Qualitative content analysis/discourse analysis Radicalization of Politics in CEE Outline •Part I •Overview of the approach •Logic of the qualitative content analysis •Discourse analysis • •Part II •Examples of analyses of populist content in a qualitative way Qualitative content analysis – the logic •the characteristics of language as communication with attention to the content or contextual meaning of the text •Focus rather on the meaning than on numbers (frequencies) •Far less theory driven, but rather theory developing •Usually based on open-ended research question (how does an actor talk about welfare-state related policies?) •Text as data: manifestoes, interviews, focus groups, … (RQ determined) •„qualitative content analysis is a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns“ (Hsiu-Fang, Shannon 2005) • Variants of qualitative content analysis •Conventional • • •Directed • • •Summative • • Conventional content analysis •Usually descriptive aims when an appropriate theory is missing •categories and names for categories flowing from the data •Inductive category development •Reading a text as a whole (general impression), assignment of first codes, creating categories based on the relationships between the codes – meaning of the text (development of codes, their description) •Theories discussed after the analysis •Perhaps more suitable for analysing specific populist policies (without prior conceptual direction) • Directed content analysis •Validate or extend conceptually a theoretical framework or theory •Existing concepts can be used for analysis specification (e.g. initial coding scheme) •What is the meaning of the „people“, „the elites“, and „the restoration of people`s sovereignty“ in the communication of an populist actor? – not looking for specific words but rather concepts/categories •Used for support or extension of an existing theory • Summative content analysis •Starts with a concept and categories •Finding words representing them – reminds of the quantitative dictionary approach BUT •The aim is to explore the meaning not to count the words •Sometimes called as latent content analysis – interpretation of the content • Technocratic populism of ANO (Havlík 2019) • • •Havlík, V. (2019). Technocratic Populism and Political Illiberalism in Central Europe. Problems of Post-Communism, 66(6), s. 369-384. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2019.1580590 • • •RQ1: What kind of (populist) political party is it? • •RQ2: How does its illiberal narrative look like? • • • • • • • • • •“populism as an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Mudde 2004, see also Stanley 2008, Albertazzi, McDonnell 2008) • Populism and democracy • • • • • • • Based on Pappas 2014, Mair 2012, Caramani 2017 Liberal democracy Populist democracy Plurality of interests Universal good Overlapping consensus Adversarial politics Constitutionalism Majoritarianism Data and analysis •Qualitative data: •Purposive sampling (interviews in the media, Babiš´s book and blog, election manifestoes) •Combination of directed and summative content analysis •Quantitative data: •Description of positions in political space •CHES 2014 – Bakker et al. 2015 •Populist proxies – antielite_salience + anti_corruption salience •Major policy dimensions – lrecon + galtan •Policy vs valence •Comparative Campaign Dynamics Project (Baumann, Gross 2016) •Manual coding of parties` statements in newspapers before the 2013 election •Policy x issue valence x valence • • Technocratic populism of ANO •People centrism: •“populist heartland” (Taggart 2000) – the mythical picture of Czechs as skillful craftsmen, engineers and businessmen (“Czech golden hands”): •“We are a talented nation but we are governed by cack-handed” •Anti-elitism: •“The main problems of the Czech Republic are incompetent and unprofessional politicians“ •Incompetent and lacking real-life experience (“have not built a dog house”) •There is no such thing as right and left. In the Czech Republic we have a completely different division. On one side are the current parties and current politicians, and on the other side are the voters […] – anti-political, anti-party democracy narrative •Restoration of people`s sovereignty: •Anti-party and anti-political discourse of technocratic effectivity guaranteed by Babiš who listens to the people (the project We want a better Czechia) •Dichotomy of the two worlds: politics (represented by the established parties) and business (Babis) •“run the state like a business”, „we are not like politicians, we work hard“ •Incompetency and ideology vs expertise and effectivity • • • • Technocratic populism of ANO Data: CHES 2014, CCDP 2016 Technocratic populism and illiberalism •Universal good: •Anti-political/ideological narrative of policy divisions in society - managerial competency •Adversarial politics: •Other parties like enemies ( “so-called democratic parties”, “corrupt” etc.) •Little respect for politics of compromises, deliberation and checks and balances since “first of all, coalition quarrels complicate everything ” and the parliament is “blatherhouse“ (žvanírna) •Majoritarianism •Approach to politics and proposal of a highly centralized strongly majoritarian version of a democratic polity driven by the narrative of effectivity and simplicity •Babiš like[s] majoritarian system in the USA. When Trump came to power, he went into the office right away and made decisions.” •“There is a lot of things we can learn in Slovakia, […] because there was a Fico´s single party government. It made a decision, called to the parliament, they made the law, that was a drive” • Conclusion •Legitimation of illiberalism based on technocratic/managerial populism •Division constructed around the notion of competency and honesty (talented nation vs incompetent and corrupt elites) •Solution based on the contrast between (partisan) politics and the world of business •The key role of valence (in contrast to ideology) and effectivity •A majoritarian and centralized version of a supposedly more effective democratic polity •Populist illiberalism not necessarily combined with radical ideologies •“rhetorical/ideational illiberalism”, illiberal mentality so far •Many subtle but complex changes possible through ordinary laws or government legislation (e.g. media) – the Polish way • • Discourse analysis •Related to works by Laclau or Mouffé •The central notion is a meaning, socially constructed articulation •“Each of these discourses is a [specific] social and political construction that establishes a system of [meaningful] relations between different objects and practices, while providing (subject) positions with which social agents can identify” (Howarth, Stavrakakis 2000) •Populism one of many discourses (hegemonic bids) to construct a novel arrangement of meaning •the process of articulation can radically change the meaning of whatever is being articulated (nodal points + other signifyiers) •Which signifyiers (nodal points) + how they relate to each other = meaning •Often dialectic logic (ingroups + outgroups) De Cleen, Stavrakakis •Comparing nationalist and populist discourses •Nationalism – nodal point is nation (inc.people) •Spatial definition – various exclusive nations •Specific discoursive construction of the ingroup – „imagined community“ constructed in contrast to other nations •Organic community – belonging together •Populism •Antagonistic relationship between the people and the elites •Chain of equivalence – continuous and actively stimulate and reinforce dissatisfaction with the elites (negative mobilization of various groups) •Vertical special orientation concentrated around political power • Conclusion •Text as data source for meaning interpretation not for numbers •Various ways how to approach it •Looking for a deeper meaning of a studied object •Dependent on the researcher (to some extent – often quotes) •Theory building rather than testing •Producing new data (unlike the work with the existing data)