Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas

by Adriana Angel (Editor), Michael L Butterworth (Editor), Nancy R Gïmez (Editor)

Overview

Democracy is venerated in US political culture, in part because it is our democracy. As a result, we assume that the government and institutions of the United States represent the true and right form of democracy, needed by all. This volume challenges this commonplace belief by putting US politics in the context of the Americas more broadly.

Seeking to cultivate conversations among and between the hemispheres, this collection examines local political rhetorics across the Americas. The contributors—scholars of communication from both North and South America—recognize democratic ideals as irreducible to a single national perspective and reflect on the ways social minorities in the Western Hemisphere engage in unique political discourses. The essays consider current rhetorics in the United States on American exceptionalism, immigration, citizenship, and land rights alongside current cultural and political events in Latin America, such as corruption in Guatemala, women’s activism in Ciudad Juárez, representation in Venezuela, and media bias in Brazil. Through a survey of these rhetorics, this volume provides a broad analysis of democracy. It highlights institutional and cultural differences in the Americas and presents a hemispheric democracy that is both more pluralistic and more agonistic than what is believed about the system in the United States.

In addition to the editors, the contributors include José Cortez, Linsay M. Cramer, Pamela Flores, Alberto González, Amy N. Heuman, Christa J. Olson, Carlos Piovezani, Clara Eugenia Rojas Blanco, Abraham Romney, René Agustín de los Santos, and Alejandra Vitale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271089317
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	08/02/2023
Series:	Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation , #25
Pages:	290
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Adriana Angel is Associate Professor of Communication at Universidad de la Sabana, Colombia.

Michael L. Butterworth is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Nancy R. Gómez is Professor of Communication at Universidad del Norte, Colombia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas

Adriana Angel, Michael L. Butterworth, and Nancy R. Gómez

Part 1 Questioning the Narratives of Democracy Beyond the West

The Democratic Hemisphere

Christa J. Olson

A Strange Democracy: Rhetoric, Posthegemony, and Latinamericanism

José Cortez

Draining the Democracy: Donald J. Trump and Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric

Alberto González, Amy N. Heuman, and Linsay M. Cramer

Revisiting the Seeming Impossibility of Migrants as Political Actors

René Agustín de los Santos

American Exceptionalism, Baseball Diplomacy, and the Normalization of US-Cuban Relations

Michael L. Butterworth

Part 2 Problematizing and Reconstructing Democracy in Latin America

Communicating About Corruption: Guatemalan Rhetorics

of Corruption

Adriana Angel

Re/Tracing the Local Grassroots Women Activists’ Crafting of Rhetorical Agency in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Clara Eugenia Rojas Blanco

The Peace Agreement and the Rhetoric of Religion in the Colombian Plebiscite: Religious Activism and Democracy

Pamela Flores and Nancy R. Gómez

People, Media, and Democracy in Brazil: Discourses About Lula’s Oratory in the Brazilian Press

Carlos Piovezani

The Farewell Speech of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

Alejandra Vitale

Spectacular Crisis: Rhetorics of Representation in Venezuela

Abraham Romney

Notes

List of Contributors

Index

Editorial Reviews

Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas offers a valuable lesson. When contending with the Americas, rhetoric, and/or democracy, an investigation of the Idea of the Americas is fundamental to an understanding of what haunts us in the present, essential to the projects of unsettling the ‘settler’ as a system, and consubstantial for rethinking rhetoric [and] democracy.”

—Romeo García The Quarterly Journal of Speech

“With an impressive diversity of both topics and authors, Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas invites readers to consider the structural determinants as well as living habits of twenty-first-century politics. Angel, Butterworth, and Gómez demonstrate leadership in intellectual and disciplinary ways, bringing scholars together and suggesting with notable hope the future of international collaborations. This rich and deeply grounded collection courageously directs attention to the racial and class-based struggles that continue to challenge the Americas.”

—E. Johanna Hartelius,editor of The Rhetorics of US Immigration: Identity, Community, Otherness

“Rhetorics of Democracy in the Americas is a shining example of why we need to think about god-concepts like democracy across space and time through transnational analysis. Rather than assume the naturalness of the nation-state borders in South, Central, and North America, the authors denaturalize them, telling the stories of their emergence and of how the presence of borders and the relationalities between these borders now shapes what democracy looks like and can be.”

—Sara McKinnon,author of Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics

From the Publisher