Back to the populist future?: understanding nostalgia in contemporary ideological discourse

Abstract

Nostalgia is regularly depicted as an indication of a flawed political argument or allegiance, and framed as a virus more likely to take hold in places that are ‘left behind’. Its prevalence has been linked to the rise of populism in Western politics, the vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. This paper seeks to challenge the normative depiction of nostalgia as an alien presence within ‘normal’ political discourse, and critically evaluates theoretical attempts to distinguish between positive and negative forms of it. Instead, it sets out to explore some of the different affective, sentimental and ideational roles that various kinds of nostalgia practice perform, and highlights the particular importance of forms of political argument that accuse opponents of nostalgia while simultaneously employing some of its prevalent modalities and motifs. The paper finishes by exploring these themes in relation to the career and ideas of the iconoclastic and populist British politician, Enoch Powell.     

Longing for the past: a semiotic reading of the role of nostalgia in present-day consumption trends

Coined in 1688 by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer to designate a pathological longing for distant homeland, the word “nostalgia” was soon rearticulated temporally, to refer to a lost epoch one yearns for as one's home. Nostalgia is not a new topic for semiotics. Emotion essentially stemming from absence, it epitomizes the semiotic mechanism: semiosis is the ontological result of something staying for something else, but nostalgia is the emotional result of it. Nostalgia – an essential figure in Greimas's structural outlook on passion, an umbrella concept in Baudrillard's mourning of reality behind the simulacra, and a key notion in Culler's and Frow's dissection of the semiotics of tourism – has become a buzz word in both critical and marketing studies, the former trying to unveil beneath it the foundations of ontology or the contradictions of postmodern society and the latter, seeking to exploit nostalgia as what critical theory could deem the last Trojan horse into the agency of the consumer. On the basis of a copious and manifold literature on nostalgia, the article hints at an unexplored direction: can one talk, today, of nostalgic trends of consumption in Europe? Where hipsters, vintage furniture, and retro TV channels are nothing but symptoms of an emerging mentality?     

Aftereffects of Knowledge: Dogmatic Retreats and Sceptical Adventures

Abstract

A distinction between nature and culture is usually thought to be a condition of possibility of criticism. The idea is that, in comparison to natural laws, norms and conventions are merely relative and, therefore, susceptible to criticism and change. This paper contests this view and argues that critical practice is still possible, and even more productive, when nature and culture are seen to be continuous with one another. A general contrast is developed between ‘dogmatic’ and ‘sceptical’ modes of criticism. The suggestion is that theorists as diverse as Jürgen Habermas and Judith Butler adopt the dogmatic approach. An alternative, sceptical critical mode is elaborated in connection with Nietzsche and the ancient sceptics. This sceptical approach is based upon an identity between nature and culture, and has affinities with the aesthetic emphasis of some contemporary political theory.     

Deleuze and Guattari's Historiophilosophy: Philosophical Thought and its Historical Milieu

Abstract

This paper will examine the relation between philosophical thought and the various milieus in which such thought takes place using the late work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. It will argue that Deleuze and Guattari's assessment of this relation involves a rearticulation of philosophy as an historiophilosophy. To claim that Deleuze and Guattari promote such a form of philosophy is contentious, as their work is often noted for implementing an ontological distinction between becoming and history, whereby the former is associated with the act of creation and the latter with retrospective representations of this creative process. Furthermore, when elaborating on the creative nature of philosophical thought, Deleuze and Guattari explicitly refer to philosophy as a geophilosophy that is in contrast to history. Nevertheless, this paper will demonstrate that far from abandoning the category of history, Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of the relations between philosophical thought and relative milieus suggests to us an historical ontology and methodology that is a critical part of philosophy's nature.     

Academic freedom 1979: The West German case

Abstract

Given the continued significance of ideology as a social and political phenomenon, political science must consider the important contributions made to ideology theory made over the last thirty years by Louis Althusser. In this essay, I offer a critical exegesis of Althusser's views, focusing on the concept of reading, on the various conceptions of ideology held by Althusser, on the distinction Althusser made between ideology and science, and on his theory of the subject. This study of his thought makes three claims: (1) that Althusser's views, billed as a radical break with bourgeois thought, can be assimilated easily into social scientific understandings about ideology; (2) that Althusser's theory has internal difficulties rooted in the tension between positive and negative conceptions of ideology; and, (3) that Althusser left unanswered the key question of the means to ideological liberation.     

STRUCTURE AND ACTION AS CONSTRUCTS IN THE PRACTICE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION*

Abstract: In this paper we first examine the dominant instrumental paradigm of organization, and the critique to which it has been subjected from both social action theory and a more structural analysis of organizational life. Secondly, we draw on critical theory to construct an alternative paradigm. This addresses some of the problems left by critiques of the dominant paradigm, focuses on the relationship between structure and action, and the way in which each of these constitutes, and is constituted by, the other. In the final section we outline the implications of this analytical approach for analysis and practice in public administration. Public administration is about what people do, but also about how this activity is perceived and talked about. This distinction between thought and practice is not the same as the distinction between the academic and the practitioner. Although the academic operates largely in the world of thought — through teaching, research and writing — the work of the practitioner also rests on foundations in the world of thought, namely, the perception of the organization as an instrument for the accomplishment of some purpose, and of the administrator as the controller of that instrument for the better achievement of the end. We contend that these approaches to analysis and practice mask significant aspects of the ways that relationships within and between organizational contexts come to be structured and conducted, and do not provide a basis for understanding or evaluating either organizational processes or the activities of managers within these.     

Love is a Battlefield: Post-Political Control in an Era of Financial Crisis

This paper criticizes the ideology of deontological liberalism from the perspective of Marxist thought and employs the idea of temporality as an example of this critique. Deontological liberals like John Rawls argue that the liberal political order should be indifferent to ultimate ends. Consequently, Rawls constructs an "abstract" self that is defined apart from the concrete totality of a real human life. This paper argues, through Marx's essay "On the Jewish Question" that the liberal, bourgeois self is not "abstract" but exists in an instrumentalized society in which individuals treat themselves and others as means, not ends. Following this line of thought, the paper shows that the purportedly "abstract" or "empty" linear temporality of modern thought is actually commodified or instrumentalized time. The paper concludes with suggestions how "leisure" understood as non-instrumental or self-sufficient time could be an alternative to the commodified temporality of bourgeois culture.     

A Pragmatist Critique of Liberal Epistemology

Abstract

This paper wrestles with the issue of the place of comprehensive beliefs within the public space. It tries to strike a middle path between the liberal ban on comprehensive beliefs and the anti-liberal claim that comprehensive beliefs should be given full pride of place in public deliberations. The article relies on arguments that are inspired by the pragmatist tradition. It starts locating the main cause of failures at articulating comprehensive beliefs and public reason in a central feature of liberal epistemology, namely the way it conceives public reason via a preliminary distinction between public and non-public beliefs. After criticizing this distinction, the article introduces a distinction between the normative practice of justification and the normative practice of adjudication as a more perspicuous way to establish the place that comprehensive beliefs should play within political forums. It then concludes showing that this approach provides a satisfying answer to the issue of the public role of comprehensive beliefs in a liberal democratic regime that is respectful of citizens’ thick identities while at the same time complying with the requirements of respect set by the liberal tradition.     

Relationship Marketing and the Political Process

Abstract

This paper attempts to apply Relationship Marketing Theory to the political arena. Contrasts between traditional Management School of thought and the Relational School are drawn. A typology of political relationships is induced from primary ethnographic research. Relationships are a fundamental asset of an organisation. Political parties need to acknowledge the importance of nurturing and developing a variety of relationships as a long-term strategic imperative. Crucially, relationships are predictive of behaviour and are less likely to volatile swings (Gordon, 1998). With voter volatility and electoral inactivity increasing, enhancing and developing mutually beneficial relationships with supporters and potential supporters appears appealing. Relationships are fluid and dynamic rather than being static. Relationships can develop and become stronger or they may then erode and weaken. However, as long as the relationship remains above a critical threshold, transactions may continue. A critical incident may occur that causes specific behavioural changes that will affect the nature and level of electoral transactions. These critical incidents can be either positive or negative and may have an impact on relational development or erosion.     

Understanding complicity: memory,hope and the imagination

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the thorny issue of complicity with wrongdoing under conditions of systemic political violence, such as authoritarianism, totalitarianism or military occupation. The challenge of dealing with collaborators – those who colluded with the apparatus of repression or who benefitted from its existence – is central to subsequent processes of justice and memory-making. This paper proposes several arguments. Firstly, it claims we need to think about complicity and resistance not dichotomically, but as a continuum of locations individuals can occupy. Secondly, these locations are influenced by the agents’ positionality within the social world, each agent being situated at the intersection of several axes of distinction: class, gender, racialisation, and religion, among others. Thirdly, to understand complicity we also need to draw a connection between individual’s experience of time and their actions: temporality is experienced from within a social position, through the interplay between memory, imagination and hope. Positionality thus affects one’s memories and self-understanding, the scope of one’s imagination, as well as the type and intensity of one’s hopes. Therefore, individuals’ capacity to build on the past to imagine a future, to invest emotionally in the future and act accordingly are interrelated aspects of their experience, which will influence how they navigate the muddy waters of systemic wrongdoing, more or less complicitly. To give concreteness to these three theoretical arguments, the paper discusses several forms of complicity with violence during the Vichy Regime in France.     

Habit,Sittlichkeit and Second Nature

Abstract

Discussions of habit in Hegel’s thought usually focus on his subjective spirit since this is where the most extended discussion of this issue takes place. This paper argues that habit is also important for understanding Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. The discussion of habit and second nature occur at a critical juncture in the text. This discussion is important for understanding his notion of ethical life and his account of freedom.     

Extreme-right Parties in Eastern Europe

Abstract

From the moment the Berlin Wall came down scholars and politicians around the world expressed concern about an upsurge of extreme-right politics in Eastern Europe. Dramatic events like the Yugoslav conflict and even the so-called ‘velvet split’ of Czechoslovakia only strengthened this fear. Despite these many general warnings about the rise of extreme right parties (ERPs) in Eastern Europe very little empirical work has appeared on the subject. Mudde's article provides an analytical tool which will help to further understanding of the extreme right in the region. It presents and applies a fairly straightforward typology of ERPs in Eastern Europe based on the (ideological) character of the parties. The pre-Communist ERP locates the origin of its ideological identity in political parties and ideas of the pre-Communist period, generally harking back to national-conservative, monarchist, or indigenous or foreign fascist ideals. The character of the party might be expressed in the open espousal of pre-Communist ideas or by using the associated ‘folklore’, while in some cases there might even be continuity in personnel or organizations (often through the émigré community). With the notable exceptions of Croatia and Slovakia, pre-Communist ERPs have remained marginal in post-Communist political life. The Communist ERP looks for ideological inspiration in the Communist period and includes nationalist splits of the (former) Communist parties as well as new parties that combine a nationalist ideology with a nostalgia for Communist rule. They are mainly successful in countries where the Communist regime had a strong nationalist undercurrent and the party is still in the hands of hardliners (e.g. Romania and Russia). Post-Communist ERPs, finally, locate the source of their identities in the post-Communist period: these organizations are new and their focus is on current political issues. They harbour no feelings of nostalgia, either for the pre-Communist or the Communist period. Post-Communist ERPS have developed in most East European countries but, although some have achieved remarkable electoral successes, in general they have been only moderately successful (similar to ERPs in Western Europe).     

Intergenerational Mapping and the Cultural Politics of Memory

A key objective of the paper is to rejuvenate our understanding of time. The focus is on how the knowledge and memories of times past are transmitted collectively and intergenerationally, and why this is important for children's political formation. The objective is pursued through a short philosophical discussion of time, memory and forgetting, drawing primarily on the work of Bernard Stiegler and others investigating these questions with an emphasis on contemporary technologies. The study and philosophical framing also engage a larger geo-economic and historical context in which all subjects, including children, are faced with critical challenges related to the recent development of new technologies of control; these formulate drives and/or a temporal consciousness of 'hyper' attention that renders deep attention and the formation of long-term desire increasingly difficult. In the face of this historical moment, the paper calls attention to the importance of thinking about time holistically as well as historically in terms of the intergenerational transfer and transformation of collective memory. Using material from two years of research with children, the claim is made that intergenerational education, involving the technics of mapping and writing and drawing on the archives of the past, can enable a critical relearning of history, thus laying the groundwork for imaginings of alternative futures.     

The Role of the Maternal in Diasporic Cultural Reproduction−Australia,Canada and Greece

Cultural reproduction is examined in this paper, not in the sense of replication, but as the creation of something new. Women's work in such cultural reproduction is explored through the experiences of Greek-identified women who live in Canada and Australia, or who have lived in these countries and now reside in Greece. These women are the daughters of immigrants who are now rearing the so-called third generation. Of particular interest is the way these women contrast their role in cultural reproduction to that of their own mothers. The argument is made that these women play a key role in the staging of Greek origin through the family and that, in the diaspora, this is a complex, dynamic and critical process that lies at the heart of new understandings of cultural identifications.     

Hope,Critique, and Utopia

Abstract

This paper assesses the extent to which the category of hope assists in preserving and redefining the vestiges of utopian thought in critical social theory. Hope has never had a systematic position among the categories of critical social theory, although it has sometimes acquired considerable prominence. It will be argued that the current philosophical and everyday interest in social hope can be traced to the limited capacity of liberal conceptions of freedom to articulate a vision of social transformation apposite to contemporary suffering and indignity. The background to these experiences is the structural changes associated with the injustices of globalisation, the mobilisation of the capitalist imaginary and the uncertainties of the risk society. The category of hope could assist in sustaining the utopianism of critical theory through con joining normative principles with a temporal orientation. Yet, the paradoxes of the current phase of capitalist modernisation have further denuded notions of progress. Since the theological background to the category of hope constitutes a major limitation, the utopian orientation of critique is clarified in relation to the antinomies of the turn to social hope and the potential of Habermas' discourse theory of democracy, law and morality. Despite Castoriadis' profound critique of the category of hope, its present usage in social analyses will be seen to have affinities with Honneth's conception of the struggle for recognition.     

Engineering Democracy

This paper presents a critical assessment of current initiatives to deepen democracy and seeks to examine why they often fail. By analysing their various, and conflicting, conceptions of participation and associational life, it argues that many of the difficulties they encounter can be attributed to a usually unexamined set of organisational assumptions. These assumptions are then inspected in order to analyse the breakdown of communication that can occur between incumbent social engineers trying to institutionalize more democracy, and those more critical and grassroots initiatives which emanate from the periphery of power. With this distinction in view, a series of recurrent problems around the institutionalization of democratic processes are investigated. Finally, the paper explores the implications of the distinction for how we can aid and deepen democracy more effectively.     

Critical Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: Reflections on the 2015 York University Strike through a Marcusean Lens

Abstract

In this article, we see the month-long graduate student and contract faculty strike at York University (Toronto, 2015) through a lens informed by Herbert Marcuse’s thought. In the context of widespread student protests across North America against neoliberal austerity, we draw on our picket line experiences to argue that Marcuse’s work provides insights into how students and faculty can engage in critical praxis within the neoliberal university. We argue that CUPE 3903, the union of TAs and contract faculty at York, is a kind of counter-institution that Marcuse argued was necessary for liberation. Marcuse strategically urged students to take advantage of gaps or cracks in a disintegrating system. Our analysis revolves around the complex experience of the graduate student picket lines – a “gap” – as a site of rupture for the liberation of aesthetic experience, “organized spontaneity,” open, democratic organization, as well as conflict.     

Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory: A New Synthesis

ABSTRACT

Critical Theory and contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives share many compatibilities in offering a constructive critique of society. Psychoanalysis teaches us that whatever values and ideals societies adopt, they are always mediated through unconscious psychic processes that condition the collective in both positive and negative ways, and in terms of relations of recognition and patterns of social justice. Contemporary critical theory may benefit from engaging post-classical and current trends in psychoanalytic thought that have direct bearing on the ways we conceive of and observe how individuals operate within social collectives. In particular, Axel Honneth relies on psychoanalytic sources that are dated. Critical theory would profit from engaging post-object relations schools such as self psychology, analytical psychology, psychoanalytic intersubjectivity theory, relationality, and contemporary attachment theory that are more nuanced yet can supplement Winnicottian perspectives. Implications for contemporary theory need to reflect upon how the psychosocial matrix of self and society both facilitate and hinder optimal social arrangements and fabrics of justice as it takes up the question of normativity. It is within this context that I hope to introduce contemporary psychoanalytic paradigms that move beyond classical models yet complement redirecting shifts in emphasis both psychoanalysis and Critical Theory attempt to accomplish. I suggest that an applied psychoanalytic explication on social phenomenology can expand the interpretive depth and breadth of human relations and open up a permissible space for interdisciplinary discourse. Here new vistas emerge for a proposed synthesis between the two schools of thought.     

Natural History: the Life and Afterlife of a Concept in Adorno

Abstract

Theodor Adorno's concept of ‘natural history’ [Naturgeschichte] was central for a number of Adorno's theoretical projects, but remains elusive. In this essay, analyse different dimensions of the concept of natural history, distinguishing amongst (a) a reflection on the normative and methodological bases of philosophical anthropology and critical social science; (b) a conception of critical memory oriented toward the preservation of the memory of historical suffering; and (c) the notion of ‘mindfulness of nature in the subject’ provocatively asserted in Max Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. These strands are united by the notion of transience and goal of developing a critical theory sensitive to the transient in history. The essay concludes by suggesting some implications of an expanded concept of natural history for issues in the discourse theory of Jürgen Habermas.     

Normative transformations in the European Union: on hardening and softening law

Abstract

Until the late 1980s, European integration was generally said to be based on ‘integration through law’. However, in the 1990s, a group of scholars observed that law seemed to be increasingly challenged and new modes of governance tended to distance themselves from legal integration. They were confronted with another group arguing that the EU was still subject to processes of judicialisation, juridification and Eurolegalism. Against this background, this special issue aims at understanding what triggers normative transformations, be it the hardening or the softening of law, at both EU and national levels. In this introduction, soft and hard law are given a definition based on obligation and enforcement. Then, normative transformations are situated in a framework which makes a distinction between processes, normative levels and political/administrative levels of transformation. Finally, three types of explanations are suggested to help us understand when and why transformations occur.