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Article published In:
(De)legitimising EUrope in times of crisis
Edited by Franco Zappettini and Samuel Bennett
[Journal of Language and Politics 21:2] 2022
► pp. 277–299

The delegitimisation of Europe in a pro-European country

‘Sovereignism’ and populism in the political discourse of Matteo Salvini’s Lega

ORCID logo | Queen Mary, University of London
| Queen Mary, University of London

The European project has always played a pivotal role in Italy’s politics and Italian political discourse. The European Union (EU) represented the primary vehicle through which to regain international legitimacy. From this perspective, the intensification in the last few years of the Eurosceptic and populist discourse of Matteo Salvini’s Lega has marked a critical turning point. This article contributes to an understanding of such process from critical discursive and historical perspectives. Building on the concept of recontextualization as elaborated in CDS but also more generally appealing to conceptual history and Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) frameworks, this study deconstructs the Lega’s Euroscepticism diachronically, interpreting populism as a key discursive element of the Lega’s Far Right ideology. We thus highlight how the Lega’s Eurosceptic discourse and the recontextualisation of the European legitimisation process present a dramatic change and seem highly indicative of a new ideological and extra-party cleavage of ‘sovereignism’.

Keywords: sovereignism, populism, Euroscepticism, the Lega (Nord), Italian political discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction. Euroscepticism in a Europeanist country: A historical-discursive recontextualisation
  • 2.Euroscepticism, populism and ‘sovereignism’ at the intersection of ideological and discursive dimension: The case of Lega
  • 3.Lega Nord, Europe and ‘sovereignism’ – A historical overview
  • 4.A new discursive frame? Matteo Salvini’s Lega
    • 4.1Dataset
    • 4.2(Liberal and illiberal) racism
    • 4.3Economic and political sovereignism
    • 4.4Popular sovereignism
    • 4.5The interdiscursive nature of ‘sovereignism’
  • 5.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 26 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21066.mac
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