Ideological Debate Research Articles

Between the right-wing and the left-wing: the retelling of the Polish systemic transition as a discursive and ideological practice

ABSTRACT In Polish social sciences, after 1989, the interest in ideology has been gradually replaced with research on discursive forms of power. The reception of Foucauldian governmentality studies has resulted in a shift from the Weberian concept of power to understanding power in terms of a practical technology of governing people through symbolic forces of discourse. However, after the 2015 victory of right-wing parties in presidential and parliamentary elections in Poland and the emergence of the second illiberal democracy in the European Union, we witness a revival of the question of ideology as a material-practical tool for shaping people’s sentiments. In recent years, the assessment of the Polish systemic transition which started thirty years ago has been the subject of heated ideological debates. The Polish transformation has been retold and its leadership and outcomes re-evaluated from different standpoints. The comparative analysis of public statements that give contradictory assessments of the Polish transition presented in this article examines the relationship between discursive and ideological practices, and the possible linkages between post-Foucauldian analysis and the critique of ideology.

Slavery and the Making of Early American Libraries: British Literature, Political Thought, and the Transatlantic Book Trade, 1731–1814

Slavery and the Making of Early American Libraries: British Literature, Political Thought, and the Transatlantic Book Trade, 1731–1814

The Making of Empire

The British constitution has always been an imperial constitution. To deny that this is a common, if mistaken, position in the civil war over its true nature. The institutional structure and ideological discourse of the British constitution always extended beyond the pale of England and the English people. This chapter will make two parallel arguments in support of its claim that the British constitution was always an imperial constitution. First, the British constituted themselves and their empire through institutions of government sustained by a single system of law. The reconstitution of any part of the empire necessarily altered the British constitution in England-often imperceptibly, though at times radically. Second, the British and their subjects constantly argued over the nature of their common constitution: its past, present and future. This global constitutional discourse connected metropole to colony in a complicated network of ideological debate as civil war set off in the seventeenth century grew into an increasingly global contest that shaped the ideological and institutional evolution of England’s expansion into the British empire.

Neoliberal discourse, actor power, and the politics of nutrition policy: A qualitative analysis of informal challenges to nutrition labelling regulations at the World Trade Organization, 2007-2019.

Unhealthy diets are increasing contributors to poor health and mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Government interventions targeting the structural drivers of unhealthy diets are needed to prevent these illnesses, including nutrition labelling regulations that create healthier food environments. Yet, implementation remains slow and uneven. One explanation for slow implementation highlights the role of politics, including powerful ideological discourse and its strategic deployment by economically powerful actors. In this article, we advance research on the politics of nutrition policies by analysing political discourse on nutrition labelling regulations within an influential and under-studied global institution: the World Trade Organization (WTO). We identified WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee meeting minutes with reference to nutrition labelling policies proposed by Thailand, Chile, Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Uruguay (2007-2019; n=47). We analysed the frames, narratives, and normative claims that feature in inter-country discourse within TBT meetings and examined how actors mobilize ideological and material sources of power via these statements. We find that informal government challenges to nutrition labelling proposals within the Committee featured a narrative that individualized the causes of and solutions to poor diet, downplayed harms from industrialised food products, and framed state regulation as harmful and unjust. These non-technical claims mobilised neoliberal ideology and rhetoric to contest the normative legitimacy of members' proposals and to de-socialize and de-politicize poor diets. Furthermore, high-income countries (HICs) re-framed policy goals to focus on individual determinants of poor nutrition whilst calling for their preferred policies to be adopted. Patterns of discourse within TBT meetings also had striking similarities with arguments raised by multi-national food corporations elsewhere. Our findings suggest that non-technical and ideological arguments raised during TBT meetings serve as inconspicuous tools through which nutrition labelling policies in LMICs are undermined by HICs, industry, and the powerful ideology of neoliberalism.

Ladin, varieties of Val di Fassa

Ladin (ISO 639-3: lld) is a Romance language spoken in the Italian Central-Eastern Alps by a community of about 30,000 speakers (Dell’Aquila 2010). The classification of Ladin within Western Romance has been the subject of a long-lasting scientific and at times ideological debate, particularly because at the end of the 19th century the region was contested between the new-born Italian state and the Habsburg empire. The varieties of Ladin share phonetic-phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical features with the other languages spoken in the Central-Eastern Alps, such as Friulian and Romansh, thus leading to the identification of the Rhaeto-Romance group (Haiman & Benincà 1992). However, in Ladin there are still many linguistic phenomena that connect it to the Romance dialects of Northern Italy. Therefore, a clear assignment of Ladin to a group is by no means a simple and uncontroversial operation (Salvi 2016).

A Play Between Fiction and Non-fiction: Retelling a Story of Exile and Disappearance inMissing (una investigación)(2009) by Alberto Fuguet

This article explores the way in which Missing (una investigación) plays with the limits between fiction and non-fiction in dealing with two of the most prominent issues of the politico-historical Chilean context of the twentieth century: exile and disappearance. It does so through a close reading of the novel’s narrative form and its relationship to the context that the novel addresses. It attempts to demonstrate that, despite its setting outside Chile and an author who is apparently not interested in ideological debates, the novel is charged with local Chilean socio-political issues inherited from the second half of the twentieth century and presents us with an alternative approach to those issues, as well a problematic reading of them.

Prensa y los españoles separatistas en los albores de la guerra independentista de Cuba

Este artículo tematiza sobre el papel de la prensa durante la lucha independentista cubana, en relación a la participación de españoles en la contienda a favor de la emancipación de Cuba. La fuente principal de este estudio es el periódico Patria fundado por José Martí, al que consideramos principal exponente de la prensa cubana revolucionaria en tiempos de preparación de la guerra anticolonial. El objetivo específico consiste en analizar el discurso que el medio dirige particularmente a la comunidad hispana, observando los modos de interpelación y argumentos discursivos que desarrolla para convencer a los propios españoles de apoyar la independencia de la Gran Antilla y su separación de España. Al mismo tiempo, se plantea un diálogo imaginario, un debate periodístico e ideológico, entre Patria (prensa revolucionaria) y la prensa peninsular oficial (liberal-conservadora), que, a través de argumentos contrarios, también se disputaba la participación de la comunidad ibérica en la guerra de Cuba. El recorte temporal que se selecciona (1892-1895) se ancla en los años inmediatamente anteriores al estallido de la denominada Guerra Necesaria (1895-1898), etapa vital de adoctrinamiento y organización de la revolución, que a su vez coincide con el período en que Martí dirige el periódico, hasta su muerte en batalla.

Chineseness, Taiwaneseness, and the traditional and simplified Chinese scripts:Tourism, identity, and linguistic commodification

This study investigates a language ideological debate concerning the adoption of simplified Chinese script—the norm in China—at tourist spots in Taiwan, where traditional Chinese script is the norm, after Taiwan opened up its market to Chinese independent travelers in 2011. With discourse data from the government, media, hosts, and Chinese travelers, we explore how the scripts are associated with various meanings and how the debate is interwoven with the contestation of Taiwanese identity. Multiple levels of tension are identified, including those between the symbolic and instrumental values of the scripts and between Taiwan's national identity and marketing considerations. We conclude that discourses concerning the two Chinese scripts serve as a discursive space where ‘Taiwaneseness’ and ‘Chineseness’ are variously constructed and negotiated along two main axes of differentiation.

Debating Capital and Ideology: An introduction to the special issue.

Debating Capital and Ideology: An introduction to the special issue.

Economics and Emotion: The Ideological Debate Over Prairie Grain Marketing, 1973–1996

In 1943, the federal government proclaimed the Canadian Wheat Board the exclusive marketing agent for Prairie farmers' grain. Prairie farmers and politicians from all parties strongly supported this action. Yet by 1993, the question of how best to market grain, cooperatively through the single desk or individually in a private market, increasingly divided the Prairie agrarian community. The 1973 rapeseed marketing vote, the continental barley market, and the 1996 border-running protests against the Wheat Board's cooperative single-desk marketing show the rise in the rhetoric of individual freedom in grain marketing that divided Prairie farmers. These events demonstrate how the grain-marketing debate shifted from focusing on economic policy to ideological values.

Człowiek-zbiorowy pospolitej rzeczy. Norwid a społeczeństwo obywatelskie

Burze intelektualne i polityczne, jakie towarzyszyły krystalizacji idei obywatelskiej w wieku XIX i XX widoczne są nie tylko w Europie, szczególnie Zachodniej, ale również w Ameryce Północnej i Środkowej, a z czasem – na całym globie. Intensywne poszukiwanie „ideału obywatelstwa” widać przede wszystkim w społecznościach dawnej Rzeczpospolitej, której ostateczny upadek pod koniec wieku XVIII i kolejne fazy coraz głębszej destrukcji nie tylko nie oznaczały zaniku tradycji republikańskiej, ale wręcz wzmogły autentyczną dysputę nad drogami do nowoczesnego społeczeństwa w przyszłym, niepodległym państwie. Przodowały w tym zasadniczym dialogu głosy reprezentantów ziemiaństwa i wyłaniającej się w ciągu XIX w. klasy („stanu”) inteligencji, nowej formacji społecznej, niemającej właściwie adekwatnej analogii w innych krajach. Z czasem do tego dialogu o przyszłej Polsce włączyli się również nieliczni przedstawiciele innych klas. Jakie znaczenia zawiera wyrażenie „społeczeństwo obywatelskie”? Dziś jest ono dość „naturalnie” obecne w języku publicystów i polityków różnych „odcieni”, ale w czasach Norwida w zasadzie nie było używane, choć sama „idea” zorganizowania życia zbiorowego na fundamencie „obywatelstwa” ma rodowód wręcz odwieczny. Artykuł jest próbą opisu myśli obywatelskiej Norwida głównie poprzez analizę jego wypowiedzi dyskursywnych, głównie publicystycznych. Norwid zdecydowanie przeciwstawił się doktrynerskiemu wynoszeniu „ludzkości”, którą nazywał „świętą abstrakcją”, ponad „naród” i „Kościół”, poprzez które jednostka może realnie uczestniczyć w „pracy dziejów”. Inne pole walki o Norwida o dopracowanie się jasnych kategorii obywatelskich stanowiły ówczesne, liczne wizje powszechnego szczęścia ludzkości i/lub apokaliptycznego jej schyłku. W tych polemikach z utopiami ostatecznego „wypełnienia się dziejów” słychać wyraźnie echa sporów ideologicznych epoki, a szczególnie tych mistyczno-politycznych wizji, w których różnych odmian „prorocy” formułowali finalne perspektywy rozwoju bieżących wypadków dziejowych, których podmiotem jest „ludzkość”, powstała w miejscu dotychczasowych „narodów” kończących właśnie swą „misję” historyczną; tak m.in. dostało się Mickiewiczowskiemu Składowi zasad – czyli manifestowi rewolucyjnych przekształceń praw obywatelskich, odziedziczonych po francuskiej Deklaracji Praw Człowieka i Obywatela; w liście do Józefa Bohdana Zaleskiego z 24 kwietnia 1848 r. dał Norwid wyraz swemu oburzeniu na większość tez zawartych w Składzie, które według niego podważają tradycyjne wartości, takie jak „ojczyzna”, „własność”, „ród”, „naród” i in.

Raymond Aron, Friedrich Hayek, and "The Third World": An Alternative History of the End of Ideology Debate

Raymond Aron, Friedrich Hayek, and "The Third World": An Alternative History of the End of Ideology Debate

Raymond Aron, Friedrich Hayek, and “The Third World”: An Alternative History of the End of Ideology Debate

Raymond Aron, Friedrich Hayek, and “The Third World”: An Alternative History of the End of Ideology Debate

Fantasmas del Pasado en la Política de Identidad Contemporánea: Moctezuma II y Cristóbal Colón

El siglo XXI ha visto un gran aumento en la política de identidad. Europa y las Américas han enfrentado a movimientos revisionistas de sus historias. En el caso de España, el gobierno socialista de Pedro Sánchez ha impulsado legislación para reinterpretar el periodo de la post-guerra. En el caso de México, la administración de López Obrador ha reabierto viejas heridas al solicitar disculpas formales al Rey de España y al Papa por la conquista de México. Este ensayo exploratorio trata sobre un aspecto poco estudiado de este debate ideológico sobre la identidad cultural, el rol de los descendientes de figuras históricas en la política de identidad contemporánea. Hay un cierto elemento de actuación de la historia en las palabras y acciones de los descendientes de Moctezuma II y de Cristóbal Colon los cuales en muchos casos se asemejan a los ritos Aztecas de antaño en los que llevaba a cabo la posesión momentánea de sus personas por el espíritu de sus ancestros.

Social Entrepreneurship in Pakistan: Challenges and Prospects

Social Entrepreneurship (SE) benefits the society by helping to achieve social and economic goals. SE is receiving scholarly attention around the globe but its development is still moderate in Pakistan. Despite the growing trend, the dominant focus of scholars remains the ideological debate about the meaning and definition of SE. Such an approach inhibits the exploration of its other facets. Casting the gap in literature, this paper aims to find out the challenges and prospects that social entrepreneurs face in their journey, specifically in Pakistan. Keeping in view the emerging importance of this sector, this study discusses the findings of 14 in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with leading social entrepreneurs, practitioners and academicians related to the field to understand the phenomenon at hand. Drawing upon the findings of the study, useful insights have been put forth as its theoretical contribution. Moreover, local and national government can benefit from the findings to enhance consciousness regarding the fourth sector of the economy, eventually augmenting the available social capital.

“Very Nearly an Armful!”: British Post-War Comedy and the NHS

While much has been written on post war British film and television comedy, there has been no critical focus on one of its key sub-genres – the medical comedy. This article aims to fill (at least some) of the gap in this scholarship. It chooses to focus on how several key medical comedies engaged the politics and ideological tensions of the fledgling National Health Service from the late 1950s to the 1980s. It will focus on the microcosmic representation of medical architectures and environments and consider how they provide spaces for political and ideological debate.

Sektor obywatelski i obywatelscy aktywiści w czasach „dobrej zmiany”. Dyskusje – napięcia – konflikty

Changes that occurred in Poland between 2015 and 2019 have not spared the civil society, here understood broadly as NGOs, activist groups, independent academic organisations and minority communities. This paper is an attempt at reconstructing key ideological arguments that took place within it during that time, as well as their significance and effects on particular organisations both internally and in relation with other participants in the civil society. Also investigated are divisions that arose and their potential consequences in the future. The analysis is based on research by Magdalena Arczewska and Magdalena Dudkiewicz and published as Strategie czy przystosowanie? Sytuacja organizacji pozarządowych w Polsce po 2015 [Strategies or Adaptation? The Situation of Non-governmental Organizations in Poland after 2015] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Impuls, 2019).

Energy poverty in the Czech Republic: Individual responsibility or structural issue?

Although energy poverty is now high on the EU agenda, pressing member states to adopt targeted policies, there are considerable differences in the state of play across individual countries. In this context, it is worth investigating how this agenda translates into policy. We aim to contribute to this underrepresented strand of research in the energy poverty domain by focusing on the discursive side. This paper starts with the theoretical assumption that bureaucrats are especially important in the initial stages of new policy formation. It further presupposes framing as a process that typically occurs in tackling the complex reality of an emerging policy problem. We have chosen the Czech Republic as a case study as it does not currently have any official energy poverty policies though a working group on the ministerial level has been tasked to define the issue in the Czech context. The research reveals how relevant Czech bureaucrats frame the question of energy poverty. We identify three distinctive frames. Whereas two frames follow the broader ideological debate on poverty (individualizing vs. structural view), the third builds on the concept of vulnerability. None of the frames is clearly predominant. Besides their conflicting views about the causes of energy poverty, responsibilities and policies, there are also disagreements over the appropriate level (national or regional) of governance and a widely held belief that external research actors should shed more light on the issue. The complexity of the discussion may complicate finding a common approach.

STATE AND CORPORATION IN AMERICAN POPULIST POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, 1877–1902

AbstractThis article examines the political theory of the late nineteenth-century American Populist movement, with a particular focus on its theories of state and corporation. Recent scholarship on populism has tended to present the phenomenon as a variant of direct democracy intrinsically opposed to intermediary bodies, a feature consistently traced back to American Populism as well. In this account, American Populists opposed new discourses of corporate personhood and free incorporation in the late nineteenth century owing to their tendency to distort natural bonds between peoples and leaders and to disperse the popular will. This article questions the tenability of this opposition through a close contextual engagement with original Populist texts. As the first self-declared ‘populist’ movement in modern history, Populists theorized about the usage of corporate personality for their own co-operatives and put forward ambitious visions of American statecraft, breaking with the proprietary individualism that characterized Jeffersonian agrarianism before. The article focuses on two particular genres of Populist thinking: first, their advocacy of the corporate form for their co-operative farm organizing and, secondly, a specifically statutory vision of state reform. It concludes with reflections on how these findings destabilize assumptions governing the current populism debate in political theory and American historiography.

The Fluid Geography of Rubbish: An Analysis of the Patras Refugee Camp (1999–2009)

The city of Patras, Greece, is a major station of contemporary refugee routes from Asia to Europe. Consequently, the city port frequently becomes a battleground between police and refugees trying to board the ships to Italy. Between 1999 and 2009, in a seaside area of the city, a large makeshift camp (of ~4000 inhabitants) was created by the refugees. Τhis small ‘town’ had a square, streets and even a ‘mosque’. The building materials were found in waste from all over the city.With the garbage of the city being the only source of materials for the refugees, (both for building and eating), a social debate started in the local media. Is it legal or illegal for rubbish to be used in this way? To whom does the garbage ‘belong’? Are the refugees ‘waste people’? Should the police organize a “clean sweep” operation to pick them up?Ιn this work, we analyze the geographical origin and spread of the waste sources to the camp. Through photographic analysis and geographic documentation, we identify the main categories of garbage used in the refugee camp. Furthermore, we attempt to analyze the public ideological debate on the concept of ‘waste’. Ιn 2009, an arson burned down the refugee camp and the ruins were removed as rubbish. However, before the camp was destroyed, the concept of waste in the public debate had been extended in such a way that even some people, the refugees, were included.