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Is the ANC Populist? An analysis of State of The Nation Addresses: 1994-2022

Badri, Mustafa LU (2023) STVK02 20222
Department of Political Science
Abstract
This paper analyses the prevalence of populist rhetoric within the South African ruling ANC party by evaluating the speeches of five presidents through an ideational theoretical framework. The grading criteria applied was developed by Hawkins et al. 2019, widely regarded as a pioneers in the field of populism studies. All the evaluated speeches in this paper were State Nation Addresses (SONAs) and were delivered over a time-period spanning 28 years, beginning with the first democratic elections with universal suffrage in 1994 and Nelson Mandela’s first SONA, and concluding with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2022 SONA. Of the 34 State of the Nation Addresses analysed in this paper, only one instance of clearly populist speech was identified.... (More)
This paper analyses the prevalence of populist rhetoric within the South African ruling ANC party by evaluating the speeches of five presidents through an ideational theoretical framework. The grading criteria applied was developed by Hawkins et al. 2019, widely regarded as a pioneers in the field of populism studies. All the evaluated speeches in this paper were State Nation Addresses (SONAs) and were delivered over a time-period spanning 28 years, beginning with the first democratic elections with universal suffrage in 1994 and Nelson Mandela’s first SONA, and concluding with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2022 SONA. Of the 34 State of the Nation Addresses analysed in this paper, only one instance of clearly populist speech was identified. Therefore, this study did not find that the ANC expressed populist rhetoric on any consistent basis. The instance where populist rhetoric was detected was the 2017 SONA delivered by Jacob Zuma. A notable finding of this paper was that the identified populist speech was Jacob Zuma’s last ever SONA. This study adds to the field by offering insights on a region of the world that populism studies has accumulated limited knowledge about. (Less)
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author
Badri, Mustafa LU
supervisor
organization
course
STVK02 20222
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Populism, South Africa, ANC, EFF, Discourse Analysis
language
English
additional info
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id
9105657
date added to LUP
2023-02-22 13:27:29
date last changed
2023-02-22 13:27:29
@misc{9105657,
  abstract     = {{This paper analyses the prevalence of populist rhetoric within the South African ruling ANC party by evaluating the speeches of five presidents through an ideational theoretical framework. The grading criteria applied was developed by Hawkins et al. 2019, widely regarded as a pioneers in the field of populism studies. All the evaluated speeches in this paper were State Nation Addresses (SONAs) and were delivered over a time-period spanning 28 years, beginning with the first democratic elections with universal suffrage in 1994 and Nelson Mandela’s first SONA, and concluding with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2022 SONA. Of the 34 State of the Nation Addresses analysed in this paper, only one instance of clearly populist speech was identified. Therefore, this study did not find that the ANC expressed populist rhetoric on any consistent basis. The instance where populist rhetoric was detected was the 2017 SONA delivered by Jacob Zuma. A notable finding of this paper was that the identified populist speech was Jacob Zuma’s last ever SONA. This study adds to the field by offering insights on a region of the world that populism studies has accumulated limited knowledge about.}},
  author       = {{Badri, Mustafa}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Is the ANC Populist? An analysis of State of The Nation Addresses: 1994-2022}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}