ABSTRACT
With the rise of right-wing populist movements around the world, it has become increasingly important to understand the mechanisms by which political groups gain coherence, internal ideological clarity, and momentum as they emerge and grow. One key mechanism is dogwhistling; like the use of pitches inaudible to humans that produce either marked behavioural arousal and disregulation or specific disciplined corporeal responses within dogs, political dogwhistling comprises of the deployment of language, signs, props, and references that are coded to appear innocuous to a general population but carry additional meanings for a targeted subgroup. In the last ten years, dogwhistling (which can be used by political figures across the ideological spectrum) has been used within right-wing populist movements to disinhibit social behaviour, particularly with respect to social safeguards surrounding gender, race, religious affiliation, and national identity.
In general, political theorists have construed dogwhistling as a largely rhetorical operation – i.e. that it relies on primarily linguistic elements for its assembly-creating capacity. But to what extent is this true? What might we learn about dogwhistling were we to explore its performative dimensions? What para-linguistic parameters might we need to name? And how might we understand this phenomenon as a key mechanism of the ways right-wing populism has produced a marked disinhibition regarding hostility to particular social groups?
