Populism And Populist Discourse In North America

"This volume offers a significant and engaging overview of the phenomenon of populism in time and in the two countries of the United States and Canada. The focus on populism as a political discourse, both in the rhetorical sense, is one particular merit of this book helping to understand this extremely topical political phenomenon. Anyone concerned about how populist discourse works will benefit from this study." - Francesca De Cesare, University of Naples "L'Orientale", Italy This book examines the origins of populism in Canada and the United States and its development into a powerful and at times disturbing political force. Focus is on five historical periods: The Populist Party of the United States in the 1890s, Prairie Populism in Canada during the early and mid-20th century, the Reform Party of Canada in the 1980s and 90s, the 'left' and 'right' populism of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the early 21st century, and the phenomenon of Ford Nation in modern day Ontario, Canada. The author extends Ernesto Laclau's analysis of populism as a 'logic' in On Populist Reason (2005) to explore how a 'people' come into being in their conflict or clash with an 'elite,' defined by Chartists in the 19th century as "idlers," providing a contrast between 'producers' and 'non-producers.' The author examines the linguistic media (speeches, books, radio, twitter, Facebook) used in populist discourse to convey a political message and to articulate the needs, wishes and will of a newly born 'people' in their numerous guises and expressions, from "the plain people," to "the little guy," or to "brothers and sisters." This volume will be of interest to researchers in an interdisciplinary range of fields, including discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, pragmatics, rhetoric and stylistics, political communication, social movements theory, media studies, and Canadian and American history. Marcia Macaulay is an Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at Glendon College, York University, Canada. Her work focusses on linguistic variation, speech act theory, stylistics, political discourse and gender and language. She is the co-editor of Pragmatics and Context (2012) and the editor of Populist Discourse: International Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

This edited collection draws on case studies from around the world to shed light on the sometimes contentious topic of populism. Examining diverse contexts including North America, Latin America, Europe, New Zealand, and Russia, the authors employ different approaches to populist discourse to analyse key notions in populism such as ‘the people’ and ‘the heartland’ as well as the exploitation of medium and narrative. Each of the chapters in this book explores an aspect of the way in which populism constructs a political reality, with reference to such high-profile examples as Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, the Scottish National Party, Hugo Chávez, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, and Winston Peters. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of both discourse analysis and political science.

This edited book presents a cross-disciplinary and international conversation about the discursive nature of ‘populist’ politics. Based on the idea that language and meaning making are central to the political process, the authors present research originating from disciplines such as sociology, political science, linguistics, gender studies and education, giving credence to the variety and context dependence of both populist discourse and its analysis. Using a variety of different theoretical frames, the volume examines international case studies from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, looking at different modes of populism as well as the interaction of populism with other ideologies and belief systems. The chapters draw on several disciplines, and will be of interest to scholars working in linguistics, political studies, journalism, rhetoric and discourse analysis.

Pathbreaking theoretically and innovative in treatment, Populism in Global Perspective is a seminal addition to the literature on arguably the most controversial and fervently discussed topic in political science today. The book brings together established and rising stars in the field of populism studies, in an integrated set of theoretical and empirical studies centered on a discursive-performative notion of populism. Contributors argue that populist identification is relational and sociocultural, and demonstrate the importance of studying populism phenomenologically together with anti-populism. The truly global series of case studies of populism in the US, Western and Southern Europe, Latin America, South Africa, the Philippines, and Turkey achieves a deliberate balance of left and right instances of populism, including within regions, and of populism in government and opposition. Written in a style approachable to students and specialists alike, the volume provides a substantial foundation for current knowledge on the topic. Populism in Global Perspective is a must read for comparativists, political theorists, sociologists, area studies specialists, and all educated readers interested in populism worldwide.

“This global affairs veteran has carved out a solid, mature path, including for ‘flawed democracies’ like the U.S. We’d all be wise to follow.” — Vancouver Sun From the author of the Globe and Mail bestseller, Claws of the Panda, comes a book quite literally for our times. Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence is a thoughtful account of how we can save democracies from the despots and populists who provide easy answers to complicated situations, dumbing political discourse down to sandbox antics. Manthorpe argues that democracy is more resilient than it appears, and is capable of overcoming the attacks from within and without that have sapped its vigour since the end of the Cold War. He begins with a description of the events of 1989, one of the seminal years in modern history. This saw the end of the Cold War, and the apparent conclusive victory of democracy and its civic values. But the view of these changes as a triumph of democracy — as summed up in Francis Fukuyama’s essay "The End of History" — was short-lived. Russia, shorn of its Soviet empire, and the Chinese Communist Party, re-examining its survival after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, began devising ways to counter-attack the West’s triumphalism and these met with considerable success. Internal pressures and contradictions — wealth disparity being chief among them — threaten the survival of many democratic systems. Abandoned industrial workers turn to the repeated platitudes designed to appeal to those left behind without actually offering them the ways and means to catch up. Immigrants, refugees, and the reformist fixations of isolated liberal elites have provided ammunition for would-be despots. Adding to the pressures building on the political norms of our democracies, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic and social stand-still for which no country is prepared.

Populism is on the rise in Europe and the Americas. Scholars increasingly understand populist forces in terms of their ideas or discourse, one that envisions a cosmic struggle between the will of the common people and a conspiring elite. In this volume, we advance populism scholarship by proposing a causal theory and methodological guidelines – a research program – based on this ideational approach. This program argues that populism exists as a set of widespread attitudes among ordinary citizens, and that these attitudes lie dormant until activated by weak democratic governance and policy failure. It offers methodological guidelines for scholars seeking to measure populist ideas and test their effects. And, to ground the program empirically, it tests this theory at multiple levels of analysis using original data on populist discourse across European and US party systems; case studies of populist forces in Europe, Latin America, and the US; survey data from Europe and Latin America; and experiments in Chile, the US, and the UK. The result is a truly systematic, comparative approach that helps answer questions about the causes and effects of populism.

This collection, which can serve as an introduction to the field of populism, provides an array of interdisciplinary approaches to populist mobilizations, theories, meanings, and effects. In so doing, it rejects essentialized ideas regarding what populism is or is not. Rather, it explores the political, social, and economic conditions that are conducive for the emergence of movements labelled populist, the rationalities and affective tenor of those movements, the political issues pertaining to the relationship between populists and elites, and the relationship between populist groups and political pluralism. Grappling with accord and discord in assumptions and methodologies, the book will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science, communication and cultural studies interested in populism, social movements, citizenship, and democracy.

This timely and engaging book examines the rise of populism across the globe. Combining insights from linguistics, argumentation theory, rhetoric, legal theory and political theory it offers a fully integrated characterization of the form and content of populist discourse.