Populism
179
KEY CONCEPT CULTURE WAR
spread of culture wars originated in the USA in the 1990s, sparked by a combination of a right- wing backlash against the advance of liberal values in the 1960s and 1970s, and the desire to reinvigorate left-wing politics, disillusioned by the centrist drift in economic policy in the 1980s and 1990s. Other factors stoking culture wars include divisions that flow from the advance of globalization, and the tendency of social media to ‘amplify’ emotion-filled and simplistic political views.
A culture war is a hyper-partisan style of politics, in which there is a clash of values between those who subscribe to social liberalism (progressives) and those who support social conservatism (traditionalists). Key ‘wedge’ issues in this respect include abortion, same-sex marriage (see p. 57), gender equality, trans rights, racial justice, immigration and environmental protection. The
POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES IN ACTION . . . THE REFUGEE CRISIS IN EUROPE
EVENTS: In what was Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II, more than one million migrants (most of whom were asylum seekers) crossed into Europe in 2015. The vast majority arrived by sea but some migrants made their way overland, principally via Turkey and Albania. Mainly fleeing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, migrants headed into Europe in search of peace and improved economic prospects, many of them having friends or family who had already made the journey. The journey to Europe was often perilous. More than 3,770 migrants were reported to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in 2015, while more than 800 died in the Aegean Sea, crossing from Turkey to Greece. The number of migrants entering Europe subsequently fell; according to the European Parliament, the number of migrants granted asylum in 2017 by EU states was 25 per cent down on 2016. SIGNIFICANCE: One approach to the refugee crisis was to see it as, essentially, a humanitarian crisis. Thiswas reflected, for example, intheGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel’s announcement in 2015 of an open-door policy towards Syrian refugees. A very different stance was adopted by national populists across Europe, however. This saw international migration as both a challenge to the state’s ability to control its own borders, a vital manifestation of national sovereignty, and as a threat to social cohesion, in this case stemming from the fact that most recent migrants into Europe have come from Muslim countries. Evidence of growing support for such thinking was found in the success of far-right, anti-immigration parties such as Alternative for Germany, which won seats in the German parliament for the first
time in 2017, and Sweden Democrats, which, having received growing support during 2010–14, became the third largest party in Sweden in 2018. The most dramatic response to the migrant crisis neverthelesscamefromnational populists inpower.For example, inDecember 2015 the Fidesz government in Hungary speedily erected a razor-wire fence along its southern border with Serbia, Croatia and Romania, completewithheat sensors, cameras and loudspeakers, and with the capacity to deliver electric shocks to unwanted migrants. When Hungarian riot police fired teargas and water cannon across the newly-closed border with Serbia, as thousands of refugees tried to enter through a gate that connects the two countries, Serbia’s prime minister describedHungary’s behaviour as ‘brutal’ and ‘non-European’. After the election in Italy in 2018 of a coalition government between the far-right League party and the Five Star Movement, Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister and the League’s leader, committed himself to the repatriation of half a million migrants, and clamped down on migrant rescues in the Mediterranean, sometimes leaving migrants at sea for days.
Powered by FlippingBook