scholarly journals 25 years later – Austria’s shift to the populist right: national characteristics of a pan-European trend

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-417
Author(s):  
Karin Liebhart
Keyword(s):  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Far Right ◽  
National Differences ◽  
National Characteristics ◽  
European Political Science ◽  
Austrian Population

AbstractThe year 1995 rather coincidentally tags both the foundation of the Central European Political Science Association and the accedence of Austria, one of its founding members, to the European Union. Austria has particularly benefitted from its membership and the following EU enlargement rounds which also welcomed the other CEPSA members to the club. However, it seems that these advantages have not yet been fully appreciated, neither by a significant part of the political elite nor by the majority of the Austrian population. Increasing Euroscepticism and EU bashing can be observed during the last two and a half decades. The rise of the populist far-right, EU-hostile Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) was simultaneous. Of course, the political success of right-wing populism in combination with strong Euroscepticism has become a pan-European phenomenon since at least the last two decades. It is certainly not purely an Austrian phenomenon. Nevertheless, one can observe national differences. Since a systematic comparison of the development of right-wing populist patterns and related political trends between Austria and other CEPSA member countries would go beyond the scope of this essay, the focus of the paper is on relevant Austrian characteristics pertinent to this phenomenon.

Right-wing coalition would test Austria’s stability

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Government Role ◽  
International Attention ◽  
Border Controls

Significance Kurz has said he wants a coalition agreement by the end of the month -- probably with the far-right populist Freedom Party (FPOe). Impacts Austria is likely to push for EU reforms on migration, border controls and social welfare benefits. The SPOe is struggling to find a niche in the party system and could face a long spell in opposition. The FPOe's rise to a potential government role will attract unwanted international attention. The political elite could be rejuvenated as younger Kurz supporters are promoted to top jobs in ministries and parliament.

scholarly journals Nordic dog whistles. Analyzing discriminatory discourses in the parlance of the Scandinavian radical right parties

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-40
Author(s):  
Luiza-Maria Filimon
Keyword(s):  
Radical Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
People's Party ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Case Basis

The Nordic states had an active radical right presence long before the economic and refugee crises that swept the shores of the European Union (EU) left in their wake a reinvigorated right-wing contingent. The radical right parties (RRPs) have not only registered various degrees of electoral success, but have also made inroads into the political mainstream. The three defining characteristics that set these parties apart from the more traditional far-right ones are: 1) the repudiation of hardcore extremism; 2) the search for political viability; and 3) the acquisition of mainstream recognition. The present article argues that as these parties compete for legitimacy, they are forced to alter their discriminatory rhetoric by switching tonal registers. One of the political strategies that enables them to put the outright “overt” in the “covert” is the recourse to dog whistle politics. How well can they overcome the stigma associated with their more extreme reflexes depends on a case by case basis. This article examines whether the four most prominent examples of Nordic radicalism (the Danish People’s Party, Finns Party, Sweden Democrats, and Norway’s Progress Party) have integrated dog whistles in their political messaging and tracks how these coded appeals change from one country to another. In analyzing the response to the 2015 refugee crisis, the study finds that to a certain extent, the rhetoric utilized falls into the coded register or at the very least purposefully attempts to veer away from the radical excesses which are marginalizing and self-exclusionary.

The Berlin Process. Bringing the Western Balkan Region Closer to the European Union

Südosteuropa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Christina Griessler
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
New Energy ◽  
Western Balkan Region ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
Proactive Measures

AbstractFor the countries of the Western Balkans, the path to membership in the European Union (EU) has been particularly tortuous. Its slow progress has created frustration among applicant countries. In 2014 Germany, stepping into the political void that had formed, inaugurated what has come to be known as the Berlin Process, an initiative aimed at injecting new energy into the dormant EU enlargement process. The author examines the political activities initiated between 2014 and 2019, analysing the official documentation of the Berlin Process along with publications such as policy papers and media commentaries. She concludes that although meaningful and proactive measures have been taken, such efforts have not been successful in persuading or enabling the Western Balkan states to implement the political and economic reforms required for EU accession.

Extreme Political Beliefs Predict Dogmatic Intolerance

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Willem van Prooijen ◽  
André P. M. Krouwel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Political Right

Dogmatic intolerance—defined as a tendency to reject, and consider as inferior, any ideological belief that differs from one’s own—is often assumed to be more prominent at the political right than at the political left. In the present study, we make two novel contributions to this perspective. First, we show that dogmatic intolerance is stronger among left- and right-wing extremists than moderates in both the European Union (Study 1) as well as the United States (Study 2). Second, in Study 3, participants were randomly assigned to describe a strong or a weak political belief that they hold. Results revealed that compared to weak beliefs, strong beliefs elicited stronger dogmatic intolerance, which in turn was associated with willingness to protest, denial of free speech, and support for antisocial behavior. We conclude that independent of content, extreme political beliefs predict dogmatic intolerance.

scholarly journals LEFT, RIGHT, AND ANTISEMITISM IN EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-371
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Е. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
European Public ◽  
Mass Publics ◽  
Right Wing Populism

Antisemitism has long been found on both the political far-right and farleft. The recent rise in antisemitism worldwide raises the question of whether current antisemitism is found more with the far-right or far-left, the former a function of right-wing populism and the latter with what has been termed the new antisemitism. This paper uses data from the 2014 round of the European Social Survey in 20 nations to test for the connection between ideological selfplacement and antisemitic attitudes in mass publics. Analysis finds greater levels of antisemitism with the extreme far-right compared to the far-left, but extreme leftists appear slightly more antisemitic than moderate leftist. Further, there is less antisemitism than anti-Muslim and anti-Roma (Gypsy) attitudes at all positions on the left-right continuum. The conclusion puts the findings into context and suggests directions for future research.

The Rise of the New Polish Far-right

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Kosman
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Core Values ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Positive Presentation ◽  
The Catholic Church

Abstract While much research has been done regarding right-wing discourse in modern Europe, the literature of Polish far-right discourse is still insufficient. The present paper discusses the discursive strategies of Grzegorz Braun, one of the leaders of Confederation Liberty and Independence, which were implemented by the politician during the 2019 Gdańsk mayoral campaign. In order to provide a comprehensive analysis of Braun’s discourse, audiovisual materials were included in the study. The findings show that Braun employs positive presentation of the Catholic Church and himself, and negative presentation of his opponents (LGBT activists, immigrants, the European Union, the elites), whom Braun considers to be in an alliance against Poland and its core values under the name of the “Gdańsk Pact”.

Neoliberals against Europe

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quinn Slobodian ◽  
Dieter Plehwe
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
European Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
European Debt Crisis ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

Since the advent of the European debt crisis in 2009, it has become common to hear descriptions of the European Union as a neoliberal machine hardwired to enforce austerity and to block projects of redistribution or solidarity. Yet by adopting an explanatory framework associating neoliberalism with supranational organizations like the EU, NAFTA, and the WTO against the so-called populism of its right-wing opponents, many observers have painted themselves into a corner. The problems with a straightforward compound of “neoliberal Europe” became starkly evident with the success of the “leave” vote in the Brexit referendum in 2016. If the EU was neoliberal, were those who called to abandon it the opponents of neoliberalism? If the EU is indeed the “neoliberalism express,” then to disembark was by definition a gesture of refusal against neoliberalism. To make sense of the resurgent phenomenon of the far right in European politics, then, our chapter tracks such continuities over time and avoids misleading dichotomies that pit neoliberal globalism—and neoliberal Europeanism—against an atavistic national populism. The closed-borders libertarianism of nationalist neoliberals like the German AfD is not a rejection of globalism but is a variety of it.

scholarly journals Left-Wing Xenophobia in Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svenja Kopyciok ◽  
Hilary Silver
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Ethnic Inequality ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Redistributive Policies ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Political Spectrum

Given rising populist nationalism and multiplying meanings of “right” and “left,” this paper assesses whether Europeans who identify as extremely left-wing on the political spectrum hold anti-immigrant attitudes. In contrast to right-wing xenophobes, we further examine whether the political left, who conventionally emphasize class conflict, oppose immigrants less for cultural reasons and more for materialist reasons. We also consider whether socioeconomic status and values traditionally associated with the political left—favoring redistributive policies, egalitarianism, or social rights to benefits and services for immigrants—temper left- more than right-wing xenophobia. We find that a surprisingly large share of those who identify as far left do express extremely xenophobic attitudes, and we profile them in contrast to far right xenophobes. With logistic regression analysis of nine waves of the European Social Survey (2002–2018), we find that, all things equal, socioeconomic status influences far left xenophobia more than far right xenophobia, but inegalitarian values, less support for redistributive policies, and welfare chauvinism can only partially account for far left xenophobia and unexpectedly do not distinguish it from far right xenophobia. This implies that far left parties might adopt anti-immigrant policies to try to retain their loyal voters, even though such policies do not comport with broader left-wing values and may increase racial and ethnic inequality. Controlling for demographic and attitudinal differences reduces the probability of xenophobia among the far left by about sixty percent, but there remains some residual anti-immigrant attitudes among this group still to be explained.

scholarly journals The Populist Party in the Countries of the European Union: the Ideological Profile and Activities at the Beginning of XXI Century

2017 ◽  
pp. 100-109
Author(s):  
A. Martynov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Political Response ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Alternative For Germany

The article highlights the political renaissance of European right-wing populist skeptics in most countries of the European Union. These political parties to the global economic crisis in 2008, when the process of European integration was on the rise, remained on the margins of politics. The crisis of the liberal model of globalization, the influx of refugees from crisis areas of conflict in the Middle East and North Africa, increased social contradictions reanimated populist right-wing ideology. This socio-political response to this reality has pushed the popularity of far-right nationalist political forces in most Central European countries. In terms of ideology classification of these political forces are represented as populists “left” orientation (the French “National Front”) and “right” populists (the party “Alternative for Germany”). This fact confirms the erosion of traditional ideological markers in politics and the crisis of determining its strategy and tactics.

scholarly journals Victims of the Pandemic? European Far-Right Parties and COVID-19

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub Wondreys ◽  
Cas Mudde
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Look Ahead

Abstract It has become received wisdom that the pandemic has “exposed” the political incompetence of far-right parties in government and that far-right parties in opposition have become its (first) “victims.” This is largely based on the generalization of one or two individual cases—most notably US president Donald Trump—who is the exception rather than the rule. This article provides a comparative analysis of far-right responses to the COVID-19 pandemic within the European Union. Based on theoretical insights from previous research, we expect the responses to reflect the main ideology and the internal heterogeneity of the contemporary far right as well as to show the increasing mainstreaming of its positions. We analyze four different, but related, aspects: (1) the narratives about COVID-19 from far-right parties; (2) the proposed solutions of far-right parties; (3) the electoral consequences of the pandemic for far-right parties; and (4) the success of far-right parties in dealing with the pandemic. Finally, in the discussion we shortly look ahead at the possible consequences of a highly likely second outbreak of COVID-19.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document