Ambiguities of Domination : Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria

作者：LisaWedeen

出版社：UniversityofChicagoPress

副标题：Politics,Rhetoric,andSymbolsinContemporarySyria

出版年：1999-6-15

页数：251

定价：USD22.50

装帧：Paperback

ISBN：9780226877884

内容简介
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In the late-1990s in Syria, the image of President Hafiz al-Asad is everywhere. In newspapers, on television and during orchestrated spectacles Asad is praised as the “father,” the “gallant knight,” even the country’s “premier pharmacist”. Yet most Syrians, including those who create the official rhetoric, do not believe its claims. Why would a regime spend scarce resources on a cult whose content is patently spurious? Lisa Wedeen concludes that Asad’s cult acts as a disciplinary device, generating a politics of public dissimulation in which citizens act “as if” they revered their leader. By inundating daily life with tired symbolism, the regime exercises a subtle, yet effective form of power. The cult works to enforce obedience, induce complicity, isolate Syrians from one another and set guidelines for public speech and behaviour. Wedeen’s ethnographic research demonstrates how Syrians recognize the disciplinary aspects of the cult and seek to undermine them.

作者简介
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Lisa Wedeen is the Mary R. Morton Professor of Political Science and in the College, associate faculty in anthropology, and codirector of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Ambiguities of Domination and Peripheral Visions, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

目录
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Acknowledgments

A Note on Transliteration

1. Believing in Spectacles

2. Killing Politics: Official Rhetoric and Permissable Speech

3. Acting “As If”: The Story of M

4. Signs of Transgression

5. Complicating Compliance

Notes

Bibliography

Index

评论 ······

Wedeen的博士论文，通过分析大型仪式展演，官方话语叙事，“反抗”的戏剧和笑话，研究老阿萨德在叙利亚的“个人崇拜”。全书主要结论是：阿萨德的统治是通过语言和符号的控制渗透日常生活，让人们既不认同统治，又深深意识到其无法反抗，从而默许了阿萨德的权力稳固。书有些太想把种种理论和argue塞进去，显得有些凌乱，不少问题都是点到为止就直奔下一个。比较蛋疼的地方是不太能田野的痕迹，与其说这是一本使用了民族…

Wedeen这本书意在回答一个悖论：为什么在老阿萨德治下的叙利亚会有那么多的政治仪式？国家明明知道民众不相信，民众也的确不相信，但为什么还是花费这么多资源去做这个事情。wedeen的分析建基于对韦伯legitimacy概念的批判，她认为政治仪式本身不仅是统治的一种方式并且也在创造统治本身，也即它既是power得以实施的一种方式同时也在制造power。他们并不要强求人们相信这些崇拜，但是要求人们”好…

经典。老师评价，因为是chicago的人，所以想写什么就写什么。后面大段论述的材料是相声小品笑话之类的，虽然论述过程很重要，但是我skim了。。。不太get到。

其实读了以后才发现，ethnographic/interpretivist这个路数产生的理论其实完全是可以和其他方法流派互相补充的嘛。这本书对于阿萨德政权的解读，放在一个理性选择的视角里（如偏好伪装理论）也是互通的。我这么说可能有点肤浅，但我没感觉到什么根本性的分歧，还是尽可能放下偏见吧

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