Cover not available
Part of
Doing Politics: Discursivity, performativity and mediation in political discourse
Edited by Michael Kranert and Geraldine Horan
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 80] 2018
► pp. 59–77

Chapter 3
“Dancing with doxa”

A “Rhetorical Political Analysis” of David Cameron’s sense of Britishness

This chapter explains some of the background to political theorists’ and political scientists’ interest in language. It then introduces and explains Rhetorical Political Analysis (RPA), contrasting it with approaches to the study of political language, such as Critical Discourse Studies, found within Linguistics. It then briefly demonstrates the application of RPA through a study of David Cameron’s Bloomberg Speech on Europe. The analysis highlights in particular the way the speech echoes British conservative precedents and the way in which “Britishness” emerges as a key “catachrestical” term.

Keywords: rhetoric, political language, linguistics, EU, Conservatism, Britishness, David Cameron, Rhetorical Political Analysis
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Approaches and schools
  • Conceptual history
  • Rhetorical Political Analysis
  • Cameron’s speech
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 12 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.80.03fin
References
Atkins, J., A. Finlayson, J. Martin, and N. Turnbull
(eds) 2014 Rhetoric in British Politics and Society. London: Palgrave MacMillan.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Atkins, Judi, and Alan Finlayson
2016 “ ‘As Shakespeare so Memorably Said…’: Quotation, Rhetoric, and the Performance of Politics.” Political Studies 64 (1): 164–181.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bacchi, Carole
2009 Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to Be? London: Pearson.Google Scholar
Bevir, M., and R. A. W. Rhodes
2007 Governance Stories. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bitzer, Lloyd
1999[1968] “The Rhetorical Situation.” In Contemporary Rhetorical Theory, ed. by John Lucaites et al., 217–226. London: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, Stephen
2013 “How to make a Drama out of a Crisis.” In “Symposium on Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Student.” Political Studies Review 11(3): 328–335.Google Scholar
Connolly, William
1974 The Terms of Political Discourse. Lexington, Mass: Heath.Google Scholar
Crines, A., T. Heppell, and M. Hill
2016 “Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech: A Rhetorical Political Analysis.” British Politics 11(1): 72–94.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dryzek, John S.
2010 “Rhetoric in Democracy: A Systemic Appreciation.” Political Theory 38(3): 319–339.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Isabela, and Norman Fairclough
2013 “Argument, Deliberation, Dialectic and the Nature of the Political: A CDA Perspective.” In “Symposium on Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students .” Political Studies Review 11(3): 336–344.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
2013 “Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Policy Studies.” Critical Policy Studies 7(2): 177–197.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farrell, T.
1993 The Norms of Rhetorical Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Finlayson, Alan
2007 “From Beliefs to Arguments: Interpretive Methodology and Rhetorical Political Analysis.” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 9(4): 545–563.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 ”Rhetoric and the Political Theory of Ideologies.” Political Studies 60(4): 751–767.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “Critique and Political Argumentation. In “Symposium on Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students .” Political Studies Review 11(3): 313–20.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Proving, Pleasing and Persuading? Rhetoric in Contemporary British Politics.” The Political Quarterly 2014 85(4): 428–436 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 “Becoming a Democratic Audience.” In The Grammar of Politics and Performance, ed. by Shirin Rai, and Janelle Reinelt, 93–105. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Finlayson, Alan, and James Martin
2008 ‘‘‘It Ain’t What You Say…’: British Political Studies and the Analysis of Speech and Rhetoric.” British Politics 3: 445–464.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Frank, and Herbert Gottweis
2012 “Introduction: The Argumentative Turn Revisited.” In The Argumentative Turn Revisited, Public Policy as Communicative Practice, ed. by Frank Fischer, and Herbert Gottweis. Durham N.C.: Duke University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Freeden, Michael
2004 “Editorial: Essential Contestability and Effective Contestability.” Journal of Political Ideologies 8(1): 3–11.Google Scholar
2015 The Political Theory of Political Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
1998 Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Green, Jeffery Edward
2009 The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hajer, Maarten A.
1997 The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall, Stuart
1996 “The Problem of Ideology: Marxism Without Guarantees.” In Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, ed. by David Morley, and Kuan-Hsing Chen. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter
1993 “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State: the Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain.” Comparative Politics 25(3): 275–296.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hay, Colin
2013 “Political Discourse Analysis: The Dangers of Methodological Absolutism.” In “Symposium on Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students .” Political Studies Review 11(3): 321–27.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O.
1991 The Rhetoric of Reaction. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto
2005 On Populist Reason. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe
1985 Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Laver, Michael. Kenneth Benoit, and John Garry
2003 “Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data.” The American Political Science Review 97(2): 311–331.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Majone, Giandomenico
1989 Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, James
2013 Politics and Rhetoric: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 ”Situating Speech: A Rhetorical Approach to Political Strategy.” Political Studies 63(1): 25–42.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “Capturing Desire: Rhetorical Strategies and the Affectivity of Discourse.” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 18(1): 143–160.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norval, Aletta
2000 “Review Article: The Things We Do With Words: Contemporary Approaches to the Analysis of Ideology.” British Journal of Political Science 30(2): 313–346 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Aversive Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Palonen, Kari
2003 Quentin Skinner: History, Politics, Rhetoric. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
2005 “Political Theorizing as a Dimension of Political Life.” European Journal of Political Theory 4 (4): 351–366.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Panagia, Davide
2009 “Dissenting Words: A Conversation with Jacques Rancière.” Diacritics 30(2): 113–126.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A.
1973 “Verbalizing a Political Act: Towards a Politics of Speech.” Political Theory 1(1): 27–45.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1987 “The Concept of a Language and the metier d’historien: some considerations on practice .” In The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe ed. by Anthony Pagden, 19–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Vivien A.
2008 “Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse.” Annual Review of Political Science 11: 303–26.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Michael J.
1981 Language and Political Understanding: the Politics of Discursive Practices, London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Skinner, Quentin
1988 Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics (edited and introduced by James Tully). Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
2002 Visions of Politics: Regarding Method. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tully, James
2002 “Political Philosophy as a Critical Activity.” Political Theory 30(4): 533–555.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
2001 “Critical Discourse Studies: History, Agenda, Theory and Methodology.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Studies ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Michael Meyer. London: Sage.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zerilli, Linda
2005 “ ‘We Feel Our Freedom’: Imagination and Judgement in the Thought of Hannah Arendt.” Political Theory 33(2): 158–88.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Alexandre-Collier, Agnès
2022. Brexit and Anti-Parliament Discourses among Conservative MPs (2016–2019). Parliamentary Affairs 75:2 ► pp. 239 ff. DOI logo
Bolt, Mike
2023. Britain, Britishness, and exceptionalism within the rhetoric of David Cameron. British Politics 18:1 ► pp. 128 ff. DOI logo
Finlayson, Alan
2022. Brexit, YouTube and the Populist Rhetorical Ethos. In Populist Rhetorics [Rhetoric, Politics and Society, ], ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo
Kranert, Michael & Geraldine Horan
2018. Chapter 1. Introduction. In Doing Politics [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 80], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Turnbull, Nick & Rose Broad
2022. Bringing the problem home: The anti-slavery and anti-trafficking rhetoric of UK non-government organisations. Politics 42:2 ► pp. 200 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.