“Freedom of speech requires actions”: Exploring the discourse of politicians convicted of hate‐speech against Muslims

Abstract

This study explores how politicians convicted of hate‐speech against Muslims account for their actions in statements on their Facebook‐pages as well as in reported interviews. Taking a critical discursive psychological perspective, the study examines the strategies through which the politicians discursively claim and resist various subject positions, thus managing to construct their hate‐speech as everything from trivial mishaps to acts of virtue. The study examines the multifaceted dynamics of these constructions, and shows how elements from the Five Step Social Identity Model of the Development of Collective Hate are flexibly deployed in the discourse to serve distinct social and political purposes. By allowing the Social Identity and (critical) discursive approaches to challenge and develop each other, the study advances social psychological research on political communication and persuasion, and contributes to the debate on the boundaries between hate‐speech and freedom of speech.

The Language of Derogation and Hate: Functions, Consequences, and Reappropriation

“…The 21st century has witnessed a rise of populist radical right, anti-immigration, and nationalist parties around the world some of which have attracted significant electoral support. Recently, far-right groups have extended their hostile rhetoric to Muslim minorities in their respective countries and to Islam as a religion or belief system (Pettersson, 2019; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Verkuyten, 2013; Wood & Finlay, 2008). Muslim immigrants and refugees are depicted as holding authoritarian and misogynist values that threaten Western, liberal democratic values (Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Verkuyten, 2013).…”

“…In this way, atrocious acts become celebrated as the right thing to do. Indeed, when far-right leaders have been prosecuted for hate speech, they have projected themselves as martyrs who have stood up for freedom of speech and the rights of “ordinary people” against dangerous “others” (Pettersson, 2019). Paradoxically, Jacobs and van Spanje (2020) have found that prosecuting anti-immigration European leaders for hate speech can increase their electoral support.…”

Vindication, virtue, and vitriol

“…Governments and politicians have communicated hateful messages, for example, through language about Romani people in Europe [59] or Mexican and other Latin immigrants in the United States [14,42], all of which experience discrimination in their host countries. Governments have contributed to hate through politicising tribal identity in sub-Saharan countries like Kenya and Rwanda [24,61], and how they shape debates about free speech [56] or migration [66] more generally. Politicians, therefore, can both be the targets of hate (as members of protected groups) and the perpetrators (as public authorities whose words matter).…”

Mobilizing collective hatred through humour: Affective–discursive production and reception of populist rhetoric

“…Populists use dramatization and emotion to highlight the necessity of change, and simplified argumentation and rhetorical vagueness to effect distance from the political elite (Bos & Brants, 2014;Engesser et al, 2017). Through appeals to common sense and colloquial language populist politicians stress their ordinariness, constructing themselves as prototypical members of the populace, who, unlike mainstream politicians, acts 'on behalf of the people' (Pettersson, 2019;Rapley, 1998;Rooyackers & Verkuyten, 2012;Sakki et al, 2017;Sakki & Pettersson, 2016). Research has shown that such discursive constructions of 'the people' can be mobilized to attract voters (Zienkowski & Breeze, 2019).…”

“…Durrheim et al (2018) recently showed that tripolar dynamics in hybrid media between populist leaders, mainstream parties and politicians, and ordinary people allowed populist leaders to mobilize the latter by exploiting disapproval and criticism of 'elites'. Research on right-wing populist rhetoric has also shown that politicians commonly rely on the empiricist orientation, seeking to justify their anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric as logical, credible, and fact-based (Potter, 1996;Pettersson, 2019;Sakki et al, 2017;Sakki & Pettersson, 2016;Verkuyten, 2013). Alongside threatening images of the present and future, populist rhetoric invokes nostalgia for an idealized past (Levinger & Franklin Lytle, 2001;Mols & Jetten, 2014;Sakki & Pettersson, 2016).…”