Abstract

KAJSIU, Blendi  and  TAMAYO GRISALES, Yenifer. Neoconservatism Versus Social Democrat Populism. A Comparison of Anti-Corruption Speeches by Ivan Duque and Gustavo Petro in the Second Round of the 2018 Presidential Election. Estud. Polit. [online]. 2019, n.56, pp.123-147. ISSN 0121-5167.  https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.espo.n56a06.

The main argument of this article is that the anticorruption discourses of the 2018 presidential candidates, Ivan Duque and Gustavo Petro, reflect their ideologies, namely, neoconservatism and populist-social democracy, respectively. Their speeches during the 2018 election campaign are analyzed combining the conceptual analysis of ideologies developed by Michael Freeden and the theoretical framework of discourse analysis developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Unlike the vast majority of research on corruption in Colombia, this investigation does not focus on evaluating the anticorruption proposals, but rather on unveiling their ideological assumptions. It was found that from his neoconservative perspective, Duque locates corruption principally in the public sector, and therefore, his anticorruption policy proposal was limited to reforming the State, without touching the existing socio-economic structures in the country. Petro’s anticorruption discourse, on the other hand, reflects his social democratic populism according to which corruption is a characteristic of both the ruling political class and a highly unequal socio-economic system; therefore, the elimination of corruption calls for the transformations of the social, economic and political structures of Colombia.

Keywords : Electoral Politics; Political Communication; Political Speech; Political Ideologies; Comparative Politics.

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