Showing papers on "Ideology published in 2012"

Affect, Not Ideology A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization

Abstract: The current debate over the extent of polarization in the American mass public focuses on the extent to which partisans’ policy preferences have moved. Whereas "maximalists" claim that partisans’ views on policies have become more extreme over time (Abramowitz 2010), "minimalists" (Fiorina and Abrams 2009) contend that the majority of Americans remain centrist, and that what little centrifugal movement has occurred reflects sorting, i.e., the increased association between partisanship and ideology. We argue in favor of an alternative definition of polarization, based on the classic concept of social distance (Bogardus 1947). Using data from a variety of sources, we demonstrate that both Republicans and Democrats increasingly dislike, even loathe, their opponents. We also find that partisan affect is inconsistently (and perhaps artifactually) founded in policy attitudes. The more plausible account lies in the nature of political campaigns; exposure to messages attacking the out-group reinforces partisans’ biased views of their opponents.

The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times

Abstract: Introduction 1. The empire of liberty: American ideology and foreign interventions 2. The empire of justice: Soviet ideology and foreign interventions 3. The revolutionaries: anti-colonial politics and transformations 4. Creating the Third World: the United States confronts revolution 5. The Cuban and Vietnamese challenges 6. The crisis of decolonization: Southern Africa 7. The prospects of socialism: Ethiopia and the Horn 8. The Islamist defiance 9. The 1980s: the Reagan offensive 10. The Gorbachev withdrawal and the end of the Cold War Conclusion: Revolutions, interventions and Great Power collapse.

THE TENSION BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL CONTROL AND OPEN PARTICIPATION: Journalism and its boundaries

Abstract: Amid growing difficulties for professionals generally, media workers in particular are negotiating the increasingly contested boundary space between producers and users in the digital environment. This article, based on a review of the academic literature, explores that larger tension transforming the creative industries by extrapolating from the case of journalism – namely, the ongoing tension between professional control and open participation in the news process. Firstly, the sociology of professions, with its emphasis on boundary maintenance, is used to examine journalism as boundary work, profession, and ideology – each contributing to the formation of journalism's professional logic of control over content. Secondly, by considering the affordances and cultures of digital technologies, the article articulates open participation and its ideology. Thirdly, and against this backdrop of ideological incompatibility, a review of empirical literature finds that journalists have struggled to reconcile this k...

Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique

Abstract: Introduction I. Social Construction 1. "Social Construction: Myths and Reality" 2. "On Being Objective and Being Objectified." 3. "Ontology and Social Construction." 4. "Social Construction: The "Debunking" Project." 5. "Feminism and Metaphysics: Negotiating the Natural." 6. "Family, Ancestry and Self: What is the Moral Significance of Biological Ties?" 7. "Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be?" 8. "Future Genders? Future Races?" 9. "You Mixed? Racial Identity without Racial Biology." 10. "A Social Constructionist Analysis of Race" 11. "Oppressions: Racial and Other" III. Language and Knowledge 12. "What Knowledge Is and What It Ought To Be: Feminist Values and Normative Epistemology" 13. "What Are We Talking About? The Semantics and Politics of Social Kinds" 14. "What Good Are Our Intuitions? Philosophical Analysis and Social Kinds" 15. "But Mom, Crop-Tops Are Cute!" 16. "Language, Politics and 'The Folk': Looking for the 'Meaning' of Race " 17. "Ideology, Generics, and Common Ground"

Towards a Synthesized Critique of Neoliberal Biodiversity Conservation

Abstract: During the last three decades, the arena of biodiversity conservation has largely aligned itself with the globally dominant political ideology of neoliberalism and associated governmentalities. Schemes such as payments for ecological services are promoted to reach the multiple ‘wins’ so desired: improved biodiversity conservation, economic development, (international) cooperation and poverty alleviation, amongst others. While critical scholarship with respect to understanding the linkages between neoliberalism, capitalism and the environment has a long tradition, a synthesized critique of neoliberal conservation - the ideology (and related practices) that the salvation of nature requires capitalist expansion - remains lacking. This paper aims to provide such a critique. We commence with the assertion that there has been a conflation between ‘economics’ and neoliberal ideology in conservation thinking and implementation. As a result, we argue, it becomes easier to distinguish the main problems that neoliberal win-win models pose for biodiversity conservation. These are framed around three points: the stimulation of contradictions; appropriation and misrepresentation and the disciplining of dissent. Inspired by Bruno Latour’s recent ‘compositionist manifesto’, the conclusion outlines some ideas for moving beyond critique.

The new politics of disablement

Abstract: Introduction.- PART I: CONCEPTS AND ORIGINS The Importance of Definitions in the Disablility Debate.- The Origins of Disability Studies.- The Rise of Disabling Capitalism.- PART II: REPRESENTATIONS AND DISCOURSES Ideology and the Disabled Individual.- Constructing Disabled Identities.- Creating the Disability Problem.- PART III: AGENDAS AND ACTIONS Dealing with Disabling Society.- Resisting the Disabling Society.- Doing Disability Studies.

Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit

Abstract: This book examines the ways in which our ideas about language and identity which used to be framed in national and political terms as a matter of rights and citizenship are increasingly recast in economic terms as a matter of added value. It argues that this discursive shift is connected to specific characteristics of the globalized new economy in what can be thought of as "late capitalism". Through ten ethnographic case studies, it demonstrates the complex ways in which older nationalist ideologies which invest language with value as a source of pride get bound up with newer neoliberal ideologies which invest language with value as a source of profit. The complex interaction between these modes of mobilizing linguistic resources challenges some of our ideas about globalization, hinting that we are in a period of intensification of modernity, in which the limits of the nation-State are stretched, but not (yet) undone. At the same time, this book argues, this intensification also calls into question modernist ways of looking at language and identity, requiring a more serious engagement with capitalism and how it constitutes symbolic (including linguistic) as well as material markets.

Can Education Change Society

Abstract: Despite the vast differences between the Right and the Left over the role of education in the production of inequality one common element both sides share is a sense that education can and should do something about society, to either restore what is being lost or radically alter what is there now. The question was perhaps put most succinctly by the radical educator George Counts in 1932 when he asked "Dare the School Build a New Social Order?", challenging entire generations of educators to participate in, actually to lead, the reconstruction of society. Over 70 years later, celebrated educator, author and activist Michael Apple revisits Counts’ now iconic works, compares them to the equally powerful voices of minoritized people, and again asks the seemingly simply question of whether education truly has the power to change society. In this groundbreaking work, Apple pushes educators toward a more substantial understanding of what schools do and what we can do to challenge the relations of dominance and subordination in the larger society. This touchstone volume is both provocative and honest about the ideological and economic conditions that groups in society are facing and is certain to become another classic in the canon of Apple’s work and the literature on education more generally.

The alchemy of austerity

Abstract: The return of austerity has provoked social conflict, political controversy and academic disputes. In this article we explore some of these through the metaphor of an ‘alchemy of austerity’ that forms the foundation for strategies of state retrenchment through which the consent of populations is sought. We begin, in ‘Magical thinking’, by tracing some of the discursive repertoires that circulate in analyses of austerity, showing something of its significance as a key term being mobilized in different international and national political discourses. We then go on to explore political strategies, with a particular focus on the UK in ‘Sharing the pain’. However, we suggest that such a focus offers a limited conception of politics that fails to illuminate the contradictory field of political forces put into motion by austerity strategies. This field of forces, we go on to argue, crystallizes around the problem of securing consent. In ‘Austerity and the problem of consent’ we examine this further, pointing to ...

Ideology in America

Abstract: Public opinion in the United States contains a paradox. The American public is symbolically conservative: it cherishes the symbols of conservatism and is more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal. Yet at the same time, it is operationally liberal, wanting government to do and spend more to solve a variety of social problems. This book focuses on understanding this contradiction. It argues that both facets of public opinion are real and lasting, not artifacts of the survey context or isolated to particular points in time. By exploring the ideological attitudes of the American public as a whole, and the seemingly conflicted choices of individual citizens, it explains the foundations of this paradox. The keys to understanding this large-scale contradiction, and to thinking about its consequences, are found in Americans' attitudes with respect to religion and culture and in the frames in which elite actors describe policy issues.

The Invention of Religion in Japan

Abstract: Through most of its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call "religion." There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country has to contend with this Western idea. In this book, Jason Ananda Josephson reveals how Japanese officials invented religion in Japan and traces the sweeping intellectual, legal, and cultural changes that followed. More than a tale of oppression or hegemony, Josephson's account demonstrates that the process of articulating religion offered the Japanese state a valuable opportunity. In addition to carving out space for belief in Christianity and certain forms of Buddhism, Japanese officials excluded Shinto from the category. Instead, they enshrined it as a national ideology while relegating the popular practices of indigenous shamans and female mediums to the category of "superstitions" - and thus beyond the sphere of tolerance. Josephson argues that the invention of religion in Japan was a politically charged, boundary-drawing exercise that not only extensively reclassified the inherited materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto to lasting effect, but also reshaped, in subtle but significant ways, our own formulation of the concept of religion today. This ambitious and wide-ranging book contributes an important perspective to broader debates on the nature of religion, the secular, science, and superstition.

Ideology, Motivated Reasoning, and Cognitive Reflection: An Experimental Study

Abstract: Social psychologists have identified various plausible sources of ideological polarization over climate change, gun violence, national security, and like societal risks. This paper describes a study of three of them: the predominance of heuristic-driven information processing by members of the public; ideologically motivated cognition; and personality-trait correlates of political conservativism. The results of the study suggest reason to doubt two common surmises about how these dynamics interact. First, the study presents both observational and experimental data inconsistent with the hypothesis that political conservatism is distinctively associated with closed-mindedness: conservatives did no better or worse than liberals on an objective measure of cognitive reflection; and more importantly, both demonstrated the same unconscious tendency to fit assessments of empirical evidence to their ideological predispositions. Second, the study suggests that this form of bias is not a consequence of overreliance on heuristic or intuitive forms of reasoning; on the contrary, subjects who scored highest in cognitive reflection were the most likely to display ideologically motivated cognition. These findings corroborated the hypotheses of a third theory, which identifies motivated cognition as a form of information processing that rationally promotes individuals’ interests in forming and maintaining beliefs that signify their loyalty to important affinity groups. The paper discusses the normative significance of these findings, including the need to develop science communication strategies that shield policy-relevant facts from the influences that turn them into divisive symbols of identity.

Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism

Abstract: 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.

Political ideology as motivated social cognition: Behavioral and neuroscientific evidence.

Abstract: Ideology is a potent motivational force; human beings are capable of committing atrocities (as well as acts of generosity and courage) and sacrificing even their own lives for the sake of abstract belief systems. In this article, we summarize the major tenets of a model of political ideology as motivated social cognition (Jost et al. in Psychol Bull 129:339–375, 2003a, Psychol Bull 129:389–393, 2003b, Person Soc Psychol Bull 33:989–1007, 2007), focusing on epistemic, existential, and relational motives and their implications for left-right (or liberal-conservative) political orientation. We review behavioral evidence indicating that chronically and temporarily activated needs to reduce uncertainty, ambiguity, threat, and disgust are positively associated with conservatism (or negatively associated with liberalism). Studies from neuroscience and genetics suggest that right- (vs. left-) wing orientation is associated with greater neural sensitivity to threat and larger amygdala volume, as well as less sensitivity to response conflict and smaller anterior cingulate volume. These findings and others provide converging evidence for Jost and colleagues’ model of ideology as motivated social cognition and, more broadly, reflect the utility of an integrative political neuroscience approach to understanding the basic cognitive, neural, and motivational processes that give rise to ideological activity.

'Potted Plants in Greenhouses': A Critical Reflection on the Resilience of Colonial Education in Africa

Abstract: This paper draws on Okot p'Bitek's Song of Lawino and other critical voices to argue that education in Africa is victim of a resilient colonial and colonizing epistemology, which takes the form of science as ideology and hegemony. Postcolonial African elite justify the resilience of this epistemology and the education it inspires with rhetoric on the need to be competitive internationally. The outcome is often a devaluation of African creativity, agency and value systems, and an internalized sense of inadequacy. Education has become a compulsion for Africans to 'lighten their darkness' both physically and metaphorically in the interest of and for the gratification of colonizing and hegemonic others. The paper calls for paying more attention to popular systems of knowledge, in which reality is larger than logic. It calls for listening to ordinary men and women who, like p'Bitek's Lawino, are challenging the prescriptive gaze and grip of emasculated elite.

Telling stories of 21st century welfare: The UK Coalition government and the neo-liberal discourse of worklessness and dependency

Abstract: Policy documents are a useful source for understanding the privileging of particular ideological and policy preferences (Scrase and Ockwell, 2010) and how the language and imagery may help to construct society’s assumptions, values and beliefs. This article examines how the UK Coalition government’s 2010 Green Paper, 21st Century Welfare, and the White Paper, Universal Credit: Welfare that Works, assist in constructing a discourse about social security that favours a renewal and deepening of neo-liberalization in the context of threats to its hegemony. The documents marginalize the structural aspects of persistent unemployment and poverty by transforming these into individual pathologies of benefit dependency and worklessness. The consequence is that familiar neo-liberal policy measures favouring the intensification of punitive conditionality and economic rationality can be portrayed as new and innovative solutions to address Britain’s supposedly broken society and restore economic competitiveness.

Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract: Acknowledgements Introduction 1. On the problem of the ideological origins of the French Revolution Part I. French History at Issue: 2. Memory and practice: politics and the representation of the past in eighteenth-century France 3. Controlling French history: the ideological arsenal of Jacob-Nicolas Moreau 4. A script for a French revolution: the political consciousness of the abbe Mably Part II. The Language of Politics at the End of the Old Regime: 5. French political thought at the accession of Louis XVI 6. A classical republican in eighteenth-century Bordeaux: Guillaume-Joseph Saige 7. Science and politics at the end of the old regime 8. Public opinion as political invention Part III. Toward a Revolutionary Lexicon: 9. Inventing the French Revolution 10. Representation redefined 11. Fixing the French constitution Notes Index.

Infidel Brands: Unveiling Alternative Meanings of Global Brands at the Nexus of Globalization, Consumer Culture, and Islamism

Abstract: Religion and ideology are prominent forces shaping consumption. While consumer researchers have studied both topics considerably, examinations of religious ideology remain scant. Notably lacking is research on how religion, myths, and ideology intertwine in the marketplace, informing attitudes toward brands. This ethnography investigates how the religious ideology of Islamism informs brand meanings among low-income Turkish consumers and identifies three discourses that construct global brands as infidels. Informants use the infidel parable to characterize market societies as devoid of social equality, morality, and justice. Their critique culminates in a consumer jihad against global brands. Through the consumer jihad, informants accommodate and protest the social crises posed by modernity and globalization as they seek to recreate the Golden Age of Islam. Exploring the relationships among economic means, cultural capital, and religious ideology helps this study bridge related domains of research on relig...

The I in We: Studies in the Theory of Recognition

Abstract: Preface I. Hegelian Roots From Desire to Recognition: Hegel's Grounding of Self-Consciousness The Realm of Actualized Freedom: Hegel's Notion of a "Philosophy of Right" II. Systematic Consequences The Fabric of Justice: On the Limits of Contemporary Proceduralism Labour and Recognition: A Redefinition Recognition as Ideology: The Connection between Morality and Power Dissolutions of the Social: The Social Theory of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot Philosophy as Social Research: David Miller's Theory of Justice III. Social and Theoretical Applications Recognition between States: On the Moral Substrate of International Relations Organized Self-Realisation: Paradoxes of Individualisation Paradoxes of Capitalist Modernisation: A Research Programme (with Martin Hartmann) IV. Psychoanalytical Ramifications The Work of Negativity: A Recognition-Theoretical Revision of Psychoanalysis The I in the We: Recognition as a Driving Force of Group Formation Facets of the Presocial Self: A Rejoinder to Joel Whitebook Disempowering Reality: Secular Forms of Consolation

Nonprofit Human-Service Organizations, Social Rights, and Advocacy in a Neoliberal Welfare State

Abstract: The hallmark of the welfare state is the extension of social rights to the most vulnerable, a cause historically championed by nonprofit human-service organizations. With the rise of neoliberalism, these rights are threatened. This article attempts to show how the institutional, economic, and political environment of the nonprofit human-service sector is reshaped by a neoliberal ideology that celebrates market fundamentalism. The ideology institutionalizes such rules and practices as new public management, devolution, and privatization of services. Those elements shift the political discourse about the rights of the most vulnerable from the national to the local level. By turning vulnerable citizens into consumers, the ideology also reduces the national visibility of their needs. Most importantly, neoliberalism dampens the sector’s motivation to challenge the state and greatly curtails its historical mission to advocate and mobilize for social rights.

How Parties Shape Class Politics: Explaining the Decline of the Class Basis of Party Support

Abstract: Why has the association between class and party declined over time? Contrary to conventional wisdom that emphasizes the fracturing of social structures and blurring of class boundaries in post-industrial society, it is argued here that class divisions in party preferences are conditioned by the changing shape of the class structure and the effect of parties’ strategic ideological responses to this transformation on the choices facing voters. This thesis is tested using British survey data from 1959 to 2006. We demonstrate that increasing class heterogeneity does not account for the decline of the class–party association, which occurs primarily as a result of ideological convergence between the main parties resulting from New Labour's shift to the centre.

ALGORITHMIC IDEOLOGY: How capitalist society shapes search engines

Abstract: This article investigates how the new spirit of capitalism gets inscribed in the fabric of search algorithms by way of social practices. Drawing on the tradition of the social construction of technology (SCOT) and 17 qualitative expert interviews it discusses how search engines and their revenue models are negotiated and stabilized in a network of actors and interests, website providers and users first and foremost. It further shows how corporate search engines and their capitalist ideology are solidified in a socio-political context characterized by a techno-euphoric climate of innovation and a politics of privatization. This analysis provides a valuable contribution to contemporary search engine critique mainly focusing on search engines' business models and societal implications. It shows that a shift of perspective is needed from impacts search engines have on society towards social practices and power relations involved in the construction of search engines to renegotiate search engines and their alg...

Separated Powers in the United States: The Ideology of Agencies, Presidents, and Congress

Abstract: Government agencies service interest groups, advocate policies, provide advice to elected officials, and create and implement public policy. Scholars have advanced theories to explain the role of agencies in American politics but efforts to test these theories are hampered by the inability to systematically measure agency preferences. We present a method for measuring agency ideology that yields ideal point estimates of individual bureaucrats and agencies that are directly comparable with those of other political actors. These estimates produce insights into the nature of the bureaucratic state and provide traction on a host of questions about American politics. We discuss what these estimates reveal about the political environment of bureaucracy and their potential for testing theories of political institutions. We demonstrate their utility by testing key propositionsfromGailmardandPatty’s(2007)influentialmodelofpoliticalcontrolandendogenousexpertisedevelopment.

Australian politicians’ beliefs about climate change: political partisanship and political ideology

Abstract: Despite the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change and its implications, there is considerably less certainty or strength of belief among the general public in some industrialised countries. One explanation for the lack of consensus is the partisan nature of political debate about climate change. A survey of Australian politicians demonstrates that political party affiliation and ideology have a powerful influence on climate change beliefs. Politicians from Labor and Green parties (centre-left and progressive parties) exhibited beliefs that were more consistent with scientific consensus about climate change than non-aligned or conservative leaders. Moreover, political ideology (left–right) emerged as the most important predictor of politicians’ climate change beliefs. These findings highlight the role of political partisanship and ideology in undermining consensus around climate change and suggest the need to build consensus through constructing climate change messages that appeal to closely...

Social Entrepreneurship: Definitions, Drivers, and Challenges

Abstract: Despite widespread acknowledgement that social entrepreneurship and social enterprise remain highly contextual –and, therefore, contestable– notions which can be interpreted in various ways depending on the ideology and the goals of the institutions championing them (Dart 2004; Dey & Steyaert 2010; Nicholls 2010c), there are common features upon which most scholars and commentators can agree. This chapter aims to capture the essence of what social entrepreneurship is and also of what it is not. The chapter is structured as follows. The following section examines the concept of social entrepreneurship and reviews a number of definitions in order to highlight common features. Then, social entrepreneurship is compared with, and differentiated from, related –but distinctive– concepts. After this, the fourth section looks at the origins and drivers of social entrepreneurship in an historical perspective. Finally, this chapter concludes by suggesting a number of challenges for practice, policy and research in this field.

Newness as a winning formula for new political Parties

Abstract: Previous studies on new political parties have assumed that they either represent new or ignored cleavages or issues, or emerge in order to cleanse an ideology deficiently represented by an existing party. Four highly successful parties analysed in this article manifestly fail to comply with these assumptions. The article proposes a parsimonious two-dimensional typology of new parties refining the one suggested by Lucardie (2000), incorporating a new type of parties based on the project of newness. We show that the four parties analysed fall into the latter category as they fought on the ideological territory of existing parties yet did not attempt to purify an ideology. It is argued that newness has been an appealing project for new and rejuvenating parties everywhere and the experiences from new democracies should be taken seriously also by those working on established democracies.

How the Media Frames the Immigration Debate: The Critical Role of Location and Politics

Abstract: The media plays an important role in how the American public understands controversial social and political issues, such as immigration. The purpose of this article is to examine how key features of the media, such as location (Arizona vs. National) and political ideology (Liberal vs. Conservative), affect the framing of arguments supporting and opposing the anti-immigration bill (Arizona SB 1070). A content analysis was conducted using 3 weeks of newspaper articles from two Arizona newspapers (one Conservative, one Liberal) and five national newspapers (three Conservative, two Liberal). Analyses revealed that both location and political ideology influenced the framing. Specifically, the national newspapers were more likely than Arizona newspapers to frame arguments supporting the bill in terms of threats (e.g., threats to economic and public safety) and to frame arguments against the bill in terms of civil rights issues (e.g., racial profiling). In terms of political ideology, Conservative newspapers were more likely than Liberal newspapers to frame the bill in terms of economic and public safety threats, but did not differ in mentions of civil rights issues. The implications for attitudes toward immigrants and legal ethnic minorities and for defining the boundaries of the American national identity are discussed.

Dallas Smythe Today - The Audience Commodity, the Digital Labour Debate, Marxist Political Economy and Critical Theory. Prolegomena to a Digital Labour Theory of Value.

Abstract: Due to the global capitalist crisis, neoliberalism and the logic of commodification of everything have suffered cracks, fissures and holes. There is a return of the interest in Marx, which requires us to think about the role of Marxism in Media and Communication Studies. This paper contributes to this task by discussing some foundations of contemporary Marxist media and communication studies, including a focus on the renewed interest in Dallas Smythe’s audience commodity category as part of the digital labour debate. Dallas Smythe reminds us of the importance of engagement with Marx’s works for studying the media in capitalism critically. Both Critical Theory and Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication have been criticized for being one-sided. Such interpretations are mainly based on selective readings. They ignore that in both approaches there has been with different weightings a focus on aspects of media commodification, audiences, ideology and alternatives. Critical Theory and Critical Political Economy are complementary and should be combined in Critical Media and Communication Studies today. Dallas Smythe’s notion of the audience commodity has gained new relevance in the debate about corporate Internet services’ exploitation of digital labour. The exploitation of digital labour involves processes of coercion, alienation and appropriation.