Browsing by Subject "Habermas"

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    Diversity Discourses: Moral, Ethical and Pragmatic Reasoning in the Swedish Immigration and Integration Debate, 1968-1975 and 1991-1995
    (Springer, 2020) Schall, Carly Elizabeth; Sociology, School of Liberal Arts
    This article seeks to understand how values enter into political discourse via justification and how those values are negotiated over time. The article maps out the terrain of diversity discourses, both as a specific type of discourse and as an example of ethical, moral and pragmatic modes of argumentation. The author examines Swedish “diversity discourses” in the periods of 1968–1975 and 1991–1995 in an effort to tease out the pragmatic, moral and ethical aspects of these discourses. Diversity discourses are defined as discourses regarding how much and what kind of diversity is acceptable or desirable in a society, as well as how such diversity should be handled. I find that values, both contextually-dependent ethical values and universal moral values, rather than being “prior” to politics, arise out of the intersection of pragmatic, ethical and moral discourses. What is moral and ethical, then is colored by the particular nexus of moral, ethical and pragmatic concerns such that what is acceptable at one particular time and location, may be unacceptable in another, even coming from the same actors with the same ideological commitments. Shifts in the ethical/moral modes of justification, then, lead to shifts in who is included in a democratic community.
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    Special districts and social cohesion: an initial study
    (Inderscience, 2020) Killian, Larita J.; IUPUC Division of Business
    The United States is experiencing increased social and economic fragmentation. Various explanations are offered, but an overlooked factor may be increasing reliance on special districts (SDs) to deliver public services. This study draws from ethical discourse theory to investigate the relationship between SDs and social cohesion. Using male incarceration rates as an indicator for levels of social cohesion and marginalization, this study finds that as the different types of SDs within a state increases, male incarceration rates also increase. This initial study does not posit causality. Relying on SDs to deliver public services may lead to reduced social cohesion and increased marginalization, as ethical discourse theory suggests. Alternatively, it may be that reliance on SDs and male incarceration rates are both functions of other factors that reduce social cohesion.