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Taking a (critical) discursive psychological approach, the present study explores the identity management of the Finnish and Swedish Prime Ministers (PM) in relation to the "refugee crisis" and their countries' asylum policies. By taking a longitudinal approach and analysing the PMs' accounts of the "refugee crisis" from 1‐year period, we focused on the ways rhetorical devices related to ethos, logos, and pathos were used to manage the issues of stake and accountability, as well as on the ways in which categories were worked up to serve particular functions. Our comparative analysis demonstrated significant similarities in the Finnish and Swedish PMs' talk, especially with regard to the transfer from a discourse of pathos and ethos, describing refugees in terms of individualism and humaneness, to a discourse of logos, emphasizing rationality, justifying sharpened immigration policies, and homogenizing refugees. However, the different historical paths of the two countries' immigration policies and the specific political situation had implications for the PMs' discourse. The Swedish PM could feasibly scapegoat the Sweden Democrats and the political right in opposition, whereas the Finnish PM, with the populist radical right as a government partner, engaged more heavily in distinctions between "real, needing" and "false, undeserving" refugees. We argue for the longitudinal approach in the analysis of political discourse, as such an approach allows to identify the changes and continuities in the discourse, as well as to grasp the dialogical interplay between the discourse and its context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comparative study of the discursive construction and use of Otherness among anti-immigration populist radical right politicians in Sweden and Finland. Based on rhetorical and critical discursive psychology, our analyses of discourse within nine political blogs identified three distinct representations of Otherness. These representations of a deviant group of people, of a threatening ideology and of inner enemies are highly familiar from previous research on radical right discourse. However, what seems to characterize populist radical right discourse in the Nordic context is the strong reliance on the rhetorical juxtaposition between the welfare system and immigration. Our study furthermore highlights how populist radical right politicians exploit the digital discursive tools provided by political blogging. These tools, first, create a sense of connectedness and mutual understanding between blogger and reader and, second, allow the blogger to convey messages that are hostile towards immigrants and ethnic minorities without expressing an explicit personal opinion. In combination, the features provided by political blogging and the discursive and rhetorical strategies that deny racism make discourse within a populist radical right political blog especially powerful and convincing. We conclude that research must be sensitive to this 'digital discourse', as it reaches a public far beyond the sphere of a political blog through its potential to spread and influence mainstream media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]