‘Saying it like it is’: Right-wing populism, international politics, and the performance of authenticity

Abstract

Populist leaders base their electoral appeal on underlying their agenda with claims to authenticity reflected both in the content and in the style of their political communication. Based on a conceptualisation of authenticity as discursive performance, we conduct a comparative analysis of the authenticity claims of two right-wing populist leaders, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. We focus on authenticity claims associated with international politics. International issues are central to populist exclusionary narratives, but also difficult for populist incumbents to narrate authentically. We find that despite differences in their public personas, Johnson and Trump show considerable similarities in both content and style of their authenticity performances. In particular, they ‘domesticate’ international politics to reinforce domestic issues assumed closer to ‘ordinary’ voters, all the while employing rhetorical styles suggestive of their authenticity. These findings highlight the centrality of authenticity performances to populist politics and electoral appeal.