Seeking an adversary: The radical right and the saliency of pro-immigration positions in green party speeches

Western European politics has experienced considerable change since the 1980s, with the emergence of new parties and immigration’s politicisation. However, no studies have examined Green party discussions of immigration, or their interaction with radical right parties. We hypothesise that increases in the radical right’s vote share, and the saliency they attach to immigration, will incentivise Greens to discuss immigration more. We also examine an alternative explanation that how salient immigration is for left- and right-wing parties will affect immigration’s saliency for Greens. We test this by applying structural topic models to parliamentary speeches in the Dutch Tweede Kamer for 2002–2019. We find that Greens react to the radical right, as the latter’s vote share is positively associated with immigration’s saliency for Greens, although radical right immigration saliency’s effect is not robust. Furthermore, we do not find evidence that Greens react to immigration’s saliency in left- or right-wing party speeches.

The Brigade of the Great Hungarian Plain The crimes of the most notorious military detachment during the wave of paramilitary violence called the Hungarian White Terror in 1919–1921, and the further life of a radical right-wing paramilitary commander

In 1919–1920s, paramilitary violence was an almost natural phenomenon in Hungary, like in many other countries of Central Europe. After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the new right-wing government, establishing its power with the help of the Entente powers, could difficulty rule the quasi anarchistic conditions. In 1919–1921, Hungary was terrorized by irregular military formations that were formally part of the National Army, and radical right-wing soldiers committed serious crimes frequently by anti-Semitic motivations. One of the most notorious military detachment was organised by young first lieutenant of the Air Force Iván Héjjas, who, with the help of his armed militiamen, abusing the anarchistic conditions due to civil war, build up his own quasi private state in the town of Kecskemét and in its neighbourhood, the Great Hungarian Plain. His rule lasted for two years, his subordinates murdered and/or robbed hundreds of people, mainly of Jewish origin, but later they were given amnesty. Héjjas later became an influential radical right-wing politician of the Hungarian political scene in the period between the two world wars. The present research article makes an attempt to reconstruct the wave of paramilitary violence of Iván Héjjas’s detachment, and also examines of the further life of a used-to-be radical right-wing paramilitary commander and politician who gradually became member of the Hungarian political elite, despite his notorious past.

Mediating shame and pride: countermedia coverage of Independence Day in Poland and the US

This article adopts a comparative qualitative approach to studying the rhetoric of injured pride in the coverage of Independence Day celebrations by the right-wing countermedia in Poland (wPolityce.pl) and the US (Breitbart News) from 2012 to 2018. In both countries, the number of countermedia articles on Independence Day proliferated in the aftermath of the election of the Law and Justice party (2015) and Donald Trump (2016). Based on the analysis of the narrative strategy for affective polarisation, we argue that the countermedia mobilise support from an electorate of ‘the disenfranchised’ by strategically invoking emotions of shame and pride. By positioning the radical right as a political force that shields ‘patriots’ from the leftist ‘pedagogy of shame’, the outlets instrumentalise the mobilising potential of shame by transforming it into righteous anger and pride. This strategy results in a mediated ‘emotional regime’ that offers guidelines for an acceptable emotional repertoire for the members of the nationally bound in-group.

PiS vs LGBT: The “Othering” of the LGBT Movement as an Element of Populist Radical Right Party Discourse in Poland

PiS vs LGBT: The “Othering” of the LGBT Movement as an Element of Populist Radical Right Party Discourse in PolandThe article explores how the LGBT movement is “othered” to fit into right-wing populist discourse and is thereby utilised as an element of a political strategy by right-wing populist actors. I focus on Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), a Polish populist radical right party (continuously in power since 2015), whose anti-LGBT rhetoric increased anew ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election. This study presents the results of a critical discourse analysis (conducted using Ruth Wodak and Martin Reisigl’s analytical framework) of selected texts and visuals from the party’s official website and from Twitter accounts of its prominent members. I analysed how the party representatives “other” LGBT Poles using discursive means, and how they frame homophobia within their broader populist discourse and instrumentalise it for political gains. I compare my findings to the findings from an analysis of Law and Justice’s anti-migration discourse ahead of the 2015 parliamentary election. The study is conducted within the framework of a larger study on “othering” as part of contemporary right-wing populism in Central and Eastern Europe. PiS vs LGBT. Kształtowanie obrazu „Innego” w przypadku ruchu LGBT jako element dyskursu populistycznej radykalnej partii prawicowej w PolsceArtykuł analizuje, w jaki sposób ruch LGBT jest przedstawiany jako „Inny” w celu dopasowania go do prawicowego populistycznego dyskursu, a tym samym jak jest wykorzystywany jako element strategii politycznej przez prawicowych populistycznych aktorów. Koncentruję się na Prawie i Sprawiedliwości, polskiej populistycznej partii radykalnej prawicy (u władzy nieprzerwanie od 2015 roku), której retoryka anty-LGBT nasiliła się na nowo przed wyborami do Parlamentu Europejskiego w 2019 roku. Przeprowadzając krytyczną analizę dyskursu (w oparciu o ramy analityczne Ruth Wodak i Martina Reisigla) wybranych tekstów i materiałów wizualnych z oficjalnej strony internetowej partii oraz kont jej czołowych członków na Twitterze, przeanalizowałam, jakimi środkami dyskursywnymi przedstawiciele partii kształtują obraz Polaków LGBT jako „Innych”, jak umieszczają homofobię w ramach szerszego populistycznego dyskursu i jak instrumentalizują ją dla uzyskania politycznych korzyści. Porównuję wyniki moich badań z wynikami analizy antymigracyjnego dyskursu Prawa i Sprawiedliwości przed wyborami parlamentarnymi w 2015 roku. Prace są prowadzone w ramach szerszego projektu na temat „inności” w ramach współczesnego prawicowego populizmu w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej.

The Portuguese ‘New State’ and the Diffusion of Authoritarian Models in Interwar Latin America

As an authoritarian ‘gravity centre’ in the interwar period, the Portuguese New State was not the product of strong propaganda or power capacity. Its force of attraction derived, essentially, from having an international means of diffusion: important segments of the Catholic Church's organizations, its associated intellectual politicians, and particularly from having led a corporatist and authoritarian political system model. How and why did Salazar's New State inspire some of the new political institutions proposed by radical right-wing elites or created by many of these regimes? This article tackles this issue by adopting a transnational and comparative research approach, paying particular attention to the primary mediators of its diffusion and analyzing institutional reform processes in selected processes of crises and transitions to authoritarianism in Latin America.

From Paramilitaries to Parliamentarians: Disaggregating Radical Right Wing Extremist Movements

The global far right is extremely broad in nature and far from monolithic. While the “far right” is often used as an umbrella term, using the term runs the risk of over-simplifying the differences and linkages between white supremacist, anti-immigration, nativist, and other motivating ideologies. These beliefs and political platforms fall within the far-right rubric, and too often the phrase presents a more unified image of the phenomena than is really the case. In truth, the “far right” and the individual movements that comprise it are fragmented, consisting of a number of groups that lack established leadership and cohesion. Indeed, these movements include chauvinist religious organizations, neo-fascist street gangs, and paramilitary organs of established political parties. Although such movements largely lack the mass appeal of the interwar European radical right-wing extreme, they nevertheless can inspire both premeditated and spontaneous acts of violence against perceived enemies. This report is intended to provide policymakers, practitioners, and the academic community with a roadmap of ongoing shifts in the organizational structures and ideological currents of radical right-wing extremist movements, detailing the difference between distinct, yet often connected and interlaced echelons of the far right. In particular, the report identifies and analyzes various aspects of the broader far right and the assorted grievances it leverages to recruit, which is critical to gaining a more nuanced understanding of the potential future trajectory of these movements.

A Decline in the Social Status of the Working Class? Conflicting Evidence for 8 Western Countries, 1987–2017

The consensus view among political scientists is that the subjective social status of low-skilled workers has declined over the last decades, and this status loss of the working class is seen as contributing to the rise of the radical right. We examine the micro-foundation of this claim by tracing the evolution of subjective status for different social classes in Europe and the US. We use all available survey rounds of the International Social Survey Programme 1987–2017 and replicate findings with the European Social Survey 2002–2016. While unskilled workers perceive their status to be lower than members of the middle class everywhere, we find no relative or absolute fall in their subjective social status over time. Unskilled workers were at the bottom of the status hierarchy in the 1990s and 2010s. Our findings throw doubt on the narrative that sees workers’ falling subjective social status as a prominent driver behind the rise of the radical right.