Representation And Negotiation Of Power In Prabowo Subianto’s Political Speeches: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This article investigates how power is represented and negotiated in the political speeches of Prabowo Subianto by employing Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework. Adopting a qualitative approach, the study analyzes Prabowo Subianto’s selected official speeches delivered in both national and international forums. The analysis follows Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, examining textual features, discursive practices, and broader socio-political contexts. The findings reveal that power in Prabowo’s speeches is discursively constructed through a dynamic interplay of institutional authority, privileged access to the production and circulation of discourse, collective identity formation, and moral–historical legitimation. Linguistically, authority is enacted through personalized agency, directive speech acts, and deontic modality, while discursively it is reinforced through exclusive access to highly institutionalized arenas. At the same time, power is negotiated through inclusive language, affective solidarity, and historical narratives that frame leadership and policy as morally grounded and nationally mandated. These mechanisms operate simultaneously to reproduce political dominance while fostering public consent. The study confirms that political speeches function as social practices that not only reflect but also normalize and legitimize power relations. Consequently, Prabowo Subianto’s speeches should be understood not merely as instruments of policy communication, but as ideological practices that sustain political hegemony in contemporary Indonesian politics