The Communicative Frame of the Right as a New Form of Secularized Religiosity

Building on Juan Linz’s well-known distinction between political religion and politicized religion, this contribution adopts the latter perspective, which involves the instrumentalization of religion for political purposes. Within this framework, the article advances the hypothesis that a new form of religiosity is emerging from the communicative practices of certain conservative right-wing and far-right party formations. Their narratives display a strong appeal to religious values by evoking forms of identification and belonging that are largely detached from lived religious practice. Drawing on three corpora comprising electoral programs, political discourses, and interview excerpts from Fratelli d’Italia (Italy), Alternative für Deutschland (Germany), and Vox (Spain), the analysis combines a keyword-in-context approach with qualitative content analysis. The resulting communicative frame is composed of terms and concepts that function as symbolic realities similar to those of traditional religion, such as religion itself, the family, and the homeland, which are rearticulated within fully secularized contexts. This symbolic and narrative reactivation of such elements not only constitutes a strategic use of religious references but also points to the emergence of a distinctively political form of religiosity, which operates both as a stimulus for electoral behavior and as a cohesive force for highly identity-oriented party communities.