Aurelien Mondon
Biographic Data
| ID | 638732 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aurelien Mondon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Aurelien |
| FAMILY NAME | Mondon |
| SIGNATURE | MONDON A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bath |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3453-7821 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 432 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
There is no such thing as ‘right-wing populism’: Reclaiming the emancipatory potential of populism in reactionary times
Populism has become generally equated with far-right politics in public discourse. Beyond this association being widely problematised in much of the literature on populism, in this theoretical intervention, we argue that the populist label is ill-fitting for far-right politics for three reasons. First, any antagonism of ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’ is only secondary, at best, for the far right. Second, while populism constructs an anti-elitis…
A critique of the polarisation narrative: Expanding the Limits of Democracy, Parties and Political Participation
Researching and Understanding Far-Right Politics in Times of Mainstreaming
Contemporary research on far-right politics has relied predominantly on the use of binaries between the ‘far/extreme/(populist) radical right’ and the so-called ‘mainstream’, and a ‘waves’ metaphor to historicise different eras of the post-World War Two far-right. In this article, we probe these categories and binaries, problematising hegemonic depictions, the consequent assumptions underpinning them, and what this means for resistance to reactio…
The roots of reactionary tech oligarchy and the need for radical democratic alternatives
The aim for this commentary is two-fold: first, we seek to outline how decades of liberal “post-democratic” hegemony—prevalent across liberal democratic parliaments, journalism, and academia—have enabled the rise of reactionary tech oligarchy. Second, we call for cross-disciplinary and cross-societal alliances that not only reject depoliticized euphemisms such as “polarization,” “populism,” and “post-truth,” but also actively commit to building r…
The pretence of the cordon sanitaire: Non-collaboration as a distraction from discursive congruence
Much has been written about how mainstream parties respond to far-right challengers in liberal democracies. Whereas some mainstream parties have become more open to forming coalitions with far-right parties, in many countries collaboration with the far right remains ruled out. Often, the metaphor of the cordon sanitaire is used to highlight how mainstream parties form a bulwark against the far right. Yet whilst mainstream parties often exclude fa…
Get off your high horse and vote for us’: The anti-populist construction of the elite and the people
Recent research on populism has shown how anti-populist politics have served to discredit alternatives to the status quo by constructing them as threats to democracy, creating false equivalences between vastly different political projects. Yet, while the people of populism are often represented as a threat, it would be a mistake to conclude that anti-populist discourse is equivalent to faith in the elite. We explore how elites and peoples are con…
Populism, public opinion, and the mainstreaming of the far right: The ‘immigration issue’ and the construction of a reactionary ‘people
While mainstream elite actors with the ability to shape public discourse (politicians, academics, and the media) generally oppose far-right politics, it is widely argued that such politics represent democratic populist grievances, whether cultural or economic: ‘this is what the people want’ and the mainstream should listen. Building on discourse theoretical approaches, this article uses opinion surveys on immigration to argue that rather than fol…
Hegemonic defeatism: The mainstreaming of far-right politics in France
Another European election, another ‘earthquake’ in France. For the third time in a row, the far-right Rassemblement National has won and for the third time, the reaction from the mainstream elite only serves to further mainstream its politics. This could not be better exemplified than in Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call for a new legislative election and appoint a right-wing Prime Minister, despite the results. The aim of this article is to cou…
Anti-Gender Movements in Who's Afraid of Gender: Marginal or Mainstream
Othering, peaking, populism and moral panics: The reactionary strategies of organised transphobia
This article shows that organised transphobia is promoted using similar strategies and politics as the wider reactionary movement which has become increasingly mainstream. In particular, we outline the transphobic process of 'othering' based on moral panics, which seeks to construct, homogenise and exaggerate a threat and to naturalise it in the bodies and existence of the 'Other'. Reactionary politics rely on authoritarian tendencies and strateg…
The far and extreme right in documentaries: Euphemisation, Exceptionalisation, and Humanisation
Much debate has taken place recently on the way in which far and extreme right actors are portrayed by mainstream media. Building on an international corpus of 30 documentaries, we combine discourse theory, corpus linguistics, and multimodal critical discourse analysis to examine how far and extreme right actors are portrayed in documentaries, a format of growing discursive importance which has been under-researched thus far. Our analysis contrib…
The ethics of researching the far right: Critical approaches and reflections
"The ethics of researching the far right is a wide-ranging collection of critical reflections on the ethical considerations of researching, writing about, and disseminating work on the far right. Reflecting on research carried out in a range of disciplines and contexts, the contributors offer a critical starting point for discussions on how to research the far right ethically, a topic that raises a number of urgent issues. Rejecting the idea of n…
Ethics of Researching the Far Right: Critical Approaches and Reflections
From Objectivist Bias to Positivist Bias: A Constructivist Critique of the Attitudes Approach to Populism
This article undertakes a critique of the attitudes approach to populism, predicated on survey-based operationalisations of populism as a set of attitudes. Our critique is threefold: first, the move of reducing ‘the elite’ to ‘the politicians’ in survey items – beginning with the foundational Akkerman scale – is at odds with the constructivist underpinnings of Mudde’s ideational definition that this literature largely draws on, where ‘the people’…
Really existing liberalism, the bulwark fantasy, and the enabling of reactionary, far right politics1
There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now. (O'Neill, 1943) Therefore, I propose that core to the current panic over "illiberalism" and "populism" is a fantasy (Glynos, 2021) whose discourse uncritically posits liberalism and liberal democracy as a natural bulwark against reaction. This narrative, born out of the Second World War and the defeat of fascism and Nazism, is based on a simplistic, mythologizing re…
The Moral Panic of Islamo-gauchisme in Service of a Colorblind Approach to Racism
This essay frames Islamo-gauchisme as a moral panic and discusses how, why, and when it emerged as such in France, its relationship with critical race theory (a moral panic in the U.S.), and the broader societal implications of Islamo-gauchisme as a moral panic. More precisely, we discuss how and why Islamo-gauchisme entered the zeitgeist and why this moral panic is so dangerous. We demonstrate that this reinforces the colorblind hegemonic unders…
The mainstreaming of the far right in France: Republican, liberal and illiberal articulations of racism
In this interview, Aurelien Mondon and Simon Dawes analyse the mainstreaming of far-right politics. It aims to make sense of Marine Le Pen's rise by putting it in perspective and accounting for the role of the mainstream itself in the process. Building on the research Mondon has undertaken with colleagues, this interview explores in particular the importance of understanding mainstreaming beyond it being the success of the far right or a sign of …
Epistemologies of ignorance in far right studies: The invisibilisation of racism and whiteness in times of populist hype
Research on the far right has been a booming field for decades now, with far-right parties generally being much more researched than their right, centre and left counterparts, even when they are marginal in terms of politics or electoral support. Yet, for a field that is notorious for its lively definitional debates and tendency to evolve and reinvent itself terminologically, it has appeared unwilling to engage with the concepts of race, racism a…
The far right, the mainstream and mainstreaming: Towards a Heuristic Framework
The study of far-right parties and politics is one of the most high-profile research areas in political science and related disciplines. Far-right parties have been the subject of vast amounts of varied scholarship since their turn-of-the-century resurgence. However, as the far right has become a mainstay, with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 blurring the boundaries between mainstream and far-right politics, it has become crucial …
Returning to Reactionary Democracy: Reviews, responses and reflections
It has been a humbling process to see Reactionary Democracy engaged with so thoroughly by scholars we respect and admire. We were pleased to read that the book provided food for thought for the fou
Populism, the media, and the mainstreaming of the far right: The Guardian ’s coverage of populism as a case study
Populism seems to define our current political age. The term is splashed across the headlines, brandished in political speeches and commentaries, and applied extensively in numerous academic publications and conferences. This pervasive usage, or populist hype, has serious implications for our understanding of the meaning of populism itself and for our interpretation of the phenomena to which it is applied. In particular, we argue that its common …
Whiteness, populism and the racialisation of the working class in the United Kingdom and the United States
The election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote were widely hailed as examples of (white) working class revolts. This article examines the populist racialisation of the working class as white and ‘left behind’, and representative of the ‘people’ or ‘demos’, in the campaigns and commentaries. We argue that such constructions made race central, obscured the class make-up, allowed for the re-assertion of white identity as a legitimate political cat…
Critical research on populism: Nine rules of engagement
This article formulates precise questions and ‘rules of engagement’ designed to advance our understanding of the role populism can and should play in the present political conjuncture, with potentially significant implications for critical management and organization studies and beyond. Drawing on the work of Ernesto Laclau and others working within the post-Marxist discourse-theory tradition, we defend a concept of populism understood as a form …
The Radical Right in Australia
Compared to its European counterparts, Australia was for the most part spared the rise of powerful extreme right movements, and at times appeared immune to their appeal. However, rather than immunity, the absence of extreme right politics can be explained by the ability and willingness of mainstream politics to readily, openly, and officially absorb such values. This chapter discusses how, for most of the country’s history, Australian mainstream …
After Charlie Hebdo: Terror, Racism and Free Speech
As the world looked on in horror at the Paris terror attacks of January and November 2015, France found itself at the centre of a war that has split across nations and continents. The attacks set in motion a steady creep towards ever more repressive state surveillance, and have fuelled the resurgence of the far right across Europe and beyond, while leaving the left dangerously divided. These developments raise profound questions about a number of…
The far right, the mainstream and mainstreaming: Towards a Heuristic Framework
The study of far-right parties and politics is one of the most high-profile research areas in political science and related disciplines. Far-right parties have been the subject of vast amounts of varied scholarship since their turn-of-the-century resurgence. However, as the far right has become a mainstay, with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 blurring the boundaries between mainstream and far-right politics, it has become crucial …
Articulations of Islamophobia: From the Extreme to the Mainstream
This article examines the construction, functions and relationship between the diverse and changing articulations of Islamophobia. The aim is to contribute to debates about the definition of Islamophobia, which have tended to be contextually specific, fixed and/or polarized between racism and religious prejudice, between extreme and mainstream, state and non-state versions, or undifferentiated, and offer a more nuanced framework to: (a) delineate…
Populism, the media, and the mainstreaming of the far right: The Guardian ’s coverage of populism as a case study
Populism seems to define our current political age. The term is splashed across the headlines, brandished in political speeches and commentaries, and applied extensively in numerous academic publications and conferences. This pervasive usage, or populist hype, has serious implications for our understanding of the meaning of populism itself and for our interpretation of the phenomena to which it is applied. In particular, we argue that its common …
Populism, public opinion, and the mainstreaming of the far right: The ‘immigration issue’ and the construction of a reactionary ‘people
While mainstream elite actors with the ability to shape public discourse (politicians, academics, and the media) generally oppose far-right politics, it is widely argued that such politics represent democratic populist grievances, whether cultural or economic: ‘this is what the people want’ and the mainstream should listen. Building on discourse theoretical approaches, this article uses opinion surveys on immigration to argue that rather than fol…
Really existing liberalism, the bulwark fantasy, and the enabling of reactionary, far right politics1
There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now. (O'Neill, 1943) Therefore, I propose that core to the current panic over "illiberalism" and "populism" is a fantasy (Glynos, 2021) whose discourse uncritically posits liberalism and liberal democracy as a natural bulwark against reaction. This narrative, born out of the Second World War and the defeat of fascism and Nazism, is based on a simplistic, mythologizing re…
Epistemologies of ignorance in far right studies: The invisibilisation of racism and whiteness in times of populist hype
Research on the far right has been a booming field for decades now, with far-right parties generally being much more researched than their right, centre and left counterparts, even when they are marginal in terms of politics or electoral support. Yet, for a field that is notorious for its lively definitional debates and tendency to evolve and reinvent itself terminologically, it has appeared unwilling to engage with the concepts of race, racism a…
Othering, peaking, populism and moral panics: The reactionary strategies of organised transphobia
This article shows that organised transphobia is promoted using similar strategies and politics as the wider reactionary movement which has become increasingly mainstream. In particular, we outline the transphobic process of 'othering' based on moral panics, which seeks to construct, homogenise and exaggerate a threat and to naturalise it in the bodies and existence of the 'Other'. Reactionary politics rely on authoritarian tendencies and strateg…
The French secular hypocrisy: The extreme right, the Republic and the battle for hegemony
The success of the extreme right in France in the past two decades has not been limited to its electoral rise. A more long-lasting victory has taken place in the ideological field, where the discourse of the extreme right now occupies a prominent place in the mainstream liberal democratic agenda. Increasingly, its ideas are seen in the media and in the platforms of mainstream parties as ‘common sense’ or at least acceptable. The growing acceptanc…
The Front National in the Twenty-First Century: From Pariah to Republican Democratic Contender
The impressive result obtained by Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential elections has raised many questions regarding her ability to break the glass ceiling which many had thought unreachable for the Front National (FN). For some, this progression in the polls was a consequence of the softening of the discourse of the party and Le Pen moving away from her father's more radical stance. However, the fact that this rise came after five years of Sar…
Nicolas Sarkozy's legitimization of the Front National: Background and perspectives
In the ‘poor’ result achieved by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2007 presidential elections, many commentators saw the demise of the Front National. However, when asked by a journalist whether it was the end of her father's political career, Marine Le Pen smilingly replied: ‘I don't think so. In any case, this is the victory of his ideas!’ In this question and answer lies the whole story of the Front National and its impact on mainstream politics in th…
The Moral Panic of Islamo-gauchisme in Service of a Colorblind Approach to Racism
This essay frames Islamo-gauchisme as a moral panic and discusses how, why, and when it emerged as such in France, its relationship with critical race theory (a moral panic in the U.S.), and the broader societal implications of Islamo-gauchisme as a moral panic. More precisely, we discuss how and why Islamo-gauchisme entered the zeitgeist and why this moral panic is so dangerous. We demonstrate that this reinforces the colorblind hegemonic unders…
Get off your high horse and vote for us’: The anti-populist construction of the elite and the people
Recent research on populism has shown how anti-populist politics have served to discredit alternatives to the status quo by constructing them as threats to democracy, creating false equivalences between vastly different political projects. Yet, while the people of populism are often represented as a threat, it would be a mistake to conclude that anti-populist discourse is equivalent to faith in the elite. We explore how elites and peoples are con…
Populism, the ‘people’ and the illusion of democracy – The Front National and Ukip in a comparative context
An Australian immunisation to the extreme right
Unlike many of its western counterparts, Australia has been spared powerful surges of the extreme right throughout its history. While the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw European democracies threatened time and time again by movements relying on ethno-exclusivism and thriving on capitalist crises, Australia suffered only relatively weak extreme right bursts whose impact remained marginal. Even the rise of the One Nation Party in 1996, as s…
The roots of reactionary tech oligarchy and the need for radical democratic alternatives
The aim for this commentary is two-fold: first, we seek to outline how decades of liberal “post-democratic” hegemony—prevalent across liberal democratic parliaments, journalism, and academia—have enabled the rise of reactionary tech oligarchy. Second, we call for cross-disciplinary and cross-societal alliances that not only reject depoliticized euphemisms such as “polarization,” “populism,” and “post-truth,” but also actively commit to building r…
Hegemonic defeatism: The mainstreaming of far-right politics in France
Another European election, another ‘earthquake’ in France. For the third time in a row, the far-right Rassemblement National has won and for the third time, the reaction from the mainstream elite only serves to further mainstream its politics. This could not be better exemplified than in Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call for a new legislative election and appoint a right-wing Prime Minister, despite the results. The aim of this article is to cou…
The far and extreme right in documentaries: Euphemisation, Exceptionalisation, and Humanisation
Much debate has taken place recently on the way in which far and extreme right actors are portrayed by mainstream media. Building on an international corpus of 30 documentaries, we combine discourse theory, corpus linguistics, and multimodal critical discourse analysis to examine how far and extreme right actors are portrayed in documentaries, a format of growing discursive importance which has been under-researched thus far. Our analysis contrib…
The mainstreaming of the far right in France: Republican, liberal and illiberal articulations of racism
In this interview, Aurelien Mondon and Simon Dawes analyse the mainstreaming of far-right politics. It aims to make sense of Marine Le Pen's rise by putting it in perspective and accounting for the role of the mainstream itself in the process. Building on the research Mondon has undertaken with colleagues, this interview explores in particular the importance of understanding mainstreaming beyond it being the success of the far right or a sign of …
From Objectivist Bias to Positivist Bias: A Constructivist Critique of the Attitudes Approach to Populism
This article undertakes a critique of the attitudes approach to populism, predicated on survey-based operationalisations of populism as a set of attitudes. Our critique is threefold: first, the move of reducing ‘the elite’ to ‘the politicians’ in survey items – beginning with the foundational Akkerman scale – is at odds with the constructivist underpinnings of Mudde’s ideational definition that this literature largely draws on, where ‘the people’…
Nicolas Sarkozy's legitimization of the Front National: Background and perspectives
In the ‘poor’ result achieved by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2007 presidential elections, many commentators saw the demise of the Front National. However, when asked by a journalist whether it was the end of her father's political career, Marine Le Pen smilingly replied: ‘I don't think so. In any case, this is the victory of his ideas!’ In this question and answer lies the whole story of the Front National and its impact on mainstream politics in th…
An Australian immunisation to the extreme right
Unlike many of its western counterparts, Australia has been spared powerful surges of the extreme right throughout its history. While the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw European democracies threatened time and time again by movements relying on ethno-exclusivism and thriving on capitalist crises, Australia suffered only relatively weak extreme right bursts whose impact remained marginal. Even the rise of the One Nation Party in 1996, as s…
Le Front national entre extrémisme, populisme et démocratie
Le Front national entre extrémisme, populisme et démocratie." Modern & Contemporary France, 23(2), pp. 280–281
The Front National in the Twenty-First Century: From Pariah to Republican Democratic Contender
The impressive result obtained by Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential elections has raised many questions regarding her ability to break the glass ceiling which many had thought unreachable for the Front National (FN). For some, this progression in the polls was a consequence of the softening of the discourse of the party and Le Pen moving away from her father's more radical stance. However, the fact that this rise came after five years of Sar…
Populism, the ‘people’ and the illusion of democracy – The Front National and Ukip in a comparative context
The French secular hypocrisy: The extreme right, the Republic and the battle for hegemony
The success of the extreme right in France in the past two decades has not been limited to its electoral rise. A more long-lasting victory has taken place in the ideological field, where the discourse of the extreme right now occupies a prominent place in the mainstream liberal democratic agenda. Increasingly, its ideas are seen in the media and in the platforms of mainstream parties as ‘common sense’ or at least acceptable. The growing acceptanc…
The Mainstreaming of the Extreme Right in France and Australia: A Populist Hegemony?
What has led to the recent revival of the extreme right in Western democracies such as France and Australia, and what impact has their success had on mainstream politics? What shift has taken place in recent times as ideas and groups that once were considered marginal and undemocratic have come to play an important part in mainstream politics? This book addresses these key questions by examining the resurgence of the extreme right in France and A…
Mainstreaming of the Extreme Right in France and Australia: A Populist Hegemony
After Charlie Hebdo: Terror, Racism and Free Speech
As the world looked on in horror at the Paris terror attacks of January and November 2015, France found itself at the centre of a war that has split across nations and continents. The attacks set in motion a steady creep towards ever more repressive state surveillance, and have fuelled the resurgence of the far right across Europe and beyond, while leaving the left dangerously divided. These developments raise profound questions about a number of…
Charlie Hebdo, Republican Secularism and Islamophobia
Articulations of Islamophobia: From the Extreme to the Mainstream
This article examines the construction, functions and relationship between the diverse and changing articulations of Islamophobia. The aim is to contribute to debates about the definition of Islamophobia, which have tended to be contextually specific, fixed and/or polarized between racism and religious prejudice, between extreme and mainstream, state and non-state versions, or undifferentiated, and offer a more nuanced framework to: (a) delineate…
Critical research on populism: Nine rules of engagement
This article formulates precise questions and ‘rules of engagement’ designed to advance our understanding of the role populism can and should play in the present political conjuncture, with potentially significant implications for critical management and organization studies and beyond. Drawing on the work of Ernesto Laclau and others working within the post-Marxist discourse-theory tradition, we defend a concept of populism understood as a form …
The Radical Right in Australia
Compared to its European counterparts, Australia was for the most part spared the rise of powerful extreme right movements, and at times appeared immune to their appeal. However, rather than immunity, the absence of extreme right politics can be explained by the ability and willingness of mainstream politics to readily, openly, and officially absorb such values. This chapter discusses how, for most of the country’s history, Australian mainstream …
Whiteness, populism and the racialisation of the working class in the United Kingdom and the United States
The election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote were widely hailed as examples of (white) working class revolts. This article examines the populist racialisation of the working class as white and ‘left behind’, and representative of the ‘people’ or ‘demos’, in the campaigns and commentaries. We argue that such constructions made race central, obscured the class make-up, allowed for the re-assertion of white identity as a legitimate political cat…
Returning to Reactionary Democracy: Reviews, responses and reflections
It has been a humbling process to see Reactionary Democracy engaged with so thoroughly by scholars we respect and admire. We were pleased to read that the book provided food for thought for the fou
Populism, the media, and the mainstreaming of the far right: The Guardian ’s coverage of populism as a case study
Populism seems to define our current political age. The term is splashed across the headlines, brandished in political speeches and commentaries, and applied extensively in numerous academic publications and conferences. This pervasive usage, or populist hype, has serious implications for our understanding of the meaning of populism itself and for our interpretation of the phenomena to which it is applied. In particular, we argue that its common …
The Moral Panic of Islamo-gauchisme in Service of a Colorblind Approach to Racism
This essay frames Islamo-gauchisme as a moral panic and discusses how, why, and when it emerged as such in France, its relationship with critical race theory (a moral panic in the U.S.), and the broader societal implications of Islamo-gauchisme as a moral panic. More precisely, we discuss how and why Islamo-gauchisme entered the zeitgeist and why this moral panic is so dangerous. We demonstrate that this reinforces the colorblind hegemonic unders…
The mainstreaming of the far right in France: Republican, liberal and illiberal articulations of racism
In this interview, Aurelien Mondon and Simon Dawes analyse the mainstreaming of far-right politics. It aims to make sense of Marine Le Pen's rise by putting it in perspective and accounting for the role of the mainstream itself in the process. Building on the research Mondon has undertaken with colleagues, this interview explores in particular the importance of understanding mainstreaming beyond it being the success of the far right or a sign of …
Epistemologies of ignorance in far right studies: The invisibilisation of racism and whiteness in times of populist hype
Research on the far right has been a booming field for decades now, with far-right parties generally being much more researched than their right, centre and left counterparts, even when they are marginal in terms of politics or electoral support. Yet, for a field that is notorious for its lively definitional debates and tendency to evolve and reinvent itself terminologically, it has appeared unwilling to engage with the concepts of race, racism a…
The far right, the mainstream and mainstreaming: Towards a Heuristic Framework
The study of far-right parties and politics is one of the most high-profile research areas in political science and related disciplines. Far-right parties have been the subject of vast amounts of varied scholarship since their turn-of-the-century resurgence. However, as the far right has become a mainstay, with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 blurring the boundaries between mainstream and far-right politics, it has become crucial …
The ethics of researching the far right: Critical approaches and reflections
"The ethics of researching the far right is a wide-ranging collection of critical reflections on the ethical considerations of researching, writing about, and disseminating work on the far right. Reflecting on research carried out in a range of disciplines and contexts, the contributors offer a critical starting point for discussions on how to research the far right ethically, a topic that raises a number of urgent issues. Rejecting the idea of n…
Ethics of Researching the Far Right: Critical Approaches and Reflections
From Objectivist Bias to Positivist Bias: A Constructivist Critique of the Attitudes Approach to Populism
This article undertakes a critique of the attitudes approach to populism, predicated on survey-based operationalisations of populism as a set of attitudes. Our critique is threefold: first, the move of reducing ‘the elite’ to ‘the politicians’ in survey items – beginning with the foundational Akkerman scale – is at odds with the constructivist underpinnings of Mudde’s ideational definition that this literature largely draws on, where ‘the people’…
Really existing liberalism, the bulwark fantasy, and the enabling of reactionary, far right politics1
There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now. (O'Neill, 1943) Therefore, I propose that core to the current panic over "illiberalism" and "populism" is a fantasy (Glynos, 2021) whose discourse uncritically posits liberalism and liberal democracy as a natural bulwark against reaction. This narrative, born out of the Second World War and the defeat of fascism and Nazism, is based on a simplistic, mythologizing re…
Researching and Understanding Far-Right Politics in Times of Mainstreaming
Contemporary research on far-right politics has relied predominantly on the use of binaries between the ‘far/extreme/(populist) radical right’ and the so-called ‘mainstream’, and a ‘waves’ metaphor to historicise different eras of the post-World War Two far-right. In this article, we probe these categories and binaries, problematising hegemonic depictions, the consequent assumptions underpinning them, and what this means for resistance to reactio…
Political science (31 works) · Law (28 works) · Politics (27 works) · Sociology (27 works) · Populism, Right-Wing Movements (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Political economy (14 works) · Populism (13 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Mainstream (10 works)