scholarly journals Introduction: Contemporary Counter-Movements in the Age of Brexit and Trump

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 496-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silke Roth

Brexit and the election of President Trump in the United States are the result of the rise of far-right populist movements which can be observed in Europe, North America, and other regions of the world. Whereas populism itself is one response to neoliberalism, globalization, and austerity measures, the election of Trump, in particular, has caused a new wave of protest. To a far lesser extent, on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the European Union in March 2017, people in the UK and many European countries participated in a March for Europe. These demonstrations represent counter-movements to the growing presence of right-wing, anti-immigrant, racist, nationalist, sexist, homophobic, anti-semitic and anti-Muslim movements throughout Europe and the United States. This rapid response issue surveys right-wing populist and left-liberal counter-movements which represent different responses to neoliberalism, globalization, austerity, and to each other. Social movements reflect and contribute to social change and need to be understood from an intersectional perspective. Networked media play an important role for both populist movements from the right and progressive counter-movements.

Author(s):  
E.S. Burmistrova ◽  
A.A. Chuprikova

The article attempts to analyze the rhetoric and methods of promoting the ideas of far-right groups in the United States of America and Great Britain in the context of immigration processes and the multiculturalism policy connected with them. The authors draw attention to the tendency that right-wing radical groups hold different positions: from moderate to most radical. The focus of the study is on comparing the tactics and discourse of such organizations whose degrees of radicalism differ because of their positions on the problem of national identity. The study attempts to highlight the activities of previously unexplored right-wing radical groups in the United States and Great Britain. The focus is on “Proud Guys” and “Generation of Identity”, trying to create a socially acceptable image; Richard Spencer and Tomi Robinson, who are trying on the image of extreme right-wing leaders; Andrew Anglin and members of "National Action", who occupy ultra right positions in expressing their views. The study deals with a massive selection of sources: mass media materials, statistical reports of public organizations and accessible official resources of right-wing forces. The authors conclude that the modern far-right associations of the USA and Great Britain are similar on the agenda and in its implementation. The main enemies of the right radicals are immigrants, Muslims, Jews and feminists. In this sense, adepts of such ideas constitute a threat to the stability of a democratic society.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Sabina Magliocco

This essay introduces a special issue of Nova Religio on magic and politics in the United States in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. The articles in this issue address a gap in the literature examining intersections of religion, magic, and politics in contemporary North America. They approach political magic as an essentially religious phenomenon, in that it deals with the spirit world and attempts to motivate human behavior through the use of symbols. Covering a range of practices from the far right to the far left, the articles argue against prevailing scholarly treatments of the use of esoteric technologies as a predominantly right-wing phenomenon, showing how they have also been operationalized by the left in recent history. They showcase the creativity of magic as a form of human cultural expression, and demonstrate how magic coexists with rationality in contemporary western settings.


2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Maas

Abstract This article surveys some general lessons to be drawn from the tension between the promise of citizenship to deliver equality and the particularistic drive to maintain diversity. Democratic states tend to guarantee free movement within their territory to all citizens, as a core right of citizenship. Similarly, the European Union guarantees (as the core right of EU citizenship) the right to live and the right to work anywhere within EU territory to EU citizens and members of their families. Such rights reflect the project of equality and undifferentiated individual rights for all who have the status of citizen. But they are not uncontested. Within the EU, several member states propose to reintroduce border controls and to restrict access for EU citizens who claim social assistance. Similar tensions and attempts to discourage freedom of movement also exist in other political systems, and the article gives examples from the United States and Canada. Within democratic states, particularly federal ones and others where decentralized jurisdictions are responsible for social welfare provision, it thus appears that some citizens can be more equal than others. Principles such as benefit portability, prohibition of residence requirements for access to programs or rights, and mutual recognition of qualifications and credentials facilitate the free flow of people within states and reflect the attempt to eliminate internal borders. Within the growing field of migration studies, most research focuses on international migration, movement between states, involving international borders. But migration across jurisdictional boundaries within states is at least as important as international migration. Within the European Union, free movement often means changing residence across jurisdictional boundaries within a political system with a common citizenship, even though EU citizenship is not traditional national citizenship. The EU is thus a good test of the tension between the equality promised by common citizenship and the diversity institutionalized by borders.


This book critically analyzes the right-wing attack on workers and unions in the United States and offers strategies to build a working-class movement. While President Trump's election in 2016 may have been a wakeup call for labor and the left, the underlying processes behind this shift to the right have been building for at least forty years. The book shows that only by analyzing the vulnerabilities in the right-wing strategy can the labor movement develop an effective response. The chapters examine the conservative upsurge, explore key challenges the labor movement faces today, and draw lessons from recent activist successes.


Author(s):  
Rodney A. Smolla

This chapter begins with an account of Anna Anderson, an immigrant to the United States who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia that was exposed to be fake after a DNA test. It discusses the collusive connections between Russia and the American radical alt-right. It also identifies several figures that were prominent in the Unite the Right events in Charlottesville in 2017 and strongly supported the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump. The chapter highlights how alt-right groups idolize Russia's leader Vladimir Putin, seeing him as the sort of strong-willed authoritarian dedicated to “traditional values” that the world needs. It discloses how Russia has been the hospitable home and host of American right-wing extremists, such as David Duke who moved to Russia in 1999.


2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 1071-1096 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Hovi ◽  
Detlef F. Sprinz ◽  
Håkon Sælen ◽  
Arild Underdal

Although the Paris Agreement arguably made some progress, interest in supplementary approaches to climate change co-operation persist. This article examines the conditions under which a climate club might emerge and grow. Using agent-based simulations, it shows that even with less than a handful of major actors as initial members, a club can eventually reduce global emissions effectively. To succeed, a club must be initiated by the ‘right’ constellation of enthusiastic actors, offer sufficiently large incentives for reluctant countries and be reasonably unconstrained by conflicts between members over issues beyond climate change. A climate club is particularly likely to persist and grow if initiated by the United States and the European Union. The combination of club-good benefits and conditional commitments can produce broad participation under many conditions.


Organization ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 636-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Bristow ◽  
Sarah Robinson

Brexit could be seen as the largest popular rebellion against the power elites in the UK modern history. It is also part of a larger phenomenon – the resurgence of nationalism and right-wing politics within Europe, the United States and beyond. Bringing in its wake the worrying manifestations of racism, xenophobia and anti-intellectualism, Brexit and its consequences should be a core concern for Critical Management Studies academics in helping to shape post-Brexit societies, organizations and workplaces, and in fighting and challenging the sinister forces that permeate them. In this article, we consider how CMS can rise to the challenges and possibilities of this ‘phenomenon-in-the-making’. We reflect on the intellectual tools available to CMS researchers and the ways in which they may be suited to this task. In particular, we explore how the key positions of anti-performativity, critical performativity, political performativity and public CMS can be used as a starting point for thinking about the potential relevance of CMS in Brexit and post-Brexit contexts. Our intention is to encourage CMS-ers to contribute positively to the post-Brexit world in academic as well as personal capacities. For this, we argue that a new public CMS is needed, which would (1) be guided by the premise that we have no greater and no lesser right than anyone else to shape the world, (2) entail as much critical reflexivity in relation to our unintended performativities as our intended ones and (3) be underpinned by marginalism as a critical political project.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 558-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wyn Rees

The Obama administration played a surprisingly interventionist role in the UK referendum on membership of the European Union (EU), arguing that a vote to leave would damage European security. Yet this article contends that US attitudes towards the EU as a security actor, and the part played within it by the United Kingdom, have been much more complex than the United States has sought to portray. While it has spoken the language of partnership, it has acted as if the EU has been a problem for US policy. The United Kingdom was used as part of the mechanism for managing that problem. In doing so, America contributed, albeit inadvertently, to the Brexit result. With the aid of contrasting theoretical perspectives from Realism and Institutionalism, this article explores how America’s security relationship with the United Kingdom has helped to engineer a security situation that the United States wanted to avoid.


Author(s):  
Maciej Mróz

The previous model of the Polish-Ukrainian relations has come to an end, while the new one is in the phase of statu nascendi. The fundamental contradiction of the basic interests of Kiev and Warsaw has worked out and is still relevant up to date. While Ukraine is looking for ways to integrate with the EU and needs a strong Europe, putting on Paris and Berlin, and thus ipso facto focusing on strengthening the European community, Poland has entered the path of euro-skepticism and quasi-Jagiellonian policy. The concept of a good change has triggered the most serious reorientation in foreign policy of Poland over the last quarter of a century. The amazement of the outside observers, also in Ukraine, might be aroused by the fact that Polish Eastern policy has been pursued by the same circle of experts under the previous government of the PO–PSL coalition as well as under the current government of the PiS-led united right. After several years of the right-wing rule the Ukrainian analysts see the growing degradation process of Poland’s significance in Europe, its increasing confrontational tendencies towards countries outside the European Union, including relations with Ukraine. Primarily, it is a political dimension, though, it can be perceived also as a symbolic dimension and symbols mean a lot in politics. Key words: Poland; Ukraine; European Union; NATO; United States of America; Russian Federation; Intermarium; Germany.


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