Praxis, Language and Theory of Political Delegitimization in Contemporary Europe

The novel feature of this research is that it shifts the issue of legitimization/delegitimization from a vertical power set-up (meaning command/obedience between the wielder of power and the subjects) to a horizontal frame of relationship and recognition among political leaders competing to govern a State. It is thus not delegitimization as a form of resistance or disobedience to a power on the part of those who ought to obey, but strategies of discourse and rhetoric by which legitimate politicians step beyond even heated political conflict and resort to branding the opponent as an enemy of the polity, dangerous to that community’s values if he/she should come to govern it. In that horizontal perspective delegitimization indicates an attempt to transform a legitimate adversary into an enemy. Such a perspective, significantly, calls for a historical approach and becomes of central importance.