Project

Discipline

Discourse analysis; Regionalism; Populism; Party politics; Media; Cross-Border Area

Lead
Le discours populiste de droite dans les régions transfrontalières européennes.Une comparaison entre la Suisse et le Luxembourg(CROSS-POP)The Right-Wing Populist Discourse in European Cross-Border Areas.A comparison between Switzerland and Luxembourg(CROSS-POP)
Lay summary
L'objectif de ce projet de recherche est de se concentrer sur le discours populiste de droite dans les régions transfrontalières. Le projet s'articule autour des trois questions de recherche : 1) Existe-t-il un discours populiste de droite spécifique aux régions frontalières européennes caractérisées par une forte interdépendance économique ? 2) Existe-t-il une convergence entre un discours populiste de droite à l'échelle du transfrontalier européen ? 3) Les médias situés aux frontières de l'Europe favorisent-ils des discours populistes de droite ?  Le projet adopte une approche comparative. Il se concentre sur quatre régions où des partis populistes de droite ont connu un succès variable au cours des deux dernières décennies. Trois d'entre elles concernent directement la Suisse et les régions françaises et italiennes voisines : les zones centrées sur les cantons de Genève, de Bâle (Ville et Campagne) et du Tessin. La quatrième concerne le Luxembourg et la région française voisine.  Le corpus des données, qui fera l’objet d’une analyse de contenu, comprend un ensemble de textes disponibles dans les archives publiques et sur les sites web des partis populistes de droite et des médias grand public. L'objectif principal du projet est de contribuer à une meilleure compréhension du processus de la montée actuelle du populisme de droite en Europe, en particulier dans les régions transfrontalières les plus intégrées. Il contribuera également à combler le fossé entre l'analyse propre à la science politique et l’apport des sciences de la communication politique.

Direct link to Lay Summary

Last update: 08.01.2019

Natural persons

Active participation

Self-organised

The goal of this research project is to focus on the right-wing populist discourse (RPD) in European cross-border regions. RPD has increasingly interested scholars in political science and political communication, but mainly at the state-national scale. A limited number of studies on discourse produced by right-wing populist actors in the borderland regions of Europe have been published. As one of the tenets of right-wing populist parties is state re-bordering, we consider that RPD and its mass-mediated representation at this spatial scale deserves specific research attention. The project will be structured around the three following research questions: 1) Is there a RPD which is specific to European border regions characterized by cross-border economic interdependence? 2) Is there a convergence of RPD at the scale of European cross-border regions? 3) Do the mass media located in Europe borderlands promote right-wing populism?Trying to fill the gap in the above-mentioned issues and questions, this project follows a comparative approach focusing on four different case studies where successful right-wing populist parties have arisen in the last two decades. Three of them directly involve Switzerland and its neighbouring French and Italian regions: the areas centred on Geneva, Basel and Ticino. The fourth one involves Luxembourg and the nearby French region. These four case studies are characterized by an intense flow of cross-border workers, which leads to strong spatial and economic interdependence across the state boundary. They symbolize both a localized European integration and a localized strength of anti-European right-wing populism. For each borderland area, we will take into consideration discourses produced by right-wing populist parties and mass media during the main electoral campaigns in the last decade, a period characterized by an exponential growth in cross-border commuter flows. During these electoral periods, three types of discourses will be analysed: 1) the narratives developed directly by right-wing populist parties in these borderland regions through their manifestos and other relevant party documents; 2) the narratives produced through their manifestos and other relevant party documents by these same or similar right-wing populist parties at a higher-level/state-national spatial scale to explore the specificity of borderland discourse; 3) the representation of right-wing populism and European issues (including the cross-border ones) by the mass media located in the chosen areas. We expect the RPD is to some extent specific of the borderland areas, convergent across borders and promoted by regional media.The corpus of data adopted in the research project includes a relevant set of texts available in public archives and on the freely accessible websites of right-wing populist parties and of mainstream mass media. A software-assisted content analysis will be carried out on this data. The main goal of the project is to contribute to a better understanding of the current rise of right-wing populism in Europe with a special focus on integrated cross-border areas where different state-contained and localized populist parties coexist and potentially link up with one another with the support of the local media. It will help to bridge the gap between the political analysis and the political communication on populism at this specific regional scale. The project will also provide new insights into the cross-border dynamics in Switzerland and in other relevant European countries. The organization of an international conference at the end of the project to present the results will give the opportunity to bring together leading scholars in the study of the populism and media studies in Switzerland and in Europe. Moreover, the research project integrates a PhD student and two post-doc researchers and therefore contributes to the career advancement of young academics. Since populism in borderland regions is of political relevance for the future of the cooperation between Switzerland and the European Union, the proposed research project also seeks to achieve the wide diffusion of its findings, and to reach out not only to the scientific community, but also to the general public. The research team will be assisted by a Steering Committee that includes the following renowned academics whose expertise is complementary: Prof. Michael Keating (Professor of Political Science at the University of Aberdeen - Key topic: Regionalism); Prof. Ruth Wodak (Emeritus Distinguished Professor in Linguistics and English language at Lancaster University - Key topic: Populist discourse analysis), Prof. Franca Roncarolo (Professor of Political Communication at the University of Turin - Key topic: media campaigning and populism), Prof. James Scott (Professor of Regional and Border Studies at the University of Eastern Finland - Key topic: De/re-bordering in Europe) and Dr. Raphaël Kies (Research Scientist in Political Science at the University of Luxembourg - Key topic: Media pluralism in Europe and political system of Luxembourg).