Abstract
In this article, we look in detail at two populist radical right (PRR) parties’ framing and discourse around a key ideological area for PRRPs: migration and migrants. PRRPs have succeeded in agenda-setting around these issues, which have been a source of their electoral success. However, parties’ framing of these issues has also been a place for vagueness, through ‘doublespeak’ and euphemizing. Building on over 100 interviews with party representatives and members in Belgium and Switzerland, we investigate how the Swiss People’s Party (in government) and the Vlaams Belang (in opposition) portray migrants. In both cases, parties frame some migrants as ‘good’ and others as ‘bad’ based on cultural and economic criteria. This differentiation is enabled by euphemistic, unclear language. Parties’ substantive formulation of who fits into the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ migrant criteria differs. However, for both parties this differentiated portrayal of migrants reflects the need to walk a tightrope between moderate reputations and radical credentials on the key issue of nativism.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 187-212 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| Journal | Politics of Low Countries |
| Volume | 2022 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Acknowledgments: We want to thank the party representatives who allowed us to interview them. The fieldwork upon which this article is based was carried out as part of a broader project conducted on populist radical right parties in Italy, Finland, Belgium and Switzerland. The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) is gratefully acknowledged (Grant Ref: ES/R011540/1). We also want to express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and the journal editors.Keywords
- migration
- populist radical right
- nativism
- Belgium
- Switzerland