The Strategic Use of Political Discourse: How Emergent Political Parties Frame Political Discourse to Mobilize Voters and Achieve Breakthroughs in Party Systems
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to analyse the case of populist parties in the Czech Republic. The paper focuses on Czech anti-establishment reform parties (AERPs), which made successful breakthroughs in recent elections in the Czech Republic.
AERPs represent a case of populism that has been rather successful in recent decade in Central and Eastern European countries and is related to centrist political ideology, is associated with an anti-establishment, anti-corruption rhetoric and the idea "of doing politics differently". It is a type of political parties that may pose a threat to the stability of political party systems as these parties have weak institutional structure, strong mobilization potential as well as high probability of internal conflicts and disintegration.
The paper analyses how these parties use the notion of "crisis" in their discursive strategies to gain popular support and become successful in elections. The analysis draws from media articles from 2009 - 2011, a time period when AERPs began gaining strong popular support in the Czech Republic.
Using the tools from critical discourse analysis and argumentation theory the paper describes the discursive strategies used by these populist parties, emphasizes the role of the "narrative of crisis" and focuses on the power of narrative in shaping organizational/institutional change in politics.