The Populist Style (Trump, Le Pen and Performances of the Far Right)

Through a comparative case study analysing the 2016 and 2017 presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen, The Populist Style examines the links between far-right ideology and populism. Adopting an interdisciplinary framework combining political science and performance studies, this book develops a critical definition of populism as a style, that is, as a repertoire of political performances that shapes and is given shape by ideological content.

The book argues that the populist style relies on three clusters of performances: performances of identity, performances of transgression and performances of crisis. Through an analysis of a corpus including presidential debates, speeches during rallies and political advertisements drawn from the campaigns of Trump and Le Pen, this book shows the adaptability of the populist style and its relevance as discursive-performative strategy across two different national contexts as it was used by far-right political actors to make their reactionary agenda and exclusionary nationalism more appealing.