THIS PAPER AIMS AT STUDYING GOVERNANCE STYLES AND LANGUAGE STYLES OF 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 SPEECH

Abstract

This paper aims at studying governance styles and language styles of 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 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. The concentration of nationalism and paternalism key words in the political texts of Macron is higher than its average concentration in the speeches of Kazakhstani and Russian presidents.  In addition, Obama uses more traditionalism key words than both Kazakhstani and Russian leaders.