Pandemic crisis narratives: not only populism

Crises can be represented and narrated in multiple ways, opening a space of competition and conflict between frames and counter-frames regarding their nature, causes, effects and solutions (Entman 1993; Boin et al. 2017). According to the literature, phases of crisis also constitute a favourable context for the emergence of populist parties. These parties take advantage of the moment of instability and can themselves promote it by proposing polarised and dichotomous representations based on the opposition between victims and perpetrators (Moffitt 2015). Starting from these theoretical premises, the paper aims to investigate how populist parties, holding government and opposition roles, belonging to the right and the left of the political spectrum, have narrated the pandemic crisis with reference to three thematic dimensions: the health crisis, the socio-economic crisis and the european/international relations. To this end, we will compare the narrative frames constructed by the main populist parties in Italy, Spain and France, three of the European democracies firstly affected by the pandemic: the Lega, Vox and the Rassemblement National, as populist radical right parties placed on the opposition side, the Movimento 5 Stelle and La République en Marche, as hybrid populist parties in government, Podemos and La France Insoumise as populist radical left parties, respectively in government and in opposition. Through a qualitative analysis of the speeches delivered by the parties’ leaders and representatives in Parliament between February and October 2020, we will show that the parties adopted different framing strategies (maximization of the crisis; minimization of the crisis; recognition of the crisis) according to their competitive position, while maintaining a populist articulation. At the same time, we will show that the populist articulation is the most visible aspect of parties’ narratives, but it covers a deep ideological differentiation, especially with reference to the economic-social dimension.