The Artless Art: Leadership and the Limits of Democratic Rhetoric

Abstract

Persuasion is vital to the practice of democratic leadership, making speech and communication of fundamental importance. Yet, democratic citizens habitually suspect political rhetoric as being either deceitfully empty or dangerously subversive. Rhetoric is thus central in democracy while paradoxically appearing either useless or pernicious. A consequence of this paradox for democratic leaders is that they are forced to avoid fine oratory in favour of a rhetorical style that sounds un-rhetorical, seeming to be plain factually-informative speech. This unique democratic form of rhetoric, which we have called an artless art, seeks to instil trust and to avoid appearing to talk down to the sovereign people. It is both helped and rendered problematic by the media, the essential communicative means in modern society, whose current dominance presents ever-new challenges and opportunities to democratic leaders.

Notes

¹On ‘illocutionary’ or ‘speech acts’, see Austin (1962).

²On the history of rhetoric, see Kennedy (1986). Note especially the difference between classical ‘persuasion’ and Christian ‘proclamation’ (in the form of apologetics, polemics and preaching, especially exegesis and homilia: Kennedy (1986, 120–160)). On modern perspectives, generally, see Foss, Foss and Trapp (2002).

³Deliberative democrats advocate discussion and debate that will promote greater involvement by the people in political decision making (Benhabib 1996; Cohen 1989; Dryzek 1990, 2000; Guttman and Thompson 1996; Habermas 1996). Their emphasis on deliberation therefore makes them suspicious of the persuasive power of rhetoric: see Garsten (2006, 187–94) and Uhr (1998, 21–9).

⁴Of course, leaders may use a rhetoric of fear (e.g of terrorists etc.) to persuade.

⁵According to Garsten (2006) it was the pernicious role of rhetoric in the Greek courts that Aristotle sought to moderate by instituting a new ‘art’ of rhetoric. On the ‘cosmetic’ nature of rhetoric and its ambiguous place in politics, see Plato's Gorgias, Protagoras and Phaedrus.

⁶What Aristotle in the Rhetoric calls the ethos (1356a1–13) and pathos (1356a14–16). Cicero in his De Oratore describes it as probare, delectare, flectere (to prove, to delight, to stir). Quintilian adopts this formulation, which assumes importance in Augustine's discussion of Christian eloquence (see Kennedy 1986, 100). On a modern reassessment, see Garsten (2006) and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (2003).

⁷Contrast, for example, the nature of rhetoric in America (Lim 2002; Murphy 2003); Britain (Lyttelton 2009; Phillips 1996), and Canada (Bashevkin 2009). For a ‘cross-cultural’ review more generally, see Kennedy (1998).

⁸On the importance of office and its implications for democratic leadership, see Philp (2007).

⁹On the rhetorical presidency, see Tulis (1987), Edwards (1983), Kernell (1986) and Ellis (1998). Other descriptions, as Tulis (1998, 211) notes, include ‘plebiscitary leadership’ (Ceaser 1979; Lowi 1985); ‘going public’ (Kernell 1997); the ‘sound’ of leadership (Hart 1987); the ‘public presidency’ (Edwards 1983) or the ‘spectacle’ of leadership (Miroff 1988).

¹⁰What Aristotle in the Rhetoric (1259b–1362a) calls epideictic rhetoric; that is, praising or blaming.

¹¹See, for example, Miroff (2000, 83–124), who argues that democratic leaders have to be both male and female; that is, compassionate, consultative and caring, yet tough.

¹²That democracy is an inclusive regime means that the idea of popular rule becomes, in practice, the rule of the poor, simply because there are more poor than rich.

¹³On the different voting behaviour of the young and old, see Le Duc, Niemi and Norris (2002, Ch. 7 and 9); Klingemann and Fuchs (1998, Ch. 2 and 3).

¹⁴Stalin had merely to note, in a Central Committee resolution of 14 August 1946, that the ‘literary-artistic journals published in Leningrad, The Star and Leningrad, carry themselves perfectly unsatisfactorily’ to start a wholesale cultural purge that lasted until 1952: see Ulam (1973, 643–52), Swayze (1962) and Tökės (1975).

¹⁵See, generally, Blais et al. (2004), Gidengil et al. (2004), Gollop (2004), Goot (2000), Inglehart (1977), Inglehart (1997), McAllister (2003) and Putnam (2000).

¹⁶On the major transitions, from printing, to the telegraph, broadcasting, television and, most recently, the Web and the digital revolution, see Gordon (1977) and Thorbourn and Jenkins (2003).

¹⁷As Kernell (1997, 124–7) notes, strategic travelling was made possible by advances in international travel.

¹⁸For the scholarship on the Internet see, for example, Bimber (2003) and Chadwick (2006). On blogs, see Anderson, Dean and Lovink (2006), Davis (2005) and Keren (2006).

¹⁹For example, the opposition and the media condemned Rudd and his Treasurer Wayne Swann for refusing to state on TV or radio the size of the 2009 budget deficit in case it would subsequently be used against them in election campaigns.

²⁰For Campbell's influence on Blair, see Seldon (2004, 293–314). On ‘spin-doctoring’ in comparative perspective, see Esser, Reinemann and Fan (2000).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Kane

John Kane and Haig Patapan are professors in the Department of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University. Research for this article was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.

Haig Patapan

John Kane and Haig Patapan are professors in the Department of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University. Research for this article was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.