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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 21:5 (2022) ► pp.763–784

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Populating ‘solidarity’ in political debate

Interrelational strategies of persuasion within the European Parliament in the aftermath of the Brexit

ORCiD logo with link | Tampere University
ORCiD logo with link | University of Macau
Published online: 11 March 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21023.rau
Abstract
The article examines the various ways in which ‘solidarity’ is invoked and signified through narrative and categorial devices in a political debate following the UK’s vote to leave the EU in 2016. Analysing a floor debate in the European Parliament concerning a white paper released by the European Commission on the future of the EU held in March 2017, we investigate how politicians deploy references to ‘solidarity’ in service of different political agendas. Our research highlights the strategic use of ‘core’ values in political debate through the way different speakers appeal to ‘solidarity’ as a self-evident positive value within the EU, but which is then mobilised through different relevant actors and scenarios to argue contrastive political positions. Our analysis demonstrates how narrative positioning and category-bound normative expectations are harnessed to serve the aims of political persuasion by “populating” a shared principle of governance with purposeful sets of identities and interrelations.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.EU and ‘solidarity’ in the framework of sociological neoinstitutionalism
  • 3.Data and method of analysis
  • 4.Solidarity as a foundational principle of the polity
  • 5.Solidarity as a transactional value in future policies
  • 6.Solidarity as a variable targeted by responsible politics
  • 7.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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