DEN NYA POPULISMEN? En kvalitativ idéanalys av Emmanuel Macrons tal inför presidentvalet 2017

Abstract

Political populism is common in Europe. All over the continent, populist parties have gained more influence over the years, not at least in the European Parliament. This raises questions about the ideologies of these populist parties. Right-wing populist parties are common, and there are quite a few examples of left-wing populist parties as well, but no modern centre-parties have yet by researchers been established as a populist party. Since the liberal party La République En Marche, with its founder Emmanuel Macron, came to power 13 months after its foundation, the question remains: how? The purpose for this study is to investigate if Emmanuel Macron and his party came to power through a centre- or liberal-populist ideology. This was conducted using an idea analysis with five ideal types as a tool to analyse Macron’s speeches, and La République En Marche’s party programme. The results show clear signs of populism in Macron’s speeches, but not any in the party programme. Combined with the liberalist and centrist ideology that he shows, it is indicated that Macron and La République En Marche are partially populist.