Social representations and the politics of participation

Recent work has called for the integration of different perspectives into the field of political psychology (Haste, 2012). This chapter suggests that one possible direction that such efforts can take is studying the role that social representations theory (SRT) can play in understanding political participation and social change. Social representations are systems of common-sense knowledge and social practice; they provide the lens through which to view and create social and political realities, mediate people's relations with these sociopolitical worlds and defend cultural and political identities. Social representations are therefore key for conceptualising participation as the activity that locates individuals and social groups in their sociopolitical world. Political participation is generally seen as conditional to membership of sociopolitical groups and therefore is often linked to citizenship. To be a citizen of a society or a member of any social group one has to participate as such. Often political participation is defined as the ability to communicate one's views to the political elite or to the political establishment (Uhlaner, 2001), or simply explicit involvement in politics and electoral processes (Milbrath, 1965). However, following scholars on ideology (Eagleton, 1991; Thompson, 1990) and social knowledge (Jovchelovitch, 2007), we extend our understanding of political participation to all social relations and also develop a more agentic model where individuals and groups construct, develop and resist their own views, ideas and beliefs. We thus adopt a broader approach to participation in comparison to other political-psychological approaches, such as personality approaches (e.g. Mondak and Halperin, 2008) and cognitive approaches or, more recently, neuropsychological approaches (Hatemi and McDermott, 2012). We move away from a focus on the individual's political behaviour and its antecedents and outline an approach that focuses on the interaction between psychological and political phenomena (Deutsch and Kinnvall, 2002) through examining the politics of social knowledge

‘Europe’ in Greece: Lay constructions of Europe in the context of Greek immigration debates

In this paper, we analyse discourses about Europe in Greek debates about immigration and citizenship and highlight the complexities of ‘Europeanness’ as a symbolic resource for argumentation in these debates. Our data consist of lay discourses from two rounds of online public deliberation (2009/2010 and 2015) about a controversial new citizenship law in Greece. Our analysis shows that Europe is an ambivalent category. On the one hand, Europe symbolises progress, but, on the other hand, it is also constructed in terms of decline and ‘contamination’ by multiculturalism. Further, our analysis shows that the category of Europe can be mobilised in contradictory ways, in order to support arguments for and against citizenship rights for migrants. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ways in which constructions of Europe are implicated in processes of othering and inclusion in the context of current immigration debates

Distribution and Characteristics of Symbolic Universes Over the European Societies

This chapter complements the previous with the analysis of the distribution and characteristics of the segments of people associated with the symbolic universes. Analyses comprise seven countries are in. Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom. The aim of these analysis is to understand if and to what extent socio-demographic and psycho-social factors that could play a role in moderating the impact of policies are associated with specific symbolic universes

Symbolic Universes and (Post)Crisis Scenarios

In recent years, elections in EU countries have been generally regarded as moments of truth for European institutions. The 2018 electoral results in Italy and Slovenia disproved the idea that pro-EU stances were back in the foreground, as Emmanuel Macron’s and Mark Rutte’s 2017 victories in France and theNetherlands respectively had previously suggested. Euroscepticism is anything but defeated: sovereign claims are part of the political offer of populist and far-right parties all over Europe

The Cultural Milieu and the Symbolic Universes of European Societies

The chapter reports the main findings of the analysis of cultural milieus of 11 European countries (Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom) carried out within the framework of the Re.Cri.Re. research program (cf. www.recrire.eu). More particularly, these findings concern: the lines of semiotic force comprising the cultural space of the countries and the symbolic universes that are active within it. The chapter is broken up into three parts. Firstly, the method is presented; secondly, the results are reported. Finally, the results are discussed in their meaning and implications