Confrontational yet submissive: Calculated ambivalence and populist parties’ strategies of responding to racism accusations in the media

Abstract

This article provides an analysis and typology of the discursive strategies nationalist-populist anti-immigration parties use when responding to racism accusations in mainstream news. The typology is based on a three-party comparative analysis of statements given in national public service media by the representatives of three electorally successful Northwestern European populist parties-the UK Independence Party, the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats. When responding to racism accusations, populist parties use both submissive and confrontational sets of discursive strategies in varying combinations to communicate an ambivalent attitude towards racism. This ambivalence is communicated both on the level of an individual speaker utilizing several strategies and on the level of multiple speakers communicating contradictory messages. The comparative analysis suggests that country-specific contexts, and the statuses of both the persons under accusation and the responders giving statements, affect to what extent responses to racism accusations tend to be confrontational.

“Freedom of speech requires actions”: Exploring the discourse of politicians convicted of hate‐speech against Muslims

“…In fact, notwithstanding the numerous instances of its members' involvement in racist scandals, expulsions have been almost non-existing. 3 The party leadership has been combining submissive and confrontational rhetoric vis-a-vis the scandals, in order to maintain its distance from racist and hate-related crimes on the one hand, but also to satisfy also the significant portion of its supporters who vote for the more radical members of the party, on the other (Hatakka, Niemi, & V€ alim€ aki, 2017;Horsti, 2015). In terms of the three hate-speech cases that are the focus of this study, the Finns Party's municipal election campaign slogan in 2017, "Freedom of speech is broken" (Sananvapaus on rikki), may serve to illustrate the party's official reaction to them.…”

Finland

“…These dualisms of racism and workers’ identity and representative democracy and social media are crucial dynamics in the Finns Party (c.f. recent Herkman and ; Hatakka ; Hatakka, Niemi & Välimäki ). The defection also annulled the one‐seat difference between the two junior coalition partners after the national elections in April 2015 (Grönlund & Wass ).…”

Minority young men’s gendered tactics for making space in the city and at school

“…Both the majority and minority youths recognised the existing power geometry and knew how to read the local social and political 'map' (see also Frosh, Phoenix, and Pattman 2000;Archer and Yamashita 2003;Sernhede 2007;Hollingworth and Williams 2009;Johansson and Hammarén 2011;Lindbäck and Sernhede 2013). They knew how to relate this local power geometry to the political power geometry of Finland, which was becoming rather right-wing-populistic at the time of the research (see Hatakka, Niemi, and Välimäki 2017). Young people related in different ways to these politics and formed local/global power geometries in their neighbourhoods.…”