Towards an intersectional approach to populism: comparative perspectives from Finland and India

Abstract

ABSTRACT Building on a comparison between the Finns Party in Finland, and the BJP in India, we propose to understand populist mobilisation through its core discursive sequences, rather than by relying upon traditional left-right or radical-moderate axes of analysis. Developing an original methodology, we suggest to classify populist radical right (PRR) movements depending on whether they include or exclude individuals on the basis of their religious, ethnic, class, caste, age, or gender identity, or several of these axes at the same time. Our comparative analysis buttresses Laclau's idea that PRR discourses across different cultural contexts center around the concept of the people as the ‘empty signifier’, which can be filled with any specific content. However, our intersectional analysis also reveals PRR discourses to be complex constructs, building on rather similar intersections, but whose meaning and appeal vary across political and cultural settings.