When trade unions succeed: Cases of blocked liberalisation in the common market

Despite the generally accepted weakness of trade unions at the European Union level, an analysis of two high profile cases – the Services Directive and the Port Directive – shows that trade unions are able to mobilise effectively at the European level and, within constellations of actors, crucially impact EU decision making. In contrast to common claims that a lack of access to EU institutions makes such groups powerless, it is argued here that the exclusion of large opposing societal groups from consultations is neither a quick nor a sure fire recipe for dismantling opposition. On the contrary, it politicises the process and may lead to opposing groups mobilising in more contentious ways.     

Hezbollah and the framing of resistance

Abstract

Hezbollah is a holistic network whose social, political, military and cultural dimensions are all parts of a discourse of resistance. Conducting a qualitative frame analysis of speeches by Hezbollah’s General Secretary Nasrallah, supported by interviews with Hezbollah leadership privy to its ideology, this study analyses the construction of muqawama (resistance). It argues that resistance is a complex social phenomenon, which can be manifested, for example, in the differences in how resistance is framed in varying contexts, often addressing different audiences. However, three unifying themes emerged from the frame analysis: diversity of resistance, normalisation of resistance and social dimensions of resistance.     

构建和谐社区的社会学思考

和谐社区有着自身的特征与意义,它是和谐社会构建的重要基石和检验标准,是政府密切联系群众、城市管理运行有序以及在基层缓解社会矛盾的有效途径。当前存在着社区自治与政府职能、市场经济与社会伦理、居委会角色与社区居民角色、社会开放与社区封闭、贫富差距与社会保障、社区工作非职业化与社区建设的冲突因素。构建和谐社区必须整合社区资源,强化居民认同,拓展社区服务,繁荣社区文化。     

Framing and dominant metaphors in the coverage of North Korea in the Australian media

Through the selective allocation of attention, framing and metaphors in covering foreign affairs and countries, media narratives often act to delegitimise, marginalise and demonise international actors. Focusing on Australian reportage of North Korea in The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2012, this paper explicates how the framing mechanisms utilised in media point to media complicity in reinforcing a negative, adversarial orientation towards North Korea. It also discusses implications for how Australians view the North Korean people, Australian–North Korean relations, and policy pertaining to Northeast Asia more broadly.     

Elite Polarization and Public Opinion: How Polarization Is Communicated and Its Effects

Elite polarization has reshaped American politics and is an increasingly salient aspect of news coverage within the United States. As a consequence, a burgeoning body of research attempts to unravel the effects of elite polarization on the mass public. However, we know very little about how polarization is communicated to the public by news media. We report the results of one of the first content analyses to delve into the nature of news coverage of elite polarization. We show that such coverage is predominantly critical of polarization. Moreover, we show that unlike coverage of politics focused on individual politicians, coverage of elite polarization principally frames partisan divisions as rooted in the values of the parties rather than strategic concerns. We build on these novel findings with two survey experiments exploring the influence of these features of polarization news coverage on public attitudes. In our first study, we show that criticism of polarization leads partisans to more positively evaluate the argument offered by their non-preferred party, increases support for bi-partisanship, but ultimately does not change the extent to which partisans follow their party’s policy endorsements. In our second study, we show that Independents report significantly less political interest, trust, and efficacy when polarization is made salient and this is particularly evident when a cause of polarization is mentioned. These studies have important implications for our understanding of the consequences of elite polarization—and how polarization is communicated—for public opinion and political behavior in democratic politics.     

Looking at Negotiation and Dispute Resolution through a CA/DA Lens

Negotiation analysts have increasingly focused on the internal decision‐making dynamics in the minds of the parties. They ought to give more attention to the ways in which meaning is jointly constituted through sequences of verbal and nonverbal exchanges. The tools of conversation analysis (CA) and discourse analysis (DA) can be helpful in this regard.     

Four worlds of morality politics: the impact of institutional venues and party cleavages

The most prominent theory accounting for variation of morality politics across Western Europe is the so-called Two Worlds framework. According to this approach, the presence or absence of a secular?religious cleavage in national party systems strongly affects the degree of conflict intensity and the framing of morality policy issues. This article shows that the explanatory power of the Two Worlds model could be enhanced significantly by introducing a second analytical dimension that captures the institutional venue (party politics vs. parliamentary politics), in which moral conflicts take place. This is useful because there are instances in which a religious cleavage is lacking, but moral conflicts are nonetheless highly intense and party-based (the traditionalist world), and there are cases in which the religious cleavage formally exists, but moral conflicts are nonetheless resolved in the parliamentary arena (the unsecular world).     

The Temporal Dimension in Accounts of Violent Conflict: A Case Study from Darfur

This article explores the notion of time in relation to the recording of peace and conflict. In particular the article is interested in how concepts of time (linear, seasonal, vague, precise, etc.) shape the narrative of events – giving them an apparent order. A close look at the mechanics of how accounts of conflict are compiled and presented, and how time is represented within them, reveals an ambiguity and social construction of the temporal dimension in accounts of conflict. This article draws on two data sets on violence in Darfur – one quantitative, one qualitative – to investigate how time is represented, focusing on how ‘events’ are captured and produce real-time actionable data, and how the data sets cope with narratives of chronic insecurity.     

话语操控与安全化:一个理论分析框架

安全化理论是哥本哈根学派的核心理论,尽管它提出话语在安全化中具有核心作用,但是对于话语在安全化过程中的具体作用机制却缺乏详尽系统的阐述和解释。鉴于哥本哈根学派在这个方面论述的缺失,一个基于"话语操控"的安全化理论分析框架的提出在一定程度上可以对安全化过程中话语的作用机制做出较为系统和具体的阐述。此理论分析框架把安全化过程中的"言语行为"或"话语实践"具体操作化为话语突显、话语框定和话语定位三个变量,即安全化行为主体通过这三个变量的话语操控手段或过程来实现对某一问题安全化程度高低的控制。首先,为了使某个问题具有较高的安全化程度,安全化行为主体通过话语突显使问题得到较高的公众关注度,从而有助于问题被纳入安全议事日程之中。其次,获得公众对问题的关注度之后,安全化行为主体就需要通过话语框定对问题的性质、严重性和解决方案等予以界定和阐明,以进一步塑造公众对问题的认知图式并能动员公众参与的积极性。最后,通过话语定位对相关方进行定位以确定各自职责并确立其行为,不同的定位会产生不同的权利和职责,进而使行为体的行为产生差异。