1st Edition

Qualitative Approaches to the Social Psychology of Populism Unmasking Populist Appeal

Edited By Inari Sakki Copyright 2025
194 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

194 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This edited volume presents a social psychological exploration of populism and provides a unique qualitative understanding of the phenomenon’s appeal, bringing together an international mix of experts to interrogate populist attraction worldwide. Featuring contributions from Finland, Greece, and Switzerland, the book offers nuanced theoretical, methodological, and empirical approaches for... Read more

Preface Inari Sakki

 

PART I: Theory

 

Chapter 1: Populism as political imagination: Theoretical approaches 

Inari Sakki and Eemeli Hakoköngäs

 

PART II: Methods

 

Chapter 2: Qualitative interviewing: Strengths and challenges of interviewing lay populists

Helena Rovamo & Mariman Mabrouk

 

Chapter 3: A three-step approach to the critical discursive psychological analysis of prejudice in populist gender and sexuality discourse

Helenor Tormis & Katarina Pettersson

 

Chapter 4: Visual rhetorical analysis to unveil populist appeal: The case of Jussi Halla-aho’s presidential campaign images

Jari Martikainen & Inari Sakki

 

Chapter 5: Analysing subject positions in multimodal populist communication

Katarina Pettersson & Jari Martikainen

 

Chapter 6: Multimodal persuasion in right-wing populist TikTok discourse: Crafting a sense of ‘us’

Jenni Jaakkola & Inari Sakki

 

PART III: Lay discourse

 

Chapter 7: Investigating social representations of ‘the people’ in the Greek context: Who are ‘the people’?

Myrto Droumpali & Xenia Chryssochoou

 

Chapter 8: Contrasting representations of ‘the elite’ in Swiss populism: A comparative study of left-wing and right-wing populism

Mariman Mabrouk & Christian Staerklé

 

Chapter 9: Social representations of populism in lay discourse in Greece

Ioannis Ntotsikas & Xenia Chryssochoou

 

Chapter 10: Navigating moral emotions in the lay discourse of the Finns Party

Inari Sakki & Mia Silfver

Biography

Inari Sakki is Professor of Social Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland.