Counter-Creativity: Innovative Ways To Counter Far-Right Communication Tactics

Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft
Julia Ebner
Counter-Creativity: Innovative Ways to Counter Far-
Right Communication Tactics
2019
https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/12382
Veröffentlichungsversion / published version

Sammelbandbeitrag / collection article
Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation:

Ebner, Julia: Counter-Creativity: Innovative Ways to Counter Far-Right Communication Tactics. In: Maik Fielitz, Nick
Thurston (Hg.): Post-Digital Cultures of the Far Right: Online Actions and Offline Consequences in Europe and the US.
Bielefeld: transcript 2019, S. 169–181. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/12382.
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https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839446706-012
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Counter-Creativity
Innovative Ways to Counter
Far-Right Communication Tactics
Julia Ebner
“The left can’t meme”, is a common saying among the Alt-Right. Far-right
efforts to mock the political correctness of the liberal left – who they call
“libtards”1 – and ridicule the conservative mainstream – in their words,
“cuckservatives”2 – have relied on transgressive jokes and funny visuals.
In an unexpectedly inventive fashion, the far right has pioneered a new
wave of taboo-breaking and controlled provocation, which they call ‘trig-
gering’. “We use the tactics of the left against them”, many of them would
say. Ironically taking inspiration from the civil rights youth revolts, their
biggest scapegoat for everything they deem wrong in today’s society, the
far right has been imitating 1960’s counter-culture strategies to protest
against establishment politics. Their focus on lifestyle, youth culture and
the arts can be seen as an attempt to reach the critical mass needed for
any counterculture movement: in their case, this paradoxically takes the
shape of a globalized counterculture that is opposed to ‘globalism’, and
uses modern communication tools to spread anti-modern ideas.
While one can argue whether offensive Pepe the Frog memes (the
symbol co-opted by the Alt-Right) and racist Synthwave tracks (the favo-
rite music genre of white nationalists) qualify as art, it is self-evident that
this new far-right counter-culture has successfully galvanized young peo-
ple worldwide into supporting often openly racist and dangerous groups.
1 | “Libtard” is a derogatory term used by the Alt-Right – combining the words

liberal and retard – to describe left-leaning liberals.
2 | “Cuckservative” is a derogatory term used by the Alt-Right – combining the
words cuckold and conservative – to describe center-right conservatives.
170 Julia Ebner
Has their offer for a collective identity that rejects the political, econom-
ic and societal status quo been sexier, faster and more innovative than
the voices trying to counter it? Many counterspeech efforts against the
Alt-Right have been declared ineffective or even counter-productive. Two
major stumbling blocks for those of us who care about countering the
far-right’s growth have been our limited understanding of emerging sub-
cultures on the internet coupled with a lack of creative and proactive ap-
proaches. Researchers, artists and concerned citizens can play a huge role
in filling these gaps.
This chapter will outline a strategy to replace, optimize and comple-
ment current approaches to prevent, disrupt and counter online far-right
activities. First, it will analyze the set of post-digital tactics employed by
the far right when targeting different audiences and assess its current
comparative advantages. In a next step, it will then suggest solutions to
counter far-right post-internet campaigns, drawing on insights from re-
search and evaluation projects that measured the effectiveness of different
counter speech and interruption approaches. Furthermore, it will discuss
a range of novel, experimental approaches that could potentially add to
the range of current attempts being made to counter far-right activities in
cyberspace.
F raming the C hallenge

Over the past few years, far-right actors have been successful at exploit-
ing windows of opportunity offered by the emergence of new media eco-
systems and the novel interconnected information and communication
cycles they afford. More specifically, they have leveraged the digital space
for three different types of campaigns to reach their key audiences: ra-
dicalization campaigns targeting sympathizers, manipulation campaigns
targeting the mainstream, and intimidation campaigns targeting political
opponents.
Radicalization campaigns aimed at sympathizers involve the sophis-
ticated use of micro-targeting, the hijacking of youth culture and the ex-
ploitation of tabooed and under-addressed grievances, fears and identity
crises, which have enabled far-right actors to lure vulnerable internet us-
ers into their networks. Andrew Anglin, founder of the world’s biggest
neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, which is now banned across the world,
Counter-Creativity 171
has pioneered some of these tactics. By using troll armies and far-right
influencers with large followerships as mouthpieces, Anglin has managed
to inject his propaganda pieces into mainstream social media channels.
His antisemitic conspiracy theories and neo-Nazi ideologies often come
under the disguise of satire and transgressive internet culture (O’Brien
2017; Feinberg 2017; Marantz 2017).
Increasingly, far-right groups have learnt to segment their audienc-
es, using micro-targeting tactics and tailoring their language to the dif-
ferent sub-cultures they want to reach. For example, the organizers of the
white supremacist Charlottesville protest used entirely different sets of
memes3 and propaganda pieces for the different communication channels
they targeted. Their rally trailers on fringe neo-Nazi websites and forums
were much more explicitly racist and antisemitic than their propaganda
contents on Twitter and Facebook. While the former featured Swastikas
and called for the annihilation of Jews, the latter focused on topics such
as freedom of speech and Southern heritage and addressed fears of immi-
gration and the loss of cultural identity. The aim of these hyper-targeted
campaigns was to appeal to different online communities along the far-
right ideological spectrum and eventually ‘unite the right’ on the basis of
their lowest common denominators (Davey/Ebner 2017).
Manipulation campaigns aimed at the ‘greyzones’ involve the creation,
planting and dissemination of disinformation and the use of psy-ops style
online campaigns, which have allowed far-right actors to influence main-
stream discussions. Manuals circulated in American Alt-Right networks
and their European equivalents include detailed instructions on how to
‘redpill the normies’ – a euphemism for hacking the minds of average
users. Their strategy documents include guidelines on how to initiate con-
versations, build trust, exploit common grievances and tailor the language
to the person they seek to bring closer to their ideologies. Generation Iden-
tity highlights that family members and friends might be the easiest tar-
get groups to start with (Generation D. 2017). The New Right Network has
even hosted tutorials on Youtube, explaining step by step how to “redpill
your girlfriend/wife”.4
3 | Memes are graphics of visual and textual remixes shared and widely distri-
buted in online spaces.
4 | New Right Network (2018): “How to Red-Pill your Woman/Girlfriend/Wife or ANY
woman PARTII”, 26 June 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdv1yDJfH_g).
172 Julia Ebner
Manipulation campaigns seeking to provoke the ‘greyzones’ to pick a

side have become a particular priority for the international Alt-Right in
the run-up to elections. ‘Strategic polarization’ is a concept the far right
uses to deliberately sow discord, divide communities and spread binary
world views. Its goal is to force the moderate middle to choose a side in
order to expand the influence of the political fringes. At the Institute for
Strategic Dialogue (ISD), we have monitored far-right trolling armies who
sought to influence the elections in favor of far-right populist parties in
the US, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden and found that the tactics
they employed, their language and media ecosystems all followed roughly
the same pattern (see graphic below). The campaigns usually start with
Alt-Right users trying to mobilize and recruit sympathizers on messaging
platforms such as 4chan and 8chan in English. Their next step has been
to shift those conversations into encrypted applications such as Telegram
and Discord, where they collect materials in the local language and plan
campaigns that they can then launch on mainstream social media plat-
forms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Their aim is to shape the
online discourse, set the agenda for discussions and put pressure on pol-
iticians to ultimately persuade the mainstream to support their parties of
choice (Ebner/Davey 2018).
Author‘s visualization of far-right online influence ecosystems.

Intimidation campaigns aimed at opponents involve trolling and coordi-

nated hate campaigns have enabled far-right actors to harass, silence and
publicly discredit critical voices and political opponents including jour-
nalists, activists and politicians (Kreißel et al. 2018). Doxxing has been
a particularly popular tactic among Alt-Right actors who want to take re-
venge on individuals who openly criticized them or simply don not share
their opinions. The Crash Override Network, an organization made up of
former cyber-bullying victims, defines doxxing as “a common first-stage
tactic of mobs of anonymous online groups looking to intimidate you and
start digging up information on your life”.5 Campaigns that involve the
leaking of an individual’s address and phone number, do not just fuel on-
line hate but also increase the likelihood that these people are attacked in
real life. In the US, activists, journalists and even academics have become
increasingly frequent targets of doxing campaigns and cyber-harassment.
At least 250 university professors reportedly became victims of right-wing
online campaigns between early 2017 and mid-2018 (Kamenetz 2018). For
example, Joshua Cuevas, a psychology professor at the University of North
Georgia received racist and threatening private messages and was target-
ed in a sophisticated public doxxing campaign for his liberal leanings.
“Those of us in higher education increasingly find ourselves the target
of hostilities” (Cuevas 2018), he reflected in a firsthand account for the
American Association of University Professors.
Ultimately, all three types of campaigns – radicalization, manipulation
and intimidation – are designed to maximize the far right’s online and of-
fline influence by provoking overreactions on a political and societal level,
which can set in motion profound systemic change.
The far right currently holds a number of comparative advantages in
the realm of strategic communications: First of all, its campaigns have
benefitted from the significant time lag in the responses given by policy
makers, tech firms and civil society. Not only were the prevention and
countering efforts often reactive but they also tended to be inward-look-
ing and generic. Far-right activists are currently ahead of those trying to
counter their activities on at least three levels: they have been better at
5 | Crash Override (2018): Preventing Doxing: “A Primer on Removing your Per-

sonal Information from the most Commonly Exploited Places”, (http://www.cra
shoverridenetwork.com/preventingdoxing.html).
174 Julia Ebner
exploiting new technologies, at fostering international ties and synergies,

and at appealing to young audiences.
Far-right extremists, as early adopters of new technology, have been
particularly apt at spotting and exploiting infrastructural loopholes and
socio-psychological weaknesses that social media have unleashed within
our societies. By coordinating slick campaigns in encrypted channels and
then propagating these on mainstream social media platforms, far-right
groups have managed to conquer entire online spaces, leveraging the tra-
ditional media’s growing pressure to compete for clicks and baits with
their faster online counterparts (Kreißel et al. 2018).
Yet, far-right extremist efforts and effects are by no means limited to
cyberspace. Many fringe groups have built powerful online-offline hybrid
strategies to maximize their real-world impact. By sharing knowledge and
experience across borders, far-right movements in Europe and the US
have been able to learn from each other. “We’ve mastered the online ac-
tivism, you’ve mastered the in-real-life activism”, said American far-right
activist Brittany Pettibone in a filmed conversation with European Identi-
tiarian figurehead Martin Sellner in 2017 (Sellner 2017).
The pan-European white nationalist group Generation Identity as well
as American Alt-Right influencers frequently stage carefully planned
media stunts on the street, which they then livestream to social media
(Hentges et al. 2014). By combining sharable – often shocking – contents
with credible messengers – often charismatic influencers with massive
followerships – their slick social media campaigns are easily turned vi-
ral. The result is a wide online reach that goes beyond their own fanbase,
which in turn forces traditional news outlets to report about them. This
is particularly true once a tipping point is reached, where fringe groups
make hashtags and their content trends in numbers significantly large
enough to penetrate mainstream audiences (Philips 2018).
The creation of transnational and cross-ideological alliances, and ex-
ploitation of international synergies, are a second area where the far right
seem to have gained a ‘first mover’ advantage. Over the past few years
the phenomenon of “networked nationalism” (Donovan et al. 2018) has
become a growing aspect of far-right movements. Increasingly, far-right
groups and actors put aside ideological differences and historic sources
of in-fighting. For instance, the Defend Europe mission in the summer
of 2017, which sought to prevent NGOs from rescuing drowning refugees
in the Mediterranean Sea, received social media support and donations
from across the world (Davey/Ebner 2017). Cases such as the Defend Eu-
rope campaign, the Charlottesville rally and multi-group mobilisiations
in the run-up to elections, are examples of such explicit efforts to cross
borders and overcome ideological differences for the sake of maximizing
collective impact. To act as agents of change they opportunistically join
forces, focusing on the lowest common denominator: their shared ene-
mies and their shared goals. These are most commonly their aversion to
multiculturalism, their opposition to ‘establishment’ politics, their hatred
of the left, and their fear that cultural-ethnic identity is being eroded. All
three, and others, have become a bridge that has brought together far-right
groups who traditionally did not cooperate.
The targeting of young people through the creation of counter-culture
movements and the use of gamification in their communication and re-
cruiting strategies have given far-right activists a third advantage. “Politics
is downstream from culture. I want to change the cultural narrative”, said
Andrew Breitbart, the creator of the website that has become the premier
source of information and commentary for today’s far right (Poniewozig
2012). Based on Breitbart’s philosophy of changing politics by altering
culture, far-right movements and influencers have placed their bets on
developing a strategy that has the potential to bring about drastic attitu-
dinal and behavioral changes within large sections of society. In their
positioning against the political establishment and in satirical fashion
their messaging has resonated well with a range of sub-cultures such as
online gamers, anti-feminists and conspiracy theorists who now coalesce
around common themes, grievances and online meeting points. The de-
velopment of a shared set of insider jokes, references and even a common
playbook for online campaigns has created a strong sense of in- and out-
group thinking.
The online far-right’s successes in reaching young digital natives have
been particularly striking. Their use of computer game references, anti-es-
tablishment rhetoric and exciting counter-culture activities has allowed
them to appeal to large proportions of Generation Z and the millennials.
By hiding racial slurs behind funny memes and jokes, and by replacing
traditional swastika-ridden attire with cool jeans and Ray Ban sunglasses,
the far right has increasingly polished its image among younger genera-
tions.
176 Julia Ebner
D e veloping the R esponse

An international framework to protect those targeted by radicalization,
manipulation and intimidation campaigns should be based on a collabo-
rative, integrated approach that builds on the following pillars: Predicting
the trends, understanding the audiences, building an anti-hate coalition,
and testing new intervention approaches.
Many of the response systems in place have been too slow to be effective
as a result of a failure to predict new trends in the use of new technology
and communication strategies by far-right activists. Research is needed to
understand the emerging new media ecosystems, their internal dynamics
as well as their influence on mainstream platforms. Over the last couple
of years, far-right campaigners have increasingly moved their operations
to so-called ‘Alt-Tech platforms’ (see Donovan et al. in this book), reacting
to the introduction of stricter anti-hate speech measures across major Sili-
con Valley companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google. Alt-Tech safe ha-
vens for far-right extremists include, for instance, Alt-Right social media
like Gab and Minds, the far-right’s Youtube equivalent Pewtube, and the
white supremacist crowdsourcing website Hatreon. These virtual migra-
tion streams demonstrate that a static, linear perspective will fail to reflect
the changes in the fast-paced online universe of far-right extremists. It is
therefore necessary to look at how different platforms interact with each
other and are used as part of an information and communication ecosys-
tem that runs in parallel to that of the political mainstream.
Some of the measures undertaken to prevent or disrupt far-right mobi-
lization proved ineffective or even counter-productive due to an insufficient
understanding of the far-right’s support base, its key target audiences and
the characteristics of their various sub-cultures. Furthermore, neglecting
the high degree of interconnectedness among far-right networks can re-
strict the desired effect of counterspeech campaigns or even backfire.
A case in point is the #MoreThanARefugee video, which told the sto-
ries of individuals who had to flee their countries and was featured on
Youtube Spotlight in June 2017 as part of the Creators for Change initia-
tive. The campaign focused on maximizing its visibility and reach among
a general audience but experienced a significant backlash from far-right
communities on 4chan and Reddit, who launched a so-called ‘dislike raid’
on a massive scale. Their reframing and mockery of the original message
allowed them to spread their campaign on Twitter, where they were able
to encourage even moderate users to participate. A month after #More-

ThanARefugee was published, the video counted over 450,000 dislikes,
compared to just 144,000 likes. The vast majority of its 80,000 comments
were negative or contained hateful speech and threatening language. For
example, ISD’s analysis of a sample of 239 of the 80,000 comments re-
vealed that just 4 percent held positive sentiment.
Raids like these expose the need to significantly step up our efforts
to comprehend how far-right subcultures take shape in online spaces,
as well as their grievances, language, insider jokes and reference points.
Only a handful of institutes are currently focused on the far-right’s use
of new media. For example, MIT’s Center for Civic Media, the Oxford
Internet Institute and Data & Society Foundation have released seminal
studies that can lay the foundation for further research. The University of
Amsterdam’s Alt-Right Open Intelligence Initiative has released the first
comprehensive taxonomy of trolls and far-right online communities. Us-
ing Google’s BigQuery Tool, the researchers conducted a linguistic anal-
ysis of 3 billion Reddit comments.6 Likewise, scholars at University Col-
lege London have developed a way to measure how memes spread across
the web and have identified the most influential groups in the creation
and dissemination of memetic contents. Their study shows how far-right
actors have weaponized neutral memes such as Pepe the Frog to spread
politically loaded, racist and antisemitic messages.7
However, online sub-cultures and different parts of the online far-
right networks remain underexplored. Their audiences are often mis-
understood by outsider commentators. Only by studying their narratives
and language can we get to the core of their motivations, ideologies and
identity perceptions. These insights could then serve as a basis to develop
adequate intervention approaches to debunk, discredit and counter their
messages.
The creation of a global multi-agent coalition against far-right cam-
paigns in the digital space could be the starting point for coordinating
6 | Alt-Right Open Intelligence Initiative (2017): “Mapping the Alt-Right: US Alter-

native Right across the Atlantic ”, 18 July 2017 (https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/
Dmi/AltRightOpenIntelligenceInitiative).
7 | MIT Technology Review (2018): “ This is where Internet Memes Come from”, 11
June 2018 (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611332/this-is-where-inter
net-memes-come-from/).
178 Julia Ebner
such intervention efforts, as well as a massive step towards reducing the

comparative advantages held by the far right. The goal should be to foster
closer cooperation between researchers, policymakers, the private sector
and civil society. Concerted efforts led by stakeholders on all levels could
help to develop and scale novel approaches to prevent, disrupt and counter
far-right campaigns.
Ideally, an integrated intervention model would combine proactive
counterspeech and rapid reaction systems that make use of internation-
al, cross-sector synergies and explore innovative methods for audience
analysis, segmentation and micro-targeting. The development of counter-
speech or disruption campaigns should be based on in-depth research of
the new trends and the target audiences. The first step in the development
of effective response mechanisms is audience segmentation. Once the dif-
ferent sub-audiences as well as their preferred communication medium
have been identified, messages that use credible messengers should be
tailored to the different specifics of the different sub-cultures then tested
across different platforms (Tuck/Silverman 2016).8
Most counterspeech and intervention approaches do come with a cer-
tain degree of risk. For example, harmful side effects may include causing
unintended exposure to extremist propaganda, provoking negative be-
lief reinforcement, setting off cumulative extremism dynamics, or trig-
gering a backlash from fringe communities as in the case of the #More-
ThanARefugee dislike raid. ISD has developed a risk framework that can
serve as a guide to categorize and minimize many of these problems.
Building resilience, raising awareness and offering hate aid can reduce
the risks associated with anti-hate-speech campaigns. The Online Civil
Courage Initiative, which ISD founded in cooperation with Facebook, or
networks such as the German organization das NETTZ, can help to con-
nect and empower young activists and NGOs and offer advice and safety
nets to those that are at risk of receiving abuse as a result of their anti-hate
campaigns.
Although risk mitigation is important, it should not prevent interven-
tion providers from taking entirely novel approaches. The self-imposed
limits of counter-speech should be reconsidered, and new prevention and
8 | RAN (2017): “RAN Guidelines for Effective Alternative and Counter-Narrative

Campaigns”, (https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/docs/
pages/201702_ran_how_to_measure_impact_of_online_campaign_en.pdf).
disruption approaches tested as a process of constant improvement. Initia-

tives such as #ichbinhier, an anti-hate community that counters coordinat-
ed trolling and hateful commentary on Facebook, and the No Hatespeech
Movement, a campaign that mobilizes young people to speak up against
hate speech, are excellent examples for new models that have effectively
disrupted and reduced online far-right activities. Counterspeech needs to
become more dynamic, more innovative and bolder to reach some of the
obscure and self-absorbed internet cultures as well as those in the grey-
zones. Our future efforts need to be:
• Dynamic: Involving both proactive communication and rapid respon-

se systems to react to spontaneous far-right campaigns. Pro-active
efforts need a significantly more nuanced method of choosing their
messages, messengers and medium based on the target audience that
the campaign seeks to reach. On the other hand, rapid ad-hoc interven-
tions require the pooling of resources and linking of networks, so that
these can quickly be leveraged and adapted to different contexts. Whe-
never an incident or news event triggers a far-right reaction, this kind
of collective synchronicity would allow for immediate civic responses.
• Innovative: Developing creative messages could be done in cooperation
with artists, scientists or even trolling communities. Furthermore, it
may be worth testing experimental approaches, using for example vi-
deo games and app games (Ament 2017; Bogost 2006), interactive vi-
deos and music. Out-of-the-box thinking will be essential to penetrate
new audiences and offer appealing alternatives to those provided by
extremists.
• Bold: Sexy counterspeech needs to develop bolder and funnier con-
tents. It needs to dare to break taboos, transcend the limits of con-
ventional debates and present issues from entirely new perspectives.
While the use of sarcasm and humor can be an immensely powerful
tool to establish sympathy, our research at ISD showed that it can also
render counter-narrative campaigns counter-productive if it devalues
or mocks the target audience. However, for example, self-ironizing can
act as a formidable icebreaker.
To conclude, more research into the different online sub-cultures targeted

by far-right campaigns will be needed to engage with them in a construc-
tive way. Without a more thorough understanding of their grievances, lan-
180 Julia Ebner
guage, insider jokes and reference points that are galvanizing, far-right
communities, counterspeech efforts are likely to miss their objective.
Moreover, a strong coalition of researchers, policy makers, the tech sector,
artists and voluntary activists will be necessary to pilot new, innovative
bottom-up approaches to countering far-right campaigns. A counter-cul-
ture to extremist counter-cultures can only be led by civil society itself.
The Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI) is one of many initiatives that
provide an infrastructure and support network for civil society activists
fighting at the frontlines to counter online radicalization and hate speech.
No doubt the challenges are growing in scope and sophistication, but so
are the response mechanisms.
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Europe’s far-right educational projects and
their vision for the international order
DORIT GEVA AND FELIPE G. SANTOS *
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/97/5/1395/6363948 by guest on 10 January 2022

Currently overshadowed by the heat and sparks generated by populists such as
former US President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, another
right-wing project is flourishing in Europe, forging a new vision of the liberal
international order. Figures including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
and former French National Front politician Marion Maréchal (who dropped Le
Pen from her last name) envisage a global order composed of proud nations and are
committed to promoting capitalist market society, while also rejecting the liberal
‘cultural’ revolution they see as having been wrought by global liberal institutions
such as the WTO, IMF and EU.
In contrast to the unilateralism represented by Trumpism in the United States,1
the political actors and organic intellectuals2 of the new right in Europe do not
reject the liberal international order wholesale, nor do they argue for deglobaliza-
tion. These figures have developed a multifaceted approach to the liberal inter-
national order which combines both ‘globalist’ and illiberal positions, together
representing what we call ‘globalist illiberalism’.
We use the terms ‘globalist’ and ‘illiberal’ with care. Historian Quinn Slobo-
dian’s study of the intellectual architects of the liberal—and neo-liberal—inter-
national order shows how figures like Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises
developed a multigenerational ‘globalist’ project, one of the most consequen-
tial intellectual and institutional undertakings for the twentieth-century world
order.3 The group we call ‘globalist illiberals’, with Viktor Orbán’s Hungary in
the vanguard, build on some of the foundations of classical globalist ideology,
but also seek to transform some of its elements. They link a radicalized Christian
democracy with hyper-nationalism, and weave it into a pro-market ideology that
argues for barrier-free trade globally, with a strong nationalist state steering the
nation’s competitiveness in global capitalism.
* This article is part of the September 2021 special issue of International Affairs on ‘Deglobalization? The future
of the liberal international order’, guest-edited by T. V. Paul and Markus Kornprobst.
1
Kiran Nasir Gore, ‘An introduction to the Trump effect on the future of global dispute resolution’, George
Washington International Law Review 51: 4, 2019, pp. 633–42.
2
By organic intellectuals we refer to actors who produce knowledge and advance an ideology in their attempt
to establish a new hegemony.
3
Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: the end of empire and the birth of neoliberalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2018).
International Affairs 97: 5 (2021) 1395–1414; doi: 10.1093/ia/iiab112

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of International Affairs. This is
an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
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is properly cited.
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Dorit Geva and Felipe G. Santos
Slobodian has traced the origins of globalism to the dismantling of the Austro-
Hungarian empire at the end of the First World War. Observing with dismay the
surge of nationalist movements and imposition of borders within what had been
the expanse of the former empire, Hayek and other ‘internationalist’ economists
concluded that nation-states were bad for capitalist markets. Slobodian’s exami-
nation of three generations of globalists from the 1920s to the 1990s shows that
they were never anti-state, but rather understood governance as best employed at
a supranational level, and therefore objected to nation-states.
Globalists believed that nationalism created borders and tariffs which limited
free trade and the movement of commodities. Hence their long-term strategy

to develop global institutions for regulating capitalism. Slobodian describes this
view of the relationship between governance and markets as one of ‘encasement’:
capitalist markets needed to be encased by appropriate institutions on a suprana-
tional scale for their ideal regulation.
In contrast to some institutional histories of the liberal international order
which see it as a progressive Enlightenment project constructed by the United
States in the aftermath of the Second World War,4 Slobodian shows that globalism
was born in central Europe with the end of empire, and eyed democracy as a threat
to capitalism. Unlike G. John Ikenberry’s view that the liberal international order
was ‘open, loosely rules-based and progressively oriented’,5 Slobodian argues that
democratic accountability through institutions like the WTO and the EU was the
product of pragmatic political compromise between barrier-free trade and the
imposition of some democratic rules of accountability by globalist figures. Here
again the metaphor of encasement is apt. Capitalist markets needed to be encased
by carefully crafted global regulatory regimes that protected markets from nation-
alist and democratic excess.
Reimagining globalism
Today central Europe, formerly the intellectual crucible for the rise of globalism,
is once again at the heart of an ideological innovation in globalism’s latest refor-
mulation. Within Europe, globalist illiberalism is led by Hungary, and has entered
into new articulations of the French and Spanish radical right. Viktor Orbán and
others do not intend to effect deglobalization, and it is imprecise to label them
as opposed to globalization. Within globalist institutions, Orbán and ideological
comrades are globalists in that they support the strong encasement of capitalist
markets; they favour free trade, and work within the institutional matrix of
globalist multilateral institutions to do so.
Globalist illiberals break, however, from classical globalists in two significant
ways. First, they embrace a global order made of strong sovereign nations. Slobo-
dian’s concept of ‘encasement’ of markets can be extended to the domain of the
nation. Globalist illiberals reverse the relationship between international institu-
4
See G. John Ikenberry, ‘The end of liberal international order?’, International Affairs 94: 1, 2018, pp. 7–23.
5
Ikenberry, ‘The end of liberal international order?’, p. 8.
1396
International Affairs 97: 5, 2021

Europe’s far-right educational projects and their vision for the international order
tions and nations. Whereas classical globalists were wary of nationalist passions
and crafted global institutions that would constrain nationalist instincts, globalist
illiberals rather seek to constrain globalist intervention into national culture and
ways of life while still supporting the market economy.
The second and related way in which globalist illiberals depart from classical
globalism lies in their insistence on national sovereignty on cultural matters to
do with family values, gender and sexuality, multiculturalism and immigration.
Globalist illiberals reject policies of the liberal international order which they
view as creating a valueless, libertine world without moral and racialized bound-
aries. This is a central feature of their illiberalism, a term which Viktor Orbán has

audaciously redefined and evenly proudly embraced. They do so by striving to
carry the mantle of a recrafted Christian democratic politics in Europe.
Globalist illiberals infuse more than neo-liberal authoritarian values into
globalist institutions. They bring with them a merger of nationalist conservatism
and neo-liberalism, and confront international institutions with an unflinching
determination to change their values. The European Union project, and broad
visions of Europe as a Christian heartland, are of prime importance to this
emergent ideology.
The EU and radicalized Christian democracy

In parallel to the formation of the globalist international order following the
Second World War, the EU project was set in motion in postwar Europe. The
European Community project was imbued with a Christian democratic spirit of
capitalism, distinct from that of the IMF and the World Bank. This spirit went
well beyond the globalist commitment to a borderless landscape of free trade and
incorporated a Christian vision of the relations between individual, community
and state that was to go hand in hand with a globalist polity.
While Christian democratic parties in Europe do not subscribe uniformly to
the same ideologies, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti argues that the core commitments
of Christian democracy in Europe can be summarized as a combined emphasis on
market society, ‘personalism’ (the doctrine that places the universal value of the
human person at its centre), autonomy from any formal church affiliation and,
crucially to the EU, ‘subsidiarity’.6
Subsidiarity has been especially important to Christian democracy in structuring
its ideal political society. It is not strictly an administrative principle of devolving
competences to appropriate levels of governance. For Christian democracy, it
is a concept of sovereignty which views the ‘human person’—not merely the
contractual individual—as embedded in layers of intermediary bodies, especially
the family and community, with the state being one organic body among others,
not a transcendent sovereign entity whose authority supersedes all others.7
6
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, ‘Towards a model of Christian democracy? Politics and religion in the Treaty of
Lisbon’, Revue française de science politique 65: 4, 2015, pp. 563–82.
7
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, What is Christian democracy? Politics, religion and ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2019).
1397

In addition to inverting the relationship between the nation and globalist insti-
tutions, globalist illiberals are also innovating upon European Christian democracy
and its marriage to market society. Like twentieth-century Christian democracy,
globalist illiberals accord a central position to the family as a primary organic
unit of political society. But they go further by emphasizing heterosexuality as
primary to European politics and identity.8
Even more important to them than the centrality of the family is the standing
of the nation as a subsidiary body within Europe. Also, the value of the human
person is not universal and transcendental, as had been the Christian democratic
conception of human rights woven into the European project after the Second

World War,9 but is manifest only for those seen as members of a particular nation
within Europe.
Subsidiarity and personalism are each undergoing redefinition by globalist illib-
erals in their remapping of Christian democracy. These values are apparent in the
work of associated intellectuals and political actors striving to graft their vision of
radicalized Christian democracy on the EU.
Viktor Orbán’s formulation of an illiberal Christian democracy

Orbán’s political career, and his vision of a conservative and free-trade Europe,
have long been linked to universities—in terms of audience and public platform,
and as objects of reform. We analyse here programmatic statements made by
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is seriously engaged in exchanges
with, and support of, organic intellectuals who have assisted him in formulating
his world-view.
In 1999, at a high-profile conference hosted by Vienna’s Institute for Human
Sciences focusing on ‘Ten years after 1989: politics, ideology, and the interna-
tional order,’10 while serving his first term as Hungarian prime minister, Orbán
expressed dissatisfaction with the ideational status quo in post-Cold War Europe:
Have the events in Central Europe changed thinking in the region and beyond? Neither,
on the contrary. Hardly any politicians of the new democracies have produced new ideas;
most of them have rather preferred to import Western European labels and ideologies en
masse. They call themselves Christian democrats, liberals or conservatives, without always
quite understanding what these terms mean and whether they are at all appropriate to
Central European conditions.11
Orbán spent the next decade rethinking these terms. After losing two elections,
on being re-elected in 2010 he returned to power with a conception of what liber-
8
David Paternotte and Roman Kuhar, ‘Disentangling and locating the “global right”: anti-gender campaigns
in Europe’, Politics and Governance 6: 3, 2018, pp. 6–19.
9
Marco Duranti, The conservative human rights revolution: European identity, transnational politics, and the origins of the
European Convention (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
10
Transcripts from the panel, ‘What remains from 1989?’ in the conference ‘Ten years after 1989: politics, ideol-
ogy and the international order’, organized by the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and the Project
Syndicate, 26 June 1999. From the archives of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna.
11
Transcripts from the panel, ‘What remains from 1989?’.
1398

alism, conservatism and Christian democracy could mean in contemporary central
Europe. Orbán has used the annual Bálványos Summer University in Romania,
deliberately located outside Hungary’s sovereign borders, to articulate his vision
for the Hungarian nation and for Europe at large. These speeches have shown
an evolution in the constitutive elements of Christian democracy, liberalism and
conservatism, with innovations introduced by Orbán and organic intellectuals
in his circle. They reject the conventional political alignments of west European
party politics and make good on his suggestion in 1999 that these terms needed to
be reworked for ‘central European conditions’.
The theme of claiming Christian identity is prominent in these speeches. What

had been an obscure event organized for ethnic Hungarians in Romania caught
the world’s attention following Orbán’s notorious speech at the Summer Univer-
sity in 2014, in which he announced that he had steered Hungary to become an
‘illiberal state’. Orbán’s self-proclaimed illiberalism has since been linked to degra-
dation of the rule of law in Hungary.12 Yet, within the context of the speech,
Orbán was contrasting illiberalism to liberal democracy. That 2014 speech was a
far-reaching philosophical rumination on the nature of the good society and the
political form which he argued best represented it.
The speech made an innovative link between the Hungarian state, nation-
alism and competitiveness in global capitalism. It argued that liberalism not only
emptied relations between individuals of ethical content, but had also eradicated
community, and had weakened the ability of the state to act in the interests of the
national community. Under such circumstances, the Hungarian nation could not
compete in the brutal competition presented by global capitalism. Orbán elabo-
rated:
In the great world race that is a race to come up with the most competitive way of
organizing state and society, Hungarian voters expect from their leaders to figure out ... a
new form of state-organization that will make the community of Hungarians competitive
once again after the era of liberal state and liberal democracy, one that will of course still
respect values of Christianity, freedom and human rights ... the Hungarian nation is not
a simple sum of individuals, but a community that needs to be organized, strengthened
and developed, and in this sense, the new state that we are building is an illiberal state, a
non-liberal state.13
And, as if to assuage concerns that illiberalism was incompatible with EU member-
ship, Orbán assured his public that it was possible to build such an illiberal nation
state within the EU: ‘Our EU membership does not rule out this option.’14
By 2017, three years after the much-cited ‘illiberal state’ speech, Orbán’s
ambitions had expanded yet further. No longer seeking the mere accommoda-
tion of an illiberal state within the EU, in his Summer University speech this
year Orbán set about redefining the Christian democratic tradition in Europe. He
12
Péter Krekó and Zsolt Enyedi, ‘Explaining eastern Europe: Orbán’s laboratory of illiberalism’, Journal of
Democracy 29: 3, 2018, pp. 39–51.
13
‘Full text of Viktor Orbán’s speech at Băile Tuşnad (Tusnádfürdő) of 26 July 2014’, Budapest Beacon, 29 July 2014,
https://budapestbeacon.com/full-text-of-viktor-orbans-speech-at-baile-tusnad-tusnadfurdo-of-26-july-2014/.
14
‘Full text of Viktor Orbán’s speech’.
1399

has since declared that Hungary, like Poland, now carries the mantle of Chris-
tian democracy in the EU. In that 2017 speech, he bluntly asserted: ‘Christian
democratic parties in Europe have become un-Christian.’15
In his 2017 speech, Orbán claimed to be leading Europe in a renewed commit-
ment to Christian democracy and in defending the primacy of a Christian popula-
tion against Muslim immigrants. He cited Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén,
leader of Hungary’s Christian Democratic People’s Party, a longstanding coalition
partner of Orbán’s Fidesz Party, who had lauded the Hungarian government as
‘Europe’s most Christian democratic government’. How had Orbán’s government
achieved this? By taking ‘the large profits being generated [by multinationals] in

order to give [them] to those who are both working and raising children—and
thereby providing for the future of the nation’. Orbán claimed that by attracting
foreign capital investment in Hungary, and then heavily taxing multinational
corporations, his government was redistributing 500 billion forints (about €1.375
billion) annually of state revenue to support the demographic growth of Christian
families.
Orbán’s Summer University speech in 2019, prior to a pause in the annual event
because of the COVID-19 pandemic, reached a peak in his espousal of illiberal
democracy and its equation with European Christian democracy. Relishing the
scandalized response he had generated by declaring Hungary to be an illiberal state
in 2014, Orbán asserted:
They’ve come up with two propositions: democracy is necessarily liberal; and Christian
democracy is necessarily liberal. I’m convinced that these are two misconceptions, because
obviously the opposite is true. Liberal democracy could never have come into being
without its Christian cultural underpinning.16
On the contrary, liberal democracy could only survive so long as it was under-
pinned by Christian values. But liberal democracy had become unmoored once
‘it began to break the bonds that bind people to real life: when it questioned
the identity of a person’s sex, devalued people’s religious identity, and deemed
people’s national affiliation superfluous’. Drawing a clear connection between
Christian democracy and the illiberal state, Orbán continued: ‘There has been the
emergence of an illiberal state and a true model of state and political theory: a
distinctive Christian democratic state.’17
With a final rhetorical flourish, he concluded that this was, furthermore, a
return to the founding principles of the EU:
To quote Schumann, who as one of the founding fathers of Europe is accorded due respect
even by liberals: ‘Democracy owes its existence to Christianity. It was born the day man
was called to realise in his temporal life the dignity of the human person, in his individual
freedom, in respect for the rights of each and by the practice of brotherly love towards all.’18
15
‘Fulltext of Viktor Orbán’s speech’.
16
17
18
‘Full text of Viktor Orbán’s speech’.
1400

Hungary today, according to Orbán, has therefore rejected liberalism, while
reviving true democracy by reaching deeply into its Christian heritage. In so
doing, he claims, it is actualizing the original vision promoted by the founding
fathers of the European Community.
Creating globalist illiberal knowledge

We turn now to examine globalist illiberalism’s extensions of, and departures from,
classical globalism by scrutinizing several new institutions of higher education in
Europe. These institutions focus on training professionals for careers in national

and international public service and in business leadership, established by figures
for whom these educational projects are aimed at a slow but steady transformation
of global institutions, especially the EU.
In contrast to the denigration of academia by Trump and many of his
supporters, Orbán views universities and intellectuals as being of great signifi-
cance for realizing his national and European ambitions.19 In recognition of the
importance he attaches to universities, we examine Hungary’s National Univer-
sity of Public Service Ludovika (Ludovika-UPS), established after his return to
power in 2010 and a significant new presence in the higher education landscape of
Hungary, which we consider the pre-eminent case of a country whose leadership
has positioned itself at the vanguard of globalist illiberalism in Europe.
The second, more minor, project we examine is the Institut de sciences sociales,
économiques et politiques (Institute of Social Sciences, Economics and Politics—
ISSEP) established in Lyon, France, and more recently in Madrid, Spain, by former
French National Front politician Marion Maréchal, the niece of National Rally
president Marine Le Pen. Examining these institutions’ mission, curricula and
teaching staff offers a view into the minds of globalist illiberal actors for whom
these educational projects are an important structural plank in a Trojan horse
strategy to change European politics, and the EU, from within.
Institutions of higher education specializing in international affairs and diplo-
macy have long been closely linked to national governments and state ministries.
They produce ‘international knowledge’,20 and can be of paramount importance
in producing new practices in international politics. The appearance of several
new institutions of higher education in Hungary, France and Spain affiliated with
right-wing leaders is a notable development in the higher education landscape
in Europe. They are indicative of the ambitions of these right-wing figures,
who understand their project as one of extensive socio-political transforma-
tion, working through domains of action which extend well beyond the noise
of protest parties. In the context of gauging the likely future direction of the
19
On the significance of universities to European conservatives, see Dorit Geva, ‘Non au gender: moral epistemics
and French conservative strategies of distinction’, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology 6: 4, 2019,
pp. 393–420.
20
Jonas Hagmann and Marina Lebedeva, ‘Teaching (as) statist practice: diplomatic schools as sites of interna-
tional education’, International Studies Review 18: 2, 2016, pp. 349–53.
1401

liberal international order, they point to vectors of change we can already witness
within, and outside, the core institutions of that order.
While Ludovika-UPS and ISSEP are both a clear indication of globalist illib-
erals’ efforts to train a new generation of actors who are able to shape politics
from positions of influence in national bodies, international institutions, civil
society organizations and the private sector, their characteristics, and those of
their staff, are different. Thanks to Orbán’s hegemony in Hungary over the past
decade, Ludovika-UPS has increased funding and networks within Hungarian
politics and industry, turning the university into a more ambitious and influential
project compared to ISSEP.

Ludovika-UPS and ISSEP also differ from each other in their styles of educa-
tion and model of public engagement. Ludovika-UPS faculty are academics who
have obtained doctoral degrees, or—in the case of the Faculty of Military Science
and Officer Training—have extensive experience in the military. They publish
in conventional academic journals, including a slate of 14 scientific journals,
and through a new university press.21 Some academic articles by Ludovika-UPS
faculty cautiously approach general social science topics, such as diaspora politics
or pastoral care provided by churches to migrants in Hungary,22 but avoid criti-
cism of the Hungarian government. Conversely, the proportion of faculty with
PhDs at ISSEP is considerably lower. Also, while the majority of publications and
lectures by Ludovika-UPS academic staff are geared towards a scholarly audience,
most intellectual outputs from ISSEP staff can be found in outlets aimed at the
general public, where, unlike Ludovika-UPS staff, they openly express radical
political opinions.
Whereas Ludovika-UPS is clear in its nationalist and European mission, ISSEP’s
mission statements try to present the group as detached from any ideology.
Ludovika-UPS’s founding principle is to foster ‘construction of the Europe of
Nations, respect of Christian values and cultural traditions of other nations’.23
ISSEP, on the other hand, seeks to present itself as an educational project with no
political affiliation, and states that its staff ‘prefer teaching, over ideologies’ and
espouse an ‘objective of respecting true intellectual pluralism’.24
Despite these differences, we show that both Ludovika-UPS and ISSEP seek
to develop the same globalist illiberal project. By this we do not mean that the
two institutions share a collaborative strategy; rather, that they share an ideology
which they seek to extend within Europe and even beyond. Through their intel-
lectual activities, both institutions promote a capitalist international order based
21
See https://folyoirat.ludovika.hu.
22
See e.g. Dániel Gazsó, ‘Diaspora policies in theory and practice’, Hungarian Journal of Minority Studies 1: 1, 2017,
pp. 65–87; Fischl Vilmos, ‘The role of churches in Hungary in providing pastoral care and humanitarian help
for migrants’, AARMS: Academic and Applied Research in Military and Public Management Science 17: 2, 2018, pp.
17–28.
23
UPS, Mission, vision, strategy (Ludovika: University of Public Service, 2021), https://en.uni-nke.hu/about-
ludovika-ups/mission-vision-strategy. (Unless otherwise noted at point of citation, all URLs cited in this
article were accessed on 22 May 2021.)
24
ISSEP, Présentation—Institut de Sciences Sociales Économiques et Politiques (ISSEP), n.d., https://www.issep.fr/
presentation/.
1402

on strong nation-states. They also have the common aim of training students
to reform EU institutions from within, preparing them to achieve positions of
influence in the European project and guide it towards a ‘Europe of nations’.
Finally, we also show Ludovika-UPS and ISSEP as attempting to resignify Chris-
tian democracy as a radicalized, conservative project inspired by an exclusionary
understanding of Christianity.
Hungary’s National University of Public Service

Ludovika-UPS was designed to serve the Hungarian state and cultivate its new

civil servants, diplomats and EU professionals. It is closely aligned with the art and
science of government, with a curriculum devoted exclusively to public manage-
ment, law enforcement and the military, and to public administration, with a niche
focus on water management. Given the institution’s standing, and the extent of
the Orbán regime’s investment in it, Ludovika-UPS is a prime site for examining
the ambitions of right-wing globalists who see themselves as playing a long game
of working to transform globalist institutions from within.
Ludovika-UPS began operating as a university in early 2012. Shortly after
Orbán’s re-election in 2010, his government established a working group charged
with founding an educational framework for cultivating public service leaders
whose priority would be to reform the Hungarian state and to serve the national
interest.25 Representatives concerned with education in policing, national defence,
legal studies and public administration proposed merging three existing universi-
ties to create Ludovika-UPS, with major investment being devoted to rebuilding
the Ludovika campus, originally the site of a military academy built in Budapest
in 1836. Some of the institutions that were merged into Ludovika-UPS hark back
to the Austro-Hungarian empire, including an academy for military officers estab-
lished in 1808 and supported initially by Hapsburg Empress Maria Ludovika, after
whom the new university is named.
In early 2011 the government announced the establishment of Ludovika-UPS,
declaring at a press conference that it was imperative to educate a ‘new generation
of people for the operation of a good state’,26 and formally establishing the univer-
sity by a government decree issued that same day. Since its creation, the Orbán
government has twice tried to further Ludovika-UPS dominance in national
higher education. The first occasion was an attempt in 2015 to make the university
the sole institution in Hungary that could deliver education in public administra-
tion and law.27 The second was the introduction in 2017 of a draft bill in parlia-
ment which tried to establish that as of 2023 only graduates of Ludovika-UPS
could be employed in the Hungarian public service. Neither bill was passed; both,
25
István Sárkány, ‘A nemzeti közszolgálati egyetem létrejöttének vázlatos áttekintése’, Belügyi Szemle 66: 11,
2018, pp. 9–14.
26
MTI, ‘2012-ben indul a közszolgálati egyetem’, Index.hu, 23 Feb. 2011, http://index.hu/belfold/2011/02/23/
kozszolgalati_egyetemet_hoznak_letre/.
27
MTI, ‘A közszolgálati egyetem szerint ők nem tartanak be a jogászképzésnek’, 11 June 2015, https://hvg.hu/
itthon/20150611_A_kozszolgalati_egyetem_szerint_ok_nem_ta.
1403

nevertheless, indicate the importance attached to Ludovika-UPS by the Orbán
regime as an educational and ideological institution for training future leaders.
The key figures leading the conceptualization and development of the new
university have credible higher degrees to their names in fields such as law, polit-
ical science or defence, having participated in various programmes across Europe.
Their educational and professional development prior to their involvement with
Ludovika-UPS had entailed a mix of academic leadership within Hungary and,
for several of them, positions of political leadership within the EU.
There is a revolving door connecting Ludovika-UPS leadership with top
government positions. One exemplary figure is Tibor Navracsics, who heads

the university’s Research Centre for European Strategy. Having gained a PhD
in political science at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest (ELTE), Navracsics
followed an academic career before switching to politics. He headed the working
group appointed by Orbán to found a new university of public service while
he was both deputy prime minister and minister of public administration and
justice, with a special mandate to reform public administration of the Hungarian
state. The establishment of Ludovika-UPS was part of this larger project. There-
after he was European Commissioner for Culture, Youth and Sport between 2014
and 2019 within the Juncker Commission. Navracsics and other Ludovika-UPS
figures, such as the former rector András Patyi and the current rector András
Koltay, have demonstrated unswerving loyalty to Orbán and his Fidesz Party.
Patyi, for example, had been head of the national election committee from 2013
to 2018, and was considered by opposition critics to be slavishly loyal to the Orbán
government.28 On stepping down from his role as rector in 2018, he was appointed
to be a judge in the Curia of Hungary, the country’s highest court.
Ludovika-UPS’ mission statement indicates that it aims to achieve international
excellence, to serve the needs of the Hungarian state and, importantly, to uphold
Hungarian national identity. According to the awkwardly worded English version
of its mission statement, ‘the university builds on the protection of the Hungarian
national identity and cultural heritage, the country’s population retention power,
and the national competitiveness’.29 The mention of ‘population retention’ empha-
sizes a concern with demographic renewal in Hungary, in line with a broader
preoccupation with ‘demographic nationalism’ in the country.30 Because of its
close relationship to government, Ludovika-UPS is meant to support ‘the service
of the Hungarian nation above all, as the vocation of the homeland’.31
The reference to serving the Hungarian nation, not just the state, is a subtle
but telling reflection of how the university is shaped in Orbán’s image to serve the
globalist illiberal project. Orbán’s hyper-nationalism is a dominant feature of his
28
After Fidesz was fined for illegal campaigning in 2018, Patyi explained himself on camera to Viktor Orbán:
see ‘Orbán szóvá tette az NVB elnökének, hogy 345 ezerre megbüntette a kampányban’, Index.hu, 3 April
2018, https://index.hu/belfold/2018/valasztas/2018/04/13/orban_szova_tette_az_nvb_elnokenek_hogy_345_
ezerre_megbuntette_a_kampanyban/.
29
UPS, Mission, vision, strategy.
30
Attila Melegh, ‘Unequal exchanges and the radicalization of demographic nationalism in Hungary’, Intersec-
tions: East European Journal of Society and Politics 2: 4, 2016, pp. 87–108.
31
1404

political regime. This is manifest in the focus of Ludovika-UPS’s programming on
the seemingly benign topic of minority rights, including an annual international
summer school on ‘Global Minority Rights’.32 Support for Hungarian minori-
ties in neighbouring states such as Romania and Slovakia is a pillar of the Orbán
regime. Moreover, the priority of the nation over the state is in line with globalist
illiberals’ effort to protect national cultural sovereignty from international influ-
ences. Cultural sovereignty prioritizes the connection among individuals by virtue
of their ethnicity or, as we discuss in more detail below, their common Christian
heritage, over their common allegiance to a particular state.

A Europe of nations
Ludovika-UPS’s mission reflects Orbán’s vision of the European project, which
is ‘the construction of the Europe of Nations, the respect of Christian values
and cultural traditions of other nations, tolerance, the protection of individual
freedom and human dignity’.33 This framing encapsulates support for the EU
as a union of nations, not merely of states, all with common roots in Christian
civilization. These themes permeate Ludovika-UPS’s training and intellectual
output. The former Hungarian foreign minister János Martonyi, who is also an
occasional teacher at Ludovika-UPS, wrote an essay celebrating the 70th anniver-
sary of the Schuman Declaration of 1950, in which Robert Schuman proposed the
creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. Martonyi’s essay claimed
that Schuman was himself the founder of the idea of a ‘Europe of nations’, and—
echoing Orbán’s interpretation of the role of Christian democracy in the EU—
that the spirit of Schuman’s declaration suggested that it was vital to strengthen
‘the common elements of European identity based upon the Christian roots of
Schuman’s “éspace de civilisation”’.34
In order to advance Hungary’s aspirations for the EU, Ludovika-UPS recently
launched a six-month training programme offered free of charge, called the ‘Europe
of Nations Career Programme’. Ludovika-UPS Rector Koltay explained in an
interview for a Hungarian diplomatic magazine that ‘we consider it extremely
important to have Hungarian professionals working in the EU institutions who
are fully aware of the Hungarian circumstances and the common European
goals’.35 The training programme includes several courses focusing on EU law
and administration.36 Other courses revolve around how to achieve good strategic
and communications outcomes within the complex political and communications
environment of the EU. The programme includes training in languages needed for
working in the EU, and a module preparing students for the European Personnel
Selection Office (EPSO) exams, a competitive route into an EU career.
32
UPS, Global Minority Rights Summer School 2021, National University of Public Service Tom Lantos Institute,
https://mrss.uni-nke.hu/.
33
34
János Martonyi, ‘A Schuman-deklaráció: 70 éve és most’, Európai Tükör 23: 2, 2020, pp. 117–27.
35
‘Dynamic international presence: interview with Dr András Koltay, Rector of the National University of Public
Service’, Diplomata Magazin, June issue, 2020, http://www.diplomatamagazin.hu/ftp/3b74dx1_rektor.pdf.
36
UPS, ‘A Képzésről’, Nemzetek Európája Karrierprogram, n.d., https://nemzetekeuropaja.uni-nke.hu/kepzes.
1405

One prominent lecturer in this programme is the current Hungarian justice
minister, Judit Varga. Varga is listed as teaching several practice-oriented courses in
the Europe of Nations Career Programme, focusing on how to leverage messaging
and influence communication outcomes within the EU. In Ludovika-UPS’s own
messaging, Varga is reported to have stated on her Facebook page: ‘Patriotism,
stable professional foundations, international outlook, commitment, great work
ethic. These are our slogans in the training of future Hungarian diplomats and
EU specialists. I am proud to have jointly created the Europe of Nations Career
Programme.’37
Varga is an unapologetic defender of the Orbán regime. She is also no

Eurosceptic: Varga spent nine years living and working in Brussels as a policy
adviser to MEPs. While she has supported Hungary’s anti-migration policies and
unflinchingly defends the Orbán regime’s record on rule of law matters when faced
with criticism from the EU, Varga also unquestionably sees a place for Hungary
in the Union, as long as her country can keep its sovereignty over cultural issues.
A 2019 editorial she wrote for Euronews expresses this dual view, emphasizing that
[Hungary has] differences in: how we relate to the Christian roots of Europe, on the role
of nations and national cultures; how we see the nature and mission of families in our
societies; and in our approaches to migration. But to claim that a Member State no longer
belongs to the community of values at the heart of the EU simply because it holds different
positions on issues like this would create a dangerous precedent and undermine the very
foundations of European integration.38
Varga follows the globalist illiberal playbook, seeking to further international

institutions while defending national sovereignty over cultural issues, in which
Christianity is accorded a central role. Varga’s efforts to defend Hungary’s sover-
eignty over migration and family issues—which encompass also matters to do with
gender and LGBTQ policies—are aimed at protecting Hungary’s Christian roots
by limiting migration from non-Christian backgrounds and contesting progres-
sive policies that would endanger the traditional view of the Christian family.
Recent developments in Hungary indicate that Ludovika-UPS may become
the model for the rest of the country’s higher education system. Orbán’s most
recent political manoeuvre has been a successful vote in the Hungarian parliament
to allocate eleven Hungarian universities to foundations whose boards would be
appointed by the Hungarian government, in addition to transferring billions of
euros’ worth of their assets away from the Hungarian state and to those founda-
tions.39 The reform was designed by István Stumpf,40 a Ludovika-UPS professor
37
Ádám Szöőr, ‘Varga Judit: jöhet az utánpótlás!’, Nemzeti Közszolgálati Egyetem, n.d., https://www.uni-nke.
hu//hirek/2020/04/25/varga-judit-johet-az-utanpotlas.
38
Judit Varga, ‘Facts you always wanted to know about rule of law but never dared to ask’, Euronews, 19 Nov.
2019, https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/19/judit-varga-facts-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-rule-of-
law-hungary-view.
39
Ábrahám Vass, ‘Higher education restructuring in Hungary rolls on’, Hungary Today, 4 March 2021, https://
hungarytoday.hu/higher-education-uni-restructuring-model-change-fidesz-govt-force-palkovics/.
40
‘The model change in higher education is coordinated by a researcher of Ludovika’, 3 Feb. 2021, University of
Public Service, Ludovika, https://en.uni-nke.hu//hirek/2021/02/03/the-model-change-in-higher-education-
is-coordinated-by-a-researcher-of-ludovika.
1406

and political scientist, who also once served as a judge in Hungary’s constitutional
court despite lacking formal legal education. At the time of writing, it is still
unclear what the purpose of this reform is, but it is likely that the intellectual
output of Hungary’s universities beyond Ludovika-UPS will increasingly reflect
Orbán’s political vision.
The Institute of Social Sciences, Economics and Politics

Although the French and Spanish ISSEP are less significant than Hungary’s
Ludovika-UPS, through them Marion Maréchal has aimed to train a new class of

right-wing leaders who will be able to influence the future of their countries from
their positions not only in politics, but also in other realms such as media and busi-
ness. While ISSEP’s institutional communications emphasizes its ‘non-ideological
teaching’, Maréchal was explicit about this objective when she introduced her plans
for ISSEP at a 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference in the United States:
Our fight cannot take place in elections. We need to convey our ideas through the media,
culture, and education to stop the domination of liberals and socialists. That is why I have
recently launched a school of management and political science.41
The existence of these institutes, and their close ties with France’s National
Rally and Spain’s Vox parties, enable us to trace the views of the French and Spanish
far right regarding globalization. In particular, we can discern their pragmatic
acceptance of global capitalism, but also their insistence on cultural sovereignty in
the face of global capitalism. As part of their globalist illiberal agenda, the French
and Spanish far right are training their future leadership to occupy positions of
power within key economic and political international institutions and transform
globalization from within.
Participants in global capitalism At ISSEP, the future leaders of the French and
Spanish far right are trained to sustain global capitalism. Students take courses on
international law and international trade, and several lecturers emphasize their
active engagement in international firms in the profiles published on the Insti-
tute’s website.42 Moreover, in its promotional videos the Institute emphasizes the
professional opportunities that its alumni have found in ‘global companies from
the CAC40’,43 and institutions that promote international trade such as the Franco-
Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Moscow.44 Beyond training its
students to be active participants in global capitalism, ISSEP also seeks to recruit
people interested in working in multinational corporations.
41
American Conservative Union, CPAC 2018: Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, 22 Feb. 2018, https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=RcIfcjQfJKY&t=17s.
42
ISSEP, Les Enseignants, n.d., https://www.issep.fr/les-enseignants/.
43
The CAC40 is France’s main stock index, which covers the biggest, and most globalized, companies in the
country.
44
ISSEP Lyon, Ils ont choisi de se forer pour servir la France et la société!, 6 April 2021, https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=R8ZqgXyWsFQ.
1407

The professional histories of those who teach economics-related subjects at
ISSEP include periods working in international firms. Anthony Lacoudre, who
teaches a course on the international tax system, also works at HUB4US.45 This
company supports French businesses that wish to invest in the United States, and
also helps US corporations expand into Europe, especially in France. Among its
services, HUB4US includes helping multinationals identify ‘the most efficient tax
option’ and supporting them in the process of applying for visas for their employ-
ees.46 Similarly, Luis del Rivero Asensio, an instructor at the Spanish ISSEP, is the
founder and former president of Sacyr Vallehermoso, one of the biggest Spanish
construction companies with projects in more than 30 countries across all conti-

nents.47
Learning how to transform global institutions from within Like their counterparts at
Ludovika-UPS, ISSEP teaching staff support the robustness of liberal inter-
national institutions, especially the EU. A number of instructors have worked
in senior positions within EU institutions, expressed their support for greater
European integration, led programmes of European studies in other universities,
worked in think tanks to improve the functioning of the EU, and/or have been
part of the intergovernmental European army corps Eurocorps. Like Maréchal,
they combine pro-market ideology with conservative family values and in some
cases also Islamophobia.
Among those ISSEP instructors with backgrounds working within the EU
is the Spanish teacher Alejo Vidal Quadras, founder and first president of Vox
between 2014 and 2015, who was vice-president of the European Parliament
between July 2009 and January 2012, representing the European People’s Party.48
During the financial crisis of 2008, which challenged the stability of the European
monetary union, he argued that the solution to this challenge was to be found
in greater integration.49 During the 2019 EU elections, he argued that the main
division was between systemic and anti-systemic parties50 and positioned himself
in the former camp, showing great concern for the risk that anti-systemic parties
posed to the EU.51
In France, Pierre-Emmanuel Thomann, professor of geopolitics at ISSEP, is
the founder of Eurocontinent, a Brussels-based think tank whose objective is to
reinforce the EU as a geopolitical project with ‘autonomy of reflection, decision
and action at the international level with the objective to secure its security, defend
its strategic and vital interests, and promote the conditions for the flourishing
45
HUB4US, Hub4US News, http://hub4us.com/en/news.html.
46
HUB4US, HUB4US Services, http://hub4us.com/en/services.html.
47
See http://www.sacyr.com/es_es/empresa-global/actividad-corporativa/default.aspx.
48
‘Alejo Vidal-Quadras’, MEPs, European Parliament—7th parliamentary term, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/
meps/en/4308/ALEJO_VIDAL-QUADRAS/history/7.
49
‘¿Hacia dónde va Europa?’, UC3M Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 7 May 2012, https://media.uc3m.es/
video/5b3013188f420863d08b9ffb.
50
In Spanish political discourse, some mainstream actors use the term ‘anti-systemic’ to refer pejoratively to left
and right actors whom they claim are dangerously seeking to upend the existing order.
51
Alejo Vidal-Quadras, ‘Europa se tambalea’, Vozpópuli, 28 April 2019, https://www.vozpopuli.com/opinion/
Europa-tambalea_0_1240076287.html.
1408

of its common civilization’.52 On similar lines, Patrick Louis, another teacher of
geopolitics, was secretary-general of the Mouvement pour la France and repre-
sented the party as MEP during the sixth term of the European Parliament.53
Despite being part of the Eurosceptic political grouping, Mouvement pour la
France advocated EU-wide protectionism.54
Cultural national sovereignty The French ISSEP has an extensive curriculum aimed
at teaching its students about iconic parts of French culture through courses about
oenology, dancing and protocol, with the objective of teaching them the French
‘way of life’.55 This is complemented by visits to key historical sites and cultural

venues such as wine cellars. The objective of these activities is for ISSEP students
to develop a ‘finesse and education that is typically French and largely shared in
Europe’.56
For ISSEP instructors, maintaining national culture also involves protecting
it from external interference originating in the cultural changes brought about
by globalization. ISSEP lecturer Matthieu Baumier’s latest book, Voyage au bout
des ruines libérales–libertaires ( Journey to the end of the liberal–libertarian ruins),57
is probably the most comprehensive expression of the threat to national cultures
as perceived by globalist illiberals. Baumier criticizes what he calls the ‘globalist
elites’ for having developed a world without limits, which endangers the French
way of life and threatens France’s ‘deculturation’.58 Like Baumier, certain other
French academics such as Frédéric Beth advocate ‘recovering the understanding
of the nation as a cultural community’.59
Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, Academic Director of ISSEP in Spain, has written
extensively about the need to fight a ‘cultural war’ and ideologically rebuild the
political right around these themes.60 The emphasis on the nation as a cultural
community allows globalist illiberals to overcome the national limits of anti-
globalism and develop an alternative perspective to globalization that can be
built from the perspective of an exclusionary European nationalism. In line with
Ludovika-UPS’s promotion of a ‘Europe of Nations’ in Hungary, Baumier argues:
The cultural community is the base of society. There is therefore a French and European
community and squandering its heritage for the benefit of everything from elsewhere is
52
See http://www.eurocontinent.eu/eurocontinent/.
53
‘Patrick Louis’, MEPs, European Parliament—6th parliamentary term, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/
en/28217/PATRICK_LOUIS/history/6.
54
‘Interview de M. Philippe de Villiers, Président du Mouvement’, Republique Française, 27 March 2009, https://
www.vie-publique.fr/discours/174760-interview-de-m-philippe-de-villiers-president-du-mouvement-pour-
la-fra.
55
ISSEP, Magistère Bac+5 science politique et management de projet, n.d., https://www.issep.fr/les-magisteres/magis-
tere-2eme-annee/.
56
ISSEP, Magistère Bac+4 Science politique et management de projet, n.d., https://www.issep.fr/les-magisteres/magis-
tere-1ere-annee/.
57
Matthieu Baumier, Voyage au bout des ruines libérales–libertaires (Paris: P-G. de Roux, 2019).
58
Baumier, Voyage au bout des ruines, pp. 38–9.
59
Frédéric Beth, ‘Quelle vision pour demain?’, L’Incorrect, 14 May 2020.
60
Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, ‘¿Qué queremos decir cuando decimos que estamos en una guerra cultural?’, El
Subjetivo, Objective, 5 Dec. 2019, https://theobjective.com/elsubjetivo/que-queremos-decir-cuando-decimos-
que-estamos-en-una-guerra-cultural.
1409

a way of betraying our ancestors, those who built with their sweat what has been trans-
mitted to us; that prioritizing civilization is a norm, rather than an exception.61
Radicalization of Christian democratic internationalism Beyond nations, the globalist

illiberal international order is organized around another cultural community,
which is European civilization, perceived as representing the common Christian
roots of European nations and the common threats they face. As summarized by
Kiko Méndez-Monasterio, a lecturer at the Spanish ISSEP,
Europe only exists thanks to Christian fertilization ... Those who aim at destroying the
ruins of Christian humanism are taking a key step introducing a suicidal cultural relativism

that questions our own survival, and the legitimacy of our way of living and under-
standing the world.62
Restoring clear limits on two matters is paramount for the defence of European
civilization, according to globalist illiberals. First, European nations need to
redraw the lines blurred by gender-progressive policies; second, Europe and its
nations need to establish clear boundaries to limit the diversity of cultures brought
by migration, particularly from Muslim countries.
Some of the most active opponents of progressive gender policies at ISSEP have
passed through the ranks of Christian democratic parties and Christian organiza-
tions. Jaime Mayor Oreja was an influential member of the Christian democrat
Partido Popular, Spanish minister of internal affairs between 1996 and 2001,63
and vice-chair of the European People’s Party between 2009 and 2014.64 Mayor
Oreja was also one of the founders of One of Us, a European Citizens’ Initiative
that united the main ultra-Catholic groups in Europe to demand that the EU
ban or limit abortion. This initiative collected 2 million signatures and became
the European Federation for Life and Human Dignity, over which Mayor Oreja
presides.65 Similarly, Julio Ariza Irigoyen campaigned during his time as member
of the Catalan parliament in 1997, sitting for the Christian Democratic Partido
Popular, for greater control over abortions,66 and signed a letter along with a
group of university professors against same-sex marriage in 2013.67 ISSEP lecturers
in France have also campaigned to reimpose traditional gender roles. Guillaume
Drago, who teaches law courses at ISSEP, is the President of the Christian-
inspired think tank Institute famille et république, which mounted a legal challenge
61
Baumier, Voyage au bout des ruines, p. 195.
62
Kiko Méndez-Monasterio, ‘El relativismo totalitario colonizando el PP’, La Gaceta de la Iberosfera, 25 Sept. 2014,
https://gaceta.es/uncategorized/relativismo-totalitario-colonizando-pp-26092014-2245-20140926-0000/.
63
See Government of Spain, Gobiernos de la VI Legislatura, n.d., https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/gobierno/gobi-
ernosporlegislaturas/paginas/VI%20Legislatura.aspx.
64
‘Jamie Mayor Oreja’, MEPs European Parliament—7th parliamentary term, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/
meps/en/28362/JAIME_MAYOR+OREJA/history/7.
65
Ana del Pino, ‘Crisis of values in 21st century Europe’, European Federation for Life and Human Dignity,
One of Us, 6 Nov. 2016, https://oneofus.eu/crisis-of-values-in-21st-century-europe/.
66
‘Un disputado del PP dice que Cataluña se ha convertido en la meca Europea del aborto’, ABC Madrid, 4 Dec.
1997.
67
Écrit par Collectif de professeurs de droit, ‘170 professeurs de droit rentrent en résistance face au projet de Loi
Taubira’, Cadureso.com, 15 March 2013, http://www.cadureso.com/actualite/actualite-sante/3331-170-pro-
fesseurs-de-droit-rentrent-en-resistance-face-au-projet-de-loi-taubira.
1410

to same-sex marriage and continues to propose legal reforms to reverse the law.68
Other lecturers, such as Jean-Luc Coronel, defended similar views.69
Globalist illiberals also seek to limit the cultures and religions allowed to
populate European civilization. For Baumier, multiculturalism is at the core of the
globalist project he criticizes and the source of France’s ‘deculturation’.70 Similarly,
Lionel Rondouin is an ardent critic of the ‘threat’ that migration has brought
to France, and has emphasized that European civilization has to face the choice
between transmitting its culture and values to those who enter the continent, and
disappearing.71 Similarly, in Spain, instructors such as Kiko Méndez-Monasterio
and José Javier Esparza have made numerous public appearances speaking against

Muslim communities. The latter even declared that those who were themselves
born in Europe but whose ancestors were Muslim migrants ‘see the European
societies as their enemies’.72
This exclusionary view of religion originates from a radicalization of the
Christian democratic principles of many ISSEP members. Jean-Frédéric Poisson,
president of the French Christian Democratic Party, which changed its name in
2020 to VIA, La Voie du peuple, is an active contributor to the Institute’s life and
debates,73 and in 2018 wrote a book titled Islam: towards the conquest of the West, in
which he argues that Muslim states have the ambition to ‘replace the declining
Western society with a “substitute civilization”’.74 Similarly, Julio Ariza Irigoyen
is the owner of media group Intereconomia, a key media platform in the early
stages of the far-right Vox party,75 and well known for its opposition to Islam and
Muslims in Europe. Examples of the many instances of Intereconomia juxtapos-
ing Islam and western or European civilization include its deputy director Beatriz
Rojo Polo wearing a niqab, despite not being Muslim, and wondering whether ‘we
are doomed to see European, western women subjugated to the dictates of radical
Islam’;76 and Eduardo García Serrano, a frequent political commentator on the
channel, stating that ‘Islam, in any of its forms, is the West’s number one enemy’.77
68
Marine Lamoureux, ‘Des juristes veulent l’abrogation du mariage pour tous’, La Croix, 14 Jan. 2016, https://
www.la-croix.com/France/Des-juristes-veulent-abrogation-mariage-pour-tous-2016-01-14-1200731252.
69
Agnès Leclair, ‘Mariage gay: 170 juristes interpellent les sénateurs’, Le Figaro, 15 March 2013, https://www.
lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2013/03/15/01016-20130315ARTFIG00525-mariage-gay-170-juristes-interpellent-
les-senateurs.php.
70
Baumier, Voyage au bout des ruines.
71
Institut Iliade, Lionel Rondouin: ‘Quel récit civilisationnel pour les Européens?’, Colloque 2017, 25 March 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCpjEN7Q Jjk&list=PLMVv13dHDFXgXpOxFiehBItaLByXbe7TA
&index=6.
72
Periodista Digital, José Javier Esparza: ‘Los inmigrantes Musulmanes ven a nuestra sociedad como enemiga’, 16 April
2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chDtuPxsIN8.
73
See e.g. ISSEP, Jean-Frédéric Poisson: Présentation de son ouvrage ‘L’islam à la conquête de l’Occident’, 22 May 2021,
https://www.issep.fr/evenement/jean-frederic-poisson-presentation-de-son-ouvrage-lislam-a-la-conquete-
de-loccident/; Conférence de Jean-Frédéric Poisson à l’ISSEP, 31 Dec. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=bvsnDRl5QBM.
74
Jean-Frédéric Poisson, L’Islam à la conquête de l’Occident: La stratégie dévoilée (Monaco: Du Rocher, 2018).
75
Antonio Álvarez-Benavides and Francisco Jiménez Aguilar, ‘Estrategias de comunicación de la nueva extrema
derecha Española: de hogar social a Vox, del alter-activismo a la doctrina del shock’, Estudios de La Paz y El
Conflicto Revista Latinoamericana 1: 2, 2020, pp. 55–78.
76
Intereconomiatube, La subdirectora de Intereconomía TV se pone un niqab para denunciar la imposición del Islam radical,
21 March 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTVSlNwEAF4.
77
Intereconomiatube, García Serrano: ‘El Islam es el enemigo número uno de Occidente’, 28 March 2019, https://www.
1411

The aim of ISSEP lecturers to reinvent Christian democracy from a conserva-
tive and exclusionary perspective is clear from their active presence in Christian
media. Marion Maréchal often gives interviews to Catholic magazines that had
once eschewed any association with the Le Pen clan at the heart of French radical
right party politics,78 and repeatedly expresses concern that France is losing its
Christian roots.79 In line with these public appearances and statements by the
founder of the institute, several other ISSEP figures are regular contributors to
Catholic outlets. Jacques de Guillebon, co-president of ISSEP’s Scientific Council,
was managing director of the monthly Christian magazine La Nef.80 Frédéric
Pons is chief editor of Valeurs actuelles, in which he has often written about the

importance of ‘reaffirming Europe’s Christian roots’.81 In Spain, Carlos Esteban
Rodríguez is an active contributor to the InfoVaticana magazine,82 and Jose Javier
Esparza Torres had a radio programme on the COPE station,83 itself owned by
the Spanish Episcopal Conference,84 the administrative body for Spanish and
Andorran bishops. For his part, Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz has written in several
outlets about the need for Christian intellectuals to take a central role in political
debates.85
Conclusion
The ambitions of Europe’s far right reach well beyond national borders. Instead of
opposing globalization, they seek to transform the international order to conform
to their illiberal world-view. In this article, through an analysis of two institu-
tions of higher education—Hungary’s National University of Public Service, and
the Institute of Social Sciences, Economics and Politics in France and Spain—we
have unveiled the characteristics of the emerging globalist illiberal project that is
being developed by leading political figures and organic intellectuals of Europe’s
far right. We call these figures globalists because they embrace the economics and
institutions of the globalist international order. We call them illiberal because they
seek to transform globalization, emphasizing national sovereignty on cultural
matters in order to promote their radicalized vision of Christianity, which seeks to
youtube.com/watch?v=yIMGrmfqzSs.
78
See e.g. Dominique Gerbaud, ‘Marion Maréchal Le Pen: “Je suis désarçonnée par le pape François”’, La Croix, 9
Feb. 2017, https://www.la-croix.com/France/Politique/Marion-Marechal-Le-Pen-Je-suis-desarconnee-Pape-
Francois-2017-02-09-1200823641; ‘Marion Maréchal-Le Pen: “Emmanuel Macron est un danger civilisation-
nel”’, Famille Chrétienne, 9 Oct. 2020, https://www.famillechretienne.fr/politique-societe/presidentielle-2017/
marion-marechal-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-est-un-danger-civilisationnel-217163.
79
Lucie Soullier, ‘Aux États-Unis, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen veut “make France great again”’, Le Monde, 22 Feb.
2018, https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2018/02/22/aux-etats-unis-marion-marechal-le-pen-veut-
make-france-great-again_5261135_823448.html.
80
See ‘La rédaction’, La Nef, n.d., https://lanef.net/la-redaction/.
81
Frédéric Pons, ‘L’Europe des peuples se réveille’, Valeurs actuelles, 29 Oct. 2015, https://www.valeursactuelles.
com/monde/leurope-des-peuples-se-reveille/.
82
‘Carlos Esteban, autor en InfoVaticana’, InfoVaticana, n.d., https://infovaticana.com/author/carlosesteban/.
83
Xosé M. Núñez Seixas, Suspiros de España: el nacionalismo español 1808-2018 (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 2018).
84
‘Ideario’, COPE, 20 March 2017, https://www.cope.es/pagina/ideario.
85
Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, ‘¿Dónde están (escondidos) los intelectuales Cristianos?’, Opinion, El Subjetivo,
Objective, 19 Nov. 2020, https://theobjective.com/elsubjetivo/donde-estan-escondidos-los-intelectuales-cris-
tianos.
1412

impose clear boundaries on matters to do with family values, gender and sexuality,
multiculturalism and immigration.
Fidesz’s exit from the European People’s Party grouping in the EU has opened
the possibility of fundamental realignments within the European right. Currently
in discussion with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and Italian party
leader and former deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, with a view to formu-
lating an alliance, Orbán has capitalized on the bad blood between Fidesz and
the EPP and has accused the EPP of having lost its Christian democratic values.
Consequently, he believes, ‘Christian democrats are not properly represented in
Europe today, and [Orbán, Morawiecki and Salvini] shall work to provide these

people with a voice, with representation and with weight in European politics’.86
Viktor Orbán and Marion Maréchal are also applauded outside Europe. A new
conservative annual conference called the Conference on National Conservatism,
first launched in the United States in 2019, met in February 2020 in Rome, where
it featured both Orbán and Maréchal. Maréchal delivered a speech on the long
history of conservatism in France, claiming, like other ISSEP figures, that devel-
opments such as ‘population replacement’ and the ‘anthropological revolution’,
which has inverted natural sexual and family relations, pose the great threat to
French and European civilization.87 Using powerful Catholic imagery, Maréchal
ended her speech by likening the present moment to the 2019 fire that ravaged
Notre Dame de Paris. Much had miraculously survived, despite the rapid and
destructive flames. She therefore chose to see the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral as
a sign of hope based on ‘the still-standing foundations of our civilization in spite
of the perils of the times—and a call: to rebuild this roof that protects us and this
spire that connects us to Heaven’.
Orbán was given a special platform at the conference, featured in an interview
which lasted nearly an hour, in which he revealed to the audience how he had
been inspired by Ronald Reagan as a young man, and that on his first state visit
to the UK as prime minister of Hungary in 1999 he went to visit the former
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. He was also proud that he had met
Pope John Paul II several times. Despite himself being Calvinist, Orbán asserted at
the conference that Christian democracy, with its Catholic roots, is unique in that
it is the only political philosophy that embraces national sovereignty.
Libertarian commentators in the United States took note. One later described
Orbán as providing a ‘masterclass in statecraft’.88 Another commentator did not
refer to Orbán specifically, but rather seems to have discovered Christian democ-
racy as the ideal political philosophy which—using an American conservative
gloss—supposedly advocates a ‘free enterprise system’, rejects the centralized state
86
‘Press statement by Viktor Orbán after his talks with Mateusz Morawiecki, prime minister of Poland, and
Matteo Salvini, president of the Italian government party Lega’, Visegrad Post, 7 April 2021, https://visegrad-
post.com/en/2021/04/07/press-statement-by-viktor-orban-after-his-talks-with-mateusz-morawiecki-prime-
minister-of-poland-and-matteo-salvini-president-of-the-italian-government-party-lega/.
87
Marion Maréchal, ‘The faces of national conservatism’, European Conservative, 27 Feb. 2020, https://european-
conservative.com/2020/02/the-faces-of-national-conservatism/.
88
Titus Techera, ‘Victor Orbán’s lesson in prudence for western intellectuals’, American Greatness, 10 Feb. 2020,
https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/09/victor-orbans-lesson-in-prudence-for-western-intellectuals/.
1413

through the principle of subsidiarity, and is rooted in deeply religious convic-
tion, as represented by the founders of European Christian democracy such as
Konrad Adenauer, Alcide de Gasperi, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet.89 Other
Hungarian figures working along the same lines include Tristan Azbej, State Secre-
tary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps programme, who
appeared on an obscure American Christian podcast to describes how Hungary is
leading the way in making Christian democracy an international political force.90
Globalist illiberals in Europe are thus cultivating intensive networks of cooper-
ation within the older globalist institutions, at the same time as they are working
outside these institutions to develop an alternative vision of globalization based

on cultural nations, their concept of European civilization and the protection of
Christianity. Europe’s far right is reframing Christian democracy with the aim of
recreating an international order on a model in which the encasement of markets
goes hand in hand with the encasement of nations, and in which conservative
Christian values establish clear limits on matters of gender, multiculturalism
and migration. These developments together suggest that surging nationalism
among small and medium powers is not resulting in deglobalization, but is instead
fostering illiberal globalization.
89
Kai Weiss and Nathaniel Bald, ‘Lessons from the Christian democrats’, Law and Liberty, 21 April 2021, https://
lawliberty.org/lessons-from-the-christian-democrats/.
90
Hungary Helps with Tristan Azbej, Part 2, Christian Research Institute, 20 April 2021, https://www.equip.org/
broadcast/hungary-helps-with-tristan-azbej-part-2/.
1414

Information, Communication & Society
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rics20
Dog whistling far-right code words: the case of

‘culture enricher' on the Swedish web
Mathilda Åkerlund
To cite this article: Mathilda Åkerlund (2021): Dog whistling far-right code words: the case
of ‘culture enricher' on the Swedish web, Information, Communication & Society, DOI:
10.1080/1369118X.2021.1889639
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1889639
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INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION & SOCIETY
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1889639
Dog whistling far-right code words: the case of ‘culture

enricher’ on the Swedish web
Mathilda Åkerlund
Sociology Department, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper uses the Swedish, once neo-Nazi expression culture Received 21 August 2020
enricher (Swedish: kulturberikare) as a case study to explore how Accepted 31 January 2021
covert and coded far-right discourse is mainstreamed, over time
KEYWORDS
and across websites. A sample of 2,336 uses of the expression Far-right; mainstreaming;
between 1999 and 2020 were analysed using critical discourse dog whistling; critical
analysis. The findings illustrate how the expression works like a discourse analysis; coded
‘dog whistle’ by enabling users to discretely self-identify with an language use
imagined in-group of discontent white ‘Swedes’, while
simultaneously showing opposition to the priorities of a
generalised ‘establishment’. It shows how the expression is
circulated in settings ranging from mainstream to far-right, and
particularly, it highlights the potential role of semi-radical settings
to act as gateways between mainstream and far-right ideas.
Finally, the analysis shows evolving, ever more covertly hateful
uses of the expression over time, illustrating the adaptability of
far-right language online more generally, as a means to evade
unwanted exposure by the far-right.
Introduction
As the far-right grows increasingly prominent, beliefs which were previously considered
unspeakable are now progressively being normalised as mainstream political ideas. A
number of factors have been raised as significant in the process of mainstreaming far-
right discourse, and among them, online communication has often been highlighted
as especially important (Albrecht et al., 2019; Daniels, 2018; Klein, 2012).
The mainstreaming of far-right discourse online is enabled by more or less deliberate
efforts by individual users and sites to disguise, launder and legitimise far-right ideas. In
particular, coded, hateful humour has been identified as central to mainstreaming pro-
cesses (May & Feldman, 2019; Schwarzenegger & Wagner, 2018; Winter, 2019).
Although extant literature has provided insight into coded far-right language use online,
this research has tended to explore individual sites over limited time periods (e.g., Mal-
mqvist, 2015; Topinka, 2018). There is a lack of systematic investigation into these dis-
cursive processes diachronically and across digital settings.
CONTACT Mathilda Åkerlund mathilda.akerlund@umu.se Sociology Department, Umeå University, Northern

Behavioural Science building, Mediagränd 14, 90187, Umeå.
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
2 M. ÅKERLUND
The current paper addresses these gaps using the Swedish, once neo-Nazi expression
culture enricher (Swedish: kulturberikare) as a case study, mapping its movement across
the Swedish web, over an extended period of time. Specifically, using critical discourse
analysis, this paper aims to provide deeper insights into how far-right, coded discourse
is mainstreamed online over time and across online sites, by exploring (RQ1) how the
culture enricher expression is articulated and (RQ2) where, and (RQ3) if, how and to
what extent the expression is used in mainstream settings.
Far-right discourse
Far-right discourse is often concerned with a populist notion of a ‘good’ in-group (an
‘us’) versus ‘evil’ out-groups (‘them’) (Hameleers & Schmuck, 2017; Mudde, 2004;
Wodak, 2009). This perspective involves placing an imagined, homogeneous, victimised
native ‘people’ in opposition primarily to immigrants and ‘the establishment’. Immi-
grants are portrayed as violent (Horsti, 2017; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016) and incompatible
with native culture, values, traditions and heritage (Feldman & Jackson, 2014; Mondon &
Winter, 2017), and are often depicted as a threat to the welfare system (Kallis, 2013). The
establishment – mainstream media and politics – are seen as betraying the country and
its legitimate people by favouring immigrants over the native population (Krämer, 2017;
Merrill, 2020).
Because of these perceived issues, the far-right tends to express a nostalgic desire and
longing to restore a lost age, however loosely defined, of native glory, which is discur-
sively reconstructed as an idealised time ‘before’ immigration (Elgenius & Rydgren,
2017; Engesser et al., 2017). In Sweden, these constructions depict Swedishness as some-
thing homogenous, masculine, and importantly, white (Horsti, 2017; Merrill, 2020). This
close interwovenness of whiteness and Swedishness originate in longstanding ideas about
‘the Swede’ as racially superior (Hübinette & Lundström, 2011; Kjellman, 2014).
The mainstreaming of far-right discourse

The mainstreaming of far-right ideas take place on a discursive level as the creation of a
‘new normal’ (Kallis, 2013). Notably, the far-right has successfully rebranded their ideas
into more palatable packaging (Feldman & Jackson, 2014; Fielitz & Laloire, 2016; May &
Feldman, 2019), and are employing their exclusionary discourse in ways and around
issues commonly associated with mainstream European politics, in attempts to appeal
to a broader audience (Cammaerts, 2018; Feischmidt & Hervik, 2015).
However, mainstreaming is not only about the normalisation of the far-right, it also
involves the radicalisation of the mainstream, as Mondon and Winter (2020, p. 113) note:
No matter how hard a far-right party tries to reform itself, if the broader political system is
not open to welcoming it and its ideas, it is bound to remain at the margins. The break-
through of far-right politics has thus required the actions of mainstream actors such as poli-
ticians, of course, but also of the media and academics, to legitimise, if not its cause, then at
least its presence in the political debate.
In particular, news media’s extensive coverage of, and attention to, provocative far-
right ideas and actors grants the far-right widespread exposure (Cammaerts, 2018;
INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION & SOCIETY 3
Vidra & Fox, 2014). Such reporting in turn, also helps ensure the success of media
companies (Feischmidt & Hervik, 2015). The far-right is also aided by a rightward
shift in the political mainstream, making ideas and issues previously associated
with the far-right less radical (Fielitz & Laloire, 2016). This is both because of an
increased focus on immigration related issues by mainstream politics (Kallis, 2013),
but also sometimes due to actual appropriation of far-right rhetoric by mainstream
politics (Vidra & Fox, 2014).
Finally, the internet is considered crucial for mainstreaming far-right discourse
(Schwarzenegger & Wagner, 2018). Like for other fringe movements, the internet has
been important for far-right community building, and rapid and inexpensive dissemina-
tion of ideas (Adams & Roscigno, 2005; Burris et al., 2000; Caiani & Wagemann, 2009;
Gerstenfeld et al., 2003; Perry, 2001). Importantly, the internet has been used to help
increase the far-right’s perceived legitimacy (Klein, 2012), and enabled access to less rad-
ical audiences who might not have consumed far-right content offline (Ekman, 2014;
Winter, 2019). Covert, coded, and ever-adapting language use has been especially impor-
tant for reaching beyond a far-right fringe.
Coded far-right language use online

Like far-right organisations and movements offline, radical far-right sites online often
attempt to convey a somewhat palatable, less blatantly hateful image (Gerstenfeld
et al., 2003; Meddaugh & Kay, 2009). For instance, Daniels (2009) has identified
how extremist sites ‘cloak’ their true political intentions by deceiving and disguising
authorships, information and domain names in attempts to shift what ideas can be
publicly discussed, sometimes referred to as the ‘Overton Window’ (see Daniels,
2018). Relatedly, Klein (2012) has shown how far-right ideas are ‘laundered’ to
become legitimate discourse by far-right sites borrowing aesthetics and content
from more credible sources, and leverage the interconnectedness of the internet to
attract users and spread their ideas beyond their sites. For individual users, subtlety
when expressing hateful ideas can be a means of avoiding human and automatic con-
tent moderation, and the potential repercussions that such detection might bring
(Bhat & Klein, 2020; Merrill, 2020).
Coded language use plays a particularly important role for the far-right online, both in
terms of claims to legitimacy as well as in appearing less hateful to moderators and inter-
net audiences more broadly. For instance, previous research shows how users substitute
letters or words to decrease the searchability of hateful content (Magu et al., 2017), how
they avoid explicitly hateful expressions to appear politically neutral (Åkerlund, 2020),
and importantly, how they use humour to express hateful ideas without explicitly stating
them (Hervik, 2019; Marwick & Lewis, 2017; Winter, 2019).
While previous research shows that this humorous, yet hateful content tends to reiter-
ate well-known far-right tropes – criticising the establishment and political correctness,
and othering and stereotyping immigrants (Malmqvist, 2015; May & Feldman, 2019;
Merrill, 2020) – it does so in ways that engage users to co-construct and build on each
other’s jokes (Schwarzenegger & Wagner, 2018; Topinka, 2018). Consequently, helping
in their spread and mainstreaming, while providing distance and deniability as users
4 M. ÅKERLUND
can always claim they were ‘only joking’ if faced with criticism (Munn, 2019; Schwarze-
negger & Wagner, 2018; Tuters, 2019).
Oftentimes, these humorous, hateful expressions are articulated in specific coded ways
which are understood in this paper as dog whistles – speech acts that appear inaudible or
at least easily refutable towards the general public, while simultaneously conveying hid-
den meaning to fellow far-right sympathisers (Haney López, 2014; Kien, 2019). As such,
dog whistles denote different meaning depending on audience, something that has else-
where been defined as ‘multivocal communication’ (Albertson, 2015). It is a well-known
and long-used technique among electoral politicians to appeal both to ‘regular’ voters as
well as those holding more extremist views (Fish, 1994; Khoo, 2017).
For someone to ‘hear’ a far-right dog whistle – like the anti-Semitic meaning of the
three parentheses signalling an echo ‘((()))’ (Tuters & Hagen, 2020), the white suprema-
cist meaning of the now famous Pepe the frog meme (Daniels, 2018), or any of the coded
euphemisms constantly created and reinvented online (Bhat & Klein, 2020) – they must
be familiar with the specific shared knowledge within the far-right community. Because
dog whistling is deployed with the objective to deceive parts of the audience, it can some-
times unintentionally be appropriated and repeated by unknowing outsiders, however,
with the same potentially harmful effects (Saul, 2018).
Exploring culture enricher as a coded expression online

Humorous, ironic and sarcastic expressions have a long tradition within Swedish far-
right settings, and often, these originate with progressive anti-racist, pro-immigration
ideas. The culture enricher expression, which is known to still circulate in its sarcastic
form in far-right settings in Sweden, has a background in neo-Nazism. In the 1980s
and 90s, it became widespread in these settings as,
a coded expression for everything they dislike about the immigration and refugee politics
and as a joke on the anti-racists, who have often cited culture enrichment, exotic food
and folk dance as arguments for increased immigration (Lööw, 2016, p. 503 Author’s trans-
lation from Swedish).
Neo-Nazi papers from this time show uses of culture enricher as a synonym to immigrant,
and as a commentary of the issues that immigrant related crime, violence, attitudes and
culture bring to Swedish society (e.g., Balder, 1991; Ramell, 1996).
The 1980s and 90s was a time when the Swedish far-right became more organised, and
with the emergence of the commercial internet in the 1990s, far-right activity would, in
Sweden like elsewhere, come to take place online to an increasing extent (Lööw, 2015).
At this time, Swedish far-right sympathisers and organisations started websites, chats,
blogs, and electronic newsletters. Since then, far-right social media accounts and ‘alterna-
tive’ (far-right) news sites have also become increasingly visible on the Swedish far-right
scene.
This evolution has happened alongside the growing success of Sweden’s primary far-
right party, the Sweden Democrats (SD). While SD remained insignificant during the
1990s, it slowly started gaining traction in the 2000s (Widfeldt, 2008), and by 2010,
SD entered into parliament. Since then, the party has seen continuous electoral success.
In Sweden’s last general election, held in 2018, SD received nearly 18% of the votes, and
became Sweden’s third largest political party in parliament.
Data collection
While the mainstreaming of far-right discourse can be understood in terms of redefining
what is considered acceptable or common sense, it can be studied more concretely in
terms of how visual or textual expressions and ideas are (re)framed and circulated
(e.g., Ben-David & Matamoros Fernández, 2016; Kien, 2019; Merrill, 2020; Topinka,
2018; Tuters, 2019).
To map the uses of the culture enricher expression over time, Google Search results for
all instances1 of the suffixed variations (-er, – ed, -es, -ment, -ing) in Swedish were loca-
lised, manually read, dated2 and downloaded, along with associated URL’s. Searches for
the expression from November 12, 1999, when it was first recorded by Google, until May
2, 2020, resulted in a sample of 2,336 instances of text3, posted on 287 different websites.
Instances of culture enricher used in a non-coded, non-far-right way were disregarded
after reading. These instances tended to describe things like music, festivals, art, travel
and tourist attractions in a literal sense as ‘enriching culture’. Examples of these include
a post on small town’s official website where the local museum is described as ‘cosy’,
‘well-planned’ and ‘culturally enriching’, and a post on a travel blog that states ‘it is
not always necessary to go abroad to have fun, exciting and culturally enriching
experiences’.
While the data collection did not actively exclude social media content, the sampling
method found very few instances of text from such settings throughout the sample
period. This is because Google’s search function is quite inefficient at picking up social
media discussions. There might also be cases where the expression is used in even
more covert or intentionally coded ways, that cannot be picked up by this sampling
method. However, this approach to data collection takes search engines at face value.
Search engines, and Google in particular, make up a considerable part in how people
experience the web, and have been described as important funnels leading unsuspecting
individuals to radical online content (Daniels, 2009; Klein, 2012).
Methodology
‘The far-right’ and ‘the mainstream’ are socially constructed, fuzzy and historically situ-
ated concepts (Mondon & Winter, 2020), and the mainstreaming of far-right ideas is a
discursive creation of a ‘new normal’ through language use which contests dominant,
mainstream, political ideas (Cammaerts, 2018). This is because language use is socially
conditioned but will at the same time have social effects that contribute to maintaining
or challenging existing hegemony (Fairclough, 2003, 2010). Language use has the poten-
tial to reinforce or challenge power relations, impact our knowledge, values and identi-
ties, and even affect societal structures (Fairclough, 2003; Wodak, 2015). At the same
time, existing power relations, knowledge, values, identities and societal structures con-
strain language use (Fairclough, 2010). Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is aimed at
scrutinising such struggles over the power to define meaning (Wodak, 2009) and their
relationship to wider social and political structures (Fairclough, 2010).
6 M. ÅKERLUND
Exploring discourse involves analysis on the three interconnected levels of text, discur-
sive practice and social practice. First, on the textual level, formal, grammatical features of
the texts are explored. Second, on the level of discursive practices, focus lies with the pro-
duction and consumption of texts. Finally, the social practice level explores the wider
social structures, as well as ideological and political contexts in which the text is situated
(Fairclough, 1992).
CDA helps expose the underlying meanings behind the coded use of the culture enri-
cher expression. First, the analysis explores how it is articulated (cf. RQ1). This involves
analysis of wording and word co-occurrences on the textual level (Fairclough, 1992),
identifying discourses, styles and discursive strategies as means of representing meaning
and identities from particular perspectives (Fairclough, 1992, 2003), and uncovering the
underlying assumptions of common ground in the texts (Fairclough, 2003). Thereafter,
the analysis explores the settings in which the expression is articulated (cf. RQ2) and
lastly, if, how, and to what extent the expression is used in mainstream settings (cf.
RQ3). This analysis focuses on discursive practices, primarily on identifying genres,
but also on intertextuality (Fairclough, 2003).
The general patterns identified from the analysis are summarised in Figure 1 and
further elaborated throughout the analysis. First, from the left, it shows the five dis-
courses which were identified through the analysis: Sweden under threat, crime and vio-
lence reports, anti-establishment, othering immigrants, words/expressions, and criticising
hate. Furthermore, Figure 1 shows the types of sites in which these discourses were
used. Then, the categorisation of these site types into three discursive ‘fields’: far-right,
gateway and mainstream, identified in terms of how different types of settings have ‘a
relative internal coherence and are relatively demarcated from others’ (Fairclough,
2010, p. 175). Specifically, the discursive fields were identified in terms of the ideas
and values that different site types promoted. Editorially run far-right ‘news’ sites and
Figure 1. Overview of discourses, site types, fields, and periods.

far-right blogs were categorised as far-right. Online discussion forums that host a var-
iety of topics and users, but which are known for facilitating far-right discourse were
categorised as belonging to the gateway sphere because of their ‘eclectic’ nature but
also their potential bridging functions between the far-right and the mainstream.
Uses in the Swedish discussion forum Flashback constituted most of these instances,
but there were also some uses on for instance Reddit and 9gag. Finally, sites cate-
gorised as belonging to the mainstream were those which users cannot be expected
to visit with the intent to specifically seek out far-right discourse, and which are
not known to host far-right discourse. For instance, this included news media sites,
and forums dedicated to specific (non-far-right) topics, like travel and hunting.
Finally, furthest to the right in Figure 1, are the points in time when expression
was used in these respective fields.
Articulations of culture enricher

Various abbreviations are identified in the dataset but the overwhelmingly most common
one is ‘culture enricher’ in noun form, making up over half of all sampled instances (see
Table 1). This means that when culture enricher is discussed online it is often in reference
to things or people.
In discussions specifically about the definition of the expression, in line with how it
was used in neo-Nazi settings in the 1980s and 90s, lie a common understanding of its
sarcastic meaning. Users also claim that since the expression originated in mainstream
ideas, it cannot be considered hateful:
The establishment claims that immigration leads to multiculturalism and that multicultur-
alism is something positive and enriching. If a person is from a culture other than Sweden,
he/she is a cultural enricher. I consider it perfectly okay to call immigrants and refugees this,
as it is the politically correct establishment’s own definition (Flashback member, 2005).
The left basically coined ‘cultural enrichment’. Using it should be seen as a victory by the
left, instead of as racist. It is actually ironic and humorous. To stand up to the damnation
of society, one must be able to joke about this shit. Would they rather we resort to violence?
(Flashback member, 2016).
Many also highlight the discrepancy between these ideas and what ‘real’ or ‘ordinary’
Swedes feel towards ‘culture enrichment’, ‘MENA’ (Middle East and North Africa) and
‘African’ culture:
Such reasoning is a total mismatch with reality that ordinary people live in. The word is self-
defeating because it is such a flagrant lie which any real Swede can easily see through (Flash-
back member, 2010).
Table 1. Most common abbreviations of culture enrich* in the dataset.

word variant count percentage
culture enricher (noun, both singular and plural) 1,441 54,83%
cultural enrichment (abstract noun) 309 11,76%
culture enrichers (collective noun) 215 8,18%
culturally enriching (present participle verb) 136 5,18%
culturally enriched (past participle verb) 120 4,57%
8 M. ÅKERLUND
As an ordinary Swede, it is hard to see how we Swedes are enriched by MENA or African
culture (Flashback member, 2010).
These quotes showcase how users self-position with an imagined ‘people’ (Hameleers
& Schmuck, 2017; van Dijk, 1993; Wodak, 2009). However, rather than this people repre-
senting Swedish citizens in general, what is articulated is instead an exclusionary, hom-
ogenous us of white far-right sympathisers (Merrill & Åkerlund, 2018).
This is closely related to a strategy depicting the establishment as betraying the
country and its legitimate people. Through supposed lies, hypocrisy, cover-ups and
infringements on freedom of speech, the establishment are seen as challenging ‘white
solidarity’ (DiAngelo, 2011):
They never have any issues evicting white Swedes from housing they’ve had for decades, but
anytime it is about culture enrichers, it’s a different story (Commenter far-right blog, 2015)
Those in power ignore violence against women when ‘culture enrichers’ are the perpetra-
tors, but they are keen to make sure that us ethnic Swedes shut up and don’t show our dis-
content. (Commenter on far-right news site, 2018)
Will the regime’s criminal incompetence and carelessness result in fewer welfare benefits to
Swedes who have fallen ill, while bearded children and culture enrichers continue to receive
the money from Sweden at the same rate as before? Probably. (Flashback member, 2020)
These examples are highly racialised and situate the needs of ‘white’ and ‘ethnic’
‘Swedes’ in opposition to those of (non-white) ‘culture enrichers’. This discourse of Swe-
den being under threat (see Figure 1) as the welfare system collapses and immigrants take
over, often uses ‘zero-sum’ arguments (Kallis, 2013). These claim that if immigrants are
allowed part in the welfare system, resources will be too few for native Swedes.
Reports of specific criminal offences and acts of violence by immigrants, often with
reference to current events and news, constituted the largest discourse category (35%)
in the dataset (see Figure 1). In these texts ‘immigrants’ are differentiated from ‘Swedes’
in terms of their supposed violent nature. A culture enricher in these examples is an
immigrant ‘ … who enriches us by robbing, raping, and spreading terror’ (Flashback
2008). Here, culture enricher is frequently co-articulated with preceding descriptors
like ‘rock throwing’, ‘trigger happy’ and ‘knife waving’.
While the expression has been associated with criminal activity in earlier neo-Nazi
pamphlets and magazines too (e.g., Balder, 1991; Ramell, 1996), it seems as though it
Figure 2. Unique abbreviations of culture enrich* each year in the sample.

has taken new forms online. As illustrated in Figure 2, the number of unique abbrevi-
ations increase over time, signalling a development in the understanding of the
expression, and a continued co-creation of its covert and coded meanings over time
online.
One of these changed uses is with culturally enriched, which in the 1980s and 90s was
primarily used to describe an increase in immigrants in Sweden or certain living areas
(e.g., Sverige-Kuriren, 1989). However, online it has also often come to serve as a
coded way of signalling immigrant violence, physical assault and rape against ‘Swedes’:
To this we are also ‘culturally enriched’ by more and more robberies, scams, assaults, rapes,
and murders (Commenter far-right news site, 2019).
Swedish women are ‘culturally enriched’ with surprise sex in the streets. (Commenter far-
right blog, 2016)
Like in the Middle East, in this new Swedenistan, women are considered whores if they are
outside without burqa and male chaperon and they can be raped and beaten! So, for anyone
who doesn’t want to be culturally enriched, stay home! (Commenter far-right blog, 2018)
Discursive strategies of ‘othering’ immigrants, as illustrated in the examples above, are a

common way of portraying immigrants as incompatible with native culture and heritage.
Also, underlying assumptions seen in the excerpts above, illustrate that culture enrichers
are not just any immigrants. Instead, they are specifically Middle Eastern, Muslim immi-
grant men, stereotyped as a homogenous group of violent rapists (Horsti, 2017; Sakki &
Pettersson, 2016). Overall, almost a third of the dataset (31%) contained different kinds of
othering representations of immigrants (see Figure 1).
This othering is further enhanced through co-articulations with other sarcastic, coded
expressions like ‘pension saving’, ‘high achieving’ and ‘highly educated’, but also with
overtly hateful and dehumanizing terms like ‘parasitic’ and ‘inbred’. Echoing previous
research, there are examples of how covertly hateful posts have prompted overt and
explicit articulations of hate in the comment sections (Åkerlund, 2020; Ben-David &
Matamoros Fernández, 2016; Schwarzenegger & Wagner, 2018), with several calls to
murder immigrants that have supposedly committed crime.
Often, as it was also used by neo-Nazis in the 1980s and 90s, culture enricher
becomes a complementary expression to ‘immigrant’. Frequently coupled with
scare quotes, it signals opposition to a mainstream, non-coded understanding of
the expression. There are even instances where this substitution seems entirely natu-
ral. As one Flashback user comments on a post about a court case, claiming ‘accord-
ing to the prosecution, the perpetrator is a ‘culture enricher’’, they casually imply
this would be an actual expression used in court. It also turned out that the perpe-
trator in this case was not immigrant, further showcasing how quickly negative
events are tied to immigrants among far-right sympathisers online, often without
factual basis.
The neo-Nazi background of the culture enricher expression tends to be omitted in
discussions of its origin, and there even seem to be active attempts to obscure this history.
In two online (slur) encyclopaedias for example, culture enricher is defined as a ‘a slightly
condescending word for migrant or immigrant’ (Typkanske, 2018) and as ‘a nicer
expression for foreigner’ (Slangopedia, 2013). And on Flashback, someone goes as far
10 M. ÅKERLUND
as claiming it is a ‘neutral term used by tolerant individuals instead of using negative

labels like ‘wog’’.
In conclusion, the culture enricher expression is used as a replacement for ‘immigrant’
and ‘immigration’, without acknowledgement of its neo-Nazi background. Specifically,
the use of the expression here shows it enables two things which the words ‘immigrant’
and ‘immigration’ do not. First, it works like a ‘dog whistle’ by enabling a discrete way to
self-identify with ‘a people’ (postulated as ‘the people’) while simultaneously showing
opposition to ‘the establishment’ and their priorities. Second, as the expression has
taken new forms online, and is co-articulated with other hateful, coded expressions, it
can be used to pin racist stereotypes to Muslim immigrants in very subtle ways.
Sites of circulation
The expression was distributed over 287 unique sites in the dataset in total. However,
73% of the uses of the expression were limited to only 10 sites (3,5%). Seven of these
are far-right sites and two are mainstream news media. Most uses though, over half
(56%) of the sampled texts, were user-generated content posted in threads in the online
discussion forum Flashback, and this concentration increases over time. Potentially this
large share is in part due to how little content is ever deleted on the site, that users cannot
themselves delete their own content, and that Flashback has been around almost
throughout the whole sample period, since May 2000.
The analysis makes clear that the culture enricher expression is spread throughout a
variety of different forum parts on Flashback, even those unrelated to issues of immigra-
tion. Seeing as Flashback is thought to be used by nearly a third of Sweden’s population
(The Swedish Internet Foundation, 2019), uses of culture enricher in forum sections
about for instance cooking, cars, and relationships means that users not interested in
far-right issues might still encounter such discourse. Furthermore, much of the discus-
sion regarding the meanings of words and expressions take place on Flashback (see
Figure 1). There is even a dedicated thread asking, ‘what words have you learnt on Flash-
back?’, where several users answer that culture enricher is one of the expressions they
have come to know through the site. In light of these findings, Flashback can be con-
sidered an important gateway4, preparing Swedish users for more radical sites and
ideas (Åkerlund, 2020; see also Munn, 2019).
Sites within the sphere of the far-right make up the second largest category of websites,
29% of the uses of culture enricher are published in dedicated far-right settings. Within
this sphere, most uses of the expression are in far-right blogs. In total, 95, or 33% of the
unique sites, and in total 602 instances (25%) of all uses of culture enricher are posted in
far-right blogs. Blogs have often been considered important for circulating far-right dis-
course (Horsti, 2017; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016).
Even before encountering any actual posts on these blogs, their populist, far-right
approaches are clear. Several of the blogs’ descriptions claim to ‘tell you what the PC
media won’t’, and ‘defend everyone’s right to freedom of speech’ even if it is not con-
sidered ‘politically correct in society today’. This works to demonstrate their positioning
on the side of ‘regular people’ against a lying, corrupt ‘elite establishment’, while simul-
taneously disguising far-right discourse as claims to freedom of speech (Gerstenfeld et al.,
2003; Mondon & Winter, 2017). However, far-right sites lack credibility and legitimacy
among the general public. To increase credibility, one large blog informs on its starting
page that while they all share ‘the same opinion’, they caution commenters to be aware of
their language use to make content more easily sharable, and to not reflect badly on cer-
tain political organisations. This shows the calculated and intentional efforts by bloggers
to spread and normalise far-right ideas (see also Meddaugh & Kay, 2009). As is further
illustrated in the use of blog names like ‘The Government Agency’, ‘Current Politics’ and
‘The News Site’, drawing upon legitimate genres to signal credibility, and thus, disguise
their content as important public information (Daniels, 2009; Gerstenfeld et al., 2003;
Klein, 2012).
Moreover, the far-right blog posts are written as objective, yet outspoken news items,
often with reference to mainstream news articles. However, it is clear that they cherry-
pick articles that further their specific arguments (Merrill & Åkerlund, 2018). In total,
almost half the uses of culture enricher in far-right blogs were in relation to reports of
criminal offences and acts of violence by immigrants. This is considerably higher than
the 35% this discourse category makes up of the dataset generally. Overall, these strat-
egies seem somewhat successful. According to the online traffic analytics tool Alexa,
many visitors to the largest far-right blog overlap with visitors to editorially run, far-
right news sites. This indicates that the blog might be used by readers as a source for
news and information.
Finally, many of these sampled sites are interlinked through static page promotions,
but also through intertextual references to each other’s content – sometimes reusing
entire blogposts. This enables the exposure and spread of expressions like culture enri-
cher, and the creation of a ‘network of hate’ (Burris et al., 2000; Caiani & Wagemann,
2009) of easily accessible far-right discourse and websites.
In summary, the expression is mainly used in the large online forum Flashback,
and in far-right blogs. On Flashback, the expression is widespread, and several users
claim to have learnt it through the site, signalling its importance as a gateway setting
to more radical far-right discourse. Because far-right discourse is not socially accep-
table, these ideas are often expressed subtly. Therefore, far-right blogs attempt to
borrow credibility from news media, and actively downplay overt hate. This, and
the interconnectedness of sites and content enable the exposure and spread of
coded expressions like culture enricher and therein, of far-right discourse more
generally.
Uses in the mainstream

Primarily, there are two ways in which culture enricher makes its way into the main-
stream. First, through counter-discourse and resistance to hate, and second, through
appropriation of far-right ideas. In total, 316 instances (13,5% of uses) of the expression
took place in mainstream settings.
Counter-speech takes place throughout the studied period, with most uses in 2008 and
2009, where news media reports call out Sweden Democrat politicians who have used cul-
ture enricher and other hateful expressions online. In total, almost 39% of
mainstream uses are a means to criticise hate, and take place in news media, academic
texts, and in anti-racist and political blogs (see Figure 1). These critiques aim to highlight
12 M. ÅKERLUND
the racist meanings and usage of culture enricher, and unlike far-right discussions
referred in previous sections, these acknowledge the expression’s racist history:
Culture enricher is a deeply racist expression used frequently by radical nationalists like the
National Democrats and the Swedes Party (The Swedish public service television company,
2010).
Immigrant as culture enricher might sound positive but is often used in the exact opposite
way. And if you’re missing the irony, you’re not listening to the dog whistle […] it is a rhe-
torical strategy to make something negative appear neutral or even positive. One example of
this is when immigrants are ironically called culture enrichers by immigration critics (Focus
Magazine, 2020).
Several critics also highlight its frequent usage on Flashback, further indicating that
this is an online forum through which also non-affiliated users encounter far-right
expressions:
Flashback is great as a news site in the sense that they are quick to figure things out, even
before the media are able to. However, the constant arguing of culture enrichers and so
on bothers me. (Family forum member, 2012)
Not always when culture enricher is used in mainstream settings is everyone fully aware
of its coded usage. For instance, when the expression is used in a travel forum to discou-
rage others from visiting an amusement park where immigrants are ‘causing trouble’,
someone replies:
What do you mean by culture enrichment? Are there problems at the Tivoli? (Travel forum
member, 2009)
And in a hunting forum, as someone asks for advice on how to build a dog pen,
another member claims that the pen needs to be ‘enriched’ with things that the dog
could play with. This leads to a misunderstanding, as seen in another member’s reply:
Oh, that’s what you meant! I thought you meant culture enrichment… (Hunting forum
member, 2016)
These examples show how the expression ‘spills over’ into mainstream settings, and when
users incorporate (or think someone else incorporates) far-right code words, there is con-
fusion. Specifically, users seem unsure as to what common ground they share in regard to
far-right discourse.
Interestingly, while it is more common that the expression is used in the mainstream
as a means of countering hate, in certain mainstream blogs and forums, the expression is
used mostly for othering purposes:
Incorrect invoices are often not mistakes, but rather deliberate cheating, often by welfare
tourists […] There is an increased risk of cheating in the culturally enriched areas and
that’s why government agencies are now going to work more intensely in the multicultural
paradises that the politicians have created. Now, culture enrichers too are going to enrich the
welfare system, rather than just exhaust it. (Tax blog, 2018)
Violence and criminality are all of a sudden not something bad, but a great culture enrich-
ment! There are still some brave men who dare tell the truth about Sweden, but they risk
being silenced by harassment as they are the primary threat to the indoctrination of socialist,
multicultural Sweden. (Coaching blog, 2019)
While these sites are dedicated to supposedly non-political issues, they echo the ways
in which culture enricher is articulated in far-right settings. It seems as though these are
examples of far-right sympathisers who also happen to be active in mainstream settings
online, and leverage these to spread far-right ideas to unsuspecting others.
Finally, some instances of culture enricher in mainstream settings instead show an
unknowing adoption of the expression as a substitute for immigrant:
My thoughts are on food right now as it’s past five o’clock. I don’t have much at home, so I’ll
need to take a walk to the grocery store, which is no problem as it is just around the corner.
Also, the culture enrichers have opened a shop in the neighbourhood so the range of things
to choose from is huge. […] Have a good evening! Hugs! (Commenter personal blog, 2009)
Let me just ‘culturally enrich’ you a little as you would say when a new Mohammed arrives
in town. Look at this new member of my tech family … (Technology forum member, 2010)
The use of culture enricher to describe everyday events in this routine way shows that the
far-right’s struggle contesting the hegemonic understanding of ‘immigrant’ is to some extent
being normalised into everyday conversations online, also outside of its original sphere.
In summary, there are two ways in which culture enricher makes its way into the main-
stream: through counter-discourse and resistance to hate, and through appropriation of
far-right language. However, as the analysis highlights, when coded far-right expressions
are used in mainstream settings, uninitiated individuals risk encountering them, even
though they have not actively sought them out. Whether as a form of resistance, or
through appropriation, use of coded expressions in mainstream settings can enable the
spread of far-right discourse.
Concluding discussion
This paper aimed to provide insights into how far-right, coded discourse is main-
streamed online, by exploring the neo-Nazi expression culture enricher as a case study
on the Swedish web between 1999 and 2020. It contributes new insight, beyond that of
previous research, into the longitudinal and multi-sited evolution of coded, far-right
expressions.
The culture enricher expression works like a ‘dog whistle’ (Haney López, 2014; Kien,
2019) by enabling users to discretely self-identify with an imagined in-group of discon-
tent white ‘Swedes’, while simultaneously showing opposition to the priorities of a gen-
eralised ‘establishment’. The analysis showed users drawing on well-established far-right
discourses and discursive strategies based in ideas about Swedishness and whiteness –
including practices of othering and criminalising immigrants, and portraying Sweden
as under threat by immigration and irresponsible governmental politics.
The analysis illustrated the importance of far-right blogs and the large, Swedish online
forum Flashback in circulating the culture enricher expression. Most notably, the analysis
found that the Flashback forum worked as a particularly important gateway between
mainstream and far-right discourse, also exposing users who had not intentionally
sought out far-right content.
Furthermore, it showed how the expression was used in mainstream settings through-
out the studied period, both through hateful appropriations as well as through resistance.
The expression peaked in mainstream settings in 2008 and 2009 with news media reports
14 M. ÅKERLUND
calling out Sweden Democrat politicians for using culture enricher and other hateful
expressions online. With uses of the expression subsequently not reaching the same
high levels, it would appear as though news media’s reporting worked educationally.
However, previous research instead suggests that mainstream media reporting of far-
right activity or ideas inevitably works in favour of the far-right (Burris et al., 2000).
Wodak (2015, p. 19) explains how dealing with far-right discourse is a ‘no win’ situation
for news media:
if they do not report a scandalous racist remark or insinuation […] they might be perceived
as endorsing it. If they do write about it, they explicitly reproduce the prejudicial utterance,
thereby further disseminating it.
Potentially, mainstream media’s attention has prompted caution. Even subtler variations
of the expression not sampled here (e.g., enrichers) and use of other coded words might
have come to take its place. These above explanations seem plausible, in light of how the
expression developed over time.
The analysis identified an expansion of unique culture enricher abbreviations over
time, indicating the expression’s continuous co-creation among users. The analysis
also showed a practice of co-articulating coded expressions, which facilitate a broader
vocabulary of coded language, and the findings identified deliberate attempts to mask
and downplay far-right discourse. Furthermore, the analysis highlighted a shifting and
ever more covertly hateful use of the expression that helped pin racist stereotypes to Mus-
lim immigrants. Finally, the analysis identified attempts at normalising culture enricher
into a substitute for ‘immigrant’ while cloaking its neo-Nazi background. Unpacking
these uses requires a lot in terms of familiarity with subtle, coded language, what Hughey
and Daniels (2013) call ‘Racial Internet Literacy’.
However, unveiling coded language use online is easier said than done. The evol-
ution of the culture enricher expression illustrates a broader theme in far-right
language use online – as constantly adapting and reinventing to avoid unwanted
exposure (Åkerlund, 2020; Bhat & Klein, 2020). With coded, humorous expressions’
ability to ‘hide in plain sight’ (May & Feldman, 2019; Topinka, 2018), they have pro-
ven hard to detect, and thus by extension also to moderate and regulate (Meddaugh &
Kay, 2009). Yet, despite this subtlety, coded language use risks having severe
consequences.
Phillips (2019, pp. 2–3) argues that hate can be laundered into the mainstream
through seemingly innocent humour: ‘by exploiting the fact that so many (white)
people have been trained not to take the things that happen on the internet very
seriously’. Despite the perception of the internet as harmless, previous research illus-
trates the potential stepwise progression of far-right radicalisation, starting in a nor-
malisation of humorous, but nonetheless hateful content, and gradually moving
towards exceedingly radical ideas and settings (Munn, 2019). With this, the potential
harm of subtle, ever-evolving, coded expressions like culture enricher, should not be
understated. Future research is needed to explore the movement of coded far-right
expressions online in order to find ways to mitigate their potentially harmful
effects. This includes further inquiry into how coded language use is perceived and
appropriated by different types of internet users, in different online settings, and in
different national and international contexts.
Notes
1. Incorporating ‘hits on all languages’ and displaying ‘all results even though they might be
duplicates’ with web and app activity, ad personalisation and location history setting turned
off during the data collection.
2. Every instance of text was dated based on webpages own dating functions. In the few cases
where these were not present, dates were determined through qualitative assessments of
content assisted by Google’s own date estimate.
3. The length of these instances varied between websites and content types. Comments were
always saved in their entirety. For longer texts, several paragraphs were saved. For further
context of the sampled texts, the URL’s were revisited.
4. While other sites, like Reddit, 9gag, and the Swedish forum kanal4.org were coded into this
sphere too, uses outside Flashback constituted less than 4% of uses in gateway settings and
did not show similar patterns of educating users in far-right terminology.
Notes on contributors
Mathilda Åkerlund is a PhD Candidate in sociology and with the Centre for Digital Social
Research (DIGSUM) at Umeå University where she is currently working on her dissertation
about the far-right in Swedish online settings.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by The Swedish Research Council: [Grant Number 2016-02971].
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Kitayama, Y. (2018) ‘The rise of the far right in Japan, and
challenges posed for education’. London Review of Education,
16 (2): 250–267. DOI https://doi.org/10.18546/LRE.16.2.06
The rise of the far right in Japan, and challenges

posed for education
Yuka Kitayama* – Osaka University, Japan
Abstract
This paper examines emerging far-right movements and xenophobia, and the
challenges they pose for justice in education in Japan. It illustrates discourses on
nationalism and cultural diversity in both education and wider society from the
perspective of critical race theory. It explores the voice of educators, particularly
about their concerns and uncertainties regarding xenophobia, and examines their
perceptions and reactions. By focusing on the narratives of interviewees from
different ethnic backgrounds, this paper investigates far-right extremism and its
challenges to education from different viewpoints. Data from interviews reveals
different perceptions among both majority and minority teachers regarding the
culturalization and personalization of problems in the classroom. This data also
suggests that due to the absence of collective strategies and visions to challenge
racism, approaches to combating racism depend largely on individual teachers.
Drawing from these findings, this paper argues that culturally focused discourses
among teachers and politicians may conceal problems beyond culture, such as
structural inequality and the legacy of colonialism.
Keywords: far right; populism; xenophobia; colonialism; zainichi Korean
Introduction
In recent years, the growth of right-wing populism and xenophobia has been seen
across Europe, and Japan has observed a similar phenomenon. Sharing a common
self-image as a mono-ethnic nation, Japanese society has witnessed the rise of an
ethno-nationalist far-right movement that plays on a myth of the country’s supposed
homogeneity. Populist and nationalist politicians exploit such trends to gain power,
suggesting a space for xenophobic and far-right ideas within democratic society.
Xenophobic and far-right discourses are a threat to both adults and young people
because they involve them, directly and indirectly, as potential victims and offenders.
The rise of right-wing and xenophobic populism can be tracked in the rising
fortunes of the National Front in France, Alternative for Germany, the Progress Party
in Norway, the Danish People’s Party, UKIP in the UK, and Donald Trump in the USA.
This trend is not simply characterized as populism, but as ‘national-populism’, which
is identified by its polarized discourses that construct an opposition between ‘us’
and ‘them’ (Brubaker, 2017). The term ‘populism’ is often used to indicate right-wing
populism or the populist extreme right, although there are also left-wing populist
parties – such as Podemos in Spain and SYRIZA in Greece. Stavrakakis et al. (2017: 433)
argue that ethno-nationalist and extreme-right populism can be clearly differentiated
from inclusionary, left-wing populism in contemporary Europe by its characteristics,
such as ‘xenophobia, anti-immigrantism, exclusionary (ethnic) nationalism along with
* Email: kitayama@ciee.osaka-u.ac.jp ©Copyright 2018 Kitayama. This is an Open Access article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The rise of the far right in Japan, and challenges posed for education 251
versions of antagonism against perceived external threat to the nation’. Such far-right
populism can also be observed in East Asian countries including Japan, although here
it does not have such anti-establishment tone as most of the right-wing populism in
the West – instead it is sympathetic to the establishment (Vickers, 2017).
Such national-populist movements have been successful in gaining seats, and also
in mainstreaming their discourse on immigration. They typically present immigration
as a cultural threat by emphasizing and stigmatizing the cultural differences of a certain
group, such as Muslims. This cultural focus has been adopted by the mainstream right,
and consequently brought the culturalized immigration debate to the centre of political
discourse (Yılmaz, 2012). Drawing upon critical race theory, Volpp (2001) highlights how
minority culture is blamed for subordinating non-Western women in the United States,
while cultures in the West and the history of colonialism are seldom recognized as a
force of subordination. For example, Volpp points to a popular discourse that casts
immigrants’ cultural practices as ‘backward, barbaric, primitive and misogynist’ (Volpp,
2011: 92) and as manifesting the gendered subordination of women in their community.
Such selective stereotyping and culturally focused discourses about migrants and
immigration politics have been widely adopted, not only by the far right but also by
the populist right, and even by some in the left – thus blurring the borders between the
mainstream right and the far right. This trend of culturalization is problematic, however,
as it may attribute to the culture of minority groups consequences that actually reflect
the complex influences of structural inequalities, such as racism, unequal distribution
of wealth, and asymmetric power relationships between different groups.
This paper investigates right-wing nationalism in Japan, which often employs
populist approaches to appeal to wider audiences. The paper explores this in light of
the continuity of colonialism as well as of post-war national and international politics. It
also examines the struggles of teachers in tackling xenophobia and far-right ideology
and in drawing out the educational implications of these. First, this paper outlines a
brief picture of the context and educational challenges in Japan, focusing on migration
and ethnic minority teachers. Second, it examines the recent political climate and
the rise of nationalism, and their impacts on children and teachers, illustrating how
recent educational policies place greater emphasis on a potentially exclusive national
belonging. Third, the results of interviews with teachers are presented and discussed
in order to identify the xenophobia that they face in everyday school life. Drawing on
these interviews, this paper also scrutinizes a potential pitfall of culturalized discourses
that may apply not only to Japan, but also to the wider context – including European
countries.
Japan: An imagined mono-ethnic nation

Demography and minoritized communities
Japan’s contemporary self-image as a homogeneous nation state emerged after the
Second World War, as the country distanced itself from a pre-war imperialist self-
concept that had been based on the ideology of a deliberately multi-ethnic state
(Kashiwazaki, 2000; Oguma, 2002). Although Japan has an indigenous population and
populations of migrants, including those from the former colonies such as Korea and
Taiwan, the country’s ethnic diversity has not been highly visible and has not gained
much attention from authorities. There are no official statistics about ethnic minority
populations in the national demographic statistics or in any other nationwide survey,
all of which lack a category concerning ethnicity. Instead, the numbers of foreign
London Review of Education 16 (2) 2018

252 Yuka Kitayama
residents are recorded based on the alien registration system. In 2016, approximately
2.4 million foreign nationals were registered, comprising 1.8 per cent of Japan’s
population (Ministry of Justice, 2016). Chinese, Korean, and Pilipino nationals are
the biggest groups, and comprise 29.2 per cent, 19.0 per cent, and 10.2 per cent of
the total number of registered foreigners respectively (Immigration Bureau, 2016). By
taking into account the number of uncounted minorities, such as indigenous people
and naturalized Koreans and Chinese, the full size of the ethnic minority population
is estimated to be between 3.9 and 5.7 million people (Okano and Tsuneyoshi, 2010),
which amounts to 3.3–4.8 per cent of the total population.
The non-national residents include ‘zainichi Koreans’, a group of long-term
residents of Korean heritage who have been settled in Japan for generations. The
total population of zainichi Koreans is estimated to number approximately 700,000,
including both those with and without Japanese citizenship (Ahn, 2012). The majority
of this population reside in Japan as foreign residents, because – having been
deprived of their Japanese citizenship as colonial subjects – naturalization has not
been an easy option for them. This is due to naturalization’s historical association
with the colonial legacy of an assimilationist policy and with the loss of ethnic identity
(Lie, 2008; Weiner and Chapman, 2009). Following the Second World War surrender
of Japan, the Japanese nationality of former colonial subjects was revoked and they
were grouped into the category of Chōsen (a non-Japanese person originating from
Korea) or Taiwanese, depending on the place of their origin. Today, Chōsen-seki
(literally ‘Chōsen-domicile’) indicates Koreans in Japan who have not obtained either
South Korean or Japanese nationality, making them virtually stateless. Because the
Japanese government recognizes only South Korea as a legitimate state in the Korean
peninsula, Chōsen-seki potentially includes effectively stateless persons who are tied
closely to North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) (Kashiwazaki, 2000;
Nozaki et al., 2006).
In consequence of all this, a significant number of ex-colonial subjects, mostly
Koreans, reside in Japan as Tokubetsu eijyuusha (‘special permanent resident’) – a
status in which they are non-nationals but have de facto citizenship to a large extent
(Chung, 2006). However, as non-Japanese nationals they do not have the same rights
as Japanese citizens, and institutional and everyday discrimination may also prevent
them from exercising the full capacities of their citizenship on the basis of equality. Such
unequal treatments of ex-colonial subjects have reflected a continuity of colonialism
and the complexity of domestic and international politics, such as political opposition
between the Western and Eastern blocs, and the North–South division of the Korean
peninsula, which in turn affected the Korean communities in Japan (Chong, 2013;
Kashiwazaki, 2000; Lie, 2008).
Diversity and education

Since the 1980s, a number of educational initiatives with a global dimension have
been implemented in Japan, in areas including English teaching and in Education for
International Understanding (EIU). Although EIU has the potential to promote inclusive
citizenship, government guidelines stress the ‘internationalization’ of Japan and
competitiveness in the global economy. There tends to be an emphasis on essentialist
understandings of different cultures that is likely to reinforce the concept of fixed
identities, rather than challenging injustice or prompting critical examination of the
concept of the nation. Hence, these initiatives are often Japan-centric, with a focus
on national citizenship, and have failed to create a curriculum space for recognizing
multiple identities or for fostering an inclusive notion of citizenship (Lincicome, 1993).

Furthermore, non-Japanese citizens in contemporary society are often portrayed

by school textbooks solely as unproblematic ‘visitors’ who represent Japan’s
‘internationalization’, while Koreans and Chinese are described as historical groups
in the contexts of past human rights abuses and discrimination (Tsuneyoshi, 2007).
From the perspective of critical race theory, Yosso (2005) suggests placing greater
focus on the cultural capital of racially minoritized communities – such as their cultural
knowledge and skills, experiences and strategies – instead of promoting a deficit view
of these communities. Nevertheless, both the colonial past and the current richness of
cultural diversity have been underplayed, and an image of Japan as a homogeneous
nation and an exclusive Japanese national identity have been embedded in public
education.
In Japan, a majority of children are educated at state schools: only 7.1 per cent
of lower-secondary-age pupils attend private schools, and 1.2 per cent of primary-
aged children attend private primary schools (Ministry of Education, 2016). Nakajima
(2014) points out that there is an assumption that teachers are ‘Japanese’, which is
connected to the unequal status afforded to teachers without Japanese nationality.
Nakajima’s research team conducted interviews with minority teachers, who were
mostly of Korean or Chinese heritage. The interviews revealed that their experiences
of discrimination varied across generations, with younger teachers tending to face less
explicit discrimination and to believe their ethnicity is a strength for their profession, not
only because of their linguistic proficiencies and cultural knowledge but also because
of a uniqueness, which gives them an extra capacity as educators (Kwon, 2014; Yabuta,
2014). Kim and Shibuya (2012) also found that zainichi Korean teachers’ identities and
experiences enriched their professional capacity, and argue that Japanese society
needs to be more open to cultural diversity so that such teachers are not labeled as
‘ethnic minority teachers’. Ohashi (2011) examines her own experiences as a teacher
and a daughter of a Japanese ‘left-behind’ child raised in China, part of a cohort of
orphans of Japanese parents resident in China at the end of the Second World War and
fostered by local Chinese families. She analyses different stages of her life, from her
assimilation into Japanese society – which involved internalizing a prejudice against
Chinese people – to the exploration of her own identity, which crosses the borders
between Japan and China. In addition, Hester (2000) illustrates how ethnic studies for
Korean children in state schools have provided a place in which to construct minority
culture and identity that allows them to differentiate themselves from the mainstream
Japanese. Also, Osler (2018) examines a narrative by a Korean ethnic studies teacher
and draws out its reflections on historical and ongoing struggles for justice that provide
a cosmopolitan vision.
Right-wing discourses and xenophobia

The rise of right-wing populism
While pre-war right-wing nationalism in Japan involved a militarist ideology, revering
the Emperor as a living deity, its post-war properties were authoritarian, nationalist,
pro-USA, and anti-communist. The growth of a new far-right ideology in the last
decades, however, has been characterized by xenophobia rather than nationalism
(Higuchi and Matsutani, 2016). During the 1990s, a number of right-wing politicians
came to greater prominence following a series of notable events involving controversy
over Japan’s wartime conduct. In 1991, the first former ‘comfort woman’ claimed
that the Japanese government had been responsible for the violation of her human

254 Yuka Kitayama
rights by the pre-war Japanese Army. The Kono Statement was released on behalf
of the Japanese government by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yōhei Kōno in 1993, and
acknowledged the direct and indirect involvement of the Japanese military in forcing
women to work in military brothels. This was followed by the Murayama Statement in
1995, which is often quoted as the official position of the Japanese government, and
which apologizes for the wartime damage and suffering that Japan caused to its Asian
neighbours. Responding to these events, right-wing politicians formed a number of
caucuses within the diet that aimed at countering these discourses and rejecting the
acknowledgement of Japan’s responsibility for war crimes (Higuchi, 2017).
Xenophobic sentiments towards ethnic minorities have been fuelled by populist
politicians like Shintaro Ishihara, one of Japan’s most prominent nationalist politicians
(Ito, 2014). A member of parliament later elected as the governor of Tokyo, Ishihara
has repeatedly made xenophobic statements targeting those from Japan’s former
East Asian colonies (Itagaki, 2015; Penney and Wakefield, 2008). Meanwhile, Nakano
(2016) points out a significant shift to the right in Japanese politics in recent years,
particularly during the first and second Abe administrations (2006–2007, 2012–). As
the ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has made explicit expressions of
nationalism, particularly on topics such as international relations and security and on
the revision of the Constitution. However, this does not immediately indicate that the
LDP and its supporters are right-leaning as a whole, since the second Abe cabinet
has basically followed the stance of its predecessors with regard to official statements
on wartime aggression and on the Japan–South Korea comfort women agreement
(Nakakita, 2017).
Grassroots far-right movements

The rise of the far right can be observed from two directions. One is from the top, in
the form of nationalist policies that attempt to promote collective patriotism; the other
is from the bottom, in the form of grassroots far-right movements. In recent years,
grassroots right-wing movements have attracted new members by taking approaches
that differ from the typical image of the traditional far-right, which is often associated
with negative images of people in paramilitary uniform shouting into megaphones,
driving black vans, and playing war songs loudly. In the 1990s, increasing activity in the
grassroots right-wing movement was triggered by key events such as controversies
over Japan’s war crimes and the foundation of nationalist groups such as the Society for
History Textbook Reform in 1996 and the Japan Conference in 1997. These bodies were
successful in gaining attention from the popular media and played an important role in
spreading revisionist discourses concerning Japan’s colonial history and responsibility
for wartime actions. They did this by stressing the positive attributes of colonialism
and removing the emphasis from atrocities such as the Nanking massacre (Yamaguchi,
2013). Importantly, these grassroots and new nationalist movements made far-right
activities more accessible to ordinary citizens (Oguma and Ueno, 2003).
This expansion of far-right movements was not driven solely by government
initiatives or international politics: it is arguably reinforced also by widespread feelings
of insecurity and deprivation in contemporary Japanese society (Ito, 2014). According to
Otsuki (2013), a person who has less satisfaction in their own life, unstable employment,
and little contact with foreigners tends to be unsupportive of equal rights and not open
to communication with foreigners. While there is a stereotypical image that members of
new far-right groups are economically and socially deprived, studies have revealed that
far-right ideology does not only attract socially and economically marginalized people,
but also those from a middle-class background (Higuchi, 2014). Based on his fieldwork

with far-right group members, Higuchi illustrated that the typical path to the far right
includes key incidents as triggers: territory disputes, the abduction of Japanese citizens
by North Korea, the football World Cup, world baseball championships, or anti-Japan
demonstrations. Higuchi documents also a significant influence from the internet, which
provides information that is not broadcasted by major mass media. Higuchi notes that
hostility towards East Asian neighbours, such as China, South Korea and North Korea,
tends to constitute a major motivation for new far-right members, rather than general
xenophobic or anti-immigration sentiments (Higuchi, 2017).
Hate speech
According to McGonagle (2013: 5), hate speech can interfere with the human rights or
public values of others, including their right to ‘dignity, non-discrimination and equality,
effective participation in public life, freedom of expression association, religion, etc.’.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
(ICERD) requires state parties to condemn and take action to prevent ‘all propaganda
and all organizations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or
group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote
racial hatred and discrimination in any form’ (UN, 1965: Article 4).
There has been a significant rise in the expression of xenophobic sentiments
and far-right activities in Japan, and particularly in those concerning neighbouring East
Asian countries. Between 2013 and 2015, a total of 1,221 rallies by far-right groups was
reported (Koudou-hoshu Archive Project, 2016). Ealey and Norimatsu (2018) also point
out discriminatory statements made by far-right politicians, labelling activists opposed
to the presence of a US military base in Okinawa as ‘anti-Japan’. In 2013, ‘hate speech’
was selected as a top-ten national buzzword (chosen annually from among the newly
coined words included in the dictionary Gendaiyougo no kiso chishiki), indicating
a general public awareness of hatred towards ethnic minorities. Through surveys
conducted with zainichi Korean regarding hate speech, M. Kim (2016) identifies ‘fear’
as the word mentioned most frequently in their comments.
Article 14 of the Constitution of Japan guarantees the equality of all people
under the law and prohibits ‘discrimination in political, economic or social relations
because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin’ (Constitution of Japan,
Article 14, Section 1). Japan ratified a number of key international conventions on
human rights, including the ICERD; however, it noted a reservation in respect of
Article 4 of the convention, which obliges parties to criminalize hate speech. The
government noted that it shall fulfil the responsibility listed in Article 4 to the extent
that this does not violate the constitutional freedom of assembly, association and
expression and other rights, recognizing a potential conflict between this provision
and the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution. Nevertheless, against
a backdrop of perceived xenophobic discourses in media and the internet, as well as
an actual increase in the number of xenophobic offences reported, the United Nations
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) demanded in April
2010 that the Japanese government enacted legislation to tackle hate speech against
ethnic minorities (Johnston, 2015). Pushed by the growing public attention to hate
speech and by demands from minorities and their supporters, Japan’s diet enacted an
anti-hate speech law on 24 May 2016. In June 2016, an ordinance aimed at deterring
hate speech was implemented in the city of Osaka, instituting the first legal penalty
against hate speech in Japan (Johnston, 2016). Certain other local governments in
Japan, including the cities of Kawasaki and Nagoya, have recently begun the process
of setting up guidelines and ordinances to regulate racist rallies (Asahi Shimbun, 2017).

256 Yuka Kitayama
To summarize, the far right in Japan has shifted from authoritarian nationalism
to xenophobic national-populism, reflecting the national and international political
climate. Over the past decades, the rise of the far-right movement has been driven
both from the top (via prominent politicians) and from the bottom (through grassroots
movements). These two engines mutually influence one another, as the expansion of
hate speech against ethnic minorities is fuelled by xenophobic remarks by national-
populist politicians and antagonistic historical revisionists, while the development of
the internet has provided a new space for far-right public discourses.
Xenophobia and educational challenges

Children as targets of xenophobic attacks
Far-right extremism affects children. While it directly and indirectly threatens minority
children as the potential victims of racial harassment, it can also harm majority children,
who may be involved as offenders or perpetrators.
As a consequence of the current expansion of far-right movements, ethnic
minority schools – particularly Korean schools – have been targeted in racist attacks by
far-right groups. Pro-pyongyang Kyoto No. 1 Korean Primary School became a notable
focus of such hate attacks by far-right racist groups, who held protests rallies outside
the school between December 2009 and March 2010. Members of the far-right shouted
insulting slogans through loudspeakers, such as ‘Korean schools are spy schools, kick
them out of Japan!’. According to an account by Nakamura (2014), many children inside
the school started crying, and teachers closed curtains and played music loudly so that
the children did not see or have to hear the racist chants. After hearing the far-right
protestors call them spies and cockroaches, some children developed stomach aches
due to stress and anxiety (Fackler, 2013). Indeed, Nakamura (2014) reports that some
children were unable to go to the bathroom or stay alone at home, and that some still
get scared when they hear voices through a loudspeaker, such as from a recycling truck
or during an election campaign. In October 2013, the Kyoto district court identified
these chants as an ‘extremely insulting and discriminatory’ expression of racism and
as prohibited by the ICERD, thus ordering the far-right groups to pay 12.26 million yen
(about US$111,500) in damages. It also ordered the groups to refrain from all racist
activities within a 200-metre radius of schools. While the decision was appealed by the
far-right groups, it was upheld by the Upper Court and Supreme Court (Boyd, 2015).
Regarding the concerns about growing xenophobic sentiments, Lee et al. (2016)
reported the view of a third-generation zainichi Korean woman whose child goes to
Tokyo Korean School, which is affiliated to the South Korean government;
The school told children ‘do not read Korean books or speak Korean
on the train when you commute to the school’ … Why can’t they speak
their own language? … How can they be proud of their own ethnicity and
develop a healthy identity? (Lee et al., 2016: 58; translation by the author).
This quote suggests that racist attacks and hate speech have negative effects on the
day-to-day lives of the minority community.
While far-right activities threaten minority populations, including children, they
can also affect mainstream children who participate as offenders. A notorious example
of this involves a 14-year-old girl who participated in a racist demonstration led by far-
right groups in Tsuruhashi district in Osaka, which is known as ‘Korea-town’. A video

of this episode was uploaded onto YouTube in which the girl was seen chanting with
a loudspeaker:
I hate the Koreans so much that I can’t stand it and I just want to kill them
all now. If Koreans behave with this arrogance further, so we will carry out
Tsuruhashi massacre like Nanking massacre! [other participants shouted
‘yeah that’s right’] (IMADR, 2013).
Furthermore, there are cases in which teenagers become offenders by writing racist
comments on the internet (Otake, 2015).
Nevertheless, teachers at state schools often employ a subtle or indirect
approach to counter political extremism. This is because of Article 12 of the Basic
Law on Education (2006), which requires teachers to refrain from ‘political education
or other political activities for or against any specific party’. Although a number of
teachers have attempted to implement antiracist and inclusive citizenship education,
this depends on individual initiative, and there has been a lack of governmental
measures against racism (Kitayama et al., 2017).
Schools as an arena of political conflicts

Following the Second World War, Japan reconstructed itself as a democratic country
with an ethos based on pacifism, and explicit expressions of patriotism became a
sensitive issue due to their association with the country’s martial and imperialist past.
Over the past two decades, however, a change in attitude with regard to the expression
of nationalist sentiment has been observed.
The Japan Teachers Union (JTU), which is the largest and oldest labour union of
school teachers and staff, was established in 1947 with the slogan ‘Do not send our
students to war again’. This slogan evoked memories of the wartime cooperation of
schools and teachers in indoctrinating children with the ideology prevalent before the
war that they should serve their country uncritically. Although no longer as powerful as
it was in the 1950s and 1960s, the JTU today is still known for its left-leaning stance, and
often opposes the LDP and Ministry of Education on issues concerning the promotion
of patriotism. Thus, schools often become an arena of ideological controversy around
issues of patriotism, such as whether pupils and teachers should be forced to sing
the national anthem, or whether the national flag should have a place at school
ceremonies, both questions being associated with the image of pre-war militaristic
nationalism. In recent years political conservatives have made several attempts to
enhance patriotism in education: their most notable success has been the revision of
the Basic Law on Education, under the first Abe cabinet in 2006, which added ‘fostering
patriotism’ to the list of the purposes of education. Another relevant development
was the Act on the National Flag and Anthem, enacted in 1999. Given the popular
sensitivity to national symbols from the pre-war period, Japan had until this date used
a de facto national flag and anthem without ever introducing formal legislation. With
this legislation, though, and although it was explained that individuals would not be
forced to satisfy its provisions against their will (House of Representatives, 1999), the
Ministry of Education issued an official order mandating the use of the national flag
and the national anthem at school ceremonies. The new provision was introduced in
a strict manner in Tokyo and Osaka under well-known populist politicians – the then
governor of Tokyo, Ishihara, and the then mayor of Osaka, Hashimoto – and a number
of teachers were punished for not obeying the order (Mullins, 2016).
In 2015, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
(MEXT) announced that Moral Education would become a compulsory special

258 Yuka Kitayama
subject from 2018. Although Moral Education has the potential to serve a variety of
purposes, including the countering of bullying and racism, there are concerns that
government-led Moral Education promotes uncritical respect for and obedience to
authority. Indeed, the curriculum and textbooks provided by MEXT stress discipline
and ‘traditional’ morality, but make little reference to diversity.
While they have served as a means of preserving ethnic heritage and pride, which
is not provided by Japanese state schools, Korean schools have also been an arena of
political conflict. In 1948/49, Korean communities held a number of protests against
government plans to close Korean community schools. These protests were violently
suppressed, and many of the schools were forced to close (Tsutsui and Shin, 2008). The
predominant rationale for this was that the Japanese and American authorities alike
believed that these schools were vehicles for disseminating Communist propaganda;
however, the issue also involved an ideological divide within the Korean communities
(Chong, 2013). In 2017, there were 72 Korean schools in Japan: 68 were chōsen gakkō, i.e.
sponsored by Chongryon, a pro-North Korean organization, while four were sponsored
by the pro-South organization Mindan. The closures were aimed at the former group
of pro-Pyongyang schools, which were also excluded from the funding programme
subsidizing tuition fees for all high school students and eventually making high school
education free (Itagaki, 2015). The Japanese government’s decision to exclude these
schools was made despite the concern expressed by CERD (2010: 6) that it would
‘have discriminatory effects on children’s education’. Moreover, the then governor
of Osaka, Hashimoto, claimed that Chongryon-supported schools were connected
to North Korea, which is ’no different from gangsters’ (Asahi Shimbun, 2010), in an
effort to justify state intervention in the schools as a means of protecting ‘innocent’
children. Mindan, for its part, was supportive of Hashimoto and MEXT’s intervention in
the operation and curriculum of these pro-Pyongyang schools (Ha, 2017). Meanwhile,
Yuriko Koike, elected as Tokyo governor in 2016, announced that she would cancel
the metropolitan government’s plan to lease a property to a South Korean-supported
school (Otake, 2016).
The controversies over the Korean schools indicate a complex of issues regarding
cultural diversity and ethnic identity. They reflect not only growing xenophobic
sentiments and a social stigmatization of North Korea that is exploited by populist
politicians, but also the ideological oppositions between the Western and Eastern
blocs, as well as the legacy of colonialism, often concealed by culturally focused
discourses that are accompanied by selective stereotyping.
In the following sections, I investigate the influences of culturally focused
discourses of xenophobia and the far-right movement in day-to-day school life.
Method and data

The interviewees assembled for this study include not only teachers from government
schools but also educators with other affiliations, because the proportion of teachers
with non-Japanese nationality working at state schools is far lower than the picture in
wider demographic statistics. While it is possible for non-Japanese nationals to work
as school teachers or administrative staff in municipalities, they are limited to non-
management roles (Nakajima, 2017). This stipulation might have discouraged non-
Japanese citizens from taking jobs as teachers at state schools.
In the following section I report the results of interviews conducted with educators
engaged in promoting cultural tolerance. The study employed unstructured interviews
to allow the interviewee a degree of flexibility and openness in responding. Interviewees

were selected based on ‘snowball sampling’ through personal connections. This is a

common strategy to access a small group of people relevant to the research focus
who are difficult or impossible to reach via a probability sampling method (Noy,
2008). I conducted face-to-face interviews with ten educators in Tokyo and Osaka in
March and December 2015. According to alien registration records, Tokyo is home
to approximately 500,000 non-Japanese nationals – the largest total in Japan. I also
contacted educators from Osaka, which is the largest city in western Japan and has
Japan’s biggest Korean community.
Table 1: Characteristics of interviewees
Occupation Sex Ethnicity Place

A Upper secondary school teacher F Japanese Tokyo
B Upper secondary school teacher F Japanese Tokyo
C Lower secondary school teacher F Japanese Tokyo
D Primary school teacher M Japanese Tokyo
E Primary school teacher F Japanese Tokyo
F Lower secondary school teacher (recently retired) M Japanese Tokyo
G Head teacher, state primary school M Japanese Osaka
H Ethnic education teacher F Korean Osaka
I Lower secondary school teacher F Japanese Osaka
J Non-profit organization staff M Korean Osaka
K Head teacher, pro-Pyongyang primary school M Korean Osaka
As shown in Table 1, six interviewees came from Tokyo and five from Osaka; they
included employed and retired teachers, head teachers, and other education staff.
All individual names mentioned here are pseudonyms. I asked interviewees about
their views regarding the current social and political situation relating to social
cohesion in Japan and their experiences of xenophobia and right-wing activism. The
interviews were conducted face-to-face in Japanese, which is the native language of all
interviewees as well as myself as the interviewer; I am ethnically Japanese and female.
Throughout the analysis, a possible influence of my positionality to the interviewees
needed to be considered: an ethnic Korean participant might be reluctant to strongly
criticize Japanese people and the Japanese government, for example. I took extensive
notes during the interview, and the interview data were coded with a focus on their
perceptions, concerns, reactions, and needs regarding xenophobia and far-right
movements.
As this study uses data from a small number of respondents, it does not
attempt to generalize their personal experiences; however, it does try to draw out the
educational implications and frame them using the findings of the studies discussed in
previous sections of this paper.
Teacher narratives
Stereotyping and scapegoating
Teacher A, who teaches English at a state high school in central Tokyo, recalls a boy in
her class who claimed that ‘The government should ban the entry of Muslims in order

260 Yuka Kitayama
to protect Japan from the Islamic State’. She challenged him by asking questions such
as: ‘How can the government ban the entry of everyone because of her/his faith?’ and
‘Is the “Islamic State” the same as “Islam”?’. Her students seldom objected strongly
when such different views were posed, and she supposed that they had never even
thought in such a way (the discussion preceded Donald Trump’s proposed ban on
Muslim entry to the United States). Indeed, she noted:
They just lack knowledge. There are many Muslims actually living in Japan.
I never overlook such a statement, but don’t deny them simply either. I
always ask them a question like ‘Is this really true?’ Because some of them
will start working just after their graduation from the school, and I am
worried that they will be adults with the same racist attitude.
At the time of the interview, there was increasing media attention to the so-called
Islamic State. Teacher C offered an extracurricular activity named ‘world cuisine’ as
a part of EIU provision. During the activity, a girl told her that she did not want to
even hear the word ‘Islam’, having watched a horrifying video about Islamic State on
YouTube. Teacher E realized that pupils in her Year 6 class tended to have vague but
negative images of Islam, such as that is ‘something scary’. Many teachers mentioned
that students lack knowledge about people from minorities and about the historical
background of immigration.
Teacher I, who serves at a lower secondary school and also works in her
municipality’s human rights education division, was concerned about the xenophobic
discourses often used by members of the populist party.
One day, I saw some members of the Osaka Restoration Association [a

local populist neo-conservative and neo-liberal political party, founded in
2010] giving a speech on the street claiming ‘We should not accept the
illegal act by people who take away cans that are supposed to be recycled
by Osaka city.’ Everyone knows there are elderly Chinese people who
collect cans on the street and their speech is obviously attacking them.
She expressed her concern about current trends within the populist party, which
uses xenophobic discourses to boost its own power while carefully avoiding direct
expressions that could be criticized as racist.
Culturalization and personalization

Several teachers, including Teacher A, mentioned that the images in Japan of
neighbouring East Asian countries – particularly China – have been negative in
recent years, and that they often hear stereotypical comments by parents and even
fellow teachers. Teacher D, who works at a state primary school, said that she does
not hear many racist words from children, as they are very young and may not have
been influenced by a particular ideology yet. However, she did recall the comment of
a colleague who blamed a student’s administrative mistake on the ethnicity of their
parents, saying: ‘That student doesn’t submit documents appropriately because his
parents are Chinese.’ She also noted that some parents told their children not to be
friends with Koreans. Similarly, Teacher I mentioned that ‘some children do not consider
it as wrong to say bad things against China, and some teachers do not warn against it.’
Teacher A recalled several xenophobic statements made by students. She
described these as ‘not really an expression of a certain ideology or hatred, but an
insensible expression of prejudice influenced by the media’. When negative news of
China was broadcasted, such as coverage of territory disputes or the production of

counterfeit products, some students asked her questions such as ‘Why do Chinese
people always steal?’, despite the presence of some Chinese classmates. She believes
that these pupils lack the sensitivity to recognize what such negative stereotypes
would mean to their classmates with Chinese heritage. She presumes such attitudes
might also reflect the masculine culture of her students, who are predominantly from
working-class communities.
Mr F, a recently retired junior high school teacher, believed that some cases of
xenophobic expressions are a product of individual frustrations. He recalled one of his
former students:
There was a student who repeatedly cut a picture of Kim Il-sung in a history
textbook into pieces until the textbook was damaged and had a hole. I
think it was driven by his frustrations about family problems and the stress
of entrance exams.
Although all teachers had heard racist name-calling among pupils, none of those with
an ethnically Japanese background believed that far-right activism posed a serious
threat to them or to children, since these far-right elements were in a minority and
would make no substantial impact on the wider society. Teachers tended to consider
pupils and students who made racist comments to be simply ‘insensitive’ people who
had uncritically accepted stereotyped media images.
Fear of escalating hatred

In contrast to the Japanese teachers, Mr Kang (listed in Table 1 as ‘K’), a head teacher
of Korean ethnicity, expressed strong concerns about the escalating hatred towards his
pupils. He serves as a head teacher at a pro-Pyongyang primary school, and his school
is often targeted by xenophobic attacks, especially when political tensions between
Japan and North Korea escalate. Financial support to his school from the municipal
government was suspended after the Osaka Restoration Association came to power
in the city. As a chōsen gakkō, Mr Kang’s school has some features that distinguish it
from state primary schools. For example, pictures of Kim Il-sung, the founding father of
North Korea, are placed in its classrooms. The school is not, however, totally segregated
from the rest of the local community. It occasionally holds open days and events open
to public, and its pupils use a swimming pool shared by a neighbouring state school.
According to Mr Kang, xenophobic pressure is ‘not as bad as in other districts
because there is a high proportion of Korean residents in this area. We occasionally
receive threatening phone calls like “I’m going to kill you” and we simply report it
to the police’. Mr G, who serves as head teacher at a state lower secondary school,
also mentions certain phone calls that made xenophobic claims, such as ‘why do you
devote too much time to studying Korea’ or ‘(Korean) ethnic drums are too noisy’.
This school, as well as other pro-Pyongyang Korean chōsen gakkō in neighbouring
areas, provided safety guidance to all pupils due to the increasing volume of racial
harassment directed towards children of Korean heritage. Mr Kang felt that ‘hate
speech has become tolerated’ these days. The school decided to change its uniform
from an ethnic design to a Western style in order to avoid having its pupils recognized
as students of a Korean school. Although most pupils will study at a lower secondary
chōsen gakkō, he noted that only half of them will continue their studies at a Korean
upper secondary school. The other half choose to study at schools that are not affiliated
with the Korean community because they are concerned that an educational record
from ethnic schools might prove disadvantageous in job hunting or integrating into
mainstream society.

262 Yuka Kitayama
I was shocked when a pupil in Year 4 asked me ‘Are we evil people?’

It’s a self-denial of one’s own identity. I believe children should be free
from such a negative environment. I want our children to love their local
community and feel like they can contribute to it. Being rooted in the local
community will be a foundation for their life. I am very worried that they
will be rootless because of discrimination.
As former colonial subjects, nurturing ethnic identity and self-esteem has been at the
centre of ethnic studies for zainichi Korean children. Ms E, who works as an ethnic
education teacher at several state schools, says ‘one hour a week is too short to learn
the (Korean) language, but I want children to be positive about their own heritage’.
Mr Kang recalled that there used to be a number of Japanese people in the
municipality – including top-level officers – who were supportive and ‘shared the same
ideals’, but that right-wing ideology had latterly come to dominate local politics. He
stressed that being indifferent about injustice is equivalent to supporting it.
This is not about one-way help [for Koreans], but this is about Japan’s
democracy. I want Japanese people to think about whether this [injustice]
is all right for Japanese society.
The lack of a whole-school strategy against racism: Joo’s case

Mr Joo is a zainichi Korean who is a local non-profit organization staff member and
often involved in training teachers on issues of intercultural understanding. He has
a son studying at a state primary school, who was shocked when his classmate told
him that ‘Korea is the enemy’. It took a few months before the son told this father
about this, because he was at first too shocked to talk about it. Joo and his son were
very concerned about the incident, which they felt might be reflective of emerging
xenophobia. Joo reported the situation to his son’s homeroom teacher at a regular
Parent–Teacher Association (PTA) meeting, but was not taken seriously. He later
participated in a teacher training session and had the chance to talk to another teacher
from the same school who was in charge of matters concerning ethnic minority pupils.
Through this teacher, Joo finally reported the case to the head teacher, who took it very
seriously and even revised the school’s curriculum. Joo said ‘Teachers do not recognize
the severity of far-right demonstrations because they are majority, although half of we
zainichi Koreans have seen an anti-Korean rally’.
Teacher I also pointed out the importance of the whole school taking action
against racist incidents.
There is a significant growth in xenophobic statements and I am worried

that teachers might overlook them. So, I organized a teacher training
programme including a two-hour workshop to discuss how to examine
a racist statement and how we should react. It doesn’t matter what kind
of belief they have, they shouldn’t tolerate discrimination as professional
[educators]. We should all stand against it together.
During the course of conducting interviews, I was unable to find a state-school head
teacher or PTA president with an ethnic minority background. I asked interviewees
if they knew any, but all were unable to name one. Although appointments of non-
Japanese staff members at municipality level is limited to non-management roles, there
is no legal grounds for limiting ethnic minority appointments with Japanese nationality
and PTA membership to teaching roles or PTA presidencies. However, an ‘unwritten

rule’ has been maintained in most places because of an underlying assumption that
influential positions should be occupied by Japanese people.
Discussion
Interviews revealed a gap in perceptions of xenophobia and the threat of far-right
extremism between educators from different cultural backgrounds. While Korean
teachers tended to express serious concerns, none of the Japanese interviewees
considered the current xenophobic problems to be as serious as Korean teachers did
(except for one teacher working in the Human Rights Education division). Instead,
Japanese teachers believe that far-right groups are just a tiny minority and have little
influence in society. Although principles of human rights offer a standard by which
to assess human rights problems, the interview results suggest that these issues may
be perceived differently by people from different ethnic backgrounds. Such minority
perceptions tend to be underrepresented, while those of the mainstream often serve
as the dominant discourse. Drawing on the conception of ‘the right to narrate’ by the
postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha (2003), Osler (2015) argues that minority narratives
would provide an alternative perspective to enable a reimagining of the nation in the
context of education – an area in which hegemonic curricula based on an exclusive
notion of the nation have served to misrepresent and often exclude minoritized
students. This suggests the importance of minority voices being shared in schools and
of an awareness of the asymmetric power relations that marginalize them, in order to
narrow the perception gap about xenophobia and to tackle it together.
This study found that almost all teachers recognized racist name-calling, and
some mentioned this in relation to the negative portrayal of particular groups in
the media. Many of the teachers realized that there is a need for media education,
especially digital literacy. The interviews revealed that ethnicity is often blamed, with
stereotypical generalization used to explain a problem with a student or parent from
a minority background. Volpp (2001, 2011) argues that this problematization of a
particular culture makes it difficult to see forces beyond culture, such as institutional
discrimination and socio-economic conditions. These culturalized discourses about
minoritized groups correspond to what Yilmaz (2012) has written regarding the
populist far-right discourse on immigrants in Europe, and especially on Muslims. It
suggests that common discourses driven by right-wing populism could pervade in
both Japan and European countries, regardless of the ethnic, cultural, or religious
backgrounds of the targeted minority group. It also indicates how the normalization
of xenophobic discourses influences children in everyday life. In contrast, xenophobic
attitudes from pupils are often interpreted as being caused by personal frustration
or as simply representing insensitivity. This tendency is also reported by studies in
Western countries. Volpp (2001) illustrates how domestic violence by a white person is
considered to be triggered by a personal cause, and points out that this may overlook
possible problems among the white community – such as Christian fundamentalism
– while culture tends to be blamed for violence perpetrated in or by those of non-
Western communities. Biseth’s (2010) study of teachers in Denmark, Norway, and
Sweden found that racism is often mentioned in relation to bullying or teasing by
teachers. She argues that the students’ character tends to be considered as a major
source of such problems, rather than problematizing the school environment.
Through interviews, this study found that approaches to combating xenophobia
and right-wing extremism depend on individual teachers, and that there is an absence
of collective strategies and shared visions that effectively challenge xenophobia

264 Yuka Kitayama
and racism at a whole-school or municipal level. Although there are a number of

international legal instruments as well as national and local ordinances against racism
and hate speech, it is still left to individual teachers to decide whether and how to take
action when faced with racist attitudes in the classroom or school community. This lack
of collective strategy and vision is problematic, because such measures are necessary
to tackle racism effectively and to protect both minority and majority children from
xenophobia and extremist ideology. This lack of institutional initiative resonates with the
general tendency to perpetuate culturalized discourses about minority problems and
the personalization of those of the majority. Indeed, they conceal complex influences
beyond culture and hide structural problems, such as the institutional exclusion of
teachers of non-Japanese nationality from management roles, the continuity of
colonialism that prevents such individuals from obtaining Japanese nationality despite
residing in the country for generations, as well as national-populist discourses that use
xenophobic sentiments and stigmatize minority communities.
Conclusion
This paper examined the emergence of far-right extremism and xenophobia, and
explored the challenges posed for justice in education. It illustrated the impact of right-
wing populism that emphasizes and promotes a negative and culturalized discourse
on ethnic minorities, which is now widely pervasive. A significant gap in the perception
of the threat of racism among teachers from different ethnic backgrounds suggests the
underrepresentation of minority voices in schools. This may be caused by both a lack
of collective strategies and shared visions based on the universal principles provided
by anti-discrimination legal instruments, and by structural inequality between majority
and minority groups in schools and wider society – which could in turn more properly
be understood as the legacy of colonialism. I also suggest that the cultural heritage of
minority children and teachers and their experiences need to be focused on as sources
of cultural capital rather than in deficit discourses. This is necessary not only to enjoy
and learn from cultural diversity, but also to counter the negative and culturalized
discourses that are exploited by national-populists. As noted by a Korean teacher,
the rise of the far-right and of xenophobia needs to be tackled not as a problem for
minorities, but as the challenge for democratic society as a whole.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive
comments. I am also grateful to my colleagues in PASIE (Publication Across Subjects
in Education) at the University of Southeast Norway for their helpful feedback and
suggestions.
Notes on the contributor

Yuka Kitayama is an associate professor at the Centre for International Education and
Exchange, Osaka University. Her research addresses education policies and practices,
with a particular focus on issues of citizenship, nationalism, and social justice. She
is currently conducting a comparative research project on diversity and inclusive
citizenship in teacher education.

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The Trap of Tracking: Digital Methods,
Dialogue
Surveillance, and the Far Right
Robert Topinka Alan Finlayson Cassian Osborne-Carey

Birkbeck, University of London, UK University of East Anglia, UK University of Arts London, UK
r.topinka@bbk.ac.uk a.finlayson@uea.ac.uk cassian.osborne-carey@warwick.ac.uk
Introduction
Computational methods and network analysis are vital means for understanding how digital platforms are
employed by political extremists. Western democracies focused on the security threat of jihadi extremism
have been comparatively slow to recognise the threat of the far-right extremism (see Crosby 2021 and
Rostami and Askanius 2021). Understandably, scholars have reacted to the knowledge gap about far-right
extremists by practicing what we call “surveillance-as-method,” or the use of computational methods to
gather data on far-right activities on digital media platforms, typically in order to track keywords or phrases
or to map network connections. As we suggest here, the limits of surveillance-as-method include
reproducing problems associated with state surveillance (van Dijck 2014) and underestimating the
messiness (Pink, Lanzeni, and Horst 2018) of digital culture. Those limits need to be appreciated and
approaches combined if we are to understand online politics. In this dialogue, we urge greater caution and
reflexivity in reproducing surveillant methods, and greater attention to the historical, ideological context of
far-right politics.
This is for two key reasons. Firstly, surveillance-as-method reinforces an assumption that digital extremism
needs only to be seen to be understood and addressed; that once it is revealed as extreme it will be seen for
what it is and wither. Yet, many far-right extremists welcome academic exposure and critique because they
can caricature and mock it as part of a wider ideological assault on universities, mainstream media, and
liberalism. Beyond the risk of supplying far-right groups with “the oxygen of amplification” (Phillips 2018),
academic surveillance risks supplying the far-right with what they want: evidence supporting their claim
that the political mainstream is intolerant and exclusionary, in contrast to their pioneer-spirit of
independence and freedom. This tactic is a novel “anticipatory data practice” (Kazansky 2021) that turns
surveillance back on the surveillant, welcoming attention as evidence of politically motivated attack.
This problem takes us to our second point: surveillance-as-method reinforces a tactic commonly used by
right-wing extremists, who claim to be “keeping an eye on” liberals, the left, and their purported co-
conspirators in the mainstream media, exposing them as biased ideologues driven by an agenda. Here,
surveillance becomes a central means of doing politics as a public revelation of “the truth about” politics
and “what they don’t want you to know” (Finlayson 2020). Such revelation affirms and sustains common-
sense ideological divisions between good and bad, us and them. If scholars replicate this conflation of
surveillance-as-method with surveillance-as-critique (assuming that, once unmasked as far-right politics, it
has been shown to be an instance of what “everyone knows” is a bad thing), they risk perpetuating an
Topkinka, Robert, Alan Finlayson, and Cassian Osborne-Carey. 2021. The Trap of Tracking: Digital
Methods, Surveillance, and the Far Right. Surveillance & Society 19(3): 384-388.
https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/index | ISSN: 1477-7487
© The author(s), 2021 | Licensed to the Surveillance Studies Network under a Creative Commons
Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license
Topinka, Finlayson, and Osborne-Carey: The Trap of Tracking
approach to politics that is constituted by, rather than derived from, the capacities and affordances of digital
media. Chris Anderson (2008) somewhat notoriously argued in Wired that theories of human behaviour are
obsolete; we don’t need to know why people do what they do when we can “track and measure it with
unprecedented fidelity” and “with enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.” If we take this route,
then politics will be nothing more or less than a conflict between “alternative facts,” competing practices of
surveillance that reinforce the assumptions of their respective communities.
We are not opposed to surveillance-as-method, but we argue that we also need strategies for moving beyond
surveillance, integrating findings with theoretically and historically informed analysis of ideologies of the
far right.
Supplementing the State

The global rise of a digitally powered far-right has been well-documented (Hawley 2017; Daniels 2018;
Beran 2019; Fielitz and Thurston 2019). However, as Crosby (2021) shows in the case of Canada and
Rostami and Askanius (2021) in that of Sweden, state actors have been slow to grapple with the threat of
far-right extremism. The tracking and tracing of activity amongst these actors frequently falls to non-
governmental organisations and academics using what we describe here as surveillance-as-method, drawing
on computational methods to scrape and collect large datasets of posts, comments, and profile markers on
platforms ranging from Twitter to Telegram. These datasets are analysed, categorised, and quantified in
ways intended to reveal its dangerously underappreciated volume and spread. Beyond the academy, activists
and anti-fascist groups adopt similar methods as they monitor, record, and publicise the goals and desires
of far-right communities in order to expose and incriminate participants. Surveillance and “capture” (Agre
1994) are folded together. But it is not clear whether this necessary work is sufficient for political analysis
and critique.
Surveillance, Politics, Critique

Although the alt-right and other far-right reactionary groups predate the 2016 US presidential election, the
Trump campaign’s willingness to recirculate alt-right memes brought these digital political subcultures to
mainstream attention. The most infamous portrayed Trump as “Pepe the Frog,” a formerly apolitical online
comic character ironically repurposed by online communities into a far-right signifier. The Clinton
campaign’s “Pepe the Frog explainer”—since scrubbed from the campaign website—accurately but too
earnestly explained that Pepe was, in fact, a white nationalist symbol. The problem with these explainers
wasn’t only that they supplied the “oxygen of amplification” to the alt-right. They also misunderstood the
place of such digital political subcultures within a wider political ecology. They assumed that in “outing”
digital extremism it would also be understood and addressed. The 4chan imageboard /pol/, on which Pepe
was born as a right-wing meme, is perhaps obscure when seen by anyone more familiar with the user-
friendly interfaces of Facebook or Twitter. But political sentiments expressed on 4chan’s /pol/ board are not
hidden. Racism, misogyny, and extremism are clearly and confidently expressed there. Pepe was not a covert
symbol but a mascot, typically used to illustrate commentators’ alliance with the alt-right and intended to
“trigger” audiences of earnest liberals. The Clinton campaign was right that Pepe is a meme favored among
white nationalists but missed its part in a wider political culture of trolling. Making a heavily favored
presidential candidate worry over a cartoon frog was a propaganda win for alt-right communities.
Commentators have become alert to the weaponised irony of the alt-right and of the difficulties of
ascertaining meaning on the “ambivalent internet” (Phillips and Milner 2017). This ambivalence
problematises the quantification of right-wing subcultural tropes, memes, and in-group references. The tools
of surveillance-as-method, including data-scraping, network-graphing, and keyword-tracking, are vital for
identifying far-right activity online and raising awareness. But revealing their symbols, memes, and in-
group references is not enough. In the “mask culture” (de Zeeuw and Tuters 2020: 215) of 4chan, anonymity
and irony dominate, making it impossible to connect posts to an author or to assign a meaning to the content
Surveillance & Society 19(3) 385

of any post. But anonymity and ambivalence are not the same as obscurity. Simple exposure cannot unmask
the sources of content born from a medium and a culture as much as from individual authors. Digital content
circulates as untethered shares, replies, and remixes. Surveillance-as-method cannot help us make sense of
subcultural spaces that are openly and ironically extremist. Indeed, such irony and anonymity are forms of
“vernacular resistance” (Brunton and Nissenbaum 2011) to the “dataveillance” (van Dijck 2014: 198) built
into digital environments. Surveillance-as-method can show whether extremist content exists but not what
the context of that content is, nor the new ways in which it enacts politics.
In addition to the tracing and tracking of surveillance-as-method, we propose attending to the digital forms
that structure and give rise to extremist propaganda online. Digital data is “a complex epistemic object”
(Aradau and Blanke 2015: 4) that is not given but is always “in-formation” (Reigeluth 2014: 252). Consider,
for example, the alt-right and the gamified conspiracy theory QAnon. At one level, these are nothing alike.
Where the alt-right is self-consciously edgy and ironic, QAnon followers tend to be earnest and sincere.
Where the alt-right skews young and male (Hawley 2017), QAnon is popular among women and mothers
(Bloom and Moskalenko 2021). Yet both share origins in the obscurantist style of 4chan. Both coordinate
an in-group through a referential repertoire significant only to the initiated, from “pede”1 to “cuck”2 to
“breadcrumbs”3 and “baking.”4 Both found a hero in Trump. Both have a clear—and often shared—set of
enemies among the liberal elite. Both gain momentum from mainstream critiques and attempts to track and
trace their every move. And, it is worth emphasizing, both operate in the open. Their references may be for
the already-initiated, but they are not secrets. Both groups actively propagandise. And, as we are arguing
here, both feed on mainstream criticism, which only provides proof of their enemies and new content to
caricature.
What this suggests is that the form of such groups may be as significant as their content (see Topinka,
forthcoming). The sociologist Georg Simmel (1909: 302) uses the term “forms of association” to describe
the material formal structures through which “human beings arrange themselves in association.” For
extreme groups such as the alt-right and QAnon, these “forms of association” are linked with what media
scholars call “affordances,” the properties of websites, platforms, interfaces, and other digital media that
make certain kinds of action possible (and others harder or impossible). We suggest that scholarly attention
to extreme politics online ought to focus more on this overall form, the ecology, of which they are a singular
manifestation. Such analysis of the “form” of communicative intervention necessitates qualitative
interpretation informed by a theoretical understanding of how ideologies—and those of the right and far-
right in particular—work so that we can make sense of how the standard argumentational patterns of such
ideologies interact with the digital system.
Consider, for instance, the idea of the “echo chamber”—that digital media intensify partisan belonging
because people are exposed only to material from within their ideological universe. The reality is somewhat
different. Partisan online sites draw on, repost, and address material from outside their “echo chamber.” But
they treat it as primary evidence of the lies, deceptions, and conspiracies against which participants are
organised. They compete to find examples and to demonstrate their capacity at interpreting and explaining
what it “really” means. In this way, they are themselves engaging in a conflation of surveillance-as-method
with surveillance-as-critique. They are ideal participants within digital technoculture, whom Jodi Dean
(2001: 625) describes as “searching, suspicious subjects ever clicking for more information, ever drawn to
uncover the secret and find out for themselves.” Paradoxically, this is a politics that is both extremist and
entirely normal for this culture, these platforms, and their affordances: we surveil the other side, bringing
our findings back to our own side where we measure how far beyond the pale they are. To understand a
1 As in “centipede”—the moniker adopted by Trump fans on Reddit, indicating their “nimble navigation” of online
news and information in curating pro-Trump discourse.
2 Shortened from cuckold as a pejorative directed at liberals and Trump opponents.
3 Referring to the obscure hints at a liberal conspiracy offered by “Q,” the alleged Washington insider posting on
4chan and later 8kun.
4 The term QAnon followers use to describe their work interpreting the “breadcrumbs” or obscure hints.

politics today, as well as mapping, measuring, and interpreting its utterances, we must locate it in relation
to the digital culture of which it is a part and explain how the ideological propositions making up its content
are made possible, modified, and circulated by the form to which they belong.
Conclusion
Online, political activists surveil each other. They monitor each other’s traffic, establish each other’s
identity, and expose the “agenda” to which each is working. In noting this, we do not for a moment intend
to suggest that the two sides are the same, or that, as Trump might put it, there are bad people on both sides.
Our point is that this situation is one part of a radically transformed environment within which political
ideas are formed, articulated, and circulated. If we do not understand that, we do not understand what is
happening.
As noted above, there has been a tendency on the part of security forces to underplay the extent of
ideologically organised and motivated domestic terrorism in contrast to Islamist political violence. As
Ganesh (2021) shows, while Jihadi propaganda is banned and deplatformed the rhetoric of the far right
remains online, their presence justified in the language of “free speech protection.” This is indicative of the
fact that what they say is precisely not beyond the pale or guaranteed to be seen as unacceptable once
exposed for what it is. On the contrary, theirs is a rhetoric that overlaps with, draws from, and feeds into a
wider ecosystem. In this context, analysis cannot only count and describe what is there, and it can’t simply
securitise what it finds. It must put things properly in their place.
Acknowledgments
Supported by the AHRC grant-funded project “Political Ideology, Rhetoric and Aesthetics in the Twenty-First
Century: The Case of the ‘Alt-Right,’” accessible here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FR001197%2F1.
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Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the
European Union
Volume 2019 Article 8
8-23-2019
Understanding the Rise of Far-Right Populist

Parties in Europe
Alina L. Sobolik
University of Victoria
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu

Part of the Political Science Commons
Recommended Citation
Sobolik, Alina L. (2019) "Understanding the Rise of Far-Right Populist Parties in Europe," Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research
Conference on the European Union: Vol. 2019, Article 8. DOI: 10.5642/urceu.201901.08
Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2019/iss1/8
This Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Claremont at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in
Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union by an authorized editor of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more
information, please contact scholarship@cuc.claremont.edu.
Understanding the Rise of Far-Right Populist Parties in Europe
Cover Page Footnote
This paper was originally researched and written as a project for the European Trade Union Institute in the
summer of 2018. I was working as a research intern for the organization and my paper was used as a
background reading for their Post-Growth 2018 Conference in September. I would like to thank my
supervisor, Maria Jepsen, for her support and direction through the research process. I would also like to
thank Malcolm Thompson for his counsel throughout the editing process. Furthermore, I would like to thank
Professor Valerie D’Erman of the University of Victoria for advising me to submit this paper and for her
generosity in helping me to contextualize and clarify my ideas. Finally, I would like to thank Professor Hans
Rindisbacher of Pamona College for the constructive feedback he provided as my discussant.
This chapter is available in Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union:
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2019/iss1/8
Claremont–UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union 99
8
Understanding the Rise of Far-Right
Populist Parties in Europe
Alina L. Sobolik
University of Victoria
Abstract
This paper seeks to answer the question: what drives the recent electoral success of
far-right populist parties (RPPs) in Europe? I will argue that it is supply factors, rather than
demand factors, united under the theme of mistrust, that drove the recent electoral success
of RPPs. To support my argument, I will summarize the ‘losers of globalization’ theory and
apply it to the financial and economic crises, the migration crisis, the polarization of politics,
and mistrust in governments, and categorize them as supply or demand factors according to
Matt Golder’s definitions. For the sake of this paper, I will use a broad description of RPPs:
any party that appeals primarily to the middle class while intentionally ‘othering’ the elite
and immigrants. ‘Othering,’ in this sense, refers to the process of alienating or excluding a
group from society, creating a dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them.’
Keywords
populism, far-right, immigration, mistrust
Understanding the Rise of Far-Right Populist Parties

100 Alina L. Sobolik University of Victoria
1. Introduction
The sudden rise of right-wing populist parties (RPPs) in Europe over the last 10
years has been a daunting question for political scientists, economists, citizens, workers, and
politicians. This paper seeks to answer the question: what drives the recent electoral success
of RPPs in Europe? I will argue that it is supply factors that drove the recent electoral suc-
cess of RPPs, all of which are united under the critical theme of mistrust. To support my
argument, I will summarize the ‘losers of globalization’ theory and apply it to the financial
and economic crises, the migration crisis, the polarization of politics, and the mismanage-
ment by governments, and categorize them as supply or demand factors. “Demand-side
explanations focus on the grievances that create the ‘demand’ for far-right parties, whereas
supply-side explanations focus on how the choices that far-right parties make and the politi-
cal opportunity structure in which they act influence their success” (Golder, 2016, p. 1).
A lack of trust in national governments is dangerous because it magnifies fear of
global trends, leaving citizens concerned that their governments are acting in the interest
of foreign actors. This fear is the supply factor that leads the electorate to be vulnerable to
the inflammatory tactics of right-wing populist parties, which present a clear plan of action
for defending the nation. For the sake of this paper, I will be using a broad description of
right-wing populist parties (RPPs): any party that appeals primarily to the middle class while
intentionally ‘othering’ the elite and immigrants. ‘Othering,’ in this sense, refers to the
process of alienating or excluding a group from society, often placing them in the position
of ‘scape goat’ or ‘enemy.’ By their very nature, populist parties challenge the structure of
established governance and introduce an informal, anti-bureaucratic sentiment. I will show
that a combination of the economic and financial crises, the migration crisis, and the behav-
iour of governments resulted in a political space for RPPs to step in and fill a leadership role
that could have been filled by left or centrist governments, rather than driving sentiments
compatible with RPPs.
2. RPP Major Successes and Failures

In recent years we have seen a dramatic rise in RPPs throughout Europe. In Po-
land, the Law and Justice Party, headed by President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister
Beata Szydło, won 37.6% of the votes in 2015, giving them an absolute majority (Poll of
Polls, 2018a). Support for the Law and Justice Party is not likely to decline, considering that
they are projected to win 40% of the vote in the next election (Poll of Polls, 2018a). The
Swiss People’s Party headed by Albert Rösti achieved 29.4% of the vote in 2015, making
them the largest party in Switzerland (Poll of Polls, 2018b). Their popularity increased as
they are expected to gain 31% of the vote in the 2019 elections (Poll of Polls, 2018b). In
Italy we have a coalition government made up of the Italian Northern League (17.37%)
and the Five Star Movement (32.66%) (Poll of Polls, 2018c). The 2018 election showed a
7.1% vote increase for the Italian Northern League and a 13.28% increase for the Five Star
Movement (Poll of Polls, 2018c). In the upcoming elections, the League is projected to win
25% of the vote and the Five Star Movement is projected to win 31% (Poll of Polls, 2018c).
This would make them the first and second largest political parties.
The Hungarian Civic Alliance, more commonly known as the Fidesz, headed by
Viktor Orbán, was able to win 49.27% of the vote in 2018, achieving their third successful
election (Poll of Polls, 2018d). They are expected to win 55% in the next election, giving
them a total majority (Poll of Polls, 2018d). Jobbik, the Movement For a Better Hungary (a
more radical right-wing party in Hungary), won 19.06% in the 2018 election, making them
the second largest party (Poll of Polls, 2018d ). The Danish People’s Party in Denmark won
21.1% in the 2015 elections, making it the second largest party (only 5.2% less than the larg-
est party) (Poll of Polls, 2018e). Interestingly, they are currently projected to lose 3.1% of
their support in the next election (Poll of Polls, 2018e). The Swedish Democrats went from
7.3% in the 2010 elections to 12.9% in the 2014 elections and are currently projected to win
21% in the next election (Poll of Polls, 2018f). For context, the Moderate Party is projected
to win 21% and the Swedish Social Democratic Party is projected to win 25% of the votes,
making the Swedish Democrats the second or third largest party, and not far from first (Poll
of Polls, 2018f). The Party for Freedom in the Netherlands won 20% in the last election,
making it the second largest party after the Peoples Party For Freedom and Democracy at
33% (Poll of Polls, 2018g). However, they are projected to win only 14% in the next one,
putting them behind the Green Left (Poll of Polls, 2018g).
The Freedom Party for Austria won 25.97% of the votes in the 2017 elections, an
increase of 5.46% from the last election, placing them as the third largest party (Poll of Polls,
2018h). The True Finns, or the Finns Party, has become the third largest party in Finland,
winning 17.7% of the vote in the 2015 elections (Poll of Polls, 2018i). Support is suspected
to drop to 8% in the next election, likely because the party has since split, with a portion of
its members forming the Blue Reform Party (Poll of Polls, 2018i). The Finns Party is cur-
rently the third largest party. The National Rally, formerly known as the National Front,
lead by Marine Le Pen, currently holds third place in France with 13.2% of the vote (Poll of
Polls, 2018j). This is 0.4% less than they earned in the 2012 election (Poll of Polls, 2018j).
However, support is growing and they are projected to take 15% in the next election (Poll
of Polls, 2018j). The Alternative for Germany party is currently the third largest party in the
Bundestag with 12.6% in the 2017 elections and they are projected to take 14% of the vote
in the next election (Poll of Polls, 2018k).
The Slovakian People’s Party, who refer to gypsy people as “extremists” and “par-
asites” (Kotleba, 2018), gained 8% of the vote in the 2016 election and are projected to win
10% in the next one (Poll of Polls, 2018l). This would make them the third largest party. In
the Czech Republic, the Freedom and Direct Democracy Party won 10.64% of the vote in
the 2017 elections and are projected to win 9% in the next elections (Poll of Polls, 2018m).
In Greece, the Golden Dawn gained only 7% in 2015, placing them third and far behind
the second largest party (New Democracy at 28.1%) and they are projected to gain only 1 or
2% in the next election (Poll of Polls, 2018n). The success of various RPPs across Europe,
each with unique rhetoric and policy platforms, shows a general trend that is not based on
any specific policy agenda, but rather general sentiments of national populism.
3. The Financial and Economic Crises

Right-wing populist, neo-Nazi, racist, anti-immigrant, and/or Eurosceptic parties
have always existed. It is only recently that they are winning elections and experiencing high
levels of support. There are outside, contemporary forces driving the success of racist and
radical parties. The ‘losers of globalization’ is a leading theory that offers an explanation for
the success of RPPs and can be understood as a demand or supply factor (Becker, 2010).
The demand argument is that those who support the right wing populist movement were
endowed with right-wing views already and have only now been given a voice to express
them (Cutts, David, Ford, & Goodwin, 2009). The other, a supply argument, claims that
through globalization, job insecurity, and mistrust in governments, the citizens were left
vulnerable to RPP campaigns. Citizens were left vulnerable to RPPs because the Left and
Center groups that traditionally formed to represent the workers, or the lower and middle
class, have embraced ideas of globalism and globalization, participating in free trade agree-
ments and supranational governance through the EU. The Left has developed a platform
that equates progressivism with cosmopolitanism, leaving a vacuum for RPPs to fill where
the Left used to represent the working class. The RPPs are seen as the only parties pushing
for protectionism and articulating the interests of the working class as their top priority.
By creating job insecurity, the financial and economic crises were beneficial to
RPPs. For example, in Hungary between 2006 and 2010, real wages and earnings decreased
by 5%, unemployment increased by 10%, inflation increased by 10%, and the share of
the vote for the Hungarian Social Party dropped by 22.3% (Cutts et. al., 2009, p. 32-34).
However, this cannot be the sole explanation nor can it be the most convincing, as some
countries that were hit the hardest by the crises (Greece) did not see a significant rise in
support for RPPs (European Social Survey, 2016). Surveys have shown that people are
unsure about their financial situation (European Social Survey, 2016). They are more likely
to think that it will remain the same rather than become better, and in some cases are al-
most as likely to think it will be worse than better (European Social Survey, 2016, p. 158).
Confidence in national economies is decreasing and citizens are growing more concerned
and restless. According to a European Social Survey, people who are unemployed, receive
lower income, and/or have a lower level of education, are more likely to vote against im-
migration (European Social Survey, 2016, p. 9). Demographics that feel insecure about their
job and financial future are more likely to feel threatened by a potential foreign labour force.
However, the fact that they also feel that immigrants will improve quality of life in every
area aside from cultural also shows that the concern is based mainly in misinformation and
the presentation of immigrants by RPPs as a cultural threat (European Social Survey, 2016,
p. 8). I argue that the financial and economic crises contribute to supply rather than demand
forces, because those who suffer the effects of the crises do not necessarily turn to RPPs or
anti-immigrant sentiments and remain open to conceptualising immigration as beneficial.
However, RPPs are able to foster feelings of insecurity created by the crises in order to push
their anti-immigrant agenda.
4. The Migration Crisis

This leads me to the next possible contributing factor: the migration crisis. The mi-
gration crisis can be framed as a demand factor, with an increase in immigration resulting in
an increase of anti-immigrant sentiments, which translate to support for RPPs. Overall, EU
citizens do not feel positively about immigration from outside the EU (European Commis-
sion, 2017a, p. 51). Negative feelings about immigrants have increased in 13 member states
since spring 2017 (European Commission, 2017a, p. 46). However, one of those member
states is Greece, with an increase of 4% (total 76%), and Greece has not experienced high
levels of support for RPPs (European Commission, 2017a, p. 46). The migration crisis does
not serve as an effective basis for a demand argument because, with Greece as an example,
the statistics show that negative opinions on immigrants do not necessarily translate to votes
for RPPs. Overall, 56% of EU citizens feel negatively about immigration from outside the
EU but right-wing populist parties are not getting 56% of the vote in the EU (European
Commission, 2016, p. 22). Rather, I argue that the migration crisis serves as a supply factor,
due to the way that it is presented as an issue that is out of the control of current govern-
ments. It is a highly publicized phenomenon, surrounded by a rhetoric of chaos and uncer-
tainty, leaving a political space for RPPs to join the conversation by offering a solution, no
matter how radical. The fact that left-wing and centrist governments have failed to provide
a concrete and unified response, due to conflicting obligations to European integration,
solidarity, human rights, and public opinion, contributes to the impact of RPPs on the
electorate.
5. Inflammatory Tactics
This is where the RPPs contribute as a supply factor. The RPPs have successfully
fostered a “culture of resentment” toward the government and immigrants (Becker, 2010,
p. 31). They consolidate power by appealing to the irrational fear, hatred, and emotion
in people. Historically, the left and right alike have done this under a common theme of
blinding the people (Becker, 2010). The tactics being used today are similar to those used
in the populist movements of the past. The right has created a narrative around immigrants
and leftists that is similar to that surrounding the Jews and Communists in the 20th century
(and in many cases they are still involved today). The Left has fashioned a similar narrative
around the far-right, branding them as extremists and outcasts whose ideas are poisonous to
society. This dynamic has created a political atmosphere in which both sides refuse to find
common ground on important issues, and the ‘loudest’ party is able to draw the attention
of the electorate. The fact that the people who vote for RPPs were often past supporters
of socialist and left wing parties shows that they are more likely to have been vulnerable to
right-wing populist movements than opponents of them (Becker, 2010). The right benefits
from this polarization by inciting chaos and then offering a ‘path to order.’
When the real statistics on immigration in Europe are considered, it is clear that the
severity of the threat has been overstated. I will ask you to focus on the immigrants born in
a non-member country because they are the main targets of discrimination by RPPs.

Figure. 1. Foreign Born Population by Country of Birth, 2017.

Graph from Eurostat (January 2017).
It is difficult to understand how such a small portion of the population could pose
a serious cultural threat. Especially when considering countries such as Slovakia, Hungary,
Poland, and the Czech Republic, who have very low proportions of immigrants yet also
successful RPPs. The far sides of the spectrum are growing and the center is shrinking.
There are more people who believe many immigrants should be allowed to enter and more
who believe that no immigrants should be allowed to enter (Richards, 2016).
It is easy for the radical right to appeal to those who are unhappy with their current
situation by preaching ‘anti-establishment’ rejection of the ‘political norm’ and support for
the individual (Betz, 1994). As further argued by Betz (1994), they do this by describing a
superior common sense over the intellectual and prescribing a ‘new way’ that will improve
the individual’s situation. With the rise of the internet/online politics, specialized media has
become popular, appealing to people’s individual beliefs and values and allowing them to
subscribe to a body of media that caters only to their prefixed views. This marks a decline
in cleavage politics and creates a new kind of fragmentation that focuses on a political niche
and creates many small and radical groups, pulling the entire spectrum away from the center.
Rather than gravitating toward one side of an issue, the voters are drawn to a specific issue
or body of issues and a political doctrine that surrounds them. This process has nourished a
“culture of discontent” that was not properly managed by the ruling political powers. This
polarization contributed to supply factors, by leaving a gap for radical right-wing parties to
offer an answer and monopolize on the call for a new order (Betz, 1994).
6. Mistrust in Governments
My fourth and final supply side argument is mistrust in national governments.
This is how RPPs have been able to use the migration crisis to gather support (Villa, 2018).
Standard Eurobarometer surveys have shown that since 2004, citizens’ trust in the EU and
in their national governments have significantly decreased, as illustrated in Figure 2 below
(European Commission, 2011).

Figure 2. Trust in the national government, the national parliament, and the European Union:
Trend, 2004-2011. Graph from European Commission (2011).
This lack of trust in national governments has left citizens feeling vulnerable and
looking for a strong leader who articulates a ‘plan of action’ with the peoples’ interests
at the helm. This is what populist parties offer. In order to combat this effect, member
state governments must maintain transparency on all issues, including migration and their
relationship with the EU. Over the past years, public dissatisfaction with the functioning
of democracy has been growing (Goodwin, 2011). If it is the ‘losers of globalization’ that
want RPPs in power, they still do not want a reversal of globalization or free trade, they
simply want to feel that their government can be trusted to protect their interests. While
many people have negative views about globalization, they also have negative views about
protectionism and positive views about free trade (European Commission, 2017b, p. 144).
Immigration is concerning to them because they are uncertain of what it means for their
future and way of life, not because it is inherently problematic. They do not want to close
themselves off to the world but they want their jobs and quality of life to be maintained.
Many national governments have been hesitant in the past to share sovereignty with the EU
on issues like migration and they have been concerned about presenting an image of weak-
ness to their citizens. However, a minority of citizens trust in their national governments,
and citizens are more likely to trust the European Union than their national governments
(European Commission, 2017b, p. 147).
7. Conclusion
The validity of the ‘losers of globalization’ theory lies in its emphasis on feelings of
vulnerability experienced by citizens in a globalized world, allowing global trends to have
an impact on the electorate for this reason. However, I argue that rather than driving senti-
ments compatible with RPPs, this results in a political space for RPPs to step in and take
leadership roles that could have been filled by left-wing or centrist parties. RPPs have been
able to rise to power by offering a concrete strategy for change and for the future, allowing
the people to place trust in them. A lack of transparency, coupled with scape-goating of the
European Union, has left citizens distrustful of their national governments, which renders
them vulnerable to inflammatory campaign tactics framing modernization and immigration
as a threat. The supply is not meeting the demand. People are not driven by racism, but
mistrust and insecurity. RPPs are doing what the left is failing to do: offering an answer to
their concerns, a rode map to success.
Acknowledgements
This paper was originally researched and written as a project for the European
Trade Union Institute in the summer of 2018. I was working as a research intern for the
organization and my paper was used as a background reading for their Post-Growth 2018
Conference in September. I would like to thank my supervisor, Maria Jepsen, for her
support and direction through the research process. I would also like to thank Malcolm
Thompson for his counsel throughout the editing process. Furthermore, I would like to
thank Professor Valerie D’Erman of the University of Victoria for advising me to submit this
paper and for her generosity in helping me to contextualize and clarify my ideas. Finally, I
would like to thank Professor Hans Rindisbacher of Pomona College for the constructive
feedback he provided as my discussant.
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962562
research-article2020
CRS0010.1177/0896920520962562Critical SociologySantamarina
SYMPOSIUM: Transversal Solidarities and the City
Critical Sociology
The Spatial Politics of Far-right

2021, Vol. 47(6) 891–905
© The Author(s) 2020
Populism: VOX, Anti-fascism and Article reuse guidelines:

Neighbourhood Solidarity sagepub.com/journals-permissions
https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920520962562
DOI: 10.1177/0896920520962562
in Madrid City journals.sagepub.com/home/crs
Ana Santamarina
University of Glasgow, UK
Abstract
This article explores the spatial politics of the Spanish far-right party VOX, deepening discussions
around the spaces of xenophobic populism and anti-fascist politics. The paper foregrounds
the need of moving beyond the nation-centred, institutional and descriptive approaches that
characterise the literature on far-right politics, to focus on the quotidian grounds of far-right
mobilisations. Through an analysis of VOX’s politics of hate at the neighbourhood level, I explore
the co-constitutive relationship between ‘institutional politics’ and the ‘politics of the street’.
Focusing in Hortaleza – a Madrilenian district targeted by VOX’s mobilisation – I analyse the ways
the party attempts to exploit situated inequalities linked to the urbanisation of border regimes
and how neighbourhood movements are challenging VOX through constructing alternative anti-
racist politics of belonging. The paper argues that the centrality of the neighbourhood as the
lived space of political socialisation makes it a key scale of articulation of anti-fascist politics and
grassroots solidarities.
Keywords
VOX, xenophobic populism, far-right, anti-fascism, neighbourhood solidarity, racism, urban
border
Introduction
Under a triumphant rhetoric of ‘reconquest’ and seeking to liberate Spain from all the enemies of
the nation – migrants, feminists or separatists – the xenophobic populist party VOX has become
the third political force in the Spanish Parliament after the 2019 national elections. Thus, halfway
between the ghost of Francoism and the global rise of anti-establishment right-wing populisms, the
Spanish far-right has taken off its mask. The rise of VOX has taken place in a conjuncture of crisis
Corresponding author:
Ana Santamarina, Department of Human Geography, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow,
8NN University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.
Email: Ana.SantamarinaGuerrero@glasgow.ac.uk
892 Critical Sociology 47(6)
of the traditional right – represented by the Partido Popular – and escalating authoritarianism in
the face of increasing political upheavals over the last years, shaped by the conflict in Catalonia,
the feminist movements and the post-indignados politics. The discursive strategies of VOX draw
on three overlapping mainstays: ultranationalism, racism and anti-feminism. While national pride
and xenophobia are recreated through imperial nostalgia, the historical racist myth of the Christian
war against the Muslim or the nationalist enemy within (Catalonia), a neocolonial anti-feminist
language attempts to protect the Spanish traditional family against the challenges raised by power-
ful contemporary feminist movements.
Through a spatial analysis of VOX’s far-right politics in Spain, I aim to contribute to ongoing
discussions on the spaces of xenophobic populism and anti-fascism. The first section situates some
of the key theoretical debates crisscrossing my argument. Engaging with different literature on
populism and the far-right, I discuss inputs that a spatial perspective can bring to current debates.
Then, I analyse VOX’s far-right populism in Spain, disclosing the key elements of its discourse and
situating them in relation to the long-term histories of the Spanish Civil War, Francoism and the
‘transition to democracy’. The last sections of the paper situate everyday politics related to xeno-
phobic populism, both in terms of political reproduction and contestation. I explore VOX’s every-
day politics of hate focusing on Hortaleza, a neighbourhood in the outskirts of Madrid, discussing
how VOX exploits spatial inequalities linked to the urban dimension of border regimes, institu-
tional racism and spaces of precarity. I argue that xenophobic populisms cannot be understood
separately from the institutional architectures that induce fascism to grow and from the situated
grievances that the far-right attempts to mobilise. Second, learning from neighbours’ anti-racist
responses in Hortaleza, I address the neighbourhood as a key scale of articulation of anti-fascist
politics. I finish with a discussion of silences and limitations of left-wing populism in building anti-
fascist politics in the Spanish context. My argument draws on interviews and informal conversa-
tions with migrant activists in Madrid and participants of neighbourhood movements and grassroots
associations between December 2019 and June 2020 in Hortaleza, as well as discourse analyses of
publicly available statements of VOX’s representatives and the party’s political programme.
Spaces of Far-right Populism

The significant advance of the far-right during the last years has attracted a growing scholarly and
popular attention. A vast literature has emerged exploring the rise of populist anti-establishment
discourses in mainstreaming politics across the globe. Most of this academic work focuses on the
nation-state and institutional politics as the natural objects of political analysis. Interest is placed
in electoral processes yet missing the everyday spaces of sociopolitical reproduction. Such a per-
spective overlooks the generative role of space in producing political positions and feelings and the
quotidian conditions, consequences and processes underpinning the politics of hate.
Addressed under different nomenclatures (‘post-fascism’, ‘radical populist right’, ‘xenophobic
populism’, etc.), analyses of today’s far-right underline its heterogeneity and its populist, anti-
establishment and nativist dimensions (Mudde, 2019; Rydgren, 2007; Traverso, 2018). Indeed,
‘populism’ has become one of the most resounding buzzwords addressing a wide range of political
phenomenon in the current conjuncture. Intellectual debates have discussed some of its key fea-
tures: the politicisation of an antagonism between the ‘people’ and the ‘elite’ (De Cleen et al.,
2020), its anti-establishment character (Mudde, 2019), its performative and mediatic dimensions
(Moffit, 2016) or the political role of affect and emotions in political discourse (Laclau, 2005).
However, the spatial and grounded dimensions of populist politics remain largely unexplored.
Through a spatial perspective, I suggest a hybrid understanding of populism as a political prac-
tice, which has demonstrated itself to be very effective in shaping and responding to the political
Santamarina 893
cartographies of the crisis. This hybrid character entails a triple intervention in current debates.
Firstly, I move beyond the excessive stress on discourse that characterises the previous literature to
emphasise the material practices of far-right populist politics. Second, this understanding allows
shifting the focus from institutional and electoral politics to foreground their intertwining with the
multiple spaces of the political. Finally, through this hybridity, I highlight the ways populism is not
exclusive to ‘populist actors’. It has rather become a resource used by many political agents, from
traditional parties to other movements in their fight for hegemony. This challenges the rigid and
formalist understandings of populisms through stressing its nuanced reality as a practice. Mobilised
in multiple contexts in a conjuncture of the crisis of the hegemonic party consensus, established
political parties and media are making use of a wide range of populist strategies. Populism emerges,
accordingly, as a generalised and effective political practice in a conjuncture of political and ideo-
logical crisis – a situation that is not new, as evidenced by Stuart Hall’s analyses of the 1980s crisis
and the politics of Thatcherism (Hall, 1982). This hybrid, mixed and heterogeneous nature of pop-
ulism as a practice partly underlies the ambiguity with which this term is often used.
Valluvan (2019) argues that an excessive focus on ‘populism’ in current literature is obscuring
the racist and nationalist dimensions of the European far-right. For Featherstone and Karaliotas
(2019), the ‘formalist account of the political’ that characterises most of the discussions on pop-
ulism overlooks the ‘histories and geographies that shape political activity’. From this perspective,
more interest should be placed in the ‘content’ of the particular articulations mobilised through
populist politics and how these respond to particular idealised constructions of place. Indeed,
nationalism, xenophobia and anti-feminism – at the core of contemporary far-right populisms
worldwide – never appear framed in abstract and universalist terms. Rather, their articulation is
deeply contextual and subjected to historical and geographical specificity.
A comprehensive analysis of the spaces of xenophobic populisms demands moving beyond
nation-centred and institutional accounts paying particular attention to ‘the everyday spaces and
political infrastructures that make populism possible’ (Featherstone and Karaliotas, 2019). Some
leftist approaches to populism have certainly sought to overcome methodological nationalism by
exploring transnational populist articulations (De Cleen et al., 2020) or the local experiences of
municipalism (García Agustín, 2020). However, the ways in which populism builds its success
through the politicisation of everyday inequalities and the construction of situated imaginaries of
the crisis remain unexplored. More interest needs to be placed in addressing how the ‘interpella-
tion’ of the populist practice targets situated subjects and the ways in which it politicises lived
spaces of hardship. From neoliberalised urban spaces to deprived neighbourhoods or forgotten
rural areas, deeply embedded injustices are materialised in spaces; these become people’s subjec-
tive levels of experience of the crisis. It is precisely the situatedness of the articulation of xenopho-
bia, nationalism and anti-feminism that allows its subsequent abstraction as a structure of meaning
that integrates the differently situated far-right stories of the crisis.
As the core element of far-right ideologies, hate is the driving force of its discourses, actions and
strategies. A spatial approach on the politics of hate brings attention to the grounded and material
dimensions of hatred discourses, highlighting the ways in which these are spatially framed and
practiced. This allows foregrounding the relations between the abstract dimension of fascism and
xenophobia as ‘abstract’ ideologies or discourses and the politics of the everyday life. Further, I
argue a spatial approach sheds light on the question of how to challenge the ‘politics of hate’ from
the lived spaces in which these are practised.
Moreover, this spatial approach needs to grasp the intertwining of far-right narratives of place
and the institutional architectures that induce racism and xenophobia to grow. Space is not an inno-
cent backdrop: it cannot be dealt with as if it were merely a passive, abstract arena on which things
happen. Through the materialisation of politics and ideology, relations of power and discipline are
inscribed – and negotiated – into the apparently innocent spatiality of social life (Soja, 1989). Work
on anarchist geographies highlights how ‘imposed demarcations of space can buttress a shift
towards fascism’. The epistemic dominance of sovereign powers ‘blinds us to inherent authoritari-
anism and capacity for fascism’ (Ince, 2011). In this sense, the paper discusses how the spatial
inequalities mobilised by right-wing populism are shaped by institutional racism and the direct
production of everyday xenophobia and exclusion by sovereign powers. The urbanisation of bor-
der regimes operates as a main trigger for racism reproducing the ontologies of postcolonial geog-
raphies. The emergence of the far-right is directly linked to institutional hegemonic practices and
discourses inscribed in everyday spaces.
Finally, the extensive literature on xenophobic populism is essentially descriptive and depoliti-
cising, avoiding the question of anti-fascism. The last section of the paper discusses the implica-
tions of the previous analyses for anti-fascist politics, challenging positions that opt for a left-wing
populist strategy (Mouffe, 2018). A crisis of identity linked to processes like globalisation or post-
Fordism (Kinnvall, 2015) interplaying with long-term histories of racialisation and nationalist poli-
tics (Valluvan, 2019) stands at the core of far-right politics. In his analyses of fascism, Eric Fromm
exposed how in circumstances of risk and uncertainty, the individual seeks subjection to overarch-
ing imposed identities and authority in the exercise of their ‘negative freedom’, or freedom from
previous stable social arrangements. In this conjuncture, I draw upon geographical work (Arampatzi,
2017; Featherstone, 2012) to evidence the potential of everyday solidarities in generating alterna-
tive projects of belonging to those defined by the state and the far-right building spaces of ‘positive
freedom’ (Fromm, 2001). I argue that situating the neighbourhood as a key scale for intervention
of anti-fascist politics becomes crucial particularly in a moment in which left-wing populisms and
electoral initiatives are failing on this endeavour (Ince, 2011).
VOX and the Rearticulation of the Far-right in Spanish Politics:

Ultranationalism, Racism and Anti-feminism as Mainstays of a
Xenophobic Populism
The emergence of the far-right party VOX in Spain has been addressed as the end of the ‘Spanish
exceptionalism’, whereby Spain remained one of the few European countries without any powerful
far-right-wing movement (Urbán, 2019). Furthermore, it has been argued that the eruption of
Podemos-left-wing populist party that emerged after the Indignados uprisings in the context of the
post2008 financial crisis-left no space within the political arena for a Spanish version of the popu-
list neofascist organisations that were appearing across Europe (Traverso, 2018). However, as
Rubio-Pueyo (2019) evidences, a deeper genealogy of the Spanish far-right attests to the frailty of
this narrative. The far-right has always been a constitutive element of the political regime that
resulted from the ‘Spanish transition to democracy’ (1978) and the roots of VOX are found in the
continuities of many elements of the dictatorship, in the 1978 regime and the persistence of a
strong ‘sociological Francoism’. This term refers to the continuation of many features of Francoist
society after the dictatorship, from the normalisation of authoritarianism to the politics of fear and
the enormous influence of Catholic morality.
Forty years after the death of the dictator, Spain is the second country in the world with the larg-
est number of mass graves and missing people that remain in ditches.1 The Spanish ‘transition to
democracy’ was a top-down process driven by the Francoist elites, who remained positioned within
the different levels of the state administration and the security forces. They founded their own party
– Alianza Popular, which later became the Partido Popular – so they never left the institutions.
The 1977 Amnesty Law, known as the ‘Pact of Oblivion’, set the legal ground for an absolute
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immunity, meaning the denial of any process of reparation to the victims of Francoism. Since then,
the ubiquitous existence of a conservative far-right in the streets and the institutions has been a sort
of taboo; no one was allowed to ‘open old wounds’. This is what has changed with the arrival of
VOX, a party that has sought to break what is considered ‘politically correct’ from an anti-estab-
lishment discourse.
The discursive strategies of VOX draw on three overlapping mainstays: ultranationalism, rac-
ism and anti-feminism. Recreating the Spanish Civil War with a ‘national force’ facing what they
frame as ‘anti-Spain’, the construction of VOX is rooted in the historical development of Spanish
authoritarian politics. The historical enemy, los rojos (the reds), is now represented by a heteroge-
neous amalgam of subjects and movements that are risking the unity of the nation and the purity of
the Spanish Catholic family (the feminists, the migrants, the Catalans, the Muslims, the ‘podemi-
tas’ – a derogatory word used by the right to refer to the supporters of the left-wing populist party
Podemos).
As the 15M Indignados Movement was the political ground for the emergence of Podemos in
2014 (García Agustín, 2018), analysts situate the origins of VOX in what is popularly known as la
España de los Balcones – ‘the Spain of the balconies’ (Urbán, 2019). Against the democratic inde-
pendent movement in Catalonia and in the middle of an anti-Catalan campaign in the media, peo-
ple began to hang Spanish flags in their balconies. This created a public landscape that contributed
to the mobilisation of centralist, authoritarian and reactionary positions in the public opinion and
buttressed the authoritarian reaction to the Catalan movement, shaping ideas of the Spanish nation
in particularly antagonistic ways. The conservative and colonial connotations of the Spanish flag,
heir of 40 years of cultural and ideological monopoly of the idea of the Nation by Franco’s regime,
set the perfect ground for VOX’s populism to flourish giving political shape to the anti-Catalan
discontent. In the age of the armistice of the separatist armed organization ETA and the decrease of
the conflict in the Basque Country, the right had lost its ‘enemy within’. Spanish nationalism was
disoriented, and corruption plunged the traditional right into a crisis. The national question is
intrinsic to Spanish politics where separatists are the classic resource used to reproduce national-
ism and the militarisation of the State, and to divert public attention from social problems.
VOX capitalised on the politics of hate towards Catalonia to build a broader national project
recreating an imagined history of Spanish greatness (Anderson, 2006). The national pride appears
constantly adorned with nostalgic recreations of the colonial past and the time when the northern
Catholic Kingdoms struck down Muslims in Al Andalus (Rubio-Pueyo, 2019). After the Andalusian
regional elections, VOX spread a public message: “The Reconquest started in Andalusia”.
Neocolonialism and the recreation of imperial power are indeed common elements structuring the
proliferation of nationalisms in today’s European politics (Valluvan, 2019; Virdee and McGeever,
2018)
With its roots in this ultranationalism, VOX aims to appear as the Spanish people’s advocate.
Appealing to el Español que madruga (‘the Spaniard who wakes up early’), VOX’s xenophobic
populism seeks to reach not only the upper classes but also the national working classes. Despite
their programme being deeply neoliberal (with privatisations, deregulation and ‘fiscal revolution’),
their discourse is often focused on what they call the ‘everyday Spaniard’, sometimes combined
with traditionalism and nostalgia. Pucciarelli (2019) signals a common trend within recent far-right
nationalist movements and leaders attempting to ‘talk to the stomachs and the hearts of the people’
in promoting nativist representations of the community. In particular, anti-immigration and racism
have been core instruments mobilised by VOX to expand their influence amongst popular classes.
Policing the Crisis (Hall et al., 2013) demonstrates how racism is mobilised by the conservative
elites to preserve hegemony in contexts of crisis and win consent for shifts to the right. VOX’s rac-
ist discourse combines two elements. First, a rhetoric that directly targets the material conditions
of the national popular classes and seeks to convince the workers that immigrants are the reason of
their social agony (unemployment, precarity, crime. . .). Second, a supremacist colonial discourse
that pretends to essentialise the cultural and ideological basis of Spain and Europe in a context in
which Islamophobia is a common constitutive element to European nationalisms.
Under the language of ‘order’, the wall becomes a central idiom in today’s xenophobic pop-
ulisms. The basic proposal in VOX’s ‘immigration, borders and security policy’ is the construction
of an ‘unbreakable concrete wall’ in Ceuta and Melilla. Despite studies confirming that VOX’s
voters belong mainly to upper classes, the electoral map shows that the ‘populism of the wall’
(Urbán, 2019) has reached border areas (Ceuta, Andalusia) as well as working-class villages where
migrant exploitation in the agricultural industry is a daily reality (e.g. El Ejido). A similar ‘pop-
ulism of the ports’ has become the signature policy of Salvini’s anti-immigration crusade in Italy
(Pucciarelli, 2019).
Alongside separatists and migrants, the third key enemy in VOX’s antagonistic discourse are
feminists. Indeed, misogyny and homophobia constitute an axis of the new reactionary far-right
worldwide, combined with neocolonialist and Islamophobic elements (Farris, 2012). In recent
years, feminist mobilisations in the streets have gathered millions of people in Spain. With its roots
in everyday emancipation and mutual care, it draws in a global network of action (Cabezas
González and Brochner, 2019). Notwithstanding the heterogeneity of the movement, it is politicis-
ing a wide sector of society and articulating a potential force for social change and transformation.
This is particularly challenging considering the weight of the Catholic Church and the traditional
family as basic social structures – both legacies of sociological Francoism and constitutive ele-
ments of the national imaginary. Against the subversive potential of feminist and LGBTQI move-
ments in the streets, VOX has sought to reverse feminist discourse as a way to promote racism and
misogyny: ‘Feminism is a cancer. Supremacist feminism wants to put a burka on all women’ (Rocío
Monasterio, head of VOX Madrid, 20 November 2019).
VOX’s anti-feminism emerges in a conjuncture where traditional conceptions of masculinity
are deeply damaged in the wake of the precariousness generated by austerity politics in Spain after
the 2008 financial crisis. Women’s empowerment in both the streets and their private lives eroded
the role of the pater familias as the head of the traditional family. In the course of massive mobili-
sations energetically contesting violence against women, VOX’s most famous slogan is that
‘Violence has no gender’. It rather ‘has race’, as most of the efforts have been focused in stressing
that sexist violence is foreign to Western culture and comes with the ‘waves’ of black and brown
migrants.
Hence, VOX has sought to capitalise arenas of political rupture to promote a far-right xenopho-
bic populism that binds neoliberalism, colonialism and a nostalgic traditionalism. What so far was
a neoconservative trend within the Partido Popular now emerges as an anti-establishment party
that aims to liberate the nation from separatists, migrants and ‘feminazis’. In what follows, I dem-
onstrate how the politicisation of these elements is grounded in everyday life. A spatial approach
enables an engagement with lived spaces as a terrain of dispute, where racism needs to be chal-
lenged from the grassroots on a daily basis.
VOX and the Everyday Politics of Hate

Most of the discussion around the rise of xenophobic populisms in Europe and beyond has focused
in the nation state and electoral politics, missing the everyday spaces of sociopolitical reproduction
(Mudde, 2019; Traverso, 2018). Looking at Hortaleza – a neighbourhood in the Northeast of
Madrid – this section aims to fill this gap exploring the dialectics between everyday politics of
hate, institutional racism and VOX’s xenophobic populism. I engage with some of the ways
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far-right populisms exploit specific narratives on space and place in generating political positions
and feelings. This move situates everyday politics at the core of far-right politics, both in terms of
political reproduction and contestation.
Some weeks after the Spanish national elections in November 2019 – after which VOX became
the third national political force – an explosive device was found at the door of a centre of reception
of migrant minors not accompanied by parents or guardians (MENAS) in Hortaleza. Not by
chance, these centres have been key spaces of political mobilisation within VOX’s electoral cam-
paign. In Madrid and other cities, VOX – alongside neo-Nazi groups like Hogar Social Madrid –
orchestrated demonstrations in these facilities arguing that they promote a ‘pull effect’ and the
‘degradation of the neighbourhood and its inhabitants’. Rather than mobilising racism in abstract
terms, the electoral strategies of the party focus on everyday spaces and ‘ordinary people’. In the
words of Rocío Monasterio (head of VOX in Madrid, November 2019):2
VOX has the responsibility to protect the ordinary Spaniards that desire freedom and security in their
neighbourhood. Especially in the case of women of all ages that do not dare to walk alone during the night
in certain neighbourhoods (. . .) We came here to talk to the everyday Spanish people, who have the right
to walk peacefully in their neighbourhood without being assaulted by a herd of MENAS
The effects – and roots – of this mobilisation strategy go far beyond the electoral success of the
party. The attacks in MENAS reception centres have been widespread not only in Hortaleza but also in
different localities where VOX has achieved electoral success (Andalusia, Murcia). Neighbours high-
light that the explosive attack was the culmination of years of invisible unpunished violence against
migrant children and teenagers. Although racist terrorism is not a new phenomenon, now it finds the
coverage and legitimation of political discourses and the media (García López, 2019).3 Since Hortaleza
is in the spotlight of VOX’s discourse, neighbours account a worrying normalisation of everyday rac-
ism in the different spaces of the neighbourhood:
What happens is that since the arrival of VOX, people feel legitimized to speak in the language of racism.
It feels like you are entitled to say all those stupidities and an extremely brutal discourse becomes
normalised. In practice, that legitimation means: ‘alright, anything goes’, and from there they go huge and
become organised and then is when we have the big problem: The discourse becomes facts and physical
aggressions. What happens is that these people come to Hortaleza, give their speech and then return to
their houses, leaving people here killing each other. And the ones who are actually killing each other are
the last one against the second last. (Interview with Julio, neighbour and member of Raíces, a grassroots
association working against hate in Hortaleza, 4 June 2020)
The relationship between racist terrorism and the rise of xenophobic populism is complex and
embedded in the spatial conditions of institutional racism. Indeed, the grounds where xenophobic
populism thrives are produced through structural racism, as the urbanisation of a social, economic
and political system of racial exploitation. Hence, institutions play a key role in the reproduction
of racist conflicts in the neighbourhood, the urbanisation of border regimes and the intertwining
between political parties, neo-Nazi groups, neighbours and the police in the politicisation of eve-
ryday inequalities.
Hortaleza materialises the urbanisation of some of the ways public authorities generate and
reproduce exclusion, racism and social marginality in connection with border regimes. The neigh-
bourhood hosts two ‘reception centres’ for unaccompanied minors, generally children from the
Maghreb that migrate alone. These centres are overcrowded, doubling their capacity, and children
there are subjected to abuse, police beatings, threats of deportation and deprivation of liberty by the
authorities. The result is that very often, the same children that jumped the Melilla fence decide to
jump the wall of these centres and sleep in the park in between them, where institutions push them
to marginality and exclusion. Once these children ‘escape’ outside the centre, they lose their place
within it and if they want food or a bed, the only way is to go through police custody again. The
soil of the Claruji – a popular name given to the park – has become home to migrants between 10
and 17 years old; at the same time, it is an area of racist assaults by young gangs and fascist dem-
onstrations. Paradoxically, the same public institutions that are the legal guardians of these children
– Comunidad de Madrid – are the ones giving public permit to neo-Nazi groups like Hogar Social
Madrid to demonstrate against them in the park where they live. Further, police dawn raids are
used to beat the children sleeping in the park in the early mornings, taking away their blankets and
belongings ‘as they are not supposed to be there’ (Rubio Gómez, 2018). Neighbours also denounce
that sometimes it is the police themselves who encourage people to act against the Moroccan
children:
The police continuously sow hatred. The police hate the kids of the centre. They hit them and do all they
can do against them up to the limit of not trespassing public opinion. The problem is that the police are
generating a conflict in the neighbourhood saying that they cannot do anything because they are protected
under the minors law, and if they arrest them, tomorrow they will be on the street (which is not true). They
launch an indirect message that the neighbourhood needs to become organised against them. (Julio, 4 June
2020)
Through these dynamics, these minors have become the target of racist discourses that situate
all the problems and fears of the neighbourhood in the park and the reception centres. In addition
to mainstream media, such representations are very often reproduced through digital spaces
(Facebook groups, Twitter, etc.). Racialisation here functions as a powerful mechanism for displac-
ing social responsibility and containing social anxieties in a working-class neighbourhood that is
experiencing the problems of the neoliberal transformations in the post-crisis Madrid: young peo-
ple without expectations, commodification of the urban space, lack of affordable housing, progres-
sive gentrification of the neighbourhood, unemployment, distrust of the authorities, etc.
Anti-Moroccan racism in the neighbourhood, embedded in long-term colonial relations and imagi-
naries, is much more nuanced than a simple conflict between fascists and the Moroccan. Under a
‘feeling of belonging’ to the neighbourhood, deprived groups and young gangs have been involved
in beatings against the boys of the centre. These are not only groups of ‘white Spaniards’ but also
other groups and ethnic minorities living in the neighbourhood. Through mechanisms of ‘differen-
tial racialization’ (Brah, 1996) children of the centre are often presented as ‘racialised outsiders’
(Virdee, 2014), aiming to perpetuate the material and symbolic privileges of the insiders (Oliveri,
2018):
In Hortaleza there is a strong consciousness of ‘the neighbourhood’. The neighbourhood is something

really important. And what people are doing is repeating ‘they have nothing to do with the neighbourhood,
they don’t belong to the neighbourhood, they don’t belong to the neighborhood’ (. . .) A speech of ‘the
neighbourhood against the centre is behind the attacks. (Aitor, Hortaleza, 9 January 2020)
Of course, this is not the only – or the main – way in which ‘politics of belonging’ to the neigh-
bourhood are mobilised, as the following section evidences. However, it shows how racialisation
operates as a key dividing force in everyday contexts and the ways it can be mobilised in multiple
ways beyond the nation state.
All these tensions that spatialise embedded injustices, entangled with the urbanisation of bor-
ders in the neighbourhood, become the veins to spread VOX’s propaganda. Therefore, xenophobic
Santamarina 899
populisms can neither be understood apart from the everyday institutional production of the fertile
ground where racism emerges, nor can they be separated from the situated grievances that the far-
right discourse attempts to mobilise. Talking in the language of barrios and vecinos (neighbours
and neighbourhoods), VOX’s strategy is deeply spatial. The case of Hortaleza evidences the dia-
lectics between the ‘politics of the street’ and ‘institutional politics’. The next section engages with
some of the ways Hortaleza’s neighbours have effectively contested VOX’s far-right politics. From
there, I discuss some of the contributions that a spatial analysis of the far-right can bring to anti-
fascist politics in connection to the potentialities and limitations of the left politics that emerged in
the aftermath of the crisis in Spain.
On the Spatial Politics of Anti-fascism: Neighbourhood

Movements, Migrant Activism and the Limitations of Left-wing
Populism
A key emerging question that arises in the face of a conjuncture of proliferation of xenophobic
populisms is how to build anti-fascism in practice. However, most of the analyses on far-right
populisms are merely descriptive: either they do not bring any proposal on anti-fascism or they do
it in a vague and ambiguous way (see Mudde, 2019; Rydgren, 2007; Traverso, 2018). Debates on
anti-fascism, nevertheless, are crucial for politics on the ground. This section focuses on some of
the contributions that a spatial analysis of the far-right can bring to anti-fascist politics. I draw on
Anthony Ince’s work on ‘anti-fascist geographies’, which addresses the struggle against the far-
right as a struggle over the spatial articulation. Insofar ‘communities are constituted and discur-
sively contested through spatial practice’, he advocates for an anti-fascist politics articulated at the
heart of the community that challenges the deterritorialisation of anti-fascism that characterises
some forms of recent left-wing electoral strategies. I look at the neighbourhood movement in
Hortaleza to explore the essential role of neighbour solidarity in pushing forward anti-fascist poli-
tics from the grassroots. Navigating the tensions around the spaces of the political, I engage with
migrant political movements in Madrid to discuss the shortcomings of Unidas Podemos’ left-wing
populism and Ahora Madrid’s municipalism in regard to anti-fascism and anti-racism, which never
was a priority for these coalitions.
The centrality of the neighbourhood as the lived space of political socialisation makes it a key
scale of articulation of anti-fascist politics. This is strengthened by the ‘neighbourhood culture’ that
characterises Spanish popular life, where ‘el barrio’ is a strong source of territorial identity. Indeed,
this ‘neighbourhood culture’ has shown to be a ground for alternative projects of belonging, par-
ticularly strong in working-class areas (Narotzky, 2014). Capturing this, Pedro Limón López
(2015) uses the concept of barrionalism to refer to the ‘cognitive framework shaping collective
identifications amid the ideological element of the barrio’. He evidences the ways – in Hortaleza
and in other working-class areas – barrionalism operates as a ‘primary political imaginary’ con-
structed through ‘common practices of protest and contestation’ that draw on a historical memory
of solidarity and collective struggle assumed as ‘patrimony’ of the neighbourhood. It is therefore
in the streets of the neighbourhood where the relationship between institutional racism and xeno-
phobic populism could be most effectively contested. The barrio entails a potential to subvert the
schemes of belonging and exclusion defined by the state and the different forms of structurally
grounded exploitation. Barrionalism portrays the tension and negotiation between semi-autono-
mous barrio identities and institutional power. In Hortaleza, it inspires the creation of horizontal
forms of identification and solidarity based on a common strong sense of place and origin, resi-
dency and quotidian practice (Limón López, 2015).
Linked to Featherstone et al.’s (2012) notion of ‘progressive localisms’, barrionalisms and the
anti-fascist identities constructed at a neighbourhood level are not ‘merely defensive’ or contesta-
tional. Rather, they are ‘expansive in their geographical reach’ and productive of new relations
between places and social groups reconfiguring existing communities. In a discussion of his mem-
ories of neighbour solidarity in Hortaleza, Julio Rubio Gómez – community activist – charts the
progressive articulation of networks with places beyond the neighbourhood. For example, he tells
how the struggles against injustice in the neighbourhood led to the construction of strong chains of
support with Melilla. Rally cries like ‘Africa and Europe united in Hortaleza’ also exemplify the
potentially expansive character of political identities constructed at the level of the barrio. After
the explosive was found at the door of the reception centre, over a thousand of neighbours came
down warning ‘These kids are our brothers and if you touch them, you will find us in the street’.
Ahead of the latest neo-Nazi demonstrations, ‘what some people from the Barrio did was going to
the park and staying with the kids’ (Aitor and Miguel, 9 January 2020). Furthermore, a barrio sis-
terhood or solidarity can also be witnessed across different working-class areas in Madrid.
Hortaleza exemplifies the relevance of the construction of anti-fascism in the neighbourhood.
The mechanisms of ‘differential racialisation’ mentioned in the previous section evidence the ‘pro-
cessual, often contradictory, constitution’ of neighbourhood communities (Arampatzi, 2017) and
the importance of recognising grassroots activity as central to anti-fascism and as an alternative to
state power (Ince, 2019). This means that the potential of the barrio for the construction of alterna-
tive and progressive political identities and projects of belongings cannot be taken for granted.
Rather, political identities are constructed through everyday relations (Featherstone, 2012). In
Hortaleza, despite the efforts of VOX and neo-Nazi groups to mobilise racism and exclusionary
imaginaries of the neighbourhood, a number of individuals, neighbour associations, community
projects, political organisations and NGOs have put together a ‘platform for the coexistence’ to
articulate a collective response to racism in the neighbourhood, contest the mediatic image of vio-
lence and fear and demand institutional responsibility on the situation in the centre.
The Platform publicly arises after Abascal [leader of VOX] mentions the centre in Hortaleza in the electoral
debate five days before the national elections. The situation was becoming very serious and neighbours
didn’t want Hortaleza to be associated with VOX. Before that, in times of the municipal elections, Javier
Ortega Smith [VOX general Secretary] also visited the centre. Until that moment, any political party had
ever directly used the centre for their political propaganda. That day, we organized a ‘escrache’4 blocking
the entrance to the centre. He couldn’t pass, which was his intention. He took a photo and he left. We were
a lot of neighbours there. . . and this was just the first time this was being used as an electoral strategy.
(Juan, one of the promoters of the platform, 4 June 2020)
Despite the platform emerging in light of the most recent events, anti-fascist grassroots work
dates back to the times when Hortaleza was not in the news:
When all this wasn’t in the media, the kids were sleeping in the park, but people weren’t aware about what
was going on. In that time, we got organised to both give material support to the children and to publicly
denounce the situation. All the neighbourhood associations in the district signed together a Manifesto
(Juan, 4 June 2020)
In addition to the awareness-raising and political work, community projects like Hortaleza
Boxing Club emerged, seeking to build bonds among the youth in the neighbourhood. Through the
creation of common spaces, initiatives like this have broken with racist stereotypes allowing eve-
ryday encounters and the construction of an ‘emotional cityzenry’ (Askins, 2016). This exemplifies
the ways the barrio is a ‘struggling community’, a term coined by Arampatzi (2017) to re-centre
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grassroots forms of everyday solidarity and social reproduction as a key site of struggle and a
potential for building new spatial imaginaries.
The boxing space has created a very healthy environment and through everyday interactions many children
and teenagers in Hortaleza are starting to empathize with the kids of the park and understand the situation
is terribly unjust. Many kids bring hatred discourses from home. But these discourses are theoretical,
cognitive, it’s something that is on peoples’ minds. However, when you face this theory and get to know
the other, the emotions and interactions radically change and that hatred discourse collapses from its own
weight. (Julio, founder of Hortaleza Boxing Club, 4 June 2020)
The multiple practices of solidarity challenging the narrative mobilised by VOX on public
media in Hortaleza were articulated through a fabric of historical neighbourhood forms of associa-
tionism, solidarity and struggle in connection with emerging youth anti-fascist movements. The
barrio has been both the scenario and the collective subject of social and neighbour struggles over
the years. Annexed to Madrid with the economic transformations of the 1950s, Hortaleza became
the classic suburb that absorbed workers coming from rural exodus. The accelerated transforma-
tion of the original village and the lack of infrastructures accompanying a chaotic urban expansion
led to a strong development of neighbourhood movements during the 1960s and the 1970s (Tienda
et al., 2009). As the district grew, it became home to many migrants and inhabitants from slums
areas in the outskirts of the city – mainly with Roma background – were rehoused in the neighbour-
hood, leading to a powerful culture of organising and to a particular multi-ethnical ‘barrio’ identity.
The gentrification of the neighbourhood in the last years, with urban regeneration projects and
middle class and wealthy people moving to new ‘green residential areas’ – including the leader of
VOX – is attempting to destroy those identities. This is where the far-right is focusing its battle and
where the construction of anti-fascisms becomes crucial.
Local Solidarities and the Shortcomings of Left Populism

This advocacy for a community-based anti-fascist politics counters a generalised position in cur-
rent left-wing politics that frames the struggle against the far-right in terms of electoral politics
(Ince, 2011). For Chantal Mouffe (2018), the ‘populist moment’ demands the construction of
strong left-wing populisms able to win the struggle for hegemony. Voices like Mezzadra and
Neuman (2019) or Enzo Traverso (2018) have argued that the emergence of Podemos avoided a
strong European-style far-right populism in Spain. In the remainder of this section, I challenge this
belief focusing on the silences, exclusions and shortcomings of the left-wing populist experience
in Spain and its municipalist version in Madrid. To do so, I engage with the criticisms articulated
by migrant political movements in the city and beyond.
In Madrid, the right-wing ‘shift to the streets’ (Ince, 2011) finds its origin in the neoconservative
turn of the Partido Popular, which after the failure of José María Aznar was embodied in Esperanza
Aguirre and the Madrilenian PP (Rubio-Pueyo, 2019). Madrid local and regional governments were
used to launch and fund a strategy of right-wing and ultra-catholic social activism against the social-
ist government of Zapatero. In addition to this, neo-Nazi groups like Hogar Social Madrid squatted
buildings and organised community support actions for Spanish people following the example of
Casa Pound in Italy. Other fascist groups (España 2000, Frente Nacional, Democracia Nacional,
Fuerza Nueva) were also focusing their action on the local scale in specific neighbourhoods.
Certainly, the ‘Madrilenian exceptionalism’ – as the only big city where VOX achieved a significant
electoral success – has much to do with this local entrenchment of conservative lobbies and neofas-
cist groups. On the other hand, the left-wing ‘shift to the institutions’ finds its local expression with
Manuela Carmena’s ‘Council of Change’. The neoconservative experiment in Madrid was inter-
rupted by the Indignados Movement in 2011, that was part of a local and nationwide cycle of urban
protests and public occupations (Karaliotas and Swyngedouw, 2019) and gained particular force in
the capital. The clearance of the squares led to an unprecedented local – and national – cycle of
mobilisations of networked struggles named as ‘mareas’ -tydes- (public health, housing, education,
feminism, etc.). Podemos emerged in this moment, capitalising on the mobilisation cycle towards
the institutions from a populist left-wing strategy. In the capital, Ahora Madrid appeared as a coali-
tion between Podemos and the social movements allowing the first electoral defeat of the right in 15
years.
For many, Madrid’s Council of Change represented a moment of opportunity. However, the
‘institutionalisation moment’ led to a progressive relaxation of the movements in the streets, not
only in Madrid but across the indignados geographies. Karaliotas (2019) analyses similar dynam-
ics in Greece with the experience of Syriza after the ‘politics of the square’. Nevertheless, anti-
racism never was a priority for Ahora Madrid, who perpetuated institutional racism in the
neighbourhoods. Neighbour associations and grassroots organisations in Hortaleza account how
the Council umpteen times ignored their complaints about migrant children being made homeless
by public institutions – alleging lack of power on this issue or implementing simple patch measures
(Rubio Gómez, 2018). Further, against the demands of undocumented migrants in the city – organ-
ised in a Union of ‘top-manta’ workers, Sindicato de Manteros y Lateros de Madrid – the Council
launched a public campaign of criminalisation of street trade in 2017. During this time, the death
of Mame Mbaye, an undocumented migrant who was running away from an identity control of the
police, also occurred. ‘Stop and search’ practices not only continued to take place under Carmena’s
government, but also the Mayor stepped forward to endorse the police’s conduct as ‘doing their
work’ after this tragedy.5
Broadly, the failures of Podemos as an alternative to xenophobic populism go beyond the exam-
ple of Ahora Madrid. In general, the processes of institutionalisation had a clear effect on the
weakening of urban movements, provoking a shift regarding the spaces of anti-fascist struggles
(Karaliotas, 2019). The main strategy of the party against the rise of VOX took the shape of advo-
cating ‘voting against VOX’ together with the Socialist Party (PSOE). Further, within this electoral
strategy, Podemos has positioned itself as a guardian of the constitutional rule. With the 1978
Constitution on hand, the night of the electoral debate in November 2019, Pablo Iglesias defended
the supreme law against the far and conservative right. This move, aligning the party with the 78
Regime, meant leaving all the ‘anti-establishment’ political space in the institutions to the far-right.
This raises different questions regarding how long could left political parties present themselves as
anti-establishment in their populist mode.
Furthermore, Featherstone and Karaliotas (2019) criticise how Podemos’ discourse equates ‘the
people’ they seek to represent with the nation which is a central element in Podemos’ discursive
strategies. This exclusionary framing of ‘the people’, devoid of any colonial analysis, has material
consequences that reinforce institutional racism. Podemos’ migration discourses, for example,
address migrants as ‘people who are about to arrive’ rather than as a constitutive part of the
society:
Nobody talks about us as part of this society, but we are here, and we belong to this society. The Left needs
to construct a very different imaginary. . . One imaginary that emphasises how we also make the city, how
we build society and create culture, how we stand to defend public health and struggle for housing rights
for all. No one wants to assume the political task of building imaginaries that could effectively challenge
the far right. We have a very colonial Left that is still not willing to undertake any process of decolonization.
(Yeison García López, afrocolombian activist, 26 December 2019)
Santamarina 903
These exclusions silence the ways migrants have been building solidarities and quotidian resist-
ances and networks against precariousness in Spanish neighbourhoods for years. In the course of the
economic crisis, they played a key role in shaping oppositional cultures within Spain (Featherstone and
Karaliotas, 2019). The Platform of those Affected by Mortgage (PAH) was founded by Ecuadorians,
who were the first to suffer the consequences of the bursting of the housing bubble: ‘We were the first
ones in denouncing the violence surrounding evictions, although the media did not arrive until Spanish
nationals began to be evicted too’ (Bosaho et al., 2018 ).6 Migrants were also a key part of the move-
ment advocating for a universal public health against the neoliberal logics of privatisation of the com-
mon. Further, migrant feminist struggles preceded the last cycle of mobilisation, with collectives such
as Territorio Doméstico or Migrantes Transgresores working in the city from the intersection of trans-
national trajectories of migration, gender, class and sexuality (Santamarina and Cabezas, 2019).
Broadly, although migrants were a generative force within the mobilisation cycle contesting the crisis,
their role has often been overlooked and invisibilised, both by the media and the political left. Such
exclusions have been perpetuated by the structures of Podemos as the lack of migrants in positions and
spaces of power. Further, under VOX’s fascist threat, the party has not been able to situate anti-fascism
as a priority. Yeison García López, Afrocolombian activist and member of Podemos, sent a clear mes-
sage to the party after the explosive attack in Hortaleza: ‘the tweets with “antiracist flavouring” are
useless if behind them there is no political work’.
Conclusion
In a global conjuncture of growing nationalisms and xenophobic populisms, debates on anti-fas-
cism become crucial.
Contributing to ongoing discussions on ‘anti-fascist geographies’ (Ince, 2011), this paper has
sought to deepen current debates on populism and far-right politics from a spatial perspective.
Beyond traditional approaches that address the far-right through the lenses of the nation state and
institutional politics, I looked at the operation of everyday politics of hate in urban environments
to explore the socio-spatial context in which racism is grounded and reproduced. Focusing on a
working-class area of Madrid (Hortaleza), I evidenced the ways VOX attempts to politicise situ-
ated inequalities that are deeply embedded in the institutional reproduction of racism. This per-
spective denies the position of ‘externality’ to the system that very often is granted to the far-right,
situating it instead at the heart of its functioning. Furthermore, it shifts the comprehension of the
extreme right from the ‘deviant individual’ to the quotidian workings of structural racism.
On the other hand, insofar the local scale becomes a main target of far-right production of politi-
cal meanings, the paper has addressed the neighbourhood as a key site for the articulation of anti-
fascist struggle and alternative politics of belonging. Drawing on neighbour solidarities in
Hortaleza, I highlighted the potential of these to build alternative imaginaries of place and politics
of belonging (Arampatzi, 2017; Featherstone et al., 2012). Emphasising the construction of trans-
versal solidarities on a grassroots level, the paper has argued that the articulation of anti-fascist
politics from below is now, and always a priority. Engaged with migrant’s political criticisms evi-
dences the shortcomings of the left-wing populist strategy in Madrid and Spain in the endeavour of
challenging the far-right. These experiences of neighbourhood movements in Hortaleza and
migrant political activism in Spain shed light to crucial debates in the present political conjuncture
that are relevant beyond the Spanish context.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Carl Ulrik Schierup and Martin Bak Jørgensen for the invitation to be part of the special issue.
I also would like to express my gratitude to David Featherstone and Lazaros Karaliotas for their ongoing
support and intellectual guidance, their comments and encouragement. Thanks to Panos Theodoropoulos for
his help editing and also to Aitor Manzanero and my friends in Hortaleza. This paper wouldn’t be possible
without my conversations with migrant activists and movements in Madrid. This research is part of my PhD
project funded by the Urban Studies Foundation.
Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Ana Santamarina https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0339-4442
Notes
1. https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/06/28/inenglish/1561732798_239871.html Last access: 2 September
2020
2. https://www.elperiodico.com/es/politica/20191104/voz-andalucia-manadas-menas-vecinos-
desmienten-7714065 Last access: 2 September 2020
3. https://www.elsaltodiario.com/racismo/hortaleza-antirracismo-instituciones
4. An ‘escrache’ is a form of direct action that become very popular in the political repertory of the
Indignados Movement. It consists on following public figures to public spaces or their own houses in
order to make a public denouncement.
5. https://www.elplural.com/politica/manuela-carmena-defiende-la-gestion-correcta-del-ayuntamiento-
tras-la-muerte-del-mantero_121794102 Last access: 2 September 2020
6. https://www.elsaltodiario.com/tribuna/una-mirada-diferente-a-las-luchas-migrantes Last access: 2
September 2020
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Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, Vol. 10, Special Issue, pp. 238-246.
doi: 10.14434/jotlt.v9i2.31411
Teaching in the Far-Right Lane

Ruth Savidge Turpin
Indiana University Northwest
rsturpin@iun.edu
Abstract: This essay focuses on the role of humanities faculty in the modern university and the impact
of technology on that role.
Keywords: humanities, asset, market value, certification, education, technology, online instruction,
understanding, plagiarism.
The purpose of this essay is to examine the changes underway in our university due to the 2019
coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic by placing them in the context of trends and problems
already well established and about which there is not as much agreement as perhaps there needs to be.
The pandemic landed squarely on some of our weaknesses and continues to expose stresses and
strains. The focus of this essay is not on technology but on the social context of how it works in the
university. We need to know what we can keep after the emergency has faded and gone. Spoiler alert:
interactive elements such as online conferences with Zoom are the keepers. Some of my colleagues
are focused on weak student reading and writing, and these are important skills. But pandemic-induced
isolation has interfered with student determination to improve those skills. Worse, the problem is
unfolding in a culture where online humanities courses have already been discredited. We cannot just
employ new delivery technologies. Online resources have kept the university open and accessible
through these terrible times, but they have simultaneously increased the problems of isolation of
student from professor and student from student. We need to use the technology to overcome that
isolation.
Imagine the university as a four-lane highway, for example Interstate 80/94 through Gary and
Hammond, Indiana. Entrance and exit is from the right. One hundred percent of the cars drive in the
far-right lane, because that is the only way to get on and off the freeway. Seventy-five percent move
over at least one lane to the left, 50% move over one more lane, and 25% make it to the far-left lane.
In our thought experiment, cars in the two left lanes are driven by students who will graduate. An
open admissions policy means more cars can get on the highway and presumably, more can get to the
two fast lanes and graduate. Internet technology enables the open admissions policy by increasing
access for students who have work and family commitments that might otherwise conflict with
academic goals. However, just getting more students into the university does not guarantee that more
of them will graduate. The far-right lane is now very crowded with students of different needs,
backgrounds, capabilities, and goals, all of whom paid the same tuition. The faculty are obligated to
help all of them. At the same time, we must avoid damaging the credibility of the university degree by
simply passing people into the fast lanes. Students may enter a 4-year institution with a wide range of
academic skills, but if a substantial number of them graduate at the low end of that same range, the
value of all their degrees is correspondingly degraded.
In the traditional university, dating back to the fight in the University of Paris in the early 13th
century, faculty (masters) won the right to decide who graduated and who did not. They also won the
right to determine the curriculum, provided it did not actually contradict Church doctrine. There have
been many changes in the structure and organization of the university in the intervening 800-odd
years. Faculty who profess the specialty that the student is suing to join still decide which students
have met their requirements. Nursing faculty decide who will be a professional nurse and history
Turpin
faculty decide who will be a professional historian. Adding or expanding technology does not change
this fundamental faculty role, only how it is performed.
However, in the modern university, faculty do not decide on those professional qualifications.
Those are decided by various accrediting agencies, for example, the Accrediting Board for Engineering
and Technology and the Higher Learning Commission. Faculty can only determine whether an
individual student meets those qualifications. Furthermore, qualifications for graduation generally
include a range of subjects in which the professors have not specialized. The nursing faculty all speak,
read, and write English, but they do not teach it. They have turned over the qualifying process for
English to the English Department faculty. Faculty are the human interface between the student and
the institutional requirements. The success of the student’s commitment rests on our decisions.
Where Does the Road Go?
According to the fundamental equation of accounting, the dollar value of an asset is equal to the sum
of the borrowed funds and the owner’s investment. Assets = Liabilities + Equity. The liabilities are
the loans required to create the asset. A more realistic way to look at it is to rearrange the terms, then
use the example of a house. The homeowner’s share of the asset (equity) is equal to the dollar value
of the asset on the housing market, minus the mortgage negotiated with the bank. The homeowner’s
liability is reduced as they make regular mortgage payments. However, this has no effect on market
value. If, as happened during the collapse of the housing market in 2008, the value of the asset
decreases, it will not matter what the homeowner has paid on their mortgage. Their equity will
decrease.
The same equation sums up all efforts at wealth creation, including student investment in
higher education. In this case, the market value of the asset is usually expressed as the anticipated
lifetime earnings with the degree, and the graduate’s share is found by subtracting the loans incurred.
The economic benefit is sometimes expressed in anticipated salaries versus loan payments. The
arithmetic works, but the impression is misleading. The cost of a college education is not comparable
to the higher cost of a faster car or a better wardrobe. Those are operating costs. Investment in higher
education is an investment in an uncertain future and an attempt to create ownership of future assets
(oneself).
Many things can effect the market value of the degree. Degrees in some subjects are worth far
more than degrees in other subjects. Degrees from some schools may be much more valuable than
degrees from others in the same subject. Thus, a degree in a much sought-after specialty may be worth
very little if it comes from a “party school” or a school with a reputation for passing students through.
This does not depend on whether the institution is public or private. Degrees from the University of
California and degrees from Stanford University have similar market values in similar subjects. Beyond
the schools, race, gender, and geographic biases of the job market may have a pronounced effect. The
universities are under pressure to implement diversity in their student body. The job market only faces
the necessity of not getting caught breaking the law—as far as it goes.
All of these variations tend to mask one thing: The market value of any degree from any school
depends directly on the confidence the market for that particular specialty has in that school’s
graduates. Properly maintained certification and consistent quality of education as exhibited by
graduates directly impact market confidence in a university’s degrees. Maintaining that confidence is
one of the faculty’s primary responsibilities. If our freshmen find college algebra or college English a
challenge, that’s one thing. The world is what it is. But if they have not improved their skill sets by
graduation, that is quite another thing. The market may be no good at long-range predictions, but it is
very good at evaluating investment.
Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, Vol. 10, Special Issue, jotlt.indiana.edu
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Humanities Education and the Qualifying Process
In today’s market, humanities degrees are generally not worth as much as engineering or science
degrees. Increasingly, they are regarded as studies from another time when education was the province
of the rich and leisured. However, the humanities are an important part of the value of science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics degrees. Consider the following from a list of expectations
for successful general education (gen ed) completion issued by the Provost’s Office of Purdue
University:
The ability to understand and reflect upon the complex issues raised by technological and
scientific changes and its effects on society and the global world by making sense of, evaluating, and
responding to present and future changes that shape individuals’ work, public, and personal lives.
(“Alignment of Indiana’s statewide transfer general education core,” n.d.)
“The ability to understand and reflect upon the complex issues” does not involve skill sets
stressed in a typical chemistry laboratory. However, part of the value of a Purdue engineering or
science degree—and they may be very valuable indeed, depending on the class rank of the graduate—
is due to the confidence of employers that they are going to hire someone who knows what they are
doing; who understands what effects their actions may have; and who can communicate that
understanding to others in the organization.
But from the standpoint of many students, the humanities requirements are an obstacle to
their academic progress. Humanities courses increase tuition and time commitments—liabilities—
without a measurable increase in what students perceive as valuable about their future degree: the part
that will get them a job. Nor is this viewpoint without support in sections of the academic community.
All measurement is comparison to a standard. State and national standardized tests that rely heavily
on multiple-choice questions are routinely given from kindergarten through 12th grade (K–12). They
are also part of postgraduate professional certification. But they are not usually given at the completion
of gen ed humanities courses. That pesky little word “understand” refers to something that may be
challenging to quantify and thus to justify.
On the one hand, all teachers know the moment when the student’s face changes, subtly but
definitely. The student saw something, understood it. On the other hand, we can see when someone
does not understand or is still groping. But that is precisely the problem. To assess understanding in
the humanities, we need to interact with the student, but we also need to do it in a way that can be
documented and one that clearly applies the same standards to all students. This means assessing
student writing. While reliance on writing is far greater in online courses, it is essential in humanities
courses regardless of delivery.
Since 2007, I have worked as a reader for Educational Testing Service (ETS), reading
Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) essays. Once a year, ETS brings together high school
teachers and college professors from institutions throughout the United States to read and grade
history essays. For most of that period, my job has been reading the document-based question,
wherein the students are given a set of documents that may include excerpts of speeches, political
cartoons, and sometimes tables of data. The students’ job is to tell a story from those documents.
Rubrics have become more rigorous over the years and the average essay has grown a little shorter.
Some of the essays are little more than outlines with a hasty introduction slapped on the front. Debate
among readers and table leaders (a sort of team leader) over whether a particular essay really
communicated adequately or actually referred to the required documents in an appropriate way is fairly
common. Perfection is predictably rare. However, one thing hasn’t changed. It is possible, and
sometimes it is easy, to tell when the writer knows what they are talking about, that is, understands
their subject.
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In one sense, there is nothing special about the APUSH essays. They are just student essays,
like the essays most humanities professors encounter regularly and often in exams, term papers, and
discussion board posts. We assess our sources, our textbooks, and our colleagues’ work regularly; and
it is part of all our jobs to quantify that assessment in the case of our students. However, the necessity
to maintain objective criteria so that all our students are graded on the same curve makes the process
difficult and stressful. Does this particular essay meet the requirements listed in the rubric? Does
personal bias toward a particular point of view cloud our judgment? And, finally, can we clearly
communicate that judgment to the student writer so that they may improve? These are presented as
questions because there seems no permanent and perfect answer. We must keep answering the
questions and making the judgments.
Discussing the market value of education in the humanities should not be taken as minimizing
the intrinsic value of humanities education in the modern world. I enjoy telling students that the
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. It
was not an honorary degree. The sense of inevitability that one often feels reading or listening to
King’s speeches does not come from passion, although there is plenty of that, but from the unfolding
of well-constructed arguments. Market valuation of gen ed requirements is a kind of acknowledgment
of that deeper value. We must acknowledge that our students will need to succeed in a competitive
job market and their education needs to prepare them for that.
Ensuring the Requirements Are Met
Some years ago, it occurred to me that the expansion of online courses meant that sooner or later,
someone’s parrot would get a Ph.D. Unless the student, or someone, pays to have an online exam
proctored, there is no way to determine competency in that particular subject for that particular
student at that particular time. Confidence in the integrity of the exam is essential to market
confidence in the competence of the graduates. As online courses exploded, certification of online
courses became a challenge for institutions that wanted to maintain the credibility of their degrees.
Most required at least one face-to-face encounter prior to graduation. Webcams and rigorous ID
requirements coupled with tracking software are now routinely used for certification exams. Because
of the additional expense, they are used less often for routine undergraduate work, at least in gen ed
courses.
Confidence in online courses was further eroded when a Rutgers graduate named Dave
Tomar, writing under the pseudonym of Ed Dante, published a description of his apparently quite
lucrative career ghostwriting student essays in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Tomar, 2010).
According to Tomar, he wrote essays at every level, up to and including at least one Ph.D. thesis.
Tomar claimed to be able to craft a style suitable for a particular student and even to adjust the desired
grade level. A student who had struggled to write an English sentence a month earlier might want a B
essay—B as in believable. The scandal coincided with sagging confidence in the value of humanities
courses, the most likely to rely on essays. Universities responded with enhanced plagiarism-checking
software and increased classroom time devoted to discussions of how and when to use quotation
marks. Of course, none of that would have helped catch an essay purchased from Tomar, or from any
other competent writer. The problem for the humanities professor is that if someone else wrote the
essay, then the student did not write the essay. Thus, the essay could not be used to assess either the
student’s writing skills or their understanding of the topic.
Online humanities courses rely on writing beyond the once-a-semester essay and this may
actually make plagiarism easier to catch. A student that has been writing discussion board posts and
asking questions in Messages has a more readily identifiable “voice” than a student who has been
sitting in the back of the classroom doing their math homework. This moves rather than removes the
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problem. Unfortunately, plagiarism is not uncommon on the discussion board. But, even in large
online classes, the interaction gives the professor a chance to identify, reward, and/or sanction
developing student work.
While Tomar did not specify that his clients were online students, the remoteness of the faculty
from their students jumped out at many Chronicle readers. Could a professor really not tell that one of
his graduate students had paid for someone else to write that thesis? Realistically, some students were
buying essays for a long time before the internet made certain methods more convenient. But online
students are physically remote and faculty may never know who wrote a particular essay. The role of
the internet in marketing ghost-written essays, plus increasing suspicion of the integrity of online
exams, did damage to the credibility of online degrees. One began to hear various versions of the
comment that in 50 years, only the expensive private schools would have face-to-face classes. The rest
would be online. Confidence in online degrees plummeted and remains low. Tomar’s parrot rules the
roost.
Equal Access and Unequal Outcomes
In an August 11, 2020 interview with PBS NewsHour, Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at New
York University, summed up the parameters of the college experience that impact student success and
market confidence: “[in] a university, the value is from three things, the certification, the education
and the experience” (PBS NewsHour, 2020). Professor Galloway directed his comments toward
competitive admissions universities. What value do they offer the incoming student that can justify
the steady increase in tuition over the past two decades?
Most entering freshmen did not just sit down and pick the best return on their investment in
dollar terms. Each prospective student has certain strengths, weaknesses, and personal goals that taken
together make investment in some degrees more realistic than in others. The student’s mobility may
be limited by complicated family commitments. Well before the current pandemic, increasingly limited
family finances sometimes forced students into community campuses whether or not campus
resources matched student needs. Sadly, a recent study suggested that Pell Grant recipients were
among the least well served students in the university community, with disturbingly low graduation
rates (Whistle & Hiler, 2018). And finally, while a discussion of the effects of redlining on education
is beyond the scope of this essay, variations in the cost and effectiveness of community K–12 schools
may restrict student choices and thereby restrict the value of their subsequent educational assets.
While internet technology increases access on many different levels, it cannot enhance the
social experience that Professor Galloway listed, at least not as a particular feature of the university.
In fact, it tends to do the opposite. Students can relate to practically anybody in the world through
social media, but it may be very difficult to relate to other students in the university while enrolled in
online courses. This loss of social context has concrete consequences. The more difficult it is to ask a
question, the fewer the students who will ask it.
The problem predates the COVID-increased reliance on distance learning, as illustrated by the
following example. Looking out over the large classrooms of 40 or 50 that used to characterize fall
enrollment, I increasingly saw students sitting as far apart from each other as possible, hoodies up,
staring straight ahead at me or into their electronics. They looked like turtles on a dangerous beach.
When I encountered a former student one day, I asked him why. He thought seriously for a moment,
then replied that in his program courses, he made friends. In gen ed courses, he did not expect to see
his classmates again. New relationships hardly seemed worth it.
The isolation of online students in gen ed courses is even more pronounced. I have been using
Canvas, the learning management system (LMS), for several years, since the alpha version was first
rolled out (it is much improved). Overall, it has enhanced the teaching experience. Canvas is a much
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better record keeper than I am. It allows the use of online exams and other online assignment
submissions, even for courses centered in the classroom. Exams can be available for more than 1 day,
thus removing the necessity that the whole class turn up for the final. While this may be important on
any campus where students have heavy course loads and need to juggle commitments, it is especially
important on a commuter campus. Online submissions make open book/open note exams much
easier to administer because the students have their resources at home with them, not perched on the
arm of a classroom desk. The discussion board makes it possible to document class participation,
which once had to rely on the professor’s subjective impressions. It also allows the professor to
become familiar with a student’s verbal skill level before the student attempts to turn in a major
assignment.
But any LMS increases the skills that the student needs to succeed. Before students can
participate in a discussion, they need to master the available technology—and the technology is
currently undergoing a dizzying series of market-driven changes. No LMS can accommodate all
possible combinations of platforms, operating systems, internet browsers, and internet service
providers that students may need to employ. Images and videos increase bandwidth requirements. An
increasingly elaborate series of online help pages rapidly becomes part of the problem. Navigating a
long list of FAQs or finding the right term for the search engine requires patience and practice.
The following incident from just before the university shut down in response to the COVID-
19 pandemic will help illustrate the depth of the problem. An older returning student from an online
course asked to meet with me, stating that she could not find the instructions for an important
assignment. I was concerned that she was trying to navigate Canvas on her smartphone, but she met
me in the campus library with her laptop, opened it up, and logged into the course home page with
no difficulty. She then turned the laptop toward me and asked, “Can you show me where to go from
here?” I pointed to the scrollbar on the right-hand side and told her to scroll down. She did, and she
discovered the link she needed with no further prompting. She was embarrassed but mature enough
so that we could laugh together and talk in a friendly and productive way. That encounter scared me.
I was fairly sure she was not the only student frustrated by the technology. She was the one who asked.
Even for students comfortable with the technology, the first few weeks of an online course
can be challenging. Reading and writing are skills; they improve with practice. Students just beginning
college work may not have had much practice. Many do not buy textbooks until they feel more secure
about the course. Online readings and Canvas pages help with this but cannot solve it completely. For
many classroom students, the first 2 weeks are a time when they look around and decide whether or
not they fit in—or want to. Large classes preclude extended introductions. Online classes may reserve
a discussion just for introductions, but they also require participation through written posts from the
1st week on.
On the discussion board, the backbone of any online humanities course, differences in skill
sets are visible to both the professor and the other students. This is especially true when part of the
discussion assignment includes a response to another student’s post. For students who thought that
online courses were supposed to be easy—droppings of Tomar’s parrot—the reaction may be not to
post, to post something that meets only part of the requirements, or to post so close to the final
deadline that no one but the professor will see their work. In other words, they do not take the risk
of participating in the discussion.
Because the discussion is graded, the professor is confronted by a dilemma. They cannot
simply throw As and Bs at all the students, even to give encouragement to those whose skills need
work. Ultimately, that would degrade the degrees of the academically prepared, while not really helping
the truly clueless. On the other hand, if the bar is too high at the beginning of the semester, the less
prepared students will not clear that bar and ultimately will not learn as much. Designing and grading
discussion board topics is a particularly challenging problem, because even though students cannot
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see each other’s grades, they can see each other’s assignment. The discussion board is a virtual room
full of strangers, but if you say something stupid, they may all be looking at you.
When we pivoted to online classes in March 2020, some students were left high and dry.
Although I routinely gave online assignments, I discovered too late that some classroom students had
only committed to working on them after they could discuss them with their friends. When we stopped
meeting on campus, they stopped meeting and stopped posting. Students who sign up for an online
course are at least partially prepared for the isolation. To classroom students suddenly locked down it
came as an unpleasant shock. In hindsight, I should have insisted on maintaining synchronicity on
Zoom, or at least being a presence there myself. But initial attempts to schedule meetings ran into
problems when students experienced increased family demands during classroom hours. To keep
things moving, I increased discussion board requirements and made participation asynchronous.
Eventually most returned, but only after mountains of emails and messages established new lines of
communication.
As the lockdown persisted through the 2020 summer and fall terms, the problem of the
“disappeared” became more acute, not less. This was despite the increase in online help services from
University Information Technology Services (UITS), the library, and the Writing Center. Zoom
conferences helped considerably. In fact, I had many more attendees for Zoom conferences than I
ever did for in-person conferences in prior years. But the duration of the pandemic and the pernicious
economic damage took a terrible toll on regular participation. The result was that for both hybrid and
online courses, interaction with my students increasingly shifted to individual communications on
Canvas messages and in emails. Increased willingness to interact with the professor is an important
development, but I am suspicious about its ability to replace student social experience.
Unfortunately, the technology that has made it possible to keep the University going through
the pandemic is one of the isolating forces that may keep students trapped in the far-right lane.
Increased access has also increased the number of students who are isolated from the help they need,
from their professors, from their peers, and from University services. Weak reading and writing skills
are a problem that students may conquer with determination; social isolation tends to erode that
determination. It thus directly impacts both skill development and a willingness to engage the course
material beyond spitting back answers to multiple-choice questions. You won’t see this again. It’s not
worth it.
Conclusion
Internet technology strengthens an open access university. It allows traditional students to participate
in courses that might otherwise be challenging to schedule, and it increases access for nontraditional
students with work and family commitments. The technology has gotten the university through the
pandemic—so far—and despite social and economic distress, we have kept the road open for our
students to meet their goals. But the same technology raises the bar for beginning students and for
students with weak verbal skills. Simultaneously, it tends to increase student isolation, both from the
professors and from each other. Isolation was already a problem in gen ed courses with large lecture
halls. Asynchronous online courses exacerbate this problem with their reliance on written
communication. Isolation makes it more difficult for students to ask for help with both course material
and internet technology. Increasingly, students with weak verbal skills have difficulty getting the help
they need and are trapped in the right-hand lane.
The pivot to online courses in the middle of term meant that many students were stuck by the
side of the road. Unable to access normal support and social networks, they struggled to complete
assignments. One lesson of the spring 2020 pivot and the following semesters is that we must increase
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the use of interactive technology to improve remote access to support services such as the Writing
Center and UITS.
Faculty have the dual role of education and of maintaining the credibility of the university
degree in the job market. In the humanities, it is essential to be able to fairly assess student writing,
both for skill level and for understanding. Because of writing’s central role, plagiarism may become a
serious problem, particularly in online courses. There is no automatic or technological fix for this,
although familiarity with online resources can be very useful. Only interaction with the student will
tell the professor when an unfamiliar voice turns up on the page.
Sometimes acquiring a degree, like buying a house, may have to be deferred. Neither the
market value of the degree nor the intrinsic value of education may be affordable or even useful. James
Baldwin never went to college. In “Letter From a Region in My Mind,” he summed up why not. “I
no longer had any illusions about what an education could do for me; I had already encountered too
many college-graduate handymen” (Baldwin, 1962). If the society does not support the project of
higher education, then fewer students will be able to afford it. Currently, our society is fending off a
series of very tough challenges. Humanities education may no longer be very high on anybody’s
funding list.
But despite a national dip in enrollments, our students continue to exhibit determination to
reach their goals, and their goals continue to include humanities courses. We have an obligation to
figure out how to preserve the credibility of the university and to harness the technology to help them
do that. Our best resource may be the interactive technologies that break the isolation.
Epilogue
The end of the Fall term showed a disturbing result: all the grade curves were flattened out and shifted
slightly lower. A look at the gradebook revealed problem. Students who have completed work on their
term project presentation may earn extra credit from reviewing other students’ PowerPoints. I don’t
distribute extra credit until the very end of term, which gives the impression of student flying finishes.
In the fall term, there were no flying finishes. Fewer students posted for extra credit and those who
did completed fewer posts. I was reminded that fast runners seldom do a personal best against a slow
field. All my courses appeared to have slowed down. This term, I am trying out Zoom study groups
for major exams. This tactic is intended to help overcome both isolation and skill barriers for new
students. I don’t yet know if it will be enough.
References
Alignment of Indiana’s statewide transfer general education core (GEC) curriculum and Purdue (WL) outcomes-
based undergraduate core curriculum. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.purdue.edu/provost/students/s-
initiatives/curriculum/Alignment%20with%20GTC%203.pdf
Baldwin, J. (1962, November 17). Letter from a region in my mind. The New Yorker. Retrieved from
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind
Tomar, D. (2010, November 12). The shadow scholar: The man who writes your students’ papers
tells his story. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from
https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-shadow-scholar/
Whistle, W., & Hiler, T. (2018, May 1). The Pell divide: How four-year institutions are failing to graduate low-
and moderate-income students. Retrieved from https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-pell-divide-
how-four-year-institutions-are-failing-to-graduate-low-and-moderate-income-students
245
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Woodruff, J. (Anchor & Managing Editor). (2020, August 11). PBS NewsHour. Arlington, VA:
NewsHour Productions.
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social sciences
Editorial
International Nets and National Links: The Global Rise of the
Extreme Right—Introduction to Special Issue
Kristy Campion 1, * and Scott Poynting 2, *
1 Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW 2795, Australia
2 School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia
* Correspondence: kcampion@csu.edu.au (K.C.); s.poynting@gmail.com (S.P.)
Work on this special issue has spanned two years, bookended by two highly media-
tized, violent, extreme right-wing attacks, perpetrated on opposite sides of the globe. We
began in March 2019, within days of the mass murder of 51 Muslim worshippers at two
mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, committed by an Australian white supremacist
with various international links, inspired by virtually global Islamophobia propagated
via the internet (Poynting 2020). The ‘Christchurch massacre’ was itself modeled on the
atrocities of 2011 in Oslo and Utøya, Norway: the sharing of right-wing racist ideology
and propaganda themes was starkly obvious. Both atrocities took place in economically
developed liberal democracies, though this is not so of all the rise of the extreme right,
globally (populist regimes in Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Modi’s Hindu nationalist-dominated
India, each with characteristic racisms, are cases in point).
The special issue comes to a close in the weeks after the right-wing nationalist siege and
invasion of the Capitol in Washington, inspired by defeated president, Donald Trump, in
January 2021. On 5 January, thousands of Trump supporters had descended on Washington

DC, many of them unlawfully armed, and held a series of rallies denouncing the election
Citation: Campion, Kristy, and Scott results and demanding that Joe Biden’s election win not be certified (GW 2021). The last of
Poynting. 2021. International Nets these rallies, on the Ellipse, south of the White House, was addressed by Trump at around
and National Links: The Global Rise
midday on 6 January. He repeated the falsehood that the election had been ‘stolen’, vowed
of the Extreme Right. Introduction to
never to concede defeat, exhorted his followers to ‘fight like hell’ to ‘take back our country’,
Special Issue. Social Sciences 10: 61.
and urged them to march along the National Mall to the Capitol to pressure Congress,
https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10020061
and in particular Vice-President Pence, to refuse unlawfully to ratify the election result
(Trump 2021).
Academic Editor: Nigel Parton
After reaching the Capitol, the crowd rioted, the remarkably inadequate security was
Received: 1 February 2021
Accepted: 2 February 2021
overwhelmed, and the building was breached. Lawmakers were evacuated, and for a
Published: 9 February 2021
time the Capitol was occupied by the rampaging mob. Outside, some built a gallows,
complete with noose. In the ‘bible’ of the extreme right, The Turner Diaries, the noose has
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
heavy symbolism: the insurrectionists dealt thus with left-wing ‘traitors’ (Macdonald 1978).
with regard to jurisdictional claims in
Many participants threatened to do just that to various figureheads of betrayal; two non-
published maps and institutional affil- white congresswomen have reported being terrorized and in fear of their lives. The rioters
iations. smashed windows, looted art and other items, stole computers and papers, and vandalized
offices. Overall, four people were killed in the violence, including a US Capitol policeman,
bashed with a fire extinguisher. Participants included diverse elements of the extreme right,
from the insurrectionist ‘Boogaloo’ militia movement, to conspiracy fantasists QAnon, to
Copyright: © 2021 by the authors.
Proud Boys right-wing nationalist thugs, to ecofascists, and a scattering of white nationalist
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
and Nazi organizations. It took several hours for order to be restored. Improvised explosive
This article is an open access article
devices and firearms were discovered in the Capitol grounds. Since the attack, there have
distributed under the terms and been over 150 arrests (around 10 per cent of the first tranche being women), with this
conditions of the Creative Commons number likely to rise. In short, these were brownshirts in red caps (and the odd horned
Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// helmet), though far less coordinated.
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ Outside of the anglosphere, in August 2020 there was an attempt to storm the Bun-
4.0/). destag building in Berlin by a breakaway group of several hundred far-right protesters from
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 61. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10020061 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/socsci

Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 61 2 of 7
a large demonstration against coronavirus restrictions. In November, the Bundestag was

also intruded upon by right-wing activists protesting against Covid-19 measures, smuggled
in by ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) delegates. These activists waylaid and harassed Left
and Green members of parliament in corridors; many of whom shut themselves in their
offices in fear of violence.
The neo-fascist Golden Dawn has now collapsed in Greece, with numerous cadre
criminally convicted in October 2020, though two of its former leaders have managed to
evade authorities. The foregoing two years have also seen right-wing coup attempts, or
something very similar depending on interpretation, in Venezuela (most recently in 2020
and unsuccessful) and Bolivia (in 2019, which was later democratically reversed). The
extreme right has had some setbacks globally, but is clearly on the march.
Trump’s initial reaction to the Capitol violence on 6 January (still as president, albeit
a ‘lame duck’ one) was not to condemn the mob, but to express understanding for their
frustration, to deem them ‘patriots’ and tweet his ‘love’. There have been many foretastes
of this approach, an early one being the refusal to denounce the white supremacist mob
whose violence led to murder in Charlottesville in 2017. Notwithstanding this history,
and the violence that Trump incited in January 2021, as of the time of writing, polls
indicated that he retained overwhelming support among US Republican voters, the vast
majority of whom believe that the election was fraudulent. The ‘basket of deplorables’
has come to be indulged or at least tolerated by a great mass of respectable citizens. The
‘extreme’ right is nurtured by the ‘mainstream’ in societies where the likes of Trump are
not readily identified as extreme, but rather as perversely representative. The cases of
right-wing populism discussed in this special issue bear this out, several analyzing the
ideological maneuvers by which the far-right presents itself as normal, decent, law-abiding
(in purported contrast to those ‘othered’) and respectable. The assault on the Capital was an
attack on the central institutions of US liberal democracy, and yet its perpetrators claimed
to be acting, as their leader exhorted, to ‘save democracy’.
‘The people’ represented in democracy are not ‘the people’ hailed by right-wing pop-
ulism. At the heart of the extreme right lies a profound distrust of democracy (Carter 2018;
Mudde 2000). The various subcultures and interconnecting milieux of the far-right dismiss
democracy as a myth, a corrupt order manipulated by elites out of touch with ordinary
people, or a broken system that allows the weak to rule unless the reins are ‘taken back’
by the strong and the deserving (Campion 2019). These themes were played upon by
Trump throughout his presidency, and were rehearsed in his January 6 speech at the
Ellipse—contradictorily in the name of defending democracy.
‘The people’ of the nation that is to be made one again, made pure again, made
great again, are invariably ethnically exclusive in far-right ideology. They are imagined in
contradistinction to the racialized ‘Other’, who disunites the nation, corrupts its culture,
exploits or sponges off its ‘real’ people. Racism and ethnonationalism are intrinsic to the
far-right. Nations founded on slavery or ‘settler’ colonialist expropriation (or both, as in
the Americas) have distinct racisms, and distinguish those who ‘belong’ by othering those
of the different categories who do not. Nation-states inheriting the benefits of empire, those
transformed by labor migration, and so on, also have various histories of racism—and
yet the ideologies of far-right racism have proven in recent decades to be remarkably
transferable between these different national cultures. The ‘Replacement’ myth that so
exercised the Christchurch mass murderer (in his case Muslim immigrants ‘replacing’
‘white’ culture through migration, high birth rates, and liberal tolerance of difference) is a
touchstone of the far-right in the US, in Australia, and in Germany, for example, whatever
their different histories of racism. In recent decades, the ideological elements of this and
other far-right myths are exchanged, embellished, localized and internationalized above
all via the internet, and the articles here collected demonstrate this strongly.
The history of fascism shows us that right-wing, racist populism arises especially in
conjunctures of crisis. The 2007–2008 Global Financial Crisis greatly exacerbated the resort
to nativism and xenophobia among the casualties of neoliberalism. The racialized Other is
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 61 3 of 7
a convenient scapegoat for economic and social insecurities. Europe’s ‘Refugee Crisis’ from
around 2015 with the influx of asylum seekers fleeing war and displacement in Syria, Iraq,
and elsewhere was another occasion for a rise in right-wing extremism. The associated
othering melded with ongoing Islamophobia from the so-called ‘War on Terror’. Over the
period of production of this special issue, the global Covid-19 pandemic has interacted with
far-right politics in complex ways, as explored by Ulrike Vieten in her ground-breaking
contribution to this special issue with particular reference to Germany. This has been
apparent also in the US: very few attendees at Trump’s rallies or at the riot at the Capitol
wore facemasks, which became emblematic of despised state imposition upon individual
freedoms. The anti-elitism of populism aroused hostility towards ‘experts’, combined
with cynicism towards science and the profound anti-intellectualism characteristic of
fascism, fueled by feedback loops of self-referencing internet conversations where fevered
imaginations grasp at ‘explanations’ and remedies that might otherwise have been sought
in science.
There are genuine implications for misconceptualizing the radicalization of the far-
right as either offline or online. In the digital information age, these two domains must be
considered mutually complementary and reinforcing. In the aftermath of the Christchurch
attack, it was widely suggested that the terrorist was radicalized online or through his
travels. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques
on 15 March 2019 chaired by Sir William Young (Young 2020) turned this assumption on
its head. Instead, the Royal Commission exposed the pre-existing, localized, far-right
views held by the terrorist when he was an adolescent in Australia—and long before
his engagement with fellow extremists both online and offline. The subsequent online
engagement via Facebook and YouTube by the terrorist represented an expanding interest
in extreme right ideology and actors. The online domain, however, is rife with violent and
threatening discourses, which in the case of the Christchurch terrorist, manifested as online
threats towards perceived enemies two years before his eventual attack (Nguyen 2019).
Pete Simi and Steven Windisch (Simi and Windisch 2020) analyze extreme right dis-
courses in the United States in their study in this issue, “The Culture of Violent Talk.” As
their analysis is empirically grounded in rich ethnographic data collected from interviews
with white supremacists in the United States since 1997, it provides us with invaluable in-
sight into the ideology behind the rise of Trumpism and its apogee at the Capitol in January
2021. Simi and Windisch investigated the culture and content of violent talk, finding that it
can reinforce the value of violence and its significance to political action, provide a sense
of doing, and function as an expression of frustration and anger. The culture of violent
talk can serve to establish in-groups and out-groups, targets for violence, legitimize tactics,
venerate individuals and groups, and establish socialization into associated norms and
values. The confronting, disturbing, and often violent expressions are pervasive in extreme
right culture, but do not necessarily correspond directly with the implementation of violent
actions. In sum, the performative and interactional nature of violent talk amongst white
supremacists may in some cases be a cathartic substitute for violent actions, and instead
allow for the communication of identity, both online and offline. As we currently (January
2021) see death threats to lawmakers issued by Capitol invaders mitigated by their lawyers
as mere hyperbole and misplaced humor, we can see how this ideological ambiguity can
make the deplorable ‘understandable’ and allow it to be indulged or at least tolerated
within the political-cultural mainstream.
Laura Cervi and Santiago Tejedor (Cervi and Tejedor 2020), in their contribution to
this special issue, ‘Framing “The Gypsy Problem”: Populist Electoral Use of Romaphobia
in Italy (2014–2019)’, examine the Romaphobic discourse of Matteo Salvini, the leader
of the right-wing populist Lega party in Italy. While xenophobic rhetoric has long been
central in Lega’s discourse, Salvini as its new leader made populist capital by playing
upon widespread Romaphobia. He made the othering of Roma people the centerpiece
of his politics, repeating the media stunt “camp visit” as an electoral campaign feature.
Through the analysis of eight consecutive electoral campaigns, over a six-year period,
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 61 4 of 7
this article shows how Roma communities are represented in Salvini’s discourse, using a
combination of computer-based quantitative and qualitative content analysis and framing
analysis. Casting Roma as an “enemy” living “among us” reinforces an “us versus them”
opposition characteristic of populist racist discourse. “Gypsies” are framed by Lega as a
threat to society and bulldozing their camps is held to be the only solution.
Ulrike Vieten’s (Vieten 2020) paper in this issue, ‘The “New Normal” and “Pandemic
Populism”: The COVID-19 Crisis and Anti-Hygienic Mobilization of the Far-Right’, ex-
plores the interrelationship between the crisis of the global Covid-19 pandemic and the rise
of the global far-right. Focusing on the case of Germany, Vieten examines popular protest
against the strictures of state interventions to control the coronavirus pandemic. She finds
a blurring of mainstream political activism with the mobilization of the racist far-right. In-
deed, the ‘new normal’ of Covid-related restrictions may be helping to ‘normalize’ far-right
racist populism. Further, online populist mobilizing against the state measures around the
pandemic may be coalescing with offline right-wing racist rallies blaming the pandemic on
immigrants and minorities.
The tenuous space between mainstream processes of political engagement and their
exploitation by far-right political parties or individuals is also addressed by Nicole Doerr’s
(Doerr 2020) article in this issue. Doerr explores this critical convergence in “Anti-Islam,
Ethnonationalism, and Gendered Images” by examining the far-right visual politics of the
Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. This study engages in a visual analysis of campaign
materials created by AfD, and in conjunction with Harris Media, an US graphic design
company known for supporting the electoral campaigns of the Republican Party. Doerr
finds that the campaign materials are designed to mobilize the far-right through evocative
and gendered images, such as western women in swimwear, to project a racialized German
in-group whose ideals and values are contrasted against the supposedly misogynistic
Muslim ‘other’, as well as other minorities who are implied to be the out-group. This
is executed without explicit racist iconography or jargon, and thus retains a veneer of
respectability. Beyond the use of gender ideology, AfD also leverage a controlled version
of homonationalism to imply that Muslim values do not correspond with Germany’s
acceptance of homosexuality. Combined, the AfD project a racialized boundary between
in-groups and out-groups, divided not only by religion but also by western values. Doerr
suggests that the public arena for far-right discourses is often a diffused and contradictory
space, which can traverse both mainstream and extreme digital milieux.
The far-right have long been spearheaded by digital natives, adept at exploiting online
spaces (Ganesh 2018). The role of women in this digital universe is, however, relatively
underexplored. This the focus of Ico Maly’s (Maly 2020) digital ethnography of Brittany
Pettibone in “Metapolitical New Right Influencers.” Maly’s study examines the interplay of
digital media, far-right radicalization, and mobilization through an investigation of far-right
influencers such as Pettibone. Pettibone’s success as such cannot only be ascribed to her
media literacy, hashtag tactics, and interaction with followers, but also to her propagation
of pro-Trump content during 2017. Although she began engaging on social media as an
aspiring author, Pettibone gradually began to tweet more explicitly political content, the
first of which was directly targeting the mainstream media, Hollywood, and the existing
“political class’ she positioned (in the common populist argument) as opposing Donald
Trump. She soon synthesized her activity with that of other far-right activists and current
events, exploiting the Podesta emails, Wikileaks, and #pizzagate. Within the space of a
year, she had a substantial international following. Maly argues that such micro-celebrities
are able to stretch metapolitical traditions by democratizing content creation, which in turn
disrupts established and institutional gatekeepers, fundamentally upsetting existing power
relationships, and contributing towards potentially radicalizing discourses online.
The online and offline spaces are not entirely divisible. Kristy Campion’s
(Campion 2020) article, “Women in the Extreme and Radical Right”, examines the
role of women in both online and offline domains. Her study examines the participation
of nearly 100 women in extreme and radical right milieux. Their participation broadly
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 61 5 of 7
fits into six categories, which demonstrated women had been involved in extreme right
activity as (1) violent actors in their own right; (2) thinkers who contribute to the universe
of ideas; (3) facilitators who enable illicit activity; (4) promoters who use online and
offline platforms, such as YouTube and Instagram, to disperse propaganda and materials;
(5) activists who further the cause through licit activity; and, finally, (6), as being exemplars
for others. This participation emphasized the activity of women who enacted, facilitated
or sustained illicit (and sometime violent) operations. Female engagement with content
creation and promotion has also enabled women to challenge feminist discourses, magnify
ideology, and cultivate female identity and behavioral norms in extreme and radical right
ecosystems. This allows them to find identity security and satisfy personal needs. As
a consequence, contemporary female involvement in the extreme and radical right is
hardly new or surprising: this research establishes female engagement with ideology and
discourse, and participation in violent and non-violent operations, as belonging to the
norm in both online and offline milieux.
In recent times both Australia and the United Kingdom have allowed far-right, racist
political leaders and public figures such as the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders to visit their
countries and engage in Islamophobic and anti-immigrant propaganda. Far-right, white
nationalist ‘influencer’ Lauren Southern has been banned from the UK and New Zealand,
and detained for unlawful anti-asylum seeker interventions in Italy, though she was
permitted to conduct a speaking tour in Australia in 2018 and its now resident in that
country, engaging in regular media appearances. In such cases, supporters of these figures
invariably appeal to ‘freedom of speech’ principles. Evan Smith’s (2020) contribution
herein, ‘Keeping the Nazi Menace Out: George Lincoln Rockwell and the Border Control
System in Australia and Britain in the Early 1960s’, shows through a case study of an invited
US Nazi leader, that in the post-war period, when the dangers of fascism were officially
taken more seriously in these countries, the Australian and British governments moved to
prohibit the entry of foreign actors who propagated far-right politics. Yet both these states
allowed far-right organizations to exist lawfully in their countries. Smith ascribes the ban
to ‘concerns about potential public disorder and violence’, but also argues that it allowed
both governments to portray white supremacism and racial violence as foreign to their
own countries. Given the operation of Britain’s violent neo-colonial regimes of that period,
and Australia’s ‘White Australia policy’ in effect at that time, this portrayal may have had
an important face-saving role in international affairs. (The Australian government’s active
encouragement of immigration by Eastern European ex-fascists, for their anti-communism
during this period of the Cold War, was covert and publicly denied). Smith details how in
the early 1960s, the American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell was invited to
visit by neo-Nazis in Australia and Britain. Both countries invoked border control and visa
regulations that allowed the government to exclude proponents of extreme or “dangerous”
political ideologies. Rockwell never made it to Australia, but did enter Britain unlawfully
via Ireland in 1962. His official exclusion and eventual deportation became a point of
reference in future debates in Britain over denial of entry and deportation of political
figures.
Finally, René Leal (Leal 2020) discusses within the long-term historical context the
contemporary popular uprising in Chile and its suppression by the neo-liberal government
of the right. In ‘The Rise of Fascist Formations in Chile and in the World’, Leal analyses
the foundational racism of the Chilean state in relation to Indigenous peoples, and its
inherent ideology of progress and civilizational supremacy. These ideological elements
were promoted by the 1973–1990 fascist dictatorship under Pinochet, which ushered in
one of the first neo-liberal regimes globally. It is the hegemony of neo-liberalism that the
contemporary protesters have been challenging since October 2019, in their coalition of
students, workers, young people, and allied progressive forces. They have also demanded
revision of the constitution imposed under the Pinochet regime, under the auspices of
which the formally liberal-democratic state had been pursuing neo-liberal austerity and
its repression of the recent rebellion against that. The referendum on 25 October 2020
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 61 6 of 7
overwhelmingly backed the demand for a new constitution; the outcome of the struggle
will determine whether neo-liberalism suffers a set-back with possibly global ramifications.
It could also perhaps secure the definitive defeat of the extreme right and the fascist legacy
within the Chilean national space.
Collectively, the contributions to this special issue call into question the notion that the
‘extreme’ right wing is somehow exogenous to liberal democracies, outlying on the margins,
where it might be safely tolerated in the name of free speech and other liberties, and be
effectively quarantined. There is no hard and fast social-scientific distinction between
the extreme right and the far-right, and the far-right can live in symbiosis with the more
conventional conservative right. These links, and their institutional arrangements enable
the respectablization of the far-right and ‘extreme’ ideologies including racisms, while
maintaining a hygienic distance from the (unauthorized) violence often motivated and
indeed incited in far-right discourse.
The cases here presented also point up both the global similarities and exchange of
far-right ideology (above all now via the internet), while nevertheless showing how it
takes root differently according to national and local histories and cultures. This special
issue further challenges assumptions that persist in the study of and commentary on the
extreme right that right-wing extremism is the domain of ‘angry white men’. This is not
solely the case: extreme right-wing operations, activities and ideologies have flourished
with the participation of women. These women are able to exert leadership and influence
across local and transnational populations, challenging dominant mainstream discourses
and engaging in metapolitics. This performance is tied innately to identity politics, in
terms of ethnonationalism, homonationalism, and xenophobia. Within the far-right, both
men and women engage in identity performances through the culture of violent talk, with
figurative expressions signposting ideological commitment and allegiance. The spatial
domains of this violent culture are both online and offline, which are in practice mutually
complementary and reinforcing spaces for radicalization and mobilization. These milieux
are no longer relegated to niche spaces or fringes, but can and do overlap with mainstream
politics and politicians. If the global rise of the extreme right is to be halted, it is these
overlaps that need to be interrupted.
Funding: This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
Campion, Kristy. 2019. Australian Right Wing Extremist Ideology: Naratives of Nemesis and Nostalgia. Journal of Policing, Intelligence
and Counter Terrorism 14: 208–26. [CrossRef]
Campion, Kristy. 2020. Women in the Extreme and Radical Right: Forms of Participation and their Implications. Social Sciences 9: 149.
[CrossRef]
Carter, Elisabeth. 2018. Right-wing extremism/radicalism: Reconstructing the concept. Journal of Political Ideologies 23: 157–82.
[CrossRef]
Cervi, Laura, and Santiago Tejedor. 2020. Framing “The Gypsy Problem”: Populist Electoral Use of Romaphobia in Italy (2014–2019).
Social Sciences 9: 6. [CrossRef]
Doerr, Nicole. 2020. Anti-Islam, Ethnonationalism, and Gendered Images: The Far Right Visual Politics of the AfD. Social Sciences 10:
20. [CrossRef]
Ganesh, Bharath. 2018. The Ungovernability of Digital Hate Culture. Journal of International Affairs 71: 30.
GW. 2021. Capitol Hill Siege. George Washington University. Available online: https://extremism.gwu.edu/Capitol-Hill-Cases
(accessed on 19 January 2021).
Leal, Rene. 2020. The Rise of Fascist Formations in Chile and in the World. Social Sciences 9: 12. [CrossRef]
Macdonald, Andrew. 1978. The Turner Diaries, 2nd ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books.
Maly, Ico. 2020. Metapolitical New Right Influencers: The Case of Brittany Pettibone. Social Sciences 9: 113. [CrossRef]
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Mudde, Cas. 2000. The Ideology of the Extreme Right. New York: Manchestor University Press.
Nguyen, Kevin. 2019. Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant sent death threat two years before attack. ABC News, April 9. Available
online: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-10/brenton-tarrant-alleged-christchurch-shooter-sent-death-threat/10952876
(accessed on 7 January 2021).
Poynting, Scott. 2020. “Islamophobia Kills”. But where does it come from? International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 9.
[CrossRef]
Simi, Pete, and Steven Windisch. 2020. The Culture of Violent Talk: An Interpretive Approach. Social Sciences 9: 120. [CrossRef]
Smith, Evan. 2020. Keeping the Nazi Menace Out: George Lincoln Rockwell and the Border Control System in Australia and Britian in
the Early 1960s. Social Sciences 9: 9. [CrossRef]
Trump, Donald. 2021. Trump’s speech that ‘incited’ Capitol violence: Full transcript. Al Jazeera News, January 11. Available
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on 19 January 2021).
Young, William. 2020. Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019. Wellington: Department of
Internal Affairs, New Zealand Government.
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Far-Right. Social Sciences 9: 9. [CrossRef]
http://ijhpm.com
Int J Health Policy Manag 2018, 7(2), 195–198 doi 10.15171/ijhpm.2017.82
Commentary
The Far Right Challenge

Comment on “The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges
for Health Policy”
Daphne Halikiopoulou*
Abstract Article History:

Speed and Mannion make a good case that the rise of populism poses significant challenges for health policy. Received: 30 April 2017
This commentary suggests that the link between populism and health policy should be further nuanced in Accepted: 8 July 2017
four ways. First, a deconstruction of the term populism itself and a focus on the far right dimension of populist ePublished: 11 July 2017
politics; second, a focus on the supply side and more specifically the question of nationalism and the ‘national
preference’; third, the dynamics of party competition during economic crisis; and fourth the question of policy,
and more specifically the extent to which certain labour market policies are able to mediate demand for the far
right.
Keywords: Far Right Parties, Nationalism, Labour Market Policies, Health Policies
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access
article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
Citation: Halikiopoulou D. The far right challenge: Comment on “The rise of post-truth populism in
pluralist liberal democracies: challenges for health policy.” Int J Health Policy Manag. 2018;7(2):195–198. *Correspondence to:
doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2017.82 Daphne Halikiopoulou
Email: d.halikiopoulou@reading.ac.uk
Populism: The Far Right Dimension A key aspect relevant for health policy - and welfare policies
European elections are increasingly dominated by a particular more broadly - is that most of the parties that have been
style of politics: a focus on the ‘people’ against established electorally successful on a ‘populist’ platform share their
elites, a ‘post-truth’ communication style and an emphasis emphasis on ‘the national preference’: ie, they advocate
on national sovereignty. This is the type of politics that a policies that give native groups sole or priority access to
large body of literature describes as ‘populism’1: either a thin welfare provisions and the collective goods of the state.
ideology which can cut across ideological cleavages2; or a Hence in this brief article I will steer the focus specifically on
discursive style, a strategic choice adopted by political actors parties that may be classified as far right: ie, parties that claim
in order to increase their appeal.3 At the core of populism is an ownership of nationalism and offer ‘nationalist solutions’
antagonistic discursive logic that divides society between the to all socio-economic problems by advocating policies of
‘dominant’ and the ‘dominated,’4 or in other words between exclusion.8 The far right may be understood as an umbrella
the masses (or the ‘people’) and the elite.5 Hence, the centrality term that encompasses both ‘old’ and ‘new,’9 ie, both extreme
of ‘the people’ in a rhetoric that attempts to mobilize support and radical variants: while all far right parties focus on one
as broadly as possible.6 form of nationalism or another, they differ in their relationship
As an analytical category, however, populism is problematic. with democracy, the extent to which they endorse and adopt
Whether an ideology or political style it is difficult to define or violence, and the extent to which they distance themselves
measure. The biggest issue is the absence of a counterfactual: from fascism and racism.8
while scholars focus on identifying which parties, groups or A number of far right parties experienced an increase in their
movements are populist, it is more difficult to identify which support across Europe during the 2014 European Parliament
are not. After all, in a democracy who does not invoke the elections including the French Front National (FN), the Greek
people? Minimal definitions and distinctions between ‘thin’ Golden Dawn (GD), the Danish People’s Party (DF) and
and ‘thick’ populism aside,7 often the term ‘populist party’ is the True Finns (TF) among others.10 Many have dominated
used as a proxy for niche, protest, or far, ie, parties that operate the agenda in a number of national elections since: the GD
on the fringes of the party system. It is also often used in a has experienced steady support since 2012 despite key
normative manner to describe a party or group one disagrees party officials undergoing trial for maintaining a criminal
with or disapproves of. When assessing the implication of this organization; the Austrian FPÖ candidate came very close
type of politics for specific policies, however, the normative to winning the Presidential election in 2016; despite coming
dimension is not helpful. It is important to nuance and further second in the 2017 Dutch elections, the Freedom Party PVV
unpack the category of parties under investigation. increased its support; and in the 2017 French Presidential
University of Reading, Reading, UK.

Halikiopoulou
elections Marine Le Pen made it to the second round. of race but on the basis of toleration, ie, those who reject ‘our’
liberal democratic values.15
Nationalism: Health Policy and Access to the Collective A good example is the FN. Since Marine Le Pen took over
Goods of the State from her father in 2011, she has pursued a strategy of “de-
Speed and Mannion focus on the implications of the rise and demonization” of the party and a softening of its rhetoric. The
success of these parties on ‘the design and implementation of party justifies its policy of the “préférence nationale” by invoking
national (and international) health policies.’11 The paradox primarily the cultural and civic aspects of national identity,
here is that while indeed the implications are negative, welfare offering ideological rather than biological, rationalizations
policies offer a justification for these parties, a strategy of for who belongs to the French nation. The party increasingly
appeal. As noted above, while far right parties differ in many presents the other as hostile because their so-called intolerant
ways, the shared ability of these parties to mobilise support beliefs pose a threat to “our” national values, rather than
by advocating strict immigration policies and policies that because of their ethnicity per se, thus shifting the boundaries
place the ‘native’ inhabitants first in a range of areas including of exclusion from ethnicity to ideology.
welfare and social services, points to the importance of
nationalism as a common denominator. Nationalism, Nationalism and Economic Crisis: The Dynamics of Party
understood as the attainment and maintenance of the Competition
unity, autonomy and identity of a deemed nation,12 offers a Economic crisis heightens the importance of the economy
justification of exclusion by shifting the blame for problems in the political agenda, as economic issues become the key
related to welfare and social services, to foreigners. So while priority for voters and for parties that seek to address voters’
‘healthcare has benefitted enormously from international concerns. According to party competition literature, this is
cooperation and agreements that allow the free flow of people, problematic for far right parties whose agenda tends to de-
capital, goods, and information,’11 at the same globalization emphasise economic concerns.17,18 In many ways, therefore,
has heightened the insecurities of certain social groups which the increase in support for far right parties at times of economic
consider themselves to be the ‘losers’ of this process.13 Far instability constitutes a paradox because the latter presents an
right parties seek to capitalise on such popular insecurities by opportunity not for the far right, but rather for parties that
advocating restricting access to those who do not belong to have ownership of the economic issue. This includes certain
‘our’ nation. mainstream, non-populist parties, which have long-term
This is a feature of both the ‘extreme’ and ‘radical’ variants. experience of governance and are more likely to be seen as
In the extreme right category, the Greek GD actively offers credible managers of the economy because of this experience;
alternative services of state and welfare provisions in line and left-wing parties that place an emphasis on equality and
with its ideal to encompass all aspects of social life. The wealth redistribution, offering direct economic solutions to
party’s social solidarity programme has special provisions economic problems.
for vulnerable social groups who, it claims, are not protected Empirically, however, this has not happened. This is
by the state. In line with this, the party has organised blood because far right parties have not only capitalised on voters’
donations and ‘soup kitchens’ intended only for Greeks, a insecurities, but also on the inability of competitor parties to
status which citizens must confirm with the presentation of attract voters because of their own ideological and identity
their Greek identity card. It also set up a health provision problems. An example is the so-called crisis of the left across
service in order to support Greek people as a substitute to the Europe: in Greece PASOK imploded after the eruption of the
‘failing’ and ‘decaying’ national health care system.14 economic crisis, never to regain its ground while new liberal-
Access to welfare is also part of the discourse of the radical centre and centre-left initiatives remain marginalized; in the
variants. Indeed the European far right parties that are most 2017 Dutch elections the Labour coalition suffered big losses;
electorally successful are not the extreme variants – the GD’s in the United Kingdom, Corbyn’s Labour party battled its
success in an aberration rather than the norm- but rather identity between ‘old’ and ‘new’; and in France the Socialist
those, which are using a ‘civic’ version of nationalism in their Party failed to attract much support in the 2017 presidential
rhetoric.15 A large body of literature has focused on the ways elections after Hollande failed to offer solutions to France’s
in which far right parties have sought to distance themselves problems including social integration, vulnerability to
from fascism and overt racism in their attempt to gain votes. terrorism and exclusionist – though highly protectionist –
This is because, while voters might be sympathetic to their labour market.
policies, particularly over immigration, most would be In sum, despite expectations, left-wing parties have
unlikely to support a party that they perceive as overtly racist broadly speaking failed to capitalise on the economic crisis.
or a threat to the democratic system.9,16 While, therefore, far The opportunity opened up by the economic crisis only
right parties are exclusionary by definition, they no longer materialised into electoral gains for few left-wing parties.
justify exclusion predominantly on ethnic terms. The radical This includes mainly parties on the far left of the political
variants are more successful precisely because they are able spectrum in peripheral countries whose political systems have
to tailor their discourse to the liberal and civic characteristics been historically polarised along left-right lines. For example,
of national identity and present themselves as the defenders the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) in Greece and
of democracy, diversity and tolerance. These parties present PODEMOS in Spain both made electoral gains during the
‘our’ nation as one of tolerance, liberalism and diversity 2014 European Parliament elections. SYRIZA maintained this
threatened by an influx of intolerant, reactionary and narrow- support and was able to form a coalition government in the
minded ‘others.’ ‘We,’ they argue, do not exclude on the basis subsequent January 2015 national election, while PODEMOS
196 International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2018, 7(2), 195–198
Halikiopoulou
was not. channels: because it imposes costs on the unemployed and

What all electorally successful far left parties have in common because it increases the risks for those that are employed.22
is their nationalist narrative19,20: ie, their emphasis on national This suggests that, because of their impact on both the
sovereignty and the need to emancipate the nation from employed and the unemployed, austerity policies are likely
exploitative external powers and their internal collaborators. to intensify support for the far right. For example, in Greece
SYRIZA’s 2015 electoral campaign, for example, was premised those who have suffered from austerity are not only the
on a rhetoric of ‘resistance,’ legitimated through nationalism. marginalised sections of the population – ie, the outsiders –
Its main pillars included opposition against external elites, but also the large middle classes – ie, those insiders who found
such as the IMF and the Troika, and Germany; and the themselves much worse off. More broadly, labour market
denouncement of internal elites as collaborators, with a focus policies have become less protective in the past two decades
on the mainstream PASOK and ND who were blamed for in many European countries. The economic impact on those
the crisis. The party denounced austerity as a ‘German-led who lose their job has also been intensified by the cuts made
impositions’ and criticised the euro as a vehicle of German to unemployment benefits prior to the crisis. EPL, which, had
exploitation.’21 In other words, voters have tended to trust already been deregulated in many European countries prior
parties that offer ‘nationalist’ solutions’ to the economic crisis to the crisis, was reduced even further, resulting in higher
and put forward a nationalist narrative during their electoral levels of insecurity among the employed.24 The adoption of
campaign. these policies increases the risks and costs of unemployment,
which, in turn, makes the rise of the far right more likely.
The Politics of Demand and the Importance of Labour
Market Policies Conclusion
Can certain policies mediate demand for far right parties? The Populism is in many ways a broad and normative term posing
relationship between economic distress and far right party analytical and conceptual difficulties. The challenges posed
support is to an extent conditional on those labour market by the electoral success of parties that focus on sovereignty
policies that might mediate the risks and costs of economic and ‘the national preference’ are not necessarily the product
malaise on different labour market groups. More specifically, of populism per se, but of the far right dimension of this
unemployment is a key driver of economic insecurity. It populism. When it comes to health policy, and welfare
affects outsider and insider labour market groups differently. provision more broadly, the electoral appeal of this national
First, it directly affects ‘outsiders,’ ie, those who are or become preference constitutes a paradox: while the electoral success
unemployed, because these groups are deprived of an income. of the far right has a series of negative consequences, it is
Second, it indirectly affects ‘insiders,’ ie, those in permanent precisely the platform of discriminatory health and welfare
employment, by increasing their fears of losing their job. The policies that wins these parties their votes. On the supply
insecurity of these two groups is mediated by different labour side, whether extreme or radical variants, far right parties put
market policies: the extent to which outsiders suffer financially forward a rhetoric that focuses on social security and priority
depends substantially on the generosity of unemployment access to welfare and the collective goods of the state. On the
benefits; and the extent to which insiders fear losing their demand side, voters have tended to trust parties that offer
jobs depends on employment protection legislation (EPL). ‘nationalist’ solutions. The voting base of these parties has
Research has shown the importance of these two labour market increasingly included the insecure middle classes that punish
policies in mediating the effect of unemployment on economic the incumbent and mainstream for failing to deliver on the
insecurity, thus limiting the impact of unemployment on far state’s social contract obligations. Austerity has exacerbated
right party support. Specifically, where such policies offer this result.
greater protection from the risks and costs of unemployment, Beyond, however, the obvious negative consequences of the
the far right is less likely to fare well electorally. Where, on the electoral success of the far right, there is another less obvious
other hand, these policies are less generous, the risks and costs consequence: partly because of the new winning formula,
of unemployment are greater and the far right is more likely to partly because of their increasing attempts - and successes - in
increase its support.22 attracting the middle classes, and partly because of the crisis
This is consistent with the increasing appeal of the far right of left and liberal centre, these parties are able to permeate
among both the working and middle classes.23 The classic mainstream ground. They are effective in driving the agenda,
economic insecurity argument tends to automatically consolidating the narrative and setting the terms on which
translate into the erroneous assumption that the economically other, mainstream actors, compete. The implication is critical:
insecure are first and foremost the working classes: blue as the national preference is no longer the privilege of the far
collar, manual workers in precarious employment, or the right, discriminatory and exclusionary welfare policies are
unemployed. But economic insecurity is not only an argument more likely to be supported across the political spectrum.
about the haves and the have- nots, the unemployed and/
or the working classes. It is an argument about the extent to Ethical issues
Not applicable.
which deteriorating economic conditions may have a negative
impact on the expectations and/ or the socio-economic status
Competing interests
of both labour market outsiders and insiders, ie, a broad range Author declars that she has no competing interests.
of social groups, including the middle classes. As shown above,
unemployment increases insecurity and hence lead to higher Author’s contribution
levels of far right support through two conceptually distinct DH is the single author of the paper.
International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2018, 7(2), 195–198 197
Halikiopoulou
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198 International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2018, 7(2), 195–198
Far-right politics
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are politics further on
the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being
anti-communist, authoritarian, ultranationalist, and having nativist ideologies and tendencies.[1]
Historically used to describe the experiences of fascism and Nazism, today far-right politics include neo-
fascism, neo-Nazism, the Third Position, the alt-right, racial supremacism, and other ideologies or
organizations that feature aspects of ultranationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, theocratic, racist, homophobic,
transphobic, or reactionary views.[2]
Far-right politics can lead to oppression, political violence, forced assimilation, ethnic cleansing, or
genocide against groups of people based on their supposed inferiority or their perceived threat to the native
ethnic group, nation, state, national religion, dominant culture, or conservative social institutions.[3]
Contents
Overview
Concept and worldview
Definition and comparative analysis
Modern debates
Terminology
Relation to right-wing politics
Nature of support
Intellectual history
Background
Emergence
Völkisch and revolutionary right
Contemporary thought
History by country
Africa
Rwanda
South Africa
Togo
Americas
Brazil
Central American death squads
Chile
Mexico
Peru
United States
Asia
Japan
Europe
Croatia
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
Netherlands
Poland
Romania
Serbia
United Kingdom
Oceania
Australia
New Zealand
Fiji
Online
Stormfront
Iron March
Right-wing terrorism
See also
References
Bibliography
Notes
Further reading
External links
Overview
Concept and worldview
The core of the far right's worldview is organicism, the idea that society functions as a complete, organized
and homogeneous living being. Adapted to the community they wish to constitute or reconstitute (whether
based on ethnicity, nationality, religion or race), the concept leads them to reject every form of universalism
in favor of autophilia and alterophobia, or in other words the idealization of a "we" excluding a "they".[4]
The far right tends to absolutize differences between nations, races, individuals or cultures since they
disrupt their efforts towards the utopian dream of the "closed" and naturally organized society, perceived as
the condition to ensure the rebirth of a community finally reconnected to its quasi-eternal nature and re-
established on firm metaphysical foundations.[5][6]
As they view their community in a state of decay facilitated by the ruling
elites, far-right members portray themselves as a natural, sane and
alternative elite, with the redemptive mission of saving society from its
promised doom. They reject both their national political system and the
global geopolitical order (including their institutions and values, e.g.
political liberalism and egalitarian humanism) which are presented as
needing to be abandoned or purged of their impurities, so that the
"redemptive community" can eventually leave the current phase of liminal
crisis to usher in the new era.[4][6] The community itself is idealized
through great archetypal figures (the Golden Age, the savior, decadence
and global conspiracy theories) as they glorify non-rationalistic and non-
materialistic values such as the youth or the cult of the dead.[4]
Political scientist Cas Mudde argues that the far right can be viewed as a
Benito Mussolini, dictator and
combination of four broadly defined concepts, namely exclusivism (e.g. founder of Italian Fascism, a
racism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, ethnopluralism, chauvinism, or far-right ideology
welfare chauvinism), anti-democratic and non-individualist traits (e.g. cult
of personality, hierarchism, monism, populism, anti-particracy, an
organicist view of the state), a traditionalist value system lamenting the disappearance of historic frames of
reference (e.g. law and order, the family, the ethnic, linguistic and religious community and nation as well
as the natural environment) and a socioeconomic program associating corporatism, state control of certain
sectors, agrarianism and a varying degree of belief in the free play of socially Darwinistic market forces.
Mudde then proposes a subdivision of the far-right nebula into moderate and radical leanings, according to
their degree of exclusionism and essentialism.[7][8]
Definition and comparative analysis
The Encyclopedia of Politics: The Left and the Right states that far-right politics include "persons or groups
who hold extreme nationalist, xenophobic, racist, religious fundamentalist, or other reactionary views."
While the term far right is typically applied to fascists and neo-Nazis, it has also been used to refer to these
to the right of mainstream right-wing politics.[9]
According to political scientist Lubomír Kopeček, "[t]he best working definition of the contemporary far
right may be the four-element combination of nationalism, xenophobia, law and order, and welfare
chauvinism proposed for the Western European environment by Cas Mudde."[10] Relying on those
concepts, far-right politics includes yet is not limited to aspects of authoritarianism, anti-communism[10] and
nativism.[11] Claims that superior people should have greater rights than inferior people are often associated
with the far right, as they have historically favored a social Darwinistic or elitist hierarchy based on the
belief in the legitimacy of the rule of a supposed superior minority over the inferior masses.[12] Regarding
the socio-cultural dimension of nationality, culture and migration, one far-right position is the view that
certain ethnic, racial or religious groups should stay separate, based on the belief that the interests of one's
own group should be prioritized.[13]
In comparing the Western European and post-Communist Central European far-right, Kopeček writes that "
[t]he Central European far right was also typified by a strong anti-Communism, much more markedly than
in Western Europe", allowing for "a basic ideological classification within a unified party family, despite
the heterogeneity of the far right parties." Kopeček concludes that a comparison of Central European far-
right parties with those of Western Europe shows that "these four elements are present in Central Europe as
well, though in a somewhat modified form, despite differing political, economic, and social influences."[10]
In the American and more general Anglo-Saxon environment, the most common term is "radical right",
which has a broader meaning than the European radical right.[14][10] Mudde defines the American radical
right as an "old school of nativism, populism, and hostility to central government [which] was said to have
developed into the post-World War II combination of ultranationalism and anti-communism, Christian
fundamentalism, militaristic orientation, and anti-alien sentiment."[14]
Jodi Dean argues that "the rise of far-right anti-communism in many parts of the world" should be
interpreted "as a politics of fear, which utilizes the disaffection and anger generated by capitalism. [...]
Partisans of far right-wing organizations, in turn, use anti-communism to challenge every political current
which is not embedded in a clearly exposed nationalist and racist agenda. For them, both the USSR and the
European Union, leftist liberals, ecologists, and supranational corporations – all of these may be called
'communist' for the sake of their expediency."[15]
Modern debates
Terminology
According to Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, the modern ambiguities in the definition of far-right
politics lie in the fact that the concept is generally used by political adversaries to "disqualify and stigmatize
all forms of partisan nationalism by reducing them to the historical experiments of Italian Fascism [and]
German National Socialism."[16] Mudde agrees and notes that "the term is not only used for scientific
purposes but also for political purposes. Several authors define right-wing extremism as a sort of anti-thesis
against their own beliefs."[17] While the existence of such a political position is widely accepted among
scholars, figures associated with the far-right rarely accept this denomination, preferring terms like "national
movement" or "national right".[16] There is also debate about how appropriate the labels neo-fascist or neo-
Nazi are. In the words of Mudde, "the labels Neo-Nazi and to a lesser extent neo-Fascism are now used
exclusively for parties and groups that explicitly state a desire to restore the Third Reich or quote historical
National Socialism as their ideological influence."[18]
One issue is whether parties should be labelled radical or extreme, a distinction that is made by the Federal
Constitutional Court of Germany when determining whether or not a party should be banned. An extremist
party opposes liberal democracy and the constitutional order while a radical one accepts free elections and
the parliament as legitimate structures.[nb 1] After a survey of the academic literature, Mudde concluded in
2002 that the terms "right-wing extremism", "right-wing populism", "national populism", or "neo-
populism" were often used as synonyms by scholars, in any case with "striking similarities", except notably
among a few authors studying the extremist-theoretical tradition.[nb 2]
Relation to right-wing politics
Italian philosopher and political scientist Norberto Bobbio argues that attitudes towards equality are
primarily what distinguish left-wing politics from right-wing politics on the political spectrum.[19]
Aspects of far-right ideology can be identified in the agenda of some contemporary right-wing parties: in
particular, the idea that superior persons should dominate society while undesirable elements should be
purged, which in extreme cases has resulted in genocides.[20] Charles Grant, director of the Centre for
European Reform in London, distinguishes between fascism and right-wing nationalist parties which are
often described as far right such as the National Front in France.[21] Mudde notes that the most successful
European far-right parties in 2019 were "former mainstream right-wing parties that have turned into
populist radical right ones."[22] According to historian Mark Sedgwick, "[t]here is no general agreement as
to where the mainstream ends and the extreme starts, and if there ever had been agreement on this, the
recent shift in the mainstream would challenge it."[23]
Proponents of the horseshoe theory interpretation of the Left–right political spectrum identify the far left
and the far right as having more in common with each other as extremists than each of them has with
centrists or moderates.[24] However, the horseshoe theory does not enjoy support within academic
circles[25] and has received criticism,[25][26][27] including the view that it has been centrists who have
supported far-right and fascist regimes that they prefer in power over socialist ones.[28]
Nature of support
Jens Rydgren describes a number of theories as to why individuals support far-right political parties and the
academic literature on this topic distinguishes between demand-side theories that have changed the
"interests, emotions, attitudes and preferences of voters" and supply-side theories which focus on the
programmes of parties, their organization and the opportunity structures within individual political
systems.[29] The most common demand-side theories are the social breakdown thesis, the relative
deprivation thesis, the modernization losers thesis and the ethnic competition thesis.[30]
The rise of far-right parties has also been viewed as a rejection of post-materialist values on the part of some
voters. This theory which is known as the reverse post-material thesis blames both left-wing and
progressive parties for embracing a post-material agenda (including feminism and environmentalism) that
alienates traditional working class voters.[31][32] Another study argues that individuals who join far-right
parties determine whether those parties develop into major political players or whether they remain
marginalized.[33]
Early academic studies adopted psychoanalytical explanations for the far right's support. The 1933
publication The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich argued the theory that fascists came to
power in Germany as a result of sexual repression. For some far-right parties in Western Europe, the issue
of immigration has become the dominant issue among them, so much so that some scholars refer to these
parties as "anti-immigrant" parties.[34]
Intellectual history
Background
The French Revolution in 1789 created a major shift in political thought by challenging the established
ideas supporting hierarchy with new ones about universal equality and freedom.[35] The modern left–right
political spectrum also emerged during this period. Democrats and proponents of universal suffrage were
located on the left side of the elected French Assembly, while monarchists seated farthest to the right.[16]
The strongest opponents of liberalism and democracy during the 19th century, such as Joseph de Maistre
and Friedrich Nietzsche, were highly critical of the French Revolution.[35] Those who advocated a return
to the absolute monarchy during the 19th century called themselves "ultra-monarchists" and embraced a
"mystic" and "providentialist" vision of the world where royal dynasties were seen as the "repositories of
divine will". The opposition to liberal modernity was based on the belief that hierarchy and rootedness are
more important than equality and liberty, with the latter two being dehumanizing.[36]
Emergence
In the French public debate following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, far right was used to describe the
strongest opponents of the far left, those who supported the events occurring in Russia.[5] A number of
thinkers on the far right nonetheless claimed an influence from an anti-Marxist and anti-egalitarian
definition of socialism, based on a military comradeship that rejected Marxist class analysis, or what
Oswald Spengler had called a "socialism of the blood", which is sometimes described by scholars as a form
of "socialist revisionism".[37] They included Charles Maurras, Benito Mussolini, Arthur Moeller van den
Bruck and Ernst Niekisch.[38][39][40] Those thinkers eventually split along nationalist lines from the
original communist movement, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels contradicting nationalist theories with the
idea that "the working men [had] no country."[41] The main reason for that ideological confusion can be
found in the consequences of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which according to Swiss historian
Philippe Burrin had completely redesigned the political landscape in Europe by diffusing the idea of an
anti-individualistic concept of "national unity" rising above the right and left division.[40]
As the concept of "the masses" was introduced into the political debate through industrialization and the
universal suffrage, a new right-wing founded on national and social ideas began to emerge, what Zeev
Sternhell has called the "revolutionary right" and a foreshadowing of fascism. The rift between the left and
nationalists was furthermore accentuated by the emergence of anti-militarist and anti-patriotic movements
like anarchism or syndicalism, which shared even less similarities with the far right.[41] The latter began to
develop a "nationalist mysticism" entirely different from that on the left, and antisemitism turned into a
credo of the far right, marking a break from the traditional economic "anti-Judaism" defended by parts of
the far left, in favour of a racial and pseudo-scientific notion of alterity. Various nationalist leagues began to
form across Europe like the Pan-German League or the Ligue des Patriotes, with the common goal of a
uniting the masses beyond social divisions.[42][43]
Völkisch and revolutionary right
The Völkisch movement emerged in the late 19th century, drawing

inspiration from German Romanticism and its fascination for a
medieval Reich supposedly organized into a harmonious
hierarchical order. Erected on the idea of "blood and soil", it was a
racialist, populist, agrarian, romantic nationalist and an antisemitic
movement from the 1900s onward as a consequence of a growing
exclusive and racial connotation.[44] They idealized the myth of an
"original nation", that still could be found at their times in the rural Spanish Falangist volunteer forces of
regions of Germany, a form of "primitive democracy freely the Blue Division entrain at San
subjected to their natural elites."[39] Thinkers led by Arthur de Sebastián, 1942
Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Alexis Carrel and
Georges Vacher de Lapouge distorted Darwin's theory of evolution
to advocate a "race struggle" and an hygienist vision of the world. The purity of the bio-mystical and
primordial nation theorized by the Völkischen then began to be seen as corrupted by foreign elements,
Jewish in particular.[44]
Translated in Maurice Barrès' concept of "the earth and the dead", these ideas influenced the pre-fascist
"revolutionary right" across Europe. The latter had its origin in the fin de siècle intellectual crisis and it was,
in the words of Fritz Stern, the deep "cultural despair" of thinkers feeling uprooted within the rationalism
and scientism of the modern world.[45] It was characterized by a rejection of the established social order,
with revolutionary tendencies and anti-capitalist stances, a populist and plebiscitary dimension, the
advocacy of violence as a means of action and a call for individual and collective palingenesis
("regeneration, rebirth").[46]
Contemporary thought
The key thinkers of contemporary far-right politics are claimed by Mark Sedgwick to share four key
elements, namely apocalyptism, fear of global elites, belief in Carl Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction and
the idea of metapolitics.[47] The apocalyptic strain of thought begins in Oswald Spengler's The Decline of
the West and is shared by Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist. It continues in The Death of the West by Pat
Buchanan as well as in the fears of Islamization of Europe.[47] Related to it is the fear of global elites, who
are seen as responsible for the decline.[47] Ernst Jünger was concerned about rootless cosmopolitan elites
while de Benoist and Buchanan oppose the managerial state and Curtis Yarvin is against "the
Cathedral".[47] Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction has inspired the French Nouvelle Droite idea of
ethnopluralism which has become highly influential on the alt-right when combined with American
racism.[47]
In a 1961 book deemed influential in the European far-right at

large, French neo-fascist writer Maurice Bardèche introduced the
idea that fascism could survive the 20th century under a new
metapolitical guise adapted to the changes of the times. Rather than
trying to revive doomed regimes with their single party, secret
police or public display of Caesarism, Bardèche argued that its
theorists should promote the core philosophical idea of fascism
regardless of its framework,[6] i.e. the concept that only a minority,
"the physically saner, the morally purer, the most conscious of CasaPound rally in Naples
national interest", can represent best the community and serve the
less gifted in what Bardèche calls a new "feudal contract".[48]
Another influence on contemporary far-right thought has been the Traditionalist School which included
Julius Evola and has influenced Steve Bannon and Aleksandr Dugin, advisors to Donald Trump and
Vladimir Putin as well as the Jobbik party in Hungary.[49]
Regarding Latin America, Dr. Rene Leal of the University of Santiago, Chile notes that the oppressive
exploitation of labor under neoliberal governments in the region precipitated the growth of far-right politics
in the region.[50]
History by country
Africa
Rwanda
A number of far-right extremist and paramilitary groups carried out the Rwandan genocide under the racial
supremacist ideology of Hutu Power, developed by journalist and Hutu supremacist Hassan Ngeze.[51] On
5 July 1975, exactly two years after the 1973 Rwandan coup d'état, the far right National Republican
Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) was founded under president Juvénal Habyarimana.
Between 1975 and 1991, the MRND was the only legal political party in the country. It was dominated by
Hutus, particularly from Habyarimana's home region of Northern Rwanda. An elite group of MRND party
members who were known to have influence on the President and his wife Agathe Habyarimana are
known as the akazu, an informal organization of Hutu extremists whose members planned and lead the
1994 Rwandan genocide.[52][53] Prominent Hutu businessman and member of the akazu, Félicien Kabuga
was one of the genocides main financiers, providing thousands of machetes which were used to commit the
genocide.[54] Kabuga also founded Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, used to broadcast
propaganda and direct the génocidaires. Kabuga was arrested in France On 16 May 2020, and charged
with crimes against humanity.[55]
Interahamwe
The Interahamwe was formed around 1990 as the youth wing of

the MRND and enjoyed the backing of the Hutu Power
government. The Interahamwe were driven out of Rwanda after
Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front victory in the Rwandan Civil
War in July 1994 and are considered a terrorist organisation by
many African and Western governments. The Interahamwe and
splinter groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of
Rwanda continue to wage an insurgency against Rwanda from
neighboring countries, where they are also involved in local
conflicts and terrorism. The Interahamwe were the main
perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, during which an estimated
500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi, Twa and moderate Hutus were killed
from April to July 1994 and the term Interahamwe was widened to
mean any civilian bands killing Tutsi.[56][57]
Photographs of genocide victims
displayed at the Genocide Memorial
Coalition for the Defence of the Republic Center in Kigali
Other far-right groups and paramilitaries involved included the anti-

democratic segregationist Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), which called for complete
segregation of Hutus from Tutsis. The CDR had a paramilitary wing known as the Impuzamugambi.
Together with the Interahamwe militia, the Impuzamugambi played a central role in the Rwandan
genocide.[58][51]
South Africa
Herstigte Nasionale Party
The far right in South Africa emerged as the Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP) in 1969, formed by Albert
Hertzog as breakaway from the predominant right-wing South African National Party, an Afrikaner ethno-
nationalist party that implemented the racist, segregationist program of apartheid, the legal system of
political, economic and social separation of the races intended to maintain and extend political and
economic control of South Africa by the White minority.[59][60][61] The HNP was formed after the South
African National Party re-established diplomatic relations with Malawi and legislated to allow Māori
players and spectators to enter the country during the 1970 New Zealand rugby union team tour in South
Africa.[62] The HNP advocated for a Calvinist, racially segregated and Afrikaans-speaking nation.[63]
Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
In 1973, Eugène Terre'Blanche, a former police officer founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
(Afrikaner Resistance Movement), a South African neo-Nazi paramilitary organisation, often described as a
white supremacist group.[64][65][66] Since its founding in 1973 by Eugène Terre'Blanche and six other far-
right Afrikaners, it has been dedicated to secessionist Afrikaner nationalism and the creation of an
independent Boer-Afrikaner republic in part of South Africa. During negotiations to end apartheid in South
Africa in the early 1990s, the organization terrorized and killed black South Africans.[67]
Togo
Togo has been ruled by members of the Gnassingbé family and the far-right military dictatorship formerly
known as the Rally of the Togolese People since 1969. Despite the legalisation of political parties in 1991
and the ratification of a democratic constitution in 1992, the regime continues to be regarded as oppressive.
In 1993, the European Union cut off aid in reaction to the regime's human-rights offenses. After's
Eyadema's death in 2005, his son Faure Gnassingbe took over, then stood down and was re-elected in
elections that were widely described as fraudulent and occasioned violence that resulted in as many as 600
deaths and the flight from Togo of 40,000 refugees.[68] In 2012, Faure Gnassingbe dissolved the RTP and
created the Union for the Republic.[69][70][71]
Throughout the reign of the Gnassingbé family, Togo has been extremely oppressive. According to a
United States Department of State report based on conditions in 2010, human rights abuses are common
and include "security force use of excessive force, including torture, which resulted in deaths and injuries;
official impunity; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detention; lengthy
pretrial detention; executive influence over the judiciary; infringement of citizens' privacy rights; restrictions
on freedoms of press, assembly, and movement; official corruption; discrimination and violence against
women; child abuse, including female genital mutilation (FGM), and sexual exploitation of children;
regional and ethnic discrimination; trafficking in persons, especially women and children; societal
discrimination against persons with disabilities; official and societal discrimination against homosexual
persons; societal discrimination against persons with HIV; and forced labor, including by children."[72]
Americas
Brazil
Prior to World War II, Nazis had been making and distributing
propaganda among ethnic Germans in Brazil. The Nazi regime
built close ties with Brazil through the estimated 100 thousand
native Germans and 1 million German descendants living in Brazil
at the time.[73] In 1928, the Brazilian section of the Nazi Party was
founded in Timbó, Santa Catarina. This section reached 2,822
members and was the largest section of the Nazi Party outside
Germany.[74][75] About 100 thousand born Germans and about one
million descendants lived in Brazil at that time.[76]
During the 1920s and 1930s, a local brand of religious fascism

appeared known as integralism a green-shirted paramilitary
organization with uniformed ranks, highly regimented street
demonstrations and rhetoric against Marxism and liberalism.[77]
After Germany's defeat in World War II, many Nazi war criminals Children make the Nazi salute in
fled to Brazil and hid among the German-Brazilian communities. Presidente Bernardes, São Paulo,
The most famous case was Josef Mengele, a doctor who became circa 1935
known as the "Angel of Death" at the Auschwitz concentration
camp. Mengele performed horrific medical experiments. Mengele
drowned in Bertioga, on the coast of São Paulo state, without ever having been recognized.[78]
The far right has continued to operate throughout Brazil[79] and a number of far-right parties existed in the
modern era including Patriota, the Brazilian Labour Renewal Party, the Party of the Reconstruction of the
National Order, the National Renewal Alliance and the Social Liberal Party as well as death squads such as
the Command for Hunting Communists. President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro is a member of the Alliance for
Brazil, a far-right nationalist political group that aims to become a political party.[80][81][82] Bolsonaro has
been widely described by numerous media organizations as far right.[83]
Central American death squads
In Guatemala, the far-right[84][85] government of Carlos Castillo Armas utilized death squads after coming
to power in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.[84][85] Along with other far-right extremists, Castillo Armas
started the National Liberation Movement (Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, or MLN). The founders of
the party described it as the "party of organized violence".[86] The new government promptly reversed the
democratic reforms initiated during the Guatemalan Revolution and the agrarian reform program (Decree
900) that was the main project of president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman and which directly impacted the
interests of both the United Fruit Company and the Guatemalan landowners.[87]
Mano Blanca, otherwise known as the Movement of Organized Nationalist Action, was set up in 1966 as a
front for the MLN to carry out its more violent activities,[88][89] along with many other similar groups,
including the New Anticommunist Organization and the Anticommunist Council of Guatemala.[86][90]
Mano Blanca was active during the governments of colonel Carlos Arana Osorio and general Kjell
Laugerud García and was dissolved by general Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia in 1978.[91]
Armed with the support and coordination of the Guatemalan Armed Forces, Mano Blanca began a
campaign described by the United States Department of State as one of "kidnappings, torture, and summary
execution."[89] One of the main targets of Mano Blanca was the Revolutionary Party, an anti-communist
group that was the only major reform oriented party allowed to operate under the military-dominated
regime. Other targets included the banned leftist parties.[89] Human rights activist Blase Bonpane described
the activities of Mano Blanca as being an integral part of the policy of the Guatemalan government and by
extension the policy of the United States government and the Central Intelligence Agency.[87][92] Overall,
Mano Blanca was responsible for thousands of murders and kidnappings, leading travel writer Paul
Theroux to refer to them as "Guatemala's version of a volunteer Gestapo unit".[93]
Chile
The National Socialist Movement of Chile (MNSCH) was created

in the 1930s with the funding from the German population in
Chile.[94] In 1938, the MNSCH was dissolved after it attempted a
coup and recreated itself as the Popular Freedom Alliance party,
later merging with the Agrarian Party to create the Agrarian Labor
Party (PAL).[95] PAL would go through various mergers to
become the Partido Nacional Popular (Chile), then National Action
Dictator of Chile Augusto Pinochet
and finally the National Party.
meeting with United States President
George H. W. Bush in 1990
Following the fall of Nazi Germany, many Nazis fled to Chile.[96]
The National Party supported the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that
established the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet with many
members assuming positions in Pinochet's government. Pinochet headed a far-right dictatorship in Chile
from 1973 to 1990.[50][97] According to author Peter Levenda, Pinochet was "openly pro-Nazi" and used
former Gestapo members to train his own Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) personnel.[96]
Pinochet's DINA sent political prisoners to the Chilean-German town of Colonia Dignidad, with the town's
actions being defended by the Pinochet government.[96][98][99] The Central Intelligence Agency and
Simon Wiesenthal also provided evidence of Josef Mengele – the infamous Nazi concentration camp doctor
known as the "Angel of Death" for his lethal experiments on human subjects – being present in Colonia
Dignidad.[96][99] Former DINA member Michael Townley also stated that biological warfare weapons
experiments occurred at the colony.[100]
Following the end of Pinochet's government, the National Party would split to become the more centrist
National Renewal (RN), while individuals who supported Pinochet organized Independent Democratic
Union (UDI). UDI is a far-right political party that was formed by former Pinochet
officials.[101][102][103][104] In 2019, the far-right Republican Party was founded by José Antonio Kast, a
UDI politician who believed his former party criticized Pinochet too often.[105][106][107][108] According to
Cox and Blanco, the Republican Party appeared in Chilean politics in a similar manner to Spain's Vox
party, with both parties splitting off from an existing right wing party to collect disillusioned voters.[109]
Death squads in El Salvador
During the Salvadoran Civil War, far-right death squads known in

Spanish by the name of Escuadrón de la Muerte, literally
"Squadron of Death, achieved notoriety when a sniper assassinated
Archbishop Óscar Romero while he was saying mass in March
1980. In December 1980, three American nuns and a lay worker
were gangraped and murdered by a military unit later found to have
been acting on specific orders. Death squads were instrumental in
killing thousands of peasants and activists. Funding for the squads
A billboard serving as a reminder of
came primarily from right-wing Salvadoran businessmen and
one of many massacres in El
landowners.[110] Salvador that occurred during the
civil war
El Salvadorian death squads indirectly received arms, funding,
training and advice during the Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and
George H. W. Bush administrations.[111] Some death squads such as Sombra Negra are still operating in El
Salvador.[112]
Death squads in Honduras
Honduras also had far-right death squads active through the 1980s, the most notorious of which was
Battalion 3–16. Hundreds of people, teachers, politicians and union bosses were assassinated by
government-backed forces. Battalion 316 received substantial support and training from the United States
through the Central Intelligence Agency.[113] At least nineteen members were School of the Americas
graduates.[114][115] As of mid-2006, seven members, including Billy Joya, later played important roles in
the administration of President Manuel Zelaya.[116]
Following the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, former Battalion 3–16 member Nelson Willy Mejía
Mejía became Director-General of Immigration[117][118] and Billy Joya was de facto President Roberto
Micheletti's security advisor.[119] Napoleón Nassar Herrera, another former Battalion 3–16
member,[116][120] was high Commissioner of Police for the north-west region under Zelaya and under
Micheletti, even becoming a Secretary of Security spokesperson "for dialogue" under Micheletti.[121][122]
Zelaya claimed that Joya had reactivated the death squad, with dozens of government opponents having
been murdered since the ascent of the Michiletti and Lobo governments.[119]
Mexico
National Synarchist Union
The largest far-right party in Mexico is the National Synarchist Union. It was historically a movement of
the Roman Catholic extreme right, in some ways akin to clerical fascism and Falangism, strongly opposed
to the left-wing and secularist policies of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and its predecessors that
governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000 and 2012 to 2018.[123][124]
Peru
During the internal conflict in Peru and a struggling presidency of Alan

García, the Peruvian Armed Forces created Plan Verde, initially a coup
plan that involved establishing a government that would carry out the
genocide of impoverished and indigenous Peruvians, the control or
censorship of media and the establishment of a neoliberal economy
controlled by a military junta in Peru.[125][126][127] Military planners also
decided against the coup as they expected Mario Vargas Llosa, a neoliberal
candidate, to be elected in the 1990 Peruvian general election.[128][129]
Vargas Llosa later reported that Anthony C. E. Quainton, the United States
Ambassador to Peru, personally told him that allegedly leaked documents
of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) purportedly being supportive of
his opponent Alberto Fujimori were authentic, reportedly due to Fujimori's Alberto Fujimori, the creator
of Fujimorism
relationship with Vladimiro Montesinos, a former National Intelligence
Service (SIN) officer who was tasked with spying on the Peruvian military
for the CIA.[130][131][132] An agreement was ultimately adopted between
the armed forces and Fujimori after he was inaugurated president,[133] with the Fujimori implementing
many of the objectives outlined in Plan Verde.[134][135] Fujimori then established Fujimorism, an ideology
with authoritarian[136] and fascist traits,[137][138] leading Peru beside Montesinos as a dictator following the
1992 Peruvian coup d'état until he fled to Japan in 2000 during the Vladivideos scandal. While in Japan,
Fujimori announced plans to run in Japan's Upper House elections in July 2007 for the far-right People's
New Party.[139][140][141]
Following Alberto Fujimori's arrest and trial, his daughter Keiko Fujimori assumed leadership of the
Fujimoirst movement and established Popular Force, a far-right political party.[142][143][144] The 2016
Peruvian general election resulted with the party holding the most power in the Congress of Peru from
2016 to 2019, marking the beginning of a political crisis. Approaching the 2021 Peruvian general election,
far-right politician Rafael López Aliaga and his party Popular Renewal rose in popularity during the first
round of campaigning.[145][146][147][148][149][150]
United States
"Extreme right", "far-right" and "ultra-right" are labels used to describe "militant forms of insurgent
revolutionary right ideology and separatist ethnocentric nationalism" such as Christian Identity, the
Creativity Movement, the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Movement and the National Alliance.[151]
These groups share conspiracist views of power which are overwhelmingly antisemitic and reject pluralist
democracy in favour of an organic oligarchy that would unite the perceived homogeneously-racial Völkish
nation.[151]
Radical right
Starting in the 1870s and continuing through the late 19th century, numerous white supremacist
paramilitary groups operated in the South, with the goal of organizing against and intimidating supporters
of the Republican Party. Examples of such groups included the Red Shirts and the White League. The
Second Ku Klux Klan, which was formed in 1915, combined Protestant fundamentalism and moralism
with right-wing extremism. Its major support came from the urban south, the midwest and the Pacific
Coast.[152] While the Klan initially drew upper middle class
support, its bigotry and violence alienated these members and it
came to be dominated by less educated and poorer members.[153]
The Ku Klux Klan claimed that there was a secret Catholic army
within the United States loyal to the Pope, that one million Knights
of Columbus were arming themselves and that Irish-American
policemen would shoot Protestants as heretics. They claimed that
the Catholics were planning to take Washington and put the Vatican
in power and that all presidential assassinations had been carried
out by Catholics. The prominent Klan leader D. C. Stephenson
believed in the antisemitic canard of Jewish control of finance,
claiming that international Jewish bankers were behind the World
War I and planned to destroy economic opportunities for Christians.
Other Klansmen in the Jewish Bolshevism conspiracy theory and
claimed that the Russian Revolution and communism were
controlled by Jews. They frequently reprinted parts of The
Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington,
Protocols of the Elders of Zion and New York City was
D.C., September 1926
condemned as an evil city controlled by Jews and Catholics. The
objects of the Klan fear tended to vary by locale and included
African Americans as well as American Catholics, Jews, labour unions, liquor, Orientals and Wobblies.
They were also anti-elitist and attacked "the intellectuals", seeing themselves as egalitarian defenders of the
common man.[154] During the Great Depression, there were a large number of small nativist groups, whose
ideologies and bases of support were similar to those of earlier nativist groups. However, proto-fascist
movements such as Huey Long's Share Our Wealth and Charles Coughlin's National Union for Social
Justice emerged which differed from other right-wing groups by attacking big business, calling for
economic reform and rejecting nativism. Coughlin's group later developed a racist ideology.[155]
During the Cold War and the Red Scares, the far right "saw spies and communists influencing government
and entertainment. Thus, despite bipartisan anticommunism in the United States, it was the right that mainly
fought the great ideological battle against the communists."[156] The John Birch Society, founded in 1958,
is a prominent example of a far-right organization mainly concerned with anti-communism and the
perceived threat of communism. Neo-Nazi Robert Jay Matthews of the white supremacist group The Order
came to support the John Birch Society, especially when conservative icon Barry Goldwater from Arizona
ran for the presidency on the Republican Party ticket. Far-right conservatives consider John Birch to be the
first casualty of the Cold War.[157] In the 1990s, many conservatives turned against then-president George
H. W. Bush, who pleasured neither the Republican Party's more moderate and far-right wings. As a result,
Bush was primared by Pat Buchanan. In the 2000s, critics of President George W. Bush's conservative
unilateralism argued it can be traced to both Vice President Dick Cheney who embraced the policy since
the early 1990s and to far-right Congressmen who won their seats during the conservative revolution of
1994.[10]
Although small militias had existed throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the groups became more
popular during the early 1990s, after a series of standoffs between armed citizens and federal government
agents such as the 1992 Ruby Ridge siege and 1993 Waco Siege. These groups expressed concern for
what they perceived as government tyranny within the United States and generally held constitutionalist,
libertarian and right-libertarian political views, with a strong focus on the Second Amendment gun rights
and tax protest. They also embraced many of the same conspiracy theories as predecessor groups on the
radical right, particularly the New World Order conspiracy theory. Examples of such groups are the Oath
Keepers and the Three Percenters. A minority of militia groups such as the Aryan Nations and the Posse
Comitatus were white nationalists and saw militia and patriot movements as a form of white resistance
against what they perceived to be a liberal and multiculturalist government. Militia and patriot organizations
were involved in the 2014 Bundy standoff[158][159] and the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge.[160][161]
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the counter-jihad

movement, supported by groups such as Stop Islamization of
America and individuals such as Frank Gaffney and Pamela Geller,
began to gain traction among the American right. The counter-jihad
members were widely dubbed Islamophobic for their vocal
condemnation of the Islamic faith and their belief that there was a
significant threat posed by Muslims living in America. Its
proponents believed that the United States was under threat from
"Islamic supremacism", accusing the Council on American-Islamic Far-right flags on display at the 2017
Relations and even prominent conservatives such as Suhail A. Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville
Khan and Grover Norquist of supporting radical Islamists such as
the Muslim Brotherhood. The alt-right emerged during the 2016
United States presidential election cycle in support of the Donald Trump's presidential campaign. It draws
influence from paleoconservatism, paleolibertarianism, white nationalism, the manosphere and the
Identitarian and neoreactionary movements. The alt-right differs from previous radical right movements due
to its heavy internet presence on websites such as 4chan.[162]
Chetan Bhatt, in White Extinction: Metaphysical Elements of Contemporary Western Fascism, says that
"The ‘fear of white extinction’, and related ideas of population population eugenics, have travelled far and
represent a wider political anxiety about ‘white displacement’ in the US, UK and Europe that has fuelled
the right-wing phenomena referred to by that sanitizing word ‘populism’, a term that neatly evades attention
to the racism and white majoritarianism that energizes it."[163]
Asia
Japan
In 1996, the National Police Agency estimated that there were over
1,000 extremist right-wing groups in Japan, with about 100,000
members in total. These groups are known in Japanese as Uyoku
dantai. While there are political differences among the groups, they
generally carry a philosophy of anti-leftism, hostility towards
China, North Korea and South Korea and justification of Japan's
role in World War II. Uyoku dantai groups are well known for their
highly visible propaganda vehicles fitted with loudspeakers and
prominently marked with the name of the group and propaganda
Japanese far-right group.
slogans. The vehicles play patriotic or wartime-era songs. Activists
affiliated with such groups have used Molotov cocktails and time
bombs to intimidate moderate politicians and public figures, including former Deputy Foreign Minister
Hitoshi Tanaka and Fuji Xerox Chairman Yotaro Kobayashi. An ex-member of a right-wing group set fire
to Liberal Democratic Party politician Koichi Kato's house. Koichi Kato and Yotaro Kobayashi had spoken
out against Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine.[164] Openly revisionist, Nippon Kaigi is considered "the
biggest right-wing organization in Japan."[165][166]
Europe
Croatia
Individuals and groups in Croatia that employ far-right politics are most often associated with the historical
Ustaše movement, hence they have connections to neo-Nazism and neo-fascism. That World War II
political movement was an extremist organization at the time supported by the German Nazis and the Italian
Fascists. The association with the Ustaše has been called neo-Ustashism by Slavko Goldstein.[167] Most
active far-right political parties in Croatia openly state their continuity with the Ustaše.[168] These include
the Croatian Party of Rights and Authentic Croatian Party of Rights.[168] Croatia's far-right often advocates
the false theory that the Jasenovac concentration camp was a "labour camp" where mass murder did not
take place.[169]
The coalition led by Miroslav Škoro's far-right Homeland Movement came third at the 2020 parliamentary
election, winning 10.89% of the vote and 16 seats.[170][171]
Estonia
Estonia's most significant far-right movement was the Vaps

movement. Its ideological predecessor Valve Liit was founded by
Admiral Johan Pitka and later banned for maligning the
government. The organization became politicized quickly Vaps
soon turned into a mass fascist movement.[172] In 1933, Estonians
voted on Vaps' proposed changes to the constitution and the party
later won a large proportion of the vote. However, the State Elder General Andres Larka speaking in
Konstantin Päts declared state of emergency and imprisoned the 1933
leadership of the Vaps. In 1935, all political parties were banned. In
1935, a Vaps coup attempt was discovered, which led to the
banning of the Finnish Patriotic People's Movement's youth wing that had been secretly aiding and arming
them.[173][174]
During World War II, the Estonian Self-Administration was a

collaborationist pro-Nazi government set up in Estonia, headed by
Vaps member Hjalmar Mäe.[175] In the 21st century, the coalition-
governing Conservative People's Party of Estonia been described
as far right.[176] The neo-Nazi terrorist organization Feuerkrieg
Division was found and operates in the country, with some
members of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia having been
linked to the Feuerkrieg Division.[177][178][179] The party's youth
organisation Blue Awakening organises an annual torchlight march Far-right torch march in Tallinn
through Tallinn on Estonia's Independence Day. The event has
been harshly criticized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center that
described it as "Nuremberg-esque" and likened the ideology of the participants to that of the Estonian nazi
collaborators.[180][181]
Finland
In Finland, support for the far right was most widespread between 1920 and 1940 when the Academic
Karelia Society, Lapua Movement, Patriotic People's Movement and Vientirauha operated in the country
and had hundreds of thousands of members.[182] Far-right groups exercised considerable political power
during this period, pressuring the government to outlaw communist parties and newspapers and expel
Freemasons from the armed forces.[183][184] During the Cold War, all parties deemed fascist were banned
according to the Paris Peace Treaties and all former fascist activists had to find new political homes.[185]
Despite Finlandization, many continued in public life. Three former
members of the Waffen SS served as ministers of defense; Sulo
Suorttanen and Pekka Malinen as well as Mikko
Laaksonen.[186][187]
The skinhead culture gained momentum during the late 1980s and
peaked during the late 1990s. Numerous hate crimes were
committed against refugees, including a number of racially
motivated murders[188][189] The Peasant March, a show of force
in Helsinki by the Lapua Movement
Today, the most prominent neo-Nazi group is the Nordic on 7 July 1930
Resistance Movement, which is tied to multiple murders, attempted
murders and assaults of political enemies was found in 2006 and
proscribed in 2019.[190]
France
The largest far-right party in Europe is the French anti-immigration

party National Rally, formally known as the National
Front.[191][192] The party was founded in 1972, uniting a variety of
French far-right groups under the leadership of Jean-Marie Le Captain Arvi Kalsta addressing an
Pen. [193] Since 1984, it has been the major force of French SKJ meeting
nationalism. [194] Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter Marine Le Pen was
elected to succeed him as party leader in 2012. Under Jean-Marie
Le Pen's leadership, the party sparked outrage for hate speech, including Holocaust denial and
Islamophobia.[195][196]
Germany
In 1945, the Allied powers took control of Germany and banned the swastika, Nazi Party and the
publication of Mein Kampf. Explicitly Nazi and neo-Nazi organizations are banned in Germany.[197] In
1960, the West German parliament voted unanimously to "make it illegal to incite hatred, to provoke
violence, or to insult, ridicule or defame 'parts of the population' in a manner apt to breach the peace."
German law outlaws anything that "approves of, glorifies or justifies the violent and despotic rule of the
National Socialists."[197] Section 86a of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code) outlaws any "use of symbols
of unconstitutional organizations" outside the contexts of "art or science, research or teaching". The law
primarily outlaws the use of Nazi symbols, flags, insignia, uniforms, slogans and forms of greeting.[198] In
the 21st century, the German far right consists of various small parties and two larger groups, namely
Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Pegida.[197][199][200][201] In March 2021, the Germany domestic
intelligence agency Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution placed the AfD under surveillance,
the first time in the post-war period that a main opposition party had been subjected to such scrutiny.[202]
Greece
Metaxism
The far right in Greece first came to power under the ideology of Metaxism, a proto-fascist ideology
developed by dictator Ioannis Metaxas.[203] Metaxism called for the regeneration of the Greek nation and
the establishment of an ethnically homogeneous state.[204] Metaxism disparaged liberalism, and held
individual interests to be subordinate to those of the nation, seeking to
mobilize the Greek people as a disciplined mass in service to the creation of a
"new Greece".[204]
The Metaxas government and its official doctrines are often to conventional
totalitarian-conservative dictatorships such as Francisco Franco's Spain or
António de Oliveira Salazar's Portugal.[203][205] The Metaxist government
derived its authority from the conservative establishment and its doctrines
strongly supported traditional institutions such as the Greek Orthodox
Church and the Greek Royal Family; essentially reactionary, it lacked the
radical theoretical dimensions of ideologies such as Italian Fascism and
German Nazism.[203][205]
Ioannis Metaxas
Axis occupation of Greece and aftermath
The Metaxis regime came to an end after the Axis powers invaded
Greece. The Axis occupation of Greece began in April 1941.[206]
The occupation ruined the Greek economy and brought about
terrible hardships for the Greek civilian population.[207] The Jewish
population of Greece was nearly eradicated. Of its pre-war
population of 75–77,000, only around 11–12,000 survived, either
by joining the resistance or being hidden.[208] Following the short-
lived interim government of Georgios Papandreou, the military
seized power in Greece during the 1967 Greek coup d'état,
replacing the interim government with the right-wing United States-
backed Greek junta. The Junta was a series of military juntas that
ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. The dictatorship was
characterised by right-wing cultural policies, restrictions on civil
liberties and the imprisonment, torture and exile of political
opponents. The junta's rule ended on 24 July 1974 under the
pressure of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, leading to the
Metapolitefsi ("regime change") to democracy and the German soldiers in 1941 raising the
establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic.[209][210] German War Flag over the Acropolis
which would be taken down by
In the 21st century, the dominant far-right party in Greece is the Manolis Glezos and Apostolos
neo-Nazi[211][212][213][214][215][216][217] and Mataxist Santas in one of the first acts of
inspired[218][219][220][221][222] Golden resistance
Dawn. [223][224][225][226][227] At the May 2012 Greek legislative
election, Golden Dawn won a number of seats in the Greek
parliament, the party received 6.92% of the vote.[228][229] Founded by Nikolaos Michaloliakos, Golden
Dawn had its origins in the movement that worked towards a return to right-wing military dictatorship in
Greece. Following an investigation into the 2013 murder of Pavlos Fyssas, an anti-fascist rapper, by a
supporter of the party,[230] Michaloliakos and several other Golden Dawn parliamentarians and members
were arrested and held in pre-trial detention on suspicion of forming a criminal organization.[231] The trial
began on 20 April 2015[232] and is ongoing as of 2019. Golden Dawn later lost all of its remaining seats in
the Greek Parliament in the 2019 Greek legislative election.[233] A 2020 survey showed the party's
popularity plummeting to just 1.5%, down from 2.9% in previous year's elections.[234]
Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was an Axis power during World War II. By 1944, Hungary was in secret
negotiations with the Allies. Upon discovering these secret negotiations Germany invaded Hungary in
March 1944, effectively sabotaging the attempts to jump out of the war until the Budapest Offensive started
later that same year.[235]
Jobbik
Hungary's largest far-right organisation is the Movement for a Better Hungary, commonly known as
Jobbik, a radical Hungarian nationalist party.[236][237][238] The party describes itself as "a principled,
conservative and radically patriotic Christian party", whose "fundamental purpose" is the protection of
"Hungarian values and interests".[239] In 2014, the party has been described as an "anti-Semitic
organization" by The Independent and a "neo-Nazi party" by the president of the European Jewish
Congress.[240]
Italy
The far right has maintained a continuous political presence in Italy since the fall of Mussolini. The neo-
fascist party Italian Social Movement (1946–1995), influenced by the previous Italian Social Republic
(1943–1945), became one of the chief reference points for the European far-right from the end of World
War II until the late 1980s.[241]
Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party dominated politics from 1994. According to some scholars, it
gave neo-fascism a new respectability.[242] Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini, great-grandson of Benito
Mussolini, stood for the 2019 European Parliament election as a member of the far right Brothers of Italy
party.[242] In 2011, it was estimated that the neo-fascist CasaPound party had 5,000 members.[243] The
name is derived from the fascist poet Ezra Pound. It has also been influenced by the Manifesto of Verona,
the Labour Charter of 1927 and social legislation of fascism.[244] There has been collaboration between
CasaPound and the identitarian movement.[245]
The European migrant crisis has become an increasingly divisive issue in Italy.[246] Interior Minister Matteo
Salvini has been courting far-right voters. His Northern League party has become an anti-immigrant,
nationalist movement. Both parties are using Mussolini nostalgia to further their aims.[242]
Netherlands
Despite being neutral, the Netherlands was invaded by Nazi Germany on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall
Gelb.[247] About 70% of the country's Jewish population were killed during the occupation, a much higher
percentage than comparable countries such as Belgium and France.[248] Most of the south of the country
was liberated in the second half of 1944. The rest, especially the west and north of the country still under
occupation, suffered from a famine at the end of 1944 known as the Hunger Winter. On 5 May 1945, the
whole country was finally liberated by the total surrender of all German forces. Since the end of World War
II, the Netherlands has had a number of small far-right groups and parties, the largest and most successful
being the Party for Freedom lead by Geert Wilders.[249] Other far-right Dutch groups include the neo-Nazi
Dutch Peoples-Union (1973–present),[250] the Centre Party (1982–1986), the Centre Party '86 (1986–
1998), the Dutch Block (1992–2000), New National Party (1998–2005) and the ultranationalist National
Alliance (2003–2007).[251][252]
Poland
Following the collapse of Communist Poland, a number of far-right
groups came to prominence including The National Revival of
Poland, the European National Front, the Association for Tradition
and Culture "Niklot".[253] The All-Polish Youth and National
Radical Camp were recreated in 1989 and 1993, respectively
becoming Poland's most prominent far-right organizations. In 1995,
the Anti-Defamation League estimated the number of far-right and
white power skinheads in Poland at 2,000.[254] Since late 2000s
smaller fascist groups have merged to form the neo-Nazi Autonome
Nationalisten. A number of far-right parties have run candidates in National Radical Camp march in
elections including the League of Polish Families, the National Kraków, July 2007
Movement with limited success.[255]
In 2019, the Confederation Liberty and Independence had the best performance of any far-right coalition to
date, earning 1,256,953 votes which was 6.81% of the total vote in an election that saw a historically high
turnout. Members of far-right groups make up a significant portion of those taking part in the annual
Independence March in central Warsaw which started in 2009 to mark Independence Day. About 60,000
were in the 2017 march marking the 99th anniversary of independence, with placards such as "Clean
Blood" seen on the march.[256]
Romania
Greater Romania Party
The preimenant far-right party in Romania is the Greater Romania Party, founded in 1991 by Tudor, who
was formerly known as a "court poet" of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu[257] and his literary
mentor, the writer Eugen Barbu, one year after Tudor launched the România Mare weekly magazine,
which remains the most important propaganda tool of the PRM. Tudor subsequently launched a companion
daily newspaper called Tricolorul. The historical expression Greater Romania refers to the idea of
recreating the former Kingdom of Romania which existed during the interwar period. Having been the
largest entity to bear the name of Romania, the frontiers were marked with the intent of uniting most
territories inhabited by ethnic Romanians into a single country and it is now a rallying cry for Romanian
nationalists. Due to internal conditions under Communist Romania after World War II, the expression's use
was forbidden in publications until after the Romanian Revolution in 1989. The party's initial success was
partly attributed to the deep rootedness of Ceaușescu's national communism in Romania.[258]
Both the ideology and the main political focus of the Greater Romania Party are reflected in frequently
strongly nationalistic articles written by Tudor. The party has called for the outlawing of the ethnic
Hungarian party, the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, for allegedly plotting the secession of
Transylvania.[259]
Serbia
In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, multiple far-right organizations and parties operated during the late Interwar
period such as the Yugoslav National Movement (Zbor), Yugoslav Radical Union (JRZ) and Organization
of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA). Zbor was headed by Dimitrije Ljotić, who during the World War II
collaborated with the Axis powers.[260] Ljotić was a supporter of Italian fascism,[261] and he advocated for
the establishment of a centralized Yugoslav state that would be dominated by Serbs, and a return to
Christian traditions.[262] Zbor was the only registered political party in Yugoslavia that openly promoted
antisemitism and xenophobia.[263] JRZ was registered as a political party in 1934 by Milan Stojadinović, a
right-wing politician who expressed his support towards Italian fascism during his premiership.[264] JRZ
was initially a coalition made up of Stojadinović's, Anton Korošec's and Mehmed Spaho's supporters, and
the party was the main stronghold for Yugoslav ethnic nationalists and supporters of Karađorđević
dynasty.[265] ORJUNA was a prominent organization in the 1920s that was influenced by fascism.[261]
During World War II, Chetniks, an ethnic ultranationalist movement rose to prominence.[266] Chetniks
were staunchly anti-communist and they supported monarchism and the creation of a Greater Serbian
state.[267][268] They, including their leader Draža Mihailović, collaborated with the Axis powers in the
second half of the World War II.[269]
After the re-establishment of the multi-party system in Serbia in 1990, multiple right-wing movements and
parties began getting popularity from which the Serbian Radical Party was the most successful.[261]
Vojislav Šešelj, who founded the party, promoted popular notions of "international conspiracy against the
Serbs" during the 1990s which gained him popularity in the 1992 and 1997 election.[270] During the
1990s, SRS has been also described as neofascist due to their vocal support of ethnic ultranationalism and
irredentism.[271][272] Its popularity went into decline after the 2008 election when its acting leader
Tomislav Nikolić seceded from the party to form the Serbian Progressive Party.[273] Besides SRS, during
the 2000s multiple neofascist and Neo-Nazi movements began getting popular, such as Nacionalni stroj,
Obraz and 1389 Movement.[274] Dveri, an organization turned political party, was also a prominent
promoter of far-right content, and they were mainly known for their clerical-fascist, socially conservative
and anti-Western stances.[275][276] Since 2019, the far-right Serbian Party Oathkeepers has gained
popularity mainly due to their ultranationalist views,[277] including the openly neofascist Leviathan
Movement.[278][279]
United Kingdom
The British far-right rose out of the fascist movement. In 1932, Oswald Mosley founded the British Union
of Fascists (BUF) which was banned during World War II.[280] Founded in 1954 by A. K. Chesterton, the
League of Empire Loyalists became the main British far-right group at the time. It was a pressure group
rather than a political party, and did not contest elections. Most of its members were part of the
Conservative Party and were known for politically embarrassing stunts at party conferences.[281] Other
fascist parties included the National Front (NF), the White Defence League and the National Labour Party
who eventually merged to form the British National Party (BNP).[282]
With the decline of the British Empire becoming inevitable, British far-right parties turned their attention to
internal matters. The 1950s had seen an increase in immigration to the UK from its former colonies,
particularly India, Pakistan, the Caribbean and Uganda. Led by John Bean and Andrew Fountaine, the
BNP opposed the admittance of these people to the UK. A number of its rallies such as one in 1962 in
Trafalgar Square ended in race riots. After a few early successes, the party got into difficulties and was
destroyed by internal arguments. In 1967 it joined forces with John Tyndall and the remnants of
Chesterton's League of Empire Loyalists to form Britain's largest far-right organisation, the National Front
(NF).[283] The BNP and the NF supported extreme loyalism in Northern Ireland, and attracted
Conservative Party members who had become disillusioned after Harold Macmillan had recognised the
right to independence of the African colonies and had criticised Apartheid in South Africa.[284]
Some Northern Irish loyalist paramilitaries have links with far-right and neo-Nazi groups in Britain,
including Combat 18,[285][286] the British National Socialist Movement[287] and the NF.[288] Since the
1990s, loyalist paramilitaries have been responsible for numerous racist attacks in loyalist areas.[289] During
the 1970s, the NF's rallies became a regular feature of British politics. Election results remained strong in a
few working-class urban areas, with a number of local council seats won, but the party never came
anywhere near winning representation in parliament. Since the 1970s, the NF's support has been in decline
whilst Nick Griffin and the BNP have grown in popularity. Around the turn of the 21st century, the BNP
won a number of councillor seats. The party continued its anti-immigration policy[290] and a damaging
BBC documentary led to Griffin being charged with incitement to racial hatred, although he was
acquitted.[291]
Oceania
Australia
Coming to prominence in Sydney with the formation of the New

Guard (1931) and the Centre Party (1933), the far right has played
a part in Australian political discourse since the second world
war.[292] These proto-fascist groups were monarchist, anti-
communist and authoritarian in nature. Early far-right groups were
followed by the explicitly fascist Australia First Movement
(1941).[293][294] The far right in Australia went on to acquire more
explicitly racial connotations during the 1960s and 1970s,
morphing into self-proclaimed Nazi, fascist and antisemitic Captain Francis de Groot declares
movements, organisations that opposed non-white and non- the Sydney Harbour Bridge open in
Christian immigration such as the neo-Nazi National Socialist Party March 1932
of Australia (1967) and the militant white supremacist group
National Action (1982).[295][296][297]
Since the 1980s, the term has mainly been used to describe those who express the wish to preserve what
they perceive to be Judeo-Christian, Anglo-Australian culture and those who campaign against Aboriginal
land rights, multiculturalism, immigration and asylum seekers. Since 2001, Australia has seen the
development of modern neo-Nazi, neo-fascist or alt-right groups such as the True Blue Crew, the United
Patriots Front, Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party and the Antipodean Resistance.[298]
New Zealand
A small number of far-right organisations have existed in New Zealand since World War II, including the
Conservative Front, the New Zealand National Front and the National Democrats Party.[299][300] Far-right
parties in New Zealand lack significant support, with their protests often dwarfed by counter protest.[301]
After the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, the National Front "publicly shut up shop"[302] and
largely went underground like other far-right groups.[303]
Fiji
Nationalist Vanua Tako Lavo Party
The Nationalist Vanua Tako Lavo Party was a far-right political party which advocated Fijian ethnic
nationalism.[304] In 2009, party leader Iliesa Duvuloco was arrested for breaching the military regime's
emergency laws by distributing pamphlets calling for an uprising against the military regime.[305] In
January 2013, the military regime introduced regulations that essentially de-registered the party.[306][307]
Online
A number of far-right internet pages and forums are focused on and frequented by the far right. These
include Stormfront and Iron March.
Stormfront
Stormfront is the oldest and most prominent neo-Nazi website,[308] described by the Southern Poverty Law
Center and other media organizations as the "murder capital of the internet".[309] In August 2017,
Stormfront was taken offline for just over a month when its registrar seized its domain name due to
complaints that it promoted hatred and that some of its members were linked to murder. The Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law claimed credit for the action after advocating for Stormfront's web
host, Network Solutions, to enforce its Terms of Service agreement which prohibits users from using its
services to incite violence.[310]
Iron March
Iron March was a fascist web forum founded in 2011 by Russian nationalist Alexander "Slavros"
Mukhitdinov. An unknown individual uploaded a database of Iron March users to the Internet Archive in
November 2019 and multiple neo-Nazi users were identified, including an ICE detention center captain and
several active members of the United States Armed Forces.[311][312] As of mid 2018, the Southern Poverty
Law Center linked Iron March to nearly 100 murders.[313][311] Mukhitdinov remained a murky figure at
the time of the leaks.[314]
Right-wing terrorism
Right-wing terrorism is terrorism motivated by a variety of far right
ideologies and beliefs, including anti-communism, neo-fascism,
neo-Nazism, racism, xenophobia and opposition to immigration.
This type of terrorism has been sporadic, with little or no
international cooperation.[315] Modern right-wing terrorism first
appeared in western Europe in the 1980s and it first appeared in
Eastern Europe following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[316]
Right-wing terrorists aim to overthrow governments and replace The 1980 Bologna massacre by
Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari
them with nationalist or fascist-oriented governments.[315] The core
of this movement includes neo-fascist skinheads, far-right
hooligans, youth sympathisers and intellectual guides who believe
that the state must rid itself of foreign elements in order to protect rightful citizens.[316] However, they
usually lack a rigid ideology.[316]
According to Cas Mudde, far-right terrorism and violence in the West have been generally perpetrated in
recent times by individuals or groups of individuals "who have at best a peripheral association" with
politically relevant organizations of the far right. Nevertheless, Mudde follows, "in recent years far-right
violence has become more planned, regular, and lethal, as terrorists attacks in Christchurch (2019),
Pittsburgh (2018), and Utøya (2011) show."[22]
See also
Adolf Hitler
Antifeminism
European New Right
History of the far-right in Spain
Manosphere
Paul von Hindenburg
Right-wing authoritarianism
White ethnostate
White power
Wingnut (politics)
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Notes
1. Mudde 2002, p. 12: "Simply stated, the difference between radicalism and extremism is that
the former is verfassungswidrig (opposed to the constitution), whereas the latter is
verfassungsfeindlich (hostile towards the constitution). This difference is of the utmost
practical importance for the political parties involved, as extremist parties are extensively
watched by the (federal and state) Verfassungsschutz and can even be banned, whereas
radical parties are free from this control."
2. Mudde 2002, p. 13: "All in all, most definitions of (whatever) populism do not differ that much
in content from the definitions of right-wing extremism. [...] When the whole range of different
terms and definitions used in the field is surveyed, there are striking similarities, with the
various terms often being used synonymously and without any clear intention. Only a few
authors, most notably those working within the extremist-theoretical tradition, clearly
distinguish between the various terms."
Further reading
Akkerman, Tjitske, Sarah L. de Lange and Matthijs Rooduijn, eds. Radical Right-Wing
Populist Parties in Western Europe (2016)
Arzheimer, Kai (11 March 2012). "The Eclectic, Erratic Bibliography on the Extreme Right in
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Counter-Creativity: Innovative Ways To Counter Far-Right Communication Tactics

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1 | “Libtard” is a derogatory term used by the Alt-Right – combining the words

F raming the C hallenge

Manipulation campaigns seeking to provoke the ‘greyzones’ to pick a

Author‘s visualization of far-right online influence ecosystems.

Intimidation campaigns aimed at opponents involve trolling and coordi-

5 | Crash Override (2018): Preventing Doxing: “A Primer on Removing your Per-

exploiting new technologies, at fostering international ties and synergies,

D e veloping the R esponse

to encourage even moderate users to participate. A month after #More-

6 | Alt-Right Open Intelligence Initiative (2017): “Mapping the Alt-Right: US Alter-

such intervention efforts, as well as a massive step towards reducing the

8 | RAN (2017): “RAN Guidelines for Effective Alternative and Counter-Narrative

disruption approaches tested as a process of constant improvement. Initia-

• Dynamic: Involving both proactive communication and rapid respon-

To conclude, more research into the different online sub-cultures targeted

Feinberg, Ashley (2017). “This is the Daily Stormer’s Playbook. Huffing-

their vision for the international order

DORIT GEVA AND FELIPE G. SANTOS *

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The EU and radicalized Christian democracy

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Viktor Orbán’s formulation of an illiberal Christian democracy

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Creating globalist illiberal knowledge

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Hungary’s National University of Public Service

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Varga follows the globalist illiberal playbook, seeking to further international

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The Institute of Social Sciences, Economics and Politics

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Radicalization of Christian democratic internationalism Beyond nations, the globalist

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1 | “Libtard” is a derogatory term used by the Alt-Right – combining the words

5 | Crash Override (2018): Preventing Doxing: “A Primer on Removing your Per-

6 | Alt-Right Open Intelligence Initiative (2017): “Mapping the Alt-Right: US Alter-

8 | RAN (2017): “RAN Guidelines for Effective Alternative and Counter-Narrative