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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 24:6 (2025) ► pp.837–860

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Farmers as symbol of ‘the people’

Nationalism and populism in Vlaams Belang’s discourse about farmers

ORCiD logo with link | Vrije Universiteit BrusselBrussels
ORCiD logo with link | Vrije Universiteit BrusselBrussels
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Published online: 5 December 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24155.lam
Abstract
Despite increased attention to the far right and environmental issues, little research has focused on the increasingly prominent attempts by populist radical right (PRR) parties to capitalize on farmers’ protests against climate and biodiversity policies across Europe. This article addresses this gap by analyzing PRR discourse through a case study of the Flemish PRR party, Vlaams Belang (VB), a party that has only recently started to present itself as the defender of farmers and rural populations. A discourse-theoretical analysis of VB’s 2019–2024 publications on farmers and agriculture reveals that VB employs the ‘the rural’ as a symbolic signifier to integrate farmers and their demands into its discourse. The party constructs farmers as the symbol of ‘the people’ through both nationalism and populism. Through their link with ‘the rural,’ farmers are positioned as rooted in ‘the nation’ within VB’s nationalist politics and as part of ‘the underdog’ in its populist politics.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Far-right politics and environmental issues
  • 3.Nationalism and populism: A discourse-theoretical perspective
  • 4.A discourse-theoretical analysis of VB: Case selection and method
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Nationalism: The farmer as rooted in the nation
      • 5.1.1The rural as the nation
      • 5.1.2The urban as the outgroup
      • 5.1.3The farmer as rooted in the nation
    • 5.2Populism: The farmer as part of the underdog
      • 5.2.1The rural as the underdog
      • 5.2.2The urban as the elite
      • 5.2.3The farmer as part of the underdog
    • 5.3Connecting nationalism and populism: The dual identity of the farmer
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • Bibliography
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