Conference Agenda

Both sub-state and state nationalists often justify the power of their sub-state or state by emphasising that the voter will be "better off" under their government. Economic success, or lack thereof, thus has a significant effect on both independence-seeking political parties and political parties seeking to keep the state together. Since 2021, many countries in Europe have been in the midst of a cost of living crisis, during which prices of goods and bills have risen and wages have stagnated. As a result, voters have expressed economic pessimism and pessimism about their personal futures in the UK, Spain, and Belgium. These three countries have also faced ongoing constitutional crises with active and popular sub-state nationalist political parties in Scotland, Catalonia, and Flanders. In this paper, we consider how these sub-state nationalists and their state nationalist counterparts articulate their constitutional preferences while responding to the salient and ongoing cost of living crisis. Specifically, we consider the effect of the cost of living crisis on territorial and nationalist contestation during elections in Spain/Catalonia (2023), the UK/Scotland (2024), and Belgium/Flanders (2024).

This paper contributes to scholarly understandings of the perceived political perma-crisis in Europe and how this may affect state-building and state-breaking within three European states. We particularly emphasise the nationalism of the state and the sub-state and the dialogue between them, rather than studying just one side of these dynamic political conflicts. Our use of comparative case studies allows us to examine how different constitutional structures, ideological postions, and relationships with the EU might affect nationalists' response to the cost of living crisis.

This paper serves as a comparison to our previous work on political parties’ state-making and state-breaking narratives and the COVID-19 pandemic. It complements this work by considering a high salience and widely felt economic crisis and analysing electoral communications from parties. To do so, we compile and compare contemporary information on recent and ongoing elections and campaigns including key speeches, manifestos, and political advertising.

We are presently navigating an era marked by a global polycrisis, a term defined as the entanglement of crises in multiple global systems, significantly diminishing humanity's prospects (Lawrence et al., 2022, p.2). This concept underscores our current challenge of confronting numerous interconnected crises across various fronts simultaneously. These challenges include global issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, global food security, climate change, environmental concerns, economic disparities, financial instability, political polarization, and threats to international security. These issues, extensively communicated and amplified through both traditional and modern media, evoke emotional responses from the public, fueling various political movements grounded in the politics of fear (Wodak, 2015). Within the realm of populism, crises denote critical and disruptive junctures marked by the emergence and widespread adoption of populist ideologies and movements. Populist leaders often exploit crises as a potent tool to assert their influence, especially during election campaigns. A prime illustration of this occurred with the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, as evident in Marine Le Pen's Twitter communication during the 2022 French presidential election campaign. Our assumption is that Le Pen strategically employed the war to propagate crisis-related discourse in the first months of the full-scale invasion. She adopted various strategies for this purpose, exhibiting dynamic shifts in their usage. Notably, Le Pen adjusted her strategies based on whether her message targeted a national or international audience. This study aims to explore how Marine Le Pen, as a populist actor, employed crisis discourse through her Twitter account. The research adopts the theory and methodology of critical discourse analysis, focusing on five discursive strategies outlined by Ruth Wodak. By applying elements of critical discourse analysis, the study analyzes Le Pen's discursive strategies to identify and understand the dynamics and shifts in her approach. The findings reveal that, in her Twitter communication, Le Pen utilized the Russo-Ukrainian War as a crisis discourse, employing blame games and people-centric tendencies during the 2022 French presidential election campaign. In terms of discursive strategies, nomination, predication, and argumentation were the most frequently employed by Le Pen. These strategies were contextualized within the specific target audience she addressed – whether French, European, or international – and were adjusted accordingly.

Since the Great Recession, the Left group in the European Parliament (GUE/NGL) has undergone a significant change in its composition. The new political landscape in the political group is due to the inclusion of new radical left parties (RLPs) that adopt a social-populist political stance and hold 15 of the GUE/NGL's 38 seats in the EP. This change in composition has brought with it a normative change, with these newcomers holding more favourable positions towards the European Union and European integration. However, this (new) pro-integration stance clashes with the traditional criticism of the EU as an existing institution, leading to an ambivalent position between disruptive and constructive politics. Previous research has shown that mainstream parties see the GUE/NGL as a more responsible opposition in the EP, but little is known about how and when RLPs adopt which forms of Eurosceptic stance in the EP. Therefore, empirical research is needed to understand how this dynamic of new and established RLPs has impacted their work in the European Parliament (EP) and how mainstream parties perceive the work of GUE/NGL Members of Parliament (MEPs) in the EP. This paper examines the behaviour of GUE/NGL MEPs based on elite interviews with members of the GUE/NGL and other political groups working together in committees where constructive work for legislation is needed. The results aim to understand under which conditions GUE/NGL MEPs adopt forms of irresponsible opposition related to their Eurosceptic positions and when it chooses a more constructive approach.