Abstract
In contemporary politics, the anti-corruption appeal is one of the most attractive strategies of challenger parties. It could be a specific valence issue integral to the anti-elitism strategy of populist parties (Zulianello 2020).
While the literature has covered the role of anti-corruption in party manifestos (Sanz, Sollé-Ollé and Navarro 2021) and electoral campaigns (Polk et al. 2017), a significant gap exists - we do not yet know the role and intensity of the topic once valance populists reach parliaments. This paper addresses this issue by focussing on parliamentary speeches by both mainstream and populist MPs.
It utilizes Comparative Manifesto Project, ParlSpeech, and Slovak Parliamentary TV data to assess the intensity of the anti-corruption appeal and changes in three countries where valance populists campaigning on anti-corruption reached parliaments - the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Spain. The paper explores this kind of appeals in parliamentary speeches by comparing three types of variation: populist and non-populist parties, parties in opposition and government and position on the left-right scale.
This enables the paper to answer the question of which parties use the anti-corruption narrative most often and whether valance populists in parliaments continue to pursue the anti-corruption appeal. The main findings indicate that oppositional character is crucial - more important than the populist character of the party or its position on the left-right scale.
The paper highlights the wide usage of the anti-corruption appeal for various oppositional political actors and questions the link between valence issue dominance and valence populist strategy.