An Ad Hoc Nation

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 850-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Danero Iglesias

Since independence, nationalism has been at the front of politics in the Republic of Moldova in the context of a persisting political struggle about the very definition of the Moldovan nation. Looking at campaign video clips produced in 2009 by Moldovan political parties and using a methodology inspired by Critical Discourse Analysis, the article gives a better understanding of nationalism in Moldova nowadays. The article demonstrates that the focus of political parties on the nation is purely symbolic. They adapt their discourse to the context in which they evolve (audience of the videos and targeted voters). Pursuing the objective of gaining or holding on to power, parties construct an ad hoc nation whose content they fill with the needs of the moment, using mirroring arguments to win the elections over competing parties seen as enemies of an endangered country.

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 780-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Danero Iglesias

History is one of the many instruments available for the persuasive construction of a nation. In Moldova, the Party of the Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM), in office from 2001 to 2009, advocated for a Soviet-based version of the Moldovan nation. This “Moldovanism” boasted of the existence of a “Moldovan People” and was relied upon to justify the independence of the former Romanian province. Vladimir Voronin, the party's leader and president of the Republic during this period, promoted this “civic” Moldovan nation and created what seemed to be a coherent and ad hoc construction of an independent Moldovan nation.This paper focuses on communist political discourse during this eight year period. Through the use of Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper focuses on the discursive construction of the Moldovan nation. It is based on Voronin's official speeches and messages from key occasions such as Independence Day and Victory Day.This paper demonstrates the varied use of history in these speeches which improves understanding of the process of the construction of a nation. Moreover, it demonstrates that this construction, far from being coherent, was also sometimes contradictory. Indeed, discourse was adapted to the immediate context and audience. Finally, the paper explains how an explicitly “civic” discourse can be implicitly and, sometimes even explicitly, “ethnic” and “exclusive”.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Svanholm ◽  
E Viitasara ◽  
H Carlerby

Abstract Background Previous research has indicated that migrants risk facing inequities both internationally and in Sweden; integration policies are therefore important to study. How health is described in policies affects how health interventions are approached. A discourse analysis offers a way of understanding how health is framed within the integration policies of the Establishment Program. The aim was to critically analyse the health discourses used in Swedish and European Union (EU) integration policies. Methods A critical discourse analysis, inspired by Fairclough, was performed on integration policies related to Sweden, on local, regional, national and the EU level. The policies of the Establishment Program, which focuses on newly arrived migrants (refugees, persons of subsidiary protection and their relatives who arrived through family reunification), were chosen for the analysis, and 17 documents were analysed in total. Results The analysis of the documents showed that although no definition of health was presented, health discourses were expressed in the form of the medicalization of health and the individualization of health. This not only by the terminology used, but also in how the healthcare sector was considered responsible for any health related issue and how individual health behaviours were of focus in interventions to promote health. Conclusions A pathogenic approach to health was visible in the policies and individual disease prevention was the main health focus. The results showed similarities to previous research highlighting how a particular understanding of health in a neoliberal context is formed. Key messages Health as a resource is missing in the integration policy documents. Viewing health as an individual quality puts the responsibility of promoting health on the individual.


Author(s):  
Robin Björkas ◽  
Mariah Larsson

AbstractSex dolls are a complex phenomenon with several diverse possible emotional, sexual and therapeutic uses. They can be part of a broad variety of sexual practices, and also function as a sexual aid. However, the media discourse on sex dolls first and foremost concerns how we perceive the relationship between intimacy and technology. A critical discourse analysis of the Swedish media discourse on sex dolls reveals six themes which dominate the discourse: (a) the definition of what a human being is; (b) a discourse on the (technological and existential) future; (c) a social effort; (d) a loveless phenomenon; (e) men’s violence against women; and (f) pedophilia. Accordingly, this discourse is very conservative and normative in its view of sexuality, technology, and humanity. Overall, the dominant themes do not provide any space for positive effects of technology on human sexuality, and if they do, it is usually as a substitute for something else.


2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 591-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Bellè ◽  
Caterina Peroni ◽  
Elisa Rapetti

The aim of this article is to furnish insights of the Italian public debate on the recognition of LGBTQ rights, which can be understood as an interesting case study of the complex relationship between (multi)secularisation processes and re/definition of citizenship models. More specifically, the article analyses two political events related to this debate that took place in Rome in June 2015. The first is the Family Day demonstration, promoted by conservative Catholic groups; the second is the LGBTQ Pride parade, promoted by various gay, lesbian and transsexual/gender associations. We analyse the official statements issued by the two organising committees of the demonstrations, adopting the framework and methods of the Critical Discourse Analysis. Above and beyond an evident political conflict between the two discourses, we try to shed light on their mutual construction on the basis of what we call ‘naturalization’ and ‘universalization’ processes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1(31)) ◽  
pp. 57-65
Author(s):  
Rodica Svetlicinâi ◽  
Mariana Iațco ◽  
Tatiana Turco

The issue of reporting on the financial activity of political parties is crucial for any democratic society. At the same time, the presentation of financial reports by political parties is a mandatory element in ensuring greater transparency of their activity as a whole. Transparency of party financing activities is necessary to protect voters' rights to obtain the necessary information on financial support to political parties as well as the costs associated with running the electoral campaign, etc., which ensures a more trained and informed voter for the exercise of his / her rights in a democratic system. One way to increase the transparency of political parties' funding is the system of online reporting of political party incomes and expenditures. For the Republic of Moldova this is an a priori, given that our society has set its course towards European standards and values, and the political arena is characterized by the diversity of political actors segmented according to the ideals claimed in their platform and status.


Author(s):  
Līga Romāne-Kalniņa ◽  

Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric as the art of observing the available means of persuasion is one of the most widely used quotations not only in linguistics but also in social, political, and communication sciences. Aristotle, apart from defining the elements of rhetoric (logos, ethos and pathos), has proposed three types of rhetoric that refer either to the present situation (ceremonial), the past (judicial), or the future (political). The current president of Latvia and his language use is one of the most widely discussed topics across the media and academia due to the register, style, and content of his speeches. Moreover, the president of Latvia has a direct impact on how the state is perceived nationally and internationally; thus, it is significant to investigate the linguistic profile of the linguistic expression of the ideas communicated by the president to the wider public. The current study analyses 160 speeches given by president Egils Levits on nationally significant occasions as well as internationally with the aim to investigate whether the speeches of the president of Latvia correspond to the ceremonial, political or judicial rhetoric because the president represents both legal and political discourse as the former judge of the European Court of Human Rights and the former minister of Justice, and as the head of the Republic of Latvia represents the state nationally and abroad. The study is grounded in the theories on rhetoric and Critical Discourse Analysis applied to political discourse and presidential language and discussed by scholars such as Aristotle (1959), Van Dijk (2006), Chilton and Schäffner (2002), O’Keeffe (2006), Van Dijk (2008), David (2014), Wilson (2015) and Wodak and Mayer (2016). The results of the current study reveal that the speeches are a clear representation of a combination of legal, political, and ceremonial rhetoric and cross various semantic fields that are marked by the use of field terminology in combination with topos of definition and name interpretation to explain the terms directly in the speeches. The speeches by Levits are furthermore marked by relatively frequent use of loanwords, neologisms, obsolete words, and compounds that is one of the main characteristics of the linguistic profile of his speeches. Additional characteristic features are the use of parallel sentence constructions, inverted word orders, rhetorical questions, and pronominal referencing to attract the listener's attention and emphasize the thematic areas of the speeches. Nevertheless, it has been concluded that such linguistic techniques as metaphors, metonymies, synecdoche, or hyperbole are used comparatively less frequently, thus making the speeches appear more formal and less emotional from the linguistic point of view.


Author(s):  
Svetlana Ghenova

This chapter is devoted to revealing the importance and definition of the logical relationship of components related to an effective product policy of modern medium-size winery of the Republic of Moldova. The chapter presents a comparative analysis of modern marketing definitions of product policy of an enterprise. The purpose of the author is the research and marketing disclosure of the nature of the product policy as one of the key management tools of a modern winery. A structural model of the marketing product policy components has been developed. The approaches proposed for implementation in the Moldovan wineries would allow the analysis of the product policy effectiveness. The importance of the marketing substantiation of effective product policy in the activities of medium-sized wineries in socio-economic development of Moldova and their underutilized potential, an unfavorable business climate and the need for a substantial improvement in the product policy has determined the relevance of the research topic presented in the chapter.


2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 392-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farid Hafez

This article analyses the two national parliamentary debates on the new Islam law of 2015 using a Viennese School of Critical Discourse Analysis. It asks how the new Islam law was framed from the perspectives of the political parties in power and of those in opposition. It also shows in detail which arguments were raised to defend, alter or support the proposed law by identifying the list of topoi used. It asks especially how racist arguments were debated between on one side a comparably tolerant Austrian system of laws on religion, and on the other, the dominant right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria, which aimed to foster Islamophobia.


2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio Strafella

AbstractThe adoption of postmodernist and postcolonial theories by China’s intellectuals dates back to the early 1990s and its history is intertwined with that of two contemporaneous trends in the intellectual sphere, i. e. the rise of conservatism and an effort to re-define the function of the Humanities in the country. This article examines how these trends merge in the political stance of a key figure in that process, Peking University literary scholar Zhang Yiwu, through a critical discourse analysis of his writings from the early and mid-1990s. Pointing at his strategic use of postmodernist discourse, it argues that Zhang Yiwu employed a legitimate critique of the concept of modernity and West-centrism to advocate a historical narrative and a definition of cultural criticism that combine Sino-centrism and depoliticisation. The article examines programmatic articles in which the scholar articulated a theory of the end of China’s “modernity”. It also takes into consideration other parallel interventions that shed light on Zhang Yiwu’s political stance towards modern China, globalisation and post-1992 economic reforms, including a discussion between Zhang Yiwu and some of his most prominent detractors. The article finally reflects on the implications of Zhang Yiwu’s writings for the field of Chinese Studies, in particular on the need to look critically and contextually at the adoption of “foreign” theoretical discourse for national political agendas.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Валентин Михайлов ◽  
Valentin Mikhaylov

The author of the article reviews a definition of conflicts of interest which are used in such international legal acts as the Convention of the United Nations against corruption (2003), The Convention against bribery of foreign officials during implementation of international commercial transactions which was adopted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (1997), as well as in the national legislation of the Russian Federationа and a number of other countries (The Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Moldova, the Kyrgyz Republic). Subject to analysis are the organizational and legal mechanisms aimed at preventing and settlement of conflict of interests, procedure of notification of personal interests which might give rise to the collision of interests both within the sphere of state sector and private sector alike. Along with it the author analyses the problems in the course of implementation of the respective legal machinery. Specifically, it relates to the moral aspects of prevention and settlement of the conflict of interests in view of deficiencies in the existing system of normative anti corrupt prohibitions, restrictions and obligations — all aimed to prevent all possible types of corruptive practices.


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