In verbum veritas: winning frames in the discursive space of Italian far right populists

Currently, the “populist moment” (C. Mouffe) coincided with the fourth wave of the postwar far right, which increased potential of their coalition through the mainstreaming (C. Mudde). In Italy, examples of such parties were the Lega (League) and the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy). The paper deals with the discourse of far-right populist leaders before and after coming to power. In order to determine the winning discourse formula of Meloni and Salvini the discursive configurations of the frames of populism and nativism and their transformation over time are identified. To this end, it was necessary to critically examine the approaches to populism and nativism; to make a content analysis of the frames of populism and nativism in the speeches of Salvini and Meloni and to carry out a discourse analysis of the construction and representation of “the people” and “others”. The analysis revealed different configurations of the frames of populism and nativism and different degrees of radicalization of right-wing populist discourse. In Salvini’s discourse the study detected the transformation of the image of the “people” (from the Padan people to the Italian nation), which was contrasted with the “elite” represented by European bureaucrats (previously political managers in Rome) and the group of “others” – Muslim immigrants arriving primarily from Asian and African countries. In Meloni’s discourse, the emphasis from symbolic nativism was redirected to economic nativism and welfare chauvinism; the “fight” against “strangers” was replaced by a proactive position of redistributing goods and supporting law and order. The paper concludes that Meloni’s formula for success was the gradual deradicalization of far-right discourse and the exclusion of non-core and controversial issues.

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