THE PURE PEOPLE VERSUS THE CORRUPT ELITES
a critical discourse analysis of the determinants
for left- and right-wing populist support
HANNAH SWEERING
July 2020
Table of contents 1. Introduction 1. Introduction ……….………..……….. p. 3 2. Theoretical framework 2. Theoretical framework ………..………. p. 6 2.1 Defining populism ……… p. 6 2.2 Economic anxiety ……… p. 8 2.3 Cultural backlash ..……….. p. 10 2.4 Recommendations by Mudde and Kaltwasser ……… p. 12 2.5 Research question ……… p. 13
3. Case studies
3. Case studies ……….………..……….. p. 15 3.1 Alternative für Deutschland ……… p. 15 3.2 Die Linke ..………. p. 15 3.3 German federal elections ..………. p. 16
4. Methodology
4. Methodology ……….………..……… p. 17 4.1 Critical Discourse Analysis ……….. p. 17 4.2 Socio-cognitive approach ……….. p. 18 4.3 Methodological approach and hypotheses ………. p. 19
5. Discourse analysis
5. Discourse analysis ……… p. 21 5.1 The 2017 Political Program of the Alternative für Deutschland …… p. 21 5.1.1 Nostalgic deprivation ……….. p. 21 5.1.2 Anti-elitism ……… p. 25 5.2 The 2017 Political Program of Die Linke ……… p. 28 5.2.1 Nostalgic deprivation .……… p. 28 5.2.2 Anti-elitism ……… p. 30 5.3 Discourse comparison ……… p. 33
6. Conclusion and discussion
6. Conclusion and discussion ………. p. 34 6.1 Key findings and contribution ……… p. 34 6.2 Discussion and suggestions for future research ………. p. 35 7. Bibliography ……….. p. 37
1. Introduction
Over the past decades, the European political landscape has been undergoing major transformations. In the blink of an eye, Europe has witnessed the electoral success of radical left- and right-wing parties–or so-called populist parties. Europeans observed the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union (EU), the birth of the radical left Syriza in Greece, France stripping of citizenship from naturalized citizens who got in trouble with the police, Podemos entering government in Spain, the Netherlands precluding further immigration by declaring the state as “full”, and the rise of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy. Research on the performance of populist parties in 31 European countries conducted by The Guardian (2018) shows that populism has been on the rise in Europe consistently since at least 1998. When then, at the turn of the century, populist parties were only a blip on the horizon of European politics, with only 7% of the votes cast populist; now, it has surged to more than 25% (Henley, J., 2018). The picture is unambiguous continent-wide: in 1998, 12.5 million Europeans were living in a country with one or more populist cabinet members; in 2018, that number has risen tenfold to 170.2 million (Lewis et al., 2018). It can thus be argued that populism has fully entered into European political life and has not only moved towards unsettling the mainstream, but rather, has become mainstream itself.
Though in the European context more emphasis has been placed on radical right-wing populism, a 2017 study by political scientists Matthijs Rooduijn and Tjitske Akkerman shows that it is not a party’s position on the general left-right spectrum which affects its degree of populism but, rather, its left-right radicalness determines its degree of populism. And thus, the radical right
and the radical left are both inclined to employ populist discourse (2017, p. 195). Research shows
that the share of votes of European left-wing populists in national elections has begun to increase, which has given rise to challenger parties such as La France Insoumise and Podemos (Lewis et al., 2018). This nation- and party-wide surge of populism raises the question of what has triggered European populist support overall.
Populism has become a politically contested concept with many different definitions, causes and effects attached to it. In recent years, the scope of research on populism has grown exponentially and it continues to broaden. Academic scholarship has increasingly devoted attention to advancing coherent conceptualizations, and therefore, it may not come as a surprise that “populism” was declared the Cambridge Dictionary 2017 Word of the Year (University of Cambridge, 2017). Rather than formulating its own conceptualizations, this thesis seeks to employ the lessons that the extensive existing literature has to offer and build upon these.
Throughout the scholarship, different accounts for explaining the electoral fortunes of populist parties include “(1) the demand-side of public opinion, (2) the supply-side of party strategies, and (3) constitutional arrangements governing the rules of the electoral
game” (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 1). Analyzing explanations for populist support entails
examining the demand-side. Here too, extensive research has been performed, yet two common arguments explaining mass support can be extracted and those two theories have been examined and clearly put forward in a comprehensive work by Ronald F. Inglehart and Pippa Norris (2016).
The first of which is the economic inequality perspective, which links the transformation of the workforce and society due to profound changes in post-industrial economies to electoral behavior. It is argued that as a response to market-oriented and neoliberal policies, which have exacerbated economic insecurity and social deprivation, the ‘losers’ from global markets have turned to the political fringe, to populist parties, for protection. According to this view, the rising income insecurity and grievances among the left-behinds has made
“the less secure strata of society – low-waged unskilled workers, the long-term unemployed, households dependent on shrinking social benefits, residents of public housing, single-parent families, and poorer white populations living in inner-city areas with concentrations of immigrants – susceptible to the anti-establishment, nativist, and xenophobic scare-mongering exploited of populist movements, parties, and leaders, blaming ‘Them’ for stripping prosperity, job opportunities, and public services from ‘Us’” (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 1).
The second explanation for contemporary voting for populist parties that Inglehart and Norris put forward is the cultural backlash thesis. This account argues that the surge in populist voting can not merely be explained through economic phenomena, but in large part is related to a
generational backlash reacting against long-term shifts in progressive and liberal social values since the 1970s, which have ensured greater social tolerance of diverse cultures, religions, and lifestyles. The argument is based on the ‘silent revolution’ theory of value change which holds that
“The unprecedentedly high levels of existential security experienced by the people of developed Western societies during the postwar decades brought an intergenerational shift toward post-materialist values such as the Greens and other progressive movements advocating environmental protection, human rights, and gender equality” (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 3).
The cultural backlash thesis contends that these developments have triggered a so-called ‘counter-revolutionary retro backlash’ among the segments of the population that resent the decline of traditional social values–particularly among white men, the older generation, and the less educated–and that this has created a pool of voters potentially susceptible to nostalgic populist appeals (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 3). This resentment towards cultural trends requires an organizational outlet for expression on the supply-side of the equation; it is here that the populist message functions as a mechanism for channeling resistance by rhetorically harkening back to a time before (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 16).
The applicability of these two theories has been questioned by the renowned political scientists Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (2018). In their elaborate work which outlines a substantial part of the research done on populism, they critique the economic anxiety thesis and the cultural backlash thesis by addressing their shortcomings whilst also pointing out their overall potential and their potential avenue for future research. They argue that there is a lack of applicability for the entire political spectrum, as both are more useful for understanding the electoral success of the populist radical right than for populism per se (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018,
p. 1673). In the case of economic anxiety, “most studies show that there is only a weak relationship between (relative) “losers of globalization” and voting for populist radical right parties” (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018, p. 1674-1675). Rather than economic hardship, radical right voting has more to do with a perceived drop in status; and thus, the greater the loss of, or threat to, status, the higher the chance of support for radical right parties. This links radical right support to the phenomenon of nostalgic deprivation, which outlines the discrepancy between individuals’ perceptions about their past and their understandings of the current state (Gest et al., 2018). However, in this form, nostalgic deprivation is exclusively linked to right-wing populism whilst almost all political–and especially populist–parties today sell a type of nostalgia. Similar to economic anxiety, the cultural backlash thesis–in its current form–is also only applicable to populist parties that promote a nativist agenda. The authors explain that populist radical right parties seize to combine populism and nativism in their messaging but that the two are separate phenomena: where the former represents a clash between “the people” and “the corrupt elite”, the latter alludes to an ethnic division between “insiders” and “outsiders”.
Overall, Mudde and Kaltwasser contend that both theses could become more useful to the study of the electoral success of populism per se–and thus including radical right-wing as well as left-wing populism–if both interpretations are tailored away from nativism and more toward populism in general. Yet little has been done to test these contributions. And therefore, in light of the above presented existent theoretical debate on the explanations for the rise of populism in the European context, this thesis seeks to add onto the debate by examining Mudde and
Kaltwasser’s contribution by testing whether economic anxiety and cultural backlash could also be relevant determinants for explaining radical left-wing populist support.
In what follows, this thesis will seek to tackle this central research problem. First, in the theoretical framework, the definition of populism that has been chosen for the purpose of this paper will be clarified. The theoretical framework will also elaborate further on the economic anxiety and cultural backlash theses and Mudde and Kaltwasser’s critiques and recommendations hereon; after which, the research question will be posed. Second, a short introduction of the German case studies will be set out. Third, in the methodology section, the method of analysis used for this research will be outlined. Fourth, in the analysis, the theory reviewed will be applied to the specific case studies. And lastly, in the final section, conclusions from the analysis will be drawn and limitations of this study and recommendations for future research will be provided.
2. Theoretical framework 2.1 Defining populism
As briefly mentioned in the introduction, populism has become a contested concept within the academic debate. It has been defined as a style, a form of organization, a strategy, an
ideology and as a discourse. Yet increasingly, scholars seem to agree that populism should be interpreted as a set of ideas with at its core the idea that “the people” are exploited by “the elite” (Rooduijn & Akkerman, 2017). This is the conceptualization that Mudde and Kaltwasser employ, and this thesis, too, shall adopt this ideational approach to populism.
According to the ideational approach, populism is “a set of ideas that not only depicts society as being divided between “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, but also claims that politics is about respecting popular sovereignty at any cost (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018, p. 1669). In that, the approach is following Cas Mudde’s definition; he argues that populism is a thin-centered ideology that on the one hand understands society to contain out of two antagonistic and relatively homogeneous groups –‘the pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite’– and on the other hand believes that politics should express the general will–volonté générale–of the people (Mudde, 2004). Through this division of society into groups, populists deem to clarify their aim of emancipating the oppressed group and changing their status (Mudde, 2004). Yet the vague definition of ‘the people’ leaves room for interpretation, and therefore Mudde proposes the use of an alternative term, ‘the heartland’, which was introduced by Paul Taggart. This heartland is, as Mudde (2004) describes it, “a place in which, in the populist imagination, a virtuous and unified population resides” (p. 545). Though not very descriptive, the concept does help clarify that ‘the people’ which populists claim to defend are not real but, rather, are an imagined or constructed subgroup of the population (Mudde, 2004). Against this glorified ‘people’, populism posits some form of ‘corrupt elite’ as its adversary. This elite can take on many different forms –power elite, cultural elite, moneyed elite– and that, in turn, makes the populist argument rather fluid. This taps into the idea of populism often being combined with some ‘host’ ideology. As populism’s
programmatic scope is limited since it does not express a world-view from which policy recommendations can be derived, it requires other ideological elements in order to promote political projects to a broader public (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018; Rico et al., 2017). This thin-centered ideology sets populism apart from classical ideologies such as liberalism and fascism. Mudde and Kaltwasser (2018) exemplify such ideological combinations as follows:
“For instance, right-wing exclusionary versions of populism usually rely on nativism to depict a narrow ethnic
understanding of who the members of “the pure people” are, whereas left-wing inclusionary types of populism normally rely on socialism to advance a definition of “the pure people” that embraces the socioeconomic underdog” (p. 1669-1670).
Its ideological ubiquity allows populism to be attached to host ideologies on both the left and right side of the political spectrum. Its main ideas –the people, the elite, the general will– can accommodate different interpretations and thereby allow people with opposing ideological views
to be equally susceptible to populist discourse (Rico et al., 2017; Segatti & Capuzzi, 2016). By combining populism with other ideologies and through applying their own meanings to populism’s main ideas, populists are capable of politicizing grievances relevant to their own context. But, even though the form of anti-elitism differs between populist left parties and populist right parties, what unites all populists is the general message that the interests of “the pure people” are neglected by “the corrupt elite” (Rooduijn & Akkerman, 2017; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018). And though left-wing populism may not share right-wing populism’s straightforward nativist exclusionary politics, the construction of an in- and out-group is exclusionary in itself. And therefore, it can be concluded that “exclusionary narratives are a defining element of all populist communication of whatever political stripe” (Sanders et al., 2017, p. 16). This people-centric and anti-elitist attitude of populists has resulted in them favoring popular sovereignty–or majority rule–and in them being prone to claim that this popular will cannot be bypassed. This tendency has led to an academic debate on the ambivalent relationship between populism and democracy, on which Mudde and Kaltwasser take the following stance:
“In short, populism is at odds with liberal democracy rather than with democracy per se. Nevertheless, when defending liberal democracy over populist forces, what most scholars tend to forget is that liberalism unchecked by democracy can easily deteriorate into oligarchy or technocracy. In fact, populism is in many ways an illiberal democratic response to undemocratic liberalism” (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018, p. 1670).
In sum, the ideational approach presents a broad definition of populism that contends that populism consists of a set of ideas that divides society between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite” and which claims that politics is about respecting popular sovereignty at any cost.
Yet, there are other conceptualizations of populism to be found in the political science literature and one of which is especially worth mentioning. Political scientist Jan-Werner Müller argues that populism contains an “inner logic” which consists of two fundamental elements: anti-elitism and anti-pluralism. He counters the ideational approach by arguing that populism is rather a particular moralistic imagination of politics, where there not only exists a distinction between the people and the elite, but in which the former is also conceived as morally pure and the latter as morally inferior. Müller argues that
“It is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to be critical of elites in order to qualify as a populist. Otherwise, anyone criticizing the powerful and the status quo in any country would by definition be a populist. In addition to being anti-elitist, populists are always anti-pluralist: populists claim that they, and only they, represent the people. Other political competitors are just part of the immoral, corrupt elite, or so populists say, while not having power themselves, they will not recognize anything like a legitimate opposition” (Müller, 2016, p. 19-20).
His core claim therefore holds that populism is a moralized form of anti-pluralism and that merely appealing to and advocating for “the people” is inadequate for qualifying as populism. Political
people– and reject all other political competitors in order to qualify as populist (Müller, 2016). In
this authoritarian notion of populism, it is argued that the voice of the people –which populists claim to represent– is essentially replaced by the singular voice of the populist leaders and the political opponents are rhetorically turned into public enemies. And thus, in the words of Federico Finchelstein (2017), “like fascism, populism does not recognize a legitimate political place for an opposition that it regards as acting against the desires of the people and that it also accuses of being tyrannical, conspiratorial, and antidemocratic” (p. 4). This non-institutionalized notion of the people signifies that populists assume that the will of the morally pure people is not represented through the formal structures of democracy, and that therefore traditional institutions are not to be trusted (Müller, 2016).
In response to Müller claiming that populism’s essential trait is a rejection of pluralism, Bojan Bugaric (2019) offers the following rebuttal:
“Portrayed in this way, populism becomes almost identical to authoritarianism and dictatorship. … While Müller’s definition accurately captures the “inner logic” of one particular type of populism, authoritarian populism, it leaves out many other possible types of populism, which do not necessarily share the same characteristics” (p. 393).
Bugaric argues that the the tendency to juxtapose populism with constitutionalism and to making it incompatible with constitutionalism is wrong. According to him, populism –beyond its shared common features of anti-elitism, popular sovereignty, and direct democracy– is chameleon-like, can adapt to the colors of its environment, and therefore comes in a variety of forms (Bugaric, 2019). Instead of reducing it to one particular type, we should recognize populism’s Janus-faced nature and distinguish between the authoritarian face of populism and the emancipatory one. He contends that “despite the current hegemony of authoritarian populism, a far different sort of populism is possible: democratic and anti-establishment populism, which combines elements of liberal and democratic convictions” (p. 395) and that when “looking at the current populist map, we can also find examples of such democratic populists, which seek to protect and defend democracy by making it more responsive, equitable and inclusive” (p. 390).
Overall, the main problem with Müller’s approach to populism is that it highlights only specific features of populism which are not necessarily relevant for all populist forces. Since this thesis is interested in examining both right- and left-wing populism, it will follow the
aforementioned ideational approach of populism as this delimits the boundaries of the phenomenon.
2.2 Economic anxiety
One of the commonly used arguments for explaining populist support which Inglehart and Norris highlight in their work is the economic anxiety thesis. This perspective, as was briefly introduced in the introduction, focuses on the rising levels of income insecurity and grievances among the so-called “losers” from global markets. It is argued that, despite significant economic
growth, most people in developed Western nations have seen their real income stagnate or decline whilst the gains have almost entirely gone to the top percentages of the population. This growing income and wealth inequality in the West can be linked to the arrival of globalization in the second half of the twentieth century, which entailed the delinking of the economy from the national cadre and instead aimed towards turning states into global market players.
Consequences of the neoliberal and market-oriented policies that entered due to this pursuit of consolidating the world market include: the collapse of the manufacturing industry; the erosion of organized labor; technological automation; shrinking welfare safety-nets; decreased capacity of governments to stem migration flows or regulate investment decisions of multinational
corporations; and neoliberal austerity measures (Inglehart & Norris, 2016). This disembodiment of markets from society under neoliberal elite leadership is blamed for aggravating income
inequality, stagnant wages, and the loss of jobs (Inglehart & Norris, 2016). Accordingly, this activated resentment toward established political classes among the left-behinds, and the latter’s need to find protection in movements that put people at the centre again grew (Gonzalez-Vicente & Carroll, 2017; Inglehart & Norris, 2016).
The economic inequality argument directly couples these developments to the rise of support for populism; arguing that, as a response to the elite-consensus around neoliberalism, those seeking protection turn to where the divisions between the “losers” and “winners” from global markets are reflected and to where the elite-consensus is being called into question (Gonzalez-Vicente & Carroll, 201). Thus claiming that dissenters turn to populist parties for protection, as they “promise to restore the past golden age” (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 12). Inglehart and Norris (2016) contend that:
“Socially-disadvantaged groups are most prone to blame ethnic minorities and migrant populations for deteriorating conditions, loss of manufacturing jobs, and inadequate welfare services. Populists often advocate protectionist policies like trade barriers and tariffs, and they commonly attack governments for failing to provide the growing prosperity and sense of shared community that was characteristic of postwar societies” (p. 11).
In this argument, economic vulnerability is linked to the rejection of outsiders and it is alleged that
“when threatened, groups are thought to seek strong authoritarian leaders to protect them from what are perceived as dangerous outsiders seen as threatening jobs and benefits” (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 11).
Altogether, the economic insecurity thesis understands populist support as a product of economic transformations that have led to income inequality, economic winners and losers of globalization, and a loss of faith in the capability of mainstream parties to respond to concerns.
In reference to the economic inequality thesis, Mudde and Kaltwasser (2018) offer the following contribution: they argue that the thesis is closely related to the “losers of globalization” thesis, which holds that:
“Economic transformations results in the formation of a new underclass, which feels threatened by the arrival of immigrants as well as the ongoing societal transformations, and thus votes for reactionary political forces that promise to return to an idealized image of the past characterized by its ethnic homogeneity and social cohesion” (p. 1674).
The overlap with the “losers of globalization” thesis helps clarify how the economic inequality thesis explains populist support through the cultural framing of economic anxiety; however, it is only useful for explaining radical right populist support, as it logically only applies to nativist populists (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018). Leaving its limited applicability aside, the authors critique the thesis in general for being theoretically underdeveloped. When put in terms of absolute –such as unemployment or low income– or relative deprivation, neither show a strong relationship between the “losers of globalization” and populist radical right voting (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018, p. 1674-1675). Rather, the cause should be traced back to people’s perception of economic hardship. Mudde and Kaltwasser put forward two studies that underscore this effect.
One study by Matthijs Rooduijn and Brian Burgoon (2018) introduces the concept of social
envy which shows that the perception of individual economic hardship is strongly conditioned by
aggregate socioeconomic circumstances and that this plays out for voting. Interestingly, this relationship is paradoxical as “individual economic suffering might foster left and right radicalism, but mainly when that suffering takes place amid favorable conditions at the aggregate
level” (Rooduijn & Burgoon, 2018, p. 1720). Meaning that the less well-off strata of society are more inclined to vote populist when living under favorable socioeconomic circumstances, as they benchmark their personal evaluation of economic wellbeing against the conditions at the national level (Rooduijn & Burgoon, 2018). Relatedly, Justin Gest, Tyler Reny, and Jeremy Mayer (2018) developed an index which measured the individual sense of political, economic and social
deprivation which revealed that the larger the threat to –or loss of– status, the greater the chances of voters supporting the radical right. Hereby demonstrating that radical right voting is more related to a perceived drop in status than to economic hardship per se. They argue that:
“Radical right support is the product of a latent psychological phenomenon [… called] nostalgic deprivation – the discrepancy between individuals’ understandings of their current status and their perceptions about the past” (2018, p. 1695).
In this vein, however, nostalgic deprivation is linked exclusively to the populist right, thereby making partisan identity a defining factor for explaining populist voting patterns (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018, p. 1676).
2.3 Cultural backlash
The second often utilized explanation for populist support put forward by Inglehart and Norris is the cultural backlash thesis. This perspective focuses on the effect that progressive cultural change has had on populist voting behavior and thereby builds on the ‘silent revolution’ theory of value change. The silent revolution refers to the cultural shift that occurred during the
1970s, and which is broadly attributed to the high levels of existential security that people in Western societies experienced during these postwar decades. It is argued that this sense of security has brought a cultural transformation,
“Exemplified by growing support in public opinion for post-materialist over traditional values, and by the organizational expression of these values in the late-twentieth century through the rise of new cultural issues, social movements, and political parties” (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 13).
The rise of these post-materialist values–such as multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism–among the younger cohorts has generated support for progressive movements advocating human rights, racial and gender equality, environmental protection, and overseas aid (Inglehart & Norris, 2016). The generational aspect of this value change translates to post-materialists gradually becoming more numerous in the population and in the political debate. Their partaking has led to growing emphasis on cultural issues and to attention drawing away from classic economic redistribution issues. Though the latter remains a large issue, its prominence has declined in so far that non-economic issues have become more prominent in political party campaigning (Inglehart & Norris, 2016). As the authors contend,
“Today, many of the most heated conflicts are cultural – based on issues such as immigration, the threat of terrorism, abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and more fluid gender identities and support for progressive change on these issues increasingly comes from well-educated younger generations of Post-materialists, largely of middle class origin” (p. 24).
Yet instead of inexorably moving post-industrial societies in a progressive direction, the silent revolution of the 1970s has triggered a –what Inglehart and Norris termed– “counter-revolutionary retro backlash” among those threatened by the erosion of once predominant traditional values. The argument made is that:
“Large segments of the population, particularly older people, white men, and those with less formal qualifications, resent the displacement of their traditional social values and this creates a dissatisfied pool of potential voters who are susceptible to seductive populist appeals that offer a return to a ‘golden age’ of national identity and traditional social values” (Speed & Mannion, 2017).
The once culturally predominant sectors have become alienated, are left-behind with progressive cultural values they do not share, and are in search of a bulwark against these processes of value change. In the cultural backlash thesis, this nostalgic reaction against progressive value change is linked to rising populist support. Inglehart and Norris maintain that “populism is a form of rhetoric claiming that legitimate authority flows from the vox populi (‘Us’), not the establishment liberal elite (‘Them’)” (p. 14), and that the popularity of populist parties in Europe is induced by this ideological appeal. They argue that:
“This nostalgia is most likely to appeal to older citizens who have seen changes erode their cultural predominance and threaten their core social values, potentially provoking a response expressing anger, resentment, and political disaffection” (p. 16).
Following Inglehart and Norris, xenophobia is just a part of a far broader cultural backlash in which many other cosmopolitan and liberal values are rejected (p. 15); but Mudde and
Kaltwasser do not share this understanding. They understand the cultural backlash argument to link multiculturalism and mass immigration to the rise of populist parties, resulting in support for these parties being an expression of nativism primarily (p. 1676). Yet where nativism signifies an ethnic division, the ideational approach refers to populism as a moral clash between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”. And thus, the two are separate phenomena, yet:
“By combining populism and nativism, populist radical right parties are able to advance a frame according to which “the pure people” are the natives and the (native) establishment is corrupt because of its alleged alliance with the aliens” (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018, p. 1677).
By making use of such populist rhetoric, radical right parties are able to blame “the elite” for bringing in the “aliens” and for ignoring “their” or the “natives’” problems.
The limitation of the current form of the cultural backlash argument which Mudde and Kaltwasser put forward is that “theoretically, it can only be related to populist parties that also advance a nativist agenda, mostly the populist radical right, but not to radical left populists” (p. 1678).
2.4 Recommendations by Mudde and Kaltwasser
Overall, what becomes clear is that Inglehart and Norris argue that economic anxiety and cultural backlash in their current form can also be linked to left-wing populism, whereas Mudde and Kaltwasser disagree. They challenge this statement by arguing that that the dichotomy made between “economic anxiety” and “cultural backlash” is derived from literature on radical right populism, which specifically combines populism with nativism and authoritarianism (Mudde, 2007), and thus:
“Although there is obviously a conceptual overlap between the populist radical right and populism, and therefore some theoretical overlap too, the two are not the same. The populist radical right does not derive its xenophobic tendencies from its populism but from its nativism, that is, the idea that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (“the nation”) and that that nonnative (“aliens”) are threatening to the alleged homogeneity of the nation-state” (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2018, p. 1673).
Therefore, in its present form, both the economic anxiety and the cultural backlash thesis suffer from theoretical and empirical weaknesses when linked to populism overall instead of radical right populism in particular. If the aim is to make the theories applicable to populism per se, then they
should be adapted and tailored more toward populism than nativism. To do so, the authors offer recommendations for both theses.
As it stands, nostalgic deprivation is linked exclusively to the populist right; yet there is no theoretical reason for this. According to Mudde and Kaltwasser, all political parties sell some form of nostalgia, and this especially holds true for populist parties. These parties
“often refer to a mythical time of a shared heartland–a version of the past that celebrates an uncomplicated and nonpolitical territory of imagination from which populist draw their own version of their unified and ordinary constituency” (p. 1676).
If no explicit reference to ethnic minorities is made but the concept of nostalgic deprivation is, rather, understood as the act of referring to some type of mythical past of a shared heartland, it could relate to populism in general. Mudde and Kaltwasser continue that:
“For instance, it could be operationalized in terms of nostalgia for a “socialist” past of economic equality and lavish welfare state to research nostalgic deprivation of left populists” (p. 1676).
Cultural backlash too is limited to the cadre of the populist right hitherto. But by tailoring its interpretation away from nativism and more toward populism in general, it becomes relevant for the populist left as well. Above all, what is key to the populist message is its appeal to anti-elitism by distinguishing between “the people” and “the elite”. As Mudde and Kaltwasser allege,
“It is this backlash against the unauthentic, global culture of “the elite” … that all populists share. After all, both left and right populists argue … that liberal elites represent an extremely privileged minority, which is too powerful when it comes to shaping political outcomes, and responsible for forcing through liberal reforms in an undemocratic way” (p. 1678).
By appealing to this backlash against the global culture of the elite and by refraining from specifically linking it to nativism, the cultural backlash thesis becomes useful for the study of populism overall. After all, anti-elitism is also a form of an exclusionary and stigmatizing narrative. 2.5 Research question
This thesis seeks to evaluate the accuracy and strength of the above-mentioned recommendations by testing whether economic anxiety and cultural backlash could also be relevant determinants for explaining radical left-wing populist support when the two are recognized in the form proposed by Mudde and Kaltwasser. To test this, the thesis will analyze whether the discourse offered on the supply-side of the equation rhetorically appeals to the triggers for populist support on the demand-side of the equation for both right-wing and left-wing populism. It will do so by examining whether the rhetoric that populist parties offer appeals to nostalgic deprivation and to backlash against the unauthentic global culture of the elite, which are
the interpretations of economic anxiety and cultural backlash that Mudde and Kaltwasser propose. The following research question is posed:
“To what extent does the rhetoric of radical left-wing populist parties signal that they too, when compared
to their radical right-wing populist counterparts, reflect economic anxiety and cultural backlash?”
This thesis will formulate an answer by comparing the discourse of a core European populist right-wing case –Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)– to the discourse of its populist left-right-wing counterpart –Die Linke–, in regards to their appeals to economic anxiety and cultural backlash.
3. Case studies
To test the theory put forward by Mudde and Kaltwasser which argues that economic anxiety and cultural backlash could be relevant for analyzing both right and left-wing populist support, this thesis will focus on two cases in Germany specifically. Whereas within most European countries populism has broadly taken either a right-wing form, as seen in the Netherlands and Belgium for example, or a left-wing form, mostly encountered in southern European countries; Germany serves as an example of one of the few countries exhibiting cases of both right- and left-wing populism. The reason for choosing to focus on cases of left- and right-left-wing populism within one specific country instead of comparing one country’s left-wing populist case to another’s right-wing populist case is that country-specific differences are minimized in this way and will not influence the analysis. Though France also exhibits examples of both forms of populism, namely the left-wing La France Insoumise and its right-wing counterpart Rassemblement national, this research has chosen to focus on the German cases. The reason therefore is that in Germany both parties are relatively newly founded and thus similar in size, outspokenness and influence; whereas in France, the two parties display significant differences as the Rassemblement national (formerly known as Front national) was already established in the 1970s and La France Insoumise was only launched in 2016. And thus, the thesis will focus on researching and comparing the discourse of the 2017 party manifestos of the two core populist parties in Germany by using the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland as a baseline and comparing it to its left-wing populist counterpart party Die Linke. Below, the two parties and the context of the 2017 campaign will shortly be outlined.
3.1 Alternative für Deutschland
The right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) originated in 2013 as a neo-liberal, Eurosceptic party advocating a return to national currencies. The AfD’s discourse at that time can mainly be described as being “competition populist”, referring to the AfD’s negative stance towards the established parties (“the Altparteien”) and the latter’s discourse of
“Alternativlosigkeit” (no alternative possible) on the euro and banking bailouts. The party–hence its name–directly challenged this position and argued in opposition to both the Euro and the bailouts of European member states as it was seen as being harmful to “the people” and German “competition” (Kim, 2018). Two years after its foundation however, in 2015, Frauke Petry
reorientated the party towards its current more nationalist populist course, and therefore, in the period that followed, its emphasis on an ethno-culturally reductionist construction of “the people” has become stronger (Nociar & Thomeczek, 2018; Kim, 2018).
3.2 Die Linke
AfD’s left-wing counterpart in German politics is the in 2007 founded party Die Linke (“The Left”) which resulted from a merger of the Labour and Social Justice party and the Party of
“A joint articulation of the more traditionally socialist nodal point “social justice” with a left-wing humanist populism pitting “the people” (or “the human beings”; die Menschen) against the “profit” interests represented by the “neo-liberal consensus” (Kim, 2018, p. 14).
It has been argued that since the AfD’s reductionist turn from 2015 onwards, Die Linke has employed a strategy of displacing the AfD’s frontier of a conflict between inside and outside with a conflict between top and bottom in which the Die Linke calls for a “social offensive” or a “revolution of justice” that benefits all (Kim, 2018).
3.3 German federal elections
2017 marked the federal election of the members of the 19th Bundestag in Germany. The Bundestag is the federal parliament of Germany, and thereby the only body which is elected by the German people directly. All 598 Bundestag seats were at stake. In the previous federal election year of 2013, Die Linke had witnessed a decline of votes compared to 2009 and the AfD with a voting percentage of 4.7% had just missed the 5% barrier to enter the Bundestag. Thus, it can be stated that the federal elections of 2017 signified an important moment for both parties.
4. Methodology
There is an inextricable relationship between politics and language, as politics is mostly manifested through language and language is political intrinsically. Language does not neutrally reflect the world, social relationships and identities but, instead, plays a role in changing and creating these. And politics, in turn, in its struggle for power, utilizes this language tool to put certain political, social and economic ideas into practice. As Mehwish Malghani, Faria Saeed Khan, Saima Yousaf and Zainab Akarm (2017) put forward:
“It is evident that politics is demonstrated and observed through language. Language can serve as a tool to legitimize control and achieve hegemony that can be used to achieve a number of social and political goals” (p. 184).
This interdependence and interconnectedness of politics and language opens avenues for research in this field, especially since it is through the use of persuasive language that political discourse seeks its legitimization of power. One of such political discourses are manifesto discourses, which are mainly in written form and which discuss the policies that political parties have developed and upon which they seek to be elected into office. Due to their significance, these manifestos employ rhetorical strategies which are not found in different forms of discourse (Kyerewaa-Owusu, 2017).
In the context of manifestos, textual analysis can serve as a measure for investigating the ideas that politicians wish to communicate to their public. Given the fact that public voting
behavior is based on the ideologies presented in party manifestos, it can be argued that this form of political communication is specifically designed with the public in mind (Hawkins et al., 2019). Furthermore, the language that politicians use plays a vital role in changing people’s mindset and gaining dominance and power (Malghani et al., 2017). For these reasons, understanding the discursive strategy behind this form of political discourse and uncovering the linguistic devices which are used to give discourse structures their functions and meanings becomes all the more important. And since this thesis is interested in analyzing whether the supply-side of populist politics –namely the discourse offered by political parties in their manifestos– appeals to the demand-side of populist politics –namely the triggers for populist voting behavior–, the chosen method of analysis is indeed a form of qualitative textual analysis, namely Critical Discourse
Analysis.
4.1 Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an approach to discourse analysis –the general method of studying the usage of language in texts and its contextual meaning– which interprets language as a form of social practice with a specific purpose. It is argued that this purpose –though not necessarily apparent at the outset– is delivered to the audience through the discourse. Thus, CDA understands language as a specific action and is interested in discovering how language is utilized in order to establish dominance and power. The objective of CDA research thus involves decoding
the hidden ideologies and assumptions that lie behind words in texts that may appear neutral on the surface (Fairclough, 1998; Malghani et al., 2017). And thus, only by providing an account of the role of language in the (re)production of inequality and dominance does CDA make a significant contribution to political analyses (Van Dijk, 1993). Rather than qualifying as a single theory, CDA should be regarded as a research program with numerous discourse-analytical approaches of which the most prominent are the dialectical relational, discourse historical and socio-cognitive approaches. Though different, all approaches adhere to CDA’s principles of highlighting a correlation between language, power relations and ideology on the one hand (Jahedi et al., 2014), and sharing an understanding that “discourse does ideological work and that ideology is frequently produced and reproduced through discourse” (Sengul, 2019, p. 4) on the other hand. In sum, CDA aims to display the strategies which on the surface appear neutral, but which may in fact be ideological and which seek to reconstruct people and events for particular ends.
4.2 Socio-cognitive approach
The specific critical discourse-analytical approach employed in this thesis is Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach. Van Dijk has approached CDA on the basis of trying to understand the social relations of power and ideological structures that are involved in discourse. His socio-cognitive approach focuses on “the tripartite discourse-cognition-society model of ideology” in which he seeks to connect the macro-structure of society to the micro-structure of language (Jahedi et al., 2014, p. 32). At the macro-level is the society, which is concerned with group relations, political systems, institutions, and overall forms of power, inequality and dominance between social groups; whereas the micro-level refers to the discourse (or language use) which encloses certain ideologies (Jahedi et al., 2014). The mediating layer that lies between discourse and society is cognition. Van Dijk contends that structures of society and structures of discourse are related through actors and their minds, and he therefore focuses on social cognition as the mediating point between society and text. According to Van Dijk, social cognitions involve “”mental” or “memory” structures, representations and processes in discourse and interaction such as beliefs, evaluations, and emotions” (Jahedi et al., 2014, p. 33). The socio-cognitive approach argues that discourse is a form of memory and knowledge as discourse is stored in the short-term memory against knowledge which resides in the long-term memory (Jahedi et al., 2014). In the words of Kurt Sengul (2019), Van Dijk understands discourse as:
“The interface between society, mind and discursive interaction, suggesting that social actors involved in discourse do not only use their individual experience and strategies, they rely upon collective frames of perception” (p. 3).
In sum, the socio-cognitive approach to CDA holds that ideologies determine the structure of texts and are expressed either implicitly or explicitly through the structure of the discourse (Jahedi
et al., 2014). Since the approach argues that social structure and discourse are mediated by social cognition, it is based on the premise that:
“If language use (discourse) is, as the tenets of CDA assert, connected to the ‘construction’ of knowledge about social objects, identities, processes, etc., then that construction can only be taking place in the minds of interacting individuals” (Hart, C., 2008, p. 107).
In accordance, Van Dijk has conceptualized a framework of ‘ideological square’ through which discourse production and comprehension can be analyzed and connected to the societal context. This framework seeks to uncover the categorization of societies and people in polarized terms by pointing out textual dichotomies made of in-groups versus out-groups, or “us” versus “them”. It is argued that:
“The foundation of ideology is based on the biased attitudes of the community. Power and ideology give birth to prejudice among political parties” (Malghani et al., 2017, p. 190).
This phenomenon is illustrated through the ideological square. Van Dijk locates the ideological square of characters present in the discourse through positive self-representation and negative other-representation (Malghani et al., 2017). According to Van Dijk, character relations are mostly established in binary opposition through the use of linguistic devices, namely: a dichotomy of ‘us’, which is associated with positive norms and values, and ‘them’, which is considered as undesirable or excluded in some way.
4.3 Methodological approach and hypotheses
Since this thesis is interested in testing Mudde and Kaltwasser’s contribution by assessing whether economic anxiety and cultural backlash could also be relevant determinants for
explaining radical left-wing populist support, it has chosen to adopt and tailor Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach as it helps expose both the ideological discursive strategies used for exercising power and the polarizing dimension of ‘us’ versus ‘them’.
The focal documents used for the analysis are the 2017 party manifesto of the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland and the translation of the 2017 party manifesto of the left-wing populist party Die Linke in Germany. The reason for choosing manifestos over other forms of documentation is because they vividly and thoroughly illustrate the ideologies that parties wish to bring forward as they specifically tap into the demand-side of politics since they are composed with the aim of public support in mind.
In the analysis of these manifestos the socio-cognitive approach is tailored in such a way that the content of these manifestos is measured on the basis of two indicators. The first indicator being appeals to nostalgic deprivation, for which the tripartite discourse-cognition-society model is adopted to uncover whether and how the discourse makes use of ideological strategies by tapping into pre-existent perceptions of the past. The second indicator involves appeals to
anti-elitism, and for this the ideological square framework is used. Exposing the use of polarizing categorizations of ‘us’ and ‘them’ through analyzing forms of positive self-representation and negative other-representation respectively, will make it easier to draw conclusions on whether this polarization also involves forms of anti-elitism through a positioning of ‘them’ as “the elite”.
If Mudde and Kaltwasser’s theory holds true, this thesis would expect the comparative CDA to conclude that indicators of the two behaviors are present in both the right-wing populist AfD and the left-wing populist Die Linke. If the theory does not hold true, only part of or neither of the behaviors would be present in the discourse offered by Die Linke, and the assertion that economic anxiety and cultural backlash also explain left-wing populism falls due. Either way, the purpose of this qualitative CDA is to test the accuracy of Mudde and Kaltwasser’s proposition.
5. Discourse analysis
This section of the thesis is specifically set out to search for an indication of the accuracy of Mudde and Kaltwasser’s theory and, thus, to search for an answer to the posed research question on whether economic anxiety and cultural backlash are also reflected in left-wing populist rhetoric. The discourses of the 2017 party manifestos of two German populist parties are analyzed and compared based on their appeals to economic anxiety and cultural backlash. The analysis is structured along the following lines: first, the analysis will check whether the two theses are, indeed, present in right-wing populist discourse by analyzing the AfD party manifesto. This first analysis will serve as a baseline case against which then, second, the manifesto of Die Linke will be analyzed. So that, in the third section, the initial analysis of the AfD’s discourse can function as a means of comparison for analyzing whether Die Linke also accedes to the aforementioned appeals.
In the following analyses, the theory reviewed will be applied to the case studies through their search for possible indicators of:
(1) appeals to nostalgic deprivation in the form of glorified referrals to the past; and,
(2) appeals to anti-elitism through an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ categorization in which ‘them’ consists of an elite.
5.1 The 2017 Political Program of the Alternative für Deutschland
As briefly mentioned before, the AfD has steadily transformed from a competition populist party in which the German competition interests and “the people” formed a negative frontier against the so-called “Altparteien” to a more ethno-culturally reductionist populist party in which the native-born Germans constitute as “the people” over the last years. Since its founding in 2013 as a centre-right conservative party its ideological stance has had a Eurosceptic and
anti-immigrant tendency whilst firmly promoting German nationalism.
In the 94-page party manifesto of 2017, the AfD presented its political program and policy recommendations for the federal election year of 2017. The document is made up of a preamble and ten consecutive chapters in which the AfD’s ideas on democracy, Europe, national and foreign security, labour, family life, culture, education, immigration, and the economy are brought forward. Below, the document will be analyzed on its appeals to nostalgic deprivation and anti-elitism.
5.1.1 Nostalgic deprivation
What becomes clear from analyzing the AfD’s discourse is that it indeed connects several societal topics to a narrative of a mythical past by appealing to the memory structures of the audience, and it thereby uses nostalgic referrals to a ‘better’ past to justify its contemporary policy choices. In the preamble, the manifesto starts off with a clear statement through which it clarifies the AfD’s overall idea of direction for Germany:
“We maintain an open mind towards other nations and cultures, but wish to be and remain German at heart. Therefore, we shall continuously strive to uphold human dignity, support families with children, retain
our western Christian culture, and maintain our language and traditions in a peaceful, democratic and sovereign nation state for the German people” (p. 5).
The discourse presented distinctly encloses certain ideologies and values associated with the AfD, such as nationalism and traditional values. And therefore it serves as a prime example of the first aspect of the tripartite model, namely the micro-structure of discourse in the form of the
manifesto text containing certain ideologies.
In the chapters that follow the preamble, the macro-structure of the tripartite model, namely society, is made visible through the discussion of several policy areas concerning the structures of society. Yet, as outlined in the socio-cognitive approach, what relates these structures of discourse and structures of society is how through cognition social actors make sense of the information they are presented with through their reliance upon collective frames of perception. The manifesto shows examples of both explicit and more implicit ways of appealing to these memory structures through nostalgic referrals which, in turn, help to link AfD’s ideas to certain policy recommendations.
Examples of more direct ways of nostalgically referring to the past can be found in the manifesto’s chapter on Europe and the euro. The chapter includes sentences such as:
“Only the national democracies, created by their nations in painful history, are able to offer citizens the necessary and desired framework for identification and shelter. Only they can offer the greatest possible rights of individual and collective freedom. … Promises that communities and international organizations can be a substitute for functioning democratic nation states are not being kept and are unfeasible” (p. 16).
By textually relating the national democracy’s present-day competence to its historical journey of becoming what now is known as Germany, legitimacy for its sovereign leadership is provided. Further in the chapter, the following is stated:
“The legacy of Europe’s history is the democratic rule of law and the peaceful co-existence of sovereign nation states. The establishment of the Eurozone thus threatens to destroy this cultural heritage. In order to prevent this, the foolhardy Euro experiment should be instantly discontinued” (p. 19).
Through the use of nostalgic words as legacy and cultural heritage, the assumption is made that the past is something to hold onto and this, in turn, leads to the concluding policy
recommendation that a termination of the Euro is advantageous. More implicit rhetorical devices used for ensuring social cognition are also found in the chapter through sentences such as:
“Long before today's Eurozone was politically planned in the 1990s, it has been a region of economic, monetary, political, and cultural differences. Going by all historical experience, a single currency area is not suited to a heterogeneous, supranational monetary union and should, in the first place, never have been expanded beyond the free-trade zone of the EEC” (p. 17).
By rhetorically referring to a historical past in which, as now, Europe was also known for its differences and when there was no goal of bridging those through unification, the AfD uses its discourse to undermine the European integration project and argues that it has gone too far already. And thereby, it bases its policy recommendations for a contemporary German society with changed circumstances on historical examples. This lean on history also becomes clear through sentences such as:
“We advocate the restoration of national sovereignty over the banks and financial services” (p. 20).
and,
“the AfD demands that the joint liabilities of German banks are confined to the national level, and that, as before, German banks are permitted to establish their own system of cross-guarantees, which take into account different banking profiles” (p. 20),
Where words such as restoration and as before are also used as a form of nostalgia and as a logical explanation for corresponding policies. Insofar, the audience is nudged to relate the solutions for contemporary problems provided by the AfD to a mythical past of which only part is highlighted.
This tendency to fall back on historical arguments for justifying certain views and programs may be most apparent in the manifesto’s chapter on families and children. The chapter starts off by emphasizing the importance of protecting cultural and regional traditions as these would keep people connected and grounded (p. 39). After which it directly links this cultural tradition to traditional family structures by stating:
“Marriage and family are the nucleus and germ cells of civil society and a cornerstone of social cohesion, and therefore deserve special protection from government” (p. 39).
Throughout the chapter, the AfD calls for the importance of a restored commitment to the
traditional family as a guiding principle (p. 40). It even urges this restoration through stating that
“There should once again be incentive to marry, raise children, and spend time with them” (p. 40).
In its discourse, the AfD specifically connects the value change that has occurred in society in the form of gender mainstreaming projects and an overall focus on individuality to the decay of traditional family values (p. 40-42). It is argued that:
“The economy is calling for women as part of the workforce. There is a misconceived view of feminism, which favors women with a career above mothers and housewives. The latter often experience less recognition and are financially disadvantaged” (p. 40).
The AfD devalues progressive modern developments such as fully employed women (p. 42), single-parent families (p. 43) and abortion rights (p. 43) and, instead, glorifies the conservative ideal of traditional family structures by recalling the importance of strong connections and a sense of security for children and arguing that this foundation is best set through traditional family structures. Through this glorified construction of the traditional family as the nucleus of society
and state the AfD justifies its family policies which, in turn, seem to serve other purposes as the
following two excerpts clarify:
“Germany’s negative demographic trend has to be counteracted. Mass immigration has a high potential for conflict and is not a viable economic solution. The only mid- and long-term solution is to attain a higher birth rate by the native population by stimulating family policies” (p. 40).
“In order to fight the effects of this negative demographic development, political parties currently in government support mass immigration, mainly from Islamic states, without due consideration of the needs and qualifications of the German labor market. … As the birth rate is more than 1.8 children amongst immigrants, which is much higher than that of Germans, it will hasten the ethnic-cultural cleavages in society. … We regard the closing of the gap between the actual number of children born, and the desire of 90% of young Germans to have children, as a central element of our political platform” (p. 41).
The AfD seemingly links its nostalgic narrative of extolling the traditional family to serve its other ideal of ethno-cultural reductionism. By referring to these idealized forms of the family and a past native German society, it does not only seem to counter progressive value change concerning modern families but also concerning the formation of a multicultural society.
A final example of the AfD attaching its discourse to pre-existing perceptions of the past worth mentioning is provided in the manifesto’s chapter on culture, language and identity. Here too, the AfD connects cultural heritage or tradition to a different topic – identity formation in this case. It is argued that identity is shaped by culture primarily, and since Germany possesses a rich cultural heritage, the cultural identity that accompanies this German culture should be protected by the government as the predominant culture at all costs and should not be left to a free play of forces (p. 45-47). In the text, the AfD historically dissects the foundation of this culture in the following manner:
“This culture is derived from three sources: firstly, the religious tradition of Christianity; secondly, the scientific and humanistic heritage, whose ancient roots were renewed during the period of the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment; and thirdly, Roman law, upon which our constitutional state is founded. Together, these traditions are the foundation of our free and democratic society, and they determine daily patterns of social interaction in society, and shape the relationship between the sexes as well as the conduct of parents toward their children” (p. 46).
Similar to the chapter on families and children, this historical foundation of culture seems to again function as a peg on which other reductionist policy preferences are hung. The chapter namely
continues by disregarding Islamic practice by arguing that it threatens these three foundations on which German culture would be built. It even states that:
“Islam does not belong to Germany. Its expansion and the ever-increasing number of Muslims in the country are viewed by the AfD as a danger to our state, our society, and our values” (p. 48).
In this regard, the discourse appears to instill collective nostalgia and a perception of discontinuity between the present and the past so as to achieve a justification for the party’s tougher stance on multiculturalism and integration. In further chapters of the manifesto, the discourse continues to link German citizenship to culture and language and contends that it has undergone a loss of significance in the past years (p. 64). And thus, again, it can be concluded that the rhetorical device of nostalgia is used to provide justifications for other, more extreme policy choices.
Through its vast lean on the past as a justification for policies and through several
instances of glorifying history, it can be concluded from this analysis that the discourse appealed to nostalgic deprivation and, thus, that appeals to economic anxiety are indeed present in AfD’s discourse.
5.1.2 Anti-elitism
Throughout the manifesto, what signifies as ‘us’ becomes most clear through its placement against the construction of a common enemy, and therefore, this analysis starts by analyzing how the AfD’s discourse constructs ‘them’.
At the beginning of the manifesto, the discourse explicitly constructs the opponent through the following excerpt:
“Behind the scenes a small and power elite within the political parties is secretly in charge, and is responsible for the misguided development of past decades. It is this political class of career politicians whose foremost interest is to retain their own power base, status, and material well-being. It is a political class which operates the levers of government power, insofar as these have not been transferred to the EU” (p. 7).
This paragraph illustrates how the discourse constructs the common enemy as a small and powerful political elite that uses its position and power to its own advantage. This link between the political class and forms of power abuse and corruption is addressed throughout the entire manifesto. It is argued that:
“Germany’s political class has exploited and modified election laws and procedures with increasing cunningness in order to reduce the influence of the electorate” (p. 11).
“The trend amongst politicians to view politics as a career has led to a monopolization of power and widening of the gap between the people and the political class. This has resulted in nepotism, structures which are prone to corruption, and unethical lobbyism” (p. 12).
furthermore:
“The omnipotence of political parties and their exploitation of the state are endangering our democracy. This omnipotence is one of the key reasons for the deep-seated disenchantment with politics, the harmful phenomenon of political correctness, and political opinions perceived to be dictated top-down in public debates” (p. 10).
Besides claiming that the political class consists of a small and corrupt elite, what these three excerpts also clarify is that the AfD links the leadership of the current political class to a problematic monopolization of power by this group and a sequential reduction of popular sovereignty in society. This seemingly corruptive and undemocratic form of leadership is
illustrated throughout the manifesto by reference to several policy areas. So it is argued that the choice of political elites to further move the EU towards a centralized state was made in spite of the negative outcomes of popular referenda (p. 16). In the same vein, energy policies are claimed to be based on misrepresentations of rising CO2 emissions, and the financial commitments and restrictions on economic and personal liberties that are associated with realizing climate
protection measures are considered to be downplayed or hidden by the government and would serve as a justification for state subsidization (p. 78-81). Perhaps the most vivid example of this corruptive and undemocratic style is provided in the manifesto in reference to the political elite’s agenda on multiculturalism and asylum granting. It is argued that the problems caused by immigration are being downplayed or disguised by the government, or worse, are accepted under a guise of misguided humanitarianism (p. 58-63). The AfD argues that:
“The topics of asylum and immigration are characterized by an ideologically-biased climate of political correctness, accompanied by banned terms and newspeak. Non-compliance leads to social stigmatization, even to job-related discrimination. Such treatment of non-conformist opinions has been a characteristic of totalitarian countries, but not of free democratic societies. Negative developments in the field of asylum and immigration are not addressed in order to prevent a turnaround in public opinion. At the same time, the ruling German political parties have tried to disguise the complete failure of their policies on asylum and immigration of recent years” (p. 57).
This paragraph illuminates how the AfD constructs the common enemy not necessarily as an ‘outsider’ but, rather, as an ‘insider’ elite, who has come to yield under the pressure of value change in society and who, thereby, has in some way come to betray its German roots by favoring a multicultural agenda.
Opposite this corrupt ‘insider’ political elite, the AfD places a ‘we’ which entails the “German people” or “the citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany”. The discourse explicitly
