Search results

The report scrutinizes the role of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which entered the German parliament as the largest opposition party in 2017 and has been driving far-right radicalisation and polarisation with its anti-immigrant agenda. Using the example of two regional election campaign spots, the report shows how the AfD ties in with existing mistrust in democratic institutions and creates the image of an existential threat to the German people, which supposedly can only be rescued by the AfD. The audience reaction to both spots confirms that the AfD indeed profits from widespread mistrust in democratic institutions and from a perception shared by many citizens of being overlooked by a government that for the last sixteen years has been represented by chancellor Merkel. This mistrust plays together with extreme racist attitudes among the public that are expressed in the context of immigration. The comments clearly show that it is not simply a dissatisfaction with an overly liberal migration policy or with social inequality, but radical racist positions, including the belief in conspiracies such as a 'great replacement', that explains the support of the AfD both in eastern and western Germany. Against this backdrop, the role of the AfD appears to be less that of normalizing radical messages, than that of echoing, reinforcing, and translating them into the political system to subvert the democratic institutions of the representative political system.

The report synthesises the findings of country reports that mapped the contexts, trends and perceptions of the violent threats as well as the main radicalisation agents and de-radicalisation stakeholders in 17 countries covered by the De-Radicalisation in Europe and Beyond: Detect, Resolve, Reintegrate (D.Rad) project: the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Iraq. We unpack the variety of social mechanisms of (de-)radicalisation in the context of the global crisis of political representation since the neoliberal turn in the West and the failure of state developmentalist projects in the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries. The report identifies right-wing radicalisation as the main rising violent threat across the D.Rad countries, even though other cases of radicalisation should not be disregarded. We explain conceptual, methodological and institutional reasons for underestimating right-wing violent attacks and the elite and mass framing mechanisms that legitimate or downplay them. Summarising discussion of the main agents of radicalisation in their socio-political ecosystems across the country reports demonstrates the social embeddedness and connectiveness of the violence agents that crucially influence the dynamics of radicalisation. We demonstrate that the right-wing violence agents commonly benefit from superior access to resources for violence, political opportunities and allies among the elites than other cases of radicalisation. Finally, we challenge the assumptions behind the prevailing approaches to prevent and reverse radicalisation processes based on the homogenising concepts of "extremism" and "terrorism." This perception underlies the dominant approaches to de-radicalisation focused on the paths to and from radical politics primarily via individual conversion to and from extremist ideologies and contributes to the limited focus, political biases and overreliance on civil societies ...

This country report uses three exemplary 'hotspots' of radicalisation to examine the factors at the micro, meso and macro levels that have fostered extremist violence in Germany over the past 30 years: the National Socialist Underground (NSU), the antirefugee Freital Group and the synagogue shooting in Halle. Thus, it covers the gradual diversification among right-wing perpetrators, from the long-term development of the clandestine terrorist network NSU and its massive supportive network to the rapid radicalisation visible in the open commitment to violence against refugees. It further turns to the return of attacks committed by individual far-right perpetrators since 2016, whose radicalisation is closely linked to online-communities. All three cases illustrate that right-wing extremist ideology, especially hatred against minorities, is the primary motivational factor for violence. They are also united by the feeling of extreme marginalization and lack of representation by politics, which they use to justify their acts. At the same time, differences between the groups can be seen in terms of their political agenda. While the members of the NSU and the Halle shooter refer to abstract enemy stereotypes to justify their violent acts, the Freital group pursues political goals, with which they exert pressure on the state authoritarians and partly find political representation through parties like the AfD. In addition, the report identifies various factors that facilitated the terrorist attacks and critically discusses the role and failures of security authorities.

Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Series Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: Poverty Reduction through Land Transfers -- Part 1: The Discursive Construction of Pro-poor Land Reform -- 1. Pro-poor Reforms: The Propertizing Paradigm -- 2. Pro-poor Land Reform in Eurasia -- 3. The Reform Continuum: From China to Russia -- Part 2: A "Monetizing" Perspective -- 4. Smallholders: A Fieldwork Study of Resilience and Resistance -- 5. Resilience: Survival and Growth of Smallholder Agriculture -- 6. Resistance: Smallholders against Commercialization -- Conclusions: The Limits of Pro-poor Land Reform -- Appendix: List of Respondents in Romania and Ukraine, 2013-2019 -- Notes -- References -- Index.

AbstractEastern Europe has been the object of orientalising discourses portraying it as a region defined by problematic statehood, underdevelopment, and nationalist‐religious warmongering. These discourses have produced 19th‐century mental maps of Europe contrasting a perceived 'core' European area ending with the Frankish Empire's eastern border and coinciding with later Enlightenment influence and an indistinct 'Orient' or 'East', bypassed by "modernising" processes. This contribution focuses on (post‐)Cold War discourses in social science and shows how these discourses re‐produce 19th‐century layers of orientalising map‐making and keep East‐West differences alive by tracing deficient, fragile or repressive state institutions back to alleged Eastern European 'mentalities'.

This article emphasises the non-economic goals of economic nationalism and in particular its often overlooked political goals. Drawing parallels between economic nationalisms in Central Europe and East Asia, it focuses on Poland and Hungary and asks why did these countries turn to economic nationalism. The article traces this turn to ideational foundations developed by right-wing intellectuals over the last two decades, arguing that right-wing intellectuals believed that liberalism has failed what they conceived of its most important (political) purpose, the need of a radical break with the communist past. Based on a study of the writings and careers of leading Polish and Hungarian right-wing intellectuals, the article draws attention to the nature of the perceived threat to the nation. It contributes to the sociology of nationalism an analysis of how such a threat emerges and translates into a guiding idea of illiberal economic policies.

AbstractThis article emphasises the non‐economic goals of economic nationalism and in particular its often overlooked political goals. Drawing parallels between economic nationalisms in Central Europe and East Asia, it focuses on Poland and Hungary and asks why did these countries turn to economic nationalism. The article traces this turn to ideational foundations developed by right‐wing intellectuals over the last two decades, arguing that right‐wing intellectuals believed that liberalism has failed what they conceived of its most important (political) purpose, the need of a radical break with the communist past. Based on a study of the writings and careers of leading Polish and Hungarian right‐wing intellectuals, the article draws attention to the nature of the perceived threat to the nation. It contributes to the sociology of nationalism an analysis of how such a threat emerges and translates into a guiding idea of illiberal economic policies.

This article explores the "quality battlefield" in the food economy – the dispute over value conventions between mainstream business actors and alternative food networks. It shows how actors in one particular alternative network – the solidarity economy – shift such notions from product qualities to the qualities of relations in production. Opposing the standardized criteria characterizing private certification schemes and organic certification, they struggle to establish the value of their products by creating and circulating verifiable stories proving their involvement in the solidarity economy. These stories further emphasize the distance to standard business motivations, for instance by accentuating the cooperative rather than competitive relations with other producers. The article illustrates the features and tensions of value conventions in alternative food networks by contrasting actors in mainstream agriculture with an expanding organization of agricultural producers adhering to solidarity economy and operating in the grocery sector in Sicily, Italy.