All the Best! Performing solidarity in political discourse

• Communicating solidarity is important for securing cooperation and acquiring power in politics.
• The Hebrew solidarity-enhancing speech act verb Le-varech is equivalent to seven SAV's in English.
• Solidarity-oriented actions are distinguished by their temporal orientations.
• Solidarity-oriented actions are utilized as strategic means in a variety of political contexts.
• Solidarity-oriented actions may be contested discursively as insincere or impolite.

Maintaining, affirming, and re-establishing good relationships with others in political discourse by communicating involvement and concern are important for securing cooperation and acquiring power. This paper identifies and analyzes a group of speech acts that are utilized by public actors as solidarity-enhancing devices. On the basis of 605 utterances constructed around the Hebrew speech act verb Le-varech and its English equivalents (congratulate, welcome, praise, thank, greet, bless, and wish), I suggest an initial mapping of past-, present-, and future-oriented actions of solidarity performed in both national and international politics, point to their communicative and political functions on both personal and interactional levels, and conclude by delineating the political processes they initiate, maintain, or transform.