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Introduction: Parts and Whole

Preliminaries

If the career of a particularly popular and widely used political catchphrase were tracked over a period of time, with its shifting nuances and applications contextualized, a historical account of that period would be obtained. Such a historical account would be akin to ‘material history’, which traces social processes surrounding objects, or the ‘history of ideas’, which is anchored to abstractions. And yet, the history woven around a catchphrase would be distinctive. Along with conveying a picture of the period, it would clarify how catchphrases work. The rationales underpinning their circulations and effects would be exposed to some degree. Light would be thrown on the links between various and even disparate preoccupations in social life, and, more broadly, on the fluid processes of knowledge construction and dissemination. A project of this sort would have a special interest if the period in question were a recent or ongoing one, structured as ‘contemporary history’. Using a catchphrase as a linchpin for selecting and connecting areas seems particularly meaningful at present, in the age of digital communications, social networks, and global publicity strategies.

That is the core idea of this book. In subsequent chapters I concentrate on a few familiar and widely used phrases and words to give an account of the period 2001–2020, principally from British and American sources. These are my case studies of political catchphrases in contemporary history. Readers who are particular about definitions and methods would have paused on my opening observations with interest; they might well be asking what is meant by ‘political catchphrase’ and by ‘contemporary history’. Considered responses to such questions will appear in the final chapter, with the case studies behind them. The view taken here is that readers would have reasonable preconceptions about those terms already, which would be sharpened by noting how they are used and exemplified in the case studies. Conceptual observations in the final chapter bring both the practical and theoretical dimensions of this study together and suggest ways forward for further research in this direction.

Having said that, it nevertheless seems prudent to immediately put some minimum markers on those two key structuring notions: ‘political catchphrase’ and ‘contemporary history’. That is to say, some little pragmatic and explicit refining of these notions is necessary for the study to progress coherently, for readers and author to be on the same page even if they disagree about the arguments on that page.

Accordingly, at this stage it seems to me that William Safire’s impressionistic description of ‘catchword’ and ‘catchphrase’ in his ‘dictionary of catchwords, slogans, and political usage’ (1968) is all that is needed for kick off: ‘a word [or phrase] that crystallizes an issue, sparks a response […]. At their best, catch phrases used as slogans summarize and dramatize a genuine appeal’ (68). In fact, in the spirit of the current study, Safire then chose to present the distinctions between catchwords, catchphrases, and slogans by illustration rather than definitions, and, as it happens, the illustration he chose bears directly upon the catchphrase which occupies much of this study. With reference to Republican campaign statements by Warren G. Harding in the US presidential election of 1920, the first after World War I, Safire pointed out that:

‘Normalcy’ [an unusual term compared to ‘normality’] was a catchword; ‘not nostrums but normalcy’ [a much quoted phrase from a speech] a catch phrase; ‘back to normalcy’ a slogan [adopted for and headlining the Republican campaign].

(68, emphasis in original)

According to Safire, the aural qualities and play on meanings of such words and phrases largely explain their catchiness: such as, the slight awkwardness of ‘normalcy’, the alliteration of ‘normalcy’ and ‘nostrums’, the counterpoint of taking doubtful new measures (‘nostrums’) as opposed to restoring what was (‘back to normalcy’). At the same time, these words and phrases only catch on if they seem particularly apt for the context in which they appear. Such aptness is perceived by audiences, who then take up the resonant words or phrases so that they become catchwords or catchphrases. Aptness may also be actively suggested to audiences by some formation, such as a party in a political campaign. In that case, these phrases catch on in a designed way, as slogans. The context of Harding’s 1920 campaign is discussed further in the next chapter, and Safire’s approach elaborated in the final chapter. At present, that quotation offers a sufficient initial account of the distinctions to get on with.

The emphasis here on the political is worth underlining straightaway; this study does focus particularly on political catchphrases and words. They are differentiated from the most common source of catchphrases and slogans: commercial promotion. Though an equivalence between the use of catchphrases in political publicity and commercial promotion is often taken for granted, here the differences are germane. The similarities and crossovers are not disregarded in this study but considered to be conditional to the differences.

1. ‘Political catchphrases’ do not foreground a financial transactional rationale. Rather, they tend to obscure such rationales where they exist or can be attributed. ‘Commercial catchphrases’ work explicitly through and with transactional rationales, and are meant to promote a commodity transfer. In other words, commercial catchphrases are designed to highlight a commodity and in the first instance court those who would pay for that commodity so as to possess/consume it. Political catchphrases address collective interests which are usually not tied to commodities and court those who share those collective interests.
2. Commercial catchphrases themselves originate as commodities from commercial firms. These are therefore planned and disseminated in deliberate ways, and the processes are generally well defined (e.g. ‘brands’, ‘slogans’, and ‘logos’ are clearly defined and demarcated by advertisers), and lend themselves to formalization and predictable application (as ‘tactics’ or ‘strategies’). They are invariably produced, so to speak, ‘from above’. Those characteristics of commercial catchphrases are sometimes imported wholesale for political publicity and advocacy. However, it is usually allowed that political catchphrases might appear without such clarity of planning and process, with unpredictable effect—in protests, for instance, or for exhortations and summons which relate to an unforeseen eventuality. To be pat, political catchphrases sometimes appear in response to unanticipated or immediate situations, ‘spontaneously’ or ‘organically’ or ‘from below’ or, at least, inconveniently from an institutional or establishment perspective.
3. Somewhat different normative attitudes towards the two kinds of catchphrases are found among the political and commercial cognoscenti. By and large, commercial catchphrases are regarded positively among those who are interested in marketing. Catchphrases are regarded as being creative, value-enhancing, and necessary. Among those interested in politics, catchphrases are often considered an unavoidable distraction from serious issues and debates, as being trivializing and misleading. Much political scholarship refers to catchphrases and slogans in disparaging terms.
4. With regard to ‘contemporary history’, the view taken here is an entirely pragmatic one: the description of a very recent period, the concerns of and developments in which are regarded as not having reached closure—or being done with—Chapters are also given to. Arguably, this is the case for any historical account, even those which cover distant periods and practices. Benedetto Croce (1921) had persuasively argued that ‘every true history is contemporary history’: ‘if contemporary history springs straight from life, so too does that history which is called non-contemporary, for it is evident that it is only an interest in the life of the present can move one to investigate past fact’ (12–13). Nevertheless, there are pragmatic considerations which differentiate my way of engaging with ‘contemporary history’ from those of historians looking to what Croce dubs ‘non-contemporary history’. To some degree, this has to do with readers’ expectations. Readers of contemporary history approach the narrative in terms of being of the present, or, as G.W.F. Hegel put it in his lectures on the philosophy of history, ‘the last stage in History, our world, our own time’ (1956: 442, a much discussed formulation). A part is also played by readers’ need to come to terms with their immediate experiences, especially where the present seems transformed by some upheaval—or, as Henry Rousso (2016 [2012]) had it, contemporary history is understood in terms of the ’last catastrophe’. Crises, if not quite catastrophes, have a structuring impetus for the catchphrases tracked in this book. Beyond that, the specific nuances of contemporariness that arise in contemplating political catchphrases are taken up in the final chapter. Those are gradually crystallized through the case studies.

Of more immediate interest, for the historian there is a practical challenge in engaging with contemporary history. It involves weaving a narrative to describe a period from informing sources which are not themselves designed for that purpose. The informing sources may be texts of particular junctures within the period, which are meant to report news, serve legal proceedings, bolster commercial activity, maintain accounts, declare policies, inform initiatives, undertake advocacy, entertain, etc. Naturally, at any given time there would be a great surfeit of such informing sources. Within this excess, the contemporary historian looks for connections and patterns, rationales for disregarding some material and highlighting some, which enables a narrative to emerge that, effectively, describes the period and offers a coherent perspective on it. In doing this, it is most helpful for a historian if there are already other such narratives—other contemporary histories—to refer to, which can then be expanded, contested, or complemented. But the contemporary historian seldom has the facility of an existing narrative to bounce off. That is a disadvantage of being so up-close to the period in question. The contemporary historian then generally chooses some conventional methods, tried and tested in histories of other periods already, to help the enterprise. Fixing a period is itself such a convention. Further, the historian may choose to delimit the description in terms of a region, a specific activity or object, an ideological interest, a focal point such as a personage or a community, etc. This helps to curtail the surfeit of informing sources and make the relevant material manageable, and to offer some preconceived connections and patterns to look for. For this study, I choose a somewhat unusual device of this sort for a contemporary history of the period 2001–2020: namely, focusing on political catchphrases. While this device does not offer preconceived historicist connections and patterns, this is in itself a connecting and pattern-generating device. Connections and patterns emanate from the very take up, repetitive and sustained usage, and demise of catchphrases.

I will return, as promised, to the relevant notions of ‘political catchphrase’ and ‘contemporary history’ in the final chapter. These preliminary notes suffice for me to plunge into the meat of the study, the case studies of certain political catchphrases of our world, our own time.

Approaches

This study has two related purposes: one, to map some of the contours of social practices and ideologies in our time; and two, to track how those practices are structured and ideologies embedded through political catchphrases and catchwords. This study, in brief, presents a distinctive approach to contemporary history and builds upon a theory of political catchphrases.

Introduced thus, readers may expect to find abstract precepts and concepts stated at the beginning, logical inferences made, and plausible hypotheses developed subsequently, which are eventually tested with observations and data. Despite quite strong conceptual investments, that is not the path followed for this study. The distinctive understanding of contemporary history and the theory of political catchphrases developed here are stated in general terms only in the final chapter. Those generalizations are fairly swiftly made and are, to be honest, inconclusive. They surface gradually from the main body of this study, which consists of a series of case studies. These case studies are foregrounded and are the substance of this book. The theoretical issues are addressed in the interstices of the case studies, in intermittent reflections, and formulated after they are done. The case studies are not meant to substantiate preconceived formulations; theoretical formulations are crystallized through the case studies. Each case study has a definite focus. At the same time, the case studies are joined up through recurring motifs and a coherent analytical approach.

Readers may consequently approach this book in different ways, according to their interests. Some may choose to concentrate on specific chapters and disregard the overall project. Most chapters could be read as making self-contained arguments, and the questions that arise immediately are seldom left unanswered—at least, not to any insupportable extent. Each of the main chapters is given to particular catchphrases/words. Chapters 2 and 3 are both devoted to the extraordinarily adaptable catchphrase ‘new normal’, the former covering the period 2001–2019 and the latter focusing on 2020. Though Chapter 3 is informed by and follows up on patterns discerned in Chapter 2, each can be read independently of the other. Chapter 4 reflects on the discussion of ‘new normal’ in Chapters 2 and 3 by digging back into the career of the term ‘normal’, which drifted from specialist registers into popular usage. Chapter 5 explores two catchwords at specific junctures in political and bureaucratic discourse: ‘austerity’ and ‘resilience’. Chapter 6 discusses the 2011 Occupy Wall Street slogan ‘We are the 99%’ and the catchphrases ‘the 1%’ and ‘the 99%’. Each of these chapters bears upon and speaks to others in numerous ways, and yet each can also be read independently, with a narrow focus on particular catchphrases and their contexts.

More profitably, the book could be read in its entirety as developing a sustained argument through interwoven themes across the case studies. These lead towards the theoretical generalizations of the final chapter, with potential for further case studies and honing of methods and concepts. Approached thus, the chapters slot together much like pieces of a jigsaw. Chapters 2 and 3, as observed already, are both about the catchphrase ‘new normal’, respectively for the period 2001–2019 and over the year 2020. Between these, the career of a single catchphrase is tracked in some detail, across both specialist and everyday usage, culminating in a climactic juncture for the catchphrase. Chapter 4 then gives an account of the emergence of the catchphrase from the earlier travels of the term ‘normal’ and concepts of normality. The term ‘normal’ emerged from specialist discourse into popular usage; shades from both accrued in the concept of normality, which was renegotiated in the usage of ‘new normal’. Between Chapters 2 and 4, thus, the provenance, shifting nuances, and growing purchase of catchphrases like ‘new normal’ are conveyed, along with a multidimensional sense of the period 2001–2020. Chapters 5 and 6 focus, somewhat like a magnifying glass, on catchwords and catchphrases at specific conjunctures within that period. These have a definite bearing on certain underpinnings of the ‘new normal’, and had been noted in passing within the broader canvas of Chapters 2–4. Chapter 5 explores the catchwords ‘austerity’ and ‘resilience’, both of which became commonplace in political and bureaucratic circles around 2010. As against such catchwords, drawn from establishment sources, Chapter 6 pulls in the direction of anti-establishment protests by discussing the concurrent Occupy Wall Street protest slogan ‘We are the 99%’ and the catchphrases ‘the 99%’ and ‘the 1%’. Chapters 5 and 6 thus complement each other. Together they present reasonably substantial accounts of, respectively, establishment and anti-establishment positions within the period covered in Chapters 2–4. With these case studies in mind, Chapter 7 makes some generalizations about the kind of contemporary history undertaken here and proposes a theory of political catchphrases which coheres with the case studies.

The fit of the chapters in relation to each other gives only a partial account of the design of this study as a whole. Its coherence ultimately derives from the numerous fine-grained details which are repeatedly echoed or nudged in different directions, through analogous rationales and direct connections across the case studies.

For instance, a significant argument in Chapter 2 on the catchphrase ‘new normal’ through 2001–2019 is that it was introduced in the service of top-down management and governance strategies, and its persistent catchiness marked the effectiveness of those strategies. The catchphrase’s deployment amidst political and economic upheavals bears this out; indeed ‘new normal’ became and carried on being a catchphrase because of various crises. It first caught on, as discussed in this chapter, after the terrorist bombings of 9/11 and the consequent legislative measures and restrictions that were introduced in the USA and, soon, worldwide. The catchphrase was used and compliantly received as a way of engineering consensus on a regime which might have seemed contrary to fundamental political and legal principles before that. With slight shifts, the catchphrase was then used to similar effect by investment gurus after the dot-com crash of 2002, by political pundits and ministers after the financial crisis from 2007–2008 in the USA and EU countries, and, with a distinctive turn, in China. It worked to ground austerity policies in many countries, and interestingly it also came to be used with critical verve against those policies. Between, in the main, pushing top-down manoeuvres and, occasionally, putting an ironic or bitter cast on those manoeuvres, the catchphrase was also used, among other issues, for promoting flexible working practices and to sharpen awareness of climate change.

Chapter 3 takes up the catchphrase amidst the Covid-19 outbreak. In many ways the catchphrase ‘new normal’ defined the dramatic consequences of the pandemic. Again, it worked to embed some degree of consensus on the social restrictions that were imposed to control the outbreak. More interestingly, as the chapter shows, this process was variously inflected by resonances from every stage of the catchphrase’s career from 2001. There were echoes of post-9/11 securitization, of investor rethinking after the dot-com crash, of austerity strategies and their consequences after the 2007–2008 financial crisis, of the drive to ground flexible online working, and of populist crises of democracy, particularly in the USA and EU states. In the period of its most intensive and extensive usage, the catchphrase carried shades of its negotiations through crises of the preceding two decades. Political nuances seemed to have sedimented within it to engage the overwhelming pandemic-driven upheavals of 2020. In some respects, its management and governance thrust appeared to become opaque and ironic even as the catchphrase seemed to reach a saturation point of catchiness.

With Chapters 2 and 3 in view, Chapter 4 asks what the rise of the catchphrase ‘new normal’ means for concepts of normality and the term ‘normal’. The term has traced complex accruals from specialist to everyday usage, and from top-down strategies to bottom-up negotiations. The chapter examines existing histories of the ‘normal’, following its development from, in particular, medical and statistical scholarship to its gradual association with institutional (normalizing) moves and advent into habitual usage. The appearance of ‘new normal’ as a catchphrase, it is argued, marks a further step in the process of conceiving normality by, paradoxically, undermining its received connotations while retaining something of its meaning. That has usually occurred when powerful parties in various areas of social life have found it expedient to dislocate habitual expectations and norms.

Chapter 5 pays close attention to the use of catchwords by and within political and bureaucratic formations to implement their strategies. One of these catchwords, ‘austerity’, was strongly tagged to the ‘new normal’ that followed the 2007–2008 financial crisis, discussed in both Chapters 2 and 3. The other catchword, ‘resilience’, has been particularly popular within bureaucratic circles, that is, among those tasked with implementing ‘austerity’ measures. The part played by these catchwords in political and bureaucratic machinations is best discerned at close quarters. Therefore, unlike the broad sweep of Chapters 2–4, Chapter 5 concentrates on quite specific junctures and contexts in Britain: New Labour and Conservative political discourse around 2010 for ‘austerity’, and Arts Council England’s cultural policies after 2010 for ‘resilience’. In these contexts, it is observed that the catchwords have had somewhat contrary passages. Though ‘austerity’ was promoted by the political class in the first instance, it soon took on a life of its own in discourses critical of governmental policies—‘austerity’ became a pejorative term. ‘Resilience’, however, mainly caught on within bureaucratic circles, seemed to stay associated with positive norms, and served to implement ‘austerity’ measures. The histories of both catchwords prior to these junctures are also considered.

To a significant extent (though that is not all of the argument) Chapters 2–5 thus track the governance and management strategies that have been grounded through catchphrases. Chapter 6 is devoted to a slogan and catchphrases which were designed to express disaffection with those strategies and challenge prevailing dominant interests. The slogan of the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, ‘We are the 99%’, and the catchphrases, ‘the 99%’ and ‘the 1%’, also offer an opportunity to consider statistical figures in political rhetoric. The slogan and catchphrases used statistical figures in a metaphoric way, it is argued here, but also referred to systematic statistical investigations. A close examination of these catchphrases reveals much about the use of statistics to undergird ideological commitments and to both support and question policy drives.

As far as this study is concerned, the case studies of Chapters 2–6 do not lead up to a general gauging of the present. No particular distemper is foregrounded and nor is any problem solved by the end. That does not mean that such objectives as diagnosing the prevailing social condition and recommending solutions for problems are considered wanting—not at all. This study simply leaves it to the reader to make any final diagnosis, having taken the pulse of the present zeitgeist and noted various symptoms. The case studies in themselves do offer some evaluations of specific issues and contexts. The latter variously reverberate with other issues and contexts across the case studies. The view taken here is that criss-crossing connections between the case studies suggest a dominant disposition of the present, which may be analysed in a number of ways. The contemporary social condition, glimpsed here from principally American and British perspectives, may be grasped via the rubric of neoliberalism, global capitalism, resurgent nationalisms and identity politics, post- or neocolonial power relations, class and generational divides, and different modes of developing and contesting knowledge. It seems to me that the relevance of such conceptual frames to the case studies is self-evident to some extent; a more considered elaboration of those can be left to readers or deferred as an unfolding project. Though the book is complete, I am unable to draw a line under this project here.

Instead of prognoses and ways into the future from the present of history, the final Chapter 7 attempts to make good on earlier promises in this introduction. It sets out some of the concepts which had motivated this study. Those concepts were grasped searchingly to begin with, and seemed to gain in clarity as investigations progressed. Accordingly, a distinctive approach to contemporary history is outlined and a theory of political catchphrases proposed in the final chapter. Three arguments are presented, admittedly sketchily and tentatively. The first considers what ‘contemporary’ means in contemporary history, and suggests that it has to do with a prevailing idiom. The second asks what is ‘political’ in political catchphrases, and considers responses with various dictionaries of political expressions in mind. And the third gives an account of the catchiness of catchphrases by unpacking how ‘keywords’ work—not, as might be expected, in Raymond Williams’ (1976) sense, but as a device for organizing and searching texts.

These concluding arguments in Chapter 7 are obviously unequal to the complexity of the case studies which precede it. They do nevertheless set the ground for further such case studies and sharpening of concepts and methods.