Working Paper No. 3: Glossary of Basic Concepts in Socio-Cultural
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Populist rebellion against modernity in 21st-century Eastern Europe: neo-traditionalism and neo-feudalism Working Paper no. 3 Glossary of basic concepts in socio-cultural studies of populism Maria Asavei, Haris Dajč, Isidora Jarić, Krzysztof Kowalski, Jan Kubik, Zdzisław Mach, Richard Mole, Vladimir Ninković, Joanna Orzechowska-Wacławska, Vassilis Petsinis, Łucja Piekarska-Duraj, Agnieszka Sadecka, Nikola Samardžić, Louis Wierenga, Rita Hornok, Emilia Moddelmog-Anweiler POPREBEL Working Paper series editors: Jan Kubik and Richard Mole This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 822682. POPREBEL Working Paper series POPREBEL (Populist rebellion against modernity in 21st-century Eastern Europe: neo-traditionalism and neo-feudalism) is a large Horizon 2020-funded research project on the rise of populism in Central and Eastern Europe. The aim of the project is to describe the phenomenon, create a typology of its various manifes- tations, reconstruct trajectories of its growth and decline, investigate its causes, interpret its meanings, diagnose its consequences and propose policy solutions. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 re- search and innovation programme under grant agreement No 822682. The POPREBEL consortium comprises six universities – UCL (co-ordinating insti- tution), University of Belgrade, Charles University, Corvinus University of Buda- pest, Jagiellonian University and University of Tartu – and Edgeryders, a social enterprise. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 822682. 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5 1.1. Culture and populism. Theoretical inspirations………………………………………..……………………………………… 5 1.2. Methodological approaches and inspirations………………………………………………………………..………………… 6 1.3. Aim and scope…………………………………………..…………………………………………………………………………………….. 7 1.4. References…………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………………………….. 7 2. Categories and Concepts…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…… 8 2.1. General concepts…………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………….………….. 8 2.2. Identity/Values…………………………………………………………………………………………………….….……………............ 9 2.3. Discourses of Othering……………………………………………………………………………….……………………………………. 9 2.4. Strategies, tools and communication of ideas………………………………………………….……………………………. 10 2.5. Mental maps & imagined spaces……………………………………………………………………………….………………….. 10 3. Glossary………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………….. 11 3.1. General Concepts……………………………………………………..…………………………………………………………………… 11 3.1.1. Cultural Populism……………………………………………….…………………………………………………….. .......... 11 3.1.2. Neo-Populism from above (from below)……………………………………..………………………………………. 12 3.1.3. Populist and radical right ……………………………………………………………….………………………. ............ 13 3.1.4. Legitimacy…………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….……. ........... 14 3.1.5. Traditionalism & Neo-traditionalism…………………………………………………………………………. .......... 15 3.1.6. The people……………………………………………………………………………………………………...………. ........... 16 3.1.7. Elites ......................................................................................................................................... 18 3.1.8. Sovereignty…………………………………………………………………………………………….……………..…. .......... 20 3.1.9. Common sense……………………………………………………………………………………….………….….…. .......... 21 3.1.10. Common good………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….. .......... 23 3.2. Identity / Values…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 25 3.2.1. Nativism……………………………………………………………………………..……………………………………….………. 25 3.2.2. Ethnonationalism ………………………………………………………………….………………………………………….….26 3.2.3. Mental (ontological) security……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 28 3.2.4. Traditional religiosity…………………………………………………………………………………….…………………….. 29 3.2.5. Hegemonic Masculinity……………………………………………………………………………….………………………. 32 3.2.6. Homonationalism………………………………………………………………………………………….………………….…. 33 3.3. Discourses of Othering…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 33 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 822682. 3 3.3.1. Othering………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 33 3.3.2. Gender ideology..…………………….……………………………………………………………………………………………35 3.3.3. Gender regime..…………………….……………………………………………………………………………………..……… 36 3.3.4. Homophobia..…………………….……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 37 3.3.5. Heteronormativity / Homonormativity..…………………….………………………………………………………… 38 3.3.6. Cultural Marxism..…………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………. 39 3.3.7. Victimisation..…………………….……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 40 3.4. Strategies, tools, communication of ideas..…………………….…………….………….…………………………………… 41 3.4.1. Politics of memory..…………………….………………………………………………………………………………………. 41 3.4.2. Mythologisation..…………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………… 43 3.4.3. Euroscepticism..…………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 44 3.4.4. Conspiracy theories..…………………….…………………………………………………………………………………….. 46 3.4.5. Fake news..…………………….……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 47 3.4.6. Populist art..…………………….………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 49 3.5. Mental maps and imagined spaces..…………………….………………………………………………………………………..50 3.5.1. Mental maps..…………………….……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 50 3.5.2. Western Balkans ..…………………….………………………………………………………………………………………….52 3.5.3. Central Europe..……………….………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 54 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 822682. 4 1. Introduction 1.1. Culture and populism. Theoretical inspirations Even though populist movements and parties often refer to various cultural concepts, shape cultural discourses and root their claims in contemporary cultural phenomena, existing studies of populism do not seem to focus sufficiently on the cultural dimensions of populism (Dunkel et al., 2018; Caiani and Padoan, 2020). Populism has predominantly been studied and analyzed through the prism of political science, which by definition focuses on political processes and actors, ‘leaving aside highly important developments within non-party organizations and subcultures’ (Mudde 2007:5). Work Package 3 - Culture, the largest in the POPREBEL project, is tasked with addressing the socio-cultural phenomena driving and strengthening populism, as well as those generated by populist actors. Understood as a matrix within which political action takes place (Chabal and Daloz, 2006), the political is inherently rooted in the cultural. Jan Kubik identifies two main approaches in the cultural study of political phenomena (Kubik and Aronoff, 2013). The first, the social psychological, focuses primarily on attitudes (see, for instance, Almond and Verba, 1963, and Inglehart et al., 1988). The second one, the semiotic, focuses on the study of meanings and, as a result, is based on the interpretation of texts, actions, discourses etc. The semiotic approach is frequently used in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and history, but it is also adopted by several political scientists (see: Aronoff 1989; Chabal and Daloz 2006; Johnson 2003: 93; Wedeen 1999, 2002; Yanow & Schwartz-Shea 2006). A way to connect these two approaches is to see culture as the communication of meaning, based on the sender-message-receiver schema. ‘We need to focus on all three elements to describe and explain how meanings are generated, transmitted, and internalized to become motivators of (political) actions’ (Kubik, 2019:85). This introduction to the first deliverable of WP3, the Glossary of key terms, aims at positioning our research within the existing studies on the cultural aspects of populism, articulating POPREBEL’s own take on this issue and then establishing the key terms used in WP3, and providing a starting point for the specific research tasks in WP3. The glossary does not include terms used in the entire project, although it may be expanded at a later stage. Existing research on the cultural dimension in political studies focuses on several issues, in particular on how cultural difference underlies the division between the people and the elite (‘good people from the heartland’ vs corrupt elites; Taggart, 2000) and between the in-group (‘ordinary people’) and out-group (‘culprit others’) (Mudde, 2004). Culture is also a space of contention where Manichean divisions can be introduced and ‘culture wars’ against ideological ene- mies can be waged (Furedi, 2017). Through the constant introduction of various new cultural antagonisms on the agenda, populism thickens (in reference to Cas Mudde’s division into thin and thick populism) and makes use of new cultural resources, referring to gender, religion, ethnicity, etc. The frequent use of such value-laden issues leading to antagonisms and polarisation could be seen as part of the so-called ‘new politics’, in which questions of identity and recognition become central (Betz & Johson, 2004: 313). Since culture is frequently a space of polarization, it is linked to the issue of emotions in politics. On the one hand, certain collective emotions lead to demand for populism – for instance, frustration, dissatisfaction, insecurity and rebellion against the existing social order (Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Zielonka, 2018). On the other hand, populist