Presidential Discourse Research Articles

Theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding public-administrative discourse as a type of communication in public administration

The article provides a theoretical and methodological analysis of public-administrative discourse as a type of communication between public administration institutions and the public. The author describes the main approaches to understanding the concept of "discourse", which are not limited to purely linguistic issues, but have a wider scope of application in such fields of knowledge as linguistics, political science, philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, journalism, cultural studies, art history, mathematics, and public administration.
 The article reveals that "discourse" and its variant "institutional discourse" are a system of actions, roles and norms of behaviour in the process of communication (communication), according to the following main criteria: communication subjects (public authorities, civil society institutions, representatives of a particular social group, the public) communication goals. Its components are "administrative discourse" and "public-administrative discourse".
 The author determines that the specificity of "administrative" discourse is communication within the framework of status-role relations, i.e., speech interaction between representatives of executive authorities (civil servants) performing executive and administrative functions and citizens. The main functions of administrative discourse are prescriptive, controlling and evaluative, the essence of which is to assess the work of performers.
 It is substantiated that "public-administrative discourse" is a type of communication, communicative interaction between public authorities (public managers) and civil society institutions and the public at different communicative levels in different socio-political conditions. Thus, "public-administrative discourse" is a tool for realising the practical interests of the State, i.e., it contributes to the democratisation of society and improvement of the quality of life of the population.

Jimmy Carter, Vietnam, and the Rhetoric of Gratitude: Antecedents to the Noble Cause

Abstract The study of the Vietnam War and American presidential discourse has followed a somewhat meandering path. The Vietnam discourse of Jimmy Carter remains the most poorly understood of the late Cold War presidents. Throughout the 1970s, Carter participated in, and at times led, the national debate over the federal government's responsibility to Vietnam veterans. He spoke of a debt of gratitude that the American people owed to the war's veterans. As president, parts of his domestic agenda prioritized Vietnam veterans, leading him to preside over commemorative events for the war's veterans on several occasions. During his time in elective office, he alternatingly defined the purpose of the war in Southeast Asia as preserving the American way of life, promoting democracy, or defending liberty and freedom. Carter practiced an ethics of remembering that sought to redeem the American soldier, to erase the divisiveness of the past, and to “delegitimize and marginalize anti-war opinions.”1 Despite the obvious importance of both his discourse and his actions, Carter's Vietnam War rhetoric has received very little attention.

Analisis Wacana Presiden Tiga Periode Perspektif Van Dijk Di Instagram Tvonenews

The researchers carried out the analysis was on news related to the three-term presidential discourse on the Instagram Tvonenews study 22 and 26 March 2021 using Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis model. Based on this, there are 2 research focuses that the researcher will do here. First, how is the text structure of the three-term Presidential discourse on Tvonenews Instagram, second, how is social cognition and social context in the three-term Presidential discourse on Tvonenews Instagram. This study uses a qualitative research approach. Meanwhile, the type of research is library research. This study discusses the text, social cognition and social context of Tvonenews' Instagram posts related to the three-term Presidential discourse using the theory of critical discourse analysis by Teun A. Van Dijk. The source of the data that the researcher obtained was through the process of documentation and observation from Tvonenews Instagram posts related to the three-term presidential discourse.

From the municipality of Lisbon to the crown: discourse and practices in the correspondence about the administration of municipal expenditure (1707-1750)

This article falls within the study of power relations in the context of municipal finances during the early modern period. Historiography has demonstrated that decisions and negotiations between different spheres of power are an important part of financial administration. Thus, this article proposes an analysis of those relations/interactions through the discourse and practices in the correspondence between the municipal administration of Lisbon (the capital of Portugal) and the King D. João V about the management of the city’s expenditure, from 1707 to 1750. The first part of this study refers to a documental selection to analyse the processing of the consultas (petitions) submitted by the city council of Lisbon to the King. This analysis puts forward an explanation of how these documents are structured and assesses the crown’s response time (or the lack of response at all). The second part looks into specific examples of municipal administrative discourses in the context of Lisbon’s city council consultas (petitions). At the same time, decisions/responses of the central administration regarding financial needs from the Portuguese crown and/or the municipality of Lisbon will be discussed. The study of these decision-making circuits highlights bureaucratic and negotiation processes unfolding in constant communication and proximity between the municipality of Lisbon and the Portuguese central administration, especially when it came to the resolution of conflicts arising from insufficient municipal funds. The records also reveal the discourses of different officers in the Lisbon municipal administration as they advance arguments, interpretations, and solutions in the context of the local management of expenditure.

Which Amazon problem? Problem-constructions and transnationalism in Brazilian presidential discourse since 1985

ABSTRACT The Amazon is a complex object of policy that comprises environmental, economic, social, and sovereignty concerns. Despite this complexity, governments are often portrayed as having a single understanding of the region as a political problem. In this article, we investigate how the Amazon has been constructed as a problem in 6240 Brazilian presidential speeches since 1985 using supervised machine learning. Conceptually, we develop a framework that accounts for how important transnational actors, such as presidents, construct objects of policy as particular problems depending on where and when they participate in politics. Empirically, we find that presidents often construct the Amazon as an environmental problem when speaking far away from the region, whereas they usually construct it as problems of economic integration or social development when speaking within in the Amazon. Furthermore, presidents increasingly mix problem-constructions to represent the Amazon as a complex and multifaceted object of policy.

공공가치는 행정(학)의 정체성 위기 해결에 기여할 수 있는가?

This study is to explore the potential of public value theory in solving the identity crisis of public administration which was adopted as an alternative paradigm to new public management. Although the historical necessity of separating administration from politics in consequence helped to form public administration as a distinct field of study, unfortunately the politics-administration dichotomy has perverted the legitimacy and identity of public administration and has narrowed the scope of public administration discourse. Though the preceding similar and related concepts and theories to public value such as the public, publicness, administrative value, public service value, administrative ideologies and so on have played a leading role in identity discourse, they are limited in more fuller explication of public values. Now public value not only can integrate and look at those old concepts and theories in a new perspective, but also can expand the multi-disciplinary approach to public administration theory and practice. Lastly, reflective thoughts on the ligitimacy and status of public administration and future research agendas are suggested.

Policy Dynamics in Contemporary Public Administration Studies: A Conceptual Analysis

This paper aims to provide an overview based on the literatures regarding the development of the study of policy dynamics research in the field of public administration. The study aims to answer the research question, „What is the theoretical and conceptual framework of „policy dynamics“ in the contemporary discourse of current public administration?“. The method used is a bibliometric analysis and semi-systematic literature review in the form of a literature review of international publications published between 1990 and 2020, sourced from the Google Scholar database. The sixty articles that are most relevant in terms of Article title, Abstract, and Keywords (journal articles: 55 papers and Conferences proceedings: 5 papers) are chosen for analysis. As a result, policy dynamics can be grouped into three categories: policy dynamics as historical institutionalism, policy dynamics as policy change, and policy dynamics as policy evolution. This study concludes that policy dynamics is the evolution of policy changes, where these changes have implications for the policies of a regime/government on institutions, actors, and systems within a certain period. This concept manifests in the five new clusters in the definition of policy dynamics, which include regime/government change, institutional change/transformation, changes in issue, direction and content of policy, actor's role and existence, and policy object inputs and outputs.

Metaphoricity as the most important characteristic of modern political discourse

The article deals with intercultural aspects of metaphorical modeling of political reality in Kazakh, Russian, Bulgarian and American presidential discourse. The texts of Presidents’ Addressees for 2021-2022 were used as the research material. The methodological basis is the concept of metaphor as a cognitively modeled phenomenon that plays an essential role in representing the linguistic view of the world. The subject of the research is the general and specific peculiarities and regularities of representation of reality through the use of metaphors and metaphor models in the Addressees of Heads of States. There are implemented cognitive-discursive and contextual analysis methods, modeling, and the linguostatistical method. We suppose that the construction of metaphor models, calculation of frequency of use of linguistic means and the statistical data analysis allows us to show the society's value priorities and the country's political reality. Moreover, it will help to reveal specifics of the people’s thinking and the peculiarities of their way of life at a particular historical period. The comparative analysis showed that in the texts of the Addressees for studied years, the dominant metaphorical model used in the speeches of the presidents of the four countries is a military metaphor, and the rest are associated with man, nature, landscape, mechanism, theater, sports, etc. This work represents a separate stage of studying metaphor in political discourse. It implies exploring other aspects of the problem and expanding the research material. &nbsp

‘Chinese virus’

Since the emergence of COVID-19, researchers have documented an increase in cases of anti-Asian racism and hate crimes. Research shows a possible connection between the ‘Chinese virus’ discourse of the Trump administration and violence in society (Arora and Kim 2020:387). Drawing from critical discourse studies we explore 2,071 comments from one YouTube video which documents anti-China rhetoric by the Trump administration in order to understand the underlying strategies commenters relied on in their reproduction and defence of this discourse. Findings show the trickle-down influence of Trump’s discourse on YouTube commenters, but also ways in which social media created a platform for building solidarity among racist groups, as well as sites of resistance. The authors conclude by suggesting more studies attend to this type of discourse and work to educate people on how to counter it.

Reception Analysis Masyarakat Surabaya terhadap Wacana Presiden 3 Periode


 This research is motivated by the 3-period presidential discourse in the Indonesia Lawyers Club (ILC) program. This study aims to determine public acceptance of the 3-term presidential discourse on the YouTube channel Indonesia Lawyers Club (ILC) episode "Harga-Harga Naik, Tapi Publik Puas Terhadap Jokowi". The research method uses a qualitative reception analysis approach with the encoding-decoding model by Stuart Hall to understand community reception. Stuart Hall divides the categories of audience acceptance into 3 positions, namely dominant, negotiated, and oppositional. Data collection techniques were carried out by in-depth interviews. The results of the study show that the public does not agree with the existence of a 3-term president, because this is contrary to the constitution and the basis of the 1945 Constitution that applies in Indonesia. Even though all informants acknowledged Pak Jokowi's performance, according to the informants, Pak Jokowi was not fit to continue his term of office because doing so could undermine reforms and damage the state order.
 Keywords: Reception analysis, 3 period presidential discourse, Indonesia Lawyers Club

‘This Corresponds with the Study’

In this paper, we elaborate on the role of scientific knowledge for the development of municipal urban development strategies in the East German cities of Schwerin and Halle (Saale). We will focus on the topic of segregation that has increasingly become an issue with regard to large housing estates, which have recently experienced growing numbers of immigrants. Using the concept of knowledge regimes we analyse, how the scientific debate on segregation is introduced in the administrative discourse, and which changes it provokes in municipal strategies and practices. Our analysis points to the importance of local political contexts, which are crucial for whether and how segregation and migration are problematised. Furthermore, it reveals that despite the different visibility of the topic, comparable policies have been developed in both cities.

Strategies of criticism and disapproval in the academic administrative discourse

This article addresses the problem of communicative strategies for conveying criticism and disapproval in statements of appellative genre issued by presidents of American and British top universities. We claim that discursive representation of university chief leaders who are critically evaluating government decisions and incidents forms a linguistic and sociocultural communicative genre system with a set of effective rhetoric and communicative means. In academic administrative discourse, statements of appellative genre are characterized by dynamic application of positive and negative politeness strategies and regular reproduction of value-centered arguments, which update the system of values of the American and British academic communities. Discursive behavior of university chief academic administrators contains the rhetoric that appeals to logic, addressee’s emotions (pathos) and is based on the arguments to ethos, combining this with lexical and stylistic means that ‘threaten’ addressee’ face. Speakers use strategic tautology to increase the significance of the value system of an academic community. The concepts, themes, tasks, and tactical means, identified in the appellative statements of university leaders, contribute to the formation of the concept sphere of American and British academic communities. The results of this present study detail discursive and genre characteristics of the administrative academic discourse and the strategies of conflict (disapproving) discourse in particular. Communicative behavior of university leaders determined, on the one hand, by the value system and, on the other, by strategic aims of communication, can serve as a model of leadership communication and a resource for improving the competence of modern academic leaders.

Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration and the Framework for Effective Land Administration: Synthesis of Contemporary Experiences

Despite the significant and explicit focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), much of the world’s land rights remain unrecorded and outside formal government systems. Blame is often placed on land administration processes that are considered slow, expensive, and expertise-dependent. Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) has been suggested as an alternative, time and cost-effective approach. Likewise, the UN endorsed Framework for Effective Land Administration (FELA) demands attention to worldwide tenure insecurity by directly linking it to responsible land administration. Implementation of FFPLA and FELA is country-context dependent, and there are now many lessons of execution from various jurisdictions. Undertaken in 2022, this study synthesizes a review of experiences to provide a further update on the best global FFPLA implementation practices and inform approaches for future FFPLA projects. A systematic review is adopted as the research methodology, and contemporary articles from the internationally recognized land administration discourse are examined. The studies focus on FFPLA implementation practices and innovative approaches for delivering land tenure security. A checklist is developed, based on the FELA strategic pathways and the FFPLA fundamental framework principles and characteristic elements, to identify best implementation practices. Success stories across the globe show that the FFPLA characteristic elements and the FELA pathway goals are achieved through effective execution of the FFPLA framework key principles. As a result, the study identified successful FFPLA implementation practices in Asia and Africa, which can be synthesized and extended to realize tenure security in rapidly urbanizing areas. However, further study is necessary to determine the efficacy, practicability, innovativeness, and transferability of the best practices to other land administration scenarios.

Caricature and National Character: The United States at War

Caricature and National Character: The United States at War

EXPRESSIVE SYNTAX IN PRESIDENTIAL DISCOURSE VLADIMIR ZELENSKY

The article is devoted to the analysis of figures of expressive syntax presented in public speeches of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. The texts of presidential rhetoric, which was transformed during the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, are considered. The peculiarities of presidential speeches, implemented at the syntactic level, are traced. Figures of expressive syntax are analyzed: syntactic repetition, syntactic anaphora, syntactic epiphora, syntactic parallelism, period. The material of the research was the texts of presidential speeches, represented in the daily video addresses of Volodymyr Zelensky to the Ukrainian people. The object of research was the Ukrainian presidential discourse, and the subject - the syntactic features of the political speeches of V. Zelensky. The purpose of the study is to identify and qualify the main means of expressive syntax used in the presidential rhetoric of V. Zelensky, which have influential potential. The material for the analysis was the speeches and addresses of V. Zelensky, presented on the official website of the President of Ukraine, starting from February 24, 2022. Both the texts of daily video appeals to the people of Ukraine and official speeches addressed to foreign leaders and communities are considered. It is proved that during the Russian-Ukrainian war a relatively new speech genre of political discourse, presented in the presidential rhetoric of V. Zelensky, became widespread - video appeals. The dynamic nature of this genre and its interactivity, enhanced by video and audio tools, required the actualization of linguistic means of influencing the addressee, among which the priority is the means of expressive syntax. V. Zelensky’s presidential discourse mostly presents syntactic repetitions (anaphora, epiphora, epanaphora), syntactic parallelism, antithesis, period and rhetorical questions.

Becoming (In)tolerant: Vicissitudes of a Political Term in Russia, 2000-2020

Abstract This article explores the role of the term “tolerance” in Russian presidential discourse, 2000-2020. The word became de-politicized (used equally in liberal and in conservative contexts), functioning as a buzzword and as a symbol. As a buzzword, it stood “for all good things” and denoted the positive dynamics in Russia’s nationalities and foreign policies; as a symbol, it served as a building block in constructing national identity. The use of “tolerance” also indicated the Kremlin’s firm belief in the normative power of words and ideas: that “tolerance” can change public attitudes and shape institutional design. However, the word’s conflicting semantics prompted the Kremlin to remove the term abruptly in 2013 against the background of the unfolding conservative turn. This study examines the zigzags of ideational governance in Putin’s Russia.

Back to ‘things themselves’: breaking the cycle of misrepresentation when serving African Canadian youth

Bureaucratic discourses informed by legacies of slavery and colonisation create traumatising experiences among African Canadian youth in social, educational and law-enforcement institutions in Canada. These discourses create the already-known-people paradigm and are then exacerbated by the effects of neoliberal policies and managerialist administrations to produce an unfortunate social condition in which system professionals discount what these youth say about experiential marginality and social injustice. This means that African Canadian youth end up being understood by system professionals from administrative discourses or from historical assumptions. Using phenomenology, I argue in this article that focusing on the experiences of these youth in time when assessing or making decisions about them may help to reduce stereotyping and stigmatisation, and to highlight normalised social injustices. Consequently, focusing on behaviour-in-time as opposed to behaviour-in-discourse may allow system professionals to operationalise administrative discourses without downplaying behaviour-in-time, which is important in service provision.

A diachronic corpus-assisted semantic domain analysis of US presidential debates

This corpus-assisted discourse study investigates diachronic change in a specialised corpus of seventeen American presidential debates from 2000 to 2020. The texts were tagged using the ucrel Semantic Annotation System (usas) ( Rayson, 2008 ) to facilitate the investigation of emergent and decreasing semantic trends over the period; the strength of trends was empirically evaluated through application of Kendall's Tau correlation coefficient. The analysis revealed that domains reflecting truth evaluations and matters of credibility increased alongside a more people-orientated discourse, as evidenced by increases in personal pronouns. Furthermore, instances invoking warfare and defence decreased, paralleled by a decrease in the representations of toughness. These results may reflect a shift in US political discourse generally, and American presidential discourse specifically, while also reflecting evolving contemporary social and political interests over the twenty-year span of the corpus. This study concludes with interpretations of these discursive shifts in the context of the current era of so-called ‘fake news’, intense partisanship, and social and political divisiveness. Findings indicate that the current US political climate cannot simply be attributed to an anomalous Trump administration but, rather, the discursive features contributing to and reflecting the current political environment have been present and increasing since at least the year 2000 election cycle.

Wartime in the 21st century

Wartime dominates the 21st century. The term is ubiquitous in contemporary politics, providing an intuitive trope for narrating foreign relations, grappling with intractable policy problems, and responding to shocking events. Such pervasion makes it easy to forget that wartime is a relatively recent political invention. It began as an instrumental and somewhat stylized concept that authorized exceptional violence by promising to contain it within strict temporal boundaries. Yet in the same era that wartime achieved international prominence, war itself became an increasingly ordinary and extended dimension of politics. Today, ‘wartime’ refers to a number of unconstrained and often self-perpetuating violent practices that have changed global politics and national security policies in deep and enduring ways – nowhere more so than in the United States. To introduce the special issue, this article presents wartime as a neglected and paradoxical topic at the heart of International Relations. It sketches the concept’s historical emergence, from innovative Presidential discourse through expansion in World War II and the Cold War, to 21st century entrenchment in daily life and habits of foreign relations. We also make the case for why US wartime marks an especially apt example of a global phenomenon, and one worthy of increased scrutiny within International Relations (IR). Finally, we provide synoptic summaries of the articles that comprise the special issue, showing how they work together to interrogate key aspects of 21st century wartime. We conclude with reflections on how the study of wartime may be extended to better understand its impact on historical and contemporary global politics.

Presidential discourse, the public and recurring themes: A political communication analysis of the 2019 State of the Nation Address in Ghana

The State of the Nation Address is one of the most important public speeches of a president because it sets the tone, framework and plans of the administration in any given year. This research contributes to contemporary scholarly studies by systematically studying presidential discourse within a growing African democracy – from a communication perspective – rather than the routine generic policy analysis. Since communication is a vital aspect of governance, the present study helps to unearth the policy priorities and framework that characterized a major administration under Ghana’s democracy. From a broader perspective, the textual analysis of this speech offers a modest attempt to examine some elements of political communication within Africa’s democratization process. The major objectives of the study were twofold: (a) first, to analyse the major topics or subject areas embedded in the speech and (b) to ascertain the recurring essential thematic elements of the State of the Nation Address as postulated by Shogan. The results indicate that the social agenda (including sanitation, housing and social amenities) was the central focus of the President’s address, followed by politics, while economic affairs featured as the third predominant issue in the address. Three thematic elements – bipartisanship, past and future, and optimism – are discursively analysed. This study contributes to the study of political communication and Presidential agendas in one of Africa’s fledgling democracies.