Refocusing democracy

The Chinese government’s framing strategy in political language

Bibliographic Data

ID6253607
AuthorsYue Hu (0000-0002-2829-3971, Tsinghua University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume27
Issue2
Pages302-320
Publication date2020-02-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDemocratization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1351-0347 • E-ISSN: 1743-890X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13510347.2019.1690461
OpenAlexW2986251386
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited57

Authoritarian governments talk about democracy frequently. Why do they do so? What does the term democracy mean in an authoritarian political language? This research uses a computer-assisted text analytical approach illustrating how an authoritarian government strategically manipulates the discourse about democracy to benefit itself. By analysing over a million political articles published in People's Daily over five decades, the study shows a refocusing framing strategy, in which the Chinese government defines democracy not with regime justification but with national policy priorities while denoting democracy most frequently alongside the fundamental values. With this strategy, the framed discourse appear to be consistent with the fundamental values in Western democracies but work for the preservation of the authoritarian regime

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Framing (construction · Government (linguistics · Linguistics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Asian Studies and History · Computational and Text Analysis Methods · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · History · Law

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