Jörg Haßler , Melanie Magin , Uta Russmann , Anna‐Katharina Wurst, Delia Cristina Balaban , Paweł Baranowski, Jakob Linaa Jensen, Simon Kruschinski, Georgios Lappas, Sara Machado, Martina Novotná, Silvia Marcos‐García , Ioannis Petridis, Anda Rožukalne, Annamária Sebestyén, and Felix‐Christopher von Nostitz (2025). Weaponizing Wedge Issues: Strategies of Populism and Illiberalism in European Election Campaigning on Facebook. Media and Communication.Volume 13. Article 10718.
The 2024 European Parliament elections took place in extraordinary circumstances. Climate change, migration pressures and the war in Ukraine created what scholars now refer to as a “polycrisis”: overlapping crises that reinforce each other and generate fear, uncertainty and political instability. In such an environment, political parties sought new ways to mobilize voters, with many turning to Facebook as their primary battleground.
A new comparative study published in Media and Communication investigates how European political parties employed wedge issues to capture attention and frame debates on Facebook. Based on manual coding of 8,748 Facebook posts from 85 parties across 13 EU member states, the research reveals a troubling pattern: populist parties not only highlight wedge issues more frequently, but also systematically combine them with populist and illiberal rhetoric, which could have serious consequences for the future of liberal democracy.
What Are Wedge issues?
Wedge issues are topics that elicit strong emotional and moral responses, often causing divisions within coalitions and undermining political consensus. In the 2024 elections, three such issues stood out:
Migration, which has long divided European electorates, especially since the so-called refugee crisis.
Climate change, which has become increasingly politicized as the EU has advanced ambitious environmental policies.
The war in Ukraine, raising existential questions about European security and relations with Russia.
These issues are not inherently negative for democratic debate. They are real policy challenges. However, when they are framed in a way that emphasizes division – for example, migration as a threat to national identity or security, climate policy as an elitist imposition or Ukraine as a distraction from “domestic concerns” – they become weapons of political mobilization.
What Is Digital Campaigning and Why Is It Strategically Beneficial for Parties?
Digital campaigning refers to the strategic use of online platforms, most notably social media, for electoral communication. Unlike traditional channels such as television or print, digital platforms allow political parties to bypass journalistic mediation and deliver unfiltered messages directly to citizens. From a strategic perspective, digital campaigning offers several key advantages:
Control over framing: Parties can shape political issues according to their own interpretations, maintaining agenda-setting power without external constraints.
Targeted communication: Digital tools allow messages to be tailored to specific voter groups, making mobilization more efficient.
Speed and adaptability: social media enables immediate responses to political events, public debates or opponents’ attacks – an especially valuable feature in times of rapid crises.
Interactive engagement: Platforms encourage two-way communication, and citizens’ reactions (e.g. likes, shares and comments) provide feedback and amplify party messages.
Cost efficiency: Compared to mass media advertising, digital campaigning is relatively inexpensive, providing smaller or challenger parties with an opportunity to compete with more established parties.
For these reasons, digital campaigning has become indispensable in contemporary elections. However, as the study highlights, the very features that make digital campaigning advantageous for parties – speed, reach and flexibility – also make it susceptible to the amplification of divisive narratives and illiberal rhetoric.
How The Investigation Was Conducted?
The study, entitled Weaponizing Wedge Issues: Strategies of Populism and Illiberalism in European Election Campaigning on Facebook, is based on one of the most comprehensive cross-national analyses of digital campaigning in Europe to date. The research team collected a total of 8,748 Facebook posts published by political parties in 13 EU member states (Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Spain) during the month leading up to the 2024 European Parliament elections.
In order to ensure the comparability of the results, the researchers employed a uniform coding scheme across all participating countries. Each post was subjected to manual analysis, encompassing both the written text and the visual elements (images and videos), which have been shown to frequently convey critical rhetorical cues. The following variables were coded for:
Wedge issues: Did they address migration, climate policy, or the war in Ukraine?
Populist communication: Did they include references to “the people,” criticisms of “elites,” or the exclusion of outgroups?
Illiberal rhetoric: Did they explicitly reject or undermine core values of the EU, such as pluralism, minority rights, or the rule of law?
Parties were categorized as populist or non-populist using well-established datasets (PopuList and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey). This allowed the team to compare how different types of parties used wedge issues and rhetorical styles.
Key Findings
The results provide clear evidence that populist parties approach digital campaigning in a different manner to their non-populist competitors.
Populist parties were more active on Facebook.
On average, they posted nearly twice as often as non-populist parties, underlining the importance of social media for challengers seeking visibility.
Wedge issues appeared in about 16% of all posts.
While not dominating the campaigns, wedge issues played a significant role, particularly for populists who addressed them more frequently than non-populists.
Migration was the key battleground.
12% of populist posts focused on migration, compared to only 4% for non-populists.
When discussing migration, populist parties often framed it in existential terms—as a threat to security, culture, or national identity.
Rhetorical style mattered more than issue choice.
Populist parties not only selected wedge issues more often, but were also more likely frame these issues in polarizing ways and combine them with illiberal and populist rhetorical elements:
Among wedge-related posts, 65% of populist content included illiberal rhetoric, and 51% contained populist elements.
Non-populist parties, by contrast, rarely used such strategies (12% illiberal, 18% populist).
Figure 1. Content categories in posts addressing wedge issues by party types with confidence intervals (𝑛 = 8,748 Facebook posts; 𝑛 = 1,362 Facebook posts containing wedge issues).
Different issues encouraged different rhetorical strategies.
Migration: Most strongly associated with illiberal rhetoric (73% of populist posts).
Climate policy: Often framed as an elite-driven burden, with illiberal rhetoric appearing in 59% of populist posts.
Ukraine: Less frequently addressed overall, but populist posts often linked it to anti-EU or anti-elite narratives.
Why This Matters For Democracy?
The findings suggest that wedge issues are not neutral campaign tools. In the hands of populist parties, they become Trojan horses for introducing illiberal rhetoric into mainstream debate. This process has several implications:
Shifting the boundaries of discourse: When wedge issues are repeatedly tied to exclusionary framings, illiberal rhetoric becomes normalized.
Forcing mainstream parties’ hands: Other actors may feel compelled to respond in similar terms, escalating polarization.
Eroding democratic norms: By undermining pluralism and casting elites and minorities as enemies, these strategies weaken trust in democratic institutions.
In short, digital campaigning is not just about who sets the agenda, but about how issues are framed. By combining wedge issues with populism and illiberalism, parties can reorient democratic debate toward division rather than problem-solving.