groups ‘more national’ and others less so – and which, in Western multicultural societies, are typically tied to notions of the ‘West’ and its ‘others’. This book is an important conceptual, theoretical and political intervention that brings postcolonialism and multiculturalism into dialogue on the increasingly potent issues of nation and national identity. It will be of great interest to scholars and students of sociology, politics, postcolonial studies, culture, identity and nation.