Muriel McGregor
Utah State University, Political Science, Graduate Student
Research Interests:
The Rise of Populist Rhetoric and the Mainstreaming of a Party? Testing the Rhetorical Shifts Between Front National’s Presidents Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen by Muriel C. McGregor Utah State University, 2019 Major Professor: Dr.... more
The Rise of Populist Rhetoric and the Mainstreaming of a Party? Testing the Rhetorical Shifts Between Front National’s Presidents Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen by Muriel C. McGregor Utah State University, 2019 Major Professor: Dr. Steffen Blings Department: Political Science In France, the far right-wing party, Le Front National, has experienced recent growth in electoral success. Scholars of the Front National have in part attributed the party’s success to its increased use of populist rhetoric, that is anti-elite sentiments, antipluralist sentiments, and appeals to people. This thesis delineated a definition of populist rhetoric and examined its use between the Front National’s past president Jean-Marie Le Pen (JMLP) and current president Marine Le Pen (MLP) in order to test these scholarly claims. In particular, I tested three hypotheses: 1) the use of populist rhetoric by MLP compared to JMLP has experienced either no change or an increase; 2) the use of xenophobic rhetori...