Project: VEGA 2/0110/23
Duration: 1. 1. 2023 - 31. 12. 2025
Principal Investigator: PhDr. Zuzana Kusá, CSc.
Scientific co-workers: Mgr. Simona Konečná

Key words: Morale; Value dilemmas; Political discourse, Power, Legitimization, Critical discourse analysis

Project summary:
The project complements the research of value orientations and moral ideas carried out in Slovakia by examining the "discursive existence" of values and morals in relation to governance. The aim is to reduce the cognitive and methodological debt in this area and contribute to the clarification of value disputes and dilemmas marking political discourse and Slovak society. Within this project we will
(a) deal more systematically with sociological perspectives on relationship of moral reasoning and construction of moral community and on value legitimization in political discourse;
(b) examine, through case studies, how politicians in their argumentation connect social problems with the level of social morale and how they use values to legitimize decisions that lead to restrictions on rights and freedoms or variants of a possible future;
c) prepare a book on critical discourse analysis (with the use of examples from the case studies) to suggest CDA as an important tool of sociological research.