Critical discourse interventions of public intellectuals as counter-hegemonic strategies

This paper investigates the ‘critical discursive interventions’ (CDI) of Flemish intellectuals in the debates about the austerity reforms proposed by the winning political party of the triple regional, federal and European elections in Belgium of 2014. CDI’s can be defined as strategic performances aimed at a re-articulation of existing social, economic and / or political inequalities in the public realm through publicly accessible media. Debates are thereby considered in terms of negotiations over the adaptable (meaning of) resources, identities, practices and concepts that define our societies. In principle, every type of citizen can participate in such debates. However, in this paper the author focuses on the discursive strategies used by academic and public intellectuals. Special attention will go to discussions about the ‘index’ through which the Belgian government automatically adapts wages to changes in the costs of key products of consumption. This Belgian welfare policy has been one of the main objects of critique that the winning neoliberal and nationalist party called N-VA (New Flemish Alliance) attacked. The author will provide an interpretive and functional discourse analysis based on pragmatic and poststructuralist heuristic principles. This will result in an analysis of the types of critique Flemish intellectuals articulate in online and offline texts. The author will ask how and to what extent the CDI’s under investigation challenged the fantastic dimensions of the hegemonic project underlying the proposed austerity measures. As such, this paper is intended to contribute a more accurate understanding of the interface between academic and political discourse.