New Wine into Old Bottles: Ethical Appeals and Democratic Discourse

Abstract

Australia has been a well-established representative democracy since the nineteenth century. This has meant a corresponding rhetorical tradition in which politicians and aspirants for public office must gain credibility with voters as upholders of democracy since ‘the people’ are the source of legitimacy in our political society. This appeal inheres in the evaluative–descriptive nature of the concept democracy and may extend to proposals for enhancing democracy and to the portrayal of ordinary attributes that place them outside ‘the establishment’ with ‘the people’. More importantly, this appeal is placed in a romantic narrative of renewal of democracy that relies on binary tropes of innocence and corruption and which promises a better time for the people through a denigration of political opponents and their client groups who have captured government largesse.