scholarly journals The Discursive Appeal to Solidarity and Partisan Journalism in Europe’s Migration Crisis

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-197
Author(s):  
Stefan Wallaschek
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Position ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Common European Asylum System ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
Political Solidarity ◽  
Strategic Framing

The article analyses the discursive appeal to solidarity in the mass media during the unfolding of Europe’s migration crisis. Solidarity was claimed by numerous actors in the public discourse to legitimise political decisions and mobilise public opinion. While it seems that the call for solidarity was shared by many actors, media studies show the ‘partisan journalism’ of media outlets. Thus, the political orientation of media outlets influences their coverage of public debates. Hence, to what extent do different quality newspapers cover the same solidarity claims in times of crisis? In order to answer this question, the crisis coverage of two German and two Irish newspapers with centre-left and centre-right political orientations is examined via the discourse network methodology. Germany is selected due to high political parallelism and a strong affectedness by the crisis, while Ireland is selected because of low political parallelism and a weak affectedness by the migration crisis. The findings demonstrate that partisan journalism persists during Europe’s migration crisis. Especially German party actors are present in both countries, underpinning the central position of Germany. Regarding the appeal to solidarity, political solidarity claims prevail in all four newspapers, indicating the political-institutional asymmetry in the Common European Asylum System. The study contributes to the strategic framing of concepts in public debates and demonstrates that the left-right distinction of media outlets is hardly affected by the migration crisis.

scholarly journals FEATURES OF THE FORMATION OF THE PARTY SYSTEM OF MODERN UKRAINE

2018 ◽  
pp. 8-15
Author(s):  
Іvan Pobochiy
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
National Interests ◽  
New Parties ◽  
The Public

The level of social harmony in society and the development of democracy depends to a large extent on the level of development of parties, their ideological and political orientation, methods and means of action. The purpose of the article is to study the party system of Ukraine and directions of its development, which is extremely complex and controversial. The methods. The research has led to the use of such scientific search methods as a system that allowed the party system of Ukraine to be considered as a holistic organism, and the historical and political method proved to be very effective in analyzing the historical preconditions and peculiarities of the formation of the party system. The results. The incompetent, colonial past and the associated cruel national oppression, terror, famine, and violent Russification caused the contradictory and dramatic nature of modernization, the actual absence of social groups and their leaders interested in it, and the relatively passive reaction of society to the challenges of history. Officials have been nominated by mafia clans, who were supposed to protect their interests and pursue their policies. Political struggle in the state took place not between influential political parties, but between territorial-regional clans. The party system of Ukraine after the Maidan and the beginning of the war on the Donbass were undergoing significant changes. On the political scene, new parties emerged in the course of the protests and after their completion — «Petro Poroshenko Bloc», «People’s Front», «Self-help»), which to some extent became spokespeople for not regional, but national interests. Pro-European direction is the main feature of the leading political parties that have formed a coalition in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Conclusion. The party system of Ukraine as a result of social processes is at the beginning of a new stage in its development, an important feature of which is the increase in the influence of society (direct and indirect) on the political life of the state. Obviously, there is a demand from the public for the emergence of new politicians, new leaders and new political forces that citizens would like to see first and foremost speakers and defenders of their interests.

Arguing Abortion: The New Anti-Abortion Discourse in Canada

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Saurette ◽  
Kelly Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Fetal Personhood

Abstract.This article analyzes the nature of contemporary anti-abortion discourse in Canada. Based on a rigorous qualitative and quantitative analysis of the public discourse of a wide variety of influential actors, this study shows that contemporary anti-abortion discourse in Canada is quite different than the portrait offered by traditional accounts. Specifically, our analysis demonstrates that the new anti-abortion discourse aims at changing cultural values more than legislation; is explicitly framed as ‘pro-woman’; largely avoids appealing to religious grounds; and relies on a new ‘abortion-harms-women’ argument that has supplanted and transformed traditional fetal personhood arguments. The article argues that these findings are important as they provide a more accurate account of the political discourse surrounding one of the most contentious issues in politics today and because they illustrate broader ideological patterns that are increasingly characteristic of Canadian political discourse.Résumé.Cet article propose d'analyser la nature du discours contemporain sur l'anti-avortement au Canada. Fondée sur une analyse qualitative et quantitative rigoureuse du discours public d'une grande variété d'acteurs influents, cette étude démontre que le discours contemporain sur l'anti-avortement au Canada se distingue de manière caractéristique du portrait qu'il en a traditionnellement été donné. Notre analyse révèle en particulier que le nouveau discours sur l'anti-avortement vise plutôt à transformer les valeurs culturelles que la législation; qu'il est explicitement formulé comme étant « pro-femme »; qu'il évite de faire appel à des motifs religieux; et qu'il déploie un nouvel argument, « l'avortement-nuit-aux-femmes », qui évince et transforme les arguments traditionnels qui cherchaient à accorder le statut de personne au fétus. Cet article argumente alors que ces constats sont importants non seulement parce qu'ils permettent de brosser un tableau plus complet du discours politique qui touche à l'une des questions les plus controversée de la politique contemporaine, mais également parce qu'ils mettent en évidence des tendances idéologiques de plus en plus caractéristiques du discours politique au Canada.

scholarly journals Digital campaigning as a policy of democracy promotion: Applying deliberative theories of democracy to political parties

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Odzuck ◽  
Sophie Günther
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital Campaigning ◽  
The Individual

AbstractToday’s election campaigns are heavily data-driven. Despite the numerous skeptical voices questioning the compatibility of specific campaigning practices with fundamental principles of liberal democracies, there has to date been little comprehensive work in this area from the perspective of normative democratic theory. Our article addresses this gap by drawing on recent research on the normative theory of political parties in the field of deliberative democratic theory. The deliberative theories of democracy proposed by Habermas and Rawls contain structural elements of a normative theory of the political party: the special status of political parties as mediators between background culture and the political forum, between the political system and the public sphere, and between the individual and the state, confers on them a central position as actors in in the public use of reason and deliberation.We argue in this article for a view of digital campaigning as a policy of democracy promotion and for the proposition that, alongside other actors, political parties have a special responsibility in this regard. We point to the implications for the evaluation and design of digital political microtargeting that arise from the application of deliberative principles to political parties and consider the need they reveal for the ongoing development of detailed, nuanced normative theories of democracy.

Accounting for Democracy: Excessive Subjects in a State of Consensus

boundary 2 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 115-144
Author(s):  
L. Elena Delgado
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Excess Function ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
The Face ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
And Function

In the face of the public debates and protests fueled by Spain's persistent economic, social, and institutional crisis (2008–present), the country's politicians and media have consistently identified these debates and protests—in a word, social unrest—with three phenomena: nationalism, populism, and feminism. In my essay, I begin by showing how Spanish public discourse tends to situate all three on a single continuum, identifying their intersections in negative terms as a potentially disruptive excess that must be controlled, if not eliminated, to avoid a crisis of democracy. The second part of my essay moves to a theoretically informed reflection on the nature and function of political elements categorized as “excessive” in consensus democracies. Drawing on C. Lefort, J. Rancière, C. Mouffe, W. Brown. B. Honig, and L. Grattan, among others, I delve into how these perceived forms of excess function as dissonant remainders that account for the paradoxes of popular sovereignty, signaling its limits as well as its conditions of possibility.

Princes’ Justifications of War in Early Modern Europe: The Constitution of an International Community by Communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Anuschka Tischer
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
International Law ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
International Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Modern Europe

Anuschka Tischer starts out with the historical analyses of the book by elaborating the dialectic of war discourses and international order in early modernity: according to Tischer, nearly every prince in early modern Europe came up with a ‘just reason’ when going to war. Whereas the theory of international law represented academic opinions, the political justifications offered the official view which fed into the public discourse. By referring to a general international law in their war declarations (and counter-declarations), the belligerent parties shaped the pattern of today’s modern international law. However, the early modern justifications represented the political and social values of pre-revolutionary Europe. While international law was regarded as universal, the European Christian powers distinguished between wars in and outside of Europe. The chapter reveals the contradictions inherent in this distinction by analysing how princes in early modern Europe justified their wars, which norms and orders were accepted, and how far international law was the result of elaborate discussions and power politics. Tischer’s findings are picked up by Hendrik Simon in his contribution on the nineteenth-century discourse of war and international order.

scholarly journals The Diverging Presence of Youth in Public Discourse: A Comparative Analysis of Youth-Related Debates Across Countries and Issue Fields

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (5) ◽  
pp. 574-590
Author(s):  
Christian Lahusen ◽  
Johannes Kiess
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Criminal Matters

Youth is a recurrent topic of public debates, particularly because youth features in almost all issue fields discussed in mass media, ranging from educational and cultural to criminal matters. However, previous research has highlighted that youth is not necessarily actively involved in raising its own voice within the public sphere, which gives cause for concerns about the representation of youth in public discourses and thus in democratic opinion formation. This article wishes to critically assess the proposition that young people are objects of public discourses rather than active participants. For this purpose, it will analyze public statements reported in newspapers of nine countries (Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom). The analysis makes conceptual use of claims-making analysis and tries to identify contextual factors that determine the extent to which youth actors actively participate in public discourses. In particular, we wish to assess whether discursive inclusion or exclusion of youth is patterned along countries and/or policy fields. Our findings show that policy fields are the most important contextual factors. Moreover, considering claims and actors, public debates about youth are rather similar between the nine countries. This indicates that public debates about youth are patterned by a similar, cross-national differentiation along policy domains.

scholarly journals Political Participation by Political Bloggers in Hong Kong: A Case Study of the 2014 Umbrella Movement

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-166
Author(s):  
Waikeung Tam
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Blogs ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Political Blog

Political blogs have played an increasingly more important role in Hong Kong politics. However, research on this topic remains scarce. This analysis examines how political bloggers in Hong Kong used their blogs to participate in politics through a detailed content analysis of 960 political blog articles published on two major news websites – House News Bloggers and Speak Out HK – during the 2014 Umbrella Movement. This study found that “soapbox” stood out as the most popular function hereof, as political bloggers on both ends of the political spectrum actively used their blogs to influence the legitimacy of the Umbrella Movement in the public discourse. A substantial number of blog articles from House News Bloggers also included the functions of “transmission belt,” “informing readers,” and “mobilising political action.” Finally, only a small proportion of the articles from House News Bloggers and Speak Out HK included the function of “conversation starter.”

Advertisements and the Public Discourse in a Democracy

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoav Hammer
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Law

Modern advertisements contain little information and expose few arguments. They rarely describe the product and its usage or compare it to similar products. Yet, advertisements convey many messages—they attach meaning to products, suggest values, and spread a particular view of life. Advertisements create a failure in the democratic process; through advertising, commercial corporations intervene in the democratic discourse. Citizens are intensively exposed to the consumerist worldview while alternative points of view are scarcely presented in the communicative sphere.But commercial corporations are not legitimate participants in the public discourse in a democracy since they do not represent the political support of citizens. Presently, courts grant advertisements freedom of speech protection based on the importance of providing information for viewers. But by doing this, courts ignore the value suggesting messages prevalent in modern advertisements.For many years the law in the domain of campaign finance has restricted the speech of corporations in order to prevent distortion of the political discourse prior to elections. Similarly, we should allow the State to intervene to repair the failure in the public discourse created by advertisements. The law regarding informative messages and value-suggesting messages contained in advertisements should treat each separately, and advertisers should not be permitted to convey messages of the latter.

scholarly journals Clash or alliance

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Nina-Birke Glonnegger
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political World ◽  
Political Events

Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" theory gained new topicality through actual events in the political world climate against the background of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with those conflicts, Huntington's theses seem to be more current than ever before and became the focus of the public discourse, in which - it seems - the gap between supporters and adversaries gets bigger every day. This article aims to evaluate his theory within the context of actual political events in the field of international relations. The empirical attempt of this study will be the presentation and evaluation of conflict statistics regarding the conflict climate in the years 2000 and 2006 in order to confirm or disprove several aspects of the clash of civilizations hypothesis.

scholarly journals La ‘torre de marfil’ como apuesta segura: Políticas científicas y evaluación académica en México

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Vasen
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Merit Pay ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Political ◽  
University Rankings ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Public ◽  
Academic Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Practices

The article analyzes the signals received by social researchers in Mexico regarding the type of production expected from them in merit pay programs. The institutional public discourse embodied in official documents is contrasted with the description of the evaluation carried out by the evaluators themselves. The research is based in document analysis and semi-structured interviews to evaluators. The main conclusion of the study is that there is an asymmetry between the public discourse of the institutions and the behaviors that are rewarded in the evaluation practices themselves. While the political discourse  promotes a model of researcher committed to knowledge transfer and mobilization activities , academic evaluation practices encourage a classic academic profile. These contradictions could be explained by the ability of scientists to influence the content of policies in pursuit of their own interests. On the other hand, from the point of view of policymakers, the weight that international publications have for university rankings could exempt scientists from giving another justification for the importance of their work.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document