Dramaturgy of political negotiation. The porous border between real politics and political fiction

American scenarist Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the legendary TV series West Wing, could be considered as a genius of political dialogue. His subtle mixture of deliberations taking place in the coulisses of power around the White House and the semi-romantic stories of his characters have proven to be extremely efficient for an audience. The skills of Sorkin are based upon a particularly constructivist idea of political negotiation: politicians do nothing but construct contexts which are fit to let their positions during negotiations be dominant, by manipulating deadlines, places of encounter, presence and absence of witnesses, etcher. If one compares this fictional universe - or its more recent diabolic version, in the series House of Cards – with historical events such as the Cuba missile crisis (1962) or the negotiations between Israel and Egypt at Camp David (1973) – a textbook case for political scientists - it becomes clear that reality and fiction come very close on an analytical level. This is revealed, for instance, in the application of game theory or public choice theory.
This article applies the constructivist perspective, as it reveals itself in political fiction and in certain theories of political economy on the political reality of Brussels, with its different levels (city, region, federal state of Belgium, European Union). This exercise is part of a larger project of political ethnography which aims to combine, on the one hand, methods of anthropology, discourse theory and political sociology, and, on the other hand, artistic research, especially in the field of documentary theatre. This experiment illustrates how, in the field of political negotiation, the transgressions of the border between fiction and reality is not only a hypothesis for dramaturgical analysis, but also an issue of theatrical embodiment.

Jaar van publicatie:2016

Trefwoorden:Political Discourse, Political Fiction, Brussels, Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, Negotiations

Toegankelijkheid:Open