In Epistemic Injustice: The Power and Ethics of Knowing, Miranda Fricker introduces the theory of epistemic injustice, an injustice that someone encounters when their status as a knower, thus a human being, is degraded. Fricker distinguishes between two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I will focus on the latter; hermeneutical injustice is… Continue reading “Is the English far-right hermeneutically marginalised?”
Using covert speech to avoid detection and migrating to more extremist platforms underlines that censoring far-right actors from social media is not always an easy or desirable practice. Since 2016, censorship of far-right groups and individuals on social media platforms has been the subject of much public discussion. With the implementation of laws to counter… Continue reading “The effects of censoring the far-right online”
The annual report of “Reporters Without Borders” shows that global press freedom is in decline, even though less journalists were killed in 2019. While Mexico and Syria remain the most deadly countries for journalists (ten murdered journalists in each country) in 2019, China, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the countries with the highest number of… Continue reading “Personal Public (Death) Threat I: How the German Far Right tries to intimidate and silence journalists”
The far right wants metapolitics to simply go back to the past, restoring a thinly disguised form of fascism in the hijacked domain of contemporary conservative politics. Humans have always tried to understand and live their finite lives in relation to infinite possibilities — what could happen, what if, perhaps. Infinite possibilities are unknown unless brought to… Continue reading “The Metapolitics of the Far Right”
Within the radical right, men have always out-numbered women; I was one of those women for five years of my life. In 2012 I began disengaging from the extremist underground and I would love to be able to say that I made a clean break over night, however I would be lying through my teeth.… Continue reading “Personal reflections from a woman in the extremist underground”
What can we learn from the rise and fall of the Golden Dawn party in Greece? Golden Dawn began as an ideological movement that managed throughout the years to evolve into a political movement and a political party, which successfully entered the national parliament and emerged as the third largest party in Greece. However, recently,… Continue reading “The dusk after the dawn: fall of a Greek Neo-Nazi party”
By now, the climate-change scepticism of the radical-right, populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is well-known and has been discussed in both academic and non-academic publications. Opposition to the thesis of anthropogenic climate change – as well as scientific/public processes and responses to the phenomenon – are visible in the party’s manifesto and a range of… Continue reading “‘Protect the Environment!’ – Environmental Campaigning by the Radical Right Alternative for Germany”
Based on the article “Beyond eco-fascism? Far Right Ecologism (FRE) as a framework for future inquiries”, forthcoming in Environmental Values. Over the last year, the term ‘eco-fascism’ has (re)captured the interest of various political commentators, scholars, and the public in general. The usual storyline explaining this intriguing revival is rooted in the belief, particularly popular… Continue reading “Far right ecologism and the conceptual deficiencies of eco-fascism”
Part 1 of this blog summarised current psychological theories relevant to understanding far-right personalities and behaviour. The following sections summarise the data on three non-violent far-right supporters, and analyse to what extent these theories are born out[1]. Case 1: Male aged 76, UKIP and Britain First Supporter The author has known this individual (Subject 1)… Continue reading “Jekyll-and-Hyde: What Creates a Far-Right Supporter? Part 2.”
Much has been written about the development of the personalities and other psychological characteristics of Alt-Right/far-right leaders such as Donald Trump (e.g. authors in Cruz and Buser, 2017; Waring & Paxton, 2019) and of violent far-right extremists – such as Anders Breivik, Thomas Mair, and Darren Osborne (e.g. Jackson (2019), Melle (2013), Turner-Graham (2019a), and… Continue reading “Jekyll-and-Hyde: What Creates a Far-Right Supporter? Part 1.”