Abstract
The rise of populist leaders in the political sphere mounts a challenge to normative understandings of leadership. To better understand this challenge, we examine how political leaders mobilize different forms of social capital in pursuit of leadership legitimacy, providing insight into the dynamics of how leadership norms are maintained. While research has tended to focus on specific forms of capital, this article considers capital as multidimensional and strategically mobilized. The article applies a multimodal analysis to examine interactions between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during peak ‘Twitter Moments’ of the three 2016 presidential election debates. We theorize the paradoxical dynamics of the mobilization of multiple capitals and their intersection as a simultaneously disruptive and reproductive resource. While the mobilization of multiple capitals operates to disrupt traditional notions of who can claim legitimacy as a leader in the political field, their disruptive mobilization serves to reproduce implicit heteronormative leadership values. Hence, our theorization illuminates the resilience of implicit leadership values, and their intimate connection with heteronormativity, calling for the need to interrogate leadership legitimacy claims that promise ‘new’ approaches.
Highlights
Amidst a global pandemic, widespread calls for systemic change to address social inequalities and the urgent need to tackle climate change, our political leaders are under constant scrutiny
Applying Bourdieu’s theory of capitals and field to interpret how each candidate vies for leadership legitimacy, we reveal how the mobilization of multiple capitals simultaneously operates as a disruptive resource while reproducing implicit heteronormative leadership values and norms
Our analysis reveals that the mobilization and fusion of diverse capitals serves to disrupt the political field through an ostensible enactment of a different kind of leadership legitimacy
Summary
Examining the 2016 presidential election debates presents an opportunity to understand how leaders mobilize forms of capital, the new relationship between media and politics and ‘what happens when figures move between these fields’ (Doyle, 2017: 488) and its effects on leadership legitimacy. Examining the 2016 debates between these two particular candidates offers an opportunity to understand the mobilization of multiple capitals, including those less commonly accessed in the political field, and the extent to which these capitals intersect and their impact on leadership norms. They are noteworthy moments because they incited a large audience response, subsequently receiving a great deal of publicity and commentary across different media platforms These peak moments provide points in time alerting us to particular instances in the debates during which we can scrutinize which capital each candidate mobilized to reinforce their leadership legitimacy while disrupting their opponent’s argument. 1st presidential debate 84 million 26 September 2016 Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York
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