The Successful Implementation Of Populist Strategies: An Analysis Of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party's Electoral Achievement In Australia's Federal Election In 2016

In Australia's federal election in 2016,Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party(PHON)won four seats in the Senate,which drew considerable attention.This thesis focuses on One Nation's electoral achievement in Australia's federal election in 2016 and aims to analyze the reasons behind it and the social changes that facilitated this achievement.This thesis takes 27 articles released on One Nation Party's official website since the announcement of its first candidate as samples,related populist theories as the theological basis and Fairclough's three-dimensional analysis model for critical discourse analysis as the research method.The discussion of this thesis consists of two parts,one devoted to the interpretation of the populist strategies revealed in the samples,and the other devoted to the explanation of the social facts that facilitated the implementation of PHON's populist strategies.This thesis finds that the electoral success of PHON lies partly in its populist strategies revealed in its election texts,which enhance its legitimacy while criticizing the elites in power,immigrants and the influence of foreign organizations,and partly in the facilitating political,cultural and economic conditions,which offer a good opportunity for One Nation to implement its strategies.It is found that PHON manipulates two populist strategies in its election texts.The first populist strategy is to enhance its legitimacy in representing the voters.On the one hand,PHON borrows authority from "the people" through the repetition of first-person plural pronouns "we" "our" and "us".In this way,PHON blurs the boundary between their candidates and voters,strengthens their candidates'connection with the voters and thus enhances its legitimacy in representing them.The second populist strategy is to criticize "others" for their undermining Australians' interests.PHON creates three oppositions in the election,the opposition between ordinary Australians and politicians,that between Australians and immigrants especially Muslims,and that between Australians and foreign influences,which include the United Nations and foreign trade partners.In this way,PHON highlights the opposition between these "others" and Australian voters' interests and the common interests of PHON and the voters so as to arouse the voters' empathy.At the level of social conditions,PHON grasped the opportunities in current political,cultural and economic conditions to implement its populist strategies.First of all,the political situation offers PHON a good opportunity to propagate its legitimacy.The double dissolution increased its chance to enter the Senate,and the frequent changes of the leaders of major parties in recent years signaled the decline of the influence of major parties.Besides,PHON exploited the ethnic contradictions embedded in Australia's multicultural society.It chose Muslims as its target at a time when people were concerned with terrorism,exaggerated the contradictions between mainstream Australians and immigrants,and attributed some of Australians'difficulties to immigrants,arousing voters' empathy and support.Furthermore,the economic atmosphere during the election also facilitated PHON to implement its populist strategies.At that time,people were more dissatisfied with the government's capacity in dealing with economy and more indifferent to major parties economic policies compared with before,which facilitated PHON's criticism of major pairties and their self-propaganda.