Identity entrepreneurship in political commemorations: A longitudinal quantitative content analysis of commemorative speeches by leaders of parties in power and opposition before and during the Greek economic crisis

Theofilos Gkinopoulos

doi:10.5964/jspp.v8i2.1061

Theofilos Gkinopoulos

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v8i2.1061

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Abstract

This study analyses quantitatively the content of thirty-nine political speeches made by political leaders of three political parties – New Democracy, Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) – of different status represented in the Greek parliament. The leaders of these parties release annual commemorative speeches of the restoration of Greek democracy on 24th July 1974. The focus of this study is on longitudinally analysing the content of commemorative speeches, looking at how political leaders communicate the historical event, by quantifying through a content analysis various forms of ingroups and outgroups in their annual commemorations. Such constructions were ventured during a period of 13 years, from 2004 to 2016, before and during the break out of financial crisis in 2010. Longitudinal quantitative content analysis identified differences in the use of we-referencing and they-referencing language, varying per status of parties and context of release of commemorative speeches. I view commemorative speeches as a non-neutral history-related business that requires mobilisation of audiences in different ways and different contexts. Implications of commemorating the historical past across time as institutional identity practice are discussed.

Highlights

This study analyses quantitatively the content of thirty-nine political speeches made by political leaders of three political parties – New Democracy, Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) – of different status represented in the Greek parliament
Political leaders act as identity entrepreneurs (Reicher, Haslam, & Hopkins, 2005; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001), with their success relying on their ability to convince audiences that they are ‘one of them’
Group memberships can be constituted through commemorations (Saito, 2010) and commemorations, in turn, help group members and political representatives to orient themselves in space and time, create demarcation points in the continuity of time, plan the future, and situate themselves in the flow (Frijda, 1997)

Summary

Introduction

This study analyses quantitatively the content of thirty-nine political speeches made by political leaders of three political parties – New Democracy, Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) – of different status represented in the Greek parliament. Implications of commemorating the historical past across time as institutional identity practice are discussed I approach ceremonial material as a form of banal commemoration (Vinitzky-Seroussi, 2009), being interested in the unified and stable category constructions, and in how categories are constructed and performed differently in different contexts, namely before and during the breakout of economic crisis in Greece This question is empirically examined through a quantitative theory-driven content analysis of 39 modern Greek political leaders’ commemorative speeches of the restoration of Greek democracy in 1974. History is elaborated under the identity entrepreneurship of political representatives, who deliver political speeches producing historical charters (Hilton & Liu, 2017), that is representations of history of a group, its causes and consequences that give moral implications for group action

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