From Brexit to VOX: Populist Policy Narratives about Rurality in Europe and the Populist Challenges for the Rural‐Urban Divide

The spread of radical‐right populist movements across Europe in recent years have been explained from a geographical perspective by a differentiated political behavior in rural areas, rooted in socio‐economic differences and a theory of a “revenge of the places that do not matter”. The objective of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRural sociology Vol. 87; no. S1; pp. 758 - 783
Main Author Valero, Diana E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Columbia Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.07.2022
Subjects
Case studies
Cleavage
Discourses
Economic theory
Emotional behavior
EU membership
Narratives
Political behavior
Populism
Qualitative analysis
Qualitative research
Radicalism
Revenge
Rural areas
Rural communities
Rural urban differences
Rurality
Europe
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Summary:The spread of radical‐right populist movements across Europe in recent years have been explained from a geographical perspective by a differentiated political behavior in rural areas, rooted in socio‐economic differences and a theory of a “revenge of the places that do not matter”. The objective of the article is to contribute to the characterization of the current populist narratives on rurality and potential new rural‐urban cleavages. Using the “Narrative Policy Framework”, the article explores two complementary case studies through a qualitative analysis of media pieces. The first case study explores narratives on rurality across the European Union between 2015 and 2019, giving an overview of how rural areas are depicted in policy narratives and the role and potential for discourses rooted in perceptions of “left‐behind places.” The second case study explores in depth how the Spanish radical‐right party VOX articulates its policy narrative on rurality. The analysis of both cases illustrates the existence of a complex narrative fabric on rurality across rural areas in Europe and how radical‐right populism reproduces a narrow concept of rurality, anchored in the idea of abandonment that may be contributing to the creation of a new rural‐urban cleavage.
Bibliography:I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. Previous versions of the first case study also gained from colleagues’ comments when presented and discussed at the 7th Master Class on EU Cohesion Policy (October 2019) and at the Autumn Seminar Series of the European Policies Research Centre, University of Strathclyde (November 2020). Most of the work on this manuscript was developed while working as a postdoc at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in the University of Stirling. I would like to thank Professor Nils Bunnefeld for his support and encouragement to work on this manuscript even though it was not directly related to the topic of my postdoc at that time.
ISSN:0036-0112
1549-0831
DOI:10.1111/ruso.12410