POSTBREXIT · The Brexit effect in media coverage: how the intra-party democracy counters the rise of European populism
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-07-01 → 2022-06-30
- EU contribution
- €319,401
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The Brexit effect in media coverage: how the intra-party democracy counters the rise of European populism
Populism is currently at its highest-ever level in Europe. The big questions we need to ask are ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ as there is no one factor to which the spread of populism can be attributed. Several studies have observed that the rise in populism in Western Europe is due to a reaction to the failure of political parties to be responsive to several issues: economic and cultural globalisation, European integration, immigration, the decline of ideologies, and the growth of corruption in the political elite. Political parties are directly blamed and considered unable to respond to citizens’ demands. So, in several countries, a growing number of political parties have introduced a wide range of methods for including party members in intraparty deliberations and decision-making. From this standpoint, the EU-funded POSTBREXIT project analysed populism through the link between media communication and intraparty democracy, using the Brexit context as a case study. The main purpose was to understand how to counter the rise of populism and how political parties could do this. The research involved two steps. Step 1 – to analyse populist issues in the media and examine how party members perceive and evaluate these; Step 2 – to test how intraparty democracy can influence populism. The main hypothesis was that the strengthening of intraparty democracy and deliberation processes had profound implications for the rise of populism and the future of democracy as a whole.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The main objective of the research is to conduct a pilot study in UK aimed at investigating the phenomenon of populism after the Brexit referendum, explaining how the intra-party democracy and deliberation can defuse its growth.In that respect, the research will consist of two distinct steps: 1) to analyse the media coverage after the Brexit referendum in order to identify populist issues; 2) to observe how party members elaborate these populist issues.As to the first step, analysis of media coverage, I will examine the interpretative frames that politicians, journalists and observers relied upon within the public debate. In particular, I will focus on the news about Brexit in a populist perspective and on its relevance after referendum in the public debate. As regards the second step, particular attention will be paid to theparty members in order to examine how they elaborate 'populist' issues in a deliberative process.The importance of the study lies in the originality of the object under analysis. UK is an ideal case study for understanding the adaptation of populism in the European context and analyzing whether and how the intra-party democracy are able to counter the rise of phenomenon.The study has the potential to be expanded nationwide or into a comparative cross-country research. In fact, the research results will be used to analyse the next elections to European Parliament, understanding which policy “mechanisms” are able to contain populism impact on the European institutions.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX · BrightonCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union