Less Populist in Power Online Communication of Populist Parties in Coalition Governments

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Recently several populist parties have become part of coalition governments in multiparty democracies, specifically in Western Europe. Based on the inclusion-moderation thesis, academics assume that incumbent populist parties tone down their populist rhetoric as a result of the daily businesses of deliberation and compromises in coalitions. However, while the assumption of tamed populists in power is widespread, there is little empirical work dealing with the topic. Using a classical quantitative content analysis of 1,210 Facebook posts published by populist parties in Italy, Spain, Austria and New Zealand, this article examines whether opposition parties are more populist and nativist than those in coalition governments. The findings indicate that populists do not decrease the degree of anti-elite and people-centred messages when they are in power but rather change the type of elites they attack and the antagonist groups they juxtapose. We should therefore rethink the validity of the inclusion-moderation thesis for populist parties in coalition governments.

Original languageEnglish
JournalGovernment and Opposition
Volume57
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)467-489
Number of pages23
ISSN0017-257X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10.07.2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author, 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Government and Opposition Limited.

    Research areas

  • government, inclusion-moderation, nativism, populism, social media
  • Politics

DOI

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Lena Knappert

Publications

  1. Prenatal air pollution exposure and neonatal health
  2. Moral Sensitivity
  3. On the frontiers of collaboration and conflict: how context influences the success of collaboration
  4. Influence of Torsion on Precipitation and Hardening Effects during Aging of an Extruded AZ91 Alloy
  5. Partialisierte Handlung und Kontrolle
  6. Entity Extraction from Portuguese Legal Documents Using Distant Supervision
  7. Playing the past to understand the present
  8. Constructing small talk in learner-native speaker voice-based telecollaboration
  9. Logistics under Construction
  10. Spatial characterization of social-ecological systems units for management in Tropical Dry Forests
  11. Who participates in which type of teacher professional development?
  12. From the environmental state to the sustainability state? Conceptualization, indicators, and examples
  13. Mysthik
  14. § 289a HGB
  15. Exploring the influence of testimonial source on attitudes towards e-mental health interventions among university students
  16. Das Wissen des Profils
  17. Text und Technik
  18. Probleme und Strategien der Langzeitarchivierung multimedialer Objekte
  19. Institutionen für eine transformative Forschung
  20. Leveraging Biodiversity Action From Plural Values
  21. Environmental Management Accounting for Staff Appraisal
  22. Optimales Anlagevermögen von Versicherungsunternehmen
  23. Freiheit durch Bindung
  24. Communication constitutes organization
  25. 'Crawling Jurisdiction'
  26. The Third Image
  27. The Effects of Altruism and Social Background in an Online-Based, Pay-What-You-Want Situation
  28. Focus on opportunities as a boundary condition of the relationship between job control and work engagement: A multi-sample, multi-method study
  29. Asking elaborate questions: Focus groups and the management of spontaneity
  30. Preferences and policy - Consuming art and culture in Baltimore and Hamburg