- Skandalidou 2, Thessaloniki
- 00302310213741
- PhD in Biology. Researcher in history of ecology.
Work experience in environmental policy, monitoring, environmental education.edit
<jats:p>Το πεδίο αυτής της διατριβής είναι η ιστορία της επιστήμης της Οικολογίας· πιο συγκεκριμένα, εστιάζει στην επιρροή που άσκησε η κυρίαρχη αστική ιδεολογία πάνω στην επιστήμη της Οικολογίας. Ξεκινάμε έτσι από την προδαρβινική... more
<jats:p>Το πεδίο αυτής της διατριβής είναι η ιστορία της επιστήμης της Οικολογίας· πιο συγκεκριμένα, εστιάζει στην επιρροή που άσκησε η κυρίαρχη αστική ιδεολογία πάνω στην επιστήμη της Οικολογίας. Ξεκινάμε έτσι από την προδαρβινική ακόμα Φυσική Ιστορία, όπου κυριαρχούσε ήδη μία σειρά μεταφορών (προερχόμενων κυρίως από την αστική Πολιτική Οικονομία και φιλοσοφία) και αναπαραστάσεων, όπως η 'οικονομία της φύσης', ο 'καταμερισμός της εργασίας' το 'κοινό συμφέρον' και ο 'ατομικός ανταγωνισμός'. Τα στοιχεία αυτά προβάλανε στην προδαρβινική Φυσική Ιστορία τις κυρίαρχες ιδεολογικές αντιλήψεις για την αρμονία, την ενότητα και την τάξη του κόσμου. Παρά τη ρήξη που επέφερε με αυτή την προβληματική η εξελικτική θεωρία του Δαρβίνου, οι περισσότερες σχολές της πρώιμης οικολογίας ακολούθησαν μάλλον το παράδειγμα της προδαρβινικής αρμονίας, παρά της δαρβινικής εξέλιξης. Σε αυτό το υπόβαθρο, αναδύθηκε η έννοια της ποικιλότητας ειδών, μέσα από την αναζήτηση του κατάλληλου στατιστικού μοντέλου που θα προβλέπει μία σταθερή και επαναλαμβανόμενη κατανομή των ατόμων στα διάφορα είδη-μέλη μίας βιολογικής κοινότητας. Η χρήση της θα γενικευθεί τη δεκαετία του 1950, στο πλαίσιο της κυβερνητικής Οικολογίας, όπου η ποικιλότητα αναδεικνύεται αφενός σε κυβερνητικό μηχανισμό που εξασφαλίζει τη σταθερότητα μίας κοινότητας απέναντι στις εξωτερικές διαταραχές και αφετέρου σε φυσικό μέτρο της ετερογένειας, της ωριμότητας και του βαθμού διαταραχής μίας κοινότητας. Σταδιακά, και παρά την έντονη κριτική που δέχεται από εξελικτική κυρίως σκοπιά, η ποικιλότητα αναδύεται τελικά στο επίκεντρο της Οικολογίας και ιδιαίτερα των νέων ρευμάτων περιβαλλοντικής μηχανικής, αποτυπώνοντας τη δομή των οικολογικών σχηματισμών μέσα από έναν απλό αριθμό, κατάλληλο για σύγκριση και αξιολόγηση. Ανακεφαλαιώνοντας, καταλήγουμε ότι η έννοια της ποικιλότητας λειτούργησε ως ένας καθοριστικός κόμβος για την είσοδο ιδεολογικών μεταφορών εντός του επιστημονικού πεδίου της Οικολογίας και τελικά την εξάρτηση του τελευταίου, ιδιαίτερα με τη μορφή της περιβαλλοντικής διαχείρισης, από την κυρίαρχη ιδεολογία της εποχής μας. Η (βιο)ποικιλότητα αναδείχθηκε με αυτό τον τρόπο σε ένα ισχυρό ιδεολογικό σημείο διαρραφής του πεδίου της, αποτελώντας τον κεντρικό εκείνο καθορισμό που νοηματοδοτεί τις άλλες έννοιες, ενώ ταυτόχρονα η ίδια χάνει σταδιακά το όποιο συγκεκριμένο, επιστημονικό περιεχόμενό της. Παράλληλα με αυτή την πορεία, η Οικολογία στρέφεται συνολικά προς μία ποσοτική και προβλεπτική πρακτική, η οποία στοχεύει στην εκτίμηση των φυσικών ορίων που παρουσιάζουν τα φυσικά οικοσυστήματα απέναντι στις ανθρωπογενείς διαταραχές. Οι μαλθουσιανές αυτές ιδέες απομακρύνουν ακόμα περισσότερο την Οικολογία από την εξέλιξη, εστιάζουν το ενδιαφέρον μόνο σε ποσοτικά ζητήματα, ενώ λειτουργούν εξόχως πολιτικά και απολογητικά, απαλλάσσοντας τις κυρίαρχες κοινωνικές σχέσεις.</jats:p>
The field of this dissertation is the history of the science of Ecology; our specific object is the influence of the dominant bourgeois ideology upon the science of Ecology. We start from the pre-darwinian Natural History, which was... more
The field of this dissertation is the history of the science of Ecology; our specific object is the influence of the dominant bourgeois ideology upon the science of Ecology. We start from the pre-darwinian Natural History, which was already dominated by a series of metaphors (mainly originated in the bourgeois political economy and idealistic philosophy) and representations, such as the ‘natural economy’, the ‘division of labor’, the ‘common interest’ and the ‘individual competition’. These theoretical elements imposed upon pre-darwinian Natural History the dominant ideological conceptions about harmony, the unity, and the order of nature. Despite the evolutionary theory of Darwin, which came in contradiction with these ideological perceptions, most of the schools of the early Ecology followed the paradigm of pre-darwinian harmony, rather than that of Darwinian evolution. Within this theoretical context, the concept of species diversity has been emerged, through the quest for an app...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The representation of a complex but stable, self-regulated and, finally, harmonious nature penetrates the whole history of Ecology, thus contradicting the core of the Darwinian evolution. Originated in the pre-Darwinian Natural History,... more
The representation of a complex but stable, self-regulated and, finally, harmonious nature penetrates the whole history of Ecology, thus contradicting the core of the Darwinian evolution. Originated in the pre-Darwinian Natural History, this representation defined theoretically the various schools of early ecology and, in the context of the cybernetic synthesis of the 1950s, it assumed a typical mathematical form on account of α positive correlation between species diversity and community stability. After 1960, these two aforementioned concepts and their positive correlation were proposed as environmental management tools, in the face of the ecological crisis arising at the time. In the early 1970s, and particularly after May’s evolutionary arguments, the consensus around this positive correlation collapsed for a while, only to be promptly restored for the purpose of attaching an ecological value on biodiversity. In this paper, we explore the history of the diversity–stability hypothesis and we review the successive terms that have been used to express community stability. We argue that this hypothesis has been motivated by the nodal ideological presuppositions of order and harmony and that the scientific developments in this field largely correspond to external social pressures. We conclude that the conflict about the diversity–stability relationship is in fact an ideological debate, referring mostly to the way we see nature and society rather than to an autonomous scientific question. From this point of view, we may understand why Ecology’s concepts and perceptions may decline and return again and again, forming a pluralistic scientific history.
Research Interests:
The conflicts around the scientific status of the concept of diversity are considered here as symptoms of hidden, socially originated, ideological representations inherent in the theoretical context of western ecology. Species diversity... more
The conflicts around the scientific status of the concept of diversity are considered here as symptoms of hidden, socially originated, ideological representations inherent in the theoretical context of western ecology. Species diversity was coined in the 1940s, as a constant in the statistical models that described the distribution of individuals into different species and, therefore, as the expression of all the parameters that determine ecologically this distribution. The assumption of such a regular distribution is attributed to the influence of organicism and the correlated presuppositions of harmony and homeostasis. Nevertheless, as species diversity was the only unknown parameter in these models, it reversed the direction of the functions and established itself as the main variable under question. After the 1950s, the concept of species diversity was empowered by the strong impact of cybernetics and systems theories; in this context, diversity was considered as a self-regulati...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Τον Μάιο του 2012, όταν το περιοδικό TIME έθεσε στον πρόεδρο της Ευρωπαϊ- κής Επιτροπής, José Manuel Barroso, το ερώτημα: «τι σας ανησυχεί περισσότερο στη σημερινή Ευρώπη;», η απάντησή του ήταν: «Πιθανότατα, η άνοδος κάποιων λαϊκιστικών... more
Τον Μάιο του 2012, όταν το περιοδικό TIME έθεσε στον πρόεδρο της Ευρωπαϊ-
κής Επιτροπής, José Manuel Barroso, το ερώτημα: «τι σας ανησυχεί περισσότερο
στη σημερινή Ευρώπη;», η απάντησή του ήταν: «Πιθανότατα, η άνοδος κάποιων
λαϊκιστικών κινημάτων στα άκρα του πολιτικού φάσματος». Στο πλαίσιο των εκλο-
γικών και ευρύτερα των πολιτικών εξελίξεων που συνόδευσαν τη διαχείριση της
ευρωπαϊκής κρίσης από το 2008 και μετά, είναι σαφές ότι ο λαϊκισμός, από όπου
κι αν προέρχεται, έχει ανακηρυχθεί επισήμως ως ο βασικός εχθρός της Ευρωπα-
ϊκής Ένωσης. Στην Ελλάδα ειδικότερα, μετά την είσοδο στην εποχή των μνημονί-
ων και των αντιμνημονίων, η έννοια του λαϊκισμού αποτέλεσε κεντρικό διακύβευ-
μα στις πολιτικές αντιπαραθέσεις. Την ίδια περίοδο, δεν υπήρξε σχεδόν κανένα
αντιπολιτευτικό κόμμα ή κίνημα –και όχι μόνο– που να μην κατηγορήθηκε από
τους αντιπάλους του ως «λαϊκιστικό», μία κατηγορία που, ρητά ή υπόρρητα, τους
προσέδιδε ταυτόχρονα ένα σύνολο χαρακτηριστικών, όπως η κοινωνική και πολι-
τική καθυστέρηση, ο λανθάνων ή ανοιχτός εθνικισμός/νατιβισμός, η δουλική λα-
τρεία του ηγέτη, η αποστασιοποίηση από το δημοκρατικό παιχνίδι, η χωρίς αρχές
ΛΑΪΚΙΣΜΟΣ ΕΝΑΝΤΙΟΝ ΑΝΤΙΛΑΪΚΙΣΜΟΥ
ΣΤΟΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟ ΤΥΠΟ, 2014-2015
Nικοσ Νικησιανησ / Θωμασ Σιωμοσ / Γιαννησ Σταυρακακησ / Τιτικα Δημητρουλια
ΣYΓXPONA 53 ΘEMATA
συνύπαρξη (ακρο)αριστερών και ακροδεξιών στοιχείων,
η ψευδολογία, η ανικανότητα, η ακραία πολιτικάντικη και
οπισθοδρομική στάση.
Όλα αυτά τα αποδιδό
κής Επιτροπής, José Manuel Barroso, το ερώτημα: «τι σας ανησυχεί περισσότερο
στη σημερινή Ευρώπη;», η απάντησή του ήταν: «Πιθανότατα, η άνοδος κάποιων
λαϊκιστικών κινημάτων στα άκρα του πολιτικού φάσματος». Στο πλαίσιο των εκλο-
γικών και ευρύτερα των πολιτικών εξελίξεων που συνόδευσαν τη διαχείριση της
ευρωπαϊκής κρίσης από το 2008 και μετά, είναι σαφές ότι ο λαϊκισμός, από όπου
κι αν προέρχεται, έχει ανακηρυχθεί επισήμως ως ο βασικός εχθρός της Ευρωπα-
ϊκής Ένωσης. Στην Ελλάδα ειδικότερα, μετά την είσοδο στην εποχή των μνημονί-
ων και των αντιμνημονίων, η έννοια του λαϊκισμού αποτέλεσε κεντρικό διακύβευ-
μα στις πολιτικές αντιπαραθέσεις. Την ίδια περίοδο, δεν υπήρξε σχεδόν κανένα
αντιπολιτευτικό κόμμα ή κίνημα –και όχι μόνο– που να μην κατηγορήθηκε από
τους αντιπάλους του ως «λαϊκιστικό», μία κατηγορία που, ρητά ή υπόρρητα, τους
προσέδιδε ταυτόχρονα ένα σύνολο χαρακτηριστικών, όπως η κοινωνική και πολι-
τική καθυστέρηση, ο λανθάνων ή ανοιχτός εθνικισμός/νατιβισμός, η δουλική λα-
τρεία του ηγέτη, η αποστασιοποίηση από το δημοκρατικό παιχνίδι, η χωρίς αρχές
ΛΑΪΚΙΣΜΟΣ ΕΝΑΝΤΙΟΝ ΑΝΤΙΛΑΪΚΙΣΜΟΥ
ΣΤΟΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟ ΤΥΠΟ, 2014-2015
Nικοσ Νικησιανησ / Θωμασ Σιωμοσ / Γιαννησ Σταυρακακησ / Τιτικα Δημητρουλια
ΣYΓXPONA 53 ΘEMATA
συνύπαρξη (ακρο)αριστερών και ακροδεξιών στοιχείων,
η ψευδολογία, η ανικανότητα, η ακραία πολιτικάντικη και
οπισθοδρομική στάση.
Όλα αυτά τα αποδιδό
Research Interests: Discourse Analysis, Humanities Computing (Digital Humanities), Digital Humanities, Political Theory, Political Science, and 6 moreCorpus Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics and Discourse Analysis, Political Discourse Analysis, Applied Linguistics Corpus Linguistics, Πολιτική Επιστήμη, and Digital Methods In Social Sciences
The conflicts around the scientific status of the concept of diversity are considered here as symptoms of hidden, socially originated, ideological representations inherent in the theoretical context of western ecology. Species diversity... more
The conflicts around the scientific status of the concept of diversity are
considered here as symptoms of hidden, socially originated, ideological representations inherent in the theoretical context of western ecology. Species diversity was coined in the 1940s, as a constant in the statistical models that described the distribution of individuals into different species and, therefore, as the expression of all the parameters that determine ecologically this distribution. The assumption of such a regular distribution is attributed to the influence of organicism and the correlated presupposition of harmony and homeostasis. Nevertheless, as species diversity was the only unknown parameter in these models, it reversed the direction of the functions and established itself as the main variable under question. After the 1950s, the concept of species diversity was empowered by the strong impact of cybernetics and systems theories; in this context, diversity was considered as a self-regulating mechanism that assures overall stability. Diversity emerges as a natural and one-dimensional measure of community complexity, maturity, and stability. In the perspective of the arising ecological crisis, diversity - because of its property to compare and evaluate - arises as the nodal point of the new scientific/ideological fields of nature conservation and ecosystem management.
considered here as symptoms of hidden, socially originated, ideological representations inherent in the theoretical context of western ecology. Species diversity was coined in the 1940s, as a constant in the statistical models that described the distribution of individuals into different species and, therefore, as the expression of all the parameters that determine ecologically this distribution. The assumption of such a regular distribution is attributed to the influence of organicism and the correlated presupposition of harmony and homeostasis. Nevertheless, as species diversity was the only unknown parameter in these models, it reversed the direction of the functions and established itself as the main variable under question. After the 1950s, the concept of species diversity was empowered by the strong impact of cybernetics and systems theories; in this context, diversity was considered as a self-regulating mechanism that assures overall stability. Diversity emerges as a natural and one-dimensional measure of community complexity, maturity, and stability. In the perspective of the arising ecological crisis, diversity - because of its property to compare and evaluate - arises as the nodal point of the new scientific/ideological fields of nature conservation and ecosystem management.
Research Interests:
The representation of a complex but stable, self-regulated and, finally, harmonious nature penetrates the whole history of Ecology, thus contradicting the core of the Darwinian evolution. Originated in the pre-Darwinian Natural History,... more
The representation of a complex but stable, self-regulated and, finally, harmonious nature penetrates the whole history of Ecology, thus contradicting the core of the Darwinian evolution. Originated in the pre-Darwinian Natural History, this representation defined theoretically the various schools of early ecology and, in the context of the cybernetic synthesis of the 1950s, it assumed a typical mathe- matical form on account of a positive correlation between species diversity and community stability. After 1960, these two aforementioned concepts and their positive correlation were proposed as environmental management tools, in the face of the ecological crisis arising at the time. In the early 1970s, and particularly after May’s evolutionary arguments, the consensus around this positive correlation col- lapsed for a while, only to be promptly restored for the purpose of attaching an ecological value on biodiversity. In this paper, we explore the history of the diversity–stability hypothesis and we review the successive terms that have been used to express community stability. We argue that this hypothesis has been motivated by the nodal ideological presuppositions of order and harmony and that the scientific developments in this field largely correspond to external social pres- sures. We conclude that the conflict about the diversity–stability relationship is in fact an ideological debate, referring mostly to the way we see nature and society rather than to an autonomous scientific question. From this point of view, we may understand why Ecology’s concepts and perceptions may decline and return again and again, forming a pluralistic scientific history.
Research Interests:
Ο λαϊκισμός αποτελεί ένα από τα πλέον επίκαιρα αντικείμενα στη σύγχρονη πολιτική έρευνα. Ωστόσο, η ετερογένεια των σύγχρονων εκφάνσεών του σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο –και εμφατικά πλέον στο ευρωπαϊκό πλαίσιο– καθιστούν αναγκαία την ανανέωση της... more
Ο λαϊκισμός αποτελεί ένα από τα πλέον επίκαιρα αντικείμενα στη σύγχρονη πολιτική έρευνα. Ωστόσο, η ετερογένεια των σύγχρονων εκφάνσεών του σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο –και εμφατικά πλέον στο ευρωπαϊκό πλαίσιο– καθιστούν αναγκαία την ανανέωση της επιστημονικής διερεύνησής του. Στο πλαίσιο της έρευνάς μας επιχειρήσαμε την ανάπτυξη ενός ευέλικτου αλλά συνεκτικού θεωρητικού πλαισίου για τη δοκιμότερη ταυτοποίηση
και συγκριτική ανάλυση των λαϊκιστικών φαινομένων. Μεθοδολογική βάση αποτέλεσε η ανάλυση λόγου και ειδικότερα η «Σχολή του Essex», η οποία κατόπιν συσχετίσθηκε με άλλες ποιοτικές, ποσοτικές και λεξικομετρικές μεθόδους. Στο επίκεντρο της εμπειρικής διερεύνησης τέθηκαν: (1) ο σύγχρονος αριστερός λαϊκισμός στη Λατινική Αμερική, (2) ο ακροδεξιός λαϊκισμός στην Ευρώπη, (3) η αντίθεση λαϊκισμού/αντιλαϊκισμού σε συνθήκες κρίσης. Το ανά χείρας κείμενο παρακολουθεί συνοπτικά το
σύνολο της έρευνας που πραγματοποιήθηκε, δίνοντας έμφαση στα τελικά της πορίσματα.
και συγκριτική ανάλυση των λαϊκιστικών φαινομένων. Μεθοδολογική βάση αποτέλεσε η ανάλυση λόγου και ειδικότερα η «Σχολή του Essex», η οποία κατόπιν συσχετίσθηκε με άλλες ποιοτικές, ποσοτικές και λεξικομετρικές μεθόδους. Στο επίκεντρο της εμπειρικής διερεύνησης τέθηκαν: (1) ο σύγχρονος αριστερός λαϊκισμός στη Λατινική Αμερική, (2) ο ακροδεξιός λαϊκισμός στην Ευρώπη, (3) η αντίθεση λαϊκισμού/αντιλαϊκισμού σε συνθήκες κρίσης. Το ανά χείρας κείμενο παρακολουθεί συνοπτικά το
σύνολο της έρευνας που πραγματοποιήθηκε, δίνοντας έμφαση στα τελικά της πορίσματα.
Research Interests: λαϊκισμός and δημοκρατία
Despite the mounting discussions on the concepts of diversity and biodiversity, no generally accepted definition has ever emerged, while many ecologists have argued that the concept of diversity lacks ecological meaning. The ambiguity of... more
Despite the mounting discussions on the concepts of diversity and biodiversity, no generally accepted definition has ever emerged, while many ecologists have argued that the concept of diversity lacks ecological meaning. The ambiguity of diversity is interpreted here as the result of hidden, socially originated, ideological representations within the scientific fields of ecology. Ideological representations are discerned since the first appearance of diversity indices in the early 1940’s. The index of diversity was first introduced in ecology as a simple statistical constant within the equations of species-individuals curves, expressing the equitability with which individuals are distributed into different species. Distribution models presuppose that individuals be distributed into different species in a regular, repeatable way that expresses the hidden, internal order of every biological community. This presupposition is attributed to the ideological influence of organicism, according to which biological communities used to be considered as stable, discernible, harmonically and hierarchically organized unities of members.
However, soon after their introduction, species-individuals equations were automatically reversed and diversity became the variable under question. Hence, the measurement of diversity arose as the central question and ecologists employed new methods and concepts from Statistics, Systematics and Information Theory in order to find appropriate indices of diversity. Diversity indices, as quantified expressions of biological complexity, embody an infinite series of material qualities -such as individuals, populations, species and interspecies relationships- which under the frame of a mathematical function are equalized as general equivalents. It will be argued that the emergence of diversity indices through a reification process is motivated by hidden ideological representations reflecting dominant socioeconomic practices.
After the 1950’s diversity indices were employed by the uprising field of Systems Ecology. Diversity was related to other important ecosystem’s properties, such as stability, productivity and efficiency. Under the premises of an arising ecological crisis, ecologists tried to establish a positive correlation between diversity and stability, due to an external, social pressure for appropriate criteria of ecosystem management. Nevertheless, through this socially motivated relation, the meaning of ecological stability is redefined as the lack of fluctuation, acquiring a cybernetic, quantified aspect. Similar arguments are held with regard to the relation between diversity and productivity or efficiency. Finally, a complex of correlated, quantified, measurable and manageable ecosystemic concepts is emerging from the older fields of community and ecosystem ecology, leading to the new unifying attempts of the late 1960’s and to the new scientific-political field of environmental management. In this process, diversity arises as the nodal point of its field, a concept that transforms and determines the meaning of all others, due to its socially originated power.
However, soon after their introduction, species-individuals equations were automatically reversed and diversity became the variable under question. Hence, the measurement of diversity arose as the central question and ecologists employed new methods and concepts from Statistics, Systematics and Information Theory in order to find appropriate indices of diversity. Diversity indices, as quantified expressions of biological complexity, embody an infinite series of material qualities -such as individuals, populations, species and interspecies relationships- which under the frame of a mathematical function are equalized as general equivalents. It will be argued that the emergence of diversity indices through a reification process is motivated by hidden ideological representations reflecting dominant socioeconomic practices.
After the 1950’s diversity indices were employed by the uprising field of Systems Ecology. Diversity was related to other important ecosystem’s properties, such as stability, productivity and efficiency. Under the premises of an arising ecological crisis, ecologists tried to establish a positive correlation between diversity and stability, due to an external, social pressure for appropriate criteria of ecosystem management. Nevertheless, through this socially motivated relation, the meaning of ecological stability is redefined as the lack of fluctuation, acquiring a cybernetic, quantified aspect. Similar arguments are held with regard to the relation between diversity and productivity or efficiency. Finally, a complex of correlated, quantified, measurable and manageable ecosystemic concepts is emerging from the older fields of community and ecosystem ecology, leading to the new unifying attempts of the late 1960’s and to the new scientific-political field of environmental management. In this process, diversity arises as the nodal point of its field, a concept that transforms and determines the meaning of all others, due to its socially originated power.
Research Interests:
In May 2012, when Time magazine asked the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso ‘What concerns you most about Europe today?’ his answer was: ‘Probably the rise of some populist movements in the extremes of the political... more
In May 2012, when Time magazine asked the European Commission
President José Manuel Barroso ‘What concerns you most about Europe
today?’ his answer was: ‘Probably the rise of some populist movements in the extremes of the political spectrum’ (Cendrowicz 2012). Since then itis clear that populism, wherever it comes from, has officially been proclaimed as the main enemy of the European Union. In Greece, specifically, after entering the Memorandum era, the phenomenon of populism has been the focal point of intense political wrangling. There has been no opposition party or movement that has not been accused by its opponents as ‘populist’, an accusation which, explicitly or implicitly, is simultaneously backed up with a set of specific characteristics, including social and political backwardness, latent or open nationalism/nativism, cult of the leader, devaluation or even rejection of the democratic rules, irresponsibility, irrationalism, lack of understanding of reality, demagogy or even conscious lying.
These arguments, originating in the liberal literature of the mid-twentieth
century and especially in the work of Richard Hofstadter
(1955), have been uncritically adopted and violently adjusted to Greek
reality. The ‘beast of populism’, primarily associated with the Left and
social resistances to the Memorandum austerity policies, has acquired
mythical features, embodying all the ‘chronic pathologies’ of Greek society and economy: partisanship and polarization, clientelism, corruption, the dominance of ‘guilds’ and trade unionists. Through this strategy, an emerging anti-populist block has attempted to naturalize a negative, pejorative signification of populism,1which was then utilized in the demonization of oppositional political and social identities, attitudes and forces as ‘populist’. The pejorative uses of the term have predominated the politico-social landscape, and populism has been defined through anti-populist discourse. But what is populism after all? Can we define it without ideological, stereotypical blinkers?
Utilizing the innovative work of Ernesto Laclau and the so-called Essex
School (Laclau 2005; Laclau and Mouffe 2001; Howarth et al. 2000), the
POPULISMUS research project has employed a rigorous yet flexible
method of identifying populist discourses.2 It has thus attempted to
remedy methodological deficits, arguing in favor of a ‘minimal criteria’
approach, as the phenomenon of populism is quite complicated and the
utilization of an unsuitable analytical approach may cause comprehension gaps of the issue. In particular, populist discourses should include:
(1) prominent references to ‘the people’ (or equivalent signifiers, e.g., the
‘underdog’) and the ‘popular will’ and to the need to truly represent it,
(2) an antagonistic perception of the sociopolitical terrain as divided between ‘the people’/the underdog and ‘the elites’/the establishment
(POPULISMUS Background Paper 2015).
According to the Essex School of Discourse Analysis and the
POPULISMUS approach, both criteria need to be present for a discourse
to be classified as ‘populist’. Hence, populist discourse always involves a
division between dominant and dominated. An important aspect of
Laclauian theory, which is strongly influenced by Gramscian theories on
hegemony, is that the formation of a populist discourse occurs through
the connection of heterogeneous popular demands (logic of equivalence) and the construction of a collective identity (through the identification of an enemy) (Laclau 2005). Moreover, a vital feature of Laclau’s theory of populism is the ‘nodal point’, namely, a central signifier that gives meaning to a discourse, to a discursive articulation. According to Laclau and Mouffe, ‘any discourse is constituted as an attempt to dominate the field of discursivity, to arrest the flow of differences, to construct a center. We will call the privileged discursive points of this partial fixation, nodal points (Lacan has insisted on these partial fixations through his concept of points de capiton, that is, privileged signifiers that fix the meaning of a signifying chain)’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 112). Hence, ‘discourseshould be conceived as an articulation (a chain) of ideological elements around a nodal point, a point de capiton’ (Stavrakakis 1999: 79).
Within the frame of the POPULISMUS project, this paper uses the
methodological tools of Laclauian theory (nodal points, empty signifiers,
etc.), combining them with a computer-based lexicometric methodology. In the last few years, it has been proposed that corpus-driven lexicometric procedures can greatly assist in the study of populist discourse (cf. Caiani and della Porta 2011; Rooduijn and Pauwels 2011). In particular, a lexicometric approach is considered compatible with discourse-theoretical analysis drawing on the Essex School of discourse analysis, which POPULISMUS employed, to the extent that it brackets the supposed intentions behind discursive articulation, while it considers meaning as formed by the relations established between lexical elements (Glasze 2007: 663f.).
President José Manuel Barroso ‘What concerns you most about Europe
today?’ his answer was: ‘Probably the rise of some populist movements in the extremes of the political spectrum’ (Cendrowicz 2012). Since then itis clear that populism, wherever it comes from, has officially been proclaimed as the main enemy of the European Union. In Greece, specifically, after entering the Memorandum era, the phenomenon of populism has been the focal point of intense political wrangling. There has been no opposition party or movement that has not been accused by its opponents as ‘populist’, an accusation which, explicitly or implicitly, is simultaneously backed up with a set of specific characteristics, including social and political backwardness, latent or open nationalism/nativism, cult of the leader, devaluation or even rejection of the democratic rules, irresponsibility, irrationalism, lack of understanding of reality, demagogy or even conscious lying.
These arguments, originating in the liberal literature of the mid-twentieth
century and especially in the work of Richard Hofstadter
(1955), have been uncritically adopted and violently adjusted to Greek
reality. The ‘beast of populism’, primarily associated with the Left and
social resistances to the Memorandum austerity policies, has acquired
mythical features, embodying all the ‘chronic pathologies’ of Greek society and economy: partisanship and polarization, clientelism, corruption, the dominance of ‘guilds’ and trade unionists. Through this strategy, an emerging anti-populist block has attempted to naturalize a negative, pejorative signification of populism,1which was then utilized in the demonization of oppositional political and social identities, attitudes and forces as ‘populist’. The pejorative uses of the term have predominated the politico-social landscape, and populism has been defined through anti-populist discourse. But what is populism after all? Can we define it without ideological, stereotypical blinkers?
Utilizing the innovative work of Ernesto Laclau and the so-called Essex
School (Laclau 2005; Laclau and Mouffe 2001; Howarth et al. 2000), the
POPULISMUS research project has employed a rigorous yet flexible
method of identifying populist discourses.2 It has thus attempted to
remedy methodological deficits, arguing in favor of a ‘minimal criteria’
approach, as the phenomenon of populism is quite complicated and the
utilization of an unsuitable analytical approach may cause comprehension gaps of the issue. In particular, populist discourses should include:
(1) prominent references to ‘the people’ (or equivalent signifiers, e.g., the
‘underdog’) and the ‘popular will’ and to the need to truly represent it,
(2) an antagonistic perception of the sociopolitical terrain as divided between ‘the people’/the underdog and ‘the elites’/the establishment
(POPULISMUS Background Paper 2015).
According to the Essex School of Discourse Analysis and the
POPULISMUS approach, both criteria need to be present for a discourse
to be classified as ‘populist’. Hence, populist discourse always involves a
division between dominant and dominated. An important aspect of
Laclauian theory, which is strongly influenced by Gramscian theories on
hegemony, is that the formation of a populist discourse occurs through
the connection of heterogeneous popular demands (logic of equivalence) and the construction of a collective identity (through the identification of an enemy) (Laclau 2005). Moreover, a vital feature of Laclau’s theory of populism is the ‘nodal point’, namely, a central signifier that gives meaning to a discourse, to a discursive articulation. According to Laclau and Mouffe, ‘any discourse is constituted as an attempt to dominate the field of discursivity, to arrest the flow of differences, to construct a center. We will call the privileged discursive points of this partial fixation, nodal points (Lacan has insisted on these partial fixations through his concept of points de capiton, that is, privileged signifiers that fix the meaning of a signifying chain)’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 112). Hence, ‘discourseshould be conceived as an articulation (a chain) of ideological elements around a nodal point, a point de capiton’ (Stavrakakis 1999: 79).
Within the frame of the POPULISMUS project, this paper uses the
methodological tools of Laclauian theory (nodal points, empty signifiers,
etc.), combining them with a computer-based lexicometric methodology. In the last few years, it has been proposed that corpus-driven lexicometric procedures can greatly assist in the study of populist discourse (cf. Caiani and della Porta 2011; Rooduijn and Pauwels 2011). In particular, a lexicometric approach is considered compatible with discourse-theoretical analysis drawing on the Essex School of discourse analysis, which POPULISMUS employed, to the extent that it brackets the supposed intentions behind discursive articulation, while it considers meaning as formed by the relations established between lexical elements (Glasze 2007: 663f.).