The Negation of Agency: the Discursive Tactics of Hindu Nationalists in Nepal

• In Event: 261 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. Political Talk and Discourse

Abstract

The discursive negation of agency is a common, but understudied political phenomenon in modern, mass-mediated democracies is. In this paper, I focus on the manner in which Hindu nationalists in Nepal employ discursive tactics that negate the agency of their opponents. It is based on ongoing research and a preliminary analysis of speeches recorded and pamphlets gathered between July 2014 and April 2015. In short, I argue that Hindu nationalist discourse related to the project of restoring the constitutional definition of Nepal as a Hindu state relies on a discursive political tactic that is commonly used in modern democratic settings, but rarely discussed: the negation of agency. The dynamics of the negation of agency are relatively straightforward, and generally take one of two forms – historical elision and validity neutralization. In the first form, one political actor disregards or denies the agency of his or her opponent through narratives that ignore or misconstrue the latter’s agency or the agency of a particular group that he or she may represent. In the second form, one political actor makes direct claims that his or her opponent is not making decisions as an autonomous agent, but is instead either operating on behalf of another agent or in response to illegitimate coercion. The end result is that audiences who accept the abridged historical narrative and/or the claim that their opponents are not legitimate autonomous actors effectively absolve themselves of the responsibility to engage in any meaningful sense with their opponents.

Author

• Luke Wagner, Yale University