Lying and politics

According to some analysts, lying and deception are pervasive elements of politics. Drawing upon scholarship emerging in political communication studies, rhetoric studies, and related fields, this chapter provides an introduction to the issues of lying and deception in politics in three stages. The first stage traces these phenomena back to Ancient Greece. It identifies key interventions on the questions of the legitimacy and necessity of lying in politics, and assesses major contemporary contributions to this age-old debate. This section introduces central arguments as to when deception might be justified and associated concerns over its impact upon the democratic pro¬cess. The second stage links the concept of deception to abiding concerns in research on political communication, propaganda, and organized persuasive communication. Here, we discuss in more depth the politics of deception and the ways in which at¬tempts are made to exercise political power through deceptive communications. The concluding stage maps new directions for enquiry, including understanding the re-lationship between deception and coercion, and deception in the contemporary media environment.