In a recent article in this journal, Rogers Brubaker formulates a critique of the distinction we make in our work between populism and nationalism, and further develops his own, thicker ...conceptualization of populism, which integrates the nationalist dimension without however totally conflating populism and nationalism. In this article, we briefly respond to the critique of our work, further clarifying and refining our plea for clearly distinct conceptualizations of populism and nationalism in dialogue with the considerations formulated by Rogers Brubaker. More broadly, we see this response as a chance to contribute to the further development of a framework that allows for the rigorous study of populism's pivotal as well as complex and often troubling relation with nationalism.
The close empirical connections between populism and nationalism have naturalised a rather misleading overlap between the concepts of populism and nationalism in academic and public debates. As a ...result, the relation between the two has not received much systematic attention. Drawing on the poststructuralist discourse theory originally formulated by Laclau and Mouffe, this article differentially identifies populism and nationalism as distinct ways of discursively constructing and claiming to represent "the people", as underdog and as nation respectively. These distinct constructions of "the people" can also be identified and highlighted from a spatial or orientational perspective, by looking at the architectonics of populism and nationalism as revolving around a down/up (vertical) and an in/out (horizontal) axis respectively. Building on this framework, the article then concludes that the co-occurrence of populism and nationalism should be studied through the prism of articulation. Again, a focus on discursive architectonics allows grasping how different political projects construct different discourses by connecting the building blocks of populism and nationalism in particular ways. The study of these articulations, based on a clear distinction between populism and nationalism, is a necessary step in further deepening our understanding of the complexity and variety of populist politics.
“Fake news” has emerged as a global buzzword. While prominent media outlets, such as The New York Times, CNN, and Buzzfeed News, have used the term to designate misleading information spread online, ...President Donald Trump has used the term as a negative designation of these very “mainstream media.” In this article, we argue that the concept of “fake news” has become an important component in contemporary political struggles. We showcase how the term is utilised by different positions within the social space as means of discrediting, attacking and delegitimising political opponents. Excavating three central moments within the construction of “fake news,” we argue that the term has increasingly become a “floating signifier”: a signifier lodged in-between different hegemonic projects seeking to provide an image of how society is and ought to be structured. By approaching “fake news” from the viewpoint of discourse theory, the paper reframes the current stakes of the debate and contributes with new insights into the function and consequences of “fake news” as a novel political category.
In this work, we bet on the notion of the discursive practices of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, to highlight certain meanings that the environmental education (EA) assumes in the school context. ...The aim of this article was to analyze an episode referring to the definition of AS within the curriculum from the process of production and hegemonization of environmental discourses in a basic education school. The data collection was based on the selection of excerpts from the teachers' debates around EA, analyzed in the light of discourse theory. The results of the analyses indicate that the school appears as a space in which there is the continuation of the process of political production of the curriculum and presents the atmosphere of debates, arguments and articulations of common interests that reveals the fundamentally discursive process of the meaning of EA and the possible paths in dispute for its inclusion in the curricular structure.
In this paper, I propose the notion of ‘German Theory’ to allude to the processes of translation and circulation of theoretical ideas discussed in the German humanities and German geography across ...and beyond the linguistic boundaries of its origin. However, these ideas did not travel, at least not to Anglophone geography. This paper investigates why not, and it maps out the lost theoretical potential that has been foregone as a result. ‘German Theory’ is thus read here as a potentiality that has not actualised. More specifically, this paper studies the reception of Foucault, as it emerged in two distinct territories of thought, each with their own interpretation: first, Kittler’s work on the materiality of discourse in German humanities, and second, the ‘discourse school’ in German geography. The latter’s insistence on the textuality of discourse disconnected their Foucault reception not only from Kittler’s, but equally so from ongoing debates in Anglophone geography. By reflecting on why the ‘German Foucault’ did not travel to Anglophone geography, I raise a speculative epistemological question about the im/potentiality of ‘German Theory’: could a more cosmopolitan theory have emerged from a circulation of these ideas had they travelled across linguistic boundaries?
Research on organizational misconduct has examined how audiences generate discourses to make sense of behaviour that may transgress the line between right and wrong. However, when organizations are ...accused of misconduct, the resulting ambiguity also opens opportunities for organizations and their members to generate discourses aimed at deflecting blame. Little is known about how actors who are at risk of being held responsible actively respond to misconduct accusations by engaging in discursive strategies. To address this question, we build on crisis communication and discourse theory to integrate processes of scapegoating and whistleblowing into a holistic model. We develop a blame game theory – conceptualizing the sequence of discursive strategies employed by an organization and its members to strategically shift blame by attributing responsibility to others or denying misconduct. Our model identifies four blame game pathways as a function of two types of ambiguity: moral ambiguity and attributional ambiguity. We highlight accusations of misconduct as pivotal triggering events in the social construction of misconduct. By conceptualizing the discursive dynamics of strategic reactions to accusations of misconduct, our blame game theory contributes to the literature on organizational misconduct and has implications for research on social evaluations.
Im Anschluss an den practice turn, der zu Beginn des Jahrtausends vor allem von Arbeiten im Bereich der Science and Technology Studies getragen wurde, hat das theoretische Vokabular der ...Praxistheorien weitläufig Prominenz erlangt. In der Religionswissenschaft wird es dagegen nur zögerlich rezipiert. Die Beitragenden des Bandes nehmen sich dieses Zögerns an und liefern neben theoretischen Überlegungen, die nach den Implikationen und Potenzialen praxistheoretischer Konzepte für die Religionswissenschaft fragen, auch Beiträge, die Wege der Anwendung von Praxistheorien in empirischen Projekten aufzeigen.
This article formulates precise questions and ‘rules of engagement’ designed to advance our understanding of the role populism can and should play in the present political conjuncture, with ...potentially significant implications for critical management and organization studies and beyond. Drawing on the work of Ernesto Laclau and others working within the post-Marxist discourse-theory tradition, we defend a concept of populism understood as a form of reason that centres around a claim to represent ‘the people’, discursively constructed as an underdog in opposition to an illegitimate ‘elite’. A formal discursive approach to populism brings with it important advantages. For example, it establishes that a populist logic can be invoked to further very different political goals, from radical left to right, or from progressive to regressive. It sharpens too our grasp of important issues that are otherwise conflated and obfuscated. For instance, it helps us separate out the nativist and populist dimensions in the discourses of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), Trump or the Front National (FN). Our approach to populism, however, also points to the need to engage with the rhetoric about populism, a largely ignored area of critical research. In approaching populism as a signifier, not only as a concept, we stress the added need to focus on the uses of the term ‘populism’ itself: how it is invoked, by whom and to what purpose and effect. This, we argue, requires that we pay more systematic attention to anti-populism and ‘populist hype’, and reflect upon academia’s own relation to populism and anti-populism.
•There is a single dominant discourse of water scarcity composed of the water insufficiency and water mismanagement narratives.•The water insufficiency narrative emphasises factors external to the ...government and is constructed by governmental actors.•The water mismanagement narrative emphasises mismanagement of water resources and is constructed by donors and international organisations.
This article investigates the construction of the discourse of water scarcity in Jordan. It identifies the actors constructing the discourse and the elements comprising the discourse. The study is important and makes an original contribution because while the issue of water scarcity in Jordan has been widely researched, it has been done mainly with engineering approaches, the discourse of water scarcity has been taken for granted, and studies on an in depth discursive analysis of the issue of water scarcity in Jordan are still missing. The study finds that there is a single dominant discourse of water scarcity, which is composed of two narratives: water insufficiency and water mismanagement. The water insufficiency narrative is constructed to emphasise factors external to the responsibility of the Jordanian government as reasons for water scarcity, like nature, refugees, and neighbouring countries. It is mainly constructed by governmental oriented actors and deployed to open solutions on the supply and conservation sides and ultimately to maintain the status quo of the current water uses. The water mismanagement narrative is constructed to emphasise as reasons for water scarcity factors of mismanagement of water resources, and deployed to increase economic efficiency in the water sector.
We examine the case of a corporate spin-off, in which its reacquisition by the parent firm radically changed its structure and culture. Employing a discourse lens, we study paradoxical tensions of ...innovation as key members “talk into being” the paradoxical circumstances of their environment. From our analysis, we develop the concept of tensional “knots,” discursive formulations in which members construct tensions, not only as co-occurring, but as Gordian (inseparable) entanglements of interdependence. Knotted tensions can be amplifying (exacerbating) or attenuating (improving) in their effects on one another, but with very different consequences to innovative action. Specifically, knotted tensions and the way in which members manage them set up counter-intuitive logics that serve to justify courses of innovative action or inaction. We propose a process model advancing understanding of interlinked tensions in more complex ways than current paradox theory allows. We conclude with a discussion of our contributions to paradox theory in innovative contexts, along with suggestions for future research.
PDF
