Mémoire
| Résumé : | Theoretically anchored in discursive institutionalism, this study examined the way political actors in Latin America legitimised the use of recall referendum through their discursive practices. This process was analysed through two linguistic theories: Critical Discourse Analysis and legitimation strategies. The former enabled the contextual study of the discursive events in which the legitimation occurrences were embedded, whereas the latter provided the linguistic tools to examine the discourses. Considering previous studies about recall (Welp, 2015) and legitimation (Reyes, 2011), the paper looked for instances of justification by political actors in their promotion recall as a ‘tool for bad losers’. Therefore, the discursive analysis involved the concepts of emotions (particularly fear), a hypothetical future, rationality, voices of expertise and altruism. Consequently, the research found strong evidence that recall was instrumentalized by political leaders for their interests, which excluded the citizenry’s will. Furthermore, their arguments were never associated with any real expertise on the issue at stake. |
