Studies point out that populism, a concept still in dire need of clarifications, resembles more of a rhetorical strategy than a fully-fledged ideology. Actually, populism has become a concept so frequently used that its orginial meaning seems to have been lost, leaving it as an empty shell, at least from an ideological point of view. I argue that in spite of this – or rather as a means of compensation – populism uses a very robust mythological apparatus, creating narratives that (...) allow voters to easily understand its messages. The current article underlines that in an attempt to over-simplify its discourse, populism makes use of all four political myths identified by Raoul Girardet. The conspiracy myth represents the main element revolving around the populist discourse. Politicians who embrace this rhetoric denounce a secret society that is rigorously organized, the actions of which defy morality, using all means to attain political power. The other three political myths, i.e. the myth of unity, the myth of the savior and the myth of the golden age, act together only as a counterweight for the first. The paper also points out that the success of Euroscepticism lies in the fact that it represents the perfect embedding for such myths, and that the EU needs to generate its own narratives if it hopes to confront the so-called “populist temptation”. (shrink)

Inspired by the work of intellectual historian J. G. A. Pocock, this 1993 collection explores the political ideologies of early modern Britain.

This paper analyzes how, during the Juncker Presidency, the European Commission employed argumentative strategies to address the question of member-states’ compliance with European Union law. There is a literature gap regarding how European leaders employ argumentative strategies to coax member-states to comply with EU legislation and how those strategies can be associated with multilevel governance designs and problem-solving approaches. Building on van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, the paper explores what dialectical and rhetorical strategies were employed by the (...) Juncker European Commission to build an argumentative regime where the question of compliance with European Union law is articulated with the representation of the European Union as an efficient multilevel governance system. Starting from the distinction between procedural and operational concepts of problem-solving in multilevel governance polities, the paper questions whether the Juncker Commission’s arguments on the need to ensure European Union law compliance favor a particular conception of problem-solving in multilevel governance systems. The paper argues that the argumentative strategies employed by the Juncker European Commission in the field of compliance reveal a preference for an operational notion of problem-solving combined with some aspects of a more procedural perspective of problem-solving in multilevel governance polities. The background of this paper is associated with the growing impact that European legislation has on member-states and also with the efforts developed by the Juncker European Commission in discussing how to improve EU regulation to increase compliance with EU law. (shrink)

Economic globalization has resulted in the transfer of national power to supranational actors and their supranational procedures and institutions. Concomitant with this trend is the ascendancy of the discourses of democracy and human rights that have given rise to the idea of cosmopolitan justice. These trends, in turn, have weakened statehood [ Entstaatlichung ], requiring theoretical envisioning and practical institutionalization of a supranational model of political association. Among the competing theories, in this article I will defend the Kantian project (...) of constitutionalization of international law. In doing so, I take the doctrine of constitutional patriotism as an appropriate model of supranational political association in the European Union and defend it against the republican critique that rejects the idea as deficient. I argue that the European project of constitution-making can overcome the charges of democratic deficit and the lack of European demos by establishing the terms and conditions for democratic negotiation and institutionalizing shared practices of law-making. Key Words: constitutional patriotism • democratic deficit • the European Union • nation-state • supranational political community. (shrink)

This paper examines the causes of prominent radical political options and behaviors that are already visible on a daily basis in the European Union. In public discourse there is a simplified belief that the primarily responsibility for this lies with the immigrants and fear caused by terrorist attacks carried out in Europe or the old European latent nationalism. Although these elements undoubtedly contribute to the development of radicalism, the author argues that the key sources for this issue should (...) be found in the difficulties encountered by the European national welfare states. This is the source of ever-greater mutual intolerance among the citizens of the European Union, which can take on various forms of political, cultural, ideological and physical conflict. On the basis of these arguments the author concludes that the European Union is indeed in a historic milestone but the real danger of the European Union?s disintegration is not primarily in cultural, civilization, confessional, security or geopolitical sources, but this source should first be sought through the prism of the European national social states and the expectations of citizens referring to them. nema. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The article analyses the language used by the Polish nationalist right in relation to LGBT communities and the right to abortion. The authors show links between the language of Church hierarchs and right-wing columnists as the ideological backbone of the governing right-wing populist right. According to the authors, the attack on gender is the same method of political mobilisation and power management as the campaign against refugees and the anti-immigrant hysteria. On the one hand, the anti-gender discourse (...) may strengthen the narrative against the ‘liberal EU’ and, on the other hand, it is used to show substitute ‘scapegoats’ in Poland. Moral panic makes it possible to release class tensions in the manner that is safe for the system through the artificially induced cultural and ideological conflict. However, the dispersed anti-gender discourse has a real impact on social attitudes – on the one hand, it polarises social sympathies and, on the other hand, it strengthens conservative attitudes. The analysis is based on right-wing press articles, Church hierarchs’ statements, videos on YouTube and a parliamentary debate about the right to abortion. (shrink)

In this article, we trace the histories of discourses supporting ‘jobs for natives’ in the UK and Austria using the discourse-historical approach to critical discourse studies. DHA uses four ‘levels of context’ as heuristic devices in critical analysis. In this article, we focus our attention predominantly on the broadest of these, largely eschewing the text internal analysis typical of CDA, in favour of a wider contextual sweep. In this way, we deconstruct and trace the conceptual history of British (...) and Austrian slogans of the extreme right related to issues of un/employment. We argue that slogans such as ‘British Jobs for British workers’ and ‘Austria First’ have been recontextualised into current political rhetoric while carrying historical context-dependent connotations, stemming from pre-World War II colonialism and antisemitism. Hence, we further claim that – although such rhetoric is currently widespread across EU member states – the ideologies and traditions drawn upon are distinct and create specific subtexts to be exploited for political ends; this is part of the discursive strategy of ‘calculated ambivalence’ employed in such rhetoric. (shrink)

This article explores the extent to which a feminist reading of gender mainstreaming is incorporated in the EU political discourse by analysing how family policy and gender inequality in politics are framed in EU policy documents. Gender mainstreaming is treated as an open signifier that can be filled with both feminist and non-feminist content. The article provides a set of criteria to assess whether a feminist reading of gender mainstreaming has been adopted. The frame analysis of EU documents (...) on family policy and gender inequality in politics reveals but a partial adoption of a feminist understanding of gender mainstreaming and only in the area of gender inequality in politics. (shrink)

This book presents the idea of Nomos of the Earth as the key idea that organizes the whole of Schmitt’s discourse about politics.

The article is a philosophical response to the oped of the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas Krieg und Empörung, published by him in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in April 2022. The oped demonstrates the philosopher’s view on ideological disputes and political debates or “indignation” (Empörung) in public sphere in both Germany and the EU concerning an attempt to develop a unanimous policy to help Ukraine with weapons against Russia’s military aggression. The authors presume that Habermas published the accountable message of a (...) responsible citizen that means it should be also taken as based on his theoretical achievements. The article consists of two parts. The first part sets out the main arguments of the philosopher’s newspaper article, which ends with a recommendation of compromise and partnership negotiations with the aggressor de facto due to the losses of Ukraine. The second part is an attempt by the authors to clarify the main preconditions and premises of Habermas’s communicative philosophy, which demonstrate the fundamental limitation of its explanatory power for this type of radical dissent, which is war. First of all, the authors suggest, it is the idea of pacification in interethnic relations, which forms the intellectual mood after World War II and finds its philosophical expression in the discovery of a priori foundations of understanding (Apel, Habermas) and ideas of developing formal pragmatics of communication. Attention to the latter allows the authors to demonstrate how consistent analysis of a priori (counterfactual) conditions of communication is considered by Habermas primarily in the historical perspective of positive dimensions of social integration - democratic equality, freedom, justice for participants of communicative interaction. The article concludes with a detailed analysis of the significance of the concept “lifeworld” as one of the central concepts within communicative theory and an analogue of “form of life” and “culture”. The authors argue the idea of perspective creating a common lifeworld for all in the processes of communication is fundamental to the works of the philosopher. The article concludes that the regulative idea of the single world as a basic ontological assumption of communicative theory does limit its explanatory capacity in terms of a war situation as a clash of different cultural worlds. (shrink)

The obligation to provide reasons may appear rather a simple and straightforward, but in actual practice—as the mutually antagonistic Weiss rulings of the CJEU and the German Bundesverfassungsgericht amply demonstrate—is fraught with constitutional complication. On the one side, there lies the concern with a deeply intrusive form of judicial review which substitutes judicially determined “good” reasons for those of the reviewee decisionmaker—legislatures, administrative agencies, or, as in Weiss, the European Central Bank. On the other side lies the concern with judicial (...) abdication in the face of technical expertise, uncertainty and complexity, turning the reason-giving requirement into a mere façade thereby placing democratic accountability in the modern administrative state beyond law’s remit. Either way, normatively and conceptually, we seem left with a half-way house only. Drawing on the recent US administrative law discourse—the neo-Fullerian concept of an “internal morality of law” and democratic experimentalism —this paper explores the concept of process review as tertium datur. Process review responds to concerns over the rule of law and administrative discretion through indirect, procedural safeguards, by imposing requirements of reasoned justification, rather than through wholesale invalidation or aggressive substantive review. (shrink)

This book presents the idea of Nomos of the Earth as the key idea that organizes the whole of Schmitt’s discourse about politics.

This book calls for a philosophical consideration of the development, challenges and successes of the European Union. The author argues that conceptual innovation is essential if progress on the European project is to be made; new meanings, rather than financial or institutional engineering solutions, will help solve the crisis. By applying a philosophical approach to diagnosing the EU crisis, the book reconsiders the basic concepts of democracy in the context of the complex reality of the EU and the globalised world (...) where profound social and political changes are taking place. It will be of interest to students and scholars interested in EU politics, political theory and philosophy. (shrink)

William Connolly presents a lucid and concise defense of the thesis of "essentially contested concepts" that can well be read as a general introduction to political theory, as well as for its challenge to the prevailing understanding of political discourse. In Connolly's view, the language of politics is not a neutral medium that conveys ideas independently formed but an institutionalized structure of meanings that channels political thought and action in certain directions. In the new preface he (...) pursues the implications of this perspective for a distinctive conception of ethics and democracy. (shrink)

This article discusses what constituted Japan's conception of the world order, by analyzing political discourse of international order in modern Japan. It has been generally assumed that the Japanese vision of international order in the pre-World War II years was dominated by a belief in the supremacy of the sovereign state. Contrary to the conventional supposition, this paper will argue that modern Japan actually abounded in discourses of transnationalism, and that most of them cannot be seen as the (...) product of liberal ideas but rather the result of an unstable image of the sovereign state system. Surveying the historical development of political discourse of sovereignty and colonial administration in modern Japan, the way in which the ambivalence of Japanese transnationalism had affected the theoretical construction of the international order will be elucidated. Keeping in mind that previous studies on the genealogy of international relations have focused exclusively on the paradigmatic debate over the League of Nations, this article will also pay more attentions to the fact that rearrangement of empire had occupied the significant place in building the image of the world order. Based on the historical considerations mentioned above, the conclusion will offer generalized consideration of what constituteｄ Japan's conception of the world order. (shrink)

The call for a more sociological approach to the study of the European Union, reflected in a number of recent survey works by sociologists and political scientists, offers exciting new prospects for rethinking the empirical terrain of ‘Europeanized’ politics beyond the nation state – whether in terms of governance, policy-making, parliamentary and legal politics, mobilization, or political communication. Via a survey of three kinds of leading sociological work on the EU, broadly split between three camps working with the (...) distinctive legacies of ‘Habermasian’, ‘Bourdieusian’ and ‘Foucauldian’ thinking, this article details the strengths and weaknesses of these paradigms. Focusing on a number of exemplary studies on the question of democratic legitimacy in the EU using each of these approaches, it offers a preliminary attempt to map their agendas, contributions, and blind spots, moving towards a synthesis that might identify commonalities and streamline a more coherent agenda for the political sociology of the European Union. The most promising line would appear to be one that moves away from purely theoretical/conceptual debates towards specific operationalizations able to combine elements of the various sociological approaches. (shrink)

The aim of this research is to analyze the political discourse and the language they used in public addresses provided by two former presidents of the United States, specifically, President Barak Obama and President Donald Trump. This research reflects on the material that has been collected for several months which aimed to contribute on the analysis of the corpus, distinctions and similarities, as well as their attitudes towards the public opinion. The objectives of this study are mainly empirical (...) and theoretical. Considering the empirical objectives, this study seeks to explore, identify and categorize the most used words in a political speech according to the categories, form, function and meaning, whereas, the theoretical objectives of this study are to provide a description of the language that is used in major events from well-known politicians when aiming to capture people’s attention. Their rhetorical habits were examined, in every delivery of Mr. Obama’s political speech; his speeches were carefully and well-articulated throughout his 8 year political service in the oval office, portraying him as a kind person. On the other hand, Mr. Trump’s, as a non-politician, more as a businessman, political speeches throughout his campaign and 4 years in the office were very often seen as aggressive, unforeseen, and nonetheless straight to the point. This study covers the linguistic level analysis as well as semantic and pragmatic levels. Initially, the selected corpora were analyzed using the Ant Conc software regarding frequency of usage and then move into detailed analysis. (shrink)

To what extent do we pay attention to the text and images that cover our hospital walls and do we offer any critique either as professionals or service users? In the past we might have expected to see functional or helpful instructions about where to go (or not to go) and in more well‐endowed buildings, perhaps we would see some works of art, sculpture, stained glass even, with the intention to encourage, distract or even forewarn us. However, it is now (...) common in UK hospitals, for wall space to be used as a portal for a range of institutional political messages, that convey information about everything from its own values, behaviours to advertisements for products and services to requirements for rule following. Michel Foucault's ideas about Heterotopic space can help us to see that hospitals tend to fall (awkwardly) between being a public and personal health care space, and this is a possible explanation for the confused material culture and messages that are shared there. This paper draws on ethnographic methods to reflect on personal experience in order to offer a critique of the contemporary political discourse which has become 'literally' written onto our hospital walls. (shrink)

Sophokles' Philoktetes is a response to the oligarchic takeover and restoration of democracy in Athens in 411–10 BC. The play explores the grounds, strengths, and weaknesses of democratic discourse, and measures it against alternatives. The final agon between Neoptolemos and Philoktetes defines a model of legitimate persuasion that can replace Odysseus' sophistic and oligarchic modes of interacting with others. The deus ex machina, in turn, brings in an authoritative aristocratic discourse that is superior even to democratic deliberation.

This paper advances a historical and philosophical explanation of the dynamics of irregular migration and the EU-external border policy in Africa. The refugee crisis in Europe has led to tougher security measures, including the EU’s externalization of its boundaries to transit countries with serious implication for human security and regional stability in Africa. In re-assessing the foundation of international migration policies through historical and philosophical lenses, this work brings to the fore the internal contradictions in EU-external border policy in Africa. (...) Whereas migration studies have drawn insights from political and applied moral philosophy, this approach is rare in the debate on irregular migration and informal transborder flows between the EU and Africa. The article particularly unveils the inter-relational complexity between globalization, migration, human rights and development. The approach is qualitative based on the critical analysis of ethnographic survey, government documents, mass media reports and existing literature. Underpinned by the philosophical tenets of the Hobbesian “collective right” and Lockean concept of “inalienable” human rights, as well as the discourse on the “priority thesis”, it concludes that the resolution of the migration dilemma lies in the ethical modification of the immigration laws in line with the universal notion of democratic values, the rule of law, human rights and the reality of global inter-connectivity. Keywords: Africa, External Border Control, European Union, Development, Human Rights, Irregular Migration; Priority Thesis. (shrink)

Democracy has been a flawed hegemony since the fall of communism. Its flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition politics are all positive features for political institutions. But democracy has many deficiencies: it is all too easily held hostage by powerful interests; it often fails to advance social justice; and it does not cope well with a number of features of the political landscape, such as political identities, boundary disputes, (...) and environmental crises. Although democracy is valuable it fits uneasily with other political values and is in many respects less than equal to the demands it confronts. In this volume prominent political theorists and social scientists present original discussions of such central issues. Democracy's Values deals with the nature and value of democracy, particularly the tensions between it and such goods as justice, equality, efficiency, and freedom. (shrink)

Crucial components of strategic communication include the audience, which plays a decisive role in how any conflict plays out. Strategic narratives are seen as means by which political actors attempt to construct a shared meaning of international politics to shape the behaviour of domestic and international actors. The article analyzes the news discourse of the Russian media sources RT, Pervyj Kanal, and NTV on Russia’s coronavirus aid to Italy in spring 2020. In the context of media coverage, some (...) methodological questions arise: How should the intentional structuring of narratives, targeting of audiences, and the manipulative intentions of the strategic actor be studied? For this purpose, the article combines strategic narrative theory with Umberto Eco’s concepts of the Model Reader and the Model Author. Analysing the aims and intentionality of the strategic narratives, we postulate the Model Reader as an analytical category that organizes the study of the audience’s interpretation process. The function of the Model Reader is to actualize the codes and intertextual references that the author has strategically planned in the news message, in order to achieve the geopolitical aims of the strategic narratives in question. The analysis of constructing the Model Reader and the Model Author of strategic narratives is complemented by Greimas’ semiotic theory of the narrative and the composition principles of Lotman’s discrete/non-discrete texts. (shrink)

This paper studies examples of how exponents of Roman declamation could insert into arguments on the trivial, even fantastic, cases known as controuersiae statements of striking relevance to the political culture of the triumviral and early imperial period. This is particularly apparent in the Controuersiae of Seneca the Elder but some traces remain in the Minor Declamations attributed to Quintilian. The boundaries separating Rome itself from the declamatory city referred to by modern scholars as Sophistopolis are significantly blurred even (...) in those instances where the exercise does not turn on a specific event from Roman history, and there is much to be gained from how the declaimers deploy Roman historical examples. Some of the most sophisticated instances of mediated political comment exploit the employment of universalizing sententiae, which have considerable bite when they are related to contemporary Roman discourse and experience. The declamation schools are a forum for thinking through the implications of the transformation of the Roman state and deserve a place within any history of Roman political thought. (shrink)

New Proposals for New Questions Nuevas propuestas para nuevas cuestiones In six sections, the volume deals with different questions of political philosophy. The first section focuses on democratic theories, the second on conceptual debates, discussing topics such as collective rights, the terrorist phenomenon, Libertarianism and conceptions of freedom. In a third section on contemporary debates, perspectives on sovereignity and legitimacy as well as discourse theory versus political liberalism are discussed. The volume also features essays on democracy and (...) law, and in a section entitled oJudicial construction of democracyo papers on constitutional reviews by judges in the Netherlands as well as the construction of democracy in the context of Latin-American democracies. Finally, in the last section the volume deals with the European Constitutional Treatise, analysing the arguments and examining the legitimacy crisis and the main objections displayed against this treatise. Contents I. On Democratic theory / Teoria de la democracia: Eerik Lagerspetz: The Problem of the Common Good in Democratic Theory Sergiy Maksymov: The Kantian Project of the Law Governed Society and New Democracies II. Conceptual debates / Debates conceptuales: Martin Blanchard: Recognition and the Case of Indigenous Reparations: A Habermasian Critique of Habermas Bronik Matwijkiw: The failed Model of Terrorism Susumu Morimura: The Libertarian View of Human Nature Jonathan E. Soeharno: Freedom as Second Nature. Exploring the value of Hegel's concept of Autonomous Personality for Global institutional theory Hashimoto Tsutomu: On the Concept of Positive and Negative Liberty III. Contemporary debates / Debates contemporaneos: Terhi Kiiskinen: Sovereignty Revisited: On Inalienable Constitutional Power Luiz B. Leite Araujo: A Decade of Debate: Discourse Theory versus Political Liberalism IV. Democracy and law / Democracia y derecho: Kenneth E. Himma: Does it really mather whether a Judicial Decision is morally Legitimate? The practical implications of Judicial Illegitimacy in a otherwise Legitimate State Carl Lebeck: Commitments, Rules and the limits of Constitutionalism Oliver W. Lembcke: Exception Rules? Freedom and the Order in a State of Exception Bart van Klink: Does Necessity knows no Laws? Application of Law in a State of Exception Costanza Margiotta: Ideas and Values of the oLegalo State Jiri Priban: Constitution-Making. Morality and Legal Symbolism: on Identity, Temporality and Differentiation of the legal, political and moral Systems V. Judicial construction of democracy / Construccion judicial de la democracia: Maurice Adams: Judging the Constitution: the Third Way. Some reflections on the introduction of Constitutional Review by Judges in The Netherlands Larry Alexander: What is the Problem of Judicial Review? Roberto Corona Copado: Las reglas del juego democratico. La Suprema Corte de Justicia de Mexico en la solucion de controversias entre organos del poder politico desde 1995 Jose de J. Ibarra Cardenas: La construccion judicial de la Democracia en Iberoamerica VI. Deliberation on European constitutional norm / Deliberacion sobre la nueva constitucion europea: Olaf Tans: Deliberating European Constitucional Norms. An Analysis of arguments Carla M. Zoethout: The Court and the Charter or Who Guards the Court of Justice of the EU under the new Constitution?. (shrink)

In the article is the problem of discourse effectiveness is considered, in particular of political discourse of a conflict situation. Conflict political discourse is regarded as a text determined by the theme of stating the interests of political subjects in the process of their interaction in a situation of political conflict. Goal-settings of conflict political discourse expressed in its subject type of content are connected with information, persuasion, invocation, and penance that (...) served as the basis for distinguishing the genres of political discourse. In the article, the possibility of describing discourse effectiveness according to the theory of factors of speech regulation by M. Y. Blokh is proved. Effective and ineffective political rhetoric is illustrated by two political speeches by G. W. Bush. The criterion of effectiveness was resolution-non-resolution of the conflict in a certain historical situation. In the process of research it was found out that the key role in building discourse effectiveness is played by presupposition and postsupposition factors connected with the views of the speaker and the listener on each other. Successful realization of discourse functions is also prompted by the goal content of the utterance, personal status of the speaker and the listener, level of discourse formality, and the degree of discourse impressiveness. (shrink)

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works (...) of Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

The Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality of the European Parliament is one of the key actors within the European Union institutional framework for gender equality policies. In the context of this Committee, women’s interests are continuously being defined by discursive and deliberative processes. Civil society actors are being included into these processes of policy-making through institutional funding and public hearings. Through the inclusion of particular organizations and the selection of experts for hearings, existing meanings are being reproduced and/or (...) challenged. The article argues that battlegrounds have been opened in recent years as dominant discourses are questioned by the inclusion and legitimation of new civil society actors. Both the FEMM Committee, as a feminist stronghold, and the established women’s organizations at the EU level are being challenged. It becomes contested who the gender experts are, and diverse understandings of gender equality and women’s interests are being articulated. (shrink)

This article explores the discourse-conceptual linkages between ‘Brexit’ and ‘crisis’ in European news media reporting about the UK referendum on leaving the European Union of 23 June 2016. The study examines media discourse about the Brexit vote in Austria, Germany, Poland and Sweden at the transformative moment in between the pre/after vote period. The conceptually-oriented critical discourse analysis shows how Brexit was not only constructed as an imaginary or a future crisis but also how its mediated visions (...) were made real by recontextualising elements of various past social/political/economic crises. As is shown, such a strategy of discursively amalgamating the real and the imaginary, as well as the experienced/past and the expected/future, often allowed constructing Brexit as one of the most significant, critical occurrences of post-War Europe. Through the analysis, the article aims to show how wide and diverse the importance of ‘Brexit as crisis’ has been for European news media discourse. It also emphasises that while in the UK itself – including huge part of the UK traditional media – the critical nature of Brexit was often strategically downplayed, the wider European discourse would see it as a multifaceted ‘crisis’ of huge significance to both the present and the future of the EU, wider Europe and the world. (shrink)

This paper argues that the thought of Lacan and Žižek are to be distinguished at the level of the formal structure of discourse. Although Žižek often situates his own theoretical project in terms of the discourse of the analyst, his work occupies an uneasy place in this position insofar as the discourse of the analyst is directed at the singularity of the subject’s symptom, rather than shared political causes. Drawing on his “Milan Discourse” where Lacan (...) presents the discourse of the capitalist, this paper argues that Žižek discourse inhabits the universe of capitalism, rather than the universe of mastery. Through the development of a modified version of Lacan’s discourse of the capitalist, it is shown that it is possible to derive three additional discourses-- the discourses of biopower, immaterial labor, and critical theory --from the initial discourse of the capitalist. A psychoanalytic approach to these discourses using Lacanian discourse theory goes beyond standard accounts of biopolotical production and immaterial labor by revealing the function of the unconscious and real at work in these discourses, thereby opening new possibilities of engagement. Žižek’s theoretical project is shown to be an important cartography of this new universe of discourse, revealing both how the discourses inhabiting this universe contain certain constitutive deadlocks and devising strategies for engagement where the foe is no longer entirely clear. (shrink)

This book primarily tries to bring out the analogy between the conceptual and methodological discourses on the theme of the other. The term 'Other' here refers to the oppressed sections of the society. It may be dalits, women, indigenous or ethnic communities. Since we are living in a multicultural and multilingual society, we should share our views with others on a platform where issues of the marginalized people are addressed by different scholars following different methods and techniques. Though there are (...) various policies and plans for the welfare of the downtrodden, hardly any change can be seen at the micro-level structure of the society. There are studies which highlighted the problems and ethos of the downtrodden sections, but a majority of those studies neglected the marginalized groups. Hence, we felt the need to highlight the issues and concerns of these groups in a wider context and started thinking on the theme 'Ethnographic Discourse of the Other: Conceptual and Methodological Issues'. This volume attempts to discuss and theorize the pragmatic concepts and issues related to the marginalized groups in contemporary societies in South Asia. This book is interdisciplinary in nature and will be useful to scholars and students of Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, Social Work, Culture Studies, Gender Studies and Philosophy. It is widely applicable to all sections of the oppressed socially, economically, culturally, academically, politically and other wise. (shrink)

The religiosity of the first settlers shaped the American spirit, the essence of national traits, shared values and ideals that define the American nation. Influential in public discourse in the colonial times and beyond, religious expression has its place in contemporary American political discourse. This article is concerned not so much with the intermingling of religion and politics in theUnited States of Americaas with the religiousness that has permeated political speech. For illustration, we look for religiousness (...) inU. S.presidential inaugural addresses and other speeches to the nation. Inspiring and a good start in our enterprise are Mircea Eliade’s reflections on myth and on religiousness, which is sometimes unconscious and camouflaged without ceasing to be a constant value of humankind, or in his frequent expression, a human universal. (shrink)

Beyond Community political minimalism, citizenship, rights and States are today associated with new constitutional ambitions. In this connection this paper draws attention to the “unsaturated” character of national institutions, especially parliamentary institutions, and argues for a re-elaboration of the classical European conceptions of rights in an institutional rather than a purely individualistic perspective.

The use of metaphors and analogies was widespread in English political literature during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and for contemporary readers they were more than merely rhetorical artifices – they were used to illustrate and, in some cases, even to provide evidence. In this regard, none was more apt than the most prominent of these analogies: that between the human body and the state. The political thought of the time established an unshakeable connection between the two, (...) building an argument for how their structures and ways of functioning mirrored each other. This paper examines one of the most extensive and thorough examples of corporal analogies in early modern English political literature – that of Edward Forset’s A Comparative Discourse of the Bodies Natural and Politique (1606) – and shows how such corporal analogies were used to construct an absolutist political model wherein the king was depicted as the soul, the head and the heart of the body politic. The paper integrates Forset’s A Comparative Discourse within the context of the ideological struggles from the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, while its place within the larger picture of the medieval and early modern metaphor of the body politic is also examined, in order to assess the lineage and originality of Forset’s ideas and point out how the same kind of analogies could be used to provide significantly different political interpretations. (shrink)

The Franciscan William of Ockham (c.1285-c.1347) was the greatest theologian and philosopher of the first half of the fourteenth century. Spurred on by the activities of a papacy which he saw as destroying the very foundations of his Order, he devoted the last part of his life to examining the extent of papal power over Christians and its relationship to the secular government of people. On the Power of Emperors and Popes (1347) is his last work. Short, passionate and lucid, (...) it represents a distillation of his thought on these questions and forms an excellent and accessible introduction to his political thought as a whole. The extensive new annotations to the text bring to light the range of sources on which Ockham drew, while the new introduction places the work in its historical context and relates it to other works of medieval Franciscan political discourse. Translated here into English for the first time, the work will be of interest to all students and researchers in the field of medieval political thought. --the first English translation of Ockham's classic work, plus extensive new introduction, textual annotation, and bibliography --modern editorial apparatus connects the work with the whole body of Ockham's political thought --the new annotation provides historical and intellectual context and translations of Ockham's source references. (shrink)

The pbenomenon of European integration has received a great deal ofattention from political scientists in the wake of the mid-1980s 'relaunch' ofthe European Union. However, political science's theoretical consideration of West European integration has from the outset failed to include news media as a factor in EU politics. This oversight is linked to the general dismissal of the public and public debate as irrelevant to the integration project. Yet because media have several critical functions in politics - as (...) an information-source, agendasetter, and legitimator - political science treatment of the EU now needs to account for the role of news media. Turning to concepts in normative media theory, the article proposes a framework within which to consider media and suggests empirical analysis of media coverage of the European Union. Such analysis would complement political science study of the democratisation and legitimation of the EU, while acknowledging public discourse as an element crucial to the future course of European integration. (shrink)

본 논문은 사랑을 성애로 환원하는 최근의 성적 환원주의와 사랑이 가능한 한 사적으로 유지돼야 한다는 자유주의적 이상에 맞서 고대 그리스의 정치-사랑 개념 쌍을 살펴보고자 한다. 이를 통해 현대 학문 영역에서 상대적으로 간과되고 있는 고대 그리스의 정치 이론에 나타난 공적 에로스론인‘폴리스-에로스론’을 고찰하려는 데에 그 목적이 있다.BR 성적 욕망은 에로스의 제한된 유형일 뿐이라는 논점을 위해, 2절에서는 헤시오도스의 『신통기』에 나타난 에로스 신의 기원에 관한 두 가지 설명이 차례로 분석될 것이다. 헤시오도스의 신화적이고 시적인 설명에 따르면, 고전기의 정치적 에로스에 대한 최초의 기원이 아프로디테 이전의 최초의 오래된 (...) 에로스라는 것이 드러날 것이다. 이 원초적인 에로스가 비성적이거나 성적인 것 외부에 있는 비육체적인 대상들에 적용됐던 정치적 에로스의 모태임이 밝혀질 것이다. 다음으로 3절은 시칠리아 원정, 페리클레스의 장례식 연설 그리고 뮈틸레네 논쟁을 통해 투퀴디데스의 정치적 에로스 담론의 지형도가 그려진다. 투퀴디데스의 정치적 에로스 담론은 더 많이 가지려는 욕망(pleonexia), 구혼자들처럼 도시를 사랑하는 자들(erastai)이 되라는 페리클레스의 촉구, 그리고 개인적 에로스와 공동체적 에로스의 공속 관계를 통해 잘 드러나고 있다. 그리고 4절에서는『향연』의 파이드로스의 연인군대, 파우사니아스의 참주정과 소년애, 아리스토파네스의 남성-남성 욕망의 합법화 그리고 소크라테스-디오티마 연설의 불사적 명예에 대한 사랑을 통해, 정치적 에로스에 관한 담론이 논급된다. 연인군대, 참주정과 소년애, 남성-남성 욕망의 합법화 그리고 불사하는 명예에 대한 사랑(philotimia) 각각은 정치와 에로스의 공속 관계를 다시 한 번 확인시켜 줄 것이다.BR 이상의 정치적 에로스 담론에 관한 헤시오도스의 신화적이고 시적인 전통과 투퀴디데스의 실증주의적 역사, 그리고 플라톤의『향연』을 통해, 우리는 에로스가 성애를 초과하여 좀 더 넓은 의미로 사용됐고, 특히 국가적 차원에서 에로스의 정치적 함의를 확인할 수 있었다. 그러나 에로스가 정치적 저항 운동의 에너지원이고, 완전히 다른 삶의 형식, 완전히 다른 사회를 향한 혁명적 욕망의 원천이라는 진단에는 에로스의 정치적 잠재성과 동시에 그것의 위험들에 대한 경고도 함께 들어 있다. (shrink)

This paper aims to study the argumentative basis on which the prevention of migration is justified and hatred politics is institutionalised in three Mediterranean settings, namely Greece, Malta, and Italy, that were at the centre of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015–2017. Following the rubric of corpus-assisted Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), we trace (a) the main meaningful patterns, and (b) discursive and argumentation strategies (topoi) in three balanced corpora of mainstream news portals aligned with (...) centre-right and centre-left political views. Among our main findings, the mobilisation of migrant populations is construed as an extremely polarised issue both in national and EU contexts and claims in favour of its prevention are justified on topoi of danger/threat, numbers and burdening/weighing down. (shrink)

The ‘European Green Deal’ (EGD) is a set of communications from the European Commission that outlines EU roadmap to climate neutrality by 2050. The policy envisions that, with the facilitation of speedy and just ‘green transition’, the goals of environmental protection and economic development can be reconciled. This article offers a language-focused critical study of the EGD. After giving an overview of neoliberal ‘discourses of sustainability’ and explaining the notion of ‘interdiscursivity’ in CDS, it presents the results of a close (...) thematic analysis supported by keyword and concordance analysis of representations of ‘environment’ and ‘climate’ on the one hand, and ‘economy’ and ‘transition’ on the other. This study attends to salient language patterns and reveals how interdiscursive crossovers are established to normalise ‘sustainability’ as the contingency between environmental and economic orders of discourse. Also, it identifies the discursive strategies of nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivisation and mitigation or intensification and shows how tensions between discourses are smoothened. This analysis of EGD’s ideological hybridity also sheds light onto how EU institutions are (self)authorised to lead actions on environmental challenges on behalf of European citizens. (shrink)

In the article, the author shows how the government and the opposition interact in the political process. Actors representing opposition constantly produce political texts illustrating their alternative views. The existence of the opposition subject in a critical state in regards to the existing institutions of power is historically predetermined, which proves an active reflection from prominent theorists of political thought. A free dialogue of the government and the opposition is hardly possible in every single political system. (...) In the case of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, this dialogue may be difficult. The consequences of free will for the subject of opposition can be quite severe. The author analyzes the political discourse of opposition as exemplified by the Soviet culture. The author is interested in the metaphors of opposition and their political context, which seems to be an inevitable condition and framework limiting creativity of one or another intellectual. The author studies a number of texts of the Soviet culture representatives, who used metaphors of opposition, and had a reputation of troublemakers. Such position of an intellectual generates sanctions of the repressive machine and predetermines very specific forms of presenting texts of opposition and apophasis. For convincing his own arguments, the author constantly turns to the heritage of the USSR representatives of unofficial culture in. (shrink)