oa Bevlogen taal buiten het Binnenhof

Spirited speech outside the Binnenhof: rhetoric, entertainment and identification in the political lectures of Timmermans, Van der Plas, and Omtzigt

Despite the surge in recent scholarship on Dutch political rhetoric, relatively few scholars venture outside the Binnenhof, the centre of Dutch national politics. This article attempts to do so by analyzing three political lectures delivered by prominent party leaders leading up to the 2023 parliamentary election: Caroline van der Plas, Pieter Omtzigt, and Frans Timmermans. The lectures are examples of a hybrid form of the epideictic or ceremonial genre of speech in which the object is to transcend the political reality of the present, and they should be studied accordingly. All three speakers attempt to define the present and unify their audience around a common political identity based on shared values. The hybrid genre of the political lecture offers politicians an opportunity to transcend the business-like style that currently dominates Dutch political rhetoric scholarship and forms an interesting source for future research.