De-Europeanisation through Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of AKP’s Election Speeches

Abstract

This article takes issue with the question of whether Turkey has been turning away from Europe in recent years, by adopting a critical constructivist lens to understand how, rather than why, Turkey’s presumed distance from the European Union (EU) is taking place. In doing that, it seeks to analyse the ways in which the political–societal transformation of the country as distanced from the EU is enabled by certain discursive practices which in turn contribute to the growing rift between Turkey and the EU. This is mainly conducted through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of texts produced by former Prime Minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an on Europe and the EU during key election periods starting with the 12 June 2011 general election.     

Blogging Zhanaozen: hegemonic discourse and authoritarian resilience in Kazakhstan

Post-Soviet authoritarian regimes – particularly in Central Asia – have proved highly resilient since independence. Existing explanations for regime longevity should be augmented by consideration of non-material, discursive sources of political legitimacy. A robust authoritarian regime requires the production and circulation of a hegemonic discourse that is internalized by influential social groups. This type of dominant discourse has emerged in Kazakhstan, making it difficult for political opponents to promote alternative political imaginaries and mobilize popular support. State control over media is challenged by Internet-based platforms, but in Kazakhstan social media and blogging have also offered an opportunity for the regime to reproduce its own hegemonic discourse. This article uses a discourse analysis of posts by bloggers in the aftermath of a violent conflict in Zhanaozen in Kazakhstan in 2011 to demonstrate how central elements in the state discourse are reproduced online, even by independent bloggers, suggesting that an official discourse has the ability to maintain its hegemonic status despite widespread use of blogs and social media.     

“These Few Small Boats”: Representations of Asylum Seekers During Australia’s 1977 and 2001 Elections

ABSTRACT

This paper compares the asylum-seeker discourses of prime minister Malcolm Fraser and his minister for immigration and ethnic affairs, Michael MacKellar, during Australia’s 1977 federal election campaign, with those of prime minister John Howard and his minister for immigration and multicultural affairs, Philip Ruddock, during the much-analysed 2001 election campaign. It argues that in 1977 Fraser was not an outspoken advocate for asylum seekers as he was later in life, but that his silence—when considered in conjunction with MacKellar’s emphatic and humanising statements—functioned to depoliticise boat arrivals and calm public concerns. Further, it demonstrates that the arguments prosecuted by the Howard government in 2001 were not new; similar arguments had been made in 1977 but were decisively rebutted by MacKellar at the time. This analysis ultimately suggests that while government discourses have the power to amplify the latent fears and hostilities that can lead to moral panics, they also have the capacity to defuse them.     

大众传播语境下文学话语的转型

大众传媒时代的到来营构了新的文学传播语境,文学话语的深刻转型正在凸显。主要表现为:一是纯文学与通俗文学的融合有了新的内涵;二是随着大众媒体的日益视觉化,文学从外部媒介形式到内在叙事方式都由图像的符号体系中吸纳了富有表现力的因素,具有了视觉文化的某些特征;三是大众媒体在将文学置入一种新的传播语境的同时,也打破了文学文类内部既有的规范和秩序,形成了与此前形貌迥异的文学版图。     

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.     

面向法治话语体系建构的中国法理学

一百多年来的中国法理学者揣着法治现代化梦想,引介了大量西方法律知识、价值和方法,进而衍生了有别于西方的“中国法理学”知识体系;通过接纳融合民主、自由、正义、公正、平等、法治等要素,出现了“中国法理学”的价值体系;通过学习和运用法律推理、法律解释、法律论证、法律修辞等方法,搭建了“中国法理学”的方法论体系。中国法理学理论为法治话语体系建构提供了基础性条件,但也存在着诸多问题:在知识体系的建构中缺乏专业精神;对法律价值体系的接受没有实现中西融贯;在方法论体系中缺乏整体思维与体系思维的区隔以及对逻辑的重视。中国需要建构以实现法治为目标的,能够分析、解释、解决中国社会矛盾的法治话语、法治理论体系。     

Employees’ resistance to users’ ideas in public service innovation

This article contributes to the existing criticism of the positive emphasis on user participation in service innovation as co-creation by examining employee resistance to user-driven innovation. The empirical base comprises interviews, document studies, and observations from a project that focused on implementing a user-initiated idea in public care services in Norway. To discuss employee resistance to innovative user ideas, a power perspective is included by drawing on the Foucault-based theory of identity regulation and discourse. Employees resist the required identity regulation by distorting the initial innovative idea to align with their problem representations, which is facilitated by entangled discourses. The power relations embedded in the different parties’ subject positions emphasize how governing the user side is incompatible with being governed by the users. The article contributes to our knowledge of service innovation and the co-creation of value by demonstrating discursive mechanisms for twisting value propositions.     

The Politics of Technology Decline: Discursive Struggles over Coal Phase‐Out in the UK

The decline of carbon intensive technologies is a key element in the ongoing energy transition and our attempts to tackle climate change. At the same time, our understanding of technology decline and of the associated policies and politics is still limited. This paper builds on the sustainability transitions perspective, a novel approach to analyze socio‐technical transformation, including the complex interplay of policy and technology change. We study the decline of coal‐fired power generation in the United Kingdom from 2000 to 2017 by analyzing the discourse in The Guardian. We find scientists and environmental NGOs criticizing coal for climate and health reasons. Government and incumbent businesses tried to re‐legitimate coal but eventually, their resistance collapsed and coal was almost completely abandoned in just a few years. Particularly devastating for coal were failed promises around carbon capture and storage, rapid diffusion of wind energy, and pressure from various policies. This study contributes to better understanding the contested nature of decline, and the interplay of discursive struggles, technology change, and public policy in sustainability transitions.     

发达国家在国际话语权建设方面的主要经验

国际话语权的争夺是当今大国博弈的重要方面。中国正在走近世界舞台的中央,面对的是发达国家在国际话语权上的优势。中国要增强自己的国际话语权需要一个过程,在这一进程中,研究和借鉴别国成功的经验十分重要。本文研究和总结了发达国家在国际话语权建设方面的主要经验,认为谋求国际话语权需要以国家实力为基础,但有实力并不就意味着有话语权,还需要注重话语的内容能被国际社会接受,需要通过有效的手段传播这些话语,更需要把舆论性话语转变成制度性话语。     

The politics of response to terror: the reshaping of community and immunity in the aftermath of 7 July 2005 London bombings

This article explores the politics of response to the 7 July 2005 London bombings, by analysing UK counter-terrorism institutional campaigns in the three years following the attack. By drawing on the interpretive category of community/immunity, the semiotic analysis of counter-terrorism campaigns aims to describe their representation of the political community and citizen in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks. The article argues that the counter-terrorism discourse relies on two contrasting tendencies: on the one hand, the unifying force that brings people together in the name of common values; and on the other, the necessity to weaken communitarian bonds in order to allow the citizen to control and check-up on others, reporting “anything suspicious” to authorities. In these texts, the figure of the citizen surveillant clearly emerges. Surveillance activities are shaped around the representation of the terrorist event, from the image of the terrorist in normal everyday life to the actual attacks. Paradoxically this brings about a mimicry effect. The surveillance action carried out by the citizen and the imagined actions of the preparation of a terrorist attack partially overlap in the way they are described and visually represented.