CasaPound Italia’s cultural imaginary

ABSTRACT

CasaPound Italia (CPI) is an Italian extreme-right movement. It has its headquarters in Rome but the movement has branches in other northern and southern cities. Members of CPI define themselves as ‘Fascists of the Third Millennium’. Bulli’s article focuses on the mix of cultural imaginaries that the organization offers to its members and sympathizers as well as for public consumption. The movement is able to function at different levels of political mobilization—and to recruit members by presenting a targeted set of incentives designed to engage them politically—which include various forms of cultural identification. All these levels are linked by a common idealized subjectivity that brings together classic elements of historic Fascism, including cultural references to the ‘speed of action’ typical of Futurism, with an overcoming of the party-centred post-Fascist Italian political subculture. Bulli’s article emphasizes CPI’s strategic construction of a multifaceted cultural imaginary in which language, communication and codes of conduct play a role comparable to values and ideology.     

Economic or cultural backlash? Rethinking outsiders’ voting behavior

Political economists show that outsiders (unemployed and temporary workers) support redistributive policies more than insiders (standard dependent workers) and infer outsiders' voting behavior from their desired degree of State intervention in the economy. However, it has been suggested that international interdependence is reshaping the political space along two dimensions: the traditional economic left-right scale, and an emerging cultural integration-demarcation dimension. How do outsiders behave in this two-dimensional political landscape? This research note answers this question by combining individual data from the latest five waves of the European Social Survey (2008–2016) with party positions provided by the Comparative Manifesto Project on 27 European countries. Integrating research based on party families with parties’ policy positions, results show that the economic State-market dimension is still more linked to outsiders’ voting behavior than the cultural integration-demarcation dimension.     

Boundary riding: Cross‐cultural analysis,national cinema and genre

This paper addresses the relation between rhetoric and politics through a reading of the term ‘queer’ as it circulated in three different communities in the 1990s: the activist group Queer Nation; the (American) field of study now known as Queer Theory; and an underground queer‐punk press (fanzines'). Reflection on the specific uses of the term ‘queer’ indicates widely divergent and conflicting meaning‐making processes. For some people, the term ‘queer’ signifies all people outside of normative heterosexuality, while for others, the term only refers to lesbians and gay men. Within both Queer Nation and Queer Theory, a metaphorical association is established among ‘queers’ and ‘lesbian/gays’. By contrast, queer‐punks employ the term catachrestically, as a metaphor for which no literal referent exists. Rhetorical theory can clarify these different employments of the same term. Theories of metaphor and catachresis help us to understand how relations of association are established among queers and lesbian/gays, and how particular rhetorical strategies relate to specific political agendas.     

Globalized economies or globalized bodies？ The economical and cultural factors of obesity in China

This paper is a review of the literature that examines obesity in China. Multiple factors that contribute to this phenomenon are investigated, such as globalization, urbanization and cultural changes. Most of the researches reviewed in this paper concern urban, coastal populations of China. Obesity is defined differently for Asian populations; thus, diagnosis has been underestimated in the past. As China＇s economy develops, the country may now be gaining western problems, such as obesity. Obesity is related to economical causes as China participates in international business and trade. Furthermore, the role of the globalized food industry is reviewed. More western food companies and restaurants have infiltrated Chinese cities, causing mass changes in the traditional Chinese diet. Likewise, employment is a significant factor examined since more occupations in Chinese cities have transitioned to the service sector. Cultural attitudes differ from those of the West in which the Chinese view heavier bodies as healthier than thinner figures. Interventions that have been attempted are reviewed.     

United in diversity? The convergence of cultural values among EU member states and candidates

The European Union (EU) is considered to be a unique economic and political union that integrates most European countries. This article focuses on the cultural aspect of European integration, which has been increasingly debated over the course of deepening and widening integration and in the context of the legitimation crisis of the EU. Among the main goals of the EU is to promote certain values, which raises the question of whether it has been efficient in (or enabled) reducing cultural value gaps among the participating countries. World polity and institutional isomorphism theories suggest that cultural values may trickle down in a vertical manner from the institutions of the EU to its member states and candidates. Furthermore, hybridisation theory postulates that values diffuse horizontally through intensified interactions enabled by the EU. These two perspectives imply the possibility of cultural convergence among countries associated with the EU. By contrast, the culture clash thesis assumes that differences in cultural identity prevent value convergence across countries; growing awareness of such differences may even increase the pre-existing cultural value distances. To test these different scenarios, distances in emancipative and secular values are compared across pairs of countries using combined repeated cross-sectional data from the European Values Study and the World Values Survey gathered between 1992 and 2011. This study finds that the longer a country has been part of the EU, the more closely its values approximate those of the EU founding countries, which in turn are the most homogenous. Initial cultural distance to the founders’ average values appears irrelevant to acquiring membership or candidacy status. However, new member states experienced substantial cultural convergence with old member states after 1992, as did current candidates between 2001 and 2008. Since 1992, nations not participating in the integration process have diverged substantially from EU members, essentially leading to cultural polarisation in Europe. The findings are independent of (changes in) economic disparities and suggest the importance of cultural diffusion as one of the fundamental mechanisms of cultural change. This empirical study contributes to the literature on European integration, political and sociological theories of globalisation, and cross-cultural theories of societal value change.     

Irresolvable cultural conflicts and conservation/development arguments: Analysis of Korea’s Saemangeum project

This paper examines, through argument analysis & grid-group model, how cultural bias, as the frame of reference of an advocacy coalition (AC), brings about irresolvable conflicts and produces divided arguments between coalitions for development and conservation in Koreas Saemangeum project. Based on different cultural biases, two ACs – the advocacy coalition for development (ACD) and the advocacy coalition for conservation (ACC) – interpreted the same facts differently in line with their cultural orientations and ways of life. The dynamic argument patterns reflected each coalitions cultural bias, which restricted the frame of reference of actors in each AC. After reviewing argument analysis as an analytic tool, we introduce cultural theoryin which ways of life, consisting of cultural biases and social relations, amplify the irresolvable conflicts between two ACs. Second, to show the culturally constructed nature of the conflicts, we analyze the contrasting arguments between the ACD (dominated by a hierarchy bias) and ACC (led by egalitarianism) in the Saemangeum project. Third, we discuss the implications of Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavskys cultural theoryto advocacy coalition framework (ACF) as follows: 1) constraining effects on inter-coalitional learning by cultural biases, 2) coexistence of different solidarities under a coalition, and 3) asymmetric relationships between parties in a coalition.     

Historical apologies as acts of symbolic inclusion – and exclusion? Reflections on institutional apologies as politics of cultural citizenship

Institutional apologies for historical injustices can be conceived as acts of symbolic inclusion directed to people whose collective experiences and memories of the past have not been recognized in the hegemonic narratives of the past. However, in this article it is argued that such apologies also have exclusionary potential as vehicles of symbolic politics of citizenship in that they may designate the apologizing community, so that it effectively excludes cultural ‘aliens’, like migrants, from the community of ‘remedial’ citizens. The article suggests a crucial point is the rhetoric shifts when one is appealing to both cultural and political solidarity, as when apologizing in the name of the state but simultaneously invoking ‘our’ nation and ‘our’ history. Thus, the increasing number of institutional historical apologies is not necessarily incompatible with the trend of reinforcing the symbolic boundaries around ‘our’ historical–cultural communities that has been visible recently, e.g. in the demands for cultural canons and citizenship tests in many Western societies.     

A cultural political economy of crisis recovery: (trans-)national imaginaries of ‘BRIC’ and subaltern groups in China

Abstract

This paper explores crisis recovery from a cultural political economy (CPE) perspective. It examines the role of (trans-)national forces in constructing BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) as drivers for recovery. First, it comments on some ‘cultural economy’ studies and indicates the value of a CPE approach. Second, it examines the ‘BRIC’ as a symbolic condensation of ‘hope’ knowledge and shows how this signifier evolved in three overlapping moments referring to its role as investor, consumer and lender. Third, it considers the material basis of the appeal of BRIC discourses, especially the credibility acquired through BRIC stimulus packages in the global financial crisis. Fourth, it indicates how China's ‘gold standard’ stimulus package has intensified some deep-rooted political tensions and harmed subaltern groups. Finally, it reflects on how CPE can contribute to studies of crisis and recovery.