78 ISSN 1392 – 0758 SOCIALINIAI MOKSLAI. 2003. Nr. 3 (40) Words as Actions and the Symbolic Power: Factors Shaping the Agency of Lithuanian Parliament Members in Political Discourse Formation Vaidas Morkevičius Kaunas University of Technology K. Donelaičio str.73, LT-3006 Kaunas, Lithuania Abstract This paper aims to analyse political communication and directs attention to the social agency of political actors, which shapes this communication, and the ways in which it obtains and manifests symbolic power. Different from predominant approaches to the analysis of political communication that concentrate on the contents, this paper focuses on the empirical study of social agency and factors that shape speech-act making by members of the Lithuanian Parliament (the Seimas), those actors by whom such speech-acts are articulated and manifest. The period of study comprises the current term of the Seimas that begun after the election in October, 2000. Two groups of factors influencing this process are investigated: positional, pertaining to formal positions that those members of parliament (MPs) occupy in this institution, and structural, including different political background variables of MPs. Introduction The political field may be defined as a field of verbal battles, “in which words are actions and the symbolic character of power is at stake” 1 . That is, in this field it matters not only what political actors do but it is also equally important what these actors say they are about to do, what opinions, attitudes and beliefs about certain issues, processes and objects they express. Various studies in the direction of analysing the contents of political communications have been attempted as we know it from the studies of Harold D. Lasswell and his associates (1965, 1969, 1970a, 1970b), Philip J. Stone and his associates (1966), J. Zvi Namenwirth (1969), J. Zvi Namenwirth and Rober Ph. Weber (1987), Party Manifesto Research Group (Budge etc., 1987, 2001 and Klingemann etc., 1994) to mention just a few major ones. However, not only the contents are important when one is engaged in the analysis of communications. Harold D. Lasswell suggested that “a convenient way to describe an act of communication is to answer the following questions: Who, Says What, In Which Channel, To Whom, With What Effect? The scientific study of the process of communication tends to concentrate upon 1 Thompson, John B. (1991). Editor’s Introduction. In Pierre Bourdieu. Language and Symbolic Power (pp. 1-31). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, pp. 26-27. one or another of these questions 2 .” Since the usual practise is to focus on the contents of speech-acts, factors and motives shaping the agency of those involved in discourse formation remains an under-researched problem. This study aims at inquiry into the “who” aspect of political communication. More specifically, the research goal of this paper is to investigate factors influencing discourse production in the political field: why some actors get involved in making speech-acts and others not. Since the political field is rather large and includes numerous sub-fields and institutions (parliament, government, courts, bureaucracies, mass media etc.), here I will direct attention to speech-acts made by the Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Seimas (Parliament) of Lithuania during the period of its current term (begun after the election in October, 2000). Two types of factors will be investigated:  positional, pertaining to formal positions that MPs occupy in this institution,  structural, including different political background variables of MPs. Case study is the main method deployed in pursuing the research goals of this paper based on statistical analysis of records from sessions of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania during the period of its current term that begun after the election in October, 2000. Parliamentary Sub-field of Politics Some explanation is necessary of why this particular political sub-field was chosen for the analysis. The renowned analyst of political institutions in Western European democracies Yves Meny asserts that “parliaments remain the forums of political life par excellence and, seen from this point of view, their audience, far from shrinking, has increased, thanks to Press, television and radio 3 ”. Similarly, another analyst of Western European politics Gordon Smith claims that nowadays the primary function of the parliament is communication of ideas, rather than the traditional role of 2 Lasswell, Harold D. (1948). The Structure and Function of Communication in Society. In Bernard Berelson and Moris Janowitz (eds.), 1966. Reader in Public Opinion and Communications, 2 nd ed. (pp. 178-190). New York and London: The Free Press, p. 178. 3 Meny, Yves. 1990. Government and Politics in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 193.