Public Sphere and Politics at the Age of Globalization
A Research Project Funded by the Finnish Academy
2005-2007
Dr Anu Kantola
Department of
Communication
anu.kantola@helsinki.fi
The aim of the study
is to study the discourses of economic globalisation and see how they are
filtered into the larger society: what
is the social imagination of globalisation and how are social imaginaries
transformed due to globalisation?
Theoretically
the aim is to develop the ideas of modern public life as social imagination or
social imaginaries. As for instance
Benedict Anderson (1983) Michael Warner (2002) and Charles Taylor (2004) have
pointed out modern polities can be
understood as imagined communities. Polity
and political life are maintained through public life where the citizens of the
polity do not actually meet, but rather imagine themselves belonging to a
common community.
The imaginary aspect of modern politics is grounded on the ideas of
politics as free speech and argumentation. Language is ideally the primary
device through which political issues are defined, contested and resolved in
modern democracies. This sphere of communication is also supposed to be free:
any issue can be politicised, i.e. taken up to the agenda of politics, and any
issue can have a political aspect. Public sphere is a central arena in this
process. It forms an arena where imaginary societies are constructed,
negotiated and contested.
Moreover the construction of imaginary societies is linked to the
workings of modern political power. In this sense I aim to use
the ideas of Michel Foucault, who
saw that modern governance takes place through addressing, defining and
disciplining the subjects of governance. The question is thus how the
construction of imaginary subjects and societies can be understood as a modern
form of governance and discipline.
The social
imagination of globalisation might also have serious consequences with regard
to the workings and relevance of public life. Public life can be seen as a part
of the traditional modern polity and it has been an important aspect of the
political imaginary of democratic nation states. In this sense it might turn
out that also the ideas of public discussion and life are challenged by the
discourses of globalisation.
In my previous research I
have so far elaborated the impact of globalisation by using the concept of antipolitical forces, which are either closing or
colonising the public sphere (Kantola 2001). Closing
refers to forces, which state that the sphere of public politics should for
some reason be restricted. Colonising means forces, which enter the realm of
public politics and present their views and logic as non-negotiable and
evident. Thus the research question concerning public life and sphere may be
formulated from the viewpoint of the antipolitics.
What are the forces trying to widen up the sphere of political discussion and
action or, alternatively, forces trying to narrow down the sphere of political
discussion and action?
The concept of antipolitics can be related also
to Hannah Arendt’s critique (1989) on the language of
political economy, which fulfils the political with ideas of an economic
machine. Arendt equally criticises Smith and Marx for
invading the realm of politics with the language of nationalist and Darwinian
economic machine. Thus at the same time homo
politicus is reduced to a mechanical homo economicus.
This is also a central theme is Jürgen Habermas’s thinking (1992, 1999). In his early theory on public
sphere Habermas (1992) sees that public sphere is
colonised and fulfilled with market forces and capitalism and from the other
side with bureaucracies.
The writings of Arendt bring up also the theme
of camp (Arendt 1966, 440-441) and her views have been
lately echoed by Giorgio Agamben (2001) who uses the
state of emergency and camp as metaphors of modern politics. Antipolitical forces can be understood as constructing a
constant state of emergency, which aims to restrict and control political
public discussion and the polity is never free to negotiate and contest the
issues at stake, but there seems to be always a state of emergency threatening
the polity.
Empirical research setting
Empirically the
primary aim is to look at the ways economic globalisation addresses subjects
and constructs imaginary societies. I
have done some work on the changing forms of citizenship. It seems like
political citizenship is transformed with the advent of market-based thinking
which constructs citizenship in individualised and therapeutic ways. Political
governance leans on individualised discipline which governs and addresses
isolated personalities rather than societal problems. (Kantola 2003.)
I have also started empirical work by looking at the annual reports of
the largest Finnish companies and compared them with the governmental programs
1980 - 2004. It seems clear that the social imaginary of the globalised companies is filtered into the language of
politics during the two decades of economic liberalisation and globalisation (Kantola 2004, 2005).
Now the aim is to develop further this empirical research setting and
create a setting that would describe the social imaginary of economic
globalisation. The aim is identify the key actors and looks for texts of
globalisation that would be emblematic of the forms that globalised
governance takes in contemporary societies.
In this sense it might be
interesting to look at the internationalised actors of the international
economic expertise (e.g. OECD, IMF, rating agencies) and market actors (e.g.
investment banks or analysts) assessing national governments. Thus I might
build up a research setting looking at the country reports of the international
institutions such as the IMF and the OECD. One idea might be to concentrate on
European countries in order to see how the globalised
discourses are filtered into European politics. Or, a more modest aim might be
to look at the Nordic case, i.e. what happens when the globalised
imagination meets the Nordic welfare model.
Moreover I am currently
looking trying to define a media material that would be most suitable. There
are various alternatives like to look at the public political speeches and to
their development over time or to look at media texts in various media.
Literature:
Agamben, Giorgio
(2001) Keinot vailla päämäärää.
Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities.
Arendt, Hannah (1966) The Origins of Totalitarianism. New Edition.
Arendt, Hannah (1989) The Human Condition.
Habermas, Jürgen (1992) The
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.
Habermas, Jürgen (1999) The
European Nation-State and the Pressures of Globalization. New Left Review 1/235
(May-June), 46-59.
Kantola, Anu (2001) Leaving Public Places: Antipolitical and Antipublic
forces of the Transnational Economy. Javnost/ The Public Vol.8 (2001),
1, 59-74.
Kantola, Anu (2003) Loyalties in flux: The changing
politics of citizenship. European Journal of Cultural Studies Vol 6(2), 203-217.
Kantola, Anu (2004) Suomea trimmaamassa -
Strategiset retoriikat yrityksissä, politiikassa ja ay-liikkeessä 1980 – 2003. In Helkama, Klaus, T. Seppälä, P.
Alasuutari, Pertti, Kantola, Anu, Tainio, Risto, Tiihonen, Seppo, Ilmonen, Kai,
Wilenius, Markku, Luostarinen, Heikki, Uskali, Turo,
Lehtinen, Erno: Artikkelikokoelma
tutkimushankkeesta sosiaaliset innovaatiot, yhteiskunnan uudistumiskyky ja
taloudellinen menestys Helsinki: Sitra, 2004. ISBN 951-563-466-0.
Elektroninen
aineisto. http://www.sitra.fi/Julkaisut/Heiskala.pdf
Kantola, Anu (2005) Suomea trimmaamassa - Suomalaisen
kilpailuvaltion sanastot. In Heiskala, Risto,
Hämäläinen, Timo (ed.) Suomen muutos. Helsinki: Gaudeamus. Forthcoming.
Warner, Michael (2002) Publics and Counterpublics.