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ABSTRACT
Cultural heritage is a central domain for key populist themes of threats to national identity and protection of ‘the majority’ against cosmopolitan, ‘wokist’ elites. The article explores how differing government discursive strategies towards populism influence heritage policies. It takes the case of contested public statues. In France, the government has adopted a discursive strategy of ‘patriotic Republicanism’ that reduced the discursive space for contestation and policy has remained largely unchanged. But in Britain and Hungary, governments have increasingly adopted populist discourses, leading to countervailing discursive coalitions, contestation and change in agendas and decisions in both populist and non-populist directions. The proposition developed is that national governments pursuing populist discursive strategies triggers anti-populist discursive coalitions, with contestation and changes in agendas, institutions and individual decisions. Conversely, governments developing their own nationalistic discourses reduces the scope for populist ones but also leads to freezing of existing policies.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my thanks to Dora Hegedus, Noa Krikler and Anna de Wit for valuable research assistance, to Claudio Radaelli, Kim Scheppele, Vivien Schmidt and Jonathan Zeitlin and three anonymous reviewers for detailed and constructive criticisms. Equally I would like to thanks the editors of the journal and of the special issue, Erik Jones and Anja Thomas, for their constant support and excellent research workshops.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The special issue is focused on Europe, but statue wars’ go well beyond – e.g., the US, South Africa and Latin America. Among the vast literatures on monuments that cover non-European areas, see e.g., Decker, Citation2023; Rodenberg & Wagenaar, Citation2018, special feature on ‘Urban Falllism’ in City (2020) 3–4: 552–667; Thompson, Citation2022; Upton, Citation2015.
2 France Infos 13.6.2020 – https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/afrique/societe-africaine/saint-louis-du-senegal-et-lille-faut-il-deboulonner-le-general-faidherbe_3055373.html accessed 3 February 2023.
3 La Dépêche du Midi 24.3.2022.
4 Le Monde 24.6.2020.
5 Bulletin Quotidien 4.9.2020.
6 Le Figaro 17.12.2020.
7 Le Figaro 17.12.2020, L’Express 15.6 2020,
8 Le Monde 24.6.2020; Dolan & Tower, Citation2022.
9 L’Express 10.11.2021.
10 E.g., Louis-Georges Tin, ‘Tribune’, Le Monde 22.6.2022; see also Professor Bertrand Tillier, France Infos 13.6.2020.
11 France Infos 13.6.2020.
12 Linfo.re 27.7.2020, Actualités Martinique 27.7.2020, La Nouvelle Tribune 27.7.2020.
13 La famille chrétienne 6.1.2022.
14 Libération 10.6.2020 (for a fierce critique, see Tevanian 2021, ch 11).
15 Le Figaro 22.1.2022.
16 E.g., Riss (Laurent Sourisseau) in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo 2.6.2021 and Laurent Joffrin, Libération 10.6.2020.
17 Le Figaro 13.12.2021.
18 https://eduscol.education.fr/2477/portraits-de-france, last accessed 24 May 2023.
19 L’Obs 7.2.2022.
20 The Guardian 29.5.2021, 29.7.2022.
21 Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph 14.6.2020.
22 See Finn 2021.
23 Tom Hunt MP, The Times 6.2.2022.
24 Daily Express 11.1.2020.
25 The Irish Examiner 9.6.2020
26 Jerry Hayes MP, The Scottish Mail on Sunday 5.12.2021 and Tom Hunt MP, vice-chairman of the Commonsense Group, The Times 6.1.2022.
27 Daily Telegraph 16.1.21; see also comments by Grant Shapps (Secretary of State for Transport and former Conservative Part Chairman).
28 The Express 3.3.2021.
29 Tom Hunt MP, The Express 20.5.2021.
30 The Mail Online 23.3.2022.
31 The Mail Online 6.1.2022.
32 Gareth Bacon MP, The Express 8.12.2020 and Tom Hunt MP, The Express 28.2.2021 and The Times 6.2.2022.
33 Tom Hunt MP, The Express 20.5.2021.
34 The Express 20.5.2021.
35 Croydon Constitutionalists May 2021, http://croydonconstitutionalists.uk/robert-poll-reform-party/ accessed 12 February 2022.
36 Letter from its chairman Sir John Hayes, The Daily Telegraph 9 November 2020; The Mail Online 31.1.2021; McCafferty, Citation2021, The Guardian 20.12.2020, 30.5.2021, Financial Times 11.6.2021.
37 The Guardian 8.6.2020.
38 https://www.toppletheracists.org/ accesVsed 15 May 2023.
39 E.g., The Guardian 26.11.2020, 29.1.2021, 9.2.2021, 21.5.2021.
40 The Guardian 9.5.2021.
41 E.g., Dr Kojo Koram, The Guardian 7.2.2023, Professor David Olusoga, The Guardian 6.6.2021, Professor Simukai Chigudu, The Guardian 24.5.2021.
42 The Daily Telegraph 23.1.2021.
43 The Daily Telegraph 23.1.2021.
44 https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/history-matters/ accessed 3 May 2023.
45 The Daily Mail 6.1.22, The Guardian 7.1.22, The Independent 6.1.22.
46 https://www.bristol.gov.uk/files/documents/1825-history-commission-full-report-final/file consulted 10 February 2023: Evening Gazette 12.6.2020; The Guardian 28.5.2021.
47 https://www.bristol.gov.uk/files/documents/1824-history-commission-short-report-final/file consulted 10 February 2023, GLA Press Release 9.6.2020.
48 GLA Press Release 9.6.2020.
49 The Guardian 26.11.2020.
50 The Guardian 21.7.2020.
51 See Tristam Hunt, The Spectator 27.6.2020, The Evening Standard 9.6.2020.
52 The Guardian 11.10.2021.
53 The Guardian 28.5.2021, 4.6.2021.
54 The Guardian 29.1.2021, 26.11.2020.
55 The Guardian 25.8.2020.
56 The Guardian 15.7.2020, 19.7.2020.
57 The Art Newspaper 12.3.2021 https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/03/12/national-trusts-report-on-colonial-and-slavery-history-did-not-breach-charity-law-regulator-says; The Guardian 22.11.2022.
58 S50 on Criminal Damage to Memorials and other amendments, part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act – it removed the need for damage to be over £5000; see Ministry of Justice Circular 2022/02 June 2022.
59 Robert Jenrick, The Daily Telegraph 16.1.2021; The Daily Telegraph 23.1.2021.
60 See Article 11 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development etc.) (England) (Amendment) Order 2021.
61 Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Press Release 17.1.2021 available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-legal-protection-for-england-s-heritage.
62 Hungarian Conservative 23.09.2022.
63 Reuters 7.4.2007.
64 Index 26.0.2017,24.HU 3.11.2013, MSZP 4.11.2013.
65 24.hu 3.11.2013 and 168 3.11.2013, Index 5.4.2017.
66 Hungarian Spectrum 22.5.2012, 16.12.2015, The Forward 27.1.2021, Washington Post 14.5.2015, The Guardian 14.12.2015.
67 Madiner 9.1.2014.
68 Hvg.hu 31.10.2019.
69 Politika 7.12.2018.
70 Walker https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/say-it-with-statues-brick-and-mortar-revisionism-in-orbans-hungary/ and Civic Nation https://civic-nation.org/hungary/society/glorification_of_nazism/monuments_to_collaborators/ accessed 2 July 2023.
71 MSZP 4.11.13.
72 24.hu 20.2.2014, The Forward 27.1.2021, Washington Post 14.5.2015, The Guardian 14.12.2015.
73 Index 20.7.2014; Krzyżanowska, Citation2023, The Budapest Beacon 21.7.2014, Reuters 22.1.2014.
74 Mérce 28.12.2018, 31.12.2018, Politika 25.6.2018, 7.12.2018, Index 9.12.2018, 28.12.2018, Euronews 28.12.2018.
75 Hungarian Spectrum 22.5.2012, 30.9.2013, 16.12.2015.
76 168.hu 5.7.2020, 444.hu 5.11, 2021.
77 Hvg.hu 15.5.2017.
78 Euronews 28.12.2018, Index 28.12.2018.
79 Index 20.7.2020.
80 Krzyanowska 2023, HIRTV 21.7.2014.
81 The Guardian 5.1.2021.
82 Interview, Euronews 16.6.2020.
83 The Guardian 5.1.2021.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mark Thatcher
Mark Thatcher, Professor of Politics, Department of Political Science, Luiss University, Rome, works on comparative public policy and regulation in Europe. Recent publications on cultural heritage include: ‘Differentiated implementation and European integration: the development of EU food quality labelling', West European Politics, 47:3 (2024) (with Monica Garcia Quesada), ‘Constructing the EU's political identity in policy making' (with Sabine Saurugger), Comparative European Politics (2019) and ‘The state and historic buildings: preserving “the national past”’, Nations and Nationalism (2018).