15 research outputs found
An integrative social identity model of populist leadership
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.In recent years, the questions of what populism is and how populist leaders mobilize their followers have been the subject of extensive debate. While the social psychology literature holds unique theoretical tools that can be used to explain leader-follower dynamics, these have not yet been applied to understand populism and populist leadership. In this paper, we aim to discuss populism as a social-psychological concept and provide a comprehensive approach to examine the interactions between populist leaders and followers by using the identity leadership model (see New Psychology of Leadership, Haslam et al., 2020). Accordingly, we propose an integrative model in which we suggest that populism should be treated as a social-psychological concept based on (i) strong ingroup identification; (ii) interactive leadership processes that open spaces to followers for enacting their ingroup identity that end up with mobilization against vertical (e.g., elites) and horizontal (e.g., minorities, refugees, opponents) outgroups; (iii) leader's ingroup prototypicality and identity entrepreneurship that is boosted by using shared grievances, narratives of collective victimhood, and the destabilization of mainstream opponent leaders. Furthermore, by discussing real-world examples and recent studies, we aim to show how the content of what it means to be 'us' and what is seen as moral to 'us' can be shaped by populist leaders for mobilization.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
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Impresarios of identity: How the leaders of Czechoslovakia's ‘Candlelight Demonstration’ enabled effective collective action in a context of repression
This paper presents an analysis of identity leadership (Haslam et al., The new psychology of leadership: Identity, influence and power, Routledge, 2020) in the 1988 ‘Candlelight Demonstration’ in Bratislava which was a precursor to the 1989 Velvet Revolution. The analysis is based on interviews with the five remaining leaders of the demonstration and addresses three core issues. First, how leaders use performative means (identity impresarioship) as well as limited rhetorical means (identity entrepreneurship) to assemble protestors and create a sense of shared identity amongst them. Second, how these strategies of mobilization are linked to the highly repressive context in which the demonstration took place. Third, we analyse the extent to which these strategies are rooted in a psychological understanding of the processes of mobilization. We conclude by addressing the implications for our general understanding of leadership and the mobilization of collective action and the need for more research into these processes under conditions of repression
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A warrant for violence? An analysis of Donald Trump's speech before the US Capitol attack
On January 6th, 2021, Donald Trump's speech during a ‘Save America’ rally was followed by mass violence, with Trump's supporters storming the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election. In its wake, there was a great deal of debate around whether the speech contained direct instructions for the subsequent violence. In this paper, we use a social identity perspective on leadership (and more specifically, on toxic leadership) to analyse the speech and see how its overall argument relates to violence. We show that Trump's argument rests on the populist distinction between the American people and elites. He moralises these groups as good and evil respectively and proposes that the very existence of America is under threat if the election result stands. On this basis he proposes that all true Americans are obligated to act in order prevent Biden's certification and to ensure that the good prevails over evil. While Trump does not explicitly say what such action entails, he also removes normative and moral impediments to extreme action. In this way, taken as a whole, Trump's speech enables rather than demands violence and ultimately it provides a warrant for the violence that ensued.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe