Rowman.com: 9780742536715 - Making Sense of Political Ideology: The Power of Language in Democracy

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Making Sense of Political Ideology The Power of Language in Democracy

978-0-7425-3670-8 • Hardback
November 2005 • $81.00 • (£49.95)

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978-0-7425-3671-5 • Paperback
October 2005 • $26.95 • (£16.95)

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978-1-4616-3907-7 • eBook
October 2005 • $25.99 • (£15.95)

Pages: 160

Size: 7 x 9 1/4

By Bernard L. Brock; Mark E. Huglen; James F. Klumpp and Sharon Howell

Series: Communication, Media, and Politics

Political Science | Political Ideologies / General

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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Political positions in the United States today are ideologically chaotic, and there are significant prices to pay for that chaos. The nation has not reached a crisis yet in her modern political gridlock, but predicting the time when the current generation will face the difficulties of earlier times of crisis such as the Civil War, the Great Depression, or World War II is a difficult task. When that time comes, leaders who can communicate effectively to foster understanding and political unity_and who can respond to a crisis with skilled direction_will be a vital concern. Making Sense of Political Ideology explores the erosion of ties among ideology, language, and political action. Analyzing political language strategies, it shows how to dissect language so we can better understand a speaker's ideology. The authors define four political positions_radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary_and apply their techniques to contemporary issues such as the war on terrorism. They emphasize the dangers of staying trapped in political gridlock with no consensus for governmental direction and propose that the ability to identify and bridge positions can help political communicators toward constructing coalitions and building support for political action.

With Bell's The End of Ideology in 1960, the rise of image politics, and the growing recognition of the independent voter, for almost fifty years ideology seemed to become an exhausted concept. Making Sense of Political Ideology reinvigorates the concept, suggesting that ideology can be used in and explain a host of interactions and transactions in politics.
— James W. Chesebro, Ball State University

In this timely book, Huglen, Brock, Klumpp, and Howell insightfully analyze a central problem in the American democratic process. While such terms as 'liberal' and 'conservative' figure importantly in the national debate, nobody knows what they mean any longer. In the current climate of ideological incoherence, terminological unpredictability, and loss of historical context, it is small wonder that most Americans attend only superficially to political discourse, especially new voters. In a sense they are right, for our political vocabulary has itself become superficial.
— Herbert W. Simons, Temple University, author of Persuasion in Society, editor of The Rhetorical Turn

The authors provide an insightful critical examination of contemporary political discourse, one that invites a fresh and optimistic view of the transformations in political language necessary to transcend seemingly incompatible values, goals, and visions and renew the civic traditions on which our nation was founded.
— Dale A. Bertelsen, Bloomsburg University

Making Sense of Political Ideology would be a useful addition to libraries for undergraduate use. The style is accessible and the authors are strong on description and analysis.
— Political Studies Review

The authors' contribution to understanding the widespread dissatisfaction with contemporary political discourse is original and provocative. They argue that four familiar political positions are associated with four distinct Burkean rhetorical emphases, different kinds of change, and different kinds of catharsis. This book should be widely read by students of rhetoric and politics at a time when both major political parties search for their identities in the post-Bush era.
— Craig Allen Smith, North Carolina State University

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