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Modern Personalization of Politics:
New Approaches to Its Analysis

Artamonova Yu.D.,

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia, juliaartamonova@yahoo.com

elibrary_id: 664992 | ORCID: 0000-0001-5629-4771 | RESEARCHER_ID: N-2214-2018

Demchuk V.A.,

MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia, valdemchuk@gmail.com

elibrary_id: 940325 | ORCID: 0000-0002-2104-8148 |

DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2021.06.08

Rubric: Psychological Discourse: Personalities of Leaders and Provocation as a Political Strategy

For citation:

Artamonova Yu.D., Demchuk V.A. Modern Personalization of Politics: New Approaches to Its Analysis. – Polis. Political Studies. 2021. No. 6. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2021.06.08

Abstract

Analyzing the trend of new personalization of politics, researchers emphasize such features as the appearance of “one-time” leaders without history and context, and within both democratic and hybrid political regimes. Many researchers agree that there are two main reasons for this trend. First, these are the processes of erosion of social groups and the lack of stable requirements for these groups, as well as the lack of stable identification of individuals with a certain group, which raises the problem of articulation of political interests and consolidation of groups, as well as the emergence of new mechanisms of political representation in the framework of post-democracy. Second, it is the influence of mediatization processes (understood as the interaction of social and cultural changes at the micro, meso, and macro levels, and changes in the media), which transforms, in particular, the political class and the style of public policy. The authors highlight the third important factor – namely, the logic of self-reproduction of unstable communities (this self-reproduction is the essence of the post-identity politics). Its inevitable components are shown (the need for political “leaders” without political biography and social environment, the “normal way of life” of the leader should be very recognizable; eventualization (and theatrization) of politics; the model of Levi-Strauss’ social meanings production suggesting a “lack of the signified” and a “surplus of the signifier”; the mechanisms of “anonymous dictatorship”). New approaches for analyzing the new personalized policy are identified – this, on the one hand, is a direction that originates from K. Burke and introduces the parameters of the “dramatic pentad” to delineate the situation, define actions and identify with them, and thus strengthen given political order; on the other hand, the “style” analysis of proposed policy, first of all, by J. Nelson and F. Ankersmit and suggests that the concept of style allows to return the everyday experience of politics. 

Keywords

post-democracy, postidentity, social community, divid, an anonymous dictatorship, eventualization of politics, performance, style.

 Full Text

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