Exploration of metaphors used by Indonesian legislators and political elites in the Indonesian sociopolitical domain

This thesis examines the ways Indonesian politicians exploit the rhetorical power of metaphors in the Indonesian political discourse. The research applies the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Metaphorical Frame Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis to textual and oral data. The corpus comprises: 150 political news articles from two newspapers (Harian Kompas and Harian Waspada, 2010-2011 edition), 30 recordings of two television news and talk-show programmes (TV-One and Metro-TV), and 20 interviews with four legislators, two educated persons and two laymen. For this study, a corpus of written bahasa Indonesia was also compiled, which comprises 150 texts of approximately 439,472 tokens. The data analysis shows the potential power of metaphors in relation to how politicians communicate the results of their thinking, reasoning and meaning-making through language and discourse and its social consequences. The data analysis firstly revealed 1155 metaphors. These metaphors were then classified into the categories of conventional metaphor, cognitive function of metaphor, metaphorical mapping and metaphor variation. The degree of conventionality of metaphors is established based on the sum of expressions in each group of metaphors. Secondly, the analysis revealed that metaphor variation is influenced by the broader Indonesian cultural context and the natural and physical environment, such as the social dimension, the regional, style and the individual. The mapping system of metaphor is unidirectionality. Thirdly, the data show that metaphoric thought pervades political discourse in relation to its uses as: (1) a felicitous tool for the rhetoric of political leaders, (2) part of meaning-making that keeps the discourse contexts alive and active, and (3) the degree to which metaphor and discourse shape the conceptual structures of politicians‟ rhetoric. Fourthly, the analysis of data revealed that the Indonesian political discourse attempts to create both distance and solidarity towards general and specific social categories accomplished via metaphorical and frame references to the conceptualisations of us/them. The result of the analysis shows that metaphor and frame are excellent indicators of the us/them categories which work dialectically in the discourse. The acts of categorisation via metaphors and frames at both textual and conceptual level activate asymmetrical concepts and contribute to social and political hierarchical constructs, i.e. WEAKNESS vs.POWER, STUDENT vs. TEACHER, GHOST vs. CHOSEN WARRIOR, and so on. This analysis underscores the dynamic nature of categories by documenting metaphorical transfers between, i.e. ENEMY, DISEASE, BUSINESS, MYSTERIOUS OBJECT and CORRUPTION, LAW, POLITICS and CASE. The metaphorical transfers showed that politicians try to dictate how they categorise each other in order to mobilise audiences to act on behalf of their ideologies and to create distance and solidarity.

La guerre des Balkans:élites nationales et discours transnationaux dans la française, allemande et britannique

Cet article repose sur une étude de la presse de lEstablishment en France, en Allemagne et au Royaume-Uni, au cours de la guerre des Balkans en 1999. Les sources sont la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde et le Financial Times. Lobjectif est de voir en quoi la manière de rapporter les événements révèle des priorités politiques des diverses élites qui lisent ces journaux, ainsi que de leur perception de lordre international. Le résultat des travaux indique lexistence dun certain degré de synchronisation dans la façon dont la presse a concentré lattention de lopinion publique ; il indique aussi quil existe des différences sensibles entre ces journaux français, allemand et britannique, en termes de contenu et de perspectives. Malgré lexistence dun discours transnational, la sphère publique européenne demeure fragmentée. This article is based on a study of the press in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, during the Balkans war in 1999. The sources are the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde and the Financial Times. The objectve is to see how report events reveal the priorities of the various political elites who read these newspapers, as well as their perception of international lordre. The outcome of the study indicates some degree of synchronization in the way the press has focused mindfulness of public opinion and that it also indicates there are significant differences between the French newspapers, German and British, in terms of content and perspectives. Despite the existence of a transnational speech, the European public sphere remains fragmented.

Evidence and implications of multiple paradigms in accounting knowledge production

This paper uses evidence gathered in two perception studies ofAustralasian and British accounting academics to reflect on aspects of the knowledge production systemwithin accounting academe. We provide evidence of the representation of multiple paradigms in many journals that are scored by participants as being of high quality. Indeed most of the journals we surveyed are perceived by accounting academics as incorporating research from more than one paradigm. It is argued that this ‘catholic’ approach by journal editors and the willingness of many respondents in our surveys to score journals highly on material they publish from both paradigm categories reflects a balanced acceptance of the multi-paradigmatic state of accounting research. Our analysis is set within an understanding of systems of accounting knowledge production as socially constructed and as playing an important role in the distribution of power and reward in the academy. We explore the impact of our results on concerns emerging from the work of a number of authors who carefully expose localised 'elites'. The possibilities for a closer relationship between research emerging from a multi-paradigm discipline and policy setting and practice are also discussed. The analysis provides a sense of optimism that the broad constituency of accounting academics operates within an environment conducive for the exchange of ideas. That optimism is dampened by concerns about the impact of local 'elites' and the need for more research on their impact on accounting academe.

Exercise agency? The role of elite actors in local democracy in English local government: the local democracy maker.

The way in which employed senior elites in English local government exercise their agency in the practice of local democracy and local governance is considered in this thesis. The research posits the notion that elite Officers act as Local Democracy Makers as they draw on their own traditions and ideologies in responding to the dilemmas of changing policy and politics in the public realm. The study is located in the latter part of New Labour?s term of office and applies an interpretive and reflexive approach to three studies of the exercise of well being powers. The approach is one of applied ethnography through the examination of literature reviews, interviews and observations of decisions taken in the exercise of the powers of economic, environmental and social well-being are used to examine how and why the Local Democracy Makers make sense of their world in the way that they do. The research suggests that, despite prevailing narratives, local governance arrangements depend on a system of hierarchy, employed elites and local politics. The challenges of re-configuring local democracy and attempts at "hollowing out" the state have secured an influential role for the non-elected official. How officials interpret, advise, mediate and manage the exercise of local governance and local democracy presents a challenge to assumptions that public services are governed beyond or without local government. New narratives and reflections on the role of the local government Officer and the marginalisation of the elected Councillor are presented in the research. In particular, how the senior elite occupy managerial, strategic and political roles as Local Democracy Makers, offers an insight into the agency of strategic actors in localities. Consequently, the success of changes in public policy is materially influenced by how the practitioner responds to such dilemmas. The thesis concludes by suggesting that integral to the design and success of public policy implementation is the role of the Officer, and especially those practitioners that advise governing arrangements and democratic practice.

Contestation and negotiation: regionalism and the politics of school textbooks in Ukraine's eastern borderlands

This paper aims to explore the (re)construction of identities in three regions adjacent to the Russian–Ukrainian border. The article analyses the areas' historical and political development and argues that placing such areas within a mega-region term such as ‘eastern Ukraine’ fails to recognise important differences between them. Content analysis of regional history textbooks reveals that the ‘official’ state historical narrative found in school history textbooks is heavily negotiated, with regional elites in each area ‘picking and choosing’ which parts of the ‘official’ state narrative to accept and which parts to reject. In this way, the article demonstrates how the notions of ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ are highly debated topics in the Ukrainian classroom as the central and local state elites are both part of the dynamic process of (re)definition of national identities.

Europa i świat zachodni:szkodliwe dla gospodarki niedostrzegane lub lekceważone zjawiska

The paper presents an abbreviated version of the second part of the report on problems of Europe, prepared by a team of teachers at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, Poland. We stress therein that the hotly debated problems of the Eurozone and the global financial crisis and its aftermath are, at best, medium-term ones, while real issues Europe faces are of the long-term nature and result from policies pursued for decades. Their consequences are also long-term – and increasingly harmful. Our diagnosis is as follows. Long-term problems related to the increasing burden of the welfare state and its side effects, like the slowing economic growth rate, are not subject to serious policy debates. It applies to both traditional elites from parties belonging to the moderate political spectrum, and to anti-elites on both extremes. Both elites and anti-elites reject the reality as a starting point to developing corrective policy measures. Our economic analysis has revealed that incentives to create wealth in old Western countries have been weakening for a long time. Yet, without deep cuts in public (especially welfare) expenditures and accompanying institutional reforms, economic performance of European (and generally Western) economies is going to worsen over time. The chances of continued stagnation in the next 5–10 years are very high. Finally, we look at the socio-psychological behavioral framework of the ever-expanding welfare state. We point at the phenomenon of the learned helplessness which appears as a result of the people’s lacking perception of linkages between their actions and economic results of these actions. We interpret it as a consequence of the welfare state. It further weakens the prospects for successful reforms and the resultant avoidance of the long-term stagnation.

"Our kith and kin"?:Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and the ethnonationalist parties of Tamil Nadu

This article explains the impact of substate nationalism on the political dynamic surrounding ethnic kin migration through a case study of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in the southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu. Examples drawn from the migration studies literature identify ethnic kinship between refugees and host as an indicator of favorable reception and assistance. While this expectation is borne out to an extent in the Tamil Nadu case, it is tempered by a period of hostility following the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber, when the refugees were figured as a disruptive and dangerous presence by Tamil Nadu's political elites. A version of the "triadic nexus" model of kin state relations, reconfigured to accommodate the larger political unit within which the substate nationalism is incorporated, is proposed as a framework of analysis for these events. This can better account for Tamil Nadu's substate ethnonationalist elite's movement between expressions of coethnic solidarity with the refugees and the more hostile, security-focused response postassassination. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Episodes in the Malaysian auditing sage

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the various episodes in the Malaysian auditing saga, covering the period of the first 40 years post-independence in 1957 to just before the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. Design/methodology/approach – Based on documentary analysis, the paper offers a historical account of the development of the auditing profession with reference to the dynamic changes in its political and socio-economic environment. Findings – The paper concludes that the function of auditing in Malaysian society responded to political-economic pressures over time viz. changing from maintaining the economic policy to serve Western investors to accommodating ethnic relations, and to strengthening the bond between local and global corporate elites and the political leaders. Originality/value – Since, little is known of the professionalisation process in Malaysia, our analysis of the structural conditions during the 40 years from the achievement of independence from the British in 1957 to just before the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and our assessment of their implications for auditing contributes to knowledge in this area

State–society relations in a dynamic framework:the case of the Far East and Sub-Saharan Africa

According to the textbook approach, the developmental states of the Far East have been considered as strong and autonomous entities. Although their bureaucratic elites have remained isolated from direct pressures stemming from society, the state capacity has also been utilised in order to allocate resources in the interest of the whole society. Yet, society – by and large –has remained weak and subordinated to the state elite. On the other hand, the general perception of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been just the opposite. The violent and permanent conflict amongst rent-seeking groups for influence and authority over resources has culminated in a situation where states have become extremely weak and fragmented, while society – depending on the capacity of competing groups for mobilising resources to organise themselves mostly on a regional or local level (resulting in local petty kingdoms) – has never had the chance to evolve as a strong player. State failure in the literature, therefore, – in the context of SSA – refers not just to a weak and captured state but also to a non-functioning, and sometimes even non-existent society, too. Recently, however, the driving forces of globalisation might have triggered serious changes in the above described status quo. Accordingly, our hypothesis is the following: globalisation, especially the dynamic changes of technology, capital and communication have made the simplistic “strong state–weak society” (in Asia) and “weak state–weak society” (in Africa) categorisation somewhat obsolete. While our comparative study has a strong emphasis on the empirical scrutiny of trying to uncover the dynamics of changes in state–society relations in the two chosen regions both qualitatively and quantitatively, it also aims at complementing the meaning and essence of the concepts and methodology of stateness, state capacity and state-society relations, the well-known building blocks of the seminal works of Evans (1995), Leftwich (1995), Migdal (1988) or Myrdal (1968).

The Front National:from systematic opposition to systemic integration?

For most of its existence, the Front National (FN) fitted the classic definition of the anti-system party, opposing the founding values, institutions and elites of the Fifth Republic. Now, under Marine Le Pen's leadership, it has embarked on a strategy to integrate to the regime it once defied. Does this strategy of normalisation bear scrutiny? Using a framework drawn from Giovanni Sartori and Robert Michels, this article asks whether the FN is a one-time anti-system party that is becoming mainstream, and also whether these simple oppositional categories are adequate for understanding ideological and policy evolution in the FN's case. Through an analysis of continuity and change in FN strategy and programmes, the article shows a party torn between anti-system differentiation and institutional adaptation. It may claim to have cast out its demons but has not undertaken the necessary moderation of its programme to substantiate that claim. The FN today is on no linear path of deradicalisation but exhibits a combination of consistent, diminished and increasing radicalism across different policy areas. Despite an upward dynamic and a hugely favourable context, it remains almost entirely excluded from power and far from the breakthrough required to become a party of government.

Place-based economic development strategy in England:filling the missing space

This paper examines the implications of a place-based economic strategy in the context of the UK Coalition government's framework for achieving local growth and the creation of Local Economic Partnerships in England. It draws on the international literature to outline the basic foundations of place-based policy approaches. It explores two key features, particularly as they relate to governance institutions and to the role of knowledge. After examining key concepts in the place-based policy literature, such as 'communities of interest' and 'capital city' and 'local elites', it shows how they might be interpreted in an English policy context. The paper then discusses a place-based approach towards an understanding of the role of knowledge, linked to debates around 'smart specialisation'. In doing so, it shows why there is an important 'missing space' in local growth between the 'national' and the 'local' and how that space might be filled through appropriate governance institutions and policy responses. Overall, the paper outlines what a place-based approach might mean in particular for Central Government, in changing its approach towards sub-national places and for local places, in seeking to realise their own potential. Furthermore, it outlines what the 'missing space' is and how it might be filled, and therefore what a place-based sub-national economic strategy might address. © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.

A copa do mundo FIFA na África do Sul/2010:como foi a experiência e o que podemos aprender com ela?

Neste ensaio pretendemos problematizar algumas lógicas sociais não explícitas que se articulam ao domínio de realização da Copa do Mundo FIFA. Para tanto, privilegiamos como recorte analítico a edição de 2010 deste evento, de modo a desvelarmos algumas das retóricas e ações estratégicas que permearam o contexto de sua realização na África do Sul. Com base em dados obtidos na literatura acadêmica e mídia, buscamos apresentar que as motivações para o evento se baseavam em discursos desenvolvimentistas por parte tanto da FIFA quanto das elites locais sul-africanas visando o convencimento e apoio por parte de diferentes grupos sociais. Entretanto, as consequências não foram necessariamente aquelas prometidas, sendo essas instituições as reais beneficiadas em seus interesses econômicos e políticos. Nesse ponto, argumentamos que a sociedade brasileira pode e deve aprender com essa experiência para avaliar de forma crítica os motivos menos aparentes de sediar eventos desse porte. In this essay, we intend to discuss some social logics not explicit that articulate the domain of the FIFA World Cup. Therefore, the 2010 edition of this event is used as analytical approach to reveal some of the rhetoric and strategic actions that permeated the context of its realization. Based on data obtained in the academic literature and media, we present that the motivations for the event were based on developmental discourses by both FIFA as well as local elites South African aiming to convince different social groups and conquer their support. However, the consequences are not necessarily those promised, and these institutions were the real beneficiaries in their economic and political mutual interests. At this point, we argue that Brazilian society can and should learn from the experience of South Africa to assess critically the motives less apparent to host such events.

A social role for churches and cultural demarcation:how German MEPs represent religion in the European Parliament

This study deals with the question of how German members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent the German model of religion–state relations at the European level. Based on a survey and interviews with German MEPs as well as a content-analysis of German MEPs’ speeches, motions and parliamentary questions during the seventh term of the European Parliament (EP), our study demonstrates that this model is represented in three dimensions. First, German MEPs reflect the close cooperation between the churches and the state in Germany, primarily on social issues, through largely church- and religion-friendly attitudes and relatively frequent contacts with religious interest-groups. Second, by referring to religious freedoms and minorities primarily outside the EU and by placing Islam in considerably more critical contexts than Christianity, German MEPs create a cultural demarcation line between Islam and Christianity through their parliamentary activities, which is similar to, though less politicised than, cultural boundaries often produced in public debates in Germany. Third, our study illustrates similar patterns of religious affiliation and subjective religiosity among German parliamentarians in both the EP and the national Parliament, which to some degree also reflect societal trends in Germany. Yet our data also suggest that European political elites are more religious than the average German population. If the presence of religion in terms of religious interest-groups and arguments is included, the EP appears to be more secularist than the German Parliament.

Book review: Laurel Kamada, Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being Half in Japan. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2010

Arguably, the catalyst for the best research studies using social analysis of discourse is personal ‘lived’ experience. This is certainly the case for Kamada, who, as a white American woman with a Japanese spouse, had to deal first hand with the racialization of her son. Like many other mixed-ethnic parents, she experienced the shock and disap-pointment of finding her child being racialized as ‘Chinese’ in America through peer group taunts, and constituted as gaijin (a foreigner) in his own homeland of Japan. As a member of an e-list of the (Japan) Bilingualism Special Interest Group (BSIG), Kamada learnt that other parents from the English-speaking foreign community in Japan had similar disturbing stories to tell of their mixed-ethnic children who, upon entering the Japanese school system, were mocked, bullied and marginalized by their peers. She men-tions a pervasive Japanese proverb which warns of diversity or difference getting squashed: ‘The nail that sticks up gets hammered down’. This imperative to conform to Japanese behavioural and discursive norms prompted Kamada’s quest to investigate the impact of ‘otherization’ on the identities of children of mixed parentage. In this fascinat-ing book, she shows that this pressure to conform is balanced by a corresponding cele-bration of ‘hybrid’ or mixed identities. The children in her study are also able to negotiate their identities positively as they come to terms with contradictory discursive notions of ‘Japaneseness’, ‘whiteness’ and ‘halfness/doubleness’.The discursive construction of identity has become a central concern amongst researchers across a wide range of academic disciplines within the humanities and the social sciences, and most existing work either concentrates on a specific identity cate-gory, such as gender, sexuality or national identity, or else offers a broader discussion of how identity is theorized. Kamada’s book is refreshing because it crosses the usual boundaries and offers divergent insights on identity in a number of ways. First, using the term ‘ethno-gendering’, she examines the ways in which six mixed-ethnic girls living in Japan accomplish and manage the relationship between their gender and ethnic ‘differ-ences’ from age 12 to 15. She analyses in close detail how their actions or displays within certain situated interactions might come into conflict with how they are seen or constituted by others. Second, Kamada’s study builds on contemporary writing on the benefits of hybridity where identities are fluid, flexible and indeterminate, and which contest the usual monolithic distinctions of gender, ethnicity, class, etc. Here, Kamada carves out an original space for her findings. While scholars have often investigated changing identities and language practices of young people who have been geographi-cally displaced and are newcomers to the local language, Kamada’s participants were all born and brought up in Japan, were fluent in Japanese and were relatively proficient in English. Third, the author refuses to conceptualize or theorize identity from a single given viewpoint in preference to others, but in postmodernist spirit draws upon multiple perspectives and frameworks of discourse analysis in order to create different forms of knowledge and understandings of her subject. Drawing on this ‘multi-perspectival’ approach, Kamada examines grammatical, lexical, rhetorical and interactional features from six extensive conversations, to show how her participants position their diverse identities in relation to their friends, to the researcher and to the outside world. Kamada’s study is driven by three clear aims. The first is to find out ‘whether there are any tensions and dilemmas in the ways adolescent girls of Japanese and “white” mixed parentage in Japan identify themselves in terms of ethnicity’. In Chapter 4, she shows how the girls indeed felt that they stood out as different and consequently experienced isolation, marginalization and bullying at school – although they were able to make better sense of this as they grew older, repositioning the bullies as pitiable. The second aim is to ask how, if at all, her participants celebrate their ethnicity, and furthermore, what kind of symbolic, linguistic and social capital they were able to claim for themselves on the basis of their hybrid identities. In Chapter 5, Kamada shows how the girls over time were able to constitute themselves as insiders while constituting ‘the Japanese’ as outsiders, and their network of mixed-ethnic friends was a key means to achieve this. In Chapter 6, the author develops this potential celebration of the girls’ mixed ethnicity by investigating the privileges they perceived it afforded them – for example, having the advantage of pos-sessing English proficiency and intercultural ‘savvy’ in a globalized world. Kamada’s third aim is to ask how her participants positioned themselves and performed their hybrid identities on the basis of their constituted appearance: that is, how the girls saw them-selves based on how they looked to others. In Chapter 7, the author shows that, while there are competing discourses at work, the girls are able to take up empowering positions within a discourse of ‘foreigner attractiveness’ or ‘a white-Western female beauty’ discourse, which provides them with a certain cachet among their Japanese peers. Throughout the book, Kamada adopts a highly self-reflexive perspective of her own position as author. For example, she interrogates the fact that she may have changed the lived reality of her six participants during the course of her research study. As the six girls, who were ‘best friends’, lived in different parts of the Morita region of Japan, she had to be proactive in organizing six separate ‘get-togethers’ through the course of her three-year study. She acknowledges that she did not collect ‘naturally occurring data’ but rather co-constructed opportunities for the girls to meet and talk on a regular basis. At these meetings, she encouraged the girls to discuss matters of identity, prompted by open-ended interview questions, by stimulus materials such as photos, articles and pic-tures, and by individual tasks such as drawing self-portraits. By giving her participants a platform in this way, Kamada not only elicited some very rich spoken data but also ‘helped in some way to shape the attitudes and self-images of the girls positively, in ways that might not have developed had these get-togethers not occurred’ (p. 221). While the data she gathers are indeed rich, it may well be asked whether there is a mismatch between the girls’ frank and engaging accounts of personal experience, and the social constructionist academic register in which these are later re-articulated. When Kamada writes, ‘Rina related how within the more narrow range of discourses that she had to draw on in her past, she was disempowered and marginalized’ (p. 118), we know that Rina’s actual words were very different. Would she really recognize, understand and agree with the reported speech of the researcher? This small omission of self-reflexivity apart – an omission which is true of most lin-guistic ethnography conducted today – Kamada has written a unique, engaging and thought-provoking book which offers a model to future discourse analysts investigating hybrid identities. The idea that speakers can draw upon competing discourses or reper-toires to constitute their identities in contrasting, creative and positive ways provides linguistic researchers with a clear orientation by which to analyse the contradictions of identity construction as they occur across time in different discursive contexts