Bush and Obama - Two Different Ways of Reacting to Crises?

Abstract

Political leadership is one of the most important qualities of a political leader, especially in times of economic crises. People and markets expect political leaders to manage the crisis well. One can distinguish two aspects of a successful crisis management. The first one is the enactment of appropriate policy measures. The other one is to create an image of leadership to soothe both markets and voters. Branding oneself as a successful leader is an important aspect. The economic crisis which started to spread in 2007 with the implosion of a real estate bubble in the USA provides the opportunity to analyze commonalities and differences between two presidents: George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In this paper we analyze the four state of the Union adresses from 2007-2010. Our main focus is on how the two presidents used these addresses to create their image of political leadership in times of economic crises. We will use both quantitative and interpretive content analys techniques to identify their communication strategies.

Keywords: U.S.; Presidential Discourses; State of the Union; Bush; Obama