A wave of right-wing nationalism and populism has been sweeping across many countries in recent years, representing a global resurgence of conservative and reactionary political forces. This phenomenon reflects a backlash against globalisation, immigration, and establishment politics by those who feel left behind economically and culturally.
Key examples of this rightward shift include Donald Trump’s election in 2016, which embodied a turn towards economic nationalism and anti-immigration sentiments in the United States. In Europe, far-right parties have gained ground, including the Alternative for Germany, which emerged as the third largest party in Germany’s 2017 federal election. The United Kingdom’s narrow vote to leave the European Union in 2016 also typified this nationalist populism. And in countries from Brazil to the Philippines, a crop of right-wing democratic leaders has risen to power.
This right-wing revival likely stems from a variety of factors, including economic strains from the Great Recession, fears of globalism undermining national identity, cultural backlash against progressive values, and dissatisfaction with political elites. Whatever its precise causes, this conservative wave has disrupted the Western liberal democratic order and placed ethnonationalism, protectionism, traditionalism, and anti-immigration policy firmly back on the political agenda. Its long-term implications remain to be seen.
The Genesis of Right Wing Governments
There is no definitive consensus on which right-wing party was the first to come to power in a democracy. However, here is some historical context on the rise of right-wing parties in democratic systems:
In the 1920s-1930s, some of the early right-wing populist parties that experienced electoral success in democratic nations included:
1) The Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) in Germany: Came to power in 1933 when Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor. It used far-right nationalist messaging and later established a fascist dictatorship.
2) The People’s Party in Spain: Led by Jose Maria Gil-Robles, it won the 1933 elections. It was a conservative Catholic party with authoritarian leanings.
3) The Silver Legion of America: A Fascist, white supremacist group led by William Dudley Pelley that saw rising, though limited, support in the 1930s US.
In the post-World War 2 era, the Italian Social Movement, a neo-fascist party in Italy, had some electoral success in the 1950s.
In recent decades, scholars often cite the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party in Britain starting 1979 as a key milestone for a modern right-wing party coming to power through democratic means and implementing their agenda. The Reagan Republicans also rose around the same time in the 1980s US.
While extremist right-wing parties gained traction worldwide in the early 20th century, Thatcher’s Conservative Party victory in 1979 Britain marked a turning point for mainstream right-wing politics in the contemporary era.
The 21st Century has witnessed a pronounced global swing towards right-wing nationalism and populism across established democracies. This ideological shift stems from a confluence of technological, economic and demographic transformations shaping the 21st century world. Examining the principal factors energising this political phenomenon provides insight into its extensive contemporaneous impacts.
Economic Resentment and Inequality
The 2008 financial meltdown and ensuing austerity regimes have stoked tremendous economic anxiety and anger against status quo governance. Stagnant incomes, chronic unemployment and rising costs of living have made workers in North America and Europe feel abandoned by establishments perceived as complicit in the modern economy’s structural inequities.
Shrewd right-wing politicians have capitalised on this uncertainty by presenting immigrants and globalisation as convenient scapegoats. Protectionist trade policies and immigration crackdowns have emerged as accessible solutions to complex phenomena like automation and uneven post-recession recoveries exacerbating inequality. This nationalistic rhetoric resonates more strongly when fused with generous tax-cut pledges and dog whistles around welfare nationalism.
Technology and Social Media
The exponential expansion of social media over the last decade has provided a robust architecture for nationalist propaganda and misinformation to rapidly proliferate. Engagement-focused algorithms inadvertently boost the visibility of extremist content and recruitment efforts instead of demoting them.
Encrypted messaging networks have also enabled paranoid far-right groups to secretly radicalise newcomers and orchestrate violent demonstrations like the 2021 U.S. Capitol storming. The Strasbourg extremist shooting in 2018 similarly highlighted how online disinformation, combined with social media’s scale, now readily spurs unrest.
Shifting Demographics and Identity Politics
High immigration levels and declining domestic birth rates have stoked nativist fears of white Christian cultures being displaced from within Western heartlands. Anxieties about such demographic change have been seized upon by unscrupulous ethno-nationalists using xenophobic rhetoric that singles out migrants and minorities as social outgroups.
Politicians from Trump to France’s Le Pen have controversially employed racist tropes and dehumanisation when discussing marginalised groups, casting them as menaces causing punitive action. The marked global increase in hate crimes this past decade shows how such tribal ‘us versus them’ rhetoric legitimises real-world violence targeting vulnerable populations.
The Tailwinds of Early Wins
The initial electoral breakthroughs of formerly fringe nationalist parties and leaders acted as tipping points, bringing extreme ideology firmly into mainstream discourse. Events like Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, Brexit’s success and European xenophobic groups gaining parliamentary influence provided strong momentum for even more reactionary elements to emerge worldwide.
Creep of Authoritarian Tactics
The Covid-19 outbreak granted additional momentum to the rise of heavy-handed governance by right-wing figures like Trump, Modi and Bolsonaro. The health crisis enabled unchecked expansion of intrusive surveillance and violations of civil rights under the pretext of public health safeguards. These regimes have since entrenched executive domination, intimidated critics and weakened institutional checks on their power.
The pace of democratic backsliding over the past five years makes clear that the global ideological shift powered by economic displacement and ethnic nationalism has also critically damaged liberal democracy’s stability across three continents. Reining in political extremism and rights infringements constitute the foremost early challenges for nations in the 2020s.
Cascading Impacts Across Spheres
These political dynamics oriented around exclusionary nationalism and authoritarian leadership have already precipitated adverse transformations across facets of economy, society, governance and global relations.
Economic Fallout
Doctrinaire governance eschewing pragmatism for ideological purity has damaged fiscal conditions, exacerbated inequality and generated sectoral crises in multiple countries. Trade protectionism shrinking export markets has backfired across agriculture and manufacturing, causing business shutdowns and job losses instead of growth and investment.
Generous tax handouts to mega-corporations accompanied by cuts in education, healthcare and other social spending have also drained trillions in revenue while condensing wealth among elites and reducing purchasing power for consumer classes. Sweeping deregulation of finance and environmental standards has similarly stoked instability risks without commensurate upside.
Democratic Decay
Right-wing governance patterns prioritising centralised authority and marginalising dissent have steadily corroded foundations of accountable democracy. Populating public institutions with partisan loyalists, defanging of data bodies’ independence and coercion of civil society groups have compromised transparency around administrative decision-making.
Police excesses targeting rights activists and critics even under purportedly democratic regimes have intensified. The resultant trust deficit in state institutions and noticeable declines in civic freedoms point to a generational setback from fragile progress made.
Foreign Policy Shifts
Doctrinaire aspects of nationalism first have generated more zero-sum, unilateral and transactional regimes in international diplomacy. Decreased cooperation on tackling pressing transnational issues like climate change, global public health and humanitarian relief marks a departure from collective multilateralism towards competitive self-interest.
Inward-looking stances maintaining distance from world bodies on universal rights, governance benchmarks and defending strategic partnerships have diminished both material outcomes and ethical persuasion in foreign policy. Such postures also enable geopolitical rivals space to consolidate spheres of influence.
Unravelling Social Fabric
Mainstreaming of dehumanising rhetoric has ruptured communal bonds of trust and inclusive values undergirding healthy, heterogeneous societies. Increased normalisation of racism, misogyny and bigotry has replicated historical segregation barely overcome through 20th century civil rights advocacy. Surveillance schemes pre-textually targeting specific groups have rendered citizens wary of institutions supposed to ensure collective welfare.
With nationalism idealising majoritarian primacy over minority rights, tenuous social justice gains by oppressed groups now face setbacks from reactionaries occupying positions of power. Vitriolic propaganda around immigration and diversity has also spawned subcultures zealously validating prejudice instead of combating it through facts. Reconstructing universal citizenship in fractured environments poses a generational challenge.
The swelling influence of exclusionary nationalism and authoritarian governance has precipitated measurable deterioration across economic equality, civic liberties, interstate partnerships, and intercommunity relations within many countries. While societal shifts manifest over decades, the pace of democratic declines and rights erosion in a few years makes clear the need for urgent course correction to mitigate further regressive damage from hyper-nationalist politics. With ascendant far-right elements continuously pushing boundaries of acceptable conduct, resistance through legal avenues and civil activism constitutes the last institutional buffer preserving pluralism against illiberal extremes.
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