Responsible government parties and unruly opposition: How government responsibility affects populist communication?
Hallitusvastuun vaikutus populistiseen puheeseen
Keywords:
Populism, moderation, parliament, FinlandAbstract
The inclusion-moderation thesis assumes that when a populist party joins a coalition government, a process of mainstreaming and moderation occurs. However, there is a scarcity of empirical studies examining how the governmental role may impact the utilization of populist communication by right-wing populist parties.
Furthermore, prior research has predominantly concentrated on radical right-wing populist parties and has not examined how other parties, typically not categorized as populist, may or may not employ populist communication dependent on their position in government or in opposition. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the extent to which the inclusion-moderation thesis applies to the use of populist communication by both populist and non-populist parties.
The study focuses on parliamentary debates from the years 2015 and 2023. According to the findings, being in government significantly influences the rhetoric of so-called non-populist parties. These parties tend to use some populism when they are in the opposition, but when in government, populism rarely manifests. In the case of the radical right-wing populist party, the Finns Party, there is also a trend towards moderation, although not nearly to the same extent as observed in other parties.
