Extreme Right-wing Parties Research Articles

Immigrant threat, perception of unsafety, and political articulation of immigration and multiculturalism in European countries

A large body of work has examined the relationship between population composition and risk of victimization. Past research has also suggested that the nature of political rhetoric may have profound impacts on perceived threat, fear of crime, and moral panic. This study constitutes the first attempt to examine the relationships between the negative political articulation of both immigration and multiculturalism by extreme right-wing parties and the perception of unsafety risk in European countries. We employ data from the 2018 European Social Survey (ESS), which we merge with data from the Manifesto Project Dataset, a comparative dataset on political statements. The results reveal that individuals who reside in countries with higher levels of negative political articulation of immigration and multiculturalism express greater perceived unsafety. The results also show that higher levels of perceived immigrant threat amplify the relationship between negative political articulation of immigration and perceived unsafety. Finally, news exposure amplifies the effect of the negative political articulation of immigration on the perception of unsafety when perceived immigrant threat is higher. Our findings underscore the importance of the political context and the potential of political elites to shape public perceptions, including the perception of unsafety.

A comparative study of the electoral rhetoric of extreme right-wing parties in Germany and Russia

This article compares the electoral rhetoric of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) parties through the prism of the level of antagonization and the parties’ point of view on topical social issues. Discourse analysis is conducted using discourse frames and blocks, allowing formalizing the comparison between texts in different languages. The sample is based on party videos published online in April — May 2021 in the run-up to the upcoming federal elections in both countries. The LDPR uses more antagonistic rhetoric, especially against Western countries and Ukraine. The AfD uses we to unite its electorate, seeing the German and European establishment as its opponents, as well as organizations with an international agenda, including the Greens and the Antifa movement. Both parties raise important social issues such as immigration, digitalization, political freedoms, and national identity, but differences in emphasis emerge. The AfD is more likely to raise issues of economic freedom for business and the defense of German burgher culture against the leftist agenda, while the LDPR is focused on supporting Russian foreign policy and Russian culture against Western globalism. The authors also emphasize that modern far-right parties support democratic principles. Nationalism remains central to far-right ideology, but it is drifting towards democracy under the influence of sociocultural processes. The study aims to improve understanding of the dynamics of far-right political discourse in Germany and Russia. The theoretical developments allow us to expand the application of discourse analysis of political rhetoric.

Decolonizing Reading Publics, Decompartmentalizing German Studies

This essay focuses on the contemporary German literary public spheres, zooming in on the relation between a republic and its reading public. In the fraught political topography of contemporary Germany, marked by the arrival and eventual acceptance of over one million Syrian refugees since 2015, the rise of the extreme right-wing party Alternatives for Germany, resurgence of discussion on German colonialism in Africa, and extended public debate around the controversial Humboldt Forum in Berlin, the essay centralizes questions of race, colonialism, and migration. Connecting these key terms with current debates on decolonizing and diversifying the literary canon, the essay argues that decolonization is a direction, not a destination; it is a method, not a product, and attempts to decolonize a national literary canon must be conducted in connection with the larger public spheres, indeed by decompartmentalizing the classroom and the society.

Social media, conspiracies, and political partisanship must be accounted for during the pandemic

Abstract Background The infodemic accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic made us aware that many factors not directly associated with the public health system can influence society's adherence to preventive measures. This study aimed to analyze the effects of social media use (SMU), generic conspiracist beliefs (GCB), and political sympathies (PS) on the compliance with general preventive measures (GPM) recommended during the pandemic and uptake of vaccination against COVID-19 (UC19V). Methods Data were obtained during an Internet-based survey performed 1.5 years from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland in a representative sample. The effects of SMU, GCB, and PS on the GPM score (wearing the mask, washing hands, and keeping a distance) were analyzed with multivariable linear regression (MLiR) model. The role of these variables in the UC19V was assessed with the multivariable logistic regression (MLoR) model. For MLiR, B coefficients and 95% confidential intervals (95%CI) were reported, and for MLoR, odds ratio (OR) and 95%CI. Results Among 2189 respondents, those who accepted COVID-19 vaccination were 73.5%. Users of social media were 93.6%. All three independent variables were significantly associated with the GPM score and UC19V. GCB score was adversely associated with UC19V (OR, 95%CI: 0.42; 0.36-0.48) and with the GPM score (B; 95%CI: -0.15; -0.23 - - 0.76). The most intense SM users were less likely to adhere to GPM than non-users (B, 95%CI: -0.20; -0.37 -0.02). They were also 40% less likely to receive vaccination than non-users (OR, 95%CI: 0.59; 0.43-0.81). The extreme right-wing party supporters less frequently complied with GPM (B, 95%CI: -1.01; -1.28 -0.75) and were 50% less likely to get vaccinated than supporters of the ruling party (OR, 95%CI: 0.47; 0.31-0.70). Conclusions The SMU, GCB, and PS remain independent negative predictors of accepting COVID-19 vaccination and adherence to general preventive measures. Key messages • Effective implementation of preventive measures during the pandemic requires incorporating several circumstances outside health and public health systems. • Political sympathies, general conspiracist thinking, and immersion in social media independently decrease compliance with preventive measures and vaccination during epidemic threats.

Language use in 'Loin du Périph': A sociopragmatic study of characters

This study investigates the antagonistic behaviour of Alice –as someone who is in favour of extreme-right wing authority–, who initially conceals her support for the dominance of the extreme right-wing party that espouses white supremacy ideology in her interaction with Ousmane as someone who has affected by racism and discrimination. As film progresses, there is a change in her attitude from being concealed to being openly supportive of the ideology of the right-wing or even far-right party, which does not favour pluralism, immigrants, and non-white people, also known as xenophobia. Regarding Alice's behaviour, all of her speech acts will be analysed using Pragmatics-Sociolinguistics theory. It is hoped that by using Pragmatics-Sociolinguistics theory, the behavior and speech acts of the character Alice can be explained and analyzed.

Antigypsyism in Portugal: Expressions of Hate and Racism in Social Networks

Portuguese Roma/Ciganos face different forms of negative reactions; they are marginalized, live in precarious socio-economic conditions, and are the poorest in Portugal and in the European Union (EU), as shown by the reports of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). Despite national and European strategies, these situations continue, with the proliferation of racist demonstrations and hate crimes, and the growth of extreme right-wing parties. In 2022, the publication of a report by the FRA, regarding the situation of Roma in 10 EU countries (including Portugal), revealed the impact of antigypsyism in the areas of employment, education, health, and housing; these data triggered hate speech on social networks, which happens whenever something about Ciganos is published. A content analysis of the news disseminated by the main Portuguese media (press, TV, Radio) and of the comments on this news was conducted, through qualitative methodology. The results reveal racist hegemonic perspectives towards Ciganos: they depend upon the minimum income, do not contribute economically to the state accounts, and boast luxury goods.

Once More, with Feeling! Digital Campaigns and Emotional Candidacies in X in Andalusia and Castilla y León

In 2022, two regional elections were held that initiated a new electoral cycle in Spain. The first, in February, took place in Castilla y León where, for the first time, the extreme right-wing party, VOX, formed a coalition in a regional government with the right-wing Partido Popular, while, simultaneously, the extreme left-wing party Podemos was barely left with parliamentary representation. The second, in June in Andalusia, led to VOX increasing its representation by two seats and beginning its national level electoral growth; the far-left that was split in two parties, finding that the dynamic that began in Castilla y León also affected them as they lost 10 representatives. This article seeks to compare the emotional strategies of these extremist parties in the 2022 regional elections, focusing especially on leaders’ and parties’ communication strategies on X, formerly Twitter, during the electoral campaign. We expect to find differences between political parties but also between regions. To test this, we carried out an ‘X account content analysis’. We selected those accounts representing the candidates to the regional President and also the main political party accounts in the regions: namely VOX in both regions, Podemos in Castilla y León, and Adelante Andalucía and Por Andalucía in Andalusia.

Displacing the other to unite the nation: The parallel society legislation in Denmark

In 2018, the then right-wing government in Denmark led by Lars Løkke Rasmussen and supported by the extreme right-wing party Danish People’s Party presented new legislation to end ‘parallel societies’ in Denmark by toughening the criminal law, enforcing Danish knowledge and nursery school assistance to toddlers, and, more importantly for this article, a series of urban interventions in ‘ghetto areas’ considered as such mainly when the proportion of immigrants and descendants from non-Western countries exceeded 50 per cent. Until recently research has focused on either the discursive elements of the ‘ghetto politics’ in Denmark or the urban interventions from an architectural or urban planning point of view. However, newfangled research deal with the entwined economic elements. In this article, I compare the different developmental plans proposed in the affected areas because of the legislation, with an aim to reach further and point at the inherent elements of urban b/ordering, that is, measures taken to attain social order and gain legitimacy by demarcating categories of people to incorporate some and exclude others through urban space. Indeed, through this comparison, I conclude that the ghetto legislation is a compelling example of the urban b/ordering inherent to the politics and dynamics of current liberal capitalist social democracies. It is a social experiment that remodels the geography of Denmark in terms that recall the eugenic and hygienic social and urban policies of the 19th century and form part of a worrying pattern that may have consequences that go beyond the stated ones.

Islamophobia and Twitter: The Political Discourse of the Extreme Right in Spain and Its Impact on the Public

This paper analyzes the discourse concerning Islam and Muslims by assessing the extreme right-wing party, Vox, on Twitter. In addition, this paper examines the incidence (impact and reactions) of this party on the users of this social network. The objectives of this study are as follows: to identify themes and topics concerning this discourse; to analyze how the discourse is articulated and represented; and to understand the impact of this discourse by measuring the engagement of the most viral publications. To do so, we observed the publications posted by the party via its official account throughout 2022. The research methodology was based on qualitative and quantitative content analysis, and the publications themselves were monitored to ascertain the level of engagement. The results of this study clearly show that Vox created Islamophobic narratives; thus, Islam and Muslims are explicit targets of Vox’s hate speech. Their rhetoric referred to security threats and threats to national identity, with the recurrent use of the idea that there is a “danger of Islamization” in Spain. The party uses disinformation and hoaxes, and users respond in a polarized way. The results of this study alert us to the worrying levels of radicalization and the normalization of Islamophobic racist discourse in the examined context.

Populism and its impact as a response to illegal immigration: Causes and implications

This study aims to shed light on the phenomenon of populism and its importance in terms of its transformation into an ideology, and to study its manifestations and spread in democratic and non-democratic societies. The study examines the roots and reasons for the return of populism to modern political life.
 Populism is a process of building political opinions and critical intellectual orientations among the general public. This phenomenon is often transformed into ideologically packed mass beliefs with the aim of gaining power.
 Populism appeared in the nineteenth century, and the actual interest in studying it emerged more in the twentieth century, following the rise of political currents and parties in Europe, especially the nationalist and extreme right-wing parties. It came as a means of expressing a political ideology that combines the policies of extremist Right and its rhetoric, through major events such as the US elections, which were the cause of the rise of Donald Trump and the rhetoric of the far-right populist, as well as the exit of Britain from the European Union in protest against the increasing flow of immigration coming from the Middle East and North Africa and increasing suspicions. European countries, and dissatisfaction with the economic policies of the European Union created a large gap within societies, and greatly affected the political, economic and social future of these countries.

دور الحكومة الإسرائيلية في الاستيطان في القدس وتأثيراته على الفلسطينيين 2021-2022م

The Zionist settlement in Jerusalem formed a cornerstone in the agreements of forming the successive Israeli governments, especially those governments that include a right-wing majority. In the summer of 2021 AD, a government was formed in Israel headed by the extreme right-wing party and included in its members parties from the right to the left.
 But this did not hinder the role of this government in building settlements and their infrastructure. Rather, it outperformed its predecessors by the sixteen-month period, which is the age of this government, whose presidency was exchanged by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, as it completed the settlement projects in Jerusalem that it inherited from the Benjamin Netanyahu government. It also approved new settlement projects in all their forms, from housing units to building public facilities and streets, and confiscating lands in and around Jerusalem. The role of this government was characterized by moving settlement projects that were frozen or not completed for political reasons.
 The American and European political discourse towards opposing settlements developed, but this did not prevent the continuation of these settlement activities. This settlement has contributed to affecting the lives of the Palestinian people, the least of which is preventing their population expansion towards the center of the city of Jerusalem, as well as reducing the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state due to its severance through. Despite this, the Palestinian resistance continued in various forms to this settlement.

The 2015 refugee inflow and concerns over immigration

How did the large asylum-seeker inflow to Germany in 2015 affect concerns about immigration? Using individual-level panel data for the years 2012–2018 and a policy that allocates asylum-seekers to districts, I identify the effect of exposure to asylum-seekers. In line with the contact hypothesis, living in a high refugee migration district reduced concerns about immigration by 3 pp. Alternatively, a 1 pp. increase in the share of asylum-seekers in the population reduced these concerns by 3.4 pp. The effect appears larger for right-leaning respondents and is driven by districts that do not host a large reception centre. However, the overall trend indicates that after 2015 concerns about immigration increased by about 21 pp. and support for extreme right-wing parties by about 1.7 pp. These trends show considerable heterogeneity for different demographic groups.

The representation of migrants in Spanish judicial decisions: using corpus data to refute hate speech

The phenomenon of immigration and its depiction in media texts have been examined profusely within the field of corpus-based discourse analysis ( Gabrielatos and Baker, 2008 ; Baker et al., 2013 ; and Blinder and Allen, 2016 ). This research seeks to present it as reflected in a corpus of 600 judicial decisions issued by Spanish courts in the years 2016 and 2017. This analysis was motivated by the rise of extreme right-wing parties in Europe in recent years. Such parties dehumanise immigrants and portray them as a threat to the welfare state. On first examination, the results appear to dissociate immigration and crime since a considerable percentage of the keywords obtained (about 20 percent) revolves around three major topoi (namely, ‘family’, ‘territory/access’ and ‘legal punishment’) and there is no evidence of any major offences or crimes amongst the top-ranking lexicon. The study of the collocate networks of the keywords within the category ‘legal punishment’ confirms our initial perception; in fact, out of twenty-one collocates, only the word delito (‘crime’) itself collocates with terms referring to typified crimes such as violencia (‘violence’). In parallel, the data were triangulated using the text-classification software UMUTextStats ( García-Díaz et al., 2018 ). The results of this second analysis also confirm our initial observations.

Gender labor inequalities in the public sector: the interplay between policy and micro-politics

PurposeThis paper aims to describe and explain women's labor participation in the public sector, particularly at the local level. The paper analyses the representation of women employees in the public sector through a case study of a city council in a mid-sized Spanish city. The authors delve into the extent of gender labor discrimination in public administration, exploring a diversity of situations, experiences, and perceptions of women workers in female, neutral, and male-dominated areas in the local administration.Design/methodology/approachThe authors have applied a combined methodology of quantitative analysis based on an exhaustive analysis of the list of job posts, and qualitative analysis from the narratives of women workers in biographical interviews, in women-dominated, neutral and male-dominated areas.FindingsThe authors conclude by providing a clear description of women's representation in local administration. Despite the institutional efforts in applying gender equality norms and public policies in administration, employment and labor market, this article shows the persistent inequality in employment within the administration. The paper demonstrates that public administrations can be seen as gender regimes that tend to reproduce inequality by formal and informal dynamics. This inequality gender reproduction in a supposedly gender-neutral administration reflects discrimination in a labor market. The paper details phenomena relating to horizontal occupational segregation, glass ceilings, sticky floors, and the undervaluing of women's work, among other phenomena.Practical implicationsThe administration should consider two essential factors that endanger gender equality: (1) the demonstrated regression of gender mainstreaming and the effects on women's employment as a consequence of the crisis, and (2) neoliberal governments and extreme right-wing parties (or neoliberal governments and extreme right-wing parties' support, as is the case with the current Andalusian regional government), whose agenda includes the fight against what neoliberal governments and extreme right-wing parties call “gender ideology”.Social implicationsThe gap between the effectiveness of gender legislation and actual working practices within the administration has been highlighted. This fact should be a wake-up call for the administrations to strictly comply with gender legislation, given that local administrations are the closest to the citizens. Future research should focus on changes to detect any regression and to prevent losing the improvements already achieved, which can still be very much strengthened.Originality/valueThis article helps to fill the gap in the literature on gender discrimination in the labor market, which often omits the public sector, especially in local administration, which is the closest administrative structure to citizenship respecting public policies. The article contributes to highlighting the need for an egalitarian labor market in order to achieve optimal performance, commitment and efficiency in egalitarian labor relations in local administration.

The Italian Right-Wing and the European Integration Process: The Case of the Italian Social Movement

ABSTRACT The main Italian political parties are characterized by different, often diverging, visions of Europe. My article will focus on the right side of the political spectrum, a space in which very different, at times irreconcilable, instances are kept together. Their unifying element can be identified not by chance in a negation, anti-communism, although it too is declined in very different forms. Within this world, the article will deal with the Italian Social Movement (M.S.I), an extreme right-wing party that refers to fascism. The M.S.I. develops a political discourse that is in many ways redundant on Europe, considering it first and foremost a metapolitical entity rather than a historical reality. This discourse, however, developed interdependently with the party’s empathy for the Atlantic and anti-communist side.

Critical analysis of the Russian-Bulgarian political relations based on Far Right Parties 2013-2018

The main subject of this study is the political relations between Bulgaria and Russia, which are based on the extreme right party. In Europe, which has recently been the cradle of democracy, major political changes have begun to take place, and it has been observed that extreme right-wing parties have risen due to the economic crisis. At the same time, the rise of these far-right parties was evaluated as an opportunity by Russia to destabilize the European Union, and the fact that Russia was were already sanctioned by Europe for its bad relations with Ukraine. Since Bulgaria was a satellite of the Soviet Union, Russia has tried to establish a political relationship with that country through the far-right parties by activating its old relations. As a result, Russia has tended to stop the enlargement process of both NATO and the European Union in this way

Politics of discontent in Spain: the case of Vox and the Catalonian independence movement

AbstractSince the return to democracy, the negotiations on decentralisation of policies and decision-making developed with the framework of Comunidades Autónomas had been intended as a way of dealing with the existent tensions between Spanish and regional nationalisms. However, the escalation of the tension between regions reached a new level with the unofficial referendum in Catalonia over potential independence from Spain in October 2017 together with the increase in support for the first time in 40 years for a Spanish extreme right-wing party, VOX. The reasons behind both the support for VOX and the support for Catalonian independence can be linked to the degree of discontent over regional and Spanish nationalistic ideas respectively.

The Globalization Backlash: Exploring New Perspectives

Rising popular discontent with globalization in Europe and the United States has occurred alongside increasing support for extreme right-wing parties, protectionism, and anti-immigrant views. This globalization backlash seems to be contributing to economic globalization’s abatement, especially with respect to trade but increasingly foreign investment, immigration, and participation in international institutions as well. What are the key forces driving these recent events and what are their broader political and institutional consequences? This special issue aims to provide an understanding of some central features of the anti-globalization furor. The studies in this special issue provide fresh insights into the economic factors contributing to the backlash while also addressing how they might interact with cultural forces. It concludes with a discussion of why the globalization backlash has not diffused widely to the developing world.

Political orientation and adherence to social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

Many governments have implemented social distancing and lockdown measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Using province-level geolocation data from Italy, we document that political disbelief can limit government policy effectiveness. Residents in provinces leaning towards extreme right-wing parties show lower rates of compliance with social distancing order. We also find that, during the Italian lockdown, provinces with high protest votes virtually disregarded all social distancing orders. On the contrary, in provinces with higher political support for the current political legislation, we found a higher degree of social distancing compliance. These results are robust to controlling for other factors, including time, geography, local COVID-19 cases and deaths, healthcare hospital beds, and other sociodemographic and economic characteristics. Our research shows that bipartisan support and national responsibility are essential to implement and manage social distancing efficiently. From a broader perspective, our findings suggest that partisan politics and discontent with the political class (i.e., protest voting) might significantly affect human health and the economy.

The role of contextual factors in the electoral resurgence of extreme right-wing forces in Spain: The case of Andalusia

Up until the end of 2018, extreme right-wing parties and their anti-immigration discourse, now a common occurrence in other European countries, had not appeared on the Spanish political scene. However, in December of that year, the Spanish extreme right-wing party VOX reversed this trend and made significant electoral gains in the Andalusian regional elections. This phenomenon has led us to analyse, in this study, the role played by contextual factors (i.e., out-group size, territorial concentration of the immigrant population, demographic change in settlement locations, aggregated educational level and unemployment rate among the receiving society) in the rise in the number of VOX voters. To achieve this, VOX's results from all the polling stations in Andalusia contained in its 5946 census tracts were analysed. At the same time, each census tract was associated with its demographic, economic and educational data, and their relationship was analysed using a multilevel analysis with Mplus. The results show that the presence of economic immigrants is indeed associated with a higher percentage of VOX voters in Andalusia. However, despite this general trend, those census tracts with a high territorial concentration of Maghrebi immigrants are associated with a lower percentage of support for this extreme right-wing party. The opposite is found for Romanian immigrants. Moreover, areas with larger percentages of people with a high level of education influenced greater support for VOX. Thus our findings suggest the traditional explanations for the increased support for extreme right-wing parties in northern Europe do not provide clear patterns that can be extrapolated to Andalusia.