American Election Campaign Research Articles

Agonal strategies in the american election campaign discourse (a case study of the political debates of the 2023 republican primary candidates)

The article analyses the methods of implementing the agonal strategies of political debate as one of the prototypical agonal genres of political discourse. For analysis, the speeches of politicians were selected during the 1st Republican primary debates held in the City of Milwaukee on August 23, 2023, streamed by the Fox News channel. The analysis allowed us to identify a 3-level structure of agonal strategies implemented by politicians within the framework of political debate. The 1st (basic) level of strategies – an introductive one – includes strategies for self-positioning, self-presentation and opponent defamation. The purpose of these strategies in terms of their agonal character is to position oneself as a leader worth winning the campaign, demonstrating individual undeniable advantages compared to other candidates and the expulsion of negative features of rivals. The verifying strategies of the 2nd level consist in operating with information received from the opponent aimed at producing an impact on the recipient, and include such strategies as self-defence and the opponent defamation. The additive strategy of the 3rd (highest) level combines the goals and objectives of the strategies of both lower levels; however, it has a special purpose inherent only to it – to give new meaning to the facts and phenomena reported by opponents, by introducing a new angle of tackling the problem. The main strategies at this level include ones of rational and emotional convictions realised by the tactics of introducing new facts and the new aspect ultimately aiming at establishing new semantic linkages in the recipient minds at the site of the destruction of semantic linkages, initially present in the speech of the political opponent. Thus, the study made it possible to ascertain that the genre of political debate, being a tactical repertoire of agonal behaviour strategies. is verbalised by various means, while strategies of a higher level can intersect with the lower ones’ strategies, nevertheless making explication of these strategies different, depending on the place of the strategy in the hierarchy.

A Pragmatic Study of Derogation in American Election Campaign Speeches

Language is sometimes used for influencing people negatively. This is done via the use of various derogatory strategies. Therefore, the present study deals with derogation pragmatically in American election campaign speeches. Precisely, the current work attempts to answer the following questions: (1) How is derogation approached pragmatically in American election campaign speeches? (2) Through which impoliteness strategies is derogation realized? (3) What is the target of derogation? Is it the public face or the personal face? And what are the foci of derogation? The study aims to find answers to the previous questions through reviewing the literature related to derogation and adopting an eclectic model for analyzing the data under investigation. Besides, a statistical means represented by the percentage equation is used to calculate the results. The main conclusion is that American presidential rivals use different impoliteness strategies to derogate each other; through this derogation either the public face or the personal face is threatened.

Is Hillary dishonest and Donald narcissistic? A HEXACO analysis of the presidential candidates' public personas

The 2016 American election campaign has seen an exceptionally negative view of both candidates (Clinton/Trump), and what seems like passionate support for one side or the other. Approval and honesty ratings of <50% throughout the campaign suggest that neither candidate is viewed positively. In a campaign that is increasingly focused on temperament and personality, we examined the public personalities of the two candidates. Ten HEXACO personality experts completed HEXACO-PI-R observer reports for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump based on public personas. Scores were transformed into percentiles based on normed values for HEXACO observer reports. Clinton was rated as low on H, E, and Altruism, normal on X and A, and high on C and O. Trump, on the other hand, was rated as exceptionally low on H, A, and Altruism, very low on E, low on C and O, and high on X. Facet level scores clarify the specific traits lowering or raising the candidates' scores. Previous research has shown that narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism (the Dark Triad) were associated with lower Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Clinton scores low on the first two of these, while Trump scores very low to exceptionally low on all four traits.

Facebook during American election Campaigns: a tool for mobilization, fundraising and voting influence

U.S politicians have introduced a modern way in their electoral campaigns through the use of social media sites in order to transmit their political messages for mobilization purposes. In fact, such sites allow candidates to market themselves and to facilitate interaction with their potential voters. Social media constitutes a shift in the media landscape, patterns a new guide for political communication, and allows candidates craft their political messages. Many scholars posit that traditional methods are losing ground in our modern times. Social networking sites like Face book show their successful use allowing reaching voters and influencing their choices. The purpose of this article is concerned with the analysis of the role this modern way plays taking the American election campaign case. As an example, Barack Obama’s campaign is taken as an example

Deliberation or Tabulation? The Self-Undermining Constitutional Architecture of Election Campaigns

Perhaps the one completely uncontested truth in the shared public ideology of American politics is that an election campaign ought to be a serious occasion in the life of a democratic polity, a time when citizens reflect maturely on the great public issues of the day. On this view, the ultimate purpose of election campaigns is to offer voters and candidates a meaningful opportunity for deliberation and persuasion. Of course, the typical modern American election campaign does not seem seriously reflective and deliberative so much as shallow and unengaging. Reasoned persuasion seems to play a minor role, if that. The paper asks whether this gulf between American political ideals and reality might have its roots in any kind of flaw in our legal institutions. Do we have, that is to say, a constitutional infrastructure well suited to summoning forth the kind of electoral politics to which we aspire? The paper pursues this question through a close institutional analysis of the federal constitutional jurisprudence of ballot access, public financing of presidential campaigns, the associational rights of political parties, and the giving and spending of money in election campaigns. This analysis reveals that although the American constitutional regime pays emphatic lip service to the ideal of reasoned persuasion in elections, its actual institutional arrangements in fact presuppose just the opposite - election campaigns that are thin rather than thick, that are aggregative rather than deliberative, that are aimed at counting political preferences, not creating them. The paper concludes by examining briefly some of the implications of this disjunction between our democratic ideals and practices for our conceptions of democratic legitimacy, our aspirations for better quality campaigns, our notions of the venues in which democratic politics is actually conducted, and some important scholarly critiques of electoral regulation.

Reforming American Election Campaign Finance

Reforming American Election Campaign Finance

Boomerang: Clinton's Health Security Effort and the Turn Against Government in U.S. Politics.

In the 1992 American election campaign, health reform, a popular issue which Bill Clinton and the Democrats concentrated on, became the focus of the most concerted attack on government in recent American history. A year after it had been introduced to general acclaim Clinton's compromise plan lay in ruins. This account, by a prize-winning social scientist, examines the changing terrain of US politics and public policy. Drawing on contemporary documents, media coverage and confidential White House strategy memoranda, it offers insights into the way the Health Security Bill inadvertently became a perfect foil for anti-government mobilization. According to Skocpol, its enemies found it easy to distort while its supporters failed to marshall their forces at a critical time.

As Usual, Politics

For a long time, politicians have had trouble getting respect. This thankless breed, these politicians who cringe for favors from a screaming mob and do not care what harm they do their friends providing they can please a crowd, Euripides wrote 2,400 years ago.' Shakespeare spoke of scurvy politicians and characterized the practitioner of the political arts as that would circumvent God.2 Ambrose Bierce defined the species type in 1911: An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.3 From the evidence of the 1992 American election campaign, attitudes toward politicians haven't changed much from Euripides' day. Each of the three major presidential candidates tried to duck the label of politician, only one with any plausibility. All three denounced the notion that traditional politics held any hope for providing answers to America's problems. Ross Perot offered himself as an antidote to the political disease that afflicted the nation; George Bush and Bill Clinton denied they were carriers. Yet, to quote another individual, this one much admired by all three candidates and explicitly adopted as a model by one: A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government.4 Needless to say, this aspect of Harry Truman's philosophy didn't get much play in the campaign. But what Truman knew and what the 80 percent of voters who pulled the lever for Bush or Clinton at least implicitly acknowledged was that democracies need politicians in the same way hospitals need doctors and airports need air traffic controllers. Government, especially democratic government, cannot work without politicians.

The United States: After the election

The recent American election campaign highlighted the stark contrast between the Democrat and Republican camps. It also helped to bring new voters to the Democratic Party. The election revealed deep changes within American society: a shift away from economic liberalism, a marked decline in “political decency,” and the rise of conspiracy theories. These changes have helped to divide the Republican Party, and they loom large over its post-Donald Trump future.

Political Information Processing in an Electoral Context

Choice-reaction-time and psychophysical measures are used in a laboratory study of change and stability in the semantic content of three presidential images during the 1980 American election campaign. The closeness with which 26 descriptive terms are associated with each of the three is assessed. Illustrative descriptive findings are presented, showing, among other things, relatively little change in the image of "the ideal president," consider able though selective change in the image of President Carter, and an intermediate level of change for "the typical Democratic president." The impact of President Carter's image on that of the typical Democratic president is plain. In addition, the reaction time data show that respondents are much clearer about what they want in a president than they are about what they have in one. However, they are not more sure about what they have in the case of President Carter than they are about what they would have in the hypothetical case of "the typical Democratic president." This outcome underscores and measures the respondents' uncertainty with respect to many elements of the Carter image.

An American Election Campaign in Swedish Metropolitan Dailies

An American Election Campaign in Swedish Metropolitan Dailies

AN AMERICAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN

AN AMERICAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN Get access ESTES KEFAUVER ESTES KEFAUVER Senior-from Tennesses; Member of the Committes on Armed Services Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume III, Issue 1, Winter 1949, Pages 179–186, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052582 Published: 01 January 1949