Xenophobia and the phenomenon of populism in contemporary Western Europe

Abstract

Jaunųjų politologų almanachas nuo Nr. 3 pakeitė pavadinimą į Politikos mokslų almanachasEuropos Sąjungos integracijos kontekste šiuolaikinėje Vakarų Europoje, kur turėtų vyrauti sutarimas ir darna bei bendri idealai, jau nuo devinto dešimtmečio pastebimas priešingas efektas. Tai ksenofobijos ir etninio nepakantumo augimas. Užuot bandydamos liberalizuoti migracijos įstatymus, Vakarų Europos valstybės pradeda vykdyti antiimigracinę ir ksenofobinę politiką. Tai dažniausiai daroma dešiniųjų populistinių partijų dėka, nes identiteto išsaugojimo klausimas yra jautrus, o populistinės partijos dažniausiai tuo ir naudojasi. Šiame darbe, be pateikto istorinio ksenofobijos konteksto, bandoma atsakyti į pagrindinį klausimą – kokiu būdu dešiniosios populistinės partijos naudoja ksenofobiją kaip priemonę savo politiniams tikslams pasiekti ir kiek tokios galimybės yra sėkmingos21st century is called the century of democracy. But if you take a look at the contemporary political discourse and recent situation, it is evident that the real situation is far from the described above. “The resurgence of ideological and political turbulence in the late 1960s, social conflicts rising in the early 1970s, and the spread of mass protest by new social movements and citizen initiatives in the 1980s were symptoms of a profound transformation of West European politics”. This transformation united xenophobia and the populist ideology into one strong phenomenon that became very popular among the European societies. “Populist parties are generally thought of as lacking grand visions on comprehensive ideological projects. Instead, they are presumed to appeal to common sense of common people, seek to divine mood swings of an increasingly volatile electorate, and to shape their political programs accordingly.” Because of high popularity, radical right wing populism becomes stronger. The main purpose of today’s political and social elite is to stop or to prevent European societies from the possibility of becoming xenophobic nations full of fair and hatred. The way of preventing xenophobia and radical right wing populism is to create a unified and common European identity. “The future of radical right-wing populism ultimately depends on the degree on which it manages to incorporate the question of national identity into a coherent political program”. Since this question was successfully unified in the Western democracies, it is possible that these parties and xenophobic radicalism can come to new EU member states: to Lithuania as wellPolitikos mokslų ir diplomatijos fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta