Article / Borderless fear? How right-wing populism aligns in affectively framing migration as a security threat in Austria and Slovenia

The Journal of Language and Politics published an article “Borderless fear? How right-wing populism aligns in affectively framing migration as a security threat in Austria and Slovenia”, co-signed by Daniel Thiele, Mojca Pajnik, Birgit Sauer and Iztok Šori.

Research on populism has long highlighted the differences between right-wing populism in Western and Central-Eastern Europe, and some more recent studies have shown that discourses have been converging since the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015. The paper examines this finding by analysing populist communication through the case of parliamentary debates on migration in Austria and Slovenia, 2015-2019. The results show a convergence of right-wing populist discourses in the two neighbouring countries: despite some differences in the use of affects, party actors mobilise fear in similar ways and portray migration as a threat to security and culture. The findings point to a worrying convergence of anti-migration discourse across borders and to the potential spread of a right-wing populist bloc unified by fear of migration.

Article available at: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.22026.thi