Deploying Tradition

Bibliographic Data

ID6357136
AuthorsRoger Karapin (0000-0001-6236-4406, Health Affairs), Leonard Feldman (0009-0001-0778-478X), L C Feldman (0000-0002-3397-8262)
Year2019
Volume51
Issue2
Pages200-201
Publication date2019-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-3497 • E-ISSN: 1744-1684
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/702556
OpenAlexW4231773054
LanguageEN
References cited12

Previous articleNext article FreeEditors’ NoteDeploying TraditionRoger Karapin and Leonard FeldmanRoger KarapinEditor-in-Chief Search for more articles by this author and Leonard FeldmanAssociate Editor for Political Theory Search for more articles by this author Editor-in-ChiefAssociate Editor for Political TheoryPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn politics, traditions occupy a central though often hidden role, as they do in the rest of life. Traditions are found in institutions and organizations, in customs and practices, and in ideas. They usually arise unintentionally, through repeated interactions among many people over long periods. Other traditions, including those tied to nationalisms, may be invented out of whole cloth. But once they exist, they can be recognized and deployed for a variety of purposes—to increase legitimacy, to buttress the status quo in ways that go beyond the tradition’s scope, or to put resources into the service of new actors with new agendas. While tradition is often placed on the opposite side of some historical divide from modernity, traditions are made and remade within modern political structures using the most recent technologies. And tradition is often contested ground, as different groups and individuals press its authorizing mystique in different directions. Even traditions that are unrecognized can be converted or repurposed in ways that the analyst of politics can elucidate.In an intriguing and timely intervention into the Brexit debate, Adam Webb deploys conceptions of hospitality and sociality, derived from premodern forms of cosmopolitanism. In “When Open Borders Must Stay Open: Expectations and Freedom of Movement,” he argues that these traditional ideas help us elaborate the legitimate social expectations of European Union citizens with regard to their continued right of mobility, which should trump the political claim of a withdrawing state to close its borders.1 In “State Building Amid Resistance,” Reo Matsuzaki shows how Japanese officials in Taiwan turned traditional institutions of state-society mediation into instruments of their rule, thus building the Taiwanese state.2 In “Wealth and Voter Turnout,” Richard Nadeau, Michael Lewis-Beck, and Martial Foucault demonstrate that wealth is a stronger predictor of turnout than income in a 28-country study, suggesting myriad ways in which the resources of wealth are converted into increased political participation.3 Next, Liza Taylor, in “Is Liberalism Bad for Women? Reclaiming Susan Okin’s Democratic Feminist Thesis,” argues that Okin did not consign non-Western women to a purportedly oppressive tradition from which Western liberalism would rescue them.4 Rather, Okin’s commitment was to critique the oppressive elements of all cultures and to privilege, democratically, the voices of those women most affected. Finally, the topic of this issue’s symposium, edited by Timothy James Potenz and Ned Lebow, is securitization, a process by which political actors try to deploy the traditional prominence of concerns about physical security to new ends. The symposium authors address the state of theorizing about securitization; they propose a focus on regimes of practices and the politics of the extraordinary (Balzacq) and on actor-network theory (Salter), and discuss what can be learned from failed securitization efforts (Ruzicka) and how the concepts of just securitization (Floyd) and identifications (Potenz) can advance research in the field.5As this journal begins what we hope will be its second half-century, we are deploying some of our own tradition. The issue opens with a tribute to Bill Havard, a founder of the Northeastern Political Science Association and the originator of Polity, written by Garrison Nelson, a former president of the association.6 Notes 1. Adam K. Webb, “When Open Borders Must Stay Open: Expectations and Freedom of Movement,” Polity 51 (2019): 202–30.2. Reo Matsuzaki, “State Building Amid Resistance: Administrative Intermediaries and the Making of Colonial Taiwan,” Polity 51 (2019): 231–60.3. Richard Nadeau, Michael A. Lewis-Beck, and Martial Foucault, “Wealth and Voter Turnout: Investigating Twenty-Eight Democracies,” Polity 51 (2019): 261–87.4. Liza Taylor, “Is Liberalism Bad for Women? Reclaiming Susan Okin’s Democratic Feminist Thesis,” Polity 51 (2019): 288–320.5. The “Symposium on Securitization,” Polity 51 (2019): 321–425, consists of the following articles: Timothy James Potenz, “Introduction: The Rationale and Constitution of this Symposium,” Polity 51 (2019): 321–30; Thierry Balzacq, “Securitization Theory: Past, Present, and Future,” Polity 51 (2019): 331–48; Mark B. Salter, “Security Actor-Network Theory: Revitalizing Securitization Theory with Bruno Latour,” Polity 51 (2019): 349–64; Jan Ruzicka, “Failed Securitization: Why It Matters,” Polity 51 (2019): 365–77; Rita Floyd, “States, Last Resort, and the Obligation to Securitize,” Polity 51 (2019): 378–94; Timothy James Potenz, “Marching Drums: An Enhanced Framework for Identifications and Securitizations,” Polity 51 (2019): 395–416; and Timothy James Potenz and Ned Lebow, “Turning the Page: Conclusions, Questions, and Agenda,” Polity 51 (2019): 417–25.6. Garrison Nelson, “A Tribute to Bill Havard,” Polity 51 (2019): 195–99. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Polity Volume 51, Number 2April 2019Deploying Tradition The Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/702556 Views: 162Total views on this site HistoryPublished online March 15, 2019 © 2019 Northeastern Political Science Association. 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