Introduction to the Special Issue: Storytelling and Politics

Abstract

true tale of the hunt will never be told until it is the lion who does the telling.(African proverb)In his book Great Political Wit, former U.S. senator Bob Dole relates what he calls one of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan's favorite stories, about an American and a Soviet citizen's comparison of their respective governments:In my country, said the American, can walk into the Oval Office in the White House, and slam my fist on the desk, and say that I don't like the way Ronald Reagan is running the United States.Well, replied his Soviet counterpart, can do the same thing in the Politburo.You can? asked the incredulous American.Certainly I can, came the response. can go into [Mikhail] Gorbachev's office, and slam my fist on his desk, and say that I don't like the way President Reagan is running the United States. (61-62)This is perhaps the most obvious example of political storytelling: the use of an amusing, or otherwise emotion-generating anecdote to make a point, break the ice, or in some other way support an effective public utterance. Here the president is clearly demonstrating his view of the major distinction between the two political systems. Reagan was a master of this rhetorical tool, the many anecdotes in Dole's book-and several academic papers (e.g., Lewis)-attest.Reagan also employed the more sophisticated form of subliminal storytelling in service of a master narrative. Reich describes how the former president redefined his predecessor Franklin Roosevelt's conception of the Community, one of what Reich identifies the core cultural parables (8) of American political rhetoric. Taking a small-government perspective, Reagan understood the Benevolent Community as small, traditional neighborhoods in which people voluntarily helped one another, free from government interference (16). This approach contrasts significantly with, for example, Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, which included the creation of Social Security, among other examples of welfare state innovations. What we are faced with are two vastly different stories of America's promise to its citizens, the world, and history. Even though these stories may not be explicitly presented, Reich argues, they underlie policy decisions and form the basis for political rhetoric expressed in speeches, press releases, and so forth.As this special issue demonstrates, there are numerous ways in which politicians, academicians, and artists understand storytelling in political, and politicized, settings. Rhetorician Andrew Leslie observes that the persuasive use of story dates back to early rhetorical training and that stories have always been employed in concert with rhetorical argument in the service of persuasive discourse. Combined with Vladimer Propp's conception of the topoi of the story, Leslie's argument offers a new analytical framework for evaluating the persuasive potential of political storytelling.In my conversation with Paul Loeb, we see an activist's on-the-ground view of how stories are effective, and at times destructive, in the political process, whether through the received story of Rosa Parks's protest or by the storytelling prowess, or lack thereof, of Barack Obama.Francesca Polletta, a sociologist, draws on anthropology, political science, and other disciplines to discuss the role of character in competing public and private political narratives, while School of Communication Dean Evan Cornog unpacks the ways in which the New Media landscape has altered the transmission and understanding of these narratives.For a decidedly different approach to the notion of political storytelling, folklorist Steven Zeitlin's brief personal essay takes on folklore fundamentalists. His article is replete with tales of his own experience that make the case for narrative a connective, rather than divisive force. Fairytale expert Jack Zipes's essay on The Sorcerer's Apprentice provides a glimpse into variants on a well-known tale type, providing valuable insights into the master-slave relationship evident recently the publication of the Harry Potter franchise. …