From a discursive and pragmatic conception of language—namely, that words are also acts (Wittgenstein, 2009, §546) and that, consequently, to master a language is to master a technique (Wittgenstein, 2009, §199) and to embed it within a communicative rationality (Habermas, 1981, 1989)—the symposium seeks from the outset to highlight the inexorable relationship between language and action, emphasizing the force of beliefs and discursive imaginaries (Charaudeau, 2006) in the shaping of institutions. This conception requires approaching political practices through their different discursive commitments, which carry strong implications for the construction of public institutions. From this discursive and pragmatic perspective, we seek to understand the functioning and function of political language in the construction of social reality (Searle 1995/2009). In this way, communication and the deliberation of ideas in a public space have been the bulwark of democratic defense. This deliberation has succeeded in defending pluralist values insofar as it has been concentrated among formally recognized representatives within spaces of public participation. The contemporary explosion of the media has dynamited this intermediary and established a direct channel between decision-makers and their electorate, creating profound problems in terms of the representativeness of the various positions within deliberation: whoever speaks with the greatest force prevails. This mode of contemporary discourse, exacerbated by polarization and relativism, will structure the discussions of this panel, which seeks to investigate discursive expressions, the practices of professional politics, and the creation of agendas full of false populist promises within contemporary personalist political systems.
