Populist Discourse

E DITE D BY MARCIA MACAUL AY

I N T E R N AT I O N A L P E R S P E C T I V E S

Populist Discourse

Marcia Macaulay Editor

Populist Discourse International Perspectives

Editor Marcia Macaulay Glendon College York University Toronto, ON, Canada

ISBN 978-3-319-97387-6 ISBN 978-3-319-97388-3  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949833 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © hoch2wo/Alamy Stock Vector Cover design: Tom Howey This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 A Short Introduction to Populism 1 Marcia Macaulay 2 Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland in Scottish Election Manifestos 27 Ruth Breeze 3 Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse 59 Ricardo Gualda 4 Self and Other Metaphors as Facilitating Features of Populist Style in Diplomatic Discourse: A Case Study of Obama and Putin’s Speeches 89 Liudmila Arcimavičienė 5 An Untrustworthy Entertainer: Populist Identities in the Voices of New Zealand Voters 125 Jay M. Woodhams v

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6 Bernie and the Donald: A Comparison of Left- and Right-Wing Populist Discourse 165 Marcia Macaulay 7 Conclusion 197 Marcia Macaulay Index 215

Notes on Contributors

Liudmila Arcimavičienė  is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at Vilnius University, Lithuania, teaching discourse analysis of media and political communication at the Department of Philology, Institute of Foreign Languages. Her research interests lie in cognitive linguistics, critical metaphor analysis and ideology in the media, conflict scenarios and populist metaphor use in political discourse. Her aim of researching metaphor is to reframe various narratives via deconstructing the merger of the more specific with the more abstract, which in its turn is an indicator of an instinctual and innate realization of the Self. Ruth Breeze  is senior lecturer in English at the University of Navarra, Spain, and combines teaching with research as a member of the GradUN Research Group in the Instituto Cultura y Sociedad. Her most recent books are Corporate Discourse (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) and the co-edited volumes Essential Competencies for English-medium University Teaching (Springer, 2016), Evaluation in Media Discourse: European Perspectives (Peter Lang, 2017) and Power, Persuasion and Manipulation in Professional Discourse (Peter Lang, 2017). She is currently PI of the project “Imagining the people in the new politics,” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competition. vii

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Ricardo Gualda  is currently an Assistant Professor at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil. He holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin and has worked previously as a Lecturer at Columbia University. His research focuses on Political Discourse, Latin America Studies and Second Language Teaching and Learning. Marcia Macaulay  is an Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at York University (Canada). She is the author of Processing Varieties in English: An Examination of Oral and Written Speech Across Genres (1990), as well as articles on speech act theory, stylistics, and political discourse. She has most recently published work on politeness in political interviews. Dr. Jay M. Woodhams teaches academic language and literacy at the Australian National University, and is a Research Associate of the Language in the Workplace Project, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research focuses on political identity in informal talk and takes a critical realist and interactional sociolinguistic view of the genesis of such identities within multi-layered structural contexts. He has previously published on the use of metaphor in New Zealand politics and in workplace teams, including in government departments and on building sites.

Transcription Conventions

// \ / \\ [laughs] […] un- ( ) (well) AND = + ++ +++ (4) [voc]

Simultaneous or overlapping utterance of ‘first’ speaker Simultaneous or overlapping utterance of ‘second’ speaker Paralinguistic tags or redacted information Omitted section Cut off word, both self and other interruption Untranscribable or incomprehensible speech Transcriber’s best guess at unclear speech Emphatic speech Latched utterances Pause of up to one second One- to two-second pause Two- to three-second pause Pause over three seconds Untranscribable noises not covered by another convention

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List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2

Representation of discourse advancement 68 Populism manifestations in international discourse 95 Greimasian narrative “make America great again” 180 Greimasian narrative “political revolution” 190

Graph 2.1 Election results in general elections in Scotland, 2010 and 2015 (total number of votes) Graph 2.2 Relative frequency of terms relating to the United Kingdom, 2010 and 2015 (per 100 words) Graph 2.3 Representing entities within and beyond UK, 2010 and 2015 (per 100 words) Graph 2.4 Personal and deictic markers in the 2015 manifesto (frequency per 100 words)

32 37 41 49

xi

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Top ten key semantic areas in each manifesto (reference corpus: BNC Written Information) 34 Table 2.2 Frequency of geographical terms (per 100 words) 34 Table 2.3 Frequency of pronouns (per 100 words) 35 Table 2.4 Frequency of category ‘people’ (per 100 words) 35 Table 3.1 Number of turns and interlocutors 77 Table 3.2 Number of interlocutors by social group 79 Table 4.1 Research data 98 Table 4.2 Obama’s populist framing 109 Table 4.3 Negative populist scenario and its metaphorical representation 113 Table 4.4 Putin’s populist framing 116 Table 4.5 Metaphor-facilitated populist framing 117 Table 5.1 References to Winston Peters and/or NZ First across the dataset 135 Table 6.1 Donald Trump’s presidential announcement speech 172 Table 6.2 Bernie Sanders’ Georgetown University speech 181 Table 6.3 Sanders’ closing Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall speech 186

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1 A Short Introduction to Populism Marcia Macaulay

Populism is often referred to as a political phenomenon that is difficult to define precisely. It has been argued by Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017) that populism can accommodate both right-wing and left-wing ideologies. They define populism as a “thin-centered ideology” that is “malleable” and can accommodate other ideologies. I shall examine Mudde and Kaltwasser’s analysis subsequently, but even an approach that conceives of populism as flexible and accommodating begs the question of its essential “platonic” essence. What is leftover once its accessibility has been observed? However accommodating it may be to other ideologies, what remains that we can call populism? This present volume does not privilege any particular theory of populism as such, but does attempt to explore the notion of populism from the perspective of the language that expresses it. This volume provides a set of case studies of populist discourse from international perspectives including North America, Latin America, Europe, New Zealand, and Russia. Analysis of populism M. Macaulay (*)  Glendon College, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 M. Macaulay (ed.), Populist Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3_1

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2     M. Macaulay

is through analysis of populist discourse, in three cases through analysis of leaders’ narrative style or rhetoric, in one through response to a leader’s populist rhetoric, and in another through party election manifestos. These analyses provide insight into certain key concepts in populism such as ‘the people,’ ‘heartland,’ ‘the elite,’ and ‘charismatic leader.’ The methodological approaches taken in this volume are wide-ranging, but all attempt to explore populism as a realization of political reality and conversely as a means of constructing political reality. To address theoretical approaches to populism and in turn contextualize specific discussion within this volume, we need to begin with the first major analysis of populism by Ionescu and Gellner (1969). Ionescu and Gellner’s volume was the outcome of a conference on populism held at the London School of Economics in 1967. Their volume examines populism in five different geographies: North America, Latin America, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. Their volume also addresses six principal questions outlined in their introduction: Is populism an ideology (or ideologies) or a movement (or movements) or both?; Is populism a “recurring mentality” evidenced across ­“historical and geographic contexts”? (p. 3); Is populism a “political psychology”?; Is populism “characterized by a peculiar negativism” realized in enmity to a range of conceptual objects or groups?; Is populism worship of the ‘people’?; and finally, Is populism porous, able to be absorbed by “stronger ideologies or movements”? (p. 4). Despite the almost 50 years between the publication of Ionescu and Gellner’s volume and now, the questions they ask about populism remain relevant. It is not surprising that Mudde and Kaltwasser’s analysis of populism (2017) takes up the sixth question posed by Ionescu and Gellner’s volume: that of the porosity of populism as an ideology. In the last chapter of this volume, Peter Worsley attempts to address the “concept of populism.” Worsley notes the high degree of variability in movements deemed populist throughout the world. Thus, populism in North America is characterized by the presence of extensive membership by farmers, the absence of leadership from an intelligentsia as well as a communitarian system of land ownership. In contrast, in Russia, there is no extensive membership by peasants, while there is leadership by an intelligentsia as well as the presence of a communitarian system of land ownership.

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Referencing Shils (1956), Worsley further observes that populism reveals two cardinal principles: “the will of the people” and the “desirability of a ‘direct’ relationship between people and leadership, unmediated by institutions” (p. 244). These two characteristics are observed again and again by theorists down the years. Worsley, however, goes on to describe populism not as a clearly defined social movement or ideology, but as a “syndrome” that expresses an “emphasis” or “dimension of political culture in general.” Despite acknowledging the significance of the phenomenon of populism, and the focus of six relevant questions regarding its nature, Ionescu and Gellner’s volume leaves the question of the nature of populism open ended, even going so far as in Worsley’s analysis to reduce it metaphorically to a “syndrome” and therefore as a manifestation of something else. Margaret Canovan (1982) also grapples with the problem of defining populism. She argues that there are two principal types of response to the phenomenon of populism: one to theorize its existence and the second to articulate a typology of its realizations. As others have done, Canovan notes the wide range of political phenomena that have been termed ‘populist’: “Peronism in Argentina and the Mexican Institutionalized Party of the Revolution [PRI]; Social Credit in Alberta and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan; McCarthyism, Powellism and Poujadism; ‘Progressive’ devices for direct democracy such as the popular initiative, referendum and recall …” (p. 544). She argues that those who have attempted to theorize populism “tend to be so all-embracing that they cover everything indiscriminately” (p. 547). She also observes that “different theorists are liable to make different selections from a medley of populist phenomena, and hence to propose theories that are mutually exclusive, one of them leaving out cases that are crucial to the other” (p. 548). Canovan proposes the view that because such attempts to theorize populism are almost always intrinsically flawed, another approach is needed. She argues then for what she refers to as “phenomenological typology.” Such an approach is descriptive rather than explanatory. It does, however, avoid overgeneralization and the exclusion of important data. Taggart (2002) argues that Canovan (1981) “offers the most ambitious attempts to get to grips with populism” (p. 18).

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In Populism (1981), Canovan sets out a comprehensive typology of populist movements. She sets out two distinct types of populism: agrarian and political. Within these two broad groupings, she further sets out seven sub-types: Farmers’ Movements, Revolutionary Movements, Peasant Movements, Authoritarian Populism, Democratic Populism, Reactionary Populism, and what she terms “Politician’s Populism.” For the first type, Canovan’s focus is on commodity farmers’ movements that support radical change in government. These movements include the American People’s Party of the 1890s, Social Credit in Alberta and the CCF in Saskatchewan. In addressing “Revolutionary Intellectual Populism,” Canovan examines intellectual movements such as the Narodniki of nineteenth century Russia that idealized the peasantry and advocated for agrarian reform. “Peasant Populism” concerns grassroots peasant movements such as the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union that advocated for smaller shares of property and the creation of cooperatives. In examining “Populist Dictatorship,” “Populist Democracy,” and “Reactionary Populism,” Canovan distinguishes the presence of a charismatic leader from democratic methodology (e.g. the use of referenda) and in turn reactionary leadership embracing ethnic superiority over others. Lastly, Canovan identifies the rhetorical means on the part of populist politicians to appeal to ‘the people’ in keeping with a possible anti-political stance. Canovan’s (1981) study provides us with a typological overview of populism that is useful in going beyond geographical identification of specific movements. She distinguishes a set of specific actors including farmers, peasants, intellectuals, and politicians from responses that can very loosely be defined as ‘democratic’ and ‘economic.’ In her last type, “Politician’s Populism,” she also identifies what can be termed the specific rhetoric or style of many populist politicians in their construction of themselves as non-political or anti-political in keeping with a direct appeal to ‘the people.’ Paul Taggart (2002) introduces the concept of “new populism” as well as focussing on a distinction between ‘the people’ and ‘the heartland.’ Taggart defines new populism as representing “a contemporary form of populism that stems from a populist rejection of the political agenda, institutions and legitimacy of the modern welfare-­ state model of mixed economy capitalism” (p. 75). He notes, for

1  A Short Introduction to Populism     5

instance, that new populists wish to discard standard party institutional structures. What is favoured instead is direct communication with and participation by party members, along with the “personalized leadership of key individuals” (p. 75). He points out that with France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen, “the personality, leadership and style of Le Pen were key to the success of the party” (p. 78). Equally, Jörg Haider in Austria combined charismatic leadership with a strong critique of the welfare state. Haider also expressed “vehement opposition to immigration” (p. 78) as well as promoting the concept of direct democracy in proposing referenda concerning immigration and membership in the European Union. Taggart observes further that “The agenda of new populism has not been confined to Western Europe” (p. 83). This same agenda was advocated by Pauline Hanson in Australia during the 1990s, the Reform Party (which went on to integrate itself with the formally Progressive Conservative Party) during the same period in Canada, and Ross Perot in his 1992 American presidential bid. Perot attacked both the Democratic and Republican parties for their commitment to special financial interests. In examining the notion of ‘populism,’ Taggart looks carefully at what is meant by ‘the people.’ He asks, “Why are ‘the people’ such apparently essential ingredients in the populist equation?” (p. 92). The ‘people’ can be defined as a largely amorphous ‘silent majority,’ but they can also be defined both negatively and positively. In negative definition, the ‘people’ are not “pointy-headed intellectuals, bureaucrats, hacks, fat cats, robber barons, beatniks and plutocrats” (p. 94). More positively, ‘the people’ can be defined as the virtuous majority holding on to established traditions. Taggart also maintains that what is crucial to the populist concept of ‘the people’ is the accompanying concept of a ‘heartland’ which is “the territory of the imagination” (p. 95). The notion of a ‘heartland’ evokes a societal ideal of the past rather than the future. Heartlands also possess boundaries or frontiers. According to Taggart, new populism is inward-looking, realizing itself in both ethnic nationalism and isolationism. In terms of theoretical modelling, it is the neo-populist focus on the heartland that allows theorists to identify communality amongst different national expressions.

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Pierre-André Taguieff (1997) like previous theorists equally addresses what he terms ‘the conceptual mirage’ of populism. Picking up from Canovan’s (1981) notion of politician’s populism in what he terms ‘neo-populism,’ Taguieff concentrates on the presence of a new type of leader: “Ce type de nouveau démogogue se distingue d’abord par l’insistance qu’il met à célébrer sa ‘différence’ et par ses promesses” (p. 22). Taguieff identifies five traits of ‘ideal’ national populism best represented by The National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Taguieff’s first trait is the appeal to the people. This appeal is hyperbolically personalized by and effected through the charismatic leadership of a given leader who embodies the political movement. Taguieff references the leader’s use of the media and in the case of Le Pen specifically television. He further gives this a generic title: ‘telepopulism.’ In the more recent case of Donald Trump, we could construct ‘twitterpopulism.’ Taguieff’s second trait is the notion of the ‘people’ as an undivided whole without class distinction, cultural classification, or any specific ideological tendency. Thirdly, the ‘people’ as an undivided whole are characterized as simple, honest, healthy, and possessing good common sense. While the ‘people’ are constructed as a ‘whole,’ they are nonetheless also a ‘part,’ since they are those within the overall social body who are healthy: “Tout demagogue joue sur ces deux sens du mot ‘peuple,’ le demagogue nationalist tout particulièment” (p. 24). Taguieff’s fourth trait is the call for a purifying rupture with the established order. Given the health and common sense of the ‘people,’ there is a need to abolish or remove corrupt elites who have betrayed them. Traditional values such as order, authority, hierarchy, work, family, the fatherland, and religious morality constructed as being ‘natural’ serve to bring about this essential rupture. Above all the value of national preference serves to legitimize discrimination of outsiders now conceived of as ‘undesirables.’ This in turn leads to Taguieff’s fifth trait which is the explicit call to discriminate against individuals according to their cultural and ethnic origins: “Le national-populisme lepéniste se caractérise au contraire par une xénophobie sélective” (p. 27). In examining the leadership style of this new populism, Taguieff argues that populist leaders who show the greatest degree of sincerity and

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ability to improve current conditions will be effective. Further, the use of authentic language realized by the use of ‘I am,’ ‘what I say,’ ‘I believe it,’ along with the use of ambiguity rather than precision enhances the popularity of the leader. Clear explicit ideological positioning has no such force. Like others, Taguieff (2005) identifies populism as “a political style based upon an appeal to the people, likewise upon the cult and defence of the people, compatible in principle with all the great political ideologies [liberalism, nationalism, socialism, fascism, anarchism, etc.]” (p. 51). What he further defines as a “populism of exclusion” “takes on the appearance either of a protest movement [oriented towards the right or left, preferably at the extremes] or of a defence of identity, a term which refers either to sovereignty/independence or to the collective identity which must be preserved from all denaturation” (p. 51). Taguieff focuses his attention largely on neo-populism as a phenomenon of leadership style in combination with a cult of the people based on endangerment. He notes that in Europe, neo-populism is largely a right-wing phenomenon. He also notes that its causes do not originate in Europe, but arise from “economic-financial and communicational globalization, which induces the ongoing crisis of representational democracy and the eclipsing of the forms of political bipolarization…The utopia of direct democracy returns to haunt the mind, while at the same time there is a rebirth of the age-old religious aspirations towards planetary solidarity and universal brotherhood” (p. 58). In his preface to On Populist Reason, Ernesto Laclau (2005) states, “My attempt has not been to find the true referent of populism, but to do the opposite: to show that populism has no referential unity because it is ascribed not to a delimitable phenomenon, but to a social logic whose effect cuts across many phenomena. Populism is, quite simply a way of constructing the political” (p. xi). From the set of key questions set out by Ionescu and Gellner to the phenomenological analysis of Canovan to the focal attentions of Taggard and Taguieff, variability within realizations of populism has been a major concern. What umbrella or set of descriptors suffices to define populism? Laclau attempts to define populism not through broad empiricism or through feature analysis, but in terms of what he defines as a ‘logic.’

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In the first part of On Populist Reason, Laclau distinguishes between the two notions of the crowd and the public. He notes that publics were not known in the Ancient World or the Middle Ages (p. 44). Publics came into being only with the invention of the printing press in the sixteenth century. The printing press as such along with the invention of political journalism, railways, the telegraph, and the telephone “has so incredibly enlarged the old audience of tribunes and preachers” (p. 45). Populism cannot be divorced from the media which serves to construct not crowds, but publics or a specific public. In keeping with this analysis, Laclau does not assume the presence of a pre-existing group or ‘people’; rather, he examines the construction of the group along with an accompanying sense of unity. He does not see populism as a type of ideology, but “as a real relation between social agents. It is, in other terms, one way of constituting the unity of the group” (p. 73). It is, put simply, a process or ‘logic.’ Employing a linguistic metaphor, Laclau identifies the smallest unit of analysis as the “social demand.” Such a ‘demand’ can be realized initially as a ‘request’ as, for example, the request for improvements in health, schools, or access to water. These demands, if not met, can coalesce into an overall demand. Laclau distinguishes such demands as “popular demands” from what he terms “democratic demands” which remain isolated and specific. It is the merging of popular demands into one overall demand which he refers to as an “equivalential chain” that effects the emergence of the notion ‘the people’ in a given political discourse. The emergence of a concept of the ‘people’ co-occurs with the construction of what Laclau refers to as “an internal antagonistic frontier separating the ‘people’ from power” (p. 74). Given this frontier, the ‘people’ represents “a partial component which nevertheless aspires to be conceived as the only legitimate totality” (p. 81). This partial component must also be constructed as a plebs aspiring to be a legitimate populus. The plebs on the one hand can be signified in terms such as the ‘people,’ the ‘nation,’ and the ‘silent majority,’ while on the other, their opposite counterparts can be provided such signifiers as the ‘regime,’ the ‘oligarchy,’ the ‘elite,’ and most recently in political history the ‘one-percent.’

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In examining the question of leadership in populism, Laclau eschews the idea of a manipulative leader who mobilizes an already existing ‘people.’ For Laclau, the leader as a popular symbol does not so much express the existing identity of the ‘people’ but “actually constitutes what it expresses through the very process of its expression” (p. 99). In Searle’s typology of speech acts (1969), such an action is referred to as a declarative wherein the saying of something brings it about or into existence. In Laclau’s analysis, the establishment of a leader “is the decisive moment in establishing that unity” (p. 99). One further concept must be dealt with in Laclau, that of the “empty signifier.” This is an apparently contradictory notion. However, it comes out of Laclau’s analysis of an equivalential chain of unmet popular demands which coalesce into an overall demand. In his conceptualization of an empty signifier, Laclau argues that with such a signifier, there is a void or emptiness that can be signified. With respect to populism, Laclau explains his notion in this way: “the popular identity expresses/ constitutes – through the equivalence of a plurality of unmet demands – the fullness of the community as that which is denied and, as such, remains unachieved – an empty fullness, if you like” (p. 106). Laclau gives the example of Peronism or the demand that Juan Perón return to Argentina in the 1960s as an ‘empty signifier.’ Perón’s verbal interactions with his supporters in Argentina had to function as a signifier of his presence, although there was significant differentiation amongst the groups that supported him. Perón succeeded by constructing an empty signifier: ‘Peronism without Perón.’ We can also view such popular demands for ‘change,’ or in the case of the recent American election, “Make America Great Again,” as empty signifiers. The importance of Laclau’s analysis cannot be underestimated. His theoretical analysis of populism less as a phenomenon with a set of defining features and more as a ‘logic’ or process where unmet demands coalesce into popular demands which in turn coalesce into an equivalential chain realized through empty signification puts focus on dynamic realization as well as grounding populism in an overall democratic context. In his discussion of “the Populist Zeitgeist,” Cas Mudde (2004) provides a theoretical analysis that attempts to see or construct populism

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not as a logic or process, but as a specific ideology. In examining the literature on populism, Mudde notes, “most definitions of populism have at least two points of reference in common: ‘the elite’ and ‘the people,’” (p. 543). Populism, according to Mudde, “says something about the relationship between ‘the elite’ and ‘the people’” (p. 543). He focuses then on this relationship and on the dialogic properties between the two principal constructs, excluding from his focus charismatic leadership with accompanying stylistic features. He defines populism in the following way: “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale [general will] of the people” (p. 543). For Mudde, populism represents a stark dialogic antithesis that he terms ‘Manichean.’ There are friends and foes and a complete absence of bi-partisanship. This leads not to a valuation of representative democracy, but what he terms “democratic extremism” (p. 561). Also, significantly for Mudde, there is no process by which the ‘people’ come into being. Those who claim to be populists speak for the ‘people’ who are understood to be oppressed; the ‘people,’ however, are a defined entity that remains fixed and explicit in its nature. Therefore, in contrast to socialists who wish to educate the people, populists vaunt their pre-­ existing ‘common sense.’ Mudde sees populism as a reactive ideology where the ‘heartland’ responds to serious challenges to its way of life facilitated by a charismatic leader. He notes further that populism can be found both on the radical right and the radical left, thus defining it as a “‘thin-centered ideology,’ exhibiting a ‘restricted core attached to a narrower range of political concepts’” (p. 544). In their short introduction to populism, Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017) expand on the principal arguments made by Mudde (2004). They note that “thin-centered ideologies such as populism have a restricted morphology which necessarily appears attached to – and sometimes even assimilated into – other ideologies.” They begin with the same observation made by Ionescu and Gellner (1969) that populism can be characterized by its porosity. As a given ideology, it is nonetheless able to accommodate other ideologies. In turn, they identity the “core concepts” of populism as ‘the people,’ ‘the elite,’

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and ‘the general will.’ For the first concept, the people, this can be ­identified in three different ways: the people as sovereign, the ‘common people’ and the people as a ‘nation’ (pp. 10–11). The ‘elite’ hold positions in society that give them political, economic, media, and artistic power. There is perhaps no better illustration of such elitism than Rupert Murdoch who by virtue of his media empire across continents wields both political and economic power. Mudde and Kaltwasser also include the notion of a ‘general will’ as a core concept for populism. In keeping with this, they note that “populist actors usually support the implementation of direct democratic mechanisms, such as referenda and plebiscites” (p. 16). Mudde and Kaltwasser argue that their approach to populism, which they term “ideational,” has advantages over other approaches that focus on political leadership because it is able to provide explanatory power for the porosity of populism, as well as accommodating in its analysis “a broad range of political actors.” They also maintain that their approach best addresses the issue of populism’s response to democracy arguing that populism can be both antagonistic to democracy in its guise as liberal democracy as well as being compatible with democratic process. In this, they are in agreement with Laclau who sees populism as an expression of democratic process.1 Ruth Wodak’s The Politics of Fear (2015) provides a specific focus on right-wing populism. As a discourse analyst and not as a political scientist, Wodak is concerned to understand why right-wing populism has become a dominant force in Europe and other parts of the world. She addresses this most explicitly in her examination of ‘mainstreaming’ which she defines as the “normalization of exclusion.” She refers to this phenomenon as “The Haiderization of Europe” (p. 177). Wodak notes that, in 1999, Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party won 27.2% of the Austrian parliamentary vote. By February 4, 2000, the Freedom Party formed

1Stavrakakis

and Katsambekis (2014) provide a Laclauan analysis of left-wing populism in the case of SYRIZA in Greece during its 2012 general elections where what they term an ‘inclusionary populism’ was practised. Rather than circumventing representational democracy, ‘the people’ “were called upon to participate in a common project for radical democratic change” (p. 125). This is reminiscent of Barack Obama’s broadly populist slogan in the 2008 American Presidential campaign: “Yes We Can.”

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government in coalition with the ÖVP (People’s Party). Members of the European Union were concerned that a taboo had been violated in this process, since the Austrian government was now composed in part by a party whose values were not entirely distinct from the values and rhetoric of the earlier Nazi regime. Employing Critical Discourse Analysis, Wodak examines Haider’s right-wing rhetoric. Of the linguistic techniques Haider employs, Wodak looks carefully at his use of ‘scapegoating’ or blaming the victim. She also observes that a nativist body politic develops to replace a traditional right/left split; “we are confronted with struggles about [inter alia religious and social, family and feminist] values which cut across the former social divides” (p. 184). She notes that a new rhetoric of sophistication enters into the framework of right-wing populism. While strong leaders are approved of, they also dress well and evidence responsibility and care for ‘the people.’ One can think of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands or Marine Le Pen in France. Nonetheless, what dominates in their discourse is what Wodak terms “The Politics of Fear.” Looking specifically at a fear-based ideology, Wodak provides a feature analysis of this ideology. Such an ideology constructs a “homogeneous demos ” defined arbitrarily and in nativist terms. What follows from this is the construction of a ‘heartland’ which requires defence. Defence in turn assumes enemy invaders who seek its destruction. Further, central to the notion of a ‘heartland’ is valuation of the traditions of the people. Lastly, there is need of a saviour who simultaneously plays the role of Robin Hood while also realizing the ‘strict father’ who knows best. From this populist scenario, the linguistic themes or topoi that Wodak identifies and analyses are logical developments: the politics of identity, family/body and border along with the “normalization of exclusion” requiring expulsion of ‘others.’ Wodak looks carefully at the performance features of populist leaders. She references Irving Goffman’s (1959) notions of backstage and frontstage. Frontstage refers to a situation where both the performers and the audience are co-present, while backstage refers to a situation where the performers can remove themselves from the characters they play either to be themselves or engage in secondary role-play. As Wodak states, “An important part of frontstage performativity is the ­context-dependent construction of the politicians’ identity” (p. 127). She notes the

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specific branding or positioning of right-wing populist leaders in such a way to market and “index[…] one’s recognizable political stance and identity for all listeners and viewers alike” (p. 128). A populist rightwing agenda is therefore performed, effected by means of perceived authentic behaviour and belief (being ‘one of us’) along with personal charisma. Following Eatwell (2007), Wodak defines charismatic leaders as co-identifying with the ‘people,’ but nonetheless as acting for and indeed potentially saving the ‘people’ from a targeted enemy (‘the other’). Such individuals also have great personal presence or chemistry. The charisma of the leader is further enhanced by the exploitation of media that serves as an extension of his or her performance. Wodak’s The Politics of Fear provides a phenomenological examination of the movement of right-wing populist parties to occupy centre-­ stage in European politics. Although Wodak examines specific policies such as anti-immigration and antisemitism, along with such rhetorical strategies as scapegoating, trivialization and denial, her focus in largely on the charismatic leader most usually exemplified by a male rather than a female who performs populism frontstage simultaneously representing ‘the people’ while acting for ‘the people.’ Benjamin Moffitt’s The Global Rise of Populism (2016) provides a complementary examination to that of Ruth Wodak (2015) in its analysis of rhetorical style in populist politicians. In examining the phenomenon of populism, Moffitt argues that populism itself needs to be “locate[d] within the shifting global media landscape” (p. 3) and so go beyond addressing populism from regional perspectives. Moffitt specifically defines populism as a “political style” (p. 4). Like Wodak, Moffitt sees populist political leadership as a form of performance. Populist leaders need to balance extraordinariness and ordinariness. The embrace of ‘ordinariness,’ Moffitt refers to as ‘bad manners.’ He notes the phenomenon of Sarah Palin who was John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 American Presidential election. Palin referred to herself as “just your average hockey mom” although she had been the Governor of Alaska. According to Moffitt, “These performances of ordinariness seek to distance populist leaders from other politicians, who are portrayed as being removed from the experience of everyday citizens” (p. 58). ‘Bad manners’ as a selected political style serves to disrupt mainstream politics.

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Possibly the best example of this is Donald Trump’s trash-talking of his opponents: “little Marco,” “crooked Hillary.” Bad manners are “easily operational, can travel across a number of political and cultural contexts, and are applicable to a wide number of cases” (p. 63). Consistent with the bad manners of populist leaders is what Moffitt refers to as the ‘mediatisation’ of political issues. Mediatization is a process whereby aspects of culture including politics and family are presented solely in terms of their media value. Emphasis is on simplification of story lines, polarization and personalization, emotionalism, negativism, focus on scandals, prioritization of scandals, and the overall privileging of the visual over the other senses (p. 75). Populist leaders are able to ignore traditional media by employing social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. They can also develop their own websites and post blogs or YouTube videos. Moffitt notes that “content that simply would not be published or broadcast by traditional media can be easily uploaded and disseminated via the Internet by populists. For example, Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam film Fitna… was released via video-sharing website LiveLeak” (p. 89). In Moffitt’s view, the ‘people’ are also mediated. In keeping with Laclau (2005), Moffitt argues that “‘the people’ only come to be ­‘rendered-present’ through mediated representation, which in populism is usually linked with the image of the leader” (p. 101). Examining the ousting of Hugo Chávez in 2002 in Venezuela, Moffitt points out that “the primacy of the mediated image was made explicit when pro-Chavez groups took over state television stations in an attempt to broadcast their own messages of support for the ousted president, while other Chavistas demanded that the privately owned anti-Chávez networks present their side of the story” (p. 103). Populists also need to ‘perform the people.’ For this, populists need an audience and their uptake. The audience itself engages in performance by accepting, rejecting, or modifying the claims made about them or to them. During Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign rallies and in response to Trump’s attacks on Hillary Clinton who Trump claimed had broken American law, the chant “lock her up” was commonly heard. The chant was initiated by one of Trump’s campaign advisers, Michael Flynn, but it was nonetheless accepted and taken up by Trump’s audience. The chant unified Trump with ‘the people.’

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Lastly, in his analysis of populism as a political style, Moffitt examines the notion of ‘crisis’ within a populist framework. In keeping with his correlation of populism and performance, Moffitt sees ‘crisis’ as a speech event to be performed. In such a performance, the leader chooses one particular failure of the political system to call attention to and construct as a matter of urgency. In Australia as in other countries, “both Pauline Hanson and Winston Peters initially chose to focus on… the ‘failure’ of Asian immigration and integration in Australia and New Zealand” (p. 121). Such a focus polarizes ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ who are responsible for the failure that is further constructed as a crisis. The leaders in this particular speech event perform this crisis through media, including social media, providing simple solutions and argument for strong leadership. The discussion above is not an exhaustive overview of the literature concerning populism, but rather an overview of some of the most important as well as recent contributions about this slippery subject. Wodak and Moffitt’s focus on leadership style is one way into the problem of populism. Equally, Mudde and Kaltwasser’s analysis attempts to solve the problem of porosity in populism, the presence of both rightwing and left-wing ideologies within a populist ideology. By constructing populism as “thin-centered,” they are able to address what they term as core features: the people and its political will versus the elite. Taggart usefully provides the notion of a ‘heartland’ as a psychological focus of populist attention while also distinguishing between a comprehensive ‘people’ and a sub-set whose concern is the idealized ‘heartland.’ Taguieff provides a detailed set of features for new-populism in contrast to Canovan who attempts to identify comprehensively all types of populism. Laclau analyses populism not as a leadership style, but as a ‘logic’ that develops by virtue of the failure to address significant problems within society. For Laclau, the ‘people’ are a construct of this logic rather than a pre-determined given. The questions that Ionescu and Gellner asked in 1969 remain relevant. They serve as important and necessary inventional tools to explore the reality of populism internationally. In Chapter 2 of this volume, Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland in Scottish Election Manifestos, Ruth Breeze looks at the

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election manifestos of four political parties within Scotland: the Scottish National Party, the Scottish Labour Party, the Scottish Liberal Democrat Party and the Scottish Conservative Party. These manifestos were produced for the 2010 and 2015 general elections in the United Kingdom where Scotland as a distinct regional member participated to send representatives to the House of Commons located in London. Breeze notes that, in the 2015 election, there was a huge shift in support to the Scottish National Party (SNP). This was a highly surprising outcome given that the Scottish Independence Referendum, held in September 2014, was defeated with 55% of Scots voting to ‘remain’ rather than ‘leave.’ The negative results of the Referendum did not in any way weaken support for the SNP, but instead appeared to bolster its fortunes. Breeze examines the extent to which the Scottish National, Scottish Labour, Scottish Liberal Democrat, and Scottish Conservative parties “operate in a populist key within the framework of mainstream democratic politics,” particularly after the Scottish Independence Referendum. Her analysis speaks to the porosity of populism which can manifest itself in both right-wing and left-wing ideologies. Breeze examines three key features of populist discourse or rhetoric: representation of the ‘people,’ the notion of a ‘heartland’ and antagonism between an external and internal entity, ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ Within the manifestos of these respective parties, Breeze looks at the degree to which there is specific reference to a Scottish people as such, the geographical borders of Scotland within and without the United Kingdom with the potential to construct a ‘heartland,’ the concept of ‘Scotland’ metonymically representing a Scottish people, the construction of ‘place’ within the manifestos, as well as the location of a deictic centre. While all the Scottish parties evidence a desire to represent a specific Scottish identify within their manifestos, Breeze indicates that only the Scottish National Party (SNP) represents the Scottish people as a unified entity within a ‘heartland’ in conflict with a ‘them.’ This is most evident in the SNP’s use of the term Westminster, as opposed to the UK parliament. The term Westminster in reference to the UK Parliament disengages ‘Scotland’ and the Scottish people from placement and participation within the United Kingdom. It is a linguistic act of quite literal repositioning that realizes a populist agenda within an established political system.

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In Chapter 3, Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse, Ricardo Gualda examines Venezuela’s transformation from a liberal democratic state into an autocratic populist regime. In this, we have an example of what has been termed ‘illiberal democracy’ by Fareed Zakaria (2013). Prior to the ascent of Hugo Chávez in 1999, Venezuela had been a complex industrialized state with an equally complex institutional structure. Like other modern states, it possessed its own, but rather opaque ‘expert bureaucracy.’ Gualda details the transition from a modern liberal democratic state in Venezuela to a leftwing autocracy, sustained by the skilled populist discourse of Hugo Chávez, its leader. Gualda notes that this transition comes about initially through a pre-existing tension between the bureaucratic elite and ‘the people’: “To the average Joe, it is difficult to penetrate the realm of the technocracy. And unless the State provides ample and undisputable, immediate, palpable gain, it is viewed with suspicion.” Chávez comes onto the scene in the wake of an economic crisis in the 1990s over the price of oil. However, after being elected President of Venezuela, he consolidates power into his own hands largely through the strength of his political skill and discourse. In many respects, he is a prototype for other populist dictators throughout the world. As President, Chávez was able to use state media and specifically his televised talk show Aló Presidente to appeal directly to the Venezuelan people. Aló Presidente was a weekly Sunday morning ‘talk show’ where Chávez was both the principal speaker who addressed his national audience as well as being an interviewer (for on-air guests and callers to his programme) and even a sports commentator. Aló Presidente allowed Chávez to be unencumbered by tough questions from journalists and regular media, a mainstay of democratic states where accountability ensures the functioning of the state. At present, we can think of Donald Trump’s use of twitter to achieve the same direct relationship with ‘the people’ or in Canada, Justin Trudeau’s exploitation of town halls to permit direct and unimpeded connection.2

2In

Trudeau’s case, this has backfired since he has been confronted and criticized during these town halls by the very people he wishes to connect with.

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Gualda examines the specific characteristics of Chávez’s populist discourse and style. He notes Chávez’s simplicity of speech, the repetition of several themes (e.g. Socialism versus Capitalism ), as well as his self-positioning as a Saviour figure in alignment with Simon Bolivar and even Jesus Christ. Chávez even exploits the Hispanic literary tradition of the picaro, a street-wise rogue who uses cunning to navigate his way in the world. This allows Chávez to bring humour into his television programme. Chávez can become the butt of his own jokes and the centrepiece of his humorous stories. In so doing, he humanizes himself and creates equanimity between himself, the President of Venezuela, and the people of Venezuela. He develops this equanimity further by directly engaging his audience. Apart from high-ranking members of the military or the government, members of his audience are addressed as hermano, (“brother”), compañero, (“comrade”) or compañera, (“comrade”). In contrast to his adoption of the picaro figure, Chávez also has another role up his sleeve, that of the rich uncle. This role harkens back to Chávez the Saviour, albeit not the saviour of his people, but rather the provider for his people. Chávez’s negotiation of these roles throughout Aló Presidente allows him to position himself not only as a powerful leader but also as leader like and directly connected to the people he serves. This generates both co-identification and trust which in turn concentrates power into Chávez’s hands. Most significantly, Chávez comes metonymically to represent Venezuela itself. In Chapter 4, Self and Other Metaphors as Facilitating Features of Populist Style in Diplomatic Discourse: A Case Study of Obama and Putin’s Speeches, Liudmila Arcimavičienė seeks to expand the traditional horizons of populism and populist discourse from location within a given nation-state to that between states. She argues that the populist dichotomy between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ can be applied to international diplomatic discourse. Building her argument from Mudde (2004) who maintains that the central concept of populism is ‘the people’ where ‘the elite’ are constructed in Manichean opposition, as well as that of Laclau (2005) who equally notes the opposition between ‘the people,’ ‘the nation,’ or ‘the silent majority,’ and ‘the regime,’ ‘the oligarchy,’ ‘the dominant group’ (p. 87), Arcimavičienė extends the specific notion of populist opposition metaphorically to international states, specifically

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The United States of America under Barack Obama and Russia under Vladimir Putin. For each, the other represents a corrupt or immoral ‘elite’ or ‘dominant group’ in contrast to ‘the good people’ who represent the ‘nation’ or for Barack Obama a geopolitical collective, the U.S. and the European Union. Arcimavičienė explores the strategies of legitimation and delegitimation employed by the two world leaders in their respective positioning of each as ‘other.’ More specifically, she explores these leaders’ use of metaphor as a means of legitimizing ‘the self ’ as representative of ‘the people’ and ‘the other’ in the role of ‘regime’ or ‘dominant group.’ Metaphor is also key to each leader’s populist stance in the world. Barack Obama’s stance is that of the ‘good people,’ whose values are cooperation and the rule of law, while Vladimir Putin’s stance is that of ‘the oppressed people’ who seek recognition. Arcimavičienė examines two sets of related speeches given by Obama and Putin. The first set concerns the Ukraine Crisis (2013) and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation (2014) and were given respectively by Putin (March 18, 2014) and Obama (March 26, 2014), while the second set was delivered during the 70th United Nations anniversary session (Putin, October 2, 2015; Obama, September 28, 2015) where the current state of the world and its future would be addressed with particular respect to the role of the United Nations. In chronological order, President Putin addressed his own national Parliament on March 18, 2014, shortly after which President Obama addressed the European Parliament in Brussels on March 26, 2014. The purpose of Obama’s speech coming almost immediately after Putin’s was to demonstrate America’s support for the European Union with respect Russian aggression in Ukraine. In their respective UN speeches, both leaders address the role of the UN in a world overrun by international conflict, specifically that in Syria, as well as specific conflict between the U.S. and Russia. Employing Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Critical Metaphor Analysis, Arcimavičienė identifies those metaphors which dominate in the speeches given by these two world leaders. For Obama, Arcimavičienė finds that three metaphors dominate in his political speeches: a War metaphor, a Personified Relationship metaphor, and a Journey metaphor. In positioning himself as part of a ‘we’ representing

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‘the West’ through the United States and Europe, Obama presents this ‘we’ as progressive and as fostering progress throughout the world: “So I come here today to insist that we must never take for granted the progress that has been won here in Europe and advanced around the world”… “but I am confident that eventually those voices, those voices for human dignity and opportunity and individual rights and rule of law, those voices ultimately will triumph.” He also hypothesizes victory over an unnamed ‘other.’ This battle is fought in moral terms for goals such as “progress” and “human dignity.” Obama’s chief goal is to legitimize ‘the nation’ or conceptual ‘homeland’ metonymically represented by the ‘West’ as realized by Europe and the U.S. The ‘other’ or Russia can only achieve integration with this ‘we’ through acceptance of its values. Thus, Obama activates a Personified Relationship metaphor to hold out the possibility of future cooperation with Russia: “I believe that for both Ukraine and Russia, a stable peace will come through de-escalation, a direct dialogue between Russia and the government of Ukraine and the international community.” Putin also employs a War metaphor in his speeches, along with a Personified Relationship metaphor: “Let me say one other thing too. Millions of Russians and Russian-speaking people live in Ukraine and will continue to do so. Russia will always defend their interests using political, diplomatic and legal means.” In his use of the War metaphor, Putin represents Russia as not having won battles, but as being prepared to fight and defend itself against ‘the other,’ specifically the ‘West’ in the guise of Europe and the U.S. He also invokes the metaphor of Personified Relationship between Russia and Ukraine in his evocation of the ‘people’: “Our concerns are understandable because we are not simply close neighbours but, as I have said many times already, we are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common source and we cannot live without each other.” Putin integrates the Ukraine with Russia as part of one ‘nation’ or ‘homeland.’ He goes so far as to metaphorically construct Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, as the “mother of Russian cities.” Putin’s represents his actions as defending Ukrainians against the Western ‘other.’ His argumentation can be said to be populist since indeed he constructs a ‘people,’ the Rus, whose heartland in Taggart’s terms (2002) requires defence and protection

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from an illegitimate ‘other’ that includes not only the existing state of Ukraine, but also Europe and the U.S. who oppose his expansion into Ukrainian territory. In Arcimavičienė’s analysis, Obama and Putin represent two distinct variants of the key notion of ‘the people’ in populist discourse. Obama consistently appropriates moral goodness and righteous action to the ‘we’ that he constructs. His ‘people’ possesses a moral supremacy to that of the ‘other,’ and in keeping with this moral supremacy, although he employs a war metaphor throughout his speeches, he also employs a journey metaphor which posits due and correct process. Putin, in his construction of the ‘people’ in conflict with ‘the other,’ articulates both the key notion of the populist heartland along with an internalized quality of spiritual strength. Arcimavičienė brings attention to the fact that populist discourse can extend to an international level. In Chapter 5, An Untrustworthy Entertainer: Populist Identities in the Voices of New Zealand Voters, Jay Woodhams provides an important counter-analysis to standard analyses of populism, and specifically right-wing populism. Rather than examining the discourse and rhetoric of populist leaders, Woodhams looks at ‘the people’s’ perceptions and views of a New Zealand right-wing populist, Winston Peters of the New Zealand First Party. Exploiting his Māori identity, Peters has enjoyed a very successful political career including roles as the Minister of Māori Affairs (1990–1991), Minister of Foreign Affairs (2005–2008; 2017–), Treasurer (1996–1998) as well as being Deputy Prime Minister (1996–1998; 2017–). Largely because of the number of his high-profile government roles, Peters is a consistent topic in New Zealand politics. Woodhams examines not his discourse or discourse strategies, but that of everyday New Zealanders who would construct ‘the people’ in populist discourse. As Woodhams states, “Rather than looking at how populists generate the people in a discursive sense [Laclau, 2005, p. 48], this study shifts focus to how the people generate the populist.” Woodhams looks specifically at how a set of informants ranging in age from 18 to 82 articulate their stance towards Peters. Woodhams interviewed 26 New Zealand voters in informal settings over a six-month period in 2012–2013. Within this data set, there were 23 salient exchanges in which Peters was the topical focus.

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Woodhams found that there was a marked difference between younger and older voters. Younger voters in Woodhams’ data viewed Peters less as a political figure and more as a figure of entertainment. One voter saw Peters as a figure of ‘fun’ and amusement. Although dissociating from his anti-immigrant policies, she nonetheless considered a situation where Peters walked by her in a local shop as “that sort of good value entertainment.” Another refers to him as “Winnie.” As Woodhams notes, with these voters, there is little apprehension of Peters and his policies along with some degree of co-identification: the politician as ‘one of us,’ an essential feature of populism according to Moffitt (2016). The stance of older voters was far more distanced from Peters. These voters did see him as a politician rather than just as an entertainment. Most likely because these voters have more experience of Peters’ vacillation in the roles he has assumed, they evidence much greater distance from him than do younger voters. One older voter states, “he’s TOTALLY unreliable um as he’s been sacked by each er um coalition that he’s been part of…he had the opportunity to be you know recognized forever as minister of maori affairs and he fluffed that he was er minister of finance which is a KEY position and he fluffed that um and he’s a bit um shall we say economical with the truth at times.” For these older voters, Peters is positioned less as a populist and more as a ‘fluffer’ who can’t sustain responsible leadership. Only one voter in Woodhams’ data set embraces Peters fully as a populist. For this voter, Peters is someone who can shake things up: “i gave the party vote to new zealand first cos i was looking to see some ++ er sparks flying.” With this voter, we see an active populist desire to challenge a pre-existing establishment, an elite. The importance of Woodhams’ research is that it investigates the effectiveness of populist strategies as experienced by actual voters in the stances they take towards a given populist leader, in this case Winston Peters. In Chapter 6 concerning the American Presidential election of 2016, Bernie and the Donald: A Comparison of Left- and Right-Wing Populist Discourse, Marcia Macaulay looks at the differences between two populist leaders, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Donald Trump represents a form of right-wing populism, while Bernie Sanders represents

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that of the left-wing. This supports Mudde’s view (2004) that populism can incorporate both right- and left-wing ideologies. Macaulay employs a Laclauan framework (2005) in her examination of Donald Trump’s Announcement Speech (June 16, 2015), as well as two speeches given by Bernie Sanders while campaigning: “Democratic Socialism” given at Georgetown University (November 19, 2015) and his closing for his speech given to the United Auto Workers in Marshalltown, Iowa (September 14, 2015) which was made into a video cartoon that went viral on the internet, “Don’t Tell Me.” Macaulay notes the extensive overlap of what Laclau terms “popular demands” in Donald Trump’s Announcement speech and Bernie Sanders’ two campaign speeches. Both use have structures to articulate narratives of ‘America Lost,’ with focus on the absence of jobs due to outsourcing, good healthcare coverage, and the existence of an elite, specifically in Wall Street, that controls internal American policy. What distinguishes them as populists is their positioning of themselves with respect to the ‘American people’ who they construct through the narratives they tell. Trump positions himself in Laclauan terms as an “unmet need”: “Now, our country needs – our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal. We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, our military, can take care of our vets” (Announcement Speech). Macaulay uses both Searlian Speech Act Theory (1969, 1991) as well as Greimasian Narrative Theory (1966) to examine the discourse of both Sanders and Trump. Both Sanders’ and Trump’s speech acts are principally made up of assertives (79% for Trump, and 71% for Sanders). Discoursally these assertives compose narratives within their respective speeches, and it is through these narratives that they construct the ‘American people’ and in turn position themselves with respect to this people. Trump integrates himself into the aggregation of unmet needs/popular demands made in his Announcement Speech. In so doing, he co-identifies with the unmet needs/popular demands of the American people as a whole. Within the context of Greimasian narrative he inhabits three roles: the sender, the subject (hero), and the helper. In such a narrative construct, the sender announces the lack or

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violation that has occurred (for Trump, jobs, manufacturing, support for the military, affordable health care) while the subject or hero accepts the quest to remedy what has been done with the aid of a helper. In announcing himself as an “unmet need,” Trump simultaneously functions as the sender and the hero of his quest to make America great again. His own negotiating skills are his helper in this quest. While Bernie Sanders articulates many of the same unmet needs as does Trump, he does not place himself at the centre of his own defined quest: “Finding America.” Along with asssertives, Sanders also employs a large number of directives: 19% in his Georgetown University Speech and 30% in his famous Closing for his Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall Speech. These directives construct a different relationship to his audience to that of Trump, one where there is interaction. The particular formulaic utterance Sanders employs in his second speech “Don’t Tell Me We Can’t,” presupposes an interlocutor who states, ‘We can’t.’ For Sanders, American patriotism is dialogic. Within a Greimasian framework, Sanders inhabits the role of sender, but the subject or hero is realized by his audience ‘the people’ along with himself. The role of helper is inhabited by the audience, ‘the people.’ In Sanders’ quest of finding America, the American people are placed at the centre of his narrative. In examining the two populist leaders of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, Macaulay differentiates Trump and Sanders not simply in terms of style, but also in their conceptualization of themselves as leaders within the narratives they tell. Both construct ‘the people’ through their articulation of unmet needs and popular demands, but while Trump positions himself within his aggregation of needs and demands as central, for Sanders it is ‘the people’ who are positioned as central to the quest of “Finding America.” They are the subjects/heroes of the narrative quest Sanders has sent them on, as well being their own helpers. Agentivity is very differently realized in the respective narratives told by Trump and Sanders. The chapters within this volume explore several aspects of theoretical populism: the notion of the ‘heartland,’ the notions of ‘the people’ and ‘the elite/other,’ the features of the ‘style’ of populist leaders in their command of media and in their command of narrative. Further, there is attention to ‘the people’ themselves, their actual responses and views

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with respect to populist leaders, along with the possibility of broadening the concept of populism to an international domain. Acknowledgements   The author wishes to thank Raluca Levonian for her important input in the creation of this volume, especially during its early stages.

References Canovan, M. (1981). Populism. London: Junction. Canovan, M. (1982). Two strategies for the study of populism. Government and Opposition, 19, 544–552. Eatwell, R. (2007). The concept and theory of charismatic leadership. In A. C. Pinto, R. Eatwell, & U. L. Stein (Eds.), Charisma and fascism in interwar Europe (pp. 3–18). London: Routledge. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor. Greimas, A. J. (1966). Sémantique structurale: recherché de méthode. Paris: Larousse. Ionescu, G., & Gellner, E. (Eds.). (1969). Populism its meaning and national characteristics. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. London: Verso. Moffitt, B. (2016). The global rise of populism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Mudde, C. (2004). The populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. (1991). Indirect speech acts. In S. Davis (Ed.), Pragmatics: A reader (pp. 265–277). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shils, E. (1956). The torment of secrecy: The background and consequences of American security policies. London: Heinemann. Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2014). Left-wing populism in the European periphery: The case of SYRIZA. Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(2), 119–142. Taggart, P. (2002). Populism. New Delhi: Viva Books.

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Taguieff, P.-A. (1997). Le populism et la science politique du mirage conceptual aux vrai Problèmes. Vingtiéme Siécle, 55(1), 4–33. Taguieff, P.-A. (2005). Populist Movements in Europe. In L. B. Larsen, C. Ricupero, & N. Schafhausen (Eds.), The Populism Reader (pp. 47–62). New York, NY: Lukas & Sternberg. Wodak, R. (2015). The politics of fear. London: Sage. Worsley, P. (1969). The concept of populism. In G. Ionescu & E. Gellner (Eds.), Populism its meaning and national characteristics (pp. 212–250). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Zakaria, F. (2013). The rise of illiberal democracy. Foreign Affairs, 76(6), 22–43.

2 Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland in Scottish Election Manifestos Ruth Breeze

Introduction Recent changes in the political scenario in many countries across the world have meant that populism is once again in the headlines. In academic circles, this phenomenon has attracted considerable research attention from sociologists, political scientists, media analysts and other experts, who have approached it from a variety of different standpoints. The issue is complex from the outset, since the notion of populism is notoriously difficult to define: although populism starts from the notion of ‘the people,’ it is clear that far from being a given fact, ‘the people’ is a powerful construct open to a variety of political uses (Laclau, 2005, p. 48). Of course, all understandings of the ‘demos’ count some people in, and others out (Dahl, 1989), but as Laclau points out (2005), the power of populism is that rather than identifying different groups in terms of their supposed interests or social background, populist R. Breeze (*)  Instituto Cultura Y Sociedad, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 M. Macaulay (ed.), Populist Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3_2

27

28     R. Breeze

movements draw strength from glossing over social fragmentation, ­conjuring up an image of the people as a single unit. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in populist movements where regional or ethnic identities are involved, and “national and race identities are constructed to create the illusion of ‘natural’ borders between ‘us’ and ‘them’” (Pelinka, 2014, pp. 7–8). In such cases, the image of the united people is often presented in conjunction with two other key concepts: that of the ‘heartland,’ and that of ‘the enemies of the people.’ In what follows, I shall first examine the construct of the ‘heartland,’ which has classically been identified as a second axis of populist discourse (Canovan, 2005), in that it posits the existence of a place in the world where ‘we’ have privileged membership and where ‘we’ are entitled to behave in the way that suits us. Particularly in the case of regional nationalism, anti-migration movements or disputed borders, the notion of the heartland is often tied up with revisionist politics, or with anti-migration movements (Wodak, 2014). However, even where this is not notably the case, the notion of heartland is conducive to generating powerful symbols with a strong emotive appeal. Although Pelinka (2014) and Wodak (2014) argue that populism is “very much a phenomenon of the far right” (Pelinka, 2014, p. 8), they themselves allude to other manifestations of populism, including the use of populist discourses by some radical left-wing or mainstream centre parties who deploy the same type of appeal to ‘the people’ as a unitary group, and make similar recourse to the ‘heartland’ as a locus of identity and belonging. Exactly how these groups are constructed discursively is “contingent on many historical, national and sociopolitical factors” (Wodak, 2014, p. 29), but the discursive strategies they use overlap with those of right-wing populists to a considerable extent. Moffitt (2016) has recently enhanced and extended our understanding of contemporary populism right across the political spectrum, contrasting the discursive or performative style of populist politicians on both right and left with other ‘bureaucratic’ or ‘technocratic’ approaches to doing politics, and has further highlighted the affective bond between the ‘people’ and the ‘heartland’ in the populist imaginaire. The second feature that often accompanies the central claim of populist discourses to ‘speak for the people’ is the projection of a discursive

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     29

‘other’ (or in terms of the heartland, an ‘outside’), which serves to sharpen the sense of belonging and community within the in-group. Taggart (2000) and Moffitt (2016) also stress the need for an identifiable enemy or adversary. As Taggart (2000) puts it, “populists are often more sure of who they are not than of who they are” (p. 94), and the demonisation of particular groups—social classes, ethnic groups or external powers— serves to forge bonds within the in-group and fuel populist sentiment. All three of these aspects of populism— the appeal to the people as a unitary group, the positive heartland, and the negative representation of its perceived enemies—are likely to be strong in cases where regional or ethnic identities are at stake. It is logical that nationalist or separatist parties should adopt a populist approach, operationalising the notions of the heartland and its people, and where necessary, pinpointing those ‘others’ from whom these must be defended. What is less obvious, however, is how regional nationalist parties can do this within the confines of mainstream democratic practice, and to what extent mainstream centralist parties can adapt their discourses to take account of regional nationalist sentiment. Although regional nationalist politics offer some of the most striking manifestations of populism in Europe today, they have so far received relatively little research attention. A large body of recent research centres on right-wing populist discourse in Europe (Wodak, KhosraviNik, & Mral, 2014), while considerations of left-wing populism have tended to centre on Latin America (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). But although regional nationalist or separatist movements are extremely active in several major European countries, only those that present a right-wing, overtly xenophobic agenda (e.g. Flanders) have attracted significant attention from discourse analysts (see de Cleen, 2016; Wodak et al., 2014). Other manifestations of regional nationalism, such as the regional nationalist or separatist parties found in Spain (Catalonia, Galicia, the Basque country) or the United Kingdom (Scotland, Wales) exploit populist discourse as a central element in their appeal, but have generated less interest, perhaps because they are positioned in the centre or on the left of the political spectrum. In particular, little is known about how these parties operate in a populist key within the framework of mainstream democratic politics. Moreover, it is also unclear to what extent such

30     R. Breeze

regional parties distinguish themselves discursively from other parties that also try to harness local sentiment in election campaigns, but with a very different political agenda. In the case of Scotland, for example, the established country-wide1 parties, such as the Conservative or Labour party, also adapt their messages to accommodate Scottish sentiment, attempting to engage the tropes of the regional heartland in a way calculated to rope in their audience. This raises the question as to whether or how these parties’ ‘appeal to the people’ might differ from that of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). This chapter focuses on Scotland in the years immediately before and after the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014, in which the Scottish electorate voted to remain within the United Kingdom. Previous research on discourses of national identity in Scotland has centred on references to ‘the people’ in newspapers (Law, 2001; Petersoo, 2007a, 2007b) and in the media in general (Higgins, 2004), showing how different publications or channels take up subtly differing stances towards Scottish or UK identity, which are shaped by their underlying sociopolitical ideology. In particular, this research has shed light on the adaptations made by UK-wide media institutions when attempting to address a specifically Scottish audience, and on the extent to which the resulting ‘appeals to the people’ retain coherence and credibility. By contrast, my starting point is expressly political, focusing on the central document of the political campaign, namely the election manifesto, issued by each of the main political parties in recent general elections in Scotland. Election manifestos constitute “the recognisable statement of policy, which has the backing of the leadership as the authoritative definition of party policy for that election” (Budge, Robertson, & Hearl, 1987, p. 18), and thus provide an appropriate vantage point for mapping different parties’ discursive positioning. Although Scottish political manifestos also bear many traces of the same type of discursive struggle as observed in media discourse, mentioned above, so far they have received little critical attention, and provide a new field for analysis. 1The term ‘country-wide’ is used here for parties that operate throughout Britain as a whole in order to avoid the term ‘national,’ which could give rise to confusion with the regional (i.e. Scottish and Welsh) nationalist parties.

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     31

This study thus covers the 2010 and 2015 national general election manifestos of the four major parties in Scotland (Scottish National Party, Scottish Labour Party, Scottish Liberal Democrat Party [hereafter LibDem] and Scottish Conservative Party). Using a mixed-methods approach combining corpus linguistic techniques with discourse and multimodal analysis, I examine the way in which populist discourses develop in the official self-presentations of these political parties over the pre- and post-referendum years, focusing on discursive issues related to identity, otherness and place. After a brief overview of the historical background, the chapter presents salient results from a semantic corpus analysis of the manifestos, which leads into a detailed investigation of key categories related to place, identity and belonging. This chapter centres particularly on the representations of the people, the heartland and the enemy (‘self ’ and ‘other,’ ‘heartland’ and ‘outside,’ ‘here’ and ‘there,’ and ‘we’ and ‘they’) in Scottish manifestos, and what these reveal about the struggle for Scottish voters’ allegiance. It takes a bottom-up, comparative approach, starting from the textual evidence, supported by quantitative analysis, and complemented by close examination of relevant samples of text. Multimodal factors are described insofar as they provide further evidence relating to these points. The conclusions relate these findings to theories of populist discourse, showing how layers of ideological difference are materialised in these texts.

Historical Background: United Kingdom General Elections in 2010 and 2015 Since this study is based on analysis of manifestos from the 2010 and 2015 general elections, a brief explanation of the immediate historical background is needed. Although Scotland has had its own Parliament (often known as Holyrood ) since 1999, the people of Scotland also vote in United Kingdom general elections and are represented in the House of Commons. General elections were held across the UK in 2010 and 2015. Although the overall results for the UK were similar in terms of votes in both years (36% Conservative and 29% Labour in 2010, compared to 37% Conservative and 30% Labour in 2015), the results

32     R. Breeze 1600000 1400000 1200000 1000000 800000

2010

600000

2015

400000 200000 0 Labour

LibDem

SNP

Conservative

Graph 2.1  Election results in general elections in Scotland, 2010 and 2015 (total number of votes)

obtained from polling in Scotland showed a huge swing to the SNP. It should be recalled that the Scottish Independence Referendum, held in September 2014, ended with a 55% majority in favour of remaining within the sovereign state of the United Kingdom. Far from weakening the Scottish electorate’s support of the SNP, however, the negative outcome of the referendum appeared to boost support for the SNP, particularly as far as representation in the House of Commons was concerned. The general election results (in absolute number of votes) in Scotland in both years, for the only four parties that obtained seats in the UK parliament, are shown in Graph 2.1.

Corpus and Methodology The manifestos of the four parties presenting candidates for the general elections of 2010 and 2015 in Scotland (see Graph 2.1) were collected, saved in text-only format, and uploaded to Wmatrix3 (by kind permission of Dr. Paul Rayson at the University of Lancaster) for semantic and

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     33

lexical analysis. First, following a methodological approach based on Al-Heijin (2015) and Potts (2015), an exploratory semantic analysis was performed on all eight texts, and the top key semantic categories were identified. For this, the Written Information corpus within the British National Corpus was used as the reference corpus (henceforth BNC Written Information corpus).2 Although many of these were predictable for election propaganda (areas such as government or future time), or related to a range of topics that are typically prominent in political manifestos (money and pay, work, education, crime and health), a certain number of the most prominent areas were identity related: people, pronouns, geographical terms (see Table 2.1). As Table 2.1 shows, the SNP 2010 manifesto actually had fewer semantic areas with a very high keyness score (shaded area, indicating Log Likelihood > 100) than the other manifestos, indicating that it differed less from the BNC Written Information corpus in terms of content areas. However, it is particularly striking that geographical names figured high on the list of key semantic areas in both SNP manifestos. Other potential identity-related semantic areas, such as pronouns and people were found among the top ten in the other manifestos, but not in those of the SNP. Tables 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 show the normalised frequency (per 100 words) of geographical terms, pronouns and the category ‘people’ in the eight manifestos.

Analysis In what follows, I take the salient semantic categories identified in my initial search (people, pronouns and geographical terms) as my starting point to analyse the ways in which the people, the heartland and the categories of belonging and centrality are operationalised in the discourses of the different parties. 2The

BNC Written Information corpus is a sub-corpus of the British National Corpus containing informative texts from a variety of sources. It is available within Wmatrix3 and provides a suitable reference corpus for calculating keyness scores in texts that are informative, rather than imaginative, in nature.

34     R. Breeze Table 2.1  Top ten key semantic areas in each manifesto (reference corpus: BNC Written Information) SNP10

SNP15

Government*

Helping*

Scottish

Scottish

Scottish

Scottish

Scottish

Scottish

Labour

Labour

Conservative

Conservative

LibDem

LibDem

2010

2015

2010

2015

2010

2015

Helping*

Time future*

Government*

Time future*

Money

Helping*

and pay* Geographical

Money

names*

pay*

Time future*

Government*

and

Time future*

Money

and

Time future*

Helping*

Helping*

Pronouns*

pay* Money

and

Government*

pay*

Money

and

Time future*

People*

Strong

Time

future*

future*

No

Education*

constraint*

People*

pay* Healthy

Time

Money

and

Money

and

pay*

pay*

Helping*

Change*

Government*

Ethical*

Health*

Geographical

Tough

names*

strong*

Much/many*

Alive*

Work*

People*

People*

Helping*

Money

Government*

Alive*

Pronouns*

Wanted*

Green

Law

issues*

order*

Money

Time

debts*

new*

Work *

People*

People*

Tough strong*

Alive*

No

Government* Money and pay* Government*

obligation Work

debts* Success

Work*

Crime*

Pronouns*

Safe

Ethical*

Time new*

Money lack

Much/many

Business

Work*

Tough strong

Business*

Law and

Money debts*

and

order* Wanted*

constraint*

Shaded area indicates LogLikelihood > 10 Bold type indicates aspects of relevance to the present discussion

Table 2.2  Frequency of geographical terms (per 100 words) SNP Scottish Labour Scottish Conservative Scottish LibDem

2010

2015

4.3 1.75 2.15 2.05

3.48 2.46 2.03 2.02

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     35 Table 2.3  Frequency of pronouns (per 100 words) SNP Scottish Labour Scottish Conservative Scottish LibDem

2010

2015

6.3 6.18 7.25 5.51

5.95 7.27 8.91 4.73

Table 2.4  Frequency of category ‘people’ (per 100 words) SNP Scottish Labour Scottish Conservative Scottish LibDem

2010

2015

0.55 1.02 0.86 0.95

0.61 1.28 0.89 1

Talking of the People As I have discussed above, the way in which a party or politician talks about ‘the people’ has been identified as one of the hallmarks of populist discourse (Moffitt, 2016). Following Rooduijn and Pauwels (2011, p. 24), I understand that there is a major difference between the use of all-inclusive terms used to group the people as a whole, and the use of terms which subdivide the electorate into specific interest groups. In the manifestos examined here, signifiers such as the people, citizens, or in this case, Scots, are sometimes used to identify an in-group contrasted with some other group, building the sense that the people of Scotland are united against a common enemy. If the text refers to “the people of Scotland” as a group who are placed in an oppositional relationship to “the UK government,” then there are, at the very least, some populist undertones that need to be investigated further. In some cases, however, the texts refer preferentially to groups of people within the country (subsets of the population, such as “young people” or “elderly people”), in which case we understand that this does not serve as an indication of populist discourse. As we shall see below, the proportion of ‘inclusive’ and ‘subset’ references varies greatly from one party manifesto to another.

36     R. Breeze

In the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos analysed here, the category of ‘people’ had a high keyness factor. This can be explained by the fact that this category was actually manifested in the form of multiple subsets, such as children and individuals, and of the word people itself with qualifiers such as “young people,” “disabled people,” or “homeless people,” again indicating subsets. By contrast, it is interesting to note that the SNP makes frequent use of the all-inclusive identity-related expression “the people of Scotland,” as well as more ambiguous combinations such as “people in Scotland,” and “people across Scotland,” as well as describing sectors of the population with the possessive, as in “our young people.” Paradoxically, the lower keyness value for the category of people in the SNP texts points to a greater tendency to lump “the people of Scotland” together, rather than subdivide them into sectors, and thus actually suggests a stronger degree of populism (Rooduijn & Pauwels, 2011). Formulations of this kind convey a higher degree of identification, which one might call a stronger national-populist tone, than, say, “young people” or “disabled people” used without possessives or indications of place. In fact, in 2010, around 38% of the instances of people in the SNP manifesto were accompanied by a specifically Scottish identity signal, as opposed to 6% in the Scottish Liberal Democrats manifesto, 3% in the Scottish Conservative manifesto and 2% in the Labour text. However, from the perspective of populism, we should note that such combinations are by no means the only type used by the SNP, since it also makes frequent use of vaguer constructions such as “the people who live here.” This suggests that the SNP’s discursive positioning admits a degree of openness to people who might not share a strongly Scottish sense of identity.

Politics of Place As mentioned above, the SNP was the main driving force behind the Scottish Independence Referendum of September 2014 and the Yes Scotland campaign. It is therefore hardly surprising that its lexical preferences for alluding to the geographical and/or constitutional status of Scotland should differ from those of the other parties, as is illustrated by Graph 2.2.

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     37

0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5

UK

0.4

Britain

0.3

British

0.2

nation/s

0.1

national

D tL

D tL

15

10 Sc o

5 Sc o

n1

0

Sc o

n1 Sc o

15 Sl ab

10

Sl ab

P1 5 SN

SN

P1 0

0

Graph 2.2  Relative frequency of terms relating to the United Kingdom, 2010 and 2015 (per 100 words)

One way in which the different framing of these issues is apparent is in the choice of name to denote the country to which Scotland belongs. This is in itself more complicated than it might seem, since both geographical and political terms can be used. Technically speaking, Britain or Great Britain is a geographical term referring to the island containing England, Wales and Scotland. The United Kingdom is a political term referring to the sovereign state of which England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are a part. In common usage, however, the names United Kingdom and Britain are used interchangeably to signify the state or country as a whole. In particular, in UK public life, the adjective British is often found in contexts where the whole state is meant (Law, 2001). This could be because, although UK itself is often used adjectivally, there is no convenient adjective derived from the name United Kingdom. However, this use of British also seems to point to a tendency towards an ‘England-centred’ or ‘London-centred’ view of Britain and the UK; in fact, there is an observable long-term tendency, even among UK politicians, to ignore the complex legal and historical situation of the “four nations” and simply elide the UK and Britain into England (Billig, 1995, p. 72).

38     R. Breeze

In the present case, as we can see in Graph 2.2, the Scottish Conservative and Scottish Labour party both use Britain and British fairly frequently, although the relative frequency of these terms declines somewhat between 2010 and 2015. Qualitative evaluation of concordance lines reveals that both parties tend to use Britain and British loosely to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom. When the Scottish Conservatives say that “With the Conservatives, Britain will be the best place in Europe to innovate, patent new ideas and set up and expand a business,” or “We will provide rural Britain with near universal superfast broadband,” they are using the word Britain in an inclusive sense to mean the United Kingdom: it is hardly likely that they are saying this in order to exclude Northern Ireland from their promises. The Scottish Labour party also makes declarations such as the following: “The British people have faced down terrorist threats before and will do so again.” Again, what is meant is the United Kingdom. Curiously, both parties occasionally seem to use a focalising technique, in which Scotland seems to be implicitly situated as part of Britain, rather as a subset of something larger. For example, Scottish Labour states that, “Across Scotland and across Britain, while living standards fall, social mobility stalls and austerity hurts the poorest, not everyone has had a bad time,” while Scottish Conservative says, “These measures will help to restore public confidence in British and Scottish politics.” Both of these examples seem at first to adopt a Scotland-centric standpoint (thus claiming Scottish identity); however, they broaden their field of view very quickly to Britain as a whole (thus betraying their underlying vision of Scotland as just part of a larger whole). Moreover, the Conservative party, in particular, makes particularly frequent use of the adjective British, in combinations such as “the British people” (13 instances), or “British food” (4 instances). Interestingly, the Scottish Liberal Democrats used the terms Britain and British rather frequently in 2010, but opted to omit them almost entirely from their most recent, post-referendum manifesto, showing a discursive repositioning in response to perceived changes in Scottish public opinion. In stark contrast to all the other parties, the SNP never once uses the words Britain, Great Britain or British, either in 2010 or 2015. The absence of these terms can be regarded as a deliberate refusal to

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     39

blur the borders of Scottish territory and Scottish identity and seems to be situated within a certain trend in Scottish public life: for example, Rosie, Petersoo, MacInnes, Condor, and Kennedy (2006) found that Scottish-based newspapers were much less likely to use the words British or Britain than London-based newspapers. To refer to the whole of the sovereign state of which Scotland is a part, the SNP consistently uses the term UK. This is technically correct in constitutional terms and arguably underlines the status of the four components of the United Kingdom as standing on an equal footing with each other. A similar phenomenon can be observed with the words nation and national. Of the two, nation is less common in all the manifestos, except in the SNP’s 2010 text. For the Conservative party, it is clear what the nation is: “Two sporting events have defined our nation in the last few years. Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games showed off the best of Scotland and left a legacy that has rejuvenated the city. London’s Olympic and Paralympic Games captured the world’s imagination.” Both the Conservative party and the Labour party use national to mean UK-wide, and often combine it with our (10 instances in Conservative, 9 in Labour). The Conservative party speaks from a deictic centre in which “we,” that is, the United Kingdom, are operating “our national” affairs en bloc: “Britain is now one of the fastest growing major economies in the world. We are getting our national finances back under control.” Scottish Labour adopts a very similar Britain-centred discourse to that used by Conservative: “It means a Britain where everyone plays by the same rules, including those at the very top of our society. And it means an outward looking country, engaged in the world for our national interest.” As Graph 2.2 shows, the SNP made considerable use of the word nation/s in 2010, perhaps in anticipation of the 2014 referendum on independence, but was less inclined to use the words nation and national than the other major parties in 2015. However, it is more important to note that when the SNP does use these terms, the meaning is markedly different. While Conservative and Labour both equate “the nation” with “the United Kingdom,” for the SNP, it is clear that the borders of the nation are drawn elsewhere:

40     R. Breeze

Scotland is an outward looking nation. We have family in all parts of the world. As a northern European nation, our near neighbourhood including the High North and Arctic are a key priority for Scotland.

This status is borne out in the (rare) uses of the word national in the SNP manifesto: for example, the understanding of national in the following example is clearly linked to Scotland alone: “we will support moves to more devolved arrangements for the BBC with greater powers and funding for the different national and regional broadcasting areas, such as BBC Scotland.” Again, clearly referring to Scotland rather than the UK, the SNP declares that “our whisky industry is a key national and export industry.” Interestingly, the central government’s use of the word national is problematised, using the derogatory “so-called,” along with an explanation that makes it clear that Scotland (and the other parts of the United Kingdom) have a separate identity: We believe that investment in so-called national projects in London, should be subject to normal consequential funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and that the North of England, in particular, should see a significant increase in infrastructure expenditure.

Representing Selves and Others Unsurprisingly for these specifically Scottish manifestos, in 2015 all the parties use the noun Scotland more than they use UK, Britain, England or Europe. In 2010, Scottish Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrats actually used Britain more than they used Scotland, but this pattern is reversed in 2015. Graph 2.3 illustrates the different manifestos’ preferences in this sense, revealing a striking degree of variation. As would be expected, the SNP generally makes greater use of Scotland than the other three manifestos, a frequency that responds to the greater localness of the party’s interests, and its stronger inclination

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     41

2 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

SNP10 SNP15 Slab10 Slab15 Scon10 Scon15 ScotLD10

ea

n

e Eu r

op

op

EU

Eu r

st er

h lis W es

tm in

nd

En g

la

t/s

En g

h

Sc o

tti s

Sc o

Sc o

tla

nd

ScotLD15

Graph 2.3  Representing entities within and beyond UK, 2010 and 2015 (per 100 words)

to flag Scottish identity. However, an examination of the details brings out even more interesting points. In 2015, Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats seem to favour the combination in Scotland: they use phrases such as “families in Scotland,” “young people in Scotland,” “nurses in Scotland,” “people in Scotland,” “jobs in Scotland,” and “parks in Scotland.” These arguably foster an understanding of Scotland as a place where people are, an area on the map. Although the SNP also uses combinations such as people in Scotland (see Graph 2.3), its manifesto notably contains no fewer than 85 examples of the possessive form Scotland’s, which only appears 9 times in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, 5 times in the Conservative manifesto and once in the Labour text. Generally speaking, the Saxon genitive in English is strongly associated with personal names, and a closer examination of the use of the possessive by the SNP reveals that many of the possessives occur in personifications of Scotland. Thus, we find seven variations on the theme of “making Scotland’s voice heard,” where Scotland is clearly represented as a person, or perhaps metonymically as the sum of the people who live there. A variety of other phrases also

42     R. Breeze

hint at personification, such as “Scotland’s strengths,” “Scotland’s best interests,” and even “Scotland’s ambitious carbon reduction tactics.” Other examples are less suggestive of personification (“Scotland’s economy,” “Scotland’s oil and gas industry”), but nonetheless seem to allude to a greater degree of possession and possessiveness than would be present if an unmarked construction were used (the oil and gas industry in Scotland, for example). Although these differences are small, it does seem that in this particular case, the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative tendency to situate things and people ‘in Scotland,’ just as they might be any other geographical area, contrasts with the SNP representation of Scotland as an entity in its own right, often personified, and often with rights of entitlement over the resources and qualities attributed to it. Interestingly, the adjective Scottish also seems to be used differently in the SNP from the other three texts. It should be noted that the name of the party itself is not spelled out, but is left as “SNP,” and so, this does not actually swell the number of instances with respect to the other manifestos; in fact, the opposite is true, because many of the instances in the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat texts are simply repetitions of each party’s full name (“Scottish Labour Party,” etc.). In the SNP manifesto, Scottish is generally associated with political entities, with “the Scottish Government” as the most frequent combination (36), followed by “the Scottish Parliament.” This emphasis on “the Scottish Government” is comprehensible as a form of selfreference (the SNP was the majority party in the Scottish Parliament at that time), but the repetition of “Scottish Government” also tends to hammer home the status of Scotland as a country—curiously, “Scottish Government” appears exactly the same number of times (36) as “UK Government.” The most frequent combination with Scottish in the Conservative manifesto is a self-reference, namely “Scottish Conservatives” (20 instances). This is followed by “the Scottish Parliament” (16 instances), which emphasises the parliament as a place containing all the parties. A similar pattern appears in Labour’s manifesto, the most frequent combinations being “Scottish Labour” (29 occurrences) and “Scottish Parliament” (25 occurrences). Labour only twice uses Scottish to qualify

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     43

human (non-institutional) agents: “Scottish workers” and “Scottish residents,” while the Conservatives offer only four instances: “Scottish families,” “Scottish schoolchildren,” and “Scottish MPs” (2 instances). While the two main UK parties maintained a fairly stable pattern in this sense, the Liberal Democrat party is the nationwide party which modified its naming policy most from 2010 to 2015: its use of Scotland rose from 1.9 to 6.7 instances per 1000 words, while Scottish soared from 2.5 to 8.9. This may be indicative of an attempt to relate to a more nationalist-minded electorate: it may be significant that in addition to 15 self-references to “Scottish Liberal Democrats,” the 2015 manifesto contains 29 references to “Scottish Government,” reflecting a discourse that is otherwise more characteristic of the SNP. It is important to notice that the SNP also diverges from the other manifestos by offering a wider variety of lexical combinations with the adjective Scottish. Whereas, as we have seen, Labour and Conservative discourses make repeated use of self-references (“Scottish Labour”) or institutional references (“the Scottish Parliament”), the SNP’s use of the adjective is extended to describe a wide variety of entities, including “Scottish business/es” (10 instances), “Scottish companies” (3), “Scottish society” (3), “Scottish jobs” (2), as well as the interesting instances “Scottish citizens” and “Scottish values and priorities,” and a range of human categories (ministers, farmers, households, exporters). It seems clear that the two UK-wide parties are more cautious with their use of the adjective Scottish, preferring to apply it mainly to institutions that are associated with the devolved institutions of government, while the SNP is liberal in its use, flagging economic and social entities as belonging to Scotland in a more emphatic assertion of identity. The other parts of the United Kingdom scarcely feature in the SNP manifesto, and when they do, their use contrasts sharply with that found in the other three parties’ manifestos, where the focus is always on equity between Scotland and other constituent parts of the UK. Over half of the instances of England in the SNP texts occur in the noun phrase north of England, often associated with “Glasgow, Edinburgh and the north of England” or “Scotland and the north of England.” This geographical anchoring again serves to position the speaker/reader, providing a Scotland-centred perspective on geography.

44     R. Breeze

Even more striking is the example cited above in which Scotland is defined as a northern European nation, whose “near neighbourhood” includes the Arctic. Here, not only is Scotland’s identity as a nation discursively asserted, but it is also placed in a “neighbourhood” which is radically different from the one that is usually accorded to it in traditional UK politics and geography. One of the particularly striking features in Graph 2.3 is the SNP’s growing preference for the term Westminster. Its 2015 manifesto contains 62 occurrences of Westminster. This term is unique to the SNP. Of these instances, 37 appear in the combination “at Westminster,” almost always in association with a reaffirmation of the SNP’s own presence in the House of Commons, in combinations such as “make Scotland stronger at Westminster,” “make Scotland’s voice heard at Westminster,” “strong group of SNP MPs at Westminster,” “carry real weight at Westminster,” and so on. The choice of this term clearly states the locus of political struggle in parliament, while avoiding other possible types of reference (London, England, the House of Commons) that come with other connotations. In fact, the word parliament is most frequently used by the SNP to refer to “the Scottish Parliament” or “our Parliament.” Of the other instances of Westminster, in 14, the name is used adjectivally in negatively connoted noun phrases, such as “the out of touch Westminster system,” “even deeper Westminster spending cuts,” and “the current, failed Westminster approach.” The most explicit example illustrating the hostility between Scotland and Westminster is perhaps this, from the 2015 SNP manifesto: For example, no Scottish Government would have introduced the Bedroom Tax in Scotland and, looking forward, we would be able to protect people from any future ideological attacks from Westminster on the very essence of our social security system.

It is interesting that the combination “Westminster system” occurs three times, and “Westminster parties” occurs twice: by lumping together the mainstream UK political parties as “Westminster parties” and UK democracy as “the Westminster system,” the SNP locates these at a psychological distance from Scotland, beyond its natural borders, in alien territory.

2  Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland …     45

The repetition of such noun phrases, always in negative contexts such as “the privatisation agenda of the Westminster parties” and “the broken Westminster system,” constitutes an exercise in ‘othering’ in which various institutions—UK democracy, the Houses of Parliament, the Conservative and Labour party—are simultaneously denigrated and delegitimised. Here, as in the case of the strong identity assertions analysed above, the SNP can be seen to adopt populist discursive strategies, but here this is done by setting up an identifiable enemy against which the “good people” define their identity (Moffitt, 2016; Rooduijn & Pauwels, 2011; Wodak, 2015). Regarding other geopolitical entities, the European Union does not have a major role in these manifestos. The SNP prefers the term EU (perhaps in parallel to its choice of UK ), but also uses the adjective European. The SNP situates Scotland discursively on the same level as other European countries, as in the following example: “We support free movement within the EU and recognise both the contribution EU citizens make to Scottish society and the opportunities created for Scottish citizens elsewhere in the EU.” The Conservatives, on the other hand, situate Britain (presumably, the UK) in a relationship with the EU, although one which hardly seems accurate at the time of publication: “We have seen many more people from the EU coming to Britain than originally anticipated” (the UK is currently an EU member state, and so people are not “coming from the EU to the UK,” they are simply moving around within the EU). The Conservative manifestos also lay a particular emphasis on EU migrants, a term that does not appear in the SNP. Europe appears 15 times in the 2015 Conservative manifesto, 6 in superlative constructions where the UK or Scotland is favourably compared with the rest of the EU, and another 6 in sentences indicating resentment against the EU and future political action to redress this. Curiously, Labour’s 16 instances of EU in 2015 include 6 relating to migration, framed as a threat to local jobs, 5 about perceived problems with the EU, and 4 relating to the importance of working within the EU in order to influence world affairs. For Labour, as for Conservative, the protagonists of this debate are “Britain” on the one side and “Europe” or “the EU” on the other, while “Scotland” is positioned as having a relationship with the EU or Europe other than as part of the UK.

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On the other hand, it must be said that despite a very clear identity which is constantly flagged, and strong positioning against its adversaries, the SNP takes some care to avoid racist discourses, stressing links with other parts of the world, and proclaiming Scottishness to be an open identity, sometimes through the interesting locution new Scots. The following example illustrates this discourse of open and inclusive Scottishness: “We have family in all parts of the world and our society has been strengthened, over generations, by new Scots arriving from across the globe.”

Images: Invoking and Subverting Place The design of the manifestos points to a range of different approaches to flagging Scottish identity visually. If we focus on the 2015 texts, the Conservative manifesto integrates certain images that are loosely suggestive of Scottishness, such as a fishing village or a farmer with sheep, into a series of glossy photographs that seem to reference the UK population in general (parents, students, happy pensioners, an Asian doctor) rather than a specifically Scottish target group. Interestingly, the only really specific indexing of place takes place through one full-page image of the Forth Bridge3 illuminated from below, which finds an immediate parallel in a similar twilight image of the Houses of Parliament. A final photograph shows two flagpoles: the union flag and the cross of St. Andrew, side by side. The visual message transmitted by this manifesto is one of marginal Scottishness; Scotland is referenced from time to time, but as part of the United Kingdom. Scottish Labour adopts a clean, rather up-market visual design, which also gives prominence to general photographs of parents, workers, students, etc., a few of which seem to have been taken against a background suggestive of Scotland. This manifesto offers a slightly wider range of ethnicities than does that of the Conservatives, and interestingly the only image with an explicitly

3The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge which crosses the Firth of Forth nine miles west of Edinburgh. Opened in 1890, the bridge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was voted Scotland’s greatest human-made wonder in a public vote in 2016.

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Scottish reference is that of a (possibly) Asian girl with a tartan scarf. Perhaps for reasons of budget, the Liberal Democrat manifesto scarcely diverges visually from the version used for England. In short, while the Conservative party does index Scotland visually, the underlying strategy seems to be one of emphasising unity with the UK and within the UK. In visual terms, the other two parties scarcely flag Scottishness at all. By contrast, the SNP 2015 manifesto is not visually opulent, but gives a higher profile to various aspects of Scottishness in the images chosen for the manifesto. First, one of the earliest double page spreads in the manifesto is a white-on-black montage of all the names of SNP candidates and the constituencies for which they are standing. This design anchors the manifesto in Scotland, through a recital of (mainly) Scottish personal names and Scottish place names (we may note that these names do not figure in the calculations for key semantic areas, where geographical names had a high keyness value, because they are part of an image and were not represented in the text file used for the Wmatrix3 corpus). As Higgins (2004) argues, “it is only by extending the definition of location to all those information-bearing units that derive from a description of place that we are accorded a fuller appreciation of the influence of national belonging in the media” (p. 646). The accumulation of Scottish names here builds up a sense of Scottishness in the SNP’s text that is utterly lacking from the other parties’ manifestos. Slightly further on in its manifesto, the SNP provides a large photograph of the party conference showing large numbers of candidates on a stage, with highlighted text emphasising the surge in membership, and cut-out profiles of five candidates fronted with “here are some of their stories.” As with the list of names and constituencies, the SNP seems to be emphasising strength in numbers—perhaps in a visual correlate of their slogan “Stronger for Scotland.” Finally, in a striking graphic design, the iconic green seats of the House of Commons are shown—but in two photomontages which portray an increasing number of these seats as tartan, accompanied by the caption “More SNP seats. More power for Scotland.” The image of the House of Commons with tartan upholstery is interesting, in that it not only indexes Scottishness in the banal way that the tartan scarf in the Labour manifesto does, but it also plays a

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visual game with the reader. This hybrid image subtly undermines the prestige of the House of Commons, the locus of the Westminster constructed elsewhere as Scotland’s enemy. Such subversive images are hard to interpret rationally, except in the most obvious sense as a provocation to those who are unhappy with the SNP presence in parliament. They would appear to function on a more associative level, expressing an idea (the SNP’s ‘invasion’ of a traditionally conservative British institution) through a striking image, and thereby reaffirming Scottish identity while mocking an unloved institution. These photographs thus add a touch of humour that is likely to be appreciated by SNP voters, and which might well irritate supporters of other parties.

Speaking from a Deictic Centre The notion of deictic centre has long been studied as a crucial aspect of political discourse (Cap, 2002; Chilton, 2004), since it reinforces in-group identity, and aligns readers against possible adversaries or competitors. In Simmel’s words (1997), “the spatial factor of proximity or distance influences the sociological group form decisively” (p. 159). In nationalist discourses, the centre can typically be considered the “zero point” of the home nation (Achard, 1993). However, since essentially all politicians try to rope in their audiences and align them with their own way of thinking, the genuine interest of this phenomenon for the study of populism lies not so much in the strategy itself, as in what we can observe about where that centre is and who or what it can be inferred to contain. As Graph 2.4 shows, there is considerable variation between parties in the use of personal pronouns and possessives, and the indexical here. The Conservatives, in particular, make generous use of we and our, and are the only party to make consistent use of you and your. However, as Thomas (1995) pointed out, deictics of place, in general, “do not mean much in isolation, it is only when you know where the speaker is standing or what the speaker is indicating that they become truly meaningful” (p. 9), and the same holds for indexicals such as first-person pronouns.

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3.5 3 2.5 SNP15

2

Slab15

1.5

Scon15 ScotLD15

1 0.5 0 we

our

us

here

you

your

Graph 2.4  Personal and deictic markers in the 2015 manifesto (frequency per 100 words)

Moreover, in the present political context, we need to ask what the use of we, our or here means in terms of ideology; in the view of Rooduijn and Pauwels (2011), the use of we or our, or all of us, or everyone can only be said to be ‘populist’ if the context implies full identification of we and us with a particular national or ethnic group, from which other agents are excluded. In fact, both the we and the non-we hold keys to the issue of positive and negative alignment. If the we is party-centred, but the non-we is defined in terms of social categories, as in Thatcher’s famous declaration “we will back the workers, not the shirkers” (cited in O’Shaughnessy, 2014, p. 23), then it is not hard to perceive the identity of the ideological emissor or its target. On the other hand, the we in Trump’s assertion “the Chinese are killing us” (Trump, 2015) clearly ropes in the population of the USA, but the alignment is equally clear. The problem is that many cases are not so clear, because it is usually the reader who has to decide who is included in the reference of the pronouns, and who is not, and it may not be easy to reconstruct this from the co-text. In the case of these manifestos, the SNP clearly speaks from a we which is Scotland-centred and party-centred, while the other parties

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speak from a we that indicates the party itself, sometimes even excluding Scotland from the first-person reference. The SNP’s non-we is, as we have seen, often embodied in circumlocutions such as Westminster or the Westminster system. SNP locates itself firmly in Scotland, which is situated amid a particular set of near neighbours, some of which are perhaps expected, such as “Scotland and the north of England,” and some of which, like “the Arctic,” are less so. As we have seen, the SNP’s repetition of “Westminster” and “at Westminster” locates the sources of power (and of problems) beyond Scottish borders. In comparison, it is significant that the Conservative party speaks from a deictic centre outside Scotland, as is clear from examples such as “we have devolved powers to Scotland and Wales.” Even where this anchoring is not so clear, the Conservative manifesto often places Scotland within a larger picture, as in the example “to achieve full employment in Scotland and across the wider UK.” Its promises emphasise balance, with Scotland as part of a system; thus, they propose to “ensure a stable constitution that is fair to the people of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.” Doubtless alluding to the recent Scottish referendum (in which the In campaign won under the slogan “Better together”), the Conservative party states in 2015, “Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland - ours is the greatest union of nations the world has seen. Together we have done so much, and we can do much more.” It must also be said that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the Conservatives use we to talk about their own party’s achievements and intentions (830 out of 858 instances). When they mean to include the reader, they sometimes perceive the need to make this explicit: “Our long-term economic plan reflects our values: we as a nation should not be piling up and passing on unaffordable levels of debt to the next generation.” It is noticeable that only once does the Conservative manifesto seem to speak from an explicitly Scottish centre: “We have hundreds of natural wonders sitting on our doorstep no matter where in Scotland we live.” Like the SNP, Conservative also uses the possessive our very frequently (397 occurrences), either to refer to the Conservative party or government, or to include the reader. Some examples are specifically focused on a UK we—“our United Kingdom”—but most seem to imply a UK we existing without reference to a Scottish we. In terms of

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Petersoo’s (2007a) concept of the “wandering we,” it is clear that the Conservative we does indeed fluctuate between two possible referents: the party itself, and the (London-centred) UK. Only once does a we firmly anchored in Scotland make an appearance. Scottish Labour also speaks from a deictic centre located south of the border, as we can see when it promises: “We will devolve more power to the Scottish Government and Scottish local authorities.” They use we very often (433 occurrences), and only a few of those examples can be interpreted as inclusive (25). In general, we here means “the Scottish Labour Party” or “the Labour Party” in general: “We can make Scotland the fairest nation on earth.” When roping in the reader, Labour also tends to talk from a UK-centred we (Law, 2001; Petersoo, 2007a), as in the example: “Britain has unique influence in the world. We are the only country that is a member of the UN Security Council, NATO, the G7, the G20, the Commonwealth and the EU.” However, there are also several examples of ambiguous we, where the inclusive we seems to be merged with the Labour we, or at least juxtaposed to it in the same paragraph, so that by a normal interpretation of inter- and intra-sentential reference, the two types of we tend to be perceived as one and the same, as in the following excerpt (from 2015): “We know that to make Britain a better country, opportunity must belong to everyone and not just a few. We will lend a helping hand to all those who need it.” Such instances of “blurring” of the speaking subject bear further examination. For example, in the following extract from a Labour manifesto, we is both observer and observed—it seems as if the writer is initially looking at Scotland from the outside, but then turns out to be looking at “our talent”; and following on from this, “we” know what “the Scottish people know”—but that would imply that “we” are not “the Scottish people.” This confuses the identity of the speaker still further: “We look at Scotland and see our amazing talent and potential, but we see the things that stop people from fulfilling their dreams and ambitions. We know what the Scottish people know. We know we can do better than this.” Labour also includes a few ‘Scot-centric’ instances of we, such as “Ending the stigma, investing more and supporting people with mental health problems, particularly in the workplace, is something we don’t

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talk about often in Scotland.” But oddly, Labour also has inclusive we in negative associations, such as “The measure of success for our prison system should be reductions in levels of reoffending, not the number of people we are jailing.” In general, the we of the Scottish Labour manifesto seems to be less firmly anchored than that of the Conservatives, with a certain tendency to “wander” (Petersoo, 2007a): such ambiguous uses of we are perhaps more characteristic of cultures in a state of transition and have an importance of their own. As Petersoo (2007a) says, the wandering we is interesting in that it “can simultaneously represent one or several different (national) categories to different readers” (p. 433). In a culture where identity is multi-layered or unstable, far from being a weakness, this might be one of its strengths. It is possible that the we of the Labour manifesto (and occasionally of the Conservative one) reflects an underlying intention to rope in a variety of addressees, although it might also simply betray a problem on the level of conceptualisation when adapting the discourses of what is essentially a London-centred party to the Scottish context. Lastly, one of the most obvious manifestations of centrality in political discourse is the use of the indexical here (Chilton, 2004). This word is not frequent in the manifestos, but the few examples that are available add further evidence that here is not the same place for the SNP as for the other parties. SNP 2015 uses here 10 times, always clearly placing Scotland as the deictic centre: “this election is an exciting opportunity for Scotland to deliver real change, here and across the UK”; “students who have been educated in Scotland can spend 2 years working here after their studies”; “the people who care most about Scotland, that is, the people who live here”; “the more powers we have in Scotland the more we can achieve for the people who live here.” The Conservative party also uses here twice to mean Scotland, once to refer obliquely to England, and four times to refer broadly to the UK, in contexts such as “We will insist that EU migrants who want to claim tax credits and child benefit must live here and contribute to our country for a minimum of four years.” The Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos use here to refer generally to the UK, in the context of migrants entering the country, without references specifically signalling Scotland other than as part of the UK.

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In short, whichever indexical we choose to examine, the evidence from this corpus suggests that the deictic centre from which the SNP is speaking is firmly anchored in Scotland, whereas the other manifestos contain a multi-centred discourse that is perhaps more representative of Scotland’s current constitutional status and their own role within UK-wide parties, but less likely to match with a strongly local habitus.

Conclusions All four manifestos show evidence of a concern to give explicit material expression to Scottish national identity. However, the SNP’s discourses sustain stronger populist undertones, meeting the three criteria of presenting a unitary ‘people,’ a strong ‘heartland’ and a definable ‘enemy’ set out in the introduction to this chapter. The SNP emphasises the ‘people’ as a united category, and materialises the ‘heartland’ (Canovan, 2005) through specific strategies of “location formulation” (Higgins, 2004), a strong deictic centre (Petersoo, 2007a) and a consistent and obvious flagging of national identity (Law, 2001). Like populists elsewhere, the SNP also projects a dichotomic relationship between ‘the people’ and their ‘enemies’ (Moffitt, 2016; Wodak, 2015): responsibility for Scotland’s problems is externalised to the location ‘Westminster,’ which can be interpreted in Laclau’s sense as a rhetorical adversary serving discursively to unite the hegemonic bloc of Scottish interests (Laclau, 2001). The particular choice of the term Westminster, rather than, say, the UK parliament, is striking. The latter would inevitably point towards Scotland’s constitutional status as part of the UK, whereas Westminster, a faceless institution firmly located in the territory of the Other, allows the SNP to present itself as a protest movement— although it actually operates within the mainstream political system (and holds seats in that parliament). On the other hand, the choice of Westminster, rather than London, England, British politicians, or the Conservative government, makes it possible to identify the enemy with a certain degree of vagueness, without using terminology that might prove offensive or inaccurate.

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The analysis in this chapter also suggests that the Scottish manifesto discourses bear strong family resemblances to other discourses in Scottish public life, particularly to those that have been analysed in the media. In particular, the abundant use of Scottish locations and the strong deictic centring in the SNP’s manifestos ties in with the location formulation discussed by Higgins (2004), and the centring identified by Law (2001). In terms of degree, though, this phenomenon belongs within the ‘everyday’ category of “banal nationalism,” which Billig (1995) contrasts with more extreme nationalist manifestations. The homeland is constantly flagged, place is established “without the vulgar act of pointing” (Billig, 1995, p. 108), and Scottishness is omnipresent, although strangely unnoticeable, because it is presented as the only possible context. My findings here reflect those of Higgins’s study of Scottish media practices (2004), showing how the manifestos tend to bring nationhood to the fore by using abundant specific vocabulary (use and avoidance of particular geographical terms, for example). However, we should note that this tendency is most consistent and most pronounced here in the SNP’s texts, whereas the other manifestos are less consistent in their operationalisation of these features. The Conservative, Labour and LibDem manifestos tend to apply UK/British terms and signifiers in parallel to Scottish ones, thus projecting a less radical hybrid identity compatible with Scotland’s current constitutional status within the UK. In comparative terms, we have also seen that all the parties generate Scotland-centred discourses on a less explicit level through deictic reference. But it is specifically the SNP that consistently speaks from a Scottish centre, and as we have seen, when the other parties attempt to flag Scottishness, their discourses are less consistent and their centring tends to be either vague, or London-centred. In this, there is a parallel to the newspaper discourses analysed by Law (2001), who compared “indigene,” “interloper” and “Anglo-centric” newspapers for the Scottish readership. National newspapers with a special version for Scotland, characterised as “interlopers,” were found to project superficial aspects of Scottish identity, but had an essentially non-Scottish deictic centre: the Scottish Sun, for example, “covers itself with Scottish paraphernalia” (Law, 2001, p. 304), but typically assumes a British deictic centre.

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This contrasts with “Anglo-centric” national newspapers (such as The Times ) that place Scottish markers on the outside. As Law (2001) states, “interlopers tend to remain ‘inorganically appended’ to Scotland, or more precisely the Glasgow-Edinburgh axis, as a deictic centre, and unmindfully assume a London-England-Britain axis” (p. 304). In our case, the Conservative party in particular, and Labour to a lesser extent, seemed to operate from an essentially non-Scottish deictic centre, radically different from that of the SNP. The LibDem discourses were the ones that seemed to show most evidence of a shift between 2010 and 2015, adopting more explicitly ‘Scottish’ and ‘European’ markers in the material for the post-referendum general election. Regarding personal pronouns, the use of we in these manifestos is interesting in its indeterminacy. We have seen that we may represent one or several categories of national belonging to different addressees and can even float from one referent to another in a short space of text (e.g. from ‘we the country’ to ‘we the party’). This “wandering we” has been identified by Petersoo (2007a) as being particularly interesting as a phenomenon where identities are unstable or multi-layered. However, in the concrete case of the manifestos, it is sometimes hard to determine whether this is a sustained discourse feature reflecting the writer’s assumption of multiple layers of identify, or whether it is partly an artefact of intrusions that occur when a habitually England-centred we makes adjustments when addressing a Scottish audience. It is thus unclear whether the we of the Labour manifesto, say, reflects an underlying intention to address a variety of audiences, or simply a problem in adapting discourses centred elsewhere to the Scottish context. To conclude, although it is clear that all the political parties here make some effort to speak from a deictic centre that is aligned with that of the target community, they do not do so in the same way or to the same extent. The SNP makes greater use of the regional dimension and has a more robustly Scottish positioning in terms of people and place, offering material representations of an exclusively Scottish heartland and an identifiable adversary that is held responsible for Scotland’s problems. Both Labour and Conservative discourses show evidence of a shifting deictic centre, and a tendency to open the focus from a Scottish to a UK-wide view. As for the enemy, these parties hint vaguely

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at threats from “immigration” and “the EU,” but a clear antagonist does not emerge in their texts. It is only the SNP manifestos that present the threat from outside in such a way that it creates a discursive dichotomy, reflecting the strong sense of ‘we’ versus ‘them’ said to be typical of right-wing populist discourses (Wodak, 2015), but which is also characteristically found in certain types of left-wing politics (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). However, it would be wrong to conclude that the SNP is a radical populist party that presents a threat to UK democracy. The SNP is a party located firmly within the constitutional system, which has, for much of its history, traditionally been strong on defence of local identities and traditional culture, aspiring to regional devolution of power, rather than absolute separatism (compare Ruzza & Balbo, 2013). The Scotland-centred discourses of the SNP manifesto have only moderate populist overtones, coloured by an incipient vision of Scotland as an independent nation. By contrast, the other parties, conditioned by their UK-wide affiliations and aspirations, show difficulties in mobilising various layers of identity, blurring Scottishness with Britishness in a way that may be strategic, or may sometimes simply result from a lack of discursive awareness. Acknowledgements   The author wishes to acknowledge the support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Mineco), through the research project: Imagining the people in the new politics, Ref. FFI201565252-R.

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Canovan, M. (2005). The people. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cap, P. (2002). Explorations in political discourse: Methodological and critical perspectives. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing political discourse. London: Routledge. Dahl, R. (1989). Democracy and its critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. De Cleen, B. (2016). Representing ‘the people’: The articulation of nationalism and populism in the rhetoric of the Flemish VB. In J. Jamin (Ed.), Le destin de la norme (pp. 224–242). Brussels: Academia Bruylant. Higgins, M. (2004). Putting the nation in the news: The role of location formulation in a selection of Scottish newspapers. Discourse & Society, 15(5), 633–648. Laclau, E. (2001). Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso. Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. London: Verso. Law, A. (2001). Near and far: Banal national identity and the press in Scotland. Media, Culture and Society, 23, 299–317. Moffitt, B. (2016). The global rise of populism: Performance, political style and representation. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mudde, C., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2012). Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or corrective democracy? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Shaughnessy, N. (2014). The role of rhetoric: Political rhetoric as function and dysfunction. In J. Atkins, A. Finlayson, J. Martin, & N. Turnbull (Eds.), Rhetoric in British politics and society (pp. 17–29). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Pelinka, A. (2014). Right-wing populism: Concept and typology. In R. Wodak, M. KhosraviNik, & B. Mral (Eds.), Right-wing populism in Europe: Politics and discourse (pp. 3–22). London: Bloomsbury. Petersoo, P. (2007a). What does ‘we’ mean? National deixis in the media. Journal of Language and Politics, 6(3), 419–436. Petersoo, P. (2007b). Reconsidering otherness: Constructing Estonian identity. Nations and Nationalism, 13(1), 117–133. Potts, A. (2015). Filtering the flood: Semantic tagging as a method of identifying salient discourse topics in a large corpus of Hurricane Katrina reportage. In P. Baker & T. McEnery (Eds.), Corpora and discourse studies (pp. 285– 304). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Rooduijn, M., & Pauwels, T. (2011). Measuring populism: Comparing two methods of content analysis. West European Politics, 34(6), 1272–1283.

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Rosie, M., Petersoo, P., MacInnes, J., Condor, S., & Kennedy, J. (2006). Mediating which nation? Citizens and national identity in the British press. Social Semiotics, 16, 327–344. Ruzza, C., & Balbo, L. (2013). Italian populism and the trajectories of two leaders: Silvio Berlusconi and Umberto Bossi. In R. Wodak, M. KhosraviNik, & B. Mral (Eds.), Right-wing populism in Europe: Politics and discourse (pp. 163–175). London: Bloomsbury. Simmel, G. (1997). The sociology of space. In D. Frisby & M. Featherstone (Eds.), Simmel on culture: Selected writings (pp. 137–169). London: Sage. Taggart, P. (2000). Populism. Buckingham: Open University Press. Thomas, J. (1995). Meaning in action: An introduction to pragmatics. London: Longman. Trump, D. (2015, July 18). First Republican debate speech. Ames, IA: Family Leadership Summit. Wodak, R. (2014). ‘Anything goes!’—The Haiderisation of Europe. In R. Wodak, M. KhosraviNik, & B. Mral (Eds.), Right-wing populism in Europe: Politics and discourse (pp. 23–38). London: Bloomsbury. Wodak, R. (2015). The politics of fear: What right-wing political discourses mean. London: Sage. Wodak, R., KhosraviNik, M., & Mral, B. (2014). Right-wing populism in Europe: Politics and discourse. London: Bloomsbury.

3 Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse Ricardo Gualda

Introduction In 1992, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías—a low-ranking officer in the Venezuelan Army—and a handful of his colleagues attempted an old-fashioned military coup in Latin America, like so many before them in the twentieth century. Troops and military equipment were amassed and in the early morning they tried to take control of barracks and key government buildings. But the days of military coups, even in Latin America, were over and theirs was crushed within hours. Hugo Chávez was tried, convicted, and went on to serve a 2-year sentence in prison. Surprisingly enough, 7 years later, he was sworn in as the democratically elected president of Venezuela, being reelected twice and dying in office in 2013. The revolution he created lasts to this day and has transformed the country in profound ways.

R. Gualda (*)  Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 M. Macaulay (ed.), Populist Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3_3

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Hugo Chávez was probably the earliest and most successful populist leader of the twenty-first century. At first, the movement he led seemed restricted to Venezuela, even if some might have interpreted it as a repeat of Latin America’s colorful political history. But this brand of populism has later flourished in every continent, from that of Donald Trump to Rodrigo Duterte, proving to be just a piece in a larger new trend around the world. Yet, in part because of particular conditions Venezuela presented at the time, in part because of his political talent, and to some extent simply by chance, he still stands as the prototypical populist leader of our times. So what is this trend? Dictators and tyrants of one sort or another have existed since Ancient History, at least. But the twentieth century witnessed a variety of populists, who, to a large extent, either acceded to power through force or employed it quickly afterwards to consolidate their position. In these early years of the twenty-first century, this does not seem to be an option—or, at least, the general trend. Populist leaders now emerge in moments of economic and political crisis and are democratically elected, only to slowly and gradually consolidate power, despite much resistance from competing forces in society. For that reason, their command of political discourse is paramount in the pursuit of their goals. This chapter discusses the characteristics of current populist discourse, specifically in the case of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. The choice of Chávez is an important one for many reasons. First, he was the earliest example of this trend. This does not mean that others necessarily copied him—in fact, the vast majority at least, did not. But, having been in power for 14 years, he had the skill, ambition, time, and opportunity to seize control of the country’s most important institutions and consolidate his power. He also displayed a masterful command of populist discourse and provided endless examples of the above-mentioned trends for analysis. Finally, he represents one of the most complex and complete examples of populist discourse for analysis. My analysis draws on several works on populist discourse, such as Moffitt (2016), Hawkins (2009), Bos, van der Brug, and Claes (2013), Van Dijk (1989), Laclau (2005), Wodak (2015), and Torre (2010), among many others, which discuss populism as discourse and

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performance. Fundamentally, twenty-first century populist discourse presents a combination of most—if not all—of the characteristics below: • It emerges in democratic societies through the democratic process, albeit weakened by social, economic, and political crises; • populist leaders speak extensively, much more than traditional politicians; • they also speak in simple, easily recognizable patterns; • populist discourse is unmediated: the leader speaks directly to the people and controls the communication, employing the media to address the nation (including new technologies); • populist discourse denounces the status quo and promises social change and political reform; • it presents a discourse of national victimization; • it aspires to an idealized past or future; • the leader presents himself as a charismatic leader, joining a lineage of mythological national heroes (Simón Bolívar and Jesus Christ, in the case of Chávez); • the leader, however, is idiosyncratic, ridiculous, laughable, farcical, and prone to buffoonery (in the case of Chávez, he resembles the traditional Hispanic literary figure of the ‘pícaro’); • the leader controls an extremely radicalized dialogue, polarizing us vs them, often scapegoating specific groups in society; • in his speech, the leader addresses specific social groups (with particular linguistic elements to each group), building personal relations with them metonymically (by interacting with his interlocutors on live broadcasts); • the leader places himself metaphorically in a plausible, traditional social role in that web of relationships (‘rich uncle of the nation’ in the case of Chávez).

Emerging Populism Within Democracy So what is populism and what is its relationship with the democratic system from which it has been emerging lately in Latin America and other parts of the world? The model which I hereby suggest is one that

62     R. Gualda

views populism as one among several ways to negotiate the tension between the modern technocratic state and the common-sense discourse of the general population. In complex contemporary societies, the State has organized itself in large, autonomous, and institutionalized domains of expertise and policy (Weber, 1985). These are instances of the ‘expert bureaucrat,’ who operates institutionally—within large organizations that follow complex rules, regulations, and norms, always based on parameters defined by an equally complex institutional setting of scientific debate, and, to a large extent, consensus. The institutional process of the State is often unintelligible to all but its insiders, and its discourse reflects that situation. The scale of the operation and its complex hierarchy and rules add to the opacity of the system. The more the technocratic State develops, the more it distances itself from the average citizen and common-sense ideas. Common sense, on the other hand, operates in the realm of immediate individual interest, superficial, nonsystematic, anecdotal, casual perception, and a network of simple relationships of cause and effect. To the average Joe, it is difficult to penetrate the realm of the technocracy. And unless the State provides ample and undisputable, immediate, palpable gain, it is viewed with suspicion. In the United States in the 1950s or in China in the 2000s, as in many other examples, the opacity of the technocratic State was not important, as it was clear that the State was a competent source of social organization and promoter of general prosperity. The fundamental tension between the common-sense perception of the citizenry and the complex, impenetrable nature of the State was eased by a general sense of welfare and competence. In short, ‘whatever they are doing, it’s working.’ Regardless of the efficacy of the State, I consider that the more the inherent tension in the interface between the common citizen and the technocratic State is solved through the mediation of highly regulated and dispersed institutional representation (free independent press, elected officials, etc.), the more democratic the system. The more that mediation is concentrated in an all-powerful leader, the more autocratic the system. Historically, whenever the technocratic State loses the capacity to produce palpable results to the general population, the democratic system channels popular dissatisfaction through its institutions (free press,

3  Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse     63

elected officials, etc.), and the temptation arises to reform it under common-sense ideas and promote immediate palpable gain to the general population by the force of a strong leader. In the twentieth century, this process was largely achieved by violence, war, rebellion, coup, and revolution. But, in the twenty-first century, mostly because of the wider establishment of more democratic systems a priori, strong leaders more commonly emerged in moments of crisis, through elections, and by force of a charismatic, populist (common-sense) discourse. Hence, populism is the ideological and stylistic force that swings toward common-sense perceptions of reality in opposition to the expert scientific discourse of the institutionalized technocracy. It therefore responds to the values, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and interests (as defined by Van Dijk, 1989) of the general population and constitutes networks of simple relationships of cause and effect which arise from superficial, anecdotal, and casual observation of social phenomena by laypeople. This often also explains the characteristics of populist discourse laid out above, which include the radical opposition of us versus them, conspiracy theories, emotional connection, simple solutions, attacks on the status quo, established institutions, and social groups, scapegoating etc. Fundamentally, it also fosters a lack of confidence in the State, especially in highly regulated dispersed institutionalized modes of representation (press, politicians, political parties, etc.). Populist discourse by definition includes social change and structural changes in the State (toward a more common-sense worldview), spearheaded by a strong leader. The fact that it needs to seduce the population and build trust to the point of granting the leader total power from within a more democratic status quo explains why it is so emotional, farcical, easily recognizable and theatrical. In the case of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez emerges as a charismatic leader in the social and economic crisis of the late 1990s, when the price of oil, which accounts for more than 90% of the country’s exports, reached US$6 a barrel. The traditional bipartisan political system crumbled amid frequent demonstrations, riots, and a deep economic crisis. The 1998 elections were anything but typical, with 11 candidates, the strongest being Chávez, who had attempted the failed 1992 coup.

64     R. Gualda

Methodology and Data This chapter presents some elements of a larger study and focuses on how President Hugo Chávez presents his version of Latin American populism to the Venezuelan public. For this analysis, I have selected five shows randomly ranging from issues 200 to 300, ending in the numeral 8: 218 (April 10th, 2005), 248 (March 5th, 2006), 278 (March 25th, 2007), 288 (July 29th, 2007), and 298 (October 14th, 2007). The entire corpus lasts over 28 hours and the official transcripts from the official website maintained by the government at the time totals 408 pages. This chapter attempts to describe Hugo Chávez’s own weekly television show Aló Presidente in a detailed manner to discuss it as a unique discourse genre, following the premise of Bolívar (2009). For that reason, this chapter covers an analysis of selected patterns in Chávez’s performance in the show: (1) his recurring speech style (particularly repetition and discourse advancement); (2) the contents of his talk (themes); (3) his interactions with the audience and select members of the public in the live broadcasts; and (4) the social roles he plays when interacting with people on air.

Analysis Aló Presidente as a Representation of Power After his election, Hugo Chavez’ main medium of communication with the general public was his weekly television show Aló Presidente. It started as a short live radio show taking calls from supporters only 4 months after his inauguration, but quickly became a complex weekly live television broadcast. It started at 11 a.m. on Sundays, and went on for several hours, at the whim of the president. The shortest shows lasted almost 2 hours, but 5 to 7 hours were more common, while in extreme cases, they could last up to 13 hours. There were no commercial breaks, just the president sitting on a stage at a desk facing a

3  Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse     65

live audience. Each week, the show was broadcast live from a different location in the country, usually in very rural settings. His ministers and local authorities sat in the first row. Right behind them, one could see high-ranking military officers. Further back were local organizers and, finally, the local population, all wearing red shirts. The show usually highlighted a policy initiative or public works taken by the national government. Chavez talked freely about 75% of the time, according to Gualda (2012) and Bolívar (2003), but occasionally he interviewed guests and took phone calls. There was no fixed overall structure, as is typically the case in television broadcasts. Many changes in structure would happen at the whim of the president. On June 15th, 2008, for instance, the national team was scheduled to play in the world volleyball championship. From the beginning of Aló Presidente, Chávez, who loved sports, announced that the show would only last about 1h30, because the match was to be broadcast live. Not surprisingly, he could not finish his talk in time, and the television screen started showing the team warming up, after which the game started. Unfazed, an excited Chávez began to comment on and broadcast the game during the first set. As this set ended, he passed the audio to the live television team. The lack of an institutional set of rules regulating the structure of the broadcast underscores the power of the president, as well as the disruption to the status quo that it served. Chávez was all-powerful; he did as he pleased, and he acted on his own disruptive instinct. He often bragged about this. In show 218, he jokingly states several times how long the show had already lasted and how unpredictable the final duration still was. And yet, people loved him. He was one of them; he made sense; he was going to change everything, and it was fun. While the show ran in a very loose structure, further analysis reveals how some of its features were fixed, and that certain patterns emerged, such as the amount of time he talked (approximately 75%), as mentioned above. This unusually high concentration of speech in an unmediated setting is also a demonstration of power, and fulfills the postulate that populist leaders speak extensively, much more than traditional politicians do and that their speech is unbound by institutionally regulated mediation (journalists, newscasts, interviews, etc.).

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More than just a representation of the leader’s powers and his/ her disruptive populist ends, Aló Presidente was also an enactment of power and the new social order, then called the Bolivarian Revolution, Bolivarianism, or ‘popular democracy’ (in opposition to liberal ­democracy).1 The president alone at the center stage, talking directly first to his highest-ranking officials and generals, then regional authorities, then his ordinary supporters in direct talk was the new order. On the live show, he gave orders, hired and fired at will, proposed policy, and ran mock-meetings. His personal assistant stood right nearby and had his papers and daily planner in hand to take notes and schedule meetings and appointments. This was ‘reality’ government for the people to see on live television.

Chávez Speaks in Simple, Easily Recognizable Patterns For this analysis, I have selected only a few discourse patterns from Chávez’s speech. The transcripts from his show do not require a clear statement of his authorship since for the most part his style is unique and easily recognizable, following Bolívar (2009) and the analysis below. His speech is rich in metaphor (Aponte-Moreno, 2008), high in affectivity (Nieto y Otero, 2008), and evolved and anchored in progressive repetition, as the example below (in a free translation from the Spanish original) illustrates: 1. HC: So 2. HC: here it is reported besides by this great Caribbean man, who 3. HC: was CLR James, 4. HC: a great writer, 5. HC: a great, Caribbean intellectual, 1Bolivarian

democracy is a vague concept proposed by Chávez in his numerous speeches, albeit in a piecemeal and informal matter, which changed according to political events along the 13 years he was in power. In general terms, it corresponds to the themes he developed in his shows, as described in the section entitled ‘Chávez’s Common-Sense Bolivarian Worldview.’ It might roughly be described as a form of socialist-nationalist system with direct communication between the president and ‘the people’ against ‘the elites,’ the establishment, and the main world powers, especially the United States.

3  Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse     67

6. HC: wrote this great book, 7. HC: the Black Jacobins, 8. HC: It is wonderful, 9. HC: it is wonderful 10. HC: This book was published in 1938, but 11. HC: it’s a book 12. HC: very current 13. HC: very up-to-date, since 14. HC: to Haiti, 15. HC: the Jacobin Haiti, 16. HC: free 17. HC: it was that 18. HC: Miranda arrived, 200 years ago, and 19. HC: there too he found, 20. HC: refuge, 21. HC: support, 22. HC: money, 23. HC: men, 24. HC: weapons and 25. HC: boats, 26. HC: to come 27. HC: to start 28. HC: to begin 29. HC: the Independence Revolution 30. HC: in Venezuela, and 31. HC: in South America 200 years ago around these days, and (Aló Presidente 248) In this example, there is not just simple repetition (8–9), but often the use of synonyms (26–28), lists (20–25), qualification (12–13), exemplification, clarification, and evaluation. In this way, the discourse progresses slowly, but in a very clear manner, stressing and clarifying important information. Figure 3.1 illustrates the advancement of the discourse of the president in the show, in a stop-and-go fashion.

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Fig. 3.1  Representation of discourse advancement

Chávez’s Common-Sense Bolivarian Worldview Chávez is also repetitive in terms of the contents of his speech. Every program focuses on a specific set of themes, such as public works relevant to the generally rural community where the show was taking place, or an important anniversary, or event. Usually, there are between 2 and 6 specific themes, relevant to the place and time of each show. However, every time Chávez spoke on air, he returned to the same generic themes, most of which are very characteristic of populist discourse in general, and the traditional discourse of the Latin American left, particularly of the Cuban socialist sort. The main recurrent themes are listed below: • Socialism versus capitalism – Socialism is better than capitalism – The revolution promotes and accomplishes the development of the country and its people – The revolution invests in poor neighborhoods, supports the poor with actual programs and works

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– The revolution is peaceful, democratic, and for all Venezuelans – Money corrupts – The previous system promoted the exploitation of workers – The wealth of the world is unfairly distributed – The revolution makes Venezuela prosperous, influential, and just – The wealth of the world is controlled by corrupt and oppressive elites – The revolution protects the country, its people, and their riches from foreign powers – Peace, friendship, equality, justice, freedom is pitted against imperialism and war – There is full freedom in the Revolution, including freedom of speech and of the press – Minorities (blacks, Amerindians) and women deserve equal rights – The revolution promotes the rights of minorities and women – Socialism is the only way forward – Capitalism generates poverty, inequality, unemployment – Revolution is a long process, always a distant ideal, incomplete – The revolution is winning, advancing – Education and awareness are key to the progress of the revolution – The armed forces support the country, the people, the revolution, and the administration – The revolution fosters people’s political participation – The revolution promotes cooperatives – Chávez and the revolution learn from their mistakes – The revolution makes Venezuela prosperous, influential, and just • Government’s deeds – The government is working competently and investing in infrastructure and services for the people – The revolution manages the country’s resources and economy well – The revolution promotes and accomplishes development for the country and its people – The revolution invests in poor neighborhoods, supports the poor with actual programs and works

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– The revolution protects the country, its people, and their riches from foreign powers – The revolution promotes the rights of minorities and women – The economy is improving – The government invests in all levels of education for the people – The revolution saves the environment – The revolution promotes cooperatives – Chávez and the revolution learn from their mistakes – The revolution makes Venezuela prosperous, influential, and just • The government and the people – We work together; let’s work together – The revolution promotes and accomplishes the development for the country and its people – The revolution invests in poor neighborhoods, and supports the poor with actual programs and works – The revolution is peaceful, democratic, and for all Venezuelans – The people support Chávez – The revolution protects the country, its people, and their riches from foreign powers – Minorities (blacks, Amerindians) and women deserve equal rights – The revolution promotes the rights of minorities and women – The government invests in all levels of education for the people – The youth are the future – Venezuela, its people, and its culture are good – The armed forces support the country, the people, the revolution, and the administration – The revolution fosters people’s political participation • Previous governments – Previous governments abandoned and betrayed the country and its people – The previous system promoted the exploitation of workers – Previous governments were corrupt, inefficient, and made mistakes – Capitalism generates poverty, inequality, unemployment – Previous governments destroyed the environment

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• The opposition/the elites – Reactionary sectors of society oppose Chávez, the government, the revolution and the people – Reactionary sectors of society defend only their own oligarchic interests – Reactionary sectors of society are corrupt – Reactionary sectors of society are obsessed in their opposition to the revolution – Reactionary sectors of society harm the country – Reactionary sectors of society threaten the revolution, the country, and the people – Reactionary sectors of society are spiteful and full of hate – Reactionary sectors of society lie and deceive – Foreign powers historically exploited Venezuela’s riches by co-­ opting its elites – The wealth of the world is unfairly distributed – The wealth of the world is controlled by corrupt and oppressive elites – The elites control the media and many other institutions – Reactionary sectors of society are selfish and individualistic • Foreign relations – Bolívar fought for Latin American integration – Latin American integration: alliances with Cuba, Mercosur, Brazil, Argentina, ALBA,2 Ecuador, and Bolivia – Technical and/or financial support to poorer continents, countries, and communities: USA,3 Cuba, small Caribbean nations, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Bolivia, Argentina, Africa, and Haiti – Venezuela–Cuba cooperation

2Alianza

Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America. It is a formal alliance of left-leaning nations led by Venezuela. 3At the time, Citgo, the US branch of state-owned PdVSA donated heating oil to thousands of low-income families in the northeastern United States. There were commercials on television and different media initiatives to publicize this initiative in Venezuela and in the US.

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– International cooperation: alliances with China, Russia, Bielorussia, Europe, Spain, Italy, and Vietnam – Foreign powers covet Venezuela’s riches, especially oil – Foreign powers threaten Venezuela and the Revolution – Foreign powers plot against legitimate Latin American governments – Foreign powers historically exploited Venezuela’s riches by co-opting its elites – The wealth of the world is unfairly distributed – The wealth of the world is controlled by corrupt and oppressive elites – The revolution protects the country, its people, and their riches from foreign powers – Peace, friendship, equality, justice, freedom, against imperialism and war

Chávez, the Savior One particular set of themes that Chávez always discusses is a reconstruction of the mythological past of Venezuela, particularly in the creation of a direct lineage linking Christ-Bolívar-Chávez, as observed by Neumann (2010), Chumaceiro (2002), Narvaja de Arnoux (2008), Aponte Moreno (2008), Bermúdez and Martínez (2000). Secondarily, he often inserts Fidel Castro as a mentor, a leader probably standing between Bolívar and himself. This set of recurrent themes is listed below: • Bolívar and Christ as heroes – Christ is superior – Christ is perfect – Bolivar is the hero – The government follows the example of Bolívar – Bolívar was betrayed – Bolívar fought for the oppressed – Bolívar fought for Latin American integration The heroic lineage as a reinterpretation of history in highly personal and messianic terms may seem strange in the context of the institutionalized

3  Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse     73

technocratic State, but is very common in authoritarian discourse, which can often also be populist.4 Fidel Castro drew on previous Cuban leaders and portrayed the revolution as a continuation of the struggle of the Cuban people from the early stages of the movement for independence. The Nazis created a whole mythology of the Arian race to support their ideology; the Kims in North Korea are adored as a semi-divine lineage. In the Bolivarian revolution, Christ and Bolívar precede Chávez as foundational messianic leaders. As proof of this mythological transcendent lineage, there are thousands of chapels today scattered across Venezuela where the faithful pray to Chávez, asking for blessings and thanking him for miracles. There are fixed prayers to him, such as Chávez Nuestro (“Holy Chávez”). And his successor, the current president Nicolás Maduro, recounts mystical encounters with images of Chávez (in the form of a bird that landed near him or as a stain in the concrete of a Caracas subway station). Maduro even confessed to occasionally sleeping next to Chávez’s tomb and speaking to him in his dreams. Whatever one’s opinions of such social phenomena, it is important to understand the specific circumstances of the country and the complexity of persuading a large proportion of the population and the national psyche of the divine nature of a political leader, especially one that emerged from a well-established democratic system through free and fair elections in our times. It is also remarkable how someone can accomplish something like this, especially considering the power of the resistance that his opposition had unleashed against him.

Chávez, the Pícaro5 Populists in the twentieth century, as described above, rose and established themselves through violence, i.e., Hitler, or Fidel Castro. While their speech was very seductive and theatrical, it was always very serious, stark,

4Authoritarianism is not necessarily populist. It may also rise from force and terror, for example, rather than seduction, as is the case of the contemporary populism I analyze here. 5Pícaro is a type of character in Spanish Literature from the 16th to 18th century which was commonly sssociated with humor, tricks, connery, bufoonery, and what today would be understood as ‘street wisdom.’

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and rather tragic. No one ever laughed while listening to Hitler. Chávez, on the other hand, is hilarious. He often tells jokes, sings, reminisces, speaks foreign languages at a very basic level with a thick accent, enacts dialogues he had experienced with foreign dignitaries, flirts with women in the audience or on the phone, plays with children, makes fun of everyday situations he had experienced behind the cameras, talks about his sex life, and even about self-deprecating experiences such as a bout of diarrhea during a public event. The president was not shy in front of the cameras and often employed humor—usually using himself and his own personal experiences—as a way to connect with the audience. And the audience laughed profusely at his performances and jokes. Here is one example: HC: I always give the example of the first car that I bought, a Volkswagen, it cost me 5 thousand bolivares and was pimped out, it even had magnesium rims, broad wheels and a siren (laughs). Yes, it had a siren, ask my friends in Barinas, and another friend, whom I was dating over there, ask her, a great VW, it even had a small steering wheel, one of these small ones, I bought it from my commanding officer, he sold it to me for 5 thousand bolivares, how much does a beetle cost today? Anyone remember, let’s see? Acosta Carles, how much did a horse cost when you were a kid over there, 20 years ago when you were riding horses in Guarico? Acosta Carles: the truth is that I can’t remember right now. HC: A thousand grand. One thousand grand would a horse cost. Acosta Carles: Precisely and your story is mine too, my first car was a beetle, I bought it from my oldest brother, coincidently 5 thousand bolivares, too. (Aló Presidente 218 )

The stories he tells are frequently funny because of their rendering, as in his heavy accent speaking English: HC: Once, they came to me and took me to a lunch, well, in Washington, or New York, and as I sat down, the one right in front of me is no more and no less than Henry Kissinger: (in English) “Mister Kissinger.” “Hello Mister President.” “Hello Mister Kissinger.” (Aló Presidente 218 )

3  Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse     75

Sometimes, he provides spontaneous interaction with the live audience: HC: Aha, what’s going on? Greetings to all of you back there. Have you eaten yet? Audience: Nooooo. HC: But, well, don’t we have logistics here? There must be some logistics: water, sandwiches, bread with cheese and butter… What a diet! Better yet fruit, fruit is healthier. Pineapple, cazabe (a sort of pancake) with cheese… (Aló Presidente 218 )

Or in one of several interactions with women: Caller: I have no problems with that, my president, I’m 40 years old. HC: You are a child! I am 50. Caller: Just like yourself. HC: I am going on 51 and I am younger than ever. Caller: And each day more gallant, and with that shirt you look even better! (HC laughs, blushes, and blows her a kiss) (Aló Presidente 218 )

While he enacts the role of the ‘pícaro,’ he also comments on his love for the literal literary portrayal of a ‘pícaro’ or picaresque situation in ‘Don Quijote’: HC: A week ago I visited Rosa Inés (one of his daughters) and we were reading a version of the Quijote that I had been given, for children, and the kid laughed nonstop when I read her the Quijote. She laughed hard, the story is so funny even for kids, when you know how to tell it and explain some words… (HC goes on to tell an episode of the story). (Aló Presidente 218 )

It is worth mentioning that Chávez tells these stories either in character (when enacting a situation) or laughing along with the audience.

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He is unconcerned about acting ‘presidential’ and ceremonial while telling his many stories or performing (even singing, which he did frequently). While unconventional for a public figure of his stature, this was an effective and charming way to connect with the audience, especially considering the very long time the show was on, and that he spoke for 75% of the time for several hours without interruption.

Chávez Engages His Audience in Direct Dialogue One of the main characteristics of populist discourse is that the leader’s speech is unmediated, unrestricted, and spontaneous (as show above), but also that he addresses the public directly in an ‘I-you’ dialogic structure. In the case of Hugo Chávez, not only does he look directly at the camera or at the audience and speak to them but also he enacts multiple dialogues on camera, as well, in the form of interviews, phone calls, and direct one-on-one interactions with members of the audience. These performances were fundamental in establishing a relationship with the Venezuelan people metonymically, thus, when Chávez speaks to an older lady on air and asks for her blessing, he treats her as he would his mother. Thus, the importance of the interaction is to establish an interaction with all mature females in Venezuela playing the role of the son. The dialogic interactions also reinforced many of the characteristics of the new regime, as mentioned above, such as the power of the president, and an affective connection with the ordinary people, etc. The table illustrates the control of the floor by the strongman in 5 different broadcasts of Aló Presidente. Table 3.1 shows that there are hundreds of turns in multiple direct interactions in each show. Chávez performs about half of the turns, but he speaks much more in each turn. He is also present in every interaction. This means that he has full control of the floor. In each show, there were 2–4 pre-recorded clips in the format of a journalism report highlighting a public work or policy which was also a major theme in that particular broadcast. But absent those particular short clips, Chávez is present (and in control) in every interaction or monologue in the show.

3  Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse     77 Table 3.1  Number of turns and interlocutors Show #

218

248

278

288

298

Number of turns Average number of words per turn Number of turns (Chávez only) Avg. number of words per turn (Chávez only) Chávez’s turns (%) Number of interlocutors Duration of the show (words) Total words/interlocutor

705 69.3

523 72.9

424 79.4

399 98.0

785 45.1

345 107.8

250 114.5

208 128.9

187 163.8

376 63.0

48.9 38 49,923 1314

47.8 24 39,046 1627

49.1 26 32,786 1261

46.9 35 38,427 1098

47.9 34 35,518 1045

These interactions are also strictly structured, although it is highly unlikely that Chávez was aware or had planned it. The fundamental structure of each dialogue is outlined below: Dialogic structure in Aló Presidente: a. Identification of the interlocutor b. Greetings c. Quotes d. Presentation of interlocutor/character e. Location f. Rhetorical questions g. Requests h. Thanks i. Evaluation It is remarkable how hundreds of interactions in the 5 shows studied (and thousands over the span of Aló Presidente) are so similar in structure. Even the order outlined above rarely changes. It is a formula, which the president generally follows, although interactions are sometimes very short and simple, and not all elements are necessarily present. However, there are some small variations, and, interestingly, they occur rigorously according to the social group to which the interlocutor belongs. Thus, as Chávez subverts the typical regularities

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of both discourse genres, television show and political speech, by not respecting time constraints, speaking openly about his personal life, or singing on air, among many other surprising and variable elements of his performance, he nonetheless evidences structure and regularity in other aspects of his performance, such as discourse advancement, themes, dialogic structure, and his placement in a complex web of selected social groups. An analysis of the particular social groups Chávez selected and how each one was treated reveals a great deal about his worldview, which was the basis of the Bolivarian Revolution he implemented. The high-ranking military are the generals and the like, who have always retained much power in Venezuelan society and were now either aligned with Chávez, under his command, or his buddies from the 1992 failed coup who had been promoted. It was important to signal their support and acceptance of the president. They often did not speak much, but nodded a great deal; he and his close friends reminisced about the past. Next were his ministers of state and the occasional foreign dignitaries such as ambassadors and chancellors. Authorities usually took part in mock cabinet meetings, openly praised and supported the president and his policies, and took orders. Professionals were engineers, doctors, high-ranking bureaucrats who often explained the highlighted policies and public works being celebrated at each specific show. They were subdued and their talk was mainly technical in nature. With the low-ranking military, the dialogues were usually short and scripted; the hierarchy between the president and them was clearly displayed: they gave short answers and never spoke without being prompted, the kind of small talk one expects from a highranking commander. With the ordinary people, the talk was usually more mundane, about everyday life and how the revolution and its policies affected their lives. This talk was often very informal, with differences according to age. Finally, Chávez was the director of the show, and interrupted his monologues or dialogues to give directions to the crew, regularly admonishing them for their mistakes. There were clear distinctions among many groups, as Table 3.2 shows, due to age groups and gender.

3  Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse     79 Table 3.2  Number of interlocutors by social group Show #

218

High-ranking military Authorities Professional men Low-ranking military Folk (male) Professional women Folk (adult women) Older women Youth Children Television crew Total

5 10 12 5 2 2 4 1 2 38

248

278

5 5 3 4 1 1 1 3

4 5 3 5 4 1 4

1 24

26

288

298

Total

1 7 12

2 10 5

8 3 2 2

3 3 2 1 10

8 36 43 6 25 13 7 5 21 1 4 155

1 35

34

More than the content of the conversations, there were also formal modulations in Chávez’s speech reflecting the social group to which his interlocutor belonged. Not only did these divisions exist in his worldview, they were also pointed out linguistically. One such example is in the forms of address: • High-ranking military commanders: by title and name (often only first or last name); • Low-ranking military personnel: by title and name; • Authorities: by name, sometimes only first name; • Professional men: by title and name or just first name, (hermano, “brother”), (compañero, “comrade”); • Working-class men: by name, mostly first name only, (hermano, “brother”), (compañero, “comrade”); • Professional women: by title and name or just first name, (compañera, “comrade”); • Working-class women: by name, mostly first name only, (compañera, “comrade”); • Youth: by name, mostly first name only; • Children: by first name, nickname, (chico, “kid”), (muchacho, “kid”). One interesting example of formal features that marked the relationship between the president and his interlocutors was deixis. Several scholars,

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among them Agha (2007) explains that tú in Spanish is employed to mark casual, intimate, familiar, close, friendly relationships, of equal status, or high to low rank; while Usted denotes formal, respectful, distant, professional relationships, often used with strangers, and unequal rank or age, especially from low to high. With all groups, Chávez initially employs the formal 2nd person singular plural Usted and immediately shifts to the informal 2nd person singular plural tú from the second turn onwards. However, when meeting for the first time male folk counterparts—and with them only—he commences using tú. He also employs tú with people he had known for a long time and with whom he had intimate relationships. Using tú from the start with an unknown person indicates a horizontal relationship and belonging in terms of social stratification. Here is one example: Example 5.4

HC: Where are you (tú) from Jorge? Jorge Ramírez: From right here in Barinas, mister president HC: Jorge Ramírez, greetings to my friend Jorge Ramírez ///Jorge Ramírez: correct HC: There was a Jorge Ramírez, a classmate in high school whom, I esteem a lot, I send him a greeting here to Carmen his mother and his whole family You (tú) have the same name, as my friend or maybe you are related to my friend Jorge Ramírez the pirate the lefty, right? Are you (tú) related? Jorge Ramírez: No Mr. President (Aló Presidente 278)

In contrast, here is Chávez addressing his own father (in the ‘authorities’ group), who at the time was governor of the state of Barinas: HC: Mr. Governor of the State Barinas Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, I am going to ask you (Usted ) to greet us at Aló Presidente and provide us with some thoughts about what is happening here today in the savannas of Barinas. Go ahead, governor. Hugo de los Reyes Chávez: Yes, citizen president. Indeed, we feel very happy about this visit that you (Usted ) are paying our state.

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By talking with interlocutors during the show, both from the contents of the conversations and the linguistic forms employed, Chávez expresses his view of society and its subdivisions into social groups. He also clearly sets the tone for interactions and relationships between himself and members of each one of those social groups. Being on television, he metonymically established relationships with the people based on his view of Venezuelan society, as follows: • the military institution and retired high-ranking commanders (never present, but often addressed): loyalty and gratitude; • high-ranking military commanders: intimacy and friendship; • local, state, and federal authorities: respectful leadership and praise; • the national elites, foreign powers, and multinational corporations (never present, but often addressed): defiance and contempt; • working-class men: respect, leadership and praise; • working-class women: gallantry and emotion; • older working-class women: trust and filial devotion; • the youth: encouragement; • children: fatherly love. The relationships he establishes through direct dialogue on air have a direct metonymic intent and effect in how Chávez relates to the Venezuelan people through his television performance. Here is one example of his interaction with an older woman, and then between the same woman and her son (at the time a minister in his cabinet): HC: Hey, this is, Felicia, Felicia Cabello, how are you, my love? A kiss, thanks, Aristóbulo, a hug, how are you, Felicia? Felicia Cabello: Well, President HC: A kiss to you. Give me your blessing Felicia Cabello: May God bless you, and may all be prosperity in your life HC: Amen. Someone is going to ask for your blessing, someone is going to ask for your blessing Diosdado Cabello: Hello your blessing, mom, how are you? Felicia Cabello: May God bless you my son, may the Lord enlighten you always toward all that is good

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Diosdado Cabello: OK (Aló Presidente 248)

It is interesting to note that this is also very close to how he addresses his own mother in one show. The fragment below starts from the first turn in the dialogue, right after he starts reminiscing about the past: HC: Where does that come from, mom? Elena Frías de Chávez: I don’t know my dear. HC: You don’t know… Give me your blessing. Elena Frías de Chávez: May God bless you care for you and accompany you. The one who knew this was Rosa Inés, I don’t know. (Aló Presidente 278)

In short, he treats every elderly woman like he treats his own mother, mirroring one cultural construct in Venezuelan society. In this manner, he accomplishes several discursive goals. First, he positions himself as the son of every elderly woman in Venezuela. He also establishes a highly affective relationship with every elderly woman in the country. Third, he presents his interlocutors in a complex network of socially legitimate relationships, in which he plays a recognizable role with each and all of them. Finally, he establishes a complex hierarchy in which he legitimizes his power, values his supporters, and alienates his opponents. In terms of the categories that discipline the web of hierarchies and his worldview (and consequently, that of the Bolivarian Revolution), we find the following: • Military versus civilian; • Rank; • Government versus citizenry; • Gender; • Age; • Production crew (this is incidental in comparison to the others).

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The Rich Uncle of the Nation Finally, in terms of the relationships he builds with different social groups, the metaphor he presents is that of ‘the well-off uncle of the nation.’ This is a result of his positioning within the network of relationships among the selected social groups he addressed. He treats older women as mothers, flirts with adult women (something one would not expect from a father/husband), motivates the youth and acts lovingly with children. However, he constantly talks of his own daughters in great detail. And he treats working men as peers. In parallel to these personal relationships with working-class Venezuelans, he portrays loyalty and gratitude to retired military leaders, buddies up with high-ranking officers, and acts as a boss to everyone else. It is important also to note that Chávez comes from Barinas, the countryside of Venezuela’s original cultural references, which he systematically portrayed in Aló Presidente, for instance, in traditional musical performances. One plausible interpretation of his main metaphorical role is that of ‘rich uncle of the nation.’ In Latin America, the lower-middle class family from the countryside is one of many siblings. These working-class families live on the edge of prosperity. Their members are, at the same time economically vulnerable (to tragedy, disaster, or bad choices), but also, when everything goes right, may access education and opportunity and rise socially. It is common for these numerous families to have siblings in remarkably different social and economic situations. Chávez plays the role of the successful son/brother/uncle, who moves to the big city and rises in the social ladder. His role, in these tightly knit families, is to act as a provider and an insurer. Thus, ordinary people clearly recognize the role he portrays and find a socially established framework to accept his presents and support in exchange for familial love and gratitude. That interpretation explains why he would be the favorite son of the proud elderly mother/aunt, his romantic/sexual appeal to adult women, the admiration and affection from nephews and nieces, as well as a relatively tense relationship with older and adult males, who in their

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traditional roles, must accept him as a dominant figure. That is also why he is extremely careful in dealing with working-class men, identifying them as equals, erasing any sign of hierarchy, and honoring their leadership roles in their families and communities. After all, it is very easy for the rich uncle to be resented by his peers. He cannot rub his success in their faces if he wants to engage their empathy. The fundamental argument of the chapter is that populist discourse in the twenty-first century is a phenomenon that happens in open, democratic societies. It may occasionally surface as an attempt to establish itself as a channel to structure social grievances and demands through the democratic process and in opposition to it, either trying to reform, restructure, redefine, or replace it. In this sense, in modern societies, it is an element of social change, so it may be unnecessary in autocratic regimes that are already established. From this viewpoint, the case of Hugo Chávez is not essentially different from that of Trump, Marine Le Pen, Erdogan, or Rodrigo Duterte. It is an interesting case, however, because it begins much earlier and is much more mature, having hijacked the Venezuelan political system and completely transformed it.

Conclusions This chapter shows how Hugo Chávez established a new form of populist leadership in Venezuela in the twenty-first century. He rose from a technocratic institutional liberal democracy through free elections, but represented a personalist, common-sense reformist platform, which he succeeded in implementing to the fullest, transforming the country. The basis of his Bolivarian Revolution was his exceptional talent in political discourse, especially in his weekly broadcast Aló Presidente. In his show, he presented his Bolivarian ideals, but also presented himself—in themes and linguistic forms—in the realm of 4 metaphors: a mystical messianic savior (following Christ), a mythical historical hero (in the steps of Simón Bolívar), the legitimate and effective president, and the relatable and beloved ‘uncle of the nation.’ At every step of his performances, he portrays himself in a position of leadership, power, and as a reliable provider. He presents himself in plausible, desirable

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(from his standpoint), and recognizable social roles in a web of relationships with selected social groups within Venezuelan society and according to a particular worldview, which guided the Bolivarian Revolution and the reforms he promoted. As a consequence of Chávez’s television performances, he was viewed by large segments of the population as a legitimate and desirable leader. But also, with love, admiration, and affection—a true member of the family, one of us in the deepest sense of the concept. In technocratic, institutional liberal democracies, the relationship between the public and their leaders is professional and anonymous. In the case of populist, common-sense personalist autocracies, the relationships are personal, affective, and based on group (family, tribe…) loyalties. This explains why the base rarely wavers in its support of the leader, regardless of objective outcomes of his actions. Your uncle will always be your uncle, regardless of his faults and mistakes. Establishing oneself as a populist leader, however, is not a simple accomplishment. It requires a high level of popular dissatisfaction and suspicion toward the State. And the leader must play his role in addressing multiple constituencies (social groups) in a recognizable, desirable, and plausible manner. He must also project power while playing the appropriate social roles. In the case of Chávez, the four metaphoric roles he played (mystical savior, mythological hero, president, and rich uncle of the nation) were superposed but often contradictory. How can a mystical savior be recognized in the womanizer flirting with women on stage? Or how can the self-deprecating adult male who talks about bouts of diarrhea be seen as a mythical hero? Hugo Chávez played those different roles as he alternated monologue facing the camera and oneon-one interactions. He shifted through different segments in which he clearly played different, but interconnected roles on camera, for several hours without breaks, on live television in unscripted performances, while giving directions to the television crew. His skill was undeniable. In the end, he succeeded in transforming a social order of restricted institutional powers run mostly by professional technocrats in regulated transactional relationships into a highly centralized system based on the charismatic personality of the autocratic leader and affective, familylike relationships of personal favors, trust, and loyalty. And he did

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that fundamentally by enacting those relationships metonymically on air through his television performances.

References Agha, A. (2007). Language and social relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Aponte Moreno, M. (2008). Metaphors in Hugo Chávez’s discourse: Conceptualizing nation, revolution and opposition. PhD dissertation, City University of New York. Bermúdez, E., & Martínez, G. (2000). Hugo Chávez: La articulación de un sentido para la acción colectiva. Espacio Abierto, 9(1), 53–77. Bolívar, A. (2003). Nuevos géneros discursivos en la política: El caso de Aló Presidente. In L. Berardi (Ed.), Análisis crítico del discurso: perspectivas latinoamericanas (pp. 101–130). Santiago: FRASIS Editores. Bolívar, A. (2009). “Democracia” y “Revolución” en Venezuela: Un análisis crítico del discurso político desde la lingüística del corpus. Oralia, 12, 27–54. Bos, L., van der Brug, W., & Claes, H. (2013). An experimental test of the impact of style and rhetoric on the perception of right-wing populist and mainstream party leaders. Acta Politica, 48(2), 192–208. Chumaceiro, I. (2002). Bolívar y la construcciónn de lo heroico en un texto de Hugo Chávez. In C. L. Domínguez, L. Pietrosemoli, & A. Álvarez (Eds.), Estudios lingüísticos en homenaje a Paola Bentivoglio (pp. 215–248). Mérida: Universidad de Los Andes, Facultad de Humanidades y Educación, Centro de Investigaciones Semiolingüísticas. Gualda, R. (2012). The discourse of Hugo Chávez in “Aló Presidente”: Establishing the Bolivarian Revolution through television performance. Doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas. Hawkins, K. A. (2009). Is Chávez populist? Measuring populist discourse in comparative perspective. Comparative Political Studies, 42(8), 1040–1067. Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. London: Verso. Moffitt, B. (2016). The global rise of populism: Performance, political style, and representation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Narvaja de Arnoux, E. (2008). El discurso latinoamericanista de Hugo Chávez. Buenos Aires: Biblos.

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Neumann, V. (2010, December 2). Neither the noble nor savage: The dangerous mythology of the Bolivarian Revolution. Talk at Columbia University Seminar, Columbia University at the City of New York. Nieto y Otero, M. J. (2008): Una caracterización pragmalingüística de la ­vinculación afectiva en el discurso político. Doctoral dissertation, Universidad Central de Venezuela. Torre, C. (2010). Populist seduction in Latin America. Athens: Ohio University Press. Van Dijk, T. (1989). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. London: Sage. Weber, M. (1985). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie. Tübingen: Mohr. Wodak, R. E. (2015). Right-wing populism is surging on both sides of the Atlantic—Here’s why. Retrieved from http://www.theconversation.com.

4 Self and Other Metaphors as Facilitating Features of Populist Style in Diplomatic Discourse: A Case Study of Obama and Putin’s Speeches Liudmila Arcimavičienė

Introduction The concept of populism is one of the most controversial and contestable concepts in terms of meaning and interpretation. This problem is well supported by various attempts to indicate its nature through such binary labelling as the “cat-dog concept” (Van Kessel, 2014), “popular vs. academic” (Mudde, 2004), “descriptor vs. classifier” (Sikk, 2009), and “exclusionary vs. inclusionary” (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013). In public discourse, the term populism is also regularly used in reference to political actors who deliberately manipulate public opinion by creating an illusion of utter crisis within the current political order (Sikk, 2009). Despite its vagueness, its multitude of uses and the lack of consensus regarding its meaning, the concept of populism can be approached from at least two perspectives, and the problem of contestability can be solved when both its meaning and form are clearly indicated from the outset of empirical study (Van Kessel, 2014). L. Arcimavičienė (*)  Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania © The Author(s) 2019 M. Macaulay (ed.), Populist Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3_4

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Starting out with a definition of populism in terms of its meaning and form, this chapter aims to set out a working definition of populism through which the current study is carried out. Specifically, I compare the meaning of populism in so-called ‘classical’ (Mudde, 2004) discourse analysis (Laclau, 2005) and discourse framing approaches (Aslanidis, 2016), with the latter serving as the basis of analysis in this chapter. Secondly, this chapter seeks to investigate how the metaphorical extension of the conceptual opposition between the people and its other can be applied to analysing diplomatic discourse in international politics. For this purpose, the speeches delivered by two ideologically opposite leaders (Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin) are compared; with regard to this, some background information in relation to their leadership style is provided. In order to illustrate the application of populism to the collected data, this chapter provides specific detail and comparison of how these two leaders express the metaphorical extensions of the core populist concepts in their interrelated speeches based on the strategies of legitimisation and delegitimisation. The final part of this chapter argues that populist manifestations can be carried out through metaphorical extensions in diplomatic discourse, although with specific variations of use.

The Concept of Populism: Different Perspectives The Meaning of Populism: Narrow and Wide Perspectives A review of the literature concerning populism as a political phenomenon shows that its definition is both context- and purpose-driven. In the narrow context of use, populism is relatable to a specific thin-centred ideology which in the context of use has more negative and antagonistic connotations. Within this classical understanding of populism, populism is defined as a thin-centred ideology that is based on the binary opposition between elitism and pluralism. According to Mudde (2004), populism is not just “an ideology that considers it to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups” but is rather

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“a distinct ideology” that “can be easily combined with very different [thin and full] other ideologies” (pp. 543–544). As a more peripheral category, Mudde (2004) argues that populism still has its own central concept, the people, while the elite is that concept that extends its identity from the people and only in opposition to it. According to Sikk (2009), this dichotomised definition of populism has resulted in a two-fold classification of political actors into populist and non-populist that on some occasions is far-fetched and inaccurate. Despite that, the conceptual framework of populism as a thin-centred ideology has developed into a well-recognised niche of political thought and argumentation (see Moffit & Tormey, 2014; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013). In contrast, a wider conception of populism is viewed in the context of political discourse framing that offers a gradable approach to the understanding of populism and can serve different descriptive purposes such as persuasion and organisational leadership, which are not always antagonistic in their expression and aims. This discourse approach to populism was pioneered by Laclau (1980, 2005) and the representatives of the ‘Essex School’ of discourse analysis (Howarth, 2000; Torfing, 1995) with main attention given to classical and quantifiable content analysis.1 As argued by Moffit and Tormey (2014), the major weakness of this approach is that it is based on the verification of “the Laclauian framework” in terms of proving “an anti-status quo discourse between the people and its other” (p. 385). Despite the criticism, this approach to populism has been widely acknowledged and implemented by various scholars. To date, with the rapid growth of cognitive and neuro science and its interdisciplinary research foci (Feldman, 2008; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Meltzoff & Prinz, 2002), the definition of populism has been extended to framing that is discursive by nature and that, along with its universal core related to pluralism (i.e. as a part of democratic argument, see Canovan, 2002), has features of degreesim and gradability (Aslanidis, 2016). By degreeism is meant what Aslanidis (2016) refers 1Classical

and quantifiable content analysis refers to a manual coding of a text when trained coders analyse it by means of a codebook. To date, it is complemented by a computer-based methodology, in which a computer carries out the actual analysis.

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to as ‘variations’ or ‘gradations’ within the conceptual framework of the people and its other (p. 93). Thus, the idea of dichotomised meaning– opposition within the concept of populism is complemented by intraclass variations that can help to understand changing political and ­populist practices and shed more light on prevalent leadership practices and a changing political reality. This view correlates to some extent with the idea of populist degreeism as acknowledged by quantitative research in the textual analysis of the variations of political populism (Hawkins, 2009; Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; March, 2012; Vasilopoulou, Halikiopoulou, & Exadaktylos, 2014). Finally, the wider approach to populism also correlates with the definition of populism as a political style in which politicians use a more simplified and direct language with different degrees of demagoguery (Heinisch, 2003; Taguieff, 1995). In the context of this chapter, a wider perspective on populism has been adopted, where it is viewed as a discursive frame that is represented through universal (the dichotomy between the people and its other 2) and gradable features (i.e. populism as a political style with different levels of expressing inclusion and exclusion). Furthermore, it is presumed that the core concept of the people can have metaphorical extensions in the context of diplomatic discourse, when political leaders refer to their nation as the ‘good people,’ while the country in opposition is represented as its corrupt or vile other. With the meaning of populism clarified, its form and manifestations will be traced by adopting a cognitive socio-linguistic approach.

The Form of Populism Vis-à-Vis a Cognitive Sociolinguistic Approach This chapter argues that by adopting a wider perspective on populism and by empirically applying a critical socio-linguistic approach, the

2It should be noted that this opposition has its roots in Marxist ideology where the working class is antagonised by elitist attempts to establish an essentialist approach to hegemony that is subsequently realised in a post-colonial era or neoliberalist and market-driven ideologies (see Žižek, 2008).

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meaning of populism will not be derived exclusively from its classical conceptualisation of a dichotomy of the people and its other but will rather be facilitated by a more varied analysis along with empirical findings that could offer more explanation about how populism is changing, and how it is being activated by political actors in other contexts of political use, such as international politics. Within this approach, populism can be analysed through the deconstruction of conceptual metaphor and the two discourse strategies of legitimisation and delegitimisation. By conceptual metaphor, what is meant is what cognitive linguists refer to as a cognitive tool that systematically organises bodily, social and cultural experiences that can be reflected in language use, in addition to other modes of expression (Gibbs, 1992; Johnson, 1994; Kövecses, 2002, 2003; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Lakoff, 2003; Musolff, 2016). Metaphorical structures based on image schemata are seen as a chief means by which human understanding is comprehensibly structured and patterned. More importantly, the comprehensibility of metaphors is motivated by the extensive range of values, discriminations, expectations and social practices that contribute to how conceptual metaphor is perceived and reframed. Hence, the cognitive approach to metaphor explains how metaphorical systems based on image-schemata participate in establishing one’s understanding of a being in a world. This kind of understanding is both embodied and embedded within culture, language, institutions, traditions, etc. Political experience, from this perspective, plays a crucial role in shaping social, cultural and institutional reality. Equally, how politics is represented via metaphorical elaboration and extensions can help us to learn more about the patterns of reasoning through which politics is enacted and responded to. The pragmatic aspects of metaphor use are related to positive and negative evaluation (Charteris-Black, 2004). The use of metaphor by political leaders can be unconsciously communicated to legitimise their ideology. As illustrated by Charteris-Black (2011), the use of metaphor by such political figures as Enoch Powell, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Barack Obama and others shows how leadership may be particularly successful when leaders use metaphors unconsciously and are not aware of the myths they create. Moreover, metaphor is most

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effective when it is in interaction with semantic contrast (i.e. legitimisation and delegitimisation), as in the case of President Obama who in his rhetoric contrasts the values of self-interest and idealism with those of isolationism and internationalism by thus “communicating value-based political meaning” and creating political alignments between in-groups and out-groups (Charteris-Black, 2011, p. 312). The legitimising role of metaphor in political discourse is also acknowledged by Chilton (2004), who proposes a wider cognitive perspective on the analysis of political discourse. As Chilton puts it most emphatically: Humans using language politically seem to feel a strong pressure to justify their actions or proposals for action in terms of oppositions between right and wrong (my bolding). At the heart of what we call ‘politics’ is the attempt to get others to ‘share a common view’ about what is useful—harmful, good—evil, just—unjust. Language is the only means for doing this. It is not surprising that languages have structural and lexical resources for communicating these concepts. (pp. 199–200)

The use of legitimisation and delegitimisation strategies is enacted by social actors in political and cultural contexts through linguistic choices (i.e. pragmatic, semantic and syntactic) with metaphor as a part of semantic representation (Chilton & Schäffner, 2011). However, Chilton and Schäffner (2011) also argue that metaphor as a cognitive device for forming and communicating conceptualisations of reality can be problematic. From the interactive point of view, metaphors can become tools that enable speakers to avoid direct (face-threatening and over-revealing) references, while at the same time metaphors can function to provide symbolic representation depending on human conceptual and cultural systems. For example, the metaphor of Containment (i.e. States Are Containers) has become a normalised unit of representation in international relations and is taken for granted and never challenged. In the context of this chapter, the evaluative potential of metaphor in political discourse is linked to its ability to conceptualise topics in particular ways, by highlighting some aspects (legitimisation)

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and backgrounding others (delegitimisation) (Charteris-Black, 2011; Chilton, 2004; Chilton & Lakoff, 1995; Goatly, 2007; Lakoff, 1996; Ritchie, 2013; Schäffner, 1991). In this regard, the metaphorical extension of the core conceptual features of populism (the people and its other) in international (diplomatic) discourse is traced in the collected data with respect to the discourse strategies of legitimisation and delegitimisation. Their interrelatedness is graphically represented in Fig. 4.1. As indicated in Fig. 4.1, the dichotomy of the people and its other is the core concept of populist discourse that is generally recognised as the condensed antagonism between the corrupt elite and the noble people. Laclau (2005) explains this populist representation as follows: “the presence of some privileged signifiers which condense in themselves the signification of a whole antagonistic camp [the ‘regime,’ the ‘oligarchy,’ the ‘dominant group’ and so on, for the enemy]” in contrast to “the ‘people,’ the ‘nation’ or the ‘silent majority’ for the oppressed underdog” (p. 87). Within a socio-cognitive approach, it is expected that in addition to the literal meaning of this dichotomy (e.g. in domestic party politics in its direct reference to the elite and the populus ), it can also be used metaphorically in international politics with metaphorical reference to ‘elite nations’ and ‘oppressed nations.’ Despite these differences in meaning proper, the discourse strategy in both cases remains the same, as the people in any case, whether literal or metaphorical, are always represented more positively through legitimisation and in opposition to its other through delegitimisation. Populist discourse

Self metaphor

the people =

its other =

in-group

out-group

legitimisation

Other metaphor

Fig. 4.1  Populism manifestations in international discourse

delegimisation

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Thus, in the context of the gradable approach to populism, where it is viewed as a discourse frame with unfixed and gradable concepts, the following hypothesis is raised: populist discourse as a part of political identity construction in international politics can be examined through metaphor use in interaction with the semantic contrast between legitimisation and delegitimisation strategies. To test this, the speeches delivered on the same two occasions and in response to each other by two ideologically different leaders, President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin, were analysed. Their ideological differences are expected to co-occur with their metaphorical use as a part of their specific populist framing. The differences in how these two leaders position and represent themselves will be discussed in the following section.

Background Information and Data Characteristics President Obama and President Putin’s Leadership Styles President Obama in his rhetoric and political decision-making is recognised as a soft leader (Marques, 2013; McIlwain, 2010). By soft leadership here is meant what Nye (2008) defines as a relationship of power based on persuasive arguments that cause others to believe, respect, trust and follow. Such argumentation is largely based on the use of mythical narratives that are emotionally appealing due to their expression of high moral standards (Charteris-Black, 2011). This kind of leadership also presupposes cooperative and empathy-oriented power relationships that exclude severe criticism of the other. Thus, soft leaders motivate their followers’ higher ideals and moral values rather than “their basic emotions of fear, greed and hatred” (Nye, 2008, p. 62). In contrast, President Putin more frequently uses both transactional and hard leadership styles and appeals to nationalism and patriotism to effect power (Horvath, 2011; Sakwa, 2008, 2010). Transactional leaders motivate followers by appealing to their self-interest that depends on the hard power of threat and reward (Nye, 2008).

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As argued by Sakwa (2008), Putin’s leadership is centred upon the key principles of hard power with vertically organised power relations, an oligarchic and self-interest-based market ideology, and pure pragmatism in international relations. Moreover, one of the key underlying concepts of hard power is that the rhetoric associated with it constructs an external enemy that has to be competed against in the short-term and eventually defeated in the long-term (Arcimavičienė & Jonaitienė, 2015). In summary, soft and hard leadership styles are characterised by a set of the contrasting features such as follows: cooperation vs. competition, horizontal power relations vs. vertical power relations, appeal to morality vs. construction of an external enemy, and motivation vs. threats and inducements. The political events from 2014 to 2015 and the roles performed by President Obama and President Putin confirm the fact that they represent the two opposite poles of political leadership style. Obama’s inducement of soft power was reflected in his foreign policy and was criticised for being too cooperative and lacking coercive tactics (Byer, 2015; Hanson, 2016). At the same time, Krugman (2016) acknowledges Obama’s positive role in providing more effective economic policies, by thus making American society better and more socially responsible. It should be noted that Obama’s soft leadership, grounded in high ethical standards and a non-violent approach, was perceived positively in a time of non-crisis and especially for its economic policies; however, his foreign policy was severely criticised for lacking pragmatism and more violent expressions of assertiveness, which are actually inconsistent with Obama’s soft power skills. By contrast, President Putin is known for unequivocally implementing hard power strategies and inducing fear both at home and abroad in his fight against an external enemy (Borshchevskaya, 2016; Sakwa, 2008). In the context of these two leadership styles, President Obama and President Putin’s speeches were analysed with respect to the populist dichotomy of the people and its other metaphorically realised in interaction with their legitimisation and delegitimisation strategies. The following section will more specifically overview the collected data and methodology.

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Occasion 1

Occasion 2

President Putin • Date • No. of words President Obama • Date • No. of words Total no. of words

Crimea address • March 18, 2014 • 5251 Brussels Speech • March 26, 2014 • 3947

UN 70th anniversary address • October 2, 2015 • 2970 UN 70th anniversary address • September 28, 2015 • 4261 16,429

Data Collection and Methodology The data for this chapter consist of four interrelated speeches delivered by President Obama and President Putin, two speeches by each speaker. The first two speeches concern the Ukraine Crisis and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, while the second two were delivered during the 70th UN anniversary session, during which a number of world leaders, including President Putin and President Obama, were expected to discuss the UN’s historic importance, the current situation in the world, and necessary future achievements.3 The date and word count for each speech are provided in Table 4.1.4 The choice of these two speakers and their speeches was motivated by the factors of (1) contextual alignment and (2) political significance.5 Chronologically, the first speech was delivered by President Putin on March 18, 2014, in which he addressed his own national Parliament and the nation. Shortly thereafter, President Obama delivered an address in Brussels on March 26, 2014 where he addressed the

3For

more detail about the occasion, see Un.org/un70/en. word count for President Putin for English translation is provided by the office of Russian Presidency available from Kremlin.ru. It was used as the main source for illustrating metaphorical expressions of populism in this chapter. Despite this, both the original and translated formats were analysed for metaphor use. Their comparison showed that most of the conceptual metaphors in terms of their transfer schemes (Target As Source) were consistent across the two languages. 5The speeches of both speakers are viewed as significant with respect to foreign policy and the role assigned to their leadership and their countries in world politics (Dreyfuss, 2013; Shear & Baker, 2014). 4The

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European Parliament and the nations of the EU. In this speech, he provided a point-by-point refutation of President Putin’s arguments regarding NATO, the Kosovo war, the Iraq war, as well as other points of contention. Obama’s subsequent Brussels address is known for its demonstration of support for the EU on the part of the U.S. in the context of Russian aggression in Ukraine (i.e. Putin’s Crimea speech). In their respective UN speeches, both leaders addressed the international community and discussed the problems of terrorism, the Syrian war, U.S.–Russian diplomatic relations and the UN role in the world. Methodologically, these speeches were analysed in the theoretical framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Gibbs, 1992; Johnson, 1994; Kövecses, 2003, 2004; Lakoff, 1991, 1996) and Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) (Cameron, 2003; Charteris-Black, 2004, 2011; Goatly, 2007; Musolff, 2006, 2015). The approach taken in this chapter implements a bottom-up approach to analysing metaphor, i.e. the linguistic instances of metaphor use are deconstructed into conceptual metaphors, and their implied ideological meaning is then determined by the systematic use of certain kinds of metaphor, also known as the scenario approach to metaphor (more on that see Musolff, 20166). Pragglejaz group’s Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP, Pragglejaz Group, 2007) was employed as a research tool to identify manually metaphorical expressions in the selected texts. According to this procedure, an expression is regarded as metaphorically used when (a) the contextual meaning differs from its basic meaning that is more physical and concrete (although not necessarily more frequent) and (b) the contextual meaning can be articulated in comparison to the basic meaning (e.g. the use of build in the expression building a democracy is used to describe and imply both the process and complexity of political decision-making in a democratic state, although its basic meaning, as defined by OED, refers to “making a structure by putting its parts together”). Two dictionaries were used as a point of reference for the establishment of basic meanings: (1) the corpus-based Macmillan Dictionary

6Mussolf ’s

(2016) scenario approach to metaphor refers to the contextualised metaphor use (i.e. discourse approach) that is systematically recurrent throughout the data.

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Online (http://www.macmillandictionary.com) and (2) the corpus-based Oxford Dictionaries online complemented by OED (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com). A number of metaphorical expressions, where the relevant contextual meaning was also included in the dictionaries, were also classified. As will become clear in the discussion of the findings, this maximal approach to potential metaphoricity is particularly effective in discerning the implied ideological meaning of a populist dichotomy. A word was taken as one lexical unit for the purposes of metaphor analysis, with the exception of phrasal verbs and proper nouns. Similes and other figurative comparisons in accordance with Steen et al. (2010)’s definition of “direct metaphor” within the MIPVU development of the Pragglejaz Group’s Identification Procedure were also included into the identified metaphor set. Metaphorical expressions were identified manually, by highlighting and assigning semantic tags or labels corresponding to their literal meanings (e.g. Natural Phenomena, Journey and War). Subsequently, tags were related both to source and target domains from Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (1980) by using the formula A IS B (Kövecses, 2003, 2004), where A stands for the target domain, while B refers to the source domain. Metaphorical expressions that shared the same semantic tags were assigned to a corresponding source domain (e.g. Natural Phenomena, War and Journey). Finally, the ideological effects of the discerned conceptual metaphors were considered by using Charteris-Black’s (2004) CMA, whereby the pragmatic factors of metaphor use were taken into account, especially the evaluative aspect of metaphor use (positive vs. negative). This was complemented by Van Dijk’s (2006, 2014) approach to the ideological meaning of discourse and, in particular, its two strategies, legitimisation and delegitimisation, as related to the metaphor use in this study. Finally, the ideological meaning of metaphor usage was linked to the core concept of populism (the people and its other) and its variations. The following two sections illustrate how the metaphorical extension of the people and its other are realised in the speeches of two ideologically different leaders, and how metaphor use facilitates their populist framing in the context of international politics.

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Research Findings Populism as a Hegemonic Activation Strategy: Obama’s Observer Perspective My analysis shows that President Obama’s rhetoric exploits three principal metaphoric scenarios: War, Personified Relationship and Journey, with the Moral Argument as War occurring the most frequently in the data (24 instances). By using this metaphor, Obama highlights the existing moral argument between a moral hegemony (metonymically represented by the U.S. and the EU) and its enemy (i.e. Russia). The core populist concept of the people in its relation to the other is metaphorically extended to the moral antagonism between nations that is lexicalised via the source domain of War. The examples below reveal the underlying positive evaluation of the current political order that is discursively realised through self-legitimisation in the context of the WAR metaphor in his Brussels address (March 26, 2014). The examples of metaphorical expressions have been italicised, while pronominal use and specific reference are underlined to show the contextual use of a particular metaphor, i.e. whether a metaphor is used inclusively as a part of ‘we’ narrative or exclusively as a part of ‘they’ narrative. Example 1  So I come here today to insist that we must never take for granted the progress that has been won here in Europe and advanced around the world. Example 2  but I am confident that eventually those voices, those voices for human dignity and opportunity and individual rights and rule of law, those voices ultimately will triumph. Example 3  That is what we believe. That’s what makes us strong. And our enduring strength is also reflected in our respect for an international system that protects the rights of both nations and people.

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Example 4  Over the last several days, the United States, Europe and our partners around the world have been united in defence of these ideals and united in support of the Ukrainian people. Example 5 Our democracy, our individual opportunity only exist because those who came before us had the wisdom and the courage to recognize that ideals will only endure if we see our self-interest in the success of other peoples and other nations. Example 6 And I believe that if we hold firm to our principles and are willing to back our beliefs with courage and resolve, then hope will ultimately overcome fear, and freedom will continue to triumph over tyranny. Obama activates a War frame in the above examples through the use of such words as “win,” “advance,” “victory,” “enemy,” and “defence.” This frame is placed in the context of moral argument, where he also refers to “freedom,” “democracy,” “international system,” “ideals” as an inseparable part of the Collective We (including ‘other nations’) that is being threatened by an amoral enemy representing “fear,” and “tyranny” (Example 6). In addition, moral strength referenced by the lexical items “endure,” “hold firm,” “strength,” “courage,” “resolve” is viewed as a necessary prerequisite for winning this metaphorical war against an amoral enemy. Despite the fact that the conceptual core of the War frame is negative in representation, its function in Obama’s speech is to assign moral credibility to the current hegemony and its right intentions towards other people and nations along with a moral necessity to challenge and unite against an amoral enemy. Although this legitimisation strategy does not refer to the enemy directly, its amoral and evil nature is suggested through the use of such abstract concepts as “tyranny” or implications that these are not the “voices for human dignity and opportunity” etc. The underlying context of the speech (i.e. aiming to respond to Russia’s Crimea annexation and to reinforce U.S. support for the EU) also presupposes the specific referent of an amoral enemy, i.e. the Russian Federation. Obama’s argument to moral legitimacy is further developed by his use of a Politics As Personified Relationship metaphor (i.e. 16 instances)

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in his Brussels speech, whereby a scenario of personal relationship is constructed through the personification of nations and governments, i.e. America, Germany, Europe, Russia and Ukraine that are all involved in different kinds of relationships. As a complex metaphor, it involves the metaphor The Nation Is a Person, the use of which encourages an emotive attachment to an anthropomorphic idea of a nation-state and offers a politician’s stance towards actions undertaken in the name of a nation-state. Moreover, in Charteris-Black’s view (2011), this kind of metaphor explains political policy and communicates political arguments in the context of creating a political identity (p. 323). These are a few instances of how President Obama reframes the Relationship and Nation Is A Person metaphor in his Brussels speech: Example 7  It is in response to this tragic history that in the aftermath of World War II, America joined with Europe . Example 8  a Germany unified, the nations of Central and Eastern Europe welcomed into the family of democracies . Example 9  Here in this country, once the battleground of Europe, we meet in the hub of a union that brings together age-old adversaries in peace and cooperation. Example 10  Together, we have isolated Russia politically, suspending it from the G-8 nations and downgrading our bilateral ties. Example 11  Make no mistake, neither the United States nor Europe has any interest in controlling Ukraine. Example 12  I believe that for both Ukraine and Russia, a stable peace will come through de-escalation, a direct dialogue between Russia and the government of Ukraine and the international community . Example 13  We have worked with Russia under successive administrations to build ties of culture and commerce and international community .

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Example 14  So America and the world, and Europe, has an interest in a strong and responsible Russia, not a weak one. The importance of the Relationship metaphor as a part of a legitimisation strategy reveals what kind of expectations Obama has in the realm of political diplomacy as well as his projection of a most positive self (or the way the speaker understands it). In his Brussels speech, political relationship is metaphorically represented as a kind of a commercial transaction between nations where the political means are balanced against the political ends, and so-called political capital is earned by responsibility and cooperation. This is linguistically realised through such expressions as “join with,” “build ties,” “work with,” “bilateral ties” as well as “direct dialogue.” These particular features are assigned to the U.S. and European nations (as in Examples 13 and 14) as a universal moral standard, which is expected from Russia as a political partner: “working with Russia,” “have an interest in a strong and responsible Russia.” In the context of political policy, the Relationship metaphor used by Obama has the effect of isolating Russia from a unity with other nations that is linguistically realised through such clustered referencing as “America and the world, and Europe,” “Europe and the United States,” “America joined with Europe,” “America’s path or Europe’s path” with Russia being excluded from these lists. His use of the Relationship metaphor is also a part of a process of ideological polarisation: family/ friends/partners vs. strangers/opponents/enemies. In such polarisation, nations are divided into good and bad, right and wrong. Obama explicitly refers to “Russian aggression in Europe,” while stating that “we [America] fight for our ideals we hold our leaders accountable and insist on a free press and independent judiciary we address our differences in the open space of democracy.” Finally, in keeping with populist discourse, the U.S. and other European nations are represented as a part of a United We Stand moral narrative (as in Example 14 above where he explicitly makes reference to “America and the world, and Europe”). This collective identity construction can be viewed as the metaphorical extension of the people onto the nations, whereby a political leader personifies a group of nations (i.e. the U.S. and the EU) and speaks in a unanimous voice about the values and legitimacy of specific

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politically enacted decisions. In the context of his Brussels address, President Obama speaks on behalf of the world representing political morality (i.e. the U.S. and the EU) as a universal standard of hegemony and political cooperation that is being opposed by the other (i.e. Russia). This Relationship scenario is closely interrelated with the metaphor of Politics Is a Journey, whereby President Obama associates moral righteousness with goal-oriented movement. The Journey metaphor (i.e. 12 instances) is the third most frequent metaphor in Obama’s legitimisation strategy, whereby Obama popularises his political goals as a part of the collective righteous journey undertaken by the U.S. and its “allies” (Example 15). For example, Example 15  And meanwhile, the United States and our allies will continue to support the government of Ukraine as they chart a democratic course. Example 16  And in that promise, we will never waver. NATO nations never stand alone. Example 17 Going forward, every NATO member state must step up and carry its share of the burden by showing the political will to invest in our collective defence. Example 18 You know, in the end, every society must chart its own course. America’s path or Europe’s path is not the only ways to reach freedom and justice. But on the fundamental principle that is at stake here, the ability of nations and peoples to make their own choices, there can be no going back. As illustrated above, the Journey metaphor in most cases refers to the legitimacy and moral righteousness of the U.S. and EU political decision-making. Obama speaks of “America’s path,” “Europe’s path” with their final destination on the journey as being “freedom and justice.” In this case, the notion of a path is employed by the speaker to create an aspirational discourse that is intended to motivate hearers to the actions and political decisions for the anticipated outcome that is designated as universal goodness: “freedom and justice.” The softness of

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Obama’s rhetoric is thus reflected in his appeal to such universal moral values as freedom and democracy. In addition, by the use of the Journey metaphor, he emphasises the importance of unity and strength; thus, he states in Example 16 above we shall “never waver,” and in Example 17 that all NATO states will “share the burden.” This kind of representation is often criticised by hard power leaders; for instance, President Putin repeatedly recycles the metaphor of U.S. as a ‘moral traveller’ with the aim of criticising U.S. ambitions to undermine other nations’ worth and morality and thus pose an existential threat to their development (including the Russian federation). A similar metaphorical scenario is created by Obama’s use of metaphor in his UN address (September 28, 2015). His intention is to appeal to a global audience by emphasising the importance of universal moral values with the U.S. as the main agent. This can be traced through the use of the same source domains of a Journey, War and Relationship: Example 19 These are simple truths, but they must be defended. America and our allies will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy. We will reinforce our NATO allies, and uphold our commitment to collective defense (War). Example 20 Moreover, a different path is available—the path of diplomacy and peace and the ideals this institution is designed to uphold. The recent cease-fire agreement in Ukraine offers an opening to achieve that objective. If Russia takes that path—a path that for stretches of the postCold War period resulted in prosperity for the Russian people—then we will lift our sanctions and welcome Russia’s role in addressing common challenges (Journey and Relationship). Example 21  And that’s the kind of cooperation we are prepared to pursue again—if Russia changes course (Relationship and Journey). Example 22  Together with our partners, America is training and equipping the Syrian opposition to be a counterweight to the terrorists of ISIL and the brutality of the Assad regime (Relationship).

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Example 23  Ultimately, the task of rejecting sectarianism and extremism is a generational task—a task for the people of the Middle East themselves. No external power can bring about a transformation of hearts and minds. But America will be a respectful and constructive partner. We will neither tolerate terrorist safe-havens, nor act as an ­occupying power (Relationship). The use of the War, Relationship and Journey metaphors points out at a similar scenario rhetorically enacted by President Obama in his Brussels’ address. His rhetoric is dominated by a strategy of legitimisation, where the U.S. is viewed as a moral agent that knows right from wrong by representing universal moral values and thus can make judgements about others. The importance of these moral values is represented through the War metaphor, as these have to be “defended” (Example 19). The moral righteousness of other nations is judged by their undertaken paths (the Journey metaphor); in the case of Russia, Obama uses the Journey metaphor to refer to its wrong political decision-making and raises an expectation of Russia “changing its course” (Example 21). As a soft leader, President Obama diplomatically provides his criticism as an opportunity for Russia to meet expected moral standards. This is done in the context of the Relationship metaphor, where Obama refers to “cooperation” (Example 21) and “partnership” (Example 22) between the U.S. and Russia. In the context of the UN speeches delivered by both Putin and Obama, metaphor analysis shows that such a commercialised relationship metaphor does not meet its diplomatic and rhetorical goals. In Obama’s case, he uses the Relationship metaphor in the context of moral ideals and exchange; he implies that if Russia’s morality changes, the U.S. as the moral agent will accept it as a sign of cooperation. Metaphorically, Obama puts moral ideas at stake as an exchange object in the U.S.–Russia relationship. By contrast, the Russian leader perceives such political argument as a moral attack upon the Russian government, and, as a hardliner, views the moral tone of superiority (the U.S. As a Moral Agent) as a political threat and challenge to his own political identity and the identity of Russia (the Relationship metaphor). To summarise, it can be argued that Obama’s use of metaphors in his Brussels (2014) and UN (2015) addresses is grounded in the ideological

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strategy of legitimisation that has the following populist discourse features: the U.S. is represented metaphorically as a moral agent speaking on behalf of and for the world community (i.e. the metaphorical extension of the core concept of the good people onto the good nations ). In its role as a moral agent, it knows which paths should be taken to reach prosperity and well-being in the world. As a moral agent, the U.S. makes judgements about other agents’ amoral behaviour and can raise a universal standard of political decision-making. The agents that misbehave can always “change their course” (Example 21) and become “partners” (Example 23) in the moral journey. The relationship between agents is commercialised7 with morality being at stake. As this morality is universal, it has to be “protected,” if necessary through “war.” The populist aspects of such metaphor use are twofold: (1) the conceptual appeal to global community as based on the narrative of universal morality (i.e. metaphorical extension from the good people onto the good nations ) and (2) the legitimisation of the U.S. as a moral agent leading humanity in the right direction (the metonymic representation of the U.S. As The Moral Voice for the nations of the world ). The first aspect is generally accepted positively by the audiences of more democratic nations (through the mythical narrative of The United and Moral We Stand), while the second aspect is becoming more entrenched in the narrative of undemocratic governments that perceive U.S. moral righteousness as a direct threat to their existence and political importance (the U.S. as The Superpower/Policeman of the World). Finally, through his use of a legitimisation strategy President Obama reframes himself as an observer of the current hegemony and presents it as a universal standard of political morality. In the context of populist discourse, it can be categorised as a kind of positive populism, whereby the speaker manipulates the core concept of the people by metaphorically extending it to the nations that are metonymically represented by a certain group of nations (the U.S. and the EU). In this framing, antagonism is not clearly expressed, although it is

7By commercialised relationship metaphor is meant here what other cognitive linguists refer to as Politics Is Business (see Kövecses, 2002; Lakoff, 1991).

4  Self and Other Metaphors as Facilitating Features …     109 Table 4.2  Obama’s populist framing Features

Obama’s populist discourse

1. The metaphorical extension of the good people 2. Legitimisation through metonymic representation

the good nations

The United We Stand narrative

the U.S. for universal morality

the self metaphors U.S. as Defenders of the Moral Right: →Moral Argument is War (37 instances) →Politics is a Moral Journey (32 instances) →Politics is a [Commercial] Relationship (26 instances) the other metaphors Russia as an Amoral Partner Russia as an Enemy

3. Delegitimisation

its (amoral) other

always implied by Obama’s reference to nations (i.e. Russia) that challenge the universal order and morality. The populist framing of Obama’s discourse is summarised in Table 4.2. As summarised in Table 4.2, Obama’s populist discourse framing aims to ascertain the moral right of the current hegemony by rhetorically employing the metaphorical extension of the good people onto the good nations, by thus creating a mythical sense of unity and security in the world that is guaranteed by the U.S. hegemony. Antagonism is not always explicitly expressed, although it is always present in his rhetoric by the implied meaning of his metaphor use.

Populism as Hegemonic Intervention Strategy: Putin’s Undergoer Perspective President Putin’s metaphor use illustrates a different populist framing from that of Obama’s in terms of his implied metaphorical meaning and identity construction. Despite the fact that President Putin systematically evokes similar source domains as War and a Personified

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Relationship, his use of these metaphors differs from that of Obama and is further complemented by the use of a Strength metaphor. The findings reveal that his Crimea speech (i.e. when the domestic audience is addressed in the Duma) is dominated by the populist strategy of legitimisation, while his UN address (i.e. with the international community as the immediate recipient) is more antagonistic vis-à-vis metaphor use and identity construction. In his Crimean address (March 18, 2014), Putin’s systematic use of three source domains—War, Personified Relationship and Strength—is not only lexically but also ideologically and politically motivated. The ideological importance of these source domains in constructing his political argument is explained by his intention to foreground Russia’s legitimacy, credibility and moral appeal in reference to Crimean events, especially while addressing his target audience: the Russian Duma directly and citizens of the Russian Federation (via Television broadcast) indirectly. The most typical examples of these source domains are provided below: Example 24  More than 82% of the electorate took part in the vote.8 Over 96% of them spoke out in favour of reuniting with Russia. These numbers speak for themselves. To understand the reason behind such a choice it is enough to know the history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other (Personified Relationship). Example 25 Let me say one other thing too. Millions of Russians and Russian-speaking people live in Ukraine and will continue to do so. Russia will always defend their interests using political, diplomatic and legal means (War, Personified Relationship). Example 26  Our concerns are understandable because we are not simply close neighbours but, as I have said many times already, we are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common source and we cannot live without each other (Personified Relationship). 8The referendum vote held on March 16, 2014 where the local populations of Crimea were requested whether they wanted to join Russia as a federal subject. The referendum was regarded as illegitimate by most members of the EU, the United States and Canada.

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Example 27  Residents of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, the whole of Russia admired your courage, dignity and bravery. It was you who decided Crimea’s future. We were closer than ever over these days, supporting each other. These were sincere feelings of solidarity. It is at historic turning points such as these that a nation demonstrates its maturity and strength of spirit. The Russian people showed this maturity and strength through their united support for their compatriots (Personified Relationship, Strength). As illustrated above, the legitimation of the annexation of Crimea is represented through the use of the Relationship metaphor, whereby two nations are depicted as persons who share specific intimacy through their close ties and connection, reflected in the above examples in the metaphorical use of “one people,” “Kiev is the mother,” “Ancient Rus is our common source,” or “we cannot live without each other.” Metaphorically, the relationship between Russian and Crimea is represented as a long-lasting one, the longevity of which gives legitimacy to Russia to protect Crimea by all means, including militarily. Thus, the War metaphor is fitted ideologically into the frame of the Relationship metaphor, as in the statement of “Russia will always defend their interests” (Example 25). Hence, rhetorically, these two metaphors are used in a complementary way whereby the Relationship metaphor appeals to the emotions of the intended audience and its sentiments by highlighting a common ancestry, while the War metaphor serves the function of legitimacy and the construction of a moral ground upon which to defend this long lasting bond. Putin reinforces this interaction through the Strength metaphor that can be viewed as a constituent part of the War frame, i.e. in order to fight and win the war one has to be both physically and morally strong.9 Its metaphorical use is traced through the use of “strength,” “unity,” “maturity,” and “united support” in the examples above. In terms of populism, Putin’s framing evokes the use of a metaphorical extension of ‘victimised people’ onto ‘victimised nations,’ which

9The Strength metaphor should also be viewed here as a constituent part of the conservative/Strict Father Morality system, where strength is viewed as a crucial component of discipline, especially in self-defence (for more on this see Lakoff, 1996).

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is a part of ‘the self.’ This serves as the basis for creating a sense of antagonism between ‘the victimised self ’ and ‘the privileged other.’ To delegitimise his opponents, President Putin uses the source domains of War, Strength and Personified Relationship to create antagonism towards the West by setting a clearly marked division between the self and its other. To illustrate, this rhetorical clash is created when metaphor use is reframed in the context of semantic opposition where the self is victimised and the other is antagonised: Example 28  Our western partners, led by the United States of America, prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun. They have come to believe in their exclusivity and exceptionalism, that they can decide the destinies of the world, that only they can ever be right. They act as they please: here and there, they use force against sovereign states, building coalitions based on the principle ‘If you are not with us, you are against us.’ To make this aggression look legitimate, they force the necessary resolutions from international organisations, and if for some reason this does not work, they simply ignore the UN Security Council and the UN overall. Example 29 We understand what is happening; we understand that these actions were aimed against Ukraine and Russia and against Eurasian integration. And all this while Russia strived to engage in dialogue with our colleagues in the West. We are constantly proposing cooperation on all key issues; we want to strengthen our level of trust and for our relations to be equal, open and fair. But we saw no reciprocal steps. On the contrary, they have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO’s expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders. They kept telling us the same thing: ‘Well, this does not concern you.’ That’s easy to say. Example 30  Obviously, we will encounter external opposition, but this is a decision that we need to make for ourselves. Are we ready to consistently defend our national interests, or will we forever give in, retreat to who knows where? Some Western politicians are already threatening

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us with not just sanctions but also the prospect of increasingly serious problems on the domestic front. Example 31  At the same time, we will never seek confrontation with our partners, whether in the East or the West, but on the contrary, will do everything we can to build civilised and good-neighbourly relations as one is supposed to in the modern world. In the examples above, ‘the self ’ is represented positively through the use of the Relationship frame, while the other is given a purely negative description reframed via the lexis of war: “the rule of the gun,” “force,” “aggression,” “threaten,” and “deployment.” These examples show that the negative descriptions of the other are always metaphorically combined with a positive self-representation. Thus, Putin states that “[we will] do everything we can to build civilised and good-neighbourly relations” (Example 31), that “we will never seek confrontation with our partners” (Example 31), and that “Russia strived to engage in dialogue with our colleagues in the West” (Example 29). This co-occurrence does not only show President Putin’s negative view of U.S. foreign policy as such but also offers evidence of future confrontation and problematic cooperation between the two nations. Putin’s linguistic choices are summarised in Table 4.3. President Putin’s delegitimisation strategy is expressed through a clear distinction between ‘the moral self ’ and the cynical and callous ‘other’; Table 4.3  Negative populist scenario and its metaphorical representation Source domain the self (good partner)

the other (amoral enemy)

Relationship

- strive to engage in dialogue - never seek confrontation - do everything to build civilized and good neighborly relations - protect our borders - defend our national interests

Outcome

- guided by the rule of the gun - decide the destinies of the world - think they are ever right - act as they please - use force - lie to us behind our backs - deploy military infrastructure at our borders

- partnership is impossible - necessary and justified defense against the other

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thus, the confrontation that is created by the use of the War metaphor (“force,” “protect,” “defend”) is represented as reactionary to Western (in particularly the U.S.) aggression. This polarisation is also supported by the adverbial use of “never” and “ever” that contribute to marking the ideological division between Russia and the West: “we will never seek confrontation with our partners” (Example 31); “only they can ever be right” (Example 28). In such an antagonistic narrative, Russia is represented as a good but oppressed self whose reactionary defence is provoked by the other’s aggressive expansionism and righteousness. Thus, the so-called commercialised relationship between Russia and the U.S. and the EU is ideologically reconstructed into one of conflict, where ‘the self ’ is represented as a victim defending its own right to being. In Putin’s rhetoric, the U.S. and EU are otherised through the concept of total disorder and amorality, as in the examples above: “guided by the rule of the gun,” “decides the destinies of the world,” and “lies.” His use of an otherising strategy gives self-legitimacy to oppose the other as a means of self-defence and moral right to being. A similar construction of political frontiers between the ‘self ’ and the ‘other’ is traced in President Putin’s UN address (October 2, 2015). In contrast to his Crimean speech with its national audience, the UN speech is delivered to an international audience that presupposes an identity construction that is both more globalised and politically correct. If we consider the general practice of Russian representatives vetoing U.S. initiatives in the UN council, President Putin upholds a typically anti-Western populist discourse that is rhetorically enacted vis-à-vis the prevalence of three source domains: War, Personified Relationship and Strength. What follows are the typical realisations of these three metaphors: Example 32 We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one center of dominance, and those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to be done and thus they don’t need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands in their way (Personified Relationship, Strength).

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Example 33 In fact, the Islamic State itself did not come out of nowhere. It was initially developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes (War). Example 34  Sadly, some of our counterparts are still dominated by their Cold War-era bloc mentality and the ambition to conquer new geopolitical areas (War). Example 35  Russia is ready to work together with its partners to develop the UN further on the basis of a broad consensus, but we consider any attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the United Nations as extremely dangerous. They may result in the collapse of the entire architecture of international relations, and then indeed there will be no rules left except for the rule of force. The world will be dominated by selfishness rather than collective effort, by dictate rather than equality and liberty, and instead of truly independent states we will have protectorates controlled from outside (Personified Relationship, Strength). As shown above, an ideological tension is created by President Putin in his use of the War metaphor that is lexicalised through such expressions as “Cold War-era bloc mentality,” “extremely dangerous,” and “[the Islamic Sate] developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes,” that is rhetorically sustained by creating an illusion of an evil hegemony that has to be confronted etc. The idea of Western antagonism is further developed by the Strength metaphor that is also used to highlight the aspect of total disorder that is created by an excessive and disproportional use of force by ‘the other’: “one center of dominance,” “at the top of the pyramid,” “they know best” and “rubber stamping the decisions that stand in their way” (i.e. in 34 and 35 above). Such negative characterisation of the West activates a mental representation for an unintentional, but nonetheless provoked self-defence against the wrong intentions of a villain. Thus, Putin states, “ it is not about Russia’s ambitions, dear colleagues, but about the recognition of the fact that we can no longer tolerate the current state of affairs in the world” (UN Speech, see Table 4.1). To summarise, President Putin’s metaphor use in his Crimea and UN speeches shows certain systematic features of populist framing

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discursively performed through both legitimisation and delegitimisation strategies. First and foremost, his overall rhetorical strategy constructs an antagonistic break between the current hegemony represented as the other or “Western partners” and the victimised self whose demands are driven by the ideological opposition to its other (i.e. a necessity of protecting the self against the other). This antagonism is metaphorically condensed in three metaphorical scenarios of War, Personified Relationship and Strength, where a complex interaction between the vehicle groups is observed: (1) the other as enemy and perpetrator and (2) the self as a victim and protector of the oppressed whose moral strength is associated with the exertion of force against the enemy. In the context of populist discourse, President Putin’s rhetoric is more varied than President Obama’s since his rhetoric both delegitimises the status quo and legitimises his need for self-defence as a reaction to the current conflict between the U.S. and Russia. President Putin’s two styles of populist framing are summarised in Table 4.4. The fact that Putin produces such complex but coherent populist combinations of metaphor use reflects their significance for creating a political identity that challenges an appropriateness of status quo. In contrast to Obama’s rhetoric grounded in the legitimisation of the self (i.e. the U.S. and the EU) as a universally moral agent, President Putin positions himself through a very clearly expressed ideological clash between the victimised nations (i.e. Russia, Ukraine, Syria) and their privileged signifier (i.e. the U.S.). Table 4.4  Putin’s populist framing Features

Putin’s populist discourse

Legitimisation

metaphorical extension of the people onto the victimised nations • via the Personified Relationship metaphor its privileged other • via the War metaphor

Delegitimisation

the self metaphors → Russia as a Victim → Russia as a Defender/ Protector of the Good/the Oppressed the other metaphors → U.S. as an Enemy/Bully/ Oppressor

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Conclusions In this chapter, the rhetorical styles of two political leaders, President Obama and President Putin, have been analysed vis-à-vis their political identity construction through metaphor use in interaction with semantic opposition. The discursive framing of a populist political style is understood as a condensed formation of hegemonic relations: hegemonic reinforcement through self-representation and hegemonic antagonism through self-representation and other misrepresentation, as summarised in Table 4.5. Overall, President Putin’s use of metaphor indicates a higher percentage of negative ‘other’ representation (25% for his Crimea Speech and 41% for his UN Speech), although in his Crimea address, selfrepresentation is also prominent. This is explained by his rhetorical aim to justify politically the decision to annex Crimea by means of a narrative of self-legitimisation where the self is represented as the defender of the oppressed (i.e. the Crimean people). In contrast, in both his speeches, President Obama favours positive self-representation (51% for his Brussels Speech and 48% for his UN speech) over the use of negative other representation (21% for his Brussels Speech and 23% for his UN speech). The high frequency of metaphorical expressions used in the context of semantic contrast (i.e. legitimisation and delegitimisation) also indicates that both speakers experience emotional involvement and self-projection in the political policy they promote, and that this is conceptually realised by conflating the self with the nation or Table 4.5  Metaphor-facilitated populist framing Parameters

President Obama’s Brussels speech UN speech

President Putin’s Crimea speech

UN speech

Metaphors MF per 1000 words Legitimisation metaphors Delegitimisation metaphors Populist framing

140 35.5

167 39.2

166 31.6

108 36.4

72 (51%)

80 (48%)

53 (32%)

20 (19%)

29 (21%)

38 (23%)

42 (25%)

44 (41%)

Hegemonic reinforcement

Hegemonic antagonism

Bold value indicates the key features, as based on which comparison between the two leaders is being made

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against other nations (i.e. conceptual metaphor) and further linguistically realised through metaphorical expressions in the combined use of semantic contrast. In President Putin’s case, he expresses nationalism, patriotism and the historical significance of the Russian Empire (Crimea address) along with the idea of an unbalanced US–Russia relationship (Crimea and UN speeches), while in President Obama’s case, he articulates the topics of the EU–U.S. relationship, U.S.–Russian foreign policy (Brussels speech) and international terrorism in moralitycentred terms (UN speech). President Obama’s combined use of the War, Personified Relationship and Journey metaphors creates a scenario where the current political order represented by the U.S. and the EU are given the status of moral agents who defend the moral right from wrong (War) and seek a beneficial relationship with the other. In his War frame, the enemy (i.e. Russia) is only implied rather than directly challenged. Obama indirectly constructs Russia as an ‘enemy’ through his narrative of a universal morality that is challenged by an amoral other. However, within his Personified Relationship frame, President Obama also implies the possibility of reinstating the relationship with the other (i.e. Russia) on the condition that universal ideals are followed. In this regard, Obama positions himself as an observer who differentiates a moral right from a moral wrong and reinstates the moral righteousness of his judgement in the context of the political myth that classifies nations into good or bad. Finally, in his Journey metaphor and its abstract spatial notion of purposeful motion towards a predetermined goal, Obama argues that his political objectives (in the fight against evil) are attainable under a condition of unity and effort amongst ‘good’ nations (the U.S. and the nations of the EU). By contrast, President Putin creates a different political reality of hegemonic antagonism by condensing political space and identity into three systematic metaphors: War, Personified Relationship and Strength. In his discursive frame, he blames the West, mainly the U.S., for its oppressive antagonism to Russia; he further positions Russia as an oppressed signifier defending its right to being and acting. Although both Obama and Putin employ similar metaphorical domains of War and Personified Relationship, these are used in the context of ideologically opposite populist framing. It should also be noted

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that there is a notable uniformity in how each leader employs his populist style on different occasions. Putin uses War, Personified Relationship and Strength metaphors in both his Crimea and UN addresses, while Obama uses War, Personified Relationship and Journey in both his Brussels and UN addresses. Both use War and Personified metaphors in their respective speeches. Furthermore, analysis in this chapter reveals that these leaders’ populist worldviews, grounded in ideologically opposite political identities, offer a remote likelihood of their finding any common ground. What emerges is that the approach to populism as a gradable discursive frame can facilitate a more integrated analysis of other kinds of political discourse such as diplomatic rhetoric based on the metaphorical extension of the ‘people’ onto specific nations. This kind of metaphorical extension is useful in explaining the current world hegemony by representing it either as an ideal through the metonymic and metaphorical combination of ‘Nations Are Good/Bad People’ with the U.S. As a Moral Agent or conversely as a counter-ideal with the U.S. As an Evil/Oppressor. Both serve their ideological purpose of legitimising the ‘self ’ to establish discursively a moral order that has to be sustained or radically changed and opposed. In the context of this analysis, it has been shown that metaphor use in political discourse with semantic contrast simplifies political issues (good nations vs. bad nations) and provides for leaders such as Obama and Putin their own evaluation of abstract political ideologies through political argument. By this extension of populism to an international context, we can encourage a more critical awareness of political representations and their contestability in diplomatic discourse. Finally, the current chapter contributes to the study of political leadership that can be realised through two kinds of populist manifestations in the time of international conflict. In President Obama’s case, his legitimisation of ‘self ’ points to his attempts to reaffirm the U.S. role in addressing political crisis. By contrast, President Putin rhetorically delegitimises the current political order by challenging and opposing the ‘other’ in the guise of the U.S. and the EU and by legitimating his own decisions and the role of Russia in reconstructing a new political order.

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5 An Untrustworthy Entertainer: Populist Identities in the Voices of New Zealand Voters Jay M. Woodhams

Introduction New Zealand, like many other democratic countries, has a long history of populist identities in its politics, including former Prime Minister Robert Muldoon (1975–1984), socialist John A. Lee (MP 1922– 1928; 1931–1943), and several other more minor players (Gustafson, 2006). In the current political environment, it is veteran politician, Member of Parliament and leader of the New Zealand First Party, Winston Peters, who is recognised as the clearest example of a populist (Gustafson, 2006; McLachlan, 2013). Peters and NZ First are central contributors to a New Zealand brand of right-wing populist discourse (Betz & Johnson, 2004), characterised primarily by opposition to (largely Asian) immigration, underpinned by a nostalgic desire

J. M. Woodhams (*)  Australian National University, Canberra, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 M. Macaulay (ed.), Populist Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3_5

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to return New Zealand to a “more traditional white/Maori1 racial composition” (Johnson, Patten, & Betz, 2005, p. 96). Similar anti-immigration themes appear in the rhetoric of right-wing populists around the world, such as Australian senator Pauline Hanson and her One Nation party, and France’s Marine Le Pen and the National Front (see Mudde, 2004). In the most general sense, populists draw on and constitute an ‘us versus them’ division, articulating ‘the people’ in opposition to a variously defined ‘other’ (see Mény & Surel, 2002; Mudde, 2004; Müller, 2016; Panizza, 2005b). Where New Zealand differs from other countries is in the need for populists such as Peters to negotiate a complex territory of “ongoing tensions between indigenous peoples and colonial-settlers … and mass post World War Two immigration” (Johnson et al., 2005, p. 90). In this environment, Peters has shown across his political career that his style of racial politics can be electorally successful (Johnson et al., 2005, p. 97). Contemporary populist discourse in New Zealand, however, is neither limited to the rhetoric of one charismatic political figure nor one political party. The other side of the populist coin, ‘the people,’ so generated in discourse by the populists themselves (Laclau, 2005), are a necessary ingredient in the discursive environment of populist movements. This chapter explores how the voting public play a role in the genesis of populist discourses. More specifically, it seeks to identify the linguistic means by which populist messages and identities can be supported or resisted, and the way populist claims to being ‘one of the people’ are negotiated in the voices of voters.

Populism and the Radical Right Defining Populism A disclaimer often present at the beginning of studies into populism states that the concept is vague and that scholars have faced difficulty in coming to agreement on an exact definition. This is due, in part, to 1Modern spelling conventions require a macron denoting a long vowel: Māori. Quotations that use the earlier convention omitting the macron are presented in their original form.

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its varied usage across history (see Mény & Surel, 2002), and, as Panizza (2005a) notes, due to it being “an analytical attribution rather than a term with which most political actors would willingly identify” (p. 1). Despite such difficulties, there is an “analytical core” to populism in that it “simplifies the political space by symbolically dividing society between ‘the people’ … and its ‘other’” (Panizza, 2005a, p. 3). Mudde (2004) further refines this definition, viewing it as “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale [general will] of the people” (p. 543). The central division that lies at the heart of populism helps us to identify ‘true’ populists as they appear in democratic contexts around the world.

The Radical Populist Right in New Zealand Winston Peters claims that his politics is “neither Left nor Right” (Peters, 2010), yet scholars are in general agreement that he and his party are members of the (new) radical populist right (Betz, 2002, 2005; Betz & Johnson, 2004; Bowler, Denemark, Donovan, & McDonnell, 2017; Johnson et al., 2005; see also Mudde, 2010; Rydgren, 2007). Betz (2005) notes that such parties “promote a discourse that is clearly radical, anti-establishment, and anti-liberal, particularly with regard to the question of migrants and foreigners in general” (p. 27). Rydgren (2007) observes that “their program is directed toward strengthening the nation by making it more ethnically homogenous and by returning to traditional values” and points out that they share an “emphasis on ethno-nationalism rooted in myths about the distant past” (p. 242). The radical populist right is, as Betz and Johnson (2004) put it, deeply nostalgic for the “good old days” (p. 324). According to Rydgren (2007, pp. 244–245), the radical right are right in the sociocultural (rather than socioeconomic) sense, in that they tend to focus on issues of national identity, and radical in that they aim to transform the status quo (see also Betz & Johnson, 2004, p. 313). Their anti-establishment goals are supported by the populist desire to be seen as opponents of a political elite while “trying actively not to appear

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antidemocratic” (Rydgren, 2007, p. 245). While not against representative democracy, populism “is inherently hostile to the idea and institutions of liberal democracy or constitutional democracy” as they are “a complex compromise of popular democracy and liberal elitism … [and] therefore only partly democratic” (Mudde, 2004, p. 561). As a result, right-wing populists tend to support direct democracy as a solution to the ‘corruption’ of the democratic process (Bowler et al., 2017; see also Canovan, 2002). This manifests in frequent calls for referenda (Bowler et al., 2017; Rydgren, 2007, p. 246), a strategy NZ First often deploys, including in the recent cases of marriage equality, decriminalisation of cannabis, and the so-called ‘anti-smacking’ law (see Moir, 2016; New Zealand First Party, 2012; TVNZ, 2017). Peters’ indigenous heritage makes his politics unusual in comparison to right-wing populists in other countries. Johnson et al. (2005) note that Peters advocates for a “self-reliant version of Maori identity” anchored in a critique of the welfare state, distinguishing him from Australian Pauline Hanson, “who positions herself as defending white Australians from both Aboriginal people and Asians” (pp. 95–97). Australian and New Zealand right-wing populism share an opposition to primarily Asian immigration (Betz & Johnson, 2004, pp. 318–319), yet Peters generally includes ‘self-reliant’ Māori in his narrative, in contrast to Hanson’s exclusionary rhetoric targeting both (non-white) migrants and Indigenous Australians (see Rapley, 1998). Despite the distinct characteristics of Peters’ politics, he shares with other right-wing populists a nostalgic sense of his country’s past, vocal opposition to perceived political corruption and the exploitation of a division between ‘ordinary people’ and their various ‘others’ (see, for example, Peters, 2002). Peters has been able to negotiate the complexity of the New Zealand context and promote a brand of racial politics that has proved politically successful (Johnson et al., 2005). This is demonstrated by several senior government roles he has held during his career, including Minister of Māori Affairs (1990–1991), Minister of Foreign Affairs (2005– 2008; 2017–), Treasurer (1996–1998) and Deputy Prime Minister (1996–1998; 2017–). Peters is a high-profile populist politician, and, as

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demonstrated through the analysis presented in this chapter, he and his party are topics not far from many voters’ minds when talking about New Zealand politics.

The Discourse of Populism Populist discourse can be thought of as structured around the enhancement or exploitation of the symbolic division between the people and others, whether defined as Asian immigrants, an entrenched ruling class, welfare beneficiaries or Muslim refugees. To further break down the concept, it is necessary to acknowledge that the term ‘discourse’ can refer to two distinct phenomena: the sociocultural and the interactional. Sociocultural or ‘big-D’ discourse (Gee, 2014) is, as Fairclough (2005) puts it, “a particular way of representing certain parts or aspects of the [physical, social, psychological] world” (p. 925). We can, therefore, talk about populist discourse in the sense that it represents social groups and their relations (i.e., the people versus others or elites). Discourse is, in this sense, much more than language, yet it is through language that discourses are generated. The interactional or ‘little-d’ level of discourse concerns most generally language-in-use (Gee, 2014, p. 52). Access to sociocultural discourses can be gained through analysis at the interactional level (see Woodhams, 2015). The analytical focus for discourse analysts should, therefore, be on both the structure of populist (big-D) discourses in various contexts and populism as it arises in interactional (little-d) discourse, with the understanding that both levels have a dialectical relationship (Fairclough, 1992). This chapter aims to contribute to refining our understanding of the structure of populist discourse in New Zealand by accessing the ways in which populist figures are generated in interaction. It is ‘the people’ to whom populist messages are addressed; they can ascribe, recognise or deny populist identities and hence contribute to the genesis of the broader discourses around them. Rather than looking at how populists generate the people in a discursive sense (Laclau, 2005, p. 48), this study shifts focus to how the people generate the populist.

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Populist Identity Identity, according to Gee (2000), is simply “being recognised as a certain ‘kind of person,’ in a given context” (p. 99). Being a certain kind of person is a complex achievement that hinges on the process of social recognition through interaction. Gee (2000) theorises four aspects to identity: nature (i.e., the physical body), institution (i.e., authorised identities), discourse (i.e., interactional recognition) and affinity (i.e., community memberships). In addition, there is a ‘core’ identity, “a unique trajectory through ‘Discourse space’” in which identity ‘bids’ accumulate over the course of one’s life (Gee, 2000, pp. 109–111). Contrary to other approaches to discursive identity (e.g., Bucholtz & Hall, 2005), Gee’s (2000) ‘NIDA’ model demonstrates that discourse, while the main driver of identity recognition, does not comprise the entirety of the theoretical concept. Gee’s model is useful in the analysis of populist identities as it affords a higher degree of sensitivity than a simple affirmative or negative identity attribution. A ‘populist’ identity may in fact comprise aspects of one’s party political membership, the content of speeches, group affiliations, protest activity or even that imposed by way of academic consensus (see Gee, 2000, p. 103; Woodhams, 2015, p. 45). These identity aspects are funnelled through the discursive process of recognition. Being a populist is more than what one says; it can also be seen in how one behaves, affiliates and what one is authorised to carry out. This highlights the need for an approach to discourse analysis that is sensitive not only to language, but also to the rich sociocultural contexts in which populist identity bids are made. Complicating the picture is the fact that ‘populist’ is not a label to which many politicians aspire. Those who are ‘true’ populists would often rather be recognised as a ‘man or woman of the people,’ or one who speaks for their interests and has their aspirations at heart (Müller, 2016). There are thus two aspects to a populist discourse identity: an ascription, aligned with the label ‘populist’ and considered in generally negative terms, and an achievement, generally positive (Gee, 2000, p. 104). The ascriptive aspect tends to be used by the public, the media or political opponents, whereas the achieved aspect tends to avoid the

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populist label altogether, indexing features of populist discourse within a ‘man or woman of the people’ frame. The negotiation of this process, or the recognition of such identities, occurs in interaction, and primarily through interactants’ stance-taking. Du Bois’ (2007) model of stance, a tripartite communicative act comprising evaluation, positioning and alignment, is a means through which identities can be indexed in interaction. Repeated stance-­taking can accrete into more durable associations (Damari, 2010, p. 625; Eckert, 2008, p. 469; Rauniomaa as cited in Bucholtz & Hall, 2005); those who consistently adopt populist stances are more likely to cement links to a populist identity. These associations tend to transcend their local, immediate contexts, since populist discourse, from a critical realist perspective, has an emergent structure that exists outside the fleeting instances of interaction on-the-ground (Collier, 1994, pp. 110–111). The relative uniformity and consistency of the structure of populist discourse means that populists tend to share characteristics across contexts, such as anti-elitism, anti-pluralism and a tendency to make moralistic claims (Müller, 2016). Questions remain as to how individual voters adopt stances in relation to these aspects of populist identity, how this manifests in the New Zealand political environment, and how it may contribute to individuals’ political identities (Woodhams, 2015). This chapter attempts to find answers to these questions.

Study Context and Rationale Populism as a global discursive phenomenon has had significant focus within what can be broadly characterised as political discourse studies, highlighted in no small part by the variety of studies in the current volume. This topic has had input from a number of perspectives, including, but not limited to, political science (e.g., Caiani & Porta, 2011; Gerodimos, 2015; Hawkins, 2009; Jagers & Walgrave, 2007), sociology (Bonikowski & Gidron, 2016; Gale, 2004), gender studies (Norocel, 2013) and the current approach that characterises this study, (critical) linguistics (Wodak, 1989, 2003). Much linguistic discourse analytic work (hereafter referred to generally as DA) on populist discourse has

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been carried out under the auspices of critical discourse analysis (CDA), exemplified by recent studies focusing on right-wing populist discourses in Europe (Wodak, 2015; Wodak, KhosraviNik, & Mral, 2013). DA studies of populism have provided a clear window on the conditions for and the structures of populist discourses around the world. The overarching focus of political discourse studies, however, tends to be on the rhetoric of the political elite; what they say, how they say it and the discourses drawn upon and generated within their speech. Important as this is, we must not efface the ‘ordinary’ or ‘average’ voters for whom the populists claim to speak. These voters, as political agents, comprise a ‘politics-from-below’ that acts as a necessary counterweight to a ‘politics-from-above’ dominated by elites and the news media (Fetzer, 2013). Focusing on the ordinary person in the broader realm of political discourse analysis is not altogether new. Researchers across disciplines have investigated political discussions in groups such as families (Gordon, 2004) and informal gatherings (Walsh, 2004), and examined the political talk of adolescents (Bhavnani 1991; Yates and Youniss, 1998) and the urban poor (Baiocchi, 2003). Of significant interest to scholars is political talk in various online fora (Al Nashmi, Cleary, Molleda, & McAdams, 2010; González-Bailón, Banchs, & Kaltenbrunner, 2012; Price, Nir, & Cappella, 2006; Sotillo & Wang-Gempp, 2004; van Zoonen et al., 2007), and the role of peer discussion and social networks in the flow of political information (Huckfeldt & Sprague, 1987; Klofstad, 2007). Particularly relevant to this study is work on national identity (de Cillia, Reisigl, & Wodak, 1999; Wodak & Meyer, 2009), where CDA analyses have shown that identity formation in interaction occurs within a multi-­ dimensional and increasingly globalised social context. This body of research sheds light on the ordinary person as a political agent operating within a complex, structured social world; as Moffitt (2016) rightly identifies, this is a context where the media is globalised and Internet technologies, such as Twitter and Facebook, provide means through which populist messages can be disseminated and consumed with relative ease. Despite the intensity of focus on the genesis of political discourses, whether defined as populist or not, very little research of this kind has been carried out in New Zealand. Considering election outcomes have

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repeatedly put NZ First in a ‘kingmaker’ position, and circumstances continue to ensure immigration is a major political issue, the relevance and influence of NZ First and related brands of populism within the country’s politics is unlikely to wane.2 Pressures from globalisation and the search for a scapegoated ‘outsider,’ whether immigrants and refugees (Gabrielatos & Baker, 2008; Hatoss, 2012; KhosraviNik, 2009) or social welfare beneficiaries (Woodhams, 2011, 2012), places an analytical priority on understanding the structure of radical right-wing populist discourse, particularly in countries such as New Zealand where relatively little work has been carried out.

Dataset and Method of Analysis This chapter uses data collected as part of a wider study into the genesis of political identities within informal conversations that took place in Wellington, the political centre and capital of New Zealand (Woodhams, 2015). It draws on a dataset of informal conversations with 26 New Zealand voters, held with the author in several cafés, homes and workplaces across the city during a period of six months in 2012–2013.3 The topics of conversation revolved around politics in its broadest sense, encapsulating not only governance, but also high-profile political issues of the time such as marriage equality and the Christchurch earthquake rebuild. Participants were initially recruited with two poster drops and then through the referral chain method, otherwise known as the ‘snowball’ or network sampling technique (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981; Milroy & Gordon, 2003, p. 32). Most conversations lasted around thirty minutes, and several went for over an hour, with the longest being two hours. In total, over 24 hours of audio recordings were made, including 2The

election outcomes for smaller political parties are particularly relevant in the context of New Zealand’s mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system, introduced after a 1993 referendum, in which post-election deal-making between parties is usually necessary. 3Informed consent was gained from all participants and research approved by Victoria University of Wellington’s Human Ethics Committee.

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one-and-a-half hours of video recording in which a focus group of five participants discussed political topics. Using NVivo for analysis (QSR International Pty Ltd., 2017), the interview recordings were divided into thematic arcs, roughly transcribed, tagged with keywords, transcribed in detail, coded into nodes and then subjected to queries (for more detail, see Woodhams, 2015). For the study reported in this chapter, the key words Winston Peters, New Zealand First and their various permutations were entered as queries into NVivo and the results collated. Analysis of these results took an interactional sociolinguistic approach to discourse data, concerned in the most general sense with how context is linked to interaction (Gumperz, 1982, 2001, 2009).

Findings and Analysis Overall, 23 references to Peters and NZ First appeared in the dataset. In comparison, the centre-left Labour Party and its then leader, David Shearer, were mentioned a combined 224 times. The centre-right National Party and its then leader, John Key, were mentioned 162 times. The Green Party and its co-leaders appeared 66 times. Peters and his party arose comparatively less frequently in participants’ talk, perhaps unsurprising given NZ First’s relatively low electoral support at the time.4 Nevertheless, 13 out of 26 participants referenced Peters and/or NZ First at least once, suggesting wide, if fleeting, interest. The notable overrepresentation of references to Labour also indicates the effect of the ‘left-wing Wellington’ discourse (Woodhams, 2015, pp. 189–195), and is likely an artefact of the political leanings of the majority of participants who volunteered to take part. High-level qualitative analysis of references to Winston Peters and NZ First indicated a divide in linguistic behaviour in terms of the age of the participants. Three of the younger participants characterised Peters

4NZ First received 6.59% of party votes at the 2011 general election, compared to 11.06% for the Green Party, 27.48% for the Labour Party, and 47.31% for the National Party (Electoral Commission, 2012).

5  An Untrustworthy Entertainer: Populist Identities …     135 Table 5.1  References to Winston Peters and/or NZ First across the dataset Participant/s

Age

No. of references Themes

Catea Daniel Jacqui Michelle Michael Isaac Steven Briar Maryam and Ali Desmond Linda Joe Total

18–22 18–22 18–22 18–22 18–22 23–27 43–47 48–52 68–72 73–77 78–82 78–82

4 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 3 3 23

aAll

Interactive; fun; racist One-man party Humorous Entertaining; weird Interesting Unsuitable for government Untrustworthy Publicity machine Anti-Muslim; crazy Unpredictable Maverick; troublemaker Skilled politician; vain; unreliable

names of the study participants used in this chapter are pseudonymous

as humorous or entertaining. Those over 40 years of age tended to focus on more negative aspects, with three older participants characterising him as unpredictable and hence untrustworthy. An overview of participants’ references to Peters and NZ First is presented in Table 5.1. The following sections present excerpts from the dataset that demonstrate in detail the ways in which participants negotiate the recognition of populist identities in talk. The selected excerpts represent the most illuminating of the 23 mentions of Peters and his party. Cate and Michelle both independently orient to an entertainer discourse; Steven, Desmond and Joe all present a picture of general unpredictability and hence untrustworthiness; and Linda refers to Peters’ populist desire to upset the political status quo. The remaining references, while also contributing to Peters’ multifarious public identities and supporting in different ways those selected for this study, are not presented here, primarily due to the fleeting or implicit way Peters or NZ First is discussed and the limited analytical value of the resultant transcript. The aim is not to give an exhaustive sense of the breadth of references; rather, it is to consider in depth the ways in which select references indicate the structure of the identities and discourses to which they refer (see Sayer, 2010).

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Entertaining and Weird Michelle (18–22-year-old NZ European/Pākehā female; National voter) provides a clear example of the ascription of an entertainer identity to Peters. Michelle had a close encounter with Peters in a local department store, which she recalls in Excerpt 1. Excerpt 15 Setting: Wellington café Context: I (JW) have asked Michelle (MD) if she thinks Wellington is different from other places in New Zealand Time: 18:42.1–19:38.2 1 MD 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 JW 9 MD 10 JW 11 MD 12

well [laughs] two weeks ago i was just in [shop] at the [cosmetic brand] counter and winston peters walked past me like where else in new zealand are you gonna get that sort of good value entertainment //you know\ /do you work\\ there or no oh () just just standing there [laughs] oh winston + hi

Michelle switches to a narrative frame to relay her experience to me, introducing the story with discourse marker well (line 1; Schiffrin, 1987) and then orienting to past time, two weeks ago (line 1; Labov and Waletzky, 1967). She describes her experience, i was just in [shop] at the [cosmetic brand] counter and winston peters walked past me like (lines 5The transcription notation used throughout this chapter is adapted from that used by the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project (Vine, Johnson, O’Brien, & Robertson, 2002). Capital letters are not used in transcripts except in cases of emphatic stress, thus proper nouns most often appear in lower case. Transcription conventions are provided at the beginning of this volume.

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2–4). A positive evaluation follows, where else in New Zealand are you gonna get that sort of good value entertainment (lines 5–6), followed by coda you know (line 7; Labov & Waletzky, 1967). Michelle’s narrative of personal experience (Labov & Waletzky, 1967) indexes the entertainer identity and ascribes it to Peters, accessing it directly through the token entertainment (line 6) which she evaluates positively with good value (line 6). Michelle adopts a positive affective stance in reference to this experience (Du Bois & Kärkkäinen, 2012), underlining the benefit that she derives from such an entertaining occurrence. She then returns to her story, which she finds humorous, as indicated by her laughter, just just standing there [laughs] (line 11). She finishes by simulating an exchange with Peters in the shop, oh winston + hi (line 12), an example of direct speech in a narrative frame (Baynham, 1996; Coulmas, 1986) that serves to introduce her own voice into the story (Tannen, 1986). Our exchange indicates that the local context, in which subnational discourses such as ‘small town’ and ‘political city’ are also negotiated in interaction, influences the way in which political actors are discursively generated by interlocutors on-the-ground (Woodhams, 2015). From a pragmatic perspective, Michelle’s narrative has the function of responding to my line of questioning and portraying Wellington as a generally political place, characterising it as different to elsewhere in the country. Our discussion is couched within the ‘small town’ Wellington discourse, through which it is understood that ‘everyone knows everyone.’ Such experiences are commonplace due to the confined nature of Wellington’s geography and relatively small population size. Michelle’s use of Peters’ first name also suggests the influence of the discourse of Kiwi egalitarianism, in which politicians and those in positions of power can be subject to ‘tall poppy’ levelling (Kirkwood, 2007; Mouly & Sankaran, 2000; Woodhams, 2015). Michelle’s simulated exchange with Peters (line 12) is noteworthy in the sense that as a populist, Peters aims to cultivate a ‘man of the people’ identity. Michelle’s narrative indicates to a certain extent Peters’ success; she shows it is conversationally unproblematic to take part in such an exchange, and in so doing cogenerates his populist identity bid. This is not followed, however, with Michelle’s political support, demonstrating

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that success in conveying a ‘man of the people’ image does not necessarily translate into votes. Following her characterisation of him as an entertainer comes a stronger stance of opposition to his personal qualities, as shown in Excerpt 2, where she again favours a narrative of personal experience as the medium for her stance-taking. Excerpt 2 Context: Michelle (MD) has mentioned how she was embarrassed at the number of National Party MPs who voted against marriage equality and has also noted Peters’ opposition Time: 11:15.7–12:06.2 1 JW 2 MD 3 4 JW 5 6 MD 7 JW 8 JW 9 MD 10 JW 11 MD 12 13 14

so you don’t you don’t like win- you don’t like winnie i don’t i don’t think anyone does in my age group um i don’t know if that’s possible [laughs] i remember when i was an undergrad he came to talk at university yeah he //did er\ last year for [friend] as well= /yeah\\  = oh did //he\ /she\\ was very impressed with it yeah and everyone comes out like hmm he’s actually he’s a weird man […] 11:33.1–12:02.1 can’t even comprehend how weird he is [laughs]

At the outset of this exchange, my use of winnie (line 1) contributes to the genesis of my own discourse identity via the use of a diminutive form of Peters’ first name. Considering the dialogic context, I make the call that referring to Peters in this way is contextually acceptable. My behaviour can be interpreted as a way of further building rapport with Michelle (Spencer-Oatey, 2000) by aligning our stance-taking

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evaluations (Du Bois, 2007). It is also an indication that I understand the contextual appropriateness of using politicians’ first names, as Michelle had done earlier, and perhaps functions as an implicit orientation to Peters’ discourse identity as a populist entertainer who is “just like us” and to whom we can refer in familiar terms (Manning, PenfoldMounce, Loader, Vromen, & Xenos, 2017). Michelle characterises people her age as being the wrong demographic for Peters’ support base, i don’t think anyone does in my age group um i don’t know if that’s possible (lines 2–3). Here, Michelle acknowledges Peters’ public and well-known characterisation as a defender of senior citizens’ rights. Again, Michelle uses a narrative of personal experience, orienting to past time with i remember when (line 5) and continuing with a story about a talk Peters gave at the university after which students commented he’s a weird man (line 12), reinforcing her earlier characterisation of younger voters not being supporters of Peters. This coda to Michelle’s narrative also contains evaluative information that contributes to her oppositional stance. After another narrative (line 13), redacted for confidentiality reasons, she follows with a similar, yet stronger, evaluation, can’t even comprehend how weird he is [laughs] (line 14). The term weird (lines 12, 14), in this context, does not necessarily signal strong opposition to Peters or his politics. As it is modified by the entertainer identity that Michelle ascribed earlier, weird may merely signal that his political opinions are not to be taken seriously. In either case, her focus here is on Peters the man, rather than Peters the politician, and his politics are subordinated to an entertainer identity. In so doing, Michelle demonstrates subtle distancing from Peters in a primarily personal sense.

Interactive, Fun and a Bit Racist My discussion with Cate (18–22-year-old NZ European/Pākehā female; National voter), presented in Excerpt 3, sheds further light on the entertainer identity.

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Excerpt 3 Setting: Wellington café Context: Cate (CM) has been talking about the social media habits of New Zealand politicians Time: 6:31.4–7:52.5 1 CM 2 3 JW 4 CM 5 JW 6 CM 7 JW 8 CM 9 10 JW 11 CM 12 13 JW 14 CM 15 JW 16 CM 17 JW 18 CM 19 JW 20 CM 21 22 JW 23 CM 24 JW

i mean winston peters is the most interactive + of them all he does like live //+ chats every month\ /oh you follow him as well\\ oh yeah //i follow them all\ /oh wow\\ um + got my finger in the pie ++ wow winston’s the funnest i guess cos he talhe does like monthly yeah chatty things with his +++ his + loyal + wing i don’t participate in them but they’re fun () mm um + i would never vote for winston peters though //it’s just\ /yeah i was gonna\\ ask //you what\ /no\\ no you //wouldn’t support him\ /it’s not\\ not for me at all + um why’s that he’s just a little bit too + i don’t think he’s inclusive enough with im- immigrants mm mm and he’s not really tolerant enough mm

Cate appears to admire Peters for his ability to publicise his views and connect with his audience, characterising him as the most interactive + of them all (line 1). Peters’ monthly live + chats (line 2) makes him the funnest (line 8), a clear positive evaluation of Peters’ entertainer identity. Still, these online chats are, in her view, aimed at his + loyal + wing (line 11), and

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realising the implication that she is a supporter, Cate is quick to note i don’t participate in them but they’re fun (line 12). This clearly shows that Cate values a degree of entertainment in politics; Peters is judged positively for his ability to entertain and engage rather than as a serious political candidate. Cate is quick, however, to address the identity implications. After denying her participation, she explicitly states i would never vote for winston peters though (line 14). This indicates Cate’s two-sided approach to politics: one, as general entertainment, and two, as civic engagement or voting behaviour. Her clear opposition to Peters in this utterance could also be due to her own inferences about my political identity up to this point. It is furthermore influenced by the ‘left-wing Wellington’ subnational discourse against which her identity as a National Party voter is generated (Woodhams, 2015, p. 193). This highlights the need to have a grasp of the full dialogic context in interpreting stance acts (Du Bois, 2007, p. 142), not only in terms of language-in-use, but also the sociocultural (and subnational) influences on spoken discourse. I further explore Cate’s opposition to Peters by making a suggestion with the purpose of inviting agreement or disagreement, no you wouldn’t support him (line 17). Cate answers by underlining her opposition to Peters’ politics with increasing strength, it’s not not for me at all (line 18), and she offers her reasons, i don’t think he’s inclusive enough with im- immigrants … and he’s not really tolerant enough (lines 21, 23). Peters’ messages fail to resonate as Cate values inclusivity and tolerance, both of which are threatened by Peters’ rhetoric. At this point, we have ventured beyond the entertainer discourse, where Cate deploys stronger views of opposition to Peters which were not as apparent in the earlier part of the discussion. Our movement into these stronger stances could be a product of enhanced rapport at this stage (Spencer-Oatey, 2000); Cate and I have become more comfortable in the interaction and stronger stances are now more contextually appropriate (Woodhams, 2015, chapter 9). Cate undertakes complex stance work in order to resist Peters’ radical right-wing policies. She opposes his political views but this is nevertheless hedged within a positively-evaluated entertainer identity. This indicates a certain tension for Cate: Peters’ populist ability to appear as a ‘man of the people,’ an entertaining and engaging figure who is

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fun to follow on social media, sits uneasily alongside the radical rightwing ideas that he espouses. This raises the question of how one can be (at least implicitly) supportive of a populist’s entertaining identity, yet simultaneously condemnatory of his intolerant views. The answer appears to lie in the move towards politics as entertainment, as discussed in more detail below. In Excerpt 4, Cate continues to build on her discursive representation of NZ First and Winston Peters. Excerpt 4 Context: Cate (CM) is talking about the Opposition always saying the opposite Time: 40:48.8–41:03.5 1 CM 2 3 4 JW 5 CM 6 JW 7 CM 8 JW

sometimes it’s also nice + to hear from the smaller parties and hear what they say because they’re not they don’t have so much variety (knowing) what they say yeah right right um + at the same time it’s not always helpful mm sometimes you get + winston being a bit racist [laughs]

Cate notes that what smaller parties say is not always helpful (line 5) and then ascribes racist to Peters as a characterisation of his general behaviour, sometimes you get + winston being a bit racist (line 7). Cate, however, seems to avoid directly ascribing racist as an identity category to Peters. Rather, she hedges with a bit and uses sometimes alongside the progressive form being + [adjective], suggesting that Peters’ racism is a temporary or infrequent behaviour, rather than a more permanent part of his personality. When considered in context with her earlier mention of Peters’ attitudes towards migrants, this may be a way for Cate to strengthen her opposition to Peters and develop her discursive resistance to his radical right-wing positions. This is given more weight in the context of Peters’

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history. He is well-known for his anti-immigration ‘Asian invasion’ rhetoric that was a common (and politically successful) topic for him throughout the nineties (see Munshi, 1998; Spoonley & Berg, 1997). It is no surprise that for Cate, a voter who values social tolerance and inclusivity, Peters’ intolerant messages fail to gain her support. In Excerpt 3, Cate positively evaluates Peters’ entertaining and interactive behaviour, indicating the success of these populist strategies. Despite her subsequent distancing from Peters and his views, it appears that her negative evaluations are somewhat tempered by her previous positive ones. Cate mitigates the ascription of racist, suggesting she accepts that racism and intolerance are wrong, but is perhaps less inclined to strongly condemn Peters due to the positive experiences she has had with his more ‘fun’ entertainer identity. This suggests that the populist programme of speaking directly to the people via social media (discussed below) can potentially mitigate subsequent opposition to radical right-wing positions. Nevertheless, Cate does not give NZ First her vote; like Michelle, an entertaining populist identity is not enough to secure her political support.

Unpredictable and Untrustworthy Three of the older participants characterise Peters as an adept political operator, framed within the sense that he is unpredictable and hence untrustworthy. In contrast to Michelle and Cate, Labour voters Steven, Desmond and Joe highlight Peters’ abilities as a politician, to which they usually subordinate the entertainer discourse. Steven (43–47-year-old NZ European/Pākehā male; Labour voter) provides the strongest stance-taking behaviour in opposition to Peters, as shown in Excerpt 5. Excerpt 5 Setting: Wellington café Context: I (JW) have mentioned to Steven (SW) that the majority party, National, need the support of minor parties to remain in power

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Time: 20:08.9–20:15.5 1 SW 2 JW 3 SW 4 JW 5 SW

and i wouldn’t trust winston as far as i can throw him [laughs] so i still wouldn’t put it past him to go yeah go back to the right um

Steven’s stance-taking begins with a strongly negative evaluative stance, i wouldn’t trust winston as far as i can throw him (line 1). His choice of idiomatic expression serves here to underline his complete distrust. It stems from Steven’s views of Peters’ politically ‘malleable’ nature, in which Peters may spend time in opposition voting against the centre-right government, yet can go back to the right (line 5) when the opportunity to maximise his political power presents itself. Steven’s ascription of the untrustworthy identity is likely influenced in part by Peters’ history of political unpredictability. He defied predictions after the 1996 general election by going into coalition with the centre-right conservative National Party, against which he had campaigned vigorously (Gustafson, 2006, p. 64). After the 2005 general election, he chose to be a support partner to a Labour-led minority government (Gustafson, 2006, p. 66), and in 2017, after leaving both major parties in suspense until his announcement, Peters chose a coalition agreement with Labour. Political malleability is a characteristic of Peters’ politics, to which Steven refers in his identity ascriptions. It is also a characteristic of populism, being, in Mudde’s (2004) terms, a “thin ideology” that is compatible with various ideological positions (p. 544). As mentioned above, Peters considers himself beyond the left and right divide, meaning that voters cannot predict which major party will gain his support. To Steven, this is a political liability and the object of his oppositional stances. Peters’ unpredictability is a theme that carries through discussions with other older participants. Desmond (73–77-year-old NZ European/ Pākehā male; Labour voter) orients to similar themes as Steven, as shown in Excerpt 6.

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Excerpt 6 Setting: Desmond’s living room Context: Desmond (DM) and I (JW) have been talking about the minor parties and their levels of support for National after the next election Time: 23:03.6–23:27.5 1 DM 2 3 JW 4 DM 5 JW 6 DM 7 8 9 JW 10 DM 11 12 JW 13 DM

winston peters will probably come back and he’ll be some sort of kingmaker kingmaker which //he has been\ /er\\ and and um in the past whether he’s ++ going to be able to swallow what national’s dished out to him over the recent years is er is er is debateable //mm\ /but\\ er he may do it’s he’s unpredictable that way yes //yeah\ /he’ll\\ go for the best deal

Desmond attributes unpredictable (line 11) directly to Peters, noting that he’ll go for the best deal (line 13). Again, 1996 and 2005 appear to remain in Desmond’s memory: he’ll be some sort of kingmaker (line 2). He then spends some time speculating on where Peters’ post-election loyalties may lie given his negative treatment by National (lines 6–8). Both Steven and Desmond acknowledge that Peters will maximise his political power in preference to staying true to a core ideology or set of political beliefs. In their view, Peters is unpredictable and hence untrustworthy; the maximisation of political influence is at the top of his agenda. Unlike the younger participants, Peters is not to be considered merely an entertainer, as the decisions he makes can have a significant influence on the composition of the government. Peters may still be an entertaining figure (as shown in Joe’s case below), but this is subordinated to the very real sense that he could again wield substantial political power.

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Unreliable and Charming Joe (78–82-year-old NZ European/Pākehā male; Labour voter) draws from a similar discourse to that of the other older voters in characterising Peters as an unreliable politician. Joe demonstrates a low degree of alignment with Peters, describing him as a poor politician when in government, but Joe also draws more heavily on the entertainer identity than Steven or Desmond. This is demonstrated in Excerpt 7. Excerpt 7 Setting: Joe’s living room Context: Joe (JB) and I (JW) have been talking about politicians Joe is interested in Time: 9:53.0–11:03.6 1 JW 2 3 4 5 JB 6 7 JW 8 JB 9 JW 10 JB 11 JW 12 JB 13 14 JW 15 JB 16 17 JW 18 JB 19 JW 20 JB 21

are there any other politicians that you k- that you + keep an eye on or that you’re particularly interested in or //you think\ /oh well\\ well peters of course //er\ winston peters /[laughs]\\ cos he’s + a SPECTACULAR politician mhm mhm mhm um + he’s TOTALLY unreliable [laughs] um as he’s been sacked by each er um coalition that he’s been part of that’s right he had the opportunity to be you know recognised forever as minister of maori affairs mm mhm and he he fluffed that [laughs] he was er minister of finance which is a KEY position

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22 23 24 25 JW 26 JB 27 JW 28 JB 29 JW 30 JB 31 JW 32 JB 33 JW 34 JB 35 JW 36 JB 37 JW 38 JB 39 JW

and he fluffed that um and he’s a bit um shall we say economical with the truth at times //[laughs]\ /yeah\\ yeah um so while he likes a scandal and he rides it very well mm and he has a a nose for + picking up issues mm um he’s not altogether rock solid i //don’t think\ /no\\ no but i- interesting personality and yeah um the press love him of course cos he generates headlines yeah //that’s right\ /[laughs]\\ and he breaks into a a magnificent smile that’s right yeah

My reaction on line 7 indicates that I find Peters entertaining in the sense that the first mention of his name is cause enough to laugh. I continue to laugh throughout the interaction (lines 11, 19, 37), highlighting my role in the cogenesis of the entertainer identity, which Joe repeatedly indexes throughout our exchange. Joe acknowledges Peters’ ability as a politician, putting emphatic stress on his evaluation of him as a SPECTACULAR politician (line 8), but then provides an emphatic counterpoint, he’s TOTALLY unreliable (line 10). In this way, Joe indexes the same unpredictable and untrustworthy identity as Desmond and Steven. Joe continues to outline Peters’ patchy track record of success in government as evidence for his evaluation: as he’s been sacked by each er um coalition that he’s been part of (lines 12–13). Joe gives specific examples, he fluffed that (line 18), and he fluffed that (line 22). He then uses euphemistic language to characterise Peters as a liar, further contributing to an untrustworthy identity, he’s a bit um shall we say economical with the truth at times [laughs] (lines 23–24). This utterance is hedged with a bit and shall we say then expressed in

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euphemistic terms. This appears to be a way for Joe to avoid the direct identity attribution of ‘liar,’ a bald assertion and perhaps a face-threatening act in the context of talking about politics (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 67). A parallel can be drawn here with Cate’s description of Peters being a bit racist (Ex. 4, line 7). In a similar way to Cate, Joe shows a more supportive evaluation of Peters as a charming entertainer, yet also condemns him, not so much for his radical rightwing policies as in Cate’s case, but for his perceived poor performance whilst in government. Joe moves into a summative frame in the next part of the exchange, leading with the clause so while he likes a scandal and he rides it very well … and he has a a nose for + picking up issues (lines 26, 28). This seems to be a positive evaluation of Peters’ abilities as a politician, using evaluative language, very well, and the idiomatic expression, he has a a nose for, referring to Peters’ ability to identify and effectively communicate political issues. Joe, however, has not completed his evaluation, which he finishes on line 30, he’s not altogether rock solid i don’t think, metaphorical language again used to attribute an unstable and untrustworthy identity to Peters. Joe then quickly switches back to more positive evaluations, interesting personality (line 32), the press love him of course (line 34) and he breaks into a a magnificent smile (line 38). The sense here is that Peters is charming and charismatic, qualities that tend to serve populists well (Mudde, 2004, p. 556). Joe indexes the same discourses as Steven and Desmond but does so more firmly within an entertainer identity frame. He also appears to be less willing to take strong stances of opposition to Peters, most clearly in contrast to Steven, indicating that Joe is perhaps attempting to be politically balanced. This could be to maintain rapport with his conversational partner (Spencer-Oatey, 2000) while avoiding face-threatening acts; politics is an inherently divisive topic that raises the stakes for conversational face-work (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Steven, Desmond and Joe are all self-identified Labour voters. This likely influences the way in which Peters is characterised. An interesting contrast is provided by Linda, the only self-identified NZ First voter in the dataset.

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A Political Maverick Instability and unpredictability, viewed negatively by the older Labour voters, is not always considered a negative identity characteristic. Linda’s (78–82-year-old NZ Irish female; NZ First voter) stance-taking comprises generally positive evaluations and alignment with Peters and his party, as indicated in Excerpt 8. Excerpt 8 Setting: Linda’s kitchen Context: Linda’s (LF) granddaughter (also present) has asked her who she voted for last election Time: 46:22.1–46:33.7 1 LF 2 3 JW 4 LF 5 6 JW

i gave the party vote to new zealand first cos i was looking to see some ++ er sparks flying mm i thought if this guy gets in with his little band of men we’ll have a bit of action [laughs]

Linda readily acknowledges the controversial nature of NZ First, yet seems to view this as a positive characteristic. She says that the reason for her vote was cos i was looking to see some ++ er sparks flying (line 2). Her metaphorical language here attributes a troublemaker or maverick identity to Peters and his party. This is not unexpected for a populist figure; as Betz and Johnson (2004) observe, “radical right-wing populist leaders have generally been rather careful in cultivating an image of the outsider and political maverick, who consciously ignores and flouts conventions” (p. 315). Linda also views politics as entertainment, suggested by her utterance we’ll have a bit of action (line 5). In this context, Linda positively evaluates action, placing her in opposition to a stagnant or ‘business-asusual’ kind of politics most likely represented by the major parties. To Linda, Peters and NZ First are the only ones who can challenge National and Labour and make change of the kind that Linda wants.

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The sparks flying and action to which Linda refers indexes anti-establishment sentiment that is central to the agenda of the radical populist right (Betz & Johnson, 2004, p. 313). Populists can be framed in a negative and destabilising sense, as in the cases of Steven, Desmond and Joe, yet Linda evaluates Peters and NZ First positively for these qualities. Populist appeals, therefore, strike a chord with those tired of mainstream politics and the two major political parties, a point that Linda emphatically reinforces throughout our two-hour conversation. In fact, Bowler et al. (2017) found that it was NZ First voters, when compared to voters for other parties, who “were the most likely to feel that politicians do not care and that voters have no say, and were also the most dissatisfied with the way democracy worked in their country, though they shared with voters of other small parties the highest level of distrust for government” (p. 79). Linda’s discourse in Excerpt 8, alongside her distrust of politicians conveyed elsewhere in the conversation, certainly aligns with this finding. To Linda, the anti-establishment populist sentiment promoted by Peters and his party are enough to secure her political support, indicating the primacy of her distrust of politicians within her political identity.

Discussion A Division Between Young and Old During analysis, a division emerged between the ways in which the younger and older participants discursively generated Peters’ identities. Michelle and Cate tended to foreground an entertainer identity, backgrounding his political identity and the seriousness of his radical policies. Steven, Desmond and Joe were largely warier of Peters, ascribing to him the characteristics of an unpredictable and untrustworthy politician, to which the entertainer identity was either not present or subordinated. Linda, the only NZ First voter in the study, held positive views of Peters and his party, supporting them for their destabilising potential. New Zealand’s political history helps to shed light on the division between the younger and older voters. Consider that prior to the 2017 election, Peters’ last government position ended in 2008. At that time,

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the youngest participants in this study were not eligible to vote. Peters and his party were either out of Parliament or in opposition when the younger participants became eligible to vote, meaning that their impressions of him were formed in very different circumstances compared to the older voters. In addition, Peters also played a controversial kingmaker role in the country’s first mixed-member proportional (MMP) election, held in 1996. At that time, the younger participants would have been between one and five years old. The older participants are, therefore, more likely to be keenly aware of the real effects of Peters’ choices on the political history of the country, and the relative absence of the entertainer identity in their talk, with the exception of Joe, lends support to this interpretation. In Michelle’s and Cate’s cases, the entertainer identity indicates a certain degree of success in Peters’ attempts at promoting a ‘man of the people’ image. To them, he is interesting, interactive and fun to engage with, particularly on social media, and is relatively accessible and visible. Nevertheless, these positive qualities, also indexed to a certain extent by Joe, are followed by stances of opposition to both Peters’ politics and aspects of his personality. The entertainer identity, while serving populist ends and softening subsequent negative evaluations, could also function to delegitimise Peters’ radical right-wing politics by casting him as a showman in the first instance rather than as a serious politician. It is clear there is a level of tension in the younger participants’ identity attributions, where both positive and negative considerations of Peters are intertwined.

Politics as Entertainment The tension between a positively evaluated entertainer identity and negatively evaluated political (e.g., “racist”) and personal (e.g., “weird”) identities arises in the context of a global trend towards politics as entertainment, perhaps represented most clearly by US President Donald Trump, a former reality television personality. As Wodak (2009b, p. 193) observes, politics and the media are increasingly interlaced in the modern world, where the lines between entertainment and information

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are blurred, as is the distinction between politicians and celebrities (see also Jones, 2010; Street, 2004, 2011, 2012; Wodak, 2009a). Social media are increasingly adopted and utilised by politicians (Manning et al., 2017), and they are an appealing conduit for a populist to talk ‘over the heads’ of the media and directly to the people (Müller, 2016). Cate’s mention of Peters’ live online chats is evidence for this trend in New Zealand. It is little surprise that as a populist, Peters is, by Cate’s own judgement, the “most interactive [politician] of them all.” The move towards accessibility and online presence is considered by some a method of ‘cultivating authenticity’ that tends to resonate with younger voters (Manning et al., 2017). The ‘informalisation’ of politics, in which politicians seek to be recognised as ordinary people, clashes with traditional expectations of politicians that prescribe a more professional or formal identity (Manning et al., 2017). On this point, Manning et al. (2017) conclude that “young citizens seem to be demanding a contradiction: they want politicians to be ‘just like us,’ fallible and capable of having ‘fun’ but at the same time they also need to be responsible, judicious and worthy of respect” (p. 140). Success at being perceived as fun, however, does not necessarily translate into political support. Cate indeed values Peters as the “funnest” politician, yet, when probed, demands more from him in terms of his behaviour and political views. Michelle also considers Peters entertaining, and simulates a conversation with him in a department store, suggesting that his visibility and accessibility makes him ‘just like us.’ Again, this is not enough to secure her vote, due to his “weird” personal qualities. It appears, then, that while an informal political sphere may help to bolster populist appeals to the young, it does not necessarily translate into their support at the ballot box. In contrast, Steven, Desmond and Joe are more accustomed to the traditional mode of politics, in which hierarchy and formality tend to dominate. This is reflected through their identity ascriptions, where they discuss Peters in a more political frame, and where untrustworthiness arises from his unpredictable political decisions. In the younger voters, one would expect that a move from politics to entertainment, or the blending of the two domains, would entail a shift away from discussions of policy and towards that of personality (see also Busby, 2009). This holds true, at least in Michelle’s case. Yet for the older voters,

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Peters’ entertaining approach is less appealing, and they retain their focus largely on his political behaviour. The ‘informalisation’ and ‘mediatisation’ of politics (Manning et al., 2017; Street, 2011), manifested in the genesis of an entertainer identity, delivers potential benefits to the populist amongst the young, yet does not seem to have the same effect on other voters.

The Implications of Populist Identity Claims Peters’ attempts at cultivating a populist ‘man of the people’ identity is met with mixed success. His ability to communicate directly to the people through social media; his characterisation as entertaining and fun; and, in Linda’s terms, his desire to make sparks fly in Parliament, all indicate that his identity bids resonate, even for supporters of other political parties. This is not enough, however, to secure most participants’ political support. Nevertheless, there are apparent benefits to be gained from the method of his populist appeals. The positive qualities of Peters’ entertainer identity appear to soften subsequent criticism of his radical right-wing views, as indicated in Cate’s mitigated “a bit racist” identity ascription (Ex. 4, line 7), her hedged description of Peters being “not really tolerant enough” (Ex. 3, line 23) and Joe’s euphemistic and hedged “a bit um shall we say economical with the truth at times” (Ex. 7, lines 23–24). The flexibility of populism, as a “thin ideology” that can be paired with ideologies across the political spectrum (Mudde, 2004), serves Peters well in promoting his agenda, whether it leads to votes or not. In Linda’s case, Peters’ populist identity bids lead to her political support. It is not Peters’ policies that secure her vote; rather, it is due to his promise to destabilise mainstream New Zealand politics. While anti-establishment views resonate with Linda, they only serve to feed opposition in the cases of Steven, Desmond and Joe. In these older Labour voters’ minds, Peters’ radical appeal to destabilisation is negatively received as it would upset the status quo they implicitly support. Populist claims unsurprisingly speak most clearly to those who already distrust the political establishment (see Bowler et al., 2017).

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The negotiation of populist identities in the discourse of New Zealand voters, as explored in this chapter, has several implications. Firstly, communicating directly with the people via social media and being physically visible and hence accessible to voters contributes to an entertainer identity, couched in a populist ‘man of the people’ frame that may be particularly engaging for younger voters. Secondly, the positive experiences voters may have in engaging with an entertaining populist online or on the street may serve to reduce the scepticism with which otherwise unpalatable radical policies would be received. Thirdly, an entertainer identity could be used to subordinate a politician’s politics, delegitimise their policies and help to preserve face within a relatively high-stakes conversation about a potentially contentious topic (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Finally, a populist identity appears to appeal most to those who are disillusioned with mainstream politics, and who desire a ‘shaking up’ of the political status quo, carried out with the implicit aim of dislodging entrenched political elites in the name of the people.

New Zealand Populist Discourse Voter engagement with populist identities in talk helps to shed light on the structure of populist discourse in New Zealand. Peters’ anti-­ establishment appeals are clearly oriented to by Linda, yet also recognised implicitly in the younger participants’ evaluation of Peters as entertaining and in the older voters’ portrayal of him as unpredictable. This likely plays off the general New Zealand orientation to egalitarianism and the desire to level (via ‘tall poppy’) those perceived as braggarts or unworthy of success (Kirkwood, 2007; Mouly & Sankaran, 2000; Nolan, 2007; Woodhams, 2015). This cultural norm seems to embolden the populist desire to dislodge an entrenched and corrupt political class. As Peters said at a public rally in 2002: … the fact of the matter is that the political elite share an internationalist–global view. These people regard being patriotic as being hopelessly old fashioned and parochial. Their ideal is to have a villa in Tuscany, a

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time share in Wanaka and a job with a United Nations Agency blaming the developed countries for all the ills of the world. These masters of the universe never see themselves or their children as having to compete with the waves of immigrants they are allowing into New Zealand. The trouble is that ordinary Kiwis do not live in this rarified world. They worry about their job security—and their children’s prospects. They worry— rightly—about the huge economic, social and political consequences of mass immigration to our small society. (Peters, 2002)

This textbook example of radical right-wing populist rhetoric generates a division between “ordinary Kiwis” and the “political elite,” and pits the people against “waves of immigrants.” Fifteen years later, in a party press release responding to criticism of its immigration policy, Peters promotes a similar line: New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters is challenging a pro-immigration researcher to a debate. “Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said on Radio New Zealand today that cutting immigration would cause an economic slump … Mr Kiernan cannot set out why mass immigration works. But we want to thank him for pathetically, though unwittingly, admitting that record immigration is what is fuelling our GDP growth. My message to Mr Kiernan is that New Zealanders have had a gutsful of his line of economic madness. If he wants to get into politics, he should come out of his ivory tower and hit the road … and see the impact National’s mass immigration policy is having on Kiwis trying to buy houses, find jobs, get hospital treatment and even access education,” says Mr Peters. (New Zealand First Party, 2017)

Peters clearly generates a populist discourse that exploits ‘us’ and ‘them’ divisions, promotes anti-immigration messages and stokes anti-­ establishment sentiment. It is important to note, however, that one man and his party do not represent the entirety of New Zealand populist discourse. There is the potential for further analytical gains to be made through a more wide-ranging investigation that engages with New Zealand populism as it exists outside the boundaries of Winston Peters, NZ First and Wellington voters.

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Conclusion Michelle and Cate generate an entertainer identity for Peters, indexing ‘fun’ qualities that make him worthwhile to follow on social media and not an unwelcome sight in public. In so doing, these young women appear to support implicitly Peters’ anti-establishment populist aims, signalling the effectiveness of such appeals. Steven, Desmond and Joe, on the other hand, generate an untrustworthy identity for Peters, likely influenced by the political history of the country and his track record of being politically malleable. Linda votes for NZ First due to their desire to upset the political status quo, the driving aim of populist parties around the world (Betz, 2005). Analysis suggests that the populist appeal to be ‘like us’ has multiple functions, and in Winston Peters’ case, is met with mixed success. It may serve to soften subsequent opposition to radical policies, perhaps easing their acceptance; it may simply be used as fodder for negative evaluations; or it may be sufficient to secure a voter’s political support. This chapter shows the gains that can be made when listening to the voices of the people in the study of populist discourse. In the current global climate, where divisive rhetoric from the radical populist right seeks to undermine many liberal democracies, it is important to understand how people negotiate populist identities, resist or support radical policies, and in so doing, generate their complex political identities through discourse.

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co.nz/national/politics/83173728/nz-first-are-on-their-own-calling-for-areferendum-on-decriminalising-cannabis. Mouly, V. S., & Sankaran, J. (2000). The tall poppy syndrome in New Zealand: An exploratory investigation. In M. Sheehan, S. Ramsay, & J. Patrick (Eds.), Transcending boundaries: Integrating people, processes and systems (pp. 285–289). Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia: School of Management. Mudde, C. (2004). The populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x. Mudde, C. (2010). The populist radical right: A pathological normalcy. West European Politics, 33(6), 1167–1186. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2 010.508901. Müller, J.-W. (2016). What is populism? Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Munshi, D. (1998). Media, politics, and the Asianisation of a polarised immigration debate in New Zealand. Australian Journal of Communication, 25(1), 97. New Zealand First Party. (2012, August 14). Two question referendum required on same sex marriage [Press release]. Retrieved July 1, 2017, from http:// www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1208/S00182/two-question-referendum-required-on-same-sex-marriage.htm. New Zealand First Party. (2017, July 14). We’re challenging you to an immigration debate [Press release]. Retrieved July 16, 2017, from http://www.scoop. co.nz/stories/PA1707/S00224/were-challenging-you-to-an-immigration-debate.htm. Nolan, M. (2007). The reality and myth of New Zealand egalitarianism: Explaining the pattern of a labour historiography at the edge of empires. Labour History Review, 72(2), 113–134. https://doi.org/10.1179/1745818 07X224560. Norocel, O. C. (2013). ‘Give us back Sweden!’ A feminist reading of the (re) interpretations of the folkhem conceptual metaphor in Swedish radical right populist discourse. NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 21(1), 4–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2012.741622. Panizza, F. (2005a). Introduction: Populism and the mirror of democracy. In F. Panizza (Ed.), Populism and the mirror of democracy (pp. 1–31). London: Verso. Panizza, F. (Ed.). (2005b). Populism and the mirror of democracy. London: Verso.

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Peters, W. (2002, July 25). A house divided [Speech transcript]. Retrieved July 1, 2017, from http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0207/S00673.htm. Peters, W. (2010, January 29). MMP—The inside story [Speech transcript]. Retrieved July 1, 2017, from http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1001/ S00116.htm. Price, V., Nir, L., & Cappella, J. N. (2006). Normative and informational influences in online political discussions. Communication Theory, 16(1), 47–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00005.x. QSR International Pty Ltd. (2017). NVivo qualitative data analysis software (Version 11) [Windows]. QSR International Pty Ltd. Retrieved from https://www.qsrinternational.com/. Rapley, M. (1998). ‘Just an ordinary Australian’: Self-categorization and the discursive construction of facticity in ‘new racist’ political rhetoric. British Journal of Social Psychology, 37(3), 325–344. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1998.tb01175.x. Rydgren, J. (2007). The sociology of the radical right. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 241–262. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131752. Sayer, A. (2010). Method in social science: A realist approach (2nd ed.). Abingdon: Routledge. Schiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sotillo, S. M., & Wang-Gempp, J. (2004). Using corpus linguistics to investigate class, ideology, and discursive practices in online political discussions. In U. Connor & T. A. Upton (Eds.), Applied corpus linguistics: A multidimensional perspective (pp. 91–122). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Spencer-Oatey, H. (Ed.). (2000). Culturally speaking: Managing rapport through talk across cultures. London: Continuum. Spoonley, P., & Berg, L. D. (1997). Refashioning racism: Immigration, multiculturalism and an election year. New Zealand Geographer, 53(2), 46–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-7939.1997.tb00499.x. Street, J. (2004). Celebrity politicians: Popular culture and political representation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6(4), 435– 452. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2004.00149.x. Street, J. (2011). Mass media, politics and democracy (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Street, J. (2012). Do celebrity politics and celebrity politicians matter? The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 14(3), 346–356. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2011.00480.x.

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6 Bernie and the Donald: A Comparison of Left- and Right-Wing Populist Discourse Marcia Macaulay

Introduction In the 2016 American Presidential election, two radically different types of politician emerged to dominate the political scene: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. We can construct both of these politicians along a populist spectrum, with Sanders being left-wing and Trump being right-wing. Although they shared many of the same concerns, specifically globalisation of industry that resulted in loss of jobs for American workers, their approach to the solution of such problems was profoundly different. As a democratic socialist Bernie Sanders sought to engage others in grassroots activism to challenge the “1 percent” who he saw as privileging itself economically at the expense of the “99 percent.”1 1The terms 1 percent and 99 percent come out of the Occupy Wall Street Movement that sought to bring attention to economic disparity after the 2008 recession.

M. Macaulay (*)  Glendon College, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 M. Macaulay (ed.), Populist Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3_6

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Trump, on the other hand, while also decrying “Wall Street elites,” sought less to create grassroots activism as to exploit already existing dissatisfaction with these elites along with the established political class and the existing media. Sanders and Trump positioned themselves very differently with respect to the deep anxiety they saw in the American people during the 2015–2016 presidential nomination campaigns. This chapter will examine discoursal differences in their respective populisms, right-wing and left-wing. To this end, I shall examine three key documents that reveal on the one hand Donald Trump’s populist discourse and on the other that of Bernie Sanders: Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech (June 16, 2015) and two of Bernie Sanders speeches: “Democratic Socialism” (November 19, 2015), and his now famous “Don’t Tell Me” closing to his Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall speech (September 14, 2015). In these speeches, Trump and Sanders reveal their differing styles and rhetoric as well as their fundamental conception of their own populist enterprises.

Populism Populism has been studied extensively since the publication of the first major volume on populism in 1969 edited by Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner: Populism Its Meaning and National Characteristics. This volume sought both to define populism and to examine its international realisations. I will not attempt a full review of the extensive literature on populism, but I will review three well-recognised discussions of the topic: Canovan (1981), Taguieff (1997) and Laclau (2005a). The first provides a typology of populist movements, the second a feature analysis and the third constructs populism as a “logic” and linguistic phenomenon. For Laclau, the language of populism cannot be separated from the phenomenon itself. Taguieff (2005) defines populism in the following way: “Populism may be summarily but problematically defined as the act of publicly taking up the cause of the people against the elites, or further as the ‘cult of the people,’ with various connotations [popular sovereignty, popular culture, etc.]. Appeal to the people and the cult of the people.

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The appeal to the people aims at dispensing with mediation and with a programmatic dimension: It lays claim to directness, without being filtered by representative entities. In this regard the populist style joins up with the ideal of direct democracy. It is a matter of personal appeal to the people which presupposes the existence of a charismatic leader, who can take on the figure of a simple demagogue or of a popular dictator” (p. 48). A significant contribution to the study of populism came with a typology set out by Canovan in Populism (1981). Canovan’s concern was less to define populism as to provide a broad overview of its types and cultural realisations. Canovan initially distinguishes between agrarian populism and political populism. She in turn subdivides agrarian populism into three types: radical farmers’ movements (e.g. the People’s Party, nineteenth century U.S.A.), peasants’ movements (e.g. The East European Green Rising) and intellectual socialist agrarian movements (e.g. the Russian Narodniki ). With regard to political populism, she identifies four types: populist dictatorship (e.g. Peron), democratic populism (calls for referenda), reactionary populism (e.g. George Wallace in Alabama with regard to racial integration), strategic or politicians’ populism (direct appeals to the people as a whole to circumvent ideological cleavage). Canovan’s typology has been criticised, specifically by Taguieff (1997) who argues for a further distinction to be made between populism and neo-populism: “Ce type de nouveau demagogue se distingue d’abord par l’insistance qu’il met à célébrer sa ‘différence’ et par ses promesses intenables” (p. 20). Equally, Laclau (2005a) states, “Since it [Canovan’s typology] embraces everything from the cynical manipulations of the Petronist rhetoric to the humble self-abasement of the narodniki, it does not give much definition to the concept of populism” (p. 7). Nonetheless, Canovan’s typology provides a way into the conceptual jungle that is populism. Taguieff (1997) does not attempt to provide a typology as much as a set of identifiable features that can be present in populism. He identifies a set of features for authoritarian national populism exemplified by Jean Marie Le Pen in France. According to Taguieff, “Cinq traits permettent de construire le type idéal national-populisme lepéniste”

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(p. 24). Taguieff’s first trait or feature is a personal appeal to the people by a charismatic leader. He notes the skilled use of media by such a leader and coins a new term “télépopulisme.” His second feature is an appeal to the people as a whole without class, cultural or ideological distinction. A direct appeal to a “peuple authentique ” is his third feature. Authenticity is constructed in terms of health, simplicity, honesty, infallibility, goodness and instinctual knowledge. He notes further an ambiguity in the term people that is understood simultaneously as the people as a whole and that part of the people that is ‘healthy’ and uncontaminated by foreign influences and unaffected by the ‘elite.’ Taguieff’s fourth feature is a call for “la rupture purificatrice” such to end the corrupt tenure of the current regime and replace the existing elite who have betrayed the people with a new populist order lead by the charismatic leader. The last feature set out by Taguieff is “l’appel explicite à la discrimination des individus selon leurs origines ethniques ou leurs apparetenances culturelles” (p. 26). This fifth and last feature complements the third wherein an ‘authentic’ people is posited and can be distinguished from strangers who must be required to depart since for all intents and purposes they cannot be assimilated. While limited essentially to neo-populism, Taguieff’s feature analysis also provides a means of seeing populism as a recognisable political phenomenon. Laclau’s approach (2005a) to understanding populism is very different from both Canovan’s and Taguieff’s and it will be the approach taken up in this chapter. He is neither interested in a typology nor in identifying a set of emic features. His approach is phenomenological as well as being influenced significantly by de Saussure, Wittgenstein and Gramsci. He draws from political, philosophical, psychological and linguistic theory. Laclau does not see populism as a type of movement or as a movement delineated by a set of features. Instead, he sees it as a “logic,” thus the name of his book on the subject is On Populist Reason. To simplify, Laclau argues that populism occurs under a set of conditions and in turn constructs a politics. He sees language and in particular what he calls “empty signifiers” as means of that construction. Language or “discourse” is central to populism. Unlike Taguieff, Laclau does not begin his analysis with the presence of a charismatic leader and a call to the people, but rather with

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the construction of the ‘people’ itself.2 As he notes, “‘the people’ is not something of the nature of an ideological expression, but a real relation between social agents” (2005a, p. 73). For Laclau, the “minimal unit” in his analysis is the “social demand.” Under circumstances in which a given social demand aggregates with other social demands, none of which are fulfilled, such requests turn into claims. He distinguishes between a democratic demand and popular demands. In the articulation of popular demands, ‘the people’ are constructed discoursally. The ‘people’ do not pre-exist populism as a movement, but rather are a realisation of the aggregation of unmet popular demands. What follows the construction of ‘the people’ is the construction of a “rupture” between the existing elite and the newly formed ‘people.’ As Laclau (2005b) states, “There is no populism without discursive construction of an enemy: the Ancien Regime, the oligarchy, the Establishment or whatever” (p. 105). Significant to what Laclau (2005a) identifies as the construction of a ‘claim’ is the notion of an “empty signifier.” Laclau argues for this concept in this way: “we mean that there is a place, within the system of signification, which is constitutively irrepresentable; in that sense, it remains empty, but this is an emptiness which I can signify, because we are dealing with a void within signification” (p. 105). One such signifier for Laclau is nationalism, the meaning of which will vary “depending on the chain of equivalences associated with it” (p. 227). A good example of an empty signifier would be the concept of change in political rhetoric. Change can represent an entire range of possible signifiers in the political landscape that signify or represent dissatisfaction with the existing status quo. Change reflects popular demands as an aggregate. In the 2015 Canadian federal election, two parties argued for change. One party’s slogan was time4change while that of the other was real change. Between the two parties, signifiers for change overlapped, but in other cases differed. Change, however, coalesced in the claim that government had not been transparent, democratic and open. After the election,

2It

is important to note that Laclau commences his discussion with a long examination of the concept of the “mob” and group thinking.

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the Canadian press universally reported that Canadians had voted for change (Justin Trudeau pledges ‘real change’ as Liberals leap ahead to majority government [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, October 20, 2015]). In Laclau’s view, other such signifiers embrace the ambiguity employed by many populist leaders: “[Peron’s] word was indispensable in giving symbolic unity to all those disparate struggles. Thus, his word had to operate as a signifier with only weak links to particular signifieds. This is no major surprise: it is exactly what I have called empty signifiers” (p. 216). For Laclau, populism cannot be understood without attention to the discoursal construction of the ‘people,’ attention to aggregated demands that result in rupture between the ‘people’ and a given elite or establishment, and the articulation of demands and claims by means of empty signifiers. He provides a discoursal theory of populism.

American Right- and Left-Wing Populism Although Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were both outsiders who entered the 2016 presidential race, one running for the Democratic Party, having joined in order to run, and the other a recent member of the Republican Party, neither is an entirely new phenomenon. There is a long history of populism in the United States. In his now classic discussion of American populism, Hofstadter (1969) argues for its essentially agrarian foundations. He points out that between 1860 and 1900, “the number of farms increased from 2.0 million to 5.7 million, the land in farms from 407 million to 838 million acres” (p. 13). This expanded agrarian class found itself increasingly in conflict with existing power structures including the banking system as well as railroad monopolies. The platform of the People’s (Populist) Party (1892) “embodied a broad programme of proposals for currency, credit [an endorsement of the sub-treasury scheme], income tax, government ownership of railroads, and the reclamation of excess lands owned by railroads, and other private corporations and of all lands owned by aliens” (p. 16). As Hofstadter points out, for all intents and

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purposes, “society was divided between ‘the people’ who worked for a living and vested interests who did not” (p. 17). Hofstadter saw the agrarian populism of the nineteenth century providing a legacy for the Progressive Party of 1912 led by Theodore Roosevelt and the New Deal implemented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he also connected nineteenth century populism to the right-wing populism of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Kazin (1995) argues that there are four principal features of American populism: Americanism, the producer ethic, the presence of an elite, and the presence of strong movements (pp. 12–17). The first, Americanism, refers to the fact that the American people had won independence from the British Empire and would fight to preserve it. The second feature “producerism” “held that only those who created wealth in tangible, material ways [on and under the land, in workshops, on the sea] could be trusted to guard the nation’s piety and liberties” (p. 13). The third feature, the presence of an elite, could be realised by various types; for Jefferson, the elite were a “pro-British cabal of merchants”; for Jackson, the elite were a “‘money power’ directed by well-born cosmopolitans”; for “the new Republicans” the elite “was the ‘slave power’ of the South that throttled the civil liberties and drove down the earnings of the Northern whites” (p. 16). The fourth feature, the presence of movements, expressed the need not just for “spontaneous uprising” but rather organised “crusades,” “societies,” or “parties”: “Exhortation about a romantic vision of ‘real’ America was an instrument of cleansing and purification— whatever the actual policies being advanced” (p. 16). Both the rightand left-wing populism of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders exemplify these features of American populism. Both Trump and Sanders promote the value of the American “producer” class, Trump focussing on the need for jobs, and Sanders focussing on the need for a higher minimum wage, paid university education and universal health care. Both challenge globalism arguing that American jobs have been outsourced; both equally attack elites, specifically Wall Street bankers, Jackson’s “money power,” and both express the need for movements to bring about the social demands of the American people.

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Donald Trump as Unmet Need What we first need to note about Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement speech is that it is very long. Donald Trump speaks for approximately three-quarters of an hour. This announcement speech triggered extensive coverage in the media (Donald Trump Announces Presidential Bid by Trashing Mexico, Mexicans [NBC News, June 16, 2015]), largely because of Trump’s statements about building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. It also serves as the prototype for all his subsequent stump speeches, setting out his primary positions and his understanding of the state of the American society, especially its economic state. In Searlian terms (1995), Trump’s speech constructs a social reality in which a wall between the U.S. and Mexico counts as a representation of American security, integrity and identity. It is a means of defining Americanness that is the focus of his speech. For Trump, Americanness and “making America great again” are empty signifiers in Laclauan terms. Throughout his speech, Trump consistently defines and redefines America and specifically ‘America lost’ much along the lines of “paradise lost.” What America is and what it is to make it “great” are constructed representations. They are a coalescence of unmet demands or needs on the part of Trump’s audience which is itself another expression of America. The notion of America as equivalent to the American people is another fundamental construct on Trump’s part through his announcement speech. We can use Speech Act Theory (Searle 1969, 1991) to examine the specific utterances in Trump’s announcement speech. The type and number of speech acts and their percentages are indicated in Table 6.1. Table 6.1  Donald Trump’s presidential announcement speech All speech acts

Total: 697

Percentage: 100%

Assertives Expressives Directives Commissives

551 46 59 41

79% 6.5% 8.5% 6%

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What is striking in these values is the total number and p ­ ercentage for assertives: 551/697 (79%). An assertion in Searlian terms is a speaker’s representation of the world as he or she believes it to be. There is, according to Searle, a word to world direction of fit. Although we would expect a politician to employ assertives about the world, indeed to construct a social reality, we would also expect a politician to engage in the use of commissives that would commit the speaker to an action or set of actions. For Trump, commissives represent his least used utterance type at 41/697 (6%). The preponderance of assertions in Trump’s announcement speech, at approximately 80% of speech acts, reflects the fact that his announcement speech is composed of a series of connected narratives. It is through these narratives that Trump constructs America as both a lost ideal world and as the American people themselves. Throughout his Announcement Speech, Trump narrates nine principal narratives which I have labelled as follows: We don’t have victories, Mexico, Islamic terrorism, Obamacare, A truly great leader, Chinese manufacturing, Ford, Saudi Arabia, Trump. In the first narrative, Trump sets the stage for his primary narrative of ‘America lost’: Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore We used to have victories, but we don’t have them (my emphasis). When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time. When did we beat Japan at anything? They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist folks. They beat us all the time. (Donald Trump, Announcement Speech)

In Labovian terms (Labov & Waletzky, 1967), Trump’s first narrative is very simple. Indeed, there is technically only one narrative clause: “They send their cars over by the millions.” Counteraction by Americans is only presupposed: ‘We do not send our cars to them’ (“When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist folks.”). Trump’s initial utterances provide an abstract: “Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them.” He follows this with a loose orientation provided through a request for information: “When was the last time

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anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? When did we beat Japan at anything?” Through this narrative, Trump announces in Laclauan terms an unmet need: “We don’t have victories anymore.” Grammatically, he asserts this as the absence of a possession. Within Greimasian narrative theory (1966), Trump’s construction of absence of victories would be analysed as a “lack.”3 A victorious America is a great America; without victories, America loses its greatness as well as its integrity and identity. For Trump, the empty signifier victory represents trade surplus with other countries. He uses victory metaphorically, but trade surplus also becomes an unmet need for all Americans, not just for himself as a businessperson. Through this first narrative also, Trump constructs America as non-agentive and weak: “and what do we do?” Trump’s first narrative is followed closely by a second: When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically. The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. Thank you. It’s true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we are getting. And it makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people. (Donald Trump, Announcement Speech)

Trump begins this second narrative with a repetition of the same rhetorical structure as he uses in his first narrative: “When do we beat Mexico at the border?” He shifts from the past to the present tense; his focus also shifts from China and Japan to Mexico, a geographical neighbour of the United States. He also reiterates his narrative of lack of victory. He further expands on his theme of this lack by employing the

3In Greimasian narrative theory all narratives begin with the announcement or realisation of a loss or lack.

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metaphor: “They’re killing us economically.” This reemphasises Trump’s theme of economic war between the U.S. and other countries, including its close neighbours. At this point in Trump’s second narrative, he continues to reference imbalance in trade as an unmet need on the part of the American people. He then shifts his focus to address immigration. It is this narrative that garnered Trump extensive media coverage. Trump’s principal narrative clause is the following: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.” In this narrative clause,4 Mexico does not represent a geographical entity or the Mexican people; instead Trump constructs Mexico as a personified political agent that acts for itself against America. This agent acts intentionally to “send[] its people” to the U.S. He further expands on this narrative act by defining the people who are ‘sent’: “they’re not sending their best. They are not sending you.” The you referenced by Trump are technically members of his audience, but more broadly, you references and constructs the American ‘people’ and ‘America’ itself. This simple narrative clause can be analysed as follows: Mexico (personified agent) sends NOT YOU to YOU.

In Trump’s grammar of transmission, the recipient/beneficiary YOU is defined negatively through the object NOT YOU. There is an implied negative simile, which is to say that the NOT YOU being sent is understood as not LIKE the YOU that receives. The NOT YOU that is being sent is, therefore, defined as being different from the YOU that receives. We can construct YOU as America and NOT YOU as non-America. Trump then further develops the qualities of the NOT YOU sent by Mexico: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” The social reality constructed by Trump is not simply that of neighbours engaged in a trade war, but one where one neighbour effectively invades another’s territory by means of subversive and destructive elements. Sending in Trump’s narrative is an

4I

have analysed this as a narrative clause although past tense is not realised. What is presupposed is that ‘Mexico sent its people.’

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empty signifier for illegal immigration and more powerfully the concept of invasion with accompanying destabilisation and possible destruction. Trump’s coda “They’re sending us not the right people” sums up for his audience YOU, the ‘American people,’ a second major loss or lack as well as incorporating another significant unmet need: “Because we have no protection, and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.” Over only two short narratives, Trump achieves a great deal discoursally. He defines America as a lost paradise by reason of trade imbalance and he also defines America as the YOU which is currently being invaded by the NOT YOU. The social reality he constructs is dystopian. Trump’s two subsequent narratives concern Islamic terrorism and Obamacare. His principal narratives clauses are as follows: We spent $2 trillion in Iraq. $2 trillion. We lost thousands of lives, thousands in Iraq. We have wounded soldiers (my emphasis), who I love – they’re great – all over the place, thousands and thousands of wounded soldiers. And we have nothing (my emphasis). We can’t even go there. We have nothing (my emphasis). And every time we give Iraq equipment, the first time a bullet goes off they leave it. We have a disaster called the big lie (my emphasis): Obamacare. Yesterday, it came out that costs are going for people up 29, 39, 49 even 55 percent and deductibles are so high. It’s virtually useless. It’s a disaster … I have a friend who’s a doctor, and he said to me the other day, “Donald, I never saw anything like it. I have more accountants than nurses. It’s a disaster. My patients are beside themselves. They had a plan that was good. They have no plan now [my emphasis].” (Donald Trump, Announcement Speech)

Trump consistently employs have structures that construct the grammatical subject as a recipient or beneficiary rather than as an agent.5 He defines ‘America lost’ through the absence of “victories,” the possession of “nothing” and receipt of “the big lie.” In Lacauan terms these 5In case grammar, have provides for a structure in which the grammatical subject functions as the recipient of an action: It is to/for me.

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are unmet needs on the part of YOU/“we” that produce a static social reality. In his subsequent narrative Trump integrates these unmet needs into an “equivalential chain” but also significantly includes himself in this chain as an unmet need: Now, our country needs – our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal. We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, our military, can take care of our vets. Our vets have been abandoned. And we also need a cheerleader… You know, all my life, I’ve heard that a truly successful person, a really, really successful person and even modestly successful cannot run for office. Just can’t happen. And yet that’s the kind of mindset that you need to make this country great again…It can happen. Our country has tremendous potential. We have tremendous people. We have people that aren’t working. We have people that have no incentive to work, because the greatest social program is a job. And they’ll be proud, and they’ll love it, and they’ll make more than they would’ve ever made, and they’ll be doing well, and we’re going to be thriving as a country, thriving. It can happen. I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that. (Donald Trump, Announcement Speech)

This narrative ends with one of the few commissives employed in Trump’s speech: “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that.” The foundation of this commissive is the unmet needs that Trump has articulated in his sequenced narratives. According to Laclau (2005a), The constitution of a ‘people’ requires an internal complexity which is given by the plurality of the demands that form the equivalential chain. This is the dimension of radical heterogeneity, because nothing in those demands, individually considered, announces a ‘manifest destiny’ by which they should coalesce into a kind of unity – nothing in them anticipates that they should constitute a chain. This is what makes the homogenizing moment of the empty signifier necessary. Without this moment, there would be no equivalential chain, so the homogenizing function of the empty signifier constitutes the chain and, at the same time, represents it. (p. 162)

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In Trump’s rhetoric, an equivalential chain of demands is p ­ rovided in the following way: “We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, our military, can take care of our vets. Our vets have been abandoned. And we also need a cheerleader…” The unmet needs of trade imbalance, illegal immigration, military loss, healthcare costs coalesce into a further unmet need: a jobs President. By articulating the need for a “jobs President” Trump integrates the people’s need for jobs with a need for himself as President, thus creating a co-identity between himself and the ‘people.’ They become one. “Making America great again” in turn becomes Trump’s empty signifier for the aggregation of unmet needs into an equivalential chain of demands. Since Trump and ‘the people’ are homogenised in his rhetoric, the unmet need of himself as President becomes a logical corollary for making America great: “Now, our country needs—our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal.” Having constructed co-identity between himself and the American people, Trump furthers this identification through the two subsequent narratives in his announcement speech.6 In these two narratives, Trump tells the story of how he would deal with China as a trading nation and Ford as an American company outsourcing its jobs to Mexico: So Mexico takes a company, a car company that was going to build in Tennessee, rips it out. Everybody thought the deal was dead… So I announced that I’m running for president. I would…I would call up the head of Ford, who I know. If I was President, I’d say “Congratulations. That’s the good news. Let me give you the bad news. Every car and every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that

6It is interesting to note de Tocqueville’s observation about the American man of wealth: “His dress is plain, his demeanour unassuming; but the interior of his dwelling glitters with luxury, and none but a few chosen guests whom he haughtily styles his equals are allowed to penetrate into this sanctuary” (Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Part 2). Trump throughout his campaign wore a baseball cap. Baseball caps are worn principally by the working class in the United States. Trump’s preferred game is not baseball but golf, a game enjoyed largely by the upper middle class.

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comes across the border, we’re going to charge you a 35 percent tax, and that tax is going to be paid simultaneously with the transaction, and that’s it”… So under President Trump, here’s what would happen. The head of Ford will call me back. I would say within an hour after I told them the bad news. But it could be he’d want to be cool, and he’ll wait until the next day. You know, they want to be a little cool. And he’ll say, “Please, please, please.” He’ll beg for a little while, and I’ll say, “No interest,” because I don’t need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I don’t need anybody’s money…He’ll say, “Mr. President, we’ve decided to move the plant back to the United States, and we’re not going to build it in Mexico.” That’s it. They have no choice. They have no choice.

In this narrative, Trump represents himself as the “jobs President,” unlike his competitors in the Republican race who need financial support from large American companies to run their campaigns and are thus compromised. We can use Greimasian theory (1966) to represent the actants in Trump’s narrative. In Greimasian narrative, there is a set of six actants: the sender, the receiver, the helper, the opponent and the object and the subject. There are three axes: the axis of desire, the axis of power and the axis of knowledge. The axis of desire in Trump’s narrative is self-evidently “to make America great again.” The axis of power involves Trump in two of the actant roles while that of the opponent is taken up sequentially by China, Mexico, Obama, Isis. Trump inhabits the actant roles of sender, subject and helper. The sender informs the subject of the existing lack and further sends the subject on a quest to remedy the lack; the subject (hero) accepts the request from the sender while the helper provides guidance and support to the subject (hero). Over his final sequence of narratives, Trump constructs himself as his own sender: “Our country needs a truly great leader…We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal. ” The sender announces the loss or lack and in turn engages the subject to rectify this. His utterance, “We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal,” both announces the lack as well as identifying the only subject who can rectify it: Donald Trump. Trump, the narrator, further identifies the loss or lack brought about by the opponent: “So Mexico takes a company, a car company that was going to build in Tennessee, rips it out.” Mexico is agentivised as an opponent that

180     M. Macaulay

metaphorically “rips out” a car company. Trump presents trade globalisation as an act of violence effected by Mexico against the U.S. Previously, Mexico “sen[t]” NOT YOU; now Mexico violently tears out one entity, a car company, from another, the American body. In turn, Trump as narrator announces his quest: “Everybody thought the deal was dead.” Trump, the narrator, in turn narrates the action of Trump the subject who revives and saves the “deal.” In this narrative, Trump, the subject, would “call up the head of Ford,” “charge you [Ford company] a 35 percent tax” for “every car and every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border.” Trump’s helper in this narrative is his own negotiating skill, his knowledge of the art of the deal. The lack is rectified in Trump’s Mexico/Ford narrative when “The head of Ford will call me back.” Trump uses direct speech when he ‘quotes’ the head of Ford saying, “Mr. President, we’ve decided to move the plant back to the United States, and we’re not going to build it in Mexico.” In such a narrative with Trump as sender, subject and helper against an opponent, Mexico, America has victories. The object on the axis of desire, making America great again, is achieved. Trump further emphasises the extent of the defeat by America’s enemies Mexico/Ford through evaluation: “They have no choice. They have no choice.” Trump’s narrative can be analysed as in Fig. 6.1. Through his announcement speech, which composes a series of 9 narratives, Trump first articulates a set of unmet needs on the part of “America,” one of which is the need for a “jobs President.” He further aggregates these needs into an overall demand “Make America Great Again,” which also functions as an empty signifier for both America

Fig. 6.1  Greimasian narrative “make America great again”

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lost and America regained. He also constructs the ‘people’ through his articulation of needs and subsequent demands as well as co-identifying himself as one of the people as well as their representative and agent. At no time does Trump intellectualise the world that he constructs. At no time does he reference globalisation or neo-liberalism. His narrative focus is on international others as opponents, whom he seeks to defeat on behalf of America. He narrativises his own agency and his own competence while directly co-identifying himself with the American people. Through his overall narrative, Trump effectively constructs a populist logic for his own election as President.

Bernie Sanders: The Political Revolution Bernie Sanders also provides a populist vision of the American state in the teen years of the twenty-first century. We can analyse two of his major speeches to examine how his populism differs from that of Donald Trump: My Vision for Democratic Socialism (November 19, 2015) and the now famous “Don’t Tell Me” closing to his Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall speech (September 14, 2015). Sanders’ Speech My Vision for Democratic Socialism in America (November 19, 2015) was given during his run for the Democratic Presidential Campaign that he announced on May 26, 2015. Along with other candidates for President, both Democrat and Republican, Sanders was invited to speak at Georgetown University. He was the only candidate to accept this invitation. In this speech, he sets out his democratic socialist vision for the U.S. We can analyse this speech as an expression of his populist discourse. A speech act analysis of Sanders’ Georgetown speech provides the breakdown of utterance types (Table 6.2). Table 6.2  Bernie Sanders’ Georgetown University speech All speech acts

301

100%

Assertives Directives Expressives Commissives

216 56 26 3

71% 19% 9% .33%

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In both Trump’s Announcement Speech and Sanders’ Georgetown Speech, we see a similarly high percentage of assertives: 79% for Trump and 71% for Sanders. With respect to expressives, Sanders employs slightly more than does Trump. Six point five percent of Trump’s speech acts are expressives, while Sanders employs expressives at 9%. For commissives, both Trump and Sanders employ few with Trump at 6% and Sanders at only .33%. The absence of commissives in Sanders’ speech results from the fact that the speech he gives is not a stump speech but rather a speech given to a university audience. However, we do see a significant difference in the use of directives. Trump employs directives at 8.5% while Sanders employs these speech acts at 19%. This is a difference of approximately 10% usage. Sanders begins his speech in much the same way as does Trump, by decrying the current state of the United States: I think my message to you today is a pretty simple one and that is our country faces some enormous problems and these problems are not going to be solved if people turn away from political struggle, throw up their hands in despair and say ‘it’s all crap.’ You are getting a great education here at Georgetown and I hope that you will use what you have learned here to fight to create a better world and to follow in the traditions of so many people for so many years who have struggled to create a more democratic and just society. (Bernie Sanders, Georgetown University Speech)

Like Trump, Sanders articulates a vision of America “our country” “fac[ing] some enormous problems.” Sanders personifies the United States. He in turn makes an appeal to those in his audience, predominantly students at Georgetown University, to “use what you have learned here to fight to create a better world.” He employs an expressive (“I hope”) but the force of his utterance is that of a directive. In very simple terms, his purpose is to move his audience to act, specifically to engage in a “fight.” His focus, therefore, is not on himself as an activist but on his audience as potential activists in a fight to “create a more democratic and just society.” In Greimasian terms, Sanders constructs himself as a sender

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with the object of desire being a democratic and just society. The subject within Sanders’ narrative is the student body of Georgetown University. Sanders expands on this grand narrative throughout the remainder of his speech and like Trump, he proceeds through a series of subnarratives. Furthermore, through these narratives, he articulates in Laclauan terms, a set of unmet needs and a subsequent set of popular demands which overall coalesce into the expression of an empty signifier articulating a populist claim. The first of Sanders’ narratives focuses on Franklin Delano Roosevelt: He saw tens of millions of its citizens denied the basic necessities of life. He saw millions of families trying to live on incomes so meagre that the pall of family disaster hung over them day by day. He saw millions denied education, recreation and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children. He saw millions lacking the means to buy the products they needed and by their poverty and lack of disposable income denying employment to many other millions. He saw one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. And he acted…He reinvigorated democracy. He transformed the country. (Bernie Sanders, Georgetown University Speech)

Sanders narrates the story of a great America past with an active agent or subject who, in Greimasian terms, responds to a lack—economic disparity—and transforms this lack through progressive action into abundance. Sanders employs two very simple narrative clauses: “He saw…he acted.” In his first narrative, Sanders tells the story of a transformative leader who acts for others to bring about a better world, characterised as “democratic.” This story of America lost and regained serves as the overarching narrative in Sanders’ overall speech. Thematically, it is exactly the same story told by Trump in his Presidential Announcement Speech and subsequent stump speeches. What differs between Trump and Sanders is the articulation of unmet needs, and subsequent popular demands. What is also different is the realisation of actants in the overarching story of America lost and America regained. Although Sanders realises the role of sender as does Trump, at no time does he construct himself

184     M. Macaulay

as the subject of his overarching narrative. The role of subject is in fact given to the students of Georgetown by Sanders. For this to happen, the unmet needs that Sanders articulates must be acknowledged and taken up by his audience. It is through such adoption that the unmet needs expressed by Sanders result in the formation of a populist message. It is important to note that Sanders in addressing Georgetown students is not addressing the economically disadvantaged, but rather the opposite. Their embrace of unmet needs on the part of others is a transformative realignment of one class in America with another to construct a new ‘America.’ It is significant that Sanders’ most well-known media advertisement during his campaign was entitled Finding America. Sanders provides an overarching narrative in which America rediscovers itself. America remains an empty signifier as it is for Trump, but its signification is nonetheless very different for Sanders. Sanders’ principal narrative in his speech centers on the narrative present, “Today.” He uses anaphoric repetition referencing today to highlight key events in the historic ‘now.’ Consistent with this focus on today, iconically, he employs not the past tense but present or progressive tenses: That was then. Now is now… Today (my emphasis), in America, we are the wealthiest nation in the history of the World, but few Americans know that because so much of the new income and wealth goes to the people on top… Today (my emphasis), in America, millions of our people are working two or three jobs to survive… Today (my emphasis), in America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, more than half of older workers have no retirement savings – zero – while millions of elderly and people with disabilities are trying to survive on $12,000 or $13,000 a year Today (my emphasis), in America, nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty and over 20 percent of our children, including 36 percent of African American children, are living in poverty… Today (my emphasis), in America, 29 million Americans have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with outrageously high co-payments and deductibles…

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Today (my emphasis), in America, youth unemployment and underemployment is under 35 percent… The bottom line is that today in America we not only have massive wealth and income inequality, but a power structure which protects that inequality. The handful of super-wealthy campaign contributors have enormous influence over the political process, while their lobbyists determine much of what goes on in Congress. (Bernie Sanders, Georgetown University Speech)

In contrast to Trump’s articulation of unmet needs as “victories,” jobs and security, Sanders articulates a different set of unmet needs: “wealth and income inequality” along with “a power structure which [does not] protect[] that inequality.” His focus is less on the enemy without and more on the enemy within. He repeatedly uses the locative expression “in America.” He tells the story of America today as discordant where “wealth goes to the people on top.” The “people on top” are Sanders’ narrative opponent. The lack they create, or in Laclauan terms, the unmet needs, he articulates as economic precarity, lack of retirement savings for aging Americans, poverty and children living in poverty, lack of health insurance or expensive health insurance, as well as youth unemployment or underemployment. Like Trump, he employs have structures to express the situation of America in America: “we not only have massive wealth and income inequality.” In this structure America, “we” is recipient or beneficiary of “wealth and income inequality.” Also, as with Trump, America is expressed non-agentively as a recipient; previously America had been expressed in locative terms. When agency is expressed, it denotes action on the part of “a power structure” that “protects” social inequality. He further ascribes “enormous influence” to “super-wealthy campaign contributors,” while again providing agency to lobbyists who “determine much of what goes on in Congress.” In his core narrative of America today, Sanders does not articulate a set of popular demands except as they are implicit. However, Sanders’ speech, in contrast to that of Donald Trump, does evidence a significant percentage of directives at 19%. Sanders’ popular demands are expressed in large part through such directives as follows:

186     M. Macaulay Table 6.3  Sanders’ closing Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall speech All speech acts

42

100%

Assertives Directives Expressives

24 13 5

57% 30% 12%

In my view, it’s time we had (my emphasis) democratic socialism for working families, not just Wall Street billionaires and large corporations. It means that we should not (my emphasis) be providing welfare for corporations, huge tax breaks for the very rich, or trade policies which boost corporate profits as workers lose their jobs. It means that we create (my emphasis) a government that works for all of us, not just powerful special interests. It means that economic rights must be (my emphasis) an essential part of what America stands for. (Bernie Sanders, Georgetown University Speech)

In this extended utterance, Sanders employs either directly or indirectly7 four directives encompassing both his audience, students at Georgetown University, and himself. Sanders directs this audience to bring about democratic socialism for families, the rejection of welfare for the very rich and trade policies causing workers to lose jobs, “government that works for all of us,” and “economic rights.” These are the unmet needs Sanders has previously expressed translated into popular demands that serve also to construct the “we,” the people who acknowledge these demands and are to bring them about. The directives in Sanders’ Georgetown University Speech at 19% represent his expression of social demands as well as his engagement with his audience realised largely through we structures. We can further examine such expression and engagement by examining Sanders’ famous closing of his Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall Speech given on June 13, 2015.8 A speech act analysis is provided in Table 6.3 below.

7Indirect directives can be formed through invocation of any of the four conditions that compose a directive. Above, Sanders invokes the essential condition expressing reasons or consequences in three indirect directives. 8Sanders’ closing for his Marshalltown speech was made into a video cartoon “Don’t Tell Me” that went viral on the internet during the democratic primary campaign.

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In Sanders’ closing of his Marshalltown Speech, the percentage of directives increases from 19% (Georgetown University) to 30% (Marshalltown). Through his closing, Sanders explicitly articulates a set of social demands and in turn both engages and constructs his audience. He uses directives expressly for this purpose. Don’t tell me we can’t (my emphasis) provide a good health care system guaranteeing health care to all of our people. Don’t tell me we can’t (my emphasis) use technology to make sure that workers don’t have to work 50 or 60 hours a week. Don’t tell me we can’t (my emphasis) have a child care system and an excellent educational system in this country. Don’t tell me (my emphasis) that our young people cannot lead the world in transforming our energy system so the planet that we leave to our kids and our grandkids is one that is habitable Don’t tell me we can’t (my emphasis) do that. We can do that… But in order to do that we do need a political revolution. Let me tell you quite simply what that means. It means that we can’t have elections as we did last November where 63% of the people don’t vote, or 80% of young people don’t vote. What we have to do is change our culture so that people understand that politics in a democratic society is involvement in the election process is what patriotism is all about. So when people tell you that politics is all crap, why are you coming here on a beautiful afternoon to hear a senator from a state no-one ever heard of. Why you coming here? And you tell them because you’re concerned about the future of this country. You want to hear. And anybody tells you that elections are not important you ask them why the Koch brothers are going to spend a billion dollars on this election…so what I’m asking you to do is to help me build a political revolution…on economic issues let’s reach out to our brothers and our sisters and our co-workers and our neighbours and say ‘no, don’t vote against your kids and your parents, don’t vote for people who want to destroy social security and send your job abroad.’ If we do that, if we involve millions of people in this campaign, man, we can create a country the likes of which no-one has ever seen. That’s our mission and I look forward to working with you very much. (Bernie Sanders, Closing, Marshalltown Speech)

188     M. Macaulay

In his closing, Sanders refers repeatedly to the notion of a political movement or revolution: “But in order to do that we do need a political revolution.” Although in his Georgetown University speech Sanders represents Roosevelt as an exemplary leader who “saw” and then “acted,” Sanders’ populism does not construct leadership through one individual as central to the effectuation of demands; rather he constructs leadership as constructed through metaphorically-related individuals, “our brothers and our sisters and our co-workers and our neighbours,” to effect structural societal change that will in turn bring about a realisation of popular demands. In keeping with American populism, he constructs this unmet need in patriotic terms, where “patriotism,” an empty signifier, is expressed by coming to meetings on sunny days, engagement with one’s neighbours, and voter participation. Being an American and being politically engaged are equated in Sanders’ rhetoric. The aggregation of unmet needs that coalesce into an articulation of popular demands is complemented in Sanders’ speech by the equally popular expression of those demands through what he terms “political revolution.” Sanders’ closing begins with a series of anaphoric repetitions that realise a set of directives: “Don’t tell me.” This structure is highly formulaic in North American speech. It is extensively exploited to indicate a rejection of ‘nonsense.’ Its purpose is to articulate ‘common sense.’ The structure is also explicitly dialogic. The utterance Don’t tell me we can’t presumes a co-conversationalist who utters the directive You can’t. In imagined conversation with this co-conversationalist, Sanders extends one response into an ongoing conversation through a sequence of five directives, negatively expressed. This series of direct directives further functions to articulate an indirect directive: We can. In Sanders’ representation of dialogue between himself and another hypothesised American speaker, Sanders iconically represents the very political revolution he wishes to bring about. Sanders represents himself in dialogic exchange in order to articulate the popular demands that emanate from unmet needs: universal health care, shorter work hours, child care, free university education, and renewable energy. Significantly, he also represents his audience engaged in comparable and parallel dialogue:

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So when people tell you (my emphasis) that politics is all crap, why are you coming here on a beautiful afternoon to hear a senator from a state no-one ever heard of. Why you coming here? And you tell them (my emphasis) because you’re concerned about the future of this country. You want to hear. And anybody tells you (my emphasis) that elections are not important you ask them why (my emphasis) the Koch brothers are going to spend a billion dollars on this election…so what I’m asking you to do (my emphasis) is to help me build a political revolution…on economic issues let’s reach out (my emphasis) to our brothers and our sisters and our co-workers and our neighbours and say ‘no, don’t vote against your kids and your parents, don’t vote for people who want to destroy social security and send your job abroad.’

All utterances in this section are directives with the exception of one expressive. All represent actual speech between “you” (members of the audience) and “people.” “People” in Sanders’ ultimate section of his closing represents ‘naysayers,’ the disaffected and disengaged. He represents “you,” whom he directly addresses, as agentively “tell[ing]” the naysayers “you want to hear.” He employs verbs of saying (telling ) and verbs of perception (hearing ) to represent verbal and physical engagement. He follows this up with two further directives, shifting back to direct engagement between himself and his audience in Marshalltown: “what I’m asking you to do is to help me build a political revolution”… “on economic issues let’s reach out to our brothers and our sisters and our co-workers and our neighbours and say ‘no, don’t vote against your kids and your parents, don’t vote for people who want to destroy social security and send your job abroad.’” In the first of these last utterances he “ask[s]” for help. This is the only time Sanders constructs himself as a subject with his audience as helper. But in employing a direct directive, “asking you to do,” Sanders requests direct engagement. In the second of these utterances, he also employs a directive, but in this case, the directive is inclusive conjoining Sanders and his audience together: “let’s reach out.” It is this ‘reaching out’ that is the essence of Sanders’ notion of patriotism and being American itself. America in Sanders’ overarching populist narrative is a society engaged conversationally in political revolution (Fig. 6.2).

190     M. Macaulay

Fig. 6.2  Greimasian narrative “political revolution”

Conclusion In The Populist Persuasion, Kazin (1995) argues that right-wing populism in the United States came about through a cooption by rightwing conservatives of progressive populist rhetoric: Conservatives thus found in the storehouse of populist language a potent weapon for their anti-statist crusade. A conspiratorial elite organised both inside government and in the wider culture was forcing Americans into a regimented system that would destroy their livelihoods and tear down their values. The power of big business, implied the Right, looked puny compared to that of the new leviathan. Liberal intellectuals from the booming universities allegedly hatched the dangerous ideas, and wealthy celebrities from radio and screen shrewdly translated those into alluring images. A free people had to fight back. (p. 167)

Laclau (2005a) analyses this cooption in terms of “floating signifiers” (pp. 133–138). Thus, the conservative Right, previously associated with the establishment and the elite, could now dissociate itself from these identities and embrace the anti-establishment and anti-elite rhetoric of the old left. For this reason, both Trump and Sanders, in their presidential candidate campaigns, could articulate a shared set of “unmet needs,” most specifically attention to the global exportation of jobs. Both Trump and Sanders focus attention on the existence of an elite that governs the interests of big business against the American people who need jobs (formally the “producers” but now those who aspire to be “producers”). What distinguishes Trump

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from Sanders is the nature of the key “unmet need” in their overarching narratives. Trump’s key “unmet need” is that of “a truly great leader.” This leader is himself. He exemplifies this best in his narrative contrast between his own actions and those of his fellow Republican candidates for President with regard to loss of jobs at Ford plants: Now, here’s what is going to happen. If it’s not me in the position, it’s one of these politicians that we’re running against, you know, the 400 people that we’re…And here’s what’s going to happen. They’re not so stupid. They know it’s not a good thing, and they may even be upset by it. But then they’re going to get a call from the donors or probably from the lobbyists for Ford and say, “You can’t do that to Ford, because Ford takes care of me and I take care of you, and you can’t do that to Ford.” (Donald Trump, Announcement Speech)

In Trump’s narrative, the ‘elite’ form a conspiratorial unit of “politicians,” “donors,” “lobbyists,” and “Ford,” a major car manufacturer. In his version of populism, two unmet needs coalesce, the need for jobs and the need for a truly great president. These transform into an overarching demand to “make America great again.” Cas Mudde (2015) has argued that what he terms “radical right-wing populism” is a philosophy that sets out three core notions: anti-establishmentism, authoritarianism and nativism. Mudde argues that right-wing populism favours authoritarian power figures whose personal power enacts the will of the people itself.9 We see this very clearly in Trump. In the narrative above, Trump represents his fellow candidates non-agentively. They are recipients: “they’re going to get a call.” He represents these candidates in conversation with lobbyists who say, “You can’t do that to Ford.” Trump also represents himself in conversation but he is a subject in Greimasian terms, “I would call up the head of Ford, who I know. I’d say ‘Congratulations. That’s the good news. Let me give you the bad news.’” In the narrative Trump tells, his personal con­ versation with the head of Ford results in the retention of jobs in America.

9It

is not clear if this is an actual feature of right-wing populism. We see left-wing populists such as Hugo Chávez equally embracing authoritarian policies. There are other right-wing populist movements such as the Reform Party in Canada that highly privileged democratic practices.

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We see no such narrative in Bernie Sanders’ speeches. He does not present himself as a powerful agent/subject/hero. There are two key differences between Bernie Sanders’ populism and that of Donald Trump. Xenophobia is not present in Sanders’ speeches. He does not tell a story where a personified Mexico sends NOT YOU. More significantly, Sanders also does not make himself the absolute and sole subject or hero of the overall narrative he tells. He, Sanders, is not an “unmet need.” In contrast, Sanders constructs himself in Greimasian terms as fulfilling more than one actant role. His first role is that of sender. The sender in Greimas’ actantial model of narrative functions on the axis of knowledge/transmission. The sender requests the establishment of a junction between subject and object.10 We see this explicitly when Sanders makes the following request: so what I’m asking you to do is to help me build a political revolution… on economic issues let’s reach out to our brothers and our sisters and our co-workers and our neighbours and say ‘no, don’t vote against your kids and your parents, don’t vote for people who want to destroy social security and send your job abroad.’ (Bernie Sanders, Closing, Marshalltown Speech)

In his first utterance, Sanders directly asks his audience to help him build a political revolution. In this request, Sanders initiates the quest for a political revolution, but he also participates in this quest as subject with his audience members as helpers. He then modifies this actantial role in his second utterance. In this utterance, the object, political revolution, is fulfilled through interaction between us “reach[ing] out to our brothers and sisters…and say[ing] ‘no, don’t vote against your kids and parents, don’t vote for people who want to destroy social security and send your job abroad’.” Sanders’ quest, his political revolution, is realised by “reach[ing] out” and “say[ing].” Both Sanders and members of his audience are constructed as subjects with their object being political revolution. It is Sanders’ co-construction of his audience with himself as

10The

King, sender, asks the Prince, subject, to rescue the Princess, object.

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subject that fundamentally distinguishes Sanders from Trump. Trump, through representation of himself as a “jobs President” along with his wearing of a baseball cap, co-identifies with the ‘people,’ but at no time does he construct his audience agentively as either a subject or as a helper. Trump’s principal helper is his own negotiating skill. In contrast, Sanders dissociates himself from the ‘people’ in his role of sender, but he also co-identifies with the ‘people’ through his engagement with his audience in the quest for “political revolution.” He also explicitly constructs his audience as a helper. Sanders’ populist narrative provides agentive roles for his audience that are not realised in Trump’s narrative.11 Donald Trump fulfills Mudde’s definition of a right-wing populist in that as a Laclauan “unmet need” he articulates the popular demands of the people for jobs and security in order to “made America great again.” Trump functions both as the sender, subject and helper in and of his overarching narrative, making America great again. Bernie Sanders is also a sender and a subject in the quest he articulates for the American people; however, in Sanders’ narrative, the actant role of subject is shared with his audience. Sanders initiates the call for the quest on the part of his audience, who in interaction with himself, acts to bring about the proposed object, a political revolution. Sanders’ quest, “a political revolution,” is his competing empty signifier to that of Trump’s “make America great again.” Sanders’ political revolution is further distinguished by his representation of this quest as a conversational process, “Finding America.” This is simultaneously a political and patriotic act.

References Canovan, M. (1981). Populism. London: Junction. de Tocqueville, A. (2010). Democracy in America, volume 1, part 2 (H. Reeve, Trans.). Retrieved from http://bostonleadershipbuilders.com/tocqueville/ book1-2.htm. 11It could, however, be argued that Trump did engage his audience in the role of helper in giving his stump speeches. He encouraged attacks on the media as well as attacks on Hillary Clinton through his direct directive “Lock her up.” The latter became a mob-like chant as his rallies.

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Gamboa, S. (2015, June 16). Donald Trump announces presidential bid by trashing Mexico, Mexicans. NBC. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews. com. Gollom, M. (2015, October 20). Justin Trudeau pledges ‘real change’ as Liberals leap ahead to majority government. Canadian Broadcasting Company. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/. Greimas, A. J. (1966). Sémantique structurale: recherché de méthode. Paris: Larousse. Hofstadter, R. (1969). North America. In G. Ionescu & E. Gellner (Eds.), Populism its meanings and national characteristics (pp. 9–27). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Ionescu, G., & Gellner, E. (Eds.). (1969). Populism its meaning and national characteristics. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Kazin, M. (1995). The populist persuasion: An American history. New York, NY: Basic Books. Labov, W., & Waletzky, J. (1967). Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm (Ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts: Proceedings of the 1966 annual spring meeting of the American Ethnological Society (pp. 12–44). Seattle: University of Washington Press. Laclau, E. (2005a). On populist reason. London: Verso. Laclau, E. (2005b). Populism: What’s in a name. In L. B. Larsen, C. Ricupero, & N. Schafhausen (Eds.), The Populism Reader (pp. 101–112). New York, NY: Lukas & Sternberg. Mudde, C. (2015). Populist radical right parties in Europe today. In J. Abromeit, B. M. Chesterton, G. Marotta, & Y. Norman (Eds.), Transformations of populism in Europe and the Americas: History and recent trends (pp. 295–307). London: Bloomsbury. Sanders, B. (2015, October 8) “Don’t tell me” closing to his Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall speech (September 14, 2015). Reader Supported News. Retrieved from Facebook. Sanders, B. (2015, November 19). Senator Bernie Sanders on democratic socialism in the United States. Retrieved from https://berniesanders.com. Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. (1991). Indirect speech acts. In S. Davis (Ed.), Pragmatics: A reader (pp. 265–277). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Searle, J. (1995). The construction of social reality. New York, NY: The Free Press.

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Taguieff, P.-A. (1997). Le populism et la science politique du mirage conceptual aux vrais Problèmes. Vingtiéme Siécle, 55(1), 4–33. Taguieff, P.-A. (2005). Populist Movements in Europe. In L. B. Larsen, C. Ricupero, & N. Schafhausen (Eds.), The Populism Reader (pp. 47–62). New York, NY: Lukas & Sternberg. Trump, D. (2015, June 16). Presidential announcement speech. Retrieved from YouTube.

7 Conclusion Marcia Macaulay

This volume examines the political phenomenon of populism through the lens of populist discourse. Three chapters in the volume deal with the discourse of populist leaders, both right wing and left wing. All function within democratic institutions as leaders or potential leaders. We can consider their relationship to representational democracy, and we can also consider their construction or positioning of themselves as populists within the democratic institutions they lead or wish to lead. We also see populism expressed not through the discourse of the leader but through party manifestos (specifically those from the United Kingdom respecting Scotland) again within the context of representational democracy. Lastly, one chapter examines not the discourse of a given populist leader but actual response to this leader by ‘the people,’ and so the way in which populist discourse is understood by an electorate.

M. Macaulay (*)  Glendon College, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 M. Macaulay (ed.), Populist Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3_7

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In Chapter 3 of this volume on Hugo Chávez, Hugo Chávez’s Contemporary Latin American Populist Discourse, Ricardo Gualda observes that within the current period of the twenty-first century, populist leaders most usually come to power during periods of crisis through the process of representational democratic election. We see this with Chávez, but we see this also in Austria with Jörg Haider, and most recently, in Hungary with the re-election in 2018 of Viktor Orbán as well as with a populist coalition of the 5 Star Movement and the Lega in Italy. Populist discourse in certain cases has facilitated representative democratic election, but once such election takes place, populist leaders such as Chávez can also consolidate their power, thus undermining the representational democracy they have been elected to serve. In the case of Chávez, Gualda notes Chávez’s remarkable command of multiple voices,1 his ability to embody numerous roles. Gualda also notes that Chávez’s skill is tied to his exploitation of the medium of television. This is consistent with Taguieff’s (1997) observation about Jean Marie Le Pen concerning what Taguieff terms telepopulism. Chávez, through his Sunday morning talk show Aló Presidente is able to speak directly to the Venezuelan people without journalistic interference.2 Chávez is able to re-enact through the medium of the television talk show the crisis that brought him to power. Chávez consistently references the Bolivarian Revolution that brought about his own Venezuelan new order. Chávez represents Venezuela prior to this revolution as a victimised state undermined by a bureaucratic elite. Although Chávez does not present this revolution as fragile, he nonetheless continues to argue for its importance and necessity. In so doing, Chávez is able to assert his own power in this process of ongoing revolution through his very command of the television format itself. There is no fixed time frame for his talk show; he is able to talk extensively at will. He speaks simply and directly. He can also play numerous roles within this format including 1Through his use of multiple voices Chávez creates what Bakhtin (1981) refers to as polyphony in his overall discourse. This allows for broad representation of not only himself but also the Venezuelan people. 2We see this currently with Donald Trump’s use of twitter which allows direct address to ‘the people’ while also permitting attacks on standard journalism.

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that of interviewer, sportscaster, and presenter. It is his command of this discourse within the medium of his television talk show, Aló Presidente, which allows him as both a political and journalist figure to maintain his tenure as leader of his nation and in turn consolidate his own power to act independently without recourse to normal political processes. Within Aló Presidente, Chávez also commands another range of roles that speak to his function as a populist leader. He represents himself as a Saviour figure not unlike Christ and Bolivar. He also represents himself in two other important ways: as a ‘Rich Uncle’ and as a ‘picaro.’ While the role of the ‘Rich Uncle’ is not only inconsistent with that of a Saviour figure, as this applies to revolution, but also that of the ‘picaro’ is completely different. In the guise of the picaro, the lovable rogue, Chávez becomes not the saviour to his people or its rich uncle, but simply one of the people, albeit a bit of an outsider. This is consistent with what Moffitt (2016) refers to as “bad manners.” Rather than inhabiting the role of a polished effete member of an elite, Chávez positions himself as an ordinary person who can joke about his foibles. He co-identifies with the Venezuelan people. He is one of them. The complexity of Chávez’s discourse of populism allowed him to remain as the president of his country over several years. But to maintain this power, Chávez also transformed his country from a representational democracy to something more closely resembling an autocracy. In looking at Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders within the context of the 2016 American presidential election process, we do not see established leaders but rather two populist politicians vying to represent their two respective national parties, Republican and Democratic, in the ultimate presidential race. Like Chávez, they function within the political context of representational democracy and like Chávez they are also both ‘picaros,’ rogues or outsiders. In Chapter 6 of this volume, Bernie and The Donald: A Comparison of Left- and Right-Wing Populist Discourse, Marcia Macaulay examines Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech (June 16, 2015) and two of Sanders’ speeches, “Democratic Socialism” (November 19, 2015), and his now famous “Don’t Tell Me” closing to his Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall speech (September 14, 2015). The latter of Sanders’ speeches was turned into an internet video during his campaign. Macaulay looks at the rhetorical

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force of their speeches, particularly their skilled use of narrative. There is considerable overlap in the content of their speeches in the representation of what Laclau (2005) refers to as “unmet needs,” but importantly both represent America as a victimised nation. Trump’s narrative is “Make America Great,” while Sanders’ is “Finding America.” What is consistent in both narratives is the idea of ‘America lost.’ While Trump does not speak of the need for revolution (although in his later stump speeches he does talk of a ‘movement’), this idea for Sanders as with Chávez is central to his narrative. For both Trump and Sanders, America is in crisis. What principally differentiates these two aspirational leaders is their understanding of the role each will play in the reestablishment of American greatness or the rediscovery of America. Macaulay applies Greimasian narrative analysis (1966) to their respective narratives. What is remarkable is that Donald Trump articulates three major roles for himself in his narrative of making America great again, that of sender, subject/hero, and helper. Significantly, he also combines the roles of hero and helper when he asserts: “We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal. ” Trump represents himself as an “unmet need.” In this respect, he positions himself very similarly to Chávez as a “Saviour” figure. Both Chávez and Trump place themselves at the centre of the crisis they articulate. Despite Chávez being left-wing in his ideology, in simple terms opposed to capitalism, and Donald Trump right-wing, fully supportive of capitalism, both share an understanding of themselves as “unmet needs” on the part of the people. Trump’s co-identification with ‘the people’ is best exemplified by his wearing of a baseball cap throughout his campaign for the nomination of the Republican party and ultimately for President. Baseball caps are worn by the ‘average joe’ or average American rather than ­multi-millionaire members of the elite. With Chávez, we see populist discourse come to the service of an autocratic state. With Trump, this is anticipated in his Announcement speech, since narratively he concentrates most of the power to reassert America’s greatness within himself as sender, subject/hero and helper. For Sanders, America is also in crisis and he quite explicitly calls for a “revolution.” In the first of two Sanders’ speeches analysed by Macaulay, “Democratic Socialism” (November 19, 2015), Sanders uses

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the rhetorical device of repetition of the word today to delineate a large set of unmet needs on the part of the American people. He begins with the standard populist attack on the ‘elite’: “Today [emphasis Macaulay], in America, we are the wealthiest nation in the history of the World, but few Americans know that because so much of the new income and wealth goes to the people on top…” He goes on to contrast this imbalance in the distribution of wealth by stating, “Today [emphasis Macaulay], in America, millions of our people are working two or three jobs to survive…”3 His focus is on the elites of American society who benefit from unfair distribution of wealth and on those who must struggle to produce just to survive economically. Sanders during his campaign strategically positioned his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as a member of the elite as did Trump when running against her for the Presidency. His attacks are very similar to those of Hugo Chávez who argued for socialism against capitalism, and specifically that wealth in the world is controlled by an elite, Andrew Jackson’s “money power.” What makes Sanders a populist as well as a democratic socialist is his construction of ‘the people’ through his articulation of unmet needs and their coalescence into an “equivalential chain.” With Sanders, we get the empty signifier of ‘Finding America,’ in contrast to Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again.’ ‘Finding America’ provides for a rediscovery of the American self and in turn a reconstruction and redefinition of the American people. What differentiates Sanders from both Chávez and Trump is that he does not position himself as an unmet need or Saviour figure in the revolution he wishes to start. His most famous statement during his run to be the Democratic nominee for the presidential election is his “Don’t Tell Me” closing to his Marshalltown, Iowa UAW Hall speech (September 14, 2015). What is significant about this expression is that it is dialogic. Like Chávez, who in a Bakhtinian sense is as a master of many roles and voices, Sanders represents being American in discoursal terms. In his denouncement of negativity, “Don’t Tell Me 3Sanders’

demand is almost identical to that of the original American populists of the Populist Party during the 1890’s. The Populist’s 1892 platform argued: “The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few” (quote taken from Michael Kazin, New York Times, March 22, 2016).

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We Can’t” he reasserts the positive ‘We Can.’4 Sanders actually correlates American patriotism with populism, the energizing of the American people to act on its own behalf in the light of unmet needs that have not been addressed through standard political processes. His reasoning is that ‘the people’ have not participated in their own democratic process; they have been marginalised and alienated. For this reason, he calls for a political revolution: “And anybody tells you [emphasis Macaulay] that elections are not important you ask them why [emphasis Macaulay] the Koch brothers are going to spend a billion dollars on this election… so what I’m asking you to do [emphasis Macaulay] is to help me build a political revolution…on economic issues let’s reach out [emphasis Macaulay] to our brothers and our sisters and our co-workers and our neighbours and say ‘no, don’t vote against your kids and your parents, don’t vote for people who want to destroy social security and send your job abroad.’” No-where in this representation of a political discourse is the idea of a ‘rich uncle’ or saviour articulated, or for that matter that of a master deal maker. Sanders’ focus is almost exclusively on his construction of an activist ‘people’ in his overall goal of ‘Finding America.’ In the Greimasian narrative, Sanders tells, the role of hero or subject is assigned to the American people themselves who are also constructed as helpers with Sanders in the principal role of sender. The left-wing populism represented by Sanders is comfortable with representative democracy although seeing it in decline and wishing to resurrect it.5 Liudmila Arcimavičienė extends the discussion of populism to the international stage in Chapter 4 of this volume, Self and Other Metaphors as Facilitating Features of Populist Style in Diplomatic Discourse: A Case Study of Obama and Putin’s Speeches. Such extension is also evident in Donald Trump’s construction of the ‘elite’ which

4This

reassertion of ‘We Can’ invokes Barack Obama’s famous populist exhortation “Yes We Can.” their discussion, “Left-wing populism in the European periphery: the case of Syriza,” Stavrakakis and Katsambekis (2014) make the same case for populism co-existing with representational democratic process. They note the extensive reference of ‘the people’ in the discourse of Syriza’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, which focusses not on co-identification of Tsipras with ‘the people’ but rather on the agentive nature of the ‘people’: “Now, the people are voting, Now the people are seizing power” (124).

5In

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has failed to negotiate in the U.S.’s best interests internationally. Trump portrays Mexico as an invader of the U.S.; China and Japan are further portrayed as international enemies who have outsmarted the U.S. in trade deals and negotiations. Trump’s anti-globalism is a feature of his particular nationalistic American populism. Hugo Chávez in kind portrays the U.S. as an international ‘other’ that threatens the Venezuelan state. He speaks extensively about international capitalism as a negative force and jokes about his interactions with Henry Kissinger. Arcimavičienė looks at two sets of speeches given by Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama. Those for Putin, his Crimea Address (March 18, 2014) to the Russian Parliament and his UN 70th Anniversary Address (October 2, 2015), serve to construct a new Russian identity for the Russian ‘people.’ Obama’s Brussels Speech (March 26, 2014) and his UN 70th Anniversary Address (September 28, 2015) provide a counternarrative to that of Putin, but also a counter construction of a different ‘people’ or ‘heartland.’ Both leaders employ dominant metaphors in their speeches, with Obama employing three major metaphors: War, Personified Relationship and Journey. Putin also employs War and Personified Relationship metaphors but unlike Obama he employs a Strength metaphor. From a populist perspective, what is significant is the use of a Personified Relationship metaphor in the speeches of Putin and Obama. For Putin, the most significant of unmet needs in Laclauan terms is the need for reintegration of the Ukraine into Russia. The focus of his two speeches is on the notion of the Russian people. This reconstruction of the Russian people is used to justify his takeover of the Crimea (effected through ‘direct democracy’ by means of a plebiscite) as well as military involvement in Eastern Ukraine.6 In his Crimean speech given in the Russian Duma, Putin argues “More than 82 percent of the electorate took part in the vote.7 Over 96 percent of them spoke out in favour of reuniting with Russia. These numbers speak for themselves. To understand the reason behind such a choice it is 6Putin

was excluded from the G8 summit for his actions. The G8 became the G7. referendum vote held on March 16, 2014 where the local populations of Crimea were requested whether they wanted to join Russia as a federal subject. The referendum was regarded as illegitimate by most members of the EU, the United States and Canada. 7The

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enough to know the history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (Crimean Speech). Through the metaphor of a Personified Relationship, two geographic territories, the Crimea and Russia, are united in a familial relationship which constructs one ‘people.’ Such reconstruction is even more evident in Putin’s Address to the United Nations: “Our concerns are understandable because we are not simply close neighbours but, as I have said many times already, we are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common source and we cannot live without each other [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (Address to the UN). While Putin again justifies Russian extension into another territory, he nonetheless uses a clear populist frame to do so. He invokes the “Ancient Rus” and further identifies Kiev as “the mother of Russian cities.” We have a new construct of ‘the people’ and we also have in Taggart’s terms (2002) a new “heartland.” His attribution of ‘strength’ to this newly constructed people furthers his populism. At no time does Putin ever position himself at the centre of the crisis of reunification. Although clearly the instigator in the creation of a new Russian state with an intention to make Russia great again, his focus is on the unmet need of reunification of family members and the strength of the Russian people to achieve this end: “Residents of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, the whole of Russia admired your courage, dignity and bravery. It was you who decided Crimea’s future. We were closer than ever over these days, supporting each other. These were sincere feelings of solidarity. It is at historic turning points such as these that a nation demonstrates its maturity and strength of spirit. The Russian people showed this maturity and strength through their united support for their compatriots [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (Address to the UN). While Trump’s and Chávez’s populism is largely defensive, Putin’s is expansionist with a clear focus on the articulation of a new Russian people within a new Russian heartland.8

8We need to distinguish Putin’s discourse from nationalism. There is overlap between nationalism and populism in the promotion of a homeland and a people; however, nationalism serves to a greater extent to articulate and promote an established national identity rather than to engage in an antagonistic dialogue between a ‘people’ and an ‘elite.’

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In keeping with Laclau’s argument that the construction of a ‘­people’ requires an enemy in the guise of “the elite,” “the oligarchy” or “the dominant group,” Putin portrays the ‘West’ in precisely these terms: “We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one center of dominance, and those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to be done and thus they don’t need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands in their way [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (Address to the UN). In this framing of Russia’s relationship within the UN, Putin employs almost classic populist rhetoric. He implicitly references the U.S. and Europe as being “at the top of the pyramid,” a clear expression of hierarchy. Russia itself is portrayed as an outsider nation, victimised by those on top. Interestingly, Putin appeals to the UN as a governing body that serves to counteract these nations. His is an appeal to the rule of law in the defence of his own newly constructed ‘Russian’ state or ‘Russian’ people. Obama’s rhetoric can also be characterised as broadly populist. Obama’s own populism is evident in his first campaign against Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination and then against John McCain for the Presidency. Obama’s campaign was populist in several respects but most notably through his slogan “Yes We Can.” Very much like Bernie Sanders’ assertion of ‘We Can’ through his denunciation of “Don’t Tell Me We Can’t,” Obama energized the American electorate through a clear appeal to American values and American patriotism. He also represented himself as anti-elite in his opposition to the war in Iraq and his solicitation of individual donations. He was the people’s candidate, much as Sanders and Trump portrayed themselves in the American context eight years later. In the two speeches examined by Arcimavičienė, Obama provides a counter-narrative to that of Putin, as well as a counter reality. Very much as Putin constructs a new Russian people in a new Russian heartland, Obama also constructs a new people: “It is in response to this tragic history that in the aftermath of World War II, America joined with Europe  [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (Brussels speech). He further delineates nations within Europe: “a Germany unified, the nations

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of Central and Eastern Europe welcomed into the family of democracies [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (Brussels speech). As with Putin’s new Russian ‘people,’ Obama also constructs a new ‘people’ which he represents as being members of the same ‘family.’ And like Putin who repositions the heartland of Russia in Kiev, Obama also provides a new heartland for this new family: “Here in this country, once the battleground of Europe, we meet in the hub of a union that brings together age-old adversaries in peace and cooperation [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (Brussels speech). Whereas Kiev becomes the mother of all Russian cities, Brussels becomes the “hub” of new union of nations with its own specific identity. This ‘hub’ Obama eventually defines as “NATO nations”: “NATO nations never stand alone [Arcimavičienė emphasis].” This construction of a people and a place is central to populist discourse, even on the international stage. The unmet need in Obama’s scenario is what he terms a “stable peace”: “I believe that for both Ukraine and Russia, a stable peace will come through de-escalation, a direct dialogue between Russia and the government of Ukraine and the international community  [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (Brussels Speech). In keeping with the positive populism of his campaign speeches, Obama through a journey metaphor articulates a process whereby Russia could reintegrate into the G7 nations from which it was removed: “If Russia takes that path—a path that for stretches of the post-Cold War period resulted in prosperity for the Russian people—then we will lift our sanctions and welcome Russia’s role in addressing common challenges [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (UN Address). Notably, Obama employs a different referent for Russian people as well as a different referent for Russia. Obama’s ‘Russia’ does not include Kiev as its mother city or Ukraine as part of the Rus. Obama problematises Putin’s populist notion of ‘Rus,’ the Russian ‘people’ and the Russian ‘heartland.’ Obama also problematises the use of direct democracy employed by Putin in his acquisition of the Crimea from Ukraine. The plebiscite used to justify annexation of the Crimea is countered by Obama: “These are simple truths, but they must be defended. America and our allies will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy. We will reinforce our NATO allies, and uphold our commitment to collective defense [Arcimavičienė emphasis]” (UN Address).

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Obama speaks of the Ukrainian people “develop[ing] democracy,” rather than exploiting democracy and specifically direct democracy, often privileged by right-wing populists. Democracy is conceived of as a process rather than as an instrument. For Obama, the unmet need of “stable peace” is achievable through diplomacy and de-escalation; however, for this to be achieved, the populist goals of Putin must be abandoned, in favour of a different identity for the Russian ‘people’ and the Russian ‘heartland.’ The relationship between democracy and populism is also explored by Ruth Breeze in Chapter 2 of this volume, Representing the People: Claiming the Heartland in Scottish Election Manifestos. Breeze examines the political manifestos of four major Scottish parties within the United Kingdom before and after the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014: Scottish National Party, Scottish Labour Party, Scottish Liberal Democrat Party (hereafter LibDem) and Scottish Conservative Party. All but one of these parties have counterparts in the rest of the United Kingdom. The Scottish National Party is unique to Scotland within the UK. All four parties seek to acknowledge and address ‘Scottishness’ in a bid for election in their 2015 campaigns. To do so, they need to appeal to the Scottishness of the Scottish people along with providing their own specific platforms, Labour, Conservative and LibDem. Breeze examines the extent to which populist arguments are made to secure election. Most importantly, Breeze looks at the ways in which the four parties identify a particular ‘here’ for Scotland and a particular identity for the Scottish people. The question of where is here is addressed very differently by the parties. In its 2015 campaign manifestos coming a year after the referendum, the SNP uses the word nation in a markedly different way to that of the other parties for whom nation is equated with the United Kingdom, Scotland being a sub-territory within it. Nation, however, is used very differently by the SNP: Scotland is an outward looking nation. We have family in all parts of the world. As a northern European nation, our near neighbourhood including the High North and Arctic are a key priority for Scotland. (2015 Manifesto)

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In this example, Scotland is contextualised as a nation not within the United Kingdom but within Europe, as “a northern European nation.” The deictic centre for Scotland is Scotland with reference northward to the “High North” and the “Arctic.” This northern focus contrasts in a radical way from the southern focus of the other political parties with contextualisation within the United Kingdom. This is not nationalism as such with a clear valuation on Scottish culture and the Highlands language. Scotland’s heartland is being repositioned northward as part of a new European identity. Breeze notes the very particular use of the word Westminster for representation of the British Parliament in the political manifestos of the SNP. This term is used exclusively by the SNP with respect to the party’s presence “at Westminster”: “make Scotland stronger at Westminster,” “make Scotland’s voice heard at Westminster,” “strong group of SNP MPs at Westminster,” “carry real weight at Westminster.” The preposition at is employed rather than in. At does not locate the speaker within an area or volume but only in relation to a fixed point. While use of Westminster distinguishes the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh from the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London, the SNP further only acknowledges its location, being at Westminster, rather than participation in its function, being in Parliament. This informs very clear dissociation from the South, and again serves to relocate the ‘heartland’ to the North in both Edinburgh and Scotland generally. The use of Westminster also constructs an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ scenario essential to populism. Not only does the SNP deign not to be part of Parliament but only at Parliament, but also Parliament becomes ‘other,’ the ‘elite’ or ‘dominant group’ in Laclauan terms against which the SNP can identify itself as representing an entirely separate people. This is precisely how Putin distinguishes Russia from other UN nations which are “at the top,” the distinction of which allows Russia to be perceived as a victimised nation and Russians as a victimised people. Breeze further examines the distribution of such words as Scotland, Scottish and people. With respect to Scotland, she notes that Labour, Conservative and LibDem employ a locative construction with regard to its reference: “families in Scotland,” “young people in Scotland,” “nurses in Scotland,” “people in Scotland,” “jobs in Scotland,” “parks in Scotland.”

7 Conclusion     209

Scotland is referenced as a place where people as such live, play, work or get health care. The SNP, however, employs the Saxon genitive: “Scotland’s strengths,” “Scotland’s best interests,” and “Scotland’s ambitious carbon reduction tactics,” “Scotland’s economy,” “Scotland’s oil and gas industry.” More importantly, this party’s 2015 manifesto employs seven variations of “making Scotland’s voice heard.” Rather than a locative construction in which people are placed, the SNP personifies Scotland so that it has a voice, strengths, interests, tactics and industry. A metonymic relationship is also created between Scotland and its people. The Scottish people are not simply a given, but are a newly constructed entity through the discourse of the SNP manifestos. This is a quintessentially populist strategy functioning within the context of representational democracy. Scottish as in Scottishness is also differently employed by the respective parties. The SNP most frequently correlates Scottish with Government or Parliament, thus using Scottish to identify not a place but a type of government and as well as nation or heartland. Scottish is also extended to “Scottish business/es,” “Scottish companies,” “Scottish society,” “Scottish jobs,” “Scottish citizens,” and “Scottish values and priorities.” Scottishness is thus a privileged notion relating to society, citizens, values, jobs, companies and businesses. Scottishness as a distinct quality is referenced not only in terms of government but also in terms of society itself. There is an implicit claim to distinctiveness. The word people so central to populism is moreover treated differently by the SNP. The SNP uses the inclusive form “the people of Scotland,” along with “people in Scotland,” and “people across Scotland,” as well as using the possessive form for a distinct subset as in “our young people.” The inclusive form “the people of Scotland” suggests a unified entity, one people, much as Putin attempts to construct the ‘Rus’ as one people united over geographic space. The SNP 2015 manifesto serves to reposition Scotland geographically, establish a separate governance body and define the Scottish ‘people’ as one people separate and separated from others. This enterprise is populist in that the SNP constructs a Manichean dialogue between an elite ‘other’ in Westminster and more broadly ‘the South’ and the Scottish Government and people itself. Most importantly, the

210     M. Macaulay

SNP gives Scotland and the Scottish people a new political and geographic identity, no longer as part of the United Kingdom but as part of Europe, for which it is a country amongst other countries as well as a separate people amongst other separate peoples. That the SNP does this within the framework of the British Parliamentary System is a remarkable juggling feat, albeit a populist one.9 In all previous discussions from this volume, attention has been paid to the rhetoric and discourse of populist leaders. This is a dominant concern in the literature on populist discourse, probably most evident in Ruth Wodak’s The Politics of Fear (2015) where she examines what she calls the “Haiderization of Europe.” Focus is on the persuasive power of a given populist leader or in the case of the SNP, campaign manifestos. Jay M. Woodhams provides a useful counter to such analysis in Chapter 5 of this volume, An Untrustworthy Entertainer: Populist Identities in the Voices of New Zealand Voters. This chapter looks specifically at the response of New Zealanders to Winston Peters whose New Zealand First party represents a clear example of right-wing populism primarily through its opposition to New Zealand’s immigration policies that it believes would destabilise New Zealand’s indigenous Māori and white populations. Peters is a successful politician within the New Zealand political system. He has held a number of key posts: Minister of Māori Affairs (1990–1991), Minister of Foreign Affairs (2005–2008; 2017–), Treasurer (1996–1998) and Deputy Prime Minister (1996– 1998; 2017–). As the current Deputy Prime Minister, Peters participates in a coalition government with the Labour Party. How close his own right-wing party is to that of Labour is unclear, but the coalition with Labour has allowed New Zealand First with 11% of the popular vote to hold the balance of power and provide Peters with standing as Deputy Prime Minister. Woodhams does not examine Peters’ skill as a politician or his populist discourse; rather, he examines how Peters as a populist is perceived

9Something similar occurs with the Bloc Quebeçois in Canada. The Bloc is a party devoted to the idea of Quebec as a separate nation but nonetheless serves within the Canadian Parliamentary System.

7 Conclusion     211

by the ‘people,’ the average New Zealand voter. To generate his data, Woodhams engaged in informal conversations with 26 New Zealand voters, over a period of six months in 2012–2013.10 These conversations dealt with politics generally but also reflected considerations of key political figures such as Winston Peters of the New Zealand First party. Woodhams found three principal responses to Peters: support, hostility and more interestingly perception of him as “that sort of good value entertainment.” As Woodhams notes, one interviewee, Michelle, ascribes an “entertainer” persona to Peters. She also represents herself in a pseudo-narrative as directly addressing and saying ‘hello’ to Peters using his first name: “oh winston + hi. ” Despite this construction of herself in a personal relationship with Peters, this same speaker also describes him as “weird”: “can’t even comprehend how weird he is [laughs].” Another interviewee sees Peters less as “weird” and more as “fun”: “winston’s the funnest i guess cos he tal- he does like monthly chatty things with his +++ his + loyal + wing i don’t participate in them but they’re fun ().” This interviewee, Cate, joins “live chats” with Peters every month, although maintaining that she also follows other political leaders. When asked by Woodhams if she would support Peters politically, she clearly disassociates herself from him and his party: “i don’t think he’s inclusive enough with im- immigrants … and he’s not really tolerant enough.” Peters’ anti-immigration stance does not have traction with this particular voter. Both Michelle and Cate in Woodham’s data are young voters. They do not have the experience of older voters who in the words of one states: “i wouldn’t trust winston as far as i can throw him.” What is very interesting in Woodham’s data is his interviewees’ use of reference with respect to Peters. Two of the three older interviewees address Peters as “winston peters.” Linda, his one supporter in Woodham’s data set, does not address him personally at all. Rather she refers to him generally as a “guy”; “i thought if this guy gets in with his little band of men we’ll have a bit of action.” For Linda, Peters is perceived as an agent of

10Informed

consent was gained from all participants and research approved by Victoria University of Wellington’s Human Ethics Committee.

212     M. Macaulay

change rather than someone she knows personally. For the two younger voters and one older voter, however, Peters is “winston.” This use of a first name suggests familiarity and a degree of personal acceptance if not necessarily political acceptance. We can go back to Chávez’s representation of himself as a ‘picarro,’ a bit of a rogue, but one of the Venezuelan people, Sanders’ diminishment of himself as a leader and foregrounding of the American people, Trump’s wearing of his baseball cap, Putin’s reference to the ‘Rus’ and the SNP’s co-identification of Scotland with “the people of Scotland.” What makes Peters both a successful politician and a successful populist is that as “winston” he is seen as one of the people, a New Zealander. To be addressed by one’s first name is an act of intimacy. Moffitt (2016) makes reference to the exploitation of ‘ordinariness’ in the successful populist politician. Donald Trump becomes “the Donald,” Bernie Sanders becomes “Bernie,” and in the case of Winston Peters, he becomes “winston.” Despite “winston” being “a bit of a racist” as one interviewee states, Peters still retains a familial touch that could potentially serve to override objections to his policies or views. This is particularly evident in Woodham’s interview with Michelle, when Michelle sees Peters in a Wellington shop: “well [laughs] two weeks ago i was just in [shop] at the [cosmetic brand] counter and winston peters walked past me like where else in new Zealand are you gonna get that sort of good value entertainment.” Peters is witnessed passing by the cosmetics counter. He’s seen shopping just like any other New Zealander. He is not functioning as a politician but just as a regular ‘guy’ doing regular ‘stuff.’ When asked if she works in this particular shop, Michelle answers ‘no’ and states, “just just standing there [laughs] oh winston + hi.” In the pseudo-narrative she creates, she is able to call “winston” to her attention with “oh,” address him by his first name “winston” and then say “hi.” His ordinariness is clearly evidenced through her reaction, not only her address of him as “winston,” but also her call form “oh” and her greeting “hi.” She positions Peters as her friend, someone she knows and can say ‘hello’ to, just like anyone else she knows. It is not always the case that populist leaders evidence such ordinariness, and Peters does not in any way appear to be performing ordinariness in this brief encounter, but it is clear that co-identification of a leader with the ‘people’ is of enormous importance in any leader’s success.

7 Conclusion     213

It is most likely what has allowed Peters to stay in politics as well as in positions of power over seventeen years. Like other leaders examined in this volume, he is extremely successful as a populist politician. Laclau maintains that populism is “quite simply a way of constructing the political” (2005, p. xi). We see this in all the examples of leaders, ‘the people’ and manifestos within this volume. The question of place is of central importance. Bernie Sanders speaks of “Finding America,” Donald Trump of “Making America Great Again,” and the SNP of “Scotland” not as a southward facing nation but as northward facing. Putin re-contextualises the ‘Rus’ not only with a heartland in present-day Russia, but also in the Ukraine, with its old/new mother city of Kiev. Chávez in the same manner as Trump sees elites serving not Venezuela but “foreign powers.” He aligns Venezuela with other South American countries. The people are also constructed or reconstructed. Almost consistently, a place and people are co-identified; there is a metonymic relationship between them. For Sanders, ‘America’ is lost and thus the American people. For Trump, ‘America’ and thus the average American Joe or Jane is also lost by virtue of threat by its elites and foreign governments. For “the people of Scotland,” they are northern people and their homeland is northerly. The ‘Rus’ are repositioned westward by Putin. The leaders also represent and symbolise the ‘people’ and become their ‘voices.’ We see this not only with Hugo Chávez but also with the other leaders who create co-identification with the ‘people.’ Furthermore, it is Winston Peters’ own ordinariness, being one of the people, that most likely ensures his durability as a populist politician. All leaders and parties in this volume function within a representational democratic system. They come to power or attempt power through election as populists. In Putin’s case, he employs a populist frame in order to sustain his own power and that of ‘Russia,’ speaking on one occasion within the Duma, Russia’s parliament, arguing for direct democracy in the Crimea. There is a clear balancing act between representational democracy and populism. Where leaders such as Chávez and potential leaders such as Trump construct themselves as ‘saviours’ of the people, or as with Putin argue for ‘direct democracy,’ representational democracy comes under threat.

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References Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (M. Holquist, Ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Greimas, A. J. (1966). Sémantique structurale: recherché de méthode. Paris: Larousse. Kazin, M. (2016, March 22). How can Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both be ‘populist’? Retrieved from https:nytimes.com. Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. London: Verso. Moffitt, B. (2016). The global rise of populism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Stavrakakis, Y., & Katsambekis, G. (2014). Left-wing populism in the European periphery: The case of SYRIZA. Journal of Political Ideologies, 19(2), 119–142. Taggart, P. (2002). Populism. New Delhi: Viva Books. Taguieff, P.-A. (1997). Le populism et la science politique du mirage conceptual aux vrai Problèmes. Vingtiéme Siécle, 55(1), 4–33. Wodak, R. (2015). The politics of fear. London: Sage.

Index

0-9

B

1996 NZ General Election 144, 145, 151 2005 NZ General Election 144, 145 2011 NZ General Election 134 2014 NZ General Election 145 2017 NZ General Election 144, 150

bad manners 13 Bakhtin, M. 198 basic meaning 99 Bolivarian Revolution 66, 78, 82, 84, 85, 198 bottom-up approach 99 Breeze, Ruth 15, 207 Britain 30, 37–40, 45, 51, 55

A

age 134 Aló Presidente 17, 18, 64–67, 74–77, 80, 82–84, 198, 199 antagonism 95, 101, 108, 112, 115–118 Arcimavičienė, Liudmila 18, 202 Aslanidis, P. 90, 91 audio recording 133 autocratic 62, 84, 85

C

Canovan, Margaret 3, 166–168 CDA. See Critical Discourse Analysis Charteris-Black, J. 93–96, 99, 100, 103 Chávez, Hugo 14, 17, 59–61, 63–66, 68–85, 198–201, 203, 212, 213

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 M. Macaulay (ed.), Populist Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97388-3

215

216     Index

Chilton, P. 94, 95 Clinton, Hillary 201, 205 colonialism 126 common sense 62 conceptual metaphor 93, 118 Conceptual Metaphor Theory 19, 99, 100 contextual meaning 99, 100 cooperation 97, 103–107, 112, 113 crisis 7, 15, 17 Critical Discourse Analysis 12, 132 Critical Metaphor Analysis 19 critical realism 131, 135 D

data 98 degreesim 91 deictic centre 39, 48, 50–55 delegitimisation 90, 93–97, 100, 113, 116, 117 demagoguery 92 democracy 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 61, 62, 69, 70, 73, 84, 128, 150, 156 direct 203, 206, 207, 213 representational 197–199, 202, 206, 207, 209 democratic extremism 10 dialogic structure 76, 78 dialogue 61, 76, 77, 81, 82 dichotomy 92, 93, 95, 97, 100 dictionaries 99 diplomatic discourse 90, 92, 119 discourse 60–64, 66–68, 73, 78, 84, 89–91, 93–96, 99, 100, 104, 105, 108, 109, 114, 116, 119 advancement 64, 78

analysis of 129, 131 definition of 129 interactional 129 marker 136 political 131 populist 125, 129, 131, 154, 155 recognition through 129–131 sociocultural 129, 141 subnational 134, 137, 141 E

egalitarianism 137, 154 the elite 10, 15, 18, 24, 201, 202 elitism 90 empty signifier 9, 201 enemy 95, 97, 101, 102, 116, 118 equivalential chain 8, 9 euphemism 147, 153 Europe 132 European Union 45 evaluation 93, 101, 119 evaluative language 137, 139, 140, 143, 144, 147–149, 151 F

face 148, 154 Feldman, J. 91 first name 137, 138 Fitna 14 foreign policy 97, 98, 113, 118 frame 92, 96, 102, 111, 113, 118, 119 framing 90, 91, 96, 100, 108, 109, 111, 115–118 Freedom Party 11

Index     217 G

Gee, James Paul 130 Gellner, E. 2, 7, 10, 15 general elections 30–32 the general will 11 Gibbs, Raymond W. 93, 99 globalisation 132, 133 Goffman, Irving 12 gradability 91 Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 134 Greimas, Algirdas Julien 23, 174, 179, 182, 183, 191, 192, 200 Gualda, Ricardo 17, 198 H

Haider, Jörg 5, 11, 198 Hanson, Pauline 5, 15, 126, 128 hard power 96, 97, 106 heartland 4, 28–31, 33, 53, 55, 203, 205, 207–209, 213 hedging 142, 147, 153 hegemony 101, 102, 105, 108, 109, 115, 116, 119 Hofstadter, Richard 170, 171 humour 137 I

identity 91, 96, 103, 104, 107, 109, 114, 116–118 core 130 entertainer 135–137, 139–141, 143, 146–148, 151, 153, 154, 156 genesis of 129

maverick 135, 149 national 127, 132 NIDA model 130 political 131, 133, 150 populist 130–131 untrustworthy 135, 143–145, 147, 148, 152, 156 ideology 90, 93, 97, 127, 144, 153 idiom 144, 148 image schemata 93 immigration 125–129, 133, 143, 154–155 indexical 48, 52, 53 interactional sociolinguistics 134 interaction. See interactions interactions 64, 75–77, 81, 85 interlocutor(s) 61, 77, 79, 81, 82 international politics 90, 93, 95, 96, 100 Ionescu, G. 2, 7, 10, 15 K

Kaltwasser, C.R. 1, 2, 10, 15 Kazin, Michael 171, 190 Key, John 134 Kövecses, Z. 93, 99, 100 L

Laclau, Ernesto 7, 90, 91, 166–170, 177, 190, 200, 205 Lakoff, G. 91, 93, 95, 99, 100 Laughter 137, 147 leadership 90–93, 96–98, 119 legitimacy 102, 104, 105, 110, 111, 114, 115

218     Index

legitimisation 90, 93–97, 100–102, 104, 105, 108, 110, 117, 119 Le Pen, Jean-Marie 5, 6 Le Pen, Marine 12 M

Macaulay, Marcia 22, 199 mainstream media 132, 152 Māori 126, 128 marriage equality 128, 133 mediation 62, 65 mediatisation 14 metaphor(s) 66, 83, 93, 94, 96, 98–102, 104–112, 114–119, 148, 149 metaphorical expression 98–101, 117 metaphorical extension 90, 92, 95, 100, 104, 108, 109, 111, 116, 119 metaphorical role 83 metaphor use 93, 96, 98–100, 108, 109, 112, 115–117, 119 methodology 91, 97, 98 metonymic 81 metonymically 61, 76, 81, 86 Mixed-member proportional representation. See MMP MMP 151 Moffitt, Benjamin 13, 199, 212 Mudde, C. 1, 2, 9, 10, 15, 89–91 Musolff, A. 93, 99 N

narrative 101, 104, 108, 109, 114, 117, 118, 136, 137, 139, 200, 202

counternarrative 203, 205 Greimasian 200 pseudo-narrative 211, 212 nationalism 28, 54, 96, 118 regional 29 negative other representation 117 New Zealand 125, 126, 132, 133, 150 New Zealand First Party 21, 125, 128, 133, 134, 142, 149, 156, 210, 211 New Zealand Labour Party 134, 144 New Zealand National Party 134, 144, 145 nostalgia 125, 127, 128 O

Obama, Barack 90, 93, 94, 96–98, 101, 102, 104–107, 109, 116–118, 202, 203 Orbán, Viktor 198 other 91–93, 95, 96, 99–102, 104, 106–119 other, its 90–93, 95, 97, 100, 112, 116 Othering 126, 127, 129 P

Palin, Sarah 13 party manifestos 197 patriotism 96, 118, 154 the people 4–8, 10, 12–15, 17, 18, 21, 24, 90–93, 95, 97, 100, 101, 104, 106–108, 116, 197–202, 204–207, 209, 212, 213 performance 61, 64, 78, 81

Index     219

Perón, Juan 9 Perot, Ross 5 Personality 142, 148, 151, 152 personification 103 Peters, Winston 15, 21, 22, 125– 128, 134, 137, 139, 140, 142–145, 147, 149–151, 153–155, 210–213 phenomenological typology 3 picaro 18, 199 pluralism 90, 91 polarisation 104 political discourse 91, 94, 119 politics anti-establishment 127, 150, 153–156 as entertainment 137, 141, 142, 149, 151 informalisation of 152, 153 racial 126–128 popular demands 8, 9, 23, 24 populism 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 13, 27–29, 36, 48, 60, 61, 63, 64, 73, 89–92, 95, 96, 98, 100, 108, 111, 119, 197, 199, 202, 204–210, 213 definition of 126–127 left-wing 165, 166, 171, 191 new populism 4–6 political style 7, 13, 15 right-wing 11, 12, 21, 22, 125–128, 132, 142, 149, 155, 166, 171, 190, 191 telepopulism 6, 198 thin-centered ideology 1, 10 populist 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 73, 76, 84, 85 populist discourse 60, 61, 63, 68, 76, 84, 197, 200, 206, 210

populist leaders left-wing 197 right-wing 197 positive self-representation 117 Pragglejaz group’s Metaphor Identification Procedure 99 privileged signifier 116 Putin, Vladimir 90, 96–98, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112–119, 203 R

racism 142, 143, 153 radicalism 127, 149, 150, 153 rapport 138, 141, 148 recruitment 133 referenda 128 Reform Party 5 rhetoric 132, 143 Robin Hood 12 S

Sanders, Bernie 22–24, 165, 166, 170, 171, 181, 183, 185–187, 192, 193, 199, 205, 212, 213 Saviour figure 18, 199, 201 scenario 99, 103, 105–107, 113, 118 Scotland 29–32, 35–47, 49–55, 197, 207–209, 212, 213 Scottish 207–209 Scottish Conservative Party 16 Scottish Independence Referendum 16, 30, 32, 36, 207 Scottish Labour Party 16 Scottish Liberal Democrat Party 16 Scottish National Party 16, 30, 207 Scottishness 46, 47, 54, 56 Searle, John 172, 173

220     Index

self 94, 96, 101, 102, 104, 109, 111–117, 119 semantic contrast 94, 96, 117, 119 Shearer, David 134 Sikk, A. 89, 91 social change 61, 63, 84 social group 61, 63, 77–79, 81, 83, 85 social media 132, 140, 142, 143, 151, 152, 154, 156 social welfare 128, 129, 133 socio-cognitive approach 95 socio-linguistic approach 92 soft power 97 source 98, 100, 101, 106, 109–112, 114 Speech Act assertive 23, 172 commissives 173, 177, 182 declarative 9 directives 24, 182, 185–189 expressives 182 Speech Act Theory 23 stance 131, 139, 141, 144 affective 137 alignment 131, 138, 141, 143, 148 T

Taggart, Paul 3–5, 15, 20 tags 100 Taguieff, Pierre-André 6, 166–168, 198 Tall poppy 137, 154

target 100, 110 technocratic 62, 73, 84, 85 themes 64, 66, 68, 72, 78, 84 transcription 134 Trudeau, Justin 17 Trump, Donald 6, 14, 17, 22–24, 151, 165, 166, 170–174, 176, 177, 179, 181, 185, 191–193, 198–200, 202, 212, 213 U

United Kingdom 29–31, 37–40, 43, 46, 50 unmet needs 200, 201, 203 V

Van Dijk, T.A. 100 voters 126, 131, 132, 150 older 135, 143, 144, 151, 152 younger 134, 139, 151, 152, 154 W

Wellington 133, 134, 137, 141 Westminster 16, 44, 48, 50, 53, 208, 209 Wilders, Geert 12, 14 the will of the people 3 Wodak, Ruth 11, 13, 210 Woodhams, Jay M. 21, 210 word count 98 Worsley, Peter 2