Making Enemies: Reactive Dynamics of Discursive Polarization

Joel Backström, Karin Creutz, Niko Pyrhönen

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedingChapterScientificpeer-review

    Abstract

    This chapter discusses certain discursive-relational aspects of the dynamics of polarization, illustrated with empirical material from discourses of and on right-wing nationalism. We approach polarization as a historically evolving process of identity-construction, focusing on the back-and-forth movement of action and reaction between the various actors involved. We show how, through scapegoating, denigration, etc., the parties tend to alienate each other, actively making their enemies. In specifically discursive terms, we analyse ways in which discourse in polarized settings tends to become deadlocked, mutually hostile and in other ways limited and distorted in its communicative function, sketching various part-logics of polarization, including a logic of ‘doubles’, a logic of ‘shibboleths and taboos’, and of ‘pollution and paranoid extension’.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions
    EditorsKatarina Pettersson, Emma Nortio
    Place of PublicationUnited Kingdom
    PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
    Pages139-162
    Number of pages24
    ISBN (Print)978-3-030-89065-0
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2022
    MoE publication typeA3 Part of a book or another research book

    Publication series

    NamePalgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology
    PublisherPalgrave Macmillan

    Keywords

    • 5144 Social psychology
    • 518 Media and communications
    • 611 Philosophy
    • 5141 Sociology

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