Mainstreaming of Right-Wing Populism in Europe

This paper aims to portray theoretical debates to better understand the current state of the populist movements and political parties in the European Union, which is hit by various kinds of social-economic and financial difficulties leading to the escalation of fear and prejudice vis-à-vis ‘others’ who are ethno-culturally and religiously different. The main premise of this paper is that the ongoing social-political-economic-financial change in the EU resulting in fear against the unknown such as Islam, Muslims, refugees and migrants is likely to be turned by individual agents into cultural/religious/civilizational reification and political radicalization in order to overcome fear. The findings of this paper derive from a qualitative fieldwork held within the framework of a Horizon 2020 Research Project called “Critical Heritages (CoHERE): performing and representing identities in Europe”.1 The fieldwork was held the research team in Dresden, Toulon, Rome, Rotterdam, Athens and Istanbul between March and May 2017. The main premise of this work in progress is to claim that pathologizing right-wing populism is not scientifically and politically productive. Rather than being the cause of the current state of political crisis in many European Union countries, right-wing populism should be interpreted as one of the symptoms of the long-neglected structural problems augmented by neo-liberal forms of governmentality.