‘Austria First’ revisited: a diachronic cross-sectional analysis of the gender and body politics of the extreme right

ABSTRACT

In this paper, Rheindorf and Wodak provide a discourse-historical analysis of extreme-right cultural politics in Austria, ranging from the blatant racism in the speeches of Vienna’s former Deputy Mayor Johann Gudenus (now MP in the Austrian parliament) to the construction of an idealized national body in the election campaigns of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), its programmatic agenda in handbooks and pamphlets, and the performances of far-right pop singer Andreas Gabalier. Rheindorf and Wodak argue that such cultural politics use a wide spectrum of discursive strategies both inside and outside established party politics and that the accompanying production of an ideal extreme-right subject is informed by nativist ideology. The cross-sectional analysis demonstrates that the cultural politics of the Austrian extreme right ranges from appropriated national symbols to coded National Socialist iconography. These politics pervasively construct a gendered and racialized national body, policed by a ‘strict father’ and nurtured by a ‘self-sacrificing mother’, vis-à-vis an apocalyptic threat scenario identified with migration, intellectual and political elites, cosmopolitanism and progressive gender politics.     

The French secular hypocrisy: the extreme right,the Republic and the battle for hegemony

ABSTRACT

The success of the extreme right in France in the past two decades has not been limited to its electoral rise. A more long-lasting victory has taken place in the ideological field, where the discourse of the extreme right now occupies a prominent place in the mainstream liberal democratic agenda. Increasingly, its ideas are seen in the media and in the platforms of mainstream parties as ‘common sense’ or at least acceptable. The growing acceptance of this ‘common sense’ is the result of very carefully crafted strategies put in place by extreme-right thinkers since the 1980s. For over three decades now, in order to change perceptions and renew extreme right-wing ideology, New Right think tanks such as the French GRECE believed it was necessary to borrow the tactics of the left and, more specifically, the Gramscian concept of hegemony: cultural power must precede political power. With the use of contemporary examples, Mondon's article demonstrates the continuing impact these ideas have had on the Front national and French politics and society, and how this change originated in the association of populist rhetoric with the neo-racist stigmatization of the Other.     

Nation,nature, purity: extreme-right biodiversity in Germany

ABSTRACT

In this article, Forchtner investigates the construction of an ‘ideal’, extreme-right, ecologically sensitive subject. A concern for the natural environment is in no way new to the extreme right, and has long been part of its ideological make-up. In particular, claims that the laws of nature are applicable to the social world and that a community is embedded in an ecosystem have long been features of a right-wing ecological imaginary. Through an analysis of all the articles on a paradigmatic ecological issue, biodiversity, published in Germany’s exemplary extreme-right magazine preoccupied with ecology, Umwelt & Aktiv (Environment & Active), this cultural imaginary is reconstructed. Included in it as key themes are human responsibility for environmental degradation, the ecological value of flora and fauna, and criticism of modernity’s levelling tendencies (both biologically and culturally). Taking responsibility for the community’s Heimat (homeland) is, consequently, a crucial element for this subject: a subject who aims for purity, order and the stability of ecosystems.     

Revitalizing and de-territorializing fascism in the 1950s: the extreme right in France and Italy,and the pan-national (‘European’) imaginary

ABSTRACT

In this article Mammone explores a still relatively neglected story in the history of post-war neo-fascism, notably the attempts by some French and Italian right-wing extremists to revitalize fascist ideology after the war by means of two interconnected strategies, namely, radicalization (rejection of the democratic system) and ‘de-territorialization’ (in the sense of converting narrow fascist nationalism into pan-European nationalism). Mammone describes these project(s), as well as the influence of thinkers such as Julius Evola and Maurice Bardèche, and their location in the wider ideological context of the extreme right in the 1950s. The immediate outcome of this ‘de-territorialized fascism’ was the creation of an extreme-right international association, the Mouvement Social Européen, in which French and Italian activists played a central role. Mammone breaks new ground regarding the non-national dimension of extreme-right thought, a topic too often studied within the boundaries of a given geographical territory and nationalist ideological landscape. By utilizing a transnational framework, he also shows the continuous connections and interactions between the Italian and the French extreme rights.     

The ‘Post-Holocaust Jew’ and the Instrumentalization of Philosemitism

Abstract

Altfelix attempts to examine and explain why xenophiles are politically prone to an ambivalent re-utilization of xenophobic images of the Other. In Germany both ‘the Jew’ and ‘the Ausländer’ have been instrumentalized xenophilically in their capacity as abstract notions by certain system actors and publics in a manner which appears to shed more light on the in-group than the Other. Xenophilia as a self-oriented, positive in-group evaluation may be identified as particularly evident in the post-war German political discourse on the Holocaust. In similar fashion to antisemitism, philosemitism represents an ‘allosemitic’ (Bauman) abstraction of ‘the Jew’, whose evocation is comparable to the idea of a ‘good foreigner’ as expressed in Ausländerfreundlichkeit (foreigner-friendliness). Xenophilia/philosemitism—like xenophobia/antisemitism—is dependent upon a relative opposition between ‘concretized Self’ and ‘abstracted Other’. Altfelix argues that this relationship emerges for two reasons. First, manifestations of xenophilia are generally preceded by bouts of xenophobia. Consequently, some publics may identify a need for creating a positive in-group focus. In this, the Other must not become too concrete for fear of distracting attention away from the xenophile's agenda. Second, the difference between Self and Other must be effectively maintained, since the xenophile's raison d'être depends upon it. Post-war German philosemitism appears to be a good exemplar for this definition of ‘xenophilia’. It demonstrates the dangers of moving within an allosemitic cycle in which difference becomes a method of keeping otherness at bay through abstraction. The fear of a misremembrance of the Holocaust resulting from an abstract memorialization seems to provide a very solid political basis for perpetuating a philosemitic identity construction of ‘the Jew’ as abstracted Other.     

Riots,disasters and racism: impending racial cataclysm and the extreme right in the United States

ABSTRACT

Three events in late 2005—Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans, the Muslim riots in the suburbs of Paris, and the Cronulla ‘uprising’ in Australia—were interpreted by the American extreme right as confirmation of a long-feared impending racial cataclysm. Michael and Mulloy examine analyses of these events from various representatives of the American extreme right. While the mainstream media were often diffident about reporting frankly on the more sensitive implications of these events, this phenomenological approach may provide insight on how various controversial issues—such as immigration, race and multiculturalism—impinge on contemporary American society, culture and politics.     

The Internet,alternative public sphere and political dynamism: Korea's non-gaek * (polemist ) websites

Abstract

This paper explores the development of Korea's online alternative public sphere and illuminates the characteristics of this space, ‘activated’ by non-gaek websites. These websites host highly partisan discourses which are produced and disseminated by a focused political agenda that aims at political reform. Such a method of conducting discourse has led to the dissimilitude of the alternative public sphere, resulting in the birth of a multiplicity of spheres that represent divergent political views. This paper argues that although the overall extent of the alternative public sphere is expanded by non-gaek websites, it is becoming at the same time an exclusive and intolerant space. Furthermore, it is argued that to facilitate functional operation of the alternative public sphere, an institutionalization of rules and norms that can solve such problems is necessary.     

How to stay populist? The Front National and the changing French party system

Abstract

The main aim of this contribution is to assess the relevance of the notion of ‘exclusionary populism’ for the characterisation of the Front National (FN) in France. Since its emergence in the 1970s, several categories or notions have been applied to this political party. Once considered as the resurgence of a traditional extreme right, it has since been classified as a case of a new European right-wing extremism, or as one of the neo-populist parties that obtained electoral successes in the 1990s. The recent evolution of the party has also been described as a sort of ‘normalisation’. Is therefore ‘exclusionary populism’ still a category that can grasp the evolution of the party, as well as its present position in the French party system? To answer this question, this article examines political discourses and various electoral platforms of the Front National to gather some empirical evidence. The argument is twofold: The Front National, despite its ‘dédiabolisation’ strategy, is still a classic populist party characterised by exclusionary populism and a sort of ‘catch-all populism’; its evolution is, however, dependent on the recent evolution of the French party system.     

Theory and Concept Development in Political Marketing

Abstract

In this article we argue that the state of theory and concept development in political marketing needs to be related to several epistemological as well as topical themes and issues. Seven meta-theoretical issues are discussed with regard to current theoretical position of political marketing research and some initial recommendations are made on how these issues can be developed further. The second part of the article focuses on topical aspects of theory and concept development in political marketing and highlights nine themes for further research. These themes of political marketing are singled out because of their characteristics which show them to be significantly distinct from commercial marketing practice, and therefore need more careful modelling in concepts and theories of political marketing.     

Extreme-right Parties in Eastern Europe

Abstract

From the moment the Berlin Wall came down scholars and politicians around the world expressed concern about an upsurge of extreme-right politics in Eastern Europe. Dramatic events like the Yugoslav conflict and even the so-called ‘velvet split’ of Czechoslovakia only strengthened this fear. Despite these many general warnings about the rise of extreme right parties (ERPs) in Eastern Europe very little empirical work has appeared on the subject. Mudde's article provides an analytical tool which will help to further understanding of the extreme right in the region. It presents and applies a fairly straightforward typology of ERPs in Eastern Europe based on the (ideological) character of the parties. The pre-Communist ERP locates the origin of its ideological identity in political parties and ideas of the pre-Communist period, generally harking back to national-conservative, monarchist, or indigenous or foreign fascist ideals. The character of the party might be expressed in the open espousal of pre-Communist ideas or by using the associated ‘folklore’, while in some cases there might even be continuity in personnel or organizations (often through the émigré community). With the notable exceptions of Croatia and Slovakia, pre-Communist ERPs have remained marginal in post-Communist political life. The Communist ERP looks for ideological inspiration in the Communist period and includes nationalist splits of the (former) Communist parties as well as new parties that combine a nationalist ideology with a nostalgia for Communist rule. They are mainly successful in countries where the Communist regime had a strong nationalist undercurrent and the party is still in the hands of hardliners (e.g. Romania and Russia). Post-Communist ERPs, finally, locate the source of their identities in the post-Communist period: these organizations are new and their focus is on current political issues. They harbour no feelings of nostalgia, either for the pre-Communist or the Communist period. Post-Communist ERPS have developed in most East European countries but, although some have achieved remarkable electoral successes, in general they have been only moderately successful (similar to ERPs in Western Europe).     

CasaPound Italia’s cultural imaginary

ABSTRACT

CasaPound Italia (CPI) is an Italian extreme-right movement. It has its headquarters in Rome but the movement has branches in other northern and southern cities. Members of CPI define themselves as ‘Fascists of the Third Millennium’. Bulli’s article focuses on the mix of cultural imaginaries that the organization offers to its members and sympathizers as well as for public consumption. The movement is able to function at different levels of political mobilization—and to recruit members by presenting a targeted set of incentives designed to engage them politically—which include various forms of cultural identification. All these levels are linked by a common idealized subjectivity that brings together classic elements of historic Fascism, including cultural references to the ‘speed of action’ typical of Futurism, with an overcoming of the party-centred post-Fascist Italian political subculture. Bulli’s article emphasizes CPI’s strategic construction of a multifaceted cultural imaginary in which language, communication and codes of conduct play a role comparable to values and ideology.     

Vom Rand in die Mitte – „Schamlose Normalisierung“

In this paper, I discuss the swing to the (far-)right in (Austrian) party politics during the election campaign and national election on October 15, 2017. This transformation is caused, I claim, by a process of normalisation, an accommodation to the, sometimes also extreme-right, agenda of formerly right-wing populist parties such as the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). The election campaign of both the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the FPÖ focussed primarily on migration and refugee politics, based on a politics of fear and resentment. After first attempting to define the phenomenon of right-wing populism, I trace how tabooed and extreme right contents slowly became acceptable, as soon as the ÖVP shamelessly integrated some (not all) aspects of the FPÖ’s election program.     

Why Right‐Leaning Populism has Grown in the Most Advanced Liberal Democracies of Europe

Immigration and new class divisions, combined with a growing anti‐elitism and political correctness, are often used as explanations for the strong gains for right‐leaning populist parties in national elections across Europe in recent years. But contrary to what we might assume, such parties have been very successful in the most developed and comprehensive welfare states, in nations—such as the Nordic countries—with the best scores on economic equality and social inclusion and long established political and judicial institutions enjoying a high degree of popular legitimacy. As argued in this article, this seems to happen because a duopoly of the centre‐left and centre‐right political establishment has kept issues such as immigration and new class divisions off the public agenda and hence paved the way for right‐leaning ‘disruptor’ populist parties with an anti‐immigration agenda in times of increasing immigration.     

The (im)plausibility of racism in Europe: policy frameworks on discrimination and integration

ABSTRACT

Rodríguez Maeso and Araújo analyse the reproduction of a dominant understanding of racism in policy discourses of integration and discrimination used by monitoring agencies in Portuguese and European Union (EU) institutional contexts. More specifically, they question the political concern over racism and discrimination vis-à-vis the idea of Europe ‘becoming increasingly diverse’ and the need to gather ‘evidence’ of discrimination. To that end, they examine periodic reports issued by EU monitoring agencies since the 1990s—paying specific attention to reporting on school segregation of Roma pupils in Portugal—and national integration policies and initiatives that, since the 2000s, have targeted mainly Roma and black families and youth. They argue that the dominant discourse of integration and cultural diversity conceives of racism as external to European political culture, and as a ‘factor’ of the ‘conflictive nature’ of social interactions in ethnoracially heterogeneous settings. This paves the way for calls for the ‘strengthening of social cohesion’—on the assumption that policy initiatives need to act on the ‘characteristics’ of so-called ‘vulnerable’ populations—whereas institutional arrangements and everyday practices remain unchallenged.     

Women's interpretations of the right to legal abortion in Mexico City: citizenship,experience and clientelism

In April 2007, after a period of intense social debate, the Mexico City Legal Assembly legalized abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, which was an unprecedented development in women's rights in Mexico. Within the context of a proliferation of public discourses about women's citizenship rights changes in women's social status in Mexico, this article explores the extent to which the newly legalized character of abortion is interpreted by women as a right. Drawing on 24 interviews with women who had a legal termination of pregnancy between 2008 and 2009, this research shows that legalization opens up new and complex relationships between women as subjects of rights and the state. Such relationships are expressed as three discursive figures: legal abortion (1) as a concession from the government, (2) as ‘excessive’ tolerance by the state, and (3) as a right to be protected and guaranteed. The analysis shows that women's interpretations of the right to legal abortion are mediated by profound transformations, which Mexican society is currently undergoing. These include changes related to a shift from a clientist political culture to one more framed in terms of citizenship, the subjective effects of family planning policies, and their ambivalent relationships with Catholic notions of women and motherhood, and the effects of feminist discourses of women's citizenship, abortion, and reproductive rights.     

The Ties that Bind? Intra-party Information Exchanges of German MPs in EU Multi-level Politics

As political authority is successively transferred from the national to the EU level, national parliaments are often considered to lose control over the domestic political agenda. Yet recent studies suggest that national parliaments cannot simply be labelled ‘losers’ of European integration. National parliaments have institutionally adapted to the EU in order to better scrutinise and control their governments in EU affairs. While existing research shows how parliaments employ their institutional opportunities to exercise scrutiny in the national arena, this paper suggests that MPs also employ informal strategies to obtain information on EU affairs to control and influence their governments. It argues that MPs primarily act through political parties, which are viewed here as multi-level organisations, and make use of their partisan ties to regional, transnational and supranational party actors to obtain information on EU issues. The article probes this argument by drawing on original data obtained through a survey of German MPs in 2009.     

The Triumph of Loyalty Over Competence: The Bush Administration and the Exhaustion of the Politicized Presidency

The most important administrative aspect of the George W. Bush presidency was not its formal management reform agenda, but its attempt to extend the politicized presidency. Efforts to assert tighter political control of the federal bureaucracy, revived during the Ronald Reagan administration, were pursued to an extreme under Bush. Loyalty triumphed over competence in selection, and political goals displaced rationality in decision making. However, the strategy of politicization undermined the Bush administration’s own policy goals as well as its broader agenda to restore the strength of the institutional presidency. This apparent failure of strategy signals the urgent necessity for a fundamental reconsideration of the politicized presidency.     

Anti-globalization: The Global Fight for Local Autonomy

This paper examines one of the less-discussed modes of anti-globalization, relocalization or local autonomy. It describes a range of autonomous movements, summarizes their political economic ideas, and discusses some common social critiques raised in regard to local autonomy.     

Transnationalism and the French Nouvelle Droite

ABSTRACT

Born in 1968, the French Nouvelle Droite (ND) is a ‘cultural school of thought’. It created a sophisticated European-wide political culture of the revolutionary right in an anti-fascist age; it helped to nurture the discourse of ‘political correctness’ among extreme right-wing political parties, and turned former French ultra-nationalists into pan-Europeanists seeking to smash the egalitarian heritage of 1789. Bar-On argues that the ND world-view has been shaped by transnational influences and that the ND has, in turn, shaped a decidedly more right-wing political culture in Europe in a transnational spirit. The transnational impact of ND ideas is a product of three key factors: first, the intellectual output and prestige of ND leader Alain de Benoist; second, the ‘right-wing Gramscianism’ of the ND's pan-European project that mimicked earlier attempts to unite interwar fascists and post-war neo-fascists into the revolutionary right; and, finally, the political space opened up by the decline of the European left after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Bar-On concludes by considering the influence of the ND on contemporary European politics, as well as the implications for the struggles against racism and the extreme right.     

The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market

We propose a framework for understanding how the Internet has affected the U.S. political news market. The framework is driven by the lower cost of production for online news and consumers' tendency to seek out media that conform to their own beliefs. The framework predicts that consumers of Internet news sources should hold more extreme political views and be interested in more diverse political issues than those who solely consume mainstream television news. We test these predictions using two large datasets with questions about news exposure and political views. Generally speaking, we find that consumers of generally left‐of‐center (right‐of‐center) cable news sources who combine their cable news viewing with online sources are more liberal (conservative) than those who do not. We also find that those who use online news content are more likely than those who consume only television news content to be interested in niche political issues.