Books and literature have become important elements of a thriving radical-right that not only sustains political and economic ideas, but also forms a cultural space held together by shared “cultural imaginaries”. This blog entry is part two of a mini-series that looks at how novels and other pieces of fiction help to envision ideal… Continue reading “Images of a ‘Better’ World? Fictional Storytelling in the Radical Right (Part II)”
How is the radical right using the COVID-19 pandemic to advance their political agenda? On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Originally identified in Wuhan, China, in late December, COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that causes flu and pneumonia-like symptoms. As of March 12, 2020, the number of infected… Continue reading “Coronavirus and the radical right: conspiracy, disinformation, and xenophobia”
In the first CARR Research Insight, Mark Potok considers the resurgence of the radical right in the United States. This piece explores this resurgence in the context of ethnic and racial hatred and political backlash against multiculturalism. Turning to the radical right in the early 20th century, Potok provides an overview of a long history of ethnic and racial hatred. He argues that Donald… Continue reading “CARR Research Insight Series: Two Americas: The Radical Right, Then and Now”
The continent’s radical right fringes might be able to end the month with a victory at the ballot box. February 2020 will be a busy month for some of the extreme elements of Europe’s radical right. Multiple events are expected: marches, concerts, an election in Slovakia where a radical right party is second in the… Continue reading “February 2020: a busy month for Europe’s radical right”
“We all know Iran, don’t we? Or at least we think we do”. So said John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor, on air in the early 1990s. A veteran Iran reporter, Simpson had accompanied Ayatollah Khomeini on his return flight to Iran in 1979 from exile in France. The point he was making was… Continue reading “Radical-Right Demonization of Soleimani and Iran: Islamophobic Weaponry in the Public Sphere”
On December 7th 2019, Tom Newton Dunn, political editor of The Sun, published an editorial that promoted the conspiracy theories of the HIJACKED LABOUR (HL) project. Dunn praised the former intelligence officers behind HL for exhaustively charting Jeremy Corbyn’s “spider’s web of extensive contacts [that] stretch from Marxist intellectuals to militant groups and illegal terrorist… Continue reading “Off the Hook: How the HIJACKED LABOUR Conspiracy Theory Defends the Radical Right”
Pop stars like Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes, and Taylor Swift are combating radical right ideologies by spreading messages of inclusion and tolerance. To the unobservant, former One Direction heartthrob and chart-topping singer Harry Styles might not seem like the person to challenge toxic masculinity and demonstrate how to be a powerful ally to queer people,… Continue reading “Pop Stars Are Combating The Radical Right In New Ways”
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”
Contemporary ideas of the ‘great replacement’ of the white population echo those that led to the Holocaust. 20 January 2020 was the 78th anniversary of the so-called Wannsee Conference. This meeting of senior Nazis, chaired by Reinhard Heydrich and his faithful assistant Adolf Eichmann, took place in a graceful villa on the shore of Lake… Continue reading “The legacy of Wannsee on today’s radical right”
My new book, “Reconfiguring Islamophobia: a radical rethinking of a contested concept” (Palgrave Macmillan) marks a decade since the publication of my first book on the topic (“Islamophobia”, Ashgate). Through the lens afforded by the phenomenon of Islamophobia, it is an understatement to suggest that much has changed in that decade. For instance, it was… Continue reading “Reconfiguring Islamophobia and the Radical Right: a decade in retrospect”