When analyzing the global collaboration between radical right groups, one needs to look no further than the Trump phenomenon, Brexit, and 20th-century British history. A core component, if not the core component of radical right ideology is nationalism (often described as nativism). Slogans of the radical right, be it ‘Britain first’ or ‘make America great… Continue reading “Right-Wing Nationalism Has Become A Collaborative International Enterprise”
Where left-leaning observers warn of a return of totalitarian nationalism, the far right warns of the return of socialist and communist totalitarian politics. With the rise of populist and far-right politics in Europe and beyond, the fear of the return of totalitarian politics has equally intensified. Comparisons with the rise of fascism in the 1920s… Continue reading “The Far Right Imagines a Totalitarian Other”
Abstract This research note provides a case study illustrating cross-national trends reported in recent research on the radical right. Using party manifesto data, we examine Denmark from 1973-2011 and find that the radical right has moved toward economic leftism and social conservatism, creating a cleavage within the party family over time. Furthermore, nationalist claims increasingly distinguish the Danish… Continue reading “From radical right to neo-nationalist: Danish party politics, 1973-2011 (Sarah Valdez & Maureen A. Eger )”
In a recently published article in European Political Science, my colleague Sarah Valdez and I show that nationalism not only increasingly characterizes contemporary radical right parties but also increasingly distinguishes them from other major party families in Western Europe. To demonstrate this, we relied on data from the Manifesto Project, a cross-national, longitudinal database of… Continue reading “From radical right to neo-nationalist: A research note on the Danish case”
At a political rally on October 22 for the upcoming midterm elections, US President Donald Trump declared himself a “nationalist.” Trump’s nationalism operates through notions of an “authentic,” rooted and morally good nation that is re-enforced in relation to migrants and minorities. Such exclusionary nationalism, also referred to as nativism, is an ideology or discursive… Continue reading “Donald Trump Declares Himself a “Nationalist””
My study of the radical right in my book Voting Radical Right in Western Europe focused on the institutions that determine the “rules of the game” – in particular, electoral systems and the difference between proportional representation and first-past-the-post systems. I argued that electoral systems need to be taken into account when comparing party systems… Continue reading “Voting Radical Right in Western Europe “Rules of the Game””
The October 2018 issue of The Atlantic , the venerable American monthly, is titled “Is Democracy Dying?” and contains a series of articles which, by and large, answer this question in the affirmative. Their authors though come to the rescue by suggesting ways the demise of democracy might be prevented. These accounts of democratic decline… Continue reading “Sound an Alarm?”
I read books. From the books I have read, I have learned that trade wars end badly. By “badly” is meant: war. War is generally not good. I have also learned that nationalism ends badly, not only for those who are excluded from the in-group. This is a conclusion one can learn from sources other… Continue reading “Why I Am a Very Stable Genius – CARR Thoughts for the Holiday Season”
Having worked in the probation service for over 16 years, I was always exposed, and privy, to the ugly realities of individual and collective drivers for the radical right. However, the punishment and rehabilitative ideal at a practitioner level was far different to that of building resilient communities and engaging civic society groups in my… Continue reading “The Many Faces of the Far Right”
Two Latin scholars made unusual headlines in summer 2016. Hans Lamers and Bettina Reitz-Joosse had just published The Codex Fori Mussolini: A Latin Text of Italian Fascism: a translation and extended annotation of the 1,220-word Latin inscription praising ‘the Boss’. Reconstructed from several Roman libraries, the original text remains at the bottom of a 300-tonne modernist… Continue reading “Book Review: Catherine Paul’s (2016) ‘Fascist Directive: Ezra Pound and Italian Cultural Nationalism’ – June 2018”