Book: Discourse and Democracy

No Comments

Title: Discourse and Democracy
Subtitle: Critical Analysis of the Language of Government
Series Title: Routledge Critical Studies in Discourse

Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
http://www.routledge.com/

Book URL: http://bit.ly/1vpECk9

Author: Michael Farrelly

Hardback: ISBN:  9780415872355 Pages: 138 Price: U.K. £ 85.00

Abstract:

In this new study, Farrelly gives a critical examination of democracy as it is
conceived and practiced in contemporary advanced liberal nations. The received
wisdom on democracy is probelmatized through a close analysis of discourse in
combination with critical theories of democracy and of the State. The central
theme of the book is the paradox of pervasive reference to democracy as a
legitimation of political action by liberal governments versus the converse
weakening of actual democratic practice within the liberal world. Farrelly
builds on the work of Fairclough and others to examine this paradox,
developing a new critical concept of “democratism” as an ideology that
undermines the possibility of a more genuine democracy through political
actors who oversimplify the idea of democracy. The book includes critical
analyses of key political texts taken from presidential and prime ministerial
speeches from the US and UK that attach democracy to non-democratic practices.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Get Adobe Flash player