Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta | Charles University, Prague (original) (raw)

Papers by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

Journal of Communication Inquiry

Media play a central role in the discursive struggles over the meaning of nature, climate change ... more Media play a central role in the discursive struggles over the meaning of nature, climate change and human–nature relationships through the strategic selection and salience of media content. This paper investigates the strategies and tactics mobilized by media producers in communicating environmental issues. The investigation is based on a selection of seven media productions in the Swedish context, comprising TV series and documentaries produced between 2015 and 2020. Through a discourse-theoretical analysis of these audio–visual products and interviews with their producers, we identify a five-cluster model, ranging from mainstream anthropocentric strategies to alternative ecocentric tactics. Our model aims to delineate media strategies reproducing hegemonic anthropocentrism to critically inquire about environmental ideologies in media communication and explore potential alternative tactics for more ecocentric representations of nature.

Empedocles, Dec 1, 2022

This article analyses the Swedish TV series Hållbart näringsliv (HN) to study hegemonic discursiv... more This article analyses the Swedish TV series Hållbart näringsliv (HN) to study hegemonic discursive formations over the meaning of the climate crisis. Combining new materialist approaches in discourse studies with a political ecology understanding of the socio-ecological entanglement, we propose the concept of technocratic solutionism to understand how the neo-liberal green economy secures instrumentalist discourses on nature in the Swedish context. The discourse-theoretical analysis of nine HN episodes identifies four nodal points which articulate the technocratic solutionist discourse: capital’s leading role, Nordic exceptionalism, substitutionalism and long-termism. We argue that the climate crisis can be understood as a materiality that dislocates capitalist assemblages, which then, in response, deploy a techno-solutionism discourse to protect the core principles of economic growth and profitability while marginalizing potential radical alternatives.

Interdisciplinary Political Studies, 2021

The European Constitution is not a single text. Rather, it emerged, changed over time, and develo... more The European Constitution is not a single text. Rather, it emerged, changed over time, and developed an incomplete and constantly transforming ensemble of texts, rules, institutions, competences and implementation procedures. The notion of dispositif grasps the form, outlook and logic of European economic governance and agenda-setting practices to analyse the logic of economic constitutionalism based on complex translation processes. With the 'discursive pentagon' model, the paper will show how an economic idea, grounded within the European constitution, was implemented by Greece, Italy, and Portugal through different forms of translation in the aftermath of 2009 financial crisis. The paper argues that austerity was part of the EU constitutional system moved through a mechanism of interpretation consisting of different stages, tools and discourses before it was finally (un)realised in different member states. The interpretative flexibility of the EU economics apparatus is finally illustrated by a discourse analysis of the European semester.

JMD, 2021

Ideology analyses play an important role in Cultural Discourse Studies because they investigate c... more Ideology analyses play an important role in Cultural Discourse Studies because they investigate complex meaning production within various political systems and power structures. The notion of ideology can be analysed in different dimensions. Whereas Marx and Engels proposed a negative as well as a positive conception of ideology, sociologists such as Mannheim understood ideologies as sets of ideas and general world views. Some scholars in Discourse Studies seem to follow a conception of ideology that is located in-between Mannheim's conception and Marx's negative idea of 'false consciousness'. In this paper we define ideology as a political discourse practice devoted to exerting power and influence. Following Marx's positive notion, ideology is seen as a modality that regulates the relationship between the subject and a specific system of knowledge related to political action. Here, ideology refers to discourses as knowledge/ power regimes where the political-power aspect is suppressed through the subjectivation process itself. Following Gramsci, Foucault and Lacan, our theoretical framework helps us to analyse ideological discourse practices as different modalities of subjectivation. We propose three types of ideological subjectivation: oppressive forms, normalizing forms and resisting forms. Finally, these forms are illustrated with examples from economic expert discourses from Italy and Germany. ARTICLE HISTORY

Edited Books by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

Book Chapters by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

Economisti e Società. Nuove sociologie dell'expertise economica Eds. Nicoletta G. C., Scotto di Carlo M. , Ventrone O, Liguori Editore, Napoli, 2023

The chapter offers a post-structuralist interpretation of economic expertise as a heterogeneous c... more The chapter offers a post-structuralist interpretation of economic expertise as a heterogeneous connection of professional, media, institutional and emotional elements capable of creating subjectivity and spatiality in line with contingent configurations of global divisions of labour. Through a snapshot analysis of economic discourses circulating in the rural peripheries of southern Italy, the chapter aims at dislocating the "economic expert" subject to reposition it in discursive-material nodes distributed in and between the structures of (re)productive life management. Through this dislocation, it is possible to look at economic expertise without economists: a locally distributed semiotic device that grounds the contingent influence of economics in a global society.

Power and influence of economists. Contribution to the Social Studies of Economics , 2021

Analysing three Italian historical experiences as laboratories of transnational networks of disci... more Analysing three Italian historical experiences as laboratories of transnational networks of disciplinary economics, this paper deals with the contingent and the (con)textual character of the power of economics, starting from its relationship with the object of its discursive and practical interventions: laypeople. This fundamental relational dimension, the source of economists' power in the global political economy, is often underestimated by current social studies on economics, which implicitly assume a self-referential and autopoietic foundation of this power. Conversely, combining discursive political economy, sociologies of expertise and transnational historical sociology, this contribution analyses economic expertise as a complex network of practices, discourses and institutions constantly and strategically deployed to deal with socio-political contingencies. Our lay perspective on the Italian experience proposes a socio-historical understanding of economist's apparently neutral set of governmental practices. In this light, measurements, operative tools and conceptual apparatuses can be interpreted as practical and discursive interventions shaping strategically specific epistemic regimes and relational fields aiming to separate organizational and material issues from popular control and marginalizing possible alternatives so to get population and territories in line with socio-technical divisions of labour.

Working Papers by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

DiscourseNet Collaborative Working Paper Series

This contribution analyses different technocratic discourses emergent in the context of the Ital... more This contribution analyses different technocratic discourses emergent in the context of the Italian management of the coronavirus pandemic. It suggests that each of these discourses share a common conception of the population as irresponsible and potentially dangerous. The main unintentional outcome of such common epistemic terrain is the empowerment and the enforcement of administrative and police practices over territories and populations. Through this discussion, the paper sets out to highlight a paternalistic appeal which reconstitutes a ‘responsible subject’ for the post-covid era

Online Publications by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

Interviews by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

http://eidmap.commedia.wiki/#/, 2023

My contribution, in the form of an interview, to the Environmental Ideologies Map developed by Ge... more My contribution, in the form of an interview, to the Environmental Ideologies Map developed by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta at the Mistra Environmental Communication Research Programme. Capitalism as a mode of production and reproduction of life.

The map can be accessed at http://eidmap.commedia.wiki/#/

Talks by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

Call for Papers by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

CfP, 2019

Organization: Alexander Lenger (Catholic University of Applied Sciences Freiburg, Leader oft he D... more Organization: Alexander Lenger (Catholic University of Applied Sciences Freiburg, Leader oft he DFG-Network on “Sociology of Economic Thinking”), Gerardo C. Nicoletta (University of Naples), Jens Maesse (University of Giessen)
Contact: jens.maesse@sowi.uni-giessen.de, kostabile@gmail.com

The economic and financial crisis is still a critical issue in many European countries. Economic experts and economic expertise play an important role in framing, analysing and influencing these processes. In order to understand this impact, an analytical perspective on economists and economic expertise takes into account the diverse channels of influence as well as the professional and institutional backgrounds of economists. Papers are welcome that address the complexity and diversity of economic expertise.
The ‘playground’ of economists in crisis-prone societies stretches across many areas. Economists occupy positions at different levels of institutional hierarchy in different sectors, such as banks and firms, the state and media as well as within academia. They serve as consultants and advisors in several policy fields ranging from fiscal to health and social security policy. Economists are appointed to boards of big corporations, as governance experts, high civil servants and central bankers. Economists are also part of consulting teams for newspapers and other media, regularly publish op-eds and lead articles and thus exert influence on public debates.
Additionally, economists have become a dominant professional group, compared to traditional professions and other social science disciplines. At the international level, economists work in influential organizations such as the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and the ECB. They have also been able to constitute one of the most advanced examples of an international scientific field, resulting from a long process of standardization of practices, careers and curricula, as well as an adoption of external technical tools from mathematics and physics.
Yet, economists do not form a homogeneous group and their power is unequally distributed amongst members of the profession. Strong hierarchies and strong ties, compared to other academic disciplines and professions, characterize the field of economics. Economists are clearly under-feminised and it can also be hypothesized that for the most part they come from higher middle class social backgrounds. Women, individuals with a working class background and individuals with a particularly local profile are more or less excluded from resources in terms of chairs, research funds, grants and editorial board positions. Nonetheless, such individuals are sometimes able to oppose real challenges to the dominant actors of the field.
The goal of our workshop is to get a better understanding of the social construction and perception of the debt crisis by analysing the relationship between economics and economic expert knowledge as a complex phenomenon that is involved in many different scientific, professional, political and public contexts. We welcome contributions that address this complexity of economic expert knowledge production through single case studies, general overviews or critical interventions. Please submit your proposals (200-300 words) to Gerardo C. Nicoletta and Jens Maesse (Deadline: 10 December 2019).

CfP, 2020

Discourse Studies cover a growing field of interdisciplinary research on meaning making practices... more Discourse Studies cover a growing field of interdisciplinary research on meaning making practices, communicative activities and symbolic representations. Cultural studies, linguistics, media analysis, geography, and history, among others, highlight the role of texts, pictures and language in the constitution of truth and reality. Actor-oriented disciplines such as political science, sociology, pedagogy, psychology or economics and management studies are interested in the formation of subjectivities, identities and agencies. Focussing on the nexus of Discourses in Post-National Spaces this conference aims to bring different strands from the interdisciplinary field of Discourse Studies into dialogue. In the last few years, several developments show that the traditional world of nation states with its lingual characteristics, social structures and institutional orders is undergoing a transition period towards a new constellation of powers. Nation states only exist as "imagined communities" but not as institutional "container"-realities. The rise of China is changing traditional self-perceptions in the West, Brexit in UK shows that the nation state can no longer be the main frame of reference, Trumpism takes into question established liberal values, Russia celebrates a comeback as military and fossil power, and migrants from post-colonial Africa are massively moving to Europe. Different forms of nativism (as particular form of nationalism) are reactions to these developments. The emergence of illiberal democracies in Central and Eastern Europe can no longer be perceived as a domestic phenomenon of a particular nation-state. It is rather a challenge for the European unity in diversity. Migration becomes a politicised normality 1 2 6 th D is c o u rs e N e t C o n fe re n c e P o s t-N a t io n a l D is c o u r s e s : tr a n s n a ti o n a l c o m m u n ic a ti o n s , tr a n s v e rs a l s u b je c ti v it ie s a n d n e w fo rm s o f n a ti v is m in g lo b a li s e d s o c ie ti e s

Short Unpublished Essays by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

During the last decades the process of European integration has doubled its speed under the press... more During the last decades the process of European integration has doubled its speed under the pressures of global issues, notably the crisis and the end of the international order built on the ruined of the second war and with it the synthesis and compromises between the struggle of the social forces and their ideas of society and with their own cosmology. The rising of the neoliberal orthodoxy has led to the dismantle of the traditional and consolidated form of political confrontation through a complete shift in the role of the state in mediating social conflicts. In the case of Europe, restructuring of the economy has been translated in the reinforcement of preexisting political agreements in new institutions of regional governance to exploit at the best the new global configuration. In this process European workers are asked to offer themselves as the sacrificial virgin through the complete commodification of the labour, decreasing purchase power of wages, package of rights and dramatic increase work hours on the one hand and unemployment on the other. Further, as every respectably sacrificial virgin, labour and its representatives organisation are condemn to accept only a fictional part in the new European institutional context despite rhetoric and good intention. The debate around the new institutional configuration of Europe is various, although it can be categorized around three main position: regionalism literature (for an overview: Giplin 2000) which basically see process of integration as an attempt of several politicaleconomic systems to arrange agreement on the basis of geographical closeness or government, to manage the undesirable effect of 'globalisation, a process that involve not just the Europe but also other 'regions' as the North America with the NAFTA ; a second vision could be called 'liberal realism' and it is the more traditional one in that is based on the centrality of the 'rational' memberstate in being involved in supranational agreement or in the autonomous action of supranational institutional actor in the policymaking process; finally, a third approach is the critical one composed by Marxists ( Bonefield 1999; Carchedi and Carchedi 1999 ; Taylor and Mather 2002;), the socalled neogramscians ( for a collection of this analysis on European Union see Bieler and Morton 2001) as well as heterodox antiglobalization scholars (Foti 2001). All of them shared the vision of an Europe ruled by the few over the majority although each of them underlie some aspects rather than other.

Dissertations by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

Sussex University MA Dissertation in Global Political Economy, 2012

Nowadays the use of the term technocracy is widespread. It is oftenuse to describe emergency solu... more Nowadays the use of the term technocracy is widespread. It is oftenuse to describe emergency solution to economic crisis and non-accountable power in national and international politics. This study seeks to give a meaning to thisconcept though the case study of Italy in the early 1990s. Indeed, it is argued that,rather than be an osmotic reaction to dysfunctional conjuncture in the global political economy it represent a specific narrative sustained by the mediation between social forces at both national and international level.