Discursive Foundations Research Articles

Iraq's Authoritarian Democracies: A Conceptual Framework through Tawfiq al-Suwaydi's Political Memoirs

Abstract Political memoirs have been typically utilized for their historical reference, neglecting the wide array of conceptualizations of the political sphere and the state that politicians' narratives represent. Critical discourse analysis methodologies, by focusing on perceptions and interpretations of discourse, provide the tools to uncover these conceptualizations of elites and those that represent the state. This is particularly important in states like Iraq, which struggle against hybridity, where the democratic system is actioned through authoritarianist tendencies that define the political sphere. This manipulation of an otherwise democratic structure requires an analysis of the conceptual framework that informs the manipulation. The political memoirs of Tawfiq al-Suwaydi, an Iraqi PM on multiple occasions throughout the Monarchy Era, cover significantly more than identity construction, confirmation of historical narratives, and his defenses. The discursive foundation of the state and the way it is actioned against a democratic system is qualified throughout his writing. In his narration, we will see a significant outpour of fundamentally authoritarian views of rule rooted in efficiency through domination and absolute control. Meanwhile, the democratic system was conceptualized as serving the purpose of appeasing an otherwise inconsolable people. This article highlights the way memoirs of political elites, through the justificatory and analytical language, are gateways to understanding the perceptions of rule upon which their mode of operation, and so the foundation of hybridity, is based. This aims to further illuminate oppressive continuities within the Iraqi political sphere as we have seen a return to a similar form of hybridity post-2003.

Interdependent Formation of Symbolic and Regulatory Boundaries: The Discursive Contestation Around the Home-Sharing Category

The formation of boundaries between established and emergent categories is a complex social process. Therein, our understanding of how symbolic boundaries translate into regulatory boundaries is underdeveloped. Extant research either treats laws and regulations for categories as given or assumes a seamless translation of a symbolic into a regulatory boundary. This sidelines that market participants actively contest and shape boundaries between categories. To address this lacuna, we open the black box of how symbolic boundaries are translated into regulatory boundaries. We adopt a discursive perspective and conduct a longitudinal study of the contestation around the categories of home sharing and short-term rental in Europe. Our analysis shows how symbolic and regulatory boundaries are formed in a causal sequential process, driven by shifts in the field positioning of market actors and in the discursive accounts they mobilize. We develop a theoretical model of the discursive foundation of category boundary formation. At the heart of our theorization are discursive accounts and how shifting coalitions of market participants mobilize them to shape the evolving symbolic and regulatory boundaries between an emergent and an established category. We contribute to category research by unearthing the interdependent formation of symbolic and regulatory boundaries and the role of discursive accounts in these processes.

Narrative alliances: the discursive foundations of international order

Abstract Alliances are generally understood as groupings of states that combine to aggregate their physical capabilities against security threats. In this article we suggest transposing this well-established terminology of inter-state allegiance to the dimension of narrative. Focusing on the example of the ‘rules-based order’ (RBO), we provide a new conceptual entry point for understanding the complex relationship between order and discourse at the international level. Specifically, we examine how countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India and Japan—with varying degrees of consistency and coherence—go beyond merely proclaiming the existence of an established international system of cooperation, commitments and norms. They collectively tell a political story of the rules-based order—including its age, nature, purpose and sources of vulnerability—that rests on declaring some codes of conduct acceptable and appropriate while denouncing others as deviant. We argue that rallying behind a shared vision of international organization demarcates the boundaries of international legitimacy and establishes imperatives to act in defence of particular visions of international organization.

Visualising insecurity: the globalisation of China’s racist ‘counter-terror’ education

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the Chinese party-state’s production of visual racism towards Uyghurs as a discursive foundation for its ethnic policy, as globally reproduced and disseminated by non-state actors. The paper draws from theoretical literature on the relationship between visual politics and affect, stressing the need for visual literacy to reflect on how images emotionally affect audiences’ identities and insecurities. It focuses this analysis on education texts in China’s post-2012 ‘de-extremification’ and ‘re-education’ campaigns, specifically on how images tell stories about life-or-death security issues that define Chinese identity. Chinese education about Uyghurs tends to frame Uyghur identities as racialised, culturally external existential threats to be defeated by state violence or teaching them to be Chinese. However, Uyghurs’ own visibility strategies in global advocacy counter the party-state’s imagery by centring their lives and experiences. The article shows how these strategies can be used as resources for teaching about Chinese politics and society.

A legacy of ‘propagandist action’: Robert Owen, the paradox of working-class pedagogy, and the making of Britain’s co-operative movement

What’s the secret of British co-operation’s success? This essay argues that one answer to that question is: adult education. Drawing from cultural hegemony theory and historical literature, it shows that Robert Owen’s revolutionary philosophy of education fired many campaigns and institutional innovations: to dispel “false beliefs”; propagate a “rational social system”; and advance collective aspirations for “self-improvement”. Both an educational visionary and social reformer, Owen’s passion for “propagandist action” thus laid unique discursive foundations for Owenist-socialism’s enduring legacy of popular education. It also drove British co-operation’s emergent counter-hegemony to the investor-owned firm through three overlapping waves: early Owenism’s founding-prophetic tradition, which subordinated co-operative shops to “villages of co-operation”; the local-democratic pedagogy that subsequently emerged around those shops; and the movement-spanning professionalism that defines Britain’s contemporary educational institutions. Accounting for this sustained tradition of educational activism thus helps explain British co-operation’s durability. For example, its robust and wide-ranging present-day educational innovations such as the Co-operative College, Co-operative News, or the Co-operative Party are artefacts of this distinctive legacy. Lessons from the British experience thus illustrate the potential to build on adult education’s evolving promise, with significant conceptual and strategic implications beyond British shores.

Рецензия на коллективную монографию «Дискурсивные основания речеведения: научный текст — новое знание — перевод»

A review of the collective monograph “Discursive foundations of speech production: scientific text – new knowledge – translation” under the general editorship of M.P. Kotyurova (Perm: PSNIU, 2023. 300 p.) is presented. Two scientific directions are investigated — stylistics of scientific text and speech studies. This gives an opportunity to study the significance of the influence of extra-linguistic factors on text formation. An experimental study is described strategies of translation of a scientific text, which aims to create a portrait of the translator as a “linguocultural and functional-speech phenomenon”.

Discourse as a carrier of history: wine tourism in the Negev and its evolution

ABSTRACT The literature on spatial evolution has taken a high interest in structure-agency dynamics, but how long-term discourse interacts with these dynamics in shaping new paths still lacks a systematic understanding. To advance such an understanding, this article draws on the agency, structure, institutions and discourse (ASID) framework and refocuses it on spatial evolution. By doing so, the article aims at elucidating the discursive aspects of evolutionary spatial processes and highlights in particular the role of abstract macro-level discourses and concrete imaginaries as long-term discursive foundations of spatial evolution. In this way, discourse acts as a carrier of long-term historical roots and associations. By considering the historical rootedness of the discursive foundations of paths, the framework contributes to giving history a stronger role in evolutionary economic geography. We apply this analytical framework to wine tourism in Israel’s Negev and focus particularly on the historically rooted imaginaries that underpin the development of this path.

The European Union in the Russian State Duma Debates, 1994–2004

Although the European Union (EU) was occasionally presented in a positive light in the lower house of the Russian parliament (the State Duma) in 1994–2004, there were also numerous criticisms of the EU and the “European community” in a broader sense. The discussions were accompanied by vocally articulated anxieties by those factions that were oppositional to the President and the Government but had a strong foothold in the parliament, such as the conservative Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), the rightwing populist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), and the rightwing Rodina (“Motherland”) Party and its predecessors. These anxieties pertained to Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states as the spaces of contestation between Russia and the EU. The projects of (re)building the Russian (Soviet) imperial formation on the basis of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) or the Union State (of Russia and Belarus) were presented as alternatives to Western European integration based on the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The anti-EU rhetoric in the Duma, which came hand in hand with the denunciation of NATO, provided a discursive foundation for the eventual shift of the President’s and the Government’spolicy. The members of United Russia, the Government’s party without a clear ideology that won a constitutional majority in 2003, adopted elements of conservative and rightwing rhetoric of the formal opposition in 2004. This happened in the context of the EU enlargement when the issues of the accessibility of the Kaliningrad Region and the rights of the Russian speakers in Latvia and Estonia were discussed in the parliament. Later the same year, the start of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine became a further impetus for the Duma’s anti-EU discourse, a discourse that would soon become mainstream in Russian politics.

HUMAN RIGHTS´ PHILOSOPHY: UNIVERSALISM AND CULTURAL LOCALISM

The research analyzes the clash between universalism and cultural localisms, aiming to carry out an epistemological analysis of the discursive foundation of human rights. We problematize the existence of an apparent dichotomy between universalism and cultural localism. Methodologically, it uses discourse analysis, with an emphasis on deconstructivism. At the discursive level, the research points there is no contrast between universal human rights and different cultural localism. Understanding human rights as a universalized Western culturalism, there is no opposition between them and other cultural localism that contribute to different dimensions of dignity. The research contributes to the field by presenting the discursive element of universal human rights, manifesting its philosophical foundations.

Neoliberalism or Else: The Discursive Foundations of Neoliberal Populism in the Czech Republic

This article examines the linkage of markets and democracy in the post-1989 Czech transition as a neoliberal populist discourse that delegitimized alternatives to the market as a return to authoritarianism. Using Laclau’s concept of equivalential linkages, I analyze Václav Klaus’ texts surrounding the voucher privatization program to determine how he formulated this linkage and communicated it to the public. Framing markets as natural, essential, and fundamentally Czech, Klaus constructed the people as a virtuous community of market individuals while othering those who opposed markets as communist holdouts and elitists. Klaus further legitimized marketization through identification with international neoliberal projects and thinkers. Through his moralized and dichotomized discourse, Klaus communicated to the public that there could be no freedom without markets, nor markets without freedom: a circular formulation that continues to influence Central and Eastern European political economy.

Neoliberal multiculturalism in Dallas: The discursive foundations of diversity-led gentrification in an aspiring U.S. global city

This article investigates the relationship between neoliberal multiculturalism and gentrification using a case study of the forthcoming Dallas International District. Informed by a conceptual framework considering neoliberal urbanism, the (aspiring) global city, and racial–ethnic identity, this article attempts to reveal the dominant discourses that lay the foundation for gentrification in the Dallas International District, an urban renewal project planned to be built atop a former freedmen's town. Rather than investigating gentrification after it has taken root in a specific location, this work investigates the discursive foundations of gentrification before it takes hold. This is accomplished through a discourse analysis of interviews with Dallas public officials, developers, and community members, as well as web sources. On the basis of these data, it is concluded that plans to redevelop the area foreshadow the gentrification of an existing Black and Latino population and that this planned gentrification is permeated by neoliberal discourses about multiculturalism that are entrenched in Dallas’ desires to transform itself into a global, world-class city.

Attack on identity. (Russian culture as an existential threat to Ukraine)

The article deals with the role of Russian culture in the period of the RF war against Ukraine. The history is considered as the basic structure that shapes the discursive foundation of identity. Historical narratives as well as the cultural background of imperial identity and risks of the full scale representation of Russian culture in the Ukrainian social consciousness are analyzed. The two tendencies are also comprehended — junk science foundation of geopolitical projects and devalu- ation of the historically formed senses. So the communicative action is penetrated by the strategic action bazed on the false reality fundament, this significant element of the war of the world. The vivid example of junk science is the neoeurasian ideology, that defines the strategy of Kremlin informational attack on the Ukrainian identity. Standoff between the identities takes place in the course of the imperial mobilization project development. The symbiosis of governmental authorities and artists plays the key role in its realization. The author outlines the main features of the strategic effect of penetration into the core of communicative process and the false reality building. Also the author develops the thought that the heartbreaking and impetuous change of con- tradictory narratives are the one of the fundamental resources of information war. In particular it deals with the great Russian Simulacrum as the vivid example of the instrumental reason that is in the base of the information war against Ukraine. It is also defined the historical origin of the simulacra as the instrument of the Russian special services and the role of their partners — the iconic figures of the Russian literature — in the projects of the public opinion manipulation.

Peacebuilding as a New Form of Colonialism: A Case Study of Liberia and Sierra Leone

Around two decades ago, legal anthropologist Merry posed the question, "what can we learn about law and globalization today from revisiting the law and colonization literature?" She emphasized how colonial arrangements transformed and affected the fundamental character of contemporary and international law. While peacebuilders, development experts, and human rights activists embrace law as a tool for social change, others have looked back on the history of legal development in the Global South to warn that the rule of law served as a framework for social control. It preserved authority and punished rebellious acts that threatened order while promoting development and social progress. As a result of this reminder, the critical peacebuilding literature has begun to pay attention to how the rule of law and transitional justice frameworks may serve as conceptual, lexical, and discursive foundations for post/neo-colonial control. This article used a historical, empirical, and comparative study of post-war Sierra Leone and Liberia to argue that the transplantation of legal norms and technologies has become more professionalized. In contrast, international efforts to rebuild the rule of law have reinforced social domination by legitimizing external actors as peacebuilders and reconstituting the relationship between the domestic political class and global capital. Social domination refers to the attempt to build an unequal playing field, wherein the country's political and economic elites can leverage and reproduce earlier forms of power relations and domination to consolidate their security within the state apparatus and benefit disproportionately from the security created by a large external presence.

Metaphor as a cognitive and discursive foundation: the possible dialogue between Discourse Analysis, Experiential Realism and Complex Systems

Metaphor as a cognitive and discursive foundation: the possible dialogue between Discourse Analysis, Experiential Realism and Complex Systems

The art of agitation: The nineteenth-century press activism of George Jacob Holyoake

This interdisciplinary study reconsiders nineteenth-century English newspaper editor George Jacob Holyoake’s paradoxical legacy. Drawing on Gramscian cultural hegemony theory, the study demonstrates Holyoake’s use of press activism to win liberal reforms, culturally empower the working class and articulate Owenist-socialism’s evolving counter-hegemony. In particular, it shows that his editorial agitations laid important discursive foundations for secularism, freedom of the radical press and the co-operative movement. Although Holyoake is frequently celebrated by secularists and co-operators alike for his leading role in their movements’ historic take-off, this article argues his alternative journalism decisively underwrote those campaigns. Against clerical, capitalist and repressive state power, his editorial labour thereby shaped the emergent, oppositional culture that transformed a pre-democratic Britain. Although Holyoake’s multiplex legacy has overshadowed his alternative journalism’s importance, this article thus illuminates his neglected role as an ‘organic intellectual’ of the English working class, an ‘integral journalist’ and an alternative media pioneer.

Mapping the manosphere. Categorization of reactionary masculinity discourses in digital environment

ABSTRACT The manosphere is a fragmented group of digital communities promoting misogynist discourses. The main focus of these communities is the construction of man’s identity with reactionary gender traits and roles based on the critique of feminism and its transformative influence on society, and a victimization storytelling. Various ramifications, or subcultures, can be identified within the discursive and ideological foundations that configure these channels of reactionary masculinity, especially new emerging communities labelled Red Pill, incels and PUA, which have gathered scholars’ and media attention. However, this very diversity seems to introduce some confusion, becoming a fuzzy convergence of reactionary and antifeminist statements and attitudes. Thus, this calls for a necessary systematic clarification of the characteristics they feature. With this purpose, this article examines the traits of masculine identities found in the digital manosphere subcultures, classifying them according to the discourses they promote, the philosophy of life they adopt, the organization they have, the performance they exhibit, and the type of violence they perform against women.

Re:membering Europe – the empty pedestal and the space for Black belonging

ABSTRACT Following the removal of various monuments commemorating colonial figures, this paper introduces the Empty Plinth as epitomizing postcolonial Europe’s identity crisis. As Europe negotiates new discursive foundations for an increasingly multicultural society, this paper argues for a re-membering of Europe through a materialization of Black narratives in the European memoryscape for their potential to: 1) tackle white ignorance and exclusionary nativism by uncovering Europe’s contingency upon other(ed) geographies, 2) contribute to creating/fostering a Black sense of place in European cities, and 3) addressing Europe’s identity crisis and lay new conceptual foundations for a hybrid and inclusive “Europe.”

Protecting Whiteness: Counter-Terrorism, and British Identity in the BBC’s Bodyguard

This article uses Bodyguard to trace the ways that whiteness is represented in counter-terrorism TV and so draw the links between whiteness, counter-terrorism and culture. It argues that Bodyguard offers a redemptive narrative for British whiteness that recuperates and rearticulates a British white identity after/through the War on Terror. As such it belongs to a later genre of counter-terrorism TV shows that move on from, but nonetheless still propagate, the discursive foundations of the ongoing War on Terror. This reading of Bodyguard is itself important, as popular culture is a site where much of the British population made and continues to make sense of their relationship to the UK during the War on Terror, forging often unspoken ideas about whiteness. It affords the opportunity to draw out the connections between whiteness and counter-terrorism, connections that need further scholarly attention to fully understand the complex relationships between security and race.

Assessing the discursive foundations for emissions abatement in aviation: a post-normal science primer on alternative jet fuels

Post-normal science was used to review the discursive foundations of environmental policy in aviation, and for reassessing the status, challenges and opportunities for alternative jet fuels to close the carbon loop of this hard-to-abate sector. The analysis revealed instances where data misrepresentation, information gaps and asymmetries, have precluded a comprehensive understanding of the environmental impacts of aviation beyond its ~2.4% global CO2 contribution. Problem representations embedded in sustainability policies and regulations, have historically understated the urgency to implement ambitious climate strategies worldwide for addressing these impacts. Out to 2050, discursive misrepresentations could prevent the air transport sector's from attaining its net-zero commitment while effecting: 1) higher carbon debts, ecosystem damage and welfare loss from unsustainable fuel production; 2) distortion of long-term market signals for alternative fuels with high sustainability profiles; 3) investment constraints for next-generation technologies; 4) increased sectoral reputational risk; 5) foremost, a continued dependence on fossil-derived fuels.

Vom Paradigma der Guten Form. Deutsch-deutsche Geschmackserziehung und Kontinuitätskonstruktion(en)

Beginning with the Bauhaus anniversary in 2019, new perspectives are being revealed on GDR design. This promises a revision of the German design historiography of the last decades, which was dominated by West-German perspectives. Referring to this trend in research, my essay questions the German history and historiography of design. After the Second World War, the German historiography of art followed the paradigm of the Cold War (Abstraction in the West, Socialist Realism in the East). The historiography of design followed this schema by distinguishing “socialist” from “capitalist” design. To this day, this prevents “transnational” perspectives. In contrast to this, I agree with the argument that the consolidation of the two German states occurred with reference to the (old) concept of “good form”, among other things. Even though the different discourses refer to similar objects and references, they are structured by different interpretations of the term “Good Form”, referring to the ruling ideology of the particular state. It represents a central argument in aesthetic education (Geschmackserziehung), which contained moral and political values. In 1950s West Germany, the Deutscher Werkbund, an organization which was involved in processes of institutionalization in both the political and design historical field, was the main driver of this discourse. In contrast to this, the institutionalization of design in the GDR was organized by the state. Nevertheless, distinctive parallels in the discourses in East and West suggest the lasting impact of the Werkbund. Consequently, I argue that the discursive foundations, which were laid in the 1950s at the latest, had a lasting influence on “German-German” (deutsch-deutsch) design historiography and have recently opened up a pan-German (gesamtdeutsch) perspective.