JS-44.5
Nationalism and Antisemitism in Postnational Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Austrian and English Print Media Debates on the Economic Crisis
Nationalism and antisemitism in postnational Europe: a comparative analysis of Austrian and English print media debates on the economic crisis
The problem of nationalism and antisemitism as interrelated ideological patterns is of high relevance in contemporary Europe, particularly against the background of a “postnational constellation” (Habermas) characterised by pluralism and cultural mobility, globalised economy and the nation-state’s change of function. Especially in the current period of global economic crisis a particular vulnerability to producing nationalist and antisemitic reaction, whereby moments of both tend to intertwine, becomes evident.
This presentation sheds light on the intermediation of nationalism and antisemitism in a cross-country comparative perspective, including Austria and England. By applying Critical Discourse Analysis, print media debates on the current economic crisis are analysed as to how they operate with nationalist and antisemitic discourse fragments.
In mainstream print media, nationalism as well as antisemitism do not generally occur in a brutally exclusivist manner, as openly articulated racist forms of expression, but rather in latent forms, encoded in everyday linguistic practices and routines. Therefore, a broad concept of nationalism and antisemitism is deliberately chosen and the analysis gives priority to everyday modes of inclusion and exclusion. By focusing on discourses around the Self and the Other in the context of the global economic crisis, everyday social communicative practices are problematized in order to trace the role of nationalism and antisemitism within them. This approach draws on the working hypothesis that in contemporary Western societies, extreme and open nationalism and antisemitism are not the only force that stands in the way of a society of world citizens, but also unnoticed but well-practiced routines of exclusionary identification in everyday life. These routines subtly refer to a horizon of understanding, an archive of ideological habits, which by tradition includes nationalism and antisemitism.