Identity through distinction. Contextualizing in- and outgroups in populist political communication

While people-centrism is one of the three defining characteristics in the ideational approach to populism, research on the empirical characteristics of the populist ingroup is scarce and the (constructed) identity of the people remains vague. Theoretically the populist ingroup is firstly defined by its homogeneity and unity and secondly by its opposition to other (out-)groups. This study aims to reveal the identity of groups which are addressed, when different political actors refer to the people and its antagonists. These group-references should be context-dependent, differing across party ideology and country. To identify, contextualize and systematize in- and outgroup(s) of populist political communication in election manifestos from political parties in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, this study makes use of word embeddings and, more specifically, embedding regression. This method not only allows for contextualization of specific terms that are used to refer to groups, but - by means of bootstrapping and permutation - also for the quantification of systematic differences in meaning and the associated uncertainty. The results show that the ingroups’ identity differs between right-wing populist parties and other parties, but the differences between outgroups’ identities are even more pronounced. Consequently, the ingroup’s identity is mainly constructed ex negativo, through distinction from the outgroup. This not only adds to the growing research on populism in political texts with a focus on its hitherto neglected feature people-centrism, but also shows that word embeddings offer an avenue for further research on group-references in general.