Transforming Marginalised Politics into Mainstream Agenda—“Shameless Normalisation”

Wodak, Ruth

doi:10.1007/s11615-018-0079-7

Cited by 46 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In this paper, we apply the notions of impoliteness (Culpeper, 2011) and shameless normalisation (Wodak, 2018, 2021) to behaviours that could be described as the verbal equivalent of ‘shooting somebody’, namely, deeply offensive remarks produced by Trump and by Silvio Berlusconi in the context of official press conferences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shameless normalisation of impoliteness: Berlusconi’s and Trump’s press conferences

Wodak

Culpeper

Semino

2020

Discourse & Society

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This paper applies the notions of impoliteness and shameless normalisation to potentially impolite behaviours produced by Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi in official press conferences. Press conferences, as an activity type, involve relatively clear expectations and norms, so that impolite behaviours theoretically constitute particularly salient violations. We present two case studies involving racist and misogynist insults on the part of Berlusconi and Trump, respectively, analysed in their co-textual, interactional, socio-political as well as historical contexts. We describe the kinds of impoliteness that each politician employs, without any apology, and argue that they involve violations of the traditional moral order that are part of a far-right populist agenda of shameless normalisation. In each case, we examine comments posted in response to YouTube videos of each incident and provide evidence of polarised responses, but with substantial proportions expressing positive evaluations. We observe that impoliteness affords the possibility of presenting authentic and hyper-masculine identities and finish by reflecting on the implications of our findings for the local and global political and cultural landscape.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shameless normalisation of impoliteness: Berlusconi’s and Trump’s press conferences

Wodak

Culpeper

Semino

2020

Discourse & Society

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“…In the TV debate Strache vs. Kurz (broadcast by ORF on 10.10.2017), Kurz acknowledged that Strache and the FPÖ were good in identifying problems with migration, but when it came to solving them, they did not act accordingly. In this way, Kurz legitimated and actually normalized FPÖ's anti-immigration and anti-Islam agitation and invited the FPÖ to participate in the future government (Wodak, 2018). At the same time, he presented himself not only as a competent political player, but also as a potent political man.…”

Section: The Populist Attractions Of Sebastian Kurzmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…On the other hand, this play on words sounds like 'neo-fascist' and suggests a political turn towards far-right fascist ideologies. Although this harsh criticism is contested, many scholars agree that the rebranded New People's Party (ÖVP) experienced a national-conservative turn rightward in a populist style by adopting the topic of migration from the radical right populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) in a similar anti-Muslim racist manner (Bodlos & Plescia, 2018;Löffler, 2018;Scheibelhofer, 2017;Wodak, 2018). This article asks whether the convergence of the two parties' positions are reflected in their performance of political masculinities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populist attraction: the symbolic uses of masculinities in the Austrian general election campaign 2017

Löffler

2020

NORMA

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The year 2017 brought about a political change in Austria. The hitherto governing coalition of the Social Democrats (SPÖ) with the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) was replaced with a coalition between the rebranded so-called New People's Party (ÖVP) and the right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) which lasted only 17 months. This paper aims to theorize political masculinity and populism by taking Austria as an example. It combines the theory of Pierre Bourdieu and his conceptions of the political field, masculine domination, and symbolic violence with Raewyn Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinities and discusses how political masculinities relate to a populist political style. Examining the electoral strategies of the two right-wing parties ÖVP and FPÖ in Austria, the paper illuminates two moments of change in political masculinities when confronted with populism: the transformation from oppositional to governmental populist political masculinity on the one hand, and the populist challenge to hegemonic political masculinity on the other. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…It is thus fitting that the Green Party referred to Kurz during the 2017 election campaign as 'the better Strache'. 22 Fearmongering was the persuasive macro-strategy in the FPÖ's and ÖVP's election campaigns in 2017 (Wodak, 2018a). They wilfully selected specific scapegoats as being responsible for the misery or threat identified: 'illegal migrants', Muslims and Islam, the Jewish philanthropist George Soros, NGOs, the EU and the media, as well as Entering the 'post-shame era' the previous coalition government, in which Kurz had served six years as minister for foreign affairs, and the integration of migrants.…”

Section: Parliamentary Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entering the ‘post-shame era’: the rise of illiberal democracy, populism and neo-authoritarianism in EUrope

Wodak

2019

Global Discourse

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The term 'illiberal democracy', coined by Fareed Zakaria in 1997, has gained much traction, specifically since its use by Hungarian Prime Minster Victor Orbán in 2014. Ever since, Orbán and his governing party Fidesz have been implementing this vision resulting in major cutdowns on free speech, freedom of press, of various NGOs which support human rights, and so forth. Moreover, Fidesz won the 2018 national election with a strong focus on antiimmigration policies. Although Orbán's restrictive migration policies were widely criticised during the so-called refugee crisis 2015, many EU member states have started to follow the Hungarian policy of closing borders and protecting the EU from asylum-seekers and an alleged invasion by Muslims. Hence, I claim that formerly taboo subjects and expressions in mainstream discourse are being accepted more and more ('normalisation'). Such normalisation goes hand in hand with a certain 'shamelessness': the limits of the sayable are shifting regarding both the frequency of lies and the violating of discourse conventions – as well as regarding repeated attacks on central democratic institutions. Normalising the assessment of migrants as a threat to inner security and a burden on the welfare state and education system must be perceived as an international development – generally instrumentalising a 'politics of fear'.

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Transforming Marginalised Politics into Mainstream Agenda—“Shameless Normalisation”

Cited by 46 publications

References 13 publications

Shameless normalisation of impoliteness: Berlusconi’s and Trump’s press conferences

Shameless normalisation of impoliteness: Berlusconi’s and Trump’s press conferences

Populist attraction: the symbolic uses of masculinities in the Austrian general election campaign 2017

Entering the ‘post-shame era’: the rise of illiberal democracy, populism and neo-authoritarianism in EUrope

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