Abstract
This chapter presents an introduction to the book. It describes the book’s goals and scope, and details two aspects at the core of each of the following chapters. The first is culture. In this book contributors were given a free hand in choosing their cultural perspective, as well as the theoretical, conceptual, methodological approaches, and analytical methods, through which they examine political rhetoric in a selected number of countries in Asia, North and Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Oceania. Yet they all agree that culture embraces many areas of society related to, affected, and shaped by the shared historical experiences of individuals and groups, social structure, family structure and relationships, geography/climate, religion, economic system, immigration patterns, and majority/minority relations. The second aspect at the chapters’ heart is the discourse of public figures, mostly presidents, prime ministers, members of the government, and political candidates. The ensuing discussion focuses in particular on their activities as they inform, entertain, and try to persuade their audiences regarding political events and processes, the political agenda, as well as their policy positions and views. Finally, the chapter details the structure of the book and briefly describes each chapter’s contributions.
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Notes
- 1.
Whether or not certain elements in the current political culture serve as the catalyst for German right-wing groups to copy Nazi discourse by using such terms as Lügenpresse (lying press; a term that was invented and used by the Nazis), is beyond the boundary of this volume and should be examined elsewhere. In this sense, it should be noted that culture affects not only elite political speech (e.g., chancellors), but also of political groups and even the discourse of “regular” citizens.
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Feldman, O. (2021). Introduction: Assessing Cultural Influences on Political Leaders’ Discourse. In: Feldman, O. (eds) When Politicians Talk. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3579-3_1
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