Suchergebnisse

Decisiveness and Fear of Disorder examines how democratic representatives make decisions in crisis situations. By analyzing parliamentary asylum debates from Germany's Asylum Compromise in 1992-1993 and the 2015-2016 refugee crisis, Julius Rogenhofer identifies representatives' ability to project decisiveness as a crucial determinant for whether the rights and demands of irregular migrants were adequately considered in democratic decision-making. Both crisis situations showcase an emotive dimension to the parliamentary meaning-making process. As politicians confront fears of social and political disorder, they focus on appearing decisive in the eyes of the public and fellow representatives, even at the expense of human rights considerations and inclusive deliberation processes. Rogenhofer shows how his theoretical approach allows us to reinterpret a range of crisis situations beyond the irregular migration context, including democracies' initial responses to Covid-19, the European Sovereign Debt Crisis, and United States climate politics. These additional case studies help position concerns with decisiveness amid the challenges that populism and technocracy increasingly pose to representative democracies

Why did Hong Kong protestors choose a symbol of former oppression – the old colonial flag – as a banner for their fight for democracy, rights and autonomy in 2019? We propose to answer this puzzle by studying the colonial-era flag as a displacement device. The waving of the colonial-era flag is shown to induce non-linear temporal and extraterritorial displacements, as well as contradictory interpretations of Hong Kong's core values, national sovereignty and cultural identity. The flag's displacements are amplified against the contested colonial history of the former British enclave. Conceptually, this pragmatic definition of the flag moves beyond approaches that study flags as representations of a structure of symbolic meaning. The flag is neither an unimportant prop nor is it a free-floating signifier; its materiality elicits significant political effects. Methodologically, this translates into an exploration of the flag's second-order agency. The old colonial-era Hong Kong flag, in combination with discourse and institutional arrangements, is shown to be integral to contentious politics. The flag and its displacements shed new light on a city uneasy with its past, dissatisfied with its present and uncertain about its future.