Political Communication in Perspective
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Political Communication in perspective: Identifying the message of Radical Right Parties in Europe during the first decade of the 21st century: A comparative case study Vasiliki Tsagkroni Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy i Required statement of originality for inclusion in research degree theses I, Vasiliki Tsagkroni confirm that the research included within this thesis is my own work or that where it has been carried out in collaboration with, or supported by others, that this is duly acknowledged below and my contribution indicated. Previously published material is also acknowledged below. I attest that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge break any UK law, infringe any third party’s copyright or other Intellectual Property Right, or contain any confidential material. I accept that the College has the right to use plagiarism detection software to check the electronic version of the thesis. I confirm that this thesis has not been previously submitted for the award of a degree by this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. Signature: Vasiliki Tsagkroni Date: 28th March 2014 Details of collaboration and publications: [insert details here if applicable] ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Dr. Judith Bara, Dr. Catherine Needham and Prof Raymond Kuhn for the encouragement and guidance they provided me during the years. I would like to express my special appreciations to Dr. Judith Bara who has been a great mentor and supporter during this period. Your encouragements and advice have been priceless. In addition I want to thank Dr. Georgiadou, the person who introduced me to political science, motivated and challenged me to be critical. I would also like to thank the department of Politics and International Relations of Queen Mary University of London, all the staff members and the fellow scholars for their support and help during all these moments of feeling lost and desperate. It was a great relief to acknowledge that there are other people sharing the same journey as you are. A special thanks to my dearest Marilou, for making me believe in myself and always making me stronger, to Mr. Psarras, Dr Stathis Tsiras, Dr Lazaros Mavridis, Dr Faidon Zaras, Gaja and Prof Irini Moustaki for their essential contribution and to all my friends for supporting me in writing all these sleepless nights, all those struggling days. Last but not least I want to thank my family. Words cannot express how grateful I am to my parents, for offering me the greatest possibilities a child can ask for in order to find and follow their dream. You have been an inspiration and your love has been unconditional. For the sacrifices that you have made, for your family, for your children, for all this, I will always be grateful. And finally I want to thank you, who are not among us anymore… If this is my greatest achievement, it is dedicated to you. iii Abstract The thesis aims primarily to analyse the communication strategies of radical right parties. More specifically, the research examines three cases of radical right parties in Western Europe during the first decade of the twenty-first century with particular emphasis on the political communication along with marketing and branding techniques used to engage with the electorate to gain and maintain electoral support. These case studies comprise the Greek Popular Orthodox Rally (LA.O.S.), the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and the Italian National Alliance (AN). Different forms of content analysis are used in order to pinpoint the characteristics that identify the parties as members of the radical right family. Through this approach the thesis provides evidence that the parties, in their effort to become more appealing to their audiences, avoid direct engagement with issues, which reflect traditional ideological tenets of the radical right issues such as fascism, racism or xenophobia. Rather, they attempt to present a more mainstream and competitive profile in the political arena. From a market-oriented perspective, the thesis addresses questions on marketing and related explanations which focus both on how the parties choose to communicate with the electorate, what is their message and, through comparative analysis, whether there are similarities in communication techniques among the three parties and whether it can be argued that parties in the radical right family project a common profile in terms of their communication strategies. Furthermore, the application of such an approach to the use of political communication techniques of the selected radical right parties can contribute to a wider understanding of how the concept of ‘consumption’ has come to be applied increasingly in activities undertaken in the political arena. iv Table of Contents List of Tables ix List of Figures ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Review of existing literature in the field 9 2.1. Introduction 9 2.2. Communication politics 10 2.2.1. Introducing political communication 10 2.2.2. Political marketing………………………………………………………… 13 2.3. Political Branding: A definition 22 2.4. Researching the radical right 26 2.4.1. The problem of definition 26 2.4.2. Historical background 31 2.4.3. Approaches to radical right ideology. What do they stand for? 35 2.4.3.1. Immigration 35 2.4.3.2. Neo-liberal economic approaches 38 2.4.3.3. Anti-establishment populism 38 2.4.3.4. Strong authoritarian security 39 2.4.4. Why are they popular? 40 2.4.5. Media and the radical right parties: What is missing? 42 2.5. Conclusion 43 3. Research Methodology 45 3.1. Introduction 45 3.2. Approaches to the analysis 46 3.3. Categorising the data- Specifics 59 3.4. Using CATA 62 3.5. Why take a comparative approach? 66 3.6. Conclusion 68 3.7. Technical Appendix 69 4. The Case of Laikós Orthódoxos Synagermós (LA.O.S.) 86 4.1. Introduction 86 4.2. Background – Foundation and electoral success 86 4.3. How does the party identify itself? 89 v 4.4. Structure and Ideology 93 4.4.1. Structure 93 4.4.2. Ideology and policy-making 94 4.4.3 Leadership 100 4.5. Analysis of the context 103 4.5.1. Beyond text 103 4.5.2. Organised Campaigns 108 4.6. Outcomes 114 4.7. Conclusion 116 5. The case of Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) 118 5.1. Introduction 118 5.2. Background – Foundation and electoral success 118 5.2.1. The origins of the party 118 5.2.2. The electoral breakthrough 120 5.2.3. Approaches to the party’s electoral success. The transformation to a major political factor and its’ contributors: the opportunity, the leader, the rhetoric 122 5.3. Structure and Ideology 127 5.3.1. Structure 127 5.3.2. Leadership 128 5.3.3. Ideology – policy making 130 5.4. Analysing the context 132 5.4.1. Beyond text 132 5.4.2. Organised campaigns 144 5.5. Outcomes 152 5.6. Conclusion 153 6. The case of Alleanze Nazionale (AN) 155 6.1. Introduction 155 6.2. Background 155 6.3. Structure and Ideology 159 6.4. Organised campaigns 169 6.5. Success 176 6.6. Outcomes 178 6.7. Conclusion 179 vi 7. The content analysis approach: understanding party preferences 181 7.1. Introduction 181 7.2. The role of content analysis 182 7.3. Frequencies and relative salience in the CATA approach 185 7.4. CATA analysis of the three cases 186 7.4.1. LA.O.S. 186 7.4.1.1. Salience of categories in LA.O.S. documents 186 7.4.1.2. Comparing issue salience in the manifestos and leader’s speeches of LA.O.S. (%) 190 7.4.1.3. Outcomes 195 7.4.2. SVP 200 7.4.2.1. Salience of categories in SVP documents 200 7.4.2.2. Comparing issue salience in the manifestos and leader’s speeches of SVP(%) 202 7.4.2.3. Outcomes 205 7.4.3. AN 208 7.4.3.1. Salience of categories in the manifestos of AN (%) 208 7.4.3.2. Outcomes 210 7.5. Comparing the content 214 7.6. Conclusion 219 8. Reflections on the analysis: Communication strategies and radical right parties 221 8.1. Introduction 221 8.2. Research questions and hypothesis 221 8.3. Reflections on communicating politics 222 8.4. The communication approaches of radical right parties 223 8.4.1. Developing a market-oriented theory perspective for party politics 223 8.4.2. The communication approach in the content of LA.O.S., SVP and AN 226 8.4.2.1. Evidence from the CATA 226 8.4.2.2. Reading between the lines: the outcomes from the CATA 230 8.4.3. The communicating perspective of the image in a campaign assessment 235 8.5. Political branding in practice 239 vii 8.5.1. The political parties 240 8.5.2. The leadership 243 8.5.3. The policies 245 8.6. Observations on communicating politics: A conclusion 246 9. Conclusion 249 9.1. Responses to existing research 249 9.2. Involvement in the discussion: The contribution of the thesis 251 9.3. Research limitations and propositions for further research 252 9.4. Where are they now 255 9.5. Final Thoughts 255 10. Bibliography 257 Appendix 285 viii List of Tables Table 3.1: Categories applied to texts to identify key concerns of radical right parties 61 Table 7:1a Frequencies of categories in LA.O.S.