A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Hartz, Ronald Article Days of revelation: Remarks about the share of collective symbols in the discursive construction of economic crisis economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Provided in Cooperation with: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne Suggested Citation: Hartz, Ronald (2013) : Days of revelation: Remarks about the share of collective symbols in the discursive construction of economic crisis, economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, ISSN 1871-3351, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne, Vol. 14, Iss. 2, pp. 17-24 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/156005 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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More dramatical- Chemnitz University of Technology, ly, it seems that we are actually in a situation where in the [email protected] context of the debt crisis “the blame game has shifted” (Morgan et al. 2011: 148) and the aftermath of the crisis Introduction can be characterized by welfare cuts and privatizations, i.e., an ongoing process of neoliberalization (Patomäki My personal point of departure to reflect and to scrutinize 2009; Crouch 2011). the discursive fabric of the economic order in times of crisis is linked to the so called Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The On a more general level, these two lines of observations initial interest to analyze the discursive fabric of the GFC and analyses of the GFC brought to mind the historical, was driven by two observations. First, at the latest with the and to some extent, contingent nature of the economic insolvency of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, the order and its established practices and discourses (Foucault discourse about the GFC and its causes and consequences 1974, 2008). Understanding the GFC as a (contested) dominated the political agenda and has become a major discursive event makes evident that economic processes topic in the mass media discourse. After Lehman one could and events, as well as the associated organizational activi- get the impression that the crisis marks a critical historical ties are culturally embedded and treated semiotically in moment and a “state of emergency” (Foucault 1977), many different ways (Jessop 2004; Amin/Thrift 2004a; putting into question the prevailing economic sphere, i.e. Fairclough 2006). If we take into account that “[w]ork on its discourses, forms of practices and ways of subjectiviza- the image [... ] becomes a prime activity of capitalism” tion. The GFC was seen as a challenge for the global eco- (Amin/Thrift 2004b: xxi) then the “role [of] semiosis […] in nomic order and specifically “a major crisis for the set of construing, constructing, and temporarily stabilizing capital- economic ideas that have ruled the Western world and ist social formations” (Jessop 2004: 159) is a starting point many other parts of the world since the late 1970s.” for a critical discourse analysis of the economic order in (Crouch 2011: i; see also Beckert 2009; Gamble 2009; times of crisis. On this general backdrop, this article presents Morgan et al. 2011). Hence, the GFC was also a crisis of some selected qualitative results of an empirical study ana- the dominant neoclassical and neo-liberal economic dis- lyzing the mass media discourse about the GFC in Germany. courses (Patomäki 2009; Lounsbury/Hirsch 2010; Fair- The general aim of the study is the identification of the clough 2010) and consequently of the “cognitive infra- specific construction of the GFC and of discursive strategies structure” of the financial world (MacKenzie 2009: 178). both promoting the stabilization and (re-)convalescence of Beckert concludes that “[t]he speed at which neo-liberals economic order (Hartz 2012, forthcoming). In the progress call for massive Keynesian interventions in order to stabilize of the exploration of the empirical material it becomes obvi- the demand was breathtaking. There was a disregard of all ous that the construal of the GFC through „collective sym- dicta of economic policy of the last 30 years.” (Beckert bols“ plays an important role in the discourse. 2009: 138; translation by Ronald Hartz) In the following I will focus on the employment of “collec- The second, somehow contrary impression was that the tive symbols” in the course of the crisis discourse. The next neo-liberal doctrine could likely sustain their hegemonic section introduces the concepts of “normalism”, “collec- position. That is, it seems that the GFC did not delegitimize tive symbols” and “interdiscursivity” as developed by the neo-liberalism and the market economy at all. For example, literary scholar Jürgen Link. After this is done I will intro- Parr asserts in 2009 that we are witnessing a process of duce the empirical material and, in short, the analytical economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Volume 14, Number 2 (March 2013) “Days of Revelation” 18 proceedings. In the remainder I will present selected quali- Link defines “collective symbolism” as the interdiscursively, tative findings and end up with some short concluding collectively shared repertoire of allegories, emblems, meta- remarks. phors etc., that is pictoriality (“Bildlichkeit”) of a society at a given time (Drews/Gerhard/Link 1985; Beck- Conceptual background: “normalism”, er/Gerhard/Link 1996). Mostly collective symbols can be “collective symbolism” and understood as collectively passed on and used cultural “interdiscur“interdiscursivity”sivity” stereotypes or “topoi” (Drews/Gerhard/Link 1985: 265). For example Link and others identify technical vehicles Following Foucault, Link (Link 2009a; Jäger 2012: 53-55) (cars, ships, buildings, planes, submarines) and body meta- understands the concept of “normalism” and “normality” phors (organism, illness, virus etc.) as source for collective as a “basic element of modern societies” (Link 2009a: symbols (Link 1978; Drews/Gerhard/Link 1985). Its interdis- 17). 1 The idea of “normality” is both an answer and inex- cursive usage brings on analogies through catachresis tricably linked to the dynamic development of the modern (“Bildbrüche”), e.g. symbolizes refugees as “flood” or a society, most obvious in its focus on (exponential) growth, recession as “virus” (Link 1978). Thus collective symbols acceleration and flexibilization, which always bears the function as a basal element of the social construction and danger of processes of “de-normalization” and social dis- interpretation of the social reality, not at last in terms of a tortion, crisis or revolutions. In dealing with and facing the (ex post) construction of normality or aberration. As Link “productive chaos” (Link 2009a: 323) of modernity, the puts it: “The as-sociative function of a culture, which in- evaluation (statistical, juridical, through mass media etc.) cludes the integration of individual and collective subjectiv- of, e.g., personal attitudes, individual and collective behav- ity, is guaranteed by the interdiscourse in the first place. ior, economic activities or societal change in their relation The given collective symbols are a kind of condensed inter- to dominant societal conceptions of normality and aberra- discourse. Hence the given character of normalism of our tion, e.g., sexual orientation, work ethics or managerial culture is visible in the functioning of its collective sym- virtues (Boltanski/Chiapello 2006) play an important role in bols.” (Link 2009a: 374) the adjustment, regulation and, consequently, the contin- uation of the modern social fabric. In turning back to the GFC it can be claimed, that this major economic crisis proceeds in the mass media as an Societal discourses are crucial for the construction and expression of economic (and societal) de-normalization prolongation of concepts of normality and consequently which calls for strategies of normalization, that is the con- the practices of “normalization” and the regulation of the valescence of the economic order. Thus an analysis of the “chaotic modernity”. Link differentiates between “special- usage of collective symbols can lead to new insights into ized discourses”