Much has been written lately in regard to the electoral ‘rise’ of the populist radical right across European politics. Whilst it is true that the populist radical right has gained considerably in recent national parliamentary elections that span the refugee crisis (2015–2018) and outperformed centre left social democratic parties considerably. Much less attention has been… Continue reading “Beyond the Populist Radical Right: Centre Right Party Electoral Success on Immigration in the 21st Century”
Today, the divide from which Marine Le Pen profits has reached alarming proportions, most recently with the eruption of the revolt of the gilets jaunes. There is a saying in German – Totgesagte leben länger, roughly but not quite accurately translated into English as “Presumed dead but still kicking”. To put it more precisely – kicking quite… Continue reading “The Return of la Marine”
In early September 2018, I wrote a blog post about Jair Bolsonaro, at that moment the frontrunner in the Brazilian presidential election, defending that he could be considered a populist radical right politician. He was elected and has been in power since January 1. In this post, I discuss the adaptation of Bolsonaro’s radical appeal… Continue reading “Bolsonaro’s first days of government: a threat to liberal democracy”
Özil, like many others, has repeatedly stated that he would prefer to play for both national football teams if international football regulations made it possible. The recent case of Mesut Özil has shown a severe rupture in relations between German-Turks and German natives, which has been a long time coming, but went unrecognized while the… Continue reading “Radical-right backlash against Games of Belonging: the case of Mesut Özil”
“We may only be at the beginning of the populist radical right surge in European politics.” Electoral Oblivion The Netherlands, Hungary, France, Germany and Sweden: what do all of these countries, stretching across both Western and Central-Eastern Europe, have in common? They share one core uniform feature; namely, widespread patterns of electoral volatility, with a… Continue reading “The Decline of the Left and the Populist Radical Right Surge in the Refugee Crisis”