scholarly journals Chasing the Other “Populist Zeitgeist”? Mainstream Parties and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bayerlein
Keyword(s):  
Econometric Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Western European ◽  
Mainstream Party

AbstractThis article answers the question of why certain European mainstream parties have changed their policy positions on the GAL-TAN (Green/Alternative/Libertarian vs. Traditional/Authoritarian/Nationalist) dimension in recent years. I argue that these changes can be explained through the electoral success of new right-wing populist parties and the ideological proximity of conservative mainstream parties towards these parties. These arguments were tested with econometric models of mainstream parties’ policy positions in 11 Western European democracies between 2002 and 2019. The results indicate that mainstream parties chase the other “populist zeitgeist” by changing their policy positions on the GAL–TAN dimension in response to the electoral success of right-wing populist parties. Mainstream parties respond to this threat by closing the distance to these parties on the GAL–TAN dimension. However, this responsiveness is largely constrained to conservative mainstream parties. The findings have important implications for understanding mainstream party responsiveness towards rivalling right-wing populist parties.

From a Five to a Six-Party System? Prospects of the Right-wing Extremist NPD

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Decker ◽  
Lazaros Miliopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Nazi Ideology ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

Right-wing extremist and populist parties operate in a rather difficult social and political environment in Germany, rendering notable electoral success fairly improbable, especially when compared to other European countries. The main reason for this is the continuing legacy of the Nazi past. Nevertheless the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) managed to gain substantial votes in recent Land elections and became the leading force in the right-wing extremist political camp. Its success is attributable to rightwing extremist attitudes in some parts of the electorate in connection with a widespread feeling of political discontent. Nevertheless, it is questionable whether the NPD will be able to transform these attitudes into a viable ideological basis for two main reasons. On the one hand, maintaining a neo-Nazi ideology makes the NPD unattractive to many potential voters. On the other hand, given its internal power struggles and severe financial problems, the party may be unable to meet its challenges in organizational terms.

scholarly journals Confederacy — the polish new right wing between tradition and modernity

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 7-32
Author(s):  
Jarosław Tomasiewicz
Keyword(s):  
New Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
Cultural Conservatism ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Right

Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość (Confederacy for Freedom and Independence) is new, far-right force in Poland. Success of the KWiN broke political monopoly of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) party on the right wing. The paper examines structure, strategy, ideology and social basis of the Confederacy. This new formation amalgamating cultural conservatism and economic liberalism is similar rather to American Trumpism and alt-right than the protest movements of Western-European right wing populism.

scholarly journals ”Danmark er danskernes land”: Højrepopulistisk diskurs i Danmark

Politik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silas L. Marker
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
New Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
People's Party ◽  
The People ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Right ◽  
Power Position

This paper examines the phenomenon of right-wing populism in Denmark in the year of 2019 by applying qualitative discourse analysis to a sample of central public texts from the right-wing populist parties New Right and The Danish People’s Party. Both parties utilize populist discourse by constructing a popular bloc (“the people”) stabilized by its constitutive outside: The elite and the Muslim immigrants. However, the discourses of the two parties differ from each other insofar as New Right articulates the strongest antagonism between the people and the elite, while The Danish People’s Party downplays this antagonism, most likely because the party has a central power position in Danish politics. 

Right-Wing Populism and Noncoercive Injustice

John Rawls ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 354-370
Author(s):  
Michael Blake
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Governance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Related Phenomenon ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Law Of Peoples ◽  
Conceptual Distinction ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
The One ◽  
Coercive Intervention

John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples makes several assumptions that, in the years since that book’s writing, have been shown to be potentially flawed. The first is that democratic societies can be predicted to inculcate citizens with democratic values, such that democratic peoples have no realistic worry about backsliding into tyranny. The second is that there is a sharp conceptual distinction between coercive intervention, on the one hand, and mere conversation and speech on the other. The emergence of right-wing populism—and the related phenomenon of troll farms, intended to inflame disagreement and anger within democratic political communities abroad—have raised the issue of antidemocratic societies using speech to undermine support for democratic self-government abroad. Rawls’s Law of Peoples, I argue, is poorly suited for the task of responding to these circumstances. Rawls’s Law of Peoples might have been better situated for this task, the chapter concludes, had Rawls included robust respect for democratic governance within that law. This Democratic Law of Peoples might have been the basis of a global society in which democracies held each other to account for their deviations from democratic self-government—while still expressing tolerance and modesty about the extent to which we might coercively intervene in favor of democracy.

Questioning Consensuses: Right-Wing Populism, Anti-Populism, and the Threat of ‘Gender Ideology’

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 528-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eszter Kováts
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Systemic Crisis ◽  
Right Wing Populism

Since 2012, several European countries (among others Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia or Slovakia) have seen the rise of conservative and, in part, fundamentalist social movements against the perceived threat of what they call (depending on the context) ‘gender ideology’, ‘gender theory’, or ‘genderism’. The movements mobilizing against ‘gender ideology’ are frequently understood as a conservative backlash against achieved levels of equality between women and men and/or LGBTQ rights. This perspective of ‘the patriarchy/heteronormativity fighting back’ seems as tempting as it is simplifying. I discuss the transnational movements against ‘gender ideology’ in the context of the rise of right-wing populism and on the basis of considerations seeking to explain their demand side. On one hand, I argue that the study of this phenomenon provides important clues for understanding the reasons behind the rise of populist forces in Europe and beyond. On the other hand, I propose that ‘gender’ is not the final target for these movements and that they should not be understood primarily as mobilizations against equality. Rather, I see the emergence of these movements as a symptom of a larger systemic crisis. ‘Gender ideology’ in this sense embodies numerous deficits of the so-called progressive actors, and the movements or parties that mobilize against the perceived threat of ‘gender ideology’ react to these deficits by re-politicizing certain issues in a polarized language. Based on Chantal Mouffe’s critique of the established hegemonic idea of consensus in liberal democracy, I discuss two consensuses that are characteristic of the so-called progressive actors (including the feminist and LGBTQ actors), namely, the neoliberal consensus and the human rights consensus, and their contribution to the rise of the movements against ‘gender ideology’.

scholarly journals Who Leads Leitkultur?

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-330
Author(s):  
Ernst van den Hemel
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The West ◽  
Christian Democracy ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Abstract A widely shared but understudied characteristic of the rise of right-wing conservative populism (the New Right) is the emphasis on religious-cultural identity of the West. Using phrases like ‘Judeo-Christianity’, ‘Christian values’, or ‘Christian Leitkultur’ a variety of political actors have claimed that religious-cultural identity needs to be safeguarded and enshrined in policy. As this frame is gaining traction, the question arises what this emphasis on the public importance of religion entails for those who tend to see themselves as the guardians of religious-cultural identity. In particular this article focusses on the challenges this development creates for Christian Democratic political actors. On the one hand the emphasis on the importance of ‘christian traditions’ resonates with the historical position of christian democrats, on the other hand, there are important differences between traditional christian democracy and how the New Right speaks of religion. The main aim of this article is to outline how the rise of the New Right has created a contestation about what it means to represent christian cultural identity.

scholarly journals The Concept of Populism in Modern Anglo-Saxon and German Political Science

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-764
Author(s):  
Dmitry Y. Meshcheryakov
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Reciprocal Influence ◽  
The People ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Will ◽  
Right Wing Populism

The article examines and compares main approaches to defining populism in modern Anglo-Saxon and German political science. The author points out some similarities between two schools: increasing interest of research communities in the USA, United Kingdom and Germany in examining right-wing populism due to the electoral success of right-wing populist parties. Furthermore, among the key features of populism, both schools see the allusion to “the will of the people”, as well as juxtaposition of “the people” against “the elite”. The article emphasizes the existing reciprocal influence of the two research traditions. On the other hand, the author outlines certain differences in the two schools’ approach to populism, such as historical dissimilarities in its interpretation (in the USA the concept used to bear a more “neutral” character, while in German political science, due to the Nazi regime carryover, it was regarded mostly negatively for a long time). Also, German academic works on populism have applied rather than theoretical nature and aim at stopping the expansion of the phenomenon.

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