Fantasies of politics and democracy in anti-labour union discourse: on striking terrorists, blackmailing the government and taking the hard-working citizen hostage
(2017) , 31 pages
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- Authors
Zienkowski, Jan 
- Abstract
- This paper focuses on the de-legitimation strategies used by union critical voices in debates about union actions against Belgian austerity politics in 2014 and 2016. Based on a discourse theoretical analysis of union critical discourse in three mainstream Flemish newspapers, six sets of de-legitimation strategies that share a series of family resemblances are distinguished. These are: (1) strategies that depict unions as conservative anachronisms that are out of sync with the realities of our times; (2) strategies that psychologize and individualize unions as self-centred, irresponsible and child-like actors; (3) criminalization strategies that depict unions and unionists as vandals, as hostage takers and/or as terrorists; (4) a collection of strategies that oppose unions to a homogenized general interest; (5) metadiscursive de-legitimation strategies that criticize unions’ discursive practices; and (6) more direct metapolitical claims that question the democratic character of the unions and/or their practices. Indeed, these de-legitimation strategies link up with a broader metapolitical struggle, where the meaning of politics itself as well as the institutionalized relationships between business, government, civil society and citizens are reconfigured.
- Affiliations
Universidad de Navarra ICS
Citations
Zienkowski, J., & De Cleen, B. (2017). Fantasies of politics and democracy in anti-labour union discourse: on striking terrorists, blackmailing the government and taking the hard-working citizen hostage. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/93216