Problems and opportunities in Polanyian analysis today

Abstract

The three books under review in this article all demonstrate the beginnings of a shift in the tone of literature on or derived from the work of Karl Polanyi. On one hand, the authors all show a willingness to admit a variety of problems and weaknesses in his work. But on the other hand, it is precisely this degree of critical introspection that enables the authors under review to identify some of the most important and contemporarily relevant aspects of Polanyi's thought. In the two main sections of this article – on Polanyi's concepts of ‘embeddedness’ and ‘double movement’ – I define the problems highlighted in previous iterations of Polanyian literature, moving on to examine how the texts under review address those problems, laying particular emphasis on the ideational components of Polanyi's thought. I conclude by suggesting future directions for Polanyian scholarship, mooting the possibility of a distinctively ‘post-Polanyian’ perspective in which ideas, discourse and framing are placed centre stage.     

Ritual,strategy, and deep culture in the Chechen national movement

This paper probes the dichotomy between strategic performance of cultural text and a strong approach to culture that sees fundamental texts as encompassing and determining social action. The central question posed is whether the paradigmatic emphasis on strategy in cultural analysis of protest and social movements misses the compelling influences that cultural texts may exert under certain conditions. Regarding protest movements and political contention, I am especially interested in the ‘deep textual grammar’ of the conflict, which can strongly constrain and guide social action. By identifying and analysing the deep cultural text of the Chechen nationalist movement for the period 1989–1999, this study shows that, in addition to strategic decisions, movement trajectories are sometimes strongly – almost ritualistically – culturally determined. As a first step towards reconceptualising the role of culture in social movements and to spur further investigation, this paper offers several propositions derived from the Chechen case about the relationship of deep culture and mobilisation.     

Governing the souls of young women: exploring the perspectives of mothers on parenting in the age of sexualisation

The sexualisation of young women has emerged as a growing concern within contemporary western cultures. This has provoked adult anxieties that young women are growing up too fast by adopting inappropriate sexual practices and subjectivities. Psychological discourses have dominated, which position sexualisation as a corrupting force that infects the ‘true self’ of young women, so they develop in abnormal ways. This in turn allows psychological practices to govern how to parent against sexualisation within families. To explore this further, six mothers each with daughters aged between 8 and 12 took part in one to one semi-structured interviews designed to explore how they conceptualised and parented against the early sexualisation of young women. A Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis was employed, which suggested that the mother's talk was situated within a psychological discourse. This enabled sexualisation to be positioned as a corrupting force that disrupted the natural development of young women through deviant bodily practices (e.g. consuming sexualised goods), which prevented them from becoming their ‘true self’. Through the disciplinary gaze of psychology, class inequalities were reproduced where working class families were construed as ‘chavs’ who were bad parents and a site of contagion for sexualisation.     

The discursive construction of intervention: selves,democratic legacies,and Responsibility to Protect in French discourse on Libya

This article analyses French executives' and lawmakers' legitimisations of the intervention in Libya with the aim of understanding the discursive construction of intervention. It investigates the arguments in favour of intervention and the oppositions they were confronted with. To these arguments belong a re-evaluated democratic legacy of France, an identification with the Libyan people, and a debate on Responsibility to Protect and the rule of law in world politics, which have a broader relevance for French actorness abroad. The article applies the Essex School discourse theory and techniques from Interpretive Policy Analysis on executive speeches and parliamentary documents for structuring the debate and for estimating the strength of ideas in their interdiscursive configuration. An ideal-typical explanation of the legitimisation of intervention and of the choice of one policy over another is made. The article argues that going to war in Libya equated to a question of cultural appropriateness.     

Analysing legislative performance: a plebeian perspective

Legislative performance can be understood in terms of results (the quality of the laws enacted) or in terms of the literal performativity of legislators (the quality of their appearances on the public stage). This article examines two different ethical frameworks for evaluating legislative performance in this latter, performative sense: a deliberative model, which restricts just political performances to deliberative exchanges among citizens, and a plebeian model, which expands just political performances to include those where political and economic elites endure special burdens as a condition of their elevated status. Given certain drawbacks of the deliberative model and parallel advantages of the plebeian model, I endorse the plebeian approach to political performativity. The article concludes by elaborating one of the key contrasts between the two models with regard to political communication, namely the plebeian model's embrace of a distinct form of legislative disruption. Beyond the way deliberation itself disrupts non-communicative forms of power and beyond the way protests physically disrupt governmental processes, plebeianism invokes a third kind of disruption – non-deliberative speech – intended to rebuke and humble leaders rather than reach mutual understanding about issues.     

The political importance of labelling: terrorism and Turkey's discourse on the PKK

Labelling the ‘other’ is one of the most relevant aspects in an armed conflict context. Summarising what the opponent is in one single expression is a strong rhetorical tool in any belligerent discourse. The use of the ‘terrorist’ label assumes a particularly powerful role in such a construction. Employing Ole Wæver's layered discursive structure, this article aims to study the discursive practices and political consequences associated with the use of such labels. The political implications of using the ‘terrorist’ label in regards to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkish politics will be analysed as an illustrative case study. The period under analysis extends from April 2007 to January 2008, corresponding to the escalation of a security discourse that led to the (brief) Turkish military incursion in northern Iraq in the winter of 2007–2008. The political exposure and intense usage of the ‘terrorist’ label in this period makes it particularly ripe for understanding the political discursive context that shapes Turkey's policies towards this protracted conflict. The focus on this period also sheds light on the political reasons underlying the intractability of this conflict.     

This violence good,that violence bad: normative and state-centric discourses in British school textbooks

ABSTRACT

Under the statutory obligations of the Prevent strategy, British schools have greater responsibility to counter terrorism and extremism than ever before. However, research has yet to fully explore how schools tackle such a complex issue in the classroom. This research critically examines the discourses of terrorism and extremism found within British secondary school textbooks to deepen understanding of how terrorism and extremism are taught in schools. This article deploys a mode of critical discourse analysis to assess and critique the ways in which the political realms of terrorism and extremism are constructed. I argue that these discourses construct an ethical proximity between the text, the reader and the state, while rendering voiceless both the “terrorist” and the civilian living in states prioritised by British foreign policy. As such, this article argues that British school textbooks construct a normative perspective through which the violence of states is sanitised and normalised. It raises concern regarding the role of contemporary schooling in perpetuating a global politics of violent foreign policy.     

Why Conceptual Models and "Big" Institutions Matter: A Response to David Altheide,Nina Eliasoph,William Gamson,and Todd Gitlin

The two cases analyzed here demonstrate a new journalistic practice of interviewing enemy leaders at times of war. We argue that whereas traditionally journalists had accepted the principle that when the nation is under threat, patriotism precedes professionalism, in the new media environment, with the domestic public exposed to international TV channels, this is no longer an option. As a result, journalists act more independently, even when this entails public resentment and government disapproval. We demonstrate how in interviewing enemy leaders, journalists play the part of politicians once diplomatic negotiations have ceased. Although such interviews provide high ratings and amplify the relevance of journalism at times of war, the irregular settings in which they are conducted undermine the journalists' endeavor. From the interviews we examined, it emerges that the cross pressures on the interviewers lead to a questioning style that deviates significantly from normative news interviews. Interviewers tend to be dragged to one of the extremes of hostility or deference. Finally, we show how the ways in which domestic governments respond to these interviews serve as additional evidence of their controversial character.     

International news as a reflection of cosmopolitan ideology: Coverage of the Ivorian crisis by CNN and the BBC

Abstract

International news discourse is often framed with ideological underpinnings. Ideology as a system of ideas or beliefs or ways of thinking not only helps, defines and explains, but also makes value judgements about that world (Croteau 2012; Van Dijk 1995). The author 's aim was to find out to what extent international news discourse reflects a cosmopolitanist ideology. The article looks at the extent to which the discourse of international news meets Tomlinson's (1999) postulation that cosmopolitanism should involve an intellectual and aesthetic stance of ‘openness’ towards people, places and different cultures – especially those from different ‘nations’. Using framing theory and critical discourse analysis as the theoretical basis for examining international news, the aim is to determine whether international news encourages or discourages a cosmopolitanist outlook during periods of political crisis. The author argues that Western media reportage on events in Ivory Coast to a large extent reflected a cosmopolitanist outlook.     

Peddling a semiotics of fear: a critical examination of scare tactics and commercial strategies in public health promotion

In this study, we critically examine the ways in which a nationwide health promotion campaign – the 2013 Diabetes UK/Tesco diabetes campaign, the largest of its kind in the UK – seeks to raise the general public's awareness of Type 2 diabetes. We subject a series of six campaign images (including their layout and accompanying text) to a multimodal discourse analysis, identifying the presence of a range of fear-inducing, stigmatising and commercial strategies, through which the campaign emphasises the dangers of diabetes and advocates personal responsibility for assessing both individual and others' risk of the disease. Specifically, we describe, in multi-semiotic detail, three discursive techniques deployed in the campaign to achieve these ends: (1) the depiction of grief and amplification of diabetes-related danger, (2) the promotion of diabetes risk and localisation of individuals' responsibility for their health and (3) the commercial branding and framing of the Diabetes UK/Tesco partnership – including the promotion of goods and services – as a means of diabetes prevention and management. Our findings raise concerns about the moral legitimacy of using fear-inducing and commercial strategies in order to (effectively) raise public awareness of and responses to Type 2 diabetes, strategies which do little to address the environmental factors which are associated with increasing rates of the disease.