ABSTRACT
The previous chapter comprised a detailed analysis of both how and how much politicians equivocate. The focus of this chapter is on why politicians equivocate. Politicians are frequently depicted as slippery and evasive, even as downright deceitful: they are the sort of people who will not give a straight answer to a straight question. According to this view, equivocation can be seen as an aspect of their personalities. An alternative view is that politicians equivocate not necessarily because of their intrinsic evasiveness, but also as a response to the kinds of questions which they are asked in political interviews. To test this hypothesis, two studies are reported in this chapter. The first is based on interviews from the 1992 General Election, and presents an analysis of the way in which questions in political interviews pose threats to face (Bull et al., 1996). The second is based on the 2001 General Election. It compares questions posed to politicians by professional political interviewers with those posed by members of the general public (Bull and Wells, 2002b).
