Brussels
Belgium
This call for papers solicits contributions to a panel entitled 'Rethinking (de)politicisation: going beyond a moralistic research agenda', which will take place at DNC6 in Brussels from the 7th until the 10th of July. If you are interested in contributing to this panel, please submit your abstract directly on the DNC6 website and contact the panel organisers.
Rethinking (de)politicisation: going beyond a moralistic research agenda
The concepts of politicisation and depoliticisation are employed in different fashions across diverse literatures (e.g. Comby, 2015; Pepermans & Maeseele, 2017; Němcová, 2024; Weitkamp et al., 2024), making their definition complex and contested. Across this wide variety of theoretical approaches, a common denominator is the moralization of (de)politicisation - it is often argued that (de)politicisation is inherently a good or a bad thing for society. Progressive thinkers such as Chantal Mouffe (2018) may for instance see politicisation as intrinsically positive as it promotes social change, while conservative politicians such as John Major and Nick Clegg (2020) have construed the stabilising force of depoliticisation as something fundamentally positive. This paper critiques this moralistic tendency in the scientific literature, arguing that it essentializes (de)politicisation and overestimates the importance of moralization as a discursive strategy – disregarding other strategies such as rationalisation, authorisation, normalisation and so on (Van Leeuwen, 2007; Kryzanowski, 2022). The extant literature often reduces (de)politicisation to a single moralized effect, overlooking its complexity and underestimating the diverse consequences to which it may give rise.
Instead of a moral perspective, this panel advocates for a strategic understanding of (de)politicisation (Jacobs 2022). This approach conceptualizes (de)politicisation as describing the political effects and outcomes, both intended and unintended, of discursive strategies . The goal of such an approach is to map these diverse consequences and understand the interactions of the discursive strategies that gave rise to them. By considering (de)politicisation as strategic tools, we can analyse their effects and interactions in all their complexity without being limited by a focus on moral judgments.
To illustrate the value of this strategic perspective, we examine two empirical cases: the imaginaries (Taylor, 2004; Browne & Diehl, 2019) of climate change among youth activists and the public health measures put in place during the COVID-19 crisis. These cases demonstrate that all (de)politicisation has complex political consequences, highlighting the need for a nuanced, strategic analysis that complements and thus moves beyond moral evaluations. Ultimately, this panel seeks to refine(de)politicisation as analytical tools, demonstrating their potential to provide fresh insights into political change from a discourse-analytic point of view.
This panel currently comprises a theoretical contribution as well as the two empirical case studies outlined above. It invites both theoretical contributions focusing on the analytical limits of a moralistic approach and the advantages of a strategic approach to (de)politicisation, as well as empirical examples exploring these themes. A wide variety of discourse-analytic traditions, including but not limited to CDA, pragmatics, Discourse Theory, SKAD, and Discursive Psychology, are welcomed.