Project: The Politics of Constraint: discursive strategies in a three-level game

Funding Source: Collaborative Research Award Santander Totta/Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

Participant Institutions: IPRI-NOVA, IFILNOVA & NOVA LINCS

Timeframe: September 2017 - August 2018

Abstract: This project is about political actors’ discourses and their effects on citizens. In times in which governments are much constrained by international actors (such as financial speculators and European Union) we wish to understand how policy-makers - in Portugal, France and Spain - legitimate their choices to the public. We additionally study whether and how politicians manage to reconcile these discourses with the political legitimation of their function, as discourses of ‘non alternative’ might make them appear powerless and indistinguishable. We also look at how non-governing actors, such as Trade Union, engage discursively with governments in such circumstances. Finally, we study how “ordinary citizens” perceive and discuss the arguments made by political actors. The project brings together political scientists and argumentation scholars from FCSH and computer scientists from FCT; allowing for an innovative methodology that qualitatively and quantitatively analyses argumentative discourse. Our intention is to foster advancement in the three fields and create opportunities to build further interdisciplinary collaboration.

Members of the Team:

Adam Standring
Angie Gago
Catherine Moury (Coordinator IPRI-NOVA)
Daniel Cardoso
Dima Mohammed (Coordinator IFILNOVA)
Elisabetta De Giorgi
João Leitão
João Leite (Coordinator NOVA LINCS)
Marcin Lewinski
Pellegrino Cammino
Teresa Romão