Murray J. Edelman Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Murray J. Edelman (1919–2001) integrated insights from linguistics, rhetoric, semiotics, psychology, and philosophy into the discipline of political science in the United States. Edelman was born in Pennsylvania, received his bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University in 1941, his master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1942, and his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1948, where he subsequently taught until joining the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1966. In 1971 Edelman was awarded an endowed chair, which he named for the social psychologist George Herbert Mead (1863–1931). A recipient of many awards during his career, including visiting professorships, Fulbright awards, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities, Edelman retired from teaching in 1990 and continued to publish until his death.

Edelman was critical of the logical positivism and empiricism that dominated mainstream political science because it neglected the subtle ways in which subjective realities were shaped, manipulated, and reinforced by symbols, rhetoric, and language. In the now-classic The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1964), he argued that popular participation by citizens was “largely symbolic” (p. 4) and that public policies thought to benefit the general public were beneficial only to small groups. His other publications include Politics as Symbolic Action (1971), Political Language (1977), Constructing the Political Spectacle (1988), From Art to Politics (1995), The Politics of Misinformation (2001), and numerous articles.

A major theme of his research was that political language had the power to reveal as well as to conceal. Language, he argued, can conceal the inner workings of power by naturalizing power relations or by manipulating, distracting, and deflecting the attention of citizens to trivial matters that are falsely labeled important. Political language magnifies the trivial and minimizes the serious to gain the quiescent acceptance of the status quo or to mobilize support for public policies that too often benefit only elites. For Edelman, language was not a neutral vehicle for describing an objective reality but was itself a tool for shaping meanings, manipulating hopes and fears, constructing realities, framing interpretations, rationalizing unequal distributions of resources and power, and even shaping the identity of the speaker. Whether symbols are icons or words, they have multiple meanings: a flag can invoke pride and hope, fear and hatred, or nostalgic longing depending on the social and material situation of the observer. While Edelman’s scholarship might read as despairing and cynical because it portrays politics as deceptive and manipulative, it contains a strong belief in the ability of citizens to decipher spectacles and resist manipulation.

An eclectic scholar who borrowed insights from George Orwell, Jacques Ellul, Harold Lasswell, Jacques Derrida, and George Herbert Mead, Edelman’s own contributions continue to shape the study of politics through his influence on scholars such as George Lakoff and Lance Bennett. In a media saturated age, given the power of officials, campaign advisors, advertisers, and strategists to mold images, manipulate symbols, and deploy language to mobilize support or opposition to causes or persons, Edelman’s groundbreaking scholarship remains insightful and significant.

Bibliography:

Edelman, Murray J. The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1967 [1964].
Utter, Glenn H., and Charles Lockhart. American Political Scientists: A Dictionary. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2002.