Constructing existential threat: Political discourse, leadership, and the social management of mortality.

Abstract

In contexts of prolonged insecurity, existential threat becomes a central organizing principle of collective life. Terror Management Theory (TMT) has focused on intrapsychic responses to mortality salience. However, researchers have paid less attention to how public discourse constructs mortality-related threats. This study examines how political communication articulates and manages existential threat over time. Using a qualitative thematic analysis of speeches by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a hybrid inductive-deductive approach informed by TMT, the findings show that political discourse progressively constructs threat as a continuous condition, expanding across social boundaries and reshaping collective belonging. Discourse mobilizes cultural worldviews, identity, and self-esteem as anxiety buffers and positions leadership as an additional symbolic resource. These findings extend TMT by demonstrating that political discourse socially produces and discursively maintains mortality salience.