Suggesting outsider status by behaving improperly: the linguistic realization of a populist rhetorical strategy in Dutch Parliament

Abstract

One of the rhetorical strategies employed by populist politicians to create and maintain an anti-elitist profile, is the use of ‘bad manners’. By violating decency standards that politicians are supposed to observe in political debates, populists create the image of being different from the ‘political elite’. As yet, however, little research has been carried out focusing on the question of exactly how populists violate the decency standards of a specific political debating culture verbally. This chapter aims to fill this gap, by focusing on improper behaviour in Dutch parliamentary debates. We will discuss how the Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders violates four decency standards for Dutch parliamentary debate to create and maintain the image of a political outsider, and show how he systematically uses a variety of conspicuous as well as inconspicuous linguistic choices to fulfil this rhetorical strategy.