Re-Branding Right-Wing Politics #2 – FPÖ between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Serbian migrants

January 22, 2016October 12, 20161 Comment

Daily Star. October 2008.

(See here the first part of the reportage. Happy new year and enjoy the first POP’s article in 2016. The schedule for the next months is pretty dense; we will take you into the very heart of contemporary populism. Follow POP on #Twitter and spread the word!).

Serbians as Well-Integrated Model Migrants

An anti-immigration party longing for migrants’ votes might sound contradictory to many, but this ‘search’ is an extension of the rhetoric of good and bad foreigners. A closer look at FPÖ’s position on Balkan politics makes this strange alliance between an anti-immigration party and Serbian migrants a little clearer. The current situation of the Balkans is an indicator of the multicultural fantasy, as its official party program writes, that descends from EU politics, whose capital infusion and political support for the central government of Bosnia-Herzegovina promote further Islamization of the Balkans. The geopolitical importance of Serbia, here, consists in its role as a buffer state between Central Europe and the Southern Balkan Peninsula; the border between Christendom and Islam. In the eyes of the ‘Freedomite’ politics, Serbia, the vanguard of the Occident in the conflict-ridden Balkans, is an example of the tragic failure of multiculturalism propagated by the European Union. Continue reading →

Re-Branding Right-Wing Politics: The Freedom Party of Austria and their Serbian Migrant Supporters

December 15, 2015October 12, 20163 Comments

Byeongsung Ahn

This article, written by Byeongsun Ahn, PhD Student at the Department of Sociology of the University of Vienna, focuses on a paradoxical element of contemporary populism: the distinction between “good” and “bad” migrants. In particular, Byeongsun Ahn exposes the Austrian case, and explains why FPÖ politicians now make frequent appearances in Serbian restaurants and nightclubs, where they pose in front of Ćevapčići and dance Turbo-Folk. This is the first half of Ahn’s reportage.

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Interview #6 – Swiss populism and direct democracy. A talk with Laurent Bernhard

November 23, 2015February 2, 20171 Comment

Laurent Bernhard

Last October, the Federal Swiss elections confirmed that the right-wing Swiss People Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP) is able to understand and express the population’s fears, mainly about issues such as immigration and European integration. POP asked Dr. Laurent Bernhard to discuss the Swiss situation. Dr. Bernhard is a postdoctoral researcher for the NCCR Democracy project “Populist strategies in current election campaigns” together with Prof. Marco Steenbergen. His research interests include direct democracy, comparative political economy, Swiss politics, and political communication.

1) Swiss Federal elections 2015: the Swiss People’s Party (SVP/UDC) obtains almost 30 percent of the votes, its best result ever. From a “European” perspective this may sound astonishing, since one would expect populism to score well in the context of a severe economic crisis, which is not the case for Switzerland. How do you explain this result?

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2015: the golden year of populist leaders?

November 9, 2015October 12, 20161 Comment

2015 is not finished yet, but for those interested in populism it has been a remarkably “populist year”. The economic crisis is (allegedly) coming to an end, but this is not the case for populist politicians. Let’s start our journey among populist leaders precisely from the “Eastern European tiger”: Poland.

Paweł Kukiz

1) Vodka & Rock ‘n’ Roll

Paweł Kukiz. A right-winger with a left-wing heart, as he likes to say. A rockstar turned rightwing politician, say the media. Anti-system candidate, in practical terms. His movement scored 8.8% at the last elections in Poland, while in May Kukiz came third in the first round of the presidential elections.

He was the vocalist of the Breasts (Piersi) during the 80s and 90s, and in 2012 he launched a website to promote single-member constituencies. In a classically populist way, he claims that the Polish political structure privileges the elites at the expense of the population.

In 2010 Mr Kukiz opposed a ‘EuroPride’ homosexual march in Warsaw and was dismissive of the election in 2011 of Anna Grodzka, Poland’s first transsexual parliamentary deputy.

In three words: controversial, irresolute, engaged.

See more here and here. Continue reading →

Interview #5 – Ruth Wodak: The Politics of Fear. What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean

October 8, 2015July 21, 20168 Comments

Professor Ruth Wodak

Ruth Wodak is Emeritus Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies at Lancaster University. Her research is mainly located in Discourse Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis. She elaborated the Discourse Historical Approach, an interdisciplinary approach to analysing the change of discursive practices over time and in various genres.

She recently published with Sage her last book. The Politics of Fear – What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean.

It is with pleasure that POP asked her some questions about the discourse of contemporary populism compared to that of radical right wing parties, as well as about left wing populism, and the role of the mainstream parties. Enjoy the conversation with professor Wodak. Continue reading →

Zombies in Fortress Europe: the migrants as a metaphor

September 30, 2015September 23, 20193 Comments

Lega Nord _ Abbiamo fermato l’inavsione (We stopped the invasion)

“In its contemporary manifestations, the migrant figure has been imagined variously as a mechanical, animalistic, spectral, zombified, vampiric or cyborg entity”

Nikos Papastergiadis

The frame used by politicians and mass media to describe migrants and refugees recalls the tradition of horror movies. A devilish, dangerous, elusive and relentless presence threatens the borders. They come from the sea.

Zombies.

A shapeless horde, a scary multitude.

The zombies are what we do not (want to) understand. They are the American Indians, the slum dwellers, the colonized, Iraqis and Afghans, Eritreans. They are the by-product of an (internal and external) Apartheid imposed by relationships of strength.

The doors of the fortress (or hotspots) are the critical junctures of the system, the crumbling bastions of a civilization under siege: Melilla, Lesbo, Ventimiglia, Calais, Budapest, the Eurotunnel, Lampedusa. Between land and water, the entrance to “heaven” is strewn with rotting corpses, and the stench goes straight to the nostrils of all. Continue reading →

Oxi, ley mordaza, walls and summer populism

July 7, 2015July 8, 2015Leave a comment

Welcome to the Bistro POP.

We serve fresh populism, of all types.

Hot summer in Europe. Tsipras asked the Greek people to refuse the conditions of the Troika – and the Greek people answered “oxi”, which is translated as “no” but in this case means “yes Alexis, we’re still with you”; Varoufakis announced – first via Blog and then in T-shirt, cool as usual – that he resigns from his position as Minister in order to help Tsipras with the negotiations; Spain approved a package of measures unprecedented during its democratic history, limiting freedom of expression and public protest; Hungary is preparing to build yet another wall of this Europe under siege, to halt the advance of the refugees on the eastern front.

The Greek referendum marked a watershed in the history of Europe, with consequences that will be fully understood probably in the next decades. Now it’s too early to draw conclusions. The words of Varoufakis from his blog are probably the best way to reflect on what happened: “The superhuman effort to honour the brave people of Greece, and the famous OXI (NO) that they granted to democrats the world over, is just beginning.”

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Ghosts from the past

May 27, 2015May 27, 2015Leave a comment

Father Coughlin knew how to use the radio and he used it to deliver his messages to millions of people. First he supported Roosevelt and the New Deal, but later criticized him because of his relationships with the bankers. I would be curious to interview Charles Edward Coughlin now, in 2015, and to listen from his energetic, mesmerizing voice, what he thinks about the situation in Europe. Another cycle of economic recession, another time of social unrest. An age of barriers, drifting boats, night marches, proclamations.

Father Coughlin was particularly harsh with Jewish bankers, accused of being behind the Russian Revolution, and ended up backing Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini concerning social and political measures against both capitalism and Communism.

At the Congress, he once said, it is time to endorse a candidate ‘who can rise above his party and puts patriotism first. He may be a Democrat or a Republican or whatnot, but we’re through with the sham battle of politicians and now we’re on our own’.

In 2015, in Europe, it is time for important decisions, and the soul of Coughlin’s speeches resonates with our time, ominously, through new politicians. About democracy, and the way it was not able to prevent the great Depression, he said: ‘somebody must be blamed, of course. But those in power always forget to blame themselves. (…) And democracy once more, thinking that it has power within its soul, shall rise up to clap and applaud, because the youth of the land is going abroad to make the world safe for what? Safe for dictatorship? Safe against communism abroad when we have communism at home? Safe from socialism in France when we have socialism in America? Or safe, safe for the international bankers?’

I wanted to talk about the last elections in Poland and in Spain, about PEGIDA in Germany and Salvini in Italy, but there will be time for that. Now, I just wanted to hear father Coughlin’s words again, because those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Once upon a time in Scandinavia

April 22, 2015October 12, 2016Leave a comment

Will Finland join the ‘club’ of the European countries which include a populist party in their government?

A few days more and we will have the answer.

For sure, something changed in Scandinavia after the results of the Swedish Democrats in September 2014 and the Finnish elections last week. Moreover, in 2014 the Danish People’s Party received 26,6% of the votes for the European Parliament, more than any other Danish party, and the Progress Party in Norway became for the first time part of the government in 2013, even if it obtained better results in previous elections. Continue reading →

Interview #1 – Samuele Mazzolini about Populism in Europe and the Americas

April 10, 2015July 26, 20162 Comments

Samuele Mazzolini

This is the first of many interviews that POP will propose in the next months. Scholars, journalists, politicians and experts will answer timing questions about the nature and development of populism. For this first interview, we have Samuele Mazzolini. He is a PhD candidate in Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex. His research focuses on the declining hegemony of the Italian Left, read through the lenses of post-Marxist discourse theory. He is also interested in Latin American and European left-wing populism. He previously worked for the Ecuadorian government and is now a regular columnist of the state-owned daily newspaper El Telégrafo . He is also a blogger for the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano.

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