Accounting signifiers, political discourse, popular resistance and legal identity during Pakistan Steel Mills attempted privatization

Ashraf, Muhammad Junaid; Muhammad, Faiza; Hopper, Trevor

doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2018.08.002

Cited by 4 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(76 reference statements)

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“…Pro-divestment has successfully formed a historical bloc supported by moral and intellectual leadership (Gramsci, 1971). The ruling government and political party figures have been able to garner more support from intellectual actors to strengthen the historical bloc and win the contestation (Li and Soobaroyen, 2021) with media support (Ashraf et al ., 2019). The victory of the pro-divestment discourse is interpreted as reducing the dominance of foreign investors in Indonesia and making PTFI an SOE.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the fact that there has been significant resistance from local communities, moral and intellectual leadership has strengthened a shared commitment to maintaining oil production in Nigeria (Andrew and Baker, 2020). Moral and intellectual leadership also played a role in winning the anti-privatization discourse of SOEs in Pakistan (Ashraf et al ., 2019). Other research using Gramsci's concept of common sense was conducted by Li and Soobaroyen (2021) on “economic development” as “common sense” and the state ideology championed by political parties.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These are called floating signifiers. For example, the primary signifier of the globalization discourse is privatization in Pakistan, and another signifier is economic imperialism (Ashraf et al ., 2019). The identification of empty signifiers and nodal points is used to understand the various signifiers in the chain of equivalence and difference in the PTFI divestment discourse.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Gramsci and Hoare (1971), moral and intellectual leadership generates social formation in order to strengthen hegemony. The power dynamics of social construction can be traced through two structural processes, namely, the chain of equivalence and the chain of difference (Ashraf and Uddin, 2015; Ashraf et al ., 2019; Mantzari and Georgiou, 2019; Andrew and Baker, 2020). Chains of equivalence tend to be a unifying force among diverse identities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This research also enriches the research findings of Xu et al . (2013) on shifting hegemony involving the power of politics (Li and Soobaroyen, 2021) and of Ashraf et al . (2019) on hegemonic discourse involving the media, as well as the study of social and political movements in the accounting discipline (Haines-Doran, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Political hegemony and accounting discourse: valuing nationalization

Pujiningsih

Suryani

Larasati

et al. 2023

ARA

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PurposeThis study aims to discover the role of accounting and media in hegemonic discourse for divestment valuation of PT Freeport Indonesia shares.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs data from 608 news articles from 5 national media. This study uses Gramsci's concept of hegemony and Laclau and Mouffe's hegemonic discourse to explore the ideological role of accounting in the formation of historical blocs and investigate the contestants' discursive strategies through the chains of equivalence and difference.FindingsThe incumbent presidential candidate, by involving political and intellectual actors, has succeeded in taking over and shifting PT Freeport Indonesia's hegemony to maintain its power, through the ideology of divestment and accounting. The media played a role in the victory of the pro-divestment bloc in the hegemonic divestment discourse contest. The pro-divestment bloc's discursive strategy uses more formal and technical language styles than the anti-divestment bloc, which uses informal language styles. The pro-divestment bloc uses the key signifiers of low price, improved financial performance, nationalization and welfare, as opposed to the anti-divestment bloc, with the key signifiers of high price, declining financial performance and neoliberalist colonization.Practical implicationsThe implications of this research may encourage accounting academics to contribute to emancipatory social movements in the struggle for hegemony. The implication for policy makers is the importance of involving the public, intellectual actors, political actors and the media in supporting diverse state strategic policies in the national interest.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to Gramsci's theory of hegemony and Laclau and Mouffe's hegemonic discourse to understand the role of accounting and media in a nationalization project as an emancipatory social movement, as well as a hegemonic shifting political movement.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Political hegemony and accounting discourse: valuing nationalization

Pujiningsih

Suryani

Larasati

et al. 2023

ARA

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Resistance, hegemony, and critical accounting interventions: Lessons from debates over government debt

Gilbert

Everett

2023

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

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Identifying the discursive trajectory of social change – a systematic discourse theoretical framework

Sulehry

Wallace

2023

JLP

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This article has two main objectives. One, to advance methodological development in both discourse theory and media and communications research by proposing an eclectic, replicable methodology. Two, to demonstrate how to apply that methodology to furnish both ontic and ontological explanations for the contingent origins of a discourse using the editorials of the Pakistani newspaper The Nation on the Pakistan Steel Mills privatization case as a case study. An earlier study had identified the surprising conclusion that this traditionally conservative paper had from the outset fully endorsed the radical opposition to the government’s suspension of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan which led to an uprising known as the Lawyers’ Movement. This article locates the origins of that shift in the newspaper’s reaction to the Pakistan Steel Mills privatization issue. The article has implications for the fields of discourse theory, media and communication studies, and political science.

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Accounting signifiers, political discourse, popular resistance and legal identity during Pakistan Steel Mills attempted privatization

Cited by 4 publications

References 52 publications

Political hegemony and accounting discourse: valuing nationalization

Political hegemony and accounting discourse: valuing nationalization

Resistance, hegemony, and critical accounting interventions: Lessons from debates over government debt

Identifying the discursive trajectory of social change – a systematic discourse theoretical framework

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