Programme

9.15-9.30: OPENING WORDS 

9.30–10.45: KEYNOTE 1 Mercedes Barros - What does populism have to do with rights?

10.45–11.15: COFFEE BREAK

11.15–12.45: PANEL SESSION 1

1.1. Discursive Strategies and Political Dynamics in Social Networks during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Insights from the ENDURE Project (Chair: Salla-Maaria Laaksonen)
Emilia Palonen & Juha Koljonen: Introduction: Post-foundational discourse theory in large data analysis
Kleber Carrilho, Marina Fontolan, Eurídice Hernandez, Gisele Silva: Polarisation and disinformation in Brazil's COVID-19 vaccination onset on X (former Twitter)
Christian Fröhlich: Anti-pandemic twitter discourse in Germany (2020-21)
Mateusz Karolak: Polarized Discourses on Lockdown Policies: An Analysis of Polish Twitter during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Emilia Palonen, Henry Jokinen, Juha Koljonen and Tomi Toivio: Mask or not? Finnish authorities Covid-19 policy under scrutiny on the hashtag landscape

1.2. Populist Radicalisations (Chair: Hande Eslen-Ziya)
★Pia Mikander & Jenny Högström: Encountering anti-pluralist movements in Nordic classrooms – The role of emotions
Michele Benazzo: Radical Poles in Motion: The Transition of British Muslim Radicalism from Ethno-Nationalism to Islamism, 1985-1992
Francesco Campo & Angela Bourne: Mincing their style? On the moderation of populist style in Spain and Italy
Miloš Gregor & Otto Eibl: Populism: An inevitable path towards radicalization

1.3. Environmental Discourses and Populism (Chair: Tero Toivanen)
Ivana Sesar: Populism and the politicization of the issue of anthropogenic climate change
Riku Löf: Can one make fun out of eco-crisis? Humor in environmental activist communication
Otto Snellman & Riku Löf: Rises and falls of Left environmental populism ‒ academic critique and affects for self-reflection
★Nevio Moreschi: Left-wing Ideology, Populism, and Environmental Preservation in Latin America: Pink Tide’s patterns of commodity-driven deforestation, and Rafael Correa’s justifications.

1.4. Circulation of Narratives, Doxae, and Implicit Meanings in Populist Discourse (Chair: Simo Määttä, Discussant: Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen)
Julien Longhi: Ethos, authority, and legitimacy of the “scientific leader” in the circulation of conspiratorial discourse about Covid-19
Samuel Vernet: Constructing the antagonistic populist figure: Doxa in the coverage of the Jan. 6th 2021 events at the US Capitol on a French radio channel
Mélanie Buchart: Catalysis, victimisation and demonisation in the populist leader’s rhetoric
Mattia Retta: Circulation of hate speech through implicit meanings in the tweets of Italian extreme-right politicians

1.5. Emotions in Electoral Discourses (Chair: Annastiina Kallius)
András Hettyey: Hungarian exceptionalism: narcissism of a small state
Otto Eibl: It’s the Personality that Matters: Divided by Emotions and Style - An Analysis of Czech Presidential Elections
★Bianca Alighieri Luz Monteiro: All we need is love' - Bolsonaro and Lula's affective investment to construct 'the people during the electoral campaign in 2022
★Luiz Farias & Vânia Penafieri: Brazil’s digital articulations on political-electoral behavior

12.45-14.15: LUNCH

14.15–15.45: PANEL SESSION 2

2.1. Populism Theory and Emotions (Chair: Mercedes Barros)
Sebastián Ronderos: Critical Fantasy Studies and the Study of Populism: Methodological Challenges and Strategies
Roland Zarzycki: On The Structure of Emotional Anchoring of Ideological Narratives
Ana-Maria Bliuc, Susan de Groot Heupner & Robb Norrie: Emotions and populism: a systematic review
Liv Sunnercrantz: A post-foundational problem of method

2.2. Social Media, Politics, and Populism (Chair: Erfan Fatehi)
Anna Catharina Sampaio Vale & Adriana Lima de Oliveira: Polarized scenario and the shift to a non-partisan relationship of young people with politics in social media in Brazil
Nuppu Pelevina: Influencer politics in different political systems
Hossein Derakhshan: Deeper fakes A case study on the dangers of 'malinformation'
★Jaisal E. K.: A Crisis in the Middle East Spilling Over to Kerala’s Digital Public Sphere 

2.3. Discursive and Political Perspectives on the War in Ukraine (Chair: Alina Mozolevska)
Marta Giallombardo: Covering a world of crisis: uses and emotional implications of the word ‘sacrifice’ in Covid-19 and Ukrainian war news.
Roman Kyrychenko: Uncovering the Complexities of Polarisation Dynamics: A Social Media Data Model Analysis of Political Discourse in Ukraine
Sabine Volk: Between ‘Brother Nations’, ‘Asian invaders’, and ‘defenders of Fortress Europe’: War-time Representations of Ukraine and Russia in the German(-speaking) Far Right
Dragan Jurić: The Effects of Populism on European Security and Defence

2.4. Memory Politics in the Age of Populism (Chair: Szilvia Horváth)
Zea Szebeni & Ilana Hartikainen: Dueling Pseudohistories in Slovakia and Hungary: Collisions of Memory, Disinformation, and the Politics of the Past
Maria Pardo: Zero Results for Censorship:  Venezuela’s Vanishing Archive
Barbara Markowska-Marczak: Museum as a war machine: politics of affect in the Ukrainian museal narratives
Laura Horsmanheimo: Breaking the Taboo – Performativity, Space for Becoming Visible and a Case of Helsinki City Museum’s Sex Work Exhibition

2.5. Emotions, Religion and Populism (Chair: Feeza Vasudeva)
Susan de Groot Heupner: Religious populism in Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia
Valerio Aversano: Emotions, Religion and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe
Ali Alsayegh: The Content of Grand Ayatollah Sistani's Charisma: the Affective Bond
Pragya Yadav: Populism, Religion and the Media in Global South: A case study of Hindutva and Nationalism Politics in India

15.45-16.15: COFFEE BREAK

16.15–18.00: PANEL SESSION 3

3.1. Theory of Populism and Laclau (Chair: Emilia Palonen)
Allan Dreyer Hansen: The Spectre of Populism
★Alessandro Volpi: Political Theology and Political Hauntology: About the Logic of Populism in Laclau through Schmitt
Jun-han Yon: What to Do with the People? Lefort, Laclau, and Rancière on the (Radical) Democratic Politics of Peoplehood
Dr Matko Krce-Ivančić: The Political Frontier and the Emergence of the Neoliberal Subject

3.2. Emotions and Right-Wing Politics (Chair: Katinka Linnamäki)
Mary-Ann Cherry: The radicalising effect of affective discourse: Developing a psycholinguistic dictionary of contempt
Kunal Nath Shahdeo: Hindutva and Affective Politics: Exploring the Emotional Foundations of Political Mobilization in Contemporary India
Jogilė Ulinskaitė & Rosita Garškaitė-Antonowicz: Emotional chronopolitics of Lithuanian populist far-right
Archibald Gustin: From Illiberal to Liberal Sexism: femonationalism in Vlaams Belang's discourse

3.3. Conspiracy Theories and Populism (Chair: Ilana Hartikainen)
Lukasz Swiecicki: Right-wing populism in Poland and anti-technological conspiracy theories on YouTube
Zichen (Jess) Hu: Going beyond the dichotomised 'elite versus mass' dichotomy: Mapping social networks in vaccine controversy
Anam Kuraishi: Talking Post-Truth: Newspaper Discourse and Suspended Democracy in Pakistan
Steffen Göths: Populism and Conspiracy Theories - Siblings or distantly related Cousins

3.4. Hegemony, Class, Affect: Everyday Experiences and Ideological Exploitation (Chair: Jenny Gunnarsson Payne, Discussant: Daniel Bodén)
Daniel Bodén: “I understand where you’re coming from!”: An autoethnographic exploration of the base and superstructure-problem in classical Marxism
Aleksandra Reczuch: Strike, solidarity and feminist demands – the role of affect and emotions in popular mobilisations in Poland
Jenny Gunnarsson Payne: Reproducing ‘the people’: Reflections on kinship, social reproduction and class in times of neoliberalism and authoritarianism
Federico Vernarelli: A Fordist requiem: Nostalgia and haunting in former mining communities

3.5. Identification and Online Misogynist Movements (Chair: Laura Horsmanheimo)
Kristin Jung Ståhle: Methodological Challenges Faced in Doing Research of the Manosphere: Reflections from Ethnographic Fieldwork Experiences
★Luca Mancin: Hate Thy Neighbour: Incels’ and Far-Right’s Paranoia Between Nostalgia and Victimhood in Italy
Emilia Lounela: Interviewing current and former incels: experiences, life events, worldviews
Pekka Kolehmainen: Gender and Antagonism in the Populist Rhetoric of PragerU

9.15–10.45: KEYNOTE 2 Benjamin De Cleen and Emilia Palonen - The Essence of Populism

10.45–11.15: COFFEE BREAK

11.15–12.45: PANEL SESSION 4

4.1. Exploring Grievance Politics I:  Extreme Ideological Tensions and Ressentimentful Affects (Chair: Tereza Capelos, Discussant: Mikko Salmela)
Ayhan Kaya: Nativist and Islamist Radicalism in Europe: Co-Radicalisation of Young European Citizens
Gavin Brent Sullivan, Felicity M. Turner-Zwinkels & Martijn van Zomeren: Moral and emotional dimensions of politicized identity in established political parties and new populist rivals: a mixed-method study
Christian von Scheve, Mikko Salmela, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova: Collective ressentiment

4.2. Affective Polarization(s) and Datafication (Chair: Emilia Lounela)
Silvia Modena & Vincenzo Gannuscio: Exploring Emotional Appeals in Populism: A Corpus-based Analysis of Identity Construction in French, German and Italian Discourses
Martin Lange: No reason to smile? A machine learning approach to recognize facial emotion expressions in parliamentary speeches of German right-wing populists.
Emre Erdoğan, Pınar Uyan Semerci & Tuğçe Erçetin: The micro dynamics of affective polarization: Three-stage multimodal research for understanding opinion formation
★ Maik Herold: Beyond Party Identities: Issue-Based Affective Polarization in Europe

4.3. Theory of Populism and beyond (Chair: Alexander Alekseev)
Szilvia Horváth: The Other and the middle position: Democratic agonism in the context of autocratic transformations
Taneli Viitahuhta: Populist language: mimicry or mimesis?
★ Matteo Antonini: A cultural-psychological approach to populism. Theoretical grounding of a contested phenomenon

4.4. Nationalism and Radical Right Populism across Europe in Romance Speaking Countries: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Chair: Morgane Belhadi; Discussant: Christian Lamour)
Cristiano Gianolla: Populist ambiguity in the entanglement of reason and emotion
Christian Lamour: The use of the "Great Replacement" in the discourse of the French radical right: A comparative approach
Elena Berezkina: The discourse transformation of the Italian right-wing populist parties: from nationalism to medium eurosceptocism 
★ Ioana Cristina Hritcu: Is the Success of French Populist Discourses the Sign of a Renewal of the Left-Right Divide? An Analysis through the Lens of Poststructuralist Discourse Theory 

4.5. Religious Populism Panel (Chair: Miro Leporanta)
Metin Koca: Religious Moderation into Populist Radical Right: How the politics of “Muslim (de)radicalization” confront religious Christian youths in France and the Netherlands
★ Gábor Ferencz: “The bulwark of European civilization”? Civilizationism in the discourse of Hungarian right-wing
★ Srijan Basu Mallick: Trajectories of Populist Politics in West Bengal: From Agrarian to Ethno-Religious Populism
Dayei Oh: ‘Fighting for the God-given right to life in a secular society’: Epistemic contestations over foetal personhood in the American anti-abortion movements

12.45-14.15 LUNCH 

14.15–16.00 PANEL SESSION 5 

 5.1. Exploring Grievance Politics II: Affective and Discursive Dimensions (Chair: Tereza Capelos, Discussant: Mikko Salmela)
Dolors Palau-Sampio: Vox and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Grievances against ‘the globalist plan’
Alina Mozolevska: Visual Performances of Grievances in French Right-Wing Populism: The Case of Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour
Ruta Kazlauskaite: Memory Politics in the Metaverse: Presencing, Storyliving, Feeling the Past
Tuomas Forsberg: Loyalty, Solidarity, and the War in Ukraine
★ Gabriella Szabo: Mediating moral emotions. How online news media cover guilt, shame and pride messages during the 2022 General Election Campaigning?

5.2. Immigration and Populist Surges: Understanding the Connection (Chair: Kleber Carrilho)
José Javier Olivas Osuna: A fence of opportunity: on how populist narratives frame and fuel crises in the border between Spain and Morocco
Seda Mohul: The Media Representations of Immigrant Criminality on Turkish Print Media
Maria Gracia Pardo: On the expertise of migrants, the Venezuela case
Magdalena Domeradzka: Balancing between indignation and empathic concern. Immigration discourse of the Swedish right-wing government after the 2022 election
Naman Rawat: Far-right extremism and social marginalisation of immigrants

5.3. (In)Security Imaginaries (Chair: Niko Pyrhönen)
Alexandra Homolar & Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado: Winning the Future? The Populist Imaginary of Trauma and Victimhood in the Context the ‘China threat’ in Contemporary US Security Discourse
Susannah Mandel: From “Traitors” to “Grooming” via “Fixed Beliefs”: A 40-Year Arc of Anti-Pluralism in U.S. Political Discourse
Helena Rovamo: Populist threat discourse as a resource for identity construction: A narrative-discursive approach
★ Zafar Ullah & Hassan Zaheer: Populism as Popular Sovereignty: Imran Khan, Constitution, and Democracy in Pakistan

5.4. Crises in Politics (Chair: Zea Szebeni)
★ Veronika Kövesdi, Gábor Polyák: The Power of Crisis - Emotional Campaigning in Hungary 
Mario Alberto Vega Yañez: The fraud coup: political crisis and polarization in Bolivia 2019
★ Rana Nur Ulker: Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speeches after the Earthquake in the context of Populist Rhetoric and Polarization
★ Zsófia Rakovics & Robert Sata: Performing crisis to polarize society - Ethnopopulist discourse in Hungary
Lucia Morales Lizarraga: Crises and radicalization of identity and nationalist discourses in Germany: The case of the German political party Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD)

5.5. Pandemic, Conspiracy Theories and (Counter)Media (Chair: Matti Pohjonen)
Mette Marie Roslyng & Bolette Blaagaard: Revisiting publics: Mediated counter-publics as public counter-media
★ Márcia Aparecida Amador Mascia: Populism and fake news in Brazil: impacts in schools
★ Švecová Martina: The Role of Media Discourse in Shaping Political Preferences during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Case Study Slovakia
Janne Lehtonen & Tuukka Ylä-Anttila: Navigating Pandemic Waves: Consensus, Polarization and Pluralism in the Finnish Parliament During COVID-19
Diana Petkova: Populism and Conspiracy Theories during the Pandemic of Covid-19: Rethinking Rumor Theories in the Eastern European context

5.6. Gender and Right-Wing Politics (Chair: Katja Kahlina)
Katinka Linnamäki: “No migration, no gender, no war!”: Family as a “symbolic glue” in the Hungarian Fidesz-KDNP government's discourses
Edurne Bartolomé Peral: Ideological polarization on gender roles in Europe
Didem Unal Abaday: “Rainbow Europe” versus “Anti-gender Europe”: Islam, Gender, and the Shifting Frames of Europe as the Civilizational “Other” in Islamist Populism
Ayse Akalin: Anticipated Death, Irrepressible Anger: Young Feminists in Turkey
Sabine Volk: Rallying ‘round the Drag: Anti-Gender Far-Right Protest in Catholic Bavariafe

16.00-16.30 COFFEE BREAK

16.30–18.00 PANEL SESSION 6           

6.1. Exploring Grievance Politics III:  Ressentiment, Authoritarianism, Public Outrage and (Anti)Democratic Preferences (Chair: Tereza Capelos and Mikko Salmela)
Maxim Alyukov & Gulnaz Sharafutdinova: Political Psychology of Authoritarianism: A Research Agenda
Tereza Capelos, Mikko Salmela, Gabija Krisciunaite, Grete Krisciunaite: Anger Issues: Unpacking public outrage through the emotional mechanism of ressentiment
Karen Celis, Soetkin Verhaegen, Virginie Van Ingelgom, Louise Knops & Kenza Amara-Hammou: What do resentful citizens want from democracy? Analysing the relationship between resentment and (anti-)democratic preferences
Stavroula Chrona & Cristiano Bee: Radicalism, identity construction and emotionality in social movements: #BogaziciDireniyor and the challenge to authoritarianism

6.2. Emotions, Populism and Media (Chair: Juha Herkman)
Paula Čatipović: Emotional public sphere and what it has to do with populism and fake news
Fabian Virchow: Sentiment-driven demands and scenarios for political participation in nativist SNS
★ Ricardo Soares: Populist Profiles of Portuguese Young Adults: Differences in Emotional, Media and Political Dimensions
Omri Cohen: Transformative Populism

6.3. Conceptualizing Tribalism: Advancing Shared Understanding through Collaboration, A Roundtable (Chair/Discussant: Zea Szebeni)
Niko Pyrhönen, Ilana Hartikainen, Emmi Lounela, Eemil Mitikka will present their two submitted projects, “Tribalist Tendencies: Dissecting Knowledge, Identity, and Mobilization in Varied Democratic Landscapes (DIVIDE)” and “Back to Roots: Nostalgia, Spirituality, and the Gendered constructs of the ‘Natural’ in Contemporary Finland (ROOTS)” and then open a discussion on ideas for potential future collaboration.

6.4. Anti-Populism (Chair: Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado)
★ Charles Postel: Populism and the Conservative Mirror World
Andreas Eder-Ramsauer: Anti-Populism and the Long History of Post-Politics in Japan
Aleš Michal: Representation facing Populism, Anti-Populism and Anti-System Challenges
★ Claudia Annovi & Francesco Antonelli: Understanding the nexus between technocracy and populism: the case of Tunisia

6.5.  Emerging and Polarizing Public Spheres (Chair: Dayei Oh)
Ane Mestvedthagen & Scott Eldridge II: Building an anti-public, counter-sphere: Scandinavian right-wing media and their place in the journalistic public sphere
★ Munira Cheema: Populism and Polarisation: The Case of Podcasting in Pakistani Context
Viljami Vaarala: Contesting through podcasting: Challenging journalism's epistemic authority through video podcasting
Oren Livio: "I Have Never Read Chekhov or Amos Oz and I Am Proud of It”: Strategic Cultural Ignorance and the Populist Mobilization of Ethno-National Identity in Israel

9.15-10.45: KEYNOTE 3 (panel) Hande Eslen-Ziya - Populism and Science: Exploring Counter-Knowledge and Academic Sustainability (Chair: Kleber Carrilho; Comment: Niko Pyrhönen)

10.45–11.15: COFFEE BREAK

11.15.-12.45: PANEL SESSION 7                                               

7.1. Affective Polarization(s) and Media (Chair: Viljami Vaarala)
Daniel Thiele: Vox Populi(st): Contexts and consequences of populism in user comments on news media Facebook pages
Kannasto Elisa, Laaksonen Salla-Maaria, Pelevina Nuppu & Hanna Reinikainen:  Breeding Affective Polarization in Political Instagram and TikTok
Anna Catharina Sampaio Vale: social media and emotional perception of politics in Brazil
Caterina Mosca & Jérémy Dodeigne: Evolution of affective polarisation towards marginalized groups in Italian media coverage (2008-2023) 

7.2.Interconnections of Populism and Nationalism (Chair: Olena Siden)
Michaelangelo Anastasiou & Jacopo Custodi: The Populism-Nationalism Nexus
Arthur Chapman: A Toolkit for Characterising Populist National Story: a schematic proposal
Torgeir Fjeld: National signification: a reappraisal
Odelia Oshri: Voices from the margins: How national narratives are linked to support for populist parties

7.3. Visual Communication in Politics  (Chair: Juha Herkman)
Agnes Virag: “…Cannot be too picky..!”: Populist characteristic features of Viktor Orbán’s caricaturistic figure
Artur Lipiński & Gabriella Szabo: Discursive and visual construction of sympathy-based solidarity. Polish and Hungarian PM's communication compared
Pınar Uyan Semerci, Tuğçe Erçetin & Emre Erdoğan: The affective power of audio-visual politics: How to analyze video campaigns in Presidential Elections in Turkey?
Virpi Salojärvi: Familiarity, intimacy and affect on political TikTok - Multimodal rhetoric-performative discourse analysis of Latin American and European politicians

7.4. Research Center DESIRE Panel: Critical Approaches to the Study of the ‘Far Right’ and ‘Populism’ (Chair: Benjamin De Cleen)
Omran Shroufi: Is there a far right ideology?
Savvas Voutyras: Socio-cultural Aspects of Anti-populism: Depictions of Brexiters in online Remain communities
Jana Goyvaerts: Anti-populism: Normativity and beyond Conceptualizing the Public Debate and Discourses about Populism

12.45-14.15: LUNCH

14.15-15.30: PANEL SESSION 8

8.1. Discussions on the “Mainstream” and “Mainstreaming” (Chair: Didem Unal Abaday)
Ryan Switzer: "Waking Up" and "Coming Out" on the Far Right: Managing Stigma in Times of Mainstreaming
Katy Brown: Mainstream constructions of the far right: how talking ‘about’ can lead to mainstreaming
Alexander Alekseev: Rights and Freedoms in Far-Right Electoral Discourses: A Concept Between Reason and Emotion?
Jon Järviniemi: Populist communication during times of crisis across party lines

8.2. Infrastructures of Unreality: Conspiracy Theories, Media and Illiberalism in Central Eastern Europe (Chair: Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius, Discussant: Zea Szebeni)
Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius: Migration as a Russian imperialistic plot: A conspiratorial infrastructure of the Polish right-wing media
Annastiina Kallius: The Absence of A Soros Plan: The Polish-Belarusian humanitarian border crisis in Hungary’s illiberal media
Ilana Hartikainen: Illiberalism from the East: The Russian hand in Czech and Slovak conspiracy theories

8.3. Nation, Elites and Generations in Affective Bind (Chair: Hande Eslen-Ziya) 
★ Michaelangelo Anastasiou: The Affective Consolidation of “the Nation”
Lelde Luik: Reconsidering the democratization paradigm with case studies from Estonia and Latvia
Kostiantyn Yanchenko, Artur Lipiński & Giorgos Venizelos: We, the… elites? How populist parties in power solve the “anti-elitism dilemma” in their political communication
Emre Erdoğan, Pınar Uyan Semerci & Tuğçe Erçetin: “Game-changer” Generation? Analysing the crystallization of democratic discontent of Turkish youth in the ballot box 

8.4. Polarization, Radicalization, and Discourse. A Comparative Transatlantic Perspective. (Chair: Rosa María Alonzo Gónzalez)
Lucía Morales Lizárraga: Crises, emotions and radicalization of identity and nationalist discourses in Germany: The case of the German political party Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD)
★ Rosa María Alonzo Gónzalez: Videogames, narcoculture, and warning discourses in México: The case of the official discourse against war videogames peril to children.
★ David Ramírez Plascencia: The use of digital media to radicalize and recruit children and the young for illicit activities.

8.5. Cultural Populism (chair: Virpi Salojärvi)
★ Maria Esperanza Casullo: Polarization, Representation and Populist Performativity
Joonas Koivukoski & Juha Herkman: Populism, humour, scandal! Humour controversies related to the Finns Party in the 2010s
Anna Cichecka: The aesthetics of populism across the central-periphery divide. Poland, USA, and Tanzania from a comparative perspective
★ Ezgi Gül Ceyhan: Politics, Culture and Populism: ''Sociocultural Aestheticizations'' Sociocultural Aesthetics, Discursive Emphases in Turkish Politics

15.45-16.00: COFFEE BREAK

16.00-17.30: PANEL SESSION 9

9.1 Special Session: D.Rad Hub on Ethnonationalism in Europe