The Political Language and the Human Body
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THE POLITICAL LANGUAGE AND THE HUMAN BODY: COMPARATIVE DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS OF VLADIMIR PUTIN’S 2000 AND VIKTOR ORBÁN’S 2010 CAMPAIGN RHETORICS By Anna Szilágyi Submitted to Central European University Department of Political Science In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Supervisor: Zsolt Enyedi CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2010 CEU eTD Collection Abstract In my MA thesis I compare the campaign rhetoric of Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán during the 2000 Russian presidential and the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary elections, respectively. These elections took place in a similar environment of political and economic crisis and both politicians won with the overwhelming majority of votes. The research explores if the similarity of contexts could trigger societal responsiveness towards a discourse that contributed to the enormous success of the candidates. The multi-disciplinary analysis focuses both on structural politico-economic contexts and discursive features of campaign texts in order to explore the complex relation between the two. The analysis combines political science concepts with a detailed analysis of linguistic practices (especially, the use of key metaphors). The major finding of the work is that the moment of deep politico-economic crisis triggers societal responsiveness towards a public discourse that is mainly characterized by the lack of the political and evokes a simple moral value system of traditional family and gender conceptualization. The popularity of this language lays in its ability to present otherwise threatening complex problems as solvable issues that require simple physical intervention. I also conclude that the distinct political and cultural traditions, as well as the position of the countries after the democratic turn largely influence the specific discursive strategies of the speakers. Accordingly, I demonstrate that the politicians evoked two distinct ‘subtypes’ of physically oriented masculinity. In Putin`s language the ideal of the army man (particularly, the army commander) emerged, while Orbán`s discourse evoked a specific rural masculinity. CEU eTD Collection i TABLE OF CONTENT 1. INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................1 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND......................................................................................................6 3. RUSSIA AND HUNGARY BEFORE THE 2000 AND 2010 ELECTIONS..............................................15 3.1 Circumstances of Accession to Power: Russia after 1991 ..................................................15 3.2 Profile: Someone Like Vladimir Putin................................................................................20 3.3 Circumstances of Accession to Power: Hungary after 1989......................................................22 3.4 Profile: Someone Like Viktor Orbán..................................................................................26 4. METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE USE BY PUTIN AND ORBÁN...........................................................31 4.1 Methods of Data Selection ...............................................................................................31 4.2 Not Just Sitting in Moscow: Putin’s Metaphors.................................................................37 4.3 Robust Guys are Needed: Orbán’s Metaphors ..................................................................48 5. THE MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE AND POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF PUTIN’S AND ORBÁN’S CAMPAIGN METAPHORS...................................................................................................................63 5.1 The Body in Discourse ......................................................................................................63 5.2 Corporeality and Morality ................................................................................................66 5.3 Morality as Strength.........................................................................................................68 5.4 Politics: a Game for Boys .................................................................................................71 5.5 Rural versus Army Masculinity..........................................................................................74 6. CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................79 7. APPENDIX A..............................................................................................................................83 7.1 Official English Transcripts of Vladimir Putin’s Campaign Texts.........................................83 CEU eTD Collection 8. APPENDIX B............................................................................................................................112 8.1 Official Hungarian Transcripts of Viktor Orbán’s Campaign Texts....................................112 BIBLIOGRAPHY:...............................................................................................................................147 ii 1. INTRODUCTION In 2000 Vladimir Putin won the Russian presidential elections for the first time. The candidate ended up with a remarkable success as 53 percent of the Russian voters elected the acting president. Ten years later, in 2010, in Hungary, parliamentary elections took place. In this case it was the centre-right party Fidesz, led by Viktor Orbán that achieved overwhelming success and reached over two-thirds parliamentary majority. At first glance, it seems there is no other common element in the two cases besides the moment of major electoral success. In terms of their historical past, present significance, electoral and governmental system Russia and Hungary differ so much that from a global comparative perspective these cases could remain random examples of political success in recent times. The ‘empire’ tradition versus the past of the ‘oppressed small state’ as well as the semi-presidential system of Russia versus the parliamentary system established after the democratic turn in Hungary seem exclude any parallelism. Besides, the position of the two campaigning politicians was also different: Putin was already in power in 2000 (he became acting president in 1999) while Orbán was only a prime ministerial nominee in a competitive multi-party system in 2010. However, surprisingly, if one takes a closer look at the 2000 Russian and 2010 Hungarian elections, could notice some salient overlapping situational characteristics. These seemingly unrelated political turning points are brought together by the similarity of the politico-economic environment in which the two elections took place. It seems that the circumstances of accession to power of the two politicians were similar. Economic stagnation CEU eTD Collection and then crisis led into a financial collapse in 1998 in Russia, and almost created a collapse in 2008 in Hungary. This can be considered a major common feature. As a consequence, in the pre-election period the decline of trust in liberal market institutions, the revival of radical 1 ideology and an increasing anti-elitist societal attitude became decisive common characteristics as well. In addition, political instability also seems to be a shared feature. In Russia, in 1999 President Boris Yeltsin was forced to step down, because of health problems, before the end of his term. As another sign of political instability, there were other frequent changes in political leadership: between 1998 and 1999 Russia had five prime ministers. In Hungary, in 2008 the coalition of the socialist (MSZP) and liberal (SZDSZ) parties broke up after just two years in government. Afterwards the country was ruled by a minority government, the Prime Minister of which also resigned in 2009. Between 2009 and 2010 Hungary was led by a minority expert government. A possible consequence of this similarity of the political and economic environments could be the similarity of the winning political images. I suggest that these briefly outlined commonalities were able to produce a similar politico-economic atmosphere in Russia and Hungary before the elections and triggered responsiveness towards a certain type of political image. This opportunity was successfully realized and fulfilled by political communication of both Putin and Orbán during the 2000 and 2010 campaigns, respectively. I suggest that the similarity of images can be explored in systematic academic research from the perspective of political discourses. First, a political image largely manifests itself through discourse. Second, the nature of discursive data (e.g., it is recorded) allows truly accurate, in-depth and transparent research. Accordingly, in my thesis I compare and contrast the political language of Putin and Orbán. CEU eTD Collection My central research question is this: what were the main characteristics of the political discourse that were offered for voters’ needs and induced great responsiveness in the similar critical political and economic environments in Russia and Hungary? 2 My hypothesis is that regardless of the political and historical differences of countries, as well as the changing modern and post-modern political scene, a period of deep crisis can trigger societal responsiveness towards political discourses that metaphorically present an early modern, even pre-modern, traditional reality. In my view, this discourse can be characterized by the lack