A New Social Contract: Substituting the Neoliberal Public Policy Paradigm with a Participatory Public Policy Paradigm

Peter Hall introduced the concept of paradigm shifts into the public policy discourse. His account explains the seismic transition the world experienced in the 1980s. With this neoliberal paradigm the former social contract between the public leadership and the people unraveled and the future of humanity has been put at risk. To steer humanity back in the direction of a sustainable future, the author argues for a participatory public policy paradigm instituted as a reinvention of Rousseau’s social contract theory with tree distinct features that respond to the complexity of life in modern times.     

An Emancipatory Topology of Desire

Abstract

In this article, I explore how the emancipatory potential of the human capacity to desire and be desired can contribute to more inclusive, sustainable, and convivial futures. I differentiate four manifestations of desire: (1) the consuming aspect of desire with acts of deliberate noncapitalist desire, (2) the arousing aspect of desire encouraging acts of playful profanation, (3) the identity-shaping aspect of desire enabling acts of radical unbecoming, and (4) the future-shaping aspect of desire associated with acts of courageous deviantness. Examples of practices that highlight the emancipatory potential of the different manifestations are discussed.     

Naves and Nukes: John Ruskin as “Augustinian” Social Theorist?

John Milbank appropriates John Ruskin as part of his “Augustinian” tradition. Milbank's selective reading, however, omits Ruskin's fixed hierarchies as well as his acknowledgment of conflict in economic life. Neither of these ideas fits the social aesthetics of harmony and difference that Milbank claims is unique to Christian theology. While Milbank's strictly theoretical portrait of theology gains critical force from Ruskin's robust account of social practices and just exchange, Milbank lacks effective historical and institutional responses to the problems in Ruskin's corpus. This deficiency undermines Milbank's dichotomy between theology and secular reason.