Browsing by Author "Ellenberg, Benjamin"

Populism has become one of the defining isms of the 21st century, seen as a pest by some political movements and used as an insult, while being worn as a badge of honour by others. Despite its heavy usage, its definition remains contested. This thesis aims to empirically study the prevalence of populism in contemporary election manifestos of select Swedish and Finnish parties using an ideational approach. Simultaneously, the ease of usage of the ideational approach, as claimed by its adherents, was tested. In the empirical material, only Vänsterpartiet of Sweden out of the eight parties in scope showcased all three central elements of ideational populism, i.e., a frame of the elite against the people and the people’s general will as a central guide to politics. Whereas the ideational approach indeed provided a good guide to operationalization, its theoretical framework proved rigid when used for analysis. Competing definitions, such as the discursive one, have their merits and future research in populism could benefit from using different definitions on shared empirical materials to further develop the theoretical frameworks.