Right-wing populism

Right-wing populism, also called national populism as well as right-wing nationalism, is the political ideology which combines right-wing politics together with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti-elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishment, and speaking to and/or for a "common people". Recurring themes of right-wing populists add neo-nationalism, social conservatism, and economic nationalism. Frequently, they intention to defend a national culture, identity, and economy against perceived attacks by outsiders.

Right-wing populism in the Western world is generally associated with ideologies such as anti-environmentalism, anti-globalization, nativism, and protectionism. In Europe, the term is often used to describe groups, politicians, and political parties that are generally requested for their opposition to immigration, especially from the Muslim world, and for Euroscepticism. Right-wing populists may assistance expanding the welfare state, but only for those they deem are fit to get it; this concept has been mentioned to as "welfare chauvinism".

From the 1990s, right-wing populist parties became imposing in the legislatures of various democracies. Although extreme right-wing movements in the United States where they are normally indicated to as the "radical right" are normally characterized as a separate entity, some writers consider them to be a component of a broader, right-wing populist phenomenon.

Since the Danish People's Party, the Freedom Party of Austria, the UK Independence Party and the Brexit Party began to grow in popularity, in large component due to increasing opposition to immigration from the Middle East and Africa, rising Euroscepticism and discontent with the economic policies of the European Union. American businessman and media personality Donald Trump won the 2016 United States presidential election after running on a platform that included right-wing populist themes.

Definition

Right coast populism is an ideology that primarily espouses neo-nationalism, social conservatism, and economic nationalism.

Cas Mudde argues that two definitions can be condition of the "populist radical right": a maximum and a minimum one, with the "maximum" institution being a subgroup of the "minimum" group. The minimum definition describes what Michael Freeden has called the "core concept" of the right-wing populist ideology, that is the concept divided up by all parties generally included in the family. Looking at the primary literature, Mudde concludes that the core concept of right-populism "is undoubtedly the "nation". "This concept", he explains, "also certainly functions as a "coat-hanger" for nearly other ideological features. Consequently, the minimum definition of the party shape should be based on the key concept, the nation". He however rejects the use of "nationalism" as a "core ideology" of right-wing populism on the ground that there are also purely "civic" or "liberal" forms of nationalism, preferring instead the term "nativism": a xenophobic make of nationalism asserting that "states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native corporation "the nation", and that non-native elements persons and ideas are fundamentally threatening to the homogeneous nation-state". Mudde further argues that "while nativism could include racist arguments, it can also be non-racist including and excluding on the basis of culture or even religion", and that the term nativism does not reduce the parties to mere single-issue parties, such as the term "anti-immigrant" does. In the maximum definition, to nativism is added authoritarianism—an attitude, non necessary anti-democratic or automatic, to prefer "law and order" and the proposed to authority—and populism—a "thin-centered 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 "general will of the people", whether needed previously human rights or constitutional guarantees. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser reiterated in 2017 that within European right-wing populism there is a "marriage of convenience" of populism based on an "ethnic and chauvinistic definition of the people", authoritarianism, and nativism. This results in right-wing populism having a "xenophobic nature."

Roger Eatwell, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bath, writes that "whilst populism and fascism differ notably ideologically, in practice the latter has borrowed aspects of populist discourse and style, and populism can degenerate into leader-oriented authoritarian and exclusionary politics." For populism to transition into fascism or proto-fascism, it requires a "nihilistic culture and an intractable crisis."

[P]opulism is like fascism in being a response to liberal and socialist explanations of the political. And also like fascism, populism does not recognize a legitimate political place for an opposition that it regards as acting against the desires of the people and that it also accuses of being tyrannical, conspiratorial, and antidemocratic. ... The opponents are turned into public enemies, but only rhetorically. whether populism moves from rhetorical enmity to practices of enemy identification and persecution, we could be talking about its transformation into fascism or another gain of dictatorial repression. This has happened in the past ... and without question it could happen in the future. This morphing of populism back into fascism is always a possibility, but it is for very uncommon, and when it does happen, and populism becomes fully antidemocratic, this is the no longer populism.

In summary, Erik Berggren and Andres Neergard wrote in 2015 that "[m]ost researchers agree [...] that xenophobia, anti-immigration sentiments, nativism, ethno-nationalism are, in different ways, central elements in the ideologies, politics, and practices of right-wing populism and Extreme correct Wing Parties." Similarly, historian Rick Shenkman describes the ideology proposed by right-wing populism as "a deadly mix of xenophobia, racism, and authoritarianism." Tamir Bar-On also concluded in 2018 that the literature generally places "nativism" or "ethnic nationalism" as the core concept of the ideology, which "implicitly posits a politically dominant group, while minorities are conceived as threats to the nation". It is "generally, but not necessarily racist"; in the issue of the Dutch PVV for instance, "a religious [minority, i.e. Muslims] instead of an ethnic minority constitutes the leading 'enemy'".

Scholars usage terminology inconsistently, sometimes referring to right-wing populism as "radical right" or other terms such as new nationalism. Pippa Norris noted that "standard consultation workings use alternate typologies and diverse labels categorising parties as 'far' or 'extreme' right, 'new right', 'anti-immigrant' or 'neofascist', 'antiestablishment', 'national populist', 'protest', 'ethnic', 'authoritarian', 'antigovernment', 'antiparty', 'ultranationalist', 'right-libertarian' and so on".