Right Wing Politics

Hall's insistence on 'authoritarian populism' as a vehicle for generating electoral support for right-wing political projects is particularly important for understanding the consolidation of neo-liberal hegemony in Eastern Europe where politicians have idealized the principle of 'work' as the cornerstone of the new moral economy. In this paper I draw on Hall's conceptualization and my previous research on the rise of political anti-Gypsyism in Hungary to reflect on the ascendance of a new brand of politics to positions of governmental power. I begin by elucidating the political and economic underpinnings of the electorate's radicalization in a rightist direction and then show how the main right-wing party modified its ideological platform and political strategy to harness this energy and take the wind out of the sails of the extremist-racist Jobbik party, which by espousing anti-Gypsyism had successfully established itself as the voice of the abandoned countryside. While Hall interpreted the success of the conservative party in terms of hegemonic ideas of freedom from the state, I show that the electoral success of conservatives turned national-populists in Hungary partially hinged on their offer to transform the neo-liberal state in an anti-egalitarian direction with a view to rewarding 'worthy' citizens. Once in government, national-populists centralized state power to reinforce the positions of the bourgeoisie whose representative felt squeezed 'from above' by cosmopolitan elites and 'from below' by the dangerous classes. I show that contrary to expectations, 'authoritarian statist' politics is difficult to consolidate and begins to threaten liberal rule within the core of 'homogeneous society'. I nevertheless argue that this re-emergent 'extremism of the center' should not (yet) be seen as leading to Fascism, mainly because it does not seek to transcend the class conflict but to reinforce class privileges and safeguard bourgeois class rule. I close my analysis by suggesting that authoritarian statism appear to offer a workable model for advancing rightist hegemony on the EU's semi-periphery.

Talk given at Cambridge University's Centre for Languages and Inter-Communication. It covers the French political system, the election process at local and national levels, political parties and their funding, a comparison of the candidates to the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections.

L’élection présidentielle du 22 avril 2007 et le scrutin législatif qui l’a suivie ont été une terrible désillusion pour Jean-Marie Le Pen et le Front national (FN). Après avoir dominé l’agenda politique et médiatique durant les années quatre-vingt-dix et créé une secousse inédite dans le système politique lors des élections présidentielles de 2002, le FN était ramené à une expression électorale et un poids politique extrêmement modestes. Ce résultat, en phase avec le mouvement de déclin observé dans les années 2000, est confirmé au scrutin municipal de 2008 où l’extrême droite française est évanescente. D’aucuns évoquent alors la fin sans gloire de Jean-Marie Le Pen et de son parti.

A la veille des élections présidentielles et législatives de 2012, la présentation et le regard sont pourtant tout autres. En janvier 2011, Marine Le Pen a « hérité » de la présidence du parti ; trente-neuf ans après l’accession de son père à cette même présidence. Le Front national a opéré une percée aux élections cantonales du printemps 2011 et les enquêtes d’opinion créditent Marine Le Pen de scores oscillant entre 15 et 20% des intentions de vote pour le premier tour de la présidentielle.

Après le pain noir, le pain blanc ? Les choses sont indubitablement plus nuancées. Dans un environnement européen où l’extrême droite a (re)trouvé des couleurs dans certains Etats, une nouvelle analyse approfondie du phénomène frontiste s’imposait, tant il est vrai que le déclin politico-électoral de la deuxième moitié des années 2000 avait asséché les recherches consacrées au Front national.

L’ouvrage, qui rassemble des contributions de spécialistes réputés de l’extrême droite française, retrace et analyse tour à tour l’histoire du Front national, les rapports du FN à l’extrême droite européenne, le modèle organisationnel et militant du parti, ses axes idéologiques et programmatiques, de même que son implantation électorale et la question des alliances politico-électorales. Enfin, trois zones de force du Front national, dissemblables dans leur profil, sont très finement observées : le Nord-Pas-de-Calais, l’Alsace et Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.

In recent years, many conservative nationalist movements and parties have been criticized for being populist and applying populist political strategies. Keeping it in mind, this paper addresses the relationship between conservative nationalism and populism, and questions whether there is any factor which causes conservative nationalist movements to adopt populism. Instead of analyzing certain movements and making deductions from them, the research is directly carried out on an ideological level and a philosophical research method is employed in accordance with this preference. As a consequence, it has been found that there are two main factors which create a tendency in conservative nationalist movements to populism. The first one is the inherent inconsistency and tension between the constituents of conservative nationalism, namely conservatism and nationalism. The second one is the transformation of conventional nationalism especially in the European context within a new framework which is discussed as the new nationalism in the paper.

This study is aimed at understanding and exposing how the European elites, i.e. the members of the right-wing political groups in the European Parliament (EP), use discourses as a means of controlling public discourse, and hence, the public mind. Discourses are used to legitimate the ideology, values and norms of the relevant political groups in the society, which may result in social power abuse, dominance or inequality. The study mainly argues that these political groups discursively construct an anti-immigration Europe during the EP debates within three main discourse topics: immigration as a security threat, as an economic threat and as a cultural threat. Along with some references to Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak as well as the Copenhagen School in terms of the securitisation of migration, this study mostly draws on the premises and strategies of Teun A. van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach of critical discourse analysis to base its arguments. It is seen that the members of the right- wing political groups tend to glorify the Self, i.e. Europe and sometimes their own country, with various positive attributions to them whereas they mostly refer to the Other, i.e. asylum seekers, refugees or migrants, through negative implications, presuppositions, denomination or predication, which is a common attitude of anti- immigration politicians and paves the way for the construction of an anti-immigration Europe. Last but not least, if there is a ‘refugee crisis’, then, dialectically, the opposite is also possible: ‘refugee awareness’. This study also aspires to contribute to the formation of ‘refugee awareness’.

In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, Mexican traditionalist Catholics mobilized in apparent unity against Catholic "progressivism" and the Left. Yet, they succumbed to their own internecine fights. This article examines the conflicts within Mexico's post-Cristero Right during the 1960s and 70s by tackling the ruptures and realignments surrounding the excommunication of Fr. Joaquín Sáenz Arriaga, a traditionalist Jesuit famed for attacking conciliar reforms and the legitimacy of Paul VI's papacy. I argue that the ensuing debates put into question the apparent coherence of conservatives in the face of social unrest after 1968, highlighting the long-standing entropy of right-wing Catholicism, as traditionalists clashed over matters of orthodoxy, Catholics' historical relationship with the postrevolutionary state, and the contested memory of the Cristero War, which they used to legitimize their positions and define the terms of their traditionalism. Using anticommunism and anti-Semitism to wage their battles, these traditionalists occupied important spaces in the public sphere, contributed to Mexico's Cold War polarizations, and shaped the Mexican Right's international outlook. Their conflicts attest to the contentious plurality of the Mexican Right during this period, which invites further study to better understand how these actors situated themselves in a rapidly changing world.

Recent scholarship points to a growing political prominence of various non-liberal civil society organizations in many countries around the world. In Poland, this phenomenon is simultaneous with the emergence of political division in civil society driven by the policies of the United Right government. I argue that a wider historical perspective emphasizing reciprocal connections between civil society organizations and political parties helps to understand this recent surge. In Poland, the growing division in civil society builds upon the relationship between right-wing political parties and civil society organizations bound together since the beginning of the 1990s by the common vision of social memory. After taking power in 2015, the right-wing coalition in Poland centralized the supervision over the distribution of funds to civil society, providing financial support to organizations closer to its conservative agenda. At the same time, organizations that have been in frequent conflict with the right-wing government due to their main area of focus (human rights, anti-discrimination, women's rights, environmental protection, and immigration) had limited access to government funding and were presented in a negative light by the government as well as its allied organizations and the state-controlled media. The argument in this article is based on 2 secondary data about the organizational sphere of civil society and a case study of a set of right-wing civil society organizations, Gazeta Polska clubs.

¿Cómo actúa la derecha latinoamericana bajo los gobiernos de izquierda post-neoliberal de décadas recientes? Se responde aquello usando el caso ecuatoriano bajo el presidente Rafael Correa. La derecha latinoamericana contemporánea principalmente representa una realidad socio-económica de sectores privilegiados e ideológicamente parte desde las políticas económicas neoliberales. La derecha ecuatoriana en este periodo canalizó su acción política a través de nuevos y viejos instrumentos electorales y también con repertorios no electorales, al mismo tiempo que buscó moderar y modernizar su discurso. Después de la victoria de Correa en 2007, esta buscó reorganizarse y pelear por victorias electorales locales, para después en el desgaste del gobierno de Correa y la crisis económica de mitad de los 2010 movilizarse en las calles y volver a luchar en las elecciones presidenciales. Aquello no fue suficiente por lo cual el movimiento Alianza País de Correa volvió a ganar la presidencia en el 2017 con un nuevo candidato.

„Túlságosan jobbos”, „túl keményvonalas”, „az egyik legradikálisabb jobboldali konzervatív vezér, akit a Liberális Párt kitermelt magából” – mint a fentieket idéző Waleed Aly írja: Tony Abbott az az ember, akinek ellenfelei meggyőződése szerint sosem szabadott volna Ausztrália miniszterelnökévé válnia. Mégis az lett. Ki ő, hogyan lett kormányfő, és mit gondol a világról?

A tanulmány a Kommentár folyóirat 2014/1-es számában jelent meg: http://kommentar.info.hu/iras/2014_1/_politikus_akcioban

An increase across Europe since the late 1980s of right-wing sentiment and its political manifestation in populist right-wing political parties has been evident. In a brief examination of the various discourses on this phenomenon this paper will explore the question of a catalyst for the demand for right-wing parties and the parties themselves. By examining a number of key works and theorists it will attempt to position the various proposed hypotheses to this question; racism, immigration, political neoliberalism and globalisation, and protest.

This paper is an outline for a PhD thesis written by Daniel Thiel at the University of Marburg. It addresses discourses on a "new aristocracy", that is to say a new elite that should be formed after the model of the 'old', historical nobility. It clarifies which aspects have to be taken into account for a thorough analysis of neo-aristocratic mindsets between 1933 and 1945. This topic will surely provide new insights into the nature of Nazism.

For further information, read also my review of  Alexandra Gerstner's book "Neuer Adel".

In this article, I theorize urban displacement as an anti-democratic politics that emerged and intensified at planetary scale in the last fifty years. I call this assault on the conditions of possibility of democratization organized displacement. As democracy has increasingly taken an urban character across the globe, I argue that organized displacement has emerged as a counter-politics. Organized displacement has two constitutive features: social cleansing and urbicide. The goal of this politics is to undermine the heterogeneity of social life in the name of creating an urban order. Finally, I argue that a theory of organized displacement reveals that the relationship between Trump and other right-wing figures is not simply based on a similarity of political forms. Rather, right-wing politics has been constituted through global practices of urban displacement. Trump, then, is not the originator of a new politics. Rather, he can be characterized alongside Bolsonaro and Mugabe as an exemplar of an anti-democratic politics of displacement.

Contrary to its image abroad as a servile tool of industry and government, the Japanese news media has worked hard to keep alive memories of Japan's wartime military aggression and harsh colonial rule. Given the weakness of Japanese civil society and the marginal influence of opposition parties, the steady stream of newspaper articles, and regular airing of documentaries on the horrors of war and the humiliation of defeat are about all that have prevented conservative nationalist politicians from prettifying the past. It was thanks to a year-long series of articles in the liberal Asahi that a generation of Japanese came to know about the horrors of the 1937 Rape of Nanking more than 30 years after the fact. And it was also an editorial in the same paper that led to Japan and South Korea jointly hosting the 2002 Football World Cup, ushering in a period of good relations between the two countries. But Japan's news professionals have been able to focus on their country's need to confront past horrors and to ask who was responsible for them not only as journalists but also as activists, establishing exchanges with colleagues in neighboring countries, organizing symposiums, conferring and receiving prizes, writing books, advising politicians, and on occasion cooperating with political and business leaders. They can function simultaneously as observers and actors because Japanese news reporting differs in its historical origins and moral-ethical underpinnings from Western ideals of adversarial media-state relations. How and why a highly visible group of prominent news professionals could work to confront their country's difficult past is the theme of this paper.

A Video on the events in JNU since its take over by a puppet administration put in place by the majoritarian Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which came to power in 2014. The video documents the vindictive and authoritarian measures taken by the University’s Vice Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar (reported to have links with the Hindu fundamentalist Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh or RSS, the parent organization of the ruling party) since he took over JNU’s reins in 2016. This video is an appeal to civil society to help us save a perfectly functioning and highly reputed Public University.

Compiled by Ranjani Mazumdar, Pallavi Paul, Shaunak Sen

In recent years, liberalization theorists have challenged the ‘varieties of capitalism’-approach by arguing that, beneath the surface of institutional stability, the functioning of institutions in coordinated market economies (CMEs) has changed dramatically. This paper adds to this literature by analyzing changes to the Ghent system of unemployment insurance, the most important institutional driver of unionization in Nordic CMEs. Focusing on Sweden and Denmark, the study shows that the Ghent system is formally intact in both countries but has lost lots of its original power to keep workers in the unions. This was possible because the Ghent system has been systematically eroded, with political actors in Sweden and Denmark opting for different reform strategies to achieve this result. By highlighting the role of parties of the right in this process, the paper also complements recent research on the historical role of left parties in the expansion of the Ghent system.

I examine variation in nativist organizing through an analysis of the number of nativist organizations in U.S. counties. I make two primary contributions to literatures on anti-immigrant phenomena and right-wing mobilization. First, I investigate the extent to which theories of threat, in addition to resource mobilization and political opportunity theories, further our understandings of nativist mobilization. Pro-immigrant oppositional activism and racist hate resource and organizational bases facilitate this mobilization, whereas a weak economic base, growing working-class base, and increasing Latino political representation constrain it. In addition, the association between nativist mobilization and Latino population change, as well as conservative voting, is curvilinear (inverted U). Nativist mobilization thrives in the presence of low-to-moderate levels of demographic threat, as well as in contexts in which political conservatism is present but weak enough to make the conservative, nativist identity nonnormative. Second, few studies examine nonattitudinal or noninstitutionalized anti-immigrant phenomena. There is little understanding of whether or not social structures facilitating anti-immigrant attitudes and institutionalized anti-immigrant activity similarly influence the presence of anti-immigrant mobilization. Although results suggest that political and cultural threats shape diverse anti-immigrant phenomena, I also point to a unique set of structural conditions beyond threat to explain nativist mobilization in particular.

Alternatives International Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a second mandate to run the government as the election results announced on May 23, 2019 clearly show. They got more seats than they had won in 2014 and their vote share also increased. From a total of 543 seats in the Parliament, the BJP has won 303 and the Congress has 52 seats. The rest of the seats are divided between dozens of regional parties with 5 seats going to the two communist parties. Also, voter participation hit a record with a rate of 66%, which means a count of more than half a billion votes.

Recent scholarship points to a growing political prominence of various non-liberal civil society organizations in many countries around the world. In Poland, this phenomenon is simultaneous with the emergence of political division in civil society driven by the policies of the United Right government. I argue that a wider historical perspective emphasizing reciprocal connections between civil society organizations and political parties helps to understand this recent surge. In Poland, the growing division in civil society builds upon the relationship between right-wing political parties and civil society organizations bound together since the beginning of the 1990s by the common vision of social memory. After taking power in 2015, the right-wing coalition in Poland centralized the supervision over the distribution of funds to civil society, providing financial support to organizations closer to its conservative agenda. At the same time, organizations that have been in frequent confl...

In response to the extraordinary crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, reigning Canadian Liberal party has mirrored President Biden’s campaign slogan and vowed to “build back better”, a promise matched by official opposition the Canadian Conservative Party to “build back stronger”. The similarity of these two promises is striking: both future-oriented yet deeply invested in an iteration of the future as built on the past as signified by “back”. Canadians have only to parse the valences of what constitutes “better” and “stronger”, yet these pledges are fundamentally the same in resting on an affective promise that is cruelly optimistic. Lauren Berlant succinctly defines the desire for the “good life” despite the fact that the world as we know it is actively falling apart as cruel optimism: “the condition of maintaining an attachment to a significantly problematic object” (24). In promising a return to “normal”, politicians tacitly endorse a status quo that is colonialist, white supremacist, structurally racist, misogynist, heteronormative, and not at all bothered about the climate crisis. Utopia is often figured as a vision of the future based in ideals of the conservative past: a prescriptive, unchanging society that benefits those in power. The Utopian state is not actually future-oriented but instead looks backwards in time and, I argue, any politics seeking to move towards utopia are likely to be actively regressive in realizing utopic desire. In this short paper, I will argue that José Esteban Muñoz’s theorization of queer utopia, an open-ended and never-finished process of becoming, is a crucial intervention necessary to challenge fascist, past-glorifying political formations that seek a static status quo. Instead, a queer utopia is a much more useful critical tool to use in order to meaningfully create a future beyond the impasse of the climate and COVID-19 crises.