From Inappropriate to Inevitable: The Normalization of Violent Rhetoric in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh Discourse (2010-2023)

When does violent political rhetoric stop being shocking and start being normal? This paper investigates how Azerbaijan's official discourse on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict transformed between 2010 and 2023, from emphasizing international law to deploying emotionally charged, militarized, and dehumanizing language. I examine whether societal tolerance thresholds for hostile elite communication shifted during this period: did what elites and citizens deemed inappropriate in 2010 become accepted by 2023, and through what mechanisms? Normative standards shift, adapt, and sometimes collapse under sustained pressure. This raises a critical question: if societies can be conditioned to accept increasingly extreme rhetoric, what does this mean for peaceful conflict resolution? I conceptualize Azerbaijan's rhetorical evolution as normative boundary erosion, where the previously unacceptable becomes normalized through repeated exposure, institutional failures, and strategic validation. Methodologically, I employ a longitudinal multi-method design capturing elite discourse and public reception. I analyze 200+ presidential speeches, parliamentary debates, and official statements (2010-2023) through computational text analysis, tracing patterns in emotionally charged vocabulary such as alçaldılma (humiliation), qisas(revenge), düşmən(enemy). I pair this with social media analysis surrounding the 2016 Four-Day War and 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, examining hashtag campaigns and engagement patterns to assess how publics responded and whether contestation or acceptance emerged. The analysis investigates three potential phases. First, whether elite discourse shifted from legalistic appeals toward emotionally saturated narratives of national humiliation (2010-2014). Second, whether the 2016 Four-Day War served as a critical juncture validating aggressive rhetoric and triggering shifts in public discourse. Third, whether previously transgressive language became normalized with diminished contestation (2018-2023). Of particular interest: did social media function merely as amplification tool or as normalization mechanism where citizens actively validated violent rhetoric? This research offers three contributions. First, it demonstrates that normative standards are endogenously produced through feedback loops between institutional failures (stalled OSCE mediation), strategic outcomes (military results), and public sentiment. Second, it reveals how competitive authoritarian regimes exploit normative malleability to manufacture consent for violence. Third, it illuminates how normative erosion renders diplomatic solutions psychologically unavailable even when strategically feasible. By examining elite-public co-evolution in a non-Western conflict context, this study advances understanding of how hostile communication reshapes democratic discourse and forecloses conflict resolution possibilities.