Confrontation as a banner. Analysis of Vox’s political discourse in the 2021 Catalan elections

Abstract

The electoral  campaign of the 2021  Catalan elections,  which were the first Catalan elections to be called after the  exceptional elections which had been called by Spanish President Mariano Rajoy in 2017, introduced an  important novelty in Catalan politics: the participation of the Vox party in the  Catalan regional  elections. This  newness compounded the unusual context of organizing an election during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This research analyzes the discursive content used by the radical  right-wing party Vox to approach these elections. Specifically, to carry out this  analysis, the main components of Vox’s political discourse in the meetings held during the campaign, and the principal components of its electoral program, are classified by means of content analysis. The main conclusion is that Vox uses confrontation with the Catalan independence movement as its primary campaign message, leaving aside other characteristic issues of its discourse such as  immigration or confrontation with the feminist movement.