Fighting fire with fire: Mainstream adoption of the populist political style in the 2014 Europe debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage
| Author | Michael Bossetta |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117715646 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2017
Article
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
Fighting fire with fire:
2017, Vol. 19(4) 715 –734
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
Mainstream adoption of the
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117715646
DOI: 10.1177/1369148117715646
populist political style in the
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
2014 Europe debates between
Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage
Michael Bossetta
Abstract
Advancing the concept of populism as a political style, this study compares the debate performances
of two British party leaders, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, as they clashed in a pair of televised
debates over Britain’s European Union (EU) membership leading up to the 2014 European
Parliament elections. The argument is tested that if under certain conditions, mainstream politicians
will adopt a populist style although retaining a non-populist agenda. A mixed-methods approach
combines quantitative text analysis with a qualitative rhetorical analysis to demonstrate how the
populist and non-populist style can be distinguished and compared systematically. The results
suggest that Clegg, while maintaining a non-populist ideology, adopts a populist style after losing
the first debate. Farage’s communication style, conversely, remains stable to the point of statistical
significance. This suggests that one explanatory factor of populists’ success is the consistency of
their message and rhetorical delivery, bolstering their perceived authenticity among voters.
Keywords
Populism, rhetoric, political communication, text analysis
Introduction
Across Europe, the increase in electoral support for so-called populist parties is dazzling.
So, too, are the politicians who comprise them. Conflictual, controversial, and crude, the
new wave of populist challengers is a far cry from the deliberative, temperate, and pol-
ished politicians who have typically governed advanced liberal democracies. Although
the academic literature tends to stress the similarity of populists by focusing on their ideo-
logical affinities (Kriesi and Pappas, 2015; Mudde, 2004; Rooduijn et al., 2012; Stanley,
2008), European populist actors often differ along their domestic policy agendas, position
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Corresponding author:
Michael Bossetta, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5,
Copenhagen K 1353, Denmark.
Email: mjb@ifs.ku.dk
716
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 19(4)
on the political spectrum, and degree of opposition to European integration. An illustra-
tive example of this difference is the present state of right-wing populist parties in the
European Parliament (EP), where they resemble more of a motley crew than a traditional
party family. Despite garnering unprecedented electoral support in the 2014 EP elections
by campaigning against both the national and European political establishment, right-
wing populists cannot seem to coalesce into a cohesive front against the political main-
stream at the European level. The UK Independence Party (UKIP), the Danish People’s
Party, and the Front National—each winning the 2014 EP elections within their respective
domestic arenas—are currently split among three distinct political groups in the EP. What
the populist firebrands seem to share more than ideological cohesiveness is a certain style
of political communication (Jagers and Walgrave, 2007; Moffitt, 2016).
This study applies the concept of populism as a political style by comparing the debate
performances of a paradigmatic populist, Nigel Farage, directly against those of an estab-
lished politician, Nick Clegg, as they clashed in a pair of televised debates over Britain’s
European Union (EU) membership before the 2014 EP elections. The Europe debates
constitute only the second set of party leader debates in British history and the first time
since 1975 a political debate over EU membership was broadcast live to the national
public. The head-to-head confrontation between the two party leaders offers an interest-
ing case to examine how diverging policy positions on EU membership were argued
before the electorate two years prior to the historic 2016 Brexit referendum. Additionally,
the juxtaposition of a high-ranking member of government (Clegg) and a populist chal-
lenger (Farage) mimics wider power struggles across the continent, where mainstream
politicians are increasingly pressured to engage unconventional, populist politicians over
key policy issues regarding immigration and national sovereignty. This study takes the
Europe debates as an empirical site to investigate the discursive content and rhetorical
strategies of the party leaders to answer the research question: Do mainstream politicians
adopt a populist political style while maintaining a non-populist agenda?
Scholarly attention devoted to how mainstream political actors engage populists is
scant and predominantly focuses on whether mainstream parties adopt the political
agenda of populists on issues such as multiculturalism, immigration, or European integra-
tion (Akkerman, 2012; Bale et al., 2010; De Lange, 2012; Mudde, 2013; Schumacher and
Van Kersbergen, 2016; Van Spanje, 2010). Taken together, these studies suggest that
populists’ electoral success can motivate both left- and right-wing mainstream parties to
enact policy shifts, especially regarding social and cultural policies. They also stress,
however, that the mainstream’s co-option of populists’ policies varies across cases and is
largely contingent upon the specific conditions of the political system, such as whether
the mainstream party is in government or opposition, the bargaining power of populists in
forming coalitions, and the mainstream parties’ willingness to collaborate with the popu-
list insurgency.
Motivated to test whether populists can also impact the practices of the political main-
stream at the level of individual politicians, this study takes an empirical case where a
populist and non-populist party leader publically debated dichotomous policy positions
on EU membership. Farage, the populist case, strongly advocated a British withdrawal
from the Union, whereas Clegg, the non-populist case and Deputy Prime Minister, unwa-
veringly supported Britain to remain in. The study’s overarching claim is that under cer-
tain conditions, established politicians may adopt a populist style of political
communication while retaining a non-populist agenda. The populist style is construed
broadly as patterned practices of political communication seeking to promote conflict and
Bossetta
717
convey a sense of crisis. Although politicians in power would rationally attempt to avert
political conflict and stem perceptions of crisis, the increasing electoral success of popu-
list challengers places pressure on mainstream politicians to ‘fight fire with fire’ and
adopt a populist style. By changing their political communication strategies but not nec-
essarily their political agendas, mainstream politicians can advocate their existing policy
platforms while attempting to appeal to a broader voter base.
The incentive for mainstream political actors to alter their communication strategy
arises out of several challenges currently facing many traditional parties: declining party
membership, low trust in incumbent governments, the rising popularity of anti-establish-
ment parties, and the propensity of the media to cover populist politicians (Mazzoleni,
2014). Considering these challenges, a number of conditions can incentivize mainstream
adoption of the populist style, such as decreasing poll numbers, increasing public support
for populist parties, and the saliency of polarizing issues in media coverage. These condi-
tions are not investigated here but are taken as the constant environment in which to test
the difference in political styles between Farage and Clegg. To answer whether main-
stream politicians adopt a populist style under these conditions, two hypotheses are devel-
oped. The first examines whether the populist style can be empirically measured through
the party leaders’ discourse; the second seeks to expound any change in their political
style across the two debates.
After theoretically developing the concept of political style, a mixed-methods research
design is introduced to operationalize the political styles of Farage and Clegg. Quantitative,
computational text mining methods are complemented with a qualitative, rhetorical anal-
ysis to assess both the discursive content and rhetorical strategies used by the politicians
in arguing their positions on EU membership. The results suggest that the styles of the
two politicians are indeed distinct, and that Clegg, having lost the first debate, adopts
traits characteristic of the populist style in an attempt to win the second. In contrast,
Farage’s discourse and rhetorical appeals remain remarkably stable across both debates.
This suggests that one of the underlying mechanisms explaining populists’ success is the
consistency of an anti-establishment message. The consistency of Farage’s political com-
munication is interpreted as bolstering his authenticity among parts of the electorate, who
sanction him as a legitimate challenger to the political establishment.
Populism as...
To continue reading
Request your trial