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Ultranationalist discourses of exclusion: a comparison between the Hungarian Jobbik and the Greek Golden Dawn
Abstract
In this paper I present the extensive discourse analysis of texts produced by the electorally exceptionally successful Greek and Hungarian ultranationalist parties. I first demonstrate that although both have adopted the topics, arguments and rhetorical figures of racist discourse, they differ in the relative importance they attach to culture and biology. That is, while GD imposes rigid, impermeable boundaries to a nation bound together by the ties of common ancestry, excluding ‘others’ on grounds of purported racial inferiority, Jobbik focuses more on culture as the dominant marker that separates off ‘us’ from ‘them’. I then try to explain the emergent patterns by relating them to context-specific categorisation strategies as well as the historically constituted conceptions of ‘Greekness’ and ‘Hungarianness’. I show that the construction of ‘otherness’ is markedly different in the two societies in terms of the chosen ‘enemies’, the preferred identity-markers as well as the processes of boundary drawing. The findings demonstrate that we need to think in a more differentiated way about the possible configurations of the culture/biology and difference/superiority nexus as shaped by the historically constituted and deeply rooted perceptions of difference in each context.
... al, 2020;Tsoutsoumpis, 2018;Lamprianou and Ellinas, 2017;Karamanidou, 2016;Dinas et. al, 2016;Kyriazi, 2016;Vasilopoulou and Halikiopoulou, 2015;Toloudis, 2014;Prinos, 2014;Ellinas, 2013;Dalakoglou, 2013, Psarras, 2012. So far, however, no studies have addressed the media coverage of GD's trial. ...
In September 2013, Pavlos Fyssas, a known musician and antifascist, was fatally stabbed by a Golden Dawn member. His death led to the arrest of the party’s leadership and the commencement of a trial which lasted almost 5.5 years and came to a close on October 7th 2020, adjudging the party’s leadership to be guilty of running a criminal organisation. The trial of Golden Dawn effectively brought about the end of the Neo-Nazi political party - once Greece’s third most popular party. Being branded as the biggest trial of Nazi criminality since the Nuremberg Trial, it also became a landmark in international modern history. Despite that, the trial received a disproportionate amount of coverage in proportion to its significance. The aforementioned come in contrast to mainstream medias’ earlier stance towards Golden Dawn, especially in the years from 2010 to 2013, when despite the party’s clearly aggressive ideology, rhetoric and activities, it received unprecedented media coverage that facilitated its legitimization. Existing research has shed light to the party’s relationship with and representation in the Greek mass media, however, no study has so far been preoccupied with media coverage of Golden Dawn’s trial. Examining a total of 257 articles published in three daily newspapers of political standpoints along the left-right spectrum of political opinion in Greece, this study investigates how the mainstream, traditional press managed the coverage of the trial’s culmination. Utilising frame analysis, the reconstructed sets of frames were critically analysed to uncover how the press framed the trial,the range of opinions represented through the publications, and its contribution to public debates around the Far-Right in Greece. Founded on an identified gap in the pre-existing research, this study offers a better understanding of the way in which mass media depict major events in society and in doing so it makes a timely contribution in the study of the Far-Right in Greece.
... Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, Jobbik). Originally founded in 2003 with close links to the nationalist movements, and paramilitary organizations(Kyriazi 2015), Jobbik entered the political scene by joining forces with the anti-Semitic Hungarian Justice and Life Party (Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja, MIÉP), and together they received 2.2% of vote in the 2006 elections. This initial difficulty notwithstanding, Jobbik's support grew over the following years, eventually rising to 14.47% of the vote in the 2010 parliamentary elections. ...
... There can be no discussion of the far-right in Hungary without a consideration of the main Hungarian right-wing populist party: the Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, Jobbik). Originally founded in 2003 with close links to the nationalist movements, and paramilitary organizations (Kyriazi 2015), Jobbik entered the political scene by joining forces with the anti-Semitic Hungarian Justice and Life Party (Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja, MIÉP), and together they received 2.2% of vote in the 2006 elections. This initial difficulty notwithstanding, Jobbik's support grew over the following years, eventually rising to 14.47% of the vote in the 2010 parliamentary elections. ...
In a country where welfare chauvinism and anti-migrant rhetoric is commonplace among citizens, and the norm in the political sphere, it is no wonder that far-right protest organizations and movements thrive as they do. This chapter looks at several Hungarian far-right organizations, including those of the more traditional far-right movement, and the Hungarian chapter of the identitarian organization network Generation Identity, with their heavily anti-immigrant rhetoric. Common among the traditional Hungarian far-right movement is a nostalgia for a time when Hungarians were “pure”, before closer interaction and integration with their European neighbors. This nostalgia is simultaneously combined with the seemingly contradictory belief in the importance of Christianity and Christian values. This chapter explores the attitudes and identities of organizations in the Hungarian nationalist movement, and presents data from interviews with far-right activists from the Hungarian Defense Movement (Magyar Önvédelmi Mozgalom), to gain an understanding of the politics of culture among Hungarian far-right movement activists.
... Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, Jobbik). Originally founded in 2003 with close links to the nationalist movements, and paramilitary organizations(Kyriazi 2015), Jobbik entered the political scene by joining forces with the anti-Semitic Hungarian Justice and Life Party (Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja, MIÉP), and together they received 2.2% of vote in the 2006 elections. This initial difficulty notwithstanding, Jobbik's support grew over the following years, eventually rising to 14.47% of the vote in the 2010 parliamentary elections. ...
This open access book shows how the politics of migration affect community building in the 21st century, drawing on both retrogressive and progressive forms of mobilization. It elaborates theoretically and shows empirically how the two master frames of nostalgia and hope are used in local, national and transnational settings, in and outside conventional forms of doing politics. It expands on polarized societal processes and external events relevant for the transformation of European welfare systems and the reproduction of national identities today. It evidences the importance of gender in the narrative use of the master frames of nostalgia and hope, either as an ideological tool for right-wing populist and extreme right retrogressive mobilization or as an essential element of progressive intersectional politics of hope. It uses both comparative and single case studies to address different perspectives, and by means of various methodological approaches, the manner in which the master frames of nostalgia and hope are articulated in the politics of culture, welfare, and migration. The book is organized around three thematic sections whereby the first section deals with right-wing populist party politics across Europe, the second section deals with an articulation of politics beyond party politics by means of retrogressive mobilization, and the third and last section deals with emancipatory initiatives beyond party politics as well.
... Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, Jobbik). Originally founded in 2003 with close links to the nationalist movements, and paramilitary organizations(Kyriazi 2015), Jobbik entered the political scene by joining forces with the anti-Semitic Hungarian Justice and Life Party (Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja, MIÉP), and together they received 2.2% of vote in the 2006 elections. This initial difficulty notwithstanding, Jobbik's support grew over the following years, eventually rising to 14.47% of the vote in the 2010 parliamentary elections. ...
This chapter examines differences in the discourses on migration from two socio-economically similar countries—Denmark and Sweden. It employs the notion of conventional discourse to show how cultural identity and welfare politics intersect in the policy debates and blogospheres of the two countries. It also shows that a discursive shift had already occurred in the mainstream political discourse in Denmark before the 2015 refugee crisis—a discourse in which the dominant view is that cultural diversity is incompatible with social cohesion and thus a perceived threat to the welfare system. The same line of thinking is prevalent in Denmark’s blogosphere. In contrast, Sweden’s cultural issues have been consistently associated with redistributive policies in the mainstream political discourse, and these vary along the Left versus Right ideological cleavage. However, in Sweden’s blogosphere, welfare chauvinism and opposition to multiculturalism appear to be equally as strong as in Denmark.
... His comment suggests an acute atunement with an important discourse exalting ancient Greek heritage that is often invoked as a marker of legitimate Greek identity. It is a discourse that cuts across most political allegiances including, most problematically, with those of the far right (cf. Kyriazi, 2016). ...
This paper engages with the lived and experiential aspects of (trans)national identities in childhood, through the exploration of an ethnographic biography of a Greek‐Albanian boy in Athens. Through a grounded ethnographic approach, we examine the ways in which he experiences and negotiates his (trans)national identity. Our analysis demonstrates the everyday subtle and sophisticated understanding of the complexities and contradictions of national identities, and the child's own positioning within that. In conclusion, we suggest that interdisciplinary approaches should be assumed in the study of (trans)national identities in childhood, and ones that are grounded in children's own meaning making of their experiences of such identities.
... On the other hand, the leader of the ultranationalist JOBBIK party, Gábor Vona described his party as "a principled, conservative and radically patriotic Christian party," whose "fundamental purpose" is the protection of "Hungarian values and interests" (Vona, 2008). More generally, JOBBIK went into the elections focusing on Hungarian culture as the dominant marker that separates off "us" from "them" (Kyriazi, 2016). The nationalism, xenophobia and sociocultural conservatism of JOBBIK makes it a typical radical right party (we do not distinguish between "extreme right," "far-right," "extreme rightwing" or "radical right"). ...
We investigated the “rigidity of the right” hypothesis in the context of the far‐right breakthrough in the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary elections. This hypothesis suggests that psychological characteristics having to do with need for security and certainty attract people to a broad‐based right‐wing ideology. A nationally representative sample (N = 1000) in terms of age, gender and place of residence was collected by means of the random walking method and face‐to‐face interviews. Voters of JOBBIK (n = 124), the radically nationalist conservative far‐right party, scored lower on System Justifying Belief, Belief in a Just World (Global) and higher on Need for Cognition than other voters. Our results contradict the “rigidity of the right” hypothesis: JOBBIK voters scored, on many measures, opposite to what the hypothesis would predict.
... Szabó, 2013) -with a special emphasis on the party's outstanding support among the youth (A. Szabó, 2013) -, the construction of the party's internal organization (Kovarek and Soós, 2016), policy relevance and legislative influence (Böcskei and Molnár, 2017), rhetoric and discourse (Pytlas, 2013;Vidra and Fox, 2014;Petsinis, 2015;Kyriazi, 2016), electoral campaigns (Zentai, 2011) and ideology (Enyedi, 2016). The latest works also focus on the de-radicalization of Jobbik, emphasizing that efforts to establish a more moderate and 'detoxified' image were restricted to communications and campaigns, and left the party's elite and rankand-file membership largely untouched (Krekó and Mayer, 2015;Bíró-Nagy and Boros, 2016;Kovarek and Farkas, 2017). ...
The far-right has been widely studied in the last decades, but little attention has been paid to its local activities. Nonetheless, in countries without far-right national government records, like Hungary, this might be the only way to explore the aims and characteristics of the former parties. This study sets out to explore the activities and main policy initiatives of local far-right leadership in Hungary that are driven by ideological scapegoating mechanisms. The research this paper is based on employed qualitative techniques-in-depth interviews and content analysis of local sources-to grasp the patterns of the local governance of Jobbik. The main foci of the fieldwork-based research are the manifestations of enemy images and ideological scapegoating in the field of symbolic politics, Roma-non-Roma cohabitation, social policy, the public work scheme and public safety-fields where (Jobbik) mayors have substantial room for maneuver, and also areas to which the party's ideological predisposition and scapegoating can be traced back. The paper also examines how local enemy images relate to national ones and to the political strategy of Jobbik during a period when the party underwent important changes such as moderation and de-radicalization, having lost their ownership of the migration issue and witnessed the government take over the monopoly on enemy images. The analysis reveals how Jobbik-mayors employ conscious strategies for enemy-making and scapegoating with respect to-chiefly, but not exclusively-the Roma population, and how this drives the policies they try to implement. The research also sheds light on the remarkable tension between ideological and pragmatic considerations, and on how the former limits the enforcement of scapegoat-based policies.
... In May and June 2012, in the first national electoral contests that took place in Greece after the eruption of the crisis, the Golden Dawn gained 7.0 and 6.9% of the vote respectively, marking a dramatic rise. Despite the extremity of its ideology and its use of violence, the party sustained its support in Reflecting on the party's electoral breakthrough and its relevance within the broader context of increasing far-right party support, existing work has focused on the party's rise within the context of economic crisis (Ellinas 2013; Vasilopoulou and Halikiopoulou 2015; Halikiopoulou and Vasilopoulou 2016), its discourse (Kyriazi 2016), its organisational structures (Ellinas and Lamprianou forthcoming), and its local support (Dinas et al. 2013; Koronaiou and Sakellariou 2013). However, none of the existing research has examined the effects of the Golden Dawn's rise on the dynamics of party competition in Greece. ...
his paper focuses on the impact of the Golden Dawn on the dynamics of domestic party competition by examining whether there has been a change in issue salience since the party’s dramatic rise. Our main goal is to examine the salience of topics in the Golden Dawn’s agenda from a comparative perspective vis-à-vis the other actors in the system, in order to identify whether attention on particular issues has shifted. We examine programmatic and ideological materials produced by the Golden Dawn and its competitor parties, including election manifestos and public speeches. We analyse these documents through the employment of a comprehensive framework for coding policy agendas provided by the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP). We find no direct effect on the salience of the immigration issue. However, there is a rise of nationalism across the party system.
There has been a lack of research examining how right-wing extremist groups justify their key claims online to reach a broader audience. This question is even more worrisome when considering a Canadian context, given Canada’s state policies on multiculturalism and intolerance of hateful rhetoric. My research draws on the gaps within the literature of right-wing extremism, online spaces, and justification of discourse by conducting a content analysis of 300 Facebook and Twitter posts from the accounts of three Canadian right-wing extremist groups, ID Canada, Soldiers of Odin BC, and Yellow Vests Canada. This article proposes the use of French theorist Boltanski and Thévenot’s sociology of critical capacity common worlds to help explain how right-wing extremist groups make arguments that are quite extreme to a broad audience of people on social media. Such claims include advocating for a homogenized Canadian identity and Canadian values, promoting a belief in social decay, and supporting authoritarianism. However, these claims are not overt; rather right-wing extremist groups discuss apolitical topics to mask controversial views.
In their attempts to associate the nationalistic ideology with speculative promises to emancipate the people from malevolent ‘outsiders’, right‐wing populists often engage with rural and agricultural topics. Meanwhile, green parties, commonly associated with the progressive ideas of environmentally‐friendly agriculture, occasionally employ the binary logic of agrarian populism. This paper has three objectives. First, to identify the discursive features of rural (right‐wing and agrarian) populism. Second, to examine how these discursive differences unfold in agricultural, party politics. Third, to examine the implications of overlapping ideas of populist and green parties for emancipatory rural politics. The study is predominantly based on the analysis of political discourses in Hungary: Jobbik (right‐wing populist) and LMP (green party), while the agricultural discourse of Fidesz, the ruling right‐wing populist party will serve as the background to the analysis. Particular attention is given to the aesthetic, symbolic, and material dimensions of land in discourse, including environmentally‐friendly farming and the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
This comprehensive study of party competition in Europe since 2008 aids understanding of the recent, often dramatic, changes taking place in European politics. It addresses how the multiple crises that Europe faces have affected the intensity and structure of party competition, and whether we are seeing a wave of 'critical elections' which will reshape European politics for years to come. The geographical scope of the book covers fifteen European countries, including cases from North-Western Europe (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland), Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain), and Central-Eastern Europe (Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Romania). Using original data from a large-scale content analysis of mass media, and the debates among parties in election campaigns, this book provides clear graphical presentations of the results, appealing to a wide readership of students, scholars, journalists, practitioners, and the politically interested public.
[N]either the far right nor the ‘anti-European populists’ are on track to win a significant victory in the upcoming European Parliament elections.
Populist right-wing politics is moving centre-stage, with some parties reaching the very top of the electoral ladder: but do we know why, and why now?
In this book Ruth Wodak traces the trajectories of such parties from the margins of the political landscape to its centre, to understand and explain how they are transforming from fringe voices to persuasive political actors who set the agenda and frame media debates. Laying bare the normalization of nationalistic, xenophobic, racist and antisemitic rhetoric, she builds a new framework for this ‘politics of fear’ that is entrenching new social divides of nation, gender and body.
The result reveals the micro-politics of right-wing populism: how discourses, genres, images and texts are performed and manipulated in both formal and also everyday contexts with profound consequences. This book is a must-read for scholars and students of linguistics, media and politics wishing to understand these dynamics that are re-shaping our political space.
Albanian immigration to Greece started in the beginning of the 1990s and the second generation of Albanian immigrants is a recent phenomenon. This paper presents the findings of research investigating language maintenance/shift among second generation Albanian immigrants in Athens using as main informants adolescents of Albanian origin. Quantitative and qualitative data on children's language competence and on patterns of language use within Albanian households indicate that the Albanian ethnolinguistic group is undergoing rapid language shift. For the social psychological dimension of the study, data were gathered by utilising the concept of ethnolinguistic vitality and some items of the subjective vitality questionnaire (SVQ). The SVQ data indicate low vitality perceptions among second generation Albanian immigrants. Finally, while Albanian parents express positive attitudes to language maintenance, in practice many do not take the necessary measures for intergenerational language transmission.
This article makes the case for a novel democratic subtype, populist democracy, indicating a situation in which both the party in office and at least the major opposition force(s) in a pluralist system are populist. Based on a minimal definition of populism as ‘democratic illiberalism’, and through the comparative analysis of post-authoritarian Greece and post-communist Hungary, the article reveals the particular stages, as well as the causal mechanisms, that may prompt the emergence of populist democracy in contemporary politics. It also points to the tendency of such systems to produce polarized two-party systems, and it calls for further research on the topic.
In recent years, the concept of boundaries has been at the center of influential research agendas in anthropology, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology. This article surveys some of these developments while describing the value added provided by the concept, particularly concerning the study of relational processes. It discusses literatures on (a) social and collective identity; (b) class, ethnic/racial, and gender/sex inequality; (c) professions, knowledge, and science; and (d) communities, national identities, and spatial boundaries. It points to similar processes at work across a range of institutions and social locations. It also suggests paths for further developments, focusing on the relationship between social and symbolic boundaries, cultural mechanisms for the production of boundaries, difference and hybridity, and cultural membership and group classifications.
The following analysis, based on a series of empirical sociological surveys, aims to explore various aspects of Hungarian national identity since the political revolution of 1989. The findings suggest that today's public opinion in Hungary is infused with intense spontaneous national identity. The concept of political nation has become evident, but cultural-historical rhetoric still determines national discourse. Multivariate analysis shows that the growth of national pride generated by the classic political nation, and particularly its economic and political structures, has brought about a relative decline in cultural themes. While during the whole period strong ethnocentrism and xenophobia have characterized public attitudes, the political ideologies justifying national existence are important determinants of national identity. Economic nationalism is manifested in the protection of Hungarian goods; political nationalism emphasizes the political supremacy of national interests; and cultural nationalism draws a sharp line between perceived Hungarian and alien cultures, giving unilateral political preference to the former. Recent results reveal that nationalism is still a significant psychological and political force in Hungarian society. Statements expressing a one-sided protection of national interests demonstrate a particularly strong impact in the economic sphere, while political and cultural nationalism divide Hungarian respondents. Several empirical explanatory models provide an insight into the complexity of the cognitive structures that stir Hungarian nationalism up to the present.
Roma people are the most numerous and most disadvantaged of all ethnic minority groups living in contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. The use of the category of Roma varies a great deal in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. While the stereotypes, attitudes and prejudices concerning the Roma minority suggest the presence of a highly homogenised and unified group, the actual population meant by the category of Roma varies according to the nature of the encounter. Moreover, not only do members of the non-Roma majority fail to agree who is Roma and who is not Roma, but there is no match between the results of the outgroup and ingroup categorisation. This mismatch is especially striking in Hungary. Explanatory models presented in this paper show differences in the structure of sociological determinants of categorisation between the three countries studied. As far as the nature of outgroup categorisation is concerned, the study showed that, compared to the general level of prejudice of the population, the anti-Gypsy prejudice is significantly less intense among the non-Roma interviewers in the survey, whose task was to categorise the respondents, but interviewers cannot be considered to have no anti-Gypsy bias altogether.
This article focuses on the two most significant forms taken by ideological mutations of the fascist species of radical right in the hostile climate of post-war Europe: internationalization (Eurofascism, Universal Nazism, Third Positionism), and metapoliticization (Revisionism, the New Right, cyberfascism). It goes on to argue that the 'democratic fascism' of some political parties is emblematic of the extreme marginalization of revolutionary nationalism, and that the most potent species of radical right ideology now consists in ethnocratic perversions of liberalism, which help perpetuate Europe's less than democratic impact on the global community.
WHAT DEMOCRACY IS ... AND IS NOT Philippe C. Schmitter & Terry Lynn Karl Philippe C. Schmitter is professor of political science and director of the Center for European Studies at Stanford University. Terry Lynn Karl is associate professor of political science and director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the same institution. The original, longer version of this essay was written at the request of the United States Agency for International Development, which is not responsible for its content. For some time, the word democracy has been circulating as a debased currency in the political marketplace. Politicians with a wide range of convictions and practices strove to appropriate the label and attach it to their actions. Scholars, conversely, hesitated to use it -- without adding qualifying adjectives -- because of the ambiguity that surrounds it. The distinguished American political theorist Robert Dahl even tried to introduce a new term, "polyarchy," in its stead in the (vain) hope of gaining a greater measure of conceptual precision. But for better or worse, we are "stuck" with democracy as the catchword of contemporary political discourse. It is the word that resonates in people's minds and springs from their lips as they struggle for freedom and a better way of life; it is the word whose meaning we must discern if it is to be of any use in guiding political analysis and practice. The wave of transitions away from autocratic rule that began with Portugal's "Revolution of the Carnations" in 1974 and seems to have crested with the collapse of communist regimes across Eastern Europe in 1989 has produced a welcome convergence towards a common definition of democracy. ~ Everywhere there has been a silent abandonment of dubious adjectives like "popular," "guided," "bourgeois," and "formal" to modify "democracy." At the same time, a remarkable consensus has emerged concerning the minimal conditions that polities must meet in order to merit the prestigious appellation of "democratic." Moreover, a number of international organizations now monitor how well Journal of Democracy Vol.2, No.3 Summer 1991 76 Journal of Democracy these standards are met; indeed, some countries even consider them when formulating foreign policy. 2 What Democracy Is Let us begin by broadly defining democracy and the generic concepts that distinguish it as a unique system for organizing relations between rulers and the ruled. We will then briefly review procedures, the rules and arrangements that are needed if democracy is to endure. Finally, we will discuss two operative principles that make democracy work. They are not expressly included among the generic concepts or formal procedures, but the prospect for democracy is grim if their underlying conditioning effects are not present. One of the major themes of this essay is that democracy does not consist of a single unique set of institutions. There are many types of democracy, and their diverse practices produce a similarly varied set of effects. The specific form democracy takes is contingent upon a country's socioeconomic conditions as well as its entrenched state structures and policy practices. Modern political democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives. 3 A regime or system of governance is an ensemble of patterns that determines the methods of access to the principal public offices; the characteristics of the actors admitted to or excluded from such access; the strategies that actors may use to gain access; and the rules that are followed in the making of publicly binding decisions. To work properly, the ensemble must be institutionalized that is to say, the various patterns must be habitually known, practiced, and accepted by most, if not all, actors. Increasingly, the preferred mechanism of institutionalization is a written body of laws undergirded by a written constitution, though many enduring political norms can have an informal, prudential, or traditional basis. 4 For the sake of economy and comparison, these forms, characteristics, and rules are usually bundled together and given a generic label. Democratic is one; others are autocratic, authoritarian, despotic, dictatorial, tyrannical, totalitarian, absolutist, traditional, monarchic, oligarchic, plutocratic, aristocratic, and sultanistic) Each of these regime forms...
In all immigration societies, a social distinction between immigrant and second generations, on the one hand, and natives, on the other, is imposed by the ethnic majority and becomes a sociologically complex fault line. Building on a comparison of second-generation Mexicans in the U.S., North Africans in France, and Turks in Germany, this article argues that the concepts associated with boundary processes offer the best opportunity to understand the ramifications of this distinction. The difference between bright boundaries, which involve no ambiguity about membership, and blurred ones, which do, is hypothesized to be associated with the prospects and processes of assimilation and exclusion. The institutionalization of boundaries is examined in the key domains of citizenship, religion, language, and race. The analysis leads to the specific conclusion that blurred boundaries generally characterize the situation of Mexicans in the U.S., with race the great, albeit not well understood, exception, while bright boundaries characterize the European context for Muslim groups.
The author reviews main theories of nationalism and criticises their lack of elaboration on the role of 'Others' in nation formation. Drawing upon anthropological, sociological and social psychological perspectives, she develops a dynamic, relational perspective for the study of national theory.
Fascists presents a theory of fascism based on intensive analysis of the men and women who became fascists. It covers the six European countries in which fascism became most dominant - Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Spain. It is a comprehensive analysis of who fascists actually were, what beliefs they held and what actions they committed. The book suggests that fascism was essentially a product of post World War I conditions in Europe and is unlikely to re-appear in its classic garb in the future. Nonetheless, elements of its ideology remain relevant to modern conditions and are now re-appearing, though mainly in different parts of the world.
What explains the dramatic rise of the extreme, ultranationalist Golden Dawn in a country that has experienced Nazi invasion and a military dictatorship? This book places the rise of the Golden Dawn in the context of the Eurozone crisis and argues that its rise is not merely the product of economic malaise. Rather, the success of the Golden Dawn is dependent on the extent to which it was able to propound plausible solutions to the three sets of crises - economic, political and ideological - that culminated in an overall crisis of democracy in Greece. The authors argue that much of the party's success can be attributed to its strategic choice to tap into the widespread disillusionment of the Greek people by offering them a 'nationalist solution': a rhetoric that emphasizes the twin fascist myths of social decadence and national rebirth.
The article examines the rise of the one of the most extremist political parties in Europe, Golden Dawn. It sketches the historical trajectory of the Greek far right, examines the ideological, organisational and voter profile of Golden Dawn, and offers possible explanations for its breakthrough in the 2012 elections. The article shows how the economic crisis has brought a massive realignment of the Greek electorate away from mainstream parties, giving rise to anti-system and anti-immigrant sentiments. Golden Dawn's violent tactics have allowed the party to establish an anti-system and anti-immigrant profile and capitalise on these sentiments. The party's future will depend on its capacity to absorb organisationally any future tensions between party pragmatists and idealists.
In many respects, recent East European migrants in the UK look like past migrants to the UK: they left poorer parts of the world in search of work and the better life in the UK. But in other respects, they look different: they are white. Their putative whiteness, however, has not exempted them from the effects of racism. But while there is growing evidence of how they have been targets of racism, less attention has been focused on how they are also perpetrators of racism. The purpose of this paper is to compare the ways Hungarians and Romanians wield ‘race’ to assert and defend the relatively privileged position their putative whiteness affords them in the UK's segmented labour market. I argue that these migrants mark, evaluate and rank difference in racialized ways to secure both social-psychological and material benefits.
Four explanations of xenophobia and racism will be reviewed by confronting them with the results of empirical studies. I try to show that xenophobic and racist views of the social world are not instrumental to a fight for scarce jobs or housing. Neither is it appropriate to interpret them as a result of a culture clash that is caused by migratory movements across countries and continents. They are not mere radicalizations of the discourse of exclusion and devaluation which political and administrative elites generate and institutionalize, for example, in immigration policies. Starting from the insights of this critical review, I shall develop the hypothesis that xenophobia and racism should be seen as appeals to the pact of solidarity into which state and society have entered in modern nation‐states and which in times of intensified social conflicts seems fragile in the eyes of downwardly mobile groups. The xenophobic discourse serves not only to reassure identity when nationalistic self‐images run into crisis but is an element of a political struggle about who has the right to be cared for by the state and society: a fight for the collective goods of the modern state.
This article identifies an incipient and largely implicit cognitive turn in the study of ethnicity, and argues that it can be consolidated and extended by drawing on cognitive research in social psychology and anthropology. Cognitive perspectives provide resources for conceptualizing ethnicity, race, and nation as perspectives on the world rather than entities in the world, for treating ethnicity, race, and nationalism together rather than as separate subfields, and for re-specifying the old debate between primordialist and circumstantialist approaches.
Major paradigms in immigration research, including assimilation theory, multi-culturalism, and ethnic studies, take it for granted that dividing society into ethnic groups is analytically and empirically meaningful because each of these groups is characterized by a specific culture, dense networks of solidarity, and shared identity. Three major revisions of this perspective have been proposed in the comparative ethnicity literature over the past decades, leading to a renewed concern with the emergence and transformation of ethnic boundaries. In immigration research, “assimilation” and “integration” have been reconceived as potentially reversible, power-driven processes of boundary shifting. After a synthetic summary of the major theoretical propositions of this emerging paradigm, I offer suggestions on how to bring it to fruition in future empirical research. First, major mechanisms and factors influencing the dynamics of ethnic boundary-making are specified, emphasizing the need to disentangle them from other dynamics unrelated to ethnicity. I then discuss a series of promising research designs, most based on nonethnic units of observation and analysis, that allow for a better understanding of these mechanisms and factors.
Research findings concerning two ethnic minority groups in Greece focus on employment experiences of Albanian migrant workers and the type of tourist who chooses to “go native” in this host society. It is argued that although both these groups are found in low-paid occupations, the Western “tourist-worker” is treated more favorably by the host country than the Albanians. The latter not only experience exploitation and discrimination in employment but are scapegoated in various games played in the political arena. The paper shows Albanians trapped in conditions of inferiority, immobility and ultra-exploitation, as substantiated by ethnographic data collected during fieldwork in two Greek cities.RésuméLes résultats des recherches au sujet de deux groupes ethniques en Grèce traitent des expériences du travail des ouvrier immigrés Albanais et des touristes qui décident d'adopter le mode de vie de la société d'accueil. On soutient que, bien que ces deux groupes ont des emplois à bas salaire, l'ouvrier-touriste occidental reçoit un meilleur traitement que les Albanais dans le pays d'accueil. Ceux-ci rencontrent non seulement l'exploitation et la discrimination mais aussi ils sont les boucs émissaires dans des jeux politiques. Le présent article montre que les Albanais sont piégés dans des conditions d'infériorité, d'immobilité et d'ultra-exploitation, selon des données ethnographiques qui ont été cueillies dans deux villes en Grèce.
Public speech, 02/03/13
- Catechism Jobbik
Jobbik, Catechism.
17. Public speech, 02/03/13. Quoted in: http://nol.hu/belfold/konyar-1370793.
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