Framing Processes, Ideology, and Discursive Fields

This article presents fragments of a new, multidisciplinary theory of ideology and its relations with discourse, formulated in the broader framework of a critical discourse analysis. Ideologies are defined as basic systems of fundamental social cognitions and organizing the attitudes and other social representations shared by members of groups. They thus indirectly control the mental representations (models) that form the interpretation basis and contextual embeddedness of discourse and its structures. In this framework, it is examined how semantic structures of discourse (such as topic, focus, propositional structure, local coherence, level of description, implications and macrostructures) are monitored by underlying ideologies, as expressed in opinion articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

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Discourse Semantics and Ideology

As the European Union (EU) has evolved, the study agenda has shifted from ‘European integration’ to ‘EU politics’. Missing from this new agenda, however, is an understanding of the ‘cognitive constraints’ on actors and how actors respond, i.e. the shape of the EU ‘political space’ and the location of social groups and competition between actors within this space. The article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the shape of the EU political space (the interaction between an Integration-Independence and Left- Right dimension and the location of class and sectoral groups within this map), and tests this framework on the policy positions of the Socialist, Christian Democrat and Liberal party leaders between 1976 and 1994 (using the techniques of the ECPR Party Manifestos Group Project). The research finds that the two dimensions were salient across the whole period, explains why the party families converged on pro-European positions by the 1990s and discovers the emergence of a triangular ‘core’ of EU politics.

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Dimensions and alignments in european union politics: Cognitive constraints and partisan responses

This study suggests that the psychological contract between a professional and his/her employing organization is shaped by both professional and administrative work ideologies and therefore involves both professional and administrative roles and perceived role obligations. It is also suggested that because of important differences between these two ideologies, a professional employee's response to perceptions that his/her organization is not fulfilling its role obligations will depend on whether the perceived breach involves professional or administrative obligations. Hypotheses based on this general proposition were strongly supported in a sample of medical professionals. Specifically, results suggest that perceived breaches of administrative role obligations are most strongly associated with dissatisfaction, thoughts of quitting, and turnover whereas perceived breaches of professional role obligations are most strongly associated with lower organizational commitment and job performance (productivity and client satisfaction). Implications for theory and research on the dimensionality of the psychological employment contract and on the employment of professionals are considered. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How work ideologies shape the psychological contracts of professional employees: doctors' responses to perceived breach

We examined relations of the 10 types of values in Schwartz's (1992) theory of voting. Hypotheses were generated by relating the core motivations of each value type to the ideological messages conveyed by party policies and symbols. Eight parties that ran in the 1988 Israeli elections were arrayed by judges on three ideological dimensions: classical liberalism, economic egalitarianism, state and religion. Discriminant analyses yielded a function whose coefficients for value types corresponded to hypotheses for the state and religion dimension and ordered party supporters on this dimension. After dropping religious parties, another value-based function ordered party supporters on the classical liberalism dimension, as predicted. Both functions significantly improved the party classification of voters in a representative national sample (N= 769). Economic egalitarianism, a nonsalient dimension in Israeli politics, was unrelated to values. Results suggest that all types of values may be politically relevant depending on context.

Martin Seliger

Papers

Ideology and Politics