Action in culture: Act I of the presidential primary campaign in the U.S., April to December, 2015

Abstract

This article offers a thick description of the United States during the first nine months of the 2016 presidential election competition. It argues that this competition is organized in a theatrical way, and that this period, from April to December 2015, represents act one of the drama. It argues that performances in act one contribute to setting the cultural and interpretive conditions in which citizens will enter and act back on the drama in its subsequent acts, in state primaries and caucuses, and in the general election in November 2016. Building on the works of Roland Barthes and Clifford Geertz, the article gives a structural, or semiotic, interpretation of the dominant symbols and discourses operating in the dramatic field, and using Alexander's cultural pragmatics, it identifies and analyzes key performances given by candidates Clinton and Trump, which crystalized particular meaning formations and lent the proceedings a sense of dynamism and flow. The article demonstrates how analyzing performances in a manner consistent with cultural pragmatic theory contributes to research on electoral politics, political authority, and legitimation processes.

The Societalization of Social Problems: Church Pedophilia, Phone Hacking, and the Financial Crisis

“…At the micro-level, societalization can be conceptualized as a series of performances and counter-performances (Alexander 2011; Alexander, Giesen, and Mast 2006; Mast 2016; Norton 2014b; Reed 2013). Investigative journalists scan the social horizon for big stories, hoping to lob incriminating constructions to citizen-audiences who will fuse with their indignant narrations, sharing their rage.…”

Gender and charismatic power

“…Fortunately, the present moment offers an ideal opportunity to examine confluences and departures between charismatic and gendered power. It has now become a matter of scholarly consensus, for example, to say that Trump is "charismatic" to those who support him (Hochschild 2016;Joosse 2018aJoosse , 2018bLukes 2017;Mast 2016;Meyer 2016;Wagner-Pacifici and Tavory 2017;Zaretsky 2019). Indeed, Steven Lukes (2017, p. 1) assessed Trump's first year as President and noted that his "exercising of presidential power approximated Weber's ideal-typical picture of how charisma works … remarkably closely."…”

“…He had defused the criticism with humor, defied the logic of Presidential disqualification that was clearly in operation, and escaped from what, for any other candidate, would have been a deadly snare (Joosse 2018a, pp. 931-932;Mast 2016).…”

The drama of politics

“…Finally, in the recent presidential elections, the belittled underdog Donald Trump not only outplayed his Republican rivals (cf. Mast 2016), but eventually defeated the Democrat Hillary Clinton, odds-on favorite for most commentators, utilizing a novel performative repertoire combining public transgressions with populist symbolism. It seems fitting that an American cultural sociologist, Jeffrey C. Alexander, highlighted and elaborated performance as an integral part of modern politics.…”