The next presentation in this session at ECREA PolCom 2023 conference [6] is by Laura Jacobs, who begins by outlining the function of political in- and out-group identification and its links to polarisation and conflict in society. Political parties make use of in- and out-group appeals in their messaging, and may also draw on populism in constructing ‘us vs. them’ oppositions.

Populism is a thin-centred ideology that positions the ‘pure’ people against the ‘corrupt’ elites; it might connect with a host ideology (e.g. socialism on the left or nativism on the right). This project, then, explores how left- and right-wing parties in Belgium utilise populism in their communication: those parties identified as populist will use more in- and out-group appeals in their messaging, and position themselves more strong against elites. It explored this using a dataset of tweets from Belgian party leaders.

Only left-wing populist parties made significantly more in-group appeals compared to non-populist parties; both left- and right-wing populist parties made substantially more out-group appeals, however. Right-wing populist parties also positioned elites significantly more often as out-groups rather than in-groups, and the people as in-groups rather than out-groups; this pattern was not observed for left-wing populist parties, however. Populists on both sides also positioned specific economic groups more often as in-groups, and sometimes as out-groups. Right-wing populist parties also often focussed on ethnic and religious groups as out-groups, and people from Wallonie or Flanders as in-groups.

This confirms horizontal antagonism between the left and the right, as well as vertical antagonism between ‘elites’ and ‘the people’ on the right of the Belgian populist political spectrum.