Dialectic textual negotiation

The present study proposes a discourse-immanent view (following Wodak 2001) of political manifestos, examining them as sites for textually negotiating tensions and paradoxes, rather than focusing on their persuasive aspects. This approach is applied to the analysis of two founding documents of the Israeli religious settlers’ movement, where tensions between religious vision and actual politics have increased over time. Findings indicate that in the first manifesto (1974), discursive resources (temporality, point of view construction and terms of reference) are strategically used to contain tensions and maintain the movement’s dialectical vision of the relations between religion and politics. By contrast, the second manifesto (1980) exhibits simpler textual patterns which forgo this dialectical commitment, reflecting the eroding ability to textually reconcile ideological tensions as challenges to the movement’s vision grow. This is discussed as demonstrating the utility of discourse analysis for historical research in providing micro-evidence for the emergence of ideological change.