DELIMITATIONS: EMPIRICAL MATERIAL, TIMEFRAME, CASES, AND

On the matter of discursive production, reification, and dissemination of ideology, a highly influential channel for such processes is represented by newspapers, and other such media institutions. Furthermore, several researchers have maintained that editorial columns represent not only the dominant editorial views of the respective media outlet, but are in fact diligent organs in the service of their owners, and thereby mirror faithfully the organisation’s driving ideology (Hart, 2010: 16–19; van Dijk, 1998: 187–189; 2006: 138). Such a stance needs, however, to be corroborated with the findings of researchers of radical right populism that have concluded that the media have played a crucial role in emergence of such political forces to the forefront of mainstream politics in various national settings.

Equally important, to judge from their findings, has been the radical right populist leader as the main voice representing their party’s ideological stance and the most suitable for satisfying the contemporary media logic that appears highly responsive to emotive and passionate appeals, abrasive language, and public protest (Bos, van der Brug & de Vreese, 2010: 157–159; 2011: 184–185; Ellinas, 2010: 32–33; Mazzoleni, 2003: 6–7). However, the present study does not operate a drastic separation of leaders from the parties they chair; rather, acknowledging

11 The present study subscribes to the practice adopted in cognitive linguistics to employ small upper case to represent abstract reasoning – conceptual metaphors as they are to be defined later in the text – (Kövecses, 2002: 4). In so doing, I acknowledge the impact of said discipline on other social sciences concerned with the study of metaphors.

that in the electoral competition ‘the party leader factor is, by and large, a function of the party factor’ (Karvonen, 2010: 84), the analysis concentrates on the media production of these leaders as illustrative articulations of the radical populist ideology in discourse.

More clearly, while acknowledging the role of media outlets in the rise to prominence of radical right populist leaders as the main representatives of radical right populist ideology, in order to counter the possible distortions that mainstream media channels might be operating in mediating (from radical right populist leaders to their intended audience and possible political supporters) these ideological messages, I am focusing in the present study on those media outlets directly connected to the radical right populist parties. Even more narrowly considered, key here are the editorials authored by radical right populist leaders. These editorial columns have been supplemented at times with interviews of the party leaders published in the selected party organs in which they would comment specifically on various socio–political developments that otherwise have not been addressed in their authored editorials¹². In so doing, my aim has been to gain unmediated access to the discursive manifestations of radical right populism as envisaged by the party leaders. At the same time, I have also attempted to address the challenge posited by the presence of a cordon sanitaire that mainstream media might build around radical right populist parties and their leaders, effectively boycotting their attempts to make their stances known to a wider swathe of voters (Ellinas, 2010: 76–124; Rydgren, 2006: 106–108).

Concerning the investigation of radical right populist expressions in Romania, the empirical material has been compiled from the pages of the PRM organ, the weekly Greater Romania Magazine (Revista România Mare; ISSN 1220–7616).

The material was gathered taking into consideration the selected timeframe, from January 2000 – the issue anticipating the Romanian Parliamentary and Presidential elections that took place later that year – to June 2009 – the issue published after the European Parliamentary elections. Since the newspaper in question has not been available online, photocopies have been made of the relevant issues. These have been archived at the PRM regional headquarters in Cluj–Napoca/Kolozsvár¹³ – in May 2007, respectively in June 2010. It is worth noting that only those pages containing the leader’s weekly editorials and press

12 In order to ensure a comprehensive, coherent, and unitary referencing system for the collected empirical material in both cases, I have implemented a specific referencing style. More clearly, each empirical item is not referenced by author, but by indicating the issue number in each case, followed by the year of publication, and the corresponding page number. A detailed list of the cited empirical items has been annexed to the end of this study.

13 Officially, the name is recorded only in Romanian (Cluj–Napoca). The city also has an unofficial Hungarian name (Kolozsvár). These names testify to the city’s historical cultural–economic importance for both ethnic communities. Despite the significant Hungarian minority in the city, it has never become officially bilingual. In turn, the city witnessed a period of fervent Romanian nationalism, for over a decade after the fall of the Ceausescu’s regime. I use both forms one next to another in sign of respect and tolerance for both communities.

releases have been selected for the purpose of this study, since the newspaper itself generally has voluminous issues (generally, 24 pages per issue).

With regard to the examination of radical right populist manifestations in Sweden, the empirical material has been collected from the pages of the SD newspaper, namely the Sweden Democrat Courier (SD–Kuriren; ISSN 1103–4009 (0284–6861)). In this case, the empirical material has been gradually gathered during an extended visiting fellowship at the Stockholm University, which commenced in April 2008 and lasted until the study’s conclusion. The newspaper has been available in hard copy (with an average of 12 pages per issue) for subscription. Nevertheless, I have opted to download all issues within the chosen timeframe, from October 2005 – the newspaper’s first issue in the aftermath of SD leadership change – to October 2010 – the post–elections issue. I have performed the download directly from the party’s official website, which earlier had a direct link to the newspaper’s own pages¹⁴. In this case, I have widened the selection of empirical material, including the leader’s editorials, his press releases and debate articles, and other pieces in which he had been interviewed on daily political matters.

I have focused in the present study on the inherent ideological transformations that, in my view, enable the selected radical right populist parties not only to craft their ideological profile to be distinguishable from other parties in their respective countries but also permit the researched parties to react to various historical and social circumstances. In a sense they engage in a constant (re)interpretation of their cardinal ideological tenets with the purpose of gaining parliamentary representation and participate in the forming of governing coalitions. Such a stance is, to a certain extent, related to the ‘lifespan model’ employed by Susi Meret (2010) in her study of radical right populist ideology. I maintain nonetheless that over–drawing the metaphor of the lifespan of a radical right populist party being like that of a human being may deflect scholarly attention from precisely those various ideological transformations and adaptations of interest. Additionally, the present study has a specific timeframe, which neither contains the selected radical right populist parties’ foundation, nor their political demise; rather, it represents a clearly defined temporal slice of the political activity of selected radical right populist parties.

A second distinction I make is between the specificity of researching how the discursive manifestations of radical right populist ideology under scrutiny gain consistency through the use of particular conceptual structures and rhetorical political analysis. While also interested in the analysis of the substantive content of political discourse, scholars of rhetorical political analysis position their studies in a decidedly dialogic context. Consequently, they pay attention to political

14 In late August 2010 and then again in the eve of elections day, several cyber–attacks were directed against the SD official webpages (those of the party’s main organisation, the newspaper, and several others). Consequently, the newspaper archive has been placed behind a password–

protected wall.

arguments, regarded as loci for political persuasion. In other words, of interest for rhetorical political analysis is the dynamic between those political actors involved in the argumentative situation under study (cf. Finlayson, 2007; 2012). In my view, such a take is not particularly suitable for the present analysis, since the radical right populist parties have often been treated with indifference, if not fenced off outright from the political arguments in which established parties engage, as noted above.

I have therefore opted to concentrate the analysis on the effective adaptations of radical right ideology to the specificities of historical, geographical, and cultural contexts they are located in, and as such to make use of the party programmes of chosen radical right populist parties as anchoring posts, rather than as main empirics for the present examination. Under these circumstances, I have deemed a genealogical approach – as suggested by Michel Foucault (cf. 1990; 1998; 2000) – a more appropriate methodological means to investigate these transformations.

More clearly, selecting as empirical material for the present investigation the media production of radical right populist leaders, I have attempted to account for the ideology’s operative (re)positioning and (re)interpretation, which in my view afford a more vivid and veridical picture of radical right populist ideology (Freeden, 1998a: 79–80; Meret, 2010: 58–61).

Another important delimitation concerns the choice and number of cases that I have selected for the analysis. Having in mind that the present study has a decidedly qualitative aspect, it would not have been feasible to consider a large number of cases. In this context, I have selected the two cases through a two–step process. The first step pertained to focusing explicitly on a set of conceptual structures – more clearly, the NATION IS A FAMILY and the STRICT FATHER conceptual metaphors – to be researched in the context of radical right populist discourses.

The second step involved a careful evaluation of the cases’ complexity and specificity, in the sense of selecting those cases that I have considered might provide competing perspectives on the use of the aforesaid conceptual constructions. This was undertaken with particular attention to the countries’

different historical, socio–economic and political developments in the European periphery. The Romanian case (the PRM) illustrates the development of radical right populism in Central and Eastern Europe, whilst the Swedish case (the SD) problematises the previously considered failed case of radical right populism in Northern Europe (Carmel, 1999: 143; George & Bennett, 2005: 83–84; Landman, 2005: 41; Platt, 2007: 110). It is worth noting in this context that I regard the two selected cases – the PRM in Romania and the SD in Sweden – as ‘heuristic case studies’, since the ambition of this study is to relate to and contribute to theory building in a deliberate fashion, thereby purposefully pursuing generalisable relations in Critical Metaphor Theory (Eckstein, 1992: 143–147; George &

Bennett, 2005: 75).

A final remark on the matter: I am aware that such a qualitative analysis is heavily dependent on the author’s subjective abilities and limitations to interpret the collected empirical material, and as such these may have a serious impact on the validity and reliability of such a study. In my attempt to address this challenge, I have relied on feminist reflexivity as praxis in undertaking my research (Lazar, 2005: 14–19). I thereby acknowledge that the skills I am equipped with, which I have employed in the present investigation, have been influenced by my personal academic trajectory and exposure to specific scholarly communities (most importantly, membership in the feminist research community), my acquired language skills – in both Romanian, and Swedish – and my intellectual capacity to decode, and interpret specific cultural codes, and to convey the results of such cognitive processes in English¹⁵. Put differently, I have made use of my intricate insider, yet outsider, relationship I have developed over the years with the two countries, cultures, and languages where the objects of my study are located in order to produce the most effective insights into the collected empirics (Carmel, 1999: 145). Although I am aware that a perfect replication – in the qualitative understanding of the process – may probably not be possible, I have been motivated to undertake such an analysis by other feminist researchers’ appeals for a situated subjectivity in the analysis of conceptual metaphor in discourse (Mottier, 2008: 188).