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Abstract
Populism is, besides nationalism, one of the common components of today’s radical right politics. In fact, populism and nationalism are often conflated when assessing radical right identity formation, ideology and discourses. This article sheds light on the relationship between nationalism and populism by empirically investigating the presence and forms of populist (people vs. elites) and nationalist (ethno-national people vs. others) frames in the discourse of radical right parties and movements in Italy and Germany. By applying a frame analysis to written documents (election flyers, party programmes, newspapers) produced between 2013 and 2016, as well as current website material (press releases, newsletters, blogs) of selected radical right organisations, this article examines how nationalism and populism interact, overlap and potentially clash. We look at how populist and nationalist frames structure the radical right’s definition of “us” and “them” and its diagnoses, prognoses and motivations for action. We find that radical right-wing forces increasingly combine populist with nationalist frames, but the forms of populism on the radical right depend on the national political context and on the type of organisation—for parties, populism has become a central feature of their discourse; social movements exhibit only a peripheral conceptualisation of populism.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
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2. Updated in 2016: https://www.alternativefuer.de/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/05/2016-06-27_afd-grundsatzprogramm_web-version.pdf (accessed 1 October 2016).
3. See: https://www.alternativefuer.de/ (accessed 16 September 2017).
4. See: http://www.identitaere-bewegung.de/ (accessed 30 August 2016).
5. See: http://www.identitaere-generation.info/ (accessed 11 September 2016).
6. The heterogeneity of the movement's participants, coupled with the absence of a political programme (there are only a few one-page position papers published) and the unwillingness of Pegida members to talk to media representatives, makes it difficult to make valid claims about the discourse of Pegida (Daphi et al. Citation2015).
7. Updated in 2015: http://www.forzanuova.eu/programma%20politico.pdf (accessed 30 August 2016).
8. See: http://www.forzanuova.eu/ (accessed 15 August).
9. See: http://www.radiofn.eu/blog-style/ (accessed 2 October 2017).
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13. This means that, as for the source “website”, all of the pages of one organisational website have been regrouped in only one written document, “scanned” and analysed through the programme yoshikoder. Therefore, the results of the tables consider all of the website text as the ”unit of analysis”.
14. The change in the political climate was illustrated by the emergence of Pegida in 2015 (Nye Citation2015). Pegida often uses a populist and nationalist framing strategy characterised by critiques of the politicians’ asylum and immigration policies directed against the totality of established politicians; dissatisfaction against the media elites as well (the “liar press”) (Daphi et al. Citation2015); and the identification of Pegida with the people (Cuperus Citation2015).
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17. On this night, more than 1000 women were sexually assaulted in Cologne. Amongst the 151 suspects identified by the police, 149 were non-Germans with the vast majority coming from Algeria and Morocco.
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27. For more information on “Great Exchange”, see: https://www.identitaere-bewegung.de/faq/was-meint-der-begriff-grosser-austausch-und-wer-ist-schuld-daran/ (accessed 16 March 2017).
28. See: http://www.forzanuova.eu/?page_id=3734 (accessed 28 March 2017).
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31. See: http://www.forzanuova.eu/?page_id=3734 (accessed 29 March 2017).
32. See: http://www.forzanuova.eu/?page_id=3842 (accessed 29 March 2017).
33. See: http://www.forzanuova.eu/?page_id=3734 (accessed 29 March 2017).
34. See: http://www.forzanuova.eu/?page_id=3842FN (accessed 29 March 2017).
35. See: http://www.forzanuova.eu/?page_id=3842FN (accessed 29 March 2017).
36. See: https://www.docdroid.net/iEyLzrj/brochurechisiamo.pdf.html (accessed 29 March 2017).
37. See note 35.
38. See note 35.
39. See: http://www.casapounditalia.org/# (accessed 29 March 2017).
40. See: http://www.casapounditalia.org/p/ufficio-stampa.html (accessed 29 March 2017).
41. See: http://www.casapounditalia.org/p/ufficio-stampa.html (accessed 29 March 2017).
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44. See: http://94.23.251.8/∼casapoun/images/unanazione.pdf (accessed 29 March 2017).
45. See: http://www.casapounditalia.org/p/le-faq-di-cpi.html (accessed 29 March 2017).
46. See: http://www.casapounditalia.org/p/ufficio-stampa.html (accessed 29 March 2017).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Manuela Caiani
Manuela Caiani (corresponding author) is associate professor at the Institute of Human and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) of Florence, Italy.
Patricia Kröll
Patricia Kröll is researcher for a project on right-wing extremism and the Internet in Central/Eastern Europe at the Institute of Human and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) of Florence, Italy.