Ideology and Discourse Theory

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

This study focuses on the European Union’s (EU) discursive construction, and representation in the process of its enlargement. It problematizes the presently common tendency of doing so in ways which portray EU expansion as an expansion of Europe. At issue are thus practices conflating and equating the EU and Europe which pervade much of related academic, political and public debates and discourses, and so structure how we know of and imagine enlarging EU. Embracing post-structuralist and discourse-theoretical analytical and interpretative framework, this work points to the political character of representing the EU in this and, for that matter, any other fashion. Pursuit of this assertion necessitates a ‘step back’ from, and critical consideration of mainstream political and scholarly presuppositions concerning the Union and its enlargement in their arbitrariness. The very problematization of practices equating the EU and Europe, or of their allied ‘Europe-building’ concept of ‘European identity’, is conceivable and ‘meaningful’ only once we admit that these are not politically innocent components of an ‘objective’ grasp on ‘present’ or ‘emergent’ social realities in Europe and the EU but instead ‘merely’ value-laden interpretative possibilities biased in favour of the EU-official federalist integration project. Anticipating a divergence in conceptions and portrayals of the Union by senior EU members, elite and institutions on the one hand, and the new post-communist Member States on the other, this study examines national discursive spaces in the so-called Visegrad countries. On the basis of this extensive empirical enquiry, it reports rather distinctive understandings of the EU/European integration therein, affirming thus the suspected dissonance from the EU mainstream. They are attributed to several factors, considerations and concerns which are posited to be very likely shared more widely among post-communist member countries. The Visegrad societies’ conceptions of the EU and of its relation to Europe converge on a number of crucial points. These can be seen and interpreted as combining into a latent alternative European integration project which envisions persisting primacy of national identifications and maintenance of the current social and political organization of European space. The EU is conceived of as enlarging common political superstructure of Europe of nations and their states rather than a certain culture-bound, ‘thicker’ community of ‘post-national’ subjects of a ‘pan-European’ federal entity with centre in Brussels. The study challenges in this context the prevalent political and scholarly tendency to reduce debates on and contention over the character and future of European integration to a binary conflict between the so-called ‘Euroenthusiasts’ vs. ‘Eurosceptics’. Building on insights of Lacanian psychoanalysis as deployed by discourse theorists, it suggests that it may be precisely the suppressed democratic conflict of competing visions and projects of European integration which greatly contributes to the lacking popular identification with the process and the EU, and prompts some ‘obscene’ or more ‘excessive’ expressions of discontent with it.

Wayne Vucinic Book Prize 2007, "for the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences." 

Endorsement by Slavoj Zizek:

"Alexei Yurchak's Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More immediately seduced me by its very title with a profound philosophical implication that eternity is a historical category--things can be eternal for some time. The same spirit of paradox runs through the entire book--it renders in wonderful details the gradual disintegration of the Soviet system from within its ideological and cultural space, making visible all the hypocrisy and misery of this process. I consider Yurchak's book by far the best work about the late epoch of the Soviet Union--it is not just history, but a pleasure to read, a true work of art." (Slavoj Zizek, author of In Defense of Lost Causes)

Abstract:

Soviet socialism was based on paradoxes that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. To the people who lived in that system the collapse seemed both completely unexpected and completely unsurprising. At the moment of collapse it suddenly became obvious that Soviet life had always seemed simultaneously eternal and stagnating, vigorous and ailing, bleak and full of promise. Although these characteristics may appear mutually exclusive, in fact they were mutually constitutive. This book explores the paradoxes of Soviet life during the period of "late socialism" (1960s-1980s) through the eyes of the last Soviet generation.

The focus of this chapter will be to outline intimate privilege and why it might be important to consider this form of privileging in discussions about non-monogamy.

(This is a pre-typesetting and final copyedit draft of this paper, originally published in Understanding Non-Monogamies (2010).)

This paper analyzes the politics of bluefin tuna in Malta within the first years of EU accession (2004-9). The paper concludes that despite making certain impacts, ENGOs (environmental non-governmental organizations) were unsuccessful in creating a hegemonic formation to stop the fishing of bluefin tuna until stocks recover.

La personnalisation charismatique du pouvoir, l’emploi de la télé-politique désormais sur internet, l’antiélitisme rampant, les débats participatifs (face-à-face ou en ligne), la fièvre référendaire, les flash-mobs citoyens et populaires, la « people-isation » de l’espace publique, l’exaltation des vertus des gens ordinaires – voilà une liste trop courte des évolutions qui ont eu lieu tant en Russie qu’aux Etats-Unis, tant au Brésil qu’en Indonésie, tant en France qu’en Roumanie. Avec cette prolifération des formes alternatives d’expression collective et de communication publique, la logique populiste (ou plutôt néo-populiste) se fraye un large chemin grâce à sa flexibilité (« fourre-tout ») et à sa disponibilité de prendre les individus et, donc, le Peuple, tel qu’il est.
Dans cet essai, l’auteur offre une grille d’analyse du phénomène populiste et du passage du populisme au néo-populisme en employant une méthodologie qui relève de la théorie du discours.

If your library has access to Springer Link a full version of this book can be downloaded via: http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-40703-6 . 

This book focuses on the discursive processes that allow activists to make sense of themselves and of the modes of politics they engage in. It shows how political and metadiscursive awareness develop in tandem with a reconfiguration of one’s sense of self. The author offers an integrated pragmatic and poststructuralist perspective on self and subjectivity. He draws on Essex style discourse theory, early pragmatist philosophy, and linguistic pragmatics, arguing for a notion of discourse as a multi-dimensional practice of articulation. Demonstrating the analytical power of this perspective, he puts his approach to work in an analysis of activist discourse on integration and minority issues in Flanders, Belgium. Subjects articulate a whole range of norms, values, identities and narratives to each other when they engage in political discourse. This book offers a way to analyse the logics that structure political awareness and the associated boundaries for discursive self-interpretation.

'At a time in which notions of both politics and activism are being profoundly reshaped, Zienkowski's incisive analysis goes to the heart of what may drive such changes. Empirically delicate and theoretically astute, this is discourse analysis at its best.' - Jan Blommaert, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

'This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the discursive logics that shape self and society, as well as how to study them. It combines discourse theory and pragmatic perspectives on interaction, generating an innovative interpretive and functional heuristic for doing poststructuralist discourse analysis. As an added bonus, it provides a creative and critical contribution to discussions on the workings of ideological fantasy. Highly recommended!' - Jason Glynos, Reader, University of Essex, UK

'If you ever wondered what the world looks like through the eyes of well-informed and politically active members of disadvantaged minorities, you must read "Articulations of self and politics in activist discourse". As a discourse analysis with a truly multidisciplinary orientation, Jan Zienkowski offers unrivaled insights which, based on research in a Belgian context, have unfortunately gained relevance through recent dramatic events.' - Jef Verschueren, Professor, University of Antwerp, Belgium

This study examines the interface between symbolic violence and consensual neocolonialism in selected political Facebook posts. Using Homi Bhabha's notion of ambivalence and Pierre Bourdieu's idea of symbolic violence, the paper analyses five political Facebook posts with a view to explicating how Facebook (and the social media in general) is used to capture mutual relationships between the neocolonial ruling class and the people in contemporary Nigeria. It also draws intertextual references from Esiaba Irobi's Hangmen Also Die and Chris Anyokwu's Homecoming to underscore its argument. While acknowledging the oppressive character of the Nigerian ruling elite, the study contends that the relation between the rulers and the ruled, as depicted in the political Facebook posts, challenges the binary difference between the oppressors and the oppressed because the ruled, through their various symbolic acts, consent and conform to the ruling class' oppression and endorse their neocolonialist policies. The study identifies 'fighting on behalf of the ruling elite, acceptance/tolerance of the ruling class' misuse/abuse of power, mythologisation and undue veneration of the members of the ruling class as instances through which Facebook users depict and enable symbolic violence and consensual neocolonialism in the country. Contrary to the view that the social media posts and their users constitute a united 'revolutionary' force against the Nigerian political elite, this study shows that some social media posts (and their authors) function as ideological apparatuses which serve to perpetuate the interests of the dominant class in contemporary Nigeria. Thus, apart from leadership duplicity, the political Facebook posts show that manipulatable and compromised followership also hampers development in contemporary Nigeria.

The political theory of ideologies proposes a distinct way of conceiving of and analysing political thought, especially as it appears ‘in the wild’. Exploring the claim that there is a form or mode of thinking specific and proper to politics, and that it is the concern of the political theory of ideology, the article examines two of the leading contemporary approaches in this field: the morphological analysis of Michael Freeden and the discourse analysis associated with Ernesto Laclau. In showing how each produces a distinct object for theoretical analysis (respectively,‘the concept’ and ‘the signifier’) the case is made for constituting a third object – the political argument – the apprehension of which requires the integration of aspects of the rhetorical tradition into the political theory of ideologies. The conclusion briefly outlines some of the possible implications, for political theory and analysis more generally, of the rhetorical
conception of political thought and ideology.

The subject today seems decentered in and by language, split by the unconscious, deformed by social forces, governed by ideology, and is either seen to have succumbed to the postmodern condition or to never have existed in the first place. Neither idealist philosophies nor new materialist approaches have adequately addressed the relation between subject and materiality.
Every materialist theory of the subject depends on a conception of materiality, which can delineate the character of what the material reality that the subject is constituted in consists of. This book offers readings of the approaches of Marxism, (post-)structuralism, and material semiotics and explores the relations between materiality and the subject in each approach.

El presente artículo, expone los resultados de una investigación realizada sobre la producción discursiva del ex presidente Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, en relación con la “guerra contra el narcotráfico”. Para ello, se analizaron algunos discursos pronunciados por el ex presidente y se identificaron las estrategias ideológico-discursivas utilizadas para legitimar y justificar dicha guerra. Del mismo modo, se observaron los cambios discursivos de conformidad con el contexto social y cómo éste condicionó su evolución discursiva.
Esta investigación, muestra que los discursos emitidos por el ex Presidente Calderón, evolucionaron de conformidad con el acontecer social y el rechazo que suscitó en la opinión pública la “guerra contra el narcotráfico”. Se parte de las siguientes conjeturas: las estrategias ideológicas a las que recurre en los discursos, están condicionadas por el acontecer social, la percepción de la opinión pública así como los resultados electorales.
La propuesta metodológica se basa en los estudios realizados por Silvia Gutiérrez Vidrio para el estudio del discurso argumentativo, que recoge los planteamientos  teórico- metodológicos del lógico suizo Jean-Blaise Grize, y es complementada con las aportaciones que han hecho otros investigadores en el campo de la argumentación (por ejemplo O. Reboul, O. Ducrot), y, de manera muy especial, con las modalidades de operación de la ideología según John B. Thompson.

Many have noted how the Bush administration’s linking of Iraq to the war on terror lent a certain degree of legitimacy to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Few scholars who have noted this linkage, however, have theorised about the specific discursive mechanisms that allowed Iraq to be incorporated and normalised within the war on terror. This article utilises the theoretical framework of Ernesto Laclau to analyse how ‘Iraq’ was (re)constructed as a threat through the war on terror. The productive power of the discourses constructing ‘Iraq’ is examined in the wording of poll questions as sites of reproduction and naturalisation of the dominant understandings of Iraq and the war on terror. Rather than tools used to measure public opinion that exists independently of them, this article argues that polls are better viewed as vehicles through which foreign policy and security discourses are stabilised and naturalised.

Contemporary public discussions on graffiti are characterized by the co-existence of contradictory claims. On the one hand graffiti is described as vandalism, and on the other as an artistic movement. Michel Foucault’s discourse theory, and the concepts of discursive formation and discursive practice, are operationalized in order to frame the object of study, and the contradictory claims regarding graffiti are studied as points of diffraction.

The aim of the study is to investigate the construction of graffiti as a phenomenon dependent on diametrically opposite but also interdependent claims, as well as how and in which contexts these statements are enounced. Graffiti is thus understood as a transnational phenomenon produced by subcultural as well as institutional agents, and the thesis analyzes visual and textual material produced within both subcultural and institutional situations. The study is conducted on material from three different cultural contexts: different descriptions on the development subcultural graffiti in New York City (circa 1972–1987); the framings of the graffiti on the Berlin Wall in English-language newspapers; and the adaptation of New York’s zero tolerance of graffiti in Stockholm, during the 1990s and early 2000s.

The institutions in the studied material represent a wide array of sectors such as the police, art institutions, and public-transit companies, and they interact with graffiti from their own interests and perspectives. The claims of cultural institutions often fall within what in this thesis is referred to as a consenting discursive practice, built upon the statement ‘graffiti is art’. It is also in relation to this discursive practice that most subcultural descriptions of graffiti are produced. The claims by institutions such as the police and public-transportation companies are almost exclusively found in the interdependent, rejecting discursive practice, built upon the statement ‘graffiti is a crime’.

Abstract: This paper proposes a notion of critique as a public metadiscourse that allows subjects to recognize , rearticulate and/or reconfigure the logics and rationalities that lead to social suffering. It analyses the way critique operates in a controversy triggered by Flemish nationalist politicians who claim that racism is [a] relative [concept]. The author proposes to analyse the associated debate by means of an in-terpretive and functional discourse analysis. This heuristic operationalizes the poststructuralist concept of articulation. The author identifies different types of critical discursive intervention (CDI) that delin-eate the boundaries of the racism-is-relative debate: hegemonic claims, ideological disqualifications, metalinguistic disqualifications, and concretization strategies. Such interventions haven been articulated by citizens, activists, academics, and politicians across a variety of mostly written media between 2013 and 2015. It is through the play of discursive interventions that social actors challenge and negotiate political boundaries for interpretation. The article demonstrates that most critiques on assertions of racism being [a] relative [concept] do not undermine the logics and rationalities informing racism is relative discourse. It also shows that discourse analysts need to differentiate between different modes of critique in order to examine the complex acts of rearticulation that take place in any debate.

Zusammenfassung: Der folgende Artikel plädiert für einen Kritikbegriff, der Kritik als öffentlichen Meta-Diskurs konzipiert, welches es Subjekten ermöglicht, all jene Logiken und Rationalitäten, die so-ziales Leiden verursachen, zu erkennen, zu re-artikulieren und zu re-konfigurieren. Veranschaulicht wird dies anhand einer Analyse der spezifischen Kritikformen bzw.-modi innerhalb der von flämisch-nationalistischen Politikern initiierten Debatte um die vermeintliche Relativität von Rassismus. Die Analyse dieser Debatte orientiert sich hierbei an einer interpretativen und funktionalen Konzeption der Diskursanalyse. Für diese Analyseheuristik ist eine Operationalisierung des poststrukturalistischen Ar-tikulationskonzepts zentral. Im Zuge der Untersuchung werden verschiedene Arten und Weisen der kritisch-diskursiven Intervention in diese Debatte identifiziert. Dadurch können gleichsam die Grenzen bzw. Grenzmarker der »Rassismus-ist-relativ-Debatte« skizziert werden: hegemoniale Ansprüche, ideo-logische und metalinguistische De-Legitimierungen sowie Konkretisierungsstrategien. Die identifizier-ten kritischen Interventionen wurden von einer Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Akteure (Bürger, Aktivisten, Wissenschaftler und Politiker) innerhalb verschiedenster Medienpublikationen, im Zeitraum zwischen 2013 und 2015, artikuliert. Die Grenzen politischer Interpretationsräume werden von sozialen Akteu-ren durch dieses Spiel diskursiver Interventionen verhandelt und herausgefordert. Der folgende Artikel veranschaulicht, dass die meisten Kritiken der Behauptung, Rassismus sei relativ, die diesem rassisti-schen Diskurs zugrundeliegenden Logiken und Artikulationsformen nicht radikal genug herausfordern bzw. untergraben. Auf theoretischer Ebene sollte er zudem DiskursforscherInnen für die Differenzie-rung spezifischer Kritikmodi sensibilisieren, da nur durch eine solche differenzierende Identifizierung die komplexen Artikulationsformen einer öffentlichen Debatte angemessen analysiert werden können.

В первой главе "Советская идеология и посоветский дискурс" рассматривается природа языка идеологии как воспитательного средства, обсуждается устройство идеологемы, очерчиваются методы исследования языка идеологии.
Главы II "Идеологема - от буквы до цитаты" и III "Обсценный пласт идеологического языка". Сюда относятся собственно идеологемы, представленные на всех уровнях текста - от буквы (например, "твердый знак" на конце слова) до цитаты (например, преобразованные высказывания Сталина), а также обсценный план русского языка, взятый в довлевшей ему в советское время идеологической функции.

Вторая глава работы рассматривает различные формы бытования идеологемы - от минимальной единицы, знака, до массивов текста: идеологема-буква (еръ, б, н, е), идеологема-падежное окончание (измена Родины и измена Родине; Федеративная Республика Германии и Федеративная Республика Германия), русский (кириллический) алфавит как макроидеологема СССР для носителей неславянских языков, идеологема-акцент в средствах массовой коммуникации, кино, театре, повседневном обиходе. Рассматривается динамика идеологемы-имени (топонима, эргонима и т.п.): от стадии первоименования до стадии посоветского переосмысления (Чека, расстрел). Главу завершает анализ идеологемы-цитаты. На примере сталинизмов, или закрепленных в обыденной речи сталинских паремий, показана динамика идеологической речи вообще и сделана попытка истолковать живучесть идеологемы-сталинизма в посоветском дискурсе.

Третья глава "Обсценный пласт идеологического языка" была написана как ответ на частный вопрос, задевающий, тем не менее, весь русский посоветский дискурс. Еще А.С.Пушкин писал о том, что настоящая свобода в России будет ознаменована публикацией в открытой печати не допущенных туда цензурой матерных стихотворений И.Баркова.2 Произнесенное более полутора столетий назад пророчество поэта исполнилось: действительно, политическая свобода в России совпала с этим интересным, но все же частным, событием. Однако произошло и нечто большее. Свободный русский дискурс не ограничился снятием запретов на что бы то ни было в средствах массовой коммуникации и вообще в сегодняшнем русском культурном обиходе. Неожиданным для наблюдателя речевых процессов явился проясняемый задним числом масштаб взаимодействия советской идеологии и русского матерного языка. Последний предстает комплексом теневых идеологем и в этом своем качестве подвергнут анализу в третьей главе. В работе предложена ментальная схема обсценного словоупотребления на осях "страшное" - "смешное" и "бытовой абсурд" - "скромная, но защищенная повседневность". На основе анализа таких сегментов русского посоветского дискурса, как здравомыслие (здравый смысл) и норма, становится ясно, почему носители языка в 1990-е годы "позиционируют мат как ненормативный речевой хабитус", входящий, тем не менее, в поле здравомыслия.3

В главе III обосновывается гипотеза, согласно которой в условиях выхода из эпохи идеологической индоктринации обращение (припадание, возвращение) к норме, понимаемое как проявление здравомыслия, может осуществляться в формах ненормативности. В диссертации описана и теоретически обоснована прежде не выявленная риторическая фигура эсхрофемизма ("стебного снижения"). Эсхрофемизм - это фигура речи, возникающая благодаря замене основного матерного значения обыденным с сохранением и семантической структуры обыденного, и иллокутивной силы матерного слова. Данные больших массивов текстов, представленных средствами массовой коммуникации, свидетельствуют о том, что эсхрофемизм является содержательной характеристикой посоветского русского дискурса. Подчеркнуто коммуникативная функция русского мата, по сравнению с преимущественно инвективной, бранной ролью других сквернословий "в языках народов СССР", воплощает реальный низовой горизонт идеологического комплекса "дружбы народов" или "братства партий" ("литератур", "кинематографий" и др.), а эсхрофемизм облегчает освоение слишком большого массива новизны.

Within the broader framework of a research programme on the reproduction of racism in discourse and communication, the present article examines the prominent role of the denial of racism, especially among the elites, in much contemporary text and talk about ethnic relations. After a conceptual analysis of denial strategies in interpersonal impression formation on the one hand, and within the social-political context of minority and immigration management on the other, various types of denial are examined in everyday conversations, press reports and parliamentary debates. Among these forms of denial are disclaimers, mitigation, euphemism, excuses, blaming the victim, reversal and other moves of defence, face-keeping and positive self-presentation in negative discourse about minorities, immigrants and (other) anti-racists.

Liberalism is a term employed in a dizzying variety of ways across the humanities and social sciences. This essay seeks to reframe how the liberal tradition is understood. I start by delineating different types of response – prescriptive, comprehensive, explanatory – that are frequently conflated in answering the question “what is liberalism?” I then discuss assorted methodological strategies employed in the existing literature: after rejecting “stipulative” and “canonical” approaches, I outline a contextualist alternative. On this (comprehensive) account, liberalism is best characterised as the sum of the arguments that have been classified as liberal, and recognised as such by other self-proclaimed liberals, over time. In the remainder of the article I present an historical analysis of shifts in the meaning of liberalism in Anglo-American political thought between 1850 and 1950, focusing in particular on how John Locke came to be seen as a liberal. I also explore the emergence of the category of "liberal democracy". I argue that the scope of the liberal tradition was massively expanded during the middle decades of the twentieth century, such that it came to be seen by many as the constitutive ideology of the West. This capacious (and deeply confusing) understanding of liberalism was produced by a conjunction of the ideological wars fought against “totalitarianism” and assorted developments in the social sciences. Today we both inherit and inhabit it.

Este capítulo parte da hipótese da emergência de um novo regime de sexualidade, apresentada por Carrara (2015), para propor uma ampliação dos elementos e estratégias de análise sobre a trajetória das políticas de gênero e sexualidade na educação brasileira ao longo das duas primeiras décadas do século XXI. O texto busca investigar, em primeiro lugar, até que ponto e como é possível observar no campo das políticas de educação esse referido deslocamento de uma hegemonia dos discursos centrados nos modelos biomédicos, higienistas e eugenistas de controle da sexualidade para um regime hegemônico de discursos articulados em torno das noções sociojurídicas de cidadania e direitos. A seguir, o texto busca evidenciar como a emergência e o fortalecimento dos discursos sociojurídicos no campo da sexualidade, que se tornaram centrais para as políticas de educação no Brasil no início dos anos 2000, passaram a ser fortemente contestados pela articulação de movimentos neoconservadores no campo da educação.

ABOUT THE PAPERThis paper is an extract from my book entitled: The Cruces of Post 1991 Ethiopian Politics: Revolutionary Democracy, Democratic Developmentlaism and the Late Meles Zenawi. The book is first pulished in December 2017, and republished in Septmeber 2018. The book gives a comprehensive account on the rules of the game in the system of governance of politics, economy, bureaucracy and Securityin Ethiopia since 1991. This article \is organized into two parts. In the first part, the underlying factors triggering for the genesis and development of revolutionary democratic concept is discussed. The first section further addresses competing views on the lines of revolutionary democracy Moreover, the status of revolutionary democracy is subjected to question, as a single party program or as a full fledge concept that comprehensively addresses on all aspects of governance. The second part discusses on the evolution, development and/or consolidation of ideals of revolutionary thoug...

Sustainability partnerships were the Type-II outcomes of the 2002 Johannesburg Summit, which promised increased effectiveness in and wider participation to global environmental governance. They have quickly become the main form of collaboration between UN and non-state actors. This groundbreaking book uses the results of quantitative and qualitative research to analyse sustainability partnerships and their role in environmental governance. It focuses on the origins of and the rationale behind the concept of 'public-private partnership'. With a combination of post-structuralist discourse theory and interpretative methods such as historical discourse analysis and ecocriticism not previously used in studies on partnership, Aysem Mert, examines three discourses that have rooted into the logic of partnerships: privatisation of governance, sustainable development, and democratic participation. Ultimately, Mert argues that these discourses help understand the potential as well as structural limitations of sustainability partnerships. This revolutionary book will be useful to researchers of environmental governance, transnational and global studies looking for an empirical and analytical interpretation of the topic. Political theorists and philosophers as well as discourse analysts will also find the theoretical and methodological perspectives to be of interest.

Resumo: A sociedade brasileira tem vivenciado um intenso embate hegemônico sobre as concepções de gênero e sexualidade articuladas nas políticas públicas de currículo e formação docente. Grupos políticos e religiosos conservadores têm desenvolvido um ataque agressivo ao que denominam “ideologia de gênero” na educação. A partir de uma análise dos processos de formação dos discursos pela igualdade de gênero e diversidade sexual nas políticas educacionais brasileiras ao longo das últimas décadas e da emergência de discursos reativos (neo)conservadores no contexto atual, o texto busca discutir as condições de (im)possibilidade desse confronto hegemônico. A análise é desenvolvida em diálogo com os debates pós-estruturalistas no campo da educação e, em especial, com a Teoria Política do Discurso
de Laclau e Mouffe. O trabalho aponta que ambos os polos discursivos engajados no conflito atual são construções históricas contingentes e que o debate no campo da educação tem sido predominantemente realizado a partir do parâmetro comum das políticas de acomodação e
gestão estratégicas das diferenças.
Palavras-chave: currículo, formação docente, gênero.

Abstract: Brazilian society has been experiencing an intense hegemonic clash over the conceptions of gender and sexuality articulated in the public policies of curriculum and teacher training. Conservative political and religious groups have settled an aggressive attack on what
they call “gender ideology” in education. Analyzing the constitution of discourses promoting gender equality and sexual diversity in Brazilian educational policies over the last decades and the emergence of reactive (neo)conservative discourses in the current scenario, the text
seeks to discuss the conditions of (im)possibility of this hegemonic confrontation. The analysis is developed in dialogue with post-structuralist education theories, and especially with Laclau
and Mouffe’s Political Theory of Discourse. The paper points out that both the discursive poles engaged in the current conflict are contingent historical constructs, and that the debate in the field of education has been predominantly carried out from the common parameter of the
policies of accommodation and strategic management of differences.
Keywords: curriculum, teachers training, gender.

How are we to conceive of acts that suddenly expose the injustice of the prevailing order? These acts challenge long-standing hidden or silently tolerated injustices, but as they are unsupported by existing ethical rules they pose a drastic challenge to dominant norms. In Excessive Subjectivity, Dominik Finkelde rereads the tradition of German idealism and finds in it the potential for transformative acts that are capable of revolutionizing the social order.
Finkelde's discussion of the meaning and structure of the ethical act meticulously engages thinkers typically treated as opposed—Kant, Hegel, and Lacan—to develop the concept of excessive subjectivity, which is characterized by nonconformist acts that reshape the contours of ethical life. For Kant, the subject is defined by the ethical acts she performs. Hegel interprets Kant's categorical imperative as the ability of an individual's conscience to exceed the existing state of affairs. Lacan emphasizes the transgressive force of unconscious desire on the ethical agent. Through these thinkers Finkelde develops a radical ethics for contemporary times. Integrating perspectives from both analytical and continental philosophy, Excessive Subjectivity is a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the ethical subject.

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

This article offers a fresh critique of the work of political scientists and historians who have propagated the Eurocentric history of democracy. The paper argues that such work can be dissected and critiqued along several key lines: their reliance on a distinctly patriarchal discourse riddled with prejudices; the assertion that one can understand the history of democracy via the etymology of the word itself; and the deeply Eurocentric
roots of the study of democracy’s past embedded in the canon of Western political thought. The paper concludes by calling on contemporary political scientists and political historians concerned with the history of  democracy to be careful in re-iterating this deeply flawed history of democracy and to instead work towards a history of democracy that retrieves the silenced histories and the forgotten democratic moments that lay behind the roar of Western power.

This paper is part of a wider study of contemporary Japanese discourses on education policy and work skills, which seeks to combine Laclau and Mouffe's Discourse Theory with Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis to operationalise Discourse Theory as a practical method for the discursive analysis of texts.

Framed in a critique of digital and new media studies, this dissertation returns to the roots of the study of communication and interaction in rhetoric, linguistics, semiotics, information theory, and cybernetics to develop a philosophy and theory of communication anchored in a pre-symbolic concept of gesture. This reevaluation of communication processes allows for the articulation of communication as dynamic interaction in spacetime, which allows attention to communicative agency and the relations among communicators, communications technologies, and the environments and ecologies in which they are necessarily situated. This, in turn, while drawing from assemblage theory, affect theory, embodied and distributed cognition, interactional sociology, and relational psychology, provides a novel conceptualization of agency in human and non-human forms, as well as the relations among them. The foregoing is anchored in a relational ontology that critiques many of the contemporary, taken-for-granted assumptions about character of ‘information’.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

Н ачиная с периода поздней перестройки и по сей день судьба тела Ленина, хранящегося на протяжении почти 90 лет в мавзолее на Красной площади, не перестает вызывать яростные споры. В последние годы в попу лярных и академических публикациях это тело все чаще сравнивают с мощами христианских святых. Сравнения эти обычно проводятся в довольно приблизитель ных терминах, поскольку особого знания о том, что из себя представляет материальность этих тел -особенно тела Лени на, -у пишущих нет. Вместо обсуждения конкретных фактов обычно просто высказывается мысль, что советский режим с самого начала подразумевал провести аналогию между те лом Ленина и телами православных святых, поскольку такая аналогия якобы была режиму выгодна с идеологической точки зрения. А далее следует известный, но не слишком подтверж денный фактами аргумент: в малообразованной стране с силь ной православной традицией нетленное тело Ленина должно было автоматически восприниматься населением как тело коммунистического святого. И это якобы добавляло режиму легитимности 1 . Аргументы эти, казалось бы, сами собой на прашиваются, но именно их кажущаяся очевидность вызывает сомнение. Как уже было сказано, эти аргументы не основаны на глубоком знании того, что же из себя в действительности представляет тело Ленина и как именно «режим» пытался его сохранить.

Die Ideologiekritik, die sich im Anschluss an Marx als Kritik der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft verstanden hat, gilt schon seit einiger Zeit für tot. Ihr Totenschein ist Seitens der Politik von liberalen Demokraten und Seitens der Wissenschaft durch eine illustre Koalition aus analytischer Philosophie, empirischem Positivismus und diversen Diskurs-und Systemtheoretikern unterschrieben worden. Der Rest hat sich stillschweigend einfach angeschlossen und nimmt mit mehr oder weniger großen Appetit am Leichenschmaus teil. Insofern ist es auch kein Wunder, dass es auch in der deutschen Politikwissenschaft still geworden ist um die Ideologiekritik. 1 Galt bis in die späten 80er Jahre hinein die ideologiekritische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Positivismus gewissermaßen als ein wissenschaftlicher Initiationsritus, dem sich kaum ein Studierender im Grundstudium entziehen konnte, so ist heute davon kaum noch die Rede. 2 Die Kritik am Positivismus, die für die Politikwissenschaft aufgrund der potenten Eigentümlichkeit ihres Gegenstandes eigentlich ein methodischer Imperativ ist, scheint um der Professionalisierung des Faches willens weitgehend verdrängt. Ein letzter Rest an schlechtem methodischem Gewissen wird zumeist systemtheoretisch entsorgt, was zugleich den Vorteil mit sich bringt, am engen funktionalistischen Politikbegriff festhalten zu können. Positives Denken ist also angesagt. In diesem Sinne feiert das politikwissenschaftliche Management die glückliche Befreiung des Faches von der destruktiven Selbstkritik der 70er und 80er Jahre. Die Überwindung der lästigen Ideologiekritik gilt nun als Voraussetzung dafür, dass sich die universitäre Politikwissenschaft endlich in Ruhe der akademischen Selbstbeschreibung des politischen Systems und seiner dominanten Akteure widmen kann und sich damit die professionelle Anerkennung durch die Ministerien, Parteien und Medien sichert. Die alte Demokratiewissenschaft hat sich auf einen legalistischen Demokratiebegriff festgelegt, Legitimität wird vorerst apriori unterstellt. Wie Stuttgart 21 zeigt, ist dies aber keineswegs selbstverständlich. Obwohl die Professionalisierung zu einer dubiosen Trennung von Theorie und Methode und zur Marginalisierung von politischer Theorie und Ideengeschichte als Teilbereich der Politikwissenschaft führte, zeigen sich auch deren Meinungsführer merkwürdigerweise vom Niedergang der Ideologiekritik keineswegs beunruhigt. Ganz im Gegenteil wird der Siegeszug des Positivismus auch hier überwiegend begrüßt. Schließlich sei die politische Ideengeschichte durch die positivistische Wende sogar vor 1 Wie innovativ die Ideologiekritik für die bundesdeutsche Politikwissenschaft war, lässt sich z. B. am Werk von Kurt Lenk ablesen. Vgl. u.a. Lenk, Kurt (Hg.): Ideologie. Ideologiekritik und Wissenssoziologie, Darmstadt/Neuwied 8 1978; ders.: Marx in der Wissenssoziologie. Studien zur Rezeption der marxschen Ideologiekritik. Neuwied/Berlin 1972. 2 Adorno, Theodor W. u.a., Der Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie. 13. Aufl. Darmstadt 1989.

RE: Facades, illusions & ideological concepts created & promoted by ancient royalty out of necessity; effective creation of an alternate version of reality. It is only by knowing this information that the true nature of ancient texts may be understood correctly. Not knowing, means making incorrect assumptions & conclusions. Important!

My doctoral dissertation examines the experiences of the Italian volunteers in the Waffen-SS troops using in-depth interviews with former volunteers as the main primary source. This phenomenon, even if significant in size (depending on the source, some 15 000-20 000 Italian men volunteered in the Waffen-SS), has been hitherto largely unknown to historical research. The available literature on the Italian volunteers, mainly written by military history enthusiast journalists and methodologically weak, concentrates mainly on the combat operations and military organization, and offers a rather stereotypical profile of the volunteers.

My dissertation does not aim to reconstruct the military history of the different divisions of the Waffen-SS in which Italian volunteers operated but instead to examine the subjective, private and intimate experience of the volunteers in order to understand the motivations, attitudes, beliefs and cultural and family background, as well as their political ideas. The main objective of my doctoral dissertation is to discover the ideological precepts of the volunteers’ political credo. As the last phase of fascism and its ideology, often defined as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascism, is still the object of wide academic debate, a better understanding of the volunteers’ ideology also contributes to deepening overall knowledge of the nature of this last phase.

The theoretical frame of my dissertation lies in oral history, in particular in the postmodernist approach to oral history, through which I reconstruct the volunteers’ ideology. In-depth interviews with former volunteers are the main primary source, but multiple data collection methods have been adopted. Phone interviews and correspondence with the volunteers have also been considered as primary sources. In addition to interviews and correspondence, family archives consisting of diaries, correspondence with the volunteers’ relatives and photographic material have also been collected and examined. An ethnographic observation of the volunteers’ domestic spaces has been conducted during the in-depth interviews, and photo self-elicitation techniques have been used in cases where the volunteers were willing to share their photographs.

An exhaustive portrait of the ideological structure of the volunteers has been obtained, as well as of the cultural and social origins of the values that contributed to the rise and adoption of this ideology. Further, the volunteers’ motivations to enlist have been clearly reconstructed, together with their cultural, political, social and military backgrounds. The results of the research are particularly relevant both for comprehension of the Italian phenomenon of volunteering in the Waffen-SS and for the reconstruction of the ideological dynamics of the last phase of fascism. The volunteers’ political and ideological system, which can be defined as the Italian SS-fascist ideology, disagrees strongly with the vaguely described ideological profile offered by previous studies that describe volunteers as generically “super-fascist”. The research also offers the opportunity for a deeper understanding of the final fascist ideological trajectory, currently defined, not without a certain level of approximation, as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascist ideology.