Institutional Agency and the Rhetorical Toggling of Social Position and Social Structure

• In Event: Spectacles Of The People/ For The People: Constructing Legitimate Authoritative Arguments

Abstract

We use rhetorical theory to conceptualize how a state uses rhetorical strategies to construct legitimate authority that help persuade and rationalize radical institutional change. We analyze the rhetorical strategies used by the Chinese Communist Party to institutionalize a set of controversial practices: a capitalist stock market. Our results suggest that the state rhetorically constructs its ethos or identity in order to legitimate the state’s institutional authority and proposed changes.

Authors

• Yuan Li, University of Southern California

• Sandy Green, University of Southern California