Legitimacy in Conflict: Concepts,Practices, Challenges

ABSTRACT

The study of legitimacy in situations of conflict and peacebuilding has increased in recent years. However, current work on the topic adopts many assumptions, definitions, and understandings from classical legitimacy theory, which centers on the relationship between the nation-state and its citizens. In this introduction, we provide a detailed critical overview of current theories of legitimacy and legitimation and demonstrate why they have only limited applicability in conflict and post-conflict contexts, focusing on the three main areas that the articles included in this special issue examine: audiences for legitimacy, sources of legitimacy, and legitimation. In particular, we show how conflict and post-conflict contexts are marked by the fragmentation and personalization of power; the proliferation and fragmentation of legitimacy audiences; and ambiguity surrounding legitimation strategies.     

The Legitimacy Audience Shapes the Coalition: Lessons from Afghanistan, 2001

ABSTRACT

Legitimacy considerations profoundly affect coalition-building strategies for contemporary military interventions. However, the nature of this impact depends on which of three distinct legitimacy audiences intervening governments are most concerned about: their domestic publics, the international community or the host-country population. Intervening actors typically value all three audiences, but may be more confident of some audiences’ approval than of others’. Moreover, these audiences may raise divergent demands regarding coalition design, each entailing distinctive strategic, operational and/or political costs. Intervening actors therefore make strategic choices about how to adjust their coalition, including which legitimacy audience to prioritize. Juxtaposing the two Western-led coalitions deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 highlights how profoundly such choices affect coalition design – and what unintended longer-term consequences they can have.     

From book to stage to screen: semiotic transformations of Gothic horror genre conventions

ABSTRACT

This paper adopts a multimodal social semiotic approach for exploring the semiotic changes involved in the transformation of a novel into stage and screen productions. It examines how semiotic resources are deployed in each medium through elements of mise-en-scène, such as speech, music, sound, lighting, props, staging, and cinematographic techniques, and the viewing perspectives that are thus established for audiences. The genre of Gothic horror is selected for this purpose, given how this form of performance has transfixed audiences for centuries and has been adapted for both the stage and the screen. In order to demonstrate how each performance medium has produced its own unique set of foregrounding devices to enthral and captivate audiences, a comparative analysis of excerpts from the novel The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, a videotaped theatrical performance, and the 1989 British television film of the same name is undertaken. The paper discusses the implications of the multimodal semiotic approach for developing a better understanding of the semiotic transformations that horror genre conventions undergo in different media and the viewership positions that are thus re-drawn for audiences. The paper concludes with a view of multimodal recontextualisation processes which form the underlying basis of human sociocultural life.     

Decomposing Audience Costs: Bringing the Audience Back into Audience Cost Theory

According to a growing tradition in International Relations, one way governments can credibly signal their intentions in foreign policy crises is by creating domestic audience costs: leaders can tie their hands by publicly threatening to use force since domestic publics punish leaders who say one thing and do another. We argue here that there are actually two logics of audience costs: audiences can punish leaders both for being inconsistent (the traditional audience cost), and for threatening to use force in the first place (a belligerence cost). We employ an experiment that disentangles these two rationales, and turn to a series of dispositional characteristics from political psychology to bring the audience into audience cost theory. Our results suggest that traditional audience cost experiments may overestimate how much people care about inconsistency, and that the logic of audience costs (and the implications for crisis bargaining) varies considerably with the leader's constituency.     

Strategies,tactics and the question of un lieu propre : what/where is “media theory”?

This paper uses the work of Michel de Certeau (1988 de Certeau M 1988 The practice of everyday life Berkeley: University of California Press  [Google Scholar]) to argue that it is possible to distinguish between “expert” or “authorised” approaches to media theory, construed as existing “strategically” within the “proper place” of the academy, and “tactical” appropriations of media theory operating in audience discourses. It takes media fan audiences as one case study in relation to this process, arguing that fans should be viewed as “poaching” from “official” media theory as well as from “official” media texts. It then goes on to suggest that we should not univocally celebrate or romanticise fans' uses of media theory, but should remain alert to the sociological and cultural reproductions that otherwise “tactical” media theory can participate in. This means rethinking fans' “tactics” not merely as the “arts of the weak” (de Certeau 1988 de Certeau M 1988 The practice of everyday life Berkeley: University of California Press  [Google Scholar], 37), but simultaneously as forms of appropriation that might enact forms of (sub)cultural power for fans.     

Debating rape jokes vs. rape culture: framing and counter-framing misogynistic comedy

ABSTRACT

Humor controversies can simultaneously reveal and obscure relations of power, as well as the rhetorical/political nature of jokes. US comedian Daniel Tosh ignited one such controversy in July 2012 when he directed a rape joke toward a female audience member during a live performance in Hollywood, CA. This paper consists of a two-part analysis of this humor controversy. First, we examine a televised debate following this incident, between a comedian and feminist, to map the dominant framing and counter-framing of rape jokes. We contend these positions are representative of two frames that repeatedly surface in response to controversial sexist humor: a dominant patriarchal frame and an oppositional feminist counter-frame. Second, we analyze the saliency of these two frames among college students to observe the way individual interpretations resonate with, challenge, and complicate those frames. In light of our findings, we argue the dominant framing/interpretation of rape jokes reinforce patriarchal and free-market ideologies, and deny real-world implications of misogynistic humor, particularly when comedians/audiences defend such jokes as harmless fun.     

Theorising media as practice

This article explores the possibility of a new paradigm of media research that understands media, not as texts or structures of production, but as practice. Drawing on recent moves towards a theory of practice in sociology, this paradigm aims to move beyond old debates about media effects and the relative importance of political economy and audience interpretation, at the same time as moving beyond a narrow concentration on audience practices, to study the whole range of practices that are oriented towards media and the role of media in ordering other practices in the social world. After setting this new paradigm in the context of the history of media research, the article reviews the key advantages of this paradigm in mapping the complexity of media‐saturated cultures where the discreteness of audience practices can no longer be assumed.     

Natural disaster news and communities of feeling: the affective interpellation of local and global publics

This paper engages with contemporary debates around the mediation of distant suffering by examining the ways in which news selection and reporting interpellate audiences into communities of feeling, in which affective belonging is structured by multimodal rhetorical strategies. Concepts drawn from discursive psychology and systemic-functional linguistics (appraisal theory) are used to show how news coverage of natural disasters positions audiences affectively. Analysis of Australian print media coverage of the 2009 Australian bushfires and the 2010 Haiti earthquake will be used to show how this process differs for local and international events. The paper contributes to debates on the “emotionalisation” of public culture by exploring the precise functions of affect within disaster reporting; in particular, how the production of various kinds of affects in the wake of a disaster shapes local and global publics.     

Bodies,Materials, Practice: Habiting Space and the Representational Limits of Latour's Semiotics of Assemblies

This article identifies an emerging interest in actor-network theory (ANT) within spatial studies and its significance to social semiotics. It questions the usefulness of borrowing ANT for spatial analyses, arguing that ANT is a representational theory of knowledge rooted in a Chomskyan theory of competence and that this produces an impoverished conception of practice within spatial production. To illustrate this contention, a letter describing the Elliott household in 1860s Adelaide is examined as a programme for visiting the Elliott home. A comparison is then made between Latour's programme and Lefebvre's dialectic of spatial production. It is noted that the constituent elements of the programme, association and substitution, are analogous to Lefebvre's concepts of representations of space and representational spaces, respectively. However, since the programme does not offer any corresponding third element to match spatial practice, an ANT-informed interpretation of spatiality is criticised for bifurcating competence from performance and universalising a particular competence.     

How Japanese wallflowers turned into celebrities: self-mockery and self-revelation of the female comedy duo Harisenbon

ABSTRACT

This study examines the Japanese female comedy duo Harisenbon. By examining their approach to comedy and their reception by Japanese media and society, it discusses how they use their “ugly”, “fat” and “skinny” personas to expose Japanese social pressures upon women. It considers how both comedians present a self-image that apparently matches their stage characters, and how their interactions with mainstream media endorses the very social norms they ridicule, without directly challenging or satirising them, even if this leaves space for destabilising the assumptions on which they are based. It observes that one half of the duo, who is more successful than the other, might be due to her willingness to mock her own appearance more savagely.     

Spinning on the Conference Circuit

ABSTRACT

Making sure political parties receive comprehensive and favourable media coverage is a full-time activity that extends beyond the period of election campaigns. In the era of the permanent campaign the annual autumn conferences of the main British political parties represent a publicity opportunity. The undivided media coverage of these events provides a platform for the political parties to sell themselves and their policies to a national audience beyond the conference venue, but also presents considerable risks. To ensure that they successfully exploit this publicity opportunity the party managers, with the aid of communication experts, both control the conferences and implement media management strategies. This article examines how the parties have adapted their conferences to sell themselves and their policies. It highlights the public relations techniques that are employed to ensure that party policy gains the desired positive news coverage and that the coverage of potentially damaging events is minimized. It concludes by considering the impact this marketing driven logic has on the party conferences and their media coverage.     

Radical exclusions,empty signifiers and an anti-war genre

Ernesto Laclau argues that Saussurean structural linguistics is one framework necessary for a post-Marxist understanding of political identities and new social movements. Disrupting the distinction between the discursive and the political, he provides insight into the formal properties of identity, difference, universality and particularity. However, this disruption means that his work is relevant not only to political theory per se but has retroactive value for understanding semiotics and signification. By considering methodological problems encountered during an analysis of an anti-war poster genre, this essay suggests that Laclau's concept of empty signifiers enables a novel understanding of genre. His schema complements approaches that emphasize the analysis of content and the analysis of audience reception, broadly conceived. Between the poles of content and reception, there are structural or relational properties enabling the contingent stability and meaningfulness of genre. These properties include the differential nature of a genre's identity, and a genre's discursive reliance on a radical exclusion.     

Mediatization of Civil Society Organizations: (De)legitimation of the Swedish Red Cross

Abstract

The article explores how media representations influence ideas about legitimate behaviour within a civil society organization (CSO). We develop understanding of the mediatization of CSOs, and in particular of how media coverage influences internal practices and decision-making. The analysis is based on a case study of the Swedish Red Cross and illustrates how (negative) media exposure influences the conditions for, and behaviour of, a CSO. The findings demonstrate that media constructed a legitimacy crisis and that the organization over time adjusted to the media story to maintain its legitimacy. The findings also suggest that professional communicators play significant roles in carrying and reinforcing ideas within CSOs about the importance of controlling media attention.     

Communicative Diplomacy for the 3rd Millennium

Abstract

In today's world of revolution in communications and information as well as of global interdependency, a medialised politics became a general reality. One can observe such a trend specifically in the field of international and foreign affairs where state and other actors use communication channels and public relations to a large extent to improve on the content and in particular, on the image of their policies. Here one can also argue that a major share of bilateral and multilateral relations among states is shaped by the international media, or vice versa, that all major “wars” are “fought” through the media.

This article explores the increasing inter-relation between state foreign affairs on one side, and media and public relations, on the other. The article starts off with basic concepts of a “new/democratic diplomacy” (Nicholson, 1988) and a “public diplomacy” (Signitzer in Combs, 1992), and compares them with definitions of “international public relations” (Kunczik, 1997). It attempts to build the general analytical framework on the basis of comparative case studies of developed countries with an established diplomatic tradition and of new democracies still proving themselves on the international fora. In this context, particular attention is given to communication in relation to international organisations like NATO and the EU.     

What undermines solidarity? Four approaches and their implications for contemporary political theory

Abstract

Solidarity is crucial for realizing justice, securing public goods, and reducing domination. Yet there have been few theoretical studies of its threats and vulnerabilities. In this paper I fill this lacuna, outlining four approaches to what undermines solidarity and considering their implications for contemporary political theory. I begin by reviewing the empirical literature on solidarity, noting that its focus on diversity and individuation has yielded inconclusive results. I then develop four alternative threats to solidarity by drawing from the history of political thought, social theory, and religious studies: interpersonal dependence (Jean-Jacques Rousseau); radical evil (Immanuel Kant); self-dissolution (Émile Durkheim); and moral spectatorship (Emmanuel Levinas). Taking these threats into account, I conclude, should significantly impact our normative theorizing about solidarity. In particular, it should encourage a research agenda that attends to solidarity’s affective, esthetic, and non-rational sources.     

Localizing Peacebuilding: The Arizona Market and the Evolution of U.S. Military Peacebuilding Priorities in Bosnia

ABSTRACT

This article examines peacebuilding localization, in particular how encounters with local contexts and actors shape external peacebuilders' priorities and practices. My vehicle for exploring this dynamic is the rapid emergence of a massive black market in northeast Bosnia, the ‘Arizona’ market, which developed on territory controlled by U.S. peacekeeping forces. I argue that the military's relationship with the market contributed to a shift from an initially minimalist, peacekeeping-centric, conception of the peacebuilding process toward the embrace of broader post-war political and economic initiatives, and identify three factors that influenced its unfolding in the case of Arizona: adaptation, embeddedness and place.     

The Ambiguity of Things: Souvenirs from Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

Souvenirs can help illustrate the world-view towards a country under intervention. Following the work of Lisa Smirl, this article analyses a particular set of souvenirs from Afghanistan in order to establish how the intervention there is shaping the imaginary of conflict professionals working in Kabul in the final years of the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF). Souvenirs are analysed as consistent with established tropes, in the case of Afghanistan dating back to colonial encounters beginning in the early nineteenth century; much of the ‘Othering' knowledge produced is actualized in souvenirs. In a focused analysis of a Scorpion glass, representing a particular type of souvenir, the articles concludes by showing how what souvenirs transmit is ambiguous and depends on different interpretations and meanings attached to them by different audiences. For conflict professionals who buy these items, they are a way to bridge the gap of their home experience and their life in intervention context. Souvenirs can help mitigate the ‘liminal’ existence that many security professionals, aid workers or embassy staff experience during missions in intervened countries. At the same time, they reify the tropes and narratives about the intervened countries and peoples and thus shape the way interventions are understood, conducted and practised.     

Subsuming the ground: how local realities of the Fergana Valley,the Narmada Dams and the BTC pipeline are put to use on the Web

Abstract

Studies of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seek to come to terms with a particular problem of political globalization. While global forums are widely attributed the capacity to put in place the conditions for the resolution of local issues, at the same time these sites are seen to place unacceptable restrictions on the articulation of the issues from localist perspectives. ICTs occupy a special position with respect to this dilemma, as they are both seen to be part of the problem, a factor in the enrolment of NGOs in global governance networks, and part of the solution, as instruments of alternative, translocal forms of political organization. This piece shows how a particular style of Web analysis, informed by actor-network theory, demonstrates the need to complicate certain assumptions that inform both these critical and these constructive perspectives. In a series of exercises of network analysis on the Web, we open up for questioning the assumption of the ‘primacy of the local’ on which these perspectives tend to rely. We suggest that the role of ICTs in the globalization of NGO practices should rather be understood in terms of the reformatting of issues for transnational networks. In our interpretations of issue networks on the Web, we argue for the importance of taking more seriously the ways in which the Web highlights the practical constraints on issue articulation faced by NGOs. By way of conclusion, this paper draws attention to the fact that Web studies present a notable extension to the sites studied by actor-network theory and related approaches in assemblages studies, as it compels consideration of the media circulations characteristic of publicity.     

Televised Exposure to Politics: New Measures for a Fragmented Media Environment

For many research purposes, scholars need reliable and valid survey measures of the extent to which people have been exposed to various kinds of political content in mass media. Nonetheless, good measures of media exposure, and of exposure to political television in particular, have proven elusive. Increasingly fragmented audiences for political television have only made this problem more severe. To address these concerns, we propose a new way of measuring exposure to political television and evaluate its reliability and predictive validity using three waves of nationally representative panel data collected during the 2008 presidential campaign. We find that people can reliably report the specific television programs they watch regularly, and that these measures predict change over time in knowledge of candidate issue positions, a much higher standard of predictive validity than any other measure has met to date.     

Semiotics and performing arts: contemporary issues

ABSTRACT

Contemporary experiences highlight a crisis in representation which reveals itself through profound changes in the processes and instances at work in the postmodern/post-dramatic performance. As well at the level of production as at the one of reception, important transformations have occurred regarding action, feeling, perception of the stage, fragmentation, crisis of the body mediation, and crisis of the invariant supports of the performance. The consequences of those innovative processes are numerous: they influence the theoretical approaches, and among others the semiotic perspectives. Three types of questions about the relationship between semiotics and nowadays theatrical practices should be explored: First, the place of externality. By reconsidering the issue of the origin of meaning, as general semiotics does, the semiotics of performing arts opens the way for externalizing theories (embodiment, the study of bios/life, and theories of corporeity). Second, the issue of the researcher and in particular his or her exteriority regarding the object. This question points the demand of scientific rigor which characterizes recent research on the performing arts. A paradox which is virtually a dual injunction: the more ephemeral the object, the more imperious the need for scholarship. Although particularly relevant with regard to contemporary concerns centred on the subjectivity of the utterance (presence, effect of presence, intermediality, body–machine relations, etc.), does semiotics still have a universalizing vocation? How can one reproduce the experience of subjectivity?