Who are the ‘real’ people? The concept of relational popular identity and the self-identification of populist voters in Poland

Abstract

Research on national, political, and social identities in the study of populism is typically limited to analysing populist identity framing in political and media discourses and measuring its effects on individual populist attitudes. Thus, the self-identification of populists’ supporters, i.e. how they relate to populist identity framing when reflexively constructing their identities, remains largely unexplored. To address this issue, the article introduces the concept of relational popular identity, capturing the complexities of late-modern political identities, and the relational identity mapping technique used to investigate the web of relations forming these identities. The article also presents a case study of loyal voters of the Law and Justice party in Poland and discusses how a relational right-wing popular identity may serve as an ‘intermediary identity’ that articulates elements of other identities to maintain their integrity and a ‘community of last resort’ that unites the ‘real’ people through an immunitarian mechanism of exclusion.