Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...

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Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III brought by the contemporary trends in that domain. First of all, he inherited from “the growing standardization in the ‘image politics’ of Western democracies of national political leaders” (Barisione, 2009). As a matter of fact, the successive and bouleversing innovations and modernizations of the communication media and tools this sector is knowing since more than a century, and more recently the digital revolution, compelled the politicians to adapt their political communication to the new imperatives and expectations of their societies in terms of political leadership. The earlier forms of modern political communication were for instance pioneered in the US and UK political tradition, with a large-balaying continuum of political communication, encompassing the traditional press, but also broadcast news (radio and TV), and the new forms of information technologies (phone texts, internet…etc). New patterns emerged: as explained by Mazzolini, right-wing populism positioned itself “firmly in advanced industrial democracies media and is on the conservative reactionary spectrum of political ideology” (Stanyer, 2007). Politicians are nowadays profoundly engaged in a process of political branding that imposes its own rules and diktats. A brief historical overview of contemporary trends of communicated politics, as detailed by Sanders (2009), reveal that its evolutionary path followed several steps. Initiated by the 1953’s presidential campaign of Eisenhower “with a revolutionary use of TV advertising campaign coupled to the extensive use of polls”, this trend was accentuated and developed in the 1960s with the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race (Sanders, 2009). Later on, the equation politics-communication was scrutinized under a variety of perspectives, among which Mc Combs and Shaw ‘s agenda setting effect of the media or Stuart Halls’ encoding/decoding paradigm. The theoretical framework under which Sarkozy’s political communication will be studied is the one defined by Johnston in 1990 and according to A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 70
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III which a purposeful communication of politics encompasses four categories: election communication, political communication and the news, political rhetoric, and finally political attitudes and behavior (Sanders, 2009). From the latter, it is interesting to cite the parallel established by the Italian political analyst, Donatella Campus, between Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi, since she identified a four- steps strategy common to their respective approach of the media and the reinforcing of their image, made of: “building an appealing image, establishing a direct and emotional link, creating media events, and going personal” (Campus, 2010). At this level, two main purposes are targetted, both the mediatization and the personalization of politics. The transalpine political spectacle introduced by Berlusconi in the Italian media relies heavily upon a top-heavy occupation of its space, and notably the TV channels, to generate a top brand-recognition phenomenon within the population. Sarkozy as well constructed its political leadership upon “an intensive and long-term investment in setting the news agenda and becoming a political celebrity” as stated by Campus and Ventura (2009). Sarkozy is therefore in complete rupture with the French presidential tradition which consisted in limited media appareances and the practical inexistence of modern communication techniques (under the Chirac presidency for example, it would have been unconceivable to send phone texts or emails to the UMP members database). At this point, the over-occupation of the mediatic space is not enough, Sarkozy accentuated even more his force de frappe via the Anglo-Saxon technique of “riding the wave”, since he “always coordinated his public statements and political decisions with external events to benefit A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 71
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