Assessing agents and objects of deliberation in US Presidential debates - an empirical case for representative claims

Descriptive forms of representation have become increasingly difficult to maintain theoretically and practically, especially in areas where classic demoi and constituents are hard to identify. Employing a more "systemic" (or even globalized) vantage point on democratic governance demands that representation as well as deliberation have to be re-conceptualized as sequenced and spatially dispersed phenomena, unbundling previously fairly tightly defined concepts. In this vein, several authors, such as John Dryzek and Michael Saward, have suggested that studying language becomes more fundamental in tracing patterns of representation. However major impasses in conceptualizing and applying concepts of "discursive representation" and claims-making about constituencies remain. This paper attempts to tackle some of those problems. On a conceptual level, I seek to theorize the concept of representative claims as a political instrument of establishing representation in a deliberative system. I conceive claims-making as a strategic and unidirectional form of communication. It combines several elements of theoretical concepts, such as defining imagined communities, promoting agency, and reflecting powerful organizing ideas of societies (frames). Despite its strategic and rhetoric character, I argue that claims-making contains vital elements for understanding deliberative interaction when analyzing communication aimed across public arenas. On a methodological level, a viable operationalization strategy for identifying and analyzing representative claims is suggested and presented. Inspired by narrative analysis, I utilize grammar rules and linguistic patterns to identify representative claims in political discourse. I demonstrate the usefulness of this method by presenting results of the changing patterns of representative claims made by the Democratic and Republican Presidential nominees during the televised debates from 1960 to 2012.