bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Perceptions of the Role of Living Alone in Providing Services to Patients With Cognitive Impairment
Authors: Portacolone Elena , Nguyen Tung T. , Bowers Barbara J. , Johnson Julene K. , Kotwal Ashwin A. , Stone Robyn I. , Keiser Sahru , Tran Thi , Rivera Elizabeth , Martinez Paula , Yang Yulin , Torres Jacqueline M. , Covinsky Kenneth E.
Published: August 2023

Importance

The potential role of living alone in either facilitating or hampering access to and use of services for older adults with cognitive impairment is largely unknown. Specifically, it is critical to understand directly from health care and social services professionals how living alone creates barriers to the access and use of supportive health care and social services for racially and ethnically diverse patients with cognitive impairment.

Objective

To identify the potential role of living alone in the access and use of health care and social services for diverse patients with cognitive impairment by investigating professionals’ perceptions of caring for such patients who live alone in comparison with counterparts living with others.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This qualitative study of 76 clinicians, social workers, and other professionals used semistructured interviews conducted between February 8, 2021, and June 8, 2022, with purposively sampled professionals providing services to diverse patients with cognitive impairment in Michigan, California, and Texas.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Clinicians, social workers, and other professionals compared serving patients with cognitive impairment and living alone vs counterparts living with others. An inductive content analysis was used to analyze the interview transcripts.

Results

A total of 76 professionals were interviewed (mean [SD] age, 49.3 [12.7] years); 59 were female (77.6%), 8 were Black or African American (11%), and 35 were White (46%). Participants included physicians, nurses, social workers, and home-care aides, for a total of 20 professions. Participants elucidated specific factors that made serving older adults living alone with cognitive impairment more challenging than serving counterparts living with others (eg, lacking an advocate, incomplete medical history, requiring difficult interventions), as well as factors associated with increased concerns when caring for older adults living alone with cognitive impairment, such as isolation and a crisis-dominated health care system. Participants also identified reasons for systematic unmet needs of older adults living alone with cognitive impairment for essential health care and social services, including policies limiting access and use to public home-care aides.

Conclusions and Relevance

In this qualitative study of professionals’ perspectives, findings suggest that living alone is a social determinant of health among patients with cognitive impairment owing to substantial barriers in access to services. Results raised considerable concerns about safety because the US health care system is not well equipped to address the unique needs of older adults living alone with cognitive impairment.
Lignin as Material of the Future: Key Information and Development Prospects
Authors: Klapiszewski Łukasz , Szalaty Tadeusz , Jesionowski Teofil
Published: August 2023

In the article was given toward the aspect of homogeneous and heterogeneous depolymerization of lignin in ionic liquids. Thus, their roles and the mechanism of possible depolymerization of, for example, β‐O‐4. The presentation of possible ways to modify ionic liquids, including oxidation, which would allow to transform the biopolymer into a functional component of advanced hybrid materials was also an important aspect of the study. In addition, the study highlights the properties and use of exemplary lignin systems. The review was summarized and perspectives of further development were presented, with special attention directed to, for example, obtaining materials with defined properties, which may be used as potential platforms for the construction of modern biosensors, functional fillers for polymers, or electrochemically active materials.
Integration of DNA–RNA‐triplex‐based regulation of transcription into molecular logic gates
Authors: Rilievo Graziano , Cecconello Alessandro , Fouladi Ghareshiran Nima , Magro Massimiliano , Simmel Friedrich C. , Vianello Fabio
Published: August 2023

In recent years, increasing numbers of noncoding RNA molecules were identified as possible components of endogenous DNA–RNA hybrid triplexes involved in gene regulation. Triplexes are potentially involved in complex molecular signaling networks that, if understood, would allow the engineering of biological computing components. Here, by making use of the enhancing and inhibiting effects of such triplexes, we demonstrate in vitro the construction of triplex‐based molecular gates: ‘exclusive OR’ (XOR), ‘exclusive NOT‐OR’ (XNOR), and a threshold gate, via transcription of a fluorogenic RNA aptamer. Precise modulation was displayed by the biomolecular‐integrated systems over a wide interval of transcriptional outputs, ranging from drastic inhibition to significant enhancement. The present contribution represents a first example of molecular gates developed using DNA–RNA triplex nanostructures.
Alienation
Authors: Musto Marcello
Published: August 2023

The first systematic account of alienation was in
The Phenomenology of Spirit
of Georg W. F. Hegel, where the terms
Entäusserung
(self‐externalization) and
Entfremdung
(estrangement) were adopted to denote Spirit's becoming other than itself in the realm of objectivity. Alienation still featured prominently in the writings of the Hegelian Left, and Ludwig Feuerbach's theory of religious alienation in
The Essence of Christianity
– that is, of man's projection of his own essence onto an imaginary deity – contributed to the development of the concept. But it subsequently disappeared from philosophical reflection, and none of the major thinkers of the second half of the nineteenth century paid it any great attention.
American Exceptionalism
Authors: Schwartz Joseph M.
Published: August 2023

Ever since German sociologist Werner Sombart wrote his 1906 workWhy Is There No Socialism in the United States?US social scientists and political activists have grappled with the question of “American exceptionalism.” Among the related questions investigated under this rubric are: why is the USA the only advanced industrial democracy without a mass labor or socialist party? Why does the USA have a less extensive welfare state than other advanced democracies, particularly an absence of universal public provision of health care and child care? How does the additional use of the term “American exceptionalism” as indicative of a nation allegedly “exceptional” in its commitment to freedom, democracy, and social mobility contribute to the conservative nature of US society? In short, why doesn't the USA have as strong a set of institutionalized social rights, alongside secure political and civil rights, as do most advanced democratic countries?
Ancient Constitution
Authors: Raffield Paul
Published: August 2023

The ancient constitution was a fictive corpus of fundamental British laws, of immemorial origin, the legitimate authority of which superseded that of the sovereign magistrate. In a jurisdiction the rights of whose subjects were not codified in the form of a single written document, the relationship between governor and governed was regulated by reference to unwritten law. The political importance of the ancient constitution climaxed in the seventeenth century, as common lawyers and parliamentarians sought to restrain the absolutist tendencies of the crown; although its historiographical origins are traceable at least to the late fifteenth century and the political theory espoused by Sir John Fortescue, chief justice in the reign of Henry VI. The constitutional theories of Fortescue derived partly from the ancient (and largely mythical) foundations of Britain's mode of governance in classical antiquity, as related by Geoffrey of Monmouth in
The History of the Kings of Britain
(ca. 1136).
Animal Rights
Authors: Tauber Steven
Published: August 2023

Since the dawn of western civilization, political thought has consistently addressed how humans should regard one another, but for most of this history it essentially ignored the treatment of nonhuman animals. However, beginning in the nineteenth century, philosophers concentrated specifically on the plight of nonhuman animals, and by the mid‐twentieth century the treatment of nonhuman animals has become a significant and vibrant issue in political theory and jurisprudence.
Anti‐Semitism
Authors: Ury Scott
Published: August 2023

Although many scholars view anti‐Semitism (hatred of Jews) as a unique type of prejudice that originated in ancient times, crystallized over two millennia of western Christianity, reached its apex during World War II, and continues in various forms to this day, others see it as a distinctly modern political ideology and phenomenon that emanated from ongoing confrontations with modern society, the rise of scientific racism, and the advent of popular politics.
Appeasement
Authors: Bottom William P.
Published: August 2023

Effectively managing international relations requires skillful peacemaking, conciliation, and settlement. Appeasement, another term for these activities, derives from the French “apaiser.” Dating to the late Middle Ages, it served to describe even constructive forms of concession making in diplomacy up through the early part of the twentieth century. In 1920, for example, Winston Churchill advised then British Prime Minister David Lloyd George that “I should be prepared to make peace with Soviet Russia on the best terms available to appease the general situation, while safeguarding us from being poisoned by them” (Gilbert 1991: 1920). Subsequently the term acquired distinctly derogatory connotations. Now it is invoked to dismiss efforts to bring about the resolution of a dispute without recourse to military force. Then US President George W. Bush, for example, criticized candidate Barack Obama's expressed willingness to meet directly with Iranian leadership as “the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history” (Stolberg & Rutenberg 2008)
Augustine of Hippo
Authors: Scott Joanna Vecchiarelli
Published: August 2023

Augustine of Hippo was born November 13, 354, and died August 28, 430, in Tagaste, Roman Numidia (Algeria). Educated in Tagaste, Madauros, and Carthage, he taught rhetoric in Tagaste and Carthage. In 383 he left North Africa for Rome and then went to Milan, where he held a distinguished professorship in rhetoric, which he resigned in 386. He was baptized by Ambrose, bishop of Milan in 387 and composed his early works in Cassiciacum, outside Milan. He returned to North Africa in 387, where he was ordained as a priest by the congregation of Hippo Regius (Algeria) in 391, and in 395 was made bishop. His major works in social and political thought areOn Free Choice of the Will(387–95),The Confessions(397–401), andThe City of God(413–27).
Beck, Ulrich (1944–)
Authors: Rensmann Lars
Published: August 2023

Ulrich Beck is a German sociologist whose major contributions are in the field of social and political theory. Beck is best known for three pathbreaking and intertwined theoretical moves: first, his
grand theory
of “reflexive modernization”; second, the notions of “forced individualization” and “global risk society,” which refer to constitutive elements of a new, second modernity engendered by reflexive modernization; third, a distinct understanding of globalization and cosmopolitanization, which grounds Beck's political and normative “cosmopolitan realism.”
Benhabib, Seyla (1950–)
Authors: Rozpedowski Joanna
Published: August 2023

Born in Istanbul in 1950, Seyla Benhabib was educated in the humanities at the American College for Girls in Turkey as well as Brandeis University (BA in 1972) and Yale University (PhD in 1977). Her academic career has taken her to Boston University, the New School for Social Research, and State University of New York, where she taught philosophy. In 1993, Benhabib became a professor of government at the Department of Government and senior research fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University and in 1996 assumed the position of visiting senior fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaft vom Menschen in Vienna, Austria, before being appointed the Eugene Meyer professor of political science and philosophy at Yale University.
Bergson, Henri (1859–1941)
Authors: Ansell‐Pearson Keith
Published: August 2023

Henri Bergson is widely recognized to be France's greatest philosopher of the modern period. He made important and enduring contributions to our appreciation of time, the nature of free will, the character of memory, the study of consciousness, evolution and life, and ethics. Bergson regarded his intellectual career as the unfolding of a single insight into the nature of time as unforeseeable novelty, and right from the beginning he was deeply involved in the cultural struggles of his day, including the critique of positivism and in his efforts to mediate the opposition between spiritualism and naturalism, or freedom and determinism. He is a deceptively complex philosopher whose writings provoked different and at times conflicting interpretations, appealing to both a vitalism of the Right, including figures such as T. E. Hulme, and a vitalism of the Left, including figures such as Georges Sorel and Georg Simmel. In the years prior to World War I Bergson enjoyed a quite extraordinary international vogue, with his influence extending beyond narrow philosophical circles to artists, scientists, theologians, and to educated society in general.
Bloch, Ernst (1885–1977)
Authors: McManus Susan
Published: August 2023

Ernst Bloch, born in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in 1885, lived variously in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Austria, joined the diaspora of left‐Jewish intellectuals, spending the years 1938 to 1948 in the USA, before returning to take up his first academic appointment at the University of Leipzig in 1949. Politically difficult years between 1956 and 1959, including the building of the Berlin Wall, led to Bloch's removal to West Germany in 1961, where he lived and worked until his death in 1977. His long life bore witness to the central dramas of western modernity: two World Wars, Nazism and the Holocaust, and the Cold War. Politically, Bloch changed sharply from early overt support for the USSR, including the Moscow Show Trials, to later condemnation of both Cold War power blocs. His relations with fellow left intellectuals such as Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin were often fraught, and he did not achieve comparable recognition. However, Bloch remains a formidable thinker, incomparable philosopher of hope and of utopia. His utopianism is by no means impossible and compensatory (the “good place” that is “no‐place” bequeathed to modernity by Thomas More's
Utopia
); it is prefigurative and transformative, its rebellious energies directed against all forms of exploitation and degradation.
Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (ca. 480–ca. 524)
Authors: Casey John
Published: August 2023

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (ca. 480–ca. 524), a Catholic Christian Roman philosopher and statesman, is most notable for his
Consolation of Philosophy
, a masterpiece of early medieval philosophy and literature, and for transmitting Greek Aristotelian and neo‐Platonic thought to the Middle Ages.
Butler, Judith (1956–)
Authors: Lloyd Moya
Published: August 2023

Judith Butler is an American philosopher best known for her groundbreaking work on gender performativity, the idea that one's identity as a woman or man does not express an inner truth about the self but is an effect of various bodily practices. Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1956, Butler studied philosophy at Yale, where she graduated in 1978 with a BA and in 1984 with a PhD, on the concept of desire in the philosophical writings of G. W. F. Hegel, Alexandre Kojève, Jean Hyppolite, and Jean‐Paul Sartre. After Yale, she held positions at Wesleyan, George Washington, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins universities, before moving to the University of California, Berkeley in 1993, where she is currently the Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature.
Care Ethics
Authors: Tronto Joan C.
Published: August 2023

The care ethics approach is a contemporary political theory that emphasizes the importance of caring as a human activity and as a political value. All comprehensive political theories contain accounts of care, but throughout much of the history of western political thought, care was consigned to a pre‐political private sphere, especially to the family. Liberal thinkers often distinguish a private sphere of life in which public intervention is illegitimate, and Marxist scholars often distinguish between the spheres of production and reproduction. But care goes beyond both of these approaches in stressing the inter‐relationship of such distinctive spheres. In so doing, care stands as an alternative paradigm to much of contemporary political theory.
Caste System (Dalit/Untouchability)
Authors: Rao Anupama
Published: August 2023

The word
dalit
means “crushed,” “ground down,” “oppressed,” or “broken to pieces” in Sanskrit, Hindi, and Marathi. It is a term used by India's former untouchables as a form of self‐identification.
Charisma
Authors: Farley Jared A.
Published: August 2023

Charisma was one of the three types of leadership authority described in German sociologist Max Weber's (1864–1920) influential work
Economy and Society
(1978). Charismatic authority is based upon the perception that an individual possesses extraordinary qualities, frequently embodying cherished cultural values. Charisma was originally a theological concept, which translated from New Testament Greek means “gifts of grace.” These gifts included the gifts of prophecy, healing, and speaking in tongues. For this reason, charisma should not be considered a normal or regularly occurring phenomenon. Despite this, the term is frequently stretched far beyond its original meaning, to describe any leader who can project a pleasing personality. In contrast to the modern tendency to define charisma exclusively as a personal characteristic, Weber recognized that without devoted followers to validate a leader's authority, charisma cannot exist.
Chinese Political Thought
Authors: Esparza Walker Brian
Published: August 2023

The Chinese political theory tradition grew out of a debate between several powerful schools and is in some ways more deeply and intrinsically pluralistic than thinking in the west.
Civic Culture
Authors: Templer Rachel
Published: August 2023

A political culture characterized by “a substantial consensus on the legitimacy of political institutions and the direction and content of public policy, a widespread tolerance of a plurality of interests and belief in their reconcilability, and a widespread sense of political competence and mutual trust in the citizenry” (Almond 1980: 4). Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba gave the term “civic culture” this sense in their 1963 book of the same name, which sought to explain the stability of Anglo‐American democracy. Almond and Verba argued that democratic stability is correlated to a political culture in which participation is tempered by passivity, trust and deference to authority. They argued that the stability of a democracy with a political culture of this kind lies in the combination of participatory values with those of “subject” or passive, “parochial” or traditional political cultures.
Civil Liberties
Authors: Gallagher Maryann E.
Published: August 2023

Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that protect individuals from actions by the state. They are most often understood as negative rights, that is, preventing the state from acting (such as freedom of speech or freedom of assembly), although there are some that are considered positive rights, that is, obliging the state to act (such as the right to counsel). While civil liberties are not a defining feature of democratic regimes, they are at the heart of liberal democracies. The most common civil liberties can be classified as one of two types: the first being freedoms of thought and expression (including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion), and the second being protections for those accused of crimes (including habeas corpus, due process of law, trial by jury, and protection against cruel and unusual punishment).
Civil Rights
Authors: Bugh Gary E.
Published: August 2023

Many Americans today associate civil rights with the civil rights movement – the mid‐twentieth‐century struggle by victims of historic discrimination for equal and free citizenship. Western philosophy has long regarded rights as a constituent element of citizenship. Aristotle in
Politics
defined citizens as members of a city who have the chance to both rule and be ruled. In
The Social Contract
(1987 [1762]: 141), Jean‐Jacques Rousseau asserted that “the social order is a sacred right which serves as a foundation for all other rights.” For Rousseau, citizens are both sovereigns and subjects: they develop laws through articulation of the general will and obey the laws that they have helped make. Theoretically, rights make citizen participation in collective self‐rule possible, which is why they encompass free speech, press, petition, and voting. In modern liberal societies like the USA, it is also common to classify property, contracts, and due process of law as rights.
Civil Society
Authors: DeLue Steven M.
Published: August 2023

The term “civil society” has several uses. The first use points to a state that is committed to the rule of law, largely on behalf of protecting the freedom of each citizen. Embedded in this view is the idea of a state of nature, discussed by the writers of the social contract tradition. For Thomas Hobbes, the state of nature is a condition of constant war and his conception of the government is designed to end war and to create a condition of social peace, or what can be called a civil society in which the rule of law protects each person's liberty. Even for writers like John Locke and Jean‐Jacques Rousseau for whom the state of nature is – for different reasons – without war, people have a fundamental interest in moving from the state of nature to a civil society in which the rule of law preserves their freedom. Throughout these accounts – in transitioning from the state of nature to a civil society – citizens shift from a situation in which the rule of law is absent to a state‐protected lawful setting that secures freedom for citizens.
Cixous, Hélène (1937–)
Authors: Fotaki Marianna
Published: August 2023

Hélène Cixous (1937–) is one of the most celebrated and versatile feminist thinkers of our time. She combines philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism, and is a prolific playwright, poet, literary critic, essayist, and an inspired radical educator. Throughout this body of work she maintains an unwavering commitment to the political emancipation of women through transformation of their subjectivity and self‐expression. She is best known for her invention and propagation of a new way of writing from the body and her contribution to the feminist struggle for emancipation. However, Cixous’ political commitment extends to opposing all forms of repression of the mind and body and counteracting exclusion on the basis of identity. Her legacy in feminism, philosophy, literary criticism, creative writing, and literature is formidable.
Cole, G. D. H. (1889–1959)
Authors: Edwards Jason
Published: August 2023

G. D. H. Cole was a British political theorist, academic, and activist. He is best known for his theory of guild socialism which was influential in Britain in the late 1910s and early 1920s, and has been intermittently revisited by those seeking an alternative to state‐centered socialism.
Collective Choice
Authors: Wong James K. L.
Published: August 2023

Collective choice is the aggregation of choices of more than one individual over a set of alternatives. It is relevant to politics whenever collective decisions are based on more than one individual choice or decision. The outcome of collective choice depends on the aggregation procedure used. Presumably, a desirable procedure should at least reflect the given individual choices as much as possible.
Collingwood, Robin George (1889–1943)
Authors: Boucher David
Published: August 2023

R. G. Collingwood was an English philosopher educated at Rugby School and University College, Oxford. Of immense learning, he achieved fame as a philosopher of history, aesthetics, and metaphysics. He was also the world's foremost authority on the Roman inscriptions in Britain. He was a Fellow of the British Academy, and Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford (1935–41).
Colonialism
Authors: Ciccariello‐Maher George
Published: August 2023

Approaching the subject of colonialism from the perspective of political thought results in a peculiar chicken‐and‐egg problem. Western political thought and colonialism suffer a conceptual‐historical entanglement that makes their discussion together difficult and their discussion apart impossible. Much of what we know as political thought is deeply imbricated with, inspired by, or born of a struggle to comprehend the implications of the colonial encounter. Some political thinkers like Enrique Dussel would even argue that the most basic concepts of modern political thought – autonomy, individuality, sovereignty, and rationality – are themselves outgrowths of the unprecedented theoretical break prompted by the beginning of the modern colonial encounter in 1492.
Comedy and Political Theory
Authors: Ferguson Kennan
Published: August 2023

The idea that comedy can be used to tell truths that would otherwise be ignored or dismissed has long held powerful sway in the west. Yet concomitant with this understanding is the idea that comedy ignores reality and trivializes the truly important. Comedy has thus a long and vexed relation to politics.
Common Good
Authors: Etzioni Amitai
Published: August 2023

The common good (alternatively called “the public interest” or “public goods”) denotes those goods that serve all members of a given community and its institutions, and, as such, includes both goods that serve no identifiable particular group, as well as those that serve members of generations not yet born. It is a normative concept with a long and contested history. Philosophers, theologians, lawyers, politicians, and the public have arrived at distinct understandings about what the common good entails, how it should be balanced against individual goods, and if and by whom it should be enforced. Though there are many critics of the notion of the common good (as will be discussed below), it has survived as a meaningful concept for well over two millennia, and continues to serve as a very significant organizing principle of civic and political life.
Concepts, Political
Authors: Norberg Jakob
Published: August 2023

The expression “political concepts” refers to a set of concepts essential to any serious reflection on political life. This set includes authority, democracy, equality, freedom, justice, power, and further concepts that represent fundamental political values and principles. Indeed, dictionaries of political thought in no small part consist of entries on terms that signify such central concepts. However, political concepts are political in a double sense: they refer to some central idea or issue of great political relevance, but the meanings of these concepts are also topics of perpetual debate. Political concepts are thus not simply used to describe political life, but significant sites of political disagreement.
Concordat
Authors: Bradley Lewis V.
Published: August 2023

A concordat is a treaty between the Holy See (the episcopal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome, the pope, which enjoys primacy in the Roman Catholic church and thus is the seat of global church administration) and a sovereign government, usually intended to settle a dispute concerning the relationship between church and state.
Confucius (551–479 BCE)
Authors: Yu Jiyuan
Published: August 2023

This entry discusses how Confucius himself sees what politics means and the contemporary bearings of his political thought. Confucius (551–479bce) was the founder of Confucianism and the most influential thinker in Chinese intellectual history. His given name is Qiu, cognomen Zhongni, and surname Kong. “Confucius” was the Latinization (by the first Jesuit missionaries to China) of Kongzi (literally, “Master Kong”).
Constitutional Law, United States
Authors: Lieberman Jethro K.
Published: August 2023

Constitutional law, in the USA, is the body of cases through which the courts, especially the Supreme Court, have interpreted the US constitution (or the state courts the meaning of state constitutions). More rarely, it is a descriptive term for the text of the constitution itself.
Counterterrorism
Authors: Rigstad Mark
Published: August 2023

The concept of counterterrorism typically designates any governmental or nongovernmental effort to detect, prevent, combat, punish, or mitigate any of the various phenomena conceived as falling under the deeply contested concept of terrorism. In the social scientific and theoretical literature there are by now hundreds of competing definitions of “terrorism” as a generalizable phenomenon (Schmid & Jongman 1988). Hence, theoretical discussions of terrorism typically begin by acknowledging the difficulty of trying to define something that commonly appears to be in the eye of the beholder, such that “one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.”
Courage
Authors: Leibowitz Lisa
Published: August 2023

We begin by assuming that courage is a virtue: something we admire in others and hope to find in ourselves; something that our nation celebrates and for which it awards its highest honors. But the slightest reflection on courage leads us to problems. The willingness to risk life and limb that we usually associate with courage can be marshaled for wicked ends that harm individuals or whole communities. And even when it is marshaled for the noblest ends, courageous individuals are sometimes killed or maimed. Is it reasonable to call something a virtue if it may harm or destroy the one who possesses it or the community that fosters it? To be worthy of the name virtue, must courage not be both noble and good?
Covenant
Authors: Morgenstern Mira
Published: August 2023

There are scores of references to covenant (berith) throughout the Hebrew Bible. These instances range from agreements between individuals to treaties between nations to heavenly dicta/promises, where God makes agreements with human beings and with other groups; most often the Israelites. Because of the great range of circumstances leading to agreements designated by the word “covenant” in the Hebrew Bible, modern biblical scholarship has attempted to tease out the essence of this structure, resulting in a great range of approaches to what covenant really means.
Critical Race Theory
Authors: Stefancic Jean
Published: August 2023

Like a number of other social movements, critical race theory (CRT) received its name after it was well underway. As with a fast moving river, strong tributaries had contributed to its force. Legal scholars of color at various law schools had begun to examine the deficiencies of law in crafting remedies for racial injustices, or even law's ability to recognize that such problems existed or fell under its provenance.
Death
Authors: Malpas Jeff
Published: August 2023

Although death may appear as an important element in the Hobbesian account of the origins of political life, death itself is seldom, whether in Hobbes or elsewhere, the direct or explicit focus of political reflection. This is unfortunate, since death or mortality is surely a central concept in the understanding of human life, and it is the nature of human life that undoubtedly provides the underlying frame according to which politics, as a human activity, takes shape. Rather than consider only the idea or image of death as it may function politically (whether in motivating certain forms of politics or as it may be deployed as a tool of political action), the aim here is thus to examine how death should itself be understood – and so to engage in what is first anontologicalrather than overtlypoliticalinvestigation (although one that nevertheless has political relevance). For those who argue that ontology has no role in politics, this may be thought the wrong approach entirely. Yet when it comes to death, it seems that ontological or existential matters are impossible to avoid. If the only certainties in life are death and taxes, then it should also be remembered that while taxes may be evaded or avoided, nothing, not even the most subtle of political theories, will enable the evasion or avoidance of death.
Democratic Socialism
Authors: Bruce Douglass R.
Published: August 2023

The idea of democratic socialism presupposes a certain conception of democracy. It is a modern conception which differs in important respects from the ancient one. As anyone who has read Plato knows, democracy originally was a class affair, and it meant rule by the plebs. But in recent times it has lost those connotations and acquired a more inclusive character. In the battles over democratization that were fought in the days when socialist parties were being formed (the nineteenth century), there were still many who resisted giving up the older conception of democracy, to be sure. But the trend, in the more advanced countries at least, was for that way of thinking to be replaced by a more inclusive alternative. Democracy came to be understood in the manner that is common today – i.e., equal political rights foreveryone, but on terms that allow for free competition for power among all segments of the population that want to take part in public life.
Deontology
Authors: Rigstad Mark
Published: August 2023

Deontology – literally the theory (
logos
) of duty (
deon
) – in political thought is standardly conceived as including any nonconsequentialist or nonteleological approach in political ethics or normative political theory. For deontological political theories, the
right
is said to be prior to the
good
. This priority may be taken in two senses, one conceptual and metaethical, and one practical and normative.
Dictatorship
Authors: Fatovic Clement
Published: August 2023

Dictatorship refers to an extraordinary form of rule that operates outside the ordinary bounds of law. The original form of dictatorship was a constitutional office in Rome that conferred exceptional but temporary powers on an individual who was appointed to deal with a perceived threat to the survival of the republic. The ideal of Roman dictatorship has played an important role in the history of political thought by helping to establish the primacy of the executive in times of emergency. Republican political thinkers including Niccolò Machiavelli, Algernon Sidney, and Jean‐Jacques Rousseau have looked to Roman dictatorship as a constitutional expedient that obviates the need to resort to unconstitutional measures during an emergency. In the modern era, dictatorship has come to refer to almost any despotic or authoritarian form of government that exercises power with little or no regard for legal restrictions or civil liberties.
Diversity
Authors: Baumeister Andrea
Published: August 2023

The concept of diversity plays a central role in both classical and contemporary liberal political thought. A diverse society is one in which there are different ethical and religious beliefs and different lifestyles. The liberal philosopher J. S. Mill regards such diversity as essential for social progress. Only if we are free to explore a diverse array of opinions and experiment with a variety of ways of life will we be able to advance human knowledge and find modes of living that will allow human beings to flourish to a greater extent. For Mill a diversity of opinions and ways of living is a byproduct of the exercise of individual autonomy, that is to say the capacity of individuals to think critically and independently and to pursue objectives that they themselves have chosen.
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1868–1963)
Authors: Davari Arash
Published: August 2023

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts three years after the abolition of slavery in the USA. He died on August 27, 1963 in Accra, Ghana, one day before the historic March on Washington and less than one year before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The chronological trajectory of his life corresponded with the long civil rights era in US history. His political and intellectual work is a testament to the intimate relationship between his personal biography and the social setting within which his life took place. Du Bois self‐consciously wrote as an African American about a society whose fundamental political organization rested on the systematic exclusion of a people identified as racially different.
Durkheim, Émile (1858–1917)
Authors: Jones Susan Stedman
Published: August 2023

Durkheim is known as the founder of the French school of sociology. He was born at Épinal in Lorraine, France and died – it is said of a broken heart – at the loss of his son and so many young students during World War I. His first academic position was at the University of Bordeaux where he taught for 15 years. While teaching courses for the agrégation in philosophy (Rousseau, Aristotle, Hobbes, Condorcet, and Montesquieu), he wrote major works on sociology, a course on socialism, and developed his thinking on education. In 1902 he moved to Paris, where he taught at the Sorbonne and École Normale Supérieure till his death in 1917.
Dynastic State
Authors: Osborne Toby
Published: August 2023

The dynastic state reached its apogee in
ancien régime
Europe as the dominant state form, though republics persisted, such as Venice, alongside elective monarchies – the Holy Roman Empire (until 1806), the papal monarchy, and Poland‐Lithuania (until 1795). Princely regimes, underscored by hereditary principles, in turn generated distinctive political characteristics revolving around the foundations of dynastic rule, how successions were governed, the scope of a prince's power, and how such states interacted on the international stage.
Economic Theory of the State
Authors: Sened Itai , Watson Ron
Published: August 2023

As a concept, “the economic theory of the state” relates to at least three broad questions. The first concerns the emergence of the state. Historians and economic historians have long tried to unveil the origin of the state. Marxist or neo‐Marxist theories of the state, in contrast, ask how the state functions as a tool for the ruling class to protect and to advance its interests. Taking off from the insight that the structure of society affects economic performance, the third question concerns what role the state plays in this structure. We focus on this third question and survey three broad approaches to answering it: the laissez‐faire approach, the public goods approach, and the property rights approach.
Elite Theory
Authors: Edwards Jason
Published: August 2023

In its broadest sense, elite theory is the idea that modern societies are governed by groups of people that can be referred to as “elites.” Such groups form a minority in society and the majority is excluded from political decision‐making. Most elite theorists deny that political power resides either with a unified “ruling class” defined in terms of its economic status, as in orthodox Marxism, or, as in pluralism with a plurality of competing interest groups. However, since the early twentieth century elite theory has appeared in a number of forms, some of which draw on ideas from Marxist and pluralist theories of power and the state. Some elite theorists have not only sought to explain elitism with reference to political, social, economic, and psychological factors, but have argued that some form of elite control of the state is necessary for civil peace, social stability, and economic development. Others, in contrast, have sought to demonstrate the nature of elite rule in order to criticize it and argue for more pluralistic or democratic forms of government.
Elshtain, Jean Bethke (1941–2013)
Authors: Daryl Charles J.
Published: August 2023

One of the more ambidextrous and perceptive social commentators of our day, Jean Bethke Elshtain has offered social criticism during the last three decades that is politically astute, theologically informed, and ethically sensitive to the critical issues of our time. An Augustinian scholar who furnishes in ever fresh ways through her writings a bridge between ancient and modern, between politics and ethics, between moral principle and cultural particularity, Elshtain cares deeply about the common good. To read her seriously is to take the study of human society as well as the “permanent things” seriously. And to engage her is to engage a writer who is a genuine cultural polyglot.
Enlightenment, German
Authors: Church Jeffrey
Published: August 2023

The Enlightenment was an eighteenth‐century European movement that celebrated the sovereignty of human reason and the diffusion of philosophical and scientific knowledge. Its enemies were superstition, fanaticism, and religious strife, and the entrenched interests of theancien régime. Despite these general similarities, the “Enlightenment” developed and was understood quite differently in different European nations. This entry focuses on what is distinctive about Enlightenment in Germany.
Environmental Justice
Authors: Humphrey Mathew
Published: August 2023

Environmental justice concerns the application of (some set of) principles of justice to our human surroundings, both natural and human‐made. However, what set of principles, how they are to be applied, and what range of objects is taken to constitute the “environment” are all contentious questions, and they make both the definition of “environmental justice,” and an account of what constitutes environmental
in
justice, complex. In particular there is a divide between two discourses. One, “environmental justice,” focuses on the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens amongst different human communities, and on the recognition and possibilities for political participation that these communities have. The other, on “ecological justice,” regards the human treatment of nonhuman nature, and the rights that (at least some elements of) nonhuman nature may have against human interference. Furthermore there is an environmental justice “movement” associated in particular with activists from working‐class communities and communities of color, as well as a more academic literature examining theories of environmental justice.
Essentialism
Authors: Einspahr Jennifer
Published: August 2023

Generally defined, essentialism is “a belief in true essence – that which is most irreducible, unchanging, and therefore constitutive of a given person or thing.” In philosophy, essentialism is classified as a type of ontology, a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature of being, existence, or reality. Contemporary essentialist ontology is rooted in Aristotelian metaphysics. Aristotle contrasted essential attributes to accidental ones; essential attributes were those things without which a being would no longer be that particular thing, while the loss of an accidental attribute would not alter that thing's essential nature. For example, if the ability to communicate with others is essential to being human, then to lose this ability would be to lose one's humanity. In contrast, hair might be defined as accidental rather than essential to being human in the sense that one could cut one's hair and still go on being human.
European Identity Politics
Authors: Szaló Csaba
Published: August 2023

European identity politics implies that the formation of European identity, like the construction of collective identities in general, involves cultural power struggles. Conceptually, it builds on theory developed in the 1970s that sought to explain political practices, affiliations, and commitments based on social actors’ ethnic, national, religious, gender, or sexual identities. The practice of identity politics was originally connected to social movements fighting oppression and seeking to give a voice to those subjects who had long been silenced. Contemporary explanations of identity politics have made the “cultural turn.” Theoretical assumptions have shifted away from the idea that political action is necessarily grounded in the social interests and values of political actors. In other words, the struggle for power also involves the performative actions of culturally constructed collectivities. Contemporary theories of identity politics point to the significance of crisis and cultural trauma in providing a narrative foundation for collective memory. Thus, the core concept of power struggle is enlarged to include the idea of reflexive subjectivity.
Fascism
Authors: Thornhill Christopher
Published: August 2023

European fascism contained a series of often contradictory political attitudes. Unusually for a political doctrine that exercised wide practical influence and had a profound impact on objective political institutions, it cannot be defined as a consistent set of principles. In general, fascism was a theoretical outlook with the following features: (1) it reflected a deep (although partial) hostility to liberalism and atomistic principles of liberal political order; (2) it insisted on the nation (often defined through military adversity) as a source of political motivation, affiliation, and identity; (3) it was sympathetic to dictatorship as a source of strong statehood; (4) it advocated strongly emotive processes of subjective political integration; (5) it declared an (albeit equivocal) skepticism about capitalism as the dominant mode of production. Moreover, fascist movements selectively borrowed elements of Marxist social theory and Marxist antiparliamentarism. They linked these principles to an ultranationalist and pseudorevolutionary commitment to violently authoritarian governance, usually designed for the specific preservation of existing economic conditions.
Family
Authors: Engster Daniel
Published: August 2023

The family holds an important albeit often underappreciated place in western political thought. It has been variously characterized as an obstacle to a just society, a pre‐political foundation of justice, and the linchpin of a new just order. While some theorists have viewed the family as a natural institution with distinctive aims and roles that set it apart from politics, others have claimed it is rightly subject to public values. Whether viewed as an obstacle to justice or a precondition for it, a private or public institution, many philosophers have accorded the family a central place in their theories of politics and justice.
Fatalism
Authors: Terchek Ronald J.
Published: August 2023

Political fatalism comes from the displacement of politics with something else: history, markets, dialectical materialism, divine will, science, technology, or progress to name a few superhuman forces said to be at work. Such forces have a dynamic of their own, needing no help from mere mortals, although, we are told, we can disturb matters by interfering with the processes.
Feminist Theory and Liberal Political Theory
Authors: Shanley Mary Lyndon , Hanagan Nora
Published: August 2023

Feminist theory, which insists that gender is an indispensible category of analysis for any adequate thinking about political and social life, challenges all schools of political theory. Much of feminist theorizing has been a reaction to liberalism; at the same time, liberal principles have inspired many feminists. This entry examines the relationship between feminism and liberal political theory, showing that feminism does not simply “add women” to existing theory, but profoundly challenges core traditional liberal understandings of equality, liberty, individualism, and universalism.