Conclusion

Enthusiasm ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 201-220
Author(s):  
Monique Scheer
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Analytical Term ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Religious Enthusiasm

The concluding chapter makes that case that the concept of “enthusiasm” presented in this study might be useful as an analytical term, to be applied in further study beyond the confines of the religious context. Conviction about something always enlists the body and emotions for its maintenance and reinvigoration, which is to say that it is always also enthusiastic—but this enthusiasm takes on different styles due to a combination of ideology (what emotions are and how they work) and taste or preference, which is linked to social context. Observing that a reactivated reticence toward political emotion in Germany in response to the rise in right-wing populism reprises many of the patterns from debates over religious enthusiasm from previous centuries, the chapter reflects on the relations between a number of terms which, in binary constellations, find themselves on the other side of “rationality,” which has led us to think of them as naturally grouped together: emotion, belief, religion, and—recalling Weber—charisma, enchantment, presence. The chapter suggests that enthusiasm is one of these terms, one that captures how conviction enchants people.

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 Neither demarcation nor confrontation

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-376
Author(s):  
Christoph Haker ◽  
Lukas Otterspeer
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Work ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
Science And Education ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The One ◽  
Epistemic Dimension

AbstractRight-wing populism has strongly polarizing effects in politics, education and science—a problem which this article aims to adress. Instead of claiming a demarcation between science and education on the one hand and right-wing populist ideology on the other, we initially focus on continuities. At the same time, we are concerned with finding a critical distance towards right-wing populism. Using the theoretical framework of boundary-work we therefore analyse a case of right-wing populist educational and scientific efforts. Boundary-work can occur in an institutional, content-related and epistemic dimension. While we identify strong continuities in the institutional and content-related dimensions, we see the main difference in the epistemic dimension. In conclusion, we use the results of our analysis to develop a critical position as scientists and educationists towards right-wing populism, drawing consequences for the epistemic, content-related and institutional dimensions.

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.

scholarly journals Emotional Dynamics of Right- and Left-wing Political Populism

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikko Salmela ◽  
Christian von Scheve
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Emotional Processes ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Neoliberal Policies ◽  
The One ◽  
Emotional Dynamics

Emotions are prevalent in the rhetoric of populist politicians and among their electorate. We argue that partially dissimilar emotional processes may be driving right- and left-wing populism. Existing research has associated populism with fear and insecurities experienced in contemporary societies, on the one hand, and with anger, resentment, and hatred, on the other. Yet there are significant differences in the targets of right- and left-wing resentment: A political and economic establishment deemed responsible for austerity politics (left) and political and cultural elites accused of favoring ethnic, religious, and sexual out-groups at the expense of the neglected in-group (right). Referring to partially different emotional opportunity structures and distinct political strategies at exploiting these structures, we suggest that right-wing populism is characterized by repressed shame that transforms fear and insecurity into anger, resentment, and hatred against perceived “enemies” of the precarious self. Left-wing populism, in turn, associates more with acknowledged shame that allows individuals to self-identify as aggrieved and humiliated by neoliberal policies and their advocates. The latter type of shame holds emancipatory potential as it allows individuals to establish bonds with others who feel the same, whereas repressors remain in their shame or seek bonds from repression-mediated defensive anger and hatred.

scholarly journals Playing it Fashionably Queer: Mae West’s Performing Sexuality

Pólemos ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
Giada Goracci
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Body Language ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract “Marriage is a fine institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.” With this challenging innuendo, the American actress and author Mae West offers an insight into gender performativity and heteronormativity through marriage in a period, the “Roaring Twenties,” in which sexual and gender politics could not be put into scrutiny. Her vamp persona and the elaborated iconography that she crafted on her character gave birth to a meticulous semiotics of the body that eventually undermined the American social context of the time fostering on the one hand, an image of heterosexual desire, and on the other hand an appealing icon to a gay market. This article ventures a queer-oriented perspective on West’s charismatic character and on the intertwined effects that tie semiotics to body language, especially focussing on the plays Sex (1926) and The Drag (1927).

Indian Debates on the International Left: Selected Writings of Lajpat Rai

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirin Rai ◽  
Anand Prakash
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Progressive Change ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One

This book traces the Indian Left’s engagement with the international communist debates of the 1960s and 1970s, shedding new light on the fault lines within the Left as well as on its international solidarities. Lajpat Rai argued for rethinking established leftist positions, seeking inspiration in experiment and developing creative approaches for the sustainability of socialist ideas and ideals. The contemporary relevance of these debates is significant as the Left remains without a sharp response to the rise of neoliberalism and right-wing populism in India, and a failure of the Left to recognize the challenges emanating from a strongly integrated and organized finance capital on the one hand and the increasingly self-aware identity politics on the other. Democratic opposition rather than a bureaucratic thinking needs to be the backbone of any meaningful Left struggle. Lajpat Rai’s passionate writing gives expression to the spirit and intensity of political debates at the time and the role of the Left intelligentsia in comprehending, from a committed socialist angle, the shifting paradigms of an unstable world to help bring about progressive change.

Heimat im Offenen?

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-97
Author(s):  
Christian Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Open World ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theological Perspective ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Practical Theological

Abstract This Habilitation lecture discusses the present rise of right-wing populism as a theological problem. It uses the term „Heimat“ („home“ or „home country“) to explore the social context of this populism. This exploration leads to a discussion of the underlying cultural meta-narratives which serve a sense of shared identity. In a practical theological perspective, the discourse on „Heimat“ may be understood in terms of narrative encounters. Finding a home in an open world is possible – and the Christian faith offers bountiful theological resources for this.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document