The Nouvelle Droite in Portugal: a new strategy for the radical right in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy

Marchi examines how the French Nouvelle Droite (ND) was introduced into Portugal at the end of the Salazarist regime and during the transition to democracy. The relevance of the Portuguese case lies in the fact that the early diffusion of the ND in Europe coincided with the profound crisis of the radical right in Portugal as it faced the liberalization of the authoritarian regime and repression during the revolutionary transition. For that reason the far right in Portugal, in comparative terms, can be seen to have been subject to historical constraints quite different from those in Spain and other Western European democracies. Marchi describes the groups on the Portuguese radical right, and certain figures who were inspired by the ND and disseminated its ideas in Portugal. His analysis of their main publications, their statements and the media campaign to promote the ND from the end of the 1960s to the beginning of the 1980s highlights the different reasons for and ways in which Portuguese radicals engaged and dealt with the ND. Marchi also looks at the reactions of the national right-wing milieu to the spread of ND ideas. As part of his paper’s contribution to comparative studies on the transnational radical right, it also provides new evidence, derived from the Portuguese case, of the way in which one of the most important schools of right-wing thought at the end of the twentieth century has influenced extreme-right milieux all over Europe. In light of Tamir Bar-On's analysis of the ND's cultural and pan-European impact, the findings presented here confirm its transnational character while drawing on this and other cases from southern Europe to question the French movement's long-term effectiveness in reorienting the culture of the right-wing milieu.     

Between two rights: Julien Freund and the origins of political realism in France

Julien Freund (1921–93) was a French sociologist and political theorist who taught at the University of Strasbourg in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he is the author of over two dozen books, Freund remained throughout his lifetime something of a marginal figure in his own country. Yet, strangely, Freund is now receiving more scholarly attention in France than ever before. The question is why? This paper attempts to provide an answer by looking at Freund's attempt to establish an alternative intellectual canon in France that was heavily indebted to the German tradition of political realism. The story begins with Freund's early relationship with Raymond Aron, and suggests, perhaps provocatively, that Freund is responsible for luring Aron back into his studies on Max Weber dating from the 1930s. It then moves on to explore Freund's relationship with Carl Schmitt. Freund became Schmitt's closest French friend and, for forty years, exhibited a veritable obsession with disseminating Schmitt's work in France. Finally, it suggests that recent attempts by those who wish to place Freund within a current tradition of French liberalism are mistaken. Instead Freund must be placed within a German Neue Rechte context, and specifically his desire to introduce the German tradition of political realism into France. In the end the article argues that the French Nouvelle Droite—with its stress on the cultural and ethnic foundations of the nation-state—pushed Freund's political thought in a decidedly anti-liberal and seemingly pseudo-fascist direction.     

Local labour market competition and radical right voting: Evidence from France

How do the economic effects of immigration affect radical right support? The evidence in support of the labour market competition theory — which posits that the economic threat posed by immigration to jobs and wages leads to radical right voting — has been mixed. On the one hand, individual-level surveys underreport economic drivers because of social desirability bias. On the other hand, contextual studies show contradictory findings due to an over-reliance on units of analysis that are too aggregated to meaningfully capture the competitive threat posed by immigrants. This paper identifies the influence of labour market competition on radical right voting at a local level in contexts where native workers are directly affected by the arrival of immigrants who have similar or higher skillsets. Using an original longitudinal dataset of fine-grained municipal electoral, demographic and economic data from France over the 2002–2017 period, the paper provides empirical evidence of local contextual influences of economic competition between natives and immigrants of any skillset. Under local conditions of material deprivation, measured by the local unemployment rate, the effect of labour market competition on municipalities’ radical right vote share is amplified. Moreover, higher radical right support is observed in municipalities with a higher share of any one of the following groups: low-skilled natives, medium-skilled immigrants or high-skilled immigrants. This supports the hypothesis that immigrants with higher qualifications are compelled to accept lower-skilled jobs, and are thus perceived as a competitive threat to low-skilled natives. By reconciling radical right contextual studies and research on the political economy of immigration policies, this paper highlights the importance of a local analysis in detecting the effect of labour market competition on radical right support. This paper also explains why some local areas are more prone to radical right support than others over time.     

The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: two neo-fascist groupuscules in the post-Soviet political space

Mathyl examines two representatives of the Russian groupuscular right-Arctogaia and the National-Bolskevik Party-and their emergence after the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, in the context of the radicalization of Russian nationalism that took place during the inter-Russian power struggle of 1992-3. The ideological arsenal of these groups consists principally of a politico-historical reconciliation between western (neo-)fascism and authoritarian nationalist Russian and Soviet traditions, in which those traditions are intensified and synthesized into a new kind of 'national Bolshevism'. The success of neo-fascist groupuscules demonstrates how potentially explosive the fascist diagnosis of the status quo can behaving been preserved virtually intact since 1945-when it meets with a new situation of high political instability and is employed in intensive political propaganda, as was the case in post-perestroika Russia. Following the nationalists' military defeat in October 1993, the Russian groupuscular right attempted both to maintain the revolutionary impetus and, through a variety of cultural-political activities, to contribute to the gradual enlargement of the nationalist-imperialist project, thereby demonstrating its close connection to the New Right and its strategy of struggling for cultural hegemony. Since the end of the 1990s, there has been, within the groupuscular right, both an increasingly apparent ideological transfer from East to West, and evidence of the growing influence of national Bolshevism on western third-positionist groups.     

Prejudice and paranoia: a comparative study of antisemitism and Sinophobia in turn-of-the-century Britain

Renshaw examines in comparative terms two of the most virulent manifestations of racial prejudice in early twentieth-century British society. The language of antisemitism and Sinophobia in the Edwardian period and the years preceding the First World War, the similarities and differences in the ways that these two forms of prejudice were articulated, and the overlap between them are analysed. Five strands of anti-Jewish and anti-Chinese sentiment and action are discussed. The first examines how international manifestations of antisemitism and Sinophobia, suspicions aimed at Jews and Chinese as transnational diasporic communities, and perceptions of these minorities, through Russian pogroms, the Boxer Rebellion in China and the post-Boer War economic situation in South Africa, were framed in narratives of victimhood and aggression. Second, the transnational and colonial circuits of racialized discourse and the relationship between periphery and metropole are considered, as are divergences in the articulation of anti-Jewish and anti-Chinese prejudice. The third strand investigates the use of the language of ‘invasion’, used by both the political right and the left in discussing Jewish and Chinese immigration and economic activity in Britain, with Chinese employment in British industries (in this period particularly as sailors on British ships) framed in the context of a demographic ‘Asiatic’ takeover of European societies. The fourth strand looks at the intersection of racial prejudice and sexual and social angst, the visceral association of immigrant groups with dirt and disease, and the sexual threat that racist and antisemitic literature attributed to Jews and Chinese. Finally, physical manifestations of antisemitism and Sinophobia in the period and the racial violence that occurred in Cardiff and Tredegar in 1911 will be described and placed in context. The article positions Edwardian antisemitism and Sinophobia as a transitory stage in the evolution of British racism: a bridge between the separate domestic and colonial forms of prejudice present in late Victorian discourse, and the new manifestations of racism located in British cities and ports, but aimed at non-white minorities, that emerged in the interwar period.     

Multiple roots of the populist radical right: Support for the Dutch PVV in cities and the countryside

Populist radical right parties are considerably more popular in some areas (neighbourhoods, municipalities, regions) than others. They thrive in some cities, in some smaller towns, and in some rural areas, but they are unsuccessful in other cities, small towns, and rural areas. We seek to explain this regional variation by modelling at the individual level how citizens respond to local conditions. We argue that patterns of populist radical right support can be explained by anxiety in the face of social change. However, how social change manifests itself is different in rural and urban areas, so that variations in populist radical right support are rooted in different kinds of conditions. To analyse the effects of these conditions we use unique geo-referenced survey data from the Netherlands collected among a nationwide sample of 8,000 Dutch respondents. Our analyses demonstrate that the presence of immigrants (and particularly increases therein) can explain why populist radical right parties are more popular in some urban areas than in others, but that it cannot explain variation across rural areas. In these areas, local marginalization is an important predictor of support for populist radical right parties. Hence, to understand the support for the populist radical right, the heterogeneity of its electorate should be recognized.     

Varieties of Radicalism: Examining the Diversity of Radical Left Parties and Voters in Western Europe

Radical left parties (RLPs) are diverse and several RLP subtypes have been distinguished in the literature. However, the degree to which these subtypes are linked to significantly different policy proposals has not been analysed, and little is known about whether subtypes are associated with differences in their respective voters’ characteristics. This article analyses the policy positions of RLPs across a number of issues, using manifesto and expert survey data, allowing insights into the differentiation between types of RLPs. RLPs differ in the extent to which they adopt New Politics issues, and the article proposes a classification of Traditional and New Left RLPs. Using cross-national survey data from the European Election Studies series and multilevel multinomial models, the article examines the ideological, policy and social differences in the electorates of the various types of RLPs. It finds socio-demographic and attitudinal differences between the voters of Traditional and New Left RLPs that are consistent with the programmatic differences of the parties.     

The Branding of Candidates and Parties: The U.S. News Media and the Legitimization of a New Political Term

Political marketing research indicates that brands and branding are a robust aspect of politics. However, little is known of the broader cultural appreciation of political branding. Through a content analysis of major U.S. newspapers over a 40-year period, we provide evidence that the U.S. news media is increasingly aware of political branding. Moreover, we present a typology of media treatment that indicates that the national media in the U.S. increasingly perceive brands and branding in the public sphere as an innate, multifaceted, and effective part of modern politics.     

Populism in election times: a comparative analysis of 11 countries in Western Europe

Abstract

The article comparatively examines the levels of populism exhibited by parties in Western Europe. It relies on a quantitative content analysis of press releases collected in the context of 11 national elections between 2012 and 2015. In line with the first hypothesis, the results show that parties from both the radical right and the radical left make use of populist appeals more frequently than mainstream parties. With regard to populism on cultural issues, the article establishes that the radical right outclasses the remaining parties, thereby supporting the second hypothesis. On economic issues, both types of radical parties are shown to be particularly populist. This pattern counters the third hypothesis, which suggests that economic populism is most prevalent among the radical left. Finally, there is no evidence for the fourth hypothesis, given that parties from the south do not resort to more populism on economic issues than those from the north.     

Political research and practitioner approaches: a review of the research methods used in voting behaviour research

Quantitative research has been the dominant methodological approach used to study voting behaviour. There is an emerging recognition, however, that there are alternative ways of attempting to understand how voters decide. The academic preoccupation with measurement, reliability, validity and generalisability may obscure some of the findings that are uncovered by practitioners using qualitative research. Practitioners of politics, both in the USA and the UK, tend to utilise both methods when formulating policy and exploring voter attitudes towards these policies. This paper will review the arguments for each tradition and examine the apparent divergence of practitioner and academic political research. Finally, it will look at how both positivist and interpretivist methods can be utilised to complement each other when attempting to build a picture of voting behaviour. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

学科视野中的历史政治学:以历史社会学、政治史、比较政治学为参照

历史政治学是中国学者提出的研究政治学之全新范式,但当然不是从零开始,而有众多可资利用之知识资源,本文探讨其与历史政治学之关系。历史政治学与历史社会学均致力于带回历史、带回国家,并共享众多方法;但后者有西方中心论偏见,奉行价值无涉原则,止于理解或解释;历史政治学则破除西方中心论,公正对待中国等非西方国家、文明丰富的政治实践,且有明确价值追求,致力于从历史中探究善治之道。历史政治学呼吁历史学再度重视政治史,并使之有政治学想象力。历史政治学可为比较政治学带入大历史视野,以矫正其以西式政治制度为标准的偏失。     

Forging a Resilient Social Contract in South Africa: States and Societies Sustaining Peace in the Post-Apartheid Era

ABSTRACT

Since the advent of democracy in the 1990s, the South African political settlement has ushered into policy a progressive framework for the realization of socio-economic rights, enshrined by the Constitution. However, this political settlement has failed to translate into an economic and social settlement that results in just livelihood strategies and equitable service delivery that addresses historical grievances. Inadequate implementation of socio-economic policies designed to address injustice has contributed to weakening vertical cohesion between state and society. Analysing these two core conflict issues, access to service delivery and livelihood strategies, this article argues that the interaction of the political settlement and the ability of institutions to deliver effectively has negatively affected state-society relations and the legitimacy of the reconciliation agenda meant to support inter-group cohesion.     

Political parties and public investments: a comparative analysis of 22 Western democracies

When do political parties push for public investments in education, research, and infrastructure? Existing literature has mainly answered this question by pointing to parties’ state?market ideology. In contrast, this article presents a novel argument highlighting the role of parties’ aspirations to office and their ambitions to maximize votes. It builds on the idea that investments not only constitute redistributive tools for politicians, but also work as public means to foster economic growth in the long run. This unique feature makes investments attractive for parties with high office and vote aspirations, because they anticipate government responsibility in the future and can use investments’ dispersed growth effects to appeal broadly to a large, heterogeneous pool of voters. Support for this claim is found through time-series cross-sectional analyses of party manifestos from 22 Western democracies between 1947 and 2013. Results also indicate that parties’ positions on the second social value dimension matter.     

Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe: Perceptions and Use of Contacts

Proceeding from mass society theory and the theory of social capital, this article discusses the effect of social isolation, social trust, and membership in voluntary organizations on radical right-wing voting in Belgium, Denmark, France, Norway, and Switzerland. By using data from the first and third rounds of the European Social Survey, a number of logistic regression models are estimated. The results indicate that social isolation and social capital, measured as active membership in voluntary organizations, are of marginal value for explaining radical right-wing voting, although there is some cross-national variation. Moreover, the results show that not even members of humanitarian aid and human rights organizations are less likely to vote for the radical right, which clearly questions the universalistic ambitions of Putnam's theory of social capital and its core idea that organizational membership fosters tolerance and civic virtues.     

The rise and fall of spin: changes of fashion in the presentation of UK politics

Spin is the current dominant form of political presentation in the UK. Politics and presentation are inseparable and before the 1980s, political presenters were less aggressive towards and more respectful of journalists as watchdogs of politics. Labour introduced spin as a defensive response to editorial hostility but since New Labour came to terms with Thatcherism, spin has been used for the offensive promotion of policy. Changes in journalism, particularly a blurring treatment of fact and opinion, were an incubatory environment for spin. Moreover, the term became part of lay language and its vocabulary is deployed as a scrutiny of politicians via ridicule and satire. Conceptually, ‘spin’ can be characterised as an exchange or contest between information and publicity, with contingencies influencing where any presentation lies on that continuum. Wherever it falls, spin demeans elected politicians and tends to reduce their status to celebrities. That reduction is a cost too high for privileging presentation over policy and ought to be reversed. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Grassroots practices of citizenship and politicization in the urban: the case of right to the city initiatives in Barcelona

This article aims to produce an analysis of the politicization of the citizens after Spain’s Indignados movement from a citizenship framework. The article suggests that claiming the right to the city involves more than issues of access to urban amenities: it is also about claiming the right to participate in the formation and transformation of the city and the right to appropriate the city center. This positions these rights within the larger issue of citizenship by defining it as a collective practice rather than a state-sanctioned status. Our analysis is based on the empirical evidence derived from the semi-structured interviews, politicians’ speeches, information based on media resources and official websites, and participant observation during three months of fieldwork in Barcelona in 2016.     

The effect of socioeconomic policy and competence messages on populist radical right support: Evidence from a pre-election survey experiment

Does highlighting socioeconomic policy considerations or mainstream parties’ government competence reduce support for populist radical right (PRR) parties? Such “defuse” messages may attract PRR voters without alienating mainstream parties’ core electorate and thus, have advantages over an accommodative strategy. This study tests four “defuse” messages in an original survey experiment on a sample of 1,786 likely PRR voters in the context of the 2017 German federal election. The findings show that potential PRR voters are hardly swayed by these messages. This result is in notable contrast to findings from prior experimental studies about the malleability of PRR support. Exploratory analyses suggest that some of these null findings may mask heterogeneities. Both respondents who were surveyed during the first days of fieldwork and those with less political knowledge responded to some treatments in the expected way. Overall, these findings point to a limited responsiveness of PRR voters to “defuse” messages.     

In The Thick of It: ‘high politics’ and the Holocaust in millennial Britain

ABSTRACT

Over the past twenty years, state-sponsored activities related to the Holocaust have been numerous in Britain. Beginning with the creation of Holocaust Memorial Day at the turn of the millennium, successive governments have followed a policy trajectory that has brought forth a slew of new initiatives and projects related to the Holocaust and its memory. Most recently, this has included the creation of a new national memorial and learning centre, to be housed adjacent to the Palace of Westminster. With cross-party support and the pledge of £50 million of public funds, this lieu de memoire is due to open in January 2020. Conceiving of these activities as exercises in ‘high’ Holocaust politics, Pearce’s article examines the various memory-projects of recent decades and argues they reveal much about millennial Britain and its Holocaust culture. He contends that the nature of these and other initiatives means high Holocaust politics must be subject to continued scrutiny and interrogation.     

Dimensions of political conflict and party positions in multi-level democracies: evidence from the Local Manifesto Project

Partisan conflicts have been frequently analysed in comparative political science research. Yet little is known about the dimensions of political conflict at the local level in multi-level democracies. This article contributes to the literature on the estimation and analysis of party positions by first presenting a new dataset of more than 800 local party manifestos in Germany that allows for a systematic analysis of the dimensions of political conflict at the German local level. Secondly, it is demonstrated that (semi-)automatic content analysis of these texts offers a promising approach for gaining new insights into local party positions. Thirdly, the empirical analysis of German local party manifestos shows that partisan conflicts are not only structured along the left–right dimension but also along a dimension which distinguishes between parties addressing ‘local’ and ‘national’ issues to a varying degree in their manifestos, due to the different behaviour of established and populist parties.     

Journalism ethics and Levinas' Third: interruption in a world of multiple Others

This paper develops a theory of journalism ethics centered on the concept of interruption. Interruption provides a space in which the “Other” can speak; an instance in which those with whom we have no other contact but through news media can disrupt us. While steeped in Levinasian philosophy, the theory of journalism ethics developed here challenges some of its key tenets: unlimited responsibility for the Other and the single passive ethical imperative “interrupt me.” In a world inhabited by a multitude of others, a dogmatic reading of Levinas cannot foster a “community of interruption” in which the news media play a crucial role. Ultimately, to achieve such a community, the “Third” (the Other's other) must be privileged over the Other and the passive ethical imperative requires a complementary active imperative best stated as “let me interrupt!”