Slogans

Abstract

This chapter examines the production and use of political slogans in various locales across the globe, seeking to throw light on how words are employed to persuade and affect publics in an age of global capitalism. It considers how the slogan as a particular cultural form operates in settings where political performance is shaped by the neoliberal logic of governance. The chapter indicates two main aspects of the relationship between slogans and neoliberalism. It introduces the various contributions, describing how neoliberal stretches of discourse are made into slogans, and suggests some of the mechanisms that account for their effective circulation. The chapter illustrates how slogans seek to generate public support and promote political unity by collapsing frames of interaction and reference. It suggests that slogans relate to language as a mode of action and social practice and should therefore be approached as performative discourse rather than simply as a form of directive speech.