Discursive Contestation Research Articles

Political legitimacy between democracy and effectiveness: trade-offs, interdependencies, and discursive constructions by the EU institutions

This paper addresses the relationship between political legitimacy arising from a link with the ‘will of the people’, and political legitimacy arising from beneficial consequences for them. Questioning the common assumption of an inherent trade-off between ‘input’ and ‘output legitimacy’, it suggests that the two necessarily go together, and that their relationship is continuously reconstructed through discursive contestation. These claims are first substantiated conceptually, in reference to the legitimacy literature in European Union (EU) Studies, which is situated in the broader fields of Political Theory and Comparative Politics. In a second step, the argument is developed on the grounds of empirical case material: an interpretive, non-quantitative reconstruction of the changing discourses on EU legitimacy by the European institutions from the 1950s to the early 2000s.

‘A REAL LESBIAN WOULDN'T TOUCH A BISEXUAL WITH A BARGEPOLE'

Drawn from an investigation of the construction of collective identity in DIVA magazine between 1994 and 2004, this article considers the discursive contestation of the boundaries necessarily, though never straightforwardly, erected in the process. Analysing first a selection of articles and second (and more substantially) debates about who ‘we’ are in and between readers' letters, the article focuses on the ‘trouble’ posed by bisexuality in this era. Readers draw on and contest a cluster of interrelated characterisations of bisexuals: as undecided, as a kind of pollutant, and as inadequate facsimiles of ‘real lesbians', as well as more or less open characterisations of ‘us’. These arguments are necessarily managed editorially, and always ‘end’ with calls for acceptance. This does not fully recover the ambiguity with which bisexuality is handled, however, and the article concludes by discussing the dilemma(s) faced by the imagined community.

Defining the Ambiguous Situation: Context and Action in the 2006 Lebanon War

In studies of war and terrorism, an exclusive focus on action misses an important and logically prior stage of constitutive thinking and discursive contestation. Particularly in ambiguous contexts, which states often face when waging conflict against nonstate actors such as terrorist organizations, how the situation is defined is a key to understanding state decision making and action. This paper employs symbolic interactionist theory to analyze the process of defining situations under ambiguity. It argues that how different domestic actors develop preferences for definitions depends on (i) the kind of situational parameters that they monitor as part of their group perspective, (ii) the availability of historical analogies, and (iii) (role)-identity and self-esteem needs, namely the legitimation of actors' claimed identity through an effective role performance. These ideas are examined in a case study of Israeli understanding of and response to Hizbollah's attack of July 12, 2006, which developed into the 2006 Lebanon War (known in Israel as the Second Lebanon War).

User Involvement in Mental Health Services: A Case of Power over Discourse

Public participation in planning and implementing health care has become a government mandate in many states. In UK mental health services, this ‘user involvement’ policy dates back nearly three decades and has now become enshrined in policy. However, an implementation gap in terms of achieving meaningful involvement and influence for service users persists. This paper aims to illuminate some of the political discursive processes through which this gap emerges and to educe implications for the policy initiative and for effective approaches to service user involvement. It presents findings from a qualitative, localised UK-based study of user involvement in mental health services, conducted from a critical discourse analytic perspective, according to one emergent feature - power over discourse. Three themes relating to this discursive regulation are discussed: the rules of the game, the rules of engagement and agenda-setting. The article shows how although the policy initiative was providing opportunities for discursive contestation in local arenas surrounding mental health service development, these were pre-dominantly characterized by containment and control and by silences. Consequently, the discursive processes of user involvement worked to nullify its potentially transformative influence and to further marginalize women service users and other groups. Implications for the development of user involvement in service commissioning are provided.

MEMORY STUDIES: LEBANON AND ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Why are humans fated to remember and forget? For Plato, it is because we are wounded by our memory of a previous existence, namely the Platonic “realm of ideas,” to which we forever long to return. In the social sciences, especially history and anthropology, burgeoning cross-disciplinary methodologies and approaches have emerged to study the ways in which humanity remembers and forgets; “cultural memory studies” and the “anthropology of memory” constitute a contemporary realm of ideas concerned with discursive contestations over memory and history. The books under review here, all of which relate to the study of collective memory in Lebanon or Israel/Palestine, have recourse to French theories, despite time lags due to delayed English translation. Foundational writers of a field loosely grouped under the rubric “memory studies” include French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, whoseLes cadres sociaux de la mémoire(1925) and posthumously publishedLa mémoire collective(1950) both appeared in English in 1980, under confusingly similar titles. The English-language publication of Halbwachs’ corpus on the individual in relation to “collective memory” coincidentally corresponded with the American Psychiatric Association's 1980Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition, in which categories of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) extended collective memory into collectivetraumaticmemory, through the notion that “Post-traumatic disorder is fundamentally a disorder of memory.” Another seminal thinker in this field is Pierre Nora, especially the multivolume, multiauthored essays produced under his direction entitledLes Lieux de mémoire, which appeared in French between 1984 and 1992.

From dirty war to genocide: Argentina’s resistance to national reconciliation

Three decades of political, legal and discursive contestation about the violence, military repression and disappearances that troubled Argentina during the 1970s have repeatedly changed the multidirectional memories of adversarial groups and undercut attempts at national reconciliation. The representation of past violence as dirty war, state terrorism or genocide singled out different perpetrators, evoked other remembrances, and called for distinct ways to reconcile Argentine society. These interpretive frameworks succeeded one another in public debates about the past, and generated conflicting collective memories among political opponents. The recent comparison of disappearances with the Holocaust convinced the human rights movement, and certain judicial and academic circles, that genocide had occurred in Argentina. Individual culpability became transformed into collective responsibility, and further complicated national reconciliation. This article demonstrates that the memorialization and continuous narration of past massive violence in Argentina did not advance the coexistence of adversarial groups but intensified their enmity and revived certain repressive practices.

“The Tattlers' Tattle”: Fake News, Linguistic National Intimacy, and New Media in Romania

This article analyzes the successful Romanian weekly satire show Cronica Cârcotaşilor (The Tattlers' Tattle) in the context of the televisual landscape of postsocialist Romania. I argue that given the widespread skepticism toward the unfulfilled promises of the post-socialist transition and the European Union (EU) accession, the show's ability to curb Romanians' disaffection from politics is remarkable. Positioning Romanians as active television viewers and gatekeepers against practices of manipulation and incorrect uses of the Romanian language, the show fosters discursive contestation and activates a desire for political engagement. My discussion introduces the notion of “national linguistic intimacy” to evoke how the show strives to naturalize the affective ties with the national community by reusing the flavor of Romanian comedic and satirical literature and encouraging language play.

The eye of the storm

The claim to be a profession traditionally assumes the need for a University level qualification. In a previously unregulated area of practice, the development of a professional qualification is thus central to the professionalisation process. In Scotland, the development of a Teaching Qualification for Adult Literacies practitioners became the focal point for the tensions in the broader professionalisation project and a site of discursive contestation in an emergent field of practice. This paper explores the play of power and resistance, drawing primarily on two separate but related research studies– a policy analysis and an exploration of practitioners' conceptualisations of practice. Whilst the first study explicitly used the methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 2003) and the second, Personal Construct Theory (Kelly, 1955), they are connected by their postmodern focus on language use and an interest in how practitioners are managed by and, in turn, manage and mediate managerial and professional forms of power; both aimed to examine 'how discourse figures in the processes of change' (Fairclough, 2003, p. 205). Brought into relationship with one another in the context of the nexus of power relations formed by the development of the new qualification, they illuminate the multiple 'projects' competing discursively in the space.

War on Terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan: discursive and political contestations

This paper discusses the differences in the liberal secularist and the Islamists' discourses related to the ‘War on Terror’. These views are crystallised around a number of issues and their understanding of these differentiates them from each other. These issues include attitudes towards the nature of the Pakistani and Afghan states and the place of religion in these; attitudes towards the West in general and the US in particular, and the support for and criticism of the War on Terror carried out in the name of freedom, democracy and modernity. The hegemonic discourses of the liberals and secularists and counter-hegemonic discourses of the Islamists indicate an ideological and strategic polarisation, as reflected in the condemnation of, or support for, Islamism and armed resistance by militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Gender Variance in Asia

A recent court case in Indonesia in which a person diagnosed with an intersex condition was classified as a transsexual gives rise to a reflection on three discourses in which gender variance is discussed: the biomedical, the cultural, and the human rights discourse. This article discusses the implications of these discourses. In the biomedical discourse, sex and gender are essentialized. The cultural discourse focuses on the different views on sex and gender in various historical and sociopolitical contexts. The human rights discourse posits the universality of human and sexual rights for all. The discursive contestations between biomedical and conservative religious and political leaders, on the one hand, and feminists, gay, and lesbian rights activists and human rights defenders, on the other hand, center around the definition of what is “normal” gender, a “normally” sexed body, and “normal” sex. In this process, gender and other forms of pluralism are under threat. The consequences are an urge to define and categorize that which used to be diffuse, liminal, and at times sacred, the medicalization of those persons with atypical genitalia and the stigmatization of those who insist on an in-between space, who don’t accept the binary sex-gender model. I argue that the human rights discourse supported by the cultural discourse offers the most promising route toward the acceptance of gender and sexual pluralism.1

The Emergence of the Siamese Public Sphere: Colonial Modernity, Print Culture and the Practice of Criticism (1860s–1910s)

The Siamese public sphere emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century from a series of historical events – the advent of print technology, the signing of new trade treaties and the agreements on extraterritoriality between Siam and several colonial powers, beginning with the British in 1855. This critical development generated a drastic transformation in Siam's mode of textual production, dissemination and consumption. Newspapers, journals and printed books were produced for the first time, and with them came new kinds of knowledge, forms of entertainment and spaces for discursive contestation. These changes inevitably challenged the Siamese ruling elite's ability to control political discourse and literary production, along with their essential cultural authority. Since these new spaces and practices could not be prohibited or closed down by traditional means of law and order such as the exercise of raw power, the Siamese elite responded to the challenges by resorting to various strategies: proclamations, financial subsidies to and buyouts of critical newspapers, the enactment of press laws and participating in the public sphere themselves. Members of the elite thus came to play the role of publishers as well as of political and literary critics. In this respect they became, however influential, only one discursive force among others in the new space.

The role of the Asia Pacific Partnership in discursive contestation of the international climate regime

After withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, the US Bush Administration and the Australian Howard Government pursued an international climate change policy focussed on voluntary international agreements outside the UN climate negotiations. This strategy included the formation of several climate agreements directed at technology development, including the 2005 Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP). The APP provides a model for international climate change policy directed at voluntary national greenhouse gas intensity targets, technology development through sectoral public–private partnerships and technology diffusion through trade. This article situates the APP within these US and Australian inspired climate agreements formed outside the UN negotiations. Backstrand and Lovbrand’s (in M. Pettenger (ed.) The social construction of climate change: power knowledge norms discourses, 2007) discourse analysis in relation to the international climate negotiations is used to explore differences between the APP and UN climate treaties. We find the APP embodies a discourse of what we call ‘deregulatory ecological modernisation’ that promotes limited public funding to ease informational failures in markets for cleaner technologies and management practices. The deregulatory ecological modernisation discourse is a deeply intensive market liberal approach to international climate change policy, which contests binding emission reduction targets and the development of a global carbon market. The USA, Australia, Japan and Canada represented a core group of countries that used the APP to promote the deregulatory ecological modernisation discourse and thereby contest any deepening of developed nations' emission reduction targets for the post-2012 period. However, with changes of leadership and new parties in power in the USA and Australia, it appears that the deregulatory ecological modernisation discourse has lost ground compared to a reengagement with discourses supportive of developed country emission reduction targets and equity-based adaptation and technology transfer assistance for developing nations.

EUの持続性戦略と欧州統合の行方

The EU Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS) was launched in the 2001 Goteborg European Council. Its purpose is to establish the general policy framework that incorporates three pillars such as economic prosperity, social equity and environmental protection. In addition, its strategy has been managed in line with open method of coordination. The paper examines the EU SDS from two viewpoints: governance modes and policy discourses. In so doing, the paper suggests a research strategy that reconsiders the meanings of European integration from studies of policy development of individual fields in comparative perspective. The paper first takes a general view of the evolutionary process of EU environmental policies, and by emphasising the legislation-oriented policy development on the basis of Articles 2, 100 and 235 EEC in the 1970s to 90s, the paper demonstrates that the 2001 EU SDS opened a new stage of the evolutionary process. Second, the paper examines the governance mode of EU SDS that can be characterized essentially as open method of coordination, paying attention to three aspects of EU SDS: voluntary national actions, stakeholder consultation prosesses and non-legislative instruments. On these considerations, the paper points out the democratic problems of open method of coordination, which may weaken the political power of the European Parliament as well as the critical function of civil society organisations. On this basis, the paper suggests potential democratic problems emerging in the evolutionary process of EU environmental policies. Third, the paper considers the policy discourse of EU SDS, which ambiguously constructs the general view of a promised land of EU citizens that should be brought about by the EU. At the same time, the paper also finds discursive contestation between neo-liberalist and social democrat tendencies around the meanings of the concept of sustainable development in EU SDS, and then points out the dominance of a neo-liberatist discourse against a social democratic one. In concluding remarks, the paper suggests a comparative research scheme to investigate governance modes and policy discourses among individual policy fields, so that we can reflect on the possible way forward of European integration if the Community method has been withdrawn and open method of coordination together with neo-liberalist discourses has gained ground.

Paradigms in South African cinema research: Modernity, the New Africa Movement and beyond

The history of theoretical approaches about South African cinema is discussed from the turn of the twentieth century period of the New Africa Movement, through various other theoretical moments, up to the early 1990s. These include conservative cultural theory, liberal humanism, workerist, Althusserian and Gramscian Marxisms. The discussion examines theoretical interventions either promoting or opposing modernity in the work of Thelma Gutsche, Hans Rompel, John Grierson and various Afrikaner cultural organisations during the first half of the twentieth century. Post-1970s cinema theory is critically examined in relation to discursive contestation occurring within both academia and the industry.

Book Review

Book Review

The Internet as public sphere or culture industry? From pessimism to hope and back

The vision of communication systems supporting public sphere(s) of discursive contestation has in recent times been embraced by many critical theorists as the ideal democratic role for the media. However, there has also been much pessimism about the realization of this vision. This pessimism extends from ‘big brother’ fears to hyperrealist scenarios - from the development of a global surveillance society to the implosion of reality in an electronically generated and sustained system of pure fabrication.