Populism as a communication style in Parliamentary communication in the Republic of Croatia’s current Parliamentary mandate

Since the 1980s, an increase in the number of so-called populist parties that are considered as ''a threat to liberal democracy' (Mudde: ''The Populist Zeitgeist'', 2004) was recorded. Taguieffs understands populism as a pathological form, pseudo- and post-democratic, produced by the corruption of democratic ideals'' (''Political Science Confronts Populism: From a Conceptual Mirage to a Real Problem'', 1995). Cited scholars recognize populism as an ideology grounded on the positive evaluation of the people and the negative evaluation of the political elites. On the other hand, other scholars (Jagers, Walgrave) recognize populism as a political-communication style as frequent positive referring to the people or the use of specific linguistic figures aimed at familiarising with voters (Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of political parties' discourse in Belgium, 2007), point to the presence of populism as a political-communication style. This paper aims to explore the degree of populism in the Croatian Parliament, approaching populism as a political-communication style, using the method of qualitative analysis of phonograms of discussions of Croatian MPs' on the ''Morning Question Times'' of the 10th mandate of the Parliament, from 16th September 2020 to 20th June 2021*. Populist topics such as the oppressed people, the fight against the corrupt elite and the emphasis on the presence of ''dangerous others'' are analyzed to detect the emergence of populism in the political-communication discourse. The research seeks to determine populism as a political-communication style and analyze the types of populism following the theoretical framework of populism as presented by Jagers and Walgrave. Since the current mandate is one of the most diverse concerning the political spectrum, the research draft aims to comprehensively explore the elements of populist discourse among members of parliamentary parties from the entire ideological/political range. The research seeks to determine populism as a political-communication style in the Parliament and analyze the types of populism following the theoretical framework of populism as presented by Jagers and Walgrave. * the last session is in June, so authors intend to include those discussions in the presentation