4.5.2. Language

Mentioned already in connection with the federal or federal-like structure of the national state is the question of subnational minorities. In Germany, which has very small native language minorities, this is not an issue. Danish and Sorbish have some local rights, but this is not felt to be in conflict with German identity. However, for AfD the German language itself holds a central place for identity and identification with country. As outlined in (Gould 2018, 16f) the language and its local variations are marks of German identity to be protected from foreign influences, particularly the use of English in education and administration and the impact of the (for AfD) negatively-connotated "gender ideology" which pushes to remove linguistic forms which mark human gender. The strong resistance to these influences is the result of the conviction that "the national language is the heart of a *Kulturnation*" (AfD 2017, Section 9.2; AfD EP 2019, Section 12.9). *Kulturnation* is a term widely used in German political and other statements to refer, among other things, to the German people's (and state's) possessing a common culture including a widely admired "high culture" of internationally-recognised artistic value.

Fundamentally, Vox shares this same position with respect to Spanish and this creates a very real social problem. For them the importance of Spanish as a unifying factor in the face of "the other Spanish languages" (see below) cannot be overstated. Article 3 of the Spanish Constitution determines that "Castilian is the o fficial Spanish language of the State [i.e., of the country as a whole and of the national government]. All Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it". The same Article then continues, "The other Spanish languages shall also be o fficial in the respective Self-governing Communities in accordance with their Statutes" (Constitución Española 1978, O fficial English Translation). The Balearic Islands, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, Navarre and the Valencian Community have used this article to gran<sup>t</sup> co-o fficial status to their regional language(s) within all or part their territory. The same communities have also used their powers to make their own, di ffering, arrangements for the use of their language(s) in educational, administrative, and judicial matters.

For Vox, just like the existence of autonomous regions, this situation is incompatible with their vision of national identity and the State: To provide peace, order and good government, and as a sound foundation for community and identity, Spanish society has to have de facto only one language free to be used in all circumstances. In the name of national identity and unity the party wishes (a) to give protection to Spanish, "the shared language of everyone" (*la lengua común de todos*), from denigration or discrimination by any individual or public body, and (b) insists that a knowledge of Spanish alone shall be su fficient to hold any civil service position (Vox España 2018, Item 4). It is important to note that such proposals are tantamount to an attack on local identities above all in the north of Spain, where the three regional languages with co-o fficial status, Galician, Basque, and Catalan, are solely or principally located. At the same time, given that very many schoolteachers are civil servants, if implemented, the measures would undermine the present and future of the languages by weakening their teaching of one or the other of their co-o fficial languages, or their use as vehicular languages of instruction. Along with this, the party insists that throughout the country there be

<sup>8</sup> For a comment and analysis of this argumen<sup>t</sup> see (Gould 2018, p. 36).

created a right to receive schooling in Spanish and that parents alone (rather than legislation by the autonomous communities) have the right to determine the language of education of their children (Vox España 2014, p. 8; Vox España 2018, Item 62; Vox Andalucía 2019, Item 9).

Additionally, just as AfD defines Germany and Germans as a *Kulturnation* as part of definition and identification with territory, so for Vox the cultivation of cultural events, including high culture (Vox España 2018, Item 66; Vox España 2014, p. 1; Vox España EA 2019, Item 35), is a desideratum in the ongoing insistence on the importance and manifestation of national specificity against the current impact of other cultures and the ideas of a multiculturalism which is allegedly bent on robbing Europe of its identity and awareness of its past (Vox España EP 2019, Introduction "En Europa por España"). At the same time, insistence on the Spanish language reinforces the link to a glorious past (see above), *hispanidad*, the role that Spain played in world history, and the desire to extend its contemporary influence in international affairs through connections with the Spanish-speaking world (Vox España 2018, Item 100; Vox España EP 2019).

The following table (Table 1) provides an overview of the parties' positions on their respective nation and its identity:


**Table 1.** An overview of the parties' positions on their respective nation and its identity.

## **5. Performing Crisis**

It has long been acknowledged that far-right and far-right-populist discourses of national identity include the assertion that the national group is endangered by a 'crisis' (Laclau 2005; Pirro and Taggart 2018). This may have internal or external origins, be political or economic, social, cultural, linguistic, have a long or short time-horizon, result from one or several 'enemies' including local elites. The revealing part of the crisis presentations of Vox and AfD is that each incorporates several dimensions: The political, the social, the economic, the cultural, the linguistic, the short-term, the long-term. Common to both discourses is the European Union, presented as responsible for restriction of popular and national sovereignty and attacks on revered cultural values including a conservative view of the family and gender identity. Similarly, there is the question of Muslin immigration. Shared responsibility is attributed also to the existing parties which have permitted and even promoted these phenomena. The old-line parties are unfit to govern in the two important senses that they are principally focused on their own advantage: Ensuring their control over the mechanisms of governmen<sup>t</sup> to maintain themselves and their acolytes with steady and lucrative employment and, as is widely and publicly acknowledged in Spain, outright corruption at all levels including purely personal financial advantage as distinct from the party's financial advantage ( Gómez Reino and Llamares 2019; Hawkins et al. 2019). In each case the new right-wing party, unburdened with either legacy policies or any history of political concessions, nor with any past opportunity to become corrupt, presents itself with stern warnings and stern measures as the saviour of country and national unity.

The paper will now turn to the question of the performance of crisis as the central element of each of the parties' communication strategies to transmit their views of national identity. In Section 2, Outline and Methodology, the paper introduced Mo ffitt's view of the importance of crisis as a fundamental part of populist style and his six-step model as a framework of analysis. This arose in connection with his view of the increasing mediatisation of politics (Mo ffitt and Tormey 2014) in the modern world. It appears that he and his sources were thinking of media in the more traditional sense of radio, television, and press. However, in addition to these, the expanding range of social media is now being extensively and intensively used for political communication by parties, groups, and individuals. Consequently, this section will also advance the view that rapid technological developments have made possible a more intensive performance of crisis than Mo ffitt might have envisioned.

The six points of Mo ffitt's framework are:


The parties' practices on the fundamental question of national identity are the following:

1. Identify failure.

Both parties insist on their conviction that their nation and country are ill-served by current domestic political and international arrangements. The situation is so dire that the future existence of both nation and country in any way identifiable as wholly "Spanish" or "German" can no longer be presumed to be guaranteed. This represents a broad and monumental failure in multiple areas by the old-line parties of government.

2. Elevate to the level of crisis by linking into a wider framework and adding a temporal dimension:

This situation exists not only on the national dimension but also at the European level. Europe's fundamental political structure of nation states and its Christianity-based social and familial cultures and its sovereign-nation-state-based national identities are equally threatened by the same

political incapacity to deal with recent-past, current, and foreseeable-future threats at the national and Europe-wide levels. The problem is so grave that immediate action is essential; no short-term solution is possible; only concerted and radical action will bring relief and remedy.

## 3. Frame 'the people' versus those responsible for the crisis:

Both nations are the victims of their professionalised political classes who use their positions of power for selfish ends, rather than listening to the voices of the people. Vox España frames itself as the voice of the overlooked honourable, honest, virtuous common man and woman (Abascal 2018), while (Butterwegge et al. 2018, p. 35) consider the selection of the name Alternative for Germany to be "optimal or even a stroke of genius", appealing to those who feel themselves overlooked and who desire an alternative politics. In addition, the old-line parties have made possible the Muslim presence in each country and in Europe in general, contrary to the wishes and interests of the people and contrary also to fundamental European civilisational values.

4. Use media to propagate performance:

Each of the parties is well aware of the need to use all means of communication as e ffectively and frequently as possible. This includes the traditional media and social media.

A confidential AfD strategy paper drawn up in preparation for the German state and federal elections in 2017 emphasises that the party "must be consciously, calculatedly and repeatedly politically incorrect" [underlined in the original] "and not be afraid of carefully planned provocation" (AfD 2016, pp. 10–11). It adds "The more they [the old-line parties] attempt to stigmatise the AfD for its provocative words or actions, the better that is for the image of the AfD" [also underlined in the original]. Not only will it distinguish the AfD from old-line parties, but the reactions will ge<sup>t</sup> media coverage beyond that accorded to the original AfD activities themselves. The analysis by (Schroeder et al. 2017) of social media accounts of AfD members of state parliaments shows that by the date of the strategy paper just mentioned AfD online activity was already well established. Developing ideas first outlined in 2016, (Vowe 2016, 2017) even concludes not only that the rapid rise of AfD would not have been possible without the existence of social media, but that this party knew better than any other in Germany how to manipulate opinion and determine the topics of talkshows (very popular in Germany) and editorials. He concludes that successful communication via text messages is now essential for the success of a populist party. Citing a range of scholarly sources, (Diehl et al. 2019) draw attention to the extreme activity of AfD on the web, particularly Facebook, and emphasises the influence AfD is able to exercise in this way. (Ruhose 2019, p. 16) concludes that the AfD's behaviour and use of language in its first year in the Bundestag is a "success story" and that they will continue to use "polarising statements, provocation and emotion" as a fundamental strategy. AfD has grasped the value of provocative utterances and actions to continue getting attention in the public at large. Additionally, just as Vox is benefitting from fake Twitter (and other) accounts which it may or may not have promoted (see below), AfD is known to be directly instrumental in the creation of such accounts, postings and re-tweets, etc., in order to promote its views and also individual AfD politicians (Reuter 2017, 2019). In addition, persons with a high profile in the AfD organisation tweet seemingly in their own name and in a more provocative manner than might be possible from the party account. A particular example of this was the case of Beate von Storch's harsh comments about Arab men in 2017. This enabled the party's Islamophobic and xenophobic views to be widely repeated in the traditional media without the party itself being directly accountable (Butterwegge et al. 2018, p. 341).

Vox grasped equally by the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 the importance of provocation. It is quite clear that a number of the proposals in *100 medidas* are extreme and the proposed abolition of the autonomous communities and transfer of powers to the central governmen<sup>t</sup> would represent a radical change in the way Spain is governed, so radical in fact that the constitutional changes could not in reality be achieved (Castillo 2019). After the 2 December elections in Andalusia, Vox had the votes the PP needed to form a government. It submitted to the PP a public set of proposals representing their negotiating position. Many of the radical claims made at the national level, as well as some others, are contained in the document *Propuestas de Vox para la investidura del presidente del gobierno de Andalucía* (Vox Andalucía 2019). They are extreme in the sense that it was known in advance that they could not be realised in the then-current political context (and some of them probably never). In addition to stating the party's views, they are there also to provoke, and to provoke in such a way that they ensure media coverage and thus create free publicity. Particularly the proposals contained in Items (16) to (18) to repeal the Act to prevent Violence against Women (16), the Act to guarantee the Rights of Equality of Treatment and Non-discrimination of LGBTI Persons and their Families (17), and the Act to promote the Equality of the Sexes (18) provoked very large demonstrations throughout both Andalusia and Spain in mid-January 2019 when the new Andalusian Parliament met for the first time, and received significant media coverage (Valdés and Mora 2019).

Although (as yet) there appears to be no scholarly analysis of Vox's continuing use of social media (the ISD report *The Great Replacement* (Davey and Ebner 2019) mentions Vox just five times and deals only with the Andalusia campaign) two things emerge very clearly from investigations and reports in the quality press. Firstly, Vox has used and continues to use social media intensely; secondly it keeps the messaging clear and simple, repeating the fundamentals of its positions: Islamophobia, Catalan separatism, the no doubt Bannon-influenced *España lo primero* (Spain first) or *hacer a España grande otra vez* (Make Spain grea<sup>t</sup> again), and opposition to "feminist ideologies" always presented as totally opposed to traditional Spanish values. (Applebaum 2019) comments on the success of the tweets of two leading figures of Vox (Rocío Monasterio and Iván Espinosa) in putting on a show to ge<sup>t</sup> attention. However, in this they are repeating the strategy of Abascal himself. His Twitter account, for instance, contains a stream of tweets with images showing him in rooms full of followers (or noting that many people could not ge<sup>t</sup> in) in different parts of the country (the locations are always specified) with comments repeating the party's basic positions and/or denigrating political opponents (Abascal 2019). At the same time, (Peinado 2019) cites a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London that a network of nearly 3000 fake twitter accounts was sending Islamophobic messages and/or messages in support of Vox, particularly during the election campaign in the spring of 2019. Vox cannot be unaware of this, but one can reasonably assume that they are unconcerned. The fact that they are false is not significant; that they perform the crisis defined by Vox is. Cristina Monge of the University of Saragossa has pointed out that by means of such statements, and others, Vox succeeded in largely controlling the online news cycle just as Trump was doing at the same time. She refers to Lakoff's statement, "Trump uses social media as a weapon to control the news cycle. It works like a charm. His tweets are tactical rather than substantive. They mostly fall into one of these four categories": For example, pre-emptive framing, diversion, deflection, trial balloon (Lakoff 2018) (quoted in Rubio Hancock 2019).

The two Avaaz reports published in 2019, *WhatsApp: Social Media's Dark Web* (Avaaz 2019a) covering only Spain, and *Far Right Networks of Deception* (Avaaz 2019b) which analyses far-right Facebook networks in a number of European countries including Spain and Germany, reveal more of the extent of functioning networks not overtly associated with a party but which employ falsified information explicitly or implicitly to support policies or views of Vox or AfD, as the case may be. As noted above, WhatsApp is intensively used in Spain by the vast majority of smartphone subscribers, and the investigation indicated that 26% of persons entitled to vote had received such messages. It was Avaaz and not Vox which persuaded Facebook to take down offending networks five days before the elections on 28 April, arguing that they were contrary to company policy. Such messaging and sharing by individuals or groups in effect become part of the performance of crisis by the party in question: The diffusion and reinforcement of the view that the country is in a state of existential crisis which is threatening values held dear and which consequently endanger national identity.

It is clear that rapid electronic communication via the range of platforms now available is open to all parties without distinction and in ways which Moffitt could hardly envision when writing in 2014 for publication in 2015. However, it is also clear that the existence of instant transmission of text, image and sound facilitates performance of crises in the way that he conceived it: It enables the cost-free and rapid spread of focused and developing information in the categories mentioned, without the party itself having to be directly involved further. Spain has more mobile phones than inhabitants (Statista 2019b), 90% of whom access WhatsApp from their phone (Statista 2019c). In Germany there are in 2019 61.5 million smartphone users (Statista 2019a). The party has only to provide the information of a particular provocative type around their basic themes which, in the case of both parties, are particularly concerned with the failure of traditional parties to defend and develop national identity. Provocation stimulates traditional media for the sake of circulation and revenue, but provocation by electronic media also stimulates individuals to be better integrated and better regarded by their peers in the communication of their ideas and ideals and feel themselves in touch with, and appreciated by, the party of their liking—without their having taken the formal step of joining (Gutiérrez-Rubí n.d.).

## 5. Present simple solutions and strong leadership:

With the new party statutes approved (Vox España 2019a) in an online vote before the party congress on 23 February 2019, Vox reinforced the centralisation of its structures conferring significantly more power on the President (Santiago Abascal) and the National Executive (the two are elected together) than under the old statutes (approved 18 October 2015; Vox España 2015). In fact, the candidate for president includes the eleven names of the National Executive in his candidacy (Vox España 2019a, Article 23). The new statutes also restrict voting rights of new members, abolish internal primary elections and provincial committees. This new structure also means that there are no formal structures at the municipal level or that of the autonomous communities. This, apparently, was done as a reaction to the tenfold rise in membership to 36,000 in the preceding year and ensures that Abascal can maintain his centralised control over the party (González 2019). In the same line of thinking, Vox stated that these changes were being made in order to guarantee that its message did not change in the face of changed circumstances (Vox España 2019b).

As already noted above, AfD has been the most successful German party in the use of electronic media for the propagation of its views on the crises of German identity and proposals for solutions. In this it has been helped by the staggered electoral system in Germany, where states hold their elections at di fferent dates. This permits repetition or adjustment of messages, concentration on certain geographical areas as required, and development of communication techniques and strategies. The presence of the party in the EP, in local councils and three state parliaments (Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg) since 2014 and then in other parliaments in the following years until by 2018 the AfD was represented in the Bundestag and all state parliaments, promoted this process. Parliamentary membership and the increased vote also provided significant funding from legitimate public sources. In addition, the elected representatives used the platforms provided to propagate their views on problems and solutions (Butterwegge et al. 2018; Schroeder et al. 2017), frequently in a provocative manner, as laid out in the confidential AfD strategy document for the 2017 election where members are enjoined "to be repeatedly politically incorrect" (AfD 2016, p. 10).

On the other hand, past splits within the party on ideological, personal, and regional lines (Butterwegge et al. 2018) including high-level resignations (Spiegel Online 2017), and the fact that AfD currently has two party chairmen (Alexander Gauland and Jörg Meuthen) undermine any claim that AfD has a single strong leader. In July 2019 Meuthen's criticism of the extreme nationalist position of the regional party president in Thuringia, Jörn Höcke, resulted in the former being rejected by the base in his home county (*Kreis*) as a delegate to the party congress in November 2019 (FAZ 2019). As this indicates, there is no central coordination in AfD's functioning at the local level, nor is there such coordination between state and federal parliamentarians (Butterwegge et al. 2018, p. 95). Notwithstanding that, and the existence of organised units at the state level—*Landesverbände*—(a very di fferent organisational structure from that of Vox), AfD consistently maintains its position on the crisis resulting from the serious harm done to national identity and the need rapidly to repair this harm by redefining the relationship with the EU, reforming the EU, weakening the parties' hold

over the legislatures and shifting more power to the sovereign people by increased use of referenda (see above). Importantly, this question of German identity with its strong nationalist overtones and strong rejection of Islam is the central message which holds the disparate trends and wings in the party together (Butterwegge et al. 2018, p. 64).

The pressures to speak bluntly and provocatively by party o fficials or ambitious party members on the topic of the nation and its identity emerge from the example cited above of the rejection of one of the party's national co-chairmen by his local party association. In this connection a highly relevant general comment has materialised from within the party. An individual who left the AfD has stated, "The base likes blunt talk as they see it as proof that they [o fficials and ambitious party members] have not been 'bent out of shape' and 'have remained true to the cause'. This means that that candidate gets elected who has the strongest polarising e ffect. If you speak moderately you make yourself suspect" (Quoted in Butterwegge et al. 2018, p. 348). Within the party, also, performing crisis pays, thus ensuring the continuation of the practice.

As outlined above, the solutions proposed by Vox to the social and political challenges of modern Spain are very simple, direct, and constantly repeated: They are contained in the first ten items of *100 medidas* (Vox España 2018): (1) Suspension of Catalan autonomy, (2) banning of separatist parties and organisations, (3) providing maximum legal protection to national symbols, (4) no discriminatory measures against the Spanish language, (5) suppression of the police forces of the autonomous communities, (6) abolition of the autonomous communities, (7) increase of diplomatic pressure for the return of Gibraltar to Spain, (8) creation of an integrated plan for making better known the Spanish contributions to world history, (9) repeal of the Act concerning Historical Memory, and (10) abolition of the special financial and fiscal arrangements with the Basque Country and Navarre. Most of these would, in fact, be very hard, if not quite impossible, to achieve (see, for example, (Castillo 2019)). However, nuance is not provocative, does not stimulate media attention, re-tweeting, WhatsApp group conversations, forwards, etc. and the party knows that. By the end of 2018, i.e., at the start of the important series of elections throughout Spain, Vox had become the Spanish party reaching the most people via electronic communication, and using short sharp statements to propagate their fundamental message on Catalonia, Muslims, protection, and love of country (Viejo 2018).

6. Continuing crisis propagation:

This means remaining constantly active, maintaining communication on chosen fundamental themes, remaining provocative, and providing rapid reactions to events of the day. At the current time this implies intense use of social media and exploitation of the traditional media's need to report on political matters. On the supply side, none of the factors underlying the two parties' conservative visions of national identity will disappear in the near future. This, together with the fact that the solutions proposed are largely unrealisable (the lack of success can be blamed on the old-line parties) plus the additional fact that political communication (and particularly that of populist parties) is no longer dependent on print media or broadcasting, which are largely outside the new parties' control, means that the continuing performance of crisis propagation will remain a permanent and important part of the communication by Vox España and Alternative für Deutschland of their views on national identity.
