589 research outputs found
Introduction: The Politics of Moderation
No full textIdo de Haan and Matthijs Lok introduce the topic of political moderation. Despite the fact that moderation is often called for as a way to overcome deep-seated conflict, the politics of the middle has also manifest moral and political weaknesses. In an overview of approaches to political moderation they distinguish political moderation as a moral virtue, an effect of an institutional order, an aspect of sociological relations, and moderation as an ideology. They discuss the methodology of conceptual analysis and serial contextualism as a way to identify the varieties of political moderation. In the end, they ask whether political moderation is a recurrent pattern in the search for a way out of extreme conflict, or also an independent ideological tradition. Thus introducing the contributions to the volume, they conclude that political moderation as an ideology of the middle, or third way, is highly vulnerable to moral and political critique
‘The Extremes Set the Tone’: Counter-Revolutionary Moderation in Continental Conservatism (ca. 1795–1835)
No full textMatthijs Lok focuses on the uses of moderation in continental counter-revolutionary and conservative thought, examining the case studies of Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, Étienne-Denis Pasquier, Niklas Vogt and Leopold von Ranke. Despite their differences, the authors all contrasted ‘revolution’ and ‘moderation’ and shared the idea that a strong state is the solution to a polarised political climate. Their idea of counter-Revolution was not a complete rejection, but a compromise between Ancien Régime and the new reality of the Revolution and its legacy
Muddling through: The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London Times, 1789-2010
No full textHistorians have devoted a great deal of attention to analysing the vocabularies and political and philosophical languages that emerged during the modern era. For instance, they have explored the ‘isms’ of the period (romanticism, liberalism, fascism, republicanism, communism, and so on), often in specific national settings and in specific periods. This article harnesses the strength of computer-assisted humanities’ research methods to map a single aspect of the language of conservatism in everyday reading material over a longer period of time. On the basis of the London Times, the article examines the way the concept of ‘revolution’ figured in relation to ‘conservatism’ in so-called value-laden semantic fields. These textual fields involve ideas and beliefs, have normative connotations, are highly iterative and vary over time in complex ways. Four such fields figured in the London Times, roughly marked by 1780, 1830, 1900, 1970 and 2010 as milestone years. Often reflecting on violent revolutions outside Britain, the journalists and commentators of the Times conceptualised British conservatism primarily as anti-reformist rather than anti-revolutionist. In the end, revolution even became an ironical term, applicable to anyone with a penchant for change, including conservatives themselves
Societal need for multifunctional flood defenses: Introduction
No full textProf.dr.ir. Matthijs Kok is Professor of Flood Risk at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at TU Delft; he was Program leader of the ‘Integral and Sustainable Design of Multifunctional Flood Defenses’ research program, funded by the Dutch Science and Technology Foundation STW. Presently, he is Program leader of the STW-Perspectief research program ‘All RISK’, which will study the implementation of new risk standards in the Dutch national flood protection program (2017-2022). Hydraulic Structures and Flood Ris
'The extremes set the tone': Counter-Revolutionary Moderation in Continental Conservatism (ca. 1795-1835)
No full textMatthijs Lok focuses on the uses of moderation in continental counter-revolutionary and conservative thought, examining the case studies of Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, Étienne-Denis Pasquier, Niklas Vogt and Leopold von Ranke. Despite their differences, the authors all contrasted ‘revolution’ and ‘moderation’ and shared the idea that a strong state is the solution to a polarised political climate. Their idea of counter-Revolution was not a complete rejection, but a compromise between Ancien Régime and the new reality of the Revolution and its legacy
Introduction: The Politics of Moderation
No full textIdo de Haan and Matthijs Lok introduce the topic of political moderation. Despite the fact that moderation is often called for as a way to overcome deep-seated conflict, the politics of the middle has also manifest moral and political weaknesses. In an overview of approaches to political moderation they distinguish political moderation as a moral virtue, an effect of an institutional order, an aspect of sociological relations, and moderation as an ideology. They discuss the methodology of conceptual analysis and serial contextualism as a way to identify the varieties of political moderation. In the end, they ask whether political moderation is a recurrent pattern in the search for a way out of extreme conflict, or also an independent ideological tradition. Thus introducing the contributions to the volume, they conclude that political moderation as an ideology of the middle, or third way, is highly vulnerable to moral and political critique
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