Populist Discourse on Political Representation

When populism is defined as an expression of the people’s will and of an antagonism between the people and the elite, a direct and unmediated relationship between representatives and represented is implied. Therefore, it is not clear how political representation is being understood and defined by populist political parties. An empirical study has been conducted on how Lithuanian populist political parties interpret and define political representation. Six Lithuanian political parties and coalitions can be considered as populist, have based their political campaign on the project of newness (A. Sikk, 2012), and have never been a part of a governing coalition (except “Electoral Action of Poles” in “Lithuania-Christian Families Alliance”). “Way of Courage” and “Lithuanian List” have been established before 2012 parliamentary election. Two new political coalitions (Buškevičiaus’ nationalist “Before the Corruption and Poverty”, the anti-corruption coalition of Naglis Puteikis and Kristupas Krivickas) have been created particularly for 2016 parliamentary elections. The “Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union” has been reorganized and rebranded to act as a new political party for the 2016 parliamentary election. Research data consists of party manifestos of the 2016 elections and of articles on parties’ websites (period: April 2016-September 2017). The analysis of discourse on political representation focused on how populist political parties interpret and define who the represented are, and who the representatives are. The empirical research reveals that populist political parties attempt to establish an unmediated link between representatives and represented through a reference to common moral values; through the tools of constant communication they want to create a common political identity between themselves and the represented. A common political identity between represented and representatives “resolves” the problem of political representation, eliminating the distance between represented and representatives.