The year 2024 started with newspapers filled with articles on farmers taking over European cities. In Germany, the farmers protested the recently announced tax break reduction on agricultural diesel. The protests were quickly instrumentalized by various political actors, which made them highly controversial. This thesis explores how two actors, the German radical right AfD and the center-right CDU, discursively construct climate change within the debates surrounding the farmers’ protests. The focus lies on their use of populism as a strategic communication tool and legitimation strategies that politicize climate change. As such, climate change and environmental discourses are critically reviewed and contextualized, and theories on populism and politicization are presented. The thesis applies a discourse-historical approach (DHA) based on the analytical tools of nomination, predication, and legitimation. The findings conclude that discourses of climate policy conservatism, green patriotism, and climate elitism are applied to re-politicize climate change according to the right-wing agenda. As expected, the AfD mainly applied green patriotism, whereas the CDU applied climate policy conservatism. Both also relied on a newly identified discourse of climate elitism, highlighting the protest dynamics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hj-65501 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Schroeder, Nathalie |
| Publisher | Jönköping University, HLK, Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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