Who's afraid of …?

Abstract

The Other lies at the heart of radical right politics, and for the radical right, which understands the world in terms of struggle, in terms of “us” versus “them,” the Other is translated into “the Enemy.” (Ramet 1999b: 4) Introduction Identity politics, of which the populist radical right is (just) one form, is always based upon an “us–them” distinction. To construct the native identity, one needs to delineate the boundaries with other identities, i.e. those of the nonnatives. In other words, to construct the ingroup (“us”) one needs to construct the outgoup(s) (“them”). This process of ingroup–outgroup differentiation, which social psychologists and others have described as standard behavior in identity building (e.g. Brewer 1999; Tajfel 1982), has been said to be even more crucial to the populist radical right than to other actors engaged in identity politics (e.g. Geden 2005; Pelinka 2005). Within the literature, various scholars have pointed out the dissimilarities between the ways the populist radical right differentiates between ingroup and outgroup(s) and the process of identity construction among, for example, Greens or gay and lesbian activists. First, populist radical rightists are believed to hold a Manichaean worldview: the world is divided into “good” and “bad” (e.g. Eatwell 2000; Ramet 1999b). Indeed, one of the key characteristics of populism is the dominance of morality (e.g. Mudde 2004; Taggart 2000). Consequently, the “us–them” division is transformed into a Schmittian friend–foe distinction in which the “Other” is demonized (e.g. Abts & Rummens 2005; Mouffe 1995; Gessenharter 1991).