On the margins of socio-political extremes? An analysis of conservative Albertans' Facebook posts and comments


Sarah Orcutt, Carleton University

The resurgence of right-wing, nativist, authoritarian, and nationalistic populist movements in nations around the world has caught the attention of social theorists and the public alike. Despite the existence of notable left-wing varieties of populism, right-wing varieties of populism have raised concerns over the resilience of Western democracies to internal illiberal and undemocratic threats. The recent elections of Marco Chiesa for the Swiss People’s Party, Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, and the increasing popularity and influence of the AfD in Germany are some of the most recent examples of growing right-wing populism in established Western democracies. Social scholars have pointed to converging socio-political factors to explain populist movements with exclusionary and authoritarian tendencies. Some social theorists have pointed to the interconnection of unrestrained globalization and the resultant economic instability and insecurity as contributing to citizens’ apparent growing openness to embracing parties and leaders with protectionist and exclusionary agendas. Other scholars have suggested that the trend towards right-wing and exclusionary forms of populism can be explained as a cultural backlash to changing cultural values and perceived loss of social status for white people within Western societies. Still, other scholars have suggested that the Left’s embrace of neoliberalism has created a political vacuum in which populism thrives. Despite suggestions that Canada is resistant to right-wing populism (Ambrose and Mudde, 2015), other critics have demonstrated that Canada is not an exception among Western nations when it comes to right-wing and populist movements. Instead, they claim that right-wing extremism, right-wing populism and other degenerative forms of populism have been longstanding features of Canadian politics, governance, and social life (Budd, 2021; Kwak, 2020; Laycock, 1990). Authoritarian populism has become an increasing political force in the current moment that appears to resonate particularly with working-class, less-educated, older and politically conservative Canadians and those living in Alberta and Saskatchewan (Graves and Smith, 2020). This research project seeks to understand the expressions of discontent that may help to explain the trend toward right-wing populism in Canada and the implications of this trend for Canadian democracy and social cohesion. Given the prevalence of populist outlooks in Alberta, current political actors evoking populist rhetoric, and the historical prevalence of populist and otherwise novel political movements and parties, Alberta is both a current and historical locus of discontentment within Canada. Employing a multimodal qualitative content analysis methodology, this study explores to what extent Albertans’ expressions of social, political, and economic discontentedness on the public Facebook social media pages ‘Alberta Proud’ and ‘Alberta Stronger’ reflect the characteristics of recent right-wing populist movements. These pages were chosen for their high level of engagement and mainstream conservative socio-political orientation. Using a theoretical sampling strategy, 65 posts with approximately 2500 associated comments were sampled and thematically analyzed using a recursive and reflexive 12-step qualitative content analysis process developed by Altheide and Schnider (2013). Ultimately, the intent of this project is to elucidate to what extent the discontentedness of conservative-minded Albertans shares similarities with recent right-wing populism observed in other Western nations while theorizing as to the broader causes and implications of this phenomenon. Preliminary results of this project will be presented for scholarly critique.  

This paper will be presented at the following session: