Operationalising memory and identity politics to influence public opinion of refugees: A snapshot from Poland

Using a politics of identity and memory approach, herein, we explore how political discourse plays out in practice and ‘in place’ when Poles were compelled to consider the introduction of visibly different persons, with different cultural characteristics, to their society. In 2017, and at the height of the "migrant/refugee crisis", we conducted 200 short interviews in Wrocław, Poland, to gauge and interpolate attitudes and opinions to refugees, in a context where the refugees had been strategically Othered, and constructed as a threat to Polish society. Our discussion focuses on how the strategic use and dissemination of threat and fear, in public discourse, was operationalised to disrupt steadfast notions of belonging to the Polish nation. By exploring belonging to the nation through a politics of identity and memory framework, we can better understand and provide contextual nuance to the import of maintaining ‘a [Polish] cultural sense of belonging’ (Brockmeier, 2002, p. 18). While in a Polish context, place-based and culturally historical narratives of conflict, territorial incursion, and occupation have framed threats to belonging in the past, the contemporary political exploitation of threat and its (re)production in public discourse is not only strongly exclusionary, but also denies the opportunity for Poles to know diversity as a felt experience reinforcing ideas of a ‘closed’ Poland. The contribution of this paper, then, is to demonstrate both the effectiveness of control of public discourse in a specific place and time, but to also elucidate the less often heard Eastern European states responses to the refugee crises.     

Europe,public opinion,and Brexit*

ABSTRACT

The construction – and deconstruction – of Europe is a spatial democratic process, and public opinion is central to it. One part of public opinion is fuelled by pragmatic – either economic (the search for prosperity) or strategic (the need for security) – arguments. Another is fired by political, moral and religious ideologies and identities (and utopian views of Europe in particular). Attitudes concerning Europe were never identical in the Western or Eastern halves of the continent, or in Britain. They evolved in connection with processes of economic change (from the second to the third phase of the Industrial Revolution), and latterly in relation to globalization and its geographic impact. Euroscepticism demands a deep adjustment of Europe to its current political-intellectual scene and geographic organization.     

Trumping foreign policy: public diplomacy,framing, and public opinion among middle power publics

Even as the world’s sole superpower, the United States requires the cooperation of other states to achieve many of its foreign policy objectives. The President of the United States thus often serves as ‘Diplomat in Chief’ in public diplomacy efforts to appeal directly to publics abroad. Given Donald Trump’s antagonistic approach to foreign relations and widespread lack of popularity, what are the implications for support for US policy among publics abroad – particularly among middle power states allied to the US? While previous research on public opinion relying on observational data has found that confidence in the US President is linked to support for American foreign policy goals, the mechanisms at work remain unclear. Using original data from survey-based experiments conducted in Canada and Australia, this article seeks to clarify the effect of ‘presidential framing’ (presenting a policy goal as endorsed or not endorsed by Trump) on attitudes toward key policy issues in the Canada–US and Australia–US relationships. Results point to a negative ‘Trump framing’ effect in Canadians’ and Australians’ trade policy attitudes, but such an effect is not observed in other policy domains (energy policy in Canada, and refugee policy in Australia).     

“社会国家”思想、公众舆论和政治家俾斯麦——近代德国社会保障制度的缘起

德国不是欧洲第一个实现工业化的国家,但却是第一个颁布社会立法的国家."社会国家"的思想在德国具有深厚传统.从19世纪下半叶开始,人们对社会公正与正义投入了极大关注."讲坛社会主义"、教会改革派、各种类型的工会组织,甚至工业企业家都从不同角度对社会问题提出了解决方案."国家救助"形成了强大的社会舆论,提上了政府工作日程.作为德国社会国家的奠基人,俾斯麦解决社会问题的思路影响巨大.德国的社会立法最终以社会保险的形式确立下来.     

The Odyssey Case: press,public opinion and future policy

The Odyssey Case refers to the dispute between Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (OME) and the Kingdom of Spain in the US courts to determine the ownership of more than 500,000 coins, as well as other artefacts, that OME recovered from a wreck‐site it had code‐named Black Swan. However, the process was much more than a dispute over the coins. It reflected many of the components involved in the protection of underwater archaeological heritage, especially when economic and political interests are at stake. Written from the perspective of an archaeologist working for the regional authority responsible for developing archaeological policy, this paper tries to assess the case's impact on future policy development.     

“Continental crossings”: European influences on British public opinion and Irish politics, 1848–2002

Histories of Britain and Ireland are still often written as if cultural and political influences were limited by national or insular boundaries. This article offers a broader perspective by tracing the impact of events, parallels and ideas from continental Europe on British opinion and policy towards Ireland since 1848. It demonstrates that these European influences have often been more threaded and complex than is commonly assumed, and that to review transnational connections can be to illustrate neglected possibilities and to liberate repressed historical potential. Indeed, the role of European referents in political discourse towards the contemporary Northern Ireland conflict retains considerable ambiguity and room for political manoeuvre.     

Business associations and the politics of contained participation in Vietnam

The development of the private sector in Vietnam since the mid-1990s has accompanied the emergence of organised business interests, which is recognised as vital to pursuing the agenda of economic modernisation. This article aims to explore the significance of the interactions between the state and business associations representing small-and-medium enterprises. It demonstrates that business associations have transformed state–business relations in a way that is distinguishable from state corporatism or societal pluralism. The analysis examines the interplay between state actors and emerging non-state entities, and the deliberative capacity of intermediary organisations in the policy-making process, specifically through the Vietnam Association of Small and Medium Enterprises. It is argued that this process constitutes a new mode of political participation that reflects the entanglement of the state and private capital interests. It reveals features of contained participation and contributes to the research agenda on deliberative and governance practices in post-socialist transitional economies.

越南私有部门自1990年代中期以来的发展,伴随着管理有组织商业利益的立法的出台。而有组织的商业利益被视为实现经济现代化的关键。本文探讨了国家与商业协会在为中小企业打造适宜市场环境方面所进行的互动。商业协会成为具有战略意义的政治主体,以一种不同于国家统合主义或社会多元主义的方式改写了政府和商业的关系。本文探讨了国家主体与新兴非国家实体之间的相互作用,并评价了中间组织——尤其像越南中小企业协会——在政策制定过程中的协商能力。作者认为,该过程造成了一种新的政治参与方式,反映了国家和私人资本利益之间的纠结。它还揭示了其中所包含的参与的诸特点,并对于研究后社会主义转型经济体中出现的协商及治理实践,或能起到抛砖引玉的作用。     

Partisan politics and the public sphere: The civil war north

The Civil War North presents an interesting case study of the relationship between a highly politicized public sphere and partisan electoral politics. Although the two‐party system remained intact throughout the war, the concept and practice of partisanship was challenged by the social experience of Northerners who ‘acted politically’ when they took part in the war effort. The creation of a mass citizen army and the mobilization of women and men on the home front meant that parties lost their function as the crucial mediating channel between citizen and government. The more that politics mattered, the less partisanship seemed to be relevant. The war exposed the latent non‐partisan political energies of Northern society. These conclusions bolster the arguments of those scholars who, questioning whether partisanship was as deep or as widespread as previously supposed, have begun to suggest that the ‘party period paradigm’ does not capture the entirety of the nineteenth‐century political experience.     

Prelude to the plague: public health and politics at America's Pacific gateway, 1899

San Francisco played a crucial in the formulation of American immigration policy vis-à-vis Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, it was often difficult to differentiate political struggles over the exclusion of Asians from other conflicts. This article examines one such arena: an acrimonious, well-documented argument in 1899 between Federal and various State and local authorities over the arrival of a Japanese passenger liner that may--or may not--have been carrying bubonic plague. Six months later, the plague unquestionably arrived, resulting in the well-known San Francisco plague epidemic of 1900 in which more that 110 people died. Reviewing the 1899 prelude, the public attitudes of the various health authorities, and the way the press reported health issues, collectively give some sense of that historical space where the regulation of public health, politics, and the immigration industry intersected and were fiercely contested.