The political-discursive construction of the leadership of Fernando de la Rúa in the last stage of his Government

Abstract

This paper analyzes the political-discursive construction of De la Rua’s leadership, placing the axis in his discourse opening sessions before Legislative Assembly on 2001. In the first part elaborates a conceptualization for the socio-political analysis of the presidential discourse, from an articulation of tools of discursive theory of hegemony, French social semiotics and theories of leadership and government communication. In the second part develops an historical-political analysis of the content and the enunciative modality of the presidential discourse. From the empirical analysis it is concluded that De la Rúa delimited a frontier of exclusion against the menemism at economic and political-institutional level, while keeping unquestioned the nodal nucleus of neoliberal order. From an efficientist and assistentialist logic, promoted the radicalization of reforms and orthodox adjustments and adopted the Trickle Down theory at social level. From the enunciative side the contrast with menemist aesthetic assumed a more radicalized and general form.