‘You’re a populist! No, you are a populist!’: The rhetorical analysis of a popular insult in the United Kingdom, 1970–2018

Abstract

This article focuses on discourses on populism, presenting a case study on the United Kingdom. Analysing all references to populism in the British Parliament from 1970 to 2018, this article provides a framework to think about rhetoric and populism, a method to investigate political attitudes, and insights about the debate on populism in the United Kingdom. Results show that from the 1970s to the 1990s politicians interpret populism in demagogical terms and most often refer to the category of the political role of ‘the people’. More recently, negative references and personal attacks increase, and politicians refer to different categories. Moreover, the analysis shows how British politicians employ epideictic and forensic rhetorical strategies more often when debating about populism, whereas deliberative strategies rarely emerge. Finally, the investigation over the 2015–2018 period shows that government membership, a distant election, and a right-wing party membership increase the likelihood of rhetorical positive interpretations of populism.

Social Media vs. Surveys: A New Scalable Approach to Understanding Legislators’ Discourse

“…This method represents a significant advancement over previous research methodologies, which have primarily relied on hand-coded content analysis (e.g., Casiraghi, 2021;Hawkins et al, 2019;Jenne, Hawkins, and Silva, 2021;Jagers and Walgrave, 2007) or automated text analysis using dictionaries (e.g. Pauwels, 2011;Elc ¸i, 2019;Gr ündl, 2020;Gennaro, Lecce, and Morelli, 2021).…”

Populism in the eye of the beholder? A conjoint experiment on citizens’ identification of populists

“…As said regarding populism's core characteristics, we focus on the two crucial components of populist rhetoric: anti-elitism and people-centrism (Mudde, 2004). Anti-elitism is historically associated with populist stances and movements: Casiraghi (2021) showed how since 1970 British parliamentary discourses on populism have highlighted the anti-elitist character of populism. From a strategic standpoint, this makes sense: Populists tend to stand outside of the political establishment, and the public should identify their oppositional anti-elitism for what it is (Maurer & Diehl, 2020).…”

“…Examples of these competing normative frames abound: Casiraghi and Bordignon (2023) showed how in European Parliaments left‐wing politicians are accused of populism more often when the political discussion centres on economic issues, whereas their right‐wing colleagues are attacked more frequently when the debate concerns immigration. Adopting a similar focus, Elmgren (2018) demonstrated how the Finnish Rural Party proudly claimed populism as one of its positive characteristics, whereas Casiraghi (2021) showed how the British Conservatives systematically refused to be defined as populist.…”

‘Saying it like it is’: Right-wing populism, international politics, and the performance of authenticity

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