Symbolic Power (symbolic + power)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Weaponizing Classical Music: Crime Prevention and Symbolic Power in the Age of Repetition

JOURNAL OF POPULAR MUSIC STUDIES, Issue 4 2007
Lily E. Hirsch
[source]


European Union Constitution-Making, Political Identity and Central European Reflections

EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2005

It analyses both the temporal and spatial dimensions of constitution-making and addresses the problems of political identity related to ethnic divisions and civic demos. It starts by summarising the major arguments supporting the Union's constitution-making project and emphasises the Union's symbolic power as a polity built on the principles of civil society and parliamentary democracy. The EU's official rejection of ethnically based political identity played an important symbolic role in post-Communist constitutional and legal transformations in Central Europe in the 1990s. In the following part, the text analyses the temporal dimension of the EU's identity-building and constitution-making and emphasises its profoundly future-oriented structure. The concept of identity as the ,future in process' is the only option of how to deal with the absence of the European demos. Furthermore, it initiates the politically much-needed constitution-making process. The following spatial analysis of this process emphasises positive aspects of the horizontal model of constitution-making, its elements in the Convention's deliberation and their positive effect on the Central European accession states. The article concludes by understanding the emerging European identity as a multi-level identity of civil political virtues surrounded by old loyalties and traditions, which supports the conversational model of liberal democratic politics, reflects the continent's heterogeneity and leads to the beneficial combination of universal principles and political realism. [source]


The Origins of the ,Nonmarket Economy': Ideas, Pluralism & Power in EC Anti-dumping Law about China

EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 4 2001
Francis Snyder
,Market' and ,market economy' exercise a powerful, even magnetic grip on our collective imagination. But what do we mean by ,market economy'? Does it make sense to speak of a ,nonmarket economy', and if so, what does it mean? How are the ideas of ,market economy' and ,nonmarket economy' related? Focusing on EC anti-dumping law, this article seeks to answer these questions. It argues that the legal concept of ,nonmarket economy' in EC anti-dumping law has been socially constructed, by means of relations among a plurality of institutional and normative sites, as part of a changing configuration of legal ideas in specific historical circumstances, and in contexts of political, economic, social, and symbolic power. This argument is articulated in three parts. First, the concept of ,nonmarket economy' in EC anti-dumping law, though drawing on earlier elements, had its main roots in the early Cold War. Second, starting in the 1960s, the GATT multilateral negotiating rounds began to define more specific international rules of the game, but a variety of more localised processes played essential roles as forces of change. Of special importance were, first, the tension between legislative rules and administrative discretion in the United States, and, second, the Europeanisation of foreign trade law in the course of European integration. Third, the EC law concept of ,nonmarket economy' was born in the late 1970s. The main reasons were changes in the international anti-dumping law repertoire, specific ideas in Europe about comparative economic systems, and the perceived emergence of new economic threats, including exports from China. [source]


Sister-to-Sister Talk: Transcending Boundaries and Challenges in Qualitative Research With Black Women,

FAMILY RELATIONS, Issue 3 2003
April L. Few
Our purpose is to discuss the challenges that Black women researchers face when doing qualitative research with Black women on sensitive topics. From a Black feminist perspective, we explore the dynamics of race, class, and gender in the informant-researcher relationship between Black women. We also share five recommendations for conducting ethical qualitative research with Black women: contextualizing research, contextualizing subjectivity, triangulating multiple sources, monitoring symbolic power, and caring in the research process. [source]


The Trans-Tasman Cable, the Australasian Bridgehead and Imperial History

HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2008
James Smithies
The extension of the ,All Red' telegraph network to Australia and New Zealand during the 1870s greatly enhanced communication between the centre and periphery, consolidating British imperial expansion and offering the Australasian colonies the opportunity to engage more fully in imperial affairs. For contemporaries, the Trans-Tasman cable between Australia and New Zealand provided the final link in a grand imperial chain of communications, which promised to bolster their significance in world affairs and offset the cultural isolation which appeared to be stifling their development. The cable represented an essential bond between the furthest-flung imperial ,bridgehead' (John Darwin) and the cultural and strategic centre of London. In real terms, however, the promises of the new technology of submarine telegraphy failed to live up to expectations. Although quickly integrated into New Zealanders' dawning cultural nationalist myth, the cable was expensive and underused for many years. Its real significance lies in its symbolic power as a symbol of imperial expansion, and as a case study in the vagaries of technology transfer. [source]


From Village Artisans to Industrial Clusters: Agendas and Policy Gaps in Indian Rural Industrialization

JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 1 2001
Ashwani Saith
This paper offers a broad strategic assessment of the experience of rural industrialization in India. It does so from a policy perspective with the aim eventually of highlighting speci?c outstanding policy issues. Rural and small-scale industrialization (RSSI) has held a special place in Indian development thinking and policy formulation from the outset. This privileged position, however, does not derive from a universal consensus with regard to the rationale and policy framework applicable to this sub-sector.However, such has been the symbolic power and populist appeal of RSSI that it has retained its special status within diverse strategic and ideological frameworks. But how has the sub-sector performed? Is the infant industry still in need of paternalistic protection at the age of ?fty? Are there any credible indications of a strategic break with longstanding policy frameworks inherited from the past? Can any crucial policy gaps be identi ?ed? How well does rural small-scale industry satisfy the extensive developmental claims made by its proponents? These are the general questions addressed. [source]


Legal Weapons for the Weak?

LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 4 2001
Democratizing the Force of Words in an Uncivil Society
First Amendment absolutists and proponents of speech regulation are locked in a normative stalemate over the best way to diminish racial "hate speech." I argue that this stalemate can be overcome by considering a more expansive theory of the "force of words" and the risks the right of free speech entails for individuals. Drawing on a cultural theory of symbolic power, I discuss the merits and limitations of two recent texts which redefine hate speech as discriminatory conduct. As an alternative to this strategy, I develop an analytical framework for describing the social risks the right of free speech entails, and propose juridical and deliberative-democratic remedies that might redistribute and attenuate these risks. Cultural and legal theory can find common ground in the analysis of the undemocratic effects of symbolic power. Such common ground can be achieved if legal theorists consider the force of words as a problem for democracy and if cultural theorists consider the resources provided by democratic institutions and practices for the redistribution of the social risks of speech [source]


"Unsightly Huts": Shanties and the Divestment Movement of the 1980s

PEACE & CHANGE, Issue 3 2007
Bradford Martin
This article analyzes students' efforts to pressure American colleges and universities to divest their South African investments during the 1980s, focusing on the movement's most visible feature, the shantytowns students built to express solidarity with black South Africans and to oppose their institutions' investment policies. I argue that the shanties were constructed in spaces chosen to achieve maximum symbolic power and often succeeded in spatially transforming campuses into public forums that heightened students' capacity to affect the institutional decision-making process. Not surprisingly, the shanties evoked fervent responses. Shantytown residents identified with the plight of black South Africans under apartheid, while opponents called them "eyesores," and, as in the notorious case at Dartmouth, even forcibly destroyed them. When set against the conservative tenor of the Reagan/Bush 1980s, the varying responses to campus shantytowns, at both elite private institutions as well as large public ones, raise important questions about the cultural constructedness of "vision" and aesthetics and about the efficacy and the limits of using public space for symbolic oppositional politics. [source]