The Language of Autocrats: Leaders' Language in Natural Disaster Crises

Abstract

Recent research has shown that natural disasters present political problems for societies, as these events make both citizens and leaders vulnerable. Autocratic leaders use language strategically following natural disasters to maximize their time in office. We introduce a new data set derived from using computational linguistic programs (LIWC and Coh‐Metrix) to explore language patterns in the discourse of three prominent political leaders to uncover their strategies for navigating the political and social problems created by natural disasters. Our analysis covers the speeches of Chairman Mao Tse‐Tung, Commander Fidel Castro, and President Hosni Mubarak. We show that leaders' language reveals their preferences and strategies for accommodating the social, political, and economic shocks created by natural disasters through blaming and credit‐claiming language. Our results provide insight into how autocratic leaders' language reflects these three strategies.

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