Populist radical right parties and their leaders openly despise expertise: they often parade their ignorance and inexperience by developing, in electoral terms, propaganda depicting them shoulder-to-shoulder with ordinary citizens (“the People”) – as distant as possible from accultured, intellectual cosmopolitan elites. Mainstream political parties have, especially in recent years, often championed recourse to unelected experts… Continue reading “Expertise in politics: boon or bane?”
In 2018, following electoral gains made by Democrats during the US midterms, it took commentators a while to figure out whether or not to speak of a ‘blue wave’. In Germany, following the 2019 European Parliament elections, a ‘Green wave’ was, however, quickly identified – unsurprisingly, given that the Green Party increased its share of… Continue reading “Rethinking the ‘Green wave’? Climate change, the European Parliament elections 2019 and the German-speaking radical right”
Accusations of irrationalism, leveled against those in favor of climate change policies, make up the single most prominent argument. Research on climate change communication by radical-right actors, be they party or non-party, anti-liberal or anti-democratic, is still in its infancy. Indeed, so far only a few cases have been systematically analyzed in detail (for example,… Continue reading “What the Radical Right Thinks About Climate Change”
From the Inaugural CARR Conference For three days, the Richmond University in London was not only the site of insightful and thought-provoking presentations during the inaugural CARR conference, but also an opportunity to engage in some of the most relevant debates in the field. Its pervasiveness, reinforced in the recent European Parliament elections, allows the… Continue reading “Is the radical right really anti-climate? Some evidence from Hungary”
The fact that we are living in an era of radical climate change, caused by humans, has been undisputed by the scientific community for years. Today, young people in both the United States and Europe are desperately trying to hit the emergency button. In Belgium, tens of thousands of students have been regularly protesting since… Continue reading “Locating the Radical Right in an Age of Radical Climate Change”
In a recent interview, Heinz-Christian Strache, Vice-Chancellor of Austria and leader of the radical-right Freedom Party of Austria, noted, that ‘Environmental Protection is Homeland Protection!’. Concerns over the environment along these lines are in no way new to the radical right and have been articulated by both anti-liberal and outright anti-democratic members of this political… Continue reading “Climate change, Holocaust denial and the ‘lies of our times’”
In my first post for CARR, I pointed to the ideological character of radical-right views on the (protection of the) natural environment. Indeed, nature protection is in no way a stranger to the radical right, although the particularities and implications of their ecological vision differ in many aspects from mainstream and left-wing outlooks. A crucial… Continue reading “The People’, The Climate and ‘Globalism’: The Radical Right On Climate Change”