Signs Science And Politics

This book tells the story of how 18th-century European philosophy used Locke's theory of signs to build a natural history of speech and to investigate the semiotic tools with which nature and civil society can be controlled. The story ends at the point where this approach to language sciences was called into question. Its epilogue is the description of the birth of an alternative between empiricism and idealism in late 18th- and early 19th-century theories of language. This alternative has given rise to such irreducible dichotomies as empirical linguistics vs. speculative linguistics, philosophies of linguistics vs. philosophy of language. Since then philosophers have largely given up reflecting on linguistic practice and have left the burden of unifying and interpreting empirical research data to professional linguists, limiting themselves to the study of foundations and to purely self-contemplative undertakings. The theoretical and institutional relevance to the present of the problems arising from this situation is in itself a sufficient reason for casting our minds back over a period in which, as in no other, linguistic research was an integral part of the encyclopaedia of knowledge, and in which philosophers reflected, and encouraged reflection, upon the semiotic instruments of science and politics.

Treating rhetoric and symbols as central rather than peripheral to politics, Lisa Wedeen’s groundbreaking book offers a compelling counterargument to those who insist that politics is primarily about material interests and the groups advocating for them. During the thirty-year rule of President Hafiz al-Asad’s regime, his image was everywhere. In newspapers, on television, and during orchestrated spectacles. Asad was praised as the “father,” the “gallant knight,” even the country’s “premier pharmacist.” Yet most Syrians, including those who create the official rhetoric, did not believe its claims. Why would a regime spend scarce resources on a personality cult whose content is patently spurious? Wedeen shows how such flagrantly fictitious claims were able to produce a politics of public dissimulation in which citizens acted as if they revered the leader. By inundating daily life with tired symbolism, the regime exercised a subtle, yet effective form of power. The cult worked to enforce obedience, induce complicity, isolate Syrians from one another, and set guidelines for public speech and behavior. Wedeen‘s ethnographic research demonstrates how Syrians recognized the disciplinary aspects of the cult and sought to undermine them. In a new preface, Wedeen discusses the uprising against the Syrian regime that began in 2011 and questions the usefulness of the concept of legitimacy in trying to analyze and understand authoritarian regimes.

Political yard signs are one of the most ubiquitous and conspicuous features of American political campaigns, yet they have received relatively little attention as a form of political communication or participation. In Politics on Display, Todd Makse, Scott L. Minkoff, and Anand E. Sokhey tackle this phenomenon to craft a larger argument about the politics of identity and space in contemporary America. Documenting political life in two suburban communities and a major metropolitan area, they use an unprecedented research design that leverages street-level observation of the placement of yard signs and neighborhood-specific survey research that delves into the attitudes, behavior, and social networks of residents. The authors then integrate these data into a geo-database that also includes demographic and election data. Supplemented by nationally-representative data sources, the book brings together insights from political communication, political psychology, and political geography. Against a backdrop of conflict and division, this book advances a new understanding of how citizens experience campaigns, why many still insist on airing their views in public, and what happens when social spaces become political spaces.

Norton examines the enactment of liberal ideas in popular culture; in the possessions of ordinary people and the habits of everyday life. She sees liberalism as the common sense of the American people: a set of conventions unconsciously adhered to, a set of principles silently taken for granted. The author ranges over a wide expanse of popular activities (e.g. wrestling, roller derby, lotteries, shopping sprees, and dining out), as well as conventional political topics (e.g., the Constitution, presidency, news media, and centrality of law). Yet the argument is pointed and probling, never shallow or superficial. Fred and Wilma Flintstone are as vital to the republic as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. "In discussions that range from the Constitution and the presidency to money and shopping, voting, lotteries, and survey research, Norton discerns and imaginatively invents possibilities that exceed recognized actualities and already approved opportunities."—Richard E. Flathman, American Political Science Review "[S]timulating and stylish exploration of political theory, language, culture, and shopping at the mall . . . popular culture at its best, informed by history and theory, serious in purpose, yet witty and modest in tone."—Bernard Mergen, American Studies International

This book deals with representation in science, politics and art both in its historical dimensions and in its contemporary expression. It aims to reveal the current trends of culture and guide these towards the goal of a future culture for the coming global technological civilization.

Histories of medicine and science are histories of political and social change, as well as accounts of the transformation of particular disciplines over time. Taking their inspiration from the work of Charles Webster, the essays in this volume consider the effect that demands for social and political reform have had on the theory and, above all, the practice of medicine and science, and on the promotion of human health, from the Renaissance and Enlightenment up to the present. The eighteen essays by an international group of scholars provide case studies, covering a wide range of locations and contexts, of the successes and failures of reform and reformers in challenging the status quo. They discuss the impact of religious and secular ideologies on ideas about the nature and organization of health, medicine, and science, as well as the effects of social and political institutions, including the professions themselves, in shaping the possibilities for reform and renewal. The Practice of Reform in Health, Medicine, and Science, 1500-2000 also addresses the afterlife of reforming concepts, and describes local and regional differences in the practice and perception of reform, culminating in the politics of welfare in the twentieth century. The authors build up a composite picture of the interaction of politics and health, medicine, and science in western Europe over time that can pose questions for the future of policy as well as explaining some of the successes and failures of the past.

French society in revolution aims to retrieve the social history of the French Revolution from unjustified neglect.This study examines both the structural and cultural elements behind the breakdown of the eighteenth-century monarchic state and its aris. . . .