Monitoring discriminatory political discourse on immigration: A pilot study in Catalonia

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the findings of an analytical framework we have designed to monitor discriminatory political discourse on immigration. Through the understanding of how some of the most relevant studies in three disciplines (political science, social psychology and linguistics) have framed racism, we try to infer how such racism may manifest in discourse through particular discriminatory tendencies. The combination of these tendencies has contributed to the designing of the proposed analytical framework that aims, by means of 12 standards, to systematically certify political discourse as discriminatory, quantify how much discriminatory discourse is and assess how such discrimination is legitimised or justified. By implementing such a framework within the context of Catalonia, this pilot study offers a global picture of how Catalan political discourse on immigration is constructed and how each of the standards appears (or does not appear) in discourse. Once the viability of this framework is proven, we conclude it could be the basis of comparative research in other contexts.

Keywords

Catalonia discrimination immigration political discourse political parties racism

Introduction

Racist political discourses are increasing their presence in Europe, especially now in a context of the radicalisation of most diversity-immigration-related narratives. Given this reality on how such discourses affect both the level of society and the institutional level, there is an urgent need to construct an interpretive framework to help monitor them and make visible the red lines that a democratic society should be able to tolerate (Zapata-Barrero and Triandafyllidou, 2012).

We understand racism as a complex system of social domination (Van Dijk, 2001), in which a majority group practices some kind of power abuse towards one or more minority groups, which could be ethnic minorities or their descendants. In this sense, while racism is a more abstract and complex system, we understand discrimination as the concrete way in which such racism manifests through different social practices (including discursive practices) and cognitions.¹

The framework we propose will have a descriptive and preventive dimension, since its primary objective is to identify and counter any tendency of political parties to radicalise their position towards discrimination. By making this discursive behaviour visible, we seek to provide arguments to prevent its extension and trivialisation.

Most of the concerns of current scholarly work on racism relates to how to measure it. The last European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) report, for instance, suggests that among key trends in 2015 there is growing anti-immigrant sentiment and Islamophobia (ECRI, 2016). The lack of a clear definition of racism affects the ability to measure it. Racist and discriminatory attitudes are somewhat structurally embedded and hidden, which in turn generates the question: How can such attitudes be operationalised? As of today, there is no index or uniform methodology for measuring it (Cea d’Ancona, 2014; Philippas, 2014). Comprehensive attitudinal surveys have been conducted for most European countries in programmes that aim to produce relevant data for social science research. But the fact is that racist narratives are increasing their presence in all spheres of European societies (Triandafyllidou et al., 2011).

Taking the previous into account, our aim is to offer an analytical framework by means of 12 standards that allow us to certify discriminatory political discourse, quantify how discriminatory a given discourse is and assess the way such a discourse is justified and legitimised. As a pilot study, such a framework has been implemented in the context of Catalonia (Spain).

In discourse analysis there are quite a lot of studies that have made empirical and theoretical attempts to show some characteristics of racist and discriminatory discourse in politics. In the European context, the groundbreaking research of Charteris-Black (2013), Reisigl and Wodak (2009), Van Dijk (1997, 2003) and Wodak and Van Dijk (2000), among others, is leading this particular field. However, there is no precise framework that systematises some categories of analysis to encode and quantify discriminatory political discourses.

The concept of racism has mainly been explored in the disciplines of political science, social psychology and (critical) discourse analysis, and each of them provides us with different theoretical frameworks on how racism is constructed. In the first section, we will present how we have combined these frameworks to draw our own standards to monitor discriminatory political discourse. In the second section, we will provide an overview of the methods we have used to select and analyse our data. Finally, the last section aims to present the main findings together with some methodological reflections. Once the viability of this framework is demonstrated, we conclude it could be the basis of comparative research in other contexts.

Framing racism and its discriminatory manifestations: A multi-disciplinary approach

The meaning of racism has become extraordinarily expanded and evasive, precisely because there have been several attempts in the literature to interpret it from different disciplines such as sociology, psychology, political science, linguistics, social psychology or education (Reisigl and Wodak, 2009). Such attempts reflect on the material, economic, social, political, socio-psychological, cognitive and other explanatory variables for racism. Reviewing each of these theoretical frameworks will allow us to draw out our own interpretation of how discriminatory discourse is constructed. We have concentrated our overview on three main disciplines: political science, social psychology and (critical) discourse studies. It is our aim in this section to summarise the most prominent conceptualisations of racism in these three disciplines and to identify the ways in which discrimination may manifest in discourse for each of the interpretations of racism.

The political framework

Politics conceptualises racism as three main ideologies: nationalism, welfare protectionism and identitarism.

Nationalism involves the attachment of group members to their country, which is expressed by a sense of belonging, love, loyalty, pride and care towards the group and land (Bar-Tal, 1997). Miles and Brown (2003) pointed out that, in order to understand racism, it is necessary to understand not only ‘race’ and class, but also nation and nationalism. Indeed, a nation, in promoting its own identity, necessarily defines itself against other nations, races and ethnicities in terms of more favourable to itself and detrimental to the other. Consequently, nationalism is based on the need to defend national culture, tradition, identity, language and values. Therefore, discrimination could manifest in discourse by constructing diversity as a cultural threat from which defence is needed (Triandafyllidou, 2013).

Welfare protectionism entails the tendency to safeguard the host society’s economy of the presupposed economic damages that immigration causes to it. Discrimination could manifest in discourse through the reproduction of fears about the instability that immigrants may create for the economic and welfare state (Fekete, 2009).

Identitarism involves the emphasis on the membership of individuals to particular social groups because they share a culture, a religion, a language or a place of birth (Phinney et al., 2001). This emphasis is countered to the de-emphasis of immigrants’ values (Bauman, 2004). This view is very much connected to the social psychology perspective on ingroups and outgroups, as we will see in the following. Discrimination may manifest in discourse through polarisations between a positive-us and a negative-them by representing Their values as backward, different and even incompatible with Ours (Betz, 2009). By focusing on the difference, it is presupposed that it is very difficult to adapt immigrants to Our society (Rydgren, 2005). Consequently, identitarian ideologies also entail contrasting interests between the host society and immigrants.

The social psychology framework

In global terms, racism is understood as an intergroup conflict. Some of the aspects that have been most widely studied are the formation of social groups and how these groups are defined and identified, and how they define and identify other social groups (Esses et al., 2001, 2008). In particular, there are two major contributions of this discipline that have helped to better understand racism: the theory of social representations (Moscovici, 1981, 2001) and the theory on the formation and reproduction of prejudices and stereotypes (Allport, 1977; Dovidio et al., 2005; Pettigrew and Meertens, 1995).

Social representations are defined by Moscovici (1981, 2001) as cognitive systems which do not only represent opinions and attitudes towards a particular social reality, but also offer theories and knowledge branches that provide guidelines for organising such a reality – by the inclusion of illustrative systems and codes that allow and ease people into such an organisation. Accordingly, social representations allow individuals to construct a particular reality and influence other individuals by shaping opinions, ideas and attitudes about such issues (Deaux and Philogène, 2001). Furthermore, if we look specifically at political discourse, we will see that some values and assessments are promoted instead of others, depending on how immigration is framed by political leaders (Feldman, 2007; Goffman, 1974).

Racism is then mainly interpreted as negative social representations of immigrants. In this sense, it is related to repetitive associations of immigration with a declining economy, overpopulation, pollution, increased violence, depleted social resources (i.e. medical and educational), erosion of cultural values and terrorism (Cowan et al., 1997). Similarly, immigrant individuals may often be portrayed as criminal, poor, violent and uneducated (Munro, 2006). Accordingly, discrimination may operate in how actually such a representation is created through discourse, how the whole phenomenon of immigration is conceptualised – not only what is said, but also what is not said but implied – and what values are promoted.

Prejudices are considered as the basis of racism and its reproduction is conceived as an active form of discrimination. Allport (1977) and Dovidio et al. (2005) define prejudices as hostile attitudes from one person (or social group) to another that may involve cognitive, motivational or socio-cultural processes. However, stereotypes, following Hamilton and Trolier (1986), are cognitive structures with knowledge, beliefs and expectations about particular people or social groups. They are a simplification of characteristics that allow us to identify individuals in a collective and generalised way. Accordingly, while stereotypes can be positive, negative or neutral, prejudices always involve a negative attitude. In this sense, the discursive reproduction of such an attitude is considered as a form of discrimination.

The (critical) discourse analysis framework

Discourse is understood as one of the main resources for constructing and reproducing racism. One of the main bases of this perspective is that pure synonyms do not exist (Van Dijk, 2003), and the use of a particular word instead of another promotes particular connotations and meanings and favours an interpretation of reality from a specific point of view.

This perspective interprets racism as a complex social and cognitive system of domination, based on racial or ethnic inequality, which is learned and acquired during people’s lives, mainly through discourse (Van Dijk, 2001). Accordingly, through discourse, perceptions and interpretations can be modified, influenced and emphasised or mitigated, because discourse can construct forms of inclusion, exclusion and discrimination through the different selection of meanings and topics (Wodak, 2009). Analysing how meanings are constructed, which topics are selected and which lexicon is used are key issues in understanding what perspective of immigration is being reproduced. It is also key to understand how rhetoric is constructed in order to legitimise discriminatory discourse.

When it comes to rhetoric, there are mainly two approaches that best suit our purposes: the argumentation theory of the discourse-historical approach (Reisigl and Wodak, 2009; Wodak, 2009) and the pragma-dialectical approach (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2004).

On the one hand, the discourse-historical approach is a theoretical and methodological framework that attempts to integrate all available background information into the analysis and interpretation of the many layers of discourse (Wodak and Meyer, 2006). This argumentation theory relies on the identification and assessment of content-related argument schemes that directly connect the argument with the conclusion (topoi). In particular, Reisigl and Wodak (2009) have developed this theory by appointing some of the most common topoi appearing in discriminatory (immigration-related) discourses.

On the other hand, the pragma-dialectic approach proposes 10 rules for critical discussion that are essential for the resolution of any dispute. The assessment of such rules allows us to identify whether they are respected or violated. A violation of one or more of these rules is understood as a fallacy, since it prevents the resolution of the discussion.

We will later see a more in-depth coverage of the notion of topoi and fallacies and how we have used these theories in our framework, but for the moment, let us say that Persuasion consists in producing a change in the opinion or beliefs of the audience from one initial state to a new one. Persuasion, then, is only achieved if the speaker convinces the hearer to accept the arguments proposed by the speaker (Walton, 2007). In this sense, while the topoi allows us to identify argumentative strategies used to achieve persuasion, we understand that fallacies activate some kind of manipulative strategies to achieve such a persuasion, since it is related to arguments that cannot be judged. In this sense, we will consider that the (ab)use of fallacies to convince is an indicator of a manipulative discourse.

Sources and methodology

We have conducted this first pilot study in Catalonia because it has been one of the first communities in Spain in which an anti-immigrant political party (Plataforma per Catalunya) has developed (Hernández-Carr, 2011) and it is likely this has contagious effects on other mainstream political parties (Burchianti and Zapata-Barrero, 2014).

Furthermore, an awareness that certain discourses on immigration can lead to racist attitudes has been present in many debates in the Catalan political arena (Franco-Guillén and Zapata-Barrero, 2014). In order to select the documentary sources that we considered for the implementation of the framework, we have contemplated four main variables:

The parties. The following political parties/coalitions have been selected due to their relevance and prominence in the Catalan context: CiU, ERC, ICV-EUiA, PPC, PSC and PxC. Let us provide a brief description of each of them:

The CiU (Convergence & Union) is a nationalist and conservative electoral coalition composed of two main parties: Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya. This coalition has been in power for most of the democratic history of Catalonia. It was in government from 2010 to 2015, when the coalition was dissolved. With Artur Mas as the leader, it served in opposition to the centre-left Tripartite² government from 2003 to 2010.

The ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia) is one of the three political parties that formed the Tripartite. It is organised into the three areas that give the organisation its name: Esquerra (commitment to the left’s agenda in the political debate), República (commitment to the Republican form of government vs Spain’s current constitutional monarchy) and Catalunya (Catalan secessionist nationalism).

The ICV-EUiA (Green Initiative for Catalonia & United and Alternative Left) is a left and ecologist electoral coalition that started in 2003. This coalition was another of the three political forces that formed the Tripartite, and hence was in government until the 2010 elections. Following ICV-EUiA’s own ideological definition, it is an organisation of the national (Catalan) green left-wing that fights for a society of free and equal men and women to live on a habitable planet together with the widest citizen participation.

The PPC (Popular Party of Catalonia) represents the right and conservative wing both at the autonomic and state levels. Even though this political party is one of the strongest political forces in Spain, in Catalonia it is only the fourth political force in Parliament and has never been in power at the autonomic level.

The PSC (Socialist Party of Catalonia) is the third of the three parties that formed the Tripartite. It has a social-democratic ideology and, as an alternative against Catalan self-government, it promotes federalism. It is the second Catalan group, after CiU, with political representation in the Spanish Parliament. At the municipal level, PSC has always been prominent in the four big cities of Catalonia: Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona.

The PxC (Platform for Catalonia) is a far-right political party that has an openly hostile discourse against Islamism and immigration. It does not have parliamentary representation, but it has grown quite a lot in terms of representation in Catalonia. For example, in the elections of 2007 this party got 17 city councillors and in 2011 they got 67.

The channel. The channels are electoral programmes, plenary sessions and published written interviews with political leaders of the selected parties. It is important to be aware that we are dealing with different sources with different discursive, structural and contextual particularities. However, if there is something that all these channels have in common, it is that they are formal ways for politicians to communicate with the electorate.

The territorial scope. This refers to aollection of electoral programmes and interviews produced at both the autonomic and municipal levels. Plenary sessions have been considered only at the autonomic level.

The time-frame. We have collected the electoral programmes of May 2007 and May 2011 (municipal elections) and November 2010 and November 2012 (autonomic elections) and the interviews with political leaders about immigration during the period corresponding to each of the electoral campaigns. However, with regard to the plenary sessions, we have considered the whole period from January 2007 to December 2012. Therefore, we have a tally of 23 electoral programmes,³ 30 plenary activities and 13 interviews (a total of 66 documentary sources). Tables 1 and 2 describe the documentary sources collected from the different types of plenary sessions and interviews.

Table 1.

Activities in plenary sessions dealing with immigration and diversity issues 2007–2012.

Function	Activity	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	Totals
Legislative	Draft law		1	2	1			4
Legislative	Legislative proposal					1		1
Control	Oral question	3	1	2	5	2		13
Control	Urgent demand	1	2		1	1	1	6
Political orientation	Non-legislative proposal							0
Political orientation	Motion	1	2		1	1	1	6
Totals		5	6	4	8	5	2	30

Source: Own elaboration.

Table 2.

Interviews dealing with immigration and diversity issues 2007–2012.

Political leader	Political party	Media	Date
Xavier Trías	CiU	La Vanguardia	23 May 2007
Xavier García Albiol	PPC	El Mundo	23 November 2010
Josep Anglada	PxC	El Mundo-Catalunya	20 November 2010
Alicia Alegret	PPC	El Punt	14 May 2011
Jordi Serra	PSC	El periódico de Badalona	20 May 2011
Alberto Fernández	PPC	El País	20 May 2011
Oriol Amorós	ERC	Grundmagazine	10 November 2012
Juan Carlos Villamizar	ICV-EUiA	Grundmagazine	20 November 2012
Josep Anglada	PxC	Alerta Digital	18 November 2012
Montserrat Torres	ERC	Grundmagazine	19 November 2012
Ernesto Carrión	PSC	Grundmagazine	20 November 2012
Josep Anglada	PxC	Diario el Prisma	21 November 2012
Susana Clerici	PPC	Grundmagazine	23 November 2012

Source: Own elaboration.

Each of these sources was analysed separately by applying a set of 12 standards. Each of these standards conforms to a discriminatory discursive tendency. This first qualitative analysis aims not only at counting discourses, but also at understanding how meanings are constructed, how immigration is represented and what values are associated with immigration. This is why all representations and values were recorded, and the themes and areas classified as positive, negative or neutrally constructed. After that, we performed a quantitative analysis in which we were aiming to understand how Catalan political discourse on immigration is constructed in global terms. Hence, when a standard was detected in a given discourse, we would score ‘1’ for such a standard and ‘0’ if it was not present. Accordingly, we summed up the results of each standard in order to establish a percentage, so that we can see how frequent each of the standards appears in Catalan political discourse.

Drawing an analytical framework to monitor discriminatory political discourse

In order to analyse discriminatory political discourse, we propose a framework that has three methodological tools that allow us to certify and quantify political discriminatory discourse and assess the way such discrimination is legitimised or justified. In order to certify, we have attempted to outline the minimum requirements that allow us to label a discourse as discriminatory. The first of these requirements involves identifying whether or not immigrants are the recipients of political discourse, since the fact that they are not addressed conveys a discriminatory practice; the second requirement must check whether there is a polarisation of a positive-us versus a negative-them; and the third requirement assesses whether there is a use of local strategies that represent immigration in a negative way. Accordingly, the presence of these three minimum standards on a given discourse allows us to certify it as discriminatory.

Once certified, we aim to have a first minimum picture of how a discourse promotes certain words and meanings instead of others while dealing with immigration in order to quantify how much discriminatory a certain discourse is. Each of the standards belonging to this tool refers to different areas of discrimination (referring to particular religions, countries or languages in negative contexts, associating immigration with negative values, conceptualising immigration in a negative way, constructing and associating negative areas and issues with immigration, and representing immigrants as – passive or active – aggressors or victims). Accordingly, the presence of each of these standards increases the degree of discrimination.

The third of our tools (assessing) aims at systematically comparing the different discriminatory rhetoric operating in discourse. Therefore, while the first two tools relate to discriminatory meaning construction, the third one involves how such discrimination is legitimised and justified. With this tool, we can assess the main political and discursive rhetoric operating in discourse. Each of these three tools is composed of different standards as shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Summary of the framework.

Tool	Standard	Discriminatory discursive tendency
Certify (3 minimum standards)	Discourse recipient	Discourse mainly addressed to national citizens
	Polarisation	Immigration represented in polarised terms
	Local strategies	Immigrants represented through generalisations, hyperboles, negative metaphors and dehumanising terms
Quantify (from 4 to 10) how much discriminatory discourse there is	Countries, religions and languages referred (one point each)	Frequent references to particular countries, religions or languages in negative contexts or preferences for particular countries, religions or languages
	Values associated	Majority of negative values associated with immigration
	Conceptualisation	Majority of negative conceptualisation of immigration
	Global meanings	Majority of negative areas and issues associated with immigration
	Global representation of immigrants	Negative representations of immigrants as social actors
Assess the rhetoric to legitimize discrimination	Discursive rhetoric	Argumentative or manipulative rhetoric representing immigrants as a burden, a disadvantage, a threat or as victims, as well as reproducing prejudices
Assess the rhetoric to legitimize discrimination	Political rhetoric	Conservative or populist rhetoric in which traditional and national values or interests are defended

In order to make them more accessible, we will present each of these standards in the form of a question. Therefore, this section has two main goals: on the one hand, to address and clarify some methodological issues on how we have practically analysed discourse, and on the other, to present the findings for each of them.⁴

Certifying discriminatory political discourse (three standards)

To whom is Catalan political discourse mainly addressed?

In this standard, we analyse whether discourse in global terms is explicitly or implicitly addressed to national citizens or to the population as a whole and we considered as an indicator of discriminatory tendency when discourse was only or mostly addressed to national citizens. In order to better understand how the discourse’s recipient is identified in political discourse, let us further explain different typologies that can be found. First, there are explicit and textual references that show that discourse is explicitly addressed to national citizens, such as the ones in this example:

(1) In your neighbourhood, your street, your city you can see its social order and identity constantly threatened as a consequence of the uncontrolled and capricious – and sometimes even inexistent – policy of immigration control. (Electoral programme, PxC, 2010)

Here, the textual reference of ‘your’ clearly indicates that discourse is addressed to national citizens, who appear as the ones damaged by the presence of immigrants.

However, there are subtler cases in which there is no textual reference that shows the recipient of discourse, but this can be inferred by the context, such as in the following example:

(2) Religious freedom, then, respecting minorities, but taking into account the majority and the historical and traditional values that have founded the Catalinity. (Plenary session, Renom i Vallbona (CiU), 6 February 2008)

Here, even if religious freedom is acknowledged, it is subjected to the majority historical and traditional values. In this sense, the perspective is done through the majority members (i.e. national citizens), hence discourse is addressed to them, since, once again, it is their values that have to be preserved above other groups’ values. Therefore, what all the cases within this standard have in common is that majority members’ interests or values are set as preferred among any other values and interests, and this is a key indicator that shows that discourse is addressed to these majority members (national citizens).

Our analysis of this standard shows that Catalan political discourse is mainly addressed to both national citizens and immigrants in 67% of the sources analysed, while it is uniquely addressed to national citizens in 29% of the sources and only in 4% of cases is it addressed just to immigrants. Accordingly, we cannot say here that there is a clear discriminatory tendency.

Are national citizens and immigrants polarised?

This question is intrinsically related to the previous one. All discourses addressed uniquely to national citizens are very likely to polarise national citizens’ interests and values, as we have seen in the previous examples. Let us explore the following examples coming from the same documentary source:

(3) A Project that hosts everyone; the ones that were born here, the ones that arrived with the first migration waves from the Spanish state and also the ones that have just arrived. (Electoral programme, ERC, 2010)

(4) From Esquerra we would like to show and prove that there is another model of integration, of social cohesion, that there is a model of interculturality, based on the respect, in the first place, to the host society, giving the tools to get to know our country, our history, our culture and our reality as a nation. (Electoral programme, ERC, 2010)

The first example shows that discourse is addressed to everyone, but the second example shows a polarisation between our culture and history as the only one that needs to be known by everyone. In this sense, immigrants’ various cultures and histories are set aside and this is why we consider it a polarisation, since the knowledge and respect for own culture and history are prioritised.

In Catalan political discourse, polarisation occurs in less than half of the sources analysed (36%) and this is why we cannot consider it as a clear discriminatory tendency. However, there is still a significant presence of this polarisation that could be minimised.

Is there a recurrent presence of local semantic strategies that represent immigration negatively?

Within this standard, we analysed the presence of four main local semantic strategies that represent immigration in a negative way: generalisations, hyperboles, negative metaphors and the use of dehumanising terms to refer to immigrants. In Catalan political discourse, none of these local strategies have a high frequency in isolation. But all together, they appear in some 69% of the sources analysed. In particular, dehumansing terms, hyperboles and metaphors each appears in 19% of the sources analysed, while generalisations appear in 13% of the sources.

The most recurrent dehumanising terms are the ones that refer to immigrants as illegal or irregular, separating out the human side of them. But also very common are the references to crowded flats to refer to large groups of immigrants who share only one flat. This reference completely hides the existence of people and their dramatic circumstances, since they are doomed to share a flat with a big group in order to survive. In this sense, this reality is not only denied but also trivialised.

Some subtler forms of dehumanising terms are, for example, those that refer to immigrants as those people, which places some distance between the speaker (and the host society) and immigrants and hence it makes it more difficult to create any kind of empathy towards them.

The most frequent metaphors have to do with the representation of the arrival of immigrants as waves. Even though this term is very much used in political and media discourse, we cannot forget that it has some implicit negative connotations, since a wave is always uncontrolled and it activates the domains of threat and danger. The subtler metaphors are those that represent Catalonia as our house. In a context where immigration is represented as a threat, the representation of Catalonia as our house is very powerful to activate a combative stance towards immigration, precisely because people would not let any stranger enter their own houses.

The most prominent hyperboles and generalisations tend to exaggerate the arrival of immigrants by focusing on the chaos and the crisis that this supposes for the host society and promotes some prejudices towards immigrants, as in the following example:

(5) Because, while we are talking now, there are a lot of girls that are taken out from school after they reach sixteen years old. This is a reality. (Plenary session, López i Rueda (PPC), 4 May 2011)

This generalisation is also hyperbolic because it exaggerates the reality and focuses on a negative aspect of a particular group of immigrants that is extended to the whole immigrant collective, thus promoting a negative representation.

According to the design of our framework of analysis, the previous three standards involve the minimal requirements for a given discourse to be certified as discriminatory. In global terms, only one of the three standards goes over 50%, hence we cannot say that the discourses analysed are discriminatory. However, if we had a look in particular at how each party constructs its discourse, the picture would certainly be different.

Quantifying discriminatory discourse (seven standards)

If a particular discourse is certified as discriminatory, the next step would be to quantify how discriminatory it is. Such a discourse will score one point for each of the following standards that are present. In our case, since our corpus has not been certified as discriminatory, there would be no need to continue with the quantifying and the assessment of the rhetoric. But for the purpose of understanding how Catalan political discourse on immigration is constructed, we will continue with the analysis.

What countries of origin are referred to in negative contexts? Are there implicit or explicit references to any preferred country of origin?

In the sources analysed, there are very few references to particular countries in negative contexts (8%) and also preferences are quite low (7%). Regional areas such as South America and Eastern Europe are set as the preferred sending zones. These preferences, nevertheless, seem to be very much connected with the cultural/religious proximity that these countries supposedly share with Catalonia and, in general, with the sphere of Christian influence. However, this frequency is rather low to be considered as a discriminatory tendency.

What religions are referred to in negative contexts? Are there implicit or explicit references to any preferred religion?

In this case, not only are explicit references to particular religions considered, but also references to particular religious practices, such as in the following example:

(6) We have problems when we see burqas on our streets, forcing and violating the dignity and freedom of women. We have problems and we cannot turn our heads away t. We have problems when Catalonia is one of the European regions with more forced marriages in our house […] after the disappearance of one of the main international killers, we have to say it clear: we have problems when they tell us that Catalonia is one of the main dens of radical Islamism. (Plenary session, López Rueda (PPC), 4 May 2011)

In this example Islamism is not explicitly referred to, but it can be inferred by the context in which López Rueda is speaking about it. It is furthermore referred to in very negative and problematic contexts, by associating it with lack of dignity and freedom for women, with forced marriages and even with terrorism. It seems obvious that these associations produce quite a negative perception of the Islamic religion, which is represented as a threat.

It is evident that only one reference to a particular religion in a negative context does not show a discriminatory tendency. But when there are consistent references to the same religion (and especially if it is only to one particular religion), we can consider it as a discriminatory tendency.

In Catalan political discourse, Islam is the only religion that is referred to in negative contexts in 13% of the sources analysed, while preferences for the Christian/Catholic religion only appear in 7% of the sources. Once again, this frequency is rather low to be considered as a discriminatory tendency.

What languages are referred to in negative contexts? Are there implicit or explicit references to any preferred language?

In this case, it is important to make a distinction, since on one hand only PxC (in less than 3% of the sources analysed) emphasises that it is preferred to receive immigrants who speak Spanish rather than other languages. In this sense, this is connected with the preference of immigrants coming from South America, where shared culture and religions with the host society are presupposed. On the other hand, CiU (in 30% of CiU’s sources), ERC (in 40% of ERC’s sources) and, to a lesser extent, PSC (in 13% of PSC’s sources) establish Catalan as the language that should be adopted by everyone, to the detriment of the Spanish language first, and other languages second. Nevertheless, in total numbers Catalan political discourse shows a preference for the Catalan language in 12% of the sources analysed, precisely because ICV-EUiA, PPC and PxC do not show such a preference. Accordingly, in global terms we cannot see a clear discriminatory tendency in this regard.

What values are associated with immigration and/or diversity?

This standard considers those explicit values that are textually spotted, as in the following example:

(7) Or expel out, councillor, those foreigners – and we have to demand that to the Government of the State – that have committed criminal offences, foreigners that come here to commit criminal offences, promoting insecurity. (Plenary session, López i Rueda (PPC), 28 April 2010)

Here, insecurity is associated with (a particular group of) immigrants and such a value is present in discourse. Nevertheless, we also consider those values that can be inferred from the context, even if there is no noticeable textual reference to them, as happens in the following example:

(8) We must help immigrants to evolve as we did years ago. We also had a religion which was sometimes, very intransigent. (Interview with Xavier Trias (CiU), 23 May 2007, La Vanguardia)

In this case intransigence is present in discourse, but there is also the implicit value of obsolescence that is not explicitly expressed, although it can be inferred when it is said that immigrants need to evolve.

In Catalan political discourse, there is more presence of positive values associated with immigration (58%) than of negative ones (42%). Regarding positive values, the most frequent and common to all parties (with the exception of PxC, which does not associate any positive values at all) are social cohesion, pluralism and equality. Also quite frequent are values such as development, progress and creativity. By contrast, the most frequent negative values are inequality, insecurity, maladjustment, social disruption, intolerance and fanaticism.

In this case there is a high frequency of negative values, which cannot be disregarded. Hence, even if we cannot say that there is a consistent pattern of discriminatory tendencies regarding the association of values, we should not disregard the high frequency of negative values associated with immigration.

How is immigration as a phenomenon conceptualised?

Within this standard, we only look for textual references by considering the word(s) that are accompanying immigration (topic of immigration, problem of immigration, challenge of immigration, etc.) in order to understand whether it is conceptualised with positive, neutral or negative terms. It seems obvious that those discourses that systematically conceptualise immigration negatively as a problem, a conflict or a concern equally represent immigration negatively, and this is why we would consider it as a discriminatory tendency.

Catalan political discourse mostly conceptualises immigration in neutral terms (56%), such as topic, phenomenon or issue. Positive and negative conceptualisations are equally frequent (22%). The most frequent positive conceptualisations include terms such as opportunity, challenge or investment, while negative conceptualisations mostly refer to terms such as problem, concern or conflict. Accordingly, there is no clear pattern of discriminatory tendencies in this sense either.

What policy areas and issues are more frequent when dealing with immigration and/or diversity? How are they constructed?

Within this standard we measure the most recurrent areas and issues when dealing with immigration, but we also assess how meanings are constructed, which ones are emphasised or de-emphasised (omitted or mitigated) and which connotations and associations are launched. For example, connecting immigration with insecurity is considered to be negative, because it produces a generalised negative representation of immigration.

Nevertheless, there might be some neutral areas (such as, for example, integration) that are constructed in negative terms, as happens in the following example:

(9) Different ideological contrasts, most of them coming precisely from immigration […] a draft law that does not cooperate with anything to solve the problem and the social conflict, not urbanistic, in Catalonia. (Plenary session, Olano i García (PPC), 15 July 2009)

In this example the word ‘integration’ is not mentioned, but it is inferred that it is focusing on the problems that immigrants cause to the host society, precisely because it emphasises ‘social conflicts’ rather than opportunities. In examples like this one, in which within a neutral area or issue negative meanings are emphasised, we have considered them as negatively constructed.

In Catalan political discourse, positive constructions (42%) are more frequent than negative (32%) and neutral constructions (26%). By far the most frequent policy area is integration, which appears in 90% of the sources analysed. However, there are differences in how this area is covered and what meanings are emphasised or de-emphasised. Accordingly, integration appears described in positive terms (or framed as something positive) in 47% of the sources. By contrast, integration in negative terms and/or emphasising negative topics appears in 21% of the sources, while neutral constructions appear in 22% of the total. In this sense, we could say that in Catalan political discourse integration is mostly constructed in positive terms.

Regarding the issues that are more frequently dealt with when speaking about immigration and/or diversity, welfare issues appear in the first position in 49% of the sources, mostly constructed in positive terms (26%), while neutral (15%) and negative constructions (8%) are much lower.

However, the second and third most prominent issues are identity (48%) and migration (43%), both of which are mostly negatively constructed (21% and 17% of the sources, respectively). Identity issues constructed negatively have to do with the representation of immigration (mainly the Islamic religion) as a threat to the identity of the host society, through explicit discursive forms:

(10) Islamic immigration, massive to Catalonia, puts in danger our symbols of European identity regarding personal and collective freedom, democracy as a way to make decisions, the Grecian-Latin culture, the Christian religion, our own language of Catalonia and the popular traditions. (Electoral programme, PxC, 2012)

Or subtler ones that set the majority’s identity in a superior position:

(11) This is why we think that social integration in our society must be based on the foundations of the need that everyone that arrives is willing to embrace our values and our culture. (Electoral programme, PPC, 2010)

Prioritising the own identity implicitly conveys a subordination of others, unless there is an explicit recognition or acceptance of such identities. Accordingly, while dealing with identity, when there is an explicit rejecting of the forms of others’ identities we have considered them as negative, but we have also counted those forms in which the own identity is prioritised, without the recognition of other possible identities living together.

According to our interpretative framework, migration issues mostly have to do with flows and arrivals of migrants. We have considered them as negative when this arrival is represented as a threat to or a burden for the host society, as in the following example:

(12) Plataforma por Cataluña has as one of its main priorities to return welfare to the neighbourhood, welfare that has been lost over recent years because of the arrival of thousands and thousands of immigrants without any kind of control. (Electoral programme, PxC, 2007)

All in all, Catalan political discourse more frequently offers a positive construction of the immigration phenomenon, hence we cannot consider it here as having discriminatory tendencies.

What is the global representation of immigrants?

In order to assess how immigrants are represented it is necessary to first detect the main areas and issues and, within each of them, to explore what representation is attributed to immigrants. Accordingly, for example in those issues in which immigration is constructed as a threat, immigrants are very likely to be represented as aggressors, and in those issues in which immigrants appear as in need of particular attention it is likely that they appear as beneficiaries or victims.

In Catalan political discourses, immigrants are more prominently represented as beneficiaries (60%) of the proposals and policies developed by each party. Immigrants are also very frequently representated as victims (47%) of the (supposedly) bad management of immigration policies by the government (either Tripartite or CiU). In this sense, it seems that this representation is widely used mainly by parties in opposition as a way to construct their criticism towards the government in turn.

Representations of immigrants as aggressors are less recurrent (28% of the sources), but still present. Most of the negative constructions of different areas and issues represent immigrants as active or passive aggressors. Finally, it is important to remark that representations of immigrants as benefactors are rather low (12% of the sources).

Accordingly, it seems that, even if positive and negative representations are equally balanced, the low frequency of representation of immigrants as benefactors for the host society indicates that there is a gap between the positive values associated with immigration and the actual representation of immigrants as benefactors. In other words, since positive values such as progress, innovation, creativity or development are frequently associated with immigration, the representation of immigrants as benefactors who contribute with such values to society should be equally frequent. However, this is not the case here, as we have shown.

Therefore, the relatively high frequency of representations of immigrants as aggressors, combined with the low representations of immigrants as benefactors, shows that in this regard there is room for discursive improvement.

Assessing rhetoric: Legitimation and justification (two standards)

How is discursive rhetoric constructed regarding the legitimacy and justification of policies and/or attitudes related to immigration and/or diversity issues?

Within this standard, we have followed on the one hand Reisigl and Wodak’s (2009) argumentation theory to analyse the most recurrent topoi (mostly those of threat, burden, advantage, disadvantage and reciprocity) appearing in discourse. On the other hand, we have followed Van Eemeren et al.’s (2004) pragma-dialectic approach to analyse the fallacies (mostly those of fear, authority, pity and rumours). Such an analysis allows us to infer whether the discursive rhetoric is mostly argumentative (majority of topoi) or manipulative (majority of fallacies). Apart from understanding this, it is particularly relevant for our purposes to detect whether there are significantly high frequencies of those strategies that justify arguments by representing immigration as a threat (appeal to fear) or as a burden (topos of burden), or by reproducing rumours and prejudices (appeal to rumours) as main indicators of discriminatory tendencies.

In Catalan political discourse, the main discursive rhetoric is clearly argumentative (73%) rather than manipulative (27%). The most common argumentative strategy is the topos of advantage, by which arguments are justified by appealing to the positive consequences that the proposals offered may bring to the society as a whole, as in the following example:

(13) In order to continue having a united society, the process of integration must be based on the assumption of rights and duties of the newcomers in a teamlike way and with coordinated work and with the accurate resources between the local level and the government of our country. (Electoral programme, CIU, 2010)

Here, the advantage is a united society, which benefits everyone, and such a benefit is used to legitimise the proposal of basing integration on the rights and duties of immigrants. Nevertheless, the benefits of the proposals that serve to legitimate them can only be for immigrants or, on the contrary, only for national citizens. In any of the three cases, the benefits of the proposals are set as the legitimacy for such proposals. It must be stated, though, that in Catalan political discourse the advantages and benefits used to legitimise discourse are mostly addressed to the whole society.

The topos of burden, however, appears in 20% of the sources analysed, the appeal to fear in 16% and the appeal to rumours in 11% of the sources. The topos of burden frequently relies on the representation of immigration as a burden in order to legitimise particular arguments, such as in the following example:

(14) The demographic increase, the increase of the population, the increase in the number of health system cards, changes that suppose contradictions and, hence, new challenges and new risks. (Plenary session, Miralles i Comte (ICV-EUiA), 31 October 2007)

The focus on the risks and problems that immigration causes to the host society leads to this representation of immigration as a burden. Furthermore, it is used to legitimise the call for action that ICV-EUiA is proposing, framed on the need to improve rights and duties.

The appeal to fear legitimises its argument through the representation of immigration as a threat, by appealing to fear in order to convince and persuade, as in the following example:

(15) To expel all the rapist immigrants, even if they are under 18. Rapes in group carried out by young immigrants have expanded throughout the territory and the pattern is repetitive; rapists are Muslims, Moroccan, African or Pakistani and the victim is a young white European. (Electoral programme, PxC, 2011)

This example is an obvious appeal to fear, but there are other examples in which the threat is not so explicit, yet still present, as happens in the following example:

(16) We will increase control to detect and prevent ghettos, overcrowding in the overcrowded flats (pisos patera) and prioritise the expelling out of those foreigners that have committed any criminal offence or have an accumulation of offences. (Electoral programme, PPC, 2012)

Here, even if immigrants are not explicitly accused of being those actively responsible for the threatening actions, they appear as a passive and responsible threat to society in an indirect (ghettos, overcrowded houses) or direct (delinquency) way. Such a threat is used to legitimise the need for increasing the control of immigrants.

The appeal to rumours relies on the reproduction of rumours and prejudices, which appear as the basis of the premises founding the main arguments, as in the following example:

(17) Among newcomers there is a tendency to group themselves depending on their origin inside the structure of the municipality […] this contact means that the customs of their origin countries prevail over the ones of the municipality, which tends to generate a confrontation between the habits of newcomers and other citizens. (Electoral programme, CiU, 2007)

In this example, integration measures proposed by CiU are justified by appealing to the rumour that (all) immigrants tend to group themselves (ghetto’s formation) and that this provokes confrontation. Thus, even if the intention here is to legitimate particular measures, in doing so a prejudiced representation of immigration is launched.

Therefore, once again, even if Catalan political discourse uses mainly an argumentative rhetoric and those strategies that represent immigration in a negative way (burden, fear and rumours) are not so frequent, when we consider the sum of the three of them, they appear in 47% of the sources analysed. In this sense, we can say that there is a significant presence of such strategies.

How is political rhetoric constructed regarding the legitimacy and justification of policies and/or attitudes related to immigration and/or diversity issues?

Conservative and populist rhetoric intrinsically convey a polarisation between national citizens and immigrants and a national preference (Zapata-Barrero, 2009). Conservative rhetoric appeals to the priority of national values and traditions, while populist rhetoric appeals to citizenship and the interests of nationals as a way to legitimise arguments.

Conservative and populist rhetoric are not very high in Catalan political discourse. In particular, conservative rhetoric appears in 19% of the sources, and populist rhetoric only in 13%. Conservative rhetoric manifests itself particularly in the shape of Catalan values and identities that should be preserved over the rest, as in the following examples:

(18) But for us it is vital that Catalonia continues to be Catalan, since this is our characteristic. (Plenary session, Cleries i González (CiU), 14 October 2009)

(19) But if we want to integrate Catalonia, it should be based on the identity of Catalonia. And Catalonia has a common language and culture that we do not want to deny. (Plenary session, Cleries i González (CiU), 23 March 2011)

As can be seen, the emphasis on the Catalan language and identity implicitly conveys a position of preference of such language and identities over other ones, which remain subordinate to the preferred one.

Populist rhetoric manifests itself mainly by setting the political leader or political party as the voice of national citizens and the only one fighting for them, as can be seen in the following example:

(20) That day I understood that Badalona was claiming a change and that I could embody such a change. […] the first worry of my neighbours is immigration, but not only in conflictive neighbourhoods. (Interview, García Albiol (PPC), 23 November 2010)

Populist rhetoric is based on the assumption that national citizens have particular needs that are not listened to by the rest of the parties and the populist rhetorician would put himself or herself as the one that listens to and follows citizens’ interests as a first priority. In this sense, the political leader is represented as the voice of national citizens, and when backed up by such a voice, all kind of arguments are legitimised.

It is positive that these two types of rhetoric are not very frequent in Catalan political discourse, but, once again, its presence, as the presence of the rest of the discriminatory tendencies we have detected, could be minimised.

Concluding remarks

In this first pilot study we have seen that, in global terms, the Catalan political discourse analysed does not evidence a very consistent and generalised discriminatory discursive pattern. However, it shows some characteristics that represent immigration in a negative way or associate certain negative issues with the presence of immigrants. In particular, discourse is not always addressed to the whole population, but to national citizens, and there are some polarisations between national citizens and immigrants. In addition, we have seen some strategies that represent immigration (or particular groups of immigrants) negatively, primarily as a threat or a burden for the host society, as well as generalisations and hyperboles that maximise and problematise the phenomenon of immigration.

Finally, even if there is not an active construction of a negative perception about immigrants,we have also seen that there is an implicit discriminatory tendency in the nationalist discourse that prioritises the own identity, culture and nation in most of the discourse. We are unable to know if this is intentional or subtle.

Monitoring discriminatory political discourse in a systematic and objective way is not an easy task. We have tried to offer a framework to effectively perform such a monitoring, by showing how it can be implemented to the particular context of Catalonia. Consequently, and as was our second aim, this framework is expected to produce a social and political impact, since it offers a tool to objectively identify and quantify discriminatory political discourse and give conceptual resources to civil society to critically control political parties’ discursive behaviour. Our third aim was to produce a framework that could be replicable in other contexts and, in this sense, its efficiency needs to be tested in other countries and/or in other political settings.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The framework as well as the results were presented in six national and international conferences and were discussed in several GRITIM-UPF meetings and seminars. The final presentation of the results was hosted by the General Direction of Immigration of the Catalan Government (see the details of the board members and the conferences at the full report: GRITIM-UPF Policy Series, 2014.n.2 ()). The authors would like to thank the comments of the members of the boards, GRITIM-UPF researchers, all the participants of the different conferences where the project was presented, as well as the comments of the referees of this article, which have only improved it.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is subsequent to a research project funded by Open Society Foundations (OR2012-01802): Monitoring xenophobic political discourses: a pilot study in Catalonia (December 2012–December 2013).

Notes

Author biographies

Gema Rubio-Carbonero is a researcher at CIEN (Intercultural Communication and Negotiation Strategies in the Department of English Studies) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is also Associate Researcher at GRITIM-UPF. She was a Postdoctoral Researcher at GRITIM-UPF while the project from which this article derives was conducted. Her research is concerned with critical analyses of political discourse on immigration, intercultural and diversity issues and mobility.

Ricard Zapata-Barrero is a professor and teaches at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He is also the Director of GRITIM-UPF (Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration) and the Master Programme on immigration studies. His main lines of research deal with contemporary issues of liberal democracy in the contexts of diversity, especially the relationship between democracy, citizenship and immigration. For further information, please see his website:

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