CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Bagi, Eszter Borbála |
|---|---|
| Title | The Newly Religious Populist Radical Right of Contemporary Europe? The Case of Germany and Hungary |
| Summary | The claim that the backlash against Islam resulted in an enhanced usage of religious rhetoric by populist radical right parties became a truism in recent years. However, few works analyse systematically the phenomena and its implications. The present paper compares two cases to examine the effect of the 2015 European refugee crisis in this regard: the German AfD from Western Europe, and the Hungarian Jobbik from Eastern Europe. A content analysis of the official party literature, speeches, articles, and legislative initiatives is conducted to see what role religion plays in the ideology of these parties before and after the refugee crisis, and how these ideological standpoints translate into practice in terms of religion policies and relationships with the churches. Main findings include that while the refugee crisis had an impact on how these parties use religion in their rhetoric, it does not necessarily mean an enhanced usage. While there is some convergence among the parties, ultimately it is hard to speak about a straightforward relationship towards religion. However, whether religion is used more for defining the ingroup or more for constructing the other, seems to have important implications in terms of the religion policies of these parties. On the other hand, relationship with the churches for the most part seems to depend on to what extent these organizations hold similar positions regarding particular issues, however, these relationships could very well result in different preferred regulations in terms of church-state relationships. |
| Supervisor | Zsolt, Enyedi |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/bagi_eszter.pdf |
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