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.
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Table of Contents
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Introduction: Imagining populism and the peoples of EuropeJan Zienkowski and Ruth Breeze | pp. 1–18
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Chapter 1. The populist political logic and the analysis of the discursive construction of ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’Benjamin De Cleen | pp. 19–42
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Chapter 2. A dialogue on populism? A study of intellectual discourse about populism in the Brexit debate in Italy and the UKChiara Degano and Federico Giulio Sicurella | pp. 43–71
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Chapter 3. European populism(s) as a counter-hegemonic discourse? The rise of Podemos and M5S in the wake of the crisisArthur Borriello and Samuele Mazzolini | pp. 73–100
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Chapter 4. Islamic conservative populism in Turkey: The case of the AKPHayriye Özen | pp. 101–122
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Chapter 5. The articulation of ‘the people’ in the discourse of PodemosNicolina Montesano Montessori and Esperanza Morales-López | pp. 123–147
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Chapter 6. Building left-wing populism in Denmark: Moving far away from the rightÓscar García Agustín | pp. 149–172
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Chapter 7. Performing ‘the people’? The populist style of politics in the German PEGIDA-movementAndreas Önnerfors | pp. 173–200
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Chapter 8. The discursive construction of the people in European political discourse: Semantics and pragmatics of a contested concept in German, French, and British parliamentary debatesNaomi Truan | pp. 201–228
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Chapter 9. Standing up for ‘real people’: UKIP, the Brexit, and discursive strategies on TwitterSamuel Bennett | pp. 229–256
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Chapter 10. “The people” in the discourse of the Romanian government and opposition: Between populism and the quest for democracyRaluca Mihaela Levonian | pp. 257–284
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Chapter 11. The Volk (‘people’) and its modes of representation by Alternative für Deutschland-AfD (‘Alternative for Germany’)Miguel Ayerbe Linares | pp. 285–314
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Chapter 12. Measuring people-centrism in populist political discourse: A linguistic approachMaarten van Leeuwen | pp. 315–339
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Chapter 13. Populist discursive strategies surrounding the immigration quota referendum in HungaryPeter Furko | pp. 341–361
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Concluding remarks: Appealing to the peopleRuth Breeze and Jan Zienkowski | pp. 363–371
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Index | pp. 373–378
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