Populism and the Pandemic: How the Covid-sceptic Movement Mobilised Opposition to Covid Measures

AbstractThe Covid-19 pandemic constituted a radically new social reality in which people were asked to observe an unprecedented set of regulations. This paper uses aStructural Analysis of Group Arguments (SAGA)frameworkof the speeches and campaign materials of the Covid-Sceptic movement to demonstrate how the movement provided a way for people made sense of thisnewreality.We provide an explanation drawing on social representations theory, the social identity approach, andidentity leadership perspectives on collective mobilisation. Specifically, we show that the Covid-Sceptic movementusedpopulist social representations that framed the pandemic as a tool of elite domination over "the people." We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the dynamics of social mobilisation, the construction of social representations, and the role of populism as a collective processfor making sense of newrealities.