Drivers of Populism: A Four-country Comparison of Party Communication in the Run-up to the 2014 European Parliament Elections
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321717723506 |
| Author | Franzisca Schmidt |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717723506
Political Studies
2018, Vol. 66(2) 459 –479
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321717723506
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Drivers of Populism: A Four-
country Comparison of Party
Communication in the Run-
up to the 2014 European
Parliament Elections
Franzisca Schmidt
Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyse what different types of populist communication styles emerged
during the 2014 European Parliament election campaign and under which conditions political
parties selected specific populist communication styles. To do this, a comparative quantitative
content analysis of press releases in the run-up of the latest European Parliament elections has
been conducted for parties in France, Germany, Austria and Greece. The article presents a
definition of populism based on the contemporary academic discourse, which focuses on the
transnational nature of the European political field. It is shown that populist party communication
is more pronounced on the fringes of the political spectrum and in countries struggling with severe
macroeconomic difficulties. Contrary to intuitive expectations, the perceived populist rhetoric of
exclusivity in the context of the European sovereign debt crisis, which is identified as a central
feature of right-wing populism, barely takes place within populist party communication.
Keywords
populism, political parties, European elections, comparative analysis, content analysis
Accepted: 17 April 2017
Over the last decade, European democracies have faced the challenges of parties and
movements that are commonly referred to as being ‘populist’. In several European Union
(EU) member states, the European financial and sovereign debt crisis created fertile soil
for parties that use populist rhetoric. José Manuel Barroso (2013), former president of the
European Commission, emphasised his increased unease concerning these developments
Institute of Communication and Media Studies, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Corresponding author:
Franzisca Schmidt, Institute of Communication and Media Studies, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, Office
A 132, Bern 3012, Switzerland.
Email: franzisca.schmidt@ikmb.unibe.ch
723506PSX0010.1177/0032321717723506Political StudiesSchmidt
research-article2017
Article
460 Political Studies 66(2)
when he spoke at the annual Brussels Think Tank Forum on 22 April 2013: ‘I am deeply
concerned about the divisions that we see emerging: political extremes and populism tear-
ing apart the political support and the social fabric that we need to deal with the crisis
[…]’. Indeed, European elites seem to be increasingly worried by these recent develop-
ments, which are perceived as an impending stress test for the Union and the project of
European integration as a whole (Hartleb, 2013). As populist communication growingly
permeates European politics, it becomes crucial to encompass this phenomenon and shed
light on the nature of populist party communication itself. What different forms of popu-
list communication styles emerge in the context of a transnational European political
arena? To what extent is this populist rhetoric employed by political parties? And what
factors or conditions are constitutive for a party’s selection of a specific type of populism?
To this effect, the aim of this study is to identify and to explain the usage of different
populist communication styles by political parties during the 2014 European Parliament
(EP) election campaign.
However, systematic comparative analyses of populist communication are scarce
(Rooduijn and Pauwels, 2011), as most of the existing empirical investigations of pop-
ulism are single case studies (e.g. Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008). This is a conse-
quence of the lack of conceptual clarity that goes along with populism (Barr, 2009;
Canovan, 1999; Taggart, 2000) due to its contextual sensitivity. Thus, this article empiri-
cally contributes to the field of populist communication research by employing a com-
parative research design to assess the determinants for the selection of populist
communication styles. The theoretical considerations are empirically tested for 28 politi-
cal parties in Austria, Germany, France and Greece in the run-up of the 2014 EP elections.
At that time, all countries involved in the study found themselves in a post-crisis environ-
ment still coming to terms with the European debt crisis. However, the crisis’ economic,
political and social implications have been significantly more incisive for the latter two
countries than for Austria and Germany. On this note, the study not only allows for a
consideration of decisive party-specific factors but also tentatively addresses potential
effects of a crisis-hit environment on the selection of populist communication styles.
To measure populism within party communication, I fall back on the conception of
Jagers and Walgrave (2007), who perceive populism as a political communication style
composed of three rhetorical elements: an appeal to the people in combination with criti-
cism on the establishment and/or the exclusion of others. However, because this study is
interested in populist party communication related to the European election context, it
further accommodates for the aforementioned context sensitivity of populism by consid-
ering that the Europeanisation of the (national) political arena necessitates an additional
specification of populist elements. Political parties may either allude to a national or
European demos and likewise direct their criticism to either the domestic or the EU estab-
lishment (see Reungoat, 2010). This level to which people references are made is con-
nected with an overall identification of the general public with the EU. Hence, this
analysis also gives attention to whether there has been the emergence of Pro-European
populism (manifested through an explicit appeal to the European community) that might
be countervailing putative exclusionary tendencies in the environment of the European
financial crisis. News reports about recent crisis developments increasingly convey an
image of nations divided into ‘debtor’ and ‘creditor’ states, whose people are incriminat-
ing and vilifying each other. By analysing populist party communication styles in the
context of the 2014 EP elections, this study may shed light on whether this perceived
rhetoric of exclusivity towards others might be driven by political parties.
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