Constructing political legitimacy and authority in discourse

This article examines the construction of political legitimacy and authority in the discourses of democratic leaders by attempting to distinguish between two often confused notions, and to identify the discursive and argumentative procedures that put them in place. It takes stock of a body of work devoted to the subject and proposes an original approach that emphasizes the centrality of argumentation in the process of legitimation and the construction of a leader's authority. Using the example of the first speeches of the heads of state at the time of the Covid-19 crisis, it proposes an analytical framework that can account for discursive and argumentative operations and their socio-political stakes in context.