We (Not Them) The People: Populist Rhetoric in the Contemporary U.S. Congress

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dc.contributor.advisorCrespin, Michael
dc.contributor.authorAshton, Henry III
dc.contributor.committeeMemberFinocchiaro, Charles
dc.contributor.committeeMemberJohnson, Tyler
dc.contributor.committeeMemberBlum, Rachel
dc.contributor.committeeMemberPurcell, Darren
dc.date.accessioned2023-12-07T14:40:06Z
dc.date.available2023-12-07T14:40:06Z
dc.date.issued2023-12
dc.date.manuscript2023-12-06
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation provides evidence that populist rhetoric shapes Congress, parties and individual politicians in rich and contextual ways. I collected a dataset of over 2 million tweets (2012-2020: Chapter 2) and over 150,000 speeches (110th-116th congresses: Chapter 3) from the congressional record, and analyzed these texts using automated dictionary analysis. Populist language on Twitter was associated with greater engagement (favorites, retweets) and with increased candidate fundraising (dollars, number of donors). Analyzing speeches, members that are ideological extremists and engage in dilatory tactics use populist rhetoric more, while the most productive legislators use it less. My final substantive chapter (4) details survey experiments that gauge the impact of populism on voters' perceptions of Congress as an institution and on candidate perceptions. Candidate characteristics do affect voter perceptions of honesty and authenticity, although overall I caution against the overinterpretation of these results due to their inconsistency and small substantive size.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11244/340009
dc.languageen_USen_US
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/*
dc.subjectCongressen_US
dc.subjectPopulismen_US
dc.subjectTwitteren_US
dc.subjectCongressional recorden_US
dc.thesis.degreePh.D.en_US
dc.titleWe (Not Them) The People: Populist Rhetoric in the Contemporary U.S. Congressen_US
ou.groupDodge Family College of Arts and Sciences::Department of Political Scienceen_US
shareok.orcid0000-0002-7823-2544en_US

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