Populismus im grenzüberschreitenden europäischen Raum

1) Wider research context / theoretical framework: The project investigates the strongly increasing complexity of political discourses produced by European Right-Wing Populists (RWP) on migration at the scale of cross-border regions. The theoretical framework integrates (Multimodal) Critical Discourse Analysis, Politolinguistics, Border and Regional Studies and Intersectionality Theory.
2) Hypotheses / research questions / objectives: We assume that the RWP parties adapt their migration-as-crisis topos according to their antagonistic discursive representations of social groups at the cross-border regional scale. The project tries to answer four questions: 1. How do RWP parties discursively construct migration-as-crisis in cross-border regional Europe in the current context of intensification and diversification of European and non-European migration, in part also resulting from the war in Ukraine? 2. How do RWP positions on migration in mediatised political discourses change depending on the type of involved cross-border regions? 3. Is there a convergence in the positioning towards migration among RWP parties located on different sides of the same cross-border region? 4. Do RWP positions on migration reveal different foci on and meanings of EU internal and external borders depending on the cross-border regions?
3) Approach / methods: The comparative approach focuses on three types of cross-border regions relating to Austria, Slovenia and Luxembourg: (1) the European Union as a cross-border macro-region; (2) meso-regions relying on international ties among neighbouring states and regions; (3) micro-regions determined by urban spillover. The investigation is based on the Critical Discourse-Historical, Politolinguistic and content analytical study of the political positioning on migration performed in various genres (manifestos, social media genres, minutes, interviews) by representatives of six RWP parties in these cross-border regions.
4) Level of originality / innovation: Innovative aspects of the project consist in 1) the comprehensive research on hitherto unexplored right-wing populist discourses on migration in cross-border regional Europe in order to comprehend the risks posed by RWP parties to liberal Europe, 2) the detection of right-wing populist convergences and trans-national populism in cross-border regional Europe wherever migration is a critical topic in the discourses of representatives of this political family, 3) the pioneering theoretical and methodological combination of Critical Discourse Analysis (DHA), Politolinguistics, Border and Regional Studies as well as Intersectionality Theory.
5) Primary researchers involved: The project is carried out by the Department of Linguistics of the University of Vienna (Martin Reisigl, Principal Investigator) in co-operation with the Peace Institute in Slovenia (Mojca Pajnik) and the LISER in Luxembourg (Christian Lamour).