On The Question Of Studying Historical Analogies In Political Discourse: Mapping The Problem Field

Abstract

The article is devoted to the description of a new segment of the memory studies problem fi eld — the study of historical analogies in political discourse. From the point of view of mnemonic research, historical analogy is an intermediate link between individual consciousness, collective ideas about the past and the pragmatics of discourse. It is considered not as a special case of “inference by analogy”, studied within the framework of formal logic, but as an element of the process of political communication, the meaning of which is determined primarily by the social context. The author examines the origins of the formation of interest in this issue in Western political science and its development in line with political linguistics, theory of international relations and political psychology. Cognitive, communicative, discursive and constructivist approaches to the study of historical analogies are distinguished. For the fi rst time, the distinction between an individual and a collective subject of historical analogy is fixed (in the fi rst case, we are talking about an analogy that is used by a decision-maker; in the second case, it is about an analogy functioning at the level of discourse, forming collectively shared images of the present or the future).

References

Aydın-Düzgit, S. “De-Europeanisation through Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of AKP’s Election Speeches,” South European Society and Politics, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2016, pp. 45–58.
Baines, G. “Vietnam Analogies and Metaphors: The Cultural Codifi cation of South Africa’s Border War,” Safundi, Vol. 13, No. 1–2, 2012, pp. 73–90.
Bekliamishev, V. O. “Vtoraia mirovaia voina, «ispanka» ili Chernobyl’? Pandemiia COVID-19 v zerkale istoricheskikh analogii (po materialam amerikanskogo i rossiiskogo mediadiskursa),” Vestnik Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo oblastnogo universiteta, No. 2, 2020, pp. 84–96.
Brändström, A., Bynander, F., and Hart, P. “Governing by Looking Back: Historical Analogies and Crisis Management,” Public Administration, Vol. 82, No. 1, 2004, pp. 191–210.
Chayinska, M., and McGarty, C. “The Power of Political déjà vu: When Collective Action Becomes an Eff ort to Change the Future by Preventing the Return of the Past, ”Political Psychology, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2021, pp. 201–217.
Edwards, D. Discourse and Cognition. London: Sage, 1997.
Feis, H. “Some Notes on Historical Record-keeping, the Role of Historians, and the Influence of Historical Memories during the Era of the Second World War,” The Historian and the Diplomat: The Role of History and Historians in American Foreign Policy, ed. F. L. Loewenheim. New York: Harper & Row, 1967, pp. 91–122.
Finney, P. “On Memory, Identity and War, ”Rethinking History, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2002, pp. 1–13.
Fischer, N. “Palestinian Non-violent Resistance and the Apartheid Analogy, ”Interventions International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2020, pp. 2–16.
Ghilani, D., Luminet, O., Flassbeck, C. et al. “Looking forward to the Past: An Interdisciplinary Discussion on the Use of Historical Analogies and Their Eff ects, ”Memory Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2017, pp. 274–285.
Gilovich, T. “Seeing the Past in the Present: The Eff ect of Associations to Familiar Events on Judgments and Decisions,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 40, No. 5, 1981, pp. 797–808.
Hehir, A. “The Impact of Analogical Reasoning on US Foreign Policy towards Kosovo,” Journal of Peace Researches, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2006, pp. 67–81.
Hemmer, Ch. “Historical Analogies and the Definition of Interests: The Iranian Hostage Crisis and Ronald Reagan’s Policy toward the Hostages in Lebanon,” Political Psychology, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1999, pp. 267–289.
Houghton, D. “Historical Analogies and the Cognitive Dimension of Domestic Policymaking,” Political Psychology, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1998, pp. 279–303.
Jervis, R. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
Jurgelevičiūtė, D. “Istorinių analogijų vaidmuo užsienio politikos procese, ”Politologija, Vol. 62, No. 2, 2011, pp. 43–73.
Kaarbo, J., and Kenealy, D. “Precedents, Parliaments, and Foreign Policy: Historical Analogy in the House of Commons Vote on Syria,” West European Politics, Vol. 40, No. 1, 2017, pp. 62–79.
Khong, Y. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Levy, D., and Sznaider, N. Human Rights and Memory. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.
Macdonald, S. “Hitler’s Shadow: Historical Analogies and the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait, ”Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2002, pp. 29–59.
Mallard, G. “From Europe’s Past to the Middle East’s Future: The Constitutive Purpose of Forward Analogies in International Security, ”American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2018, pp. 532–562.
May, E. ‘Lessons’ of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
McCroskey, J. C., and Combs, W. H. “The Eff ects of the Use of Analogy on Attitude Change and Source Credibility, ”Journal of Communication, Vol. 19, No. 4, 1969, pp. 333–339.
Miller, A. I. “Vvedenie. Metodologicheskie problemy izucheniia politiki pamiati — reshennye, nereshennye i nerazreshimye, ”Metodologicheskie voprosy izucheniia politiki pamiati, eds. A. I. Miller, and D. V. Efremenko. St. Petersburg: Nestor-istoriia. 2018, pp. 4–10.
Neustadt, R., and May, A. Sovremennye razmyshleniia o pol’ze istorii dlia tekh, kto prinimaet resheniia, transl. A. A. Zakharova. Moscow: Ad Marginem, 1999.
Paris, R. “Kosovo and the Metaphor War, ”Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 117, No. 3, 2002, pp. 423–450.
Pehar, D. “Historical Rhetoric and Diplomacy — an Uneasy Cohabitation, ”Language and Diplomacy, eds. J. Kurbalija, H. Slavik. Msida: DiploProject, 2001, pp. 117–138.
Pogrund, B. Drawing Fire: Investigating the Accusations of Apartheid in Israel. New York: Rowmann & Littlefi eld. 2014.
Prémont, K., David, Ch.-Ph., and Boucher, V. “The Clash of Historical Analogies and Their Influence on Decision-Making: The Case of Iraqi Reconstruction Under George W. Bush, ”Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2018, pp. 298–327.
Rasmussen, M. “The History of a Lesson: Versailles, Munich, and the Social Construction of the Past,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2003, pp. 499–519.
Smeekes, A., Van Acker, K., Verkuyten, M., and Vanbeselaere, N. “The Legacy of Nazism: Historical Analogies and Support for the far Right,” Social Infl uence, Vol. 9, No. 4, 2014, pp. 300–317.
Spellman, B. A., and Holyoak, K. J. “If Saddam’s Hitler then Who is George Bush? Analogical Mapping between Systems of Social Roles,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 62, No. 6, 1992, pp. 913–933.
Stuckley, M. E., and Antczak, F. J. “The Battle of Issues and Images: Establishing Interpretive Dominance,” Communication Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 2, 1994, pp. 120–132.
Taylor, A., and Rourke, J. T. “Historical Analogies in the Congressional Foreign Policy Process,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 57, No. 2, 1995, pp. 460–468.
Vertzberger, Y. I. “Foreign Policy Decision-makers as Practical-intuitive Historians: Applied History and Its Shortcomings,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 2, 1986, pp. 223–247.
Zinken, J. “Ideological Imagination: Intertextual and Correlational Metaphors in Political Discourse,” Discourse & Society, Vol. 14, No. 4, 2003, pp. 507–523.