{"id":2104,"date":"2019-07-29T22:32:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T22:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2019-07-29T22:32:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T22:32:05","slug":"performing-and-re-defining-democracy-in-post-austerity-spain-political-communication-and-discursive-practices-of-the-podemos-party-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/?p=2104","title":{"rendered":"Performing and Re\/Defining Democracy in Post-Austerity Spain: Political Communication and Discursive Practices of the Podemos Party-Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This thesis explores the\nSpanish Podemos<\/em> party-movement in its\nattempt to both undertake and to some degree \u2018live\u2019 a certain democratic\nexperiment in the context following the 2007-2008 global economic crisis. More\nspecifically, the \u2018Podemos<\/em> experiment\u2019\nis considered part of the wave of new left-wing parties that emerged in\nSouthern Europe \u2013 namely, SYRIZA in Greece, the Five Star Movement<\/em> in Italy, and the Front de Gauche<\/em> in France \u2013 as a reaction to the implementation of\nausterity measures and the legitimacy crisis of representative democracy. Podemos <\/em>is therefore perceived as performing\nand re\/defining democracy as part of undertaking political action and of\nbuilding a political identity. Both the performance and re\/definition of\ndemocracy are thus inherently discursive, i.e. conceptualized and enacted in\npolitical discourse and in a variety of (mediated) contexts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At its core, the thesis examines\nhow Podemos<\/em> defines and enacts democracy\nin the lead-up to, and the aftermath of, the December 2015 general election,\nthat eventually brought Podemos<\/em> by\nthen a political party into the Spanish Parliament. Taking a\ncritical-analytical approach to such discursive practices, it first explores\nhow the notion of democracy is communicated and conceptualized in Podemos\u2019<\/em> Twitter discourse and how these\ndiscursive conceptualizations relate to various ways of performing democracy\nvia the construction of Podemos\u2019<\/em> and\nother parties\u2019 identities. Second, it examines how Podemos<\/em>\u2019 online campaign spots particularise various democratic\nimaginaries and discursively construct the political frontier between \u2018us\u2019 and\n\u2018them\u2019. Last, it looks at how Podemos\u2019<\/em>\nleader and his key counterparts perform political identity work as part of\ntheir own democratic imaginaries in a broadcast pre-electoral debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By linking the above areas of\nanalysis, the thesis shows that Podemos<\/em>\ncommunicates in its Twitter discourse visions and practices of democracy in\nline with social democracy and participatory democracy. Such thus oppose the\nprevailing neoliberalism and political elitism that have long dominated Spanish\nrepresentative democracy. As is also shown, the party\u2019s populist identity is\nbest characterized by its peculiar in-betweenness<\/em>,\ni.e. by being constructed at the intersection of its party and movement\nidentities. Especially after the election, Podemos<\/em>\u2019\nhybrid identity is intensely enacted in its online video discourse as a\ndisclaimer of its recent institutionalization to remain faithful to its former\ngrassroots identity. Last, and contrary to the expected, the Podemos<\/em> leader displays a top-down\/party\nmode of constructing political identity, albeit with anti-elitist features. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the thesis offers a timely contribution to the understanding and practice of populism and to demarcating its ideological limits. From a media and communication and Critical Discourse Analysis perspective, it is shown that left-wing populism \u00e0 la Podemos<\/em> constructs an inclusive \u2018people\u2019 and defends a vision of representative democracy that promotes social justice and popular sovereignty. Such left-wing populism, is argued, has the potential of enhancing the current understanding and practice of democracy by promoting inclusive views of the citizenship and bringing in social equity issues to the political agendas. This hence puts left-wing populism in stark contrast to the right-wing populism that has swept both Europe and America. The latter not only constructs nativist visions of the people rooted in calls for the exclusion of various social groups (especially immigrants and minority groups) but also argues for nationalist, authoritarian and conservative views of \u2018doing\/ performing\u2019 politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irene Rapado, \u00d6rebro University<\/em>
irene.rapado@oru.se<\/em><\/a> <\/em>
Twitter: @irenerapado<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttp:\/\/oru.diva-portal.org\/smash\/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1299579&dswid=-9798\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This thesis explores the Spanish Podemos party-movement in its attempt to both undertake and to some degree \u2018live\u2019 a certain democratic experiment in the context following the 2007-2008 global economic crisis. More specifically, the \u2018Podemos experiment\u2019 is considered part of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2105,"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions\/2105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkiv.mediekom.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}