About this Research Topic

Background

This Research Topic aims to feature papers from an international by-invitation only workshop on the Role of Affect in Radical Right Politics to be held in September 2023, at Utrecht University. Scholars contributing to the workshop are interested in understanding and measuring the role of emotions and affective sentiments in the appeal of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) across Europe. Through this focus on the role of affects, the Collection builds upon and adds to the ‘affective turn’ that is becoming increasingly important within the field of political science. Yet, thus far, it has only been limitedly explored by researchers studying populist radical right parties and their voters.

Populist radical-right parties, identified through a strong anti-immigrant and ethnic nationalist agenda, have been on the rise in Europe, the US and beyond. Reflecting their increasing popularity, these parties have drawn a large amount of scholarly interest on topics, ranging from who votes for them, whether they are männerparteien, the role of charismatic leaders to the impact of PRRPs policies on and beyond immigration. The field, however, also faces challenges and shortcomings that call for novel research.

Most importantly, there is little empirical research on the affective underpinnings appeal of PRRPs. This relative absence not only applies to the supply side, where, as Betz and Oswald (2022: 136) put it, ‘we are still largely missing [...] discourse-oriented studies that explore how right-wing populist parties concretely appeal to emotions, what tropes and rhetorical devices they use to evoke and elicit an affective response among their target audience.’ It also concerns the demand side, where most existing empirical research only focuses on negative emotions, such as anxiety and fear. However, recent research on populism suggests that more positively valenced emotions, such as nostalgia and hope, also play an important role in the rhetoric of, and support for, these parties.

In addition, while scholars from different scientific disciplines, such as political science, sociology, and social psychology, have started to shift their attention to studying the role of affect in explaining PRRPs success, an interdisciplinary approach is mostly absent. Moreover, research on PRRPs, in general, is primarily focused on the big states of Western Europe. Only more recently have researchers broadened their focus to Eastern European countries, where PRRPs have also gained significant electoral support. To address these gaps in the scientific literature, this Research Topic will feature papers from different academic disciplines (i.e. psychology, sociology and political science), that investigate the role of both positive and negative affects in the appeal of PRRPs, in both Western and Eastern Europe contexts.

Keywords: Radical Right Parties, Populism, Role of Emotions, Affective Turn

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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