Populism seems to define our current political age. The term is splashed across the headlines, brandished in political speeches and commentaries, and applied extensively in numerous academic publications and conferences. This pervasive usage, or populist hype, has serious implications for our understanding of the meaning of populism itself and for our interpretation of the phenomena to which it is applied. In particular, we argue that its common conflation with far-right politics, as well as its breadth of application to other phenomena, has contributed to the mainstreaming of the far right in three main ways: (1) agenda-setting power and deflection, (2) euphemisation and trivialisation, and (3) amplification. Through a mixed-methods approach to discourse analysis, this article uses The Guardian newspaper as a case study to explore the development of the populist hype and the detrimental effects of the logics that it has pushed in public discourse.
The study of far-right parties and politics is one of the most high-profile research areas in political science and related disciplines. Far-right parties have been the subject of vast amounts of varied scholarship since their turn-of-the-century resurgence. However, as the far right has become a mainstay, with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 blurring the boundaries between mainstream and far-right politics, it has become crucial to pay attention to the process of mainstreaming. Beyond a focus on far-right electoral success, studies of mainstreaming, as well as a critical account of the concept and role of the 'mainstream', have proved elusive. This article provides a heuristic framework to understand these concepts and the mainstreaming of the far right. Key to our approach is a more holistic analysis, extending beyond traditional approaches which focus mostly on the electoral outcomes of far-right parties, positioning the mainstream as a relatively inert target or bulwark against them. To achieve this, we seek to reframe the focus towards the centrality of discourse both in the process, and as an outcome, of mainstreaming. Only by doing so can we account for the significant role played by the mainstream in this process.Discussion and debate about the far right, its rise, origins and impact have become ubiquitous in academic research, political strategy and media coverage in recent years. One of the issues increasingly underpinning such discussions is the relationship between the far right and the mainstream, and more specifically, the mainstreaming of the far right. 1 This is particularly clear around elections when attention turns to the electoral performance of these parties. When they fare as well as predicted, catastrophic headlines simplify and hype what is usually a complex situation, ignoring key factors which shape electoral outcomes and inflate far-right results, such as trends in abstention and distrust towards mainstream politics. 2 When these parties do not perform as well as predicted, the circus moves on to the next election and the hype starts afresh, often playing a role in the framing of, and potentially influencing, the process. This trend is not entirely new, 3 and there is no denying that far-right parties and politics have played a significant role in shaping the current political landscape in Europe. Some strong electoral performances attest to this: most recently, the Lega and Austrian Freedom Party formed part of coalition governments in Italy and Austria (if only briefly),
Turkey's involvement in the European Union has long provoked controversy among Europe's elites. Recently, in the context of the so-called 'migrant crisis', coupled with the mainstreaming of Islamophobia and rising Euroscepticism, the issue of Turkey has acquired renewed significance. While many scholars have linked hostility towards Turkey with the desired construction of a supra-national European identity, few have noted the role it plays in the discourse of parties that explicitly reject the EU. Adopting a mixed-methods approach to Critical Discourse Studies, this paper investigates the contemporary construction of Turkey as a dangerous 'other' by far-right parties in the United Kingdom (UKIP) and France (FN/RN). Drawing on theories of Orientalism, Islamophobia and civilizationism, it exposes the apparent contradiction in the strongly Eurosceptic positions adopted by these parties, while simultaneously rejecting Turkish involvement based on its supposed 'non-Europeanness'. They thus become defenders of Europe while simultaneously undermining the supra-national EU project.
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