The discourse that individual political actors use to achieve their political goals has a significant impact on our everyday life and on the various (democratic) processes taking place in each country. With the help of political discourse, political actors strive to realize their political goals and thus their ideological and political agenda. Slovenia and the United States of America (hereinafter the USA) were in a period of transition of power at the time of the emergence of the coronavirus. In our research we compare them and look for similarities or indentify differences between them. New circumstances required political actors to use different forms of expression, using political discourse that directly affected different segments of society. In Slovenia, the political discourse that mentions staffing and staff turnover within the public sector stands out the most.
For the purpose of the research, we defined the political discourse and presented the socio-political context and theoretical framework during the new coronavirus crisis with the help of the interpretative method. Using the comparative analysis, we collate the discourse of selected political actors and highlighted the differences and similarities. Using the method of critical discourse analysis, we performed a detailed, examination of the effects of political discourse on staffing in the public sector and at the same time highlighted some legal bases that represent the only legal frame for employment in the public sector, or more specifically in the public administration.
We found that the political discourse in the selected cases from the USA and Slovenia differed and thus led to different consequences and situations. The discourse used by individual political actors in Slovenia contained many metaphors and the exploitation of positions of power. Using the example from the USA, we found that the discourse can also lead to a crisis of the democratic system, which can also result in an attack on Congress.
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