The (Im)possibility of Class Identity: Reflections on a Case of Failed Right-Wing Hegemony

2020 ◽  
pp. 089692052095942
Author(s):  
Giorgos Bithymitris
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Public ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This article discusses the dialectics of class identifications in the case of a shipbuilding community of workers in Greece. Unlike other working-class segments that went through the traumas of the recent economic crisis silently, the workers of Perama Zone attracted the attention of the public discourse on more than one occasion. The violent far-right activism that encroached on the formerly thriving industrial communities of the wider area have reopened an old discussion about the relationship of the working class with fascism. Analysing interview and ethnographic material, the article focuses on the discursive processes of class identity formation. Class as an (im)possible identity is examined through the lenses of sociological and psychodynamic distinctions between identity and identification drawing on the broader literature of cultural class analysis. The overarching aim of the study is to explore the opportunities and limitations of the far-right appeal when class is at work through affirmation and/or negation.

‘‘The Other Side of the Coin’’: The Anatomy of a Public Controversy in the Montreal Jewish Community, 1931

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
English Language ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mcgill University ◽  
Polish Jews ◽  
Canadian Jews ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines in detail the repercussions of a 1931 sermon by Sheea Herschorn, an immigrant Orthodox rabbi in Montreal, on the public discourse of the Montreal Jewish community. It begins with a brief consideration of the position of the immigrant Orthodox rabbinate in Montreal and then explores the nature of the public discourse on this sermon, in which Rabbi Herschorn was accused of agreeing with an anti-Semitic position, through a close examination of the reportage of the controversy in Montreal’s Jewish press, which then included two newspapers in Yiddish, the Keneder Adler and Der Shtern, as well as the English-language Canadian Jewish Chronicle. Finally, the article explores some of the major issues raised in Rabbi Herschorn’s sermon regarding the contemporary situation of Polish Jews in relation to their society, tying it to his perception of the relationship of Canadian Jews and Canadian society as a whole. These latter issues included especially the relationship between Montreal Jews and Montreal’s public Anglophone institutions, such as the Royal Victoria Hospital, and McGill University, whose ambivalent acceptance of Jews as physicians and students was then an issue of great concern to the Jewish community.

When logics of party politics and online activism collide: The populist Finns Party’s identity under negotiation

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 2022-2038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niko Hatakka
Keyword(s):  
Online Community ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Centralized Control ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Public ◽  
Online Activism ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This article portrays the relationship of populist parties, far-right online action and journalistic media by analysing the consequences of a Finnish populist party mobilizing resources created in an online community of anti-immigration activists. How have the traditionally centre-left-populist Finns Party’s attempts of utilizing the far-right-leaning online network Hommaforum contributed to the mediated negotiation over the party’s identity? The study analyses discursive exchanges between Finnish political journalists, the party leader Timo Soini and Hommaforum activists pertaining to the party’s affiliation with racism and extremism during 2008–2015. As a case study, the article discusses the implications of online action diffusing into institutionalized politics and the public sphere. The study suggests that due to the inherent publicness, connective nature and political smearing-applicability of controversial online action, the mobilization of online resources forces traditional organizations to use considerable communicative resources to compensate for the loss of centralized control over communicating party identity.

Rethinking “State Shinto” in the Past and the Present

Numen ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 163-184
Author(s):  
Michiaki Okuyama
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Leadership ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
Yasukuni Shrine ◽  
Imperial Family ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article reflects on the meaning of recent arguments concerning “State Shinto” in the contemporary Japanese right-wing and conservative social context. Shimazono Susumu’s recent analyses of State Shinto in postwar Japan have stimulated discussion of the subject. His understanding that State Shinto has survived from the prewar years is based on his analysis of both Imperial House Shinto, which was not affected by the Shinto Directive issued in 1945, and the postwar political activism of the Association of Shinto Shrines and its political arm, the Shinto Association for Spiritual Leadership. The political campaigns of these Shinto groups can be situated in a larger context of the rise of neonationalism in contemporary Japanese society. Given the relationship of Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine and Ise Jingū (Ise Shrine), and the current interest among the public in the rituals of the emperor and the imperial family, a reconsideration of the concept of State Shinto seems warranted. A critical rethinking of State Shinto may be regarded as a warning against attempts by conservative religio-political movements to revive prewar State Shinto.

scholarly journals Conspiratorial medievalism: History and hyperagency in the far-right Knights Templar security imaginary

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110109
Author(s):  
Katharine M Millar ◽  
Julia Costa Lopez
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
White Men ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Public ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
Knights Templar ◽  
Right Wing Extremism

Imagery associated with the Knights Templar appears in the public discourse and symbolism of many white supremacist and white nationalist groups. The 2011 Norwegian mass murderer cited the Templars in his manifesto, as did the 2019 New Zealand shooter. Templar crosses were on display at the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina. To understand the security imaginary behind these racialised medievalisms and their contemporary animation within right-wing extremism, this article develops the concept of ‘conspiratorial medievalism’. The Knights Templar imaginary blends a specific, racialised, and romanticised vision of history with the grammar of conspiracy theory. This is characterised by (a) a belief in the racialised decline and victimisation of a ‘righteous’ White Christendom; (b) a sense of threat posed by racialised Others and betrayal by insiders; and (c) an anachronistic view of near-omnipotent individual agency. Significantly, conspiratorial medievalism demonstrates an aspiration to not merely combat ‘undue’ agency of racialised Others, but to reclaim and perform extreme agency themselves. Agency is cast in the idiom of medieval chivalry and framed as the moral obligation of righteous White men. Although Knights Templar imagery may appear superficial, this article finds it is an important justificatory and enabling discourse for racist violence.

On the Volatile Relationship of Secularization and New Religious Movements

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Holland
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Christian Science ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Action ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the complex relationship between secularization and the emergence of new religious movements. Drawing from countervailing research, some of which insists that new religious movements abet secularizing processes and some of which sees these movements as disproving the secularization thesis, the chapter presents the relationship as inherently unstable. To the extent that new religious movements maintain a precarious balance of familiarity and foreignness—remaining familiar enough to stretch the definitional boundaries of religion—they contribute to secularization. However, new religious movements frequently lean to one side or other of that median, either promoting religious power in the public square by identifying with the interests of existing religious groups, or emphasizing their distinctiveness from these groups and thus provoking aggressive public action by the antagonized religious mainstream. This chapter centres on an illustrative case from Christian Science history.

Administrative elites and the crisis: what lies ahead for the senior civil service in Greece?

2014 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calliope Spanou
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Civil Service Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Elites ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The nature of the relationship between the public administration and politics and the subsequent role of the administration appear to be incompatible with the emergence of an administrative elite. After analysing the reasons for this incompatibility, the article explores the impact of the measures taken in the wake of the economic crisis on the civil service and its reform, and also the prospects for the development of a senior civil service. The key, and also the challenge, to any change in this direction remains the rebalancing of the relationship between the public administration and politics. Points for practitioners What might interest practitioners is the issue of the conditions of effectiveness of civil service reform in times of economic crisis and significant pressure.

Reconceptualizing the Public Spaces of New Urban Areas in Hanoi: The End or the New of Public-Making?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh-Tung Tran ◽  
◽  
Tien-Hau Phan ◽  
Ngoc-Huyen Chu ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Public ◽  
Doi Moi ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Neighborhood Level

Public spaces are designed and managed in many different ways. In Hanoi, after the Doi moi policy in 1986, the transfer of the public spaces creation at the neighborhood-level to the private sector has prospered na-ture of public and added a large amount of public space for the city, directly impacting on citizen's daily life, creating a new trend, new concept of public spaces. This article looks forward to understanding the public spaces-making and operating in KDTMs (Khu Do Thi Moi - new urban areas) in Hanoi to answer the question of whether ‘socialization’/privatization of these public spaces will put an end to the urban public or the new means of public-making trend. Based on the comparison and literature review of studies in the world on public spaces privatization with domestic studies to see the differences in the Vietnamese context leading to differences in definitions and roles and the concept of public spaces in KDTMs of Hanoi. Through adducing and analyzing practical cases, the article also mentions the trends, the issues, the ways and the technologies of public-making and public-spaces-making in KDTMs of Hanoi. Win/loss and the relationship of the three most important influential actors in this process (municipality, KDTM owners, inhabitants/citizens) is also considered to reconceptualize the public spaces of KDTMs in Hanoi.

scholarly journals UNDERSTANDING LAW AND RELIGION AS CULTURE: MAKING ROOM FOR MEANING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1, 2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2006
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Berger
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between law and religion in contemporary civil society has been a topic of increasing social interest and importance in Canada in the past many years. We have seen the practices and commitments of religious groups and individuals become highly salient on many issues of public policy, including the nature of the institution of marriage, the content of public education, and the uses of public space, to name just a few. As the vehicle for this discussion, I want to ask a straightforward question: When we listen to our public discourse, what is the story that we hear about the relationship between law and religion? How does this topic tend to be spoken about in law and politics – what is our idiom around this issue – and does this story serve us well? Though straightforward, this question has gone all but unanswered in our political and academic discussions. We take for granted our approach to speaking about – and, therefore, our way of thinking about – the relationship between law and religion. In my view, this is most unfortunate because this taken-for-grantedness is the source of our failure to properly understand the critically important relationship between law and religion.

scholarly journals HOW TO SABOTAGE A SECRET SOCIETY: THE DEMISE OF CARL FRIEDRICH BAHRDT'S GERMAN UNION IN 1789

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-402
Author(s):  
ANDREW MCKENZIE-MCHARG
Keyword(s):  
Secret Society ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The Public ◽  
The North ◽  
State And Society ◽  
German Republic ◽  
The Status ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn 1789 in Leipzig, a slim pamphlet of 128 pages appeared that sent shock waves through the German republic of letters. The pamphlet, bearing the title Mehr Noten als Text (More notes than text), was an ‘exposure’ whose most sensational element was a list naming numerous members of the North German intelligentsia as initiates of a secret society. This secret society, known as the German Union, aimed to push back against anti-Enlightenment tendencies most obviously manifest in the policies promulgated under the new Prussian king Frederick William II. The German Union was the brainchild of the notorious theologian Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741–92). But who was responsible for the ‘exposure’? Using material culled from several archives, this article pieces together for the first time the back story to Mehr Noten als Text and in doing so uncovers a surprisingly heterogeneous network of Freemasons, publishers, and state officials. The findings prompt us to reconsider general questions about the relationship of state and society in the late Enlightenment, the interplay of the public and the arcane spheres and the status of religious heterodoxy at this time.

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