Cas Mudde

Right now, I'm very happy to welcome to our program Cas Mudde, Stanley Wade Shelton, UGAF Professor of International Affairs and distinguished research professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia.

Uh, Cas Mudde is, uh, author of the book The Far Right Today, and we're very happy, Professor Mudde, you could join us this evening to talk about the far right in Europe this evening.

Happy to be here.

So as we begin, and just to note here, we'll be talking about some recent, uh, uh, elections, regional elections in Germany that, uh, uh, certainly provoked a lot of headlines here about the rise of a right-wing party, the AfD, Alternative, uh, for Germany.

And this is attractive because many of the mainstream parties will perhaps be more honest, but will also say, "Look, we have only limited power because of globalization or because of the EU or because of the US." And that overall gives many people who are not happy with the situation they're in, they have two options: either just accept it and saying, "Okay, well, we have no, no power really," or go with what is partly a fantasy but still an empowering story where you at least can do something about it.

Thank you for that.

We are speaking with Professor Cas Mudde, Stanley Wade Shelton, UGAF, uh, Professor of International Affairs and distinguished research professor at the School of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, and we're talking about far right movement and political parties in Europe.

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they have these, uh, short, shorthand, uh, you know, terms, which sometimes obscures more than it clarifies.

You're right when you say that the media flattens it a lot, and I think even, um, in academia, even in research, uh, political science, people, the term far right is still something that is, uh, anchored to the European experience, right? So we have Cas Mudde, who is a Dutch, uh, political scientist.

He was the first one, I think who-- He was one of the major, uh, academics who popularized the term far right.

And I think if you have to talk about it definitionally, which we can apply here, I suppose, is this idea that it is a political ideology that is based on exclusionary policies.

Uh, it is one in which there is a certain idea of nativism, right? So there is the core, uh, majoritarian, uh, population that deserves to rule above others, for example.

And I think even in Cas Mudde's definition, uh, there is the extreme right that, that rejects democracy.

Uh, and then there is the far right that uses democratic infrastructures in order to move their political ideology to where we can categorically call it right now.

Um, but yeah, I think even in academia right now, the term far right is still really anchored onto the European experience, the European Western experience.

Germany's Die Linke, or Left Party, scored a historic victory in Berlin's September 20th election, where the AFD finished third, and left-wing coalitions are expected to govern two of the three states that recently held elections.

Your reporter spoke with Cas Mudde, Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF Professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, who provides an overview of increasing support for European far right parties and the parallel success in Germany of parties on the left.

Particularly in the 2010s, the far right has pretty much entered every parliament of an EU member state.

But more importantly, far right parties from Giorgia Meloni in Italy to Viktor Orbán, who just got out of power in, in Hungary, to Law and Justice in Poland, these are now either the biggest right-wing party or the second biggest.

And so this is not to minimize the electoral relevance of the AfD or the threat to democracy from it, but it is problematic to reduce this whole complexity to the mainstream crumbles because the far right wins, because this creates the image that the person who is not happy with how the mainstream works votes for the far right.

But what we actually see is while this is true for particularly older white men, younger white women actually vote for left-wing parties.

That was Cas Mudde, professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia and author of The Far Right Today.

Find a link to his recent commentary titled Look Again: There's More to Europe's Election Trends Than Far-Right Success by visiting our Between the Lines website at btlonline.org. [upbeat music] You've been listening to Between the Lines, a weekly program presenting news and analysis of critical issues affecting our communities, the nation, and the world.

But what I'm going to ask you to do for my listeners and for me is just elaborate on The different ways in which scholars in the West have approached populism, like you've broken it down in your book, and there's a strategic approach, and there's an ideational approach, and, uh, you know, Muller, of course, uh, his-- and his work is, of course, secondary work.

He's drawing on the work of other scholars like Cas Mudde, but that's more what you would call the ideational approach.

So just so that, um, uh, just so that I get a sense of what existed before you did your book and before you did your study, what was the landscape like in terms of thinking about populism and building theories about it?

I'm glad you asked that question because it's a very, um, you know, that story is actually missing.

Um, what you're citing as Muller, the person who is behind this is, uh, is one article called "The Populist Zeitgeist" written by, you know, Cas Mudde and, uh, Cristóbal Rovira, um, and that's the ideational approach starts from there.

But the history goes back to almost '50s, '60s.

There was a book, um, don't forget, I don't remember the name very well.

So the, the economists and that, that, that, uh, at some point overtook the pop-political definition.