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The language of power: a content analysis of presidential addresses in North America and the Former Soviet Union, 1993–2012

  • Anton Oleinik EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 10, 2015

Abstract

The article applies political discourse analysis to presidential speeches in four countries. A qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 71 annual addresses delivered by the political leaders of the United States, Canada, Russia and Kazakhstan over the 20-year period since the fall of the Soviet Union is used to test the hypothesis of convergence between their institutional systems. The study shows that there are some tendencies toward negative convergence. Political leaders tend to place similar relative emphasis on such issues as power, trust, liberalism and the market, among others. Two elements of the context, namely the events of September 11, 2001 and the October 2008 financial crisis, served to strengthen the negative convergence.

Acknowledgements

The draft of this text was presented at the annual conference of the Canadian Sociological Association in May 2014 (Brock University, St. Catharines, ON). Participants in the political sociology panel, namely Dr. Lisa-Jo van den Scott (Northwestern University), made a number of cogent remarks. Sheryl Curtis did an excellent job of style editing. The author thanks two anonymous reviewers of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language for their comments and suggestions. All remaining inaccuracies and errors are the author’s own.

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Published Online: 2015-10-10
Published in Print: 2015-11-1

©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton

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