(Non-)Populism in Austria. An Analysis of the Contagiousness of Populism in the Austrian Presidential Elections 2016

Political populism is an ever growing phenomenon and attracted considerable scholarly attention. Nevertheless, the contagiousness of populism on non-populist politicians has yet to be clarified. This study looks at to what degree so-called non-populist politicians adapt populist communication strategies when directly competing against populist politicians in elections. To that end it analyses the (populist) messages sent by the Austrian presidential candidates in the campaign towards the election in 2016. We build on the theoretical approach of populism as a thin ideology and political communicational style (Jagers and Walgrave, 2007) and combine this definition with the more recent operationalization offered by Moffitt (2016). Thus we consider not only appeals to the people, but also the formality of the language and rhetorical appeals as indicators of a populist message. The recent Austrian presidential election offers an interesting opportunity to investigate whether and how an allegedly non-populist candidate (Alexander van der Bellen) adapted to the communication style of the populist FPÖ candidate (Norbert Hofer). Due to faults in the formal procedures the entire campaign period lasted for a bit more than a year with several direct encounters of the run-off candidates. A mixed-methods approach of automated content analysis and qualitative analysis will be used to code the content of three face-to-face debates and two one hour interviews the candidates gave during this period. Automated content analysis gives insight into word counts and speech formality, while qualitative content analysis is needed to assess rhetorical appeals and references to the people.