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From Text to Political Positions

The Convergence of Political, Linguistic and Discourse Analysis
  • Annemarie van Elfrinkhof , Isa Maks and Bertie Kaal
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From Text to Political Positions
This chapter is in the book From Text to Political Positions

Abstract

This chapter explores how three methods of political text analysis can complement each other to differentiate parties in detail. A word-frequency method and corpus linguistic techniques are joined by critical discourse analysis in an attempt to assess the ideological relation between election manifestos and a coalition agreement. How does this agreement relate to the policy positions presented in individual election manifestos and whose issues appear on the governmental agenda? The chapter discusses the design of three levels of text analysis applying text-as-data analysis; words-as-meaningful-data involving lexical-semantic analysis of subjectivity applying Wordscores; and words-in-context analysis for variation in constructions of worldviews. A comparison of the results reveals (im-)possibilities of combining qualitative with quantitative methods. We found that better results can be achieved for party positioning in combinations of qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Abstract

This chapter explores how three methods of political text analysis can complement each other to differentiate parties in detail. A word-frequency method and corpus linguistic techniques are joined by critical discourse analysis in an attempt to assess the ideological relation between election manifestos and a coalition agreement. How does this agreement relate to the policy positions presented in individual election manifestos and whose issues appear on the governmental agenda? The chapter discusses the design of three levels of text analysis applying text-as-data analysis; words-as-meaningful-data involving lexical-semantic analysis of subjectivity applying Wordscores; and words-in-context analysis for variation in constructions of worldviews. A comparison of the results reveals (im-)possibilities of combining qualitative with quantitative methods. We found that better results can be achieved for party positioning in combinations of qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Positions of Parties and Political Cleavages between Parties in Texts 1
  5. PART I. Computational Methods for Political Text Analysis
  6. PART I: Introduction 23
  7. Comparing the Position of Canadian Political Parties using French and English Manifestos as Textual Data 27
  8. Leveraging Textual Sentiment Analysis with Social Network Modelling 47
  9. Issue Framing and Language Use in the Swedish Blogosphere 71
  10. Text to Ideology or Text to Party Status? 93
  11. Sentiment Analysis in Parliamentary Proceedings 117
  12. The Qualitative Analysis of Political Documents 135
  13. PART II. From Text to Political Positions via Discourse Analysis
  14. PART II: Introduction 163
  15. The Potential of Narrative Strategies in the Discursive Construction of Hegemonic Positions and Social Change 171
  16. Christians, Feminists, Liberals, Socialists, Workers and Employers 189
  17. Between Union and a United Ireland 207
  18. Systematic Stylistic Analysis 225
  19. Participation and recontextualisation in New Media 245
  20. PART III. Converging methods
  21. PART III: Introduction 271
  22. From Text to the Construction of Political Party Landscapes 275
  23. From Text to Political Positions 297
  24. About the authors 325
  25. Index 331
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.55.14elf

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Positions of Parties and Political Cleavages between Parties in Texts 1
  5. PART I. Computational Methods for Political Text Analysis
  6. PART I: Introduction 23
  7. Comparing the Position of Canadian Political Parties using French and English Manifestos as Textual Data 27
  8. Leveraging Textual Sentiment Analysis with Social Network Modelling 47
  9. Issue Framing and Language Use in the Swedish Blogosphere 71
  10. Text to Ideology or Text to Party Status? 93
  11. Sentiment Analysis in Parliamentary Proceedings 117
  12. The Qualitative Analysis of Political Documents 135
  13. PART II. From Text to Political Positions via Discourse Analysis
  14. PART II: Introduction 163
  15. The Potential of Narrative Strategies in the Discursive Construction of Hegemonic Positions and Social Change 171
  16. Christians, Feminists, Liberals, Socialists, Workers and Employers 189
  17. Between Union and a United Ireland 207
  18. Systematic Stylistic Analysis 225
  19. Participation and recontextualisation in New Media 245
  20. PART III. Converging methods
  21. PART III: Introduction 271
  22. From Text to the Construction of Political Party Landscapes 275
  23. From Text to Political Positions 297
  24. About the authors 325
  25. Index 331
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