Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 21:3 (2022) ► pp.459–483

“It is in the nation-state that democracy resides”

How the populist radical right discursively manipulates the concept of democracy in the EU parliamentary elections

ORCID logo | National Research University Higher School of Economics | Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences

This article explores how the concept of democracy is constructed, conveyed, and instrumentalised in the discourses of the populist radical right in the current EU context. The comparative analysis of the speeches of the leaders of two dissimilar PRR parties in government (Polish Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) and in opposition (French Rassemblement National) in the run-up to the 2019 European elections using tools of the discourse-historical and discourse-conceptual approaches to CDS highlights the common core of PRR interpretations of democracy, influenced by the shared axiological, institutional, and discursive framework of the EU. It shows that in the EU the PRR constructs the concept of democracy as an ideological complex, by diluting its essentially populist interpretation of democracy with liberal democratic elements. Only by advancing nativist and authoritarian interpretations of the people, does the PRR bring the concept of democracy in line with its ideological core of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism.

Keywords: populist radical right, populism; democracy, radical right, liberal democracy, political discourse, European Union, European elections
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Data
  • 5. Democracy in the interpretation of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość
  • 6. Democracy in the interpretation of the Rassemblement National
  • 7.Discussion
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 September 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20022.ale
References (51)
Akkerman, Tjitske
2015 “Gender and the Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Agendas.” Patterns of Prejudice 49(1–2): 37–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alduy, Cécile, and Stéphane Wahnich
2015 Marine Le Pen prise aux mots. Décryptage du nouveau discours frontiste. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Betz, Hans-Georg
1994 Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe. New York: St. Martin’s Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 La droite populiste en Europe. Extrême et démocrate ? Paris: Autrement.Google Scholar
Bobba, Giuliano, and Duncan McDonnell
2016 “Different Types of Right-Wing Populist Discourse in Government and Opposition: The Case of Italy.” South European Society and Politics 21(3): 281–299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buštíková, Lenka
2018 “The Radical Right in Eastern Europe.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. by Jens Rydgren, 686–707. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Camus, Jean-Yves, and Nicolas Lebourg
2017 Far-Right Politics in Europe. Transl. by Jane Marie Todd. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chilton, Paul
2017 “ ‘The People’ in Populist Discourse. Using Neuro-Cognitive Linguistics to Understand Political Meanings.” Journal of Language and Politics 16(4): 582–594. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Debras, François
2016 “L’extrême droite et la démocratie : entre opposition et récupération.” In L’extrême droite en Europe, ed. by Jérôme Jamin, 543–567. Bruxelles: Bruylant.Google Scholar
De Cleen, Benjamin
2016 “Representing ‘the People’: The Articulation of Nationalism and Populism in the Rhetoric of the Flemish Vlaams Belang.” In L’extrême droite en Europe, ed. by Jérôme Jamin, 543–567. Bruxelles: Bruylant.Google Scholar
Eatwell, Roger, and Matthew Goodwin
2018 National Populism. The Revolt against Liberal Democracy. London: Pelican Books.Google Scholar
Freeden, Michael
1994 “Political Concepts and Ideological Morphology.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 2(2): 140–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1998 “Is Nationalism a Distinct Ideology?” Political Studies 46(4): 748–766. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “After the Brexit Referendum: Revisiting Populism as an Ideology.” Journal of Political Ideologies 22(1): 1–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, Kirk A., and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser
2017 “What the (Ideational) Study of Populism Can Teach Us, and What It Can’t.” Swiss Political Science Review 23(4): 526–542. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hodge, Bob
2017 Social Semiotics for a Complex World. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert, and Anthony J. McGann
1995 The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kłosińska, Katarzyna, and Michał Rusinek
2019 Dobra zmiana. Czyli jak się rządzi światem za pomocą słów. Kraków: Znak.Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał
2016 “Recontextualisation of Neoliberalism and the Increasingly Conceptual Nature of Discourse: Challenges for Critical Discourse Studies.” Discourse & Society 27(3): 308–321. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 “Discursive Shifts in Ethno-Nationalist Politics: On Politicization and Mediatization of the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Poland.” Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 16(1–2): 76–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019 “Brexit and the Imaginary of ‘Crisis’: A Discourse-Conceptual Analysis of European News Media.” Critical Discourse Studies 16(4): 465–490. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020 “Discursive Shifts and the Normalisation of Racism: Imaginaries of Immigration, Moral panics and the Discourse of Contemporary Right-Wing Populism.” Social Semiotics 30(4): 503–527. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał, and Ruth Wodak
2009 Politics of Exclusion: Debating Migration in Austria. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.Google Scholar
Lipiński, Artur, and Agnieszka Stępińska
2019 “Polish Right-Wing Populism in the Era of Social Media.” Problems of Post-Communism 66(1): 71–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lorimer, Marta
2019 “Europe from the Far Right: Europe in the Ideology of the Front National and Movimento Sociale Italiano/Alleanza Nazionale (1978–2017).” PhD Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Mayer, Nonna
2018 “The Radical Right in France.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. by Jens Rydgren, 527–550. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mény, Yves, and Yves Surrel
2002 “The Constitutive Ambiguity of Populism.” In Democracies and the Populist Challenge, ed. by Yves Mény, and Yves Surrel, 1–21. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Minkenberg, Michael
2017 The Radical Right in Eastern Europe: Democracy under Siege? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mondon, Aurelien and Aaron Winter
2020 Reactionary Democracy. How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas
2007 Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “Introduction to the Populist Radical Right.” In The Populist Radical Right. A Reader, ed. by Cas Mudde, 22–35. London–New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
2019 “The 2019 Elections: Moving the Center.” Journal of Democracy 30(4): 20–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart
2019 Cultural Backlash. Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Palheta, Ugo
2018 La possibilité du fascisme : France, la trajectoire du désastre. Paris: La Découverte.Google Scholar
Pankowski, Rafał
2010 The Populist Radical Right in Poland: The Patriots. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pankowski, Rafał, and Marcin Kormak
2013 “Radical Nationalism in Poland: From Theory to Practice.” In Right-Wing Extremism in Europe, ed. by Ralf Melzer and Sebastian Serafin, 157–168. Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.Google Scholar
Pelinka, Anton
2013 “Right-Wing Populism: Concept and Typology.” In Right-Wing Populism in Europe. Politics and Discourse, ed. by Ruth Wodak, Majid KhosraviNik, and Brigitte Mral, 3–22. London: Bloomsbury Academic. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perrineau, Pascal
2001 “Introduction.” In Les croisés de la société fermée : l’Europe des extrêmes droites, ed. by Pascal Perrineau, 5–10. Paris: L’Aube. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reif, Karlheinz and Hermann Schmitt
1980 “Nine Second-Order National Elections – A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Election Results.” European Journal of Political Research 81: 3–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak
2009 “The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA).” In Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, 2nd revised edition, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 87–121. London: Sage.Google Scholar
2016 “The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA).” In Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, 3rd revised edition, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 23–61. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Reisigl, Martin
2014 “Argumentation Analysis and the Discourse-Historical Approach: A Methodological Framework.” In Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies, ed. by Cristopher Hart and Piotr Cap, 67–97. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Rydgren, Jens
2005 “Is Extreme Right-Wing Populism Contagious? Explaining the Emergence of a New Party Family.” European Journal of Political Research 441: 413–437. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stanley, Ben
2017 “Populism in Central and Eastern Europe.” In The Oxford Handbook of Populism, ed. by Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, and Pierre Ostiguy, 176–199. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Taguieff, Pierre-André
1997 “Le populisme et la science politique. Du mirage conceptuel aux vrais problèmes.” Vingtième siècle 561: 4–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traverso, Enzo
2019 The New Faces of Fascism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Van Kessel, Stijn
2015 Populist Parties in Europe: Agents of Discontent? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
2008 “Introduction: Discourse Studies–Important Concepts and Terms.” In Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michał Krzyżanowski, 1–29. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 The Politics of Fear. What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “The ‘Establishment’, the ‘Elites’ and the ‘People’. Who is Who?” Journal of Language and Politics 16(4): 551–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2021 The Politics of Fear. The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse, 2nd revised edition. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by 2 other publications

Alekseev, Alexander
2023. Sovereignty in Political Discourses of the European Populist Radical Right: The Right of the People and the Right of the Peoples. In Sovereignty in Conflict [Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, ], ► pp. 211 ff. DOI logo
Alekseev, Alexander
2024.  The (changing) concept of democracy in (transforming) European populist radical right discourses: the case of Polish Law and Justice . Journal of Contemporary European Studies ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.