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The Normative Threat of Subtle Subversion: The Return of ‘Eastern Europe’ as an Ontological Insecurity Trope

Malksoo, Maria (2019) The Normative Threat of Subtle Subversion: The Return of ‘Eastern Europe’ as an Ontological Insecurity Trope. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32 (3). pp. 365-383. ISSN 0955-7571. (doi:10.1080/09557571.2019.1590314) (KAR id:71578)

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Abstract

A combination of undemocratic developments in Hungary and Poland and the eastern Europeans’ foot-dragging about solidary burden-sharing at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe has brought back the familiar allusions of eastern Europeans as troublemakers for the European unity and peace. This article offers a discursive dissection of ‘eastern Europe’ as a subtly subversive challenge to Europe’s security of ‘self’, entailing a fear of being overrun by an ‘Other’ perceived as endangering one’s particular normative and cultural order. Proceeding from Ingrid Creppell’s (2011) notion of normative threat, I argue that the reappearance of ‘eastern Europe’ as an ontological insecurity trope points at a set of deeper anxieties within Europe, some of which are systemic (doubts about the efficacy of integration and the legitimacy of the European Union) and some more contingent (vacillation about defending the European political order from populist upsurge amidst ‘resurgent nationalism’)

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1080/09557571.2019.1590314
Uncontrolled keywords: normative threat; ontological (in)security; eastern Europe; Poland; Hungary; liminality; illiberal democracy; populism
Subjects: J Political Science > JZ International relations
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Politics and International Relations
Depositing User: Maria Malksoo
Date Deposited: 09 Jan 2019 18:51 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2022 06:32 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/71578 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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