What we are reading: Radical Right voters’ motives in Eastern and Western Europe

Is anti-immigration sentiment behind the radical right vote in all of Europe? It’s been a mere three decades since 1990, or as we old-timers are prone to say, a generation. But for some (cough) Europeanists, the CEE countries are still either terra incognita or just an extension of their western counterparts. While much of the…

What we are reading: populism, identity, and mobilisation

Everyone and their grandfather are worried about (right-wing) populism, filter bubbles, frames, and their effects on western publics. But do they actually work? This large team ran an experiment in many European countries to find out. You will be shocked when you see hypothesis #7! Bos, L., Schemer, C., Corbu, N., Hameleers, M., Andreadis, I.,…

What we are reading: Issue salience and the rise of the radical right

What has salience to do with it? In the third week of my reading class, we read this recent paper Dennison, J. (2020). How issue salience explains the rise of the populist right in western europe. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 32(3), 397–420. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edz022 The author argues that various explanations for radical right support are all…

What we are reading: Party Activism in the Populist Radical Right

What we are reading: Party Activism in the Populist Radical Right 5

In the second week of my reading class, we had a go at this one. Whiteley, P., Larsen, E., Goodwin, M., & Clarke, H. (2019). Party activism in the populist radical right: the case of the uk independence party. Party Politics, online first. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354068819880142 Big guns, and Paul Whiteley was the friendliest next-door (office) neighbour I could wish for…

Italian Populism, Trump’s voters, Germany’s Home Office, and Neo-Nazis in Russia : 4 links I liked

Italian Populism, Trump's voters, Germany's Home Office, and Neo-Nazis in Russia : 4 links I liked 6

A retired “general”, a symbolism that is borrowed from France’s Yellow Vests – what could possibly go wrong? Meet Italy’s latest populist craze, the Orange Jackets.

Germany’s Home Secretary said in an interview that the AfD wants to destroy the state and put this interview on the Home Office’s website. Now the FCC ruled that he was not allowed to do that. But the ruling does not say that Seehofer’s claim is factually incorrect. Like in previous cases, the judges upheld a kind of two-bodies-theory. As a politician, Seehofer was free to make this statement, but as a minister he was not allowed to use his official platform for distributing it.

Over at the Quantiative Peace, Joshua Zingher looks at Trump’s base. The bottom line? Trump’s 2020 path to the presidency is narrow. May he stray from it.

Why are German Nazis training in Russia“? That is a bit of a rhetorical question, but the article has at least some answers.

Bonus track: German IR theory-building kit (thread)

Pegida has become a cult

Under lockdown, Germany’s PEGIDA goes to YouTube (radicalrightanalysis.com)

Germany’s far-right group PEGIDA is mobilizing weekly ‘virtual marches’ livestreamed on YouTube. PEGIDA demonstration in Dresden December 16, 2018 | Derbrauni / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
On a Monday evening in early April 2020, around 1,000 users are waiting for a YouTube livestream, ho…

How important are Germany’s eastern states for the AfD?

What? I’m currently working on a paper that looks into the role that Germany’s eastern states (aka “the new Länder”, the ex-GDR …) played for the breakthrough and the consolidation of the “Alternative for Germany” party. This figure shows support for the AfD from 2013 to 2020. The graph is a teeny-weeny bit busy, so…

Gespräch mit dem “Kurier” über den Zustand der AfD

Die Umfragewerte der AfD sind vergleichsweise schlecht, in der Corona-Krise ist die Partei kein relevanter Akteur. Die Gründe dafür sind nicht ganz neu. Mit dem Kurier aus Wien habe ich über die strukturellen Probleme der Partei gesprochen. [contentcards url="https://kurier.at/politik/ausland/afd-alte-graeben-wieder-aufgerissen/400850855" target="_blank"]