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Since 2008, Greece has been spiralling down an economic and socio-political crisis. Over the past decade, it has endured massive riots, consecutive elections, a debilitating public debt, and endless rescue plans by the EU and other international bodies. The crisis sparked an intense interest in the Greek public discourse, which is often accused of being dominated by populist rhetoric. This interest appears to be accompanied predominantly by a certain leitmotif: instead of appreciating the assistance offered, the Greek people resent it and taking refuge in populist rhetoric, further undermining the country’s stability. This echoes the age-old argument that ‘the people are an irrational mob acting impulsively, a lamentable state that should be cured or disciplined.’ Could the shaming, the appeal to sober morality – branding all other discourses as populist and dangerous – be the fashionable response of a cosmopolitan elite, high-profile pundits and institutions to the problems of global capitalism? The debate raged in the public sphere and in the streets of Athens. On multiple occasions, the crisis was used as a trope in the European public sphere to justify socio-political changes, austerity measures and disciplinary actions. The emerging schema juxtaposed populist/anti-populist discourses, reducing discourses and identities to black and white. This chapter reads discursive constructions of the Greek crisis, by-stepping the populist/anti-populist divide. Using analysis based on affect theory and the philosophy of emotions, it investigates the various uses of resentment as part of affective engineering and as an instrument of collective identification, in an environment of multiple overlapping crises in Europe.

Anger responding to government-imposed COVID-19 pandemic mandates is examined in relation to 2021 international reports of street protests in cities, with a focus on Perth, Western Australia. Angry protestors displayed a variety of signs and symbols, united under banners demanding freedom. A multi-disciplinary analysis attends to distrust in public health mandates in the global context of an insecure biosphere. Mandates can signify symbolic death, and anger an ‘immune’ response to lifeworld constraints. Anger among nurses and vaccine-hesitant protestors signifies ethical rejection of super-imposed mandates, and fear of alleged vaccine harms. Official pandemic communications are held to be ill-timed, lacking information meaningful to diverse citizens' needs, and offset by poorly contextualised data and unreliable pre-packaged interpretations communicated via digital technologies. A novel hypothesis proposes semiotic misrecognition of the global nature of communications from intersecting ecosocial crises may underlie protestors' anger. Modelling of a management system to validate broad contextual knowledges may restore meaningful balance and public solidarity, to creatively respond to future human crises.

Using data from a feminist discourse analysis of comments on Facebook news articles, this research outlines backlash and regulatory practices directed towards youth activists Greta Thunberg, X González and Malala Yousafzai. A conceptual framework of semiotic violence highlights how these comments function to silence, delegitimise, vilify and punish sociopolitically active girls who challenge the status quo. The first mode of semiotic violence works to symbolically annihilate girl activists by silencing or rendering their political contributions invisible. The most obvious manifestation of this is instructing girls to shut up and go away. Additionally, their activism is ignored by refusals to acknowledge it as appropriate through suggestions they focus on gender-normative activities, such as domestic chores, playing with dolls and finding boyfriends. Undermining girls’ agency by describing them as puppets, mouthpieces, script readers, pawns and tools is also common. Here, girls’ contributions are rendered invisible through implications that they are being brainwashed and manipulated. The second mode of semiotic violence reinforces ideologies that girls are not politically competent and punishes them for being outspoken. This includes explicitly discrediting girls’ knowledge and abilities. Regulating their emotionality is also prevalent. This is consistent with Liberal political theory which justified women’s exclusion from public life by associating men with reason and women with emotion. Finally, insults degrade them for transgressing into a space demarcated as an adult and masculine realm. The semiotic violence directed towards these ‘girl power’ figures highlights that many people do not believe girls have the right to assert their sociopolitical opinion.

The paper starts with a brief review of the notion of ‘asymmetric warfare’ and asymmetric answers in the rhetoric of Soviet leaders. The point to be stressed is that the ‘asymmetric answer’ is always an unequal response by definition. The main idea of such a response is very clear: to eliminate the existing power imbalance at minimal expenses of the weaker side. The threats of ‘asymmetric answers’ on real or imagined international challenges and dangers have returned to the Russian president rhetoric in early 2000s. What has happened? The range of possible causes of this policy shift varies from the US foreign policy and various geopolitical issues to domestic reasons associated with the elections to come. The paper analyses the main versions. What actions are standing behind the words about the ‘asymmetric answers’ that might shape the landscape of international relations of the first half of the 21st century? The paper highlights this issue and looks onto the observed future of international relations.

The resurgence of right-wing parties and movements in almost all Member States of the European Union seems to indicate an escalating crisis not only of the European political project, but also of the societal fabric across Europe. In order to better comprehend its origins, it is important to understand how the identification of citizens with the EU is being shaped and challenged by attitudes including rising nationalism, Euroscepticism and anti-immigration feelings. While the focus during the current political crises has been overwhelmingly on statements and policies made by politicians, parties and institutions, this chapter instead studies the perceptions of the ‘common people’ and how they construct their identities within the European discourse, thus closing an important research gap.

This contribution is based on empirical data gathered during a large-scale project called Restorative Circles for Citizens in Europe, financed by the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Commission. Between January and June 2017, individuals from different walks of life came together in Trebnitz and Berlin to talk about ‘their’ Europe. Originally envisaged as an opportunity for dialogue between Eurosceptics and pro-Europeans, it soon revealed that there are many nuances in these attitudes. The presence of members and sympathisers of populist and right-wing movements and parties in the meetings changed the communication dynamics, and offered a unique opportunity to observe how (bottom-up) identity is constructed and what impact it has. This contribution analyses the extensive collected data.

Sovereignty retains considerable currency today insofar as it fuses ordinary understandings of the state, the nation, and democracy. Against widespread expectations, however, the European Union has increasingly harnessed sovereignty as a source of vitality. We are thus witnessing a mainstreaming of populist politics, as the rhetoric of sovereignty no longer disqualifies new EU institutions and policies. This can be better understood if we consider sovereignty, from a constructivist perspective, as an evolving set of practices. First, sovereignty evolves within political and administrative circles, as European officials act to modify longstanding practices of state sovereignty. Second, sovereignty evolves in an increasingly politicized context, as political leaders dramatize EU crises in order to mobilize coalitions around new practices of popular sovereignty. This dual dynamic of state sovereignty and popular sovereignty is demonstrated in the case of the Eurozone and then extrapolated to the current trajectory of the EU polity against the benchmark of US federalism after the Civil War. An open question is whether sovereignty practices in the European Union will continue to evolve without compromising the Union's cosmopolitan and liberal objectives.

Purpose – This study analyzes the rhetoric casting U.S. President Barack Obama in the role of betraying and undermining the nation because he seeks government policies supporting a social safety net, gay rights, abortion rights, and other progressive agendas.

Methodology/Approach – The analysis is based on sociological social movement theories, especially the interrelationship of ideology, frames, and narratives in understanding how activists take their ideas and turn them in to action. The power devaluation model of Rory McVeigh is applied to the construction of reality used by right-wing anti-Obama forces, especially those linked to the various Tea Party movements.

Findings – The most militant anti-Obama ideologues construct frames and narratives based on a dualistic worldview in which Obama and liberals in general are demonized and scapegoated for existing economic, social, and political problems.

Research limitations/implications – More scholarly research using statistical analysis of the views and demographics of Tea Party supporters is needed to provide a complete picture of this new social/political movement.

Practical implications – By showing that right-wing populists are basing their beliefs on a long history of similar frames and narratives, this study can help prompt a more constructive response by political opponents who wrongly demonize the Tea Party supporters and their allies as ignorant or crazy.