Populist Voices from Latin America to Europe

Abstract

The publication of this volume is the result of an interdisciplinary and international collaboration, led and coordinated by the research group ROMPOL, Political discourse in the Romance-speaking countries, which was formed in 2014 at the Department of Romance Studies and Classics at Stockholm University (Sweden). ROMPOL’s main objective has been to analyse the mediated political discourse in Romance-speaking countries – in Europe as well as in Latin America – from a linguistic as well as a social science perspective. The focus of interest lies in how different identities are represented in the discourse and how, in a given communicative situation, the speakers choose to represent themselves, their sympathizers, electors and opponents. It also intends to relate these discursive representations of identities to political and cultural factors that constitute the context of specific communicative events. The most recent scientific international event organized by the group focused on Political Discourses at the Extremes, and brought together researchers specialized in media and political discourse analysis. A majority of the studies were carried out on data from TV-debates, news media, social media sites, newspapers, etc. Three themes were in focus, of which the most important was the rise of populism and its different modes of expression in Romance-speaking countries, in Europe and in Latin America. Special attention was given to the potential differences and convergences between Romance-speaking countries in Europe and those in the Latin American Region. Furthermore, questions regarding identities, racism and discrimination were also addressed and gave raise