Browsing by Subject "Populism"

In recent years, a resurgent leftist faction has arisen in the Democratic Party of the United States, emerging first in Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign to become the party’s nominee in the 2016 presidential election. Sanders’ campaign declared a ‘political revolution’, a left-wing project advocating socioeconomic and political transformation and problematizing inequality in American society. The primary election process drew deep factional lines in the party between Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s supporters, and ultimately resulted in Clinton’s candidacy and defeat in the general election. In the wake of Sanders’ campaign, multiple left-wing organisations emerged both within the Democratic Party and beyond it, adopting his policy goals and campaigning style. Among these was Justice Democrats, a factionally-oriented organization challenging Democratic incumbents and endeavouring to enact a political realignment towards the left on the intra-party level. The ongoing factional struggle is seen against the backdrop of a broader hegemonic crisis. The leftist faction of the party has produced a new populist discourse building a counter-hegemonic left-wing social imaginary. This thesis examines the discourse of the political revolution, and the discursive devices constituting its articulation of key dichotomies. The thesis applies a theoretical framework of Giovanni Sartori’s factionalism, Margaret Canovan’s populism, and Gramscian hegemony to conduct a discourse analysis of the resurgent leftist discourse on the meso and macro levels. This thesis asks: how does the discourse of the political revolution construct an adversarial dichotomy of an in-group and an out-group as part of its populist counter-hegemonic project? To answer its research question, the thesis develops its methodological approach by combining critical discourse analysis (CDA), discourse theory, and aspects of the complementary method of discourse tracing. This framework views discourses and social reality as mutually constitutive. The value of such analysis lies in practicing reflexivity and considering what kind of social reality the discourse strives to generate, reproducing and disrupting dominant ideas and structures. Examining a discourse yields insight into the possible real-world consequences of the adoption of the worldview it constitutes, and facilitates the tracing of shifts in political culture. The thesis finds that, on the meso level, the discourse constructs a logic of difference to dismantle the conception of the Democratic Party as monolithic, producing an ideologically-based factional challenge through the dichotomisation of two factional groups. The discourse articulates an ideologically committed left-wing factional in-group, and a clientelist party establishment out-group corrupted by established campaign finance practices. The adversarial in-group and out-group constitute factions of principle and interest (as per Sartori), drawing from the redemptive and pragmatic faces of democracy, respectively. On the macro level, the discourse constructs a logic of equivalence through articulating a populist people-elite binary. ‘The people’ are conceived of as a broad, diverse collective connected by class-based grievances and interests, sovereign but unrepresented. This is juxtaposed with the articulation of an out-of-touch, oligarchic elite configuration consisting of dominant economic forces, a political elite, and a discursive elite. The elite are likewise connected by class interests, exercising undue influence over the political system and reproducing a hegemony facilitating economic inequality. The elite is articulated as the common Other for ‘the people’ as the groups’ class interests conflict and systemic structures privilege the elite at the expense of the needs of the people. This people-vs-elite dichotomisation produces the articulation of ‘the people’ as a historical bloc, a class alliance with transformative capacity, whose political action is seen as necessary to usher in a democratic renewal at both the meso and macro levels. The discourse scandalizes the existing level of inequalities in American society and articulates campaign finance practices yielding wealthy elites influence over the political process as impermissible. These scandalisations challenge existing social structures and dominant ideas. The discourse seeks to thereby shift these ideas and practices beyond the hegemonic limits of intelligibility through the production of a left-wing social imaginary. Understanding the effects of discourses and discursive shifts on social reality, and vice versa, is useful for academics examining social reproduction and transformation. A discursive shift the like of which the political revolution seeks to achieve holds practical policy implications and has potentially wide-reaching consequences on U.S. political culture and social practices. Ramifications may be felt beyond borders in the political discourses of other nations due to the prominent position the U.S. holds in the international community. Should this counter-hegemonic discourse become more broadly adopted within the Democratic Party and beyond, it may provide a blueprint for similar movements in comparable contexts.

Populist leaders are often studied when they are in opposition, providing an alternative to a failing democracy. The case of Donald Trump in the aftermath of the United States presidential election 2020 is different, as he is a populist leader in the position of power, trying to be re-elected as president. Thus, my aim in this thesis is to study the use of populist rhetoric by Donald Trump on Twitter following election day, 3 November 2020, as a populist who is no longer in the opposition, but rather a president trying to maintain office. By mainly drawing on the characteristics of populist rhetoric mapped out by Benjamin Moffitt (2014), I analyze a selection of tweets from November 2020 to January 2021 with the goal of identifying characteristics of populist rhetoric in his tweets. Moffitt identifies three main characteristics of populist rhetoric: ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite’, performing a notion of crisis, and ‘bad manners’. My results show that both ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite’ and the performance of crisis are both explicitly present in Donald Trump’s tweets. He creates a typically populist binary, identifying himself and Republicans with the true American Heartland, ‘the people’. Trump elevates the election results to a level of crisis, claiming a stolen election and voter fraud as the reasons for Biden’s victory. ‘Bad manners’ is almost Trump’s trademark. While visible in his tweets, it is at times difficult to draw the line between the rhetoric of Twitter and populist rhetoric, as there is significant overlap between the two. My results show, that even when losing power, Trump follows traditional populist rhetoric. However, in an interesting turn of events, he also changes the limits of ‘the people’ and ‘the enemy’, calling out other Republicans and Fox News in his tweets when he feels that they are betraying him and no longer supporting him. Thus, he diverts from the traditional populist ‘us’ and ‘them’ binary, creating a third category, a sort of purgatory, where Republicans who formerly were ‘the people’ now reside.

”Hyvät ystävät, tuli iso jytky!” ropade Sannfinländarnas dåvarande partiledare Timo Soini på våren 2011 framför partimedlemmarna, när partiet lyckades med en historisk valframgång i riksdagsvalet 2011. ’’Jytky-året’’ som riksdagsvalet ofta kallas för, betydde att vi här i Finland fick se hur effektivt populism kan fungera som politisk retorik. Forskningen om populismen i Finland har länge kretsat endast kring Sannfinländarna, partiets partiledare Timo Soini och året 2011. Jag anser att forskningen om populism inte kan kretsa kring endast ett parti och en partiledare, utan populism bör undersökas i en bredare bemärkelse. I den här avhandlingen undersöker jag finländska partiledares användning av populism som en retorikstil i Yles partiledarintervjuer från år 2007 och 2015 inför respektive riksdagsval. Jag använder mig av Jagers och Walgraves definition om populism som en retorikstil och gör en kvantitativ innehållsanalys av intervjuerna. Avhandlingens syfte är att a) se vilka partiledare använde sig av populism i intervjuerna från år 2007 och 2015, samt vilken typ av populism det går att finnas och b) se ifall någon förändring har skett i populistisk retorikstil mellan riksdagsvalen 2007 och 2015 i Finland. Min hypotes är att populistisk retorik har spridits från Sannfinländarna till andra partier och blivit allt vanligare efter riksdagsvalet 2011. Hypotesen baserar sig på Cas Muddes hypotes om populistisk zeitgeist. Jag kom fram till att antielitisk populism användes av Sannfinländarnas partiledare i intervjun från år 2007. Deras antielitiska populism var en blandning av anti-politik, anti-stat och anti-media. Sannfinländarna var även den enda partiledare som kritiserade Europeiska unionen. I intervjuerna från år 2015 förekom det däremot tre partiledare som använde sig av antielitisk populism. Partiledarna var Sannfinländarnas Timo Soini, Gröna förbundets Ville Niinistö och Vänsterförbundets Paavo Arhinmäki. Dessa tre partiledares användning av antielitisk populism skilde sig markant från de övriga partiledarna och därmed kan de anses ha varit antielitiska populister i finländsk kontext. Även om dessa tre partiledare använde antielitisk populism i hög grad, så fanns det skillnader mellan deras antielitiska retoriker. De alla hänvisade ofta till folket, men Niinistö och Arhinmäki kritiserade klart oftare andra politiker och partier, än vad Soini gjorde. Däremot kritiserade Arhinmäki inte lika mycket statens offentliga institutioner och tjänster, som till exempel Soini gjorde. Soini skilde sig från de två andra politikerna genom att vara den enda som kritiserade Europeiska unionen och media. Uteslutande populism förekom väldigt sällan i de intervjuerna som jag analyserade. Ganska sällan talades politikerna överlag om specifika befolkningsgrupper och när de gjorde det så var det i en neutral eller positiv bemärkelse. Ur min analys är det klart att en ökning i användningen av populistisk retorik har skett och att det inte längre var endast Sannfinländarnas partiledare Timo Soini som använde sig av antielitisk populism. Men att tala om att Muddes hypotes om populistisk zeitgeist är rådande i Finland vore vara en vågsam generalisering utifrån mitt begränsade material. För att förstärka mina resultat vore det nödvändigt att fortsätta analysen och inkludera till exempel mera intervjuer, valprogram, inlägg på sociala media och så vidare. Men utifrån mina resultat går det att märka att något har skett i Finland och att populistisk retorik kan de facto ha blivit vanligare. Ifall vi är trogna till Muddes hypotes, så kan Sannfinländarnas valframgång i riksdagsvalet 2011 vara åtminstone en av bakomliggande katalysatorer för att populistisk retorik har blivit vanligare i Finland och därmed spridits från ett parti till övriga.

The language of evaluation enables us to share opinions, cement values, and create interpersonal meaning. It is a fundamental aspect of both social media communication and political discourse. This study uses Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Framework to investigate how political actors use evaluation to express emotions and confer judgement in their attempts to increase support on social media. Drawing on a corpus of 1,212 tweets from Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn during the 2019 British General Election campaign, this study focuses on how the individual politicians use ATTITUDE to build positive-self and negative-other evaluations. The analysis then considers the wider performance of populism in political discourse by examining positive appraisals of the people, presented against negative judgements of a corrupt elite. Finally, the thesis explores how specific Twitter features can be incorporated into the Appraisal Framework to better capture evaluation in tweets as complete objects. Contrary to expectations about the prevalence of negative messaging in electoral campaigns, the findings show that both candidates preferred to post positive evaluations on Twitter. Corbyn favoured judgements of his party that empathised their moral superiority (PROPRIETY), and Johnson praised his party for their ability to negotiate a departure from the EU (CAPACITY). Both candidates performed elements of populism, but the presentation and evaluation of the people was very different, with Johnson performing an exclusionary form of populism and Corbyn presenting a more inclusionary form. Whilst there are challenges in applying the Appraisal Framework to online campaigning, the results give a much more nuanced understanding of the evaluation inherent to this discourse than automated sentiment analysis is able to, particularly in identifying the interplay of positive-self and negative-other evaluation. However, Appraisal reaches beyond the text, and many features were present in the media attached to the tweets, and future studies would benefit from incorporating these aspects into the analysis. The evaluative force of other resources, such as emoji and hashtags, and Twitter practices, such as retweeting, should similarly not be underestimated, and this study concludes by suggesting how these aspects can be brought into the Appraisal Framework.

Blame avoidance research mainly assumes that it is in the interest of people in positions of power to minimize the amount of blame directed at them. But the perspective can be different when it comes to populist leaders. A discourse theoretical analysis focusing on Janez Janša, former Prime Minister of Slovenia, shows how populist rhetoric and conspiracy theories can be used as blame avoidance strategies. The data consists of interviews with Janša, published by the Slovenian government, as well Janša’s participance in the European Parliament during a discussion on media freedom and the rule of law. According to Ernesto Laclau (2005), articulating an antagonistic frontier is an important part of the populist logic. The antagonistic frontier is a central aspect of the rhetoric of Janez Janša, who depicts himself as a victim of a socialist elite controlling large parts of society. Janša’s claims can be understood as a conspiracy theory, fulfilling the criteria by Jovan Byford (2011). This conspiracy theory can also be understood through the framework of populist logic and the antagonistic frontier. This framework of populism can be applied to understand the underlying patterns of the blame avoidance strategies used by Janez Janša, as well as the possible effects on accountability. Blame can play a part in articulating the antagonistic frontier and Janša does not always attempt to minimize blame, but on the contrary sometimes acts in a way that is certain to attract blame. When looking at this through the perspective of populist logic, there is a central difference between two types of blame. It is in the interest of a populist leader to avoid criticism from their own side of the antagonistic frontier in order to keep the chain of equivalence intact. On the other hand, blame from the other side might strengthen the antagonistic frontier and even be beneficial for the populist leader.

I Finland ordnades välfärdsområdesval för första gången 2022 och till följd av coronapandemin hölls majoriteten av valets kampanjföring digitalt. Bland annat det högerpopulistiska partiet Sannfinländarna publicerade flera videor på YouTube inför valet. Populism kan definieras som både en kommunikationsstil och kommunikationsstrategi (Jan Jagers & Stefaan Walgrave 2007: 3). I avhandlingen diskuterar jag ifall populism som en kommunikationsstrategi förekommer i Sannfinländarnas kampanjvideor på YouTube i välfärdsområdesvalet 2022, och ett möjligt samband mellan detta och väljarnas okunnighet. För att analysera förekomsten av populism som en kommunikationsstrategi i tre av Sannfinländarnas kampanjvideor applicerar jag Jagers och Walgraves teoretiska ramverk. Jag har genomfört en kvalitativ innehållsanalys och vidare diskuterat resultaten utgående från den sociala identitetsteorin och deprivationsteorin. Resultaten tyder på förekomsten av populism som en kommunikationsstrategi i Sannfinländarnas tre kampanjvideor i välfärdsområdesvalet. Sannfinländarna kan även genom populistiska kommunikationsstrategier tänkas skapa och främja okunnighet bland väljarna, men en sådan slutsats kräver dock ytterligare forskning.

“Populism” has become one of the most studied and contested concepts in contemporary political science. Whereas the standard explanation for the concept’s inadequacy tends to be its ambiguity, this thesis argues the contrary: it is not understood ambiguously enough. Considering that the contemporary academic field, known as populism studies, heavily relies on representationalist ontologies, this thesis argues for an ontological turn towards a performative, nonmodern and multiple ontology. In such an ontology, the multiplicity and diversity of concepts are taken as constitutive of the messiness of reality, rather than as errors of scientific representation. Reality is multiple and it is performed in multiple practices. This thesis demonstrates how a certain populist reality is performed in political science by doing, first, an allegorical praxiography of Cas Mudde’s study in European populist attitudes, and secondly, of the six Eurobarometer surveys, which Mudde references as his data. The analysis outlines the methods and practices by which Mudde, and the multiplicity of issues in his analysis, enact certain concepts associated with populism, and conversely, how the concept of populism enacts Mudde and the analysis. In regard to the Eurobarometer surveys, the analysis demonstrates that the surveys do not represent attitudes “out there”, rather, they perform not only the attitudes, but the conception of an out-thereness in form of a European public opinion. The survey questionnaires can be seen as inscription devices, which perform the multiple realities out there to be represented in the surveys. As a conclusion, in line with the ontological premises of this thesis and following the analysis of Mudde’s study of the Eurobarometer surveys, this thesis argues that instead of understanding the concept of populism as an object, or as a representation of an object out there, it should be understood as a multiple Thing — simultaneously an actor being made to act and a subject enacting others. The concept does not represent; it collects a multiplicity of entities to perform a certain populism. Instead of treating the concept as a particularity, it should be understood as a multiplicity constituting a mess.

The use of emotion is becoming increasingly relevant in the fields of international relations and political communication. While new research has been attentive to the use and dissemination of emotion, it has failed to establish emotion as an individual category of study, thus mostly neglecting its role within political discourses. This thesis argues that emotion is key to understanding why some discourses are more appealing than others, using the theories of Ernesto Laclau, Jacques Lacan and Simon Koschut as theoretical framework. By combining the qualitative methods of Emotion Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics of Emotive Communication, this thesis studies how emotion is embedded within the Manifesto “The Programme of Change”, published by Podemos at the beginning of 2015 with the objective of inspiring the political campaigns of the multiple elections that were going to take place that year. My analysis is specifically focused on two topics. First, it aims to understand how emotions were used within the Manifesto to create the antagonistic groups “the people” and “the elite”. Second, it aims to expose the new feeling rules that the party proposed to challenge the narrative of the status quo. The results of my analysis show that Podemos created an image of a corrupted, self-serving and extravagant elite, while defining the people as a group of honest, trustworthy and capable citizens. The antagonism between both groups is sustained by a sense of unfairness and humiliation of the latter towards the former and it is built through a political discourse that puts forward five new feeling rules that challenge the elite’s power. The first feeling rule appeals to unfairness, turning it into anger towards the elite. The second appeals to anxiety, stressing the need for a quick change. The third evokes frustration, converting it into strength to gain power. The fourth relies on hope to draw and image of an optimistic future. The last evokes self-awareness to create a new order where ordinary people feel recognised and represented. The findings of this thesis add value to existing literature on Podemos, while also proving that emotion needs to be considered a valid unit of analysis in discourse analytical methodologies. It defines emotion as key to uncovering patterns in international relations, and it defends its role in sustaining and challenging structures of power.