Colloquium: Right-Wing Populism and the Media. An Essay on the Normalization of the Anti-Democratic Thinking

The Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, led by Prof. Ute Frevert, cordially invites all interested to attend its summer semester 2018 colloquium:

Paula Diehl

Right-Wing Populism and the Media. An Essay on the Normalization of the Anti-Democratic Thinking

In the last few years many populist parties have emerged in Europe. Most of them are right-wing. Right-wing populism is a particular phenomenon that combines populism with right-wing extremist ideologies. This combination is particularly problematic for the democratic public sphere, since right-wing populism is able to attract more mass media attention than other political actors. In general, populism is particularly compatible with the mass media. Yet, right-wing extremism and populism have different relationships with the democratic public sphere. While right-wing extremism is against democracy and places itself outside of the democratic public sphere, populism claims to be democratic and accepts the principles of equality and freedom. By taking on populism, right-wing extremists are able to connect their anti-democratic messages to the democratic public sphere. Populism works here as a bridge for right-wing extremism into democratic debate. The talk will explore this connection by pointing out its consequences for democracy in Germany by taking violence and emotions into account.

Paula Diehl is a political scientist and sociologist. She is senior lecturer on “Theory, History and Culture of the Political” at the University of Bielefeld. Diehl was invited professor among others at the Washington University, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, Sciences Po, Paris, Institute of Advanced Studies in Bologna and Visiting Scholar at the UPenn. She is the author of Macht—Mythos—Utopie. Die Körperbilder der SS-Männer, Akademie Verlag and Das Symbolische, das Imaginäre und die Demokratie. Eine Theorie politischer Repräsentation, Nomos Verlag. Latest publications on the topic: “The Body in Populism”: in: Reinhard C. Heinisch/ Christina Holtz-Bacha/ Oscar Mazzoleni (Hrsg.): Handbook of Political Populism, Nomos/Bloomsbury 2017 and “The Populist Twist. The Relationship between the Leader and the People in Populism”; In: Johannes Pollak/ Dario Castiglione (eds.): Making Present. Theorizing the New Politics of Representation, University of Chicago Press (forthcoming 2019).