Feminism in a global era

Feminism is being re-shaped by its articulation through a global discourse of human rights and an increased focus on state interventions. This is partly a result of the transition in the gender regime changing the economic and political resources and opportunities open to women and partly due to globalization. Globalization has not only created difficulties for democratic governance, but it has also facilitated the development of new spaces, institutions and rhetoric where universal human rights is a powerful justificatory principle.     

The myopic Foucauldian gaze: discourse,knowledge and the authoritarian peace

ABSTRACT

The discourse of liberal peacebuilding has often been characterized by critics as a hegemonic discourse, in which power and knowledge are co-constitutive. Influenced by the work of Michel Foucault, an important strand of the literature has demonstrated how epistemic communities have produced knowledge that supports this discourse, while marginalizing other, contrary voices. A ‘local turn’ has sought to uncover what Foucault termed ‘subjugated knowledges’, peripheral voices that were seen as potentially contributing to a more emancipatory peace. This article, in contrast, argues that the explicit and implicit Foucauldian framing of discourse and knowledge is no longer adequate to conceptualize the contested nature of peace and conflict in a rapidly changing international system. In a period of significant geopolitical shifts away from a Western-centric international order, post-Foucauldian discourse theories offer a more productive analytical perspective that makes visible the multiple, competing discourses that attempt to achieve closure in defining meanings of peace and conflict. A theoretical framework that emphasizes discursive contestation rather than unitary domination allows serious consideration of alternative conceptualizations of peacemaking. In particular, theoretical frameworks that highlight contestation make visible an authoritarian, illiberal approach to managing conflict that challenges both liberal and emancipatory conceptualizations of peace and conflict, but is occluded in the current debate over post-liberal peace.     

The Institutional Basis of Intercommunal Order: Evidence from Indonesia's Democratic Transition

When authoritarian regimes break down, why does communal violence spike and why are some locations more prone to violence than others? To understand violence during transitions, it is necessary to understand what sustains order when regimes are stable. While existing theories attribute order to formal or informal security institutions on their own, I argue that intercommunal order obtains when formal and informal security institutions are aligned. During authoritarian breakdowns, the state's coercive grip loosens, exposing mismatches between formal and informal institutions and raising the risk of communal violence. Formal‐informal mismatches emerge in communities accustomed to heavy state intervention since they will have developed more state‐dependent informal security institutions. I apply an instrumental variables approach on a nationwide dataset of village‐level data to show that prior exposure to military intervention, proxied by the distance to security outposts, led to Indonesia's spike in violence during its recent democratic transition.     

‘Everybody else just living their lives’: 9/11, race and the new postglobal literature

ABSTRACT

López's essay focuses on three questions or concerns: globalization, its aftermath and how those on the bottom survive it. During globalization's rise through the 1990s even the most virulent critics treated its eventual hegemony over the planet as a fait accompli; the only relevant questions were how it would change us, and whether those changes were desirable. Today the question is how to live now that globalization has failed us. As the aftermath of each of the global cataclysms of the last decade have amply demonstrated, it is the poor, the disenfranchised and marginalized who bear the brunt of the suffering and anxiety set in motion by the economic, political and cultural changes unleashed by globalization at the level of neighbourhoods and communities. What López calls the ‘postglobal’ emerges precisely at those moments when globalization as a hegemonic discourse stumbles, when it experiences a crisis or setback. The first section of his essay consists of a detailed exposition of the term ‘postglobal’ and its efficacy for the study of contemporary literature and culture. The rest focuses on Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane as an exemplar of what he calls the new postglobal literature.     

Community Building,Civil Society and Societal Service Production in China

This article examines the Chinese scholarly discourse about promoting civil society, constructing urban and rural communities, and transferring social service provision to society. It finds that this discourse treats two separate models as if they were one. The civil society model stresses freedom to organize for advancing the aims that participants share. The community building model emphasizes community governance and empowerment. Together, these two models expect both the state and society to strengthen their presence in the same communal space. These two models have theoretical inconsistencies, but these inconsistencies disappear if civil society is understood in the very narrow terms of the ‘small government, big society' model in which the state wants to reduce its own economic burdens in social service production. It is thus likely that in China civil society either remains secondary to the state-initiated channels of social and political participation in communities, or takes place mainly on the regional or national scope in which civil society organizations no longer compete with communal ones.     

Resident-Owned,Informal Mobile Home Communities in Rural California: The Case of Rancho Don Antonio,Coachella Valley

California's farmworkers are among the lowest-paid wage earners in the state. They often live in crowded or substandard housing. The Polanco Bill—state legislation enacted in the early 1990s—aimed to increase the supply of housing for farmworkers by encouraging the development of employee housing on land zoned for agriculture. This article discusses the implementation and effects of the Polanco Bill in the agricultural area of the eastern Coachella Valley. It finds, somewhat unexpectedly, that groups of farmworkers, often family members, have used the bill to collaborate and develop small, resident-owned, informal mobile home communities, called polancos, and focuses on one such case. Although the article's key contribution is to identify the informal approach and its key attributes, it also discusses whether a new housing model based on the collectively owned polancos is possible.     

Dysfunctional state institutions,trust, and governance in areas of limited statehood

Areas of limited statehood where the state is absent or dysfunctional are rarely ungoverned or ungovernable spaces. The provision of rules and regulations, as well as of public goods and services – governance – does not necessarily depend on the existence of functioning state institutions. How can this be explained? To begin with, we identify functional equivalents to state institutions that fail to govern hierarchically. Moreover, we focus on informal institutions based on trust that are endogenous to areas of limited statehood. Personalized trust among community members enables actors to overcome collective action problems and enhances the legitimacy of governance actors. The main challenge in areas of limited statehood, which are often characterized by social heterogeneity and deep social and cultural cleavages (particularly in post‐conflict societies) is to move to generalized trust beyond the local level and to “imagined communities among strangers,” despite dysfunctional state institutions. We propose two mechanisms: First, the more group‐based identities are constructed in inclusive ways and the more group identities are cross‐cutting and overlapping, the more they lead to and maintain generalized trust. Second, experiences with fair and impartial institutions and governance practices – irrespective of whether state or non‐state – also lead to generalized trust beyond the local level and allow for the upscaling of governance.     

Legitimising male grooming through packaging discourse: a linguistic analysis

While packaging is a common marketing subject, this illustration paper provides an alternative perspective through the linguistic examination of packaging as discourse, focusing on male grooming, masculinity and metrosexuality. Male grooming is often perceived as trespassing into feminine space and creating ambiguity in gender borders. This study aims to explore how packaging designers negotiate masculinity, in order to persuade men to accept grooming products through social interactions within the packaging of L'Oréal Men Expert. Employing Scollon's mediated discourse analysis and incorporating the Barthesian order of signification, the study analyses how different social actions within the packaging discourse are mediated by multimodal features. The findings reveal five negotiating strategies, i.e. constructing a hegemonic masculine image; negotiating (a masculinised) metrosexuality; empowering men; giving men a logical reason to groom; and a different portrayal of skincare products. The key aim of this paper is to illustrate the differences between marketing and linguistics and propose possible collaboration.     

Constructions of the opposition to ‘structural adjustment reforms’ in the German mass-media

This article analyses Germany’s Der Spiegel weekly journal, and its discursive constructions of the oppositional voices against the so-called structural reforms imposed on Greece in the context of the Eurozone crisis. The analysis is focused on relevant articles published by Der Spiegel between late 2009 and early 2015, during important, crisis-related socio-political events. Drawing on discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, the article concludes that Der Spiegel (along with other mainstream media in Germany and elsewhere) publicly legitimizes the elites’ hegemonic crisis-narratives and -policies, while discrediting oppositional voices. The study further foregrounds the ways Der Spiegel and other German mainstream-media reproduce a nationalistic ‘victimization’ of Germany, which advances Germany’s own national branding-strategy of positive self-representation in the EU and in the world.     

Negotiating obligations,creating rights: Conscientious objection and the redefinition of citizenship in Israel

This article examines the ways in which modes of inclusion in the community of citizens are constitutive of political identities and frame the kinds of contestations and claims of individuals and groups vis‐à‐vis the state's agents. It analyses the emergence of selective conscientious to warfare and military service in Israel during the Lebanon war (1982–85). The article is based on the interpretative analysis of interviews with 66 individuals who refused to serve in the war in Lebanon. It shows, through the interpretative analysis of interviews, how conscientious objectors mobilised the hegemonic discourse on citizenship obligations and the identities constructed by it, in order to negotiate and promote and alternative discourse on citizenship. It claims that conscientious objection in Israel embodies an alternative discourse on citizenship and on the subject of rights and obligations. This redefinition entails a reformulation of modes of participation in the political community and of the political culture that frames it.     

Where goes economics and the economies?

What is happening to economics and the economies? This paper provides some reflections on the current state of the discourse of economics and its relationship to changes in the economies to which that discourse is linked. The arguement is that the discourse of economics is in a fundamental state of flux, in both its conventional and its heterodox forms. The new analytical agendas thrown up by these changes are assessed and the ‘politics’ of their implications alluded to.     

Political discourse networks and the conflict over software patents in Europe

In 2005, the European Parliament rejected the directive ‘on the patentability of computer‐implemented inventions’, which had been drafted and supported by the European Commission, the Council and well‐organised industrial interests, with an overwhelming majority. In this unusual case, a coalition of opponents of software patents prevailed over a strong industry‐led coalition. In this article, an explanation is developed based on political discourse showing that two stable and distinct discourse coalitions can be identified and measured over time. The apparently weak coalition of software patent opponents shows typical properties of a hegemonic discourse coalition. It presents itself as being more coherent, employs a better‐integrated set of frames and dominates key economic arguments, while the proponents of software patents are not as well‐organised. This configuration of the discourse gave leeway for an alternative course of political action by the European Parliament. The notion of discourse coalitions and related structural features of the discourse are operationalised by drawing on social network analysis. More specifically, discourse network analysis is introduced as a new methodology for the study of policy debates. The approach is capable of measuring empirical discourses both statically and in a longitudinal way, and is compatible with the policy network approach.     

Agenda‐Setting at the Energy‐Water Nexus: Constructing and Maintaining a Policy Monopoly in U.S. Hydraulic Fracturing Regulation

Despite calls to increase federal oversight of hydraulic fracturing (HF), the U.S. Congress has maintained a regulatory system in which environmental regulatory authority is devolved to the states. We argue that this system is characterized by a long‐standing “policy monopoly”: a form of stability in policy agenda‐setting in which a specific manner of framing and regulating a policy issue becomes hegemonic. Integrating theories on agenda‐setting and environmental discourse analysis, we develop a nuanced conceptualization of policy monopoly that emphasizes the significance of regulatory history, public perceptions, industry–government relations, and environmental “storylines.” We evaluate how a policy monopoly in U.S. HF regulation has been constructed and maintained through a historical analysis of oil and gas regulation and a discourse analysis of eleven select congressional energy committee hearings. This research extends scholarship on agenda‐setting by better illuminating the importance of political economic and geographic factors shaping regulatory agendas and outcomes.     

‘Back Regions’ and ‘Dark Secrets’ in Singapore: The Politics of Censorship and Liberalisation

The political transition from Lee Kuan Yew to Goh Chok Tong to Lee Hsien Loong has generally been interpreted as a trajectory of gradual liberalisation in Singapore. This discourse of liberalisation is encouraged by a variety of factors such as policy changes over censorship regulations, a younger and more cosmopolitan polity, the government's global city ambition and desire to turn the city-state into a creative hub. Such factors, however, often obscure the contemporary policing dynamics of the People's Action Party (PAP) state. Using Erving Goffman's concepts of the ‘back’ and ‘front’ regions, this paper will demonstrate how the PAP state operates in different social spaces and how it engages in the different politics of these spaces. Using specific cases from the theatre community, this paper argues that the discourse of liberalisation has grown because the PAP state has, in recent times, exercised its censorship powers in the ‘back regions’ of theatre, away from the media and public. Finally, it will examine recent amendments to the Films Act and the Public Order Act which clamps down on acts of civil disobedience, and show that this is consistent with what Goffman calls ‘dark secrets’—that is, facts that are incompatible with an individual's or institution's public image.     

Seeing the unseen: The Chernobyl imprint on the Hungarian public sphere

This research article analyzes the influence of the “Chernobyl factor” on the nuclear power discourse in Hungary. Despite its temporal distance, the geographical proximity of the Chernobyl disaster has significantly influenced the lives and perceptions of current Hungarian generations. The research examines two layers of public communication regarding the Chernobyl disaster—political discourse and Hungarian online news media—and matches these with the online representation of the catastrophe. This study finds that despite Chernobyl's significant impact on the cultural memory of Hungarian society, it is considered an event of the past with limited relevance for the future. The contemporary representation of Chernobyl reflects the aspirations and expectations of current society, manifests highly mediatized content, nurtures elements of infotainment, symbolizes danger and negligence, and socially reconstructs meaning through alienation from its original connotation. The Chernobyl factor does not appear significantly in current nuclear discourse in Hungary.     

Metis,migrants, and the autonomy of migration

This paper interweaves an ancient conceptualization of movement and mobility with the paradigmatic case of early twentieth-century Chinese migration to the USA in order to explore migrants’ ability to both re-interpret institutional control of movement and generate identities that garner institutional and community acceptance. By not ‘settling’ migrants into the discourse of (undocumented) immigrants, the paper (i) develops a framework for the study of migrants–state interactions that goes beyond claims to citizenship and demands for rights and (ii) explores practices and means through which migrants gain access to restricted territories and maintain presence in otherwise unwelcoming communities. The paper argues that such practices explicate the autonomy of migration: a phenomenon that is constitutive to processes of political transformation and is critical to the study of state sovereignty, citizenship rights, and political agency.     

Paid military service at the intersection of militarism,nationalism, capitalism,and (hetero)patriarchy: escaping without leaving ‘manhood’

The variety of the political standpoints of governments that have initiated exempted military service for several times in Turkey is a sign of a general agreement on its legitimacy. However, Turkey is a country where conscientious objection is almost a taboo. I try to decipher the assumptions behind what is (il)legitimate, and their manifestations in the sociopolitical life from a gender perspective informed by the feminist theory. I argue that what lies behind these is the interconnection between militarism, nationalism, patriarchy, and capitalism. I show how they reciprocally support each other through a critical discourse analysis of the debate on legitimacy of paid military service and illegitimacy of conscientious objection. I conclude that the nature of these debates leads to a reproduction of the hegemonic definitions of manhood and womanhood, together with the reproduction of the masculinization of the political sphere at the expense of the exclusion of and discrimination against other identities.     

Reinventing political subjectivities: studying critical documentaries on the war on terror

This paper casts a look on media aspects of the anti-war-on-terror struggle in western countries. A peculiar warfare, the “war on terror” that officially begun in 2001, is a low-density global warfare, fought in different internal and external fronts . Within a liberal, increasingly post-political social terrain, where social affairs are objects of expert management lacking public accountability and legitimacy, the role, status and the identity of the contemporary citizen is in decline. New media “affordances” offer critical possibilities for challenging hegemonic political discourses, and addressing political alternatives for a broad range of social problems; a re-invention of citizenship through the construct of a new (collective) political subject is central in the reinvention of democracy today. Discourse analysis, drawing reflexively on post-structuralist discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, is deployed in the study of counter-war-on-terror discourses in different documentaries critical to the “war on terror”. Analysis looks at different constructions of “us” and “them” in the context of counter-hegemonic discourses today. Identity is central in the engagement, participation and orientation of citizens today. Identity is central in organising a collective centre and in initiating subjectivity to fragmented liberal, postmodern individuals.     

Correspondence

The paper argues for the possibility of reworking the concept of ideology in such a way as to depend neither on a problematic of truth and error, nor on a division of the world into two parts one of which is more real than the other, nor on an expressive relation of subjects to meaning. The political force of the concept can be retained if ideology is thought as a provisional state of discourse (a function of its appropriation and use) rather than as a content or an inherent structure. Any discursive system produces a particular configuration of subject-positions which are the conditions of entry of individuals into discourse; but these acquire political significance only through the (historically variable) codification of discourse in terms of a play of relations of power, and the positions available can be refused or undermined. Some implications of this argument for models of the social and for discourse theory are discussed     

Kurdish migrant mothers in London enacting citizenship

The article explores the mothering work of a group of Kurdish women in London as enactments of citizenship. Rather than focusing on their integration, it foregrounds the migrant mothers' ability to disrupt hegemonic citizenship narratives and bring into being new political subjects. They co-construct diasporic citizenship, through their mothering work, producing their children's cultural identifications as both British and Kurdish. These identifications are contingent, involving intra-ethnic contestations of legitimate Kurdish culture. Kurdish migrant mothers' cultural work is not simply about making nation state citizens. By giving meaning to cultural continuity and change, the mothers reference multiple levels of belonging (local, national and diasporic) which challenge state boundaries. The article shows that although mothers play a key role in constructing their children's cultural identities and their articulation in ethnic and national terms, they also contest the meaning of ethnic minority cultural practices and group boundaries, potentially disrupting hegemonic narratives of good citizenship as ethno-national.