Political Discourse Analysis

Political Discourse Analysis examines how political actors can regain power and credibility in a world of constant challenges to their authority. The multiple approaches in this book show how political actors strive to maintain control in the face of democratic deficit and crisis in developed societies and existential threats to stability in regimes worldwide. While many actors seek legitimisation through the institutional structure, the media or rhetoric, others may seek to weaken any opposition to them by attacking their policies or values. This volume addresses the challenges facing political actors at all levels of society and across a range of political systems. It integrates current linguistic approaches in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) with theories of legitimisation and brings together the different discursive strategies available to political actors in contexts where institutional, media genre and crisis management factors come into play. It shows how discursive legitimisation strategies can vary on a continuum ranging from the stabilising effects of institutional discourse and the management of destabilising factors inherent in new types of media to the destabilising potential of rhetorical devices and deliberate de-legitimisation strategies used to attack opponents. Quantitative and qualitative research methods are adapted to political contexts and the types of corpora available in order to explore a variety of legitimisation and de-legitimisation strategies in crisis and conflict. This collection provides the reader with replicable methods which can be adapted to evolving political contexts.