About Carola Schoor (in English – voor Nederlands: klik hier)

Carola Schoor holds a doctorate (cum laude) from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Maastricht University (Promotor Dr. S. Koenis). Her dissertation, in the interdisciplinary field of philosophy,  politics, linguistics, and rhetoric is titled The Politics of Style: Political Performance Caught Between Populism, Elitism, and Pluralism. (summary in English  / Nederlandse samenvatting).

In her thesis, she devised an analysis method to analyze political discourse on containing populist, elitist, and pluralist elements. The framework on which this method is based is available in her thesis on page 224, and here.

The main focus of her research is on political style in relation to populism and ideology. Furthermore,  with a linguistic background, she has expert knowledge of critical discourse analysis, political communication, framing theory, semiotics,  classical rhetoric, and conceptual metaphor theory.

She regularly presents at international conferences and participates in international research. Topics which she is currently working on: populism and anti-populism in the Netherlands 2012-2020; the style career of Boris Johnson 2015-2020;  the framing of refugees in the Dutch press during the immigration crisis in 2016; the use of Twitter in the EP2019 election campaign.

Before entering academics, Carola Schoor worked as a political communications officer for a Member of the European Parliament in Brussels; as a Public Affairs Advisor for the Dutch Association of Universities; and as a journalist, editor, and editor-in-chief of a Dutch popular scientific journal on educational research. Currently, she runs a blog in Dutch on language and politics, and has extensive experience in communicating science to a broader public.

After living abroad, of which the last five years in New York, she recently moved back to her hometown The Hague.

She publishes in Dutch and in English. In Dutch, she developed a practical political communication method based on her dissertation. For more information on this, see her Dutch website.