Constitutive Rhetoric and Partisan Polarization in the 2016 Presidential Primary Debates

Authors

Joel Reed, University of Arkansas
Mitchell S. McKinney, University of Akron

Abstract

For decades political scientists and communication scholars have grappled with the connection between political primaries and rising polarization. Despite significant scholarly attention to the connection between primaries and polarization, little attention has been afforded to the rhetoric of polarization in primary campaigns. Through the lens of constitutive rhetoric, we investigate the intersection of primary campaigns and polarization from a rhetorical perspective. We analyze the rhetoric of the 2016 presidential primary debates to understand how candidates drew on traditional and innovative strategies of rhetorical polarization in constituting party identity. We find that establishment candidates depended on in-group affirmation and out-group subversion while partisan outsiders deployed entelechy and affect to constitute a unique partisan identity.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Reed, Joel and McKinney, Mitchell S. (2023) "Constitutive Rhetoric and Partisan Polarization in the 2016 Presidential Primary Debates," Speaker & Gavel: Vol. 59: Iss. 1, Article 5.
Available at: https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/speaker-gavel/vol59/iss1/5