Open AccessNicknames, Interpellation, and Dubya's Theory of the State
Author(s) -
Michael Adams
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
names
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.2
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1756-2279
pISSN - 0027-7738
DOI - 10.1179/175622708x381442
Subject(s) - presidency , cabinet (room) , presidential system , ideology , institution , state (computer science) , power (physics) , politics , political science , executive power , sociology , law , public administration , art , computer science , physics , algorithm , visual arts , quantum mechanics
George W. Bush freely assigns nicknames to political aides, cabinet secretaries, legislators, reporters, and others who cross his presidential path. Nicknaming seems an innocuous, playful social behavior, but it is a more complex onomastic maneuvre than it seems, and more significant: it is a species of Althusserian interpellation, a means of 'hailing' actors within the state and converting them into subjects of state ideology, which, on one construction (the one operating here), collapses state authority and the executive power of the American presidency. Nicknaming, then, is evidence of a theory of state and an instrument of its institution.