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Differentiation in Political Communication Differentiation in Political Communication Project Report in Strategic Communication in an International Context I Fall 2018 Project Group: V1840164844 Group members Eric Tomio - 64192 Samuel Walton - 64238 Hemanta Bista - 64382 Shyam Kumar Rana - 64375 Rasmus Engmann Fink - 64176 Emil Guldbrandsen - 66853 Submission date: 11-12-2018 Number of keystrokes incl. spaces: 143.798 Table of contents Table of contents 0 Introduction 3 The concept of trade deals 4 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 4 The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) 5 US political parties’ views on trade deals prior to election campaign 6 Parties’ views on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 6 Parties’ views on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) 7 The candidates’ views on trade deals prior to election campaign 7 Clinton position 8 Trump position 9 Literature review 9 Theory 10 Valence Issues 10 Issue Ownership 11 The Rhetoric of Dominance & Dispersion 11 Strategic political communication 12 Rhetorical analysis 15 Methods 17 Research design 18 Choice of methods 19 Data sources 19 API troubles 21 The reason for mixed methods 22 Analysis 22 Text statistics 22 Speeches 25 Clinton speeches 25 Trump speeches 30 Television ads 34 Clinton ads 37 Trump ads 37 Presidential debates 41 The emotion behind US trade relations 41 Clinton: Smart and fair future deals 42 Me First 43 Portraying Trump’s Protectionism as hypocrisy 44 Tweets 45 Trump tweets 45 Hillary tweets 46 1 Statements 46 Press releases 47 Facebook 49 Clinton Facebook posts 49 Trump Facebook posts 50 Discussion 51 Findings 51 Social media usage 53 Discussion of ownership 54 Limitations 55 Conclusion 57 Bibliography 58 2 Introduction Most politicians instinctively seek to differentiate their policies drastically from their political rivals on the topics that are currently seen as relevant to the public. This is done as an effort to appeal to potential voters. But sometimes fierce political rivals agree on policy goals but not process to get there. This is categorized as valence issues. For this project, we wanted to see how politicians try to differentiate themselves from their rivals on valence issues that they essentially agree on. For this purpose, we chose the US presidential campaign of 2016 between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and their similar stances on the valence issue of the international trade deals North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). We employed rhetorical analysis in relation to issue ownership theory to uncover how they appealed to the audiences while still differentiating themselves from their rival. The analysis material consisted of several different types of communication utilized by the two candidates, including traditional media and social media. Valence issues are important because they typically dominate political discourse in national election campaigns (Clarke et al., 2011). According to the Hacker (1995), presidential candidates give speeches, make promises, shake hands, debate each other, talk in a group, pose for the camera and make proclaims such as the slogan of Donald Trump ‘We make America great again”. They compete with each other to define the most important issues, set campaign agendas and the opposing act defensively. They try to different themselves on their candidates with a special theme so voters can understand. In the 2016 presidential election, it is not surprising that the economy and international trade are valence issue. There were numerous other valence issues as well shared between the candidates. For example opposition to terrorism, crime in the streets and other threats to national and personal security. In addition, there is also overwhelming majorities favour on high-quality health care and educational systems, safe, efficient transportation, and pollution-free environment (Clarke et al., 2011). Indeed, when Hillary and Trump discussed on trade deals, both of them have a similar opinion, which was opposed to the trade deals, even though they belong in different ideological parties. The 2016 US Presidential election campaign was a highly competitive race for the White House (Enli, 2017, pp. 50-51). Trump and former First Lady and former Secretary of State were icons in this election. Both candidates intensely differentiated their agendas such as the economy, security, healthcare, immigration, foreign policy, trade deals, education, environment and so soon. From Lee and Xu (2018) point of view, as a candidate, Trump 3 was more successful than Clinton in drawing public attention to preferred issues through Twitter. In the U.S., it is common that the Republican Party supports national defence, crime (law and order), and budgetary issues (government spending, taxing), and the Democratic Party supports the issues of civil rights, women’s rights, education, environment, and social welfare (Lee and Xu, 2018, p. 201). The slogan “we make America great again” was the main theme of Trump during the election. Political parties spend time and effort on carefully selecting what issues to talk about in the election. Generally, political parties compete in an election by strategically emphasizing the same issue policy (Klüver and Sagarzazu, 2015). It is very important for political parties to address the valence issue as well. Klüver and Sagarzazu (2015) argue that political parties compete with each other by campaigning on different policy issues rather than by opposing each other on the same issues. Actually, there are still different opinions about how candidates will stand when the same issues are prioritized. Voters make their vote choices by evaluating the competence of political parties to handle certain policy issues. According to the Issue Ownership theory, voters identify the party that is the most competent problem-solver on an issue and cast the ballot for that party (Klüver and Sagarzazu, 2015, pp. 4-5). It is easier for voters when positional issues were articulated by candidates, instances when competing parties are pursuing differing ends. On valence issues, voters have the same ideal point and political parties have also the same perspective on an issue (Green, 2007). The concept of trade deals A trade deal (or trade agreement), in an international context, is a bilateral or group pact, in which two or more countries agree to facilitate the trading of goods between each other. The mechanisms of a trade deal can be preferential tax rates or lowered tariffs to encourage trading between those nations within the deal. The immediate resulting impact of a trade deal is an increase in foreign-made products being sold in one or both of the countries within the deal; as well as an increase in businesses relocating parts of the business to other countries—to capitalise on any benefits of the foreign labour market (Goldsmith, 2015). North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) The original idea for the North American Free Trade Agreement came from the former President Ronald Reagan (Republican) to build a free-trade agreement between the US and Canada. It was then adopted by President George H.W. Bush (Republican) to include lower tariffs for trading with Mexico, prompting Canada to request a trilateral agreement. In 1992 NAFTA was signed by Bush, Mexico’s President Carlos Salinas, and Canada’s Prime 4 Minister Brian Mulroney. In 1993 Bill Clinton (Democrat) made the final signature on the agreement, making it law. By 2008, all tariffs which once existed between the three countries were eliminated. The trilateral agreement allowed the signatories to compete with other global economies, such as the EU and China. (Amadeo, 2018). Although having been promoted, by both Republican and Democratic presidents, as a route to strengthen the US economy in the face of global competition, NAFTA is not without its critics. Since the negotiations started they were at the centre of many political debates in the US, “mainly on the effectiveness of the agreement in ‘generation of jobs’ ” (Sharma, 2017, p.3). In particular, the NAFTA agreement has been one of the core parts of the presidential campaigns in the US, and a core argument in the debates between the Republican and Democrat candidates (Sharma, 2017, p.3). And after its implementation, the trade agreement has been attributed to US job losses and suppressed wages, destabilising Mexican agricultural sector and degrading their environment through intensive competitive farming—resulting in increased migration from Mexico. On 30th November 2018, Trump signed a ratified version of NAFTA—along with Mexico and Canada, called the USMCA, it includes protectionist measures to attempt to reduce the negative side effects on US industry caused by NAFTA. (Amadeo, 2018) The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) The TPP began with a trade agreement between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore in 2005. President George W. Bush (Republican) brought the US, in 2008, into discussions with these countries. The perceived interest of the US had the result of bringing other larger economies to the discussion. American interest in the TPP prompted Australia, Vietnam, Peru; and eventually, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, and Mexico to join the talks. President Barack Obama (Democrat) then continued discussions upon becoming US president in 2008, with the at-the-time-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton identifying the partnership as the device to lock “diplomatic, economic, strategic” (Clinton, 2018) investment in the Asia-Pacific region, and the pact begin signed by all parties in 2016. With a total of twelve nations discussing the deal, naturally, it has taken some time to push the details of the partnership through. The regulations of the TPP, are more expensive than those of NAFTA; with regulations reaching into the more modern aspects of global industries, such as e-commerce, and labour and environmental standards. 5 The terms of the partnership did not develop to the point of being accepted by the US; during the 2016 election, both the Republican and Democrat parties identified the TPP as a bad deal for US industry and employment.
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