Far-right discourse as legitimacy? Analysing political rhetoric on the “migration issue” in Greece

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2021.02.014

Keywords:

New Democracy, discourse-historical approach, topos, fallacy, argumentation, Greek politics, securitisation

Abstract

This article advances research on the normalisation of far-right rhetoric on the “migration issue” by analysing statements from the current Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and the ruling political party New Democracy political figures. Having presented the discourse-historical approach (DHA) from critical discourse studies (CDS) as a suitable theory and method of analysis of political discourses, I use an argumentative-based DHA approach and add the argumentative schemes of Aristotelian topoi and fallacies to explore how the leadership of the conservative New Democracy government adopted far-right rhetoric on the refugee issue to justify its tough political agenda on security, law, and order. In particular, I focus on the representation of migration as a threat to national security and public health, the politics of hate, and theories of securitisation via an in-depth analysis of the current and former prime ministers’ discourses, the former government spokesman’s statement on the refugee issue and a popular journalist and New Democracy’s MP television interview, and intend to illustrate how extreme right rhetoric could serve the conservative New Democracy’s political strategies.

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Published

2021-12-09

Issue

Section

Thematic Section:Critical perspectives on migration in discourse & communication

How to Cite

Boukala, S. (2021). Far-right discourse as legitimacy? Analysing political rhetoric on the “migration issue” in Greece. Studies in Communication Sciences, 21(2), 329–341. https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2021.02.014