Abstract
The article offers fresh insights on the intricate interplay between self-legitimation and fear in the climate change institutional discourse by providing nuanced exploration of the specific ways in which the European Parliament exploited fear-based appeals in its online digital communication on climate change action during its ninth term, between 2019 and 2024. It draws on discursive institutionalism and fear appeals theory and adopts a multi-method research approach, combining qualitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis. The article reveals a substantial reliance on fear in the assembly’s self-legitimation discourse and addresses the inherently paradoxical nature of the nexus between self-legitimation and fear.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Parliamentary Affairs |
| Early online date | 21 Jul 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 21 Jul 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Funding
Writing of this article was supported by the EU Commission’s Jean Monnet Chair Project 101175152—EUDD—ERASMUS-JMO-2024-HEI-TCH-RSCH.
Keywords
- European Parliament
- climate change
- discourse
- self-legitimation
- fear
- communication