Populist Discourse beyond the Borders

Abstract

Following the 2016 US elections, populism as a political discourse tactic surged worldwide and became critically examined by scholars as result of the anti-establishment rhetoric used throughout the Trump campaign. Yet despite the considerable amount of scholarly attention dedicated to this topic, its international dimension and ability to transcend beyond national borders has been rarely studied. To fill the lacuna in the literature on populism, in this article we examine how populist discourse is construed by leaders in an effort to appeal to an audience beyond their national borders. In doing so we examine the speeches and political rhetoric of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Venezuela’s former president Hugo Chavez’s, both of which demonstrate obvious examples of populist narratives. We adopt a qualitative discursive approach to identify salient populist rhetoric in the speeches of both leaders, which ultimately create divisions over identity and politics among citizenry and in many instances create such divides within the international arena.