Strategic maneuvering in the political rhetoric of Barack Obama
Manfred Kienpointner | University of Innsbruck
U.S. President Barack Obama’s rhetoric lends itself well as a highly interesting case study for exploring the possibilities of contemporary political rhetoric of being both successful on the one hand and rational, according to normative standards of argumentative discourse, on the other. Taking up the concept of “strategic maneuvering” as developed within Pragma-Dialectics (cf. van Eemeren 2010), a corpus of Obama’s speeches and books is analyzed in order to assess both its rationality and efficiency. The analysis shows that Obama not only knows extremely well how to use the classical inventory of (political) rhetoric, but also tries to overcome the standard strategic maneuvering of political rhetoric which is often polarizing and destructive. Obama tries to change this traditional style of political rhetoric by his orientation towards consensus and universal values and by his willingness to practice self-criticism. The evaluation of Obama’s political rhetoric has also shown, however, that Obama is sometimes forced to abandon his high ethical and rhetorical standards in order not to lose a substantial section of the U.S. voters. In some of these cases, it might be argued that his strategic maneuvering “derails”. All in all, however, Obama has shown us that a leading contemporary politician can overcome traditional party rhetoric by following new types of strategic maneuvering which, at least sometimes, successfully reconcile normative standards of rational discussion with rhetorical principles of efficient persuasion. Keywords: Barack Obama; political rhetoric; democracy; Pragma-Dialectics; strategic maneuvering; fallacy; pragmatic argument; irony; self-criticism
Published online: 27 September 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.3.03kie
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.3.03kie
Cited by
Cited by 16 other publications
Crespo-Fernández, Eliecer
Feng, Dezheng (William) & Shuo Zhang
Gerodimos, Roman & Jákup Justinussen
Hansson, Sten
Ilie, Cornelia
Khajavi, Yaser, Alireza Rasti & Krisda Chaemsaithong
Kice, Brent
Kienpointner, Manfred
Kienpointner, Manfred
Kienpointner, Manfred
Mirhosseini, Seyyed-Abdolhamid
Mirhosseini, Seyyed-Abdolhamid & Mahdieh Noori
Neville-Shepard, Meredith
Theodoropoulou, Irene
Wu, Peng
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2021. 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.
References
References
Atwater, Deborah F.
Chomsky, Noam
2008 “What Next? The Elections, the Economy, and the World.” Transcription of a lecture at Boston, Democracy Now!, 24 November 2008. Available online at: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/24/noam_chomsky_what_next_the_elections [last accessed 2 September 2011].
2010a “Noam Chomsky on Obama’s Foreign Policy, His Own History of Activism, and the Importance of Speaking Out.” Democracy Now!, 15 March 2010. Transcription of an Interview at the Harvard Memorial Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Available at: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/15/noam_chomsky_on_obamas_foreign_policy [last accessed 2 September 2011].
2010b “Presidential “Peacemaking” in Latin America.” These Times, 5 January 2010. Available at: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20100105/htm [last accessed 29 June 2011].
Crystal, David
2008 “On Obama’s Victory Style.” DC Blog, 9 November 2008. Available at: http://david-crystal.blogspot.com/2008/11/on-obamas-victory-style.html [last accessed 2 September 2011].
Danblon, Emanuelle
van Eemeren, Frans H.
van Eemeren, Frans H., and Rob Grootendorst
van Eemeren, Frans H., and Peter Houtlosser
Gössler, Stefan
Hirschhorn, Jean
2011 “Brain Dead Obama.” Dandelion Salad, 14 August 2011. Available at: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/brain-dead-obama-by-joel-s-hirschhorn/ [last accessed 2 september 2011].
Kienpointner, Manfred, and Anna Orlandini
Klein, Josef
Kyrala, Cadmus
Mill, John Stuart
Mohammed, Dima, and David Zarefsky
Perelman, Chaim, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca
Plato
Posch, Claudia
Tannen, Deborah
Walton, Douglas N., Chris Reed, and Fabrizio Macagno
Westen, Drew
2011 “What Happened to Obama?” The New York Times Sunday Review, 6 August 2011. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/what-happened-to-obamas-passion.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 [last accessed 2 September 2011].
Wodak, Ruth
Obama, Barack
Obama for America = Obama
2009b Remarks by the President on a New Beginning. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, June 4, 2009. Speech delivered at Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09; last time visited: September 2, 2011].
2009c Remarks by the President to a joint Session of Congress on Health Care. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, September 9, 2009. Speech delivered at U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_ press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-a-Joint-Session-of-Congress-on-Health-Care; last time visited: September 2, 2011].
2009d Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, December 10, 2009. Speech delivered at Oslo, City Hall. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-a-Joint-Session-of-Congress-on-Health-Care; last time visited: September 2, 2011].
2010b Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, January 27, 2010. Speech delivered at U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-state-union-address; last time visited: September 2, 2011].
2011a Remarks by the President at a Memorial Service for the Victims of the Shooting in Tucson, Arizona. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, January 12, 2011. Speech Delivered at McKale Memorial Center, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/1/12/remarks-president-barack-obama-memorial-service-victims-shooting-tucson; last time visited September 2, 2011].
2011b Remarks by the President on America’s Energy Security. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, March 30, 2011. Speech delivered at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/30/remarks-president-americas-energy-security; last time visited September 2, 2011]