Populism is presented as a severe challenge to democracies as it delegitimises the institutions and processes on which democratic society is built. The infectious nature of populism within a system drives a shift in the public mood. The authors investigate this phenomenon through a content analysis of party posts on Facebook during the 2019 European parliamentary elections across 12 countries. They find almost a quarter of posts contain some form of populism, with anti-elitism the most common trope. Populist appeals are most likely to accompany critiques of labour and social policy, labelling elites or minority groups as causing inequalities which disadvantage the ordinary people. Both forms of populism enjoy high levels of user engagement suggesting they gain higher levels of reach within social media platforms. As support for populism rose in the wake of the economic and migrant crises, the authors suggest post-pandemic this increase is likely to continue.
TopIntroduction
Populism is not a new phenomenon, but it has gained increased attention over the last two decades as a number of controversial populist figures have gained influence and/or power within established democracies. Parties such as Alternative for Germany (AfD), the French Rassemblement National, and the UK’s Independence party (UKIP) have had a significant influence on shaping public discourse and impacting election outcomes in their nations (Albertazzi & Vampa, 2021). Meanwhile, Poland’s Law and Justice, Hungary’s Fidesz, along with Modi in India, Bolsonaro in Brazil and Trump in the USA see the politics of a country take a fully populist turn (Ostiguy, Panizza & Moffitt, 2021). With populism becoming a global phenomenon, shifting the politics of countries to a more inward-looking and nationalist stance, there are fears this heralds a collapse of the post-war social democratic consensus (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018). These concerns are particularly expressed in studies of more fragile democracies, in particular the Central and Eastern European nations where the rise of populism has resulted in an erosion of trust in democratic institutions and processes (Eibl & Gregor, 2019). The related fear is not simply that populists may win elections within less stable democratic nations, but that the rise of populists leads to a rise in populist attitudes and the spread of populist conceptions throughout a political system.
There are also fears that the rise of populism, in particular due to the high correspondence between populism and Euroscepticism, will lead to a delegitimization of the European Union (EU) and its institutions (Call & Jolly, 2020). Populist actors have increased the politicisation of the EU, and their more controversial positions have attracted extensive media coverage (de Vreese, 2003; 2009). As more mainstream political actors are drawn into debates on the relationship between the individual state and the EU opposing advocacy coalitions crystallize and become more prominent, leading citizens to question the legitimacy of the EU (see Grande et al, 2016; De Vries, 2018; Blockmans & Russack, 2020). In particular, post-Brexit, it has been suggested that “right-wing populist politics – along with its ongoing attempts to, allegedly, ‘reform’ but effectively undermine the EU – would, it was expected, prevail in Europe in the foreseeable future, it should also be expected that the crisis of the EU symptomatized and emphasised by Brexit was set to continue well into the future” (Krzyżanowski, 2019: 475). Hence, as EU technocracy is an easy target for criticism and gives succour to right-wing populism and its Eurosceptic variant (Schweiger, 2017), it is important to understand the extent populism is embedded within campaign discourse during EU parliamentary elections.
This chapter offers a framework for the analysis of populist discourse, drawing on the work of Mudde (2016) and Reinemann, Aalberg, Esser, Strömbäck and de Vreese (2016). This allows us to view populism as not simply an empty discourse but one that encourages sections of society to believe they have the right to greater influence over policy making, to view elected politicians as unworthy of trust, and to disavow the arguments of experts and societal elites. The more right-wing populist actors are found to increase the traction of illiberal and xenophobic arguments and harden anti-democratic attitudes (Wodak, KhosraviNik & Mral, 2013). We argue that when populist ideas gain traction the Overton window, the range of political views that are seen as normal and acceptable, gradually moves towards a more populist position (Giridharadas, 2019). The shift in the Overton window leads populism to become infectious. The spread of populism within society and political discourse is also facilitated by the information environment. Research suggests (e.g., Baldwin-Philippi, 2018; Engesser, Ernst, Esser & Büchel, 2017) social networking platforms (SNPs) like Facebook offer “opportunity structures” for populists. The propensity of populist messages to have viral qualities means they become more prominent to users and can shape the news agenda while bypassing the filters of editorial control.