Pronoun Usage as a Measure of Power Personalization: A General Theory with Evidence from the Chinese-Speaking World

Abstract

How can the growing personalization of power be identified and measured ex ante? Extant measures in the authoritarian literature have traditionally focused on institutional constraints and more recently on individual behaviour – such as purging opposition members from (and packing allies into) government bodies. This article offers a different strategy that examines leaders’ individual rhetoric. It focuses on patterns of pronoun usage for the first person. The author argues that as leaders personalize power, they are less likely to use ‘I’ (a pronoun linked to credit claiming and blame minimizing) and more likely to use ‘we’ (the leader speaks for – or with – the populace). To test this argument, the study focuses on all major, scheduled speeches by all chief executives in the entire Chinese-speaking world – that is, China, Singapore and Taiwan – since independence. It finds a robust pattern between first-person pronouns and political constraints. To ensure the results are not driven by the Chinese sample, the rhetoric of four other political leaders is considered: Albania's Hoxha, North Korea's Kim Il Sung, Hungary's Orbán and Ecuador's Correa. The implications of this project suggest that how leaders talk can provide insights into how they perceive their rule.

Personalization is in the details

“…The exclusive "royal" we meant that politicians are authorized to speak "for" citizens, while the inclusive we signifies group identity and exemplifies when politicians speak "with" citizens. Whereas Liu (2022) does prove that as politicians' personal power increased, the use of 1PP we she observed also increased, it must be noted that there are multiple issues with the 1PP categories she proposed. Regarding the royal we, Liu (2022Liu ( : 1263 claims that leaders "[do] not always or strictly" assign a divine right for themselves standing for authority.…”

“…Although Rahat and Kenig (2018) and Van Zoonen and Holtz-Bacha (2000) note that language use -and more precisely, the use of the 1PS rather than the 1PP pronouns -may indicate the process of personalization in political communication, they did not investigate pronominal language in detail and their observations do not stem from linguistics. Liu (2022) undertook to determine the personalization of power (i.e., "the power to decide", cf. Liu 2022: 1258) ex ante with the help of the 1PS I and 1PP we in the rhetoric of various Mandarin Chinese-speaking politicians in China, Singapore and Taiwan from the 1940s.…”

“…The paper argued that as leaders personalize power, they use the 1PS I less and the 1PP we more. The 1PS I is associated with "credit claiming" and "blame avoiding" (Liu 2022(Liu : 1259. However, the use of the 1PS assigns moral and personal responsibility to the speaker (Allen 2007;Beard 2000;Mühlhäusler-Harré, 1990;Wilson 1990) and therefore, in the case of unsuccessful measures and negative outcomes, it is the politician who needs to bear the blame if they use the 1PS.…”

“…However, the use of the 1PS assigns moral and personal responsibility to the speaker (Allen 2007;Beard 2000;Mühlhäusler-Harré, 1990;Wilson 1990) and therefore, in the case of unsuccessful measures and negative outcomes, it is the politician who needs to bear the blame if they use the 1PS. The 1PP we is associated with situations in which more power is assigned to politicians, as "there are few constraints on their personalization of power" (Liu 2022(Liu : 1260.…”

“…First-person singular pronouns can be connected to personalization in the sense that the politician speaks for themselves rather than on behalf of a collective, such as a political party (cf. Van Zoonen-Holtz-Bacha 2000;Liu 2022;Rahat-Kenig 2018;Szabó 2021Szabó , 2022. By way of illustration, example (1) from Mitt Romney's 2012 and example (2) from Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential nomination acceptance speeches demonstrate two contrasting ways of using the 1PS I.…”