CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE Bernie versus Hillary and the Battle for the Soul of The Democratic Party: A Frame Analysis of Campaign Speeches in the 2016 Democratic Primary A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology By Jonathan Rich August 2018 Copyright by Jonathan Rich 2018 ii The thesis of Jonathan Rich is approved: _______________________________________ _________________ Dr. Moshoula Capous-Desyllas Date _______________________________________ _________________ Dr. Lauren McDonald Date _______________________________________ _________________ Dr. Scott Appelrouth, Chair Date California State University, Northridge iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Copyright Page………………………………………………………………………...… ii Signature Page…………………………………………………...……………………... iii List of Figures……………………………………………………………………...…… vii Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….... viii Introduction………………………………………………………………………….....… 1 Literature Review………………………………………………………………………… 3 Neoliberalism……………………………………………………………….......... 3 Neoliberal Policy Agenda...………………..……………...…..…………. 4 Neoliberal Governmentality………………………………………..…… 10 Neoliberalism’s History and Intellectual Origins……………………………..... 11 Third Way Politics…………………………………………………...…. 16 The Legitimation Crisis of Neoliberalism…………………………...…………. 20 Crisis of System Integration…………………………………………….. 21 Crisis of Social Integration…………………………………………...… 26 Resistance to Neoliberalism………………………………..…………… 28 Progressive Neoliberalism.…………………………………………...… 31 Party Elites and the Presidential Nomination Process……………………..…… 35 History of Presidential Nominations……………………………………. 35 The Modern Presidential Nomination System………………………….. 38 2016 Democratic Party Primary Campaign…………………………………….. 42 Conclusion………………………………………………………………...……. 45 Theoretical Background and Research Methods…………………………………..…… 47 iv Theoretical Background………………………………………………………… 47 Frame Analysis………………………………………..………………... 48 Issue Framing…………………………………………………………… 48 Collective Action Frames………………………………………………. 51 Research Methods………………………………………………………………. 53 Research Questions…………………………………………………...… 53 Study Design……………………………………………………………. 53 Data Analysis Procedure………………………………………………... 57 Findings and Discussion………………………………………………...……………… 63 Issue Salience…………………………………………………………….....…... 63 Education Salience……………………………………………………… 65 Health Care Salience ………………………………………….......….… 66 Wall Street Salience…………………………………………………..… 69 Issue Orientation ……………………………………………..………………… 71 Education Orientation ………………………………………………..… 71 Health Care Orientation…………………...……………………….…… 79 Wall Street Orientation…………………...…………………………….. 86 Discussion………………………………………………………………………. 96 Implications……………………………………………………...……… 96 Limitations…………………………………………………………...... 100 Future Research……………………...…………………..……………. 103 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...…..…. 106 References…………………………………………………………………………...… 107 v Appendix.….……………………….……………………………………………..…… 124 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Core Elements of the Neoliberal Policy Agenda ……………………………… 5 Figure 2: The Neoliberal Crisis of Legitimation ….…………………………...….……. 21 Figure 3: Total Issue Salience Scores ………………….………,,,,,……………...….... 62 Figure 4: Education Salience by Date …………………….……………………………. 65 Figure 5: Health Care Salience by Date ………………….………….………………..... 67 Figure 6: Wall Street Salience by Date ……………...………….……......…………….. 70 Figure 7: Education Orientation by Date …………………...………………………….. 72 Figure 8: Health Care Orientation by Date …………………………………………….. 80 Figure 9: Wall Street Orientation by Date ……………..…………………….……….... 86 vii ABSTRACT Bernie versus Hillary and the Battle for the Soul of The Democratic Party: A Frame Analysis of Campaign Speeches in the 2016 Democratic Primary By Jonathan Rich Master of Arts in Sociology This research project offers a frame analysis of the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries using a content analysis of speeches delivered by Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders during their respective campaign. The 2016 election can be characterized as an intra-party insurgency campaign pitting democratic socialism against the neoliberal establishment. This research situates the 2016 Democratic primary in the context of severe economic recessions that have called into question the legitimacy of neoliberal orthodoxy. This has opened the space for a challenge to neoliberalism within the Democratic Party. The results reveal that education, health care, and Wall Street reform were salient issues discussed by the candidates using diagnostic and prognostic frames. viii INTRODUCTION The principle argument of this research project is that the 2016 Democratic Party primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders represented a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party as it struggled to develop a coherent response to the ongoing legitimation crisis of neoliberalism. The evidence for this crisis can be seen in the tide of criticism aimed at “elites” and “the establishment” that has been growing across Western democracies. This anti-establishment turn, I argue in this thesis, is the result of a growing awareness on the part of the populace of the failures of neoliberal capitalism to follow through on its promises of growth and shared prosperity, coupled with an awareness that mainstream political parties have been complicit in upholding this system for decades. The 2007-08 global financial crisis brought the contradictions of neoliberalism to the forefront of public consciousness and frustration with political inaction led to an increased disaffection with the system. These frustrations played themselves out in the political arena in 2016 in a battle between establishment and populist insurgency political campaigns. The primary campaign was intense and at times bitter and acrimonious between the two candidates and their supporters, pointing to tensions between the party’s neoliberal and democratic socialist wings. This research project explores these intra-party tensions by analyzing how the Clinton and Sanders campaigns framed three policy issues in relation to neoliberalism and democratic socialism. The three issues I use to examine candidate framing are health care, education, and Wall Street. The general outline for this thesis is as follows: first, I offer a literature review exploring the background of the topic. This literature review focuses on the core features 1 of neoliberalism, the conditions that are leading to its crisis of legitimacy, and resistance to neoliberalism by the voting public, particularly in the context of the 2016 presidential election. In the next chapter, I offer a brief theoretical discussion of frame analysis with a focus on collective action frames and issue framing. Next, I turn to a discussion of my research methods, which relied on a mixed-method approach that blended quantitative and qualitative content analyses. A quantitative content analysis was used to establish the saliency of the three issues to each candidate. In this section, I also explore how issue salience changed throughout the course of the campaign. Next, I discuss the qualitative methods used to determine the candidate’s orientation towards the three major policy issues in relation to neoliberalism and democratic-socialism. Orientations towards the three issues were determined based on a qualitative analysis of the diagnostic and prognostic framing devices used in campaign speeches. Diagnostic framing is applied to deal with identifying causes and assigning blame for the issues of education, health care, and Wall Street, while prognostic framing is used to propose solutions to resolve these issues. In the next chapter, I turn to a discussion of the findings from my study around issue salience and issue orientation in relation to neoliberalism and democratic socialism. In this chapter, I use quantitative data to illustrate issue salience while employing qualitative analysis to explore the candidates’ orientation towards the three issues. Then, I discuss the implications of my findings, along with some of the limitations and opportunities for future research. In the concluding chapter, I briefly summarize the contributions my research project has for the scholarship on resistance to neoliberalism, intra-party insurgency campaigns, the 2016 election, and issue framing. 2 LITERATURE REVIEW A review of the relevant literature provides crucial context to buttress the analysis offered in the present study. In order to empirically analyze the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, it is crucial to first explore the literature on the social and historical conditions that have brought about the crisis within the Democratic Party. A review of the literature also provides key insights into the socioeconomic ideologies of neoliberalism and democratic socialism, which is critical to understanding the competing policy positions of the Clinton and Sanders campaigns in the 2016 Democratic Party primary. A common theme that appears throughout the literature is that neoliberalism remains the dominant socioeconomic ideology in the two major political parties and has increasingly taken over resistance movements and the nonprofit sector. However, a review of the literature indicates that neoliberalism has entered a crisis of legitimacy and is producing discontent among the voting public. Previous research has situated the 2016 presidential election in the context of the crisis of neoliberalism, connecting the rise of the Sanders campaign to growth