Political Analysis as Auto-Communication of Culture

What is it about?

The present paper sets for itself the modest task to point to a problem of metalanguage and object-language in political analysis from a cultural semiotics point of view. The so-called post-foundationalist view, common in political discourse theories, is primarily characterized by the rejection of essentialist notions of ground for the social, and the inauguration of cultural and discursive characteristics into the wider social scientific paradigm. However, it seems that despite placing communication at the heart of their conceptions of discourse, the communicative character of constructing power relations remains undertheorized in those conceptions. This paper attempts to approach the above problem by way of the concepts of communication and autocommunication (Lotman). The outcomes stemming from the latter are unavoidable, since the result of any possible research (text) itself belongs to culture or a larger discourse and operates as the organizing function of the latter. Hence, research practice and its results always need to be looked at as mutually affecting each other.

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