Guillaume Faye envisioned a catastrophic collapse of the current society, which would allow his vision of a fascist empire to become a reality. The year 2020 has thrown the world into disarray, with a severe pandemic creating many unforeseen challenges. The COVID-19 plague has so far infected nearly 30 million people worldwide, with the death… Continue reading “Did a French Far-Right Thinker Predict 2020?”
Do radical-right voters knowingly share the anti-democratic views of the parties they support? Introduction The rise of radical-right parties is considered by many to be one of the largest modern threats to liberal democracy. There is a strong pattern of populist and radical leaders eroding constraints on the executive, diminishing press freedom, and harming the… Continue reading “Radical-Right Voters and Democratic Support”
Dr. Valerio Alfonso Bruno argues that far-right leaders have shown a disdain for experts and the wider role of science, despite the worsening COVID-19 global pandemic. They argue that the far-right strategy towards experts is often based on (a) silencing and (b) discrediting. They argue that the downplaying of expertise by the far-right has worrying… Continue reading “The Right’s War On Science & Experts Escalates Amid COVID-19”
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”
The contemporary political landscape is characterized by extreme polarization, and that’s not only in Britain or the US. The outcome of the election in the United Kingdom is just one more piece of evidence of a pernicious trend that has increasingly infested liberal democracies — extreme polarization. While it will take some time to get… Continue reading “The Extremes Win Today’s Elections”
Call for Chapters Routledge Handbook of Non-Violent Extremism: Groups, Perspectives and New Debates Background For a long-time overshadowed by jihadi extremism, non-violent (or vocal) extremism has been the centre of inflamed political and academic debates throughout the world (Cordesman, 2017; Gilligan, 2019; Hamid, 2016; Wali, 2013; Whitespunner, 2018). This debate is fuelled by the massive… Continue reading “Call for Chapters: New Routledge Handbook on Non-Violent Extremism”
Democracy has a core meaning but it needs to be defined from a vantage point, given that is is a contested concept subject to dynamic framing and reframing processes. According to Habermas’ deliberative democracy theory, deliberation is central to democratic decision making. Hence, language development is an essential part of democracy and democratic discourse: autocrats… Continue reading “Of ‘Nazi-Pigs’, ‘Jewish sows’ and ‘bourgeois coalitions’ (A German perspective)”
Through fear-mongering, conspiracy theories, and voter suppression tactics, the far-right has poisoned America’s political discourse in pursuit of power. Writing an op-ed column “Why Republicans Play Dirty” in The New York Times, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt describe recent efforts by Republican executives and legislators – at both the state and federal levels – to subvert the… Continue reading “How The Radical Right Took American Politics Hostage”
Members of the Radical Right are allying with authoritarian regimes like Russia to undermine the liberal world order as we know it. Civilizations tend to exist either in a state of war or peace. Clausewitz reminds us that war is none other than “the continuation of politics by other means”. However, war does not stay… Continue reading “Right-Wing Authoritarians Are Waging A Hybrid War On Democracy”
Answering some of the pressing, if not existential questions facing diverse, democratic societies require a clearer understanding of tolerance. Tolerance is vital to the functioning of modern, liberal democracies. In societies where individual rights and freedoms are recognized and protected, some amount of tolerance of difference is required. Diversity comes in many forms: thought… Continue reading “What is tolerance and how much of it do democracies require?”
