Exclusion, Community, and a Populist Political Economy: The Radical Right as an Anti-Globalization Movement
- PDF / 162,433 Bytes
- 21 Pages / 442.205 x 663.307 pts Page_size
- 26 Downloads / 181 Views
Exclusion, Community, and a Populist Political Economy: The Radical Right as an Anti-Globalization Movement Andrej Zaslove Department of Political Science, Wilfred Laurier University, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5. E-mail: [email protected]
This article examines the anti-globalization message of three radical right populist parties: the Austrian Freedom Party, the French National Front, and the Italian Lega Nord. Anti-globalization movements have received much attention as of late from social scientists and journalists alike. However, one anti-globalization force that has not received adequate scholarly attention is the radical right. Since the 1990s, radical right parties have emerged as some of the strongest opponents of neo-liberalism, European integration, and immigration. Radical right parties campaign against the elite nature of globalization, arguing that financial and political elites, American hegemony, and the growing influence of the European Union destroy the natural fabric of civil society. The radical right also associates European integration with the forces of globalization and with a loss of national sovereignty. And finally, adopting La Nouvelle Droite’s notion of the ‘right to difference’, radical right populist parties associate globalization with multiculturalism and with overly liberal immigration policies. The article then examines both survey data on European sentiments towards neo-liberalism, European integration, and immigration and public opinion polls that highlight the reason why voters support radical right parties. I argue that if we closely scrutinize the reasons why voters support radical right parties, keeping in mind how these same parties frame the issue of globalization, it becomes clear how and why the political message of radical right parties resonates with a small but significant portion of the electorate who demonstrate apprehension towards economic globalization, European integration, and immigration. Comparative European Politics (2008) 6, 169–189. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cep.6110126 Keywords: radical right populism; anti-globalization; Euro-skepticism; immigration; xenophobia; European integration
Introduction The Zapatista insurrection in 1994 and the anti-globalization protests in Seattle in 1999 and in Genoa in 2001 have spurred numerous studies of
Andrej Zaslove Exclusion, Community, and a Populist Political Economy
170
anti-globalization movements. These studies often explore the democratic potential of these movements, claiming that they have the ability to challenge the elite nature of the internationalization of production, finance, and trade. One anti-globalization force that has not received equivalent scholarly attention is the radical right. To be sure, there has been no shortage of scholarship on the recent emergence of the radical right in Western Europe. However, very few studies have specifically examined the radical right’s opposition to globalization. This may seem rather strange given the electoral success of the radical right an
Data Loading...
