Supplementing the tropes: Poststructuralist discourse theory and rhetorical political analysis

This article explores the articulation of poststructuralist Discourse Theory (DT) with Rhetorical Political Analysis (RPA). Critical of the ways in which Ernesto Laclau’s ‘rhetorical turn’ reduces rhetoric to the tropes, and to catachresis in particular, I argue that tropes involve more than naming and that they must be understood and analysed as parts of larger argumentative propositions. Supportive of the general approach of DT I outline two rhetorical concepts, ‘enthymeme’ and ‘invention’ which can contribute to the critical analysis of the discursive terrain of politics. RPA, I argue, refocuses our attention on the forms of political agency and action which take place in specific and particular situations, in ways which are also of value to the formation of political strategies.