The rights of the Right How European far-right populist parties instrumentalise human rights rhetoric to mobilise supporters
By Maya Diekmann
Human Rights Bachelor Thesis 15 credits Spring semester 2021 Supervisor: Jon Wittrock
Malmö University Maya Diekmann
ABSTRACT: There is a puzzling occurrence in Western Europe: Some far-right populist parties, traditionally seen as antithetical to liberalism, are appropriating liberal rights for their own illiberal ends. On the premise that the parties instrumentalise liberal elements to achieve more legitimacy in a climate of tolerance and respect for human rights in Western Europe, this thesis examines how far-right populist parties use human rights for mobilising purposes. Using Clifford Bob’s four conceptual elements of mobilising human rights rhetoric, in a qualitative content analysis the language of three Western European far-right populist parties is analysed. It is argued that, by drawing from a liberalism of fear, far-right populists frame human rights as a Western achievement, under threat by immigration from Islamic countries and the “corrupt elite” that allows for immigration to continue. By doing so, populists manage to incorporate human rights rhetoric in their mobilisation efforts, without challenging human rights per se.
KEYWORDS: Far-right populism, liberalism of fear, human rights, rhetoric, xenophobia
WORD COUNT: 13,042
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“[L]iberal values essentially become nationalist values: they serve only to exclude. Liberal, ostensibly universalist rhetoric serves to extract the people from the people and, de facto, create a kind of self-labelling liberal aristocracy among the people.” (Müller, 2014, p. 489)
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1. Introduction ...... 5
2. Previous Research ...... 7 The liberal-populist paradox ...... 7 On femonationalism and Christianist secularism ...... 8 Previous conclusions and point of departure ...... 9
3. Theory ...... 10 Remarks on terminology ...... 11 Mobilisation through rights rhetoric ...... 12 3.2.1. Humanising tactics ...... 13 3.2.2. Universalising tactics ...... 14 3.2.3. Depoliticising tactics ...... 14 3.2.4. Absolutising tactics ...... 15 Remarks on Conceptual Stretching ...... 16
4. Data and selection of cases ...... 17
5. Methods ...... 20
6. FRPP’s human rights rhetoric in the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland ...... 22 Humanising rhetoric ...... 22 Universalising rhetoric ...... 25 Depoliticising rhetoric ...... 29 Absolutising rhetoric ...... 33
7. Conclusion and Discussion of Findings ...... 35
8. References ...... 38
9. APPENDIX ...... 42
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1. Introduction
Far-right populist parties (FRPP) are traditionally located at the conservative end of the political spectrum, antithetical to liberalism and opposed to fundamental human equality. Yet, a number of scholars have analysed European FRPP’s appropriation of traditionally liberal- progressive values, such as gender equality and women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and sexual liberation, religious freedom and secularism, as well as the right to free speech (cf. Halikiopoulou, Mock and Vasilopoulou, 2013; Moffitt, 2017; Duina and Carson, 2020). Such value appropriation can be seen as an attempt by FRPP to combine a central ideological pillar— that is the priority of the nation and the opposition to immigration and multiculturalism—with attitudes of tolerance, liberalism, and respect for human rights predominant within Western Europe. Where race hierarchical sentiments have lost legitimacy and exclusion based on ethnic grounds is no longer deemed acceptable, the narrative of protecting the liberal nation from illiberal civic threats has become a useful tool for contentious political goals (Halikiopoulou, Mock and Vasilopoulou, 2013, p. 112). The respect for universal human rights that resides at the core of Europe’s “civic zeitgeist”, however, leaves one fundamental question: How can FRPP, that are by nature exclusionary (Halikiopoulou, Mock and Vasilopoulou, 2013, p. 109) frame their political agenda in terms of a universal human rights doctrine? By examining in detail how three European FRPP—the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and the Swiss Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP)—frame different human rights claims, this thesis aims to shed light on this puzzle. Each of the three cases will be examined with a focus on particular rights championed by one of the parties, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, freedom of speech, and religious freedom, respectively. The following questions shall guide the case analysis:
• What are the ways in which certain European far-right populist parties instrumentalise human rights rhetoric to mobilise supporters? • Are there differences or commonalities between the rhetorical strategies of the parties?
By analysing the three cases and answering the research questions I aim to achieve two things. Firstly, the analysis will empirically and conceptually contribute to Clifford Bob’s (2019) theoretical framework for systematically analysing human rights rhetoric used by political
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actors for mobilisational purposes. The empirical contribution lies in the application of the theory to a new range of cases, namely those of FRPP. By doing so, I will also add nuance to the author’s conceptual definitions. Secondly, I intend to contribute to the research around how exactly such values may be instrumentalised, showing that by appropriating a distinct version of liberalism, far-right populists may actively use human rights as a mobilisational device against two popular enemies––“the elite” and Islamic immigrants. We live in a time that international lawyer Louis Henkin called the “age of rights” (in Bob, 2019, p. 16), in which any socio-political problem may be framed in terms of rights (p. 41). The stark increase in rights claims over the past decades has been observed critically by academics and international lawyers, who fear the “watering down” of human rights as a consequence of such rhetorical overuse. Nevertheless, in this climate, rights rhetoric proves to be a tool of great political utility, and not just for liberal political actors (Bob, 2019, pp. 7, 16). This is not least observable in the phenomenon considered in this thesis, in which illiberal actors like FRPP1 appropriate human rights language for their own political ends. Yet, the instrumental use of rights remains understudied, generating significant analytical shortcomings in the ways human rights are treated by scholars. By not separating the goals of political actors from their means, paradoxes, such as the one discussed here, arise. FRPP are not liberal at their core, even though they use a liberal (human) rights language—they merely instrumentalise human rights as they resonate within a region where liberalism is “deeply entrenched” in the social and political culture (Akkerman, 2005, p. 338). Only by acknowledging that rights are not just ends of but also means to political conflict can one avoid confusing a political group’s goals with their strategies to attain them (Bob, 2019, p. 210). In that sense, it is important to gain a better understanding of this understudied aspect of rights, which I aim to achieve with this thesis. To that end, I will proceed as follows. First, there will be a presentation of existing literature on the phenomenon of far-right political actors’ usage of liberal rights language, how such language is instrumentalised against Muslim immigrants and “the elite”, and implications of the phenomenon on the populist tradition. I will then outline the aspects of Bob’s theory that provide the conceptual framework for the analysis, define terminology and operationalise the key theoretical concepts. Thereafter will be a section elaborating on the selection of cases, data,
1 I make this characterisation of far-right populism as an illiberal phenomenon based on existing academic literature. See, for instance, Moffitt, 2017, who points out that while populism’s “democratic credentials” are disputed, there is a broad consensus about the illiberal nature of populism among academics.
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and methodology, followed by an empirical analysis of three FRPP in Western Europe. The findings will be summarised in the conclusion and a brief discussion of the findings’ implications will sum up the thesis.
2. Previous Research
In this section, I will briefly present a background on populism and clarify, what definition of populism I will use in this thesis. I will also provide an overview of the findings of previous research, including considerations of how, why, and with what effect FRPP have instrumentalised certain liberal rights. Departing from the conclusions of previous research, I will then set the stage for my own argument.
The liberal-populist paradox
Definitions of populism are widely contested among scholars, so much so that some have rendered the concept meaningless in the social sciences. However, as Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (2017) point out, the prominence of the term in the political realm is too significant for it to be “simply do[ne] away with” (p. 5). The definition used in this thesis follows that of the two authors, which boils populism down to three common denominators. Firstly, populists construct an antagonistic divide between “the corrupt elite” and the “pure people”, the former of which ignores or even works against the interests of the latter. Secondly, populists demand an uncompromised defence of the vox populi or volonté générale (the will of the people). Thirdly, by extension populists reject whatever restricts this general will, including minority rights that safeguard pluralistic values within societies. This last aspect ties into populists’ attitude towards liberal democracy, which through institutional guarantees counterbalances popular sovereignty with fundamental rights that are intended to protect minorities against the “tyranny of the majority”. Subsequently, the authors define populism not inherently undemocratic but rather “at odds with liberal democracy” (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, pp. 5–6, 13, 80–81). This definition, however, has been challenged by a number of scholars on the grounds of a paradoxical occurrence: The appropriation of liberal values by far-right populists. Among those values are free speech (see for instance Akkerman, 2005; Moffitt, 2017), secularism and religious freedom (Brubaker, 2016; Duina and Carson, 2020), and gender equality, including
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women’s and LGBTQ+ rights (Akkerman and Hagelund, 2007; Akkerman, 2015; Farris, 2017).
On femonationalism and Christianist secularism
Especially prominent among Northern and Western European FRPP is the instrumentalisation of gender equality and women’s rights. In a comparative study Tjitske Akkerman (2015) analyses the issue of gender equality within the anti-immigration rhetoric of the six electorally most successful FRPP in Europe at that time2. The author finds a discrepancy between the parties’ attitudes towards gender equality when it comes to immigration versus in other policy areas. Whereas conservative attitudes dominate policies especially vis-à-vis gender roles and the family, the article and concludes “that their commitment to liberalism is merely instrumental to an anti-Islam agenda” (Akkerman, 2015, p. 56). Benjamin Moffitt (2017) echoes these findings, calling FRPP’s endorsement of liberal values a “pick-and-choose” strategy, according to which the parties single out and appropriate aspects of liberalism for their own illiberal ends, more concretely in an anti-Islam fashion (p. 117). The “paradoxical endorsement” of gender equality by FRPP, which serves xenophobic and Islamophobic ends, is what Sara Farris (2017) termed “femonationalism” (p. 4). Accordingly, women’s––and more generally human––rights are framed by FRPP as national, European, or Western values that are to be defended against non-Western immigrants. While Farris developed the concept in the context of the Netherlands, France, and Italy, other scholars have applied it to different cases, including the Swiss ban on female genital mutilation to make sense of an “unusual alliance” between the left and right in the name of women’s rights (Bader and Mottier, 2020, p. 645). The framing of human rights as a Western achievement is a fundamental element to the FRPP’s liberal language. Akkerman (2005) calls this as a “liberalism of fear”, a tenet of liberalism first conceptualised by political philosopher Montesquieu, and adopted by influential scholars, such as Michael Ignatieff and Judith Shklar. The ultimate objective of this version of liberalism is to prevent a life of fear, ruled by “hostile political regimes which do not recognize the state under the rule of law” (Akkerman, 2005, p. 346). Ruth Wodak also notes that it is people’s fear of change––from globalisation to changing gender roles––or
2 (as of 2015) these parties included: The French Front National (now Rassemblement National), the Flemish Vlaams Bloc/Vlaams Belang, the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei Österreich, the Swiss Schweizerische Volkspartei, the Danish Dansk Folkparti, and the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid.
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“almost anything [that] can be constructed as a threat to ‘Us’, an imagined homogenous people inside a well-protected territory” (Wodak, 2015, p. x) upon which far-right populist’s xenophobic and nationalistic sentiments primarily build. In this binary construction, the role of “Them” or “the Other”, against which FRPP define “the West”, has been filled with Islam (Betz, 2009, p. 200). Consonantly, the liberal West is clearly distinguished from the Eastern or Islamic world, which is often painted as incompatible with and a threat to Western liberal values. The divide gets exacerbated where Christian values are introduced to such pro-liberal, anti-Islamic attitudes. Rogers Brubaker (2016) uses the term “Christianist secularism” to describe how the framing of Christianity as a liberal and secular religion reinforces the divide to an illiberal and very much religious Islam. Not only does this legitimise opposition towards Islam in cultural or civilisational terms, it also allows FRPP to, paradoxically, defend the liberal value of religious freedom while opposing Islamic religious expression (Brubaker, 2016; Moffitt, 2017, p. 116).
Previous conclusions and point of departure
Previous research shares the conclusion that the liberal language of FRPP shouldn’t be taken at face value and can be considered little more than a strategic, rhetorical––albeit effective–– tool. Daphne Halikiopoulou et al (2013) argue that the effectiveness with which a FRPP may adapt to the “civic zeitgeist” of Europe, with its underlying “current towards tolerance, diversity and rights” correlates with their electoral success (Halikiopoulou, Mock and Vasilopoulou, 2013, pp. 109, 124). Francesco Duina and Dylan Carson echo this conclusion, arguing that, by instrumentalising women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, FRPP have managed to appeal to a broader voter base, including individuals from the respective groups. The authors also point to the disruption in the political and ideological landscape of Europe caused by the phenomenon (Duina and Carson, 2020, p. 15). In a similar conclusion Moffit (2017) argues that as a consequence of this phenomenon, populism can no longer be considered clearly antithetical to liberalism, instead far-right populism should be understood in terms of “illiberal liberalism”. Brubaker (2016) finds that nationalist characteristics of FRPP may become increasingly blurred, as exclusionary positions are framed in civic, rather than ethnic terms. The literature examines how liberal values are instrumentalised in the rhetoric of selected FRPP in Northern and Western Europe, as well as what the reasons for and consequences of this are. None of the previous research, however, adopts a human rights framework to
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investigate the phenomenon. By taking such an approach, I aim to contribute to the “how” of the research, that is I want to make sense of how FRPP may reconcile their exclusionary positions with an international human rights framework. Although scholars, most notably political philosopher John Rawls in The Law of Peoples (1999), have tried to extend the human rights project to societies other than liberal democratic ones, such as “decent hierarchical societies”, ultimately, the institution of international human rights is to be understood primarily in terms of a normative framework based on principles of liberalism (cf. Donnelly, 2013, p. 65). If populists are sceptical of “the very existence of unelected institutions” such as the judiciary (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, pp. 109, 81) because of their capacity to overturn the will of the majority, then human rights, safeguards of autonomy of the powerless beyond the domestic level3, should be an even greater conundrum to them. Making sense of these initial expectations of FRPP’s critical attitudes towards human rights and their simultaneous rhetorical usage of them shall be part of the analysis.
3. Theory
As mentioned above, human rights are often treated as an end goal to aspire to. They are portrayed as indivisible, and the protection or violation of one right will inevitably affect the protection or violation of another. This view, according to Bob, neglects the domestic political competition over rights. Viewing rights either as end goals to be achieved through political struggle or as defensive shields against the powers of the state, fails to make clear the usage of rights as means to achieve political goals. In order to address this gap, Bob provides a conceptual framework for analysing rights’ offensive, politically strategic nature. It is the first and, so far, only systematic framework for analysing rights as strategical tools in, not merely as ends to be achieved through, political struggle. Such an approach enables an understanding of how and why even political actors with an illiberal agenda may make use of human rights rhetoric (Bob, 2019, pp. 4–7). Bob’s theory is threefold and addresses different stages of political conflict, including firstly, mobilisation against a political opponent, secondly, countermobilisation by the opponent, and thirdly, the usage of rights in direct confrontation. Considering both sides to a
3 These are understandings of popular legal scholars, such as Ronald Dworkin and Michael Ignatieff (cf. Bob, 2019, pp. 2, 5).
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conflict certainly is important, not least to eliminate bias. However, given the aim of this thesis to contribute to Bob’s existing theoretical framework, I will focus on what I understand as an area where the theory lacks nuance. Notably absent in the conceptualisation of mobilisation strategies are empirical examples of illiberal actors. Yet, the author makes no remark about the limitations of the strategies to liberal actors. By applying the theory to the case of three European FRPP, I will test if and in what ways Bob’s identified mobilisation devices appear in the rhetoric of illiberal political actors, and, if applicable, what differences emerge from the case analysis. Apart from maintaining the possibility of inductively working out patterns to add to the theory, the empirical analysis will be mostly theory-led, with conceptual elements from the scholarship on far-right populism enabling a more nuanced definition of Bob’s concepts for the cases at hand.
Remarks on terminology
Before outlining the theoretical framework, in order to avoid potential misinterpretations, some important qualifications should be made concerning the terminology used by Bob and appropriated in this thesis. Firstly, a clarification needs to be made regarding the terms “rights” and “human rights”. Bob’s definition of either term falls under a legal realist understanding of rights, meaning that rights, including human rights, only meaningfully exist within a political- legal framework in which an identified rights holder may lay claims on a duty bearer to protect a given right. In other words, rights only exist inside the context of the sovereign state, and its protection hinges on power relations within that state. This understanding is important, in order to make sense of the tactics of humanising rights language, as adding attributes such as “human” to rights merely constitutes a rhetorical device, drawing from a language that is moralistic rather than functional (Bob, 2019, pp. 10–11). Some further explaining remarks should be made on the mobilisation process itself and the actors involved, since the interpretations used here differ from those of Bob in some regards. Directly involved in the political conflict are two opposing fronts: The proponent of a right, in this case the given FRPP, and the opponent, here as previously mentioned “the elite” and Muslim immigrants. When it comes to the audience, or the people to be mobilised, Bob differentiates between constituents and potential allies. Constituents are the “aggrieved population” that are currently deprived of the right at stake and would benefit directly from a political victory of the proponent (Bob, 2019, pp. 28–29). In the cases considered in this thesis,
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no group is formally deprived of a right, but rather their rights are––at least supposedly––under threat. For instance, while LGBTQ+ rights are guaranteed in the Dutch domestic legal system, according to the PVV, growing sentiments of homophobia in the population imported by Muslim immigrants, constitute a de facto threat to the rights. Members of the LGBTQ+ community, which are directly affected by this development would be the constituents. The definition becomes slightly blurrier but still holds in the other two cases. In the case of the SVP, any member of society (that is non-Muslims) could be considered part of the constituent group, as in the narrative of the party everyone’s freedom of religion is under threat by Islam. And for the AfD, technically, the scope is even more vast, with anyone potentially falling victim to the government’s policing of speech––although, considering the party’s anti- immigration attitudes, Muslims are still highly unlikely to be the target audience for the AfD. The second group to be mobilised are potential allies, who are not immediately affected by either the deprivation of a right or the outcome of the conflict over the right. Bob distinguished between the “sympathetic elite”, meaning those who currently enjoy rights but may nevertheless lend support to a movement, and other aggrieved groups that, for different reasons, are distinguished from the constituents (Bob, 2019, pp. 29–32). The “sympathetic elite”—which must not be confused with the “corrupt elite”, which, in Bob’s terms is the opponent––could be, for instance where LGBTQ+ rights are at stake, anyone who does not identify as LGBTQ+ but nevertheless promotes rights to sexual freedom. In the same scenario, other aggrieved groups could include other minorities, which are also framed as a likely target of Islam. The point here is not to define each group in detail, but rather to include some background on the mobilisational process and, most importantly, avoid misunderstandings where terms are used in a slightly different way that they are in the theory.
Mobilisation through rights rhetoric
There are four rhetorical tactics, developed by Bob, of which political groups may make use for mobilisation purposes. The tactics include the humanising, universalising, depoliticising, and absolutising of rights. While admitting differing levels of effectiveness depending on the audience and its belief in a given right (Bob, 2019, p. 33), Bob makes no clear remark concerning the use of such mobilisational tactics by far-right actors. However, one of the theory’s underlying premise is that rights language, including human rights language, is not solely used for liberal ends but also as an instrument to achieve illiberal political goals.
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Additionally, Bob’s definition of political activists, that is leaders of social movements, political parties, and other organisations, explicitly includes actors from the entire political spectrum, not just the political left (Bob, 2019, pp. 2, 8). Thus, it can be assumed––at least preliminarily––that the theory also applies to right-wing and even far-right political actors. Whether this is the case will be established throughout the analysis. Before, I will outline Bob’s four key theoretical concepts with the help of which I will then proceed to analyse the chosen cases.
3.2.1. Humanising tactics
The first tactic of “humanising” rights rhetoric, that is the appeal to the notion of rights existing above and beyond the state, is the most popular out of the four mobilising instruments, according to Bob (Bob, 2019, p. 33). Engaging in such rhetoric constitutes an attempt to root rights deeper than legal documents; it may entail allusions to religious authority or secular rationality, and paints rights as an inseparable part of the human being. Contrariwise, not protecting or even violating such rights is framed as inhumane, irrational, and unnatural (Bob, 2019, pp. 37–38). As mentioned above, since populists, with their defence of popular sovereignty, usually share a scepticism of unelected institutions, a critical attitude towards the notion of rights existing beyond a national context, and the institutions that protect them, is expected. Moreover, the puzzle must be addressed of how an exclusionary political ideology such as far- right populism might make use of an inclusive doctrine that promotes “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” (UDHR Preamble). Generally––and this is an aspect that applies to the other three rhetorical tactics, too––a popular strategy among far-right populists is to frame human rights as the cultural heritage of the West. This is a common feature of the liberalism of fear that I have briefly touched upon in the literature review, according to which liberal principles are seen as part of a Western tradition, clearly distinct from the rest of the world. This kind of division between “the West” and “the Rest” sets the stage for an important strategical move: Accordingly, FRPP paint “the Rest”, particularly Islam, as rights- violating and inhumane, against which human rights must be protected (Akkerman, 2005, pp. 346–347). Thus, the focus of FRPP does not necessarily lie with advocacy for human rights per se, but rather with an antagonism against alleged violators. A human right, such as religious freedom, is not so much of use for mobilisational purposes because it is a human right, but
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rather because it is a human right that may be violated within “Islamic cultures”. Moreover, the narrative of the rights-violating Islam allows FRPP to undermine human rights institutions, such as the UN and its Human Rights Council (the Council). Because Islamic countries––that is where Islam is the majority religion and the legal system is, at least in parts, governed by Sharia law––are members of the Council, the Council is ineffective at best and a threat to human rights at worst. This logic will be further illustrated in the empirical analysis.
3.2.2. Universalising tactics
Another rhetorical device used by political parties is to make “universalising” claims, a tactic that per Bob’s definition facilitates the extension of the scope of a right to all humans anywhere in the world. Not only does this create a sense of commonality between rights activists all over the world, but it also helps present certain rights as uncontroversial or widely accepted claims. Universalism is understood as a constituent part of liberalism, and it most certainly drives the international human rights agenda. However, the liberal elements adopted in the rhetoric of FRPP are directed inward, rather than towards perceived outsiders and thereby, once again, fall in line with a liberalism of fear (Akkerman, 2005, pp. 346–347). Rather than extending the scope of rights universally, a liberalism of fear facilitates the previously mentioned sharp binary distinction between “the West” and Islam, in which the former has to be protected from the latter. Instead of promoting universal values, the “[l]iberal, ostensibly universalist rhetoric” (Müller, 2014, p. 489, emphasis added) of FRPP merely serves to exclude. In addition to such paradoxically exclusionary universalism, FRPP are, once again, making use of the afore-mentioned tactic of framing the political opponent as a rights violator (Bob, 2019, pp. 38–44). In the case of free speech, the elite is directly culpable for the portrayed rights violations. When it comes to women’s and LGBTQ+ rights or religious freedom, the elite is only guilty by association, but no less scrutiny is directed towards their complacency with the Muslim immigrants that threaten such rights (Moffitt, 2017, p. 115).
3.2.3. Depoliticising tactics
The tactic of depoliticising occurs where political parties try to separate their claims from the political arena. By appealing to law, Bob claims, political actors invoke a “bedrock truth” that needs to be accepted regardless of political orientation (Bob, 2019, p. 44). This strategy draws
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from the notion of legalism, which Shklar defined as “the ethical attitude that holds moral conduct to be a matter of rule following” (Shklar, 1964, p. 1). In other words, morality is equated with following the law, and contrariwise, not following the law is immoral. Those political opponents that do not fend for certain rights are not just corrupted by power and partisanship, by extension of Shklar’s definition, they even act against moral principles by not protecting or violating a right. A rights claim itself already invokes this kind of “anti-politics”, although explicit accusation of bipartisanship and corruption might be raised to put political opponents on the back foot (Bob, 2019, pp. 44–47). The strategy of FRPP most clearly is to go into the offensive when it comes to accusing the opponents of their partisanship and political biases. As stated earlier, a defining characteristic of populist parties (on both ends of the political spectrum) is the “corrupt elite”, which portrays the political establishment to be driven by personal interests rather than by the interest of the “pure people” (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, pp. 11–14). This kind of moral compromising is often underscored by accusatory affiliations of the elite with communism, left, and liberal ideology––narratives that date back to the immediate post-communist era and the myth of the “stolen revolution”4 (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, pp. 35–37). As discussed in the previous section, while in the eyes of FRPP Islam is the real threat, the corrupt political establishment is the political opponent that works against the interest of its own people by upholding and supporting policies beneficial to Muslim minorities and immigrants.
3.2.4. Absolutising tactics
The fourth tactic for mobilising supporters through invoking a rights rhetoric is to frame the rights in absolute terms. Appealing to absoluteness can be understood as a tactic to establish a certain hierarchical superiority of a single right among a set of human rights that are meant to be indivisible and non-hierarchical. As will be demonstrated in the analysis, FRPP tend to prioritise liberty rights over social and cultural rights, with a particular emphasis on free speech. According to Bob’s theory, such alleged supremacy of a right may be exercised through turning to courts, which have the power to disentangle a claim from the political will of the majority.
4 The “stolen revolution” was capitalised upon by populist after the fall of the Soviet Union, according to whom the newly democratically elected elites were cooperating with the communist elites (cf. Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, pp. 35–37).
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This is less likely to be the case with populists, who often turn the principle of popular sovereignty against counter-majoritarian institutions, among others the judiciary (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, p. 81). Additionally, as previous research on the topic has found, FRPP’s commitment to minority rights seldomly goes beyond rhetoric or carefully selected policies (Moffitt, 2017, p. 117; Duina and Carson, 2020, p. 6). Thus, the focus in the empirical analysis with regard to absolutising tactics will focus not on litigation measures, but rather on rhetoric that attempts to boost a right’s severity and urgency. Such rhetoric may trigger two closely related reactions among supporters of a political group. It lends more legitimacy to a total embrace of the cause and it creates a “zero-sum mentality”, according to which any compromise to the right claim results in a compromise, if not existential threat, to the entire cause (Bob, 2019, pp. 47–50). According to this logic, as will be further elaborated in the empirical analysis, political correctness is a gateway to censorship and immigration from Islamic countries will lead to the “Islamisation” of Europe, and the downfall of democracy and freedom.
Remarks on Conceptual Stretching
As announced above, I have supplemented Bob’s theory with elements from scholarship on far-right populism, which have led me to build on the original conceptual interpretations and refine them to be better applicable to the chosen cases. This, inevitably, raises questions about conceptual stretching. According to Giovanni Sartori’s influential work, conceptual stretching or conceptual travelling occurs when researchers apply concepts to new and different cases. The latter, of course, is necessary to increase the generalisability, or external validity, of research (Collier and Mahon, 1993, p. 845; Halperin and Heath, 2020, p. 163). The most striking modification I make, is to the theory’s underlying premise of liberalism. Liberalism can be understood as a radial rather than a classical category, where members of a category share attributes with the category but not necessarily with each other. While all versions of liberalism share a “normative primacy of individual liberty” as their core premise (Kaufmann, 2020, p. 578), they may diverge in terms of additional attributes, such as attitudes towards rights (per se and in terms of civil and political versus economic and social rights), or the role of the state vis-à-vis society and the market. Neoliberalism and rights-based liberalism (such as Locke’s notion of liberalism), for instance, have fundamentally different attitudes towards human rights (Donnelly, 2013, pp. 65–68).
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Since FRPP only marginally appeal to the universality of human rights, this would mean that they do not fall into the broad category of liberalism, one of whose defining attributes is the appeal to universality. In order to avoid conceptual stretching when extending the category to include FRPP, I have reduced the primary category of liberalism to the secondary category of liberalism of fear. While abandoning the characteristic of universality reduces the category’s intension (i.e. the defining attributes of the category), it simultaneously increases the category’s extension (i.e. the number of cases it applies to) to encompass FRPP (cf. Collier and Mahon, 1993, pp. 848–852).
4. Data and selection of cases
Based on previous research, three sets of human rights that are instrumentalised by FRPP have been identified. These are gender equality, including the rights of women and LGBTQ+ persons, the right to religious freedom, and the right to freedom of speech (cf. Halikiopoulou, Mock and Vasilopoulou, 2013; Moffitt, 2017; Duina and Carson, 2020). All of the mentioned rights are protected under international human rights law. FRPP’s appeal to them is thus expected to shed light on the aforementioned puzzle of how an exclusionary ideology may draw from a fundamentally inclusive framework. Moreover, since populist parties are not expected to instrumentalise human rights as a counter-majoritarian, anti-political trump card in the same way as Bob’s theory treats them, the empirical analysis will make an important empirical contribution to the theory, simultaneously providing nuance to the conceptual categories. To narrow down the scope of the empirical analysis, three parties have been singled out of the group of FRPP that position themselves in favour of the above-mentioned rights5: The Dutch PVV, the German AfD, and the Swiss SVP. The cases fulfil Geddes’ two criteria for testing theories in new contexts. Firstly, the theoretical domains to be tested can be found within them, that is, all three parties deploy a human rights rhetoric. Secondly, the cases are different from the context in which the theory has been developed (Halperin and Heath, 2020, p. 236). It remains to be addressed what makes particularly these three cases useful for a
5 The group includes i.a. the Danish People’s Party (DF), the Norwegian Progress Party (NrP), the Sweden Democrats (SD), the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV); the French National Rally (NR), the Italian League (Lega), and the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). See, for instance, Moffitt, 2017, for an analysis of the Scandinavian parties and the PVV; Farris, 2017, on the PVV, NR, and Lega; Akkerman & Hagelund, 2007, on the PVV and the NrP; and Akkerman, 2005, on i.a. FPÖ & Lega.
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comparative study. The selection was made on three grounds. Firstly, and as implied above, they are empirically relevant insofar as that they engage, albeit to differing degrees, in the indicated rights claims. For instance, the PVV is portrayed in the literature as a champion of women’s and LGBTQ+ rights defence against Muslim immigrants (Akkerman and Hagelund, 2007, pp. 197, 200; Halikiopoulou, Mock and Vasilopoulou, 2013, p. 119; Akkerman, 2015, pp. 38–39; Duina and Carson, 2020, p. 9). The AfD has been chosen as they heavily advocate and campaign for freedom of speech which it portrays to be under threat by the German political establishment, particularly the “Left-Green hyper-morality” (Braun, 2018b), and an exaggerated emphasis on political correctness.6 The SPV, with its campaign on the ban of minarets that has triggered Europe-wide campaigns against symbols of Islam, is a strong promoter of Christian secularism and religious freedom (Betz, 2013). It is noteworthy that these three cases are only one possible selection of several FRPP who, according to the literature, engage in such rights claims. As a second criterion for selection, language accessibility to primary material certainly played a role, allowing for more independence from and eliminating potential reliability issues with secondary sources. Lastly, by choosing these three parties I have tried to ensure a degree of differentiation between the cases, as there is little point to comparing cases that are either altogether different or exactly similar in every regard (Halperin and Heath, 2020, p. 238). While there is little agreement about the classification of populist parties, Mattia Zulianello has produced a comprehensive framework for capturing the varieties of populist parties within Europe. Departing from this, the PVV and AfD have in common that they are both “non-integrated” populist parties, meaning they challenge the political system both ideologically, as well as practically (that is, they do not visibly interact with the system). The SVP, on the other hand, is classified as “negatively integrated”. This means that while the party retains its ideological opposition to the establishment, it does have governing experience within the system (Zulianello, 2020, pp. 337–341). Apart from the governing experience, the parties differ in terms of their age: While the SVP, founded in 1971, is considered one of the oldest and most successful contemporary FRPP within Europe (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, pp. 52, 55), the PVV, founded in 2005 and understood as the successor of the short-lived but electorally successful List Pijm Fortujn, is significantly younger. The youngest of the three
6 On a state level, different AfD branches regularly campaign on the topic of censorship and threatened freedom of speech. On a federal level, top politicians, such as party leader Alexander Gauland, frequently speak out about the threats to free speech by established politicians and media. For an overview over content on free speech, see, for instance: https://afdbundestag.de/?s=meinungsfreiheit (in German).
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parties is the AfD––founded in 2013, it is seen by some as a kind of breakthrough in a country where radical right parties have had only limited electoral success in the period following the Second World War (Arzheimer, 2015, p. 1). As Akkerman (2015) notes, “[o]fficial party documents are most suitable for assessing ideological profiles because these documents best represent the voice of the party as a whole” (p. 40). For this thesis, however, party documents will only be one set of data for the empirical analysis. Much valuable material is also provided by party key figures’ speeches and statements in less formal settings, since in official documents, more contentious party goals might be phrased more moderately or be glossed over (Akkerman, 2015, p. 40). Moreover, public appearances of individuals during rallies, in the media, or online are an important part of the mobilisation process. The time frame within which data will be examined will be the late 1990s until 2021. Ranging from the rapidly increasing electoral success of the SVP in the 1990s, to the COVID-19 pandemic that has fueled the AfD’s censorship accusations, I will consider both key moments with increased mobilisation efforts, as well as event unspecific statements from the parties and their members. The former may include campaigns for popular initiatives in Switzerland, such as the minaret ban, election campaigns in Germany, or some of the many transnational mobilisational campaigns of PVV leader Geert Wilders. Because the analysis only considers three cases, the external validity, or generalisability, of my findings is limited. This is not just because the number of cases is small per se but that a small number also increases the risk of selection bias (Halperin and Heath, 2020, pp. 168, 243). While I have carefully selected the cases according to the criteria outlined above, obstacles to generalisability remain. For one, I am only looking at FRPP in Western Europe, where liberalism is “deeply entrenched” (Akkerman, 2005, p. 338) in the political environment, which makes it more likely for these parties to adopt a rhetoric of human rights. In addition, I am considering the PVV, a party that some view as relatively liberal compared to other FRPP (Akkerman, 2015, p. 58), and the SVP, located in Switzerland with a unique system of direct democracy, that many populist parties aspire to. At any rate, and besides these shortcomings, I expect the cases to give a qualitatively relevant insight into the ways in far-right populist actors may make use of human rights language to advance their own political goals.
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5. Methods
Having mapped out the selection of cases and data, this section will elaborate how relevant passages from the material will be extracted. As the chosen material suggests, this will be done through a textual analysis. Acknowledging that the two methods are closely related, the decision of whether to conduct a discourse analysis or content analysis has been guided by the research questions. Because this thesis is concerned with the way rhetoric is employed, rather than its effects on the meaning and legitimacy of the social world, I have opted for a qualitative content analysis of the chosen material. Qualitative content analysis has the important advantage that it provides contextual sensitivity, although this can be seen as a weakness of subjectivity, too. Contrariwise, a quantitative content analysis may be more objective, but it solely focusses on the manifest meaning of the text. However, the research question is concerned with the implicit meaning of the rhetoric used by FRPP, it aims not to establish that human rights rhetoric is used or the frequency at which this occurs, but rather in what ways. The underlying idea is to make sense of how FRPP may use liberal rights in their favour, and this can only be done by investigating the latent meaning of the material. While triangulation of methods may have addressed some of the weaknesses associated with qualitative content analyses, constraints in terms of time and the scope of this paper have led me to focus on one method only.
For the purpose of transparency, I have attached an overview over the operationalisation of concepts from the theory chapter, according to which I have selected passages to analyse (Fig. 1). An overview over all original quotes in Dutch and German together with their translation can be found in the index.7
7 All translations listed in the appendix are my own.
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Theoretical concept Conceptual definition8 Operationalisation9
Humanising • Reference to human rights • Human rights portrayed as a with a view to locate rights Western tradition above and beyond the state • Painting Islam as a human rights-violating religion • Framing the opponent as a • Opposition towards human human rights violator rights institution, due to presence of Islamic countries
Universalising • Theoretically, everyone • Clear boundaries between ‘the everywhere is equally entitled West’ and Islam to the right • Ostensibly universalist values • A liberalism of fear has limited are turned inward and serve as universal aspirations a basis of exclusion of Islamic immigrants • Islam and the cultural relativistic elite threaten the universality of the given rights
Depoliticising • Appeal to rights • Accusing the political • Accusing opponent of political establishment of bipartisanship bias, bipartisanship, power and corrupted interests, hungriness, corruption working in their own/minority interest and against the vox populi
Absolutising • Attempts to demonstrate • Promoted rights are key to supremacy of a given right European liberties, their • Lending sense of urgency by violation would undermine creating zero-sum mentality European/Western culture as a whole
Fig. 1
8 These are Bob’s conceptual definitions. 9 The operationalisation is based on the conceptual elements from far-right populism.
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6. FRPP’s human rights rhetoric in the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland
In the following I will analyse passages of party manifestos, election programmes, and key leaders’ public statements to make sense of the strategic patterns with which the PVV, the AfD, and the SVP instrumentalise human rights language to mobilise support.
Humanising rhetoric
This section will examine in what ways the three parties incorporate human rights rhetoric in their official material and public statements. In line with the operationalisation provided in the theory chapter, the focus will be on passages in which the parties accuse Islamic countries of violating human rights, and how this notion is used to undermine international human rights institutions. The goal of this section is to thereby unveil the strategy that FRPP follow, in order to reconcile their invocation of certain human rights (women’s rights, religious freedom etc.) with their scepticism of unelected institutions. The term “human rights” appears exactly once in the PVV’s 2021–2025 party programme, namely when referring to the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI). In the same sentence, the PVV declares that diplomatic contact should be reduced with State Parties to the CDHRI, in which “all rights and freedoms are declared subordinate to Sharia, which, among other things, limits free speech and assumes inequality between men and women.” (PVV, 2021, p. 48). Interesting to note in this passage is that, while there is a general criticism of the precedence Sharia law takes over all other rights and freedoms, emphasised are freedom of speech and gender equality, both of which are popular themes with the PVV. At the same time, as will be demonstrated in more detail in the next section, these rights are usually framed as Dutch, European, or Western, and no reference is made to the institution of international human rights law. The attitude of PVV leader Wilders towards the UN Human Rights Council becomes clear when considering a speech given in California in 2009, in which Wilders called for a boycott of the Council:
I propose a boycott of the UN Human Rights Council. And not just because the worst violators of human rights are members of this council. Recently this terrifying Council – even Saudi-Arabia has a seat – adopted a resolution that attempts to kill free speech and the concept of human rights. (Wilders, 2009)
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This statement serves a twofold purpose. Firstly, it points a finger at an Islamic country, Saudi Arabia, and its poor relationship with human rights, reinforcing the association of Islam with human rights violations. Secondly, the implications of Saudi Arabia’s presence are that the Council itself is corrupted. The logic is straightforward: Islam undermines human rights and Islamic countries are represented in the Council; therefore, the Council undermines human rights. In a 2012 debate over the Dutch human rights policies, Wilders repeated the accusations of dysfunctionality and illegitimacy of the Council, and its aversion towards LGBTQ+ rights driven by Islamic member states:
[I]n March of this year, Islamic states, including members of the UN Human Rights Council, walked out demonstratively when the UN followed up the resolution by continuing to debate discrimination against LGBT people. Isn't it really crazy that countries which have a seat on the UN Human Rights Council show their disrespect for the rights of LGBT people by demonstratively walking away during a debate about this? (Wilders, 2012)
According to Wilders, in the custody of the UN and the Council, the defence of human rights is becoming a defence of Islamic rights. At the same, time the EU human rights framework doesn’t provide a feasible alternative either. Although the EU’s policies aren’t corrupted by Islamic members, the capacities of the EU are limited and disagreements between member states remain. Thus, Wilders demands that “[t]he Netherlands must retain complete freedom in its priorities and in the implementation of its human rights policy” (Wilders, 2012).
The tactics of the PVV, of portraying human rights institutions as corrupted by Islamic influences, are similar to those of the AfD. For AfD Member of Parliament Jürgen Braun, deputy head of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid in the German Parliament, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is “one of the great texts of humanity” (Braun, 2018b, 00:11). However, human rights are under threat by expansion and reinterpretation of the political left and their alleged allies––“the radical Muslims” (Braun, 2018b, 01:51). Braun proclaims in a speech in front of the Parliament in 2018: “So, let's call a spade a spade: The Islamic world is working on the de facto abolition of universal human rights” (Braun, 2018b, 07:27). This is not just because for Muslims human rights allegedly
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always come second to Sharia law, but also because Islamic countries are infiltrating the UN and the Council. In the same speech, Braun states:
Large parts of the world today disregard human rights. A majority of states in the United Nations break them and a majority in the UN Human Rights Council do not comply with them either. So, there is no reason to glorify the role of the United Nations. In a multilateral association, 100 dictatorships certainly do not become a great liberal society. (Braun, 2018b, 07:44)
Here, the similarities to Wilders’ accusations become clear: Because the Council is dominated by rights-violating states, it cannot effectively protect human rights. Instead, it has turned into a “propaganda platform for those very states where human rights are indeed regularly trampled underfoot” (Braun, 2018a). When the USA, understood by the AfD as one of Germany’s greatest allies in the Council, issued its withdrawal, Braun voiced his understanding. However, he did not let the opportunity slip to point to the USA’s criticism of the German Network Enforcement Act (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz). The law to combat hate speech and misinformation on social media is vehemently opposed by the AfD, who declare it a violation of the right to freedom of expression. Thus, in that regard, the USA’s support had provided welcomed international backup in the Council for the party’s rights claims, and the loss was regrettable (Braun, 2018a).
The SVP’s approach to the international institution of human rights varies from that of the previous two parties. Instead of rejecting international human rights institutions, such as the Council, based on supposed corruption through Islamic countries, the party openly and explicitly rejects them a priori. In its 2019–2023 party programme, the SVP clearly expresses its opposition to international law, insofar as that
“[t]oday, international law takes precedence over the law established by national parliaments and the people … This foreign law, which is often deceptively called ‘people’s law’10, has little or no democratic legitimacy.” (SVP, 2019, p. 10)
10 “Völkerrecht” in German is often used as a term for international law, literally translated it means “peoples’ law”.
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A thorn in the SVP’s side are international courts, such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), whose judges expand and reinterpret human rights beyond the will of a sovereign state like Switzerland and its people. For a campaign on a referendum over the legitimacy of referendums, the SVP made clear its opinion that the Swiss constitution protected all fundamental human rights and that rulings from the ECtHR were arbitrary:
Switzerland not only guarantees human rights within the framework of the ECHR or on the basis of United Nations agreements … it also goes further. […] It is therefore hard to comprehend why foreign judges would protect human rights better than our own highest judges. (SVP, 2018, p. 9)
The message is, in other words, if the Swiss constitution already protects human rights, there is no need for outside interference. International law is portrayed as illegitimate, since it no longer merely entails treaties but also increasingly jurisprudence from international courts and decisions of international organisations. Not only does this make international law undemocratic because it keeps states, in this case Switzerland and its citizens, from getting involved, it also removes the human rights project from its initial role and meaning: These days, according to the SVP, appealing to international human rights is but a “political calculation for power and influence” (SVP, 2018, p. 25, 2019, p. 10).
Universalising rhetoric
As mentioned above, FRPP’s universalising tactics are paradoxical. In line with a liberalism of fear, the invoked rights are painted as an achievement of the West, incompatible with and under threat by Islamic values. Universalist rhetoric thus becomes an instrument of exclusion. The following section will analyse passages in which far-right populists and their parties construct a divide between the “liberal, enlightened, and progressive West” and the threat from the “illiberal, barbaric, and backward Islam”. I will moreover analyse how the parties shift the “burden of universalism” to their political opponent, the ‘corrupt elite’ that is allowing the threat of Islam to persist. As Duina and Carson (2020) point out, the PVV’s rhetoric centres exactly around such rhetoric of “Western civilisational tolerance” (p. 9, emphasis removed) that is in need of protection from the “primitive” and the “barbaric Islamic culture” (Wilders, 2009). The PVV’s party programme reads:
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[W]herever Islam plays a role, there is unfreedom, misery and violence all over the world … Jews, Christians, homosexuals, apostates and women are often the first victims of Islamization; unfortunately, we see this in the Netherlands as well. (PVV, 2021, p. 7)
Whereas women’s rights are protected by the standards of Dutch values, Islam subordinates women; they are forced to wear veils, are genitally mutilated, killed in the name of honour and their handshake is refused by men (Wilders, 2009). In a speech given in Australia in 2013, Wilders declared that due to the presence of Islam in Europe, “[w]omen’s rights are being trampled” and gender equality is undermined by multiculturalist policies, such as separate swimming hours for men and women (Wilders, 2013). Although Wilders appeals to issue of oppression of Muslim women, he makes clear that such concern is problematic for Europe, rather than the Muslim woman, as gender equality is a Western value: “In our civilization, men and women used to be treated as equals before the law. In contemporary Europe, this is no longer the case.” (Wilders, 2013). Wilders statements about Islamic threats to gender equality clearly exhibit limitations to their universalist applicability; again ‘Islamisation’ is merely a threat insofar as it threatens European values:
[I]f we want to defend our freedom, if we truly want to withstand the evil forces of Islam, if we want to survive, we need less cowards and more heroes. We need to … elect new leaders, brave leaders. Leaders who will protect our values, our culture, leaders who will defend our freedom, leaders who will stop cultural relativism and mass immigration from Islamic countries, leaders who will defy Islam. (Wilders, 2009)
That the European leaders allow for immigration to continue, in Wilders’ words, amounts to cultural relativism––something at odds with universalist ambitions. Although Wilders clearly appeals to a liberalism of fear with limited universalist aspirations, he manages to turn the universalist trump-card against his opponents, putting them on the defensive. The “rhetoric of primitivism” (Bob, 2019, p. 43) directed against Islam, is extended to their ‘allies’ within the political establishment, portraying the latter as complacent and turning a blind eye towards “cultures [that] merit destruction” (Bob, 2019, p. 44). The threat of Islamic intolerance to the LGBTQ+ community is equally capitalised upon by the PVV. Mepschen et al note:
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In no other country have discourses of gay rights and sexual freedom played such a prominent role, as witnessed by the narratives that unfolded after the dramatic murders of the openly gay right- wing populist politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 … and of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004. (Mepschen, Duyvendak and Tonkens, 2010)
The two figures’ opposition against Islamic values, and their death in the name of Dutch values, opened up the field for Wilders and his PVV. After Pim’s assassination, Wilders successfully seized the “newly formed political space”––which the late politician had created by removing “the curse of intolerance off of radical right rhetoric” (Halikiopoulou, Mock and Vasilopoulou, 2013, p. 113)––and has been an outspoken defender of sexual freedom since. In an interview with The Guardian in 2008, at that point termed “Holland’s rising political star”, Wilders defended his Islamophobic movie Fitna, declaring that all he wanted was to tell the truth about Islam. Accordingly, he had been
trying to use images to show that what's written in the Koran is giving incentives to people all over the world. On a daily basis Moroccan youths are beating up homosexuals on the streets of Amsterdam. (Wilders in Traynor, 2008)
Defending sexual freedom has remained a popular topic on Wilders’ anti-Islam agenda. After the attack on a gay club in Orlando in 2016, he declared that “the freedom that gay people should have – to kiss each other, to marry, to have children – is exactly what Islam is fighting against” (Wilders in Feder, 2016). According to the two statements, homophobia is portrayed as something imported from outside the Netherlands against which the Dutch population must be protected (Duina and Carson, 2020, p. 10).
The AfD’s tactics, again, are similar to those of the PVV when it comes to the construction of a human rights defending West and the rights-violating Islam. According to Braun (2018b), “[h]uman rights have deep roots in Europe” (00:45) that date back to the 13th century. He refers to Montesquieu as a thinker of the “real Europe” (00:59), also the same person who “tended to despair” that liberalism could work in Islamic societies (Akkerman, 2005, p. 347). The same message is promoted by Braun, who declares that for Muslims, human rights would always come second to Sharia (Braun, 2018b)––but also by other members of the party. Björn Höcke,
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member of the Thuringian parliament and leader of the AfD’s extreme right wing, is more radical in his statements, but essentially gets at the same core message as Braun. He claims that Islam belongs to the “orient” and to the “countries that are among the most deprived in the world”. Moreover, Islam is incompatible “with our [European] values, with our [European] way of life”, with democratic principles and the rule of law, and it still “has to enlighten itself, it has to pass through the same epochs that we [Christians] have passed through”. When these statements came under scrutiny of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the German federal domestic intelligence agency) for inciting hate, Höcke argued that such “qualitative evaluation of a religion” is protected by the constitutional right to freedom of expression (Höcke, 2020)––an attitude that is mirrored in the official party documents of the AfD. Accordingly, the “critique of Islam”, as part of free expression, should always be guaranteed by the constitution. In turn, the policing of such by the government constitutes, as I will examine in more detail in a later section, an attack on the constitution.
The SVP equally frames human rights, such as religious freedom, as a Western, and more specifically, a Christian tradition. The SVP’s attitude towards freedom of religion appears to be paradox at first glance. In a 2009 referendum, Swiss citizens voted to ban the construction of minarets. The campaign had been promoted by the SVP, whose then-Member of Parliament Oskar Freysinger, declared after the referendum passed: “I would like to say to all the Muslims listening that this will in no way change their right to practise their religion, to pray or to gather [in mosques]” (Freysinger in Stephens, 2009). Ten years later, in the SVP’s 2019–2023 party programme, the contradiction remains: The SVP opposes the wearing of headscarves in schools, supports the veil ban, demands the strict upholding of the minaret ban, opposes religiously motivated modification of burial sites and the exemption from school subjects––all this with a view to protect religious freedom (pp. 212–123). In order to make sense of these contradicting statements, one has to consider the SVP’s understanding of Islam in juxtaposition to Christianity. According to Freysinger, Islam as a religion is not the problem but rather political Islam, which knows no separation of church and state, and constitutes an attack on the Swiss legal system and the country’s cultural heritage (Freysinger in Stephens, 2009). Such heritage is openly framed in Christian terms by the SVP, yet the notion of secularism is held in highest regards. According to Brubaker (2016):
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In Northern and Western Europe today, this reactive Christianity … presents itself as closely linked with secularity and liberalism. Once understood as antithetical to liberalism, secularism, and modernity, Christianity is increasingly seen as their civilizational matrix, and as the matrix of a whole series of more specific ideas, attitudes, and practices, including human rights, tolerance, gender equality, and support for gay rights.
This is mirrored in the SVP’s 2019–2023 election manifesto, according to which “[i]ndividual freedom in particular is a consequence of the Christian image of humanity”, “[r]easonable thinking, creativity and innovation are rooted in the Christian evangelical foundations”, and “[t]olerance and openness are also part of the Christian heritage” (SVP, 2019–2023, p. 121). By framing human rights in secular Christian terms,
it allows Christianity to be privileged as culture in a way that it cannot be privileged as religion, given the liberal state’s commitment to neutrality in religious matters. On the other hand, it allows minority religious practices, redefined as cultural, to be restricted in a way that would not otherwise be possible, given the liberal state’s commitment to religious freedom. (Brubaker, 2016, emphasis in the original)
In this understanding, religious communities that reject the secular Christian notions of tolerance must not be tolerated, according to the SVP’s party programme. It is clear, whom the party refers to with such statement given that it is followed by a section on the threat of Islamic practices (SVP, 2019–2023, p. 122). Thus, not only does the limitation of political Islamic practices––which the SVP portrays as indicators of failed integration, a refusal of liberal- democratic values, and dangerously close to the rules of Sharia values––not violate religious freedom, but, on the contrary, it even serves to protect it (SVP, 2019–2023, pp. 121–123). In the narrative of the SVP, limiting the expression of the Islamic religion, an “intolerant culture, which puts its God-given, Islamic law over the law of the country” (Freysinger in Betz, 2013, p. 73), becomes a pivotal point to safeguarding the secular Christian values that make up the identity of Switzerland at large.
Depoliticising rhetoric
As expected, and in line with Mudde and Kaltwasser’s definition of populism, all parties considered here share their antagonism towards the “corrupt elite”––usually the Left or Left-
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Green. The opponent is either directly culpable of rights violations, as in the case of the censorship of free speech by the German ruling elite, or by extension through their complacency with the Islamic threat. Wilders, for instance, claimed the following in a speech in Rome in 2011:
Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: The multiculturalist Left is facilitating Islamization. Leftist multiculturalists are cheering for every new shariah [sic] bank, for every new Islamic school, for every new mosque. Multiculturalists consider Islam as being equal to our own culture. Shariah law or democracy? Islam or freedom? It doesn’t really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire leftist elite is guilty of practising cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties. (Wilders, 2011)
The message is clear: European leaders are “bargaining away” the liberties of the people by upholding multicultural policies in favour of minorities (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, p. 109), which undermine Dutch culture. According to this logic, the mere presence of Islam in Europe is a threat and the only way to protect the liberties of the Dutch people is by excluding Islam. In this anti-politics agenda of liberty rights, the PVV “purport[s] to float over the whole dirty business with unobjectionable ethical principles” (Bob, 2019, p. 47)––at least when it comes to the interests of the ‘pure people’ and the nation:
Ordinary people, however, do not consider the decline of societal cohesion, the rise of crime, the transformation of their old neighborhoods into no-go zones, to be an “enrichment.” […] Fortunately, we are still living in a democracy. The opinion of ordinary people still matters. I am the leader of the Dutch Party of Freedom which aims to halt the Islamization process and defend the traditional values and liberties in the Netherlands. (Wilders, 2011)
The same accusatory tone towards the opponent’s political bias is used by the two other parties. In the previously mentioned speech in the German Parliament, for instance, Braun proclaims that
human rights are in jeopardy, they are being reinterpreted and distorted––and not only by the representatives of the Left-Green hyper-morality here in the German Bundestag but also by their new allies: the radical Muslims. (Braun, 2018b, 01:39)
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The “Left-Green hyper-morality” is the reason for why the parliament “abuse[s] human rights for anything and everything” (Braun, 2018b, 04:51). Moreover, according to Braun, whereas the left party Die Linke––per association with its origins within the SED (Soziale Einheitspartei Deutschlands), the autocratic socialist ruling party of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR)––has a history of severe human rights violations, today they hypocritically defend a comprehensive right to asylum, granting state benefits to illegal immigrants and “the satisfaction of ever new demands” (Braun, 2018b, 01:02) that harm the human rights project as a whole. But it is not just human rights in general that are threatened. More specifically, in the eyes of the AfD, the political establishment is undermining the right to free speech. Moffit points out that when it comes to the instrumentalisation of free speech, “ ‘the elite’ and those on the left are portrayed as being in favour of political correctness and as wanting to police speech” while FRPP take on the role of “the final defenders of free speech and artistic expression in a world gone mad” (2017, p. 116). The AfD clearly follows this strategy. In response to a proposed extension of the previously mentioned Network Enforcement Act, for instance, Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, accused the government of having declared war on the right to freedom of expression. To her, the law “sounds like Orwell, and that is probably how it is intended: Dissenting opinions are criminalised” (Weidel, 2019, 00:52). A year prior, several AfD Members of Parliament, including Weidel, had already come into confrontation with the law after two Islamophobic statements from AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch and Weidel were taken down by Twitter Germany. Von Storch reacted by claiming that the climate of political correctness promoted by the government and media impeded conversation about the really serious problems––meaning the presence of Islamic immigrants and their criminal behaviour in Germany (Zeit Online, 2018). The AfD’s second co-leader, Alexander Gauland, harshly condemned the law, calling the government’s law a “censorship law” that bordered “Stasi11-methods” (Gauland in Zeit Online, 2018), once again invoking associations with the socialist government of the GDR.
So far, I have shown how by accusing the political opponent of political bias and corruption, the PVV and AfD have tried to construct their own positions as anti-political and objective.
11 Short for Staatssicherheitsdienst, the State Security Service of the autocratic GDR. The Stasi was considered “one of the world’s most pervasive and repressive secret police forces” that “infiltrated nearly every aspect of life in the GDR” (Der Spiegel, 2008).
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Domestically, the SVP take a similar approach. As the party grew more popular among Swiss voters in the 1990s, it positioned itself as “the only true defender of Switzerland’s values and cultural identity against the rise of multiculturalism promoted by the political Left” (Betz, 2009, p. 199). In a 1998 position paper on immigration, the Zürich branch of the SVP makes clear its opinion about who is culpable for letting the Islamic threat to Europe and Switzerland prevail:
In Europe, we fought for centuries for liberal and democratic values, for the separation of state and church, and gender equality. It is a particular irony of history that the same left-wing and liberal forces, who led this fight, are today the most eager to advocate generous immigration policies–– policies that threaten the basic occidental values. (SVP Zürich in Betz, 2009, p. 198)
The same accusations are still made by the SVP today. In the 2019 party programme, it is declared that “[t]he Left has a distorted relationship with their homeland”, of which their positive attitudes toward integration are proof––such delusions are harming Switzerland and destroy the Swiss identity. Whereas domestically, by emphasising the partisanship of its opponents, the SVP is trying to separate its claims from politics and demonstrate an air of neutrality, internationally, almost the opposite can be observed. As noted in section 6.1., one of the SVP’s arguments for opposing the institution of international human rights is its undemocratic character. The party is showing exactly the kind of previously described scepticism of unelected institutions, “that can run amok and end up protecting the interests of powerful minorities rather than upholding the common good” (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, p. 109). The scepticism is framed not only per emphasis on the democratic deficit of the institutions but also in terms of the clear superiority of Switzerland’s direct democracy, which “ensures a high degree of stability, because the electorate is not in favour of extremist currents, experiments or opaque package solutions” (SVP, 2018, p. 4). Moreover, Swiss-style democracy has brought “stability, freedom, security and ultimately also prosperity” (SVP, 2018, p. 5), whereas the influence of foreign actors, such as the UN, EU, or judges from international courts risks a threat. Not only are these actors appointed undemocratically, they also “bear no liability for the financial burdens” (SVP, 2018, p. 5)imposed upon states and citizens through their ever-expanding regulations. In Switzerland, all power belongs to the people, they are––in line with what many populists aspire to––the true sovereign. In an attempt to repoliticise human rights law on an international scale, the SVP
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declares that: The Swiss “know of no God-given right or eternity clauses that take precedence over the people' s decisions” (SVP, 2018, p. 9). Any decision that is made against the will of the people, according to this attitude, is an illegitimate decision.
Absolutising rhetoric
This last section will focus on the absolutising rhetoric of FRPP. Recalling an earlier note, the strategy here is to lend urgency to a claim and to create a zero-sum mentality, according to which any compromise to the right constitutes a threat to the entire cause. As established in previous sections, Islam is portrayed by FRPP as the prime threat to European liberty rights. Because these rights are portrayed as a constituent part of the Western culture, a threat to them from the outside is a threat to the enlightened, liberal European way of being. The more Muslim immigrants come to Europe, the bigger is the threat to these rights. Thus, inflating the influx of “outsiders” helps to exaggerate the threat to the ‘insiders’. Deploying a rhetoric of mass- immigration and “Islamisation” are one way of achieving this and they are permanent constituents of Wilders’ rhetorical repertoire. Firstly, the threat resides in the number of Muslim immigrants living in European countries alone. “Islamic neighbourhoods are expanding” and “Europe is becoming a continent of headscarves and mosques” , in which women’s rights are neglected as “more women every day are forced to wear the burqa or niqab” (Wilders, 2009). In addition, it is not just that the number of immigrants is increasing, but it is increasing to the extent that Europeans are slowly being replaced: “Unless there are radical changes to the present policies towards migration, over 30% of Sweden will be Islamic by the year 2050. And almost 20% in Germany and France” (Wilders, 2019a). Moreover, it is not just Islam that is taking over, but Sharia law, which aims to submit all nations. Accordingly, “among European Muslims the support for this creeping Sharia law is substantial”, with many Muslims allegedly being sympathetic towards killing in the name of religion (Wilders, 2009). The danger doesn’t stop with Sharia either, but it is escalated to the ultimate threat: terrorism and ISIS. To that, Wilders has to say:
While the terrorists are only a minority, polls show that they have the support of the majority. 73% of the Islamic population in the Netherlands say that Muslims who go to Syria to fight in the jihad are heroes. 73%! 80% of the Turkish youths in the Netherlands do not think that the violence by ISIS against non-believers is wrong. 80%! Can you believe it!? (Wilders, 2015)
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Wilders’ message is clear: With every additional Muslim immigrant, Europe and the West is slowly being “colonised by Islamic colonists” (Wilders, 2019b), it is moving one step closer to being submitted to Sharia law, and ultimately invites violence and terrorism. In Wilders eyes, the existential threat to Europe is immigration from Islamic countries, and the answer, very simply, to put an end to that immediately. The zero-sum mentality is stark: “The choice is between Islam and freedom. There is no middle way” (Wilders, 2019a).
In Switzerland the urgent threat to freedom of religion, and by extension Swiss culture, is also Islam. I have established in section 6.2. that the SVP understands Switzerland’s identity fundamentally in Christian terms. Its values––from a unique model of direct democracy, to engineering and creativity, to economic success––allegedly stem from the country’s Christian heritage. Any threat to the Christian heritage, thus, constitutes a threat to Switzerland itself–– and the greatest threat is, similar to Wilders’ rhetoric, framed as the Islamisation of the country. The country’s crackdown on Islamic religious expression, from the minaret ban in 2009 to the recent face veil ban in 2021, have been advocated by the SVP with a particular sense of urgency. In the narrative of the SVP, any visible expression of Islam constitutes the “Islamisation” of Europe. In its campaign for the minaret ban, the party argued that minarets were “symbols of conquest” (Reimann in Betz and Meret, 2009, p. 325) and “beacons of Jihad” (Freysinger in Betz, 2013, p. 73) that were slowly but surely eradicating Swiss culture.
Meanwhile, in Germany, for the AfD the ultimate threat to right to freedom of expression is political correctness and cancel culture, both of which are inflamed by the government and media. According to AfD Member of Parliament Joana Cotar (2021b), the country is witnessing “massive attacks on freedom of expression in almost all areas of society”. The vast majority would not dare voice its true opinion because one had to fear repercussions, such as the loss of one’s job, social stigmatisation, and even violent attacks from the radical left. The “self-declared thought police” such as politicians and parts of the media (Cotar, 2021b), and other “questionable helpers” of the “Orwell-style ministry of truth” (Braun, 2020, 03:35– 03:39) worsen the situation and threaten the right to free speech dramatically. Comparisons like these, to George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, are popular among AfD politicians. Weidel, as quoted previously, invoked Orwell in the context of the Network Enforcement Act. In response to the Green Party’s chancellor candidate nomination in April 2021, AfD
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chairperson Jörg Meuthen warned of “totalitarian thinking” and “Orwell-like language compulsion” (Meuthen in Tagesschau, 2021). And according to Cotar, a “structured opinion- totalitarianism” that follows the template of 1984 is exactly what characterises “Merkel- Germany 2021” (Cotar, 2021c, 01:35). Such comparisons clearly fall within the AfD’s absolutising strategy, according to which any restriction of free speech is a slippery slope to authoritarianism. Historical comparisons to Germany’s former dictatorial regimes aggravate this mentality. In that sense, repeating an earlier quote, restrictions of hate speech online border “Stasi-methods” (Gauland in Zeit Online, 2018) and the government’s behaviour resemble the “Kahlschlagplenum” of the SED (Cotar, 2021c, 01:55), which marked a crucial point in the development of the GDR, putting an end to a relatively liberal landscape of arts and culture, as well as free and open debates in society (BPB, no date). Lastly, the enforcement of political correctness online and the cancel culture around it amount to a “digital book burning” in the style of Nazi Germany (Cotar, 2021a, 00:10). The implications of these comparisons send a clear signal: If Germans have learned anything from their past, then they should stand up against the government’s crackdown on free speech.
7. Conclusion and Discussion of Findings
This thesis has examined a paradoxical phenomenon in which FRPP incorporate traditionally liberal-progressive values in their rhetoric, and sometimes policies. It has been established in the literature that such language should not be taken at face value, but rather functions to help FRPP adapt to a “civic zeitgeist” of tolerance, liberalism, and respect for human rights. Departing from this premise, with the aim to contribute to the knowledge of how exactly such adaptation takes place, I have tried to make sense of how an exclusionary ideology, such as far-right populism, may make use of human rights language (the institution of which I have defined as being fundamentally inclusive) for mobilising purposes. To this end, I have posed the following questions:
• What are the ways in which certain European far-right populist parties instrumentalise human rights rhetoric to mobilise supporters? • Are there differences or commonalities between the rhetorical strategies of the parties?
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To arrive at an answer, I have analysed three cases of FRPP in Western Europe––the Dutch PVV, the German AfD, and the Swiss SVP––using Clifford Bob’s theoretical framework on mobilisation through (human) rights rhetoric. To create more nuance in the analysis, I have built on the theoretical framework with conceptual elements from the literature on far-right populism. The analysis has yielded that all three FRPP engage in the four tactics conceptualised by Bob: The humanising, universalising, depoliticising, and absolutising of rights. With regard to all tactics, the general approach is what I would call “accusatory”, that is instead of fully promoting a tactic, the parties rather seek to blame their opponents (I have focused on the “corrupt elite” and Muslim immigrants) for rights violations. As for the humanising tactic, the PVV and the AfD use the narrative of the “rights-violating Islam” to frame their anti- immigration stances in human rights rhetoric on the one hand, and to justify their scepticism of the UN Human Rights Council, to which Islamic countries are members, on the other. The universalist aspirations of all three parties for the rights they instrumentalise are limited and turned inward. Human rights are, in line with a liberalism of fear, portrayed as an achievement of the West that is incompatible with and threatened by Islam. If anything, according to the logic of the three parties, the European and national political establishment and its cultural relativism are to blame for the continued assault on Western liberal values and universal human rights because they allow for immigration from Islamic countries to continue. Moreover, an analysis of the depoliticising tactics has shown that the elite, usually referred to as “the Left” or “the Green-Left” is painted as corrupt, working in the interest of minorities and against the “will of the people”. This betrayal is going far enough to constitute an existential threat to the European way of life. Using absolutising tactics, the three parties frame the chosen rights as pivotal to the values of the nation, that is if the right is violated, the entire value system connected to it is undermined. The SVP stands out as a case, as it is the only of the three parties that openly opposes the human rights framework a priori. Capitalising on the democratic deficit of international human rights institutions, the party argues that they act against the will of the Swiss people. In addition, because the Swiss standard of human rights protection exceeds that of international human rights law, the latter is rendered redundant. I have called this strategy the repoliticising of international human rights. Given that the analysis only encompasses three parties, the generalisability of the findings is limited, so I will refrain from drawing grand conclusions about the consequences of the
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findings regarding the status of liberalism within the populist tradition, the way previous research has done. I have departed from the premise that liberal rights are merely instrumentalised by FRPP and that such rhetoric should not be taken at face value, something which I reiterate for the instrumentalisation of human rights, too. Just because FRPP have successfully—at least rhetorically—reconciled their position with human rights, does not mean they automatically become defenders of human rights. To give the findings more rigor, more cases will have to be studied to confirm whether other FRPP—also outside of Western Europe—instrumentalise human rights in the same way as has been shown in the analysis. If that proves to be the case, there are important implications for human rights and the way they are (mostly) treated by scholars. The fact that FRPP manage to use human rights for their own exclusionary positions, by framing them in ways that feed into the fear of the rights-violating “Other”, supports Bob’s claim that rights are, in fact, “tools manipulated to achieve substantive ends” (Bob, 2019, p. 210). This implies that in political disputes, analysts should also treat (human) rights as such tools, in addition to viewing them as goals. Being able to separate how rights are treated as means from how they are treated as ends allows for more analytical clarity in times where human rights can be and are invoked by political actors of all kinds of ideological convictions, including those that constitute a profound threat to the project of human rights itself.
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8. References
Akkerman, T. (2005) ‘Anti-immigration parties and the defence of liberal values: The exceptional case of the List Pim Fortuyn’, Journal of Political Ideologies. Taylor & Francis Group , 10(3), pp. 337–354. doi: 10.1080/13569310500244354. Akkerman, T. (2015) ‘Gender and the radical right in Western Europe: A comparative analysis of policy agendas’, Patterns of Prejudice. Routledge, 49(1–2), pp. 37–60. doi: 10.1080/0031322X.2015.1023655. Akkerman, T. and Hagelund, A. (2007) ‘“Women and children first!” Anti-immigration parties and gender in Norway and the Netherlands’, Patterns of Prejudice, 41(2), pp. 197–214. doi: 10.1080/00313220701265569. Arzheimer, K. (2015) ‘The AfD: Finally a Successful Right-Wing Populist Eurosceptic Party for Germany?’, West European Politics. Routledge, 38(3), pp. 535–556. doi: 10.1080/01402382.2015.1004230. Bader, D. and Mottier, V. (2020) ‘Femonationalism and populist politics: The case of the Swiss ban on female genital mutilation’, Nations and Nationalism. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 26(3), pp. 644–659. doi: 10.1111/nana.12615. Betz, H.-G. (2009) ‘Xenophobia, Identity Politics and Exclusionary Populism in Western Europe’, Socialist Register, 39(39). Available at: https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5799 (Accessed: 17 May 2021). Betz, H.-G. (2013) ‘Mosques, Minarets, Burqas and Other Essential Threats: The Populist Right’s Campaign against Islam in Western Europe’, in Wodak, R., KhosraviNik, M., and Mral, B. (eds) Right Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse. 1st edn. Bloomsbury, pp. 71–88. Betz, H. G. and Meret, S. (2009) ‘Revisiting Lepanto: The political mobilization against Islam in contemporary Western Europe’, Patterns of Prejudice. Taylor & Francis Group , 43(3–4), pp. 313–334. doi: 10.1080/00313220903109235. Bob, C. (2019) Rights as Weapons, Rights as Weapons. doi: 10.1515/9780691189055. BPB (no date) Das Kahlschlagplenum, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Available at: https://www.bpb.de/shop/buecher/schriftenreihe/216139/das-kahlschlag-plenum (Accessed: 20 May 2021). Braun, J. (2018a) Braun: Rückzug der USA aus Menschenrechtsrat ist verständlich. Braun, J. (2018b) Die islamische Welt arbeitet faktisch an der Abschaffung der
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Menschenrechte! – Jürgen Braun – AfD. Braun, J. (2020) Jürgen Braun zur Einschränkung von Menschenrechten und Meinungsmanipulation, AfD TV. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jgkhQ29DrU (Accessed: 20 May 2021). Brubaker, R. (2016) A new “Christianist” secularism in Europe. The Immanent Frame. Available at: http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2016/10/11/a- new-christianist-secularism-in-europe (Accessed: 25 April 2021). Collier, D. and Mahon, J. E. J. (1993) ‘Conceptual “Stretching” Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis’, The American Political Science Review, 87(4), pp. 445–855. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/2938818. Cotar, J. (2021a) Freiheit im Netz! Cancel Culture stoppen! Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRvsl3M-zes&t=9s (Accessed: 22 May 2021). Cotar, J. (2021b) Joana Cotar: Wie mit der Meinungsfreiheit umgegangen wird, ist eine Schande! Available at: https://www.afd.de/joana-cotar-wie-mit-der-meinungsfreiheit- umgegangen-wird-ist-eine-schande/ (Accessed: 20 May 2021). Cotar, J. (2021c) Joana Cotar zum Schutz der Meinungsfreiheit. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce-S_WM07FM (Accessed: 20 May 2021). Der Spiegel (2008) ‘New Study Finds More Stasi Spooks’, March. Donnelly, J. (2013) Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. 3rd edn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Duina, F. and Carson, D. (2020) ‘Not so right after all? Making sense of the progressive rhetoric of Europe’s far-right parties’, International Sociology. SAGE Publications Ltd, 35(1), pp. 3–21. doi: 10.1177/0268580919881862. Farris, S. R. (2017) In the Name of Women’s Rights. Duke University Press. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11sn2fp. Feder, J. L. (2016) ‘How Far-Right Groups Are Using Orlando to Turn LGBT People Against Muslims and Immigrants’, BuzzFeed News, 13 June. Available at: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lesterfeder/orlando-is-pushing-lgbt-rights-and- immigration-towards-colli#.saA37YW1n1. Halikiopoulou, D., Mock, S. and Vasilopoulou, S. (2013) ‘The civic zeitgeist: Nationalism and liberal values in the European radical right’, Nations and Nationalism, 19(1), pp. 107–127. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8129.2012.00550.x. Halperin, S. and Heath, O. (2020) Political Research: Methods and Practical Skills. 3rd edn.
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Oxford: Oxford University Press. Höcke, B. (2020) ‘Klarstellung von Björn Höcke zu Vorwürfen des Verfassungsschutzes, 4.3.2020’. Available at: https://cdn.afd.tools/wp- content/uploads/sites/111/2020/03/20200310-Höcke-Björn.pdf. Kaufmann, K. (2020) ‘Conflict in Political Liberalism: Judith Shklar’s Liberalism of Fear’, Res Publica. Springer Science and Business Media B.V., 26(4), pp. 577–595. doi: 10.1007/s11158-020-09475-z. Mepschen, P., Duyvendak, J. W. and Tonkens, E. H. (2010) ‘Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands’, Sociology. SAGE Publications Ltd, 44(5), pp. 962–979. doi: 10.1177/0038038510375740. Moffitt, B. (2017) ‘Liberal illiberalism? The reshaping of the contemporary populist radical right in Northern Europe’, Politics and Governance. Cogitatio Press, 5(4PopulismandtheRemakingof(Il)LiberalDemocracyinEurope), pp. 112–122. doi: 10.17645/pag.v5i4.996. Mudde, C. and Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017) Populism. A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Müller, J.-W. (2014) ‘“The People Must Be Extracted from Within the People”: Reflections on Populism’, Constellations. Wiley, 21(4), pp. 483–493. doi: 10.1111/1467- 8675.12126. PVV (2021) ‘Het gaat om u. Verkiezingsprogramma 2021 - 2025’. Available at: https://pvv.nl/verkiezingsprogramma.html. Rawls, J. (1999) The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Shklar, J. N. (1964) Legalism. An essay on law, morals and politics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Available at: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674523517 (Accessed: 2 May 2021). Stephens, T. (2009) ‘Minaret result seen as “turning point”’, swissinfo.ch, 29 November. Available at: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/minaret-result-seen-as--turning-point- /7793740. SVP (2018) ‘Argumentarium für die Abstimmung vom 25. November zur Selbstbestimmungsinitiative’. Available at: https://www.selbstbestimmungsinitiative.ch/wp- content/uploads/sites/2/ArgumentariumAbstimmungSBI-d.pdf.
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SVP (2019) ‘Parteiprogramm 2019 bis 2023’. Tagesschau (2021) ‘Reaktionen auf Baerbock – Gratulationen und scharfe Kritik’, 19 April. Available at: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/reaktionen-baerbock- 101.html. Traynor, I. (2008) ‘“I don’t hate Muslims. I hate Islam,” says Holland’s rising political star’, The Guardian, 17 February. Weidel, A. (2019) Angriff auf die Meinungsfreiheit?, funk. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/funk/videos/angriff-auf-die- meinungsfreiheit/473571336847302/ (Accessed: 17 May 2021). Wilders, G. (2009) Speech Geert Wilders in Los Angeles. Available at: https://pvv.nl/index.php/component/content/article.html?id=1878:speech-geert-wilders- in-los-angeles (Accessed: 3 May 2021). Wilders, G. (2011) Speech Geert Wilders in Rome, 25 maart 2011. Available at: https://pvv.nl/36-fj-related/geert-wilders/4128-speech-geert-wilders-in-rome-25-maart- 2011.html (Accessed: 13 May 2021). Wilders, G. (2012) Notaoverleg Mensenrechtenbeleid. Available at: https://pvv.nl/37-fj- related/raymond-de-roon/5501-notaoverleg-mensenrechtenbeleid.html (Accessed: 13 May 2021). Wilders, G. (2013) Spreektekst Geert Wilders, Melbourne, Australië, dinsdag 19 februari, 2013. Available at: https://pvv.nl/36-fj-related/geert-wilders/6509-spreektekst-geert- wilders-melbourne-australie-dinsdag-19-februari-2013.html (Accessed: 3 May 2021). Wilders, G. (2015) Speech Geert Wilders, Mountain View (Silicon Valley), USA, August 11, 2015. Available at: https://pvv.nl/36-fj-related/geert-wilders/8541-speech-us- 11082015.html (Accessed: 16 May 2021). Wilders, G. (2019a) Speech Geert Wilders in Praag, 25 april. Available at: https://pvv.nl/36- fj-related/geert-wilders/9956-geert-wilders-in-praag.html (Accessed: 16 May 2021). Wilders, G. (2019b) Speech Geert Wilders in USA over vrijheid en islam. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiPKd5X--wY (Accessed: 12 May 2021). Wodak, R. (2015) The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Zeit Online (2018) ‘Hunderte Anzeigen gegen AfD-Fraktionsvize von Storch’, 2 January. Available at: https://www.zeit.de/politik/2018-01/volksverhetzung-beatrix-von-storch- strafanzeigen-silvester.
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Zulianello, M. (2020) ‘Varieties of Populist Parties and Party Systems in Europe: From State- of-the-Art to the Application of a Novel Classification Scheme to 66 Parties in 33 Countries’, Government and Opposition. Cambridge University Press, 55(2), pp. 327– 347. doi: 10.1017/gov.2019.21.
9. APPENDIX
The table contains all quotes that were translated from Dutch and German.
ORIGINAL TRANSLATION REFERENCE
Propagandaplattform propaganda platform for Braun, 2018a ausgerechnet jener Staaten those very states where [werden], in denen human rights are indeed Menschenrechte tatsächlich regularly trampled regelmäßig mit Füssen underfoot getreten werden.
eines der großen one of the great texts of Braun, 2018b Dokumente der Menschheit humanity
die radikalen Moslems radical Muslims Braun, 2018b
Nennen wir das Kind also So, let's call a spade a Braun, 2018b beim Namen: Die islamische spade: The Islamic world is Welt arbeitet an der working on the de facto faktischen Abschaffung der abolition of universal universalen human rights. Menschenrechte.
… weite Teile der Welt Large parts of the world Braun, 2018b missachten heute die today disregard human Menschenrechte. Eine rights. A majority of states Mehrheit der Staaten in den in the United Nations break
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Vereinten Nationen bricht them and a majority in the sie und auch eine Mehrheit UN Human Rights Council im UN Menschenrechtsrat do not comply with them hält sich nicht daran. Für either. So, there is no eine Verklärung der Rolle reason to glorify the role of der Vereinten Nationen the United Nations. In a besteht also kein Anlass. multilateral association, 100 Aus 100 Diktaturen wird in dictatorships certainly do einem Multilateralen not become a great liberal Zusammenschluss mit society. Nichten eine großartige freiheitliche Gesellschaft.
Die Menschenrechte haben [h]uman rights have deep Braun, 2018b eine tiefe Wurzel in Europa. roots in Europe
das wahre Europa the real Europe Braun, 2018b
Die Menschenrechte sind in human rights are in Braun, 2018b Gefahr, sie werden jeopardy, they are being uminterpretiert und reinterpreted and entstellt––und das nicht nur distorted––and not only by von den Vertretern der the representatives of the links-grünen Hypermoral Left-Green hyper-morality hier im deutschen here in the German Bundestag sondern auch Bundestag but also by their von deren neuen new allies: the radical Verbündeten: den radikalen Muslims. Moslems.
de[r] Missbrauch des the abuse of human rights Braun, 2018b Menschenrechts für alles for anything and everything und jedes
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die Befriedigung immer the satisfaction of ever new Braun, 2018b neuer Ansprüche demands
fragwürdige Helfer questionable helpers Braun, 2020
das orwellsche Orwell-style ministry of Braun, 2020 Wahrheitsministerium truth
digitale Bücherverbrennung digital book burning Cotar, 2021a
massiven Angriffe auf die massive attacks on freedom Cotar, 2021b Meinungsfreiheit in fast of expression in almost all allen gesellschaftlichen areas of society Bereichen des Landes
selbsternannte self-declared thought police Cotar, 2021b Meinungspolizisten
Meinungstotalitarismus mit structured opinion- Cotar, 2021c Struktur totalitarianism
Merkel-Deutschland 2021 Merkel-Germany 2021 Cotar, 2021c
Zensurgesetz censorship law Gauland in Zeit Online,
Stasi-Methoden Stasi-methods Gauland in Zeit Online,
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Ländern, die zu den countries that are among Höcke, 2020 abgehängten der Welt the most deprived in the gehören. world
mit unseren with our [European] values, Höcke, 2020 Wertvorstellungen, mit with our [European] way of unserer Art zu leben, life (tatsächlich unvereinbar.)
(muss der Islam) sich has to enlighten itself, it has Höcke, 2020 aufklären, er muss durch die to pass through the same Epochen wandern, durch epochs that we die wir auch gewandert [Christianity] have passed sind. through
totalitäres Denken totalitarian thinking Meuthen in Tagesschau, 2021 orwellsche Sprachzwänge Orwell-like language Meuthen in Tagesschau, compulsion 2021
alle rechten en vrijheden all rights and freedoms are PVV, 2021–2025, p. 48 ondergeschikt zijn verklaard declared subordinate to aan de sharia, waardoor Sharia, which, among other onder meer de things, limits free speech meningsuiting wordt and assumes inequality beperkt en de ongelijkheid between men and women. van man en vrouw uitgangspunt is.
Die Schweiz garantiert die Switzerland not only SVP, 2018, p. 9 Menschenrechte nicht nur guarantees human rights im Rahmen der EMRK oder within the framework of the aufgrund von Abkommen ECHR or on the basis of
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der Vereinten Nationen … United Nations agreements sie geht inhaltlich weiter … … it also goes further. […] It Es ist daher nicht is therefore hard to einzusehen, weshalb comprehend why foreign fremde Richter die judges would protect Menschenrechte besser human rights better than schützen würden als unsere our own highest judges. eigenen höchsten Richter.
sorgt für eine hohe ensures a high degree of SVP, 2018, p. 4 Stabilität, denn die stability, because the Stimmbürger sind nicht für electorate is not in favour of extremistische Strömungen, extremist currents, Experimente oder undurch- experiments or opaque sichtige Paketlösungen zu package solutions haben.
Stabilität, Freiheit, stability, freedom, security SVP, 2018, p. 5 Sicherheit und damit and ultimately also letztlich auch Wohlstand prosperity
tragen keine Verantwortung bear no liability for the für die finanziellen Lasten financial burdens SVP, 2018, p. 5
Heute wird das [t]oday, international law SVP, 2019, p. 10 internationale Recht höher takes precedence over the eingestuft als das im law established by national eigenen Land von Parlament parliaments and the people und Volk erlassene Recht … … This foreign law, which is Dieses fremde Recht, das often deceptively called oft trügerisch als ‘people’s law’, has little or «Völkerrecht» betitelt wird, no democratic legitimacy ist aber wenig oder oft überhaupt nicht demokratisch legitimiert.
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politischen Kalkül um Macht political calculation for SVP, 2019, p. 10 und Einfluss power and influence
Gerade die individuelle [i]ndividual freedom in SVP, 2019, 121 Freiheit ist eine Folge des particular is a consequence christlichen of the Christian image of Menschenbildes. humanity
Aus den christlich- [r]easonable thinking, SVP, 2019, 121 abendländischen creativity and innovation Grundlagen schöpfen wir are rooted in the Christian vernünftiges Denken, tradition Kreativität und Innovation.
Auch Toleranz und [t]olerance and openness SVP, 2019, 121 Offenheit zählen zum are also part of the Christian christlichen Erbe. heritage
Die Linke hat ein gestörtes [t]he Left has a distorted SVP, 2019, p. 7 Verhältnis zur Heimat. relationship with their homeland
Das klingt nach Orwell und sounds like Orwell, and Weidel, 2019 so ist es wohl auch gemeint. that's probably how it's Abweichende intended: Dissenting Meinungsäußerungen opinions are criminalised werden kriminalisiert.
de islamitische staten, in March of this year, Wilders, 2012 waaronder de leden van de Islamic states, including VN-Mensenrechtenraad, in members of the UN Human maart van dit jaar Rights Council, walked out pontificaal wegliepen toen demonstratively when the
47 Malmö University Maya Diekmann
de VN nader gevolg gaf aan UN followed up the de resolutie door verder resolution by continuing to door te debatteren over de debate discrimination discriminatie van LHBT's. against LGBT people. Isn't it Het is toch werkelijk van de really crazy that countries gekke dat landen die zitting which have a seat on the UN kunnen nemen in de VN- Human Rights Council show Mensenrechtenraad hun their disrespect for the disrespect voor de rechten rights of LGBT people by van LHBT's tonen door demonstratively walking demonstratief weg te lopen away during a debate about tijdens een debat hierover? this?
Nederland moet zijn vrijheid The Netherlands must Wilders, 2012 volledig behouden in zijn retain complete freedom in prioriteiten en in de its priorities and in the uitvoering van het implementation of its mensenrechtenbeleid. human rights policy.
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