The Instrumentalist Mind

Modern political theories take an instrumentalist view of the relation between citizen and state. For that reason, they cannot make sense of the very idea of a common good, and neither can we today who think within these frameworks.

This instrumentalist paradigm of government did not develop in isolation; modernity saw a larger conceptual shift. Not least for this reason is it hard for us to imagine an alternative. Practical rationality came to be seen as instrumental rationality, that is, as the ability to draw sound means-end inferences. There is some end to be achieved, and a rational action is that which takes the best means toward the end. This new perspective on rational choice influenced theories on any social topic, including government.

It has long been argued that our uncritical acceptance of the instrumentalist paradigm is a byproduct of the larger technological and economic changes that characterized the early modern era—most influentially by Max Weber (1984) and by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno (1987). Many contemporary philosophers see David Hume as the first to explicitly formulate or at least popularize the instrumentalist paradigm, hence speak of the “Humean theory of practical rationality” or also “Neo-Humeanism” if referring to contemporary offshoots.

For Hume (Tr., sect. 3.1.1, § 9), an agent has beliefs, about “matters of fact” and about “relations of ideas,” so about empirical facts and about logical relations and the like, which are either true or false. In addition, an agent has a “passion,” which on Hume's account is neither true nor false because it is noncognitive. This combination of a truth-apt mental content and an arousal causes the action. Today, Neo-Humeans take this to mean that the action will be rational if the preceding beliefs were and if the action contributes to satisfying the passion, and more so than alternative actions would have, and all that while maximizing the total expected satisfaction of all of the agent's passions.

Introduction

The chapter presents an analysis of the relationship between youth and education, in particular non-formal education, based on the attempt to complement three vantage points: one referring to the past, with an analysis of (under-recognised) sociological traditions; one referring to the present, examining the effects produced by large-scale programmes for youth and one looking to the future, with the description of a series of activities carried out to facilitate the recognition of the relevance of non-formal education for everyday youth life.

It is also a tentative account of the activities carried out at the crossroads between sociological tradition, field research and public engagement in the context of the REadY lab (Research on non-formal Education and Youth work) at the Department of Political and Social Studies, University of Salerno.

In relation to the first aspect, the chapter will concentrate on some illustrations, each representing a different period (up to the early 1980s) and perspective of the sociological analysis of the relationship between youth and education.

It will follow an outline of the results of the Italian section of the RAY project (‘Research-based analysis of European youth programmes’), developed by a European network and aimed at analysing both the educational outcomes of youth learning mobility as well as the non-formal educational practices developed through ‘Erasmus+: Youth in Action’.

The third step is a preliminary account of a series of public engagement activities connected to the contribution through a dialogue between research, policy and practices aimed at recognising and developing the contribution of non-formal education and youth work in youth policies.

This develops in the recognition of the ‘continuum in education’, with it being the interaction between formal, non-formal and informal educational contexts in which the logic of traditional separation must be overcome to embed integration into education.

Traces of an Open-Ended Debate

The question of education has always been at the core of sociological debate, as can be seen in the work of classical thinkers (Ribolzi 2012; Besozzi 2017). However, for a long time and until the 1970s, at both the theoretical and empirical levels, sociology significantly reduced it, understanding it almost exclusively in a ‘formal’ sense, as a vertical and intentional process of transmission that takes shape within a specific institutional dimension – the school, the university (Giovannini 1987).

Colette's biography and the social fabric of France in the early decades of the twentieth century are the ground from which Chéri (1920) emerges. They do not, however, account for the force of the tragic, incestual, love story. She writes it before the development of the incestual affair between the forty-seven-year-old author and her seventeen-year-old stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel. As Julia Kristeva puts it: “the fantasy truly preceded the act.” However, the rapport between Léa and Chéri does replay that of the author's first marriage with the sexes reversed. My concluding chapter on Wash Westmoreland's bio picture focuses on the significance of her first marriage in her writing including Chéri. Colette's infamous relationship with her husband, the forty-year-old Willy (Henry Gauthier-Villars), infantilized the nineteen-year-old young woman as well as enslaved and/or exploited her as a factory worker. He locked her up like a misbehaving child to force her to write and then published her work under his name.

While they do not discuss explicitly the incest taboo and the specific gendered behaviors analyzed below, Alex Hughes and Mary Noonan document the sexism of Belle Époque culture depicted in the narrative. My analysis of the novel does not in itself reveal the way Colette portrays the patriarchal culture of her time. With evidence from these scholars, it does, however, make a compelling argument for the presence of the prohibition and gendered conduct in this period. Society considers the “parent–child” love affair taboo at the same time that the prohibition ironically enables said society to exist. While culture shapes her narrative, it does not deny the strength and invention of her portrayal of Léa and Chéri's tragic love story, which Frank Kermode names so well, but without reference to the hidden prohibition. He says, “With a great technical and moral leap […]. Coletteinvents a mode, the mode of hedonist tragedy.” As Chéri makes clear, the taboo exists, even in its promiscuous courtesan environment.

The scene in which the young man kisses Léa for the first time followed by her embracing him and their lovemaking highlights the anxiety raised in her by this development.

Spalmai (Tehsil Kabal)

Spalmai was 24 years sweet-voiced girl. Her father was working in Dubai, while her mother was a local primary school teacher. She was the eldest among her five siblings (three brothers and two sisters). Her primary education was at a local non-elite private English-medium school, followed by her middle school.

Her shift from a non-elite private English-medium school to a government school was due to her Quran memorization. She was a practising Muslimah and she requested a break for prayer during her interview.

She was living peacefully in her village before the rise of the Taliban in the valley. She was in Year 8 and enjoying those school days when the Taliban came on the scenario. They shut the government schools for girls, but being a student at a private school she continued her education under tremendous fear and threats. Later, she studied BSc at the main city college of Saidu Sharief. At the time of the interview, she was a final-year MSc Microbiology student at the University of Swat.

Colette's relationship to the first husband prominent in her life and writing, the infamous Willy, Henry Gauthiers-Villars, dominates in Wes Westmoreland's eponymous biographical period film of 2018. The movie garnered many nominations and kudos for its direction, Dominic West’s, Keira Knightley’s, and Denise Gough's performances, the costumes, and its contributions to LGBTQ cinema. It also won an international award for Thomas Adès's music. Yet critics, especially scholarly readers, have overlooked or given only a superficial reading of the film.

The cursory reviews tend to focus on the dominant presence of Willy as well as the identity politics of 2018, without agreeing on whether these elements are strengths or weaknesses. The reviews, however, implicitly bring to light the principal questions Westmoreland raises, as I will show.

Colette limits itself primarily to her early years, especially to the ramifications of her marriage to Willy. Not a weakness of the film, this limitation selects the events that unlock a better understanding of her autofiction and the incestual desire driving it. In my psychoanalytic reading, Westmoreland poses vital questions on the sources of her writing and life, namely the parent–child relationship, its sexual aspects, and its implications for complex identity politics.

Julia Kristeva's theories on the importance of both the father of personal or individual pre-history and masculine identifications in Colette's life and work contribute to my approach to the movie. While she does not mention it, those who do analyze the film often speak of Dominic West's apparent overshadowing of Keira Knightley's portrayal of the author, as in the case of Louis Jourdan's performance seeming to outshine that of Leslie Caron discussed in my preceding chapter on Vincente Minnelli's adaptation. In both cases, these critics speak of the dominance of the male figures as if they distort the thought and life of Colette, and thus minimize the female agency she promoted.

Unlike the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, Kristeva focuses on female psychology in her theories on the child's early encounters with a male parent who is androgynous, particularly in his behavior.

This chapter will first discuss some theoretical aspects of terrorism in Swat society with special reference to structural functionalism or functionalist theories that created a space for the rise of Taliban, because it explores a set of human behaviour and complexities of a society to maintain harmony and peace (Ritzer, 2010). Second, it will discuss the conceptualisation of women and education in armed conflicts. The chapter then ends with some reflections about the suitability of feminists’ peace and conflict theories in Swat context.

According to the theory, every society has its stable social structure. This social structure has its own harmonious way of functioning that is acceptable and recognised for a society. However, as time passes, changes occur in a society's setup, and people try to change or modify their old-fashioned functions. Thus, societies accept or reject new social functions based on their suitability or unsuitability within their cultural and societal norms. However, if the new functions are disapproved by a group, known as ‘dysfunctional group’, or the concept of ‘dysfunction’, whereas functions contribute to the adjustment of the system, dysfunctions are those consequences that lead to instability and ultimately change (Elwell, 2013: 1). The change bearer group in the social structure continues their struggle within society. This tussle always creates clashes and conflicts within a society when the functions of social structure are unacceptable for the changing group, and the existing functions holder rejects the new social structure changes. This tug of war between the societal structural functional and dysfunctional forces (groups) is a continuous process throughout human history. However, Merton asserts that institutional structures and cultural elements are interrelated and mutually supporting and that the dominant orientation of socio-cultural systems is stability (Elwell, 2013: 1).

Restructuring an existing society with social mechanisms adjusts the new acceptable social functions with existing social norms; otherwise, the society repulses it.

In this chapter, I discuss the stories of courageous women who have struggled for education, peace and prosperity in Swat Valley. In addition, I analyse the Swat women's unending hope and efforts for peacekeeping and peacebuilding, where education for all and everyone gained momentum nowadays.

Pakistan is one of the world's most populous countries where the struggle for socio-economic development, education and the redefinition of religion and cultural discourses are challenging dynamics. It has the least gender equitable measures among South Asian countries. There are many challenges for women in the country, but the vanguard one is targeting and attacking education and women to deprive them of their fundamental rights of education, work and to make personal decisions about their life.

The analysis in the second story about the educated women of Swat highlights the most disastrous time of their life, gender issues and the unequal power relation of gender in conflicts they went through. Their life stories give us their diverse life experiences of torture, fear and oppression yet with hope, optimism and peace too. They demonstrated their experiences during three phases: terrorism, counter-insurgency destructions and their forced displacement that all considered more gendered episodes.

As mentioned, the tragic story of Swat commenced with unjust social and legislature of the prevailing law that exploited their fundamental rights since the merger (1969) (Sultan-i-Rome, 2008). These circumstances were well prepared ground for TNSM, which was a peaceful restoration of Sharia law by Sufi Muhammad against the corrupt and inefficient judicial system (Hussain, 2001) that later became the root cause of the rise of militancy (Majeed 2016 and Rome, 2008). Thus, the discourse constructed by Fazlullah was based on Wahabism, revolving around jihad, extremism, anti-modernism, anti-state and anti-women (Hussain et al., 2011; cited in Majeed, 2016: 97). To suppress the Taliban's conservative barbaric ideology, which I am not calling Islam because it has nothing to do with the peaceful philosophy of Islam, they reached their extreme form of violence and aggression for political empowerment.

For centuries, in Pukhtun society, lack of education deprived women of their socio-political and economic participation which is considered the main impediment to their empowerment (Naz and Chaudhry, 2011).

Fusing Ancient with Modern Tradition

A minimal level of social complexity, institutions in particular, are presupposed to realize one's personal good. Social complexity, we shall see, presupposes a state because enough institutions must have enforceable rules.

The first of these two claims continues an ancient train of thought, while the second is an early modern claim. Together, they make up the core thesis of this book: Realization of one's personal good presupposes social complexity, therefore enforceable rules, therefore the state, and these presuppositions entail significantly more than instrumental provisions. This is why being a flourishing animal the human way, that is, being happy is possible only by living as a political animal. In that sense, the state is constitutive of your personal good.

Aristotle and other ancient authors see the state as a necessary component of the full realization of human nature. Hobbes and other early modern authors see it as enabling human beings to live together in large, anonymous groups. These two ideas are compatible, I suggest. The modern idea can be cast in such a way as to form part of the more encompassing ancient idea my book attempts to recover.

The moderns point out that many activities—for example, most economic activities, such as trade—are impossible unless there is public security, which means nothing but that there must be enforceable rules of conduct, especially protection from violence by other individuals. The ancients claim that said activities as well as the further things they enable, such as art or science, are core aspects of what it means to live well.

Together, this yields the following picture of the connection between the state and the good life: The state is that social group which enforces basic rules of conduct, thereby enabling activities and goods that are indispensable to a happy life. Even more, these activities and goods are characteristic of being human and therefore the state is. Human beings are political animals.

Social complexity, we saw in Chapter 3, is required for all sorts of goods and activities. Some are instrumental; others have to do with identity.

Introduction

This chapter examines the nature of healthcare and the effectiveness of the health policies in Tanzania. It also seeks to explain the factors that led the nation's government to adopt various health strategic plans that could reach all households with essential health and social welfare services. It argues that a strong health system is an essential mechanism for implementing universal health coverage and fulfilling human rights entitlement. The motivation for meeting the healthcare needs of the citizens of Tanzania as much as possible as well as the expectations of the population could yield insights for improvement (Akachi & Kruk 2017; Opuko 2023). Further, adhering to high-quality standards, and applying evidence-informed interventions through efficient channels of the healthcare service delivery system are mechanisms for evaluating success in the health system in Tanzania. The content analysis research method that was used includes analysis of the World Bank's Development Indicator and Tanzania's healthy policy reform United Nations Human Development Report; World Bank Indicators; African Development Bank reports, Walt and Gilson's health policy analysis, academic journals, and World Health reports. The specific objectives include quality improvement of primary healthcare services, delivering a package of essential services in communities and health facilities; equitable access to services in the country by focusing on geographic areas with higher disease burdens and by focusing on vulnerable groups in the population with higher risks; active community partnership through intensified interactions with the population for improvement of health and social wellbeing; a higher rate of return on investment by applying modern management methods and engaging in innovative partnerships and social determinants of health, the health and social welfare sector will collaborate with other sectors, and advocate for the inclusion of health-promoting and health-protecting measures in other sectors’ policies and strategies. The findings of the research reveal that for many decades foreign groups have driven health research in Tanzania without creating adequate local capacity in the country. It recommends that investment in information technology systems in the country could propel a positive mechanism for evaluating and refining health policy in Tanzania. This approach could help the Government of Tanzania to attain the right to effectively manage to health delivery system that could benefit citizens and residents of Tanzania.

Form Follows Function

The state creates options for identities and actions. Even those that appear entirely private exist within its fabric. Human life necessitates the state in the normative sense that any life that could potentially qualify as a good human life requires an infrastructure of institutions. That is the constitutivist justification for having a state.

What, then, should the state be like? Granted that human (well)being indeed requires a state, there still appears to be a pressing open question, namely what state is suited or best suited to fulfill this necessary function. Presumably, some designs are better than others, and not just any state will do. There are, after all, countless examples of governments, laws and institutions that neglect citizens or even systematically inflicting harm on them; consider dictatorships, racist laws or mass-surveilling ‘security’ services.

What makes states good or bad is the last substantial question I shall discuss in this book. This and the next chapter lay out the constitutivist reasoning about the design of the state.

In principle, the answer is easy. The good state is the one that fulfills its function well. Such is not a peculiarity of states but a general point about the concept ‘good’. For any n, it is a good N if it fulfills the function of Ns well. In the case of the state, that function is to enable the personal and the common good of its citizens. Utopia is that state which does so perfectly.

What, however, characterizes a functional state? That question, too, has an easy answer in principle. A functional state is one with a functional design. In the ideal state, all institutions and all laws are properly directed at the public good.

What is a functional design, then? What makes an institution, as well as an ensemble of institutions, functional? That, finally, is the question which will occupy us in Chapters 5 and 6. Having laid out the constitutivist justification for the state's existence, I now move on to the constitutivist justification for its shape.

My answer, mind you, will not be a sketch of Utopia. I do not hope to spell out an ideal and complete design. My concern rather is with how to reason about designs. I explain what kinds of reasons justify institutions and how. In other words, I develop a constitutivist framing of governance and policy matters.

Russia is our opportunity. A prize is there not only in international trade but in a worthy international friendship. It will be a piece of national folly not to see this gain and not to strive for it. But make no mistake - the opportunity will not come to the door of the stupid, nor cry at nights beneath the windows of a people without capacity for international sense. Others will seek for Russian trade, Russian markets, Russian investment; the chance will not be served up to us sitting in an easy chair.

We must move. We must be up and at this thing. We must take those affirmative steps which fortunately are indicated clearly.

We must accept the view that mutual relationship, and particularly mutual trade relationship, requires, as any mutual benefit arrangement requires, concessions on both sides.

What must we require of our own government and of our own energy and commercial practice?

What must we require of Russia and of the change in her business manners and customs?

We need in Russia from now on, if we need it anywhere, a pungent diplomatic representative. The light of intelligence about the necessity of picking men of force with some visions of commercial possibilities and of affirmative, active international friendship in distinction to negative, passive, puttering international palaver, will soon dawn upon the American people. We need ambassadors everywhere with old-time steadiness but with their eyes on the future rather than reminiscent with memories of American politics. The ambassador's job should be one in which to see the prospect of a record, and not one in which to enjoy the retrospect of a record. After this war the United States will be dealing internationally as she has never dealt before. We will have no choice. We cannot stay out and we need to develop the international sense through the best and most vigorous men we can find. If present and former representatives measure up to that standard, neither they nor those who procured their appointment need worry; if they do not it will be a serious matter for Americans and no patriotic American will keep silent about visible delinquencies.

Introduction

This chapter attempts to examine citizens’ perceptions of the nature of health policies and the effectiveness of the healthcare delivery system in Cameroon. Healthcare administration in Cameroon is organized at the national, regional, and district levels with the Ministry of Public Health responsible for overseeing the healthcare system, and assisted by several agencies, including the National Health Insurance Fund, the National AIDS Control Committee, performance-based financing, a voucher system, private health insurance, and a mutual health organization. All these entities are expected to work together to implement policies and programs to improve the well-being of Cameroonians. This chapter argues that while there has been some improvement in healthcare administration in Cameroon over the past several decades, challenges persist. Such challenges include inadequate funding, a shortage of skilled healthcare professionals, disparities in healthcare access, and inadequate compensation system for healthcare and professionals, the other major health system challenges in the century include mismanagement of funds allocated for critical health programs and the political conflict between English and French-speaking citizens of the country.

The research findings reveal that the political instability between English- and French-speaking citizens in Cameroon has negatively impacted the health system in the country. The disparity in funding of healthcare services between the above two groups has also negatively affected the development of healthcare standards and the effective implementation of health policies in the country. Although the disparity between rural and urban healthcare delivery systems has been acknowledged for more than two decades, the government and healthcare leaders have done little to improve access to affordable healthcare services in the country. Some health policy recommendation is provided that could help the government to engage in a peaceful win–win conf lict resolution process to bring the conf lict between the English- and French-speaking groups dispute. The resolution of the existing conf lict could also minimize the disparities in funding healthcare institutions, improve modern healthcare awareness, and minimize gender inequality in the provision of health services to all its citizens.

Introduction

This chapter investigates the nature of healthcare policies and implementation in Ghana. It argues that although the country's healthcare policies are formulated to accomplish the Millennium Development Goal, there are notable challenges that tend to limit the Government of Ghana's ability to accomplish its various health policy goals. The chapter also describes how some of Ghana's health policies imposed 15%–50% for health service fees. These out-of-pocket fees have negatively affected its citizens’ healthcare delivery network and accessibility. The chapter also discussed how citizens’ reaction to the negative health policies has led to a major movement from modern medicine to traditional medicine as well as a preference for self-medication for treatment rather than going to hospitals to seek healthcare from physicians. The circumstances that led to the establishment of a new health insurance scheme are also discussed in the chapter. The aftermath of the National Health Insurance Scheme and the current outcomes of the policy's impact on the citizens and residents of Ghana are analyzed. Increased health spending by the government of Ghana has led to an increase in life expectancy, reduced infant mortality, and a reduction in maternal mortality rate. Despite major improvements in the health policy and administration in the country, results show that there is a major gap in access to healthcare between the population in the rural and urban regions. There are disparities between rich and poor citizens and residents of Ghana with respect to the affordability of healthcare services. Some new policies that could be formulated to solve the current challenges are recommended.

Brief History of Ghana

The Republic of Ghana is in West Africa. It has boundaries with the Republic of Togo to the east, Côte d’Ivoire to the west, and Burkina Faso to the north. The Atlantic Ocean is to the south of the country. According to the World Bank Indicators (2022) and Worldometer (2022) report Ghana's population was 33.5 million in 2022 (Worldometer 2023). The nation's gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to be about US$2,175 billion in 2022 (GlobalEdge 2022; World Bank Indicators 2022; Worldometer 2023). Ghana gained its independence from the United Kingdom on May 6, 1957. The Republic of Ghana currently has a unitary constitutional democracy government.

The Unchallenged Dogma of Liberalism

Constitutivism is a genuinely holistic theory of government. I gave a transcendental argument against anarchism, according to which individual human identities exist only within the fabric of a political community, and I described realization of the personal and the common good as interdependent.

Having laid out constitutivism, my last step in this book will be to place it in contemporary discourse. With its holistic stance, constitutivism provides an alternative to the paradigm currently dominating political theory, which is philosophical liberalism. In this last chapter, I shall give my take on the liberal paradigm, what I see as the problems at its core, and how constitutivism differs.

This will necessitate a bit of literature review in the current section. The sections thereafter return to philosophical discussion. In these, I give a critical analysis of Rawls’ Theory of Justice, but without indulging in specialized debates.

Rawls’ theory is the intellectual background of much contemporary political discourse, including outside of academia, and one motivation behind my book is to offer an alternative. My analysis proceeds in three steps. Focusing on Rawls’ original text, I describe what motivates his philosophical construction (see section “The Pitfalls of Kantian Autonomy”). I then outline this construction and critically discuss its premises, especially his definition of rationality (see section “Rawls’ Citizens Are Utility Maximizers”). Lastly, I describe the main fault lines between Rawls’ view and mine (see section “How Constitutivism Differs”).

Constitutivism belongs to a vanishingly small set of serious alternatives to Rawlsianism. For those who are interested in the state of the field, my concern in the rest of the current section is to demonstrate how uniform political theory currently is. Readers not interested in such meta-discourse for specialists are invited to move on to the next section directly.

In contemporary political philosophy broadly construed, there are other holistic perspectives than constitutivism—at least if by “contemporary” we mean works since the late twentieth century. Important examples already mentioned include communitarianism and feminist critiques of liberal individualism.