TY - JOUR

T1 - Fighting Fire with Fire

T2 - Mainstream Adoption of the Populist Style in the 2014 Europe Debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage.

AU - Bossetta, Michael

PY - 2017/11/1

Y1 - 2017/11/1

N2 - Advancing the concept of populism as a political style, this study compares the debate performances of two British party leaders, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, as they clashed in a pair of televised debates over Britain’s EU membership ahead of the 2014 European Parliament elections. The argument tested is that under certain conditions, mainstream politicians will adopt a populist communication style while retaining a non-populist agenda. A mixed methods approach combines computational text analysis with a qualitative rhetorical analysis to demonstrate how the populist and non-populist style can be distinguished and systematically compared. The results suggest that Clegg, although maintaining a non-populist ideology, adopts features of the populist style after losing the first debate. Farage’s communication style, conversely, remains stable to the point of statistical significance. This suggests that one explanatory factor for populists’ success is the consistency of their message and rhetorical delivery, helping bolster their perceived authenticity.

AB - Advancing the concept of populism as a political style, this study compares the debate performances of two British party leaders, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, as they clashed in a pair of televised debates over Britain’s EU membership ahead of the 2014 European Parliament elections. The argument tested is that under certain conditions, mainstream politicians will adopt a populist communication style while retaining a non-populist agenda. A mixed methods approach combines computational text analysis with a qualitative rhetorical analysis to demonstrate how the populist and non-populist style can be distinguished and systematically compared. The results suggest that Clegg, although maintaining a non-populist ideology, adopts features of the populist style after losing the first debate. Farage’s communication style, conversely, remains stable to the point of statistical significance. This suggests that one explanatory factor for populists’ success is the consistency of their message and rhetorical delivery, helping bolster their perceived authenticity.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - populism

KW - political communication

KW - text analysis

KW - rhetoric

KW - British politics

U2 - 10.1177/1369148117715646

DO - 10.1177/1369148117715646

M3 - Journal article

VL - 19

SP - 715

EP - 734

JO - British Journal of Politics and International Relations

JF - British Journal of Politics and International Relations

SN - 1369-1481

IS - 4

M1 - 6

ER -