The thesis develops an understanding of the relationship between populism and the changes in the media landscape brought about by the advent of web 2.0. Its aim is to explain the rapid emergence of the Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy. A contextual analysis of the structures of opportunities reveals that the key to understand the ‘success’ of 5SM lays in the fact that the political actor fully exploited the affordances of the Web 2.0, making them resonate with the ‘thin’ ideology of populism. The advent of web 2.0 can then benefit political actors employing a populist ideology in three ways; enhancing the declining trust and separation between people and the political establishment, providing a seemingly more direct form of communication with the electorate and providing a new way of constructing the ‘people’ of populism through the networks. / Graduate

Peronism has been one of the most widely used terms in the context of Argentinean politics, history and culture over the last 60 years. In spite of the fact that there is no official definition of the term, many different political strategies in Argentina are referred to as Peronist. Why is it so complicated to define the concept of Peronism? What does it really mean when Argentinean presidents claim to be Peronists? This thesis is based on the hypothesis that Peronism is primarily brand of political populist projects. The first chapter classifies the concept of populism, the second chapter deals with the particular populism in Latin America and the third chapter analyzes the individual mandates of Peronist presidents. The analysis strongly supports the working hypothesis.

The rise of populism has put a strain on democracies all over the world, all from South and North America to Asia. The Northern European countries are no exception to this situation, and the rise of right-wing populist parties in the Nordic countries have taken its toll on their respective parliamentary institutions. The methods in which to tackle this development has been varied. Some political establishments have been attempting to isolate and ignore the populist party, seeking to set an example for its citizens, and signaling appropriate democratic values. Others have chosen to include and oppose these parties, as if they were any other political party. This study firstly presents a clear view of the differences in which method has been used in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. All four countries have used different methods, from Sweden’s attempt at isolating the Sweden Democrats, to Denmark’s choice to include the Danish Peoples Party as a regular member of the parliamentary system. Additionally, this study presents a set of theories as to why the methods of choice vary between countries, which are otherwise so similar. The theories deal with the importance of individual political characters in the respective country, the specific time period in which the most radical changes occur, the cultural heritage of the country, or whether the method of choice is a politically tactical move.

For this study, I set out to examine the electoral manifestos of four European populist parties in national elections, in order to analyze the ideological similarities and differences between the Finns Party, the Sweden Democrats, the National Rally, and the League. Political manifestos represent authoritative statements on party policies. I aimed to compare the ideologies expressed in the manifestos and to allocate them on a left-neutral-right scale according to a model developed by Backlund (2013), Benoitand Laver (2007), and Lowe et al. (2011). The theoretical background comes from Spatial theory (Downs 1957, Sartori 1977, Adams 1998) and Saliency theory (Budge & Farlie 1983, Budge et al. 2001, Klingemann et al. 2006). I derived the research data from the Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) database; the data are longitudinal, covering 48 variables from two elections during the period of 2011-2018. I investigated how the parties present their political goals through qualitative analyses, as well as an examination of the salience and frequency of issues. I compared the data to long-term trends from MARPOR data and from the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys. My findings indicate that the parties have common ideological traits such as nationalism, European Union (EU) opposition, and immigration negativity, but they differ in how they advocate for various policy matters. The Finns Party is the least moderate and openly exhibits nationalism and discriminatory features. The Sweden Democrats share attributes with leftist ideologies, except for the EU opposition and a veiled immigration negativity. The National Rally is nationalistic and privileges protectionism, but is more indirectly immigration and EU negative. The League shows an increasing preference for federalism and EU and immigration negativity during the two elections.

The main goal of this paper is to examine the construction and linguistic portrayal of the climate change phenomenon in the right-wing populist parties' discourse. The literature has so far mainly assumed automatic relationship between right- wing ideology and climate-refusal and did not go beyond analysis of specific climate-skeptical parties. We aim to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing both climate-supportive and disengaged RWP parties, as well their communication strategies on the matter. In order to disentangle inconsistencies, paradoxes and contradictions in text and discourse-internal structures, as well as to demystify the possible persuasive or manipulative tendencies of RWP parties, this paper employs a Discourse- Historical Approach in order to examine how these actors transform, translate and modify the meaning and role of a climate change in their texts. Moreover, the focus of our paper is on the three strategies within DHA - nomination, predication and argumentation. The analysis included three RWP parties - Alternative for Germany; Hungarian Fidesz and French National Rally, We found that the three examined parties with different climate policy preferences tend to deploy markedly different manipulative or persuasive strategies, and utilize different rhetorical and...

Thesis advisor: Peter Ireland / Thesis advisor: Rosen Valchev / This dissertation consists in three chapters, each making a distinct contribution. Chapter 1 empirically tests classic and new Uncovered Interest Parity puzzle in an innovative way. Findings suggest that government debt is significant and economically relevant for UIP puzzles estimation.Chapter 2 shows that a class of macroeconomic models reproduce the UIP puzzle under a standard parametrization and adding convenience yields exogenous dynamics. Chapter 3 is a theoretical model that links financial crises to the election of populists parties, matching empirical evidence from Europe. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Among the most notable trends of the last several decades in the United States have been the rise of corporate power, the entrenchment of neoliberalism, the rise in inequality, along with discussions regarding the ‘culture wars’ and the phenomenon of polarization. The onset of the neoliberal era has been accompanied and facilitated by a decades-long marketing campaign propagating the consistent narrative of individualism over the collective, that government is the problem rather than a solution to problems, while associating freedom exclusively with the market. This thesis project draws on critical theory, Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power, discourse, narrative and communications theory, along with some insights from social psychology to examine the discursive shifting of the political spectrum that has occurred over the last four decades and has helped to entrench market fundamentalism as a hegemonic common sense. The thesis pays particular attention to the weaponization of the word ‘liberal’ and how this strategy has affected the understanding of the political spectrum and how the centre is currently framed. The research design I use to interrogate this entails a qualitative content analysis of various media sources noting how ‘common sense’ populist discourse, such as terms like ‘liberal’, are utilized by Republican operatives and conservative commentators, as well as by the mainstream media and the general public. Using a multi-disciplinary theoretical approach and a methodological framework provided by Stone and Parker, I deconstruct and analyze the narrative that has been built up around neoliberalism and how it can serve to reinforce neoliberalism as a little-questioned hegemonic paradigm, often by-passing cognition. Neoliberal logics reject the political in terms of participatory democracy, while still requiring a strong state to stabilize the economic order. The resulting erosion of democracy augurs the possibility of right-wing authoritarianism, exacerbates inequality, and promotes a growth model that is unsustainable ecologically / Graduate

Högerpopulism är en ideologi som fått allt större spridning och väljarstöd runt om Europa. Även Sveriges parti Sverigedemokraterna har tillväxt och framgång de senaste åren inte gått obemärkt förbi. Vad som definierar högerpopulism och högerpopulistiska partier brukar man dock sällan tala om utan brukar för det mesta ge ett parti den stämpeln om partiet vill minska invandringen. Men det är mycket mer än bara invandringsfrågan som definierar ett högerpopulistiskt parti. Därför är syftet med den här uppsatsen att skapa en definition och urskilja vissa kännetecken hos ett högerpopulistiskt parti. Detta utförs med hjälp av en idealtypsanalys för högerpopulism och en jämförande idéanalys med Sverigedemokraterna. Jag kommer att presentera tidigare forskning som gjorts inom området, populism och högerpopulism för att på vi vis designa min idealtyp. I analysen jämför jag sedan resultatet av den tidigare forskningen med Sverigedemokraternas senaste dokument för att på detta vis kunna se om Sverigedemokraterna är ett högerpopulistiskt parti eller inte. I min slutsats plockar jag ut de viktigaste utmärkande dragen hos Sverigedemokraterna som stämmer bäst överens med idealtypen för högerpopulism. Resultatet av vad som kännetecknar högerpopulism är att de vill bevara den nationella gemenskapen genom att bevara den nationella kulturen i landet, använder sig av anti-etablissemangsstrategin för att kunna ta avstånd från de andra etablerade partierna och själva försöka framstå som folkets försvarare samt förespråkar minskad invandring.

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With a recent rise in popularity, populism has become a frequently studied subject for political science research. However, despite the expansive research, academia still struggles to properly define the phenomenon which has resulted in several conflicting understandings of populism. The aim of this study is to compare two prominent definitions of populism: Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser’s thin-centered ideology approach and Benjamin Moffitt’s political style approach on a previously unexplored case in the form of Örebropartiet, a local populist party in Sweden. Using a qualitative content analysis, the party program and the party leader’s commentary is analysed to determine whether the definitions manage to identify the party as a populist one. The results are mixed: both definitions manage to capture the antagonistic divide between “the people” and “the elite” while still struggling in other aspects, more specifically in regards to Mudde and Kaltwasser’s host ideology aspect and Moffitt’s performance of crisis aspect. The study concludes with an acknowledgement that both definitions have inherent problems identifying Örebropartiet as a populist party which needs to be corrected if we want to expand our collective knowledge on both Örebropartiet and populism in general.