Right-Wing Populism in Europe & USA: Contesting Politics & Discourse beyond ‘Orbanism’ and ‘Trumpism’

Through a number of theoretical and empirical contributions, this Special Issue of the Journal of Language and Politics addresses the recent sudden upsurge of right-wing populist parties (RWPs) in Europe and the USA. It responds to many recent challenges and a variety of ‘discursive shifts’ (Krzyżanowski 2013a, 2018 a,b) and wider dynamics of media and public discourses that have taken place as a result of the upswing of rightwing populism (RWP) across Europe and beyond (e.g., Feldman and Jackson 2013; Muller 2016; Wodak et al. 2013; Wodak 2013 a,b, 2015 a, 2016, 2017). The papers in the Special Issue cover institutionalised (individual and group) varieties of right-wing populist politics and also transcend a narrowly conceived political realm. Moreover, we investigate the ontology of the current surge of RWP, its state-of-the-art as well and, most importantly, how right-wing populist agendas spread, become increasingly mediatised and thereby ‘normalised’ in European and US politics, media and in the wider public spheres (e.g., Wodak 2015 a,b; Link 2014).