The Vilhelm Aubert Memorial Lecture is a joint event organized by the Institute for Social Research and the Department of Sociology and Human Geography (ISS) at the University of Oslo. The Memorial Lecture invites distinguished international scholars to Oslo for lectures and debates.
The event has two parts: The Aubert Memorial Lecture and the Aubert Debate.
In the lecture, della Porta poses the question of whether the opposition to infection limiting measures and vaccination, which gradually increased during the COVID pandemic, can best be understood as a social movement shaped by repertoires of action and collective narratives from the political far right.
The Aubert debate is based on one of della Porta's latest works, in which she argues that both the news media and politicians in Germany have been gripped by a "moral panic" after October 7, 2023, with the suppression of Israel-critical voices as a result. After an introduction della Porta will meet Norwegian social scientists for a debate.
The lecture and the debate will both be held in English.
Welcome!
Programme
Aubert Lecture - Conspiracies, Pandemic and the Far Right: the Anti-Vax Protests as Regressive Forms of Contention
September 12th, 14:15–16:00
Auditorium 7, Eilert Sundts hus
Summary of the lecture
Since the very beginning of the pandemics, while progressive movements mainly focused on social inequalities, often calling for investment in the public health system and vaccination for all, protests quickly became highly visible - protests that targeted first the very policies taken to reduce contagion (such as lock down, masks wearing, distancing, contacts reduction) and then vaccine and vaccination. Defined as very heterogeneous in their social and political bases, the protests involved a variable mix of exoteric groups and radical right militants, glued together by conspiratorial beliefs. In fact, these protests can be defined as regressive as they contrasted solidarity building with individualistic values and collective responsibility with a negative conception of freedom.
Social science explanations for the protests against anti-contagion measures (from lockdown to masks, distancing and up to vaccination), have been rooted especially in approaches more traditionally used in the analysis of radical right organizations and sects, rather than approaches used for the analysis of social movements of the progressive type. While initially characterized as more spontaneous reactions launched at the local level by those most economically affected by anti-contagion measures, or those more concerned with issues of individual freedom, in several countries the protests quickly became structured, with growing investment of organizational resources by the radical right. In this talk, without denying the importance of broad societal processes and individuals’ inclinations, I will build upon some main concepts in social movement studies to look at the characteristics of the protests against anti-contagion measures, such as the mobilized resources, the repertoires of action and the collective framing. Empirically, I will refer to my own research comparing the Italian, the German and the Greek cases in the pandemic period with a particular focus on the development of the Far Right.
Aubert Debate - Moral Panic and Repression: The Contentious Politics of Anti-Semitism in Germany
September 13th, 09:00–11:00
Institute for Social Research, Munthes gate 31
Comments by Johannes Due Enstad, Senior Research Fellow at Institute for Social Research, and Katrine Fangen, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oslo
Summary of the debate
Moral panics can be used as a mechanism of repression of political and social protests through the definition of activists as challenging the core values of a society. Taking Germany as a critical case, the article analyses a number of aggressive campaigns mounted by the media and politicians against progressive artists and intellectuals, most of whom are from the global South, but which also includes Jewish people critical of Israeli actions, who have been accused of violating the German narrative in what has been defined as a “war” against anti-Semitism. After an introduction to the repression of pro-Palestinian protests, I will begin by providing a methodological note, before going on to present the conceptualization of a moral panic and locate its mechanisms within an analysis of the repression of social movements. I will then present some cases that can be read through the sociological category of a moral panic, singling out the panic entrepreneurs and their forms of intervention as well as the outcomes of their actions. What this further analysis adds to the literature is a reflection on the contextual conditions for the development of such moral panic in a specific mass-media, regulatory and political context. I will then suggest that in the German case in particular the contextual conditions for the spread of the moral panic are related to: a) a bureaucratization of anti-Semitism policies, with the creation of a specialized bureaucracy; the adoption of a semi-legal definition of anti-Semitism through the development of an especially vague and blurred definition of anti-Semitism; and the assimilation of anti-Zionist peaceful forms of protests (such as BDS) as anti-Semitic; b) the development of political and cultural opportunities around the definition of the security of Israel as a “raison d’État” and a convergence on a selective, formalized official memory; and c) the alignment of the majority of civil society and mass-media around an official narrative.
Bibography
Donatella della Porta is professor of political science, founding dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos). She is a leading international researcher of social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, the police and protest policing.
Della Porta has published many books and articles. Selected publications: Social Movements in Times of Austerity (Polity, 2015), How Social Movements Can Save Democracy (Polity, 2020), and Contentious Politics in Emergency Critical Junctures (Cambridge University Press, 2022)..