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Populism as Symbolic Class Struggle. Homology, Metaphor, and English Ale
Abstract
This contribution links the study of populism as a stylistic repertoire with Bourdieusian class analysis. The starting point is Ostiguy and Moffitt's observation that the populist repertoire draws on symbols of the 'sociocultural low' and 'the popular' produced in non-political fields like food and leisure. Borrowing from Lévi-Strauss and Bourdieu, the article proposes to view these elements as metaphors for positions in vertical and horizontal class relations. Metaphorical signification rests on homologies between the symbolic sphere ('culture') and politics grounded in the divisions of social space ('the class structure'). This perspective allows us to situate the populist repertoire in social structure and analyze its entanglement in struggles over the classification of groups, or symbolic class struggles.
... Side of Populism', which explored the relationship between populism and cultural artifacts in Europe -an issue explicitly based on the sociocultural approach. The issue included a conceptual article byWestheuser (2020a), also citing examples from England, Italy and France (see also below). Shortly after, MarioDunkel (2022) and ManuelaCaiani and Enrico Padoan (2023) developed, in two closely inter-related yet different interdisciplinary projects on populism and popular music in Europe, a large-scale application of the approach. ...
This chapter reviews the sociocultural approach to populism, its emergence and international diffusion, as well as new avenues of research. The sociocultural approach understands populism as a distinctive style of doing politics, of making appeals, and of establishing relations between citizens and representatives. This style is marked by a) a revaluation of the ‘low’ pole of cultural stratification, that is, popular but devalued cultural forms; b) by localist appeals to the “from here”; and c) by personalistic modes of political representation. The chapter presents key conceptual tools for understanding the populist style and reviews examples of a growing transnational field of empirical studies in the sociocultural tradition of populism research. Finally, we suggest that populism scholarship can profit from a deepened engagement with neo-Bourdieusian cultural class analysis. Populism's ‘plebeian grammar’ and its vindication of the ‘low’, it is suggested, thrive in the context of relations of social devaluation and relative political exclusion characteristic of contemporary demobilized class societies.
... Der politische Erfolg rechtspopulistischer Parteien, so die Ausgangsthese, gründet daher im erheblichen Maße darin, eine heterogene Wählerinnenschaft aus den unteren, mittleren und oberen sozialen Lagen zu mobilisieren, die vergleichbare Wahrnehmungsmuster aufweisen. Dazu zählt etwa die Wahrnehmung, sich auf einer absteigenden sozialen Flugbahn zu befinden (Koppetsch 2018), dass der eigene Status in Gefahr ist (Sthamer 2018), oder dass die Prinzipien der eigenen Lebensführung öffentlich abgewertet werden (Vehrkamp und Wegschaider 2017;Flemmen et al. 2022;Westheuser 2020). Eine Milieukoalition fußt demnach auf bestimmten Ähnlichkeiten in den erfahrungsbedingten Wahrnehmungsmustern sozial heterogener Gruppen, die durch die Deutungsregister, die eine rechtspopulistische Partei bereitstellt, auf einen Nenner gebracht und politisch aktiviert werden. ...
Zusammenfassung
Obwohl in den letzten Jahren viel zu den Charakteristika des AfD-Elektorats geforscht wurde, gibt es bisher nur wenige Erkenntnisse darüber, inwiefern unterschiedliche soziale Gruppen und Milieus aus jeweils unterschiedlichen Motiven zur AfD neigen. Da es der AfD erfolgreich gelingt, sowohl Angehörige der Arbeiterklasse als auch Teile der Mittelklasse für sich zu mobilisieren, stellt sich die Frage, wie diese Koalition an AfD-Sympathisantinnen aus unterschiedlichen Klassenlagen zustande kommt und erklärt werden kann. In dem Beitrag wird mit Daten des ALLBUS 2018 untersucht, inwiefern sich die AfD-freundlichen Milieus innerhalb der Arbeiter- und der Mittelklasse in ihren Einstellungsprofilen zu vier politischen Konfliktdimensionen (Umverteilung, Migration, individuelle Freiheitsrechte und Leistungsethos) sowohl vom nicht-AfD-affinen Teil ihrer jeweiligen Klasse als auch voneinander unterscheiden. Anhand von Regressions- und Clusteranalysen kann gezeigt werden, dass der mit der AfD sympathisierende Teil der Arbeiterklasse ein national-solidarisches Weltbild aufweist und Gleichheitsansprüche einfordert, während in dem mit der AfD sympathisierenden Teil der Mittelklasse regressive Normalitätsvorstellungen vorherrschen und die AfD als Verteidigerin bestehender Hierarchien und Privilegien angesehen wird. Basierend auf diesen Ergebnissen wird abschließend diskutiert, wie es der AfD gelingt, durch eine Anrufung dieser Einstellungsmuster Milieus mit divergierenden ökonomischen Interessen für sich zu mobilisieren.
... These are found to be linked by mechanisms of homology to the class positions of tech workers. Homologies are understood as correspondences between subjective positionings or classifications in the symbolic sphere and resource-dependent objective positions in the sphere of social structure (Bourdieu, 1984: 175;Waitkus and Groh-Samberg, 2019;Westheuser, 2020). I call the first ecologically relevant schema managing limited resources. ...
The question of how the digital economy responds to ecological issues has gained salience in recent years. So far, though, social scientists have primarily taken interest in the ecological positionings of tech entrepreneurs. Little attention has been paid to the middle-class fraction of ‘tech workers’ who are responsible for programming, designing, and managing the digital technologies that reconfigure socio-material relations. Based on 52 interviews with data scientists and user experience designers, the article analyzes the ecological habitus of this new professional segment. Four central ecological schemas are identified: (1) managing limited resources, (2) critical techno-optimism, (3) academic concern, and (4) lifestyle struggles. Simultaneously, the article discusses how these four schemas relate to the different forms of capital held by tech workers. This mapping of the ecological habitus of tech workers shows how social relationships with nature are underpinned by class positions. The article thus pursues dual aims, contributing to research on green capitalism as well as to debates on how the middle class relates to climate change.
... When a substantial portion of the populace believes that they have been neglected or ignored by the political elite, populist movements typically emerge to address these grievances. According to the populism thesis of the political class, populism is fueled by a number of variables (Westheuser, 2020). ...
This article aims to investigate the Class Structure and electoral politics of District Multan in 2002-2013 terms of local politics and trends. It has been observed that local politicians are the prominent candidates in these election. These politicians have historically come from the wealthy classes. Ticket distribution by popular political parties in this region is skewed toward the wealthy and those with a higher probability of voting for their party. This study has based on the mixed method cross-sectional research design and data has been collected from 406 participants from the District Multan by using probability sampling. Findings of the study have indicated that ninety percent or more of the area's residents support creating a new province to speed up the area's progress. In addition, mostly candidates have been repeated by the parties but few have changed the party and participated from a new party or independently. So, Multan's electoral politics are profoundly affected by socioeconomic status of politicians. Additionally, the electoral system needs to change to make it more effective and to reduce the issues of voters, rather than continuing to focus on the same old strategies. The current study is drived from district Multan. Keywords: Class Structure, Electoral Politics, Multan, Elite Class, Democracy , Elections, Voters.
... For example, the cultural knowledge and practices of the ruling class are often privileged over those of the working class, which can lead to the marginalization and devaluation of the latter. Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital challenges traditional Marxist theories of class struggle by emphasizing the ways in which cultural factors contribute to social inequality and class struggle (Westheuser, 2020). By highlighting the importance of cultural capital, Bourdieu provides a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which social class is contested and shaped by cultural factors. ...
This paper explores the relationship between class struggle and multicultural understanding through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's theories. Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital and its role in producing and reproducing social inequality is introduced. The unequal distribution of cultural capital creates a system of cultural domination, which can hinder multicultural understanding and perpetuate social injustice. This paper also discusses how habitus shapes individuals' perceptions of the world around them and how this can influence their ability to understand and appreciate other cultures. Habitus is strongly influenced by an individual's social class and cultural background, and this can create barriers to multicultural understanding. This paper describes the ways in which dominant cultural groups use their cultural capital to marginalize and exclude minority cultures. This creates a system of symbolic violence, which can further hinder multicultural understanding and perpetuate social injustice. In addition, this paper examines the potential of Bourdieu's ideas to inform social and political policies aimed at promoting multicultural understanding and reducing social inequality. By recognizing and valuing the cultural capital of different groups, and challenging the power of dominant cultural groups, a more inclusive and equitable society can be created. Overall, this paper highlights the importance of recognizing the impact of social class and cultural capital on multicultural understanding, and the potential for Bourdieu's theories to inform policies aimed at promoting social justice and reducing inequality.
... Autobiographical accounts of structural change, like Didier Eribon's Returning to Reims or J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, provided a master-narrative by which the center left's one-sided focus on liberal urban professionals pushed working class voters into the fold of the populist radical right. Scientific studies disproved these all-toosimple stories, while also digging deeper into the points they had called attention to, reconstructing how populism, radical right voting and anti-political sentiment were K rooted in classed grievances, status claims, and worldviews (Damhuis 2020;Flemmen & Savage 2017;Evans & Tilley 2017;Westheuser 2020). Ethnographic studies of social identities and political consciousness revealed a subtle everyday politics of class, particularly salient in the absence of classical channels of political articulation (Beaumont et al. 2018;Cramer 2016;Hochschild 2016;Dörre et al. 2013). ...
... Moreover, recent studies have hinted at how many (populist) politicians capitalize on the perception of distance to the cultural tastes and values, and alleged arrogance, of the cultural elite more broadly (see, e.g., Krogstad & Stark, 2020;Westheuser, 2020), and establishment politicians in particular (see e.g., Lamont et al., 2017;Norris & Inglehart, 2019). These politicians would signal their alleged "'imagined sameness' with the people" (Krogstad & Stark, 2020, p. 10) and "exploit and deepen mistrust of elites" (Norris & Inglehart, 2019, p. 91). ...
Anti-establishment politics have become part of contemporary Western democracies. Less-educated citizens in particular have been found to display political distrust and populist attitudes, support populist parties, and abstain from voting. We advance a novel explanation for these patterns, drawing on extant theoretical insights to hypothesize that less- and more-educated citizens differ in the extent to which they perceive politicians to be culturally distant to them. Informed by our earlier in-depth qualitative research, we developed novel indicators of such perceptions and included them in a survey fielded among a high-quality panel representative of the Dutch population. We found: 1) positive associations between perceived cultural distance to politicians and political distrust, populist attitudes, the intention to vote for a populist party, and non-voting; and 2) that, overall, perceived cultural distance contributes substantially more to the educational gradient in anti-establishment political attitudes and behavior than the conventional rationalist and materialist approaches.
This chapter will apply instruments of content, musicological and visual analysis to explore the presence (if any) and forms of populist content in Italian pop music over 10 years (2009–2018), since the emergence and re-emergence of left-wing and right-wing populism in the country. We evaluate how and to what extent the songs’ lyrics, videos and music structures and the artist persona autonomously contribute to the spread of populist tropes, including anti-elitism, distrust of political institutions, celebrations of an authentic rudeness, articulations of specific grievances and celebrations of charismatic leadership. We argue that it is precisely its seemingly non-political features that enable this kind of cultural production to spread political (and, more specifically, populist) worldviews so effectively.
In the concluding chapter (Chap. 7) we discuss the challenges and opportunities of (pop) music for populism and populist actors, highlighting both their capacities and their difficulties in the use of this medium. We synthesize the main findings of our research and position them in relation to the theories and concepts outlined in the first chapter (such as political and cultural opportunities and actors’ resources). More generally, we discuss the extent to which our research contributes in understanding the close relationship between popular music (as part of popular culture) and contemporary populism beyond our single national case study. These observations will provide scholars with a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary populist phenomena (and possible trends for the future), inspiring some ideas for new research agendas in the future. After acknowledging the limitations of our research and suggesting potential avenues for future studies, we finish with a strong claim to take popular music more seriously in political science as a whole, and in populism studies in particular.
Universities are accused of being left‐wing bastions, unwelcoming to conservative and right‐wing professors. However, we know little about the political orientation of professors in comparison to other professionals, which would be the right comparison group if we want to know whether universities are potentially hostile environments to conservatives. Examining culturally and economically oriented political orientations in Europe, it is demonstrated that professors are more liberal and left‐leaning than other professionals. However, there is no greater homogeneity of political orientations among the professoriate relative to other specific professions, suggesting that there is a diversity of opinions which is similar to what professionals would find in other occupations. One exception concerns attitudes towards immigration, on which professors have more liberal orientations and comparatively low residual variance around that more liberal mean. Importantly, the difference between professors and other professionals is not so clear within graduates from the social sciences, but emerges more clearly among graduates with a medical, STEM, economics or law degree. An important political cleavage exists between professionals and managers, a group of similar social standing.
Ernesto Laclau’s Marxist and post-Marxist works are best understood when they are embedded in the history of Argentina’s National Left. This socialist-populist current underpinned his strategic horizons onward of at least 1963. While purely theoretical interpretations of Laclau can sometimes be enlightening, they tend to lose sight of the historical density of the Argentine’s thought. Over the course of his working life, Laclau’s theories presented the Argentinean Left with a challenge concerning how to engage with Peronism: specifically, how to develop a leftist hegemonic project in an era when the working class remained stubbornly linked to a Peronist political identity. Laclau’s political trajectory and his understanding of Marxism are analysed here in order to explain the nature of his post-Marxism.
Do radical right parties present blurry economic stances, or have they clarified their positions while moving towards the economic left? This article questions the strategic behaviour of radical right parties in Western Europe. It shows that although radical right parties have increased their discussion of economic issues, and expert placements of this party family on the economic dimension have become more centrist over time, the uncertainty surrounding these placements continues to be higher for the radical right than any other party family in Europe. The article then moves on to examine to what extent voter‐party congruence on redistribution, immigration and other issues of social lifestyle predict an individual's propensity to vote for the radical right compared to other parties. Although redistribution is the component of economic policy where the radical right seems to be centrist, the findings indicate that it remains party‐voter congruence on immigration that drives support for radical right parties, while the congruence level for redistribution has an insignificant effect. The article concludes that while radical right parties seem to have included some clearly left‐leaning economic proposals, which shifted the general expert views of these parties to the economic centre, their overall economic profiles remain as blurry as ever.
Trump, Wilders, Salvini, Le Pen—during the last decades, radical right-wing leaders and their parties have become important political forces in most Western democracies. Their growing appeal raises an increasingly relevant question: who are the voters that support them and why do they do so? Numerous and variegated answers have been given to this question, inside as well as outside academia. Yet, curiously, despite their quantity and diversity, these existing explanations are often based on a similar assumption: that of homogeneous electorates. Consequently, the idea that different subgroups with different profiles and preferences might coexist within the constituencies of radical right-wing parties has thus far remained underdeveloped, both theoretically and empirically. This ground-breaking book is the first one that systematically investigates the heterogeneity of radical right-wing voters. Theoretically, it introduces the concept of electoral equifinality to come to grips with this diversity. Empirically, it relies on innovative statistical analyses and no less than 125 life-history interviews with voters in France and the Netherlands. Based on this unique material, the study identifies different roads to the radical right and compares them within a cross-national perspective. In addition, through an analysis of almost 1,400 tweets posted by Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen, the book shows how the latter are able to appeal to different groups of voters. Taken together, the book thus provides a host of ground-breaking insights into the heterogeneous phenomenon of radical right support.
Was noch in den 1990er Jahren undenkbar war, ist mittlerweile Alltag: Ganze Bevölkerungsgruppen verlassen den Boden der gemeinsamen Wirklichkeit, kehren etablierten politischen Narrativen zornig den Rücken oder bestreiten gar die Gültigkeit wissenschaftlichen Wissens. Der Aufstieg des Rechtspopulismus markiert nach Dekaden der Konsenskultur eine erneute Politisierung der Gesellschaft. Gängige Erklärungen für die Entstehung des Rechtspopulismus ziehen die Ereignisse der Fluchtmigration von 2015 oder vorgebliche Persönlichkeitsdefizite seiner Anhänger als Ursachen heran. Cornelia Koppetsch dagegen sieht die Gründe in dem bislang unbewältigten Epochenbruch der Globalisierung. Wirtschaftliche, politische oder kulturelle Grenzöffnungen werden als Kontrollverlust erlebt und wecken bisweilen ein unrealistisches Verlangen nach der Wiederherstellung der alten nationalgesellschaftlichen Ordnung. Konservative Wirtschafts- und Kultureliten sowie Gruppen aus Mittel- und Unterschicht, die auf unterschiedliche Weise durch Globalisierung deklassiert werden, bilden dabei eine klassenübergreifende Protestbewegung gegen die globale Öffnung der Gesellschaft.
Cet article examine les classes populaires en France sous l’angle des attitudes populistes et du vote pour les partis radicaux auxquels elles sont couramment associées. Il propose une opérationnalisation originale des milieux populaires par la technique statistique de l’analyse en classes latentes (ACL). Avec une enquête post-électorale incluant des mesures fines de précarité, on isole trois fractions distinctes : le précariat, les classes populaires retraitées et les travailleurs pauvres. On met en évidence que si les catégories populaires sont très homogènes dans leurs attitudes populistes, elles diffèrent plus fortement les unes des autres dans leurs comportements électoraux. Ce faisant, on souligne l’importance d’une lecture multidimensionnelle des classes populaires pour la compréhension de leur rapport au politique.
Responding to the recent explosion in scholarly analysis of populism, this paper offers a conceptual mapping and critique of the dominant schools of thought within the burgeoning field of populism studies. In the first half of the paper we suggest that two broad conceptions of populism – one associated with Cas Mudde, the other with Ernesto Laclau – have come to dominate the field. Yet neither of these approaches, we argue, are able to satisfactorily capture the specificity of contemporary forms of radical politics. Thus, the second part of the paper examines possible responses to this conceptual impasse. On the one hand, we recommend a move towards more theoretically and sociologically enriched accounts of populism, by drawing on the insights and concepts of political sociology, political theory and cultural studies. On the other, drawing on recent work by Benjamin De Cleen, Jason Glynos and Aurelien Mondon, we suggest a partial reorientation of populism towards thinking about populism as a signifier (rather than as a concept). In so doing, we conclude with a call for greater sensitivity to, and awareness of, the role that discourses about populism (including scholarly discourses) play in sustaining existing relations of power and ideology.
With the recent upsurge of populism in developed and transition democracies, researchers have started measuring it as an attitude. Several scales have been proposed for this purpose. However, there is little direct comparison between the available alternatives. Scholars who wish to measure populist attitudes have little information available to help select the best scale for their purposes. In this article, we directly compare seven populist attitudes scales from multiple perspectives: conceptual development, questionnaire design, dimensionality, information, cross-national validity, and external validity. We use original survey data collected online from nine countries in Europe and the Americas, with around 250 participants per country, in which all seven batteries of questions were present. Results show that most scales have important methodological and validity limitations in at least one of the dimensions tested, and should not be used for cross-national comparative research. We recommend populist attitudes items that work better at capturing populism, and more generally provide guidelines for researchers who want to compare different scales that supposedly measure the same construct.