People-Centric Discourse of German-Speaking Populist Radical Right Parties: Evidence from Computer-Assisted Discourse Analysis
This study utilizes computer-assisted discourse analysis of press releases from Austrian, Swiss, and German populist radical right parties to demonstrate that their definitions of "the people" vary significantly across contexts, with ethnic dimensions being central only in Austria, subordinated to democratic institutions in Switzerland, and largely absent in Germany.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
In the study of modern politics, few ideas are as powerful or as slippery as the concept of "the people." For decades, political scientists have observed that populist movements—those that claim to speak for the ordinary citizen against a corrupt elite—rely heavily on this idea. They argue that "the people" are a single, unified group with a shared will, often defined by who belongs and who does not. In many parts of Europe, this definition leans heavily on ethnicity, suggesting that the true people are those who share a specific bloodline, language, or heritage. This is particularly sensitive in German-speaking countries, where the word for "people," Volk, carries a heavy historical burden. Because of its deep association with the Nazi era, the term has been avoided by mainstream politicians and even some far-right groups in Germany, while remaining a central, though contested, pillar of political discourse in Austria and Switzerland. Understanding how these parties use this word is crucial, not just for linguists, but for anyone trying to grasp how political groups construct their identity and justify their power.
A team of researchers from universities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic set out to investigate exactly how three major populist radical-right parties in these countries talk about "the people." They focused on the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), the Swiss People's Party (SVP), and the Alternative for Germany (AfD). While these groups are often grouped together in political science as a single family of parties, the researchers suspected that their actual language might tell a different story. To find out, they turned to a method called word embeddings. This is a computer technique that reads thousands of documents and maps out how words are used in relation to one another. Imagine a vast, invisible map where words that frequently appear together in the same sentences are placed close to each other, while words that rarely appear together are far apart. By feeding the parties' press releases from 2016 to 2019 into this system, the researchers could see the "neighborhood" of the word Volk without having to read every single sentence manually. They were looking to see what concepts, like immigration, democracy, or economics, were most tightly linked to the idea of the people in each party's vocabulary.
The results revealed a landscape far more complex than the standard political narrative suggests. In Austria, the Freedom Party's use of the word Volk was exactly what many experts expected. The computer map showed the word sitting right next to terms about immigration, refugees, and the protection of national borders. For this party, the concept of the people was inextricably tied to ethnicity and the exclusion of outsiders. The language was direct, framing the Austrian people as a victimized group under threat from migration, with the party positioning itself as the only true defender of the nation's identity.
In Switzerland, however, the picture shifted dramatically. For the Swiss People's Party, the word Volk was not primarily surrounded by ethnic terms. Instead, it was clustered tightly with words related to voting, referendums, and the mechanics of direct democracy. The party's discourse treated "the people" as the ultimate sovereign power, a group whose will is expressed through ballots and initiatives. While immigration was certainly a topic for them, it was framed not as an ethnic threat to the nation's soul, but as a violation of the people's right to decide their own laws. The computer analysis showed that for the Swiss party, the definition of the people was less about who you are born as, and more about who holds the power to vote on the country's future.
The most surprising finding came from Germany. The Alternative for Germany, despite being the youngest of the three parties and often accused of harboring the most extreme nationalist views, did not use the word Volk in the expected way. The researchers found that the party rarely linked the German people directly to ethnic exclusion in their press releases. Instead, the word Volk appeared most often in the context of foreign politics. The party used the term to describe the struggles of people in other nations, such as Hungary, Poland, or even Hong Kong, presenting these groups as role models for Germans to follow. Rather than shouting about the purity of the German ethnic group, the party seemed to be building a bridge, suggesting that the German people should look to the "people" of other countries who were resisting global powers. This indirect approach suggests that the historical weight of the word Volk in Germany still casts a long shadow, forcing the party to articulate its nationalist ideas through the lens of other nations rather than stating them directly about their own.
The study concludes that while these three parties share a similar political ideology, they do not speak the same language when it comes to defining their base. The assumption that all populist radical-right parties define "the people" in the same ethnic, exclusionary way is incorrect. The context of each country—the history of the word, the structure of the government, and the specific political taboos—shapes how the concept is used. In Austria, the definition is ethnic; in Switzerland, it is procedural and democratic; and in Germany, it is often projected outward onto other nations. This research demonstrates that political identity is not a fixed formula but a flexible tool, molded by the specific environment in which it is used. By listening closely to the words these parties choose, and by using computers to map the invisible connections between them, we can see that the story of "the people" is far more varied and nuanced than a simple label of "populist" can capture.
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