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Politics as Usual consists of six chapters, the content is evenly divided between the discussion of theoretical and methodological issues and three case studies of everyday life of politicians — both real and fictional ones. The attention of the author is centered on the dimensions 2, 4 and 5, in example she poses the question about the impact of the everyday practices of politicians affected by the processes of professionalization of politics as well as the fictionalization of politics in media on the democratic process.
In a way, this chapter makes a good illustration of the thesis that critical discourse analysis is a problem oriented approach: Some aspects of the methodological framework of the approach are presented p. Reisigl and Wodak The link between the field of political action, discursive or communicative genre and discourse topics is emphasized. This framework is enriched by the figure p. In this chapter the presentation of methodology is not an end in itself, the author formulates her research problem more precisely and accentuates power and knowledge management as a crucial aspect of doing politics.
The Discourse of Politics in Action. Politics as Usual – Book Review
Chapters three and four are the case studies of the workings of the European Union institutions. She briefly presents the history of the emergence of the European Parliament EP , including references to myth and identity narratives that were systematically invoked in the process, and draws a scheme of national composition of the EP as well as the role of EP in European decision making processes pp. With the help of the ethnographic work of others as well as on the basis of her own field research Ruth Wodak reconstructs the EP as a physical and material space with its own temporal and organizational routines and limitations.
She focuses on their articulations of the role they assign to themselves, their views of Europe writ large and the EP as an institution working alongside national parliaments as well as their narratives of being European, i.
All these aspects of their identity are analyzed by discourse analytical tools. Wodak comes to the conclusion that MEPs represent a rather wide variety of identities, which is functional to the way the EP works. This variation in identities is viewed as an outcome of the multiplicity of communities of practice the MEPs are involved in.
Being a convincing picture of the formation of identities of politicians in the processes of multiple communicative acts designed for and competed within different audiences, this chapter also raises two further questions. Both of them are methodological. First, can binding conclusions be drawn on the basis interviews with a relatively little number of MEPs?
The Discourse of Politics in Action : Ruth Wodak :
Second, how can the effects of the reflexivity of the research subjects be dealt with, i. In this chapter Wodak concentrates on the ways in which an Austrian MEP attempts to reconcile the pressures stemming from the need to follow up on many issues, time limitations and mobility requirements, on the one hand, with the necessity to professionally and effectively perform on the front stage, on the other. She emphases the structural limitations put on an MEPs work such a loads of paper to be processed and gives a detailed analysis of an MEP and his assistant discursive strategies e.
By following a MEP from morning till evening through a briefing with an assistant, committee meetings, lunch and a lecture, Ruth Wodak aims at depoliticizing politics, i.
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On the one hand, this call is understandable if it has been intended as a remedy to overcome the dissatisfaction with political sphere that negatively influences participation in contemporary democracies and is an impediment to democratic politics. On the other hand, however, this call backgrounds numerous negative practices that constitute the backstage of doing politics at both national and European level.
Moreover, it underestimates the power dimension of the political field which distinguishes it quite significantly from economic field or field of cultural production. In the fifth chapter the author turns from real to fictional politics and offers a detailed analysis of the discursive and narrative strategies used in the political drama series The West Wing, in which White House staff and the President of the United States himself are the core characters.
She chooses the TV series since it is not focused on crises and catastrophes solely, but allows viewers to follow everyday life of fictional politicians. Wodak aims at comparing the everyday routines she has traced during her research in EP with the fictional political routines of The West Wing. The popularity of the series and the fact that its producers often reacted to current problems such as terrorist attacks on World Trade Centre on September 11, , solidify her opinion that media representations of politics are used to set an ideal type of doing politics and create a myth of good politics and politicians.
She demonstrates that that fictional politicians act according to the schemata set for literary heroes. The main function of the series is thus to establish order and demonstrate that the good win and the evil ones are punished. At the same time the series producers address the actual problems and in that way aim at setting the modes of behavior, e. The author binds her empirical analysis with the core problem that has been set at the beginning of the book: On an analytical plane this problem is replicated as a gap between the macro-analysis of institutional and decision making processes and micro analysis of concrete political events and individual politicians.