Populism and euroscepticism: Towards uncivil society?

Abstract

This paper examines and classifies “uncivil society” in Europe, that is, a set of associational activities characterized by discursively exclusionist, undemocratic or violent features. With particular reference to organizations connected to the political right, it examines the relation between political systems and civil society, identifying the factors that have made civil society relevant for political actors and pointing to a relation of mutual dependence between the associational world and political movements and parties. It is argued that membership in uncivil society organizations is an alternative type of political participation which articulates growing anti-political sentiments, and that the emergence of uncivil society activities is rooted in newly relevant conceptions of social and political life which are anti-modern and based on ascriptive criteria of membership. Uncivil society organizations are classified as racist, nationalist and populist, and characterized as biologically essentialist, or territorially or culturally exclusionist.

Uncivility on the web

“…Indeed, the duality above, as well as the transient nature of uncivil populist practices is the key reason why we endorse here the famous conception of 'uncivil society' as proposed by Carlo Ruzza (2009). In his seminal study on uncivil society movements and their relation to institutionalised right-wing politics in contemporary Italy, Ruzza (2009, 88) saw uncivil society as primarily "groups which have a self-professed antidemocratic and exclusionary political identity".…”

The ethics of hospitality in changing journalism: A response to the rise of the anti-immigrant movement in Finnish media publicity

“…Some of these movements enhance democratic participation, but others are clearly 'uncivil' (Ruzza, 2009). Populist movements such as the French National Front and the Italian Lega Nord share xenophobic, nationalist, territorially protectionist and Eurosceptic agendas.…”

European Disintegration: Tendencies of Renationalization within the European Union and its Impact on the Common Labor Market and EU Consumer Markets

“…The whole process, that can be described as different intensities and layers of Europeanization, provokes and provoked different degrees and intensities of euroscepticism or eurocynicism all over the EU (see e.g. Boomgaarden, Schuck, Elenbaas, & de Vreese, 2011;Dixon, 2010;Eichenberg & Dalton, 1993;Elgun & Tillman, 2007;Flood, 2009;Gabel & Palmer, 1995;Gerritsen & Lubbers;Hix, 2007;Hooghe & Marks, 2005Jones & van der Bijl, 2004;Krouwel & Abts, 2007;Lobo & Magalhaes;Loveless;Lubbers & Jaspers, 2011;Lubbers & Scheepers, 2005Lubbers & Scheepers, 2010;Ruzza, 2009;Vasilopoulou, 2009;Vida, 2008).…”