PEGIDA: Identity Formation of “The People” in Times of Crises

Abstract The article focuses on the identity transformation of “the people” in the right-wing populist movement PEGIDA as a social force shaping populist discourse in Germany. The methodical approach, assuming the people as the sum of heterogeneous individuals, is criticized due to the confusion and discrepancies arising between statistical and experienced realities. Following Laclau’s theory of populism, the people in PEGIDA are marked as “tendentially empty signifier” in the tension between populism and reductionism, depending on the given situation. The article’s research question is to what extent the identity of the people in PEGIDA becomes partially open in the framework of different populist discourses. In the first part, the essay introduces Laclau’s definition of the people. In the second part, the refugee crisis in Germany, the climate crisis, and the corona crisis are presented as exemplary cases giving rise to the identity transformation of the people in PEGIDA.