COMPARING GOVERNANCE STYLE AND LANGUAGE STYLE: QUANTITATIVE TEXT ANALYSES OF SPEECHES BY HEADS OF STATES

This paper aims at studying governance styles of the presidents of Kazakhstan and Russia.By substantiating the concept of governance and governance style, I find a way to measure it using quantitative text analysis of the political speeches.The qualitative analysis further illustrates the similarity between the discourse of the leaders from post-Soviet states like Kazakhstan and Russia and leaders of long-standing democracies, the US and France.The official communication of heads of states is used as textual data for analysis.Data support the hypothesis that the rhetoric of modern leaders of Kazakhstan and Russia is very similar to democratic discourses.Moreover, Barack Obama and Emmanuel Macron largely use nationalism/paternalism and maintenance of power rhetoric.Comparative analysis of the discourse of the Kazakhstani and the Russian presidents reveal that the former demonstrates more democratic and liberal rhetoric.