Themes of Citizenship and Community 

Themes of Citizenship and Community

Instructions/Descriptions

Themes of Citizenship and Community

Themes, of, Citizenship ,Community

Themes, Citizenship, Community

The Abstract

The Abstract, 250-400 words, single spaced, which outlines in summary form your overall plan for establishing and addressing a Research Question, should follow the template below:

• A Set-up for your Research Question, a brief lay-of the land narrative that provides a broad description of the problem at hand. This general comment shows what brings you to the issue, often by way of setting down the current scholarly debate, or by describing a scene from a film, book, or news event.

“The themes of citizenship and community are being discussed in many quarters of the left today. This is no doubt a consequence of the crisis of class politics and indicates the growing awareness of the need for a new form of identification around which to organize the forces struggling for a radicalization of democracy.”

• The Problem as you see it, which hints at the Research Question itself. This brief narrative frames the issue at hand so that you can then ask a specific question for your research.

“I believe that the question of political identity is crucial and that the attempt to construct citizens’ identities is one of the more important tasks of democratic politics. But there are many different versions of citizenship and vital issues are at stake in their contest. The way we define citizenship is intimately linked to the kind of society and political community we want.”

• The Research Question which can take the form of a stated problem (“In this essay I want to interrogate the ways ideology informs our identity-constructs”), or an actual question (“In what ways does ideology determine our identity?) This is the single most important component of your writing.

“How should we understand citizenship when our goal is both a radical and plural democracy? Such a project requires the creation of a chain of equivalence among democratic struggles, and therefore the creation of a common political identity among democratic subjects. For the term citizens to actually mean this and function in this way, what conditions must it meet?”

• The Research Method and a glimpse of your Researched Argument. This optional narrative shows how you plan to address the question through research, and how your argument will emerge from your findings.

“These are the problems that I will address, and I will argue that the key task is how to conceive of the nature of the political community under modern democratic conditions. I consider that we need to go beyond the conceptions of citizenship of both the liberal and civic republican tradition while building on their respective strengths.”

Sample Abstracts

1) Hegemony, Radical Democracy, and the Political Community

The themes of citizenship and community are being discussed in many quarters of the left today. This is no doubt a consequence of the crisis of class politics and indicates the growing awareness of the need for a new form of identification around which to organize the forces struggling for a radicalization of democracy.

I believe that the question of political identity is crucial and that the attempt to construct citizens’ identities is one of the more important tasks of democratic politics. But there are many different versions of citizenship and vital issues are at stake in their contest. The way we define citizenship is intimately linked to the kind of society and political community we want.

How should we understand citizenship when our goal is both a radical and plural democracy? Such a project requires the creation of a chain of equivalence among democratic struggles, and therefore the creation of a common political identity among democratic subjects. For the term citizens to actually mean this and function in this way, what conditions must it meet?

These are the problems that I will address, and I will argue that the key task is how to conceive of the nature of the political community under modern democratic conditions. I consider that we need to go beyond the conceptions of citizenship of both the liberal and civic republican tradition while building on their respective strengths.”

2) Education and Technology: Innovative Levers between Business and Environment

Many scholars, policy makers, entrepreneurs and the civil society are asking fundamental questions about the future of capitalism in our global economy.  In the past hundred years the world population and economy have grown exponentially, together with the pressure on the physical environment.

The Millennium eco-system assessment denounces that 60 percent of the world’s ecosystems are being used unsustainably. This trend is growing, being fed by higher energy use, materials exploitation and more impacting environmental pollution.

What role can business play in finding environmental crisis solutions? In the last decade, the interactions between business and environment have been revisited with new perspectives. In particular, positive change can arise from new collaborative opportunities between business and the environment, in order to embrace environmental challenges and pursue reciprocal benefits.

I evaluate this synergetic activity using a systemic approach: a powerful tool to analyze and quantify the feedback loops that are created when changes occur to the elements of the analyzed system.

It is paramount to individuate pivotal centers which have the power to originate connections and regulate system behavior. In this regard, I believe education and technology are among the most important. These elements play a major role in determining and weighting the interactions between environment and business.

Two scenarios are presented here, namely, the status quo system and a system in which technology and education are empowered and serve as leverage points to empower the interaction between business and environment.

I preferred to center my model on the environment rather than on business, since I argue that when discussing ethical priorities in the interplay between business and environment, the latter must be prioritized.

Researched Argument

The Researched Argument, 10-12 pages, double spaced, which brings together your understanding of the scholarship on a specific (business) ethical issue and your ability to articulate a response to that problem, should exhibit your ability to:

1) invent a sophisticated research question, problem, or issue,

2) undertake in-depth research that informs the question at hand,

3) derive a plausible soft-claim that seriously addresses your problem, and

4) suggest an even better question that prompts further thinking on the matter.

Typically, the 1st Section of your writing includes:

• A Set-up for your Research Question, a brief lay-of the land narrative that provides a broad description of the problem at hand. This general comment shows what brings you to the issue, often by way of setting down the current scholarly debate, or by describing a scene from a film, book, or news event.
• The Problem as you see it, which hints at the Research Question itself. This brief narrative frames the issue at hand so that you can then ask a specific question for your research.
• The Research Question (#1 above) which can take the form of a stated problem (“In this essay I want to interrogate the ways ideology informs our identity-constructs”), or an actual question (“In what ways does ideology determine our identity?) This is the single most important component of your writing.
• The Research Method and a glimpse of your Researched Argument. This optional narrative shows how you plan to address the question through research, and how your argument will emerge from your findings.

Typically, the 2nd Section of your writing includes:

The Research (#2 above), which functions exclusively to address and inform your understanding of the question so that you can intelligently and carefully construct your soft-claim

This is the section in which you play an intellectual “ping-pong match.

Pose your question to the scholarly world (journals, books, culture, etc)

What you read in your research (scholarly ideas) is then pinged to you

What you process in your own mind (your re-construction of scholarship)

is then ponged back to the scholarly world through different lenses

Re-ping and Re-pong as necessary

This section becomes the bulk of your writing (usually 6-7 references).

Typically, the 3rd Section of your writing includes:

When all is said and done in terms of your thoughtful research about the question at hand, the 3rd section serves as the place for you to state your now-informed Soft Claim (#3 above) [and to offer further implications for new research on the topic (#4 above)].

The “conclusion” you reach (your soft-claim) has to do with the research you have amassed, and is therefore not a sum-up (please!!!). It is, rather, a soft statement of your “position” on the issue, now that you have processed the research in your mind. It is by no means a definitive or absolute statement

It is your informed claim—it is your researched argument.

Typically, the 4th Section of your writing includes:

By offering Further Implications, you provide scholars who read your work a chance to think more about the issue and perhaps even advance your claims.

Based on your Soft-Claim (#3 above), you are now able to suggest to your readers/scholars the “things to think about” to further advance the discussion regarding your initial question. (These further implications are to be taken up outside the pages of your essay).

(Please use 1 of the 3 standard style guides for your essay—MLA, APA, or Chicago Manual)

(Attach an Abstract as a separate page, single spaced, with your essay—it should immediately precede your full text—it is not counted, however, as a page of your actual essay).

(Attach a Works Cited or Works Consulted or Bibliography page with your essay—it should immediately follow your full text—it is not counted, however, as a page of your actual essay).

Introduction—Example

Something new is happening at Harvard Business School. As graduation nears for the first class to complete their MBA since the onset of the global financial crisis, students are circulating an oath that commits them to pursue their work “in an ethical manner”; “to strive to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide”;

and to manage their enterprises “in good faith, guarding against decisions and behavior that advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise and the societies it serves.” The wording of the new MBA oath draws on one adopted in 2006 by the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. Nevertheless, the fact that it has been taken up by the world’s most famous business school is significant.

As of this writing, about 20% of the Harvard graduating class have taken the oath. That will, of course, prompt cynics to ask: “What about the other 80%?”

But those who have taken the oath are part of a larger turn toward ethics that has followed the recent flood of revelations of dishonesty and greed in the financial sector. Interest in business ethics courses has surged, and student activities at leading business schools are more focused than ever before on making business serve long-term social values.

Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing. A member of my family recently had an eye problem, and was referred by her general practitioner to an eye surgeon. The surgeon examined the eye, said that it didn’t need surgery, and sent her back to the general practitioner.

That is no more than one would expect from a doctor who is true to the ethics of the profession, my medical friends tell me. By contrast, it’s hard to imagine going to a car dealer and being advised that you don’t really need a new car.

For physicians, the idea of swearing an oath to act ethically goes back to Hippocrates. Every profession will have its rogues, of course, no matter what oaths are sworn, but many health care professionals have a real commitment to serving the best interests of their clients.

Do business managers have a commitment to anything more than the success of their company and to making money? It would be hard to say that they do. Indeed, many business leaders deny that there is any conflict between self-interest and the interests of all. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, they believe, ensures that the pursuit of our own interests in the free market will further the interests of all.

In that tradition, the economist Milton Friedman writes, in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom :  “There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

For the true believers in this creed, the suggestion that the manager of a business should strive for anything except maximizing value for shareholders is heresy.

But, while the global financial crisis did reveal fraud on a massive scale, the underlying cause of the crisis was not fraud but the failure of the market to knit together the self-interest of those who sold and resold sub-prime mortgages with the interests of the investors in financial institutions that bought them.

The fact that an even larger catastrophe would have resulted had governments not been willing to draw on taxpayer funds to bail out the banks was an additional blow to those who have told us to trust the unregulated market.

The MBA oath is an attempt to replace Friedman’s view of the social responsibility of business with something quite different: a management profession that commits itself to promoting the long-term, sustainable welfare of all.

The sense of a professional ethic is conveyed by clauses in the oath that require managers to “develop both myself and other managers under my supervision so that the profession continues to grow and contribute to the well-being of society”.

Another clause stresses accountability to one’s peers, a hallmark of professional self-regulation. As for the ultimate objectives of the managerial profession, they are, as we have seen, nothing less than “to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide”.

Can such a code really take hold in the competitive world of business? Perhaps the best hope for its success can be glimpsed in a comment made to a New York Times reporter by Max Anderson, one of the pledge’s student organizers: “There is the feeling that we want our lives to mean something more and to run organizations for the greater good,” he said.

If enough business people would conceive their interests in those terms, we might see the emergence of an ethically-based profession of business managers. In this essay, I address the possibility of promoting this view.

Themes of Citizenship and Community

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