Diskurs som legitimitet i Kinas Kommunistiske parti: Diskursiv udvikling i Kinas Kommunistiske Parti 1949-1992 og 2012-2025

Discource as legitimacy in the CCP: Discursive development in the Communist Party of China 1949-1992 and 2012-2025

Andersson, Benjamin Lindahl

6. semester

Historie, Bachelor

2025

2025-12-19

79

This Dissertation examines how Chinese national identity and political legitimacy have been discursively articulated and rearticulated under three key leadership periods. Namely: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping. Focusing on these three periods, the study analyzes how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has employed history, ideology, nationalism, and culture as flexible political tools in governance aiming to maintain hegemonic control across different his-torical and socio-political contexts. This thesis adopts a historical discourse-analytical approach inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory. Methodologically supplemented by Michael Schoenhals’ analyses of political language in Chinese politics. This specific framework enables an examina-tion of how political meaning, identity, and authority are constructed through discourse, in-cluding the use of political narratives, slogans, and ideological campaigns. Empirically, the anal-ysis is based on central political speeches and ideological texts from the three periods, includ-ing Mao’s Little Red Book, Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour speeches from 1992, and Xi Jinping’s speeches and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. The analysis demonstrates that the CCP’s political survival cannot be explained primarily through ideological consistency, but rather through a remarkable capacity for discursive adap-tation. Under Mao, political legitimacy and national identity were constructed through revolu-tionary ideology and mass mobilization. During the Deng era, legitimacy became increasingly anchored in economic development, stability, and pragmatic governance. Later under Xi Jinping, national identity is rearticulated as a civilizational community, integrating elements of socialist ideology, Chinese history, and culture into a consolidated hegemonic project. The the-sis concludes that political legitimacy constitutes the central driving force behind discursive change in CCP governance, and that discourse functions as a key instrument of political control. Xi Jinping’s leadership is therefore understood not as a radical rupture, but as the culmination of a longer historical process in which national identity, political authority, and discursive pow-er have become increasingly intertwined.

Nationalisme ; Kina ; Diskurs ; Legitimitet ; Politik

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