Populism, Memory and Minority Rights


Book Description

Populism, Memory and Minority Rights provides a forum for discussion on crucial themes of global and regional importance on the accommodation of ethno-cultural diversity, related normative developments and debates in minority protection.







Whiteshift


Book Description

“This ambitious and provocative work . . . delves into white anxiety about the demographic decline of white populations in Western nations” (Publishers Weekly). “Whiteshift” is defined as the turbulent journey from a world of racially homogeneous white majorities to one of racially hybrid majorities. In this dada-driven study, political scientist Eric Kaufmann explores how these demographic changes across Western societies are transforming their politics. The early stages of this transformation have led to a populist disruption, tearing a path through the usual politics of left and right. If we want to avoid more radical political divisions, Kaufmann argues, we have to enable white conservatives as well as cosmopolitans to view whiteshift as a positive development. Kaufmann examines the evidence to explore ethnic change in North American and Western Europe. Tracing four ways of dealing with this transformation—fight, repress, flight, and join—he makes a persuasive call to move beyond empty talk about national identity. Deeply thought provoking, enriched with illustrative stories, and drawing on detailed and extraordinary survey, demographic, and electoral data, Whiteshift will redefine the way we discuss race in the twenty-first century.




Minority Rights and Liberal Democratic Insecurities


Book Description

This book addresses the impact of a range of destabilising issues on minority rights in Europe and North America. This collection stems from the fact that liberal democracy did not bring about the “end of history” but rather that the transatlantic region of Europe and North America has encountered a new era of instability, particularly since the global financial crisis. The transatlantic region may have appeared to be entering a period of stability, but terrorist attacks on the soil of Euro-Atlantic states, the financial crisis itself and other changes, including mass migration, the rise of populism, changes in fundamental political conceptions, technological change, and most recently the Covid pandemic, have brought increasing uncertainties and instabilities in existing orders. In these contexts, the book investigates the resulting difficulties and opportunities for minority rights. Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines who are engaged in work on various unstable orders, the book provides a unique and largely neglected perspective on present developments as well as addressing the pressing issue of the future of the minority rights regime at global, regional and national levels. This book will appeal to those with interests in minority rights, human rights, nationalism, law and politics.




Minorities and Populism – Critical Perspectives from South Asia and Europe


Book Description

This volume assembles renowned scholars to address, for the first time, the relationship between minorities and populism in South Asia and Europe from a critical perspective. Despite the very different and to some extent opposite historical and political trajectories, there is today a convergence on nationalist affirmation and on majoritarian politics between South Asia and Europe. In India, the Hindu majority rebels against wide-ranging minority rights anchored in the Constitution. In Europe, the refugee crisis and Islamic radicalization bring to the forefront the postcolonial legacy. Despite all rhetoric, there are obvious dangers of majoritarianism. Populist parties are divisive, partisan, disregard minority rights, engage in lynching, social division, stigmatization and exclusion, turning minorities into second-class citizens. There is a profound structural connection between minorities and the current rise of populism in India and Europe. But there remains a deep perplexity and also anxiety: Does the presence of minorities necessarily have to trigger majoritarian policies? Are there no solutions to this dilemma? Many observers considered multicultural policies and affirmative action programs in India as a possible model for Europe to adopt in order to achieve greater integration. But eventually they seem to have failed. Why so? Are multiculturalism and the recognition of differences still options today? On the other hand, most scholars in India typically reject the European model of liberal democracy and secularism as impracticable in India and locate the reason for the current malaise in the west. But is liberal democracy really so bad in dealing with pluralism? This volume, collecting a selection of the Reset DOC Venice-Padua-Delhi dialogue series, is going to answer two fundamental questions. First, what precisely is the nexus between minorities and populism in South Asia and Europe? Starting from those case studies, the authors will also draw some general theoretical inferences about the nature of populism. Secondly, given the dangers of populism for minorities, the volume will look for the most adequate and feasible solutions.




Populism and Collective Memory


Book Description

Right-wing populism is a global phenomenon that challenges several pillars of liberal democracy, and it is often described as a dangerous political ideology because it resonates with the fascist idea of power in terms of anti-pluralism and lack of minorities’ protection. In Western Europe, many political actors are exploiting the fears and insecurities linked to globalization, economic crisis, and mass migrations to attract voters. However, while right-wing populist discourses are mainstream in certain countries, they are almost completely taboo in others. Why is right-wing populism so successful in Italy, Austria, and France while in Germany it is marginal and socially unacceptable? It is because each country developed a certain collective memory of the fascist past, which stigmatizes that past to different levels. For this reason, right-wing populism can find favorable conditions to thrive in certain countries, while in others it is considered as an illegitimate and dangerous idea of power. Through a comparative study of eight European countries, this book shows that short-term factors linked to levels of corruption, economic situation, and quality of democracy interact with long-term cultural elements and collective memories in determining the social acceptability of right-wing populist discourses.




Populism and Religion


Book Description

Editorial 7 Part One: World Situations Populism and Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina 14 MILE BABIĆ Populism and Religious Nationalism in India 26 FRANCIS GONSALVES The Nationalisation of the Central Islamic Reference Point: Islam and Populism in the History of Turkey 37 DILEK SARMIS Part Two: Analyses Religious Populism: the New Avatar of Political Crisis 50 FRANÇOIS MABILLE Masculinist Populism and Toxic Christianity in the United States 61 SUSAN ABRAHAM Part Three: Challenging populism by theology The 'People' of God and its Idols in the 'One and Other' Testaments: How Sacred Scripture Challenges Populist Rhetoric 74 MARIDA NICOLACI 'Bridges not Barriers': The Potential of Christian Hope to Counter Right-Wing Populism 89 ANDREAS LOB-HÜDEPOHL Right-wing Populism and Catholicity: An Ecclesiological Reflection 101 FRANZ GMAINER-PRANZEL The Paradoxes of Populism and the Church's Contribution to Democracy: Some Hypotheses 111 CARMELO DOTOLO Part Four: Theological Forum Summer of Shame: American Catholics and the Latest Wave of the Abuse Crisis 124 CATHLEEN KAVENY Listening to the Conversation: After the Synod of Bishops Meeting on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment 130 BRUNO CADORÉ Contributors 136




Geopolitical Amnesia


Book Description

Far-right movements, parties, and governments are changing the language and logic of international order. Zero-sum geopolitics - from Donald Trump to Brexit - and the rhetoric of putting the national interest "first" are back, and along with them come a deep fascination with the values of patriarchy, masculinity, and strength. Putting these dramatic shifts in contemporary American and European foreign policy into wider historical and intellectual context, Geopolitical Amnesia explores the liberal crisis beneath the resurgence of far-right ideas. Drawing on memory studies, it addresses the ways in which the new geopolitics intersects and interplays with an exhausted and amnesiatic liberalism. Scholars with expertise on national and regional ideological traditions look at contemporary memory wars - competing revisionist histories - from Washington to Warsaw, and from the Anglosphere to Southern, Western, and Eastern Europe. They address the changing conditions of memory and nostalgia and discuss how and why it matters that the new geopolitics takes place in an age of accelerated, fragmented, and digitalized global media. Timely and ambitious, this accessible collection reveals the far-right ideas behind the return of geopolitics and the crisis of liberalism that paved its way.




The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism


Book Description

This Handbook is the first systematic effort to map the fast-growing phenomenon of memory activism and to delineate a new field of research that lies at the intersection of memory and social movement studies. From Charlottesville to Cape Town, from Santiago to Sydney, we have recently witnessed protesters demanding that symbols of racist or colonial pasts be dismantled and that we talk about histories that have long been silenced. But such events are only the most visible instances of grassroots efforts to influence the meaning of the past in the present. Made up of more than 80 chapters that encapsulate the rich diversity of scholarship and practice of memory activism by assembling different disciplinary traditions, methodological approaches, and empirical evidence from across the globe, this Handbook establishes important questions and their theoretical implications arising from the social, political, and economic reality of memory activism. Memory activism is multifaceted, takes place in a variety of settings, and has diverse outcomes – but it is always crucial to understanding the constitution and transformation of our societies, past and present. This volume will serve as a guide and establish new analytic frameworks for scholars, students, policymakers, journalists, and activists alike.




The Oxford Handbook of Populism


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Populism presents the state of the art of research on populism from the perspective of Political Science. The book features work from the leading experts in the field, and synthesizes the main strands of research in four compact sections: concepts, issues, regions, and normative debates. Due to its breath, The Oxford Handbook of Populism is an invaluable resource for those interested in the study of populism, but also forexperts in each of the topics discussed, who will benefit from accounts of current discussions and research gaps, as well as a map of new directions in the study of populism.