Researcher
Promoter
Support committee
Sandrine Roginsky (UCLouvain) and Anton Jäger (KULeuven)
Project duration
April 2026 – March 2030
Keywords
Discourse analysis, discourse theory, ideology, political parties, ethnography
Funding
FSR (Fonds Spéciaux de la Recherche)
Description
This research focuses on a particular discursive strategy by which political actors frame themselves, others or pol tical issues in ‘ideological terms’. The research rests on the assumption that actors don’t necessarily or naturally have to articulate their socio-political environment as the outcome of underlying ideologies. Therefore to do so becomes a strategic choice. I call this strategy ‘ideologisation’. The research tries to answer the question why and how actors decide to ‘ideologise’ their discourses and what effects this may have. In particular, I am interested in what kinds of political articulations or (de)legitimised by ideologising discourse. I will study this discursive phenomenon by conducting an ethnography of two Belgian political parties. This ethnography is further supplemented with in-depth semi-structured interviews and gamified experiments.