The concept and its definitions
During the European elections of 2014, one of the main issues raised by the media concerned the electoral performance of so-called ‘populist parties’.
Dansk Folskeparti reached 26.6% of the votes and won 4 MP’s (on 13), Slovenska demokratska stranka 24.9% and 3 MP’s (on 8), while the Front National gained 24 seats (24.85%). 26.6% was reached by UKIP (24 MPs), 21.16% by Beppe Grillo’s M5S (17 MPs); the FPÖ won 2 extra MPs compared to 2009.
(Benveniste et al. 2016: 1)
The electorate confirmed its deep dissatisfaction with mainstream political parties, voting for far-right parties in parliamentary elections in Northern Europe (Austria, Denmark, Sweden), Eastern Europe (Hungary, where the deeply anti-Semitic Jobbik party gained votes) and France (where the French National Front won about a quarter of the vote), while in the Southern European countries, battered by austerity policies, it was the radical right and left in Greece (Golden Dawn and Syriza) and the radical left in Spain (Podemos) that obtained excellent scores.
The rise of a European ‘populism’ is the object of a huge amount of debates and academic research. This book aims to contribute to it with some original ideas. Based on the findings of a research project entitled ‘Hate Speech and Populist Othering in Europe through the Racism, Age, Gender Looking Glass’, funded by the Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Programme of the European Union through the EU’s Justice and Home Affairs (Grant Number Just/2012/FRAC/AG/2861), the book throws a critical glance at the political discourse of the far and extreme right populist movements and parties in Northern (Finland), Western (Austria, Denmark, France, the UK), Southern (Greece, Italy) and Central/Eastern Europe (Slovenia, Bulgaria). At the same time, the book challenges, where appropriate, the use of the term ‘populism’, as differences between Northern, Eastern and Southern Europe are a sign that the political variety of the anti-establishment and Eurosceptic forms cannot be understood under the label ‘populism’ any longer.
How can a unique definition embrace all the heterogeneity of the movements and parties labelled as ‘populist’? Here are some examples of this heterogeneity:
Challenging the definition ‘populist’, the book joins a recent trend among political analysts. For example, before the European elections of 2014, some journalists introduced terms such as ‘rebellious outsiders’ (Higgins 2014) or ‘insurgents’1 that focus less on the characters of the parties than on the opposition to the political establishment and the EU governance. Nava (2015), a journalist of the Italian Il Corriere della Sera, took it a step further, arguing that the media and politicians should abandon the term populism as a political stigmatisation and address the structural socio-economic and political causes that create new dynamics for anti-establishment parties. ‘Continue to call them just “populist”, with the contempt of political correctness or the technocratic snobbery, it is stupid and pointless. They will walk on the errors and overwhelm the ideals’ (Nava 2015).
It is no mystery that behind the spectacular rise of the ‘insurgency’, there is the management of the euro and the sovereign debt crisis by the European Union – headed by Germany – that has created a division between the North and the South of the continent – as creditors and debtors – and revives the nationalist competition between the countries. The result is the loss of cohesion among Europeans and a major challenge to the idea of a ‘European people’. The rejection of the European Union grows among the European people who turn towards parties that were traditionally Eurosceptic, because of their ideology, in favour of sovereignty and the nation state. This trend has clearly appeared during 2015, when nationalism and Euroscepticism – two main characteristics of ‘populists’ – became mainstream in Poland, where, in the parliamentary elections of 25 October 2015, the victory – with 37.6 per cent of the votes – went to the party of Law and Justice (PiS). The political approach of Law and Justice combines traditional, conservative positions – clericalism (it is anti-abortion), identity policies – with measures aimed to improve the living conditions of the poorest cohorts of the population – the ‘losers’ of the transition towards a competitive capitalist economy. It rejoined the political programme of Victor Orban’s Hungary, deeply criticised by the mainstream pro-EU media and parties.
However, the fact that European movements and parties labelled as populists oppose the current governance of the European Union and want to get back sovereignty does not make them a homogeneous front, as they have very different ideological positions – from the extreme right to the radical left – or just want to overcome left and right (Movement Cinquestelle).
This difference concerns their economic proposals as well, which have little in common. For example, Marine Lepen and Jean-Luc Melenchon have opposite views on how to fight against unemployment in France. In order to understand why both are called ‘populists’, we must remember that, since 2000, the term populism has seen a further metamorphosis: it has been adopted by the mainstream press and become part of the political debate – with the backing of some scholars – as prosecution for all those who do not accept the current neo-liberal political–economic world order. The Financial Times, The Economist and the Wall Street Journal – just to mention some titles that represent the business elite of the West – define as ‘populist’ all the politicians which oppose the neo-liberal dominant economic model – that is, in short, predominance of the market, financial liberalisation and reduction of state duties. The label ‘populist’ is given to Hugo Chavez, the Kirchner (Nestor and especially Cristina) and Evo Morales – the ‘black sheep’ of the press, who does not consider them ‘business friendly’ enough.
Taking into account all these ambiguities, the book aims to provide a critical understanding of current European trends and considers the complex phenomena covered by the notion of populism, focusing especially on right-wing populism. It recommends ways these can be challenged, both in theory and in practice, by using the gender–race–ethnicity–sexual orientation intersectionality approach.
The book builds its arguments beginning with a historical review of the literature on populism – a very complex field. The sheer variety of political parties and movements labelled ‘populist’ has led some scholars to call the phenomenon itself a ‘chameleon’. Karin Priester, for instance, chose the subtitle ‘approaching a chameleon’ for her 2012 book, in which she references Paul Taggart (2004), who writes of the ‘chameleon-like quality’ and the ‘empty heart’ of populism; a concept, ‘able to ‘suggest’ without imposing too much precise and definitive meaning. In fact, ‘it does not define, but evokes’ (Diamanti 2010). Yet others, like Pels (2012: 31f.–32) for example, argue that it would be dangerous to regard modern populism as merely a ‘frivolity of form, pose and style…. It is precisely through its dynamic mix of substance and style that populist politics has gained an electoral lead position in current media democracy’. As Wodak (2015: 3 [emphasis in original]) put it:
[W]hen analysing right-wing (or, indeed, left-wing) populist movements and their rhetoric, it is essential to recognize that their propaganda – realized as it is in many genres across relevant social domains – always combines and integrates form and content, targets specific audiences and adapts to specific contexts. Only by doing so we are able to deconstruct, understand and explain their messages, the resonance of their messages and their electoral success.
The common populist thread mentioned by Wodak can be found in countries that have experienced authoritarian regimes in their recent history, as is the case not only in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, but also in the Southern European countries that experienced dictatorship until the 1970s (Spain, Portugal, Greece). However, it can also be identified in countries where there is no historical legacy of authoritarianism, such as in the Netherlands and Denmark. As already underlined, the so-called populist forces, far from being a homogeneous ‘block’, can be categorised by various typologies and may be found in different positions in the political scene, with respect to their representation in national parliaments, national institutions and local and national governments.
As Campani and Pajnik write in Chapter 2, the populist experiences had been quite marginal in Europe in comparison with the USA or Latin America until the 1980s, when the Front National started to rise as a main political force. It is during the 1980s that the French scholar Pierre André Taguieff (2002) incorporated the concept of populism from the Anglo-Saxon and Latin American literature to describe the growth of the National Front in France, which had been defined as a far-right party or, generically, ‘fascist’ – a definition which is still used against the party and its leader, Marine Lepen, by some political forces. Taguieff proposed the term ‘national populist’ to overcome the ambiguities of the definition ‘fascist’ and to highlight the modernisation process initiated by the Front National, in order to mark its distance from strongly ideological fascist parties, such as, for example, the MSI (Italian Social Movement) in Italy, the NPD (National Democratic Party) and DVU (Deutsche Volksunion) (far-right neo-Nazi parties) in Germany or the National Front in Britain. These parties still kept an ‘extremist’ dimension, for which we can use the definition of Midlarsky: ‘the will to come to power by a social movement, for which individual freedoms may be curtailed in the name of collective goals, until the assassination of those who disagree’ (Midlarsky 2011: 7). The difference between fascism and populism was measured, therefore, through the acceptance of the limits imposed by democracy.
Taking into account the controversies that the definition of populism presents and considering that neo-fascist parties are often defined as populists and some right-wing populist parties like the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) have contacts with explicitly neo-fascist parties such as the Italian Forza Nuova, it is important to clarify the specificity of neo-fascism, neo-Nazism and the respective links with right-wing populism. In Chapter 3, Campani and Sauer historically contextualise the emergence of right-wing populist parties in Austria and Italy. The chapter analyses how European right-wing populist parties and neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups re-elaborate the heritage of the past (fascism and Nazism), how the Nazi and fascist heritage is on the one hand denied in order to fit into the democratic party spectrum, but on the other hand is integrated by right-wing organisations in recent ideologies. In following these (historical) traits, the chapter shows how right-wing populist parties are part, if not organisers, of a differentiated network of neo-Nazi and neo-fascist organisations.
With the abandonment of a fascist-inspired ideology, the acceptance of representative democratic systems, the commitment to the electoral dynamics rather than to extra-parliamentary activism and the renunciation (at least formally) of some ideologically entrenched positions in fascism (for example, anti-Semitism or biological racism), extreme-right or fascist parties became ‘populist’. Part of this ‘modernisation’ was also the shift from biological racism to cultural racism, where the arguments against immigration were no longer based on racial difference, but the risk of a collective loss of identity and the alleged excessive financial burden that immigration represented for the welfare regimes. The political proposal ‘priority to national’ is a consequence of this discourse: welfare systems cannot survive given the burden immigrants and refugees represent. The construction of ‘otherness’ focused on culture. Thus, biological racism was replaced by racism ‘differentialist’2 – a concept broadly debated in academic research (Das Gupta et al. 2007).
A rich and interesting literature states that populism, with its naturalistic, essentialist and restrictive depiction of the people, is a by-product of the re-affirmation of a ‘deeply, culturally ingrained perception of social belonging, and of the foundations of the polity, in which the social whole is considered prior to the individual’ (Blokker 2005: 371) and thus is linked to nationalism.
The Herderian concept of the nation as a naturally ordained and homogeneous whole – a national individuality (Blokker 2005: 382) with its specific and unique characteristics – supplies its members with norms of behaviour, as well as forms of identity. This understanding of nationalism clearly discloses its exclusivist features and, moreover, the essentialisation and naturalisation of the nation results in the construction and refusal of the nation’s non-members. Within this framework, even though it allows for the emergence of such concepts as democracy, there is no concern for the consequences of this claim for those who are not members of the majority, because boundaries are defined ethnically. Therefore, whether as an ‘imagined’ (Anderson 1991) or ‘invented’ (Gellner 1983) national identity, or as the privileging of a ‘natural’ community (Smith 1991), the promotion of a monolithic, homogenous group legitimises a sense of territoriality within the polity’s borders.
The nationalist interpretation of populism equates the people with the ethnic nation and thus strengthens the eternal value of the organic community and reinforces its exclusionary nature (Canovan 2002: 34; Mudde 2004: 546). Analyses of such populist manifestations underline the marginalisation of those not belonging to the majority group, which can easily lead to ethnic cleansing, ‘a latent possibility once the discursive construction of the community proceeds along purely ethnic lines’ (Laclau 2005: 197). In other words, in order to safeguard internal cohesion, populist nationalism not only excludes others, but in fact rejects all forms of pluralism and difference in the community of the people, relegating all uncertainties or conflicts beyond the borders of the nation state (Chiantera-Stutte and Petö 2003). Given the diversity of populist forces that are present in Europe, the ‘people’ do not coincide with the nation as bounded by the territory of the nation state.
In Chapter 4, Benveniste, Lazaridis and Puurunen explore how the discourse of ‘othering’ by far right-wing parties or movements is related to the ‘ethnical’ conception of the nation. A comparison between the different constructions of national identity and conceptions of heritage are explored to understand the arguments differentiating national groups along their origin or belonging. The authors show how the process of othering has gone through an ideological shift emphasising cultural aspects of the ‘Other’, which leads the organisations involved to become spokespeople of a cultural identity that is supposed to be threatened by the growth of Islam. Islam has become a main target for numerous radical right organisations in Europe, especially after September 11, leading to the development of a ‘modernised far right’, defending liberal values or European welfare states against an ‘Islamic invasion’. The authors also show how the discourse towards immigration, which was traditionally the main topic of the far right, has become more ambiguous, trying to accuse capitalist immigration politics and globalisation instead of the migrants, differentiating good migrants from bad ones, and moving the integration borders according to geopolitical forces and historical relations with the migrant countries. Nevertheless, most countries express the fear of insecurity. As a consequence, immigration, even if it is not directly the object of hate discourse, is framed in terms of a potential threat to our ontological security.
Moreover, this chapter discusses Islamophobia: in recent decades, the xenophobic rhetoric that has emerged in several of the nine countries discussed in this book often targets Muslim minorities, presented as the dangerous/threatening ‘Other’. This image of Islam and Muslims as one of the main menaces looming over European security and identity emerged as one of the main themes in the rhetoric, discourses and behaviour of the right-wing populist parties. Islamophobia is analysed by comparing the rhetoric, programmes and discourses against Islam and Muslims among selected nationalist groups and right-wing populist parties. The comparative perspective allows the authors to address significant similarities and differences in relation to Islamophobia, which are only marginally addressed by the existing scholarly literature. One of the central issues regards claims that maintaining anti-Islam attitudes and standpoints responds to the need for safeguarding the modern Christian European values of democracy, freedom and gender equality against the dangers represented by a ‘backward, authoritarian and male chauvinist religion’.
Alleging the fundamental incompatibility between Western societies and Islam, the Counter-Jihad Movement (CJM) has managed to become a transnational and online network that can be construed as an assortment of political parties, online communities, think tanks and street movements. In Chapter 5, Lazaridis, Polymeropoulou and Tsagkroni explore the emergence of this phenomenon, by analysing the Western hegemonic discourse of online advocates and providing a network analysis of the CJM. The authors synthesise existing understandings of the wider CJM and offer an overview of counter-jihad discourse. They argue that online presence is a key characteristic of the CJM, and enrich the understanding of CJM by looking at multi-spatial manifestations of the CJM, both in digital and physical places. They examine ways in which the CJM network has been developed and the reasons for the level of distribution and decentralisation within it and argue that the emergence and wider embrace of internet technologies has had an impact on the social connections and the social organisation of the CJM, as well as the ways it communicates and distributes information.
The essentialisation of extremes in constructing ‘the Other’ (mentioned earlier) makes a comparative perspective essential for research on gender relations. The national imaginary appears to be nourished by certain rituals and ceremonies through a historical process that Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) have termed ‘the invention of tradition’. The figure of ‘woman’ and ‘mother’ is at the core of the imaginary of the nation state; this ‘maternal beloved feminine imaginary’, according to Lauren Berlant (1991), finds, for example, its expression with notions such as the ‘rape of the land’ – expressions that normalise and naturalise the relationship between women and nation. The populist borders are also internal, and they frequently involve the exclusion of minority groups from the body of the nation state, thus seeking to define an ‘authentic’ national identity (Einhorn 2006). The dichotomy between insiders in opposition to internal enemies (Kofman et al. 2007) has an immediate impact on the rhetoric not only of race, but also of gender. It is such populist discourses that pinpoint and identify the enemy as being not only the minority ethnic groups, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, but also homosexuals and a large proportion of the female population (Allen 1998: 55). This is motivated by the fact that the nation/ region/territory is oftentimes envisaged as a heterosexual, male edifice, intimately connected to patriarchal structuring and norms. In Chapter 6, Birgit Sauer, Roman Kuhar, Edma Ajanović and Aino Saarinen address the similarities and differences of the ideology, discourses and policies of right-wing populist parties and movements from a gender and sexuality perspective. Issues related to gender, gender equality, sexuality and LGBT people seem to be one of the constitutive elements of a right-wing populist discourse across Europe. Hence, the chapter depicts the connections between nationalism, racism, gender inequality, sexism and homophobia of right-wing populist groups in the nine European countries studied in this book from a comparative perspective. The continuously re-appearing debate about reproductive rights of women and the vocal demands of the LGBT communities for equal rights (including the resounding debates on gay marriage and same-sex families) are fields in which right-wing populist groups construct exclusive intersections. They combine sexist, racist nationalist and homophobe arguments in order to construct an ‘other’ that needs to be excluded and a ‘we’ that is normalised and normed at the same time. These ambiguous discourses are referred to in the literature as ‘homonationalism’ and ‘femonationalism’, pointing to the instrumentalisation and misuse of gay and lesbian human rights, as well as gender equality discourse, for the disqualification, marginalisation and social exclusion of other minorities, particularly immigrants. In order to explain similarities and differences in the use and misuse of a gender and sexuality discourse of right-wing populist parties and movements, the chapter refers to national historical contexts, the interactions between the parties’ policies, the parties’ members and voters, the role of churches and religious discourse, migration, integration and citizenship, as well as welfare regimes.
Studies dealing with right-wing populist parties show that men are overrepresented among the party leadership, members and voters. But while research about the ‘gender gap’ has mainly focused on electoral demand-side factors, the study of gender in relation to party politics and organisation is still sporadic. Even less studied is the role and style of charismatic female populist leaders and the impact that women politicians and party members may have on the party positions, image, rhetoric and discourse. In Chapter 7, Meret, Siim and Pingaud explore the Scandinavian right-wing populist party Dansk Folkeparti (DF) with former uncontested leader Pia Kjærsgaard (1995–2012) and the Norwegian Fremskrittpartiet (FrP) with Siv Jensen at the leadership since 2006, offer two interesting examples of female leadership and gender from the perspective of two well-established and consolidated populist right-wing parties, along with France and the radical right-wing French Front National, which since 2011 has been led by Marine Le Pen, who successfully overtook the leadership from her father, Jean-Marie. By comparing the experience and features of populist leaders Pia Kjærsgaard (DF), Siv Jensen (FrP) and Marine Le Pen (FN), the authors observe and discuss how gender, gendered representations and self-representations are framed by these leaders and the media and question what role gender plays for these female political leaders and their parties.
Another aspect focused on is how the far right in a Europe under crisis lure the younger generation into their ranks. In Chapter 8 by Anna Krasteva, the lost generation and contestatory citizenship are examined for studying three groups of problems: the theoretical problem of how to understand and explain far-right youth activism; the social problem of the construction of the figure of the extremist activist, both from the inside – through commitment, identity and activity – and from the outside – through reifying images, imaginaries, discourses and media strategies; and the democratic problem of how to counter youth extremism. The analysis focuses on a number of oppositions, such as virility versus violence and body politics versus party politics. The opposition meta-politics versus extremist politics is exemplified by the de-ideologised nationalism as an empty symbol, social solidarity as an overfilled symbol and organic ecologism. The digitalisation of hate and the Tweeterisation of extremism are studied through the systemic affinities between the Net and youth extremism, empowerment through crowdsourcing and cloud mobilisation and the transition from arborescent to rhizomatic networking. The analysis of the aestheticisation of violence demonstrates the reshuffling of roles and primacy between images and originals, between discourses and actors. The media and mass culture heroise and aestheticise violence and extremism, life on the edge of the law and morality. The media’s hunger for making extremism visible is so acute that they transform the real activists into media images and imaginaries of ‘bad guys’. Their aestheticisation and glorification are extremely performative; they both promote and strengthen an attractive image of extremism and seduce young fans.
The book concludes with the question: ‘Is populism a threat or a challenge for the democratic system?’ This is addressed in Chapter 9 and is a pertinent question considering the dysfunction of democracy in today’s Europe. Campani and Pajnik argue that populist forces raise major issues around the notion of democracy and its ‘metamorphoses’ or ‘anamorphosis’ (deformed democracy) in the neo-liberal era, under the pressure of the neo-liberal economic global system. Chapter 9 also considers the relationship between democracy and national sovereignty in respect of the triumph of the neo-liberal economic dogmas, but also the supra-national construction of the EU. Finally, it looks at the structural changes that lay behind both mainstream and populist discourses, introducing the concept of post-democracy, as it has been developed by various scholars, considering especially the works of Colin Crouch and Luciano Gallino.
In applying content and frame analysis tools, the main aim of our project and of this book is to identify how right-wing populist groups construct binary groups of ‘us’ and ‘others’, as well as gender binaries, as these strategies succeed in creating societal problems, enemies who cause them and victims who are affected by them, thus constructing an ‘us’ group represented by right-wing extremist groups in Europe. The fieldwork for this book was conducted from 2013 to 2015 in nine member states of the EU – namely, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia and the UK. The findings are based on 101 interviews with members and activists of right-wing populist and extremist parties, civil society organisations and groups in nine EU countries. The country team members selected at least two groups per country, one major populist party and one civil society organisation within the right-wing spectrum. Interviewees were identified by team members according to their standing in the party or civil society organisation and their availability. Country teams contacted interviewees by phone, email or personally, as well as attending events organised by these groups. In some countries the focus was on the capital city (e.g. Austria, Greece, Finland and Slovenia), whereas in other countries material was collected in different parts of the country (e.g. Italy, Denmark and the UK). Most of the interviews were treated as anonymous, unless otherwise agreed with the interviewee. The interviews lasted from half an hour to four hours. All interviews were taped and transcribed. Parties and civil society organisations of our sample included, for Austria, the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreich, FPÖ) and the Movement pro Austria (Bewegung pro Österreich, BPÖ), which mobilises against Muslim mosques and cultural centres; for Bulgaria, the Bulgarian National Union (Bulgarski Natsionalen Saiuz, BNU), a right-wing nationalist party, and Attack (Ataka), an ultra-nationalist party; for Denmark, the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti, DF) and the Association for the Freedom of Speech (aka Free Press Society, Trykkefrihedsselskabet), a civil society organisation against Islam; for Finland, the (True) Finns (Perussuomalaiset, PS), the major populist party, Suomen Sisu (SuSi), an ultra-nationalist association which has decided not to use any translation of its name and insists on being referred to by its Finnish name Suomen Sisu; for France, the National Front (Front National, FN), the major populist right-wing party in the country, and Activists against Islamisation movement (Riposte Laïqu); for Greece, Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi), a right-wing extremist party, Popular Orthodox Rally (Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos), a radical right-wing party, and ANEL, a political party, at the time of writing this book, that is part of a coalition government with Syriza; for Italy, New Force (Forza Nuova, FN), the leading neo-fascist political party, and skinhead movements (Lealtà e azione and Milizia), neo-Nazi community organisations; for Slovenia, the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka, SDP), the main right-wing party, and the Civil Initiative for Family and the Rights of Children (Civilna iniciativa za družino in pravice otrok, CIFRC), a group allied with the Catholic Church; for the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the English Defence League (EDL), a civil society organisation against Islam, and BNP. An integrated multi-method approach (content analysis, focus groups, in-depth open-ended interviews, online media analysis, etc.) was utilised. The book has the advantages of extensive transnational comparative data analysis and the maximisation of interpretive depth research at the discursive, attitudinal and behavioural levels and evaluates how the different aspects and manifestations of far-right populism come together in these countries using the intersectionality approach.
However, there is still a lot of research to be done. Populist parties and forces need to be analysed in the crucial area of divergent opposition to the EU project: how the EU model as a voluntary union of nations, deciding on common policies and based on representative democracy, is being attacked because of its inefficiencies and its distance from ‘authentic’ European traditions and the European people. The idea of a ‘stable’ national identity implies not merely the refusal of the idea of a common Europe, but the construction of a Europe of ‘homelands’. The questions that arise are: what are the positions of far-right populists in relation to a common European historical memory, when viewed against the background of totalitarianism and authoritarianism? How do populist parties and movements oppose the actions that aim to make the EU a multilayered, multi-cultural democracy that is based on mutual respect for its diverse peoples and cultures, values diversity and inclusion and runs decidedly counter to hierarchies, inequalities and exclusion? As Campani and Pajnik argue in Chapter 1, one needs to consider the historical experiences labelled as ‘populist’, such as the Russian narodnichestvo; Latin American regimes, such as Vargism and Peronism; post-colonial governments, such as Nasserism, French Poujadisme, Scandinavian rural parties; the extreme diversification among these ‘populisms’ (some limited to the role of opposition and remaining marginal, while others become governments, such as the Latin American ones), the structural conditions, the processes of socio-economic transformations, the political conflicts for the hegemony around the construction of ‘the people’ in the context of the present European context, characterised by the passage from the industrial to the post-industrial society, from modernity to post-modernity, from nation states to globalisation, while the hegemonic triumph of neo-liberalism dictates the economic and political rules.
1 See The Economist, 4 January 2014: www.economist.com/news/leaders/21592610-insurgent-parties-are-likely-do-better-2014-any-time-second-worldEurope’sTea Parties-Political Insurgency.
2 Pierre André Taguieff (2001), revisiting the concepts of racism and anti-racism, suggested that racist movements no longer promote discrimination on the grounds of a belief in biological differences, but produce a ‘differentialist’ racism based on a conviction in the fixity of culture, paradoxically ‘borrowed’ from culturally relativist anti-racist arguments.
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