What is it about?
Populism is a label generally reserved for unconventional or controversial politicians. As populists continue to rise in the polls, mainstream politicians may borrow from the populist playbook when trying to persuade voters. I test this idea by analyzing the arguments of a populist and non-populist politician in the UK, as they twice debated Britain's withdrawal from the EU (two years before the Brexit referendum). I find evidence that the non-populist politician (Nick Clegg), after losing the first debate, adopts communicative features more characteristic of a populist in the second debate. The populist (Nigel Farage), meanwhile, repeats the same arguments to the point of statistical significance. Ultimately, the findings suggest that a) mainstream politicians may adopt a populist style of communication when threatened and b) populists' success may be partly explained by delivering a consistent message to voters.
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Why is it important?
The study provides a nuanced theoretical take on populism, in an attempt to broaden the concept's application beyond politicians already labelled as populists. It is important to consider that established politicians may be acting in a more 'populist' manner, as voters and the media seem to increasingly reward a populist style of politics. I also offer an innovative methodology for how to apply computational programming tools to compare the communication of populist and non-populists systematically. For populism studies specifically, text analysis methods are an underutilized resource to help identify - with statistical certainty - the communicative patterns of populists. In addition, this study also highlights the importance of mixed-methods research, as the rhetorical analysis provides a level of contextualization necessary for explaining the differences identified through the quantitative analysis.
Perspectives
For this project I wanted to create a research design addressing several shortcomings that I identify with the existing populist literature. The first is the inattention to how mainstream political actors are responding to the rise of populists. Second is a relatively scant focus on individual politicians vis-a-vis parties and their manifestos. Third is the lack of direct comparison between populist and non-populists as they communicate their platforms to the public. The case chosen - the pair of Europe debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage in 2014 - suits the design well and is also in important case to study in light of the Brexit referendum. Through these debates, the 'Leave' and 'Remain' arguments for Britain's EU membership were flatly laid out in a highly publicized pair of television debates. Anyone with an interest in why British voters chose to leave the EU should look here for an early example of the political arguments and how they were formulated. Interestingly, the Remain argument was not popular with the public in 2014, and Nick Clegg's attempt to personally attack Farage in the second debate made it less so. The consistency of Farage's arguments, which I argue helps explain his political success, is also an interesting finding in light of Brexit. Although I was unable to provide evidence in this study, many of the arguments laid out by Farage in 2014 appeared as key tropes for the Leave campaign in 2016. I would encourage scholars interested in populist political communication to test whether this consistency is applicable to other contexts and stable over longer durations of time.
Michael Bossetta
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This page is a summary of: Fighting fire with fire: Mainstream adoption of the populist political style in the 2014 Europe debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, June 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1369148117715646.
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