Ruptures and continuities in nationhood narratives: reconstructing the nation through history textbooks in Serbia and Croatia

While the (mis) use of history to fuel particular constructions of the nation is well‐documented in the literature, the ways in which nationhood narratives and national ideologies evolve and transform over time are rarely explored. When ruptures – such as state failure or civil war – occur, interpretations of history and nationhood narratives cannot be completely rewritten. Rather, they need to follow up upon previous, established versions, relying on anchoring motives that offer a minimum level of continuity. Relying on a systematic analysis of over forty years of history revisionism in Serbia and Croatia (1974 to 2017), I demonstrate the discursive ways in which nationhood narratives evolved over time and space: from the dismantling of the former common Socialist narrative, replacement with new ethno‐national narratives, the bumpy transformations through the democratic transitions, to the gradual consolidation into the ‘new’ reconstructed nationhood narratives prevailing in the two countries today.     

Tweet Justice: The Canadian Court’s Use of Social Media

ABSTRACT

Like other political institutions in Canada, the judiciary has entered the digital age. Indeed, Canadian courts have been using Twitter for almost a decade. Despite this, there has been very little systematic examination of how Canadian courts use Twitter and the nature of the content they produce. While digital technologies create new challenges for all political actors, this is especially so for the courts, which exist in a very “traditional and conservative environment”. In this research note, we develop a framework for analyzing court-produced content on social media. This framework draws from concepts from digital politics and legal studies. We then apply this framework by conducting a content analysis of tweets from active court Twitter feeds in Canada.