Limits to a cyber-threat

This paper reveals the limits to representing cyberspace as a threat. In contrast to more conventional threats, the suggestion is that the not-immediately-apparent consequences of a cyber-attack make it largely reliant on official practices of representation. Exploring the implications of this reliance, the paper outlines how attributing meaning and culpability – always contested practices – are amplified in the potential absence of a readily apparent attack. Given these limits, does the cyber-threat then require a different lexicon of danger to both educate and engender a sense of caution? Examining the discursive construction of the cyber-threat, the paper demonstrates how this threat draws upon an established economy of danger – likening it to warfare and terrorism – but also suggests a limit to these representations. Specifically, by engaging post-structuralist literature the paper illustrates that these limits are best understood through an appreciation of the performative and the constitutive ‘lack’ in signification. It thus concludes that the value of the cyber-threat is not determined by transparently representing a cyber-attack. Rather, it is drawn from processes of hyper-securitization and through the establishment of institutions like the NATO Center of Excellence in Cooperative Cyber Defense that retroactively bring into existence the very object it purports to defend against.     

The age factor in language practices and attitudes: continuity and change in Ukraine's bilingualism

This article analyzes inter-cohort differences and intra-cohort changes in language proficiencies, use patterns and attitudes in a society undergoing a radical political and cultural transformation. My analysis focuses on Ukraine, a country with an asymmetrical bilingualism where the new independent state mildly promotes the titular language but the formerly dominant Russian maintains an active presence in most social domains and individual repertoires. While confirming earlier findings on the small scale of age differences, this study detects the end of the inter-cohort shift toward Russian. Another important finding is that the apparent continuity with a slow drift toward the titular language in Ukraine as a whole conceals two radically different developments in the two geographical “halves” of the country. The study demonstrates an advantage of combining a synchronic analysis of inter-cohort differences with a diachronic analysis of intra-cohort changes.     

历史镜像下中国共青团思想建设的话语体系(1978—2015)

话语是时代的声音。改革开放三十多年来,中国共青团思想建设的话语体系经历了破"左"立新、探索理论武装、意识形态青年化表达和中国梦青年话语创新四个重要发展阶段。中国共青团思想建设话语的历史嬗变是对当代中国不同历史发展的主动回应,是对中国共产党执政理念和中心任务的积极关照,体现了中国共青团高度的理论自觉和思想自觉,折射出中国共青团思想引领实践的日臻成熟与工作体系的日趋完善。     

The Problems of Mexico: An Analysis of a Sociological Discourse

Based on an empirical analysis of articles published between 1987 and 2006 in three major Mexican sociological journals, my research traces the continuities and discontinuities in the study of the alleged malfunctioning of Mexican society. The study of how sociologists represented Mexican society has revealed several discursive dynamics. The traditional economic and political perspectives blaming social problems on elites predominate. Studies of electoral system flaws, political contention, lacklustre democracy in unions, and union collusion with industrial capitalism abound. More recently, however, the introduction of the study of globalisation has transformed the examination of these issues.     

论海德格尔的此在解释学

海德格尔运用现象学的方法,通过对此在存在的基本结构,从现身、领会以及此在与时间等几个方面的解析,从而建立了基础的存在论,也就是此在解释学.此在解释学的建立标志解释学进入了现代形态--哲学解释学.     

Social policy for inclusive development in Africa

The paper revisits the discourse on development in Africa, following in the footsteps of leading development thinkers and focusing on social policy. Some of the thinkers and scholars have specifically and directly discussed development discourse in Africa. Others have made insightful points regarding inclusive development in Africa even though not directly engaging with development discourse. The paper also acknowledges earlier thinking regarding development in Africa, including perspectives that deal with underdevelopment. The paper concerns itself with the critical role that social policy can play in ensuring inclusive development in Africa. The interface between economic and social policy is emphasised. Although Africa faces many intractable challenges, most of which are externally imposed, robust social policies will go a long way in bringing about effective social and economic development. In the main, though, Africa needs a comprehensive socio-economic development approach that can ensure lasting inclusive development. Social policies are critical for any development endeavour in African countries. Another main point that the paper makes is that economic transformation is not enough to fully advance wellbeing in Africa (and probably the world at large). By restructuring economies in Africa, not much would be achieved though some gains would be made.     

The insecurities of weaponised education: a critical discourse analysis of the securitised education discourse in North-West Pakistan

This article presents a critical discourse analysis of the discourse surrounding education, international development and security in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, North-West Pakistan. The article notes the dissonance between a discourse emphasising global security and the experienced insecurity faced by schools and students in North-West Pakistan, under attack from the Pakistani Taliban (the most notable attack being the shooting of Malala Yousafzai in 2012). This analysis examines the impact of securitisation on the discursive production of the political realm, exploring whether securitisation engenders security or insecurity. Three key findings emerge. First, the purpose of securitised education becomes fixed on ‘mindset transformation’ from an extremist mindset to an educated mindset. Second, students are transformed into soldiers fighting against extremism as education becomes weaponised. Third, the discourse blurs the distinction between the uneducated and extremist, and the figure of the ‘threatening, uneducated Other’ emerges. The discursive production of such oppositional subjectivities throws into question whether the international community’s intervention in education in North-West Pakistan, in order to improve security and fight extremism, is not in fact producing greater insecurity.     

Who speaks for the European border security industry? A network analysis

This article contributes to the literature on the European border security industry with a network analysis of a new bipartite data set. The network is composed of speakers and their speech topics at a European border security conference taking place from 2008 to 2015. Speakers are linked to conferences by year of attendance and to speech topics to identify key actors and discourses using measures of centrality. A multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure (MR-QAP) is used to explain the continuity of conference speech topics. The centrality analysis reveals a number of “hubs” and the discourse analysis reveals a consistent focus on social control and surveillance over human rights. The MR-QAP regression suggests that shared discourses are driven by organisations which act as key speakers at many events, and whose discourses are prioritised over those of other actors. The article concludes with notes on the critical implications of the findings.     

‘Legislative frame representation’: towards an empirical account of the deliberative systems approach

The systemic approach to deliberative democracy is an empirically underexplored topic. Since ‘classic’ micro indicators for deliberation are at loggerheads with the idea of distributed deliberation, appropriate assessment techniques for large-scale public deliberation are few and far between. This paper aims at exploring a novel pathway into the empirical translations of the deliberative systems approach, using discourse content and the representation of policy frames in the legislature. I argue that legislative frame representation (LFR) is a crucial indicator for the level of sub-systemic deliberative uptake and policy responsiveness. Next to the necessary theoretical and methodological work, the results of an explorative case study for the immigration discourse in the US and Canada are presented. The results indicate that there are considerable differences in the systems’ capacities to take up discourses from civil society and that LFR can be an important tool to explore deliberative systems empirically.