Mosaic of the contemporary populist radical right: A review essay Open Access

The book demonstrates a huge breadth of knowledge but establishes only a loose framework without engaging in-depth with the key concepts and their interaction. The author acknowledges that modern democracy and the state are fragile and face both internal and external enemies. While this fragility is manifold, three issues are crucial for the arguments presented in this volume. Firstly, that there is an internal struggle between liberalism and democracy, the need to ensure individual freedoms and to effectively govern the pluralist cacophony (Schmitt, 2008; Urbinati, 2014). Secondly, that there is always an intrinsic fragility in the self-conception of the state, both in terms of sovereignty and the definition of the people, i.e the legitimate sovereign (cf. Canovan, 1999; Urbinati, 2019). Finally, there exists a tension between the notion of sovereignty and the increasingly globalized political order (cf. Bellamy, 2017). The introduction and subsequent essays, to a varying degree, touch on all three of these issues. However, only the tension between liberalism and democracy is explored in depth through the introduction.

Liberal democracy, Popper reminds us in Open Society and its Enemies, is fragile. The survival of the open society depends on its ability to govern while balancing the need for tolerance of difference and the rejection of intolerance (Popper, 2020). Engagement with Popper and contemporary theoretical literature on democratic disfigurations (cf. Urbinati, 2014, 2019) would have offered a more compact frame for these ten essays. Instead, the author chooses the struggle between democracy and autocracy. Democracy is implicitly defined as the embodiment of Enlightenment ideals, while autocracy remains under-theorized as a rejection of those ideals. According to the author, two types of enemies – domestic and international – exploit the tensions within liberal democracy and the modern state. Unfortunately, it remains unclear if these enemies are ideologies, actors, regimes, or all three.

While the allure of a dualistic distinction is clear and perhaps fitting given the author’s deep knowledge of Carl Schmitt, the reality is always more complex. The liberals do not have a monopoly over Enlightenment ideals. The very forces, which the author denotes as the enemies of (liberal) democracy, are also trying to take ownership of such Enlightenment ideals in their challenge to representative democracy. For example, in extoling the virtues of direct democracy, as the ultimate expression of the people’s will, many populist radical right-wing parties in Europe invoke Rousseau’s opposition to representative democracy. The goal of the radical right is to undermine the cornerstone of liberal democracy, namely minority protection, by equating the will of the majority with the will of the people (Urbinati, 2014).

Profound tensions exist between the modern state and liberal democracy. The legitimacy of the modern state rests on its ability to represent the will of the people, by balancing the ability of the majority to govern while protecting minorities. The growing expectations of the people, matched by the increasing difficulty for the state to satisfy those demands, results in a crisis of legitimacy. First government loses legitimacy, next democracy as a regime becomes delegitimized. Without a deep normative anchor, when people no longer see democracy as catering to their demands for welfare and administrative efficiency, they are willing to consider non-democratic alternatives (Habermas, 1973, pp. 659–662).

Populist and extremist forces exploit the tensions within democracy and the growing legitimacy deficit. Leaders like Viktor Orban even propose alternatives such as illiberal democracy. In the illiberal democracy, the leader rules in the name of the people. Democracy becomes a procedure for selecting the leader. Political participation is reduced to a harmless level through generous welfare provisions. Minority protection is minimized. The state is captured. First, liberalism and democracy are separated and individual freedoms eliminated. Second, democracy is reduced to a procedure for selecting the leader. Third, and finally, with the illiberal leader in power, democracy is eliminated and replaced by an authoritarian alternative. This is all done in the name of the people, yet there exists a clear chain of thought leading from Schmitt to contemporary authoritarian populists (cf. Guasti 2020).

The author is at his best in the first section dedicated to the exploration of three classical thinkers; Hobbes, Schmitt, and Rousseau. Chapters two and five investigate the ambivalent foundations of the modern state and the tensions between liberty and sovereignty. The author then expounds, both theoretically and practically, on how this ancient tension is pertinent to the ongoing clash between the universalism of human rights and sovereignty as a guarantor of rights. Chapter four explores the will of the people and Schmitt’s ethnonationalist, exclusionary notions of the people and unity – or ethnic homogeneity – as a precondition for democracy. Here the lasting allure of Schmitt for opponents of representative democracy on the right and the left becomes clear. For Schmitt, democracy is a procedure, a means to an end. As such, it combines well with the ideological extremities of both sides.

The mobilization of power and success of exclusionary populists around the world relies on their ability to present the world as an us versus them scenario, in which the pure people are set against and the corrupt elite that does not address the grievances of the masses (Salzborn 2020, p. 66, cf. Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013). Schmitt’s ethnonationalist notion of the people’s unified will is not only dangerous in well-documented ways, but also an intellectual fraud, in so far as it equates ethnic homogeneity with consensus. Alas, contentious politics is not a function of the people’s heterogeneity but of the heterogeneous interests found in society based on the multiple and situational identities each person carries. The unity of the people is a myth, and consensus is always situational. The temporary dictator would thus be caught in an endless spiral of eliminating differences by narrowing the notion of the people ever further through the exclusion and ultimately the elimination of minority groups. Democracy would be disfigured first before being eliminated (cf. Urbinati, 2014).

The common denominator of the first section is the author’s dialectic approach, his embrace of the zero-sum nature of politics, and unwillingness to engage intellectually with the ways in which emerging global or European political orders can safeguard liberty within a framework of pooled sovereignty (cf. Habermas, 2009). Is chaos the only alternative to a nation-state? In a positive-sum logic, an alternative can also be a supranational entity based on sovereignty shared across levels of governance. Integration is not a novel phenomenon. Many modern states, including Italy and Germany, emerged by unifying previously fragmented territories. European integration can be seen as a continuation of this process, with one crucial difference, it is demos, rather than ethnos, which constitutes its underlining principle. In Leviathan, Hobbes warns of a possible relapse into the anarchic state of nature (Salzborn 2020, p. 21). Today the growing power and allure of authoritarian alternatives can play a similar role as the scarecrow of global politics, incentivizing countries to move towards a post-national liberal order (cf. Habermas, 2009).

Section two, entitled Nationalism and Minorities, presents interesting essays but lacks any semblance of internal coherence and is only loosely linked to the overall topic of the book. Again, the reader would benefit from a more integrated overall framework and a clarification of how this section fits into the wider narrative.

Chapter 6 studies the evolution of the nationality law in German-speaking Europe in the 1920s. The author shows the lasting effect of ethnocentric notions of citizenship. The contemporary exploration of the radical right’s rise as a backlash against minority accommodation (Bustikova, 2019, 2021) further outlines these issues. However, in his focus on nativism, Salzborn overlooks the contemporary shift amongst the radical right and radicalized mainstream parties from the backlash against ethnic minorities to a broader rejection of marginalized groups and universal rights. This shift has, by contrast to previous iterations of the radical right, focused more on a rejection of gender equality and LGBTQ rights (cf. Guasti & Bustikova, 2020; Kuhar & Paternotte, 2017).

Chapter seven explores further elements of Carl Schmitt’s thought, namely ethnonationalism and expansionism (Volksgruppenrecht and Grossraum), its impact during Hitler’s time in power, its postwar legacy, and its continued resonance in certain contemporary theoretical conceptions of European integration. While the chapter is very informative, it remains rather descriptive and would have benefitted from a more streamlined and analytical focus on contemporary examples. One potential avenue would have been to explore the notion of European integration among the populist radical right. Many radical right populist parties are seen as deeply Eurosceptic, due to their opposition to the dominant notion of European integration, which they see as the destruction of the nation-state (Halikiopoulou, Nanou, & Vasilopoulou, 2012).

However, a more nuanced view is needed, as exemplified in the German populist radical right party Alternative for Germany (AFD) (cf. Arzheimer & Berning, 2019). Founded as a Eurosceptic party deeply opposed to the economic rescue plans in the aftermath of the Great recession of 2008 (Arzheimer, 2015), the AFD today embraces a specific notion of a United Europe, the Europe of Nations. This ethnocentric federalism can be traced to Schmitt and other thinkers covered by the chapter, and Samuel Salzborn is well positioned to analytically capture it (cf. Salzborn, 2018a).

Chapter eight analyzes the lasting role and political influence of the groups representing ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe. The chapter shows how the reception of these groups and organizations changed over time in Germany. The change is ascribed to the shift in the framing of victimhood from being considered as expansionists to being portrayed as an illtreated group with refugee status. The instrumentalization of victimhood in the service of revisionism and Holocaust denial was essential in gaining not only recognition, but more importantly, political influence and financial resources (Salzborn 2020, pp. 129–131). More importantly, as the author argues here and in his other work, the notion of victimhood is instrumental in the recent rise of antisemitism in Germany (cf. Salzborn 2018b).

While the AFD did not start as an explicitly antisemitic or populist party, a certain ethnonationalism came to dominate the movement over time (Arzheimer & Berning, 2019; Salzborn, 2018a, p. 75). The AFD’s vehement opposition to the radical right label is a necessity in giving them permission to express a range of grievances, as well as discriminatory and antiliberal sentiments. One of the core AFD grievances is cultural and historical, the ‘stigmatization of the past’, notably the period 1933–1945 and the Shoah. The AFD openly calls for ‘freeing the past’ from an ‘unjust stigma’ and embracing ‘German greatness’. The AFD rejects what it calls the ‘culture of remembrance’, seeking collective blamelessness. It claims Germans are the real victims of Nazism because ‘assertive and self-confident’ German politics is no longer permissible and Germany is subjugated. In this rhetorical trick, Salzborn explains that everybody is a victim, but ‘Hitler and a few Nazis’ (Salzborn, 2018a, p. 82). The AFD whitewashes history by simultaneously claiming victimhood for itself while rejecting the victimhood of the Shoa victims. When everybody is blameless, it is possible to blame the victims for ‘trying to profit from their victimhood’ (cf. on strategies of blame deflection and victimhood shifting, see Wodak, 2018).

The third section is entitled antisemitism and right-wing extremism. Chapter nine explores the ideology of antisemitism and its evolution in Eastern Europe. The author seeks to develop a universal narrative, but many gaps emerge, particularly related to historical and contemporary differences in antisemitism across the region. Furthermore, throughout the chapter, numerous countries are mentioned, but the region is never defined. In the end, the reader is left with many interesting facts but without a clear narrative on how and where antisemitism plays a role in contemporary Eastern Europe and if or how is Eastern European antisemitism distinct from its Western counterpart.

Samuel Salzborn is a prominent contemporary scholar of antisemitism. For Salzborn, antisemitism is the culmination of two closely intertwined illiberal tendencies, the rejection of modernity and its emancipatory promise (cf. Salzborn 2018a). Historically, antisemitism combined religious and economic grievances. Modern antisemitism, while not completely abandoning these previous concerns, focuses on political grievances, which it combines with conspiratorial thinking (cf. Adorno, 1963). What remains is a deep hatred against the people who embody both old and new grievances. Today, antisemitism remains sufficiently ambivalent and attracts illiberals of different stripes – segments of the radical right, the left, and Islamist extremists – who agree on hating the Jews. This resentment and hatred is directed not only against the Jews, who are a small minority in most countries. It is the rejection of what Jews represent, namely the emancipatory power of modernity.

Chapter ten is a somewhat brief exploration of right-wing extremism and right-wing populism. The two concepts, while remaining under-conceptualized, are linked through an understanding of right-wing populism as a strategy of right-wing extremism, with an ideology of inequality at its core. As in the previous chapter, this essay would have benefitted from more input from the author’s other works discussed above, especially on the AFD (Salzborn 2018a).

The rejection of modernity and its emancipatory promise link the two chapters. The rejection of the emancipatory power of modernity is highlighted by the emerging literature on the growing backlash against gender ideology and LGBTQ ideology (cf. Kuhar & Paternotte, 2017). Much like Jews, feminists and LGBTQ individuals are desubjectivized in two ways. First, they are denied intellectual sovereignty to define themselves and refused understanding and empathy. Much like Jews, feminists, LGBTQ activists, as well as the modern state, that defends their individual freedom(s), are a threat to the natural order of a heteronormative patriarchal status quo. For parts of the reactionary right, they represent the ‘rainbow plague’ threatening the foundation of ‘our civilization’ (Guasti & Bustikova, 2020). Illiberals are deeply anti-pluralist, opposed to the modern notion of citizenship, and rely on a zero-sum vision of the world, in which profound conflict exists between freedom and sovereignty. They reject the pluralism of the demos in favor of the unity of the ethnos.

Chapter eleven discusses the New Right elements within contemporary right-wing extremism in Germany. The essay focuses on the emergence, ideology, and strategy of the New Right over the past thirty years. While previous chapters often suffered from a lack of definition of central concepts, Salzborn clearly defines the New Right as an ideology based on an intellectualization of right-wing extremism and the pursuit of cultural hegemony (2020, p. 166). The chapter highlights the ideological evolution, as well as the outlets and organizations, connected to the New Right ideology. Salzborn outlines the complementary relationship between two contemporary movements in Germany, the Identarian Movement and Pegida. The earlier is a youth-focused, more radical direct-action arm, while the latter is less radical but significantly broader in its reach. Only in the conclusion does the author add the most important element to the mix, the first radical right party to enter the German federal parliament since the Second World War – the Alternative for Germany (AfD) (cf. Arzheimer, 2015).

Much as Popper focuses on the enemies of the open society, Salzburg focuses on the enemies of democracy. On a more general level, each outlines the danger of illiberalism and its accommodation. Perhaps Popper’s paradox of tolerance offers a more complete analysis (Popper, 2020). Tolerating intolerance leads to the ultimate destruction of tolerance because the intolerant instrumentalize tolerance to attain power. Once in power, they justify stripping freedom from their opponents by maintaining the constitutional order (Schmitt, 2008). The need to temporarily suspend constitutional freedoms is justified as necessary to safeguard sovereignty (ibid.). History has shown that this is a slippery slope. The temporary suspension of rights, small or large, tends to permanently transform the constitutional order which is supposedly being defended. Standing up against intolerance – antisemitism, nativism, anti-feminism, and anti-LGBTQ rights – is the modern state’s best strategy for survival. Samuel Salzborn offers important insights into many elements of the struggles facing the modern state today. The modern state cannot function without an open society.

As a collection of essays, the volume offers a broad albeit somewhat disconnected exploration of the tensions between freedom and sovereignty, considering both the theoretical dimensions of this problem as well as certain contemporary manifestations. In their own thought-provoking way, these essays craft a mosaic of challenges facing democracy and the modern state today. What is missing is a concluding chapter that would bring these disparate threads together. Furthermore, given that the individual essays all previously appeared in different outlets, their structure differs, which demands a certain flexibility from the reader. Perhaps a different order, with a longer introduction exploring the logic of ordering the chapters, would have allowed the reader to better grasp the author’s intentions. The book covers several interesting topics which are directly relevant to the perils facing contemporary liberal representative democracy (Guasti 2020). It places important pieces into the mosaic of how we understand the modern state and its enemies. All the being said, theoretical, conceptual, and empirical gaps remain. In this way, the book can be seen as an invitation for scholars to engage with these issues and contribute by filling in the missing pieces of this mosaic, some of which have been outlined in this paper.