When Politicians Talk

Ofer Feldman is a professor of Political Psychology and Behavior at the Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. He is the author of more than 90 journal articles and book chapters, and more than 100 encyclopedia items, in the fields of political psychology/behavior, communication studies, and Japanese politics, and the sole author, co-author, sole editor, and co-editor of 16 books and monographs, including Talking Politics in Japan Today (2004), Seiji shinrigaku [Political Psychology] (in Japanese, 2006), The Psychology of Political Communicators (2019, with Sonja Zmerli), and The Rhetoric of Political Leadership (2020).

Introduction: Assessing Cultural Influences on Political Leaders’ Discourse.- Deep Culture: The Hebrew Bible and Israeli Political Speech.- Qur’anifying Public Political Discourse: Islamic Culture and Religious Rhetoric.- The Role of Culture in Turkish Political Discourse: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party.- The Symbolic Construction of a Messiah: Jair Bolsonaro’s Public, Christian Discourse.- Rationality and Moderation: German Chancellors’ Post-War Rhetoric.- Talking Politics: The Influence of Historical and Cultural Transformations on Polish Political Rhetoric.- A Tale of Two Prime Ministers: The Influence of Greek Culture in Post-Crises Political Speech.- Rhetoric, Culture, and Climate Wars: A Discursive Analysis of Australian Political Leaders’ Responses to the Black Summer Bushfire Crisis.- The Core Socio-Cultural Building Blocks Underlying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speeches to the United Nations General Assembly.- The President as Macho: Machismo, Misogyny, and the Language of Toxic Masculinity in Philippine Presidential Discourse.

“It is never easy to write or edit a book that aims, like Ofer Feldman’s volume, to provide a panoramic account of phenomena that fall under the rubric of political communication. … Ofer Feldman’s volume is a fine attempt to account for the interface of culture, discourse and politics … . the book possesses a broad appeal, both critical and theoretical, and is bound to attract attention from an interdisciplinary spectrum of early-career as well as experienced scholars.” (Piotr Cap, Language and Dialogue, Vol. 12 (3), 2022)