A course on democracy and intolerance

I am teaching a brand new honors course at my university called “Democracy and the politics of division and hate”. The course focuses on the question of the relationship between democracy and intolerance. As any reader of the world's news outlets knows, intolerance and bigotry have become ever-more prominent themes in the politics of Western democracies – France, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, and – yes, the United States. These movements put the values of a liberal democracy to the test.

Here is the course description:

Democracy has been understood as a setting where equal citizens collectively make decisions about law and public policy in an environment of equality, fairness, and mutual respect. Political theorists from Rousseau to JS Mill to Rawls have attempted to define the conditions that make a democratic civil society possible. Today the world’s democracies are challenged by powerful political movements based on intolerance and division. How should democratic theory respond to the challenge of hate-based political movements? The course reexamines classic ideas in democratic theory, current sociological research on hate-based populism, and current strategies open to citizens in the twenty-first century to reclaim the values of tolerance and respect in their democratic institutions. The course is intended to provide students with better intellectual resources for understanding the political developments currently transforming societies as diverse as the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, India, and Nigeria.

The organizing idea is that democratic theorists have generally conceived of a democracy as a polity in which a sense of civic unity is cultivated that ensures a common commitment to the formal and substantive values of a democratic society -- the equal worth and rights of all citizens, the rule of law, adherence to the constitution, and respect for the institutions of collective decision-making. (Josh Cohen provided an excellent analysis of Rousseau's core philosophical ideas about democracy in Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals; link.) John Rawls captures this idea in Political Liberalism, where he introduces the idea of "political liberalism":

A modern democratic society is characterized not simply by a pluralism of comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines but by a pluralism of incompatible yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines.... Political liberalism assumes that, for political purposes, a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive doctrines is the normal result of the exercise of human reason within the framework of the free institutions of a constitutional democratic regime. Political liberalism also supposes that a reasonable comprehensive doctrine does not reject the essentials of a democratic regime. (xvi)

This formulation is intended to capture the idea that a democracy always embraces groups of people who disagree about important things. These conflicting value frameworks are what he refers to as "comprehensive doctrines of the good", and a liberal democracy is neutral among reasonable comprehensive doctrines.

So what is a "reasonable comprehensive doctrine"? Rawls's conception amounts to precisely this: all such doctrines maintain a commitment to "the essentials of a democratic regime". He refers to comprehensive doctrines that reject these commitments to political justice as irrational and "mad":

Of course, a society may also contain unreasonable and irrational, and even mad, comprehensive doctrines. In their case the problem is to contain them so that they do not undermine the unity and justice of society. (xvi)

But here is an important point: Rawls seems to have a robust confidence in the idea that a society that satisfies the conditions of justice and political liberalism will evolve towards a greater degree of civic unity. This seems to imply that he believes that individuals and groups who adhere to their "unreasonable, irrational, and mad" comprehensive doctrines will be led to change their beliefs over time and will gradually come to accept the democratic consensus.

The problem that we consider in the course is that democratic societies seem to have evolved in the opposite direction: doctrines that reject the legitimacy of the fundamentals of liberal democracy (respect for the equality of all citizens and respect for the rule of law) -- these doctrines appear to have rapidly gained ground in many democracies in Europe and now the United States. Instead of converging towards a "democratic consensus" where everyone recognizes the legitimacy, equality, and rights of all other citizens, many democracies have developed powerful political movements that reject all these commitments. These are the political movements of division and hate -- or the movements of right-wing populism. Democracy depends fundamentally on the principle of tolerance of points of view different from our own. Does that mean that democracy must be "tolerant of the intolerant", with no effective means of protecting its values and institutions against groups that would subvert its most basic principles?

So how do we take on this set of issues, which involve both political philosophy and the sociology of political mobilization and political psychology?

The course begins by immersing the students in some of the values that define democracy.We begin with John Stuart Mill's short but influential 1859 book, On Liberty. Mill postulates the equal worth and liberties of all citizens, and argues that a good democracy involves rule by the majority while scrupulously protecting the equal rights and freedoms of all citizens. (Notice the close agreement between this theory and the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which we also read.) We then consider the theory of a liberal society put forward by John Rawls in Political Liberalism, where Rawls argues that a democracy depends fundamentally upon a culture of respect for the equal worth and equal rights and liberties of all citizens. This implies that perhaps democracy cannot survive in the absence of such a culture.

This is the positive theory of democracy, as several centuries of philosophers have developed it.

Next we turn to the challenges these theories face in the contemporary world: the rise of hate-based populism in Europe and the United States, and the rising prevalence of racism, bigotry, and violence in many countries. And this is not just a Western problem — think of India, the world’s largest democracy, and the governing party’s inculcation of hate and violence against Muslims. Anti-semitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, and white supremacy are on the rise. The Front Nationale in France, the Alternative for Germany, and the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands are all examples of political parties that have developed mass followings with appeals based on racism and division, and similar parties exist in most other European countries. And white supremacist organizations in the United States make the same appeals in our country as well.

The hard question for us is this: can our liberal democracies find ways of coping with intolerance and hate? Can we reassert the values of civility and mutual respect in ways that build a greater consensus around the values of democracy? Does a democracy have the ability to defend itself against parties who reject the moral premises of democracy?

The assigned readings in the course include several excellent and thought-provoking books from philosophy, sociology, and political theory. We begin with Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser's book Populism: A Very Short Introduction, which gives an excellent short overview of the phenomenon of rightwing populism in Europe and the United States, along with a good discussion of the challenge of defining the concept of populism.

We then turn to two weeks on McAdam and Kloos, Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America, along with a survey report from the Southern Poverty Law Center on the spread of racist and hate-based organizations in the United States. McAdam and Kloos provide an analysis of the evolution of the mainstream "conservative" political party since the Nixon presidency, and document through survey data and other evidence from empirical political science the rapid increase in racial antagonism in the party's platforms and behavior when in office (link, link). They offer a convincing demonstration of the racism that underlies the activism of the Tea Party.

The next readings are Justin Gest's The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality (link) and Kathleen Blee's edited volume The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality (link). These books provide an ethnographical perspective on the appeal of right-wing extremism in western democracies, deriving from rapid economic change (deindustrialization) and demographic change (immigration and the rising percentage of populations of color in both Britain and the US). Blee's volume sheds much light on the role of gender in political mobilization by the right across the spectrum, with substantially more women involved in extremists groups in the US than in Europe.

Next we turn to both longstanding and current strategies by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India to manage politics through antagonism against India's Muslims. Paul Brass's book The Production Of Hindu-Muslim Violence In Contemporary India is the primary source (link), and several good pieces of journalism about the current violence in India against Muslims help to fill in the details of the current situation (link, link, link).

The course ends with a consideration of Robert Putnam's volume Better Together: Restoring the American Community, which makes the case for civic engagement and civic unity -- but in a voice that appears a decade behind events when it comes to the virulence of hate-based activism.

This is a course that is entirely organized around an intensive and engaged student experience. Each session involves lively discussion and student presentations (which have been excellent), and the course aims at helping the students develop their own ideas and judgments. We all learn through open, honest, and respectful dialogue, and every session is engaging and valuable. Most importantly, we have all come to see that these issues of democracy, equality, and intolerance and bigotry are an enormous challenge for all of us in the twenty-first century that we must solve.

(For the first session students are asked to view several relevant videos on YouTube:

John Rawls Lecture 1, Modern Political Philosophy

Hate Rising: White Supremacy in America

Robert Putnam on Immigration and Diversity

Cas Mudde on Right-wing Populism

These videos set the stage for many of the topics raised throughout the course.)

Sociology of Trumpism

What does sociology have to offer when it comes to understanding the political phenomenon of Donald Trump as president? It seems that there are a number of different kinds of questions that sociologists ought to consider (link).

Ideology and culture

A political movement needs to mobilize a significant population of followers around a set of ideas and values, and a narrative of blame and praise for the current situation (link). There are meaningful themes of communication that help to convey a political movement to the public. There are also pervasive cultural elements that are invoked by a movement -- images, sounds, bits of music and video -- that convey its values in less direct and cognitive ways. It is important to probe those ideological and cultural themes in detail.

As a candidate Donald Trump put forward a hodgepodge of themes and tropes -- birtherism, hateful slanders about immigrants, the need for a strong leader, inflammatory language about race ("What do you have to lose?"), anti-Muslim slurs, and international bellicosity, hostility to "political correctness", and antagonism to women's rights. This really is a dog's breakfast of ideas, failing to add up to a coherent ideology. But as a collection of emotional red flags for various groups of disaffected people, it worked pretty well. And it did appear to succeed in creating a movement of true believers. These true believers are not a majority of American voters, but they appear to be a firmly committed political force.

We need a twenty-first century equivalent to Fritz Stern with his masterful analysis of The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology as an attempt to account for the rise of National Socialism in Weimar Germany (link). Some of that work is being done by scholars who are trying to get to the heart of right-wing populism (link).

Parallels with European populist extreme right parties

There is a high degree of consistency of the Trump rhetoric and ideology, with the xenophobic, anti-immigrant ideology of extreme right parties in various European countries. Even though Trump may seem like a sui generis American extremist, his vision and rhetoric have strong resonance with the extreme right in Europe. Sociologists need to examine the substantial degree of parallel that exists between Trumpism and the far right in Europe. This is work for which comparative historical social scientists are very well prepared. (Here are a few prior discussions of this point; link, link, link.)

It is evident that there is a great deal of similarity across the ideologies of these various extreme-right movements. What accounts for the diffusion and mobilization impact of these kinds of ideologies? Jorg Flecker's collection on the socioeconomic factors influencing right-wing mobilization, Changing Working Life and the Appeal of the Extreme Right (first published in 2007), is a useful resource. Mileti and Plomb provide an excellent review essay, "Addressing the link between socio-economic change and right-wing populism and extremism: A critical review of the European literature". They usefully distinguish between the "conditions of emergence" and the "conditions of success" (quoting Mazzoleni). Significantly, the work described in this volume was written long before Donald Trump was a serious political figure -- suggesting clearly that Trumpism is not a singular American phenomenon.

The mobilization strategies and mechanisms of hate

We cannot underestimate the contagious nature of hate and hateful behavior and speech. Hateful mobilization is powerful and rapid. Better understanding of the mechanisms of social networks, fake news, big lies, and manipulation of belief through right-wing channels like talk radio, Fox News, white supremacist YouTube channels, and targeted FaceBook advertising needs intensive investigation. It is clear today that social media platforms were weaponized by interested political groups, including right-wing extremist organizations, and that these efforts continue. The unwillingness of Facebook to address this problem is indicative of a serious problem of corporate values and corporate responsibility on the part of this multi-billion member social media platform. This failure represents a serious threat to our democracy.

We need to achieve a better and more sophisticated understanding of the mechanisms through which hate spreads in a population, and the means that are deliberately employed by hate-based groups to gain support for their positions (link, link).

The alt-right and white supremacy

A key ideological asset of this oppositional, divisive program for political mobilization is the aggressive propaganda machine of the alt-right. Publications like Breitbart have created a space of legitimacy for racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, anti-Semitism, and white supremacy that is a crucial part of the mobilization of the Trump constituency. And with the appointment of Steve Bannon as chief strategist for newly-elected President Trump, these hateful currents came directly into the White House itself.

International aggressivity

Also essential to Trump's vision is a bellicose, aggressive approach to international relations. He threatens China with naval power, he bullies Mexico, he denigrates Merkel (a key linchpin in a unified Europe), and he speaks carelessly about the use of nuclear weapons. His message of "America first" promises a reckless, bullying approach to international relations that bodes ill for a peaceful future. What role does this bellicosity play? It seems to be a key part of his message to his core constituency: I am strong, I don't care about the rest of the world, I will make them accept my demands. This obviously will fail. But it may lead to reckless use of military force by the logic of Trump's own statements. He has painted himself into a box of bellicosity, at great risk to all of us. 

The material causes of a propensity for responding to these messages

Observers right and left have tried to understand the Trump constituency in terms of the "forgotten white lower middle class", with few of the gains of growth of recent decades flowing to these men and women. Shrinking job prospects, hourly wages declining, and other material forces make this group psychologically ripe for anti-establishment, xenophobic, racist, resentful mobilization. Trump panders to this constituency; he will inevitably disappoint them. It is a theme that Justin Gest explores in The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality (link). It is a fair question to ask whether this picture is accurate, or whether the social causes of the rise of extremism lie elsewhere.

Trump's real agenda has proven to be fundamentally at odds with the desires of this group. He has made wild promises, he has denigrated the groups these individuals blame, and he has promised populist and nationalist change. But simultaneously he has appointed a room full of multi-millionaires to his cabinet whose economic interests are patently clear. The economic and tax policies that emanate from the Trump administration are demonstrably ones that favor the one percent. And the first steps the administration undertook concerning health care bore this out. Attacking the Affordable Care Act hurts only lower middle-class people, with the likelihood of eliminating great numbers of people from health insurance and materially shortening their lives.

The inevitable disappointment

So where does our country go when Trumpism fails? One possibility is that the Democratic party in opposition can rebuild its policy platform in a way that realistically works to level the playing field for all Americans. A genuinely progressive plan can create avenues of opportunity that drain a different swamp -- the swamp of resentful, racist neo-fascist groups who brought this strongman to power. But the other possibility exists as well: the resentments and hatreds stoked very deliberately by the Trump political machine have nowhere else to go except into greater extremism. And the politics of hatred, division, and resentment gain even greater support. Cas Mudde's recent The Far Right Today provides a basis for thinking about our future in light of these political currents, and his conclusions are not entirely encouraging.

The far right is here to stay. This even applies to the extreme right, which also survived the repressive aftermath of the 1945 defeat of the fascist movements and regimes that originally inspired it. To be clear, there are few indications that extreme right parties or politicians are returning to political power. Even in Greece, which probably resembles Weimar Germany more than any other democracy, the neo-Nazi XA is remarkably stable at roughly 5–7 percent of the vote. That said, extreme right actors and ideas have recently been praised by two of the most powerful men in the world, Brazilian president Bolsonaro (military dictatorship) and US president Trump (“ alt-right” demonstrators in Charlottesville). Moreover, antisemitism and racism have returned to the center of the political debate, be it more implicitly in traditional media or more explicitly on social media. (The Far Right Today, 174)

...

The ultimate goal of all responses to the far right should be the strengthening of liberal democracy. Put simply, only fighting the far right does not necessarily strengthen liberal democracy, but strengthening liberal democracy will, by definition, weaken the far right. That the two do not always go hand in hand is not always acknowledged. Limiting free speech or the right to demonstrate not only infringes on the democratic rights of far-right activists, it undermines these rights in general, and thereby the liberal democratic regime. This is not even to speak of the tendency for repressive measures aimed at one group to be later applied to other groups, including some that are neither radical nor right. (178)

We have our work cut out for us.

Community resilience

We know what is meant by saying that a physical system is resilient: for a given range of shocks, the system has the ability to recover its structural integrity. This does not mean that a resilient system is impervious to shocks, but rather that it is capable of recovery from a given range of shocks at a given level of severity (through redundancy, decentralized systems, or repair mechanisms). (Here is a discussion of urban resilience and fragility in face of natural disaster by Kathleen Tierney in The Social Roots of Risk: Producing Disasters, Promoting Resilience; link.)

We also think we know something about individual resilience. It is a complex capacity of personality and character that permits the individual to regain equanimity after some of life's common hazards -- loss of a job, onset of a serious illness, death of a loved one. Here is how the American Psychological Association defines resilience (link):

Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences. 

Research has shown that resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary. People commonly demonstrate resilience. One example is the response of many Americans to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and individuals' efforts to rebuild their lives. 

Being resilient does not mean that a person doesn't experience difficulty or distress. Emotional pain and sadness are common in people who have suffered major adversity or trauma in their lives. In fact, the road to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional distress. 

Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. It involves behaviors, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone.

How does the idea of resilience work in application to communities -- in particular, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multi-religious communities? Shocks occur in all communities -- a violent crime is committed, a fiery speech is issued, a labor crisis occurs, a harvest fails. All of these incidents have the capacity to initiate a cycle of inter-group recrimination and separation. What features of community life and organization permit a multi-group community to regain its stability and inter-group harmony? What features exist that can stop the slide into escalation and eventual antagonism and violence across groups?

Historical experience in many parts of the world shows that communities of mixed populations sometimes degenerate into antagonism and violence across groups. The histories of ethnic and religious violence in India and the current tragedy of the Rohingya in Myanmar provide clear examples. Mixed communities that have lived peacefully and harmoniously are suddenly riven by mistrust, antagonism, and hate that lead to inter-group violence. (An earlier post dissected some of the pathways through which this process takes place; link.)

Here is how Paul Brass describes the emergence of violent collective action in India in The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India.

Most commonly, the rhetoric is laced with words that encourage its members not to put up any longer with the attacks of the other but to retaliate against their aggression. There are also specific forms of action that are designed to provoke the other community into aggressive action, which is then met with a stronger retaliatory response. (24)

Here Brass describes a dynamic process of provocation, escalation, and inter-group competition that leads quickly to antagonism and violence. And, as he makes clear throughout his book, this process is often stimulated and prodded by political entrepreneurs who have an interest in inter-group antagonism.

So the question here is this: what features of community life can be developed and cultivated that can serve as "shock absorbers" working to damp down the slide towards antagonism? What social features can make a multi-group community more resilient in face of provocations towards separation and mistrust?

Without pretending to offer a full theory of inter-group community stability, there are a few measures that seem to be conducive to stability.

First, the existence of cross-group organizations and partnerships among organizations originating in the separate groups, seems to be a strongly stabilizing feature of a multi-group society. The presence of a group of leaders who are committed to enhancing trust and cooperation across group lines provides an important "fire break" when conflicts arise, because these leaders and organizations already have a basis of trust with each other, and a willingness to work together to reduce tensions and suspicions across groups.

Second, person-to-person relationships across groups (through neighborhoods, places of work, or family relations) provide a basis for resisting the slide towards suspicion and fear across groups. If Chandar and Ismael are friends at work, they are perhaps less likely to be swayed by Hindu nationalist rhetoric or Islamic separatist rhetoric, and less likely to join in a violent mob attacking the other's home and community. Neighborhood and workplace integration ought to be retardants to the spread of inter-group hostility.

Third, policing and law enforcement can be an important buffer against the escalation of ethnic or religious tensions. If a Muslim shop is burned and the police act swiftly to find and arrest the arsonist, there will be a greater level of trust in the Muslim community that their security interests are being protected by the system of law.

Intergroup violence is the extreme case. But the separation of communities into mutually fearful and mistrustful groups defined by religion, race, or ethnicity is inherently bad, and it has the prospect of facilitating intergroup violence in the future. So discovering practical mechanisms of resilience is an enormously important task in these times of division and antagonism presented by our national political leaders.

Responding to hate

The Southern Poverty Law Center documents that hate groups and hate-based mobilization are on the rise in the United States (link, link). Here is a current map of hate-based groups monitored by SPLC:

Through provocative epithets, slogans, and extremist demonstrations a variety of hate groups -- white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-muslim bigots, anti-immigrant activists, anti-LGBTQ extremists, and others -- are seeking to establish a broader foothold in various parts of the country. They seek to build distrust, hate, and antagonism towards various groups and to undermine the bonds of community that hold together the multi-ethnic, multi-racial communities that exist all over the country.

We have also seen that social media can be used very intentionally by hate groups to cultivate mistrust, fear, and antagonism. This is an unsolved problem: Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are deliberately used to spread and cultivate hate.

These facts are easy to observe. The question here is a harder one: what are some of the ways that organizations and individuals can resist the onslaught of division and hate? How can a multi-ethnic or multi-racial community inoculate itself against the spread and influence of hate? How can our communities maintain and increase their resilience in the face of this organized effort?

Several things seem clear. One is that racist appeals generally seek to cultivate fear and resentment in their intended audiences. They work by cultivating mistrust across groups, framing the "other" as an interloper and a dangerous threat -- a threat to safety, to jobs, and to the hegemony of one's own group. And there is a logic of escalation that is implicit here. When the out-group perceives the growing antagonism and mistrust aimed towards its members, it is likely enough that individuals and organizations will become defensive -- and in their defensive actions they may provide more basis for the hate-based organization to extend its efforts.

So how can a multi-cultural community prepare itself for these kinds of strategies of division and intolerance? It can work hard to cultivate cross-group knowledge, understanding, and trust. Progressive community-based organizations are key. When an ethnically-grounded CBO makes deliberate efforts to involve partners from other communities in its efforts, the organization furthers the knowledge of each other that is available to members of both groups, and it enhances confidence in both groups of the good intentions of the other. A higher level of knowledge across groups is an antidote to hate and mistrust. More deeply, a history of partnership, collaboration, and successful initiatives together provides a solid ground for confidence and trust across groups.

Community leaders have a key role to play in enhancing the resilience of a community. When the mayor of a city is clear in his or her commitment to the equal value of all groups in the city, when he or she maintains a high level of community engagement through city offices, the various social groups in the city are enabled to develop a higher level of trust in the institutions that surround them and the values of respect and equality that their polity embraces. A mayor can be an important source of community cohesion in the face of divisive events and extremist efforts.

Leaders and organizations in civil society are equally impactful in maintaining an environment of trust and respect. Hospitals, universities, faith-based institutions, social-service organizations, and civic clubs all have the capacity to influence the values and behavior of large numbers of people. By being explicit and clear in their commitment to civility, respect, and equality, they can have a major impact on social cohesion as well.

It is crucial that individuals, organizations, and leaders speak out when hate-based incidents occur. By doing so they signal their solidarity with the affected group, and they reaffirm the commitments of respect and equality that they have articulated in easier times.

In the longer term, it is crucial to help children and adolescents understand the values of inclusion, respect, and acceptance of others. This means that it is very important for schools, places of worship, playgrounds, or youth organizations be attuned to the affirmative value of a democratic, multi-cultural society, and what goes into participating in an inclusive social world. Children are naturally open to each other without regard to differences; it is imperative to cultivate and extend that trust and mutual acceptance into adulthood.

Each of these social forces have the potential for signaling and advancing a set of values of inclusion that provide a powerful buffer against the toxic workings of hate. And in the end, we have the ability to stand together and affirm the values of solidarity, mutual respect, and democratic equality that are anathema to the purveyors of hate.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has compiled a report with some very useful strategies for combating hate at the community level; link. Here is a related post on social resiliency on Medium (link).

The Guardian drops the ball ...

The Guardian posted a short documentary video on the city where I live, Dearborn, Michigan (link). The video is, frankly, a careless, sensationalized, and false approach to the social realities of Muslims in southeast Michigan. It gives the impression that Dearborn is riven with conflict between insular Muslim people and anti-Muslim militia types and xenophobes who fear Islam. And without evidence it suggests the presence of extremist cells in the city. There is a persistent underlying theme of menace in the film, as if violence is about to break out at any time across communities. These themes of division, conflict, and menace are underlined in the blurb about the video published by the Guardian as context for the film. These are canards, and they do great injustice to the people and organizations of Dearborn and the rest of southeast Michigan. The message of the video lines up more exactly with the hate-mongers on the far right who persist in talking about Sharia law and "Dearbornistan".

The video also inflames the sense of conflict by showing white militia members and a young Muslim woman using firearms. There are far too many guns in our society. But there is no suggestion whatsoever that Muslim people are arming themselves in significant numbers; this is just not part of the discourse, and it is a reckless act of editorial discretion to give this impression. One person choosing to own a firearm does not constitute evidence for a broader tendency. (There is of course no doubt at all about the number of firearms in the hands of white supremacist organizations.)

The video also gives a prominence to the Michigan Militia that is almost entirely undeserved. MMCW has almost no presence in Wayne County, according to its website (link). Inflammatory talk radio with its xenophobic and anti-Muslim themes is of course a key tool in the politics of division and hate that we have experienced in the past several decades; but this has no special relevance to Dearborn. It is entirely unclear why these snippets from shock radio should have been included in this documentary about a particular place.

These impressions of severe conflict, fear, and hatred are entirely false to the city in which I have lived for over seventeen years. Relations between majority residents and Muslim and Arab-American residents are in general very good. Incidents of hate-based harassment or violence are very rare. And as a person who shops, dines, and socializes in the city and enjoys the city's parks and cultural attractions, I know first-hand that virtually everywhere are to be found individuals and groups representing all the diversity of our city. There are friendly and mutually respectful relations on display in all these public places. This is a source of pride for most people who live in Dearborn. One sign of this engagement in diversity is the response last spring to a call to action in the Ford Performing Arts Center in Dearborn to discuss and protest President Trump's executive orders against Muslim travelers. At least half of the people present, out of a crowd of over a thousand, were non-Muslim residents who attended to demonstrate their solidarity with their Muslim neighbors.

One of the great strengths of our city and our region is the existence of mature, longstanding community-based organizations that have worked for decades at building bridges across the multiple communities of our city -- organizations like ACCESS, the American Chaldean Council, New Detroit, the JCRC, La Sed, the Arab American Civil Rights League, and dozens of other community-based organizations. It is regrettable that the filmmakers did not take it upon themselves to interview and profile leaders and members of organizations like these, whose optimism and dedication to inclusion and social harmony are profound and effective. Community leaders such as the Mayor of Dearborn, the leadership of ACCESS, and leaders of the JCRC have shown themselves to be committed to the values of mutual respect and civility which are the foundation of a viable democracy. And Dearborn is thriving in the context of those values.

By the way -- there is no such place as the "University of Dearborn." The University in question is the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and is very proud of its diverse student body and its deep culture of inclusion -- including a sizable proportion of Muslim and Arab American students. And members of the university community have learned the importance of nuance. Not all Arab Americans are Muslim; not all Muslims derive from the Middle East; and there is great diversity of political and cultural opinion across Muslim America. This is a small matter, perhaps, but it gives a sharp indication of the carelessness with which the filmmakers approached their work.

Proliferation of hate and intolerance

Paul Brass provides a wealth of ethnographic and historical evidence on the causes of Hindu-Muslim violence in India in The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India. His analysis here centers on the city of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, and he believes that his findings have broad relevance in many parts of India. His key conclusion is worth quoting:

It is a principal argument of this book that the whole political order in post-Independence north India and many, if not most of its leading as well as local actors -- more markedly so since the death of Nehru -- have become implicated in the persistence of Hindu-Muslim riots. These riots have had concrete benefits for particular political organizations as well as larger political uses. Hindu-Muslim opposition, tensions, and violence have provided the principal justification and the primary source of strength for the political existence of some local political organizations in many cities and towns in north India linked to a family of militant Hindu nationalist organizations whose core is an organization founded in 1925, known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Included in this family, generally called the Sangh Parivar, are an array of organizations devoted to different tasks: mass mobilization, political organization, recruitment of students, women, and workers, and paramilitary training. The leading political organization in this family, originally called the Jan Sangh, is now the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), currently (2001) the predominant party in India's governing coalition. All the organizations in the RSS family of militant Hindu organizations adhere to a broader ideology of Hindutva, of Hindu nationalism that theoretically exists independently of Hindu-Muslim antagonisms, but in practice has thrived only when that opposition is explicitly or implicitly present. (6-7)

Brass provides extensive evidence, that is, for the idea that a key cause and stimulant to ethnic and religious conflict derives from the political entrepreneurs and organizations who have a political interest in furthering conflict among groups.

Let's think about the mechanics of the spread of attitudes of intolerance, distrust, and hate throughout a population. What kinds of factors and interactions lead individuals to increase the intensity of their negative beliefs and attitudes towards other groups? What drives the spread of hate and intolerance through a population? (Donatella della Porta, Manuela Caiani and Claudius Wagemann's Mobilizing on the Extreme Right: Germany, Italy, and the United States is a valuable recent effort at formulating a political sociology of right-wing extremism in Italy, Germany, and the United States. Here is an earlier post that also considers this topic; link.)

Here are several mechanisms that recur in many instances of extremist mobilization.

Exposure to inciting media. Since the Rwandan genocide the role of radio, television, and now the internet has been recognized in the proliferation and intensification of hate. The use of fake news, incendiary language, and unfounded conspiracy theories seems to have accelerated the formation of constituencies for the beliefs and attitudes of hate. Breitbart News is a powerful example of a media channel specifically organized around conveying suspicion, mistrust, disrespect, and alienation among groups. ("Propaganda and conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan genocide" is a finegrained study of Rwandan villages that attempts to estimate the impact of a radio station on violent participation by villagers; link.)

Incidents. People who have studied the occurrence of ethnic violence in India have emphasized the role played by various incidents, real or fictitious, that have elevated emotions and antagonisms in one community or another. An assault or a rape, a house or shop being burned, even an auto accident can lead to a cascade of heightened emotions and blame within a community, communicated by news media and word of mouth. These sorts of incidents play an important role in many of the conflicts Brass describes.

Organizations and leaders. Organizations like white supremacist clubs and their leaders make deliberate attempts to persuade outsiders to join their beliefs. Leaders make concerted and intelligent attempts to craft messages that will appeal to potential followers, deliberately cultivating the themes of hate and racism that they advocate. Young people are recruited at the street level into groups and clubs that convey hateful symbols and rhetoric. Political entrepreneurs take advantage of the persuasive power of mobilization efforts based on divisiveness and intolerance. In Brass's account of Hindu-Muslim conflict, that role is played by RSS, BJP, and many local organizations motivated by this ideology.

Music, comics, and video games. Anti-hate organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center have documented the role played by racist and anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim themes in popular music and other forms of entertainment (link). These creations help to create a sense of shared identity among members as they enjoy the music or immerse themselves in the comics and games. Blee and Creasap emphasize the importance of the use of popular culture forms in mobilization strategies of the extreme right in "Conservative and right-wing movements"; link.

The presence of a small number of "hot connectors". It appears to be the case that attitudes of intolerance are infectious to some degree. So the presence of a few outspoken bigots in a small community may spread their attitudes to others, and the density of local social networks appears to be an important factor in the spread of hateful attitudes. The broader the social network of these individuals, the more potent the infective effects of their behavior are likely to be. (Here is a recent post on social-network effects on mobilization; link.)

There is a substantial degree of orchestration in most of these mechanisms -- deliberate efforts by organizations and political entrepreneurs to incite and channel the emotions of fear, hostility, and hate among their followers and potential followers. Strategies of recruitment for extremist and hate-based parties deliberately cultivate the mindset of hate among young people and disaffected older people (link). And the motivations seem to be a mix of ideological commitment to a worldview of hate and more prosaic self-interest -- power, income, resources, publicity, and influence. 

But the hard questions remaining are these: how does intolerance become mainstream? Is this a "tipping point" phenomenon? And what mechanisms and forces exist to act as counter-pressures against these mechanisms, and promulgate attitudes of mutual respect and tolerance as affirmative social values?

*          *          *

Here is a nice graphic from Arcand and Chakraborty, "What Explains Ethnic Violence? Evidence from Hindu-Muslim Riots in India"; link. Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh show the largest concentration of riots over the period 1960-1995. There appears to be no correlation by time in the occurrence of riots in the three states.

And here is a 1996 report on the incidence of religious violence in India by Human Rights Watch; link. 

Strategies for resisting right-wing populism

Social Europe is a vibrant publisher of current progressive thought in Europe. Readers can find data, opinion, and policy analysis on the site, highly relevant to the core priorities of progressives across the continent and Britain -- social opportunity, inequalities, work, the threat of right-wing populism, the refugee crisis, and the future of the European Union. Here is the Twitter feed for Social Europe (link).

SE also publishes a bi-annual journal called the Social Europe Journal. The most recent issue is focused on a recurring theme in Understanding Society, the menace posed by the rise of extreme-right populism. The volume is available as a digital book under the title, Understanding the Populist Revolt, edited by Henning Meyer.

Several chapters of Understanding the Populist Revolt are particularly interesting, including Bo Rothstein's contribution, "Why has the white working class abandoned the left?". Rothstein's title poses a critical question, which Rothstein unpacks in these terms:

Maybe the most surprising political development during this decade is why increased inequality in almost all capitalist market societies has not resulted in more votes for left parties. Especially telling is the political success of Donald Trump and why such a large part of the American working class voted for him. In a country with staggering and increasing economic inequality, why would people who will undoubtedly lose economically from his policies support him? Why did his anti-government policies such as cutting taxes for the super-rich and slashing the newly established health care insurance system succeed to such a large extent? Moreover, why were these policies especially effective in securing votes from the white working class? 

One answer may be in an issue often neglected by the left, namely how people perceive the quality of their government institutions. The idea behind this “quality of government” approach is that when people take a stand on what policies they are going to support, they do not only evaluate the policy as such. In addition, they also take into consideration the quality of the government institutions that are going to be responsible for its implementation.

...

Surveys show that the reason for Trump’s unexpected victory was his ability to get massive support from what has historically been a stronghold for the Democratic Party, namely low-educated white working class voters. However, as has recently been pointed out by, among others, Paul Krugman, this is a group likely to be the big losers from the policies Trump said he will launch. Many would say that race and immigration determined this election, but this can only be a part of the story because in many of the areas where Trump got most of the white working class votes there are few immigrants and no significant multi-ethnic population. (Kindle Locations 461-469)

This is indeed a key question for politicians and activists in the United States to consider. However, Rothstein's answer is a fairly narrow one; he argues that a widespread belief about corruption and favoritism in Democratic elites is a primary factor leading to the disaffection of the white working class in the US. This seems to be only a secondary factor, however.

A more comprehensive attempt at an answer to the question, why is populism on the rise?, is suggested in the concluding chapter of the volume in an interview with Jurgen Habermas. Habermas calls out several factors in the past twenty-five years that have led to a rising appeal of right-wing populism among large segments of the populations of democratic countries in Europe and the United States. First among these factors is the steep and continuing increase in inequalities that neoliberal economies brought about since 1989. He believes that this trend could only be offset by an active state policy of social welfare -- the policies of social democracy -- and that advanced capitalist democracies have retreated from such policies.

Second, he highlights the deliberate politics and rhetoric of the right in both Europe and the United States in pursuing a politics of division and resentment. People suffer; and politicians aim their resentment at vulnerable others.

Third, Habermas emphasizes the fact that neoliberal globalization has not delivered on the promises made on its behalf in the 1970s, that globalization will improve everyone's standard of living. In fact, he argues that globalization has led to stagnation of living standards in many countries and has led to an overall decline of the importance of the western capitalist economies within the global system overall. This trend in turn has given new energy to the nationalistic forces underlying right-wing populism.

So what advice does Habermas offer to the progressive parties in western democracies? He argues that the progressive left needs to confront the root of the problem -- the increasing inequalities that exist both nationally and internationally. Moreover, he argues that this will require substantial international cooperation:

The question is why left-wing parties do not go on the offensive against social inequality by embarking upon a co-ordinated and cross-border taming of unregulated markets. As a sensible alternative – as much to the status quo of feral financial capitalism as to the agenda for a völkisch or left-nationalist retreat into the supposed sovereignty of long-since hollowed-out nation states – I would suggest there is only a supranational form of co-operation that pursues the goal of shaping a socially acceptable political reconfiguration of economic globalisation. (Kindle Locations 566-569)

In Habermas's judgment, the fundamental impetus to right-wing populism was the cooptation of "social-democrat" parties like the Democratic Party in the United States and the Labour Party in Britain by the siren song of neoliberalism:

Since Clinton, Blair and Schröder social democrats have swung over to the prevailing neoliberal line in economic policies because that was or seemed to be promising in the political sense: in the “battle for the middle ground” these political parties thought they could win majorities only by adopting the neoliberal course of action. This meant taking on board toleration of long-standing and growing social inequalities. Meantime, this price – the economic and socio-cultural “hanging out to dry” of ever-greater parts of the populace – has clearly risen so high that the reaction to it has gone over to the right. (Kindle Locations 573-578)

So what is the path to broad support for the progressive left? It is to be progressive -- to confront the root cause of the economic stagnation of the working class people whose lives are increasingly precarious and whose standard of living has not advanced materially in twenty-five years.

But this requires being willing to open up a completely different front in domestic politics and doing so by making the above-mentioned problem the key point at issue: How do we regain the political initiative vis-à-vis the destructive forces of unbridled capitalist globalisation? Instead, the political scene is predominantly grey on grey, where, for example, the left-wing pro-globalisation agenda of giving a political shape to a global society growing together economically and digitally can no longer be distinguished from the neoliberal agenda of political abdication to the blackmailing power of the banks and of the unregulated markets. (Kindle Locations 590-595)

So the distance between Rothstein and Habermas is substantial: Rothstein ultimately chalks up the Trump victory to a successful marketing campaign ("crooked Hillary"), whereas Habermas believes that very large forces within the neoliberal financial and trade regimes of the past twenty-five years have in fact worked to the disadvantage of the very people needed for achieving a majority for progressive politics.

I find it interesting that Habermas does not address the themes of radical nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism that are raised by populist parties in many European countries and the United States. In his telling of the story, it is an issue of interests and structural advantages and disadvantages for various groups. By implication, the racism of the far right will subside if the US Democratic Party or progressive parties in France, Germany, or the Netherlands succeed in redefining the social contract in a way that is more favorable for the less advantaged citizens in their societies. Interestingly, this is exactly the argument constructed by Manuel Muñiz in his contribution to the volume, "Populism and the need for a new social contract." Here are Muñiz's central ideas:

The decoupling of productivity and wages is the explanation behind the structural stagnation of salaries of the middle class and the increase in inequality within our societies. Wealth is being concentrated in the hands of those that invest in and own the robots and algorithms while most of those living off labour wages are struggling. The McKinsey Global Institute recently reported that over 80% of US households had seen their income stagnate or decline in the period 2009-2016. (Kindle Locations 224-227)

The people most negatively affected by these trends are the abandoned of our time, the ignored, and are beginning to constitute a new political class. The embodiment of this new class is not just the unemployed but also the underemployed and the working poor – people who have seen economic opportunity escape from them over the last few decades. (Kindle Locations 230-232)

And here is a preliminary description of the new social contract he believes we will need:

The appearance and design of the new social contract that we need is only now starting to be discussed. What is clear, however, is that it will require a big change in the way the state procures its income, possibly through a reinvigorated industrial policy, large public venture capital investments and others. In essence, if wealth is concentrated in capital some form of democratisation of capital holding will be required. On the spending side, changes will also be required. This might adopt the form of negative income taxes, the establishment of a universal basic income, or the launch of public employment schemes. (Kindle Locations 246-250)

So there seems to be a degree of consensus among these contributors to Social Europe: the best strategy for fighting radical right-wing populism, and the tendencies towards racism and authoritarianism that it brings with it, is to re-establish the robust terms of social democracy that have the potential to offset the destructive structural dynamics of contemporary neoliberal capitalism. This means a more active state; more redistribution; more regulation of the financial industry and other sectors; and a more level playing field for all citizens in our democracies. And these are precisely the political values that Tea Party conservativism, Trumpism, and mainstream Republicans agree about; their rhetoric has demonized precisely these kinds of policies for decades. What would it take for the parties of the left to embrace the pro-working class policies described here? And is the underlying suspicion voiced by Rothstein above actually correct: that the Democratic Party is so beholden to large corporate interests that it is incapable of adopting these kinds of platforms?

New understandings of populism

It is apparent, on this first round of the presidential elections in France, that we urgently need to understand better the dynamics and causes of radical populism in democratic polities. What is populism? Why does it have such virulence in the current moment as a political movement? What roles do racism, xenophobia, resentment, and economic fear play in the readiness of ordinary citizens in Europe and America to support radical populist candidates and platforms?

The topic has been the subject of research by very talented investigators over the past twenty years. Several recent books are especially relevant in the current moment. Particularly relevant are Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser's Populism: A Very Short Introduction; Jan-Werner Muller's What Is Populism?; and a recent collection by Social Europe edited by Henning Meyer, Understanding the Populist Revolt. Taken together, the three sources provide an excellent basis for thinking further about the nature of radical populism.

Mudde and Kaltwasser argue that populism differs from other political umbrella terms (socialism, fascism) in one important respect: it is less specific in identifying a well defined ideological program. It is, in their words, "an essentially contested concept". Here are a few of their central ideas:

A more recent approach considers populism, first and foremost, as a political strategy employed by a specific type of leader who seeks to govern based on direct and unmediated support from their followers. It is particularly popular among students of Latin American and non-Western societies. The approach emphasizes that populism implies the emergence of a strong and charismatic figure, who concentrates power and maintains a direct connection with the masses. (kl 677-680)

Beyond the lack of scholarly agreement on the defining attributes of populism, agreement is general that all forms of populism include some kind of appeal to “the people” and a denunciation of “the elite.” Accordingly, it is not overly contentious to state that populism always involves a critique of the establishment and an adulation of the common people. More concretely, we define populism as a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite,” and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people. (kl 700-705)

This means that populism can take very different shapes, which are contingent on the ways in which the core concepts of populism appear to be related to other concepts, forming interpretative frames that might be more or less appealing to different societies. Seen in this light, populism must be understood as a kind of mental map through which individuals analyze and comprehend political reality. It is not so much a coherent ideological tradition as a set of ideas that, in the real world, appears in combination with quite different, and sometimes contradictory, ideologies. (kl 713-717)

A common thread of populist rhetoric is that the movement is "anti-elitist" and that it speaks on behalf of "the people". Elites, according to populist leaders, have dominated policy and captured the benefits of society; "the people" have been left behind by elites who care nothing for their wellbeing. These tropes make perfect interpretive sense of Trumpism -- the campaign's attack on the media, scientists, politicians, and universities, its virulent personal attacks against Hillary Clinton, and its efforts to divide "the real Americans" from others -- immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, and urban dwellers. And this is the most important point: by claiming to speak uniquely for "the people", there is an implicit openness to authoritarianism in populist politics.

So what is "not-Populism"? What is a political ideology and movement that falls outside the populist rubric? They identify pluralism as the main rival:

Pluralism is the direct opposite of the dualist perspective of both populism and elitism, instead holding that society is divided into a broad variety of partly overlapping social groups with different ideas and interests. Within pluralism diversity is seen as a strength rather than a weakness. Pluralists believe that a society should have many centers of power and that politics, through compromise and consensus, should reflect the interests and values of as many different groups as possible. Thus, the main idea is that power is supposed to be distributed throughout society in order to avoid specific groups— be they men; ethnic communities; economic, intellectual, military or political cadres, etc.— acquiring the capacity to impose their will upon the others. (kl 733-738)

Mudde and Kaltwasser pay close attention to what seems like the most important current problem: mobilization around populist political agendas.

By mobilization we mean the engagement of a wide range of individuals to raise awareness of a particular problem, leading them to act collectively to support their cause. Overall, three types of populist mobilization can be identified: personalist leadership, social movement, and political party. (kl 1246-1248)

They highlight three kinds of mechanisms of mobilization: social movements, charismatic leaders, and local grassroots organizations. (See an earlier post on work by McAdam and Kloos on racialized social movements in the United States; link.)

What factors lead to success in populist mobilization?

For any political actor to be successful, there has to be a demand for her message. Most populist actors combine populism with one or more so-called host ideologies, such as some form of nationalism or socialism. Although populism is often noted as a reason for their success, many electoral studies instead focus exclusively on the accompanying features, such as xenophobia in western Europe or socioeconomic support for disadvantaged groups in Latin America. This is in part a consequence of the lack of available data at the mass level. Empirical studies of populist attitudes are still in their infancy, but they do show that populist attitudes are quite widespread among populations in countries with relevant populist parties (e.g., Netherlands) and social movements (e.g., the United States) as well as in countries with no relevant populist actors (e.g., Chile). (Kindle Locations 2063-2069)

This passage highlights some of the kinds of messages that populists have deployed to support mobilization -- xenophobia and its cousins, and "nation first!" appeals for economic improvement for "the people". Mudde and Kaltwasser highlight the use of mistrust as a political theme -- "elites" are abusing "the people's" interests and needs, the elites cannot be trusted.  Appeals by populist leaders to fear, mistrust, and resentment of others have proven widespread and durable in numerous countries, including the recent presidential campaign in the United States.

A crucially important question before us is why racist and xenophobic attitudes appear to be becoming more common and more readily mobilized, in Europe and in the United States. Why is the rhetoric of division and hate so powerful in today's politics? Mudde and Kaltwasser do not shed much light on this question; indeed, they barely confront the topic. The terms "hate" and "race" do not appear in the book at all. They address the topic of xenophobia more generally (largely in the context of immigration issues). But they do not consider the more basic question: why is hate such a powerful political theme in the politics of extremist populism?

The other two books mentioned above provide more insight into this question, and I will return to them in a subsequent post.

*     *     *

There is today a little bit of good news for everyone concerned about the ascendancy of extremist populist politics in modern democracies. It appears that political novice and moderate candidate Emmanuel Macron has slightly bested far-right populist Marine Le Pen in today's French election results (23.7% vs. 21.8%, with 96% of polls reported). So the final round will involve a run-off election between the two leading candidates, and almost all commentators agree that the advantage in the second round will go to Macron. So the anxiety felt by many around the world that France would follow Great Britain (Brexit) and the United States (Trump) with an unexpected victory for the extreme right populist position is now much abated.

Trumpism

What kind of political movement does Donald Trump represent? How did we get here? And what will be needed to defeat this divisive and anti-democratic political agenda?

There is a tendency to see Trump as a bolt out of the blue, an anomaly -- an extraordinary showman who somehow conned just enough voters to gain him the Republican nomination and then to prevail as a minority vote getter with an electoral college majority. But now that we've had a few months to reflect on the election, it seems a little more clear that Trump represents something different and even more worrisome. His presidency is more like an American version of a global phenomenon -- a populist ultra-rightist who has come to power on the strength of a political program of xenophobia, hatred of immigrants, and racism.

The extreme right has made sizable gains in Europe in the past forty years. Pippa Norris provides a summary statistic on the rise of the radical right in Western Europe:

source: Pippa Norris, The Rise of the Radical Right: Parties and electoral competition in postindustrial societies

This graph documents the substantial increase in the electoral strength of the extreme right, more than tripling as a share of the total electorate since 1980. (It is interesting to note that the share of the extreme right declined after 2000.) Populist extreme right parties have become powerful in almost every European country.

The parallels between Trump's most outlandish political messages as an unorthodox campaigner and the political ideology of the European extreme right parties are exact and uncanny. Take first his right-wing populism. Cas Mudde attempted to distill the "populist zeitgeist" of the European extreme right in a 2004 article (link), based on his long study of the extreme right parties of Europe. The match with the Trump campaign is exact. Populism is anti-elitist, and its leaders marshal resentment against "corrupt elites". Mudde writes:

I define populism as an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people. Populism, so defined, has two opposites: elitism and pluralism. (543)

Moreover, populism is fundamentally divisive between "us" and "them":

Opponents are not just people with different priorities and values, they are evil! Consequently, compromise is impossible, as it ‘corrupts’ the purity. (544)

The visceral antagonism whipped up against the Clintons during the Trump campaign illustrate this theme.

So who are the "people" of the populist right? They are the people of the imaginary "heartland":

The concept of the heartland helps to emphasize that the people in the populist propaganda are neither real nor all-inclusive, but are in fact a mythical and constructed sub-set of the whole population. In other words, the people of the populists are an ‘imagined community’, much like the nation of the nationalists. (546)

Further, as Mudde documents for European far-right parties, populist politicians are frequently antagonistic to the media -- with the right-wing populist view that the media serves the interests of the elites, not the heartland. This line of thought has an extensive research literature as well -- for example, Mazzoleni et al, The Media and Neo-Populism: A Contemporary Comparative Analysis. "In the populist mind, the elite are the henchmen of 'special interests'" (561) -- a line of heartland thinking that plays into dark conspiratorial theories and anti-Semitism. (Recall the closing political ad sponsored by the Trump campaign with its strong implications of anti-Semitic innuendo; link.)

Piero Ignazi offered a detailed analysis of extreme right parties based on their core ideologies in 1995 (link). He refers to the summary offered by H.G. Betz:

Betz (1993) has introduced the category of “populist extreme right” on the basis of four elements: a) radical opposition to the cultural and socio-political system, without an overt attack to the system as such; b) the refusal of individual and social equality; c) the defence of the “common man”; d) the emphasis on “common sense”; all these populist parties share racist, authoritarian, anti-women and law and order attitudes. (3) 

These are parties "which appeal to resentments, prejudices and traditional values and offer simplistic and unrealistic solutions to the socio-political problems" (4).

And, as Ignazi observes for European extreme right politicians, much of their rhetoric is directed against traditional political parties themselves (recalling Trump's own war with the GOP establishment during the campaign).

Dissatisfaction towards institutions, parties, the way in which democracy works, the traditional channels of participation and the output of the system in relation to identity and security tend inevitably to feed opposition and/or anti-system parties and, in particular, the extreme right. In fact, only ERPs indicate, while quite vaguely, a new way of channelling of the demands based on populist style. Only ERPs distrust parties as such (even if they build up strong organizations for their own) because they divide the “people” and they pervert the “general will”. Only ERPs offer the electorate a right wing radical alternative to the establishment’s political discourse. (8)

Here again it is impossible to miss the strong parallels that exist between these currents and the rhetoric of the Trump machine.

And, of course, there is racism, xenophobia, and bigotry. Thomas Greven emphasizes the central role played in right-wing populism in Europe in his Friedrich Ebert Stiftung study (link). (Here is a summary of research on the racism underlying the European right; link.) The rise of the extreme right parties in Europe has been driven by nationalism and antagonism to minority groups and immigrants; and the rhetoric of these parties has in turn increased the volume and intensity of popular racism. Racism is normalized.

Group-focused enmity is widespread in Europe. It is weakest in the Netherlands, and strongest in Poland and Hungary. With respect to anti-immigrant attitudes, anti-Muslim attitudes and racism there are only minor differences between the countries, while differences in the extent of anti-Semitism, sexism and homophobia are much more marked. (Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination: A European Report; link)

These themes are all too evident in the Trump political agenda, most recently with this week's stunning restrictions on Muslim visitors and refugees and the deliberate choice not to refer to Jewish victims in the annual White House statement commemorating the Holocaust (link).

So we might say that Trumpism is a familiar kind of political movement after all. It is right-wing populism, mobilizing its constituents around racism and bigotry combined with resentment of immigrants, with a pounding message of antagonism towards the institutions and personages of the status quo, including especially the media and government. The white nationalism of Steve Bannon and his intimate role within the Trump administration makes perfect sense.

Survey research on the extreme right in Europe

Earlier posts have addressed the issue of the rise of extreme-right parties and ideologies in many parts of the world, including Western Europe and the United States. A valuable multi-country research project now seeks to shed light on these phenomena based on large-scale surveys of attitudes among young people. MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Public Legacy and Civic Engagement) is a multi-country data set in order to assess the distribution and variation of extreme right ideologies across countries and social groups (link). This research project provides substantial survey data about the civic and political attitudes of young people in numerous European countries. Here is a brief description of the research project on the MYPLACE website:

MYPLACE can provide a hugely rich and sophisticated dataset, covering young people’s attitudes and beliefs in relation, specifically, to far-right and populist ideologies, but in practice covering issues such as class, xenophobia, racism, education and trust in democratic processes and associated social and political exclusion.

MYPLACE methodology is described in these terms:

The MYPLACE project used a case study approach, using 30 carefully selected research locations (illustrated in Figure 1) which provided within country contrasts in terms of hypothesised receptivity to radical politics. MYPLACE work strands include:

• Questionnaire survey (N = 16,935, target = 600 per location) of young people aged 16-25;
• Follow up interviews (N = 903, target = 30 per location with a sub-sample of these young people;
• 44 ethnographic studies of youth activism, in 6 thematic clusters;
• Ethnographic observation at 18 sites of memory including expert interviews with staff (N = 73), focus groups with young people (N = 56) and inter-generational interviews (N = 180). (link)

Participant researchers have provided summary reports on eight topic areas: democracy, history and memory, European issues, citizenship, attitudes and trust, political activism, religion, and attitudes towards minority groups (link). These reports were released in late 2015.

A recent article in Sociological Review seeks to extend this research. Inta Mieriņa and Ilze Koroļeva's "Support for far right ideology and anti-migrant attitudes among youth in Europe: A comparative analysis" (link) makes use of the MYPLACE datasets to evaluate different theories of the factors that encourage right wing extremism among European young people. This piece provides valuable reading for anyone concerned about the rise of authoritarian and racist politics in many parts of the democratic world. Here is the abstract of the article:

The last decade has seen a notable increase in support for far right parties and an alarming rise of right-wing extremism across Europe. Drawing on a new comparative youth survey in 14 European countries, this article provides deeper insight into young people’s support for nationalist and far right ideology: negative attitudes towards minorities, xenophobia, welfare chauvinism and exclusionism in relation to migrants. We first map the support for far right ideology among youth in Europe, and then use multilevel regression analysis (16,935 individuals nested in 30 locations) to investigate which individual or contextual factors are associated with a higher propensity among young people towards getting involved in far right movements. (183)

Mieriņa and Koroļeva consider several fundamental theories of the rise of far right activism: social psychological theories of the effects of ethnic diversity on an individual's conception of his or her own identity; the effects of modernization and urbanization on political attitudes; socio-structural explanations ("level of immigration, economic conditions and level of support for the political system"; 187); and the impact of media on political attitudes.

Here is a plot of a particularly important pair of variables observed in the study, ethnic nationalism and negative attitude towards minorities:

Mieriņa and Koroļeva summarize their key findings in these terms:

Using new data collected as part of the MYPLACE youth survey, in this article we have explored young people’s support for far right ideology and analysed which factors are associated with holding far right views. We find that despite comparatively low immigration rates, young people in post-socialist locations, along with Greek locations, tend to have more negative predispositions and to be more xenophobic and exclusionist towards immigrants than young people in Western European locations. Moreover, we have demonstrated that young Europeans’ views on immigrants vary greatly even within the boundaries of one country, thus below-national level analysis should be the preferred strategy in future studies.

Our analysis shows that negative attitudes towards minorities and immigrants are often rooted in ethnic nationalism, that is, a belief that one has to be born in a country or have at least one ethnic parent for being a citizen of a country. A more over-arching civic national identity – based on respect for countries’ institutions and laws – is more likely to create an inclusive, cohesive society.

The data strongly support the instrumental model of group conflict, confirming that resource stress over money, status and, most of all, jobs is an essential source of group conflicts. Living in poverty or seeing poverty facilitates negative attitudes towards minorities and significantly increases xenophobia, welfare chauvinism and exclusionism, especially if immigration rates are high. Far right ideology is especially appealing to groups of society who experience a higher level of insecurity and perceived competition. (199)

Or in other words, Mieriņa and Koroļeva find that there are important geographical patterns to intolerance; ethnic nationalism appears to be a cause of intolerance of minorities and immigrants; and economic stress on specific groups appears to be a cause of xenophobia and chauvinism in those groups.

The article reports some very important empirical findings on the subject of the prevalence and variation of support for far-right ideologies across Western Europe. But equally interesting are the efforts the authors make to clarify the central terms involved, including especially the idea of a "far right ideology." They refer to work by Cas Mudde on this topic:

Cas Mudde's research suggests that radical right ideology typically rests on nationalism, xenophobia, welfare chauvinism, and law and order.... The ideological core of the new 'populist radical right' ideology ... is a combination of nativism, authoritarianism and populism, of which nativism is considered as the key feature. It holds that 'states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group ('the nation') and that non-native elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogeneous nation-state. (185)

This is an astute, clear, and focused analysis of the heart of far-right ideologies in many countries. And people who have lived through the Trump presidential campaign and the extreme rhetoric the candidate used consistently throughout the preceding year will recognize the point-for-point correspondence that exists between Trumpism and this definition of radical right nativist ideology.

*     *     *

Here are a few useful references from Mieriņa and Koroļeva's bibliography:

H.-G. Betz and S. Immerfall (eds), The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Carter, E., (2005), The Extreme Right in Western Europe: Success or failure? Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Mudde, C., (2000), The ideology of the extreme right, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Mudde, C., (2007), Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.