Nomi Lazar: "Crisis & Stasis: the case of political extremism."

We enter a mid 21st century awash in global traumas: plagues and war, mass extinction, fire and flood. We call these events crises. But while they are evidently momentous they become crises only through rhetorical construction: A moment becomes a turning point, demanding action or acquiescence, because we frame it that way. But crisis is tricky. Too much crisis talk can lead to paralysis and confusion, and thence, sometimes, to the temptations of conspiracy. Too little and we may miss our turn. The consequential character of rhetorical constructions of crisis mean it behooves us to better understand how they work.  

This paper contributes to this effort by analysing a timely and important aspect of crisis rhetoric: its deployment in the service of political extremism. Through a series of examples including Azov Battalion, QAnon, and Falun Dafa, I shall argue that extremist rhetoric situates crisis in a ‘stasis frame’. While normal politics frame events as continuous through linear, cyclical or pendular time, even when punctuated by crisis (a process frame), extreme politics are a politics of imminent ultimacy (a stasis frame). They aim to ultimately destroy some evil, to ultimately end some perceived conflict, to bring about ultimate justice and a final condition of order that won't move. The stasis frame communicates the extremity of the aim and the crisis communicates imminence and hence justifies the extremity of the means. This structure is apparent in everything from extremist climate politics to religious extremism. 

By analysing extremist uses of the stasis rhetorical frames together with constructions of crisis, several puzzles about extremism come clear: it fills the gap between social and psychological study of susceptibilities to extremism and concrete beliefs, and between these and action; it helps explain the ease with which adherents move among extreme ideologies and opposing movements, and it helps explains the sometimes irrational and anti-strategic character of extremist violence.   

At the same time, an investigation like this illuminates how crisis rhetoric works in general, and may help us be more critical respondents of current affairs analysis and debate.

Nomi Claire Lazaris Full Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, where she teaches human rights, moral reasoning, and criminal law policy. An Ottawa native and UOttawa Professor since 2009, Lazar has served as Director of the Program in Conflict Studies and Human Rights and recently returned from a leave of absence in Singapore where, as Associate Dean of Faculty at Yale-NUS College, she had the opportunity to lead the development and consolidation of its global curriculum. Lazar has also taught at Yale and the University of Chicago. With an interdisciplinary training in political science, philosophy, and legal theory, Prof. Lazar’s scholarship explores political ethics, crisis government, comparative constitutionalism, and political legitimacy. She has published two monographs: States of Emergency in Liberal Democracies (Cambridge, 2009/13), a key work on the subject, and the highly acclaimed Out of Joint: Power, Crisis, and the Rhetoric of Time(Yale, 2019) which shows how constructions of temporality help leaders legitimize their power at moments of crisis.

It will be possible to attend the seminar on Zoom - please send an e-mail to otto.fischer@littvet.uu.se to get a link.

All interested are most welcome!