Caught between populism, elitism, and pluralism:A method for political discourse analysis

This chapter outlines a political discourse analysis method and applies it to speeches of American, British, and Dutch politicians. The method draws on van Dijk's multidisciplinary approach to ideologies and on a logical framework that links the concepts populism, elitism, and pluralism. The framework connects populism to elitism and pluralism in three dimensions-the ideational, social, and presentational-following the same logic: one of the three concepts is always in linear opposition to the shared features of the other two. This three-dimensional structure implies that all three phenomena have related features. Together, these features demarcate whether political discourse displays a populist, elitist, or pluralist style, or a combination. Based on this logic, speeches of various politicians can be analysed, plotted on a triangular field, and compared