A “More Political” Commission? Reassessing EC Politicization through Language

Abstract

This article contributes to the study of the European Commission's (EC) politicization by examining this phenomenon from the angle of communication. We elaborate a novel approach based on two linguistic indicatorscharisma and technicalitywhich we then apply through a content analysis of 8,947 speeches delivered by Commission members between 1999 and 2019. Contrary to the narrative of an ever more political Commission, we find that the linguistic politicization of the EC decreased over the period under exam, reaching its nadir during Jean-Claude Juncker's presidential term . Our findings raise the question of whether language is yet another ordinary dimension of politicization, or rather it is used strategically by the Commission to underplay its underlying politicization as measured in more traditional institutional, policy, and individual terms. Either way, our study highlights the multi-faceted nature of the politicization concept, and the need for deeper and more nuanced analyses of it.

Women Leading the Opposition: Gender and Rhetoric in the European Parliament

“…To analyze the PGLs' charismatic rhetoric, we followed previous studies (Bligh et al, 2004;Müller & Pansardi, 2022;Olsson & Hammargård, 2016;Pansardi & Tortola, 2022;Tortola & Pansardi, 2018) and combined Diction variables into seven composite constructs. According to the literature, charismatic rhetoric comprises seven essential factors associated with different points along the masculine-feminine continuum of public speechmaking: Three of these factors (collective focus, followers' worth, and similarity to followers) involve community and collectivity ("feminine"); two (action and adversity) involve task orientation and authoritativeness ("masculine"); and the final two (temporal orientation, tangibility, and intangibility) are considered genderneutral (for an in-depth analysis of each factor see Müller & Pansardi, 2022, pp.…”