Populism, anti-populism and emotions: exploring the emotional tones of discourses in the European Parliament and Commission

Populism has been associated to an emotional use of language, and to the exploitation of emotions such as fear and anger. Right-wing populists use fear to reinforce exclusionary politics, for instance towards migrants, while eliciting sentiments of anger and disgust towards socio-political actors perceived as elites, such as European institutions and some civil society organizations. Emotions in populist politics have mainly been investigated in their use to raise support among citizens. However, less known is the use of emotions made by populists in other contexts, such as in official speeches and parliamentary debates. Moreover, there is a lack of knowledge of how non-populists, and in particular self-proclaimed anti-populists, use emotions to counter populism. What emotional tones dominate anti-populist discourses? What emotions dominate the struggle between populists and anti-populists? In this paper, we explore the use of emotions by populists and anti-populists in the context of debates and speeches held at the European Parliament. To do so, we conduct a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of a large database of speeches from the period 2014-2020, held at the European Parliament by MEPs and members of the European Commission. All these speeches have been selected based on a list of keywords keywords representative of crucial themes concerning populism and anti-populism: populism, discrimination, hate speech, xenophobia, Euroscepticism, migration, Brexit, European democracy, European values. A quantitative content analysis of emotions will allow us to understand what the dominant emotional tones of populists and anti-populists are in relation to each of these keywords/issues. We then use quotes from specific speeches to document our analysis and conceptualize the use of science as a discursive strategy adopted in the struggle between populism and anti-populism