Imagining the Peoples of Europe : Populist Discourses Across the Political Spectrum

The political landscape in Europe is currently going through a phase of rapid change. New actors and movements that claim to represent 'the will of the people' are attracting considerable public attention, with dramatic consequences for election outcomes. This volume explores the new political order with a particular focus on discursive constructions of 'the people' and the category of populism across the spectrum. It shows how a unitary representation of 'the people' is a central element in a vast range of very diverse political discourses today, acting to anchor identities and project antagonisms in a multitude of settings. The chapters in this book explore commonality and contrast in representations of ‘the people’ in both radical and mainstream political movements, looking in depth at recent political discourses in the European sphere. The authors draw on approaches ranging from Essex-style discourse theory over critical discourse studies, corpus analysis and linguistic pragmatics, to investigate how historically situated categories such as the people and populism become fixed through local linguistic, textual and narrative practices as well as through wider ideological and discursive patterns. As of January 2023, this e-book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. DAPSAC 83 Imagining the Peoples of Europe 2 Editorial page 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Table of contents 6 Introduction 8 References 23 1. The populist political logic and the analysis of the discursive construction of ‘the people’ and 'the elite' 26 Introduction: Populism and the discursive construction of ‘the people’ 26 Ignoring the populist construction of ‘the people’ 28 Populist as popular and the reification of ‘the people’ 29 The populist electorate and the disregard for populist agency 29 The nature of populism 31 Definitional issues 31 Covering varieties of populism 32 Identifying the distinct character of populism 34 Populism as a political logic 35 ‘The people’ and ‘the elite’ as nodal points 36 From ideology to political logic: The discursive construction of ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ 38 The discursive analysis of populist politics 41 Constructing ‘the people’ versus the ‘elite’ 41 Articulation and the role of populism in populist politics 43 Bibliography 45 2. A dialogue on populism? 50 Introduction 51 Examining the space of dialogue in discourse about populism: An analytical framework 53 Definition and evaluation 53 Argumentation 54 Dialogicity 55 The data: Opinion pieces about Brexit in the UK and Italian press 57 Analysis: The British sample 58 Definitional-evaluative clusters 58 Argumentative topoi 62 Strategies of dialogicity 64 Analysis: The Italian sample 66 Definitional-evaluative clusters 66 Argumentative topoi 69 Strategies of dialogicity 71 Concluding remarks 73 Bibliography 77 3. European populism(s) as a counter-hegemonic discourse? 80 Introduction 80 Populism as a reaction against the hegemonic order in a context of crisis 82 Populism as a political logic 82 Populism against neoliberal hegemony in times of austerity: “Re-politicizing” and “Re-nationalizing” politics 85 Corpus and methods 88 Similarities between Podemos and M5S’: Two populist counter-discourses against neoliberal hegemony 90 Conclusions 103 References 104 4. Islamic conservative populism in Turkey 108 1. Introduction 108 2. ‘The people’ as the subject of politics: The Laclauian perspective of populism 110 3. Data collection and analysis 112 4. Conditions of the AKP’s populism: The crises in the Turkish context 112 5. The AKP as a new populist force 115 6. Early years of the AKP (2001-mid-2011): People as an empty signifier 115 7. People as a signifier of Islamic/conservatism (mid-2011 to date) 121 8. Conclusion 126 References 128 5. The articulation of ‘the people’ in the discourse of ‘Podemos’ 130 Introduction 130 Theoretical and methodological framework 131 Analytical Approach 133 Context and data 134 Analysis of the data 135 Podemos’ relationship with the people as a synecdoche 135 Podemos is the people, a popular movement 135 Podemos’ identification with the peoples and nations of Spain 139 The construction of an antagonistic divide from the casta 142 Results of the discursive-rhetoric analysis 146 Narrative plotting 147 Interpretation and discussion 148 15 M and Podemos: Two radically different forms of populism 149 Conclusion 151 References 152 6. Building left-wing populism in Denmark 156 Introduction 156 Radical left and the populist moment 158 Conditions for a populist left-wing party in Denmark 161 In search for the collective subject: Community 165 Against the elite 169 An alternative to the politics of necessity 170 An alternative to the European Union 172 Conclusion 174 References 176 7. Performing ‘the people’? 180 Introduction: Who are ‘the people’ in post-unification Germany? 180 Between ‘ethnos ́ and ‘demos’ – reflections on the German concept ‘Volk’ 181 The development of the contemporary new right discourse in Germany 184 Theoretical and methodological considerations 185 Selection of sources 189 PEGIDA on the public stage 190 Protocols of performativity: Styling ‘the people’ as actor and audience 195 PEGIDA as part of the ENR discourse 203 References 206 8. The discursive construction of the people in European political discourse 208 Introduction: Referring to the “people”: A cross-linguistic perspective 209 On the assumed relationship between people and populism 210 Populism: The impossible definition? 210 Minimum requirements to be a populist 211 Populists in the parliament: An oxymoron? 211 Semantic properties of the “people” 212 Shared semantic properties in English, German, and French 212 Whom do the lexemes ‘people’, ‘Volk’, and ‘peuple’ refer to? 213 Frequency and distribution of ‘people’, ‘Volk’, and ‘peuple’ in the three corpora 214 National specificities: German ‘Volk’ and French ‘peuple’ 216 Defending the use of the noun ‘Volk’ in German contemporary political discourse: A strong stance 216 Representing ‘le peuple’ in the context of the 2005 French referendum 220 Responding to people’s (assumed) expectations 223 Appealing to the ‘people’ in English: Searching for French and German “equivalents” 223 Formulating questions and claims through the lens of the people 224 Making the people speak: Ventriloquizing as a resource in political discourse 226 Picking the noun denoting human referents: “Citizens” and “people” in contrast 228 Conclusion: The reference to the people, a property of political discourse 231 References 233 9. Standing up for ‘real people’ 236 Introduction 236 Populism 237 Twitter as a site of populist discourse (re)production: An alt-space for the alt-right 239 The awkward squad: A ‘mutiny within conservatism’ and UKIP’s rise to prominence 242 Methodology and data collection 244 ‘Concepts’ in discourse theory and CDA 244 Data collection and categories of analysis 246 Analysis 248 The people... 248 ... vs the elites 249 ... vs immigration (but not immigrants) 252 Conclusions 258 References 260 10 .“The people” in the discourse of the Romanian government and opposition 264 Introduction 264 Background to the case 267 Data selection and methodology 270 Discussion of the quantitative results 272 Defining ‘the people’ 274 The cultural dimension of ‘the people’ 274 The material dimension 277 The political dimension 281 Defining political actors 284 Conclusions 286 References 288 11. The ‘Volk’ (‘people’) and its modes of representation by ‘Alternative für Deutschland’-‘AfD’ (‘Alternative for Germany’) 292 Introduction 293 Aim and methodology 296 Data overview 298 Lexemes for referring to the ‘people’ 298 ‘Volk’ (people) 298 ‘Bevölkerung’ (population) 300 ‘Bürger’ (citizen) 301 ‘Mensch’ (human being) 303 Are the contexts of use the same? 305 Characteristics of the ‘people’, according to the AfD 307 4. Delegitimation of those who govern 312 Modes of representation: AfD and ‘the people’ 314 Conclusions 317 Bibliography 319 12. Measuring people-centrism in populist political discourse 322 Introduction 322 Geert Wilders and Alexander Pechtold and the general debates of 2008 and 2009 325 Referring to “the people” or not 326 Presenting “the people” in subject, complement or adjunct position 328 Syntactic position and prominence of information 328 Syntactic position of “the people” in Wilders’ and Pechtold’s speeches 331 The use of perspective 337 Conclusions 341 References 344 13. Populist discursive strategies surrounding the immigration quota referendum in Hungary 348 Introduction: Populism and populist discursive strategies 348 Background to Hungary’s ‘illiberal democracy’ and the immigration quota referendum 349 Research questions, methodology and research material 351 Populist discursive strategies in parliamentary speeches 352 Combining critical discourse analytical and corpus linguistic approaches 352 Characteristics of parliamentary speech 353 Propositional lexical items used as manifestations of populist discursive strategies 354 Conclusions and possible directions for further research 364 Appendix A. List of abbreviations 366 References 366 Concluding remarks 370 References 378 Index 380 The political landscape in Europe is currently going through a phase of rapid change. New actors and movements that claim to represent 'the will of the people' are attracting considerable public attention, with dramatic consequences for election outcomes. This volume explores the new political order with a particular focus on discursive constructions of 'the people' and the category of populism across the spectrum. It shows how a unitary representation of 'the people' is a central element in a vast range of very diverse political discourses today, acting to anchor identities and project antagonisms in a multitude of settings. The chapters in this book explore commonality and contrast in representations of the people in both radical and mainstream political movements, looking in depth at recent political discourses in the European sphere. The authors draw on approaches ranging from Essex-style discourse theory over critical discourse studies, corpus analysis and linguistic pragmatics, to investigate how historically situated categories such as the people and populism become fixed through local linguistic, textual and narrative practices as well as through wider ideological and discursive patterns. This title is in pledging for "The political landscape in Europe is currently going through a phase of rapid change. New actors and movements that claim to represent 'the will of the people' are attracting considerable public attention, with dramatic consequences for election outcomes. This volume explores the new political order with a particular focus on discursive constructions of 'the people' and the category of populism across the spectrum. It shows how a unitary representation of 'the people' is a central element in a vast range of very diverse political discourses today, acting to anchor identities and project antagonisms in a multitude of settings. The chapters in this book explore commonality and contrast in representations of 'the people' in both radical and mainstream political movements, looking in depth at recent political discourses in the European sphere. The authors draw on approaches ranging from Essex-style discourse theory over critical discourse studies, corpus analysis and linguistic pragmatics, to investigate how historically situated categories such as the people and populism become fixed through local linguistic, textual and narrative practices as well as through wider ideological and discursive patterns"-- Provided by publisher "The political landscape in Europe is currently going through a phase of rapid change. New actors and movements that claim to represent 'the will of the people' are attracting considerable public attention, with dramatic consequences for election outcomes. This volume explores the new political order with a particular focus on discursive constructions of 'the people' and the category of populism across the spectrum. It shows how a unitary representation of 'the people' is a central element in a vast range of very diverse political discourses today, acting to anchor identities and project antagonisms in a multitude of settings. The chapters in this book explore commonality and contrast in representations of 'the people' in both radical and mainstream political movements, looking in depth at recent political discourses in the European sphere. The authors draw on approaches ranging from Essex-style discourse theory over critical discourse studies, corpus analysis and linguistic pragmatics, to investigate how historically situated categories such as the people and populism become fixed through local linguistic, textual and narrative practices as well as through wider ideological and discursive patterns"-- (4e de couv.)