Populist Political Communication Going Mainstream? Populism in the Discursive and Communicative Strategies of Mainstream Centre-Left Political Parties in Western Europe

In light of the electoral rise of anti-establishment forces and vigorous electoral campaigns as seen in the U.S and during the Brexit referendum, the study of populism has perhaps never been more important. Yet the existing literature tends to focus on the political, economic and social drivers of populism. The rhetoric and discursive elements of populism and more specifically how this is dispersed throughout party systems and adopted by mainstream parties is still underexplored. Presenting a case for a qualitative approach to study the discursive characteristics of populism, the article brings forward an analytical framework that pinpoints and provides a more in-depth understanding of the distinct characteristics of populist political communication. Through a three-part sequential analysis, the article examines and compares the extent to which populist political communication has entered the British Labour Party and the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s communication after the turn of the 21st century. This communicative construction includes stressing the peoples’ virtues, describing the people as a monolithic entity, uniting with the people, defence of popular sovereignty and reinforcing an opposing threat against the people by communicating elite-negativity and limitation of elite power. The paper further broadens the scope by also focusing on the cornerstones of populism – the people and the elite. It considers exactly how the two main groups are constructed and articulated when mainstream political parties make use of populist political communicative strategies. The paper makes two main substantial contributions - it provides an alternative route to empirically study populism by explicitly approaching it from a communication perspective, whilst proposing a new way of qualitatively assessing populist political communication. Such an approach sheds light on the rhetorical construction of the people and the threats that are expressed.