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Neoliberal Moral Frames and Asymmetrical Nationalist Legitimation

A Case Study of British Citizens’ Beliefs in Legitimacy

DATE

Aug, 2019

AUTHOR

Mauro Caprioli, Luis Vila-Henninger and Virginie Van Ingelgom

CATEGORY

Publications

Causal Narrative Frames: A Discursive Tool to Justify Solution

How do non-elite agents reason in order to legitimate their partisan political activities—such as actions, judgments, and opinions? Responding to this question requires us to bridge literatures on motivated reasoning, political legitimacy, and moral psychology in order to theorize a three-phase process of “motivated partisan legitimation.” First, affective drives and moral intuitions animate agents’ allegiance to a given political party and lead agents to resonate with partisan elements of collective political discourse. Second, through political socialization agents internalize elements of collective political discourse in a manner that is biased by their partisan allegiance. Third, driven by partisan allegiance, citizens publicly rationalize—and by extension legitimate—their partisan activities by appealing to elements of internalized political discourse that seem most useful given the social context. These partisan rationalizations often serve as personal narratives that seem factual to rationalizers while simultaneously socially reaffirming their party’s legitimacy.

Reference : Caprioli, Mauro, Virginie Van Ingelgom, Luis Vila-Henninger, (2019), Paper prepared for the American Sociological Association Annual Conference’s Political Sociology Roundtables, “Neoliberal Moral Frames and Asymmetrical Nationalist Legitimation: A Case Study of British Citizens’ Beliefs in Legitimacy”, New York, August 10-13, 2019

Reference : Caprioli, Mauro, Virginie Van Ingelgom, Luis Vila-Henninger, (2019), Paper prepared for the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics Annual Conference, “Neoliberal Moral Frames and Asymmetrical Nationalist Legitimation: A Case Study of British Citizens’ Beliefs in Legitimacy”, The New School of Social Research, June 27-29, 2019

Reference : Caprioli, Mauro, Virginie Van Ingelgom, Luis Vila-Henninger, (2019), Paper prepared for the 26th International Conference of Europeanists, “Neoliberal Moral Frames and Asymmetrical Nationalist Legitimation: A Case Study of British Citizens’ Beliefs in Legitimacy”, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid​, June 22-24, 2019

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