Abstract
The historic wave of refugees reaching Europe in 2015 was met with a volatile
mixture of ethno-nationalist, anti-Muslim fearmongering and political infighting
within the European Union (EU). Perhaps no one was more influential in
promulgating fear and anti-refugee sentiment than Viktor Orbán, the Prime
Minister of Hungary, whose inflammatory rhetoric and uncompromising, illiberal
political stance helped escalate the refugee-crisis in a discursive battle of political wills, ideologies, and identity politics within the EU. This paper explores how Orbán employs political discourse practices and strategies to enact his right-wing populist (RWP) ideology and anti-immigrant ‘politics of fear’ (Wodak 2015) vis-à-vis EU politicians’ pro-migration discourses. Adopting a broad critical discourse-analytic approach, we demonstrate Orbán’s iterative production of discourses of threat and defense underlying discourses of fear (law and order, cultural/religious difference), and discourses of oppositional political identities and ideologies through fractal recursion. We argue that recursive performance of RWP stances creates a recognizable political style characteristic of Orbán’s RWP political persona or type.
mixture of ethno-nationalist, anti-Muslim fearmongering and political infighting
within the European Union (EU). Perhaps no one was more influential in
promulgating fear and anti-refugee sentiment than Viktor Orbán, the Prime
Minister of Hungary, whose inflammatory rhetoric and uncompromising, illiberal
political stance helped escalate the refugee-crisis in a discursive battle of political wills, ideologies, and identity politics within the EU. This paper explores how Orbán employs political discourse practices and strategies to enact his right-wing populist (RWP) ideology and anti-immigrant ‘politics of fear’ (Wodak 2015) vis-à-vis EU politicians’ pro-migration discourses. Adopting a broad critical discourse-analytic approach, we demonstrate Orbán’s iterative production of discourses of threat and defense underlying discourses of fear (law and order, cultural/religious difference), and discourses of oppositional political identities and ideologies through fractal recursion. We argue that recursive performance of RWP stances creates a recognizable political style characteristic of Orbán’s RWP political persona or type.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Language Aggression in Public Debates on Immigration |
| Editors | Andreas Musolff |
| Place of Publication | Amsterdam/Philadelphia |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| Pages | 79-100 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9789027262660 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789027262394 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 24 Apr 2019 |
