Right-Wing Movements

This article aims to tackle the antisemitism vs. Islamophobia debate from a fresh perspective by exploring the complicated attitude of the Czech antisemitic scene to Islam and Muslims. For this purpose, an analysis of the Czech antisemitic cyberspace was undertaken in combination with a qualitative analysis of the particular websites, as well as non-participant observation of the activities of the European Solidarity Front for Syria (ESFS) in the Czech Republic, the latter being established by neo-Nazis, even though it is supported by the radical left as well. The main conclusion is that the discourse of Czech antisemitism on Islam and Muslims is dominated by a clash of two incompatible stereotypes (the Muslim as either the noble warrior or immigrant). On the example of neo-Nazi attitudes towards the Arab Spring, the article further documents the affinity of neo-Nazi and far-right movements towards particular regimes in the Muslim world, namely Syria, Libya and Iran, as well as hostile attitudes with regard to Sunni Gulf monarchies. The research for this article had been performed before the 2015 Migration Crisis in Europe.

(1) Course description Since about two decades, the European 'New Right' (ENR, from French Nouvelle Droite) has gained new ground in the political discourse and among European electorates. Historically speaking, the ENR emerged in response to the 68-movement in France, combining features from social activism with ideas linking back to conservative thinkers in history such as Carl Schmitt, Joseph de Maistre or Edmund Burke. One central concept is that politics is guided by 'meta-politics' (similar to the 'theoretical superstructure' in Marxist thought) and that the new right hence needs to conquer this space by taking control over discourses on philosophy, culture and identity. This course explores the history, rise and contemporary position of the ENR in Europe and offers insights in its ideology as much as its representations. Moving from the historical origins in the writings of chief ideologue Alain Benoist to contemporary European social movements such as 'PEGIDA' in Germany and the pan-European 'Identitarian Movement', this course offers a general overview over the New Right as much as insights from particular case studies. We will discuss how and why the New Right has received increasing momentum and what the implications of this development are for political culture, a radicalization of the mainstream or the mainstreaming of the radical? This course unpacks recent developments in Europe by introducing key definitions and by exploring a number of central themes that are essential for a deeper understanding of the ENR in a number of European countries and cases: 'Retrotopia', Populism, Conspiracism, Radicalization and Gender. These themes are introduced and discussed in consecutive sections of the course and form the basis for continuous assessment and writing tasks.

In fast allen kapitalistischen Ländern des " Westens " befinden sich die alten politischen Systeme in Auflösung. Der Neoliberalismus ist von einer Krise der Repräsentation begleitet: Die Wahlbeteiligung ging fast überall zurück und die unteren Einkommensklassen, die vom Neoliberalismus am meisten betroffen sind, sind immer weniger zur Wahl gegangen. Dies ist auch eine Folge der Neoliberalisierung ihrer traditionellen politischen Verankerung, der sozialdemokratischen Parteien, in den späten 1990er und 2000er Jahren. Der Übergang zu Strategien der inneren Abwertung und die austeritätspolitische Wende von 2010, d.h. die Abkehr von einer Politik der fiskalischen Expansion und die Abwälzung der Kosten der Finanzkrise von 2007 auf die breiten Volksmassen sowie die (Migrations-)Folgen der imperialen Kriege des " Westens " im arabischen Raum, haben diesen Prozess beschleunigt. In Proporzwahlrechtssystemen verlieren allerorten regierende Parteien, die für diese neoliberal-imperiale Politik verantwortlich sind, an Zustimmung; in Mehrheitswahlrechtssystemen wie in den USA oder Großbritannien ist dieser Prozess vergleichbar und vollzieht sich nur versteckt innerhalb der dominanten Parteien, in denen linke und rechte Flügel Oberwasser bekommen. Es ist eine " populistische Situation " mit einer Anti-Establishment-Stimmung entstanden, die von einem rechten und linken sowie einem Populismus der Mitte bespielt wird. Das politische System polarisiert sich mit drei Polen. Mit der Vertrauenskrise der historisch dominanten Parteien und dem Wählerverlust vor allem der alten Sozialdemokratie sind am rechten Rand autoritäre nationalistische Parteien entstanden, die mit rassistischer Demagogie gegen geflüchtete Menschen operieren; auf der linken Seite entwickeln sich mehr oder weniger stark sichtbar linke, solidarisch-inklusive, neosozialdemokratische bis neosozialistische Parteien. Die Bedeutung solcher neuen Staatsmachtprojekte resultiert auch aus der Tatsache, dass die massive Straßenmobilisierung und Generalstreiks in Südeuropa der Austeritätspolitik der Troika nichts anhaben konnten. In innerlich erodierten Mehrheitswahlrechtssystemen war diese Linke mit Jeremy Corbyn in Großbritannien und Bernie Sanders zuletzt am meisten sichtbar und nah an der Regierungsmacht, konnte der rechtsautoritäre Nationalismus mit Trump jedoch auch die alten konservativen Parteien kapern und diese Macht übernehmen. An Trump lässt sich studieren, was diese Kräfte tun (und nicht tun können), wenn sie sie einmal haben.

At about the same time at which the West German anti-authoritarian student movement
started to thrive in the middle of the sixties, a small group of young activists from the
extreme right tried to combine “left” habitual elements with the aspiration to develop a
sophisticated and genuinely “right” political theory, eventually leading to a new, young,
progressive stance beyond allegedly out-dated categorisations like “left” and “right.” The
article examines these self-proclaimed “national revolutionaries” from a praxeological
point of view, arguing that the political extremes are constituted rather habitually than
ideologically.

For the past few years, scientific debates about social mobilization and renewal of citizenship have been focused “on the left side” : Indignados, Nuit Debout, Arab springs, Occupy Wall Street … . Most recently, the rise of some new studies about the far right or populist movements like the Movimento 5 stelle have participated to put the focus on the capacity of this political side to catch these issues of “democracy from below” and turn them into a new right paradigm. Sadly, these studies are frequently and paradoxically locked into a perspective “by the top”, as if these phenomena was mostly a partisan question. Citizen and their movements are regarded, therefore, by the dominant discourses as the social figure of the manipulated far right’s voter, receiving passively the security and anti-migrants discourses, but rarely as active actors.
We will make the hypothesis that, against the so-called “dangerous populations”, a historic segment of the citizenship is gathering nowadays by these discourses. Neither manipulated nor naturally legitimate, we will report from five cases studies of mobilization for the security in Marseille and Naples and how some citizens participate into giving a new meaning of the local spaces and citizenship “from the right side” and “from below”. Using an ethnographic position and multi-materials study, we will analyse their contentious repertoire and participation to the social control dispositive to understand the dialectic between redefinition of the citizenship and these social mobilizations.  Finally, we will contribute to a critical understanding of these “ugly movements” (TARROW, 1994) putted into perspective with the vigilantism’s (PRATTEN and SEN, 2007) practices rising in occidental countries and the contemporary urban democracy (DELLA PORTA, 2004).

The Tea Party Movement (TPM) is often discussed in terms of Americans for Prosperity,
the Republican Party, and other well-funded, national groups. Yet, grounded ethnographic
research reveals vibrant, independent, local organizations, which, while they do draw on
nationally disseminated cultural images and discourses, are far from simple agents of the
larger organizations and media. Relying on eighteen months of fieldwork among eight local
Tea Party groups in central North Carolina, I argue that these small, locally situated groups
are crucial components in the TPM and its effects. Using theoretical concepts from social
movement studies and social practice theory, I analyze the ways personal and Internetbased
social networks, media, and elite organizations are cocreating new political subjects,
and demonstrate the importance of local, face-to-face political organizations in cultivating
and animating these subjects. I suggest that localized political groups are important for
long-lasting political transformations.

Pick-Up-Artists und antifeministischer Männerrechtsaktivismus sind eine bislang zu wenig beachtete Triebkraft neu-rechter Bewegungen. Lag der Fokus von Analysen zur neuen Rechten bisher vor allem auf Rassismus und Migrationsfeindlichkeit, wird jetzt zunehmend deutlich, dass Antifeminismus, Frauenverachtung und maskulistische Ideologien ebenfalls zentral, ja häufig der Ausgang für rechtsnationale Radikalisierung sind.

“Wrapped in the Flag of Israel is an important and provocative book that deserves to be widely read well beyond anthropology. The book has two main contributions. The first is to take us away from the Israel-Palestinian binary … In doing so, the volume provides an analysis of the potential and limitations of forms of identity politics that move beyond the opposition between Arab and Jew, Israeli and Palestinian. The second, major contribution is to add political economy to our understanding of the religiosity of the state… Wrapped in the Flag of Israel is recommended to researchers, postgraduate students, and undergraduates who are interested in Israel/Palestine, political protest, discrimination, and the anthropology of the state.”

On February 19th, 2009 Business news editor Rick Santelli, speaking from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to an early morning CNBC audience, invited “all you capitalists” to a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest the Obama administration’s proposed mortgage bailout program (Tam Cho 2012: 107). Within days, the video of this invitation/tirade went viral and soon enough tea party themed protests began popping up with ever increasing regularity. Out of this rather organic display of citizen discontent, something more coherent began to appear. Politicians, seasoned activists, media personalities, and well-funded interests groups began to coalesce around this impassioned negativity and out of this disparate conglomeration a political and social movement was born (Tam Cho 2012: 107).

The purpose of this paper is not to address the supposed causes of this movement, which I will henceforth simply refer to as the Tea Party. To speak of causes regarding something so large, historically contingent, and singular is to place oneself in an unnecessary theoretical and methodological bind. Instead, what I hope to accomplish is an ontology: a thick description that attempts to pinpoint the very specificity of the movement that would likely be elided by standard causal analyses. In a way, I am hoping to unearth (a bit) the historical conditions that make something like the Tea Party possible, deliberately leaving the necessity of its existence an open question.

For my MA Thesis in Government at IDC, I am studying factors that moderate the relationship between socio-economic strain and Right-Wing Populist RWP) party support to explain why RWP parties are not successful in some states despite socio-economic strain (e.g., Spain) while highly successful in others regardless of any socio-economic strain (e.g., Austria). This is a quantitative analysis from 1990 to 2015 across Europe using country-years as observations and national electoral support for RWP parties as the DV.

Publication information:
Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos
Nouveaux mondes mondes nouveaux - Novo Mundo Mundos Novos - New world New worlds
Colloques | 2016
Las derechas en América latina en el siglo XX: problemas, desafíos y perspectivas – Coord. Ernesto Bohoslavsky y Stéphane Boisard

Die Links/Rechts-Unterscheidung besitzt ihren Ursprung in der Differenzierung zwischen politischen Kräften. In der Geschichte des Marxismus und der sich auf ihn beziehenden sozialen und Arbeiterbewegungen unterliegt sie einer semantischen Verschiebung. Von einem Ausdruck zur Beschreibung "äußerlicher" parlamentarisch-politischer Auseinandersetzungen, so wie Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels sie im Kontext der 1848er-Revolution verwendeten, entwickelte sich die Unterscheidung in fünf Phasen zu einer Identifikation dieser Bewegungen und politischen Kräfte mit dem - sich von der auf die Behauptung von Privilegien und die Legitimation von Ungleichheit abzielenden politischen „Rechten“ abgrenzenden – Begriff „links“. Diese begriffliche Verschiebung ist ein Ausdruck für die Transformation historisch-konkreter „linker“ Politik im geschichtlichen Verlauf, der auch die politische "Rechte" unterliegt.

Critical reflection on Hoggart's legacy, including his relevance to university teaching and also the mediation of British politics in 2014. First published as a news item on the blog of Rowman & Littlefield International after Hoggart's death in April 2014.

Just prior to, and immediately following, the election of Barack Obama for a second term in 2011/12, there were widespread reports of far-right activists stating their intention to leave the United States as exiles, secede from it or create their own nation. In addition to such secessionism and separatism, there has also been a rise in far-right and more ‘mainstream’ right-wing disaster preparedness and survivalism. This far-right secessionism, separatism and survivalism, as well as anti-government enmity, have their origins in the post-civil rights 1970s, as responses to the alleged loss of white supremacy brought about by Civil Rights and perceived need to prepare, adapt to or escape the crisis that this was seen to represent to white Americans. This paper will trace the history of white secessionism, separatism and survivalism on the far right in response to perceived crises in the post-civil rights era, including the Civil Rights Act, Cold War, Millennium, 9/11, election(s) of Obama and current economic crisis. In addition to this, the paper will examine the ways in which such far-right ideologies, discourses and practices concerning threats to whiteness relate to more ‘mainstream’ right-wing ones in which race plays a less overt, but important role.

10 Who Is Mediating the Storm? Right-Wing Alternatite Information Networks Chip Berlet Discordant themes of right-wing political ideology illuminate center siage action as public discourse shifts stage right. The success of the political and religious right in shaping public debates is in ...

In recent years there has been a revival of nativist anti-immigrant nationalism in America, one focused on undocumented Mexican workers. The attention paid to immigration at this time by both anti-immigration activists and the media, creates a misleading image of the nature of American nationalism. While America has a reputation for strong nationalism, there have been relatively few nationwide anti-immigration movements in its history. One of the many reasons for this lies in the fact that the nation was built by and constituted through immigrants, evident in its national history, monuments, identity, self-image and foreign policy. Even the extreme right has focused its enmity primarily on African-Americans, Jews, the left, northern carpetbaggers and the federal government, as opposed to immigrants. In this paper, I will examine the ways in which the American extreme right have identified with and constructed the nation in terms of the place of both ‘whites’ and immigrants in it. I will look briefly at the nativist movements of the mid-19th century and interwar period, the white supremacy of the post-civil war and civil rights era and the white separatism of the post-civil rights era, which is my focus. Following the passing of the Civil Rights Act, many sectors of the extreme right believed that they had lost the nation to other racial and ethnic groups. In response, they not only rejected the white supremacy and nationalism of their predecessors, but  made use of discourses and narratives of immigration, displacement, diaspora and homelessness, to redefine whiteness as ‘other’, identify and establish alliances with European movements and call for the establishment of a white homeland. I will examine how this white ‘otherness’ was constructed in relation to American history, discourses and narratives, and how it fits in with the post-9/11 revival of nativist anti-immigration nationalism.