IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v13y2024i11p599-d1513841.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Libertarian Populism? Making Sense of Javier Milei’s Political Discourse

Author

Listed:
  • Reinhard Heinisch

    (Department of Political Science, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria)

  • Oscar Gracia

    (Centro de Investigación en Comunicación y Humanidades, Universidad Privada Boliviana, La Paz 0201-0220, Bolivia)

  • Andrés Laguna-Tapia

    (Centro de Investigación en Comunicación y Humanidades, Universidad Privada Boliviana, La Paz 0201-0220, Bolivia)

  • Claudia Muriel

    (Centro de Investigación en Comunicación y Humanidades, Universidad Privada Boliviana, La Paz 0201-0220, Bolivia)

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the political discourse of Javier Milei and to determine which concept of populism best captures his approach. Although perceived by many as a populist, Milei is unusual in that he sees himself as a liberal libertarian and defender of the West against collectivist policies. To this end, this study analyzes selected speeches by Milei from three different periods during and after the 2024 presidential election campaign and applies a deductive coding scheme designed to identify ideational populism, populist discursive framing, populism as strategy, and populism as crisis performance. The analysis confirms that Milei is at best a partial populist, as he fails to define the core populist concept of “the people”. It concludes that the concept of crisis performance emerges as the most apt theoretical framework to classify Milei’s type of populism. By rhetorically transforming the crisis not only into an existential economic issue but also into a moral tale of corruption and failure at the highest levels, he can appeal for radical change and offer himself as the national political savior. Milei’s discourse also illustrates that, unlike ideological populism or discursive populist framing, in the performative turn, the victims of the crisis, the people, often remain a vague signifier defined by their suffering at the hands of elites.

Suggested Citation

  • Reinhard Heinisch & Oscar Gracia & Andrés Laguna-Tapia & Claudia Muriel, 2024. "Libertarian Populism? Making Sense of Javier Milei’s Political Discourse," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-27, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:13:y:2024:i:11:p:599-:d:1513841
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/11/599/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/11/599/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kirk A. Hawkins & Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018. "Measuring populist discourse in the United States and beyond," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(4), pages 241-242, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel L. Bennett & Christopher Boudreaux & Boris Nikolaev, 2023. "Populist discourse and entrepreneurship: The role of political ideology and institutions," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(1), pages 151-181, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:13:y:2024:i:11:p:599-:d:1513841. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.