Article published In:
Right-Wing Populism in Europe & USA: Contesting Politics & Discourse beyond ‘Orbanism’ and ‘Trumpism’Edited by Ruth Wodak and Michał Krzyżanowski
[Journal of Language and Politics 16:4] 2017
► pp. 551–565
Edited by Ruth Wodak and Michał Krzyżanowski
[Journal of Language and Politics 16:4] 2017
► pp. 551–565
The “Establishment”, the “Élites”, and the “People”
Who’s who?
In this paper, I discuss the attempt by all right-wing populist parties to create, on the one hand, the ‘real’ and ‘true’ people; and on the other, the ‘élites’ or ‘the establishment’ who are excluded from the true demos. Such divisions, as will be elaborated in detail, have emerged in many societies over centuries and decades. A brief example of the arbitrary construction of opposing groups illustrates the intricacies of such populist reasoning. Furthermore, I pose the question why such divisions resonate so well in many countries? I argue that – apart from a politics of fear (Wodak 2015) – much resentment is evoked which could be viewed as both accompanying as well as a reaction to the disenchantment with politics and the growing inequalities in globalized capitalist societies.
Keywords: Right-wing populism, Manichean Division, topos, Austria, Freedom Party, elite, establishment, ‘the people’, politics of fear, TV debate, presidential election campaign
Article outline
- 1.Losing trust and defining scapegoats
- 2.Re/Nationalizing tendencies in Europe and beyond
- 3.“Othering”: The establishment (élites), the strangers, and the people
- 4.The people versus the ‘Schickeria’
- 5.Conclusions: The politics of resentment
- Notes
-
References
References
Adorno, Theodor W., Frenkel-Brunswik, Else, Levinson, Daniel and Sanford, Nevitt
1967 The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper and Brothers.
Angouri, Jo and Ruth Wodak
2014 “ ‘They became big in the shadow of the crisis’: The Greek success story and the rise of the far right.” Discourse and Society 25 (4): 540–565. 
Bauman, Zygmunt
2016 Strangers at our Door. Oxford: Polity.
Beetham, David
2001 “Political legitimacy.” In The Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, ed. by Kate Nash and Alan Scott, 107–116. London: Blackwell.
Betz, Hans-Georg
2017 “The new politics of resentment: radical right-wing populist parties in Western Europe.” In The populist radical right. A reader, ed. by Cas Mudde, 338–51. London: Routledge.
Canovan, Margaret
1999 Populism. London: Junction Books.
Elias, Norbert and John L. Scotson
20168. Etablierte und Außenseiter. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.
European Commission
(2015) Standard Eurobarometer 84: Public Opinion in the European Union. Accessed 1 March 2017. [URL]
Hay, Colin
2007 Why we hate politics. Cambridge: Polity.
Hochschild, Arlie
2016 Strangers in their own Land. Anger and Mourning on the American Right. New York: The New Press.
Jäger, Siegfried and Florentine Maier
2009 “Theoretical and methodological aspects in Foucauldian critical discourse analysis and dispositive analysis.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, 2nd revised edition, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 34–61. London: Sage.
Judt, Tony
2011 Ill Fares the Land. London: Penguin.
Klein, Wolfgang
1991 Die Argumentation in den griechisch-christlichen Antimanichaica (=
Studies in Oriental Religions 19). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Krasteva, Anna
2017 “Re/De/Constructing the Far-Right Youth: Between the Lost Generation and the Contestatory Citizenship.” In: Understanding the Populist Shift: Othering in a Europe in Crisis, ed. Gabriela Lazaridis and Gianni Campani, 150–78. London: Routledge.
Kriesi, Hans
2014 “The Populist Challenge.” West European Politics 37(2): 361–78.
Krzyżanowski, Michał and Ruth Wodak
2009 The Politics of Exclusion. Debating Migration in Austria. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Laclau, Ernesto
2005 On Populist Reason. London: Verso
Lakoff, George
2004 Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green.
Mills, Charles W.
1956 The Power Élite. New York: Oxford University Press.
Müller, Jan-Werner
2017 “ ‘Donald Trump’s use of the term ‘the people’ is a warning sign” The Guardian 24 January. Accessed 1 March 2017. ([URL])
Nietzsche, Friedrich
1988 [1881] Zur Genealogie der Moral. Eine Streitschrift. Munich: DTV
Pelinka, Anton
2013 “Right-Wing Populism: Concept and Typology.” In Right-Wing Populism in Europe. Politics and discourse, ed. by Ruth Wodak, Majid KhosraviNik and Brigitta Mral, 3–22. London: Bloomsbury.
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak
2000 “ ‘Austria First’. A discourse-historical analysis of the Austrian ‘anti-foreigner-petition’ in 1992 and 1993.” In Semiotics of Racism: Approaches in Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Martin Reisigl and Ruth Wodak, 269–304. Vienna: Passagen.
Rizakis, Miltiadis
2017 The rise of the Far Right in Greece and France. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Glasgow University.
Sauer, Birgit, Anna Krasteva, and Aino Saarinen
2017 “Post-Democracy, Party Politics and Right-Wing Populist Communication.” In Populism and the Web: communicative practices of parties and movements in Europe, ed. by Moica Pajnik and Birgit Sauer. London: Ashgate (in press).
Scheler, Max
1961 [1913] Ressentiment. New York: The Free Press.
Wodak, Ruth
2011 The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual, 2nd revised edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
2015 The Politics of Fear. What Right-wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage.
Cited by
Cited by 55 other publications
Alekseev, Alexander
2022. “It is in the nation-state that democracy resides”. Journal of Language and Politics 21:3 ► pp. 459 ff. 
Beggan, James K., Scott T. Allison & George R. Goethals
2023. The Hazards of Great Leadership,
Breazu, Petre & Göran Eriksson
2021. Romaphobia in Romanian press: The lifting of work restrictions for Romanian migrants in the European Union. Discourse & Communication 15:2 ► pp. 139 ff.
Breazu, Petre & David Machin
2019. Racism toward the Roma through the affordances of Facebook: bonding, laughter and spite. Discourse & Society 30:4 ► pp. 376 ff.
Breeze, Ruth
2019. Emotion in politics: Affective-discursive practices in UKIP and Labour. Discourse & Society 30:1 ► pp. 24 ff.
Breeze, Ruth
2019. Positioning “the people” and Its Enemies: Populism and Nationalism in AfD and UKIP. Javnost - The Public 26:1 ► pp. 89 ff.
Campati, Antonio
2022. Elite and Liberal Democracy: A New Equilibrium?. Topoi 41:1 ► pp. 15 ff.
Capdevila, Arantxa, Carlota M. Moragas-Fernández & Josep M. Grau-Masot
2022. Emergencia del populismo en España: marcos metafóricos de Vox y de su comunidad online durante las elecciones generales de 2019. El Profesional de la información
Catalano, Theresa & Ari Kohen
2020. Googly eyes and yard signs: Deconstructing one professor’s successful rebuffing of a right-wing attack on an academic institution. Discourse & Society 31:2 ► pp. 129 ff.
Catalano, Theresa & Linda R. Waugh
2020. The Main Approaches to CDA/CDS. In Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Discourse Studies and Beyond [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 26], ► pp. 155 ff.
Anna De Fina & Alexandra Georgakopoulou
2020. The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies,
Diaz, Brett A. & Marika K. Hall
2020. A corpus-driven exploration of U.S. language planning and language ideology from 2013 to 2018. Journal of Language and Politics 19:6 ► pp. 916 ff.
Dobkiewicz, Patryk, Agnieszka Chmiel & Małgorzata Fabiszak
2023. Source text ideological load modulates ideological shifts in interpreting right-wing and left-wing political discourse, but interpreters’ political orientation does not. Ampersand 11 ► pp. 100151 ff.
Fenton-Smith, Ben
2020. The (Re) Birth of Far-Right Populism in Australia: The Appeal of Pauline Hanson’s Persuasive Definitions. In Discursive Approaches to Populism Across Disciplines, ► pp. 339 ff.
Fucci, Anthony & Theresa Catalano
Gabsi, Zouhir
Gołębiowska, Klaudia
2023. Alternative für Deutschland: rhetoric against migrants as a threat to democracy in Germany. Rocznik Integracji Europejskiej :17 ► pp. 243 ff.
Gruber, Helmut
2019. Are Austrian presidential candidates ordinary people?. In The Construction of ‘Ordinariness’ across Media Genres [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 307], ► pp. 21 ff.
Gruber, Helmut
Hansson, Sten & Ruth Page
2023. Legitimation in government social media communication: the case of the Brexit department. Critical Discourse Studies 20:4 ► pp. 361 ff.
Helal, Fethi
2022. ‘The people want …: ’ the populist specter in the Tunisian President’s inaugural speech. Critical Discourse Studies 19:3 ► pp. 233 ff.
Holtz-Bacha, Christina
2022. Strategic Political Authenticity: How Populists Construct an Authentic Image. In Cultures of Authenticity, ► pp. 273 ff.
HUBER, ROBERT A., MICHAEL JANKOWSKI & CHRISTINA‐MARIE JUEN
2023. Populist parties and the two‐dimensional policy space. European Journal of Political Research 62:3 ► pp. 989 ff.
Jakobson, Mari-Liis, Sebastián Umpierrez de Reguero & Inci Öykü Yener-Roderburg
2023. When migrants become ‘the people’: unpacking homeland populism. Contemporary Politics 29:3 ► pp. 277 ff.
Jensen, Per H. & Bettina Leibetseder
2021. Danish satisfaction and Austrian discontent with their governments’ measures during the Covid-19 crisis: Explanations from a citizenship perspective. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy ► pp. 1 ff.
Koppel, Katrina & Mari-Liis Jakobson
2023. Who Is the Worst Migrant? Migrant Hierarchies in Populist Radical-Right Rhetoric in Estonia. In Anxieties of Migration and Integration in Turbulent Times [IMISCOE Research Series, ], ► pp. 225 ff.
Kranert, Michael
2019. Populist Elements in the Election Manifestoes of AfD and UKIP. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 67:3 ► pp. 265 ff.
Krzyżanowski, Michał & Per Ledin
Li, Tao & Yifan Zhu
2020. How does China appraise self and others? A corpus-based analysis of Chinese political discourse. Discourse & Society 31:2 ► pp. 153 ff.
Mols, Frank & Jolanda Jetten
2020. Understanding Support for Populist Radical Right Parties: Toward a Model That Captures Both Demand-and Supply-Side Factors. Frontiers in Communication 5
Moore, Jarrett D.
2019. Developing Critical Dispositions in Teacher Education Programs. In Handbook of Research on Critical Thinking Strategies in Pre-Service Learning Environments [Advances in Higher Education and Professional Development, ], ► pp. 106 ff.
Mortazavi, Seyed Mohammadreza, Hamed Zandi & Mohammad Makki
2023. “A history lesson, perhaps, for my novice counterpart”. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Ntontis, Evangelos, Klara Jurstakova, Fergus Neville, S. Alexander Haslam & Stephen Reicher
2024. A warrant for violence? An analysis of Donald Trump's speech before the US Capitol attack. British Journal of Social Psychology 63:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Olteanu, Alin
2021. A Proposal for a Biosemiotic Approach to Digitalization: Literacy as Modeling Competence. In Biosemiotics and Evolution [Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, 6], ► pp. 65 ff.
Olteanu, Alin
2022. Translation from a contemporary media perspective: avoiding culturalism and monolingualism. Social Semiotics 32:1 ► pp. 143 ff.
Orkibi, Eithan
2022. Self-othering to power: vilification, ridicule and moral claims in the Israeli right ‘underdog’ discourse. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 17:2 ► pp. 158 ff.
Pasitselska, Olga & Christian Baden
Reyes, Antonio
Rheindorf, Markus
2018. Chapter 8. Disciplining the unwilling. In Doing Politics [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 80], ► pp. 179 ff.
Rheindorf, Markus
2020. Rhetorics, Discourse and Populist Politics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies, ► pp. 622 ff.
Rovamo, Helena & Inari Sakki
2024. Mobilization of shared victimhood in the radical right populist Finns Party supporters’ identity work: A narrative–discursive approach to populist support. European Journal of Social Psychology 54:2 ► pp. 495 ff.
Römer, Johanna Ilene
2023. Building a Coalition of Makers. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race ► pp. 1 ff.
Sakki, Inari & Jari Martikainen
2021. Mobilizing collective hatred through humour: Affective–discursive production and reception of populist rhetoric. British Journal of Social Psychology 60:2 ► pp. 610 ff.
Screti, Francesco
2022. Populism in mediated anti-tourism discourse: a critical analysis of the documentary tourist go home!. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 20:5 ► pp. 617 ff.
Stefanowitsch, Anatol
2019.
Delivering a Brexit Deal to the British People: Theresa May as a Reluctant Populist. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 67:3 ► pp. 231 ff.
Stewart, Craig O.
2020. Populist linguistic tone in recent U.S. presidential campaign discourse: a DICTION analysis. Communication Research Reports 37:1-2 ► pp. 11 ff.
Ulinskaitė, Jogilė
2020. The Populist Discourse on Representation in Lithuania. European Review 28:5 ► pp. 744 ff.
Vershinin, Ignat
2023. The Role of Discursive Practices in Public Diplomacy and International Relations: The Case of Russia–Japan Relations. Europe-Asia Studies 75:9 ► pp. 1560 ff.
Vieten, Ulrike M.
2020. The “New Normal” and “Pandemic Populism”: The COVID-19 Crisis and Anti-Hygienic Mobilisation of the Far-Right. Social Sciences 9:9 ► pp. 165 ff.
Vollmer, Bastian A.
2021. New Horizons. In Borders Revisited, ► pp. 109 ff.
Watson, Sandy White & Anne Case Hanks
2023. (Dis)Trusting Science in the Trump Era. In Global Science’s Cooperation Opportunities, Challenges, and Good Practices [Advances in Civil and Industrial Engineering, ], ► pp. 229 ff.
Westberg, Gustav
2021. Affective rebirth: Discursive gateways to contemporary national socialism. Discourse & Society 32:2 ► pp. 214 ff.
Wodak, Ruth
2018. Vom Rand in die Mitte – „Schamlose Normalisierung“. Politische Vierteljahresschrift 59:2 ► pp. 323 ff.
Zappettini, Franco
2021. The tabloidization of the Brexit campaign. Journal of Language and Politics 20:2 ► pp. 277 ff.
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.