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Mots. Les langages du politique, n°134/2024

Mécaniques de la dépolitisation

Edited by Valérie Bonnet, Emmanuel Marty, Cécile Robert

Mots. Les langages du politique



Mechanics of depoliticisation

The notion of depoliticisation has given rise to considerable work in political science over the last thirty years, but has received relatively little attention in the sciences of language, discourse and communication. This issue looks at depoliticisation, understood as the expression of a – possibly deliberate – failure in the modes of discourse of social conflict by bodies that are in principle responsible for fuelling democracy: elected representatives and the institutions of representative democracy, the news media, agencies and para-public or private organisations that mediate part of our social lives, choices and commitments.
The articles in this issue explore in greater depth the various discursive mechanisms of depoliticisation, whether it be the disqualification of a political approach to the issues and subjects at stake, the narrowing of the space for democratic debate, or the invisibilisation of politics through the gradual imposition of supposedly apolitical rationalities. From the public communication of ministries to the discourse of tech players, via the various mechanisms for managing ecological and social debates, the processes of depoliticisation can be seen in very different communicational contexts and can also be the work of very different players, which these contributions aim to shed light on.