The nexus of nationalism and egalitarianism in populist narratives and value orientations in Serbia in the 21st century

Abstract

Populism as a ‘thin ideology’ implies that populist rhetoric is easily combined with different ideological orientations and narratives. In our chapter, we examine the nexus between right-wing messages and ideology (nationalism), and left- wing egalitarian populist narratives in Serbia (an ex-socialist country) after the consolidation of electoral democracy in the 21st century. We do not consider populism as an ideology that is exclusively ‘imposed’ from above, but we accept the theoretical position that pleads that it is a reversible process of placing populist messages, but also supporting and accepting such messages due to the wide representation of certain values. Using a triangulation of different methods, we tried to detect how nationalism and egalitarianism, both as messages (from above) and as value orientations (from below), have shaped the modern political life of Serbia. Bearing in mind the possible interconnection between the narratives of politicians and value orientations of the people, we wanted to simultaneously analyse these two. We analysed nationalism and egalitarianism in the political messages (slogans, commercials, party election programs) of the two parties (or coalitions) that won the most votes in parliamentary elections since 2000. To measure respondents’ nationalism and egalitarianism, we used data gathered during past 20 years in the World Values Survey and European Values Study. Value changes and changes in political messages are analysed separately and, after that, the relationship between these two is discussed.