Politics and International Criminal Court Debate: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Utterances by Politicians in Kenya

Abstract

Language plays a critical role in political action. The choice of words written or spoken is a very important tool in
political engagements. This paper aims at analyzing utterances by politicians in Kenya on International Criminal Court (ICC)
debate. This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to analyze these utterances so as to reveal the sources of power
abuse, dominance, inequality and bias and how these sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced and transformed within
specific political and historical context. This paper draws data from political speeches and utterances from press conferences,
Newspapers, interviews, political rallies and other forms of media from the time the ICC debate begun in the year 2009 after
parliament voted against constitutional amendment that would have allowed a credible and independent local court. From the
analysis it is evident that politicians use language that does not conform to the norms of the society and thus threatening national
cohesion and perpetuating animosity among different ethnic groups as they politicize the ICC debate.