[ecrea] CfP: Populism and radical right politics in Central and Eastern Europe: rethinking the role of media, public discourse and their publics

CfP: Populism and radical right politics in Central and Eastern Europe: 
rethinking the role of media, public discourse and their publics
25-28/08/15, 12th ESA Conference – Prague, CZ
Deadline: 28/01/15.


Part of the 12th Conference of the European Sociological Association 
(25-28 August 2015, Prague, CZ), the RN32 Political Sociology organizes 
Session 4: The Populist Radical Right as Political Actor in Europe. The 
proposed panel on populism and radical right politics in Central and 
Eastern Europe is organized by Gabriella Szabó (CSS, Hungarian Academy 
of Sciences, HU) szabo.gabriella[at]tk.mta.hu and Ov Cristian Norocel 
(CEREN, University of Helsinki, FI) cristian.norocel[at]helsinki.fi, and 
is envisaged to fit within this framework.


Already a decade ago it was aptly noted that the study of populist 
radical right in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) resembles the efforts 
of aiming at a target in motion. Since then, several researchers have 
explored the populist radical right political landscape in the region. 
Still, we believe that studies of populism and radical right are facing 
the dilemma of whether categories of Western-oriented research properly 
describe the populist and radical right politics in CEE countries. A 
case in point, anti-immigration and Islamophobia seem to be non-issues 
in the CEE contexts, whilst ethno-nationalism (such as in Bulgaria, 
Macedonia, Romania), fundamentalist Catholicism (like in Croatia, 
Poland) and the frustration over the loss of past glories of the country 
(Hungary) are often hard to synchronize with Western developments. All 
the more important, the study of populist radical right parties needs to 
take into account the increasing inequality and growing intolerance to dif
ference (be it ethnic, religious, etc.) in the societies across the CEE.


The much needed comparative analyses on European trends of populism and 
radical right radicalism should be supported by deeper theoretical, 
conceptual and empirical knowledge on the regional specificities in CEE 
countries. It is especially true for the ‘soft’ factors of 
radicalization such as the role of media and public discourse in the 
dynamics of populism and radical right. Therefore, we seek comprehensive 
assessments of mainstream media response to the populism and radical 
right radicalism.


The panel aims to examine the extent to which public discourses are 
penetrated by populism and the level of visibility of the populist and 
radical right actors are in the public debates. We also address the 
question of the rather under-researched populist and radical right 
publics. The social media are believed to be intensively used by 
populist and radical actors to connect with each other and mobilize 
electoral support. If it is the case, we are interested in studying the 
impact and the patterns of this interactive way of populist and radical 
right communication in CEE countries. The international literature lacks 
reliable information on the rapidly growing media universe of populism 
and radical right radicalism with a powerful mix of social media, 
traditional formats of written press and radio and TV broadcast to 
balance the hostile mainstream media environment. In other words, we are 
interested to examine both in a comparative perspective and in case 
studies whether popu
list and radical media products have entered into the mainstream or they 
remain on the fringes of media sphere. We encourage contributions that 
investigate complex social manifestations, such as the examination of 
the subcultural environment in the CEE, the intersections of popular 
culture (skinhead music, rock festivals, and football hooliganism), mass 
gathering (marches, rallies, festivals), and identity construction (with 
particular attention to intersections of gender, ethnicity, and sexuality).


Please, send your abstract (no more than 250 words) to both organizers 
at szabo.gabriella[at]tk.mta.hu and cristian.norocel[at]helsinki.fi by 
January 28 2015. The potential participants will be informed in due time 
whether their papers have been accepted and be directed to submit the 
abstracts through the conference official submission platform before 
February 1 2015.



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