Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities: The Impact of Populism and Extremism on the International Security Environment (Contributions to Political Science) 3031434390, 9783031434396

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Contributions to Political Science

Holger Mölder Camelia Florela Voinea Vladimir Sazonov   Editors

Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities The Impact of Populism and Extremism on the International Security Environment

Contributions to Political Science

The series Contributions to Political Science contains publications in all areas of political science, such as public policy and administration, political economy, comparative politics, European politics and European integration, electoral systems and voting behavior, international relations and others. Publications are primarily monographs and multiple author works containing new research results, but conference and congress reports are also considered. The series covers both theoretical and empirical aspects and is addressed to researchers and policy makers. All titles in this series are peer-reviewed. This book series is indexed in Scopus.

Holger Mölder · Camelia Florela Voinea · Vladimir Sazonov Editors

Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities The Impact of Populism and Extremism on the International Security Environment

Editors Holger Mölder Department of Law Tallinn University of Technology Tallinn, Estonia

Camelia Florela Voinea Faculty of Political Science University of Bucharest Bucharest, Romania

Estonian Military Academy Tartu, Estonia Vladimir Sazonov Estonian Military Academy Tartu, Estonia University of Tartu Tartu, Estonia

ISSN 2198-7289 ISSN 2198-7297 (electronic) Contributions to Political Science ISBN 978-3-031-43439-6 ISBN 978-3-031-43440-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Foreword

This book comes at an extremely important juncture for the future of democracy and global order. It is by now increasingly apparent that the world has been in a prolonged democratic recession. This recession of both freedom and democracy began around 2006 when democratic expansion and net improvements in political rights and civil liberties around the world ground to a halt. The decade and a half following the fall of the Berlin Wall and then the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (what has been called the “post-Cold War” period) saw the greatest, most rapid expansion of freedom in the history of the world. By the early 1990s, the majority of states in the world had become (for the first time in history) democratic, and for 15 years following the end of the Cold War, more countries gained in freedom than declined, typically by a large margin (according to Freedom House). That progress suddenly stopped in 2006, and since then, we have seen a decade and a half of more countries declining in freedom than gaining—again, usually by a large margin. And during this same period—what I term the “post-post-Cold War period”—we have seen a significant decline in the number of democracies, as the pace of democratic breakdowns has overtaken that of democratic transitions for the first time since the start of the third wave of democratization in 1974. If this is not yet quite what Samuel Huntington would call a “reverse wave” of democratic failures, it is beginning to approach that in scope, duration, and impact. Why has this been happening? In contrast to the previous two reverse waves in world history, the method of democratic destruction has not been a military coup, extremist putsch, or openly declared seizure of absolute executive power. Rather, by way of examples from Russia and Venezuela to Turkey, Hungary, Nicaragua, and Bangladesh, has been suffocated by democratically elected leaders who have gradually eliminated all constraints on their power, from the legislature and the judiciary to the press, civil society, and ultimately the administrative structure of the state itself (including the security apparatus and even, finally, the electoral administration). In the process, these leaders leave behind a hollow shell of formal electoral competition, emptied of real political and information pluralism. The proper term for this kind of regime is competitive authoritarianism. In the current era, these agents of regime change—from democracy to autocracy—have embraced a remarkably similar style and strategy of illiberal populism. v

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They ride to power on a wave of grievance against established elites and institutions, which the illiberal populists deride as hopelessly corrupt and self-serving. They posit an unbridgeable divide between the good, deserving, and exploited people of the country and malign forces, not only the corrupt elite, but meddling and dangerous outsiders—the established liberal democracies (the US, the European Union), immigrants, foreign companies and foundations, and any minority group in the country (ethnic, religious, national, or sexual) that can be demonized for political gain. Illiberal populists play upon popular fear, anger, and anxiety. Indeed, their political success depends on stoking these negative emotions and using them to divide the country and legitimize their authoritarian power grabs. Populism needs and utilizes political polarization. Unbridgeable chasms in social and political life, steeped in mutual enmity, are what bring illiberal populists to power and enable them to mobilize more public support or at least acceptance. When enough of the electorate is motivated by fear, anger, suspicion, and hatred of political opponents and socially marginal groups, the populist leader and party are well-positioned to grab, enlarge, and concentrate political power. This type of project has proceeded to varying degrees in the former Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Hungary is the archetypical case of a liberal democracy descending under the leadership of a skillful populist demagogue first into illiberal democracy and then into nondemocracy (competitive authoritarianism). In Poland, the ruling Law and Justice Party has not quite pulled off the destruction of all democratic checks, but it has diminished the quality of democracy and put the entire post-communist liberal trajectory in grave danger. To one degree or another, many post-communist countries, from Serbia and Georgia to Moldova and Kyrgyzstan, have been struggling with these dynamics of illiberal populism and authoritarian drift. This authoritarian momentum has been facilitated by several factors, including the rise of social media, with their severely polarizing social and political impacts; the increasing concentrations of wealth and income within countries; the backlash at globalization (and in particular immigration), skillfully exploited by the anti-liberals; and the shift in global power away from the EU and the US to a broader array of national actors and regimes, in particular the new authoritarian great powers, Russia and China, which now challenge the unity and resilience of two most important liberal groupings of recent decades: the EU and NATO. Many of the global changes that have enabled authoritarian populism are deeply structural and long in the making. But as this volume makes clear, some of them are cultural, evoking changing values and belief systems. And others have been manipulated by the sharp power penetration efforts and massive propaganda and disinformation machinery of Russia and China. Then there is the return to global hard power dynamics, evidenced in the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine and the increasingly brazen PRC pressure on Taiwan as well as on free navigation in the South China Sea. Understanding these challenges to the post-Cold War Kantian system of

Foreword

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collective security and shared values has become an urgent imperative in the defense of democracy, and this volume will contribute to that vital goal. Larry J. Diamond Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA William L. Clayton Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education

Acknowledgements

This volume is supported by: Research project “Strategic communication in the context of the war in Ukraine: lessons learned for Estonia” of the Estonian Military Academy. G. F. Parrot French-Estonian science and technology cooperation program grant “The effects of the war in Ukraine on the political decision-making and strategic narratives in Estonia, France, and the European Union”. ECPR Political Anticipation Research Network. European Political Culture Association.

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Contents

Introductory Chapter: Cultural Change in Political Communities and Twenty Years of Crisis in the Twenty-First Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Holger Mölder, Camelia Florela Voinea, Vladimir Sazonov, and Noel Foster

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Contemporary Conflict, Political Participation and Cultural Change Societies Open to Conflict: Political Culture and Digitalization in the European Political Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Camelia Florela Voinea

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Lower Spectrum Conflict Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Julien Théron

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Political Culture and Political Agency: From Gaugamela to Mosul . . . . . Sebastian Fink and Vladimir Sazonov

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Personalism, Symbolism, and Power in San Luis, Argentina. Cultural Change and Political Practices in San Luis, Argentina . . . . . . . . Sergio Quiroga

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The Shift in Kazakhstan Citizens’ Political Participation: Pre and Post the 2019 Political Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Shugyla Kilybayeva and Nygmet Ibadildin Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change as Traceable in the European Value Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Klaus G. Troitzsch

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Polish-Belarus Border in the Political Narrative During the Migration Crisis in 2021–2022 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Katarzyna J˛edrzejczyk-Kuliniak Make Live and Let Die: Biopolitical Borders, Migrants, and Refugees in PiS’s Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Alexandra Yatsyk Promoting Peace to End Russia’s War Against Ukraine: An Unholy Alliance Between the Far Right and Far Left in Germany? . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Florian Hartleb and Christoph Schiebel The Impact of War in Ukraine on the Political and Ideological Agenda of European Post-communist State Conservative Populists: The Case of EKRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Illimar Ploom, Vladimir Sazonov, and Noel Foster The Russia Discourses of Estonian Populists: Before and After the War in Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Andrey Makarychev War of Narratives and Revisionist Challenge—The Evolving Strategic Partnership Between the New Right Movement in the United States and the Russian Federation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Holger Mölder Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Contributors

Sebastian Fink University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria Noel Foster U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI, USA; University of California Institute On Global Conflict and Cooperation, La Jolla, CA, USA Florian Hartleb University of Passau, Passau, Germany; European Institute for Counter Terrorism and Conflict Prevention (EICTP), Vienna, Austria; Catholic University Eichstaett-Inglostadt, Eichstätt, Germany; University for Police Saxony-Anhalt, Aschersleben, Germany Nygmet Ibadildin KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan Katarzyna J˛edrzejczyk-Kuliniak Institute of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland Shugyla Kilybayeva KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan Andrey Makarychev Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia Holger Mölder Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia; Estonian Military Academy, Tartu, Estonia Illimar Ploom Department of Strategy and Innovation, Estonian Military Academy, Tartu, Estonia Sergio Quiroga National San Luis University, San Luis, Argentina Vladimir Sazonov Estonian Military Academy, Tartu, Estonia; University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia Christoph Schiebel KU Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany Julien Théron Sciences Po, Paris, France

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Klaus G. Troitzsch Institut für Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungsinformatik (Retired), Universität Koblenz, Koblenz, Germany Camelia Florela Voinea Faculty of Political Science; European Research Centre for Political Culture; Department Public Policy, International Relations and Security Studies, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania Alexandra Yatsyk Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion (IRHiS) UMR 8529, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Université de Lille, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France

Introductory Chapter: Cultural Change in Political Communities and Twenty Years of Crisis in the Twenty-First Century Holger Mölder , Camelia Florela Voinea , Vladimir Sazonov , and Noel Foster

1 Illiberal Challenges to the Wave of Democratization Diamond (2019) points to the rise of illiberal authoritarian-leaning governance in Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, and the Philippines,1 as well as the emergence of alternative systems to liberal democracy driven by an increasingly confident

1 In the Philippines, the authoritarian president Rodrigo Duterte stepped down in 2022, and endorsed Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., a son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., in the presidential elections. Marcos won the elections and Sara Duterte, a daughter of the previous president, was elected as the new vice president. In Brazil, the ruling president Jair Bolsonaro lost elections to the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after which his supporters stormed the presidential palace, the parliament, and the supreme court in January 2023.

H. Mölder Department of Law, Tallinn University of Technology, Akadeemia tee 3, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] Estonian Military Academy, Tartu, Estonia C. F. Voinea University of Bucharest, Boulevard Basarabia no. 52 Bl.33 Ap. 73, 022115 Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] V. Sazonov (B) Estonian Military Academy, Riia 12, 51013 Tartu, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia N. Foster U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI, USA University of California Institute On Global Conflict and Cooperation, La Jolla, CA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_1

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strongmen Vladimir Putin in Russia and Xi Jinping in China. The End of History (Fukuyama, 1992) with liberal democracy as an inevitable end state now appears to be a mirage of a bygone age of optimism, replaced by assertive authoritarian regimes proposing alternative models and values, and from that the return of culture— and specifically variation therein, cultural change—as a key driver in international politics. The world has become less static, which makes future developments less detectable for strategic decision-makers and researchers. Therefore, studying cultural change is going to become one of the most challenging issues in social sciences. Political communities the world over have witnessed epochal shifts and new global threats that affect the security of people and states. During the last two decades, the international community faced multiple hitherto unknown or long-forgotten phenomena: the global pandemic of COVID-19, climate change, massive migration waves, economic crises, and the collapse of once seemingly impregnable regimes. Revisionist autocratic powers such as China and Russia have found ample opportunities to challenge the liberal democratic principles of the international system. The increasing influence of populist and illiberal or extremist ideologies, and the resilience of transnational extremist non-state actors (e.g., ISIS, al-Qaeda) in the global political landscape have made it unstable and unpredictable. The strengthening of nationalism, protectionism, and democratic recession, and the rise of anti-globalism, and Euroscepticism combined to produce powerful populist responses to the world order. The revolutionary development of communication systems and the rise of the digital world with the global Internet have fueled the vigorous emergence of alternative movements, which has led to a deepening of seemingly irreconcilable ideological polarization in the Western world. Perhaps the most compelling examples of these trends are Brexit in the United Kingdom and the rise of Trumpism—including Trumpism without Trump—in the United States.2 Waves of contestation that have been decried as “cancel culture”, the removal of historical statues (e.g., those associated with legacies of slavery or colonialism), and the “Black Lives Matter” movement as a hard reaction to the systemic racism caused ideological clashes in many parts of the world. Finally, the ongoing war in Ukraine, which presently defies diplomatic solutions, is challenging the stability of the Euro-Atlantic security environment, but has also a broader impact—e.g., the increase in hunger and famine in Africa through blocking the export of grain from Ukraine, is directly and inextricably linked to the turbulent war in Ukraine. The threats that were already resolved 2

Trumpism is strongly associated with the personality cult of Donald Trump. However, as the 2024 U.S. campaign season demonstrates, Trumpism can exist without Trump, who may remain a symbolic figure, but is neither the chief ideologue nor necessarily the political leader of the Trumpist movement. Trumpism can best be understood as an American alternative right movement, grounded in populist and anti-establishment policies that promise rapid and effective national responses to economic and social problems, including immigration restrictions, trade protectionism, isolationism in foreign policy, as well as the defense of staples of American social conservatism, whether on abortion, the right to bear arms, or minority rights. Trumpism can be characterized by the efficient marketing of populist slogans (e.g., Make America Great Again) and visual images (e.g., building a wall on the Mexican border).

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have returned forcefully and affect international relations like the global arms race or nuclear threats. The international system is now undergoing a transformation, and the new system is going to represent different cultural logics, in many ways different from the logics of the Cold War system which focused on the logic of raison d’état provided by culturally close powers (Eriksen & Neumann, 1993, 233–234). In the post-Cold War period, instead of interstate security dilemmas, the world is increasingly affected by a deepening global insecurity dilemma3 (Sørensen, 2007; Job, 1992; Mölder & Shiraev, 2021) as the rapid, and even revolutionary development of disruptive technologies is challenging the global order and societies. The emergence of the digital world has facilitated new types of risks, threats, and challenges, which can be weaponized by various revisionist actors as well as international criminal and terrorist networks. Even the most backward forces have skillfully used technological advances to spread their ideas. The use of artificial intelligence (e.g., Chat GPT) for high-tech involvement in armed conflicts, industrial, infrastructural, technical, and economic espionage, strategic communication, or cyber warfare. Computational propaganda, deep fakes, and manipulating information widely used for international communication are an effective force for cultural change in political communities (Bradshaw & Howard, 2019; Sanovich, 2017). The Russian military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, symbolizes the conclusive end of the post-Cold war Kantian international system although the crumbling of the system started much earlier. The twenty-first century brought remarkable conservative challenges to the liberal international system. In twenty years, Kantian security governance has been replaced with Hobbesian hyper-competitiveness (von der Leyen, 2021), which Wendt (1999, 247) describes as “a truly self-help system”. The cultural change in the international system from Kantian security governance to the Hobbesian competition did not take place, because the previous system necessarily failed, but there appeared new strategic contenders, and revisionist powers which are not satisfied with the institutional boundaries of cooperative security governance. In particular, the cooperative security wave of the 1990s was challenged by the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, but also by the United States during the Bush and Trump administrations. Huntington (1991) provided a study on three waves of democratization based on the experiences of 60 countries and reached a conclusion that waves of democratization are often followed by reverse waves which increase the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes. The current “democratic recession” (Diamond, 2015) seems to vindicate Huntington’s theory. According to Huntington, the third wave of democratization started with the Portugal revolution of 1974, followed by regime changes in Greece (1974) and Spain (1975) and finally reaching the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The third wave of democratization came to an end with the Global War on Terrorism, proclaimed by the Bush administration of 3

Insecurity dilemma stems from the spread of cultures of fear and uncertainty, which can be caused by ambiguous content of liberal democracy, where people can be at risk from their own state authorities, conducting securitization, militarization, and repression.

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the United States in its response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 and followed by the Iraqi intervention of 2003, after which post-Cold War international system started to become increasingly unstable and discredited. Diamond (2015, 144) notes that the established democracies, including the United States, are performing poorly in promoting democracy effectively. The setbacks from decades of offshoring and stagnating incomes that triggered the economic crisis of 2007–2009 and the protracted unresolved crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, which led to a wave of refugees. These processes encouraged the influence of extremist and populist forces, and support for a broad nationalist-protectionist wave grew. The nationalist-protectionist wave reflected the fears that fundamental changes in society may create for the more conservative part of it, but also for those who struggled to keep up with the times. To some extent, this wave constitutes the visible part of a deeper protest against globalization and an attempt to find protection against it from the past processes by referring to the emergence of nation-states that characterized the nineteenth century. The globalization process and the emergence of powerful non-state actors from multinational corporations to violent extremist organizations, technological progress, and the advancement of the free market have significantly diminished the role of the state in the contemporary political environment. The rise of economic nationalism is an integrated part of this reverse wave, which intends to claim that markets should primarily serve the interests of the state. These reverse moods have been characterized by Robert Kagan in his book “The Return of History” (2008), a kind of counter-response to Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History”. The author predicts that the post-Cold War order around expanding markets, democracy, and institutions will lose its attractiveness as Russia lost the desire to be a part of the liberal West, China is embarking its strategic ambitions, radical Islam started jihad against the West, and struggles for power, influence, honor, and status between contesting powers will remain. The future international order according to Kagan would be shaped by those who have the power to shape it in Beijing, Moscow, and Washington, not in Brussels, which perfectly describes the magic of illiberal response, the central element of a nationalist-protectionist wave. The general message Kagan came up with is “the world is turning normal again”, forcing the Realist presumption that the Hobbesian culture corresponds to normality and the liberal institutionalism coming along with the Kantian culture is rather a utopian anomaly (Kagan, 2008). The symbolic value of this illiberal challenge can be found in the statement made by the U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on January 22, 2003, where in the press conference he contrasted the old Europe (France and Germany) with the new Europe (former countries of the Communist bloc). Rumsfeld said: “You look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They’re not with France and Germany, they’re with the United States,” (Baker, 2003). Presently, this division between the old and new Europe has found some revitalization from Poland, which is ruled by the New Right government, but openly supports Ukraine in their fight against Russia, while the majority of New Right is ignoring the war or taking either pro-Russian or ambivalent positions. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused Germany

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and France in cooperating closely with Russia on energy matters in the past and having adopted positions toward Ukraine that are not the same as the position of the United States or Poland. Morawiecki emphasized that New Europe (Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states) can become a driving force in global competition in the future (Walla, 2023). At the same time, the European Commission, France, and Germany have come into open conflict with the nationalist and protectionist policies of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) regarding the rule of law and their traditionalist-conservative values which are closer to Russia than to “the old Europe” (Kauffmann, 2023). At the level of the international system, this rupture emerged not only in interstate relations, but the expansion of freedom and democracy in the world came to a prolonged halt (Diamond, 2015, 142) and it rescued the genie of nationalism from the bottle (Cooley, 2015, 51). The focus of the conservative challenge was to weaken the cooperation-oriented liberal international system and put the national interests of great powers in the foreground again. However, unlike the nineteenth century, the world was faced with different global challenges that in fact required intensive cooperation between the entire international community of states to deal with them as the nationalist and protectionist policies have met difficulties in standing against new global challenges from climate change to pandemics. The America First image, which culminates in Hobbesian hyper-competitiveness as a more self-interested, nationalist, and protectionist narrative, is replacing the image of the U.S. as the leader of world democracies that characterizes the security governance of the 1990s. It is important to note that democratic political systems are much more vulnerable to changes, because unlike authoritarian countries, democratic systems tolerate a multiplicity of views that support the emergence of a strong political opposition. Cultural change has yet to truly enter the field of international relations, as it has long remained marginalized from the inter-paradigm debate (Jacquin et al., 1993), and the debate may often stubbornly emphasize the universality of Western civilization, which in this view suffices to provide the norms and values that inform and sustain modern institutions (Reus-Smit, 2019). The impact of change (see also Wendt, 1999; Lebow, 2008, 2018; Booth, 2007), especially cultural change, has been often ignored in studying international relations, which has led to the research gap that this current book will address. Harrison and Huntington (2001, xiv) note: In the scholarly world, the battle has thus been joined by those who see culture as a major, but not the only, influence on social, political, and economic behavior and those who adhere to universal explanations, such as devotees of material self-interest among economists, of “rational choice” among political scientists, and of neorealism among scholars of international relations.

Several theoretical schools look at the world system as static and often ignore the possibility of change. The Realist school has probably been the most noticeable in this respect as the political discourses most widely follow the Realist narratives of power competition and survival. The Liberal school confirms its adherence to liberal values, including democratic peace, international institutions, and free markets, but the liberals take them as universal values, which should be widely accepted and

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supported by the public audience, which also makes it difficult to account for changes in the opposite direction. The constructivist view on international relations suggests that perceptions of how states should act to shape a particular cultural environment or social arrangements may be variable (Frederking, 2003; Wendt, 1992, 1999). The impact of contrasting political cultures to the state systems, which are embedded in certain rules and institutions, has been developed also by other approaches and schools, especially by the English School of International Relations (Frederking, 2003, 364). Ken Booth in his book “Theory of World Security” (2007) predicted “a long hot century”, which can be identified by the “new twenty years crisis”, caused by fundamental social-psychological problems and morbid fears like the sense of turbulence or being in a runaway world while the world has to reconceive how to manage in the global world. The impact of recent developments, such as the global economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, or the war in Ukraine, have given warnings about the unpreparedness of the international community to stand against unpredictable challenges. The rapidly transforming security environment creates a gap in international security studies, which requires new revolutionary methods from the international research community. The way the world understands global processes is still influenced by the Cold War mentality, and the political elites that were socialized and rose to power in very different environments tend to understand the contemporary social and political processes in antiquated ways. Academic circles need to improve anticipatory methods in political sciences, which make fundamental changes in political systems and communities predictable. This would help us to be better prepared for future crises, and to be effectively involved in making strategic decisions in policymaking.

2 The Hobbesian Challenge to the Post-Cold War International Political Community The post-Cold War Kantian system was based on two major institutional challenges— first, the transformation of NATO from a military alliance to a political security community, and, second, the formation of the European Union, which brought stable peace to Europe. Besides these two institutional challenges, the system witnessed several major peace deals supporting the Kantian principles of stable peace since the Oslo Peace Accord between Israel and Palestinian Arabs, the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland, and international peace operations in the Balkans and EastTimor, among others. During the years 1990–2010, the United Nations was able to perform relatively effective security governance, while the permanent members of the UN Security Council were able to agree on peacebuilding issues, even though some UN mandates were given after the intervention started. In eleven key votes related to collective security during the period (see Table 1), UNSC permanent members made seven unanimous decisions, while China abstained four times, and Russia just twice (the cases of Libya in 2011 and Darfur in 2007).

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Table 1 International interventions in the post-Cold War Kantian international system (Mölder, 2023) Forces involved

UN mandate (yes/no/abstained)

Cultural type

Kuwait

Coalition versus Iraq UNSC resolution no. 678 (29.11.1990) 12-2 (Cuba, Yemen)-1(China)

Kantian

Somalia

UN versus Somalia

UNSC resolution no. 794 (03.12.1992) 15-0-0

Kantian

Bosnia-Herzegovina

NATO versus Yugoslavia

UNSC resolution no. 1031 (15.12.1995) 15-0-0. IFOR authorized

Kantian

Kosovo

NATO versus Yugoslavia

UNSC resolution no. 1264 (10.06.1999) 14-0-1 (China). KFOR authorized

Kantian

East-Timor

UN versus Indonesia UNSC resolution no. 1264 (15.09.1999) 15-0-0

Kantian

Afghanistan

Coalition/NATO versus Afghanistan/ Taliban

Kantian

Iraq

Coalition versus Iraq UNSC resolution no. 1483 (22.05.2003) 14-0-1 (Syria). The US and the UK are recognized as occupying powers

Hobbesian

Sudan

AU versus Sudan

UNSC resolution no. 1564 (18.09.2004) 11-0-4 (Algeria, China, Pakistan, Russia). AMIS authorized

Kantian

Lebanon

UN versus Israel

UNSC resolution no. 1701 (11.08.2006) 15-0-0. Expanded mandate to UNIFIL

Kantian

Somalia

AU versus Somalia/ ICU

UNSC resolution no. 1744 (21.02.2007) 15-0-0

Kantian

Libya

NATO versus Libya

UNSC resolution no. 1973 (17.03.2011) 10-0-5 (Brazil, China, India, Germany, Russia)

Kantian

UNSC resolution no. 1386 (20.12.2001) 15-0-0. ISAF authorized

The change in the system comes from strategic challenges, by which international actors responsible for the maintenance of the system have moved from the status quo toward confrontations and possibly conflicts, which stem from their ambitions to achieve political leverage (Booth, 2007, 404). Strategic challenges, if successful and supported by some great powers, can destroy the reliability of the international

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system. The main principle of the Westphalian system is based on the recognition that all states have equal rights to sovereignty. The postmodern system realized that in addition to states, there may also be other international actors, religious and cultural movements, international or non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, and other entities that may have an impact on international relations. The Hobbesian challenge to the post-Cold War Kantian system was initially launched by the George W. Bush administration in the form of the Global War Against Terrorism, solemnly announced in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, formally articulated in the September 17, 2002, National Security Strategy of the United States and loosely understood later as the Bush Doctrine. Booth (2007, 397) claimed since then the agenda based on universal reason required to meet global threats has become marginalized. The Iraqi intervention of 2003 marked a turning point where Western unity was seriously damaged. Soon, the Hobbesian challenge was empowered by rising powers like China and Russia, who increasingly began to show their growing strategic ambitions. The revisionist challenges can move the international system away from the Kantian principles of collective security and security community and further on toward re-building Hobbesian enmities and Lockean rivalries (Frederking, 2003; Mölder & Sazonov, 2018; Wendt, 1999). In the Hobbesian system wars, once delegitimized by the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1929 and the UN Charter, will become normal again as widely accepted political instruments in interstate relations. After 2011, fundamental contradictions between the UNSC permanent members with veto powers prevented finding durable solutions to major conflicts like wars in Syria or Ukraine, and the United Nations has been switched off from performing a leading role in international security governance. The Russian Federation under the Putin administration has repeatedly demonstrated its great power ambitions. Later, the trend was strengthened by the growth in Eurosceptic attitudes (i.e., Brexit) in dividing the European Union and the emergence of trade wars and enhanced economic competition in the China-West relationship and Chinese strategic ambitions in introducing its alternative world model after Xi Jinping’s rise to power. The opening of Putin’s challenge can be linked to his speech delivered at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, in which he criticized the leading role of the United States in managing the international system. The Russian Federation has made several attempts to undermine peace efforts and international crisis management, initiated military conflicts in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine since 2014, and intervened decisively on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to change the course of the Syrian Civil War in 2015. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China, which traditionally had pursued a policy of a cautious rise and avoided strategic entanglements with the great powers, began to exhibit a more ambitious strategic culture, which in turn had profound effects on regional security on South and East China Sea, Central and South Asia, but also on challenging the economic and technological competition and world order (Gill, 2022). Several regional challengers appeared; Venezuela during the Chavez administration can be mentioned for building an anti-American coalition with Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, and Nicaragua in Latin America, as well as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and

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Iran sought to increase their influence in the Middle East and succeeded in producing regional turbulence. Challenges to the status quo of the post-Cold War international system have emerged not just from revisionist authoritarian-leaning state powers like Russia and China, but in the form of powerful political movements presenting themselves as an alternative. These alternative movements should be distinguished from traditional left- and right-wing parties as they tend to oppose the Western-led international system with liberal democratic standards which have been characteristic of traditional Western political movements since World War II. By alternative movements, we traditionally understand social movements that seek societal change (Kendall, 2008, 553–554). Some of these movements may have political goals which in the context of the international system resemble those of revisionist powers. As these movements have grown in influence in many Western countries, one cannot mistake their foreign policy goals, rallying against cooperative security governance and becoming important drivers of the rapidly growing nationalist protectionist wave. We may conclude that without significant support from alternative political movements, revisionist states had more difficulties in challenging the post-Cold War Kantian international order. The present international political and security environment has been strongly influenced by various populist alternative movements from alternative left to alternative right. Besides ideological extremes, there can also be syncretic antiestablishment protest parties such as Italy’s Five Star Movement. Alternative left (New Left) includes anti-establishment movements like the Occupy movement and anti-globalization movements, new leftist political parties such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, authoritarian-leaning anti-American left-wing ideologies like Chavismo in Venezuela and Sandinismo in Nicaragua. Finally, alternative right (New Right) is represented by ideological movements such as nationalist-protectionist Trumpism (U.S.), anti-immigration and anti-Islam Pegida (Germany), and political parties like National Rally (France), Lega (Italy), Alternative for Germany (AfD, Germany), Fidesz (Hungary), Law and Justice (PiS, Poland), and Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE, Estonia). These populist waves often feed each other and ally with revisionist powers in their common strategic goal to contend general principles of the existing system. Occasionally, alternative left and alternative right have proven able to join each other in rallying against political establishment.4 Very often such movements have got support from the Russian Federation, which identifies them as potential allies in their status conflict with the West.

4

For example, there was a coalition government between left-wing Syriza and nationalistconservative ANEL in Greece in 2015–19.

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3 The Volume More than ever before, the collective perceptions of threat were amplified by the overwhelming global dimensions of such shocking contexts and evolutions. Communities all over the world have been put under the pressure of change, where change has often become something vague enough to make the political communities themselves look for solutions to their own security. This volume will collate the unique experience and interdisciplinary knowledge that several scholars and practitioners from different disciplines have formed in conducting their research in various political, strategic, historical, and cultural environments. There are not many volumes published that studied the possible implications of cultural change yet. Research on this area is relatively new and challenging and may activate international scholarly discussion, providing a catalyst for international networks to cooperate and promote discussion on the consequences of systemic changes and their cultural origins. First, the book focuses on the micro level of cultural change taking as main dimensions of study the social, political, and ethnic conflict, security threats at individual, local, and regional levels, and the impact of extremisms on social cohesiveness and political participation of individuals, groups, and communities (small and big). It addresses the phenomenology of cultural change in the European realm, addressing studies of extremism and populism as increasing factors of social and political instability, revisionism and intolerance, war in Ukraine, and the major consequences for European countries and people, for Ukraine war refugees and the management of massive war-determined migration. To better understand these processes, we should provide a deep analysis of the political cultures—legacies of the past and mentalities, practices, and political participation. The book achieves a convergence of ideas in emphasizing a phenomenology of cultural change and its main areas of research such as international relations (IR), political culture, security studies, peace studies, governance and policy, ideology and party dynamics, the culture of civic and political participation, solidarity, and tolerance. We address the premises of a cultural change from both the state and the society perspective, and for both domestic and global governance models, by taking into consideration the huge impact of technological innovation on the tendency of polities, like the European Union, to develop mid- and long-term strategic programs on citizens’ participation in the make-up of a more inclusive, tolerant society. The role played by technological innovation in the emergence of new models of governance may therefore extend to its strong explanatory power for how negative effects, like the populist and extremist phenomena, are associated with beneficial effects of this technological innovation-induced cultural transformation of society and polity at the global level. Last but not the least, the volume introduces its political culture perspective on the cultural change phenomena going thus to enlarge the IR and security studies with approaches that emphasize the citizens’ collective perceptions, narratives, and attitudes toward policies, governments, institutions, and states. We focus on populist ideologies, the advances of extremist ideologies from alternative right to alternative left, and the dangerous mixture of such ideologies with powerful

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racial, ethnic, and nationalist waves all over the world. The rise of populism brings once again to the front stage the conspiracy theories that have been lately revived, reinforced, renewed, and radicalized by the example of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine on both communication and fake news studies and legacies of collective perceptions of conspiracy in both post-communist and traditional democratic societies. A special focus on Europe, Russia, and Ukraine brings this subject close to the phenomenology of contemporary hybrid warfare, and new aggregated security threats. The first part of the volume Contemporary Conflict, Political Participation, and Cultural Change focuses on the general implications of cultural change to the political communities followed by two case studies with a special focus on political processes in Argentina and Kazakhstan. First, Camelia Voinea analyzes European societies that undergo a complex cultural change generated by accelerated modern processes, like the diffusion of technological innovation and digitalization, globalization, climate change, wars, and migration. Julien Theron in his chapter focuses on lower spectrum conflicts in which groups are pitted against groups, creating antagonism in societies and potentially leading to violence that undermines security, noting that even around the most peaceful social, religious, or political ideologies may lead to conflict between groups. Sebastian Fink and Vladimir Sazonov compare the battle of Gaugamela (331 BC), where a small group of Greco-Macedonian soldiers led by Alexander the Great defeated a substantially larger army of the Persian king, and the battle of Mosul (2014), where a huge number of Iraqi forces was defeated by a much smaller group of ISIS fighters and argue that big empires may become obsolete for many of their inhabitants. Sergio Quiroga analyzes the political practices in the province of San Luis, Argentina, in the last five years (2016–2021) with a focus on political personalism as a communicational phenomenon, and how cultural patterns have influenced political narratives and discourses in producing change. Shugyla Kilybayeva and Nygmet Ibadildin noted that for more than twenty years, there were no popular rallies and protests in Kazakhstan, but since 2011 civic and political participation, and urban activism, has strengthened due to the number of social media users in Kazakhstan has grown. The second part of the volume Populism, Extremism, and Cultural Change focuses on the role of alternative movements in producing recent changes in political culture in Europe and the United States, where a more comprehensive focus is on developments in Poland, Germany, and Estonia. Klaus G. Troitzsch examines the changes in political culture in Western democracies during the past four decades. He notes that differences between Western and Eastern Europe exist but finds that they are generally smaller than could have been expected considering the different histories of the countries. A chapter from Katarzyna J˛edrzejczyk-Kuliniak notes that Poland’s eastern border has a symbolic dimension because of its sacredness and thus the necessity to defend it against external threats. During the crisis on Poland’s eastern border with Belarus started in 2021, the Polish government chose to appeal to anti-immigrant public sentiment in the context of the securitization of migration and the polarization of society. Alexandra Yatsyk examines the strategies of weaponization of the refugee crisis by the Polish conservative PiS (Law and Justice) party. The current PiS populist discourse on the war in Ukraine refugees

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radically differs from their party line in 2015 on refugees from the MENA region, with the Ukrainian refugees welcomed by the ruling party insomuch as PiS considers that they belong to Polish culture. Next, Florian Hartleb and Christoph Schiebel analyze the different backgrounds of left-wing and right-wing populist opposition to military support for Ukraine in Germany, while they turn to different narratives: the Alternative for Germany tends more toward isolationism, whereas the Left is located somewhere between pacifism and anti-militarism. Illimar Ploom, Vladimir Sazonov, and Noel Foster analyze the rhetoric of the right-wing populist Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) against the backdrop of democratic values, as well as the values and assumptions of the Burkean or Christian-democratic conservative traditions in Europe. Andrey Makarychev studies the political discourses of EKRE compared to the Kremlin’s social conservatism and EU-skepticism. The war against Ukraine put EKRE in a complicated position, making it find a precarious balance between nationalism, the legacy of Russia-wary attitudes, and maintaining electoral attraction for Russophone voters. In the conclusive chapter, Holger Mölder refers to similarities in strategic narratives of the New Right movement in the United States and a revisionist state, the Russian Federation, in their joint challenge to the liberal world order by which populist movements intend to get attention, increase their political support, and, as a final result, come to power.

References Baker, M. (2003, January 24). U.S.: Rumsfeld’s ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Europe touches on uneasy Divide. Radio Free Europe. Retrieved April 18, 2023, from https://www.rferl.org/a/1102012.html Booth, K. (2007). Theory of world security. Cambridge University Press. Bradshaw, S., & Howard, P. N. (2019). The Global Disinformation Disorder: 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation. Working paper. Project on Computational Propaganda, Oxford, UK. Cooley, A. (2015). Countering democratic norms. Journal of Democracy, 26(3), 49–63. https://doi. org/10.1353/jod.2015.0049 Diamond, L. J. (2019). Ill winds: Saving democracy from Russian rage, Chinese ambition, and American complacency. Penguin Press. Diamond, L. J. (2015, January). Facing up to the democratic recession. Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 141–55. Eriksen, T. H., & Neumann, I. B. (1993). International relations as a cultural system: An agenda for research. Cooperation and Conflict, 28(3), 233–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/001083679302 8003002 Frederking, B. (2003). Constructing post-Cold war collective security. American Political Science Review, 97(3), 363–378. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055403000741 Fukuyama, F. (1992). The end of history and the last man. Free Press. ISBN 978-0-02-910975-5. Gill, B. (2022, June 23). Daring to struggle: China’s global ambitions under Xi Jinping. Oxford Academic, online edition. Retrieved April 18, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/978019 7545645.001.0001 Harrison, L. E., & Huntington, S. (2001). Culture matters: How values shape human progress. Basic Books. Huntington, S. P. (1991). The third wave democratization in the late twentieth century. University of Oklahoma Press.

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Jacquin, D., Oros, A., & Verweij, M. (1993). Culture in international relations: An introduction to the special issue. Millennium, 22(3), 375–377. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829893022003060 Job, B. L. (1992). The insecurity dilemma: National security of third world states. Lynne Rienner Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781685858346 Kagan, R. (2008). The return of history and the end of dreams. Atlantic Book. Kauffmann, S. (2023, April 5). Poland’s view of Europe at a historic turning point is the opposite of France and Germany’s visions. Le Monde. Retrieved April 18, 2023, from https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/04/05/poland-s-view-of-europe-at-a-his toric-turning-point-is-the-opposite-of-france-and-germany-s-visions_6021792_23.html Kendall, D. (2008). Sociology in our times: The essentials. Cengage Learning. Lebow, R. N. (2018). Avoiding war, making peace. Palgrave Macmillan. Lebow, R. N. (2008). A cultural theory of international relations. Cambridge University Press. Mölder, H., & Sazonov, V. (2018). Information warfare as the Hobbesian concept of modern times– principles, techniques and tools of Russian information operations in Donbass. Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 31(3), 308–328. Mölder, H. (2023). The Hobbesian challenges against the Kantian international system and the failure of international security governance. Journal of Peace and War Studies. Retrieved April 18, from https://www.norwich.edu/news/voices-from-the-hill/peace-and-war/4023-the-hobbes ian-challenges-against-the-kantian-international-system-and-the-failure-of-international-sec urity-governance Mölder, H., & Shiraev, E. (2021). Global knowledge warfare, strategic imagination, uncertainty, and fear. In H. Mölder, V. Sazonov, A. Chochia, & T. Kerikmäe (Eds.), The Russian federation in global knowledge warfare. Contributions to International Relations (pp. 13–30). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73955-3_2 Reus-Smit, C. (2019, March 21). International relations theory doesn’t understand culture. Foreign Policy. Retrieved June 2, 2023, from https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/21/international-relati ons-theory-doesnt-understand-culture/ Sanovich, S. (2017). Computational propaganda in Russia: The origins of digital misinformation. In: S. Woolley & P. Howard (eds.), Computational propaganda worldwide. Computational Propaganda Project (pp. 1–25). Sørensen, G. (2007). After the security dilemma: The challenges of insecurity in weak states and the dilemma of liberal values. Security Dialogue, 38(3), 357–78. Retrieved April 20, 2023, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/26299707 von der Leyen, U. (2021, September 15). State of the union 2021. Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/strategicplanning/state-union-addresses/stateunion-2021_en Walla, K. (2023, April 14). Poland’s prime minister: Western Europe needs to commit to Ukrainian victory and beware of China. New Atlanticist. Retrieved from April 18, 2023, from https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/polands-prime-minister-wes tern-europe-needs-to-commit-to-ukrainian-victory-and-beware-of-china/ Wendt, A. (1992). Anarchy is what states make of it: The social construction of power politics. International Organization, 46(2), 391–425. Wendt, A. (1999). Social theory of international politics. Cambridge University Press.

Contemporary Conflict, Political Participation and Cultural Change

Societies Open to Conflict: Political Culture and Digitalization in the European Political Landscape Camelia Florela Voinea

1 Introduction This chapter is aimed at identifying one of the multiple roots of an ongoing general process of cultural change, and in particular political culture change: technological innovation. Technological innovation has always been a source of social, economic, and political change. So far political culture has not been appropriately analyzed with concern to such a complex cultural change. Political culture has been traditionally focused on attitudes, emotions, beliefs, and behaviors, but it is also deeply related to issues concerning governance culture and models, political identities, political representation, and political participation in democratic societies. The ongoing political culture change has a strong technological ‘flavor’, especially if it is about the network society, that is, the Internet, social media and socializing networks, virtual and augmented realities, and immersive worlds. This chapter discusses how technological innovation has—directly or indirectly—provided for a change in governance concepts and cultures, in the forms and modes of political participation, basic democratic matters like political parties, voting and representation, political identities, and public values, and in the general working of both society and polity. This chapter is therefore a review of how this process of cultural change is emphasized by different social and political environments. Moreover, it is a search for the complex contingencies which might have contributed to the emergence of this cultural change. To this purpose, a review of literature and analytical data has been employed to highlight the emergence of cultural change in relevant areas like governance, political parties and ideologies, and political participation in Europe during the past 25 years. C. F. Voinea (B) Faculty of Political Science; European Research Centre for Political Culture; Department Public Policy, International Relations and Security Studies, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_2

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The preliminary outcomes of this study emphasize a systematic relationship between the changes in the above-mentioned areas and the persistence of a certain degree of openness to internal instability and conflict in different European countries. The background which provides for the emergence of such a relationship seems to be a ‘disruption’ of the usual working of governance or party systems induced by the changes in the internal organization principles of such systems, and by the changes in the traditional construction of values, identities, or meanings propagated in these systems. While most of this cultural change is still to come, this study draws on one of Luhmann’s essential ideas, that is, what makes any society and polity work is a matter of how society and polity construct its meanings and how these meanings are communicated inside as well as outside them.

2 Research Issue, Approach, and Aims Technological innovation-rooted cultural change started more than half a century ago with the development and diffusion of new technologies of communication and virtual interaction such as computers, mobile phone technology, and the Internet. However, these technologies combined with the technologies of the artificial, like artificial intelligence, artificial life, and artificial environments—societies, polities, and smart cities—have fast moved human society to a higher level of cognition, interaction, and organization (van Dijk, 2006). On multiple societal and political layers, the cultural change is operating in the deep by re-shaping and re-defining social relations, resource management, power struggle, public values, political organization, and organizational cultures (Meijer & Boon, 2021; Otchere et al., 2019; Vecchione et al., 2014; Kaase et al., 1979; Verba et al., 1978). The cultural change has dramatically changed traditional society and polity in less than half a century. It took the COVID-19 global pandemics to make humans realize how far this change has already gone and how fast it is still going to transform our lives and our world. In the following, we are going to describe one of the main dimensions of this complex cultural change, that is, the openness of societies to internal conflict. The research review and discussions would put an emphasis on its roots as well as on some of its measurable effects. From a classic system theory perspective, the openness to internal conflict is viewed here as a tendency of a system which undergoes an internal process of change. An essential change in a system—be it society or polity—is defined as a complex transformation in the system’s architecture, structure and internal organization, operation, and interaction with other systems. Contradictory principles of structuring, functioning, and operationalization between old and newly emerging system architectures are considered as change-generative ‘engines’ with a high potential of distorting the normal working of social and political systems. In this approach, the term “openness to internal conflict” addresses from a conceptual and operational point of view the change process from one type of system internal organization to a

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different one, that is, from a structural–functional to a complex type of system. In this view, a change in the degree of complexity in the inner constitution and operation of a system provides for contradictory principles of operation, and eventually the emergence of new structures and principles of operation. It is the case of classic hierarchical systems which undergo a transformation into networked systems: it is the main dimension of change addressed in this approach and discussed in the following in both conceptual terms and empirical measurement and analytical evidence. This kind of internal transformation might make the systems undergo such changes to emphasize conflicting trends, dysfunctionalities, and modified behavior dynamics. Our approach starts by reviewing and discussing the influence of technological innovation on the classic political culture theory and one of its main dimensions, that is, the culture of political participation. The huge impact of technological innovation will be approached on two other subject matters which are closely linked to political participation: the change in the governance concepts, and the deep transformation of the political beliefs (ideologies) and attitudes induced by the impact of technological innovation over the political parties, and democratic representation. Our discussion would draw some conclusions concerning value co-creation as a potential pattern of identity, public values, and meaning construction which could hopefully get us closer to Luhmann’s theories (1995, 2002) on meaning communication as the basic principle of social and political organization.

3 Classic Political Culture Theory and Its Cybernetics Foundation Approaching cultural change and its impact on political life and organization might start with a closer look at the dissemination and development of technological innovation in communications and interaction technologies. It is a starting point which achieves a special relevance over the past century as both society and polity have been irreversibly changed by the innovations in the technologies of computers, mobile communications, the Internet, and virtual reality. Though not primarily addressed, political culture is the area which has hosted this change phenomena in the deep by proving how values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors have changed and further stimulated the change in the social and political environments.

3.1 Classic Approach to Political Culture and Political Participation Classic political culture is essentially conceived as a theory about the civic culture or the culture of participation addressing the relationship between the citizens and the

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Government in a democratic society (Almond & Powell, 1978; Almond & Verba, 1963; Verba, 1996). Weberian theory about the governance system employs bureaucracy, but what makes it operational is a mix of knowledge, norms, and values which guides the operation of social systems and the political organization (Weber, 1978, 2002; Parsons, 1951a, 1951b, 1969). The classic government operational concept is essentially a structural–functional hierarchy which provides for vertical directions of command and control. Taking a closer look at this relationship between the two actors involved, namely the citizen and the Government, from a classic system theory perspective in political science (Easton, 1953, 1965), each of the various layers of a classic political system achieves its operational specification as basically an input– output box which links (partly or fully) its output back to its input in a feedback loop in which one actor (the citizen) is stimulated in making action decisions by the policy decision-making of the other (the Government). The feedback as cybernetic control principle represents a relevant and stable approach in social system theories mainly based on the idea of social influence, and social equivalents of the mechanic notion of ‘force’ (Lewin, 1935, 1936, 1938). In political organization theories, this pattern has been a fundamental one until the early 1980s when cognitive theories provided for deep major theoretical and paradigmatic changes. Ever since, political science research has gradually accepted the complexitybased approaches in political organization, political participation, governance, policy making, and political culture, especially in attitude studies (Voinea, 2016). As much as the classic political culture theory is concerned with the culture of political participation, it can be viewed as a theory which explains in democracy terms how the citizens-Government relationship follows a functional model with foundations in the cybernetics theory. Citizens’ attitudes toward the government play a ‘feedback’ role as citizens’ (dis)satisfaction with the policy is usually conveyed as feedback to the Government, which eventually adjusts its policy making process accordingly such as to diminish the difference between the policy outcome and the citizens’ expectations with respect to such outcome. This difference (interaction loop) between public demand and public policy is often viewed as conflictgenerative: it steers the democratic interaction between the citizens and the Government such that each part’s reactivity to the other’s provides for gradual adjustments of their decision-making and policy making, respectively. The classic political culture model of this relationship between the citizens and the Government has two essential characteristics which are relevant to our discussion here. The first one concerns the roots of conflict. The conflict induced by the dissatisfaction of the citizens with the policy is rooted in the responsiveness of the government to the citizens’ demands. The interaction between citizens and Government is essential for evaluating the democratic quality and effectiveness of the latter to the demands of the former. The second one concerns communication as it is performed in a power hierarchy in which the transmission of command goes top-down, and the transmission of demand goes bottom-up. In this type of communication, the hierarchy levels and the communication paths have pre-defined roles, clear constraints, and pre-defined flows of action.

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While the latter represents the main requirement for achieving what is called ‘responsiveness’ of a government to the people in a democracy, identifying one of the areas which have been deeply affected by the technological innovation discussed in this approach, the former characteristic represents a sophisticated mix of reasons which make societies open to (internal) conflict. The term “openness to internal conflict” is meant here to describe how citizens’ attitudes toward the Government could become the sources of societal (internal) conflict. The term is used to inform contentious political phenomena which could grow into overt conflict and might generate internal political instability. Our approach is not about contentious politics or not only about that. Our approach aims at modeling one of the ways in which technological innovation has irreversibly changed the classic picture of democracy down to the point where democracy itself is questioned and eventually (gradually) replaced with one of its alternatives. However, the question here is not whether societies are (or are not) open to conflict, but why societies would be (or not) open to conflict, when would they be so, and what ‘(internal) conflict’ might mean. In a (political) culture change scenario, like the one in which the European societies are undergoing this kind of change, the openness to internal conflict might seem improbable given that the EU’s mechanisms of country monitoring and control are preventing them from becoming increasingly unstable. Nevertheless, this openness to internal conflict does exist, and at times it peaks unexpectedly powerful. The latest internal unrest in the French society about the pension reform is but one example. What is at stake here? Is it a governance model? Or is it about a meaning construction out of a collective perception over the rationale of policy making? These kinds of questions might require taking a closer look at the (political) culture patterns which could cover both traditional and new political culture.

3.1.1

How Has the Political Culture Change Emerged?

Complementary to the setup of country industrialization and development (Inglehart, 1977), one of the major sources of change in political culture in our times is represented by the advanced technologies of (i) computers and the Internet, (ii) mobile communications, (iii) social media and socializing networks, and (iv) the technologies of the artificial (artificial intelligence, machine learning, artificial life and agents, artificial societies, and artificial polities). Altogether, these technologies have changed the basic terms of political culture, like ideological preferences (beliefs), political behavior, political identity, political values, and political attitudes toward policy, government, political leadership, and the elite. The diffusion of technological innovation as well as the technological development in each country has provided for both direct and indirect means of change in political culture terms. The direct pathways have combined easy and wide access to computer and the Internet platforms with mobile communications such as to increase the speed, quality, and amount of information which common people need for various purposes—work, education, and voting. The indirect pathways have been provided by the intensive

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use of the same technologies in governance and policy making, in services as well as in organizational development. One of the most important factors of change in European societies is the process of technological innovation with its huge consequences on economic, political, and social environments. The changes induced by the diffusion of technological innovation have had a deep impact on societies and transformed everything from their political organization to the individual identity of their citizens. On both positive as well as negative sides of this complex cultural change, technological development plays a decisive role. Old inequalities associated with poverty and exclusion have been included in much more complex types of inequalities associated with the technological standards of development. Economic, political, and social changes are hard to understand without considering the deep, massive cultural changes induced by the growing threat of climate change and migration. As much as being generative of inequality of development, diffusion of technological innovation is being generative of solutions to such inequalities as well. One major European solution has been identified by the huge EU program of digitalization.

4 European Union’s Digitalization Program and Its Significance As a high-priority European program, Digital Transformation (Digital Europe Programme, 2021) provides for the implementation of access to fast information platforms, services, and resources with the aim to support policy making, implementation, and management by means of Internet-based connectivity, communications mobile technology, and classes of public services based and/or improved with technologies of the artificial, like artificial intelligence and machine learning. The degree of digitalization is important because digitalization makes possible new forms of citizen participation in social, political, economic, and security policy making, implementation, and management. Digitalization as a high-priority European Union program has been adopted after social, political, and economic research has identified patterns of substantial transformations in several areas of major interest like governance and policy, political participation, political parties and democratic representation, political cultures, and public values. In such areas, digitalization has been achieved in different degrees by the European countries: most industrialized are leading the process with a degree of digitalization (with a country degree of digitalization between 60 and 70%) higher than the EU average degree (between 46 and 52%), while the Eastern European societies are lagging behind with degrees of digitalization systematically lower (with a country degree of digitalization between 30 and 51%) than the EU average, struggling to keep the pace while fighting weak governmental structures to replace oldregime structures and mentalities, and often blocked due to low economic and financial resources (see Fig. 1a, b). A special case describes the situation of the Baltic

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States which due to their small country size and efficiency of implementation have succeeded in achieving an overall level of digitalization which is close to or higher than the EU’s level (see Fig. 1c).

C E N TR A L EA STE R N E U RO P EA N COU N TR IES DES I 2018-2022

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BALTIC STATES DESI 2018-2022 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Estonia

201 201 202 202 202 8 9 0 1 2 55.7 58.3 61.1 59.4 56.5

Lithuania 49.4 51.8 53.9 51.8 52.7 Latvia

46.8 49.9 50.7 49.5 49.7

EU

46.5 49.4 52.6 50.7 52.3

(c) Fig. 1 Degree of digitalization by country. Europe, 2018–2021. a Western European countries; b CEE countries; c Baltic countries. Source The Digital Economy and Society Index, European Commission. Available online: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/desi. Accessed March 27, 2023

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4.1 Digital Transformation of Society and Polity in EU Member Countries Digitalization in Europe, especially after the experience of the COVID-19 global pandemic, has been conceived as a necessary EU strategy aimed at balancing the differences in the degrees of economic, social, and political development of the member countries. As these differences could provide potential support for the emergence of internal (political and economic) instability in the (EU member as well as non-member) countries with lower technological development, the European Union’s Digital Transformation Program has appeared as a solution for technological innovation dissemination, implementation, and management in the EU member countries. EU member states are undergoing a massive process of digitalization aimed at reducing the inequalities in the technological advances in each member country and thus stimulating a balanced distribution and development of the infrastructure it needs in order to propagate and facilitate the effects of accessing information, and human and material resources by means of fast and efficient complex communication strategies and capabilities.

4.2 Far Implications of the Digitalization Program The far implications of digitalization are however much more complex than easing access to resources, which already represents a great breakthrough. The digitalization process or, in other words, getting full access to information and resources has already provided and would keep providing for an essential change in the cognitions, meanings, and value-based (behavioral and attitudinal) expression of human individuals, society, polity, and culture. This study identifies three main dimensions on which the European societies emphasize political cultural change patterns (see Fig. 2): (a) governance: concept, organization, and operational paradigms, (b) political participation, and (c) political parties and ideologies.

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Fig. 2 The roots of cultural change and the main political culture change areas of study (by Camelia Florela Voinea)

5 The Cultural Change: Areas and Patterns 5.1 Models of Political Organization: Governance Networking Governance traditional theories have a system theoretical background (von Bertalanffy, 1950). In the classic political system theory (Easton, 1953, 1965), the state is defined as an input–output box with a flux of data from input to output and a control flux from output to input. Its operation can be understood in behavioral terms (Gunnell, 2013). The modern notion of the ‘state’ is defined as a structural–functional entity which operates on cybernetics principles of hierarchical command and control. Its operation is defined as the governance (set of) process(es). As such, a political system (polity) consists in an institutional structure and a set of functions (governance). As a difference from the cybernetics-based definition of the political system, descriptions of complex social and political systems (Luhmann, 1995, 2002) are inspired by living organisms (Maturana & Varela, 1972) and operate on principles of adaptivity through self-organization and structural couplings with environmental structures and processes. We thus make a difference between the cybernetic concept and principles of traditional vertical (hierarchic) governance structures and political organization, on the one hand, and the new horizontal (relational) structures of the polity and governance. The former (traditional) structure entails a reactive (instrumental) type of relationship between the citizens and the Government in which the interaction and communication between them are based on cybernetic principles of command and control (feedback loops and adjustment to external stimulus and goal).

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The latter entails a relational type (network-based) of interacting and communicating with the governance structures and policy making which are essentially complexity-based, further entailing self-organization and self-autonomy. This type entails a collaboration concept which is essentially based on an individual’s perceptions and (cognitive and working) interaction capacities. It is this collaboration concept which allows for the culture change to be formulated in terms of the paradigmatic shift from the structural–functional governance architecture and organizational principles to the complexity-based ones: having a specific communication system and technology, the political systems prove architectural and conceptual changes, that is, from hierarchy of command and control (classic bureaucracy) to horizontal operation which is based on a relational concept (network). The deep change of the social and political system from ‘hierarchy’ to ‘network’ entails different concepts of competition and collaboration than the traditional hierarchy-based one. The technologies of computing, communication, and internet are meant to allow the creation and management of governing structures since they mainly rely on the essential capability of people to easily interact, to access information and resources, to collaborate, coordinate their actions and plans, and to negotiate these plans in order to achieve shared goals. Interaction, coordination, and shared goals and resources have been so much enhanced by these technologies so as to provide for the emergence of new means for policy making, design, implementation, and management. Governing structures, rules, and the environment have drastically changed in less than half a century due to these technologies. Therefore, horizontal (relational) governing structures have replaced the vertical (hierarchical) ones up to the point that governance networks provided for new and much more efficient governance concepts, architectures, and operationalization strategies. The new concept changes the traditional hierarchic governmental structures based on cybernetics principles of top-down command and bottom-up feedback into new governmental structures which are based on networks (policy networks, governance networks). The governance networking concept is defined in terms of complex systems as it relies on horizontal structures and information flows (Bevir & Rhodes, 2003a, 2006, 2010; Marsh, 2011; Rhodes, 1997). Governmental networks bring together three types of actors—state, public, and private—into frameworks of collaboration and competition which differ essentially from the traditional ones (Torfing & Sørensen, 2014). The governance networks (Rhodes, 2000; Torfing, 2012) have systematically been associated with new patterns of social relations (Bevir & Rhodes, 2003b) which have emerged from the transfer from the vertical to the horizontal type of governance architecture, further influencing the change in the public values, and the political participation of individuals and communities. New theories of governance are employing networks to describe horizontal structures of collaborative work, social relationships, and policy making. In terms of a systematically spreading phenomenon of political culture change, two relevant aspects can be identified as an expression of this change: (a) the concept and principles of political organization and governance, and (b) the type of communication and interaction with the governmental structures and policy making processes.

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The governance concept is a relevant dimension of comparison between European societies. It reveals that, after the fall of the iron curtain, the countries in the eastern half of Europe have been undergoing a ‘double’ change: on the one hand, the change operates on the governance culture of resource management and policy making, and, on the other hand, the change operates on the culture of democratic values. The relation between the citizens and the Government is, on the one hand, subject to political culture change (mainly, values and attitude change), and, on the other hand, it is subject to governance culture change (mainly, policy making, implementation, and management by the three types of social and economic actors) (Voinea et al., 2022). These types of governance structures co-exist in all European countries, however, to different degrees. By mapping these two aspects onto the country’s governance structures, it could be noticed that some imbalance has appeared and has provided for context- or pathdependencies in the change patterns of governance culture. Some of the Western European countries (France and the UK) and some of the Central and Eastern European countries (Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Romania) prove lower degrees of executive capacity which contribute to the global picture of country political instability by conveying meanings of change which are based on the disruption of the traditional society and polity workings on one or several dimensions as reflected by the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI): some of the Western European countries (regardless their advanced degree of digitalization), like France and the UK (lower row in Fig. 3) as well as the Eastern European countries in our study (Poland, Czechia, Hungary, and Romania, in the upper row in Fig. 3) have lower than EU values for the Executive capacity, EU has itself a rather low average value (middle row in Fig. 3), and Western European countries like Norway and Germany have highest values. The special case of the Baltic states (Estonia: 6.6; Latvia: 7.5; and Lithuania: 7.2 on the second low row in Fig. 3) shows that these countries have higher values for such indicators than the EU, and this proves that digitalization effectiveness has been dependent on the administrative structures and territoriality of the country. In these analytics, country performances prove therefore to have been dependent in each case on different factors, digitalization included. However, the general picture conveys the idea that in all cases what decisively counts is an overall governmental (executive) performance which could have been distorted regardless of the degree of welfare, or the degree of industrialization and digitalization. Further analytics confirm the idea that internal political instability and openness to conflict could be characteristic of any European country inasmuch as it depends on changing operational principles in the governance process. In the UK, for example, what has stimulated the change from a hierarchical traditional principle of governance have been the policy networks which have facilitated an almost century-long transfer to a different governance concept, the networked governance (Marsh, 2011; Rhodes, 1997). In France, to take but one counterexample, the corporate governance model, inspired by the century-long history of corporate governance in the UK, was created during the 1990s as a requirement arising from the necessity to extend the private sector

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Fig. 3 SGI-Executive capacity 2022, European countries’ case studies. Source Executive Capacity SGI-Indicator: a comparative perspective between EU countries. SGI-Sustainable Governance Indicators/Good Governance/Executive Capacity. Available online: https://www.sgi-network.org/2022/ Good_Governance/Executive_Capacity. Accessed March 27, 2023

contribution to the governance process.1 In both cases, the analysis of the government’s performance and executive capacity cannot avoid the questions on Brexit as well as those on the social unrest in both British and French society generated by the huge public protests against policies and policy making. It might be that, beyond governance issues, the huge street protests as well as extreme phenomena like Brexit are based on a difference in meaning construction by both parts—citizens and Government—and some incapacity of the Government to convey the meanings of its policy making to the citizens. As far as the governance system fails to convey the meanings of its internal workings, both social and political systems remain open to internal instability and conflict as the citizens cannot grasp anymore the meaning of their operations.

1

Eric Pichet’s French Corporate Governance Model. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://fre nchcorporategovernance.wordpress.com/the-french-model/.

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In a democratic society and polity, the governance concept shapes the cultural patterns of the citizens’ perceptions of policy making. These patterns cover political behaviors with respect to the policy as well as political attitudes toward the government, the political leadership, and the value set (public value). However, the measurement of the new governance networks’ efficiency is still a complicated issue as the usual country case is that old and new governance structures do co-exist in the so-called “hybrid governance models”, however in different proportions in different countries, such that countries with higher degrees of digitalization have also high values and/or degrees of indicators of sustainable governance (in SGI terms) and good governance (in WGI terms). From a brief comparative analysis between Western and Central-Eastern European countries,2 the societal consultation indicators in policy making prove that most Western countries have indicator values between 10 (Norway) and 6 (France) thus denoting a societal consultation in a fair and pluralistic manner, while Central and Eastern countries have this indicator values mostly between 3 (Poland and Romania) and 2 (Hungary), with Czechia only achieving an indicator value of 6 in 2022. Altogether, these values describe the societal consultation in these countries in a rare, unfair, and clientelist manner or simply missing consultation of the societal actors no matter how relevant they are (see Fig. 4). A comparative perspective over many of the relevant SGI Indicators for 2022 reveals that the EU level is still low, while the level of these indicators in some of the Western European countries (France and the UK, in many cases) and in most of the CEE countries is even lower than EU’s (see Fig. 4a): • SGI-Economic Policies–—RII (Research, Innovation, Infrastructure).3 Country Analytical Data: Denmark, Sweden, and Germany—between 8 and 8.8; France (6.9); Poland, Czechia, and Hungary—between 4.5 and 4.8; and Romania (2.5). EU (5.4). • SGI-Good Governance—Executive Capacity—Organizational Reform.4 Country Analytical Data: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the UK, between 8 and 9; France (6); Poland, Czechia, and Hungary—between 4.0 and 5.0; Romania (3.5); and EU (5.9). A comparative perspective from one of the most relevant WGI Indicators (2022) for our present approach, namely “Political Stability and Absence of Violence”, reveals that the potential for political instability is increased in both Western (France = 0.37; UK = 0.54) and Eastern European societies (Poland = 0.51; Romania = 0.53) proving low values for the Estimate of governance indicators (see Fig. 4b). Taking 2

Sustainable Governance Indicators, 2022, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.sgi-network.org/docs/2022/thematic/SGI2022_Societal_Consultation.pdf. 3 Sustainable Governance Indicators, 2022, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.sgi-network.org/2022/Sustainable_Policies/Economic_Policies/Resear ch,_Innovation_and_Infrastructure. 4 Sustainable Governance Indicators, 2022, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.sgi-network.org/2022/Good_Governance/Executive_Capacity/Organizational_ Reform.

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WGI Political Stability & Absence of violence/Terrorism Western & CEE states (2021)

9 6

7 7

9

10 7

1.031.1 0.92 0.76 0.54 0.37

0.98 0.95 6

5.9

3

Poland Hung… Czechia Roma…

Finland Denm… France Germ… Nethe… Swed… Norway UK EU

3 2

Finland Denmark France Germany Netherl… Sweden Norway UK EU

8

(a)

0.96 0.86 0.51

0.53

Poland Hungary Czechia Romania

SGI Good Governance Executive Capacity Societal Consultation Western & CEE States (2022)

(b)

WGI Political stability in EU member countries Baltic States 2021)

SGI Good Governance/ Executive capacity/ Organizational reform Baltic States (2022)

0.82 8.5 6

Lithuania

Estonia

8

0.76

5.9

Latvia

0.69

EU

Lithuania

Estonia

Latvia

(c)

Fig. 4 a–c SGI-Good Governance/Executive Capacity/Societal Consultation for Western European countries, CEE countries, and Baltic states. WGI: Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Estimate of governance (ranges from approximately −2.5 (weak) to 2.5 (strong) governance performance). SGI-Good Governance/Executive Capacity/Societal Consultation (2022) and WGI (2021) for Baltic states. Sources a SGI: Good Governance-Executive Capacity-Societal Consultation. Available online: https://www.sgi-network.org/2022/Good_Governance/Executive_Capacity/ Societal_Consultation; b The Worldwide Governance Indicators, 2022 Update. Aggregate Governance Indicators 1996–2021. c SGI: Good Governance-Executive Capacity-Societal Consultation (2022) and WGI-Political stability—Absence of violence for Baltic states (2021). Available online: https://www.sgi-network.org/2022/Good_Governance/Executive_Capacity/Societal_ Consultation; Available online: www.govindicators.org. Accessed March 27, 2023

advantage of their small size and high digitalization degree, the Baltic states make a specific situation: both their SGI and WGI indicators for 2021–2022 are higher than the EU’s indicators and thus prove a high coefficient of internal stability (see Fig. 4c). The internal instability sources differ from one country to another; however, the country degree of digitalization in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK,

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for example, are rather low in comparison with higher values in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, which makes the adaptation of the national governance models to horizontal governance a potential source of instability along with other factors, like the problem of immigrant integration, or national and political identity in relation to EU membership (Brexit in the UK). Notwithstanding the quality of their democracy, the welfare state indicators, or the high country industrialization levels, the factors contributing to their internal political instability are related to a substantially different process of meaning construction and communication between government and society system: while each system might still expect the other system to have and to convey the same traditionally well-known meaning of responsiveness, the ‘responsiveness’ itself might have been replaced meanwhile by other meaning which is very much characteristic to another governance model, like the horizontal governance. While Western European countries might prove various degrees of openness to internal instability and conflict related to the performance of their governance models and eventually the capacity to adapt to the horizontal (networked) governance requirements, the Eastern European countries reveal values of their Political Instability Index which prove a significant openness to internal conflict (see Fig. 5). However, their degree of openness to internal conflict seems to be rooted in different contexts.

5.2 Political Stability in Western and Eastern European Countries Countries in the eastern half of Europe have been undergoing a difficult, unprecedented, and complex process of change from autocratic to democratic regimes. They have been going through a transition to democracy process which developed on three main dimensions: (i) political and social, by a hard regime change and deposing of communism, followed shortly by an unprecedented institutional reform which put in place democratic ruling following the EU model and guidance, (ii) economic, by adopting the market economy in the same time with the institutional transfer to democracy, and (iii) technological, by technological innovation and development, and taking part in the European digitalization program (member countries). Therefore, the governance model is often a hybrid one with multiple and often contradictory segments including state public administration models and private sector models (Aristovnik et al., 2022; Cvancarova & Franek, 2016; Manolescu et al., 2011). Often, the construction of these (mix of) models, usually adopted in the countries from the eastern half of Europe after the year 2000, are meant to find solutions to situations which have never met the kind of political and governance history experienced by the ex-communist societies: Due to the constantly changing environment, public governance models have transformed many times, creating differences in public governance practices among public administration institutions, with combinations of contradictory structures and principles that coexist. […] The main focus is on identifying the differences in characteristics of public governance practices between state administration and local self-government. The results show state

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Germany

Norway

UK

France (a)

Czechia

Poland

Hungary

Romania (b)

Fig. 5 Political Instability Index in a Western European countries, and b CEE countries. Source The Global Economy. Available at url: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/wb_political_ stability/Europe/ (Accessed March 27, 2023)

administration institutions are more strongly characterised by the Neo-Weberian model’s principles. In contrast, local self-government institutions are more oriented to managerial public governance and Digital-Era Governance practices. Public managers may regard the results as additional resources for democratic and efficient governing. At the same time, they may provide policymakers with in-depth insights to consider while determining the trajectories of future public administration reform (Aristovnik et al., 2022).

The mix of models and the poor experience of democratic institutions make the governance in these countries combine old and new structures and principles in a trial-and-error process which is often full of contradictions and weaknesses. It is unavoidable that these governance solutions could finally decrease the capacity of the social and political system to accept reforms, and make these societies open to internal instability and conflict on both policy and democratic capacity to answer people’s needs and expectations.

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While France (Political Instability Index = 0.37 in 2021) and the UK (Political Instability Index = 0.54 in 2021), to give but two examples, might prove such internal political instability for reasons concerning the change in governance model, immigrant integration, or 2008-financial world crisis, for the Central and Eastern European countries the political instability index values (Romania: 0.53; Hungary: 0.86; Poland: 0.51; Czechia: 0.96, data for 2021) are strongly influenced by three factors, namely governance model and market economy, quality of democracy, and technological innovation. As the difference between old and new models of governance is small enough, these countries prove higher internal political stability as the change has not affected strongly enough the governance.5 The internal political stability in the Baltic states (Internal Political Stability Index in 2021: Estonia: 0.76; Latvia: 0.69; Lithuania: 0.82) has been rather high immediately after the regime change following the deposing of communism, such that these countries have succeeded to avoid internal political instability immediately after the regime change. As digitalization has been massively introduced in these countries, especially in Estonia, shortly after the regime change in these small-sized countries, the remarkable efficiency of economic and administrative structures and services have strengthened the internal political stability by increasing political participation, the scale of deliberation on administrative issues, the general level of information in the population (see Fig. 6).

5.3 Political Participation The most relevant impact of technological innovation and digitalization concerns political participation. This change has strong connections to other three types of phenomena: (a) value co-creation, (b) identity co-creation (co-construction), and (c) meaning construction and communication. Political culture theory has been the subject of intense debates on whether its political participation dimension should be understood as aimed at deliberation and decision-making (Pateman, 1970) or just indirect influence by discussions of preferences, and attitudes toward policy and government (Almond & Verba, 1963; Brady, 1999; Campbell et al., 1960). Traditional definitional approach to citizens’ political participation in democratic societies is based on democracy normative models (Teorell, 2006, 791): (a) the responsiveness model explains political participation in the reactivity paradigm of the relationship between the citizens and the Government and political leadership, (b) the participative model explains participation in direct terms, and (c) the deliberative model defines participation in terms of elaborating alternatives to policy outcomes. Classic definitional approaches to political participation distinguish between direct and indirect participation, such that voting and electoral campaign activities cover the direct participation forms (Sartori, 1987; Schumpeter, 1942), while influencing 5

All analytical data on Political Instability Index mentioned above, retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/wb_political_stability/Europe/.

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Estonia

Latvia

Lithuania Fig. 6 Political Instability Index in Baltic states. Source The Global Economy. Available online: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/wb_political_stability/Europe/. Accessed March 27, 2023

the policy making process and the government (that is, deliberative structures and government personnel) covers the indirect participation forms (Verba & Nie, 1972, 2). Research in the political participation area has revealed a major change induced by technological innovation in both the definition and repertoire of participation forms.

5.3.1

Extension of Political Participation Forms

The Internet and social media, the socializing networks, and the platforms for sharing content, opinion, and action have substantially changed the concept of political participation extending it so as to cover the new patterns of participation based on criteria of locus, target, context, and motivation: ‘creative’, ‘personalized’, and ‘individualized’

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modes of participation concern non-political activities used for political purposes and also connective actions which are Internet-based activities (van Deth, 2021). Moreover, consumerist, civic, and digital participation extend the modes of participation so as to cover both institutionalized and individualized ones, both traditional and creative ones (Theocharis & van Deth, 2018). The Internet and social media have provided the efficient operational background for extending and diversifying political participation to a multi-dimensional taxonomy: (1) voting; (2) classic forms of political participation like activities in electoral campaigns, demonstrations, participation in political rallies, and donations; (3) interpersonal political discussions, and expression of political preferences and opinions; (4) Internet participation on the social media platforms and digitally networked participation; and (5) online participation on Internet and information search on the Internet (Bode et al., 2014; Gibson et al., 2005; Kim & Chen, 2016; Kim & Hoewe, 2020; Theocharis & van Deth, 2018; van Deth, 2001; 2014; 2016; Zhong et al., 2022).

5.3.2

Direct and Side Effects

New forms of political participation emphasize a diversity of types of formal and informal participation in both participatory and deliberative paradigms (Berg, 2017). However, new forms of political participation have not necessarily resulted in increasing voting participation, but on the contrary.6 The diversity of online forms of political participation has substantially facilitated the use of advanced computational technologies like narratives, crowdsourcing, and discourse analysis for (i) emphasizing both individual and collective expression of political preferences and opinions, (ii) constructing narratives about collective perceptions of policy, or (iii) directly addressing the political elite and political institutions (e-participation, e-petitions, etc.). These tendencies have finally influenced the public perceptions of the political parties during and between the electoral campaigns, the competencies, and political impact of political leadership, policy making, and governance processes and structures which could be easily contacted or addressed in collective and individual actions. The direct effects as well as the side-effects of technological innovation in political participation have contributed to a major change in at least three relevant areas with social and political impact:

6

Data available from Pew Research Center (2012) Social Media and Political Engagement. Available online: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2012/10/19/social-mediaand-political-engage ment/ Accessed May 20, 2021. Pew Research Center (2014a, 2014b). Cell Phones, Social Media and Campaign 2014. Available online: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/11/03/cellphonessocial-media-and-campaign-2014/ Accessed May 20, 2021. Pew Research Center (2014a, 2014b). Political Participation, Interest and Knowledge. Available online: https://www.pewresearch.org/pol itics/2014/06/26/section-10-political-participation-interest-and-knowledge/ Accessed March 26, 2023. Pew Research Center, February 18, 2021. “Experts Say the ‘New Normal’ in 2025 Will Be Far More Tech-Driven, Presenting More Big Challenges” (accessed March 26, 2023).

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• a significant decrease in political interest and political trust in political parties and their political programs, platforms, and ideologies, thus making room for populist and extremist approaches which are based on a decline of trust in the political elite, • a substantial modification of the social and political interest in the democratic representativity which is achieved by voting, thus emphasizing a strong tendency toward participative democracies, • a strong emphasis on the co-creation of political identity and meaning by means of interactive networking with other individuals in physical, virtual, and augmented realities provided by the virtual media, immersive technologies, and a different perception of the individual as well as the community in the virtual worlds. While the first two types of phenomena are discussed in the following section in more detail, the third type of phenomena represents a major challenge for individuals and society. Along with value co-creation in networked governance and management (Ansell & Torfing, 2021), political value is strengthened (Schwartz, 1992, 2012), and political value co-creation is impacted by tolerance and inclusion phenomena, like in immigration integration phenomena (Voinea, 2021). Moreover, digitalization has a major impact on political participation and political culture since it creates a virtual agora for public debate, deliberation, and participation which is not dependent on location, or logistics, and does not need the coercion scenarios of traditional governmental structures and forces. It needs instead rules of interactions which have to be understood by the citizens. Studies on governance theories and public administration prove that the new governance networking entails the need for new theories for meaning co-creation, value co-creation, and individual as well as group participation.

5.4 Populist Political Ideologies and Parties Easy access to information and the empowerment for action deliberation and choice, the possibility to express opinions in the public space, the chance to interact with the governmental policy structure—all this has substantially changed the perception of political parties as political actors in the public space. The wide access to information and public interaction space has radically transformed the relationship between citizens and political parties, has dramatically diminished parties’ capacity to represent people, and has constrained their impact on policy making. In democratic societies, the capacity and quality of representation by political parties are essential for individual participation in the evolution of that society. It is therefore important to assess the capacity proved by the political parties in Europe during the past three decades in order to understand the level of representativity and the trends in political participation of the citizens in relation to Governments, top political leadership, and politicians.

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We examine several dimensions of change: (i) electoral realignment and the change in voting preferences following a transnational cleavage (Carrieri et al., 2021); (ii) populism and extremism: the change in the party system is determined by the decreasing degree (power) of representativity of the political parties (Kriesi, 1998, 2010, 2014; Kriesi et al., 2006a, 2006b); (iii) political culture: different attachment to values, and the emergence of social cleavages induced by cleavages in the attachment to social values (Bornschier, 2010; Inglehart, 2008; Inglehart & Norris, 2016). One relevant dimension is the political parties’ capacity for representation. A decrease in political parties’ capacity for political representation seems to be at the root of populism and extremism rise during the past decade. The rise of populism is explained by the identity politics (Fukuyama, 2018; Rooduijn, 2019), while other authors explain it by means of a decrease in political parties’ capacity for political representation and the transformations in the political communication style and the access to information offered at mass level through digitalization (Kriesi, 1998, 2010, 2014; Kriesi et al., 2006a, 2006b). Both trends of explanatory theories converge toward the conclusion that new cleavage between mainstream parties and populist parties has appeared. This cleavage shifted the gap from the national to the European Union level. Changes in vote shares of political parties (Noury & Roland, 2020) are explained by means of the economic recession of 2008, and by massive immigration crisis of 2015 (Dinas et al., 2019; Hangartner et al., 2019). What counts as a dimension of cultural change is the shifting away from the mainstream parties and their democratic representativity capacity toward the capacity of individuals to participate in decision-making and policy making directly. Another dimension of the change is the exclusionist characteristics of identity politics, which is deepening the cleavages from left–right to mainstream-populist parties (Noury & Roland, 2020). Very often associated with the phenomena of immigration and the state multiculturalism in Western Europe where it has produced a significant shift in the political party systems, populism has been explained in more depth by some authors as a side-effect of the democratic exercise of power, elite, and policy making in these countries. As Kriesi (2014) argues, populist parties represent rather an effect of the decreasing capacity of the political parties to represent the voters. They are a product of a cultural change in the collective perception of the political parties and elites. At the same time, the phenomenology of populism has developed itself and spiraled as much as to further enhance and produce cultural change by aggregating a specific expression of the people’s unsatisfaction with the parties’ quality of democratic representativity, quality of the policy making, and quality of the political elite. A populist parties’ scale (Inglehart & Norris, 2016) shows the extension of populism in Europe, with a special focus on the countries in the eastern half of Europe, where populism has different roots, different public expressions, and different explanations. Populism and extremism are dominating the political arena in many European countries. The social, economic, cultural, and political contexts which made populist ideology grow and powerfully penetrate the political systems in Europe are deeply related to two essential issues: On the one hand, there is a representativity crisis and

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a decrease in the relevance of multiparty system for the voters who perceive both political elite and parties as corrupt and self-interested (Kriesi, 2014). On the other hand, there is the complexity of climate change phenomenology and some of its sideeffects: massive immigration, energy crises, resource management, and a renewed struggle for resources, markets, and hegemonic power. The crisis of political representativity has induced an increasing distrust in the political elite and a decrease in political parties’ capacity to represent the people who vote for them (Kriesi, 2014). A source of this decline is the effect of new technology diffusion at a global scale: the Internet, social media, socializing networks, and communication technologies provided the context for differentiating the relation between the party and the voters by enabling their communication directly to charismatic political actors and leaders at the expense of parties’ public impact (see Figs. 7 and 8). The populist ideology has been evolving differently in the geopolitical space of the former communist societies in the eastern half of Europe. Characterized by a culture of survival values, severe social and political distrust as a legacy of former authoritarian communist regimes, and almost inexistent civic culture, these societies have passed through a difficult transition to democracy. The transitional processes— either completed or still ongoing for many countries in the Western Balkans and South-Eastern Europe—have often proved weak outcomes in terms of democratic institutions. Proving rather unstable preferences in terms of political ideologies and fluctuating voting choices for political parties, the citizens of these societies have been easily captured by the populist type of political discourse (Fomina & Kucharczyk, 2016; Krasteva, 2016; Pankowski, 2010; Zankina, 2016; Zulianello & Larsen, 2021). The explanations for the fast and impressive advance of the populist parties in the CEE political arenas reside in their ability to fill the democratic cultural gap

Fig. 7 The share of positive views for the right-wing populist parties in Western European countries. Source Pew Research Centre, October 2019, “European Public Opinion Three Decades After the Fall of Communism”, pp. 98–103

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Fig. 8 The share of positive views for the right-wing populist parties in CEE countries. Source Pew Research Centre, October 2019, “European Public Opinion Three Decades After the Fall of Communism”, pp. 98–103

of these societies: extensive corruption as well as the collective public perception of the political elite as corrupted were two essential factors in making the populist views endure. The dominance of materialist values, scarcity of resources, low quality of policy making, and low economic performances have made up the context for the populist success and furthermore for the illiberal switch of some of the new democracies in the East, and the authoritarian populist regimes (Pew Research Center, 2019; Kriesi, 2018; Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Oesch & Rennwald, 2018; Inglehart, 2018; Dalton, 2018; Dalton & Berning, 2022) (see Fig. 9). While populism in Western European societies has been mainly based on a cultural trend opposing nationalist views to increased immigration which is perceived as a threat to jobs, cultural values, and style of living (Hooghe & Marks, 2018), populism

Fig. 9 Populist-Left parties in Eastern European countries. a Bulgaria (five populist-left parties); b Croatia (three populist-left and two populist-right parties); c Poland (two populist-left and one populist-right parties); d Hungary (two populist-left parties); e Romania (one populist-left party). Source Technical Appendix A: Classification of Populist parties (2014), Inglehart and Norris (2016, 35)

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in the Central and Eastern European societies has been essentially related to ethnic views and enhanced the approach on democracy as an approach on the ethnic minority rights of representativity (Voinea, 2023). Populist parties have been defined according to the preferences and orientations of the voters. Other than the traditional anti-elite positions which characterize the populist parties, new definitional approaches as based on the value-attachment and classified on a populist party scale (Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Pew Research Center, 2019, 111).

6 Conclusions The approach to cultural change in governance and political systems is based on a political cultural approach in which values, identities, and meanings change along with the social and political environments. Our study employs a research literature review as well as international analytical data for the purpose of identifying a tendency to openness to internal instability and conflict in those societies in which governance or political party systems fail to construct and/or communicate meaning while both governance and party systems are subject to deep changes which provide for the emergence of new structure and operational principles. Such deep change is the cultural change emerging during the past 4–5 decades from the diffusion and development of technological innovation based on the artificial (computers, mobile communications, and artificial environments and agents). There are two main dimensions of change which this approach addresses: (i) governance and polity internal organization, and (ii) meaning construction and communication. The change in internal organization is emphasized by the gradual, however fast transition from hierarchical to networked governance systems, and from physical reality to a so far still unclear combination of physical, virtual, and augmented reality—a combination which emerges from the deep transformation of the social and political systems through innovations and development in communications, interaction, and artificial technologies, strengthen together in a European systematic program of digitalization which seems to go far complex on both societal and political scales than modern era industrialization had. However, the most visible part of this cultural change is not only the network-based society and polity, but the public values emerging by value co-creation from this emergent setting (Grönroos et al., 2015). Value co-creation is a new approach to the social and political management of humans’ various needs and capacities. This new concept provides for a social and political approach which is based on multiple (layers of) reality, multiple layers of individual, social, political, and cultural identity, as well as new, multiple-meaning construction and communication principles. In classic highly industrialized societies in the European Union, the meaning construction and communication at the macro scale has been merely explained in terms of the macro flows of resources, capital, and public values. Following

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Luhmann’s theory (Putnam & Nicotera, 2009) on the essential role played by meaning construction and communication in social and political organization, networked governance as an emerging concept of political organization requires an appropriate definition of how meaning construction and communication should work in the emerging high complexity setting of the social and political networks which define new society and polity architectural, conceptual, and operational principles. It is likely that in a substantial measure, value, identity, and meaning are defined as interaction-based emergent entities which require to be continuously (re)constructed. As such, they might get refreshed at every interaction so that each of them could embed the dynamics of interaction into a renewed meaning. A huge diversity of approaches to meaning—from those based on philosophical ideas of positivism starting from Comte’s sociological positivism to that of Weber’s (1922), from the constructivism background in current value co-creation theories (De Fina et al., 2006) to Husserl’s theory of phenomenology (Husserl, 1983, 1989), from the interpretivist philosophy to interpretive social science (Bevir & Blakely, 2018) and culture of governance (Bevir & Rhodes, 2003b, 2010)—has tentatively addressed the issue of meaning creation and meaning communication. While addressing individual identities as well as community identities, digitalization raises the issue of meaning creation and communication in the new combination of real and virtual worlds. As individuals have their own perceptions and understandings, working in social, political, and governance networks (Bryson et al., 2017) might lead to the co-creation of value, identity, and meaning from the networked piecewise individual meanings.

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Lower Spectrum Conflict Mechanisms Julien Théron

1 Introduction People’s discontent is a basis for political transformation. Such discontent can be expressed through calm and peaceful means such as elections and quiet demonstrations; however, it can also trigger destabilizing events that push society into grave conflicts. The antagonization of various parties within society can push them to escalate their opposition and produce destabilization through the use of violent means oriented directly at each other or indirectly at other parties, including the whole society. Therefore, the fundamental question of how lower spectrum conflict mechanisms work—in other words how conflicts appear at the basis of societies—is of prime importance as any human society can be the object of such a path from opposition to destabilization. The nature and structures of the groups participating in this destabilization do not prevent them from participating in such a process. Indeed, even groups formed around the most peaceful social, religious, or political ideologies can participate in conflict mechanisms. Although democracy has demonstrated that a balance of power can prevent their emergence, violent conflicts can emerge from any group in any society, at any period of time, and for any reason.

1.1 State of the Art The study of the emergence of conflicts in societies is both extremely wide and quite limited. It is extremely wide as several disciplines study how a stable situation collapses into conflict. The range of disciplines addressing this question is broad: J. Théron (B) Sciences Po, 28 Rue des Saints-Pères, 75007 Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_3

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history, sociology, law, philosophy, and political science. However, if security and terrorism studies approach this issue, a narrow focus on peace studies, conflict studies, war studies, and strategy studies appears to be particularly pertinent to questioning the emergence of conflict mechanisms in societies, as well as the ways to deal with them. But it is also quite limited as, precisely, every discipline questions conflict through a particular angle, often applying specific theories or through case studies. Concentrating through a transdisciplinary approach with quite a narrow focus associating peace, conflict, war, and strategic studies—which, if not comprehensive, is certainly plentiful—certain common trends appear. Peace studies consider the question from the perspective of preventing the early emergence of conflicts. For example, Miall (2007) designed a theory of emergent conflict that aims to grasp how polarization appears at an early stage within society, with important teachings on “precursor conditions” and “preventors of war.” Trying to design “patterns of conflicts” from dozens of case studies, Heldt (2009) addressed peace-making from a conflict prevention perspective, with a particular focus on sequencing peace efforts in theory and practice. Pioneering Galtung (1969, 2000), and with Höivik (1971) also grasped this issue through his seminal works and more recent research, including those on conflict processes, possible alternatives, and the deep Braudelian role of meta-conflicts in the emergence of violence. Contemporary conflict studies tend to develop a vivid and advanced understanding of conflict mechanisms by studying societies. Bennett (2013) questioned the epistemological construction of theoretical approaches applied to civil wars. Nome and Weidmann (2013) explored conflict propagation as a diffusion of identity. Stein (2019) studied the role of vengefulness in conflict initiation, emitting models, and predictors. Midlarsky (2011) questioned the building of various political extremist ideologies which were eventually demonstrated to be vectors of violence. Karatzogianni and Robinson (2010), after studying the works of Deleuze, Guattari, and Hobbes, proposed applying many tools such as rhizomatic politics, indigenous networks, and affinity-reactive tensions. Goemans (2006) and Newman (2006) studied the relationship between territoriality and conflict. Kalyvas (2006) focused on the dynamic emergence of violence during civil wars. Furthermore, numerous authors gathered by Kalyvas et al. (2008) also investigated questions such as the origins of political order (Robert H. Bates), insurgencies’ motivations (Carles Boix), their geo-cultural logic (Lars-Erik Cederman), the relationship between group identity and violence (Steven I. Wilkinson), the order in violent disorder (Scott Straus), and the logic of emotions (Jack L. Snyder & Leslie Vinjamuri). War studies have progressively extended to societies. Hammes (2006) studied new types of conflict scenarios emerging from the bottom of the spectrum. The concept of fourth-generation warfare (4GW) that he developed was also backed and further developed by Lind and Thiele (2015). 4GW’s population-centric approach is also at the center of Brooks’s (2016) concept of “un-making sovereignty.” The following indirect ways of producing warfare can also interfere with society to wage conflicts: political warfare (Kennan, 1948), rebel war (Messner, 2004), reflexive control (Thomas, 2004), hybrid warfare (Hoffman, 2007), population-centric warfare (Smith, 2008), and new generation warfare (Fedyk, 2017). These theories of war all

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stress the societal dimension as a key battlefield for contemporary warfare. The latest developments in counterinsurgency theory also underline the central role of the population in the origin and development of insurgent movements (U.S. Army & Marine Corps, 2007). Strategic studies also consider the question of conflict mechanisms within societies as they can greatly affect the behavior of state actors. Some thinkers reject the lowering of strategy on the conflict scale from great powers to society actors, such as Bernard Brodie who “refused to do anything more than marginalize the psychosocial dimension of strategy” (Echevarria II, 2021, 63) or Robert Osgood who believed in limited warfare, containing it to major actors aiming at military targets (Echevarria II, 2021, 78). However, some strategists have decided to expand this area of study. For instance, Henry Eccles considered the discipline to apply to any “field of activity, be it military, social, or even intellectual” (Echevarria II, 2021, 123). Joseph Caldwel Wylie went even further, considering any type of conflict (Echevarria II, 2021, 140). Furthermore, although quite entrenched in a classical view of strategy, Schelling (1960, 1980) developed a particular randomizing approach, including game theory, which can apply to lower spectrum conflicts. Most importantly, Freedman’s (2013) key conceptualization of “strategy from below” underlines the utter importance of considering society at the foundation of conflicts, as conflicts can self-emerge or be organized from above. A study concentrating on conflict mechanisms could prolongate these various elements by focusing on the very structure of lower spectrum conflicts in order to gather these various teachings into a schematized picture that could apply to various conflicts. Indeed, peace, conflict, war, and strategic studies converge toward the possibility to build a theoretical model of lower spectrum conflict mechanisms (LSCMs).

1.2 Theoretical Approach Three key axes deduced from the scientific literature incite the formulation of the following hypotheses and research questions. Multiple actors play a role in the emergence of conflicts within societies. They condition, incite, structure, and allow violence to emerge as a form of dialectics turned into severe division and then confrontation within society. Despite the specificity of the situation, agents (actors actively engaged and therefore participating in a conflict mechanism) appear to play particular roles in conflict mechanisms. Therefore, the first hypothesis is that a typology of anonymized agents can be deduced from multiple conflicts: • Research question: If conflict mechanisms within a society are agent-dependent, what are the types of agents and their specificities? • Methodology: Following the hypothesis that agents play a structuring role in conflict mechanisms, it is therefore necessary to infer their classification according

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to specific roles that can be applied to various conflicts presenting different features, although it would be presumptuous to consider that such a proposed typology can be universally applied at this stage. This hypothesis, founded on the observation of contemporary conflicts worldwide, therefore aggregating many diverse data, however states that different types of relations to power produce different behaviors—and, in this regard, different types of conflicting behaviors. The broad scientific environment approach includes boundless case studies that have tried to define common applicable knowledge to prevent, contain, or suppress societal instability. However, the attention given to comprehending and theorizing conflict mechanisms themselves is somehow dependent on specific disciplines and, therefore, potentially limited. Models are widely missing. Thus, the second hypothesis questions the existence of schematic arrangements that induce conflict mechanisms: • Research question: From stability to confrontation, what arrangements between agents present conflict mechanisms? • Methodology: Once agents are classified by type, the continuation of the systemic approach induces multiple combinations between the different types of agents. Methodologically, a double approach can be used. As a first step, a logicbased approach based on typology can present the different possible combinations. As a second step, an inference-based approach can also, independently from typology, verify the plausibility of the logic-based approach. This two-step approach can strengthen the results related to this second research question, the latter constituting a verification of the former. Conflict mechanisms and their real outcomes do not always appear clearly from case studies or theoretical investigations in their relation to time. The third hypothesis concerns the existence of a common path for society-based conflicts or, in other words, the possibility to determine a phasic process of conflict: • Research question: Do conflict mechanisms follow a perceptible pattern, and, if so, what are the main phases of this pattern? • Methodology: Having determined a typology of agents and the various conflicting arrangements, a generic phasic pattern might appear when integrating the time variable with the general scheme. To perform such an integration, reality-founded inductive inference is irreplaceable as the observation of conflicting mechanisms according to time on dissimilar occurrences offers a reliable window on the process. It can produce a non-exhaustive, although comprehensive, incremental pattern. The methodologies applied to the three research questions mobilize multiple opensource and easily accessible cases in order to find induced mechanisms. They serve as generic demonstrations showing which sort of practical situation the assertions relate to. Addressing these three research questions also requires defining a proper theoretical framework corresponding to conflicts that might appear within society, whether sui generis or manipulated by third actors, and might spread through regional, international, and transnational processes. In this context, society is thus the cradle of conflict

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but not necessarily independent or even autonomous of outer-society agents. A given society is not the ultimate environment for conflict as it can easily and quickly grow outside the society with various supports and even belligerents becoming involved. In this framework, society is a less comprehensive environment for conflict than the original place of the conflict mechanisms between groups. Therefore, the paradigm appears to be constituted of two axioms. First, attention is focused not on the conflict as a dynamic, complex, and potentially long-term transforming phenomenon but on the conflict mechanisms that initiate the conflict. Second, society, despite the involvement of extra-societal agents, is the starting place of these mechanisms that operate at a low level on the “spectrum of conflict” (Hoffman, 2016). These LSCMs usually operate inconspicuously as the agents are unconscious (unable to identify the mechanism in which they are participating) or unwilling (manipulated by the mechanism) to disclose that they are following a path that will eventually lead to violence. Indeed, “approaching violence as a dynamic process allows an investigation of the sequence of decisions and events that intersect to produce violence” (Kalyvas, 2006, 22). LSCMs risk destabilizing a more or less stable equilibrium in society, with potential major destructive consequences. LSCM agents are often non-state actors; however, states or other types of institutional organizations can play, voluntarily or not, a significant role in conditioning, preparing, triggering, fueling, shaping, directing, and exploiting conflicts. Agents can be indigenous or outsiders. Investigating LSCMs requires a focus on abstract processes from various realworld situations. Therefore, it is necessary to base research on multiple qualitative case studies in order to infer a robust theoretical advancement. These cases must be contemporary as other historical eras’ specificities may alter conceptual construction. The case studies must also come from different social, ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds to mirror the cases, evaluate the role (or non-role) of specificities, and potentially neutralize any bias to build an objectivized model. Exploring LSCMs does not claim to design an exhaustive and absolute rule but to participate in the advancement of scientific knowledge by proposing a new way to model conflicts originating from societies. Modeling human behavior first requires understanding the actors or agents that operate the model. LSCMs are indeed agent-based phenomena, and the essence of these agents is primordial as they condition the strategies and therefore their behaviors. LSCM agents are complex, multiple, and potentially changing. Thus, it is crucial to consider all potential situations while trying to schematize them enough to create a clear and intelligible picture. Then, it is possible to study the agents’ behaviors and emit randomized systems of behavior (i.e., arrangements). Finally, a generic approach might permit distinguishing the early phases of LSCMs.

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2 Agents’ Typology LSCMs can be intentional through the search for escalation and potentially for violence motivated by ideological or strategic reasons. Pushing a society’s stability to the brink of collapse is a recurrent strategy to expel competing agents and to present conflict as the only recourse. Intentionally provoking the complete destabilization of society into chaos, openly assuming it or not, is also a revolutionary way to impose a new order on society through tabula rasa. Of course, LSCMs can also be involuntary. Ideologies and interests can push agents to compete harshly and progressively increase tensions that lead to the eruption of violence. In this case, agents usually place the blame on their competitors and assume the strictness of their positions. LSCM agents are groups with different features conditioning their behaviors. These features are indigeneity, legitimacy, position, and power. It appears that seven types of agents can operate LSCMs according to these features. Society itself, of course, is a group as a whole. This whole group (WG) has to be understood as an assembled, pluralist, and complex body that is as homogenous as the sum of its components’ agreement on a collective project. Regarding subgroups who disagree on the nature of the project, the strategy, the methods, or the application, the WG loses its cohesiveness and grows inner tensions that might end up in kinetic violence. Essentially, the WG does not carry proper leadership, although some rare and specific respectful characters can inspire, guide, and represent its cohesion. The WG can be more or less cohesive nations having states, which is the most common of the studied cases; however, they can also represent regional societies, religious sects, language speakers, or basically any metagroup that has significant subgroups. Examples include Iraqi society, Northern Irish society, Sunni Ummah, and the Mande linguistic community. Society is composed of many indigenous subgroups (InSubGs) that potentially have different desired orientations regarding the WG’s collective project. InSubGs can be of different sizes and powers—and power does not necessarily depend on the size. Of course, their existence as subgroups does not mean that they will proceed to become LSCMs, except if antagonizing dialectics are at the heart of the InSubG project. The unpredictable paths of the WG make it difficult to predict how InSubGs would behave in the potential context of LSCMs. Therefore, no InSubGs are essentially designed for conflict (radical groups can potentially conclude agreements, or their leadership may be taken over and their strategy modified); however, all InSubGs can be part of LSCMs (no group is outside of this potentiality). Examples include the Zentan tribe in Libya, the Lebanese Armenian community, Catalunya’s Junts independentist party, the Three Percenters U.S. militia, and the Bangladeshi trade unions. The state and the regional or international organizations it belongs to, as the institutional structure that the WG permits to rule itself, can be understood as indigenous ruling groups (InRulGs). These InRulGs design a specific type of agent as not every part of the WG can operate them all together, although they have the prerogative to rule over the WG. This brings about two particular specificities. First, the individuals

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operating the InRulGs also produce a rule-based structure for the WG. This responsibility comes with an enhanced power that can potentially be turned against the WG itself (oppressive state). The InRulG can rule for itself instead of in the interest of the WG. Furthermore, the individuals constituting the InRulG are themselves part of InSubGs, which means that they can use InRulGs as a vector for their InSubG’s interests (client state). In this case, the InSubG can equally be a minority or a majority; and the InSubG, using the InRulG as a vector for particular interest, saps away the cohesion of the WG; the two cases appear to always be convergent (Kawakibi & Theron, 2022). Fundamentally, the InRulG is supposed to be the guarantor of the homogeneity and stability of the WG and implement the necessary policies to reach this aim. Therefore, any LSCM is a (potentially voluntary) failure of the InRulG to ensure its prime duty. Examples are numerous, such as the Yugoslavian authorities from the end of the 1980s, or the Syrian regime at the beginning of the revolution in 2011. Beyond states, four other structures can be considered InRulGs. First, there are regional governments which attain a level of autonomy so advanced that their own integration into a state is restricted mainly to legal recognition and more or less loose institutional links. This is, for instance, the case of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Second, although unrecognized by international law and usually less complex and less potent, proto-states or self-governing bodies (non-state armed groups) also qualify as their ruling role is the same as that of the state. While some proto-states and self-governing bodies are sometimes allogenic to the area they rule, they usually claim to have the religious, ethnic, political, or historical legitimacy to do so. This is the case with Hezbollah or the Islamic State. Third, occupying forces are obviously not indigenous; however, they are rooted in the country and sometimes claim to have a legal or natural right to rule them. In this particular case, the dissociation between the InRulG and the WG is automatic. One example is the former US Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Fourth, regional organizations or alliances, which are not universalist organizations but simply political superstructures over states, must also be considered in this regard as InRulGs. As their memberships are always based on the adhesion of states, these can also be considered InSubGs. Despite the question of state sovereignty versus international law-based regional organizations, regional organizations and alliances can still be considered InRulGs. The European Union is, in this respect, the most evident example. Any other agent is fundamentally external to the situation but can play a leading role in the LSCM. In this respect, alien non-state actors comprise an external subgroup (ExSubG) that might be involved in conflict mechanisms. Any situation of potential or advanced destabilization attracts the attention of enemy non-state actors. These actors can be ethnic, religious, or political in nature and practice methods such as disinformation, political propaganda, cyberattacks, terrorism, and guerilla warfare. The allogeneic origin of ExSubGs does not preclude their potential involvement in LSCMs. They can be motivated by an imperialist ideology of global conquest or explain their involvement as retaliation against the WG in which the LSCM operates in relation to previous actions from its InRulG. Examples include the Hezbollah in Bulgaria and the Algerian Armed Islamic Group in France.

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External agents can also be a foreign state, a regional organization, or an alliance that the InRulG does not belong to, creating an external ruling group (ExRulG). Indeed, states and collaborative ensembles of states tend, with increasing global connectivity, to advance their interests outside their traditional area of influence, including concerning territorial conflicts through “the death of distance” (Buhaug & Gleditsch, 2006). This is the case not only for regional hegemons but also, particularly through cyber, political, or economic means, for any ExRulGs which are far from the agent they try to impact through projection. The interest in actively (although potentially covertly) participating in an LSCM far from its region authorizes it to defend its interests while staying far from the destabilization outcomes, such as local political backlash, migration, multiple illegal traffic, and business disturbances. Examples include Iran with Hezbollah and Russia in the Central African Republic. One interesting case involves transnational groups (TransGs). They cannot be considered subgroups as they themselves constitute a society that can certainly be considered an alternative WG, sometimes aiming to constitute an InRulG. TransGs are at the same time neither indigenous nor external, and both indigenous and external. They can position themselves inside society, outside society, or both inside and outside society. The constitutive link of TransGs can be ethnic, clannish, religious, or political. Examples include the Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; the Shammar in Iraq and Syria; the Druze in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Jordan; and the Maoists in India and Nepal. Finally, although losing influence regarding all other types of agents, a final type of agent must be considered, at least theoretically: international organizations such as universal ruling groups (UniRulGs). These groups can remain supposedly universal when, due to the nature of international law, their rules apply in a limited way or when a limited number of InRulGs adhere to a text which is supposed to extend and/ or potentially become customary international law. Examples include the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. These seven types of agents are on purpose schematic, thus fundamentally imperfect, and some of the cases could potentially be cross-distributed from one another. Cohesiveness is also a huge issue as each group is subject to subdivisions regarding internal divergences of projects (Theron, 2017). As states Stein (2019, 175), “the actors in most IR theories are not individuals but aggregate, such as states or rebel groups that are typically treated as unitary actors”. This aggregative ontology of groups invites one to consider agents, with respect of course to their particularities, as fundamentally unstable and potentially divisible through a potentially conflicting double synchronous process of disaggregation and reaggregation. This typology covers all possibilities for LSCMs to rise in society and has been established by grouping the actors by their social nature, their prerogatives, and their behaviors in LSCMs. Most importantly, these seven types of agents can be characterized by the following four features: indigeneity, legitimacy, position, and power (see Fig. 1). Finally, this typology of agents should not be confused with the threat they emit. Indeed, the different LSCM agents can operate jointly, such as bilateral state cooperation or the collaboration between a military alliance and a non-state actor. The

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Agent/Feature WG InSubG InRulG ExSubG ExRulG TransG UniRulG

Indigeneity Indigenous Indigenous Indigenous External External Indigenous/ External External

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Legitimacy Position High/Variable Middle High/Variable Below High/Variable Top Low Side Low Side Dependable/Variable Side/Below

Power Dependable/Variable Variable Dependable/Variable Variable Dependable/Variable Dependable/Variable

Dependable/Variable

Dependable/Variable

Above top

Fig. 1 Features of LSCM agent types. Author: Julien Theron

proposed typology above displays many examples of various cooperation schemes. Agents can interconnect, interact with, and mediate their threats against a WG or its InRulG, even when they are officially antagonistic (Theron, 2021). The collaborative behavior between the agents participates in shaping conflict mechanisms.

2.1 Conflicting Arrangements The observation of population-centric conflicts that turned—for whatever reason— into kinetic violence since the collapse of the Iron Curtain shows the existence of different arrangements that do not depend on the type or level of violence or which actor initiated them.

2.1.1

Divisions Within a Society (InSubG vs. InSubG)

The government is weak for structural or situational reasons and does not play its role as regulator (InRulG [−])—a situation that regularly occurs. The political project it was based on is often decoupled from society. Hence, society is autonomized; rather, it has the means to be (WG [+]). When a society is relatively democratic, stable, and developed, it can usually cope with autonomy (e.g., Belgium in the absence of a government). When a society does not have the means to self-sustain its situation for many possible reasons, groups within the society may take over the situation. Two polarized scenarios can then appear: One group tries to take control of the society, but one or several others oppose and constitute a counterpower (InSubG > InRulG < InSubG). One example is Milosevic’s Serbs trying to take control over the Yugoslavian state while being opposed by Sloven, Croatian, and Bosniak communities. Another case is the Dinka and Nuer competing for the state in South Sudan. A historical rivalry between societal groups takes advantage of a weakening state to rise again (InSubG >< InSubG), such as the Sunni and Alawi communities in Tripoli, Lebanon.

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Both cases are usually mixed as every group usually positions itself in a rhetorical defense of the society’s diversity. The cases related to an InSubG versus InSubG scenario usually involve polarized societies, such as multicultural, multireligious, and politicized societies. This arrangement can also converge through the involvement of the state on the side of a group (InRulG + InSubG > InSubG), such as the Iraqi Armed Forces and Shia Hashd al-Shaabi militia operating together or the Mauritanian state aligning with the Beydane regarding sub-Saharan communities.

2.1.2

Society Opposed to the Government (WG vs. InRulG)

The society (or a significant trans-group part) does not recognize its government as legitimate and, when the government refuses to adapt, forces a regime change. This is often the case in a communitarian government (InSubG/InRulG) and is typical of mobilization against autocratic states; the arrangement can also appear in democracies when the government’s policies are contested, particularly in the social domain (Boix, 2008). This is a classic case of post-socialist color revolutions, as well as the 2011 and 2019 waves of Arab revolutions and numerous social revolts such as the French Gilets Jaunes, the anti-austerity movement in Greece, and the Chilean Estallido Social.

2.1.3

One or Several Societal Groups Against Its/their Government (InSubG vs. InRulG)

Whatever their aggregation element (ethnicity, religion, regionalism, or politics), one or several specific groups within the society oppose the government. This appears to be a very common arrangement. Three scenarios can occur as follows. The group is under duress from the state (InSubG [−] < InRulG [+]). The opposing group considers that the state does not implement neutral policies and targets its actions against a part of society. Sometimes, the state changes the order of events in its narrative to justify a posteriori its attacks against a community that actually rebelled after repression. Examples include the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Army in Ethiopia. The group does not recognize itself as part of the society ruled by the state (InSubG /= WG). For identity reasons, the group considers that it is not part of society and should therefore not be ruled by the state. Examples include the Irish Republican Army in Ulster and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. The group is more economically advantaged than disadvantaged regarding other groups and does not suffer oppression, but it does not want to be a part of the society (InSubG [+] > InRulG [−]). One example is the Catalan independentist protests, although they could also be an example of a C.b. arrangement. The three cases regularly converge dynamically. For instance, when a specific communitarian group exerts central power through its dedicated national party (B.c.), and then loses elections, it can be in a situation of inferiority when one or several

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opposing parties exact revenge against it (B.a.). In the first and third scenarios, group specificities usually operate strongly to feed identity-based separatism.

2.1.4

Transnational Group Against a Government (TransG vs. InRulG)

As stated previously, a transnational group can, through identity, consider itself a society. Although it is possible for individuals to be a part of a specific state’s society and of a transnational society, particularly for religions, the two projects sometimes clash over ideologies or strategies (TransG /= WG). In this respect, the more the state’s society distances itself from or even clashes with the transnational group, the more individuals will tend to transfer their prime allegiance from the state to the society it governs, meaning the transnational group. LSCMs related to transnational groups are therefore dependent on a divergence of projects pushing for a fragmentation of the state’s society and the separatism of the transnational part of the society. This arrangement appears quite frequently due to the imperfect distribution of political borders regarding different types of belongings. However, it is noticeable that a subgroup with such a double potential affiliation often develops cultural and political particularities vis-à-vis its transnational ensemble, such as language, customs, and political parties. Therefore, it would be erroneous to consider that a conflicting transfer of allegiance from the state to a transnational group would not necessarily involve a conflict of leadership within the transnational group. For example, Kurdistan is representative of such a case as Kurdish communities living in the Middle East often endorse their transnational belonging, although they have substantial linguistic particularities and even more segregating political affiliations between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan that prevent the political unification of the transnational group. In this case, the transnational group appears as a society, but a quite divided one, with subgroups in conflicts (TransG = InSubG >< ExSubG).

2.1.5

Transnational Group Against an Indigenous Group (TransG vs. InSubG)

In this situation, which is marked by complexity but does exist, the transnational group mobilizes external subgroups to back its fight in a given state territory. The mobilization of an external group can be easily achieved, despite the specificities and political differences seen in arrangement D, due to the strength of the common identity belonging. One example is the Shia Liwa al-Fatemiyoun and Liwa al-Zainebiyoun, respectively from Afghanistan and Pakistan, against Syrian revolutionaries.

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An Alien Group Against an Indigenous Group (ExSubG vs. InSubG)

This arrangement appears rarely but can easily occur when an external group allies itself with an indigenous group and comes to fight on its side. The external group does not have territorial legitimacy. This arrangement does not concern the belonging of the external group to a transnational group, as is arrangement E. Therefore, the only motivation for the external group is to follow not an identity but a certain strategy. This is the case with foreign mercenaries such as the Syrian Jaysh al-Watani al-Suri in Libya opposing Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army.

2.1.7

An Alien Group Opposed to an Indigenous State (ExSubG vs. InRulG)

Ideological reasons can push insurgents to transfer their fights to another country, although it is not the most common case. This is usually the case for groups that follow a universalist political or religious ideology. This moderately happened in leftist and rightist circles, respectively, in Syrian Rojava and in Ukraine’s Donbas. However, the most common case is religion. One example is the Arab Sunni Salafi Jihadi who fought alongside the Pashto Taliban against the Afghan National Army. This list of arrangements exclusively concerns the lower spectrum and excludes de facto all upper spectrum arrangements. The mention of one group before another does not indicate the prime origin, responsibility, or attack position; they can be interchangeable. Neither does the order consider the level or method of violence.

2.2 Attempt for a Generic Phasic Pattern of LSCM The number of variables deciding conflict mechanisms is immense. Therefore, determining common paths is nearly impossible. However, recurring cases can bring about a certain understanding of the following typical phases: hoarding of tensions in society, spiralization, eruption, and structuration.

2.2.1

Hoarding of Tensions in Society

Conflict mechanisms related to society always mobilize existing tensions—defined here as a principled and/or interested antagonism that is more or less explicitly expressed. LSCMs are always spontaneous, based on current conditions, and triggered by contemporary events. They always prosper on former historical tensions. These tensions can concern any type of agent but implicate the whole society (WG). They are hoarded within society, known by all, and favor the potentiality for future violence. They live through individual and collective memory, social mobilization,

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associative militantism, art production, engaged journalism, or regular recalls from political parties. Any type of tension can be hoarded by any agent and directed against any other agent. Agents regularly hoard antagonist tensions related to the same events but in different ways, such as Al-Naksa in 1967, the tensions of which are still hoarded in today’s Palestinian society as a conflicting memory when Israeli society considers it—a part of it—a “liberation” of Eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. These hoarded tensions define the “focal principles” (Goemans, 2006) on which any agent will mobilize its capabilities. At a time of tensions based on immediate events, social and intellectual frenzy pushes individuals and groups to mobilize not only their own ideas but also ideas that might lead to political extremism, defined as “the will to power by a social movement in the service of a political program typically at variance with that supported by existing state authorities” (Midlarsky, 2011, 7), i.e., a new, alternative project. It is a pursuit of sublimized certainty and rightfulness. Digging into the recent or more ancient past, groups gather former analogous mobilizations. Hoarded tensions come out quickly, particularly if the former issues have not been addressed and fixed, and even more so when former mobilizations have been repressed. This is the case of the Syrian revolution regarding the 1982 Hama massacre and the Damascus Spring in 2000, as well as the Ukrainian spontaneous mobilization against Russian aggression in February 2022 regarding the memory of the Euromaidan revolution in 2013–2014 and the Orange Revolution in 2004–2005. This phase concerns all societies and is constant in LSMCs.

2.2.2

Spiralization

This concept is quite generic and can be applied in all cases, although spiralization is not always overt. When this process is covert, it is of course more difficult for society to understand that a conflict mechanism is operating. In both cases, Kalyvas et al., (2008, 9) note that: “According to Boix, political actors will engage in violence if they calculate they have more to gain from trying to overthrow the existing order than from accepting it. The calculation involves two variables: the costs of violence, and the gains from changing the political order compared to the gains from remaining under the status quo”. Spiralization is the time when agents challenge each other, test the resistance of the opposing agents, and evaluate their motivation, and the strength of their grasp on their project, whether it implies the status quo or alternative projects. Regardless of the nature of the agent and its project, spiralization is a mutualized process of active “fractionalization” (Boix, 2008) through a game of “active and reactive forces” (Karatzogianni & Robinson, 2010). Spiralization can be defined in this respect as a process among at least two agents engaged in a cycle of reciprocal increase of tensions, the continuation of which, without restraint, would lead to an outburst of kinetic violence. Kalyvas’ mechanisms system corresponds to a preparatory and mutualizing mix between an ex ante approach of “polarization” and “breakdown” (brutalization, revenge, security

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dilemma, and medievalization) (2006). The following four instruments appear regularly in LSCMs; however, they are not always employed and can be combined in different orders: • Rhetoric spiralization through the media broadcasting of public speeches. This is the most common instrument and can grow quickly but also fall back just as rapidly. One example is the regular verbal jousts between leaders from Hezbollah and Israel which are sometimes followed by violence. • Symbolic spiralization through emblematic political decisions. For example, the decision to organize an independence referendum of Iraqi Kurdistan in September 2017 was followed a month later by clashes for control of the strategic city of Kirkuk between the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Arab Shia Hashd al-Shaabi operating with the Iraqi Armed Forces. Milosevic’s April 1987 speech in Kosovo Polje is also a proper example of symbolic escalation. • Material spiralization as preparation for the incoming conflict. For example, Iran delivering weapons to Hezbollah in Syria escalates tensions with Israel, which regularly strikes these convoys. • Physical spiralization through rolling clashes. This can occur at either the start or the end of spiralization. This instrument can launch violence or be the final step before the eruption of substantial violence. For example, the start of the Lebanese Civil War, with the bus massacre in Beirut, was a cycle of clashes that led to the general eruption of violence. 2.2.3

Eruption

Although there are no rules or specificities for this phase, society-based violence always has a key moment when violence erupts. This reveals an inner trigger mechanism in the agents’ consideration of the situation. If the agents keep trying to maintain control of the spiralization process (usually with moderate success as it at least hoards tensions in society), the sudden eruption of violence unleashes taboos and restraints. The mobilization of violent means passes from preparation to implementation of what Kalyvas (2006) calls “transgression”. From this point on, the LSCM continues but the conflict cannot be stopped, or the tensions reduced. This is the turning point. Before that point, all efforts can be made to reverse spiralization. After that point, all efforts to stop the ongoing conflict will be extremely difficult, affecting the structure of the whole society, whether its members are close to or far from the combat area.

2.2.4

Structuration

The structuration of the conflict can be seen through two lenses. The first is the structuration of the conflict itself, which is connected to the battlefield, the different means of violence, and other variables such as the evolution of participating agents, the input of allogenous agents, and diplomatic external pressures.

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The second lens appears, however, more pertinent for LSCMs as it concerns the conflict structuring the society itself. Indeed, once erupted, conflict triggers an even deeper transformation of society than during the spiralization phase. This includes the following characteristics: • Deployment of a speech on the existential threat that excludes any type of relations among belligerent agents. • Social segregation of the conflicting agents; rather, they are combatant or noncombatant. • Strict separation of key strategic energy, economic, and military supply chains related to the belligerent agents. • Attempt to identify, contact, and forge strategic relationships with any external agent who can support the indigenous agent in its fight. • Advanced suspicion and reluctance to engage with antagonist agents in conflict settlement. Other phases can be inferred, such as transformation, diffusion, and resolution; however, they are not parts of conflict mechanisms. Nonetheless, these can be impacted negatively by the first four phases, particularly through a traumatic Phase 3 and an entrenched Phase 4.

3 Conclusion The exploration of LSCMs through qualitative case studies enabled answering the three research questions. First, seven types of conflicting agents can be determined with clear behavioral specificities. If this answer to the first research question does not imagine itself to be universal, it can nonetheless provide a pattern for the analysis of schematized agents, according to their indigeneity, legitimacy, position, and power. These four features appear interesting as they certainly are not based on identity (although identity can play a variable role in indigeneity), not on ideology (although politics and religion can be a basis for legitimacy). Anonymizing groups in conflict within a society therefore allows the use of this typology as a pattern applicable to diverse modern and contemporary conflicts. Distant conflicts in history or anticipation of future ones might not answer to the same classification. It is possible, however, to distinguish that the different types of agents will produce, through necessary specific behaviors linked to their features, different behaviors. In this respect, the answer to the first research question also induces the necessary existence of different arrangements. This deduction aligns with the fact that the ultimate aim of this typology is, indeed, not to exist per se, but to compose different arrangements. Second, the confrontation of these agents shows multiple complex arrangements that cover roughly all situations of lower spectrum conflicts. The use of a double methodology combines the types of groups and confirms it through inference. In this respect, the seven arrangements described to respond to the second research

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question are not designed to be exhaustive but should be quite comprehensive while describing a whole range of LSCMs. Indeed, the first approach supposedly covers the maximum of the situation, while the second one confirms the existence, in practice, of such arrangements. The second approach also appears to have an unexpected benefit, which is to assert qualitatively the relative frequency of the arrangements. This opens the possibility for a new study on a quantitative approach to these LSCM arrangements. Third, it is possible to design a phasic pattern of conflict, although from a general perspective. The third research question certainly remains the most complex one as the time-related approach differs substantially; it is a more autonomous scientific object than within the first two questions. If the first one uses a logic-based approach, the third one is more founded on observation. The second research question uses both approaches and can be seen as a natural link between the former and the latter. Here, too, the different phases described are schematic but not exhaustive. It appears, nevertheless, that the answer to the research question is positive: it is possible to define a pattern for conflict mechanisms. The first two phases of this pattern—hoarding of tensions and spiralization—are certainly the most pertinent to understanding the LSCM. They can articulate very well with typology and diverse arrangements. As the object of this study is the conflict mechanisms, it does not integrate phases such as a decrease in intensity, negotiation, or a cessation of hostilities. It should be said at this point that structuration through the first lenses, i.e., the structuration of the conflict itself, can induce cyclical behaviors from agents and question the notion of equilibrium, which is another prospect for the extension of this study. Overall, two sets of further conclusions emerge. LSCMs are the object of the following influencing variables: violent history, relation to the use of force in a society’s and state’s polity, nature of the political regime, impact of governmental policies and attitudes, interference of foreign actors (agitation, propaganda, diplomacy, intelligence, equipment, training, and command), and the impact of politics and politicians’ behavior on society’s stability and resilience. Furthermore, the outcomes of LSCMs are rarely expected, particularly from the participating agents: • Instability often stabilizes for significantly longer than expected. • Power switches almost always occur but rarely in the expected sense. • The ex ante conditions of the participating agents are not guaranteed at the end of the conflict. • The means deployed usually worsen during the conflict’s early phases. • The general situation of a society worsens with the conflict and will likely require decades to recover. • The whole society is impacted. Not only the belligerent are combating, but the entire regional environment transforms, potentially inducing new scheme that might trigger future conflict mechanisms. The conflict might even impact global trends (population, resources, practices, and legal consequences). • Negotiations are difficult to initiate, conduct, and conclude, and consensuses rarely carry solutions representing acceptable minima by the parties.

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In light of these concluding elements, LSCMs appear to be incentivized by interest and division and are easy to launch. However, they are extremely destructive and have short- and long-term negative impacts on the society that indigenous or external agents want to transform, with little chance of success.

References Bennett, A. (2013). Causal mechanisms and typological theories in the study of civil conflicts. In J. T. Checkel (Ed.), Transnational dynamics of civil war (pp. 205–230). Cambridge University Press. Boix, C. (2008). Order, conflict and violence. In S. N. Kalyvas, I. Shapiro, & T. Masoud (Eds.), Order, conflict and violence (pp. 197–218). Cambridge University Press. Brooks, R. (2016). How everything became war and the military became everything. Simon & Schuster. Buhaug, H., & Gleditsch, N. P. (2006). The death of distance? The globalization of armed conflicts. In M. Kahler & B.F. Walter (Eds.), Territoriality and conflict in an era of globalization (pp. 187– 216). Cambridge University Press. Echevarria, A. J., II. (2021). Wars’ logic: Strategic thought and the American way of war. Cambridge University Press. Fedyk, N. (2017, 4 May). Russian “New Generation” warfare: Theory, practice, and lessons for U.S. strategists. Small Wars Journal. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://smallwars journal.com/jrnl/art/russian-%E2%80%9Cnew-generation%E2%80%9D-warfare-theory-pra ctice-and-lessons-for-us-strategists-0 Freedman, L. (2013). Strategy: A history. Oxford University Press. Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6(3), 167–191. Galtung, J., & Höivik, T. (1971). Structural and direct violence: A note on operationalization. Journal of Peace Research, 8(1), 73–76. Galtung, J. (2000). Conflict transformation by peaceful means (The Transcend Method). United Nations Disaster Management Training Programme. Goemans, H. E. (2006). Bounded communities: Territoriality, territorial attachment, and conflict. In M. Kahler & B. F. Walter (Eds.), Territoriality and Conflict in an era of Globalization (pp. 25–61). Cambridge University Press. Hammes, T. H. (2006). The sling and the stone. Zenith Press. Heldt, B. (2009). Sequencing of peacemaking in emerging conflicts. In K. Aggestam & A. Björkdahl (Eds.), War and peace in transition: Changing roles of external actors (pp. 128–146). Nordic Academic Press. Hoffman, F. G. (2007). Conflict in the 21st century–the rise of hybrid wars. Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from www.potomacinstitute.org/images/stories/pub lications/potomac_hybridwar_0108.pdf. Hoffman, F. G. (2016). The contemporary spectrum of conflict: Protracted, gray zone, ambiguous, and hybrid modes of war. Heritage Foundation. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https:// www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/2016_IndexOfUSMilitaryStrength_The%20Cont emporary%20Spectrum%20of%20Conflict_Protracted%20Gray%20Zone%20Ambiguous% 20and%20Hybrid%20Modes%20of%20War.pdf Kalyvas, S. N., Shapiro, I., & Masoud, T. (2008). Order. Cambridge University Press. Kalyvas, S. N. (2006). The logic of violence in civil war. Cambridge University Press. Karatzogianni, A., & Robinson, A. (2010). Power, resistance and conflict in the contemporary world. Routledge. Kawakibi, S., & Theron, J. (2022). La «minorisation politique» dans la structuration et la résolution des conflits au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord. CAREP Paris, Retrieved April 10,

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2023, from www.carep-paris.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Minorisation_politique_MoyenOrient_AfriqueDuNord_SalamKawakibi_JulienTheron.pdf Kennan, G. F. (1948). The inauguration of organized political warfare. Wilson Center. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114320.pdf?v=94 Lind, W. S., & Thiele, G. A. (2015). 4th generation of warfare. Castalia House. Messner E. E. (2004). BcemipnaR MRteMevouna. Kuchkovo field. Miall, H. (Ed.). (2007). Emergent conflict and peaceful change. Palgrave Macmillan. Midlarsky, M. I. (2011). Origins of political extremism: Mass violence in the twentieth century and beyond. Cambridge University Press. Newman, D. (2006). The resilience of territorial conflict in an era of globalization. In M. Kahler & B. F. Walter (Eds.), Territoriality and conflict in an era of globalization (pp. 85–110). Cambridge University Press. Nome, M. A., & Weidmann, N. B. (2013). Conflict diffusion via social identities. In J. T. Checkel (Ed.), Transnational dynamics of civil war (pp. 173–201). Cambridge University Press. Schelling, T. C. (1960, 1980). The strategy of conflict. Harvard University Press. Smith, R. (2008). The utility of force: The art of war in the modern world. Vintage Books. Stein, R. M. (2019). Vengeful citizens, violent states: A theory of war and revenge. Cambridge University Press. Theron, J. (2017). L’expérience du trouble: Œuvre de liberté chez Sartre et Saint Augustin, Ph.D. thesis, Hannah Arendt Interdisciplinary Laboratory for the Study of Politics, University of East Paris, France. Theron, J. (2021). Networks of threats: Interconnection, interaction, intermediation. Journal of Strategic Security, 14(3), 45–69. Thomas, T. (2004). Russia’s reflexive control theory and the military. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 17(2), 237–256. U.S. Army & Marine Corps. (2007). Counterinsurgency field manual. US Army Field Manual No. 3-24/Marine Corps Warfighting Publication No. 3-33.5. The University of Chicago Press.

Political Culture and Political Agency: From Gaugamela to Mosul Sebastian Fink

and Vladimir Sazonov

But meantime the Babylonian realm itself passed from hand to hand. Kassites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Macedonians—all of these small warrior-hosts under energetic leaders—successively replaced one another in the capital city without any serious resistance on the part of its people (Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West II, 1928, 40).

1 Introduction As outlined in the initial quote from Spengler above,1 the many takeovers of the enormous and well-fortified city of Babylon often led to the suspicion of decadence, of a culture with an “enormous tiredness” that could not find the energy to defend itself against small bands of warriors. In Spengler’s historical system, cultures are something like superhuman organisms that live for approximately 1000 years, grow old and then turn into civilizations that are characterized by the loss of the innate aims 1 The German original reads “Aber indessen ging die babylonische Welt selber aus einer Hand in die andere. Kossäer, Assyrer, Chaldäer, Meder, Perser, Makedonier, lauter kleine Heerhaufen mit einem kräftigen Führer an der Spitze, haben sich da in der Hauptstadt abgelöst, ohne daß die Bevölkerung sich ernsthaft dagegen wehrte (Spengler, 1972, 602).

Published with the support of the Estonian Military Academy and project SHVUS23368 Russia and China’s influence in Central Asia: Europe’s prospects, concerns and search for balance (University of Tartu) S. Fink University of Innsbruck, Conrad-Strasse 10, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria V. Sazonov (B) Estonian Military Academy, Riia 12, 51013 Tartu, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_4

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and ideas which every culture has, according to Spengler.2 For him, civilizations are either aimless, hedonistic and tired or imperialistic. According to Spengler’s ideas, the population of an old civilization like Babylon has no point in defending their political institutions, and therefore they can fall victim to a small band of warriors. For Spengler, this is a typical phenomenon of a late civilization. It does not matter anymore who rules a society, because someone will rule anyway. Spengler suggests that the question of the king being Kassite, Assyrian or Chaldean does not matter much to the Babylonian population and he seems to be quite right. The phenomena described by Spengler can be discussed in the framework of decadence, which mostly is nothing else, but a value judgment embodied in a largely biological understanding of the growth and decay of cultures. As theories of decadence are often embedded in highly ideological (and therefore unscientific) systems, we prefer to find other explanations and models for the phenomenon described by Spengler and many others. Therefore, we will study the role of political culture for political agency based on ancient as well as recent examples and profit from a longterm comparative view of such phenomena. While the term “political culture” is mainly used to describe different attitudes toward a political system, which we can hardly measure for antiquity, we analyze the outcome of battles as a proxy variable. This obviously does not mean that political culture is the only variable, which is relevant for the outcome of a battle, but we argue that political culture is highly relevant and has to be considered. First, we need to explain what we mean by “political culture”. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines a “political culture” as the set of common views and normative judgments that populations share about their political system. The notion of political culture does not refer to attitudes toward specific actors, such as presidents or prime ministers, but rather to how people view the political system as a whole and how they believe in its legitimacy (Winkler, 2023). The famous American political scientist, expert in comparative politics and sinologist Lucian W. Pye (1921–2008), defined “political culture” as the set of core values, feelings and knowledge that underlie political processes (Pye and Verba, 1965). Thus, the building blocks of political culture are citizens’ beliefs, opinions and emotions about their form of government (Winkler, 2023). We argue that political culture results in a certain degree of political agency for a given group, and every battle is a stress test for a community. We define political agency as the potential of a given group of people to act as a group, to coordinate their actions and to be able to defend their political culture and system. Groups with low political agency have problems mobilizing their members for communal undertakings of any kind, while groups with a higher level of political agency can activate their members more easily. Leadership and organization obviously also play an important role in every battle, but these factors can also be summarized under the umbrella of political culture. As every combatant knows that his life is at stake, different political cultures, different ways of perceiving oneself as a part of a community, will result in different behavior on the battlefield. 2

Farrenkopf (2001) and Conte (2004) both provide a solid introduction to Spengler. For a recent review of Spengler’s approach, see the contributions in Fink and Rollinger (2018).

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Second, in our article we start from the premise of political ignorance and the assumption that it is political ignorance that can create a political vacuum and indifference in a population or a social group to what is happening at the political level. According to the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, “political ignorance” of the operation or functioning of governance structures and ignorance of political issues can be general or limited to disadvantaged social and ethnic groups. General ignorance of the activities and workings of government may allow decisions to be taken undemocratically and repression, torture and other crimes against humanity to be committed without censorship. It can also lead to violent change rather than constitutional change. Ignorance of political issues and political ignorance of ethnic and other disadvantaged social groups contribute to the perpetuation of social inequalities, social injustice, exploitation, discrimination and social conflict, and can lead to social disintegration or ethnic breakdown (UIA.org, 2023). In short, if people are unhappy with the constitution and the functioning of the community they are living in, if they have the feeling that there is no way to change the way of things, they become uninterested in politics and then it is hard to convince them to fight for something they are unfamiliar with. Ilya Somin rightly pointed out that one of the biggest problems of our modern democracy and democratic system is that most people are largely ignorant about politics, governance and their government (Somin, 2016; CATO Institute, 2016). So, ignorance and political apathy can create problems and offer opportunities for both special interest populists (especially extremist) and also other (often radical) groups to exploit the situation to their advantage—e.g., to seize power in the country as happened in Afghanistan in 2021. The starting point of our discussion in the current article is the battle of Gaugamela (331 BC) where the army of the largest empire the earth had seen to this date was defeated by Alexander, and the battle of Mosul (2014) where a huge number of Iraqi forces was defeated by a much smaller group of ISIS fighters. Already in antiquity, the battle of Gaugamela called for an explanation; ancient authors tried to explain how it was possible that the rather small Macedonian army was able to defeat the much larger Persian army. Modern historians tried to explain this mostly by correcting the numbers so that the ratio between Macedonian and Persian soldiers seemed more plausible to them. While we do not have firm data for the battle of Gaugamela, the battle of Mosul is much better documented and clearly demonstrates that military victory can be achieved by a much smaller group. Our initial questions are the following: • Why do certain groups or societies reach a high level of political agency, while others seem to be defenseless against their attacks even when they outnumber them many times? • Could the concept of political culture help us to explain this? • What does a political culture that enables communities to be so successful look like? • And, most importantly, how can such successful strategies be employed for the peaceful development of democracies?

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To this end, we will examine two case studies where very few people overcame many: the battle of Gaugamela (331 BC) and the battle of Mosul (2014).

2 The History of Political Culture in a Nutshell With the rise of city-states in the Ancient Near East (e.g., Sumer, Elam) some 6000– 5000 years ago, the history of larger political units began, culminating in the empires of antiquity which claimed to rule the whole known world. In a very short period of the existence of human beings, the tribe or clan was overcome by the city-state and the empire.3 Historical information on the conquests which led to the first documented empire in history (Akkadian empire)4 is scarce and the origins of the elite of this empire are still under debate. It seems that this can be best described as a process parallel to the notion of ethnogenesis: a small successful group attracts other people who quickly identify with them and become a part of something new and successful. For a long period of time, empires were seen as the ultimate political organization and real and would-be empires ruled the world (Gehler & Rollinger, 2014). With this enormous expansion of human groups—from tribe to city to empire— the need for organization (of which political culture is surely an important part) grew exponentially. With the rise of the first cities, human beings started to live in groups where not all members knew each other personally. Instead of a personal relation between all the members of the group, something else was needed to keep them together, to give them the feeling that they are a group and to regulate the interactions between them. The relation between any two members of the group could only be secured via a third subject (or rather an idea) that was responsible for creating the feeling of community. In ancient Mesopotamia, we can see that city gods and their divine stewards on earth took over this role. Every inhabitant of the city had his personal relation to the city god in whose cult he participated, and, via this, the inhabitants of the city became a group; they managed to belong together even without knowing each other personally. They were bound together through their city god, through their participation in rites and festivals and through the simple fact that they inhabited the city which was seen as the property of their god. The city god chose the king and therefore the city had to obey him.5 The empires6 of Mesopotamia (Akkadian empire, Ur III, the empire of Hammurapi, Middle- and Neo-Assyrian empire, Neo-Babylonian empire, etc.) basically enhanced this city ideology, conceptualizing their empires as enormous cities and the 3

In Mesopotamia, this spread of city culture is described as the “Uruk Expansion” or “Uruk Phenomenon”. For a recent analysis, see Selz (2020). 4 See Sazonov (2007), Liverani (1993), Foster (2016) and most recently Schrakamp (2020), Michalowski (2020). 5 Fink (2021) describes the early development in Mesopotamia. 6 Using the term “empire” in the context of Ancient Mesopotamia should be done very carefully and with the clear understanding that empires in modern and ancient contexts are different phenomena— see Sazonov (2019, 31).

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borders of the empires as a kind of city wall that protected the civilized space from the dangerous outside and wilderness. However, the idea of universalism (Sazonov, 2020), the idea that there is only one true king who rules over the world, also resulted in changes in the conceptualization of the divine and the nature of kingship, but the integrative figures remained the god of the empire and his chosen ruler. This ideology of kingship and rule was the dominant political culture for nearly 4000 years. In Ancient Greece, the city culture loomed large in the classical period, and, thanks to evidence, we know much more about the organization of these city-states than in Mesopotamia. The evidence demonstrates that in the so-called Greek democracies, those who had to fight for the community—the free, grown-up male population—were also allowed to vote. In Greek literature, political order based on citizens’ freedoms was often seen as the ultimate advantage of the Greeks over others who were ruled by despots. Especially the Persian wars between an alliance of Greek city-states against an alliance of the Persians and other Greek city-states were interpreted as a fight between free Greeks and the oriental subjects of a despot. We could interpret this as the first discussion of political culture and political agency, even if it might have originated in the context of wartime propaganda. The Greek argument runs as follows: free Greeks fight for themselves, while Orientals fight for their master and have to be forced into battle.7 With this, the Greeks developed a model of argumentation that was followed by many European nation-states fighting against Imperial rule. Much later, Machiavelli (2006) argued along the same lines in his Il Principe when he claimed that armies of citizens are much more effective than armies of mercenaries. While the Greek democracies were successful for a while, the empire returned to Greece with Phillip II of Macedonia. His successor Alexander took over the Persian Empire and its imperial ideology, but the illusion of Greek freedom was maintained under the rule of the Macedonians. We will return to Alexander below and simply gloss over the complexity of the next 2000 years of history by jumping to the rise of the national state in nineteenth-century Europe. The nineteenth century saw the period of the rise of the national state in Europe, and the organization of the world into national states was seen as the way forward to peace and a bright future. The discovery of the nation as a natural political agent was a real political revolution; from now on, those who belong together will make their decisions together and live in peace and harmony with their neighbors. At least in German-speaking countries, the breakthrough of this idea is dated to December 13, 1807, when Berlin was under French occupation and the Saxon philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) started his lecture series entitled “Addresses to the German Nation” (Reden an die deutsche Nation). The Empire (in Europe especially the Austro-Hungarian Empire) was seen as a “cage of nations” (Völkerkerker) which wanted and deserved to be free. The empire had become obsolete, and many political actors felt the need to overcome this structure. National states had clear-cut borders; empires did not. So, at least in theory, national states should not have the same impetus to go to war as the predatory empires. The idea of the god-chosen emperor 7

On Greek self-perception in Classical times, see Tuplin (1999).

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was replaced by the idea of the nation. Every German belongs to the German nation, every French to the French nation and every Hungarian to the Hungarian nation, so all Germans, French and Hungarians should live in their own nation-state where people of the same kind and with the same customs are living; and, so, they will create harmony between them and act as one. As so often in political reasoning, not all these hopes worked out well and soon the question of belonging to a certain nation—which was, with the exceptions of religious minorities, relatively unimportant and a rather personal decision in the old empires—became a huge political issue. While for a long time, the organization of people in national states was seen as the ultimate aim of politics, the dark sides of national states were overemphasized during the last decades, almost completely overshadowing the benefits of the very same project. While societies in modern national states showed strong coherence, resulting in political agency through the thorough organization of those states, and a strong feeling of belonging, the inhabitants of what one might call postmodern countries live in their own small bubbles and often cannot identify with any larger social organization anymore (Sloterdijk, 2004). Answering the question of what makes them live together has become hard, and the most probable answer is because there is no option to escape; the world has become a social cage, as the famous sociologist Mann (2012) put it. To live in states is the only option that is available to us, and the phenomenon of mass migration demonstrates that the idea of national states as the “natural habitat” of a certain nation has lost its attractiveness in some states—or to formulate more cautiously, it is not as important as other factors, namely the services which a state can offer. The inhabitants of some (failed or struggling) states do not identify with this state anymore; they identify with their family, with small groups and subgroups which are struggling with each other, making it even harder for the struggling state to be functional (e.g., Lebanon or Iraq). Peter Sloterdijk described the change which is underway with the special metaphors of the bubble (the family, the tribe, the city), the globe (the empire) and the postmodern foam (Sloterdijk, 1998, 1999, 2004). While authoritarian states can compensate for the lack of participation from their citizens with force and suppression for a while, such top-down systems seem not to work for very long, and very often the leaders themselves see this problem and engage heavily in nation-building, often by invoking a glorious past or promising a glorious future.8 The other side of the coin is the material benefit of belonging to a political organization, to be a citizen of a state. While most European states provide their citizens with all necessary means of living (the welfare-state), many states are not even able to take care of basic infrastructure (water supply, electricity, health care, gas supply, roads, etc.). When a state does not provide a strong ideology of belonging and no or very few material rewards for being a citizen, the will to do something for this state is most probably very low and actual force (instead of law) is needed to convince people to pay taxes and do labor service for the state (in modern times, mainly in

8

Examples range from Saddam Hussein’s or Hosni Mubarak’s regime to the Soviet Union and the authoritarian regimes of Assad in Syria and Gaddafi in Libya.

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the army).9 We could argue that some states (which were once modeled after the once successful model of the European nation-state) have become obsolete empires for many of their inhabitants. They do not see the reward for living in this social cage, for respecting rules, paying taxes and serving in the army. They do not identify with the state anymore (or never did) and have no interest in defending it. At least in the event of war, this always means risking one’s own life for the sake of the other members of the group, which people usually do because the majority of them are simply convinced that this is the right thing to do. In such a situation, when everything new seems attractive to huge parts of the population, when it seems that the actual state of affairs has become totally unattractive, small, determined groups form a huge threat to the old forms of organization as people sometimes do not realize that the worst is yet to come and simply regard every change to their situation as something positive. This was the case before the rise of the National Socialists in Germany, the rise of the Communists in Russia, or—and now we come to our example—with the rise of the terror regime of ISIS in the Middle East, or the second rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is a fact of history that most of these movements, often promising some kind of salvation (be it secular or religious), had a dedicated and convinced core of adherents willing to do everything for the victory of their ideas, finally leading to a major bloodbath and innumerable crimes.10 We will return to this point at the end of the paper.

3 From Alexander the Great to ISIS Scholars dealing with ancient and recent history were always amazed by historical events where a tiny group of people with a dedicated leader managed to overcome a huge number of enemies. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) is one of these figures and maybe the most discussed case in historical literature (Green, 2013; Rollinger & Degen, 2021; Wiemer, 2007; Worthington, 1999, 2014). He came from Macedonia, an insignificant place—a periphery of the Aegean world and Eastern Mediterranean—with a rather small number of men and managed to defeat the armies of the Persian king Darius III (336-330 BC) (Binder, 2021), the king of the largest empire the world had seen to this date. Darius’s armies outnumbered Alexander’s forces by a factor of ten or twenty. While Alexander’s success is a fact, it calls for explanation and ancient and modern authors developed many theories about how Alexander could have overcome the Persian Empire. Some reoccurring points are as follows: • free Greeks and Macedonians were superior warriors in contrast to enslaved Orientals. • a well-reformed, well-organized and very mobile army. 9

As was also the case in old empires. For the twentieth century, see the impressive analysis by Rummel (1997).

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flexible and well-functioning leadership. a superior military technology (the use of the phalanx). the weakness of the Persian army. the cowardice of the Persian king Darius III. corruption in the empire’s bureaucratic system. processes of decentralization and separatism.

However, nearly all historical reconstructions try to downplay the number of enemies, often dividing the numbers of the Persian army by ten because it is assumed that the ancient author relied on ancient Macedonian propaganda in which the numbers of the Persian army were largely exaggerated (Zahrnt, 2016). While we do not want to argue that it was possible in Antiquity to organize an army of 1 million people (as was claimed by some ancient authors), we think that the Battle of Mosul in 2014 should be considered when looking at ancient battles as it proves what is possible if a small, determined group attacks an enemy with an army superior in number, but with a lack of will to go into battle.

3.1 The Battle of Gaugamela11 The Battle of Gaugamela is also known as the Battle of Arbela (Klinkott, 2020; Rollinger, 2016). It took place on October 1, 331 BCE between the forces of the Graeco-Macedonian army of Alexander the Great (Green, 2013) and the Persian Army with its commander Darius III (Degen & Rollinger, 2022, 158). This battle was the third and final battle after Granicus and Issos between the armies of Darius III and Alexander, and it was the last serious military response from the Persian Empire to the Greco-Macedonian invasion (Bichler, 2020; Gehrke, 2004). Ancient sources report that the size of the Graeco-Macedonian army was ca 47,000 men, while the army of the Persian king was substantially bigger at 50,000–120,000 according to modern, rationalizing estimations which play down the numbers of the Persian army in order to make Alexander’s victory seem plausible (ancient sources proposed up to 1,050, 000 men. According to different sources, the Persians suffered huge losses, 300,000 according to Arrian, while Diodorus Siculus proposed 90,000 and Curtius Rufus 40,00012 ). Nevertheless, we can be sure that Alexander had much fewer soldiers than his opponent Darius III who controlled the largest empire of his time, ranging from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indus Valley. We can sum up that, according to the ancient authors, the Persian Army outnumbered Alexander’s forces by a factor of 1:10 or 1:20, which is seen as highly unrealistic and improbable by modern historians. Exactly how large these armies were is anyone’s guess and can be left to speculation. In any case, the important point is that Alexander the Great’s army was significantly 11

See Bichler (2020), Gehrke (2004), for a first overview, see https://www.livius.org/articles/bat tle/gaugamela-331-bce/. 12 For source references, see Bichler (2020).

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smaller in numbers than the Persian army and was still able to crush the Persian army. Many modern historians considered this unbelievable and therefore wanted to “correct” the numbers to make Alexander’s victory more plausible. However, the following discussion of the battle of Mosul will demonstrate that an attack can be successful even if the enemy outnumbers the attackers by 40 times. Many reasons were given as to why Alexander won all those battles, but the most important ones might be that Alexander had a professional army that was loyal to him. Political culture focused on Alexander; he was the leader of the state and the army. At the Oasis of Siwa, Alexander was told that he was of divine origin, and he used this in his propaganda. He was a son of Zeus, and his mission was to defeat the Persians. His army trusted in him and his military abilities, he did something that had never been done before and he developed a new ideology of world dominion (from the Greek/Macedonian viewpoint). The political culture of the Macedonian army enabled Alexander to manage them in a highly efficient way. Additionally, the army was fighting with its back against the wall; if they were to lose a battle deep in enemy territory, they would all lose their lives, forcing them to cooperate and work together.

3.2 The Battle of Mosul (2014) and ISIS In 2014, not far from the place where Alexander defeated Darius III, another battle took place which came to be known as the Battle of Mosul. The defenders of Mosul outnumbered the attackers (an army of ISIS) by approximately 1:40, but the attackers managed to defeat them and take over the city within a very short time (conquering a city is a daunting military operation, as every military commander will confirm). In the case of Mosul, there is no point in arguing that the numbers are completely wrong or in pointing out that ancient authors have a tendency to exaggerate greatly; these numbers are more or less exact. We know this because we have several official documents, videos, satellite images and other proof. So how can we explain the strange result of this battle? In order to answer this question, we will first have a look at the explanations for this strange fact which have been given so far, and finally we will return to our question of political agency. But to understand the rapid fall of Mosul, it is necessary to analyze the activities of the so-called Islamic State, including its ideology and propaganda. Therefore, the next chapter will provide an overview of the so-called Islamic State and its interests in the capture of Mosul, as well as the reasons why ISIS was so successful.

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3.3 The Islamic State and Its Success in the Conquest of Mosul ISIS (Islamic State, ad-Dawlah al-Isl¯amiyah)13 is a radical Salafist and Jihadist movement whose founder is considered to be Abu Musad al-Zarqawi14 (1966– 2006). It is known that al-Zarqawi founded the organization (Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad)15 in 1999. Burke (2015, 5) rightly highlighted that ISIS pledged allegiance to the terrorist organization al-Qaeda in 2004, at a time when the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was rapidly losing momentum. It is worth noting that al-Qaeda was involved in founding this organization in Iraq, while later it was joined by a number of large and small Islamist groups such as Islamic Jihad. Later, this movement was called the Islamic State of Iraq (October 2006–April 2013), renamed to the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (April 2013–June 2014), and since June 2014 it is called the Islamic State (Burke, 2015, 3; Sazonov, 2014; Sazonov & Ploom, 2021; Mölder, 2019). The first leader of the Islamic State of Iraq was Abu Omar al-Baghdadi who was assassinated in 2010. The last well-known leader of ISIS was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (also known as caliph Ibrahim), and he was killed in 2019 (Mölder, 2019; Sazonov & Ploom, 2019). After his death in October 2019, the council of Shura appointed a new leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi16 (Sazonov & Ploom, 2021). As already pointed out above, the fall of Mosul (2014) provides us with a very similar story to that which happened in Gaugamela in 331 BCE when the army of Alexander defeated the army of Darius III. Around 1,500 ISIS members defeated a combined force of 60,000 soldiers and policemen and were able to establish their rule over a city of nearly 2 million inhabitants in early June 2014. Actually, the ISIS fighters had already been active for a few years in Iraqi and Syrian territory, but only after the withdrawal of the US forces from Iraq were they able to openly conduct largescale operations. With a string of successful conquests behind them, they wanted to gain control over all of Iraq and Syria, including Baghdad and Damascus and other territories and cities. Mosul was taken by ISIS in June 2014, and only four days were needed for its conquest (June 6–10, 2014)—a spectacular military victory. After only four days the Iraqi army was defeated, and Mosul was captured by the forces of ISIS (Strachan, 2017). When ISIS started the offensive, the Iraqi army defending Mosul had approximately 30,000 soldiers and another 30,000 were federal police members who were also in the city and who were, at least partly, heavily armed. This massive army faced a force of approximately 1,500 attackers from ISIS. Mosul fell to ISIS on June 10, 2014, after only a few days of clashes between ISIS forces and the Iraqi army. After 13

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) or Daesh (its Arabic language acronym). For more on ISIS, see also Burke (2015). 14 Born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh, known also as Sheikh of the Slaughters—for more about ISIS, see Weiss and Hassan (2015). 15 Group of Monotheism and Jihad. 16 Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was killed in February 2022.

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capturing Mosul, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the creation of his Caliphate in Mosul. How was it possible for ISIS to capture Mosul so easily despite the fact that the defenders outnumbered them 40 times? In the following, we will summarize the most common arguments: It is often argued that the inhabitants of Mosul, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, did not trust the new Shia government of Iraq led by Nouri al-Maliki.17 The suppression of Sunni protests using violence and other actions against them created anger and disappointment among the Sunni people and believers in Iraq. In this state of things, radical Salafist and Jihadist ideas spread fast and soon became popular. It was stated that the behavior of the government made many Sunni people more open to ISIS and other radical and terrorist propaganda, their ideas, narratives and messages (Strachan, 2017). In the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the policy of deBa’athification of the Iraq political environment, as well as the disbanding of the Iraqi army, made Mosul a fertile recruiting ground for extremist terrorist groups such as ISIS (Strachan, 2017). Marginalization of the former ruling Sunni minority took place in Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq led by the United States. The BAATH party and Saddam Hussein lost their power and position. This, of course, fostered anger and dissatisfaction in Iraqi society, especially among Sunni people (Strachan, 2017). Despite high hopes and expectations, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in 2003 did not bring peace to Iraq; in fact, it had even the opposite effect. Iraq entered a devastating civil war that lasted eight years. When U.S. troops finally left Iraq in 2011, the situation in Iraq deteriorated even further, becoming even more unstable. So, it is in this context that radical jihadist-Salafists in 2013 in Syria in Raqqa (Abouzeid, 2014), and then later in 2014, succeeded in creating a terrorist quasistate, the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, in the territories occupied by Syria and Iraq (Bunzel, 2015). In fact, it should be remembered that politics and religion are not properly separated in the Middle East; politics and religion are still closely intertwined, in a sense in a similar way to the ancient Middle East or the medieval Middle East and Europe (Mölder & Sazonov, 2016). The emergence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq was also indirectly influenced by Saddam Hussein’s legacy and his policy. His military interventions (in Iran, in Kuwait) had quite negative consequences for Iraq, its economy, infrastructure and society. For example, the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988) devastated the whole region (Karsch, 2002; Sazonov, 2014; Sazonov & Ploom, 2021). This war brought the relatively economically stable Iraq deep economic troubles, even in long-term crises. The Arab nationalism that was used and promoted by Saddam Hussein as one of the pillars of his state ideology was also used later by radical ISIS ideologists and propagandists. Saddam Hussein’s policies were partially founded on xenophobia, including the spreading of fear and threats with terror, and were actively used against the citizens of Iraq (also against several Shias, Kurds and Yazidis). These nationalistic roots of ISIS 17

Secretary General of the Islamic Dawa Party, the Prime Minister of Iraq 2006–2014.

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are clearly visible in ISIS actions, e.g., the hatred targeting Kurds and also Yazidis, widespread among ISIS terrorists. It partly shows the Arab nationalist views’ legacy of Hussein’s regime and his xenophobic policy (Cheterian, 2019; Sazonov & Ploom, 2021, 72–73). Besides this, there are also other factors that determined the political climate in Mosul in 2014: • One important factor was that the US had no plans for the future of Iraq after 2003. This in many ways became the catalyst for the creation of fertile ground for terrorist attacks (Strachan, 2017). • The outbreak of terrorism was fueled by the Syrian civil war that started in 2011 and by the involvement of several players (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and Turkey). • The “deeply flawed political system” (Strachan, 2017) in Iraq after 2003 was also a factor that played a decisive role in the fall of Mosul in 2014. • The actions of former Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, aimed at expanding his personal power and influence in the country, also became a key factor contributing to the fall of Mosul (Strachan, 2017). A certain ineptitude on the part of the Iraqi armed forces, as well as their lack of equipment, was one of the main factors that caused Mosul to fall so easily into ISIS hands (Strachan, 2017). It was often argued that the morale of government soldiers was low as their behavior on the battlefield had demonstrated. The international community also played a certain, however indirect, role as its unwavering support for Prime Minister Maliki also contributed to the fall of Mosul to ISIS militants. They failed to deliver real political reforms (Strachan, 2017). We can mention the effective strategic communication of ISIS in their organization, their leading, etc., and their easily understandable and clear ideology, which is based on violence, radical Islamism and Salafi-Jihadism (Fadel, 2019). Also effective were propaganda narratives18 which helped ISIS promote their agenda, consolidate their members and recruit new fighters. There are of course several other reasons for ISIS’s success in Mosul in June 2014, and they are worth mentioning: effective working structure and good management inside of ISIS19 ; a good military organization and effective leadership in ISIS (experience from the BAATH party and Hussein’s army partially helped here—for more see Natali, 2015) where many military leaders were very experienced and were top officers in Saddam Hussein’s army (Natali, 2015; Sly, 2015). 18

See more: Daesh propaganda, before and after its collapse. Countering violent extremism (2019). Zgryziewicz et al. (2015) and Zgryziewicz (2016) have highlighted the nature and tactics of ISIS’s information warfare. ISIS has used visuals, words and actions to shape the information environment it uses. Additionally, ISIS has adopted a strategy of creating its own version of the symbols used by internationally recognised states, i.e., flag, anthem, emblem and organisational structure. These are an essential part of ISIS’s communication strategy. This terrorist group promotes its good governance, the statements of support of other recognised organisations in its support community and its operational success. 19 See more on structure of ISIS—Reuters (2015).

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Last but not the least, ISIS’s plans and actions against Mosul were not as big a surprise to the Iraqi government as one might think because their plans were not a secret. In 2015, a piece published in the Independent claimed that Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and the rest of the Iraqi government had been told by Mosul’s intelligence chief Ahmed al-Zarkani that an attack on Mosul by ISIS terrorist forces was imminent. They had this information as early as February 2014, four months before the actual ISIS attack on Mosul was to take place (Neurink, 2016). Nevertheless, this is not the only evidence that the Iraqi government was aware that ISIS was planning an attack on Mosul; another report—a report from the Iraqi parliament (August 2015)—blamed Maliki for the fall of Mosul (O’Driscoll, 2015, 8; Strachan, 2017). This list is of course not exhaustive but contains the most cited explanations for the fact that the ISIS fighters (1,500 men) were able to capture Mosul quite easily, which was defended by an impressive number of Iraqi troops and policemen (ca. 60,000). However, even if we take all these factors into account, we are still astonished at how 1,500 men with regular weapons could outdo 60,000 men at least partly equipped with advanced U.S. equipment. Therefore, finally we come back to our question: • Why do certain groups or societies reach a high level of political agency, while others seem to be defenseless against their attacks, even when they outnumber them many times? We stated above that many factors played a role in the events which took place in 2014 in Mosul. It surely played a role that the ISIS fighters were well-trained and highly motivated, but this advantage alone can hardly enable them to defeat a state army forty times larger that has tanks, airplanes and helicopters. The many mistakes of Maliki’s government, his ignorance of the rising threat in the form of ISIS, the lack of motivation in Iraqi forces and the general disappointment in the Sunni population of Mosul and other cities in Iraq with current affairs in Iraq, came to their help and led to significant support for ISIS. For comparison, we can mention the re-capturing of Mosul which took place during October 16, 2016–July 20, 2017 (O’Driscoll, 2016). Despite heavy support from the US and other allies, it took 9 months to retake Mosul from ISIS—a stark contrast to the 4 days that were necessary for ISIS to capture it (Cheterian, 2019). In this subchapter, we have presented many reasons why ISIS managed to take over Mosul, but the basic fact remains that it would not have been possible if the 60,000-armed forces (and we should not forget the fact that assault rifles are standard equipment in the average Iraqi household) had decided to defend their city against ISIS. But obviously, neither the soldiers nor the population was convinced that it was worth defending the Iraqi state with their lives; the state they should have been defending seemingly did not offer them many reasons to do so. If we found such a story about the Persian wars or the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander and his army in the late fourth century BC, every source-critical historian would argue that this is a pure exaggeration that cannot be taken seriously. Obviously, if only 1,500 combatants had attacked Mosul when the state of Iraq was

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in a better condition,20 then it would have been a question of only a few hours or days to defeat them. Times of crisis and decay are times when massive social change can be achieved relatively easily by a determined group of people. Also, if Alexander the Great had attacked Persia during the reign of Darius I or Xerxes I when the TeispidAchaemenid Empire (Rollinger, 2014) was at the peak of its power, it is questionable if Alexander would have been able to defeat the Persians. If we compare the success of ISIS with that of Alexander, we can see some similarities. ISIS was a well-organized group with a charismatic leader and a strong ideology. Like Alexander, ISIS claimed to be on a divine mission and their goal was world domination, which gave their military activities a kind of metaphysical foundation and justification. After initial successes, many new members were attracted, also from European countries, and joined ISIS for the ultimate battle between good and evil.

4 Conclusion Initially, we asked four questions and discussed them for our two case studies: Gaugamela and Mosul. • Why do certain groups or societies reach a high level of political agency, while others seem to be defenseless against their attacks, even when they outnumber them many times? • Could the concept of political culture help us to explain this? • What does a political culture that enables communities to be so successful look like? • And, most importantly, how can such successful strategies be employed for the peaceful development of democracies? We could clearly see that the battle of Gaugamela and the battle of Mosul were two cases where a smaller army overcame a much larger army. In both cases, several explanations were given for this fact, and, in the case of Gaugamela, many historians tried to correct the numbers from ancient sources. This was not possible to explain the outcome of the battle of Mosul where these numbers were relatively reliable. Obviously, there is no way to prove that the numbers given by ancient authors concerning the number of troops are correct. Most probably they are not, but the battle of Mosul demonstrates that it is actually possible for an attacker outnumbered by 1:40 to actually win. While this is obviously not only a matter of political culture alone, we also seek to argue that it is one of the most important factors concerning the ability of a group 20

The roots of this complex situation in Iraq lie partly in the events of 2003 but also, and largely, in earlier history—primarily in the twentieth century. When the Western coalition overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, they did not take into consideration that opposition to him was weak and divided and that, after the Ba’ath Party and Saddam disappeared from the political scene, the former opposition groups were not capable of normal cooperation with each other.

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to defend itself or successfully attack others. When we pondered the question “What does a political culture that enables communities to be so successful look like?” we arrived at the following considerations, which we list below • Groups with radical ideas (like ISIS) have a great advantage for a while as they create a new world for their followers and thereby produce an absolute commitment to the group and its ideology. • In order to create the attractiveness of this ideology, a strong, charismatic leader and initial success are needed (like Alexander or Al Baghdadi). • This initial success (which is needed in order to make the group grow) is only possible when the enemy is weak, not necessarily by numbers as we have seen, but in political culture. • Members of the group should be convinced that they are on an important mission (revenge for the Persian attack on Greece, establishment of an Islamic Caliphate) which is worth their commitment. The famous Chinese military thinker and strategist Sun Tzu said that you should never fight an enemy who has his back to the wall. ISIS, as well as Alexander, willingly created such a situation for their army. For ISIS it was “Death or Glory”, while the members of the Iraqi army thought (many of them were wrong and were killed) that they could avoid the fight and broker an arrangement with ISIS. We think that it is worthwhile to consider the concept of political culture to investigate the reasons for the success of conquerors or new religious and radical movements, like the conquests of Alexander, ISIS, Genghis Khan or the Arab Expansion. As outlined above, we need to take into account the political culture of both conquerors and the conquered in order to understand why it is possible for a modest group of people to overcome and rule a large group of people—a phenomenon that occurs quite often in history but is seldom addressed. However, as we wish to end with something positive, and as we remain convinced that some lessons can be learned from history, we ask how our knowledge of these strategies can be employed for the peaceful development of democracies (or maybe just states). One important lesson for the international community is that opening up a wide, more or less ungoverned space (like the one which was created with the withdrawal of the U.S. army from Iraq), is highly dangerous and gives radical movements the chance to develop, consolidate and, sadly, to commit countless crimes—an important lesson in the face of the events in Afghanistan (2021) that give additional weight to the considerations we first presented a few weeks before the Reconquista of Afghanistan by the Taliban took place. As we can see in the case of Mosul, political ignorance can lead to frustration with one’s own government and it can even lead to a political vacuum and indifference on the part of the population or a social group to what is happening at the political level. Political ignorance leads to a disinterest in political culture, which in turn leads to a destabilization of the living conditions in whole states. Last but not the least, the other perhaps more important but also more complicated lesson is that peaceful states also need a mission to ensure an effective political culture. Even if the postmodern area has often been characterized by the end of

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great narratives and some philosophers have pondered that the only postmodern aim is to survive in a world of enduring disasters, human beings live on narratives.21 If no positive, peaceful aims are developed, people can fall prey to the temptation of choosing the option of a seemingly strong group with a simple and coherent worldview that provides them with a clear mission and the hope for ultimate victory. In addition, if that modest aim comes along with electricity, water supply, garbage collection, health care, and moderate food prices, a new ISIS is very unlikely to occur.

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Personalism, Symbolism, and Power in San Luis, Argentina. Cultural Change and Political Practices in San Luis, Argentina Sergio Quiroga

1 Introduction This chapter aims to describe the cultural patterns that shape local politics in the province of San Luis, Argentina, and to analyze the possibility of cultural change in political practices. It focuses on the recent change in political culture, with the rise of a technocratic leader Claudio Poggi, who challenges the traditional charismatic and personalist political style of Alberto Rodríguez Saá. It is argued that this change represents a move away from personalism toward a more collective and mediated political culture and seeks to recognize the presence of small irruptions in terms of political practices, which have occurred in the last five years (2017–2021) in the province of San Luis, Argentina, characterized by political personalism as a conception, political action and as a communicational phenomenon. The text analyzes the political practices in the province of San Luis, Argentina, in the last five years (2017–2021) examining the public actions of two relevant politicians in San Luis, such as the current Governor Alberto Rodriguez Saá and the opposition leader deputy national Claudio Poggi. His public political action through the press, his presence on social networks, and his public procedures have been analyzed. The question that guides this investigation is that if, within the framework of a personalist political culture prevailing through the years with more than thirty years in power of the Rodriguez Saá family, which disdains the actions of the Justicialist Party in the last cycle, emerged in recent years, a leader close to citizens, surrounded by experts, founder of a party (Avanzar) with a different culture.

The symbolic construction of power in public institutions. A look at the political and everyday practices. S. Quiroga (B) National San Luis University, San Luis, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_5

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San Luis is an Argentine province that has been governed by the Justicialist Party (Peronism) since 1983. The party’s leader, Alberto Rodríguez Saá, has been elected governor several times, as has his brother Adolfo. The latter was seven days in the presidency of Argentina in the economic and political crisis of 2001. Both benefited from the Industrial Promotion Law that San Luis achieved with the reconstruction of democracy in 1983. Their governments have been characterized by the concentration of public works in a few “friendly” companies, the hybrid division of powers of democracy, and strong control of the media and journalists. Alberto Rodriguez Saá has also tried to run for president of the Nation in 2007. The Justicialist Party was turned into a formidable electoral machine and state resources were used on different occasions for this political sector. They have privileged their personal interests than those of the majority of the citizens of San Luis.

2 The Existence of the Social Bourdieu and Wacquant (2005) consider that there are three dimensions of reality: personal, interpersonal, and impersonal. These dimensions are not mere categories but units that reflect the way of being of human beings. In social science analyses, dualities such as individual-society or subjective–objective, among others, constitute a permanent theoretical-methodological reference and guide. There are also, although not so widely, developments that enable intermediate instances, between these two polarities mentioned (Mazzola, 2022). The relationship between these dimensions is autonomous and relative, and there may be continuities, tensions, and representations between them. The cultural and social reality goes through these three dimensions and can be analyzed from any of them with autonomy, although always considering the interdependence that exists between them. These categories are based on the conviction that we are not only individual and social beings, but also relational beings. Bourdieu points out that the social exists twice—“social reality exists, so to speak, twice, in things and in brains, in fields and in habitus, outside and inside agents” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2005, 13). Also, the social exists three times if it is incorporated into Bourdieu’s duality, the instance or relational plane, or interpersonal (Mazzola, 2022), which is not a synthesis of the other two, since it presents this third option, its own characteristics, autonomy, and logic, despite the fact that objective reality converges with subjective reality, it is not a question of a fusion of them in the interrelationship processes. Pierre Bourdieu (1997) provides a framework for understanding how cultural settings shape people’s understanding of the world. According to Bourdieu, people internalize dominant social and cultural ideas through institutions such as family, education, and employment, which shape their views and ways of being. The process results in the creation of a habitus, a subjective but shared system of perception, conception, and action common to members of the same group. This habitus confers value on things and postulates specific properties on the body, some seen as good, bad or neutral, which become cultural capital. The unequal distribution of cultural

Personalism, Symbolism, and Power in San Luis, Argentina. Cultural … Fig. 1 Based on Mazzola (2022)

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Personal

Individual

Interpersonal

Between individuals

No personal

Communitarian

capital perpetuates a system of unequal power relations that appear objective, natural, or meritorious, but in reality, are contingent and are perpetuated through other forms of capital. The habitus also makes privilege invisible and struggles to challenge the status quo, therefore, it must target both the habitus and the institutions that reinforce it. We can also distinguish more or less complex cultural and social formations (CSF), in the sense of Mazzola (2022) with a greater or lesser technological, symbolic, or instrumental component than others—formations more or less institutionalized, more or less specialized, more or less articulated. The concept of impersonal for those relatively complex CSF and community CSF for those predominantly emotional formations is integrated by the sense of belonging. Similarly, relational situations are carried out under more or less complex resources, by more or less socialized agents, who perform more or less rationalized actions (Mazzola, 2022) (Fig. 1). We maintain that there are predominant properties (PP) in each of the three planes that guide social practices, facts, and analysis. The properties predominate in each of the three planes orient and guide social practice. This does not mean excluding the others since the one that predominates is indicative. Bourdieu (1997) argues that social practices and culture are deeply embedded in people’s psychology through habitus, but also recognizes the importance of the personal as a space where people can exercise some agency and creativity in interpreting and adaptation of social norms. His work contributes to a more complete understanding of how the social and the individual intertwine in everyday life.

3 Predominant Properties and Practices, Facts and Actions If we take the personal level, we can emphasize that, as Bourdieu (1997) would say when referring to the habitus of the agents, the active principle of social practices is found therein, which constitutes a source of change. If the impersonal is the space of specialized formations, the personal is the space of the fusion, combination, or unity of internalized formations. The rules of incompatibilities or prohibitions yield to the imagination of what is possible, to the projections of personal interests. The space of the personal is intimate, anchored in a time and place. A permanent present, which supposes a consummation of the vital, from which a quarry of meanings emerges. The fusion, the possibilities, the senses, are some of the properties of

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subjectivity or people, which we can look for in the facts, detect in the practices, and guide our analysis.

3.1 The Cultural Pattern: Personalism from the Three Existences of the Social Cultural Patterns Cultural patterns are a set of rules that govern the behavior of an organized group of people, based on their traditions, customs, habits, beliefs, geographical location, and experiences, to establish behavioral models. Cultural patterns are a set of rules that govern the behavior of an organized group of people, based on their traditions, habits, beliefs and geographic location. Cultural patterns are defined as a set of norms that establish how people should behave. When a group is organized to live together as a community, it becomes necessary to define certain regulations, these will guarantee normal coexistence, so these patterns depend on beliefs, experiences, traditions, customs, habits, and certain behaviors. San Luis is a small province of Argentina in the center of Argentina. The city of San Luis is located on the slope of the southwestern end of the San Luis mountains. San Luis is part of the Nuevo Cuyo Region and is strategically located in the geographic center of the Bi-Oceanic Corridor that connects the ports of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Valparaiso (Chile). Its capital is the city of San Luis, its surface is 76,748 km2 and it has a population of 540,905 inhabitants (2022 Census). The province has lived the experience of personalistic leaders who accumulated power with patronage policies and were helped in this construction by “Industrial Promotion”, which made a significant number of companies settle in this region for the tax benefits that existed and the social peace that was perceived.

3.2 Personalism from the Three Existences of the Social The growing importance of political personalization at the expense of political groups, or party groups, has been termed political personalization (Balmas et al., 2014; Rahat & Sheafer, 2007). Regarding the relationship between personalism and representation (representative democracies), it brings associated subcategories. Personalism implies a certain autonomy of those represented (in the case that a group is being represented), the condition of representative always puts legitimacy at stake, therefore, personalism also involve this category, and often, legitimacy does not go through what is rational or being a genuine representative of the collective, but rather, to a large extent, goes through emotional ties: empathy, identification, trust, as well as rejecting representatives for their actions, generating discomfort and anger among citizens.

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Political personalization can be described from individual performance as a “process in which the political weight of the individual actor in the political process increases over time, while the centrality of the political group (the political party) decreases” (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007, 65). A similar definition of these terms is provided by Mancini and Swanson (1996, 10). However, the process of political personalization is a multifaceted phenomenon. Three main types of political personalization can be identified: institutional, media, and behavioral personalization. These can be classified into subtypes: institutional customization at the state and party level; personalization of mediated (or controlled) or non-mediated (or uncontrolled) media; and personalization in the behavior of politicians and voters (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007). Additionally, personalization can be leader-focused (centralized personalization) or focused on individual politicians beyond party leaders (decentralized personalization), (Balmas et al., 2014). The concept of personalism supposes capturing a personal imprint of something beyond what is expected or what is common to people. We have raised the first distinction between person and individual. Signified by the predominance of the biological or the socio-cultural. Personalism is not individualism, since it is not an exaltation of the instinctive, but rather an appropriation of impersonal or public social formations. These appropriations, in personalism, may or may not be legal, visible, controlled, supervised, evaluated, legitimate, public, etc. More surely, they are on the border between them. And this is due more than to charismatic powers, innate abilities, and learned skills, than to the weaknesses of social formations and absences or manipulation of interpersonal situations.

3.3 Personalism as Communication Personalism is also a political style that is characterized by the closeness between the political figure and the population. It is a form of communication in which the image and personality of the political leader are emphasized over his political platform and concrete proposals. It seeks to generate an emotional connection with his audience, and in which his own image becomes a central element of the political campaign. Political personalism emerges due to a series of factors: the crises of traditional political parties, the conception of politics as spectacle (Edelman, 1960), the development and rise of the media and the so-called social media or networks and their use as channels of exhibition and political communication, citizen disinterest in participation in public affairs, the construction of epic narratives, and the use and appropriation of popular symbols linked to the identity of the politician (Quiroga, 2018, 2021b). From a communication-focused perspective, personalism is a communicative phenomenon that can be measured by the frequency or infrequency of characteristic features in the content and style of communication. The media are key in the dissemination of personal messages and in the legitimacy of the actors who use

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them. With the rise of television and social media, media competition is increasingly important in the way political leaders are evaluated, with form taking precedence over substance (Quiroga, 2022). Politics as a communicative manifestation can: • reduce information, using infographics and visual aids to simplify complex policies and ideas, making them easily digestible for a broader audience. • organize virtual public meetings to interact directly with voters and answer their questions in real time. • use social media platforms to reach younger voters and share updates, ideas, and policies. • partner with influencers and thought leaders in various communities to spread your message and drive organic conversations. • create short, attention-grabbing videos that highlight key issues and how you plan to address them. • host community events and participate in public speaking opportunities to share your platform and listen to voter concerns. • launch an interactive website with resources, information, and communication opportunities for voters to provide feedback and engage in the political process. Symbols play an important role in politics. Political communication uses techniques to transmit a strong and symbolic message, such as staging and the creation of pseudo-events and the use of events as a communication tool. These symbols, however, have the ability to be manipulated and are naturally used by political elites to keep political audiences inactive. According to Edelman (1960, 1964), the fundamental relationship of the public with political affairs is not informational, but symbolic and emotional. This symbolic behavior is an effect of the constitutive character of symbolism in human life. The figures of the hero, the villain, and the people are the protagonists of the personal expressions. In the first place, the idol is a charismatic, powerful person with exceptional gifts who generates enthusiasm and hope, and the link established between the populist leader and the people is direct, without personal or institutional mediation. The populist myth has heroes and villains. In the case of San Luis, the heroes were the Rodriguez Saa brothers and the villains were the opposition political forces that represented backwardness and oblivion in a small province of Argentina (Quiroga, 2021b). In this context, the epic struggle of the Rodriguez Saa brothers was to promote employment through the Industrial Development Law and the collateral businesses that its implementation meant, described by Wiñaski (1995).

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4 Participation and Citizen Mobilization with Personalist Leaders For years, the citizens of San Luis have had a passive role in the decision of public policies, and in participation in general. Citizen mobilization, awareness of the possibilities of participation in public decisions, can be understood as the first thought, the first action, in search of access, interaction, and citizen participation. In San Luis, citizen mobilizations have been sporadic and silenced by the official media. Despite this, the scenario shows a disjointed civil society that expresses a citizen culture of disinterest in public issues, on the one hand, and on the other an absent social dialog (which the government does not open clearly) and with hardly any possibilities for processes participatory communication. In this context, it appears from the hands of power, the personalist politics is expressed in the epic and the governmental mythology to fill the missing spaces (Fig. 2). The political myth refers to the use of government communication to create a shared sense of identity and purpose between the government and citizens. The construction of government myths serves as a source of consensus and is a tool of symbolic communication used to give social and political meaning to government actions. The concept of myth encompasses the general project and itinerary of the government but seeks to be a core concept that is more rigid and less variable, serving as a “meta politics.” The political myth is a theoretical construction to describe and analyze government communication. It is a government communication tool that allows creating consensus by linking the government with the citizen, making them feel part of it, structuring the social creation of meaning around the actions of the state (Edelman,

Fig. 2 Scheme of communication of the epic and the governmental mythology by the author

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1991).1 The construction of government myths is also an instrument of symbolic communication that “gives social and political meaning to management” (Riorda & Elizalde, 2013, 10). The creation of myths that the government carries out allows progress in the management and gives identity to it. Puntanism or the exacerbation of San Luis culture is one of the myths of the government led by Alberto Rodriguez Saá, as unnecessary public work, instead of addressing clear social demands such as poverty and employment. Myth acts as a source of consensus building within the framework of the underlying values in the social context and is the raw material for dissent (Rioda & Elizalde, 2013). Riorda and Elizalde (2013) has proposed an approach called “Government Communication Routines” made up of four actions that governments use. These routines of government communication are understood as all those practices that on a daily basis give an account of the communication style of a government and that configure a way of understanding them through how they confront their actions against society (Rioda & Elizalde, 2013, 73). It is the image of the government that society perceives at a given time and place through sedimented communication events and that is made up of government advertising spots, discursive styles associated with the orality of those responsible for government, press conferences, interviews, relations with the press, and any other communication act with audiovisual resources, etc. The concept of myth includes the idea of the general project of government, of its itinerary, but it transcends these concepts since it seeks the condition of appropriation from the citizenry. The myth is the “meta politics” (Rioda & Elizalde, 2013, 76), a conceptual core that remains much more rigid and with less variability.

4.1 About Participation Participation is a fluid and contingent concept. This conceptual contingency is explained by the fact that the concept of participation is part of the power struggles in society (Carpentier, 2016). Pateman (1970, 1) emphasizes: The wide use of the term [...] has meant that all the precise and significant content has practically disappeared; the word “participation” is used by different people to refer to a wide variety of different situations.

The incipient and fragmented demonstrations and citizen marches that have taken place in San Luis in recent years, which have been practically invisible by the local official press, of which there are practically no public images, indicate that, in situations of great inequality in power, participation is not it is possible, nor is it promoted. The mobilization of citizens could be the first step for the full participation of citizens, in a friendly cultural and political environment. 1

Relevant contributions to the theory were made by Edelman (1991), Crigler (2001), Crozier (2004), Crompton and Lamb (1986), Riorda (2013), among others.

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Each individual feels identified with the characteristics shown by this identity, when citizens belong to the same society, they will integrate these same elements into their person. Then, the cultural patterns will be integrated with elements such as clothing, food, stories, music, religion, and the like. They influence the creation of a set of traditions and customs; these will serve so that the interaction between individuals can guarantee a community coexistence that provides benefits for all. Cultural patterns play a significant role in politics, influencing how people perceive, participate, and engage in the political process. They are a component in politics and can influence a wide range of aspects, from political values to citizen participation and the perception of political leaders. Understanding these cultural patterns is essential to analyze and address political challenges in different contexts and societies.

5 Personalism as a Cultural Pattern The concept of personalism supposes capturing a personal imprint of something beyond what is expected or what is common to people. We have raised the first distinction between person and individual. Personalism constitutes a cultural practice emerging from the dominant political culture in San Luis and Argentina. Personalistic leadership is characterized by the exercise of authority conferred on influential individuals based on their personal attributes, or their place or role in the political organization. Personalism can be conceived as a political style that essentially shows the proximity of the people to the leader where the political party as a mediator with the citizens is absent (Quiroga, 2021c). A personalist musician is not the same as a politician, a painter as a bank manager, an architect as an accountant, or an athlete as a governor. Personalism can also be conceived as a political style that essentially shows the proximity of people, while at the same time adopting an anti-establishment stance (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007). Second, it is pointed out that defining personalism as a style allows it to become a useful concept. We will use “political styles” instead of the link and representative dynamics proposed by Annunziata (2017). In the case of San Luis, we must consider that there has been a change in the political culture, produced from the circles of power towards the citizens and that would configure differences between political personalism and the idea of proximity of the leader to the citizens or voters. These two forms of political and immediate political representation emphasize the idea of distinction or similarity that at the same time produces two different forms of identification with the leader. These two models are expressed in the table formulated by the author with categories from Annunziata (2017). (Fig. 3). The dynamics of immediate politics, one that dispenses with parties and intermediaries between the leader and the citizenry and is intimate since it encourages leaders to expose aspects of their daily and family life, is an element shared by personalism and politics of proximity. However, the rapid assimilation between the two makes them lose their differences. Personalism opposes collective and mediated partisan ties, as well as technocratic ties mediated by experts.

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Mediated Supporter Technocratic

Immediate Personalist Proximity

Fig. 3 Table based on Annunziata (2017) Contributions

Charismatic Identification Personalism The leader is presented as extraordinary, extra-daily, admired and idealized, has a mission Identification goes from the bottom up Its correlate is the construction of people

Proximity The leader is shown as ordinary, human, every day. He comes across as an ordinary person Identification goes from the top down It does not build a people, because it is singled out, one by one.

Fig. 4 Table based on Annunziata Contributions (2017)

We consider that in the San Luis case, there has been a change in the political style, which is produced from the circles of power and that configure differences between political personalism and proximity, which constitute two forms of political representation and immediate politics, but the emphasis they place on distinction or similarity produces two different forms of identification with the leader (Annunziata, 2017) (Fig. 4).

6 Local Politics in San Luis The Justicialist party has governed San Luis since December 1983. In recent years, the leader Alberto Rodríguez Saá, the current governor, has achieved political preeminence since the early 2000s (Wiñaski, 1995). In 2003, he was elected Governor of the Province and re-elected in 2007 with more than 80% of the votes. In the same election, Alberto Rodríguez Saá promoted the “Yes” to the constitutional amendment that put an end to indefinite reelection in the Province of San Luis (Heredia, 2019). He presented himself as a candidate for President of the Nation in the presidential elections of 2007 and was part of an internal line of the Justicialist Party opposed to Kirchnerismo,2 although he allied himself with this current at the beginning of 2016. Finally, in the elections, the formula reunited 1,408,736 votes, thus remaining in fourth place in the national order (Rodriguez Saá, 2023). In the province of San Luis, the Justicialist Party for almost forty years has managed to prevail in the elections, led by the brothers Alberto and Adolfo Rodríguez 2

Kirchnerism (Kirchnerismo) is a populist movement in Argentina formed by the supporters of former Presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

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Saá, who have been governors several times, having strong control of justice and the chambers of representatives. of the provincial congress. Likewise, they have had a strong influence and control over the press and in the distribution of official advertising to the media (Quiroga, 2018, 2021b). San Luis stands out politically for being governed by the same party since December 1983, where the Justicialist party, with its leaders Alberto and Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, has displayed a personalist political culture over the years. In 2015, Claudio Poggi was nominated as a candidate for governor by the Justicialist Party and he won the year’s elections. However, during his tenure as governor, Poggi received almost permanent criticism and harassment from former congressman and governor Alberto Rodríguez Saá (ANSL, 2012). One characteristic of personalistic governments is their great capacity for symbolic inclusion. Edelman (1960) bequeathed us the concept of symbolism as an ontological dimension of human life and highlighted the issue of public behavior in terms of its emotional connection with political objects and discourses. Political personalism tends to emerge with all these conditions or some of them: the crisis of traditional political parties, the conception of politics as spectacle (Edelman, 1960), the growing disinterest of citizens in participating in public affairs, the construction of epic narratives and the use, appropriation of culture and popular symbols used to link them to political identity (Quiroga, 2021a), and exposure in the media and media or social networks and their use as channels of exhibition and communication politics. Basically, personalism adopts the following characteristics (Quiroga, 2021b): a figure of a strong, charismatic man or woman, a personal leader above ideologies and political parties, an association between the political project and the person who executes, the ability to understand social desires and the construction of power. The “democracy” of San Luis is controlled by a very small ruling elite that over the years has acquired a hegemonic and cultural character.

6.1 Poggi Poggi was governor of San Luis between 2011 and 2015. After finishing his term as governor and after strong criticism from Alberto Rodriguez Saá, Poggi resigned from the Justicialist Party and formed his own political force in a party called Avanzar. Since this rupture, various sectors of the community saw the possibility that this leader would become the leader of the opposition and the referent “catalyst” for a significant portion of the electorate. An immediate precedent capitalized on his resume, he had just shown that someone—who was not part of the ruling family—had shown management capacity and could lead the destinies of the province. There was also evidence of exhaustion of the partisan political scaffolding, the weakening of the Justicialist Party, the lack of renewal of its leadership cadres, the reiteration of formulas, and the wear and tear in management. The confrontation and polarity were accentuated by the provincial government, and it was called to differentiate between two fractions, those who were in favor of the “San Luis model”

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and those who were against it. Poggi was a political leader of the San Luis Justicialist Party and separated from that political group after 2015. Poggi was governor between 2011 and 2015 for the Justicialist Party. In 2021, he beat Alberto Rodriguez Saá’s list with 46% of the votes and without the Union Civica Radical party within his front. After his separation, he joined the political front “Together for Change” led by former President Mauricio Macri. In this climate of political turbulence, belligerence and antagonism, and facing the proximity of the 2017 legislative elections, the provincial government launched the campaign entitled “San Luis is the key”, with the urgency of diluting and hiding the polarity between the two groups in conflict, instill legitimacy in the Executive to guarantee continuity and recover the mystique linked to Puntanidad (love for San Luis). The emergence of the concept “puntanidad y el sanluisismo” appeared to identify the local culture in recent years in the province of San Luis. The denomination “puntanidad y el sanluisismo” adopts a new meaning to include positive aspects of the provincial administration. The idea has been expressed by relevant members of the provincial administration in different media and the “puntanidad y el sanluisismo” has been instituted at the governmental level this week, which has been incorporated in the province of San Luis through Law No. II 0887–2014 to school calendars and higher education institutes. That is, it is celebrated in the schools of San Luis. The denomination “puntanidad y el sanluisismo” appears with emphasis in the speeches of the governor (2015–2019) Dr. Alberto Rodríguez Saá, the main promoter of this idea and myth. With the reign of television in the world of social communication, the centrality of the leader in front of the organization is a fact. Not only because of its adaptation to the hyper personalist style imposed by the sensationalist market strategy, but also because of the principle of simplification established by audiovisual language (Laguna, 2003). The leader and his group of experts and advisers concentrate more on media competition than on the job of capturing and training militants. The electoral competition, due to the imposition of the mass media, where the battle is fought, is between images of people. And if the image is human, emotional, and seductive, we will understand why leaders come to be evaluated, especially for their human qualities, which are equivalent to form always prevailing over substance. The leader would thus fulfill the fundamental role of becoming a “cognitive shortcut” for the citizens. The Poggi management programs as Pueblos Puntanos and Nuevas Empresas, the design of the institutional brand “Governor Poggi” and other strategies such as speeches, phrases, postures, and other topics typical of a coach. The fact that Poggi surpassed the Rodríguez Saá brothers with a few more votes, and although they did not compete in the same categories, that difference, although relative, was unbalanced and sensitive for the Rodríguez Saá brothers who felt a numerical defeat for the first time significant. Although in the last four years, there has been a supposed distance or rupture between the Rodríguez Saá brothers, owners of political power in San Luis, the hard core of the political project remains stable.

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6.2 Election Narratives 2021 In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, legislative elections were held in San Luis, Argentina, in 2021, where Claudio Poggi, leader of the Avanzar party, won the elections. Alberto Rodríguez Saá, the current governor of San Luis, for the first time, lost an election in 2021. The opposition candidate Claudio Poggi achieved a victory by more than 1,500 votes for the official Justicialist Party (Peronism), which used the entire state apparatus (social assistance, loans of money to different sectors to be repaid in comfortable installments without interest, materials, etc.) to obtain the electoral victory, which he did not achieve. Claudio Poggi is a politician with great sympathy and the ability to improvise instantly. We include him within the anti-charismatic and proximity representations, that is, a politician who listens to the citizens and walks with his team through the different neighborhoods of the cities of San Luis. This politician is a character, a good speaker, it is a product that has been highly polished by image specialists, and that expresses simplicity, plain language, and connection with the common citizen. The brand of a political candidate is the combination of different elements such as a name, a term, a sign, and a design, among others that is assigned to a product or service in order to differentiate it from the others. candidates that exist in the market. The brand is a distinctive symbol, it is an essential component for companies and, increasingly, for politicians, and it creates trust and generates emotional attachment in audiences and voters. We can identify Poggi within mediate politics as a technocratic politician, who listens to his party Avanzar, and to the people and experts. His political action is aimed at solving people’s problems, building local knowledge, learning from experience, and presenting himself as an ordinary person. The marks of contact between the leader and the “citizens” are characterized by the journey and chimes in the houses of the neighbors (presence of listening and sympathy), visits to the houses of ordinary citizens, and telephone calls to citizens. They are also characterized by invitations to participate, calls to action in social networks, participatory campaigns, and participatory public policies. Social networks, precisely, favor these calls to citizen action. A study close to these problems is that of Lascurain (2021), which analyzes the characteristics of the political representation link configured by Carlos Reutemann, governor of the Province of Santa Fe between 1991 and 1995. The study unfolded a series of elements that correspond to a type of representation of proximity such as an empathetic presence, listening without promises or speeches, and a self-presentation as “provincial” and “non-political”), but this representative link did not include an intimidation strategy by the leader, which I outline a strategy of closeness through face-to-face contact in the field and not through the staging of intimacy (family or work) of the private individual that the media makes possible. In this sense, the legitimacy of proximity in Reutemann operated in a unidirectional way: it was he who was going to “listen” or “empathize” with his clients, while he did not allow himself to be “heard” or “empathized” with any private situation of his own (unlike the proximity

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leaders analyzed by the literature, in whom intimidation unfolds bidirectionally). The analysis of the figure of the “countryman” that emerges from his particular representative style, with particular features that project a sparse, measured, solitary personality, oblivious to the display of others, allowed to identify a series of attributes that give it meaning. to its non-intimist facet of representation (Lascurain, 2021).

7 Democratic Culture and Political Culture Faced with the dynamics proposed by democratic culture, with political personalism as an expression of democracy with opacities, with the dynamics of “local” politics, we can see the existence of a cultural change in them and how cultural patterns have sensitized the narratives and political speeches. The dynamics of policies and political processes involve complex systems, which occur over time where cause and effect phenomena are subtle. Political cultures can be defined as those discursive practices associated with power-related facets of evolving human relationships and social movements (Nesbitt-Larking, 1992) which argues precisely that empirical research on political culture must integrate theoretical, ethical, and political concerns. and practices. Formisano (2001) points out that historians have frequently used political culture and that they have pioneered new ways of considering the symbolic and expressive forms of power and have tended to dismiss the more traditional dimensions of power—such as the persistence of the hegemony of the elite and the control of material resources—which should not be excluded from the domain of the concept (Formisano, 2001).

7.1 Cultural Change or Change of Political Practices Cultural change is a term used in the formulation of public policies, government management, and new forms of relationship between different actors, in a situation of dissatisfaction with what one has or is given, and that emphasizes the influence of cultural capital on the individual and the behavior community. It emphasizes the determinants of social and cultural capital in decision-making and the way in which these interact with other factors such as the availability of information, the idea of a social future, and the renewal of democracy, which individuals face to promote behaviors. Political cultures are generally impervious to change, but this does not mean that it cannot happen. The potential adaptation and greater incorporation of alternative movements during the process of change can produce changes in cultural paradigms. Change is more challenging for political science and the social sciences. The role of individuals or groups in the process of political change is widely recognized in social and political theory, often overly compressing agency and interpreting it

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as a direct function of structural dynamics. In political science, the role of agency in political/policy change is interpreted as the role of individual political leaders or policy entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, personalism is always collective, and there is adherence to the leader’s decisions as a ritual of belonging, in proximity practices more individualized formats are produced. In order to develop the political and democratic culture of a province that for forty years has been governed mainly by two people, it is necessary to make the citizens aware of this situation. Politics based on the private interests of those who govern never favor the interests of the majority of citizens. For this, it is necessary to develop a democratic culture based on these civic expressions: • Civic Education Program: Create a mandatory program for high school students to learn about how government works, the importance of civic engagement, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. • Political Discussion Forums: Foster political discussions and debates in community centers, libraries, and online platforms. • Campaign Finance Reform: Implement strict campaign finance regulations to reduce the influence of money in politics and increase transparency. • Voter Participation Campaigns: Run public awareness campaigns to educate citizens about the importance of voting and encourage greater voter participation. • Political diversity initiatives: encourage the representation of diverse voices in politics, including those from underrepresented groups, to ensure all perspectives are heard. • Government transparency and accountability measures: Implement measures to make government processes more transparent and increase accountability, such as open data initiatives and regular audits. • Youth Leadership Development Programs: Develop programs to encourage youth to get involved in politics and become the leaders of tomorrow. • Public Service Initiatives: Encourage citizens to get involved in public service, either by volunteering or working for the government. • Cultural events and festivals: Organize cultural events and festivals to bring people together and foster a sense of community, including opportunities for political discussion and debate. • Media Literacy Programs: Educate citizens about media literacy, so they can critically identify and evaluate political information, and foster a culture of informed decision-making. According to Inglehart and Welzel (2005), the measure of democracy varies according to the theoretical approach. The human development approach focuses on civil liberties as the most important aspect of democracy and views civil liberties as empowering citizens to make decisions in shaping their daily activities, making democracy attractive to ordinary people. Civil liberties include both private liberties and political decision-making liberties. The human development perspective considers liberal democracy, not just electoral democracy, as the center of measurement. Liberal democracy is seen as a matter of degree, with elections and voting rights just one application of civil liberties.

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Based on the practices and public expressions examined, under the prism of the theoretical contributions presented, we can establish that within the framework of a personalist political culture prevailing throughout the years with more than thirty years in power of the Rodríguez Saá family, who disdains the actions of the Justicialist Party in the last cycle, so much so that he himself single-handedly elected his party’s candidate for governor of San Luis, a progressive cultural change is taking place in San Luis toward a more sustainable democracy and closer to citizen needs. These changes in political culture and in political cultural patterns are visible in political action, in the relationship of politics with citizens and probably in citizen culture, in its increasing emphasis on petitioning the authorities, an indispensable public work. and of quality. Rodriguez Saá in recent years has dedicated himself to carrying out the public work that he himself imagines, but that is not necessary for the citizens. Faced with this situation, a technocratic democratic leader emerges, closer to the neighbors, who manages to surround himself with good advisors and have good dialog and conversations with the majority of political sectors seeking the common goal. Future research will clarify whether these changes and emerging cultural patterns are consolidated or if they are only a brief attempt of a few months.

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The Shift in Kazakhstan Citizens’ Political Participation: Pre and Post the 2019 Political Transition Shugyla Kilybayeva and Nygmet Ibadildin

1 Introduction For many years following Kazakhstan’s independence, the country experienced a relative lack of popular rallies and protests compared to its neighboring country, Kyrgyzstan. While Kyrgyzstan was often hailed as an “island of democracy” in Central Asia due to its frequent protests and political activism in the years 2010–2011 (Marat, 2011), Kazakhstan, under the long reign of the first president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, offered few opportunities for citizens to engage in public demonstrations and, overall, in politics. Local researchers and experts initially characterized Kazakh citizens as apolitical and lacking interest in politics. However, various surveys consistently revealed that Kazakhstan citizens indeed had a high interest in politics but were hindered by the authoritarian regime, leading to selfcensorship and latent forms of citizens’ political participation. During almost 30 years of rule of Nursultan Nazarbayev, most citizens practiced self-censorship to avoid running afoul of procedural and legal norms. Historical memories of totalitarianism during the Soviet era, the mass repressions of the Kazakh intelligentsia in the 1930s–1940s (Bolashaq Academy, 2021), and violent incidents like the 1986 Zheltoksan uprising in Almaty (Lillis, 2018) influenced the political behavior of Kazakhstan citizens, leading to self-censorship and a reluctance to engage in protest activities under Nazarbayev’s regime. However, in the Shugyla Kilybayeva’s research for this chapter was supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Actions Fellowship within the H2020 Programme (grant acronym: New Market, no: 824027). S. Kilybayeva (B) KIMEP University, Nazarbayeva 77, 050000 Almaty, Kazakhstan e-mail: [email protected] N. Ibadildin KIMEP University, Ahmedsafina Street 22, 050035 Almaty, Kazakhstan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_6

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1990s, Kazakhstan experienced a relatively liberal political climate influenced by the effects of perestroika.1 During this time, various groups including pensioners, coal miners, and political activists engaged in protests and strikes to voice their concerns. The outbreak of violence in July 2006 shocked both the officials and the public when police clashed with homeowners in the Almaty suburb of Shanyraq (Azattyq, 2016). From 2006 onwards, Kazakhstan underwent a process of gradually consolidating personalist autocracy (Holley, 2006), leading to a decline in citizen participation and an increase in the regime’s control. As a result, the number of protests decreased, and the opposition’s popularity and activity diminished. The media landscape in Kazakhstan was largely state-controlled and influenced by the government. Independent media outlets faced restrictions and censorship, limiting their ability to criticize the government or present alternative viewpoints. Kazakhstan citizens exhibited a significant increase in their civic and political involvement during the last term of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule (2015–2019). This surge can be attributed to the substantial growth in internet accessibility since 2011, allowing more people to access independent media sources and engage in online activism. The rise of social media usage in Kazakhstan, coupled with expanded internet access for citizens, has gradually changed the perception that individuals can influence political decisions. This shift becomes particularly evident considering the severely limited freedom of speech in traditional news outlets. Before this wide access to the internet, most TV-based and print media (newspapers) were mainly pro-governmental, depriving people of independent media. The internet, particularly through smartphones and social media platforms, has become an alternative source of political information and a platform for discussions and alliances among like-minded individuals in Kazakhstan. This chapter aims to investigate the factors that accelerated Kazakhstan citizens’ political activism after Nazarbayev’s resignation in 2019, during Tokayev’s rule, and amidst significant events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the January 2022 protests, and Russia’s war in Ukraine. The research questions are which factors accelerated the political participation of the Kazakhs after 2019 Nazarbayev’s resignation? How has the political participation of citizens of Kazakhstan changed since Tokayev’s rule? To address this crucial puzzle, the chapter examines the political activism of Kazakh citizens in two distinct periods: (1) the last decade of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule; (2) Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s presidency, encompassing the period after Nazarbayev’s resignation, the Covid-19 pandemic, the January protests in 2022, and the war in Ukraine. For this analysis, data was gathered using various methods: (1) analyzing existing survey data, (2) conducting semi-structured expert interviews with researchers, experts, and government officials (via Zoom and faceto-face in Almaty), and (3) collecting media accounts by analyzing the independent online news outlets in Kazakhstan—Azattyq and Vlast’ from January 1, 2022, to February 23, 2023. 1

Perestroika (’restructuring’ in Russian) is Soviet government policy under Mikhail Gorbachev, which means the changing political and social structure of the former Soviet Union during the late 1980-s.

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2 Background Since gaining independence in 1991, Kazakhstan transitioned from central planning to the adoption of a liberal model of welfare system. A Soviet-type authoritarian regime remained in Kazakhstan, where Nursultan Nazarbayev stayed in power for 29 years, implementing “economy first, then politics” (EIAS, 2020). In Kazakhstan, the overall performance of the economy is closely linked to fluctuations in the price of petroleum, and most of the country’s wealth hinges on oil rents (Skalamera, 2020). Also, of importance is the export of a limited range of natural resources, chiefly hydrocarbons and metals, and the country shares many of the characteristics of other “less-diversified economies” (OECD, 2015). Since 2014, Kazakhstan has been experiencing economic difficulties because of falling oil prices and sanctions against Russia which have affected Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, the economic growth (from an oil boom) of resource-dependent Kazakhstan did not go along with sustainable socio-economic development in the country because only a small group of the elite with their access and control over natural resources benefited from the resource industry, while a large part of the population’s standard of living did not increase (Satpayev & Umbetaliyeva, 2015). According to Bhavna Dave (2012, 268), during Nursultan Nazarbayev’ reign, Kazakhstan’s political system was a hybrid of Sovietera institutions and practices that formally endorsed democracy and the rule of law but are entrenched within a patriarchal authority structure. In the 2010s, Kazakhstan’s political science on citizens’ engagement in politics was conventionally focused on electoral participation and political party membership (Kilybayeva, 2018). Previous research on political participation in Kazakhstan was informed by a traditional understanding of the concept of political participation, without considering the impact of social media and other non-traditional forms of political engagement (Kilybayeva et al., 2017). However, nowadays people have more options to influence political outcomes and protect their rights. The previous theses of local researchers that Kazakhstan citizens were apolitical did not consider the existence of non-traditional forms of political participation, including their constant high interest in politics and latent forms of participation (Kilybayeva, 2018). Presently, the notion of political participation encompasses a wide range of actions, including voting, protesting, engaging with government officials, boycotts, attending party rallies, blogging, volunteering, participating in flash mobs, signing petitions, and more (Ekman & Amnå, 2012). The diverse nature of these forms of political involvement sparks lively debates as the typology of political participation is dynamic and evolves over time. A comprehensive analysis of political participation requires a suitable typology. The classification proposed by Ekman and Amna (2012), which distinguishes between manifest (formal and extra-parliamentary) and latent political participation (involvement and civic engagement), serves as the foundation for examining the political engagement of Kazakhstan citizens. Manifest political participation refers to the actual engagement of citizens in activities aimed at influencing governmental decisions and political outcomes within a society. These actions are explicit, observable, and can be easily measured. Within

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the category of manifest political participation, Ekman and Amna (2012, 289) distinguish between formal and informal or extra-parliamentary political participation. Formal political participation encompasses activities such as electoral participation, contacting public officials, and membership in political parties, organizations, and trade unions. Extra-parliamentary forms of political participation are further categorized into legal actions, including demonstrations, strikes, protests, and similar activities, as well as illegal forms involving violent actions and violent protests. Ekman and Amnå (2012, 288) introduced a wider concept of political participation by adding latent political participation. According to them, latent political participation is the kind of engagement that may be regarded as “pre-political” or on “stand-by”. This notion of latency is based on the simple observation that citizens actually do a lot of things that may not be directly or unequivocally classified as ‘political participation’, but at the same time could be of great significance for future political activities of a more conventional type… (Ekman & Amnå, 2012, 292).

Ekman and Amnå (2012, 292) define latent political participation as including the following characteristics: interest in and attention to politics; the perception of politics as something important; reading and watching the news; discussing political issues with family and friends; belonging to a group or team specializing in politics. Moreover, civic engagement has traces of latent political participation. Volunteering for social or community-based organizations, charities and the like may be a precursor of future political activity. In addition, we consider online political activism as a part of latent political participation. A more nuanced understanding of the forms of political participation helped to expand the traditional understanding of political participation and consider other non-traditional forms of political engagement such as online activism, rallies, art performances, signing petitions, organizing informal political interest groups, etc. Currently, online activism plays a significant role in increasing people’s political awareness and engagement with socio-political issues in Kazakhstan. According to a survey (Demoscope, 2022a, 2022b), a majority of Kazakhstan residents (40%) rely on online media for news about the socio-political situation in their country. Social networks like YouTube channels (20%), Instagram (17%), TikTok (7%), Telegram channels (6%), Facebook (6%), and instant messengers (13%) are the main sources through which people receive alternative information. There are numerous Instagram channels in both Kazakh and Russian languages that people follow to stay updated on current events and receive information first-hand. Some notable examples on Instagram include Za nami uje vyehali (translation: we have been already followed) (123 K followers), Protenge.kz (99.5 K followers), Vlast.kz (58.8 K followers), “ShalMustBGone” (a Kazakh memes unknown artist’s page with 51.8 K followers), BatyrJamal (48.5 K followers), Factcheck.kz (29.7 K followers), Tilekspekjoq (17.1 K followers), Misk_kz (10.8 K followers), Paperlab.kz (3.4 K followers), etc. Such platforms continue to operate on social networks even if the government shuts down some independent media outlets, allowing people to access political information.

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Additionally, several political scientists and journalists in Kazakhstan have established their presence on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram to share their analyses and opinions on various socio-political issues in Kazakhstan. Notable figures include Dosym Satpayev, a well-known political scientist with 54.5 K followers on his YouTube channel Auditorium (2023), Vadim Boreiko (2023), a journalist with 272 K followers on his YouTube channel Giperborey, and Dinara Yegeubayeva (2023), an investigative journalist with 62.9 K followers on her Instagram page. She gained fame for her investigations into the tragic events of January 2022, known as Qandy Qantar (Bloody January), which marked the most violent period in the history of modern Kazakhstan and claimed the lives of at least 238 people, including children (Bureau.kz, 2023). Accordingly, Kazakhstan’s social media today play the role of the traditional media in free societies, alerting people on government blunders, misbehavior or conspicuous consumption of prominent officials, while generating support for victims as well. YouTube has become a political tool along with Telegram, Instagram, Facebook, and to a lesser extent Twitter.

3 Political Engagement of Kazakhstanis in the Closing Decade of Nazarbayev’s Rule During the last two terms of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule from 2011 to 2019, Kazakhstan witnessed a rise in civic and political engagement. There was widespread public demand for political, socio-economic, and police reforms (Azattyq, 2014; Nurmukhanbetov, 2014). The society grew increasingly frustrated with pervasive corruption, unequal wealth distribution, and issues surrounding subsoil management and mineral revenues (Transparency International, 2022). Online activism provided a safer platform for the citizens to express their discontent without facing violent suppression from the police. However, a series of protests erupted in Almaty due to escalating socio-economic problems and inflation. About 200 protesters in Almaty participated in anti-devaluation rallies in 2014 when Kazakhstan’s national currency reduced its value by 20% overnight and protestors shouted the slogan “Shal, ket!” (Go away, old man!) (Azattyq, 2014; Nurmukhanbetov, 2014), demanding substantial political and economic reforms from Nursultan Nazarbayev’s government. Nazarbayev’s mantra “Economy first, then politics” was already not working; the democratically oriented part of society desired the Western model of governance in Kazakhstan, rejecting the Soviet legacy model of governance (Burkhanov et al., 2021). A significant turning point occurred in April–May 2016 (BBC, 2016) when Kazakhstan witnessed its first major wave of unrest since the tragic 2011 oil worker protests in Zhanaozen (Satpayev & Umbetaliyeva, 2015). This time, the protests were triggered by land reforms and flared up in several cities of Kazakhstan simultaneously (Azattyq, 2016). At that time, the Kazakhs managed to influence the government’s

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decision-making, resulting in a five-year moratorium being implemented (Toiken, 2016). Although the outcome was not entirely satisfactory, the government’s responsiveness gave citizens the belief that they could affect political decisions, and this encouraged them to overcome years of self-censorship. However, this rise in activism also led to the arrest of activists like Max Bokayev who was detained in May 2016 (Toiken, 2016). Human rights and political activists repeatedly called for the release of these individuals, exemplified by online petitions demanding the freedom of Max Bokayev. Since 2016, protests, civic initiatives, and rallies have become more frequent in Kazakhstan. The authorities have consistently responded by suppressing these gatherings, often utilizing the police force (Azattyq, 2016). The police, with their historical role of serving the political class and repressing mass protests, still carry the legacy of loyalty to the ruling power structure from the Soviet era. According to Erica Marat (2019), the legacy of police political loyalty to political power has remained in Kazakhstan. The police in the Soviet regime served the political class, and they were created in order to stop mass protests and criminals against the political elite. The increasing activism observed in Kazakhstan toward the end of Nazarbayev’s tenure sheds light on the concerns surrounding corruption and socio-economic inequality. It also reveals instances where citizens managed to exert influence on the government’s decision-making. However, the ongoing repression of protests by the authorities and the persistent influence wielded by the police exemplify the obstacles faced by activists striving for political and social transformation. Following the tragic death of Kazakhstani Olympic figure skater Denis Ten in August 2018 (Kumenov, 2018), a public movement demanding police reform emerged in Almaty. Ten was fatally injured during a confrontation with individuals attempting to steal a mirror from his car in downtown Almaty. This incident, coupled with an increase in petty crime, eroded public trust in the police due to their perceived inaction in addressing the rising crime rates, triggered widespread public outrage, and provided the catalyst for long-awaited police reform in Kazakhstan. The movement, known as For the Reform of the MVD-Ministry of the Interior (Trebuem reformu MVD RK, 2018), gained momentum through a Facebook group with 15,000 members that was established in August 2018. Subsequently, an online petition was submitted to the then-President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev (Peticiya “Za Reformu MVD”, 2018). The Kazakh lawyer Dzhokhar Utebekov interpreted Denis Ten’s death as evidence of the police’s failure to prevent the rising cases of theft, particularly in Almaty where burglaries and auto-part theft were prevalent. Public trust in the police had eroded, seeing them accused of displaying little interest in investigating such crimes (Kumenov, 2018). For instance, Kanat Nurmagambetov, deputy head of the criminal police department, advised citizens to install burglar alarms and surveillance cameras as a means of personal protection against frequent thieves (Antonov, 2019). In Almaty, installing an alarm system for apartments and houses has become a familiar task for many in an effort to protect their apartments from frequent thieves. In Almaty, trade in stolen auto parts, including mirrors, headlights, and wheels, has thrived in makeshift markets and pawnshops (Kumenov, 2018).

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There were efforts made by a diverse group of activists to advocate for comprehensive police reform. However, disappointment ensued when these reforms were considered inadequate. We see complex dynamics between the public, the police, and the quest for effective and accountable law enforcement in Kazakhstan. For instance, participants in the For the reform of the MVD public initiative, including individuals like Aset Nauryzbaev, Gulshat Nurpeisova, Yerlan Nurpeisov, Dimash Alzhanov, Irina Mednikova, and others, organized numerous expert meetings and discussions. They brought together lawyers, human rights activists, economists, financiers, PR and IT specialists, businesspersons, journalists, and public figures to advocate for police reform. They developed a report based on international agreements and the experiences of developed countries. The reform advocates called for a transparent and accountable police force that effectively serves society’s needs. Specifically, they demanded the reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kazakhstan, the creation of a separate body called the Police of Kazakhstan under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the development and adoption of a law entitled “On the Police of the Republic of Kazakhstan” (Za reform MVD RK, 2018). In 2018, the document was presented to Nursultan Nazarbayev, Head of the Presidential Administration Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, and Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Marat Tazhin. However, subsequent reforms were seen as superficial, with no significant changes being implemented within the police force. Since 2014 the grassroots political movement in Kazakhstan slightly increased when social media and social network users were growing in the country. Political efficacy is a key factor in the choice of forms of political participation by people since they want to effectively influence the political decisions of their authorities. There is a tendency among Kazakhs, especially the youth, to use non-institutional forms of political participation rather than formal (institutional) political participation, which is explained by the fact that rallies, petitions, online activism, and other forms of non-institutional political engagement create resonance cases and are more effective on the authorities’ political decisions. They are more attracted to extraparliamentary forms of political participation where freedom of expression can be used, since participation in official politics (membership in political parties, voting, and participation in elections) is not effective and since they are under strong control of the authorities. Thus, the forms of political participation of Kazakhs are oriented to those that lead the authorities to be forced to pay attention to the problem urged by the populace. During the final decade of Nazarbayev’s rule from 2011 to 2019, the internet and social media played a crucial role in enhancing political participation among Kazakhs. These platforms provided an outlet for people to engage in political discussions and debates, particularly in a context where political protests were prohibited, elections were fraudulent, and freedom of speech was limited. The impact of social media and the internet on political participation can be attributed to several factors. Firstly, the widespread use of social media and the internet made it easier for the Kazakhstan people to access information about political issues and events. This increased political awareness among Kazakhs, allowing them to be better informed and participate in discussions related to politics. Secondly, these platforms facilitated

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the mobilization of people around political causes. Online communities and groups emerged, bringing together like-minded individuals who shared common political goals and interests. This collective mobilization gave citizens a platform to express their concerns and demand change. Moreover, social media and the internet provided a voice to unheard groups of citizens who had limited representation in traditional media, allowing them to share their perspectives, experiences, and advocate for their rights, challenging existing power structures. Additionally, the increased use of social media and the internet fostered transparency and accountability. Kazakhstanis are able to hold politicians and governments accountable for their actions by disseminating information and demanding justice. However, despite the positive impact of social media and the internet on political participation, there were instances where activists expressing dissenting opinions faced suppression and arrests. The authorities continued to clamp down on rallies, demonstrations, and protests, utilizing the police to maintain control. To sum up, during Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule, Kazakhstan citizens’ manifest political participation (formal and extra-parliamentary) was not been high due to the authority’s hierarchy and total control of official politics. In addition, Kazakhstan citizens’ restraint from participation in politics overall is explained by the authoritarian political regime in its suppression and persecution of political opposition activists. Under the conditions of an authoritarian regime, the citizens of Kazakhstan maintained self-censorship and did not actively participate in extra-parliamentary forms of political participation (social movements, demonstrations, rallies, and strikes), preferring online activism. If demonstrations, rallies, and boycotts in democratic countries are considered standard forms of political participation, in Kazakhstan they are still seen as unconventional. If a person does not have permission from the local municipality—akimat—then this means he/she is participating in unconventional/unsanctioned rallies which are automatically considered as a violation of the law.

4 The Political Awakening of Kazakhstan Citizens Following Nazarbayev’s Resignation in 2019 There was a series of protests in Kazakhstan during 2016–2018, but since 2019, after Nursultan Nazarbayev’s resignation, rallies sharply intensified (Azattyq, 2019) and everything began to develop rapidly in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan was catapulted into a political transition. The turning point was on 19 March 2019 with the announcement from Nursultan Nazarbayev about his leaving the presidency after ruling the country for almost three decades. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ascended to power as Nazarbayev’s successor. The attention of every Kazakhstan citizen was riveted to politics since such an event was happening for the first time in 30 years. Unaware of any president other than Nursultan Nazarbayev, his resignation came as shocking

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news to some people. Many people were excited by the news and longed for democratic change, while some parts of society were alarmed by the ambiguity and threat of an unstable time. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who replaced Nursultan Nazarbayev, was considered by some groups of people to be a worthy candidate with an impeccable career (Zhasulan interview, 2022). When Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ascended to power as Nazarbayev’s successor on March 19, 2019, people shared high hopes for democratic change in the country. However, the next day when Tokayev renamed the capital Astana to Nur-Sultan in honor of Nazarbayev, he showed that he was reluctant to open up Kazakhstan’s political system. Many citizens disagreed with the renaming of the capital Astana, a million-strong city, refusing to call it Nur-Sultan despite Nazarbayev’s own record of transforming Tselinograd from a steppe town into Astana. The Kazakhs’ political activism has been at its peak since that time and the country has been shaken by many rallies and demonstrations, which are suppressed by the authorities. The boundaries of political participation have been pushed back, particularly by the younger generation of Kazakhstan who display a wide interest in the political development of the country and are adherents of the democratization process in Kazakhstan. Young Kazakh activists took to the streets to demand democratic change. During the April 2019 Almaty marathon, young activists displayed a banner with the message “You will not run away from the truth” (“ot pravdy ne ubezhish”), which quickly gained traction on social media with hashtags such as “You will not run away from the truth” and “I have a choice” (“ot pravdy ne ubezhish”, “u menya est vybor”) (MISK, 2023a, 2023b). The influential informal youth movement Oyan, Qazaqstan! (“Wake up, Kazakhstan!”) which embraced the popular saying “Oyan, Qazaq!” (“Wake up, Kazakh!”) used by the intelligentsia of the twentieth century Alash Orda,2 ignited the political consciousness and the desire of young people to take charge of the country’s development. These actions were further promoted with relevant hashtags on social media and graffiti in the city. During the actions, activists Asiya Tulesova, Beibarys Tolymbekov, and others—with Roman Zakharov joining them a week later—were detained by the police for their banners (MISK, 2019). This action launched a series of youth protests from which three informal movements formed: Oyan Kazakhstan, Kaharman, and Respublika. Members of these movements engage in political activism, human rights, and advocacy activities in Kazakhstan. On June 7, 2019, elections in which Kassym-Jomart Tokayev expectedly won triggered a series of public protests (Reuters, 2019). The results of the presidential elections caused unrest in society because of the many violations during the election (BBC, 2019). Shortcomings in the presidential elections in June 2019 prompted massive rallies in many cities of Kazakhstan, which the police suppressed by force. The ruling regime suppressed rising activism: during March and April 2019, several thousands of active citizens were arrested, and journalists were beaten (Voanews, 2019). However, Tokayev also expressed awareness of people’s political grievances, 2

The main goal of the creation of the national liberation movement Alash in 1917 was the restoration of Kazakh statehood. The founders of the party program were political leader Alikhan Bokeikhanov, educator and linguist Akhmet Baitursynov, and writer and poet Mirzhakyp Dulatov.

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announcing that the old formula of “economy first, politics second” was no longer valid and beginning to use narratives about him being “with the people” (Akorda, 2022). In the aftermath of unprecedented street protests against the unfair electoral process in June 2019, Tokayev signed new legislation about assemblies, which requires organizers of rallies to provide advance warning of their protest’s intentions, rather than requesting permission (Azattyq, 2020). However, the akimats— local government—still could cancel or not give permission for such planned or impromptu assemblies. In 2019, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev presented the concept of a “listening” state, where he spoke about an “open” state ready to conduct a constructive dialog with citizens, respond in a timely manner to the requests of Kazakhstanis, and where society would be involved in the decision-making process (Akorda, 2022; Starr, 2019). Constructing convincing claims of legitimacy is important for securing the stability of authoritarian regimes (Van Soest & Grauvogel, 2017). In order to assert and strengthen political power, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev made a series of claims about democratization in the country. From June 2019 to March 2020, when Tokayev first took office, he announced many democratic initiatives. Many people believed in the new president’s initiatives about democratization processes in the country. However, since 2019, during the Kassym-Jomart Tokayev presidency, all elections (parliamentary elections 2021 (OSCE, 2021a, 2021b), referendum 2022 (OSCE, 2021a, 2021b), early presidential election 2022 (OSCE, 2022), early parliamentary elections 2023 (OSCE, 2023) have not been competitive and fair according to OSCE reports and independent Kazakhstan-based volunteer observers from the Public Funds “Erkindik Kanaty” and MISK—Youth Information Service of Kazakhstan (MISK, 2023a, 2023b). According to Van Soest and Grauvogel (2017, 1), authoritarian regimes cannot have free and fair popular elections as a source of political power, but mimic democracies. Despite the fact that the authorities have reacted to some critical situations in the country (for instance, recognition of the environmental crisis in Almaty, etc.), many problems have not been solved; there has, therefore, been a high increase in citizens’ dissatisfaction with the fact that the existing narratives about the listening state do not correspond to political response in practice (Silvan & Kilybayeva, 2022). One-third of the population of Kazakhstan (33%) believes that the government of Kazakhstan does not “hear” and does not solve the problems of the citizens in the country (Kazinform, 2022). Seeing the inaction of the authorities, conscious Kazakhstan citizens mobilize and unite to solve the problems. Citizens try to solve many issues that do not require the intervention of the state on their own, but most of the tasks cannot be resolved by the people of Kazakhstan themselves without the intervention of the political authorities. There are many cases where citizens are dissatisfied with the authorities’ policies on different issues, and there are many civil initiatives to change them. The government and city authorities generally only react to resonant cases. The cases where Kazakhs are able to influence political decisions at the local, regional or national level show how grassroots activism influences the political decisions of the authorities in favor of the citizens.

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The next eight months of the second president’s reign were under surveillance. The Kazakhs were looking inquisitively, and some wanted to trust and believe the “second”. From time to time there were doubts about who really runs the country, “01” or “02”, or whether Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, would come to power. There were many questions, but in January–March 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in the country. The beginning of 2020 yielded its own shocking changes, however, in the first three months of 2020, Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev demonstrated successful leadership of the country, and the most skeptical observers appreciated his reaction and adherence to international standards. For the first 3 months, many people in Kazakhstan approved of his strict lockdown policy, but in April 2020, the economic crisis hit the Kazakh’s well-being and the majority of the population demanded relief. The easing of quarantine measures and violations of its restrictions in the summer of 2020 caused the pandemic to hit its peak—a thousand people died from Covid-19 in Kazakhstan. Since that time, a certain part of the population has expressed deep distrust of the government and disappointment with its policy measures and overall state management (Silvan & Kilybayeva, 2022). The failure of state management during the peak of the COVID-19 cases in 2020 prompted a rise of grassroots mobilization in Almaty. Due to the progressive growth of coronavirus diseases, ordinary citizens started to actively help each other, e.g., searching for and sending medicines (Tengrinews, 2020), creating a website for keeping statistics of deaths from coronavirus, the MedSupport page on social networks created by young scientists to inform residents about coronavirus, vaccinations, etc. On July 6, 2020, when people were still dying from the coronavirus, in the capital of Kazakhstan, which was renamed in honor of Nursultan Nazarbayev at that time, a grandiose salute thundered with the message that the people did not forgive the authorities. Informally, July 6 was declared a day of mourning for those who had died from the coronavirus. The failure of state management during the peak of the COVID-19 cases (Ybrayev, 2020) in April–August 2020 prompted a rise of grassroots mobilization in Almaty. In times of different crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Kazakhstan people rally around the tragedy, self-organize, and help each other (ne 2020). While President Tokayev shifted the blame for mismanagement onto city and regional governors, citizens took responsibilities into their own hands. Management of the Covid-19 crisis showed the incapacity and lack of independence of the state apparatus. In 2022, one high-profile case was the demand of the people in Almaty for the resignation of the mayor—akim of Almaty—Bakytzhan Sagintayev. An online petition on the otinish.kz website collected more than 20,000 signatures. The text of the petition for the resignation of the akim outlined the disappointment of citizens with Sagintaev’s policy: ... He could not support us morally or physically during difficult days for the city. He did not go on the air with any appeal to the people of Almaty. We didn’t see him in public until January 8th. …” (the excerpt from the text of the petitions) (Otinish.kz, 2022).

Thus, the residents of Almaty demanded the resignation of Bakytzhan Sagintayev and the holding of open elections for the akim. Mayor Sagintayev was criticized

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(Vlast’, 2022) for poor management of the city during the pandemic in 2020–2021, and inaction during the tragic events in early January 2022.

5 The Influence of January 2022 and Russia’s War in Ukraine on Kazakhs’ Political Activism The beginning of 2022 entered the history books of modern Kazakhstan as Qandy Qantar (“bloody January”) (Mazorenko & Sorbello, 2023). Citizens’ grassroots mobilization during the 2022 January protests showed that Kazakhs demanded political and economic reforms, tired as they were of promises and longing for real political change. Wide-scale peaceful rallies with the demand for political and socioeconomic reform took place in the first week of January 2022 first in Zhanaozen, then in many other cities throughout Kazakhstan. However, peaceful protests in Almaty turned into organized violence and led to civilian bloodshed, where at least 238 people, including children, were killed (Kapital, 2022). According to Transparency Kazakhstan (Transparency International, 2022), peaceful protests in Kazakhstan and the tragic events in Almaty demonstrated the people’s struggle for justice, as well as laying bare the government’s flawed approach to devising economic policies. The tragic events that occurred in January 2022 had a significant impact on further political engagement and the high interest in politics of the citizens in Kazakhstan. According to Velazquez, Kazakhstan’s dual-power system came to an end in January 2022 amid unprecedented unrest against Tokayev’s government, eventually resulting in Tokayev forcing Nazarbayev out entirely by seizing the chairmanship of the Kazakh Security Council (Velasquez, 2022). On January 5, when protests in Almaty turned to violence, Tokayev declared a state of emergency and asked the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) peacekeeping forces to arrive in Almaty. According to Velazquez, Russian soldiers entered Kazakhstan as a part of the CSTO’s efforts to stabilize Tokayev’s embattled reign from an attempted coup by pro-Nazarbayev elements in the Kazakh government (Velasquez, 2022). The entry of CSTO troops into Kazakhstan caused sharp disagreement among some parts of society, as well as due to the ongoing disorder. Many citizens saw the stabilization of the situation in Almaty and the country with the CSTO troops (Zhasulan interview, 2022). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a third shock for Kazakhstan which had already experienced mass Covid-19 deaths, economic crisis in 2020–2021 because of the pandemic, and serious domestic unrest in January 2022. Russia’s war in Ukraine has worried both the public and officials in Kazakhstan. Russia and Kazakhstan share the world’s longest continuous land border, prompting concern among Kazakhs about the security of their country. During the first months of the war starting from February 2022, some part of Kazakh society was in a state of great anxiety about the outbreak of war in Kazakhstan too (Aset interview, 2022). The majority of citizens were afraid that Kazakhstan could find itself in Ukraine’s position. Some group of people in

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Kazakhstan believe that Ukraine is defending Kazakhstan too in their war now (Aset interview, 2022). Hundreds of demonstrators with Ukraine national flags and posters with the words “No War!” gathered to protest against the Russian military invasion of Ukraine in Almaty on March 6, 2022. Before Ukraine’s invasion by Russia, Kazakhstan was involved in various Russian integration projects, including the military CSTO. Moscow kept saying that Kazakhstan owes Russia a “debt” for Moscow’s help in the January riots since, according to them, President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev was able to retain power largely thanks to the help of the Kremlin (Umarov, 2022). Moscow expected some support from Kazakhstan in the war in Ukraine in 2022; however, the country complied with antiRussian sanctions. At a forum in Saint Petersburg in June 2022, Tokayev shared the stage with Putin. He said that Kazakhstan did not recognize Russian-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine and that Kazakhstan upheld the inviolability of internationally recognized borders. Tokayev’s blunt remarks took observers by surprise and prompted angry threats from some pro-war commentators in the Russian media (Auyezov, 2022). Despite Kazakhstan being considered the closest Russian ally after Belarus during Nazarbayev’s reign, the Kazakhstan government has consistently distanced itself from Russia’s aggression and has been developing its relationships with other Central Asian countries—Turkey, USA, EU, etc.—while preserving its bilateral relationship with Russia. The European Union showed interest in engaging more with Kazakhstan, an overture that can help the country to overcome this critical juncture by encouraging and supporting its genuine domestic transformation (Dumoilin, 2023). Active Kazakhs clearly defined Russia’s aggressive position in Ukraine and blamed the government of Kazakhstan for still being loyal to the Kremlin (Andrey interview, 2022). One of the reasons for the Kazakh government’s continued dependence on Russia can be explained by the fact that the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) transports the majority of Kazakhstan oil to European markets, which runs through the Russian Federation. A significant trade imbalance in Russia’s favor is also a factor (Fanger, 2023). Current European Union (EU) sanctions on the use of Russian oil pertain to oil transported from Russia by sea. Since about 90% of Russian oil to the EU used to be transported by sea, the intended impact of this sanction is significant. However, these restrictions do not prohibit imports from countries like Kazakhstan that may transport oil via Russian infrastructure (Fanger, 2023). Moscow has choked off natural gas supplies to Europe several times through Kazakhstan’s CPC, a route that brings oil from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea (Fanger, 2023). There was public anxiety and discontent, demanding the exclusion of Kazakhstan from the CSTO (Zhasulan interview, 2022; Ruslan interview, 2022). There were several petitions demanding Kazakhstan’s withdrawal from the CSTO and the EAEU (41,154 people signed it) (Alash online, 2022). Many Kazakhs, especially those who have experienced the consequences of past Russian aggression, harbor deep-seated concerns and are wary of Russia’s actions. Historical events like the Kazakh famine and forced resettlements during the Soviet era have left lasting scars, shaping the collective memory of the nation (Cameron, 2018).

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However, the widespread use of the Russian language in Kazakhstan and the availability of Russian sources of information have contributed to the problem of disinformation. Some residents rely on Russian propaganda channels, potentially supporting Russian aggression. The difficulty in distinguishing between reliable and fake information is a significant challenge for 51% of the population, and 71% of residents confirm that they have encountered disinformation. Article 4 of the Treaty of CSTO (ODKB, 2012) states that if one of the States’ Parties is subjected to aggression by any State or group of States, then this will be considered as aggression against all States’ Parties and provides that other members should provide military assistance. This issue provoked the threat of Kazakhstan being included in Russia’s war against Ukraine (Altyn-orda, 2023). The Prosecutor General’s Office of Kazakhstan warned citizens about criminal liability for inciting ethnic hatred, for calling for participation in the conflict, as well as for participating in hostilities on the territory of a foreign state against the backdrop of Russia’s military actions in Ukraine (Vlast’, 2023). In addition, in 2014 after the invasion of Russia in Ukraine, the Kazakhstan Parliament introduced criminal liability for Kazakh citizens for participation in foreign conflicts (Tengrinews, 2014). The problem of disinformation is very common in Kazakhstan. Due to the widespread use of the Russian language in Kazakhstan, there are many residents there who read and watch Russian sources of information. Despite strong support for Ukraine, there are still some groups of people in Kazakhstan who do not use independent sources but do watch Russian propaganda channels and potentially support Russian aggression (Ruslan interview, 2022; Anastassiya interview, 2022; Aset interview, 2022). Kazakhstan, compared to Estonia and other post-Soviet states, did not ban the Russian channels. According to a survey (Demoscope, 2022a, 2022b), 51% of the Kazakhstan population admitted that it is difficult for them to distinguish between reliable and fake information. 71% of Kazakhstan residents confirmed that they face disinformation: 17% almost every day, and 54% from time to time. 41% answered that they can easily identify what is fake. To the question “How do you identify false information from true information?” 27% of Kazakhstan citizens answered that they double-check the information in other mass media and official sources, and 44% answered that they do not double-check the information. Information attacks have always come from Russia toward Kazakhstan, but this case prompted more. Kazakh citizens demanded that the Tokayev government stop diplomatic and economic ties with Russia since the Russian aggression in 2022 was reminiscent of the situation with Ukraine in 2014 and how it all began in Ukraine (Andrey interview, 2022). As per Article 4 of the CSTO (ODKB, 2012), if any member state is subject to aggression by a state or group of states, it is considered aggression against all member states. This provision raised concerns that Kazakhstan might be drawn into Russia’s war against Ukraine. To address this issue, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Kazakhstan issued warnings to citizens about the criminal consequences of inciting ethnic hatred (Vlast’, 2023), calling for participation in the conflict, and engaging in hostilities on foreign soil in light of Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. It is worth

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noting that in 2014, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kazakhstan Parliament enacted legislation to hold Kazakh citizens criminally accountable for participating in foreign conflicts. Consequently, several petitions circulated calling for Kazakhstan’s withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). These petitions were a manifestation of citizens’ discontent with the government’s foreign policy decisions. Due to the historical background, Russian aggression during Soviet times and the early years of independent Kazakhstan was always felt by many ethnic Kazakhs (Ruslan interview, 2022). The Kazakh famine was brought on by Stalin’s brutal collectivization campaign (its goal was to radically settle the Kazakh nomads), which resulted in over a quarter of the population vanishing, altering the territory, demographics, and identity of Kazakhstan. The 1930–33 famine in Kazakhstan claimed the lives of 1.5 million people, approximately 1.3 million of whom were ethnic Kazakhs, yet the causes of this disaster remain largely unexamined (Cameron, 2018). Today, the population of Kazakhstan is more than 19.7 million people (at the beginning of 2023), 70.7% of whom are ethnic Kazakhs, 15.2% (Buro Natsional’noi Statistiki, 2023) are ethnic Russians, and 3.3% are ethnic Uzbeks. The experience of the famine scared the republic for the remainder of the Soviet era and shaped its transformation into an independent nation in 1991 (Cameron, 2018). Now in Kazakhstan, there is an active awakening of the Kazakh identity, and the role of the Kazakh language is gradually increasing (Aizada interview, 2022). Given all the aggressions experienced by Kazakhs, they will fight for their lands and independence; one of the effective methods for them now is political participation in informal politics. There are many rallies in the country and there would be more if the authorities did not break up peaceful assemblies and detain their participants. If rallies are organized without permission from the akimat, they are considered unauthorized, and the participants are taken to the local police departments. It is difficult to obtain permits for peaceful protests. If any unsanctioned (unauthorized) protest activity takes place, it is quickly cracked down on by law enforcement (BTI, 2022). Since the beginning of 2023, Kazakhstan’s independent journalists have faced burning cars, attacks on newsrooms, and have received threatening messages for their journalist activity (Grigoryantz, 2023). Thus, the strengthening of the authoritarian regime does not allow Kazakhs to participate in politics, influence the authorities’ political decisions, or make democratic changes in the country.

6 Conclusion In this chapter, we set out to explore the political participation of Kazakhstan citizens before and after Nursultan Nazarbayev’s resignation in 2019 to see which factors accelerated Kazakhs’ political activism during the political transition and how the political participation of citizens of Kazakhstan has changed since Tokayev’s presidency.

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We found that, during the rule of Nursultan Nazarbayev, most sources of information were under the control of the authorities (TV channels, newspapers, radios), but from 2011, Kazakhstan citizens were able to receive political information from primary sources via social networks and social media. For instance, it was only possible to know the real situation in the oil strikers’ Zhanaozen protests in 2011 with the help of videos uploaded to YouTube and messages from the owners of those videos. Thus, we highlight that during the last decade of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule, Kazakhs were not apolitical, rather they were active online (a safer form of activism in authoritarian regimes) and used latent forms of political participation (high interest in politics, volunteering, donation, civic activism). Nevertheless, their low level of manifest political participation in formal politics is shown in things like low voter turnout—informal or extra-parliamentary—and some avoiding participating in rallies and demonstrations because of self-censorship. Internet and digital activism have given the opportunity for Kazakhs to discuss everyday politics and become politically informed and active online, with social networks helping likeminded people to coordinate and mobilize. With the expansion of Kazakhstan citizens’ access to the Internet, the understanding that citizens themselves can influence the political decisions of their government through different forms of activism has grown. The announcement of Nazarbayev’s resignation in 2019 was a turning point in the history of Kazakhstan. This process of political transition awakened Kazakhs to fight for their political and socio-economic reforms. Tokayev’s ascension to the Kazakh presidency in March 2019 followed two years of protests. Today, we witness an increase in political activism from democratically oriented Kazakhs who demand socio-political and legislative reform from the government. Their belief in their ability to change the country for the better has grown. Nowadays, active Kazakh citizens use a large number of different methods and tactics to influence the political decisions of authorities. These are both offline and online forms of activity, e.g., rallies, petitions, creating resonance through social media, volunteering, and donations, sending official letters to city administrations, akimats, and ministries, appeals to the president, etc. Forms of political participation from Kazakhs are oriented to those that lead the authorities to be forced to pay attention to the problem urged by the populace. In 2022, Bloody January (Qandy Qantar) and Russia’s war in Ukraine had a big effect on political participation in Kazakhstan society. According to the experts interviewed for this study, the January unrest, post-Qandy Qantar period, and Russia’s war in Ukraine have further highlighted the need for real political reform in Kazakhstan yet have complicated the government’s ability and willingness to implement them. Although the majority of the protests are suppressed, people in Kazakhstan are still protesting more, and the potential for a protest “boom” throughout the country is high. Nevertheless, after the 2022 January unrest in February 2022, many rallies and demonstrations in Almaty were permitted by akimat and the local police did not arrest protesters. A “New Kazakhstan” was promised to the people after Bloody January. However, after the snap presidential elections in November 2022, things returned to their previous state when the local municipality again cracked down on protesters in most cases.

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Dave, B. (2012). Kazakhstan. The world bank, world development indicators 2011, 268. Retrieved 2 Feb 2023, from https://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/NIT-2011-Kaz akhstan.pdf Demoscope. (2022a). Vospriyatie i rasprostranenie dezinformacii v Kazakhstanskih media i socsetyah. Retrieved 23 Jan 2023 from https://demos.kz/vosprijatie-i-rasprostranenie-dezinform acii-v-kazahstanskih-media-i-socsetjah-2/ Demoscope. (2022b). Otnoshenie kazakhstancev k voine v Ukraine. Retrieved 11 May 2023 from https://demos.kz/otnoshenie-kazahstancev-k-vojne-v-ukraine-2/ Dumoilin, M. (2023). Steppe change: How Russia’s war on Ukraine is reshaping Kazakhstan. European Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 23 May 2023 from https://ecfr.eu/public ation/steppe-change-how-russias-war-on-ukraine-is-reshaping-kazakhstan/ Ekman, J., & Amnå, E. (2012). political participation and civic engagement: Towards a new typology. Human Affairs, 22, 283–300. Fanger, S. (2023). Kazakhstan to expand oil exports to germany via Russian pipeline. Caspian Policy Center. Retrieved 3 March 2023 from https://www.caspianpolicy.org/research/energy-and-eco nomy-program-eep/kazakhstan-to-expand-oil-exports-to-germany-via-russian-pipelines Grazhdanskaya initsiativa ‘Za reformu MVD RK’. (2018). Novaya Politsiya Kazakhstana. Retrieved 17 May 2023 from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cVlBhHQioUKvb5LL6b8AfXB vLurXrRyX/view?fbclid=IwAR0vOmldU8sME01ZmZN7_TYJOHdYpJhaE3eXTGG-X-Q_9 IEgY6B3wjkGWFg Grigoryantz, A. (2023). Bolshoi namek. V nachale goda nezavisimye kazakhstanskie jurnalisty stolknulis’ s podzhogami mashin, atakami na redakcii i ugrozami. Mediazona. Retrieved 12 May, 2023 from https://mediazona.ca/article/2023/01/30/bn Holley, D. (2006). Kazakh’s death called political killing. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 30 Jan 2023, from https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-feb-15-fg-kazakh15-story.html Kapital.kz. (2022). Opublikovan spisok pogibshih v hode yanvar’skih sobytii. On razmeshcen na saite prokuratury. Retrieved 7 April 2023 from https://kapital.kz/gosudarstvo/108145/opubli kovan-spisok-pogibshikh-v-khode-yanvarskikh-sobytiy.html Kazinform. (2022). Komu kazakhstancy doveryauyt bol’she vsego – soc.opros. Retrieved 3 April 2023 from https://www.inform.kz/ru/komu-kazahstancy-doveryayut-bol-she-vsego-socopros_ a3906467 Kilybayeva, S., Nassimova, G., & Massalimova, A. (2017). The Kazakhstani’s youth engagement in politics. Studies of Transition States and Societies, 9(1), 53–71. Kilybayeva, S. (2018). Politicheskaya aktivnost’ molodezhi Kazakhstana i Kyrgyzstana: sravnitel’nyi analiz. Dissertatciya na soiskanie stepeni doktora philosphii (PhD). Kazakhskii natsional’nyi universitet imeni Al-Farabi. Kumenov, A. (2018). After high profile murder, Kazakhstan’s police seek makeover. Eurasionet. Retrieved 14 March 2023, from https://eurasianet.org/after-high-profile-murder-kazakhstanspolice-seek-makeover Lillis, J. (2018). Kazakhstan’s bloody decemebr. Retrieved 23 Feb 2023 from https://www.histor ytoday.com/archive/feature/kazakhstan%E2%80%99s-bloody-december Marat, E. (2011). Kyrgyzstan. The World Bank, World Development Indicators 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2023, from https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/NIT13_Kyrgyzstan_1stProof_0. pdf Marat, E. (2019). O reforme MVD v Kazakhstane. Azattyq TV. Retrieved 14 Jan 2023, from https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOSCxSyanTk Mazorenko, D., & Sorbello, P. (2023). Too little has changed in Kazakhstan in the year since ‘Bloody January’. Open Democracy. Retrieved 12 March 2023 from https://www.opendemocracy.net/ en/odr/kazakhstan-one-year-bloody-january-no-change/ MISK. (2019). 15 sutok za plakat s “politicheskim slovom”. Retrieved 7 May 2023, from https:// archive.misk.org.kz/ru/events/3d9bb90a-15eb-494e-9d10-705f6d6be3bf/ MISK. (2023a). Zayavlenie nezavisimyh nablyudatelei Kazakhstana. Retrieved 24 March 2023a, from https://misk.org.kz/ru/events/bcd9dbad-c820-425e-b2ed-3d535b7edb25/

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Toiken, S. (2016). Maks Bokayev. Aktivist i uchastnik zemel’nogo mitinga. Azattyq. Retrieved 15 March 2023, from https://rus.azattyq.org/a/max-bokayev-atyrau-zemelnye-mitingi/28199469. html Transparency International. (2022). Kazakhstan protests: Corruption, unequal income distribution and lack of accountability responsible for tragic almaty events. Retrieved 24 March 2023 from https://www.transparency.org/en/press/kazakhstan-protests-almaty-events-corruption-ine quality-lack-of-accountability-responsible Trebuem reformu MVD RK. (2018). Facebook group, Facebook. Retrieved 24 April 2023, from https://www.facebook.com/groups/reformaMVDRK/announcements Umarov, T. (2022). After Ukraine, Is Kazakhstan Next in the Kremlin’s Sights? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved 23 March 2023, from https://carnegieendowment.org/ politika/87652 Van Soest, C., & Grauvogel, J. (2017). Identity, procedures and performance: How authoritarian regimes legitimize their rule. Contemporary Politics, 23(3), 1. Velazquez, N. (2022). Kazakhstan pivots from Russia amid Ukraine War. Geopolitical Monitor. Retrieved 4 March 2023 from https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/kazakhstan-pivots-fromrussia-amid-ukraine-war/ Vlast’. (2022). Bolee tys. Podpisei uje sobrala petitsiya za otstavku Sagintayeva. Retrieved 22 Feb 2023 from https://vlast.kz/novosti/48193-bolee-6-tysac-podpisej-uze-sobrala-peticia-zaotstavku-sagintaeva.html Vlast’. (2023). Genprokuratura preduprezhdayet kazakhstantsev ob otvetstvennosti za razzhiganie rozni i separatistskie prizyvy. Retrieved February 24, 2023 from https://vlast.kz/novosti/49307genprokuratura-preduprezdaet-kazahstancev-ob-otvetstvennosti-za-razziganie-rozni-i-separa tistskie-prizyvy.html Voanews. (2019). Kazakhstan Updates tally of protest arrests to nearly 4,000. Retrieved 4 May 2023 from https://www.voanews.com/a/south-central-asia_kazakhstan-updates-tally-protest-arrestsnearly-4/6170273.html Ybrayev, Z. (2020). Covid-19 in Kazakhstan: Economic consequences and policy implications. Central Asia Program Paper, p. 234. Retrieved 22 Feb 2023 from https://centralasiaprogram. org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CAP_Paper_No.234_by_Zhandos-Ybrayev.pdf Yegeubayeva, D. (2023). Dinara Yegeubayeva’s Instagram page. Instagram. Retrieved 23 April 2023, from https://www.instagram.com/dinara_yegeubayeva_official/

Interviews Aizada, Almaty, PhD candidate, activist. Interviewed by the authors on September 15, 2022. Anastassiya, Almaty/Pavlodar, expert in Public Policy. Interviewed by the authors on June 10, 2022, via Zoom. Andrey, Kyiv, political scientist, PhD doctorate. Interviewed by the authors on October 5, 2022. Aset, Petropavlovsk, journalist. Interviewed by the authors on September 22, 2022. Ruslan, Almaty, political scientist, lecturer. Interviewed by the authors on 20 September 20, 2022. Zhasulan, Astana, political scientist. Interviewed by the authors on June 18, 2022, via Zoom.

Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change

Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change as Traceable in the European Value Study Klaus G. Troitzsch

1 Introduction The empirical analysis of cultural change on the grounds of large numbers of people in different countries with complex questionnaires necessitates large international projects and ample funding. Only very few are available for secondary analysis— main sources are the World Value Survey (WVS) (World Values Survey Association, 2015; Haerpfer et al., 2021) and the European Value Study (EVS) (Luijkx et al., 2017; EVS, 2021; Halman et al., 2022), the latter being used here, as WVS includes most of the content of EVS, and European countries are in the focus of this book. This chapter tries to shed some light on the cultural changes which happened to European countries during the past three decades. The European Value Study which collected data of quite large samples of all European countries and some outside Europe in five waves between 1981 and 2020 is a good source to answer questions about these changes. The whole sample counts more than 200,000 interviewees but not all countries participated in all waves. The central research question of this chapter is whether cultural changes between the early 1980s and the first decades of the twenty-first century—with the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the following changes mainly in Eastern Middle Europe, but also in Germany, and the integration of former Warsaw Treaty countries in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty organisation—are visible in the answers to questions asked in the EVS, and what they are like, which values changed where and when and whether cleavages arose in some countries as an effect of the transformation which they underwent. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_7. K. G. Troitzsch (B) Institut für Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungsinformatik (Retired), Universität Koblenz, Koblenz, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_7

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Secondary research questions are easily derived from the title of this chapter: Does the EVS reflect the rise of populism and extremism? Part of the literature (Lazaridis et al., 2016; Lazaridis & Campani, 2020; Fabrykant, 2020) assigns these developments to some countries covered by the EVS: Donald Trump’s “America First” populism (Kauffman, 2016; Inglehart & Norris, 2017), Victor Orbán’s “Illiberal Democracy” (Lendvai, 2017; Nyyssönen & Metsälä, 2020; Orbán, 2014), the rise of right-wing parties as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) (Arzheimer & Berning, 2019), the Rassemblement National in France (Lebourg & Camus, 2015), the Lega (Passarelli & Tuorto, 2018; Brancaccio et al., 2021; Ammassari, 2023) and Fratelli d’Italia (Berberi, 2020; Dennison & Geddes, 2021; Vampa, 2023) in Italy, the Sweden Democrats (Ammassari, 2023) in Sweden and the Finns Party (Herkman, 2017) in Finland, to name a few, or movements like the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident (PEGIDA) in Germany (Stier et al., 2018), and it would be good to find traces of these developments in the individual data of EVS. Populism is a term which is still not unanimously defined and difficult to operationalise with EVS data (Canovan, 1982, 2004; Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Ernst et al., 2017; van Kessel, 2023). Earlier attempts at answering these questions can be found, among others in Voinea (2014), Casal Bértoa and Rama (2021), Lorenz et al. (2021), Gonthier and Guerra (2022), Gestefeld et al. (2022), Ammassari (2023).

2 The European Value Study The European Value Study is an effort to find out more about the attitudes and beliefs of the inhabitants of European countries (and, although not European, of the United States of America and of Canada) over five waves between 1981 and 2019.1 Halman et al. (2022) gives an overview of the main results of the five waves, but restricts itself to comparing means of a number of interesting attitudes between countries and waves. But it is questionable whether comparisons of means are sufficient or reasonable at all as most of these variables have extremely skewed and/or bior even multimodal distributions (see Fig. 3 which shows factor distributions instead of distributions of single items of the groups mentioned above). The deviation from a normal distribution is even more drastic for single items. This forbids the usual significance tests. On the other hand, both skewness and kurtosis can give hints at prevailing extremism: a flat curve with a long tail on only one side stands for an attitude distribution with a high proportion of respondents with extreme attitudes.

1

For a few countries, newer information was made available in World Values Survey Wave 7 (Haerpfer et al., 2022b, 2022a) after most of the calculations for this paper had been completed. These data are not included in the analyses of this chapter.

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2.1 Availability of Variables for Comparisons Between Countries and Waves Unfortunately, not all of the questions which could have been interesting for this chapter were asked in all countries and in all waves, such that only very few groups of questions can be analysed for all waves and most of the countries: only Western Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain (without Northern Ireland), Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden have complete data in just one of the groups of questions to be discussed here. The groups of questions or items analysed in this chapter can be summarised as follows: • a group of questions about attitudes with respect to government and private responsibility and towards income differences is available only for waves 2 through 5, but these are complete only for Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Great Britain (without Northern Ireland), Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania. These variables are available for all but 34 out of 161 country-wave combinations (see Sect. 4.1); • a group of questions referring to the role of immigrants on a ten-point scale (1: make it worse, 10: do not make it worse) and a question asked immediately after the latter about the possible enlargement of the European Union (1: should go further, 10: has gone too far)—these are available for just one-half of all country-wave combinations (81 out of 161, see Sect. 4.2); • questions about important qualities children should have. These are simple questions which can only be answered with either yes or no—they are available for all but two country-wave combinations (see Sect. 4.3); • a group of questions measuring what kinds of behaviour people believe to be justifiable is only available for the first four waves, and only Western Germany and Great Britain (without Northern Ireland again) are represented for these four waves. Anyway changes between waves can be analysed comparing waves 2 and 4 for a greater number of countries. These variables are available for all but 59 country-wave combinations (see Sect. 4.4); • a group of questions asked in which institutions respondents have confidence (1: a great deal, 4: none at all)—these are available for all but 35 country-wave combinations (see Sect. 4.5); • a group of questions describing the satisfaction with the political system (on a scale from 1: very satisfied/very good to 4 not at all satisfied/very bad); these are available for 33 countries in waves 3 and 4 (see Sect. 4.6); • a group of questions referring to what people think is characteristic for democracy (0: a quality which is against democracy, 1: not an essential characteristic, 10: an essential characteristic)—these are available only for wave 5 and 36 countries (see Sect. 4.7); • finally two “post-materialist indices”, one based on four items (1: materialist, 2: mixed, 3: post-materialist) for nearly all countries and waves, the other based on

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twelve items (0: materialist, 5: post-materialist), but for only 20 per cent of the whole study—see Inglehart and Abramson (1999). Most of all these variables can also be found in the World Value Survey, only the questions about the role of immigrants are only available in the EVS. An attempt at finding correlations between these groups cannot be very successful as for most combinations of item groups only a quarter to two-thirds of (weighted) respondents (if any) are available. The confidence and the democracy items have no respondents in common. The other four groups were used by the EVS team for less than a third, some pairs of item groups have up to two-thirds of all weighted respondents in nearly all countries in waves four and five in common. Some few interesting correlations will be discussed below in Sect. 4.8.

2.2 Availability of Variables for Detecting Cleavages Within Countries and Their Development Over Time In principle, cleavages within countries can be analysed (if there are any) for many country-wave combinations. But here arises a methodological problem, as the scale level of many variables is perhaps not sufficient for such an analysis (more in Sect. 3): The items referring to important qualities of children are only binary, i.e. respondents could only say whether they found a quality important or not. The other variables mentioned above are on an integer scale from 1 to 10 (or at least from 1 to 5) which are often sufficient to detect bi- or multimodal distributions of the type already discussed by Downs (1957, p. 119) (see also Troitzsch (2021b) where party sympathy scalometers were used). For detecting such cleavages it is not sufficient just to see whether the middle of a scale or the endpoints of a scale receive the largest number of answers, as more often than not respondents are tempted to take a middle position when they are not sure what answer reflects their opinion best or when they have no opinion with respect to the item in question (which is different from having a middle opinion) (Chyung et al., 2017). Sometimes extreme positions are also tempting for respondents who are opposed to an item but do not want to differentiate. Using a dimension reduction algorithm may overcome these problems, but not under all circumstances (see Sect. 3).

3 Methods The analysis follows these steps: first, each of the selected batteries of interview questions is treated with a factor analysis with varimax rotation (using SPSS 28). Scores are stored, and, for pairs of factors, used for a procedure to estimate its twodimensional frequency density function using an algorithm first developed in Cobb

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(1981), extended to more than one dimension by Troitzsch (1990, pp. 360–362), Herlitzius (1990) and reprogrammed for this paper. The underlying idea of Cobb’s approach is to find a function of the form . f (x, y; θ ) = exp(P(x, y; θ )) with . P(x, y; θ ) a polynomial up to order .2n in . x and i j . y with coefficients .θi j for terms . x y , i + j = 0 . . . 2n. This is the ansatz for two dimensions (the ansatz for one dimension is even simpler, and for higher dimensions the number of parameters to be estimated grows over-exponentially). For these analyses in this chapter .n = 4 such that the moments up to the sixth degree of the probability density function. f (x, y) are the best possible approximation to the moments of the empirical distribution. The approximation algorithm leads to a system of 26 linear equations which can usually be solved satisfactorily (except when the empirical distribution is nearly normal). The Gaussian normal distribution can, by the way, be written as the exponential function of a polynomial up to second order and can have only one maximum, whereas the distribution described in the above equation with .n = 4 can have up to four maxima and saddles between the maxima separating distinct clusters of cases and is just suitable for detecting cleavages in populations with respect to political and social issues. For more details see Cobb (1981), Troitzsch (1990), Herlitzius (1990), Troitzsch (2021b) and Sect. SM.1.1 in the Supplementary Material at DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_7. Surprisingly, it is only the two factors F11 and F12 from the government versus private responsibility and left-right attitudes group whose empirical distributions are nearly normal—at least over all countries and waves where the dimension reduction was possible (see Table SM.2.2 in Sect. SM.2). With (Downs, 1957) particularly here a bimodality could have been expected, at least in the wake of elections (Troitzsch, 1987, 2019, 2021b). The two factors extracted from the items about justifiability of behaviours show a special problem of this kind of scale building. The spikes in the two histograms in Fig. 4 at about .−1.30 and .−0.5, respectively, stem from those about seven per cent of the respondents who answered all or nearly all of these questions with “Never justifiable”. This is certainly not very surprising, but as all the behaviour traits mentioned in these items are rather undesirable, people were tempted to give their answers with no attempt to differentiate between these behaviour traits. This might have been different if the list of items had also contained some more desirable behaviour traits. Anyway, this outcome makes it difficult to approximate a continuous frequency distribution to these empirical distributions. Given the fact that the same problem does not occur with the variables referring to government or private responsibility and income distribution, the problem does not arise from the 10-point scale but from the selection of the items. For some of the item groups it turns out effective to find out how many respondents show extreme attitudes, i.e. more than two standard deviations from the mean. The size of these groups at each end of the axis should be about 2.5% when the attitude distribution is normal; if it is skewed and/or platykurtic higher percentages of such “extremists” can be expected. A complete table for all 17 factors (whose means and standard deviations on the level of all countries and waves are 0 and 1, respectively) showing the means and standard deviations per country and wave and the percentages

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of respondents below .μ − 2σ and above .μ + 2σ can be found in the supplementary material (see Tables SM.9.11 to SM.9.27 in Sect. SM.9). These tables list all countrywave combinations where at least 3.4125% of all respondents show attitudes outside the.μ − 2σ . . . μ + 2σ interval, i.e. at least one and a half times as many “extremists” as could have been expected under the normality assumption (where 2.275% are expected to be beyond each of these thresholds). And in addition to the diagrams to be found in the next section, they also show how far away from the total mean respondents’ attitudes in the listed countries and waves are from the total mean.

4 Results 4.1 Items Reflecting Attitudes with Respect to Government and Private Responsibility and Towards Income Differences As already mentioned in the Methods section, the distribution of the attitudes with respect to government and private responsibility and towards income differences are more or less normal (see Fig. 1). Moreover their correlation is zero, which is, of course, and artefact of the factor analytic method using an orthogonal transformation. The two factors F11 and F12 are easily distinguishable and interpretable, but the zero correlation is a little surprising at first sight. As the two-dimensional density plots in Table SM.2.1 in Sect. SM.2 show, this zero correlation cannot be found for all countries and waves. Instead, in some cases a positive and in other cases a negative correlation can be found. This points to the interpretation that for populations of countries with different backgrounds the meaning of the difference between government and private responsibility is connected to traditional left-right and income difference related attitudes in quite different forms, and it seems worthwhile to go into much more detail. As Fig. 1 shows, these two factors—uncorrelated by definition—are more or less symmetric and nearly normally distributed. But these two diagrams hide the fact that countrywise this is by no means the case. Table SM.2.1 in Sect. SM.2 gives an overview of some indicators of the shape of the distributions and the correlation of the two factors F12 and F12 for countries and waves to support the interpretation that can come out of the inspection of the density diagrams. With this table one has to keep in mind that for factor F11 positive averages mean a tendency to government responsibility and for factor F12 positive averages mean self-positioning on the right end of the political scale and a tendency to prefer larger income differences; a positive correlation has to be interpreted in a way that respondents in a country connect government responsibility with the preference of larger income differences. This correlation, calculated over all countries and waves is zero by definition, but countrywise one can find absolute correlations beyond

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Fig. 1 Comparison of one-dimensional density plots all factors F12 and F13 in Table 1 (left-right and government vs. private responsibility) for all countries and waves without missing data

0.4 in both directions which points to differences in the interpretation of the two dimensions. Table SM.2.1 in Sect. SM.2 shows for each country and for each wave and for both factors F11 and F12 • • • •

their respective mean, their skewness divided by its standard error, their kurtosis divided by its standard error and their correlation.

(in bold face when skewness and kurtosis point to significant—. p < 0.05—violation of the normality assumption, and when the absolute value of the Pearson correlation is .>0.250). For only a few country-wave combinations the distributions of both factors are approximately normal, as for the large majority the normality assumption is severely violated for at least one of the two factors. Positive values for skewness stand for distributions with a steep left tail and a long right tail (like in the two diagrams of Fig. 4, negative values stand for the opposite (such as in the first diagrams in Fig. 7). Positive values in the kurtosis column point to a leptokurtic distribution, negative values for a platykurtic one. The series of diagrams in Table SM.2.1 in Sect. SM.2 shows the empirical frequency density functions for all waves and all countries covered by the EVS over the two dimensions defined by factors F11 and F12 extracted from the variables listed in Table 1. Only those countries are considered where in at least three waves these questions were asked. Both Tables SM.2.1 and SM.2.2 in Sect. SM.2 show that the correlation between the factors F11 and F12 distinguishes the countries into three classes—even when this does not hold for all waves: • those with a negative correlation and a distribution that extends from left top to bottom right: Denmark, Czech Republic, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and, less clearly, Italy, Norway and the Netherlands,

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Table 1 Rotated component matrix of the items reflecting attitudes with respect to government and private responsibility and towards income differences Item F11 government F12 left-right versus private orientation and income responsibility differences E037

E036

E039 E038 E035

E033

The government 0.721 should take more responsibility Government 0.686 ownership of business should be increased Competition is 0.654 harmful Unemployed have a 0.617 right to refuse a job We need larger income differences as incentives Self-positioning in .−0.150 political scale: right Variance reduction per 30.400 cent (total 50.348)

.−0.156

.−0.137

0.118 0.811

0.693 19.948

• those with a positive correlation and a distribution that extends from to right to left bottom: Northern Ireland, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and Portugal • all others which show no or only a small correlation and extend from the centre in all directions likewise. Whereas the location of the mean of the distribution over all countries and waves is at the origin of the coordinate system by definition, the modes of the distributions for countries and waves are relocated in all directions. Again one can discriminate between classes as follows: • to the left (which here indeed means towards private responsibility): Sweden, Norway (except for wave four), Iceland (except for wave five), Finland (at least for waves two and four), Germany (West) (except for wave five) and Germany (East) (in wave two), Austria and the Czech Republic (for waves two and three), • to the right (which here means government should be taken responsible instead of private initiative): Russia and Ukraina, • towards the top (larger income differences can serve as incentives): Denmark (waves two and four), Finland (particularly in wave two), Iceland (particularly in waves two and three), Sweden and Ukraine, • towards the bottom (income differences should be low): Austria, the Czech Republic (in wave four), Iceland, Germany (West) for wave four and—less pronounced— five, Romania (in waves three and four), and finally Denmark and Norway—

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although in these cases this applies to the mean, not so much to the mode of the distribution, • in the middle of the horizontal axis: all the others. Although the parameters for skewness and kurtosis show large differences with respect to a normal distribution assumption, there are no signs in Table SM.2.2 in Sect. SM.2 that the distributions within the country-wave combinations could be bimodal or multimodal—a hint that at least in these two dimensions no signs of a polarisation could be found (a platykurtic distribution is not sufficient to diagnose polarisation). This is in line with recent findings in Germany (Mau, 2022) and with earlier findings in Troitzsch (2021b) where polarisation could usually be found in the wake of an election but not otherwise. Tables SM.9.11 and SM.9.12 in Sect. SM.9 reveal more details about the skewness of the distributions of factors F11 and F12 in different countries: • Extreme believers (beyond .μ + 2σ ) in government responsibility can be found mainly in countries where the mean attitude is in favour of private responsibility (Norway and the United States in wave 2 with a mean of .−0.410 and .−0.546, respectively and 3.8 and 4.9% respondents with extreme government responsibility attitudes) but also countries in Eastern Europe—such as Ukraine—where the mean attitude in wave 5 (0.658) is in favour of government responsibility and a high percentage (4.2) of extreme government responsibility proponents (and less than 2.5 extreme private responsibility supporters. Montenegro is a special case with positive means in waves 4 and 5 but a high percentage (5.5) of extreme government responsibility proponents in wave 4 but 5.3% of extreme private responsibility supporters in wave 5. This may be explained with the change in the situation of Montenegro: Only at the end of wave 4 (December 2008), Montenegro applied for EU membership, during wave 5, negotiations between the EU and Montenegro seemed to be promising, and Montenegro had already joined the NATO. • A large percentage of respondents who define themselves on the extreme right are found in countries where the mean attitude of all respondents tends to the left, whereas on the contrary in countries with high percentages of respondents on the extreme left the mean attitude tends to the right—which is particularly true for Malta in wave 2.

4.2 The Role of Immigrants and the Possible Enlargement of the European Union The second group of items to be discussed here reflects attitudes towards immigrants and the European Union as well as nationalist attitudes. The answers to the immigrant question were given on a ten-point scale (1: yes they are/do, 10: are not/do not, and for the EU question 1: should go further, 10: has gone too far), whereas the latter could

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Table 2 Rotated component matrix of the items reflecting attitudes with respect to immigrants and the European Union Item Immigrants are not/do F21 immigrants are F22 unimportant to be not … welcome born in this country G040 G041 G038 G043 G051

G033 G036 G035 G034

… increase crime 0.835 problems … a strain on welfare 0.835 system … take away jobs 0.791 from … take over local .−0.168 customs European Union .−0.353 enlargement gone too far Not important to … … to have been born 0.278 in this country … to be able to speak local language … have ancestry in 0.277 this country … to respect local institutions and laws Variance reduction per 25.955 cent (total 46.708)

0.113

0.711 0.707 0.700 0.584 20.753

be given on a four-point scale (1: Very important, 4: Not important at all). The overall distribution of factors F21 and F22 is shown in Fig. 2. Given the possible answers, high factor values in factor F21 come from respondents who welcome immigrants, and are open to a further EU enlargement, whereas high factor values in factor F22 come from respondents who find the respective items not important at all. Figure 2 shows the distribution of factors F21 and F22 over all countries and waves defined in Table 2.

Fig. 2 Comparison of one-dimensional density plots the two factors F21 and F22 in Table 2 (immigrants are welcome and unimportant to be born in this country) over all countries and waves

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Both distributions have a long right tail and a short left tail, and factor F22 has a second maximum at about .−1.5 representing respondents who believed that it was important to have ancestry in their country, to be born there and to be able to speak the local language—people who are called “Biodeutsche” (biological Germans) by right-wing groups in Germany. Over all countries, the difference between the density functions (first line in Table SM.3.3 in Sect. SM.3) is hardly visible, but for several countries the differences are rather large. Most of these countries show unimodal distributions in waves four and five for factor F21, but for some countries a change is visible between the wave before the 2015 immigration crisis and after. Usually there is a shift to the left—immigrants are less welcome—between these two waves. But there are exceptions, the graphs for Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Norway show that the mode of the distribution was shifted to the right. Some countries show multimodal distributions: this is true for Georgia with a second mode in wave 5 signalising a small but distinct subpopulation welcoming immigrants; North Makedonia, too, seems to consist of two subpopulations with a clear divide particularly in wave five; Sweden showed a bimodality with the immigrant-friendly part larger than the subpopulation welcoming immigrants less in wave four, but this cleavage vanished after the immigration wave of 2015. In most countries, the distribution has a long right tail which means that positive feelings towards immigrants are stronger than negative ones. In most countries (see Table SM.9.13 in Sect. SM.9), the positive attitude towards immigrants is more pronounced than negative attitudes: where respondents’ distance from the overall mean is beyond two standard deviations, it is always to the positive side whereas the mean is very often on the negative side—with Malta, Hungary and the eastern part of Germany showing the highest negative means. The distributions of factor F22 describing how (un)important it is to be a native (or at least, to behave like a native) usually show shifts towards the left (i.e. towards the feeling to find this quality more important). Bulgaria shows a cleavage in wave four with the greater subpopulation on the left, feeling this quality important. A number of countries lose the feeling that being native or native-like is important to some degree, this is true for both parts of Germany, Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, countries in North-Western Europe. For this factor, too, large deviations from the overall mean are frequent to the “unimportant” side, i.e. multiculturality is more explicit than nationalism: Table SM.9.14 in Sect. SM.9 shows these deviations, and Table SM.3.3 in Sect. SM.3 in its columns three and four shows density functions with maxima and steep slopes left and mostly long and flat slopes to the right.

4.3 What Children Should Learn The factor analysis of the battery of interview questions about what children should learn yields four factors. After a rotation using the varimax criterion, the rotated component matrix (with absolute loadings above 0.1) can be found in Table 3.

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For each of these factors, one-dimensional distributions are shown in Fig. 3 which shows that these four factors are very far from normally distributed. Each first row (in blue, black and white) shows histograms of the factor scores (rounded to the next multiple of 0.1), each second row shows the Cobb approximates to the fourth-order exponential distribution. Together with the information about the percentages of all respondents who consider the qualities to be important, the diagrams show • Responsibility is rated very high by a large number of respondents but not very strongly as the maximum density is at about .μ + 1.01σ and means mostly on the positive side of the axis, with a very steep slope beyond this maximum, but without these, there is still a high number of respondents for whom obedience and religious faith is also—and in some countries extremely—important. A long list of countries (in Table SM.9.15 in Sect. SM.9) shows extreme proponents of obedience. • Along the scale between unselfishness (which includes the tendency to give away) and thrift and saving (which includes a tendency not spend so much for others) there are three to five clusters in the histogram, but this might be the consequence of the fact that respondents could not say how important a quality was but had to decide between important and unimportant. Anyway, the approximated density function is very symmetric with a high maximum about the mean—respondents who were undecided between unselfishness and thrift—and long tails to both sides, with more than five per cent beyond .μ − 2σ and .μ + 2σ , respectively (see Table SM.9.16 in Sect. SM.9). The strong believers in thrift, hard work and saving

Table 3 Rotated component matrix of the important child quality items Item

Important child quality

Per cent yes

A032

Feeling of responsibility

69

0.615

.−0.122

A042

Obedience

30

.−0.612

.−0.166

A040

Religious faith 24

.−0.477

A030

Hard work

49

.−0.662

A038

Thrift, saving money and things

35

.−0.600

A041

Unselfishness

25

A027

Good manners 71

A039

Determination perseverance

34

0.228

A035

Tolerance and respect

68

0.258

A034

Imagination

20

A029

Independence

42

Variance reduction in per cent (total 45.833)

F31 responsibility versus obedience

.−0.361

F32 unselfishness versus thrift saving

F33 perseverance versus good manners

F34 respect versus independence 0.226

.−0.149

0.433

0.163

0.334

0.201

.−0.738

0.619 0.370 0.362

0.453

0.252

13.126

12.062

0.674 0.138

.−0.555 .−0.492

10.532

10.112

Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change as Traceable … obedience

F31 responsibility

perseverance F33 good manners

137

thrift saving F32 unselfishness

independence F34

respect

Fig. 3 Comparison of histograms and one-dimensional density plots (up to degree 4) of factors F31 through F34 in Table 3 (desirable child qualities) for all countries and waves without missing data

money typically come from Eastern Europe (negative means and few but strong extremist on the positive—the unselfishness side—with now clear tendency of a change in their share) whereas strong believers in unselfishness and tolerance (positive means) come from North West Europe (Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland and Sweden with Denmark showing an increase in the share of extreme proponents of tolerance), and it is in these countries where a number of extreme proponents of hard work and thrift can be found. All countries show extremely skewed distributions—those in Eastern Europe with a long tail towards unselfishness and a high mean and modal preference for hard work, whereas in Western Europe the tendence is just the other way round. • Good manners are important for a very large group—71%—of respondents but determination and perseverance are also or even more important. Here, too, a bimodal distribution is seen whose left maximum, the “perseverance” maximum is higher than the “good manners” maximum, but on the good-manners side there are

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strong proponents whereas on the perseverance side the proponents seem to be less convinced (and convincing): there are nowhere any perseverance proponents with more than .μ − 1.5σ from the mean whereas the good-manners proponents often extend beyond the.μ + 2σ threshold (see also Table SM.9.17 in Sect. SM.9). There does not seem to be a pattern, except that mean and mode lie on the perseverance side whereas the long tail extends to the good-manners side. • Finally, respect is much more important than independence for a large group of respondents. Another large group rates both as equally important, and there is a smaller group of respondents—shown in the lower of the two density maxima— who think that imagination and independence are more important than respect and tolerance. While the proponents of respect are rather temperate (nobody beyond the .μ + 1.5σ threshold), the proponents of independence and imagination have a much stronger belief in the importance of these more modern virtues—with an extra density maximum in the histogram at .μ − 2.5σ threshold and a long list of countries (see Table SM.9.15 in Sect. SM.9) where these strong believers in independence (beyond .μ − 2σ ) have a share of up to more than five percent and some even with more than 6.5%. Two-dimensional density plots for every country-wave combination can be found in Tables SM.8.9 and SM.8.10 in Sect. SM.8. Although they mostly confirm what was already extractable from Tables SM.9.15 to SM.9.18 in Sect. SM.9, the problem with these tables is perhaps that the Cobb algorithm exaggerates cleavages when the factors were extracted from binary variables as this extraction leads to apparently multimodal density functions because the scale is not really continuous. This can already be seen in the one-dimensional histograms in Fig. 3 most of which show three to five maxima which seem to be artefacts of the poor scale levels of the underlying items.

4.4 Variables Measuring What Behaviour People Believe to Be Justifiable Fourteen items were available describing which kinds of behaviour respondents found justifiable, but only (with one exception) for four waves, and only in a few countries these questions were asked in at least three waves (see Table SM.4.4 where the two-dimensional frequency density functions for the results of a factor analysis are presented). The two factors in Table 4 that could be derived from these fourteen items are very clearly described as one concerning behaviour in the context of marriage and sexuality and one concerning fraudulent behaviour. Only the last two items do not clearly belong to one factor—for adultery this is easily explained as this item has to do with marriage and describes a special kind of cheating (the fact that drugs also fall between the two factors is less easily explained). Answers could be given on a ten-point scale (1: never justifiable, 10: always justifiable). Over all waves and

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countries 31 behaviours could be evaluated by respondents, but only the 14 items listed in Table 4 in Sect. 4.4 were used beyond wave three. As could be expected, the distributions of factors F41 and F42 are extremely skewed (see Fig. 4, with one extremely high peak near the negative end of the distribution representing those respondents who condemn all behaviour in both groups. Their factor scores are about .−1.30 and .−0.50, and their answers to all questions are “never justifiable”, an effect which seems to have been due to the laziness of respondents who did not want to discriminate between all these behaviours which in their mind seemed equally condemnable. The skewness of the distributions of factors F41 and F42 shows that most respondents found the mentioned behaviours hardly justifiable but that there were sufficiently many respondents who found at least some or all of these behaviours always or in many cases justifiable. Whereas the majority consisted of more or less unanimous rejecters, advocates of these behaviours seem to have held more nuanced opinions. The diagrams in Table SM.4.4 in Sect. SM.4 show the two-dimensional empirical frequency density functions for all waves and all countries covered by the EVS in at least three waves.

Table 4 Rotated component matrix of the items reflecting what kind of behaviour people believe to be justifiable Item Justifiable F41 divorce, abortion, F42 cheating, lying etc. and corruption F121 F120 F118 F119 F122 F123 F116 F117 F114 F115 F125 F127 F128 F126

Divorce 0.782 Abortion 0.781 Homosexuality 0.757 Prostitution 0.673 Euthanasia 0.652 Suicide 0.638 Cheating on taxes 0.126 Someone accepting a 0.112 bribe Claiming government benefits Avoiding a fare on 0.162 public transport Joyriding Lying 0.315 Adultery 0.468 Taking soft drugs 0.412 Variance reduction per 25.903 cent (total 48.867)

0.265 0.109 0.196 0.710 0.683 0.681 0.681 0.628 0.613 0.472 0.430 22.964

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Fig. 4 Comparison of one-dimensional density plots factors F41 and F42 in Table 4 (what kind of behaviour people believe to be justifiable) for all countries and waves without missing data

Most diagrams show the concentration of nearly all respondents around the point of maximum density near .(−1.0, −0.5), i.e. there is a moderate rejection of most mentioned behaviours, but also in all countries there are minorities who advocate at least some of these behaviours, Sweden in wave one being the best example. The region on top of these diagrams (beyond .+1.5 and extending until .+7.0) is the region where at least some respondents can be found, and if there are additional clusters visible (as in Austria, West Germany and many others), often near .(2.0, 3.0) they represent advocates of sexual liberty and of peccadilloes and white-collar crime. A separate evaluation of the original items for those respondents whose factor values were between 2 and 3 (divorce, etc.) and between 2 and 4 (cheating, etc.) showed that the average of points given in favour of divorce was 9.34, of homosexuality 8.54, cheating on taxes 7.27, but some other behaviours which were not mentioned in all countries considered in the factor analysis showed that these respondents criticised throwing away litter (3.27), driving under alcohol (3.37) or threatening workers who refuse to join a strike (2.88)—it would have been good to ask these questions in more countries as then a wider choice of behaviours could then be evaluated for a larger number of countries and waves. But these three items were only used in two waves each. The list of countries with high percentages (beyond .μ + 2σ ) of respondents who find both types (or at least one of them) justifiable is longer than with any other factors (see Tables SM.9.19 and SM.9.20 in Sect. SM.9), and these percentages are sometimes as high as six (Sweden for the sexual liberty factor F41, Hungary for the corruption factor F42: 10.5% in wave 2 and 5.7% in wave 4). The high-density region in this attitude space is quite narrow along the cheating axis and quite wide along the divorce axis. In most countries the location of the highdensity region remains more or less constant, but there are exceptions where the highdensity region moves from the bottom-left quadrant into the bottom-right quadrant— this is true for Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the protestant countries in Northern Europe. Hence in these countries divorce, euthanasia and other behaviours strictly forbidden by religion became more and more tolerable.

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4.5 Questions Asking Respondents in Which Institutions They Have Confidence The questions asking respondents in which institutions they have confidence led to four possible answers on a scale from 1: a great deal to 4: none at all. Principal component analysis leads to one factor F51 with slightly more than a third of the total variance and a second factor F52 whose contribution to the total variance is slightly above 1.0; other factors’ contributions to the total variance decline the same way as would uncorrelated random variables, this is why they are not considered here. The first factor F51 is rather a non-confidence factor as it is positively correlated with the items, such that high values mean the absence of confidence in the institutions in question. Nearly all items contribute to this factor, except the items characterising church and armed forces—this extra factor is a little surprising but shows that the confidence in the two most hierarchical institutions is more highly correlated between them than with all the other institutions. As Fig. 5 shows, both factors F51 and F52 are more or less symmetrical, the deviation from a normal distribution is only significant because of the number of respondents which is slightly below 150,000. By definition, the two factors are uncorrelated, but this does not apply to all countries and all waves, although most correlations for individual country-wave combinations are very low; a few cases have negative correlations between .−0.100 and .−0.209, mostly in the second wave (Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Slovenia, Eastern Germany) some in the fourth wave (France, Spain and Denmark) and one in the fifth wave (again Norway). Positive correlations are more frequent and even higher: Belarus in waves three to five, others seem to be outliers: Western Germany with 0.269 in wave four, Spain with 0.194 in wave five (after .−0.100 in wave four), Slovakia with 0.239 in wave five (after .−0.01 in wave four). Hungary shows two higher correlations: with 0.159 in wave five after 0.082 in wave 4, such that this could be a systematic change. The diagrams in Table SM.5.5 in Sect. SM.5 show the two-dimensional empirical frequency density functions for all waves and all countries covered by the EVS in at least three waves. The countries are not sorted alphabetically but in a manner which allows the identification of similar diagrams, and can roughly discriminate between four groups with similar density functions within and dissimilar density functions between. • A number of countries in Western and Northern Europa lead the list with the concentration of their densities slightly left of the vertical axis and slightly top of the horizontal axis, which means that their respondents’ confidence in Parliament, civil services and the justice system is higher than on the mean of all countries and that their confidence in hierarchical organisations—here only represented by church and army—is less than the European mean. Most of these countries do not show up in Table SM.9.21 in Sect. SM.9, i.e. respondents outside the .2σ area of the distribution are not more frequent than should be statistically expected.

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Fig. 5 Comparison of one-dimensional density plots factors F51 and F52 in Table 5 (general lack of confidence and lack of confidence in church and army; note that at the right end those respondents are represented who answered “not at all”) Table 5 Component matrix of the items reflecting in which institutions respondents have or have not confidence No confidence in … F51 general F52 church and army Item E069_07 E069_08 E069_09 E069_17 E069_05 E069_04 E069_06 E069_13 E069_03 E069_02 E069_01

Parliament 0.714 Civil services 0.700 Social security system 0.658 Justice system, courts 0.647 Labour unions 0.635 Press 0.589 Police 0.559 Major companies 0.533 Education system 0.456 Armed forces 0.146 Churches Variance reduction per 31.207 cent (total: 46.717)

0.173 0.243 0.164 0.229

0.380 0.196 0.414 0.795 0.740 15.510

• A second group is similar to the first with respect to confidence in Parliament, etc., but shows a large variance with respect to confidence in church; this is true for France, Spain and—less pronouncedly—Italy. In Table SM.9.22 in Sect. SM.9, Turkiye, Turkish Cyprus, North Makedonia and the Ukraine show high means of confidence in those hierarchical structures (the means are negative) but at the same time high percentages of respondents who position themselves at the extreme right end of the scale, i.e. those with extremely low confidence in these institutions. • A third group is somewhat more heterogeneous. Great Britain shows a very stable density function in the middle of the coordinate system with correlations between .−0.018 and 0.022, i.e. British respondents had the same distribution as the respondents in all countries, for each of these four waves. Finland, Lithuania and Portugal show some movement around this centre but still with small variance in both directions. Slovenia and Slovakia show similar movements but with a wider variance in both directions. In Belarus the confidence factors are slightly correlated, i.e. confidence in both is average at best, but it is the same respondents that confide in both kinds of institutions—or do not confide. Something similar can be seen in Hungary

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whose respondents in wave two assemble nicely in the middle of the coordinate system whereas their counterparts in the two last waves are much less confident in both types of institutions (something similar can be observed for Croatia, but less pronouncedly). • The group at the end of the list of diagrams is composed of Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine: in these countries, respondents showed little confidence in Parliament and much more confidence in church and army. The change in Russia is particularly surprising as that the mass of the density moved from right to left between the third and fifth waves, (the mode moved from .(0.727, −0.236) via .(0.109, −0.634) to .(−0.326, −0.860)—an observation that calls for a deeper analysis, going back to the individual items used for the factor analysis (see Sect. SM.5.2). Some more countries where EVS was carried out less than three times show a large number of respondents with an extremely low confidence in civic institutions (here beyond .μ + 2σ ): these are mostly countries from South East Europe and the former Soviet Union (with the surprising exception of Kosovo and Belarus in wave four which have a high proportion of extremely confident respondents)—and some of these also have a high proportion of respondents confident in the army and religious institutions, Turkiye being a prominent example. The high correlation between confidence in army and in religious institution is not ubiquitous—the highest correlations between the two items can be found in Spain (0.611 in wave one and 0.431 in wave five), but also in most South East European countries, France and Italy; correlations above 0.42 can only be observed in catholic, orthodox and Muslim states. In half of the country-wave combinations the correlation is below 0.318, whereas the Baltic states in wave two even show negative correlations between .−0.012 and .−0.248.

4.6 Satisfaction with the Political System In waves 3 and 4, respondents were asked to describe their satisfaction with democracy in general and some of its characteristics. Answers describing low satisfaction were coded with higher numbers such that a careful interpretation of the factors defined by these nine items is necessary: Respondents with high values on factor F61 are those who found that democracies can come to decisions without skirmish, run their economic systems well and are able to keep order; those respondents with high values on factor F62 are opposed to democratic systems at all—its three items could describe another aspect of populism; those with high values on factor F63 do not want to have strong leaders, to be ruled by the army or experts—perhaps these are respondents with some sceptical stance towards elites, such that these three items are the only EVS items describing an aspect of populism. Table SM.6.6 shows the distributions of F61 effective democracy for a number of countries where these have extreme shapes. French respondents in both waves 3 and 4 seem to have negative experiences with the efficiency of democracy: The

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Table 6 Rotated component matrix of the items describing satisfaction with the political system Item F61 effective F62 defective F63 anti-elitist democracy democracy E121

E120

E122

E123

E117

E110

E114 E115 E116

Strongly disagree with Democracies are 0.850 indecisive and have too much squabbling In democracies 0.800 the economic system runs badly Democracies 0.753 aren’t good at maintaining order Strongly disagree .−0.115 with Democracy may have problems but is better Very bad: Having .−0.143 a democratic political system Not at all satisfied .−0.191 with the way democracy develops Very bad Having a strong 0.148 leader Having experts 0.108 make decisions Having the army 0.114 rule Variance 22.734 reduction per cent (total 60.551)

.−0.182

0.136

.−0.262

0.191

0.797

.−0.190

0.779

.−0.212

0.520

0.105

.−0.197

0.737

0.173

0.717

.−0.284

0.648

19.671

18.147

Fig. 6 One-dimensional density plots factors F61 through F63 in Table 6 (satisfaction with the effectivity of democracy, the belief that democracy is defective and an anti-elitist preference with people’s rule)

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mode and mean of their attitudes lie to the left of the overall mean, and there is a long left tail. Something similar can be said about Romania. Table SM.9.23 in Sect. SM.9 corroborates this impression with the mean far on the negative side and a high number of extremely negative evaluations of democracy. Germany—at least in the western part—and Denmark show bimodal distributions in both waves with both modi to the right of the scale anchored according to the overall distribution; both tails are short, but Table SM.9.23 in Sect. SM.9 shows for both of these countries a considerable number of respondents with attitudes beyond each country’s .μ + 2σ threshold. The eastern part of Germany and Sweden have their modes and means also in the right half of the scale, but here the right tail is longer—which means most respondents have moderate experience with the efficiency of democracy but some are enthusiastic. Greece and Slovenia are similar to Eastern Germany and Sweden, but with long left tails—i.e. here the typical respondent has moderate experience with their democracy but some are rather disappointed. Tables SM.6.7 in Sect. SM.6 and SM.9.24 in Sect. SM.9 give an overview of the distribution of the factors F62 and F63 extracted from the items of this group. A number of countries all over Europe show more than three, often up to five percent of respondents in the far right tail of the distribution (more than two standard deviations above the overall mean and up to twice as many than could have been expected under a normal distribution) describing the dissatisfaction with the way democracy develops. But in many of these countries the mean is on the left side of the scale, most of these in the western part of Europe—which again means respondents in Western Europe moderately agree with the sentence that democracy may have problems but is better and are more or less satisfied with the way democracy develops—in spite of a minority that is more pessimistic—whereas in Eastern Europe more moderate and also extreme skepticism can be observed. Table SM.9.25 in Sect. SM.9 shows a number of countries with high percentages of anti-elitist respondents in a setting that—according to the local mean—has little objections against strong rulers, army and expert rule: Bosnia and Hercegovina as well as Turkiye are a typical cases with the mode left of the highly negative mean and a distribution extending from .−3 to .+2 and four per cent extreme respondents more than two standard deviations above the Turkish mean. Sweden shows a skewed distribution with a great majority abhorring strong leaders and a minority of those who explicitly want to have strong leaders—perhaps voters of the Sweden Democrats (Rydgren & van der Meiden, 2018). Denmark, Finland and France with strong rightwing parties in their parliaments show similarly skewed distributions, and Greece even shows bimodality in the 2008–2010 wave carried out from March to June 1999 at the outset of the economic crisis (Grigoriadis, 2020).

4.7 Democracy at the End of the 2010s Questions about what is characteristic for democracy were only asked in the fifth wave, and only in 36 countries. The factor analysis of the nine items yields two

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Table 7 Rotated component matrix of the items describing characteristics of democracy Item F71 liberal democracy F72 obedience to rulers E226

E229 E233 E227 E224

E225 E228 E233B E233A

People choose their 0.747 leaders in free elections Civil rights protect 0.738 people’s liberty Women have the same 0.707 rights as men People receive state 0.682 aid for unemployment Government tax the 0.533 rich and subsidise the poor Religious authorities .−0.238 interpret the laws Army takes over when .−0.150 govt. is incompetent People obey their 0.123 rulers State makes people’s 0.442 income equal Variance reduction per 29.338 cent (total 50.103)

.−0.218

.−0.187

0.166 0.335

0.676 0.670 0.666 0.538 20.765

factors which can be described as liberal democracy (F71) and obedience to rulers (F72) (Orbán, 2014), see Table 7. The items were scaled in a 11-point scale (0: it is against democracy, 1: not an essential characteristic, 10: an essential characteristic). The distributions of factors F71 and F72 are shown in Fig. 7. The liberal democracy factor F71 has a very long left tail, extending to .−4.0 and a very steep right tail, its median is 0.15, its modus is at about 0.70, and its skewness is.−1.009 (and divided by its standard error 89.134!), hence the distribution is extremely skewed and leptokurtic, whereas the obedience to rulers factor F72 has a slightly positive skewness (divided by its standard error about 15, also high enough!), but its distribution is nearly symmetric (the right tail is somewhat longer than the left) and a little platykurtic (.−0.392). This means that across all countries participating in the fifth wave there is a small but strong group of people who think that free elections and civil rights as well as gender equality are not at all characteristics of democracy. The items used in EVS unfortunately leave open what these people describe as characteristic of democracy—anyway it is not the interpretation of rules by religious authorities or the army, as otherwise the correlation of these items with the first items in the list in Table 7 should be negative. The two factors are by definition uncorrelated, and the correlations between the items of the two groups are also low (for instance, the

Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change as Traceable …

147

Fig. 7 Comparison of one-dimensional density plots factors F71 and F72 in Table 7 (liberal democracy and obedience to rulers)

correlation between the “free elections” item and the “obey their rulers” is .−0.24 where a much stronger negative correlation could have been expected). Hence it seems helpful to look at the distributions in the individual countries. The diagrams in Table SM.7.8 in Sect. SM.7 show the two-dimensional empirical frequency density functions for all countries covered by wave five over the two dimensions defined by factors F71 and F72. The horizontal axis represents the factor called “liberal”, where the left end represents respondents believing that democracy has little to do with free elections and civil rights, while the right end represents those for whom free elections and civil rights are democracy’s central characteristics. The vertical axis assembles at its top people for whom democracy means to obey their rulers and that religious authorities interpret the rules. For most countries the distribution is centred in the lower right quadrant and does not extend into the neighbouring quadrants. There are a few interesting exceptions to this rule, mostly to be found at the end of Table SM.7.8 in Sect. SM.7. In all countries, the contour plot of the surface of the density function shows a steep slope towards the right, often to the right bottom, which means that respondents in these countries have a clear opinion that free elections and civil rights are characteristics of democracy and that—at least in many of these countries—religious authorities and the army should not interfere with democratic procedures. On the opposite side of the density function, towards the right and the upper right, the slope is long and low, which means that in all countries there are still a high number for whom free elections, civil rights and gender equality play a minor role in democracy. The more extreme the members of this group of respondents are the rarer they are. One can assume that it is these respondents who are open to populist opinions and would—as they explicitly concede—follow their rulers and accept the interpretation of democratic rules given by non-elected institutions, religious or military. In many countries—at least those represented in the first half of Table SM.7.8 in Sect. SM.7 such as Germany, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland— the density is concentrated in the lower right end of the diagrams, with a very low slope to the opposite end, but in countries such as Serbia, Aserbajdjan, Belarus, Montenegro and Georgia and Russia—countries that belonged to the Soviet Union or to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—the density plot extends far into the left and upper left part of the diagrams which means that they are strongholds of respondents which are willing to obey their leaders and do not believe in the rules of a democracy characterised by free elections and civil rights. This is in line with the

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observation in Table SM.9.27 in Sect. SM.9 which shows that only few countries have extreme outliers proposing obedience to rulers, and in just these countries the mean attitude of all respondents is against rulers: Austria, Sweden and the western part of Germany show extreme negative means (abhorring rulers), but about four percent show extreme attitudes (as defined here beyond .μ + 2σ . The case with factor F71 combining attitudes that exemplify democracy with elections and civil rights shows a number of countries where a minority of extreme respondents find elections and civil rights less important, among them Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Finland and Sweden. Most of these countries (except France where the survey was in the field in the run-up of the “yellow vest movement” (Devellennes, 2021) have the mean of this factor on the positive side—again the typical picture with a moderate majority and an extreme minority manifesting itself in a skewed density (see Table SM.9.26 in Sect. SM.9). Countries in the middle of Table SM.7.8 in Sect. SM.7 such as Slovenia, Poland, Hungary and Croatia—at the time of wave five already members of the European Union—show density functions which are somewhat flatter than those of the first group but still more concentrated than those in the third group. This leads to a generalisation of a finding in Akaliyski et al. (2020, p. 569) that the EU population “evolves into a distinct value-sharing community at different speeds”, showing that this evolution is even slower in candidate countries and those which are very unlikely to ever join the EU.

4.8 Correlations Between Factors Finally, a quick look at the correlations between the post-materialism scales and the 17 factors extracted from the item groups seems interesting. Table 8 gives an overview not only of the correlations between these scales but also of the (weighted) numbers of respondents that could be used for calculating these correlations. As these numbers vary between 36,435 and 239,041 the correlations should be taken cum grano salis, but some seem interesting enough to be mentioned. As already mentioned in Sect. 2.1 the correlation between the two variants of the post-materialism index is quite high (0.735—which means that they share slightly more than one half of their variance). Both show absolute correlations around 0.2 (with a maximum of 0.269—shared variance is slightly above seven per cent) with several of the 17 factors extracted from the item groups showing that post-materialists find divorce and homosexuality justifiable, find people’s rule a main characteristic of democracy, are rather left-wing and hold government more responsible than private initiative, find unselfishness more important than hard work and thrift and reject illiberal tendencies in democratic societies. Although all these correlations are quite low—partly because of the low level of the post-materialism scale—they do by no means come as a surprise. Correlations among the 17 factors vary between.−0.217 and.+0.343. Remarkable correlations are between the importance of responsibility (as opposed to obedience) and the justifiability of divorce and homosexuality (0.274) and between the latter

F52

F51

F42

F41

F34

F33

F32

F31

F22

F21

F12

F11

PM04

PM12

1.0

0.177

0.231

45,236

r

N

0.039

45,236

r

N

0.043

43,814

0.269

43,814

r

N

r

50,661

N

.−0.052

.−0.053

r

N

1.0

0.037

0.036

0.186

169,296

130,590

0.058

130,590

.−0.036

0.114

90.686

139,304

.−0.023

0.014

0.053 82,081

.−0.180

130,590

82,081

.−0.159

41,145

.−0.044

41,145

0.149

90,568

130,590

0.042

90.686

0.004

90.686

.−0.092

.−0.012

0.026

148,155

90,568

0.073

148,155

.−0.008

0.175 90,568

148,155

0.010

148,155

0.045 90,568

148,155

.−0.081

.−0.064

148,155

148,155

.−0.045

148,155

.−0.007

0.0 96,742

.−0.103

1.0 96,742

75,944

.−0.052

75,944

90.686

169,296

1.0

154,228

75,944

0.048

75,944

0.089

154,228

0.0

154,228

139,304

0.246

239,041

239,041

0.166

50,661

r

0.060

239,041

0.277

239,041

0.128

93,975

0.145

93,975

N

0.235

50,661

r

N

0.155

50,661

r

N

…

0

r

N

…

0

r

39,406

N

.−0.051

.−0.179

r

N

147,003

147,003

0.174

39,406

.−0.051

248,127

r

0.735

50,723

r

N

N

1.0

50,723

r

N

Table 8 Correlations between all factors

1.0

82,081

0.231

82,081

0.055

41,145

0.068

41,145

0.174

90,568

.−0.049

90,568

0.042

90,568

0.114

90,568

0.059

96,742 1.0

171,722

0.216

171,722

.−0.015

156,620

0.022

156,620

0.280

271,646

0.0

271,646

0.0

271,646

0.0

271,646 1.0

171,722

0.113

171,722

.−0.068

156,620

.−0.056

156,620

0.226

271,646

0.0

271,646

0.0

271,646 1.0

171,722

0.092

171,722

0.047

156,620

0.073

156,620

0.128

271,646

0.0

271,646 1.0

171,722

.−0.109

171,722

0.006

156,620

.−0.101

156,620

.−0.065

271,646 1.0

106,287

0.329

106,287

.−0.014

163,493

0.0

163,493 1.0

106,287

0.105

106,287

0.063

163,493 1.0

178,394

0.0

178,394 1.0 178,394

(continued)

Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change as Traceable … 149

F72

F71

F63

F62

F61

… 0

… 0

0.005 47,559

.−0.008 47,559

.−0.181 47,559

.−0.217 47,559

.−0.134 41,476

.−0.138 41,476

0.017

36,435

0.214

36,435

46,986

…

.−0.278

PM04 post-materialist index 4-item

0

F11 govt. versus priv. responsibility

PM12 post-materialist index 12-item

r

F12 pol. orientation right versus left

N

36,435

1.0 48,415

40,392

40,392

0.0

.−0.239

.−0.015

F51 general lack of confidence

48,415

… 0

0.048

F52 lack of confidence in army and church

… 0

… 0

… 0

F61 democracy is effective

40,392

1.0 0

F62 democracy is defective

48,415

F63 anti-elitist

40,392

…

F71 elections and civil rights

0

F72 obedience to rulers and church

.−0.064

…

47,559

41,476

.−0.087 … 0

… 0

0.015 47,559

.−0.002

0.064 47,559

0.143 47,559

.−0.011

0.109 41,476

F21 immigrants welcome

…

F22 born in country unimportant

0

F31 responsibility versus obedience

r

F32 unselfishness versus thrift saving

N

F33 perseverance versus good manners

0.060

54,053

54,053

F34 tolerance versus independence

36,435

54,879

0.224 54,879

0.004 75,759

0.062 75,759

0.177 75,759

0.140 75,759

0.091 38,575

0.106 38,575

.−0.082

.−0.044

0.156

75,806

0.241

547

r

N

F41 divorce, etc. justifiable

0.083

0.0 80,598

0.0 80,598

0.182 61,512

0.091 61,512

.−0.133

54,879

75,759

75,759

38,575

54,053

75,806

F42 cheating, etc. justifiable

46,986

1.0 80,598

1.0 80,598

0.0 80,598

0.039 61,512

0.244 61,512

0.128 54,879

.−0.176

0.006 75,759

0.035 75,759

.−0.189

.−0.106

0.047 38,575

.−0.142

.−0.003

0.173

54,053

.−0.141

0.0

547

61,512

54,879

75,759

54,053

54,053

r

1.0 80,598

0.050 61,512

.−0.112

.−0.025

0.098 54,879

.−0.082

0.027 75,759

0.126 75,759

0.115 75,759

0.052 38,575

0.102 38,575

.−0.007

.−0.076

0.101

75,806

N

0.127

547

r

N

Table 8 (continued)

150 K. G. Troitzsch

Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change as Traceable …

151

and the unimportance of being born in the country (F41/F22: 0.255). F62 (people’s rule) and F41 (divorce, etc. justifiable) have .r = 0.242, for F71 (liberal democracy) and F32 (born in country unimportant) the correlation is—as could be expected from Orbán (2014)—negative .(r = −0.193). The correlation between F71 and F41 and F42 are also negative (.−0.217 and .−0.170), i.e. respondents who think that people should obey their rulers attach importance to obedience and not so much to tolerance. The highest correlation between factors (0.343) is the one between F52 (lack of confidence in church and army) and F41 (divorce, etc. justifiable). Although the mentioned correlations between factors are rather low, they confirm the interpretation of the factors extracted from the item groups. If one calculates these correlations separately for countries and waves, higher correlations show up, between .−0.428 and 0.540. .−0.428 is the correlation between F11 (government should be held responsible) and the post-materialism scale PM04 in Finland’s wave 4, .+0.540 is the correlation between F41 (divorce, etc. justifiable) and F52 (lack of confidence in church and army) in Spain’s wave 2. Without more detailed analyses it seems that the low correlations over all countries and waves can be explained with the differences between countries and waves—which have shown up sometimes dramatically throughout this chapter. For the highest positive overall correlation (0.343) between F41 and F52 the correlations for individual countries and waves range from nearly 0 in countries of the former Soviet Union and the Western Balkan to about 0.5 in Spain and Italy. For the highest negative correlation (.−0.217) between F72 and F31 correlations for individual countries and waves range from nearly 0— again mostly in countries of the former Soviet Union but also in Norway and Iceland to .−0.346 in Spain. Further interpretation must be left open here.

5 Conclusion Given the methodological concerns discussed in Sect. 3 it remains difficult to come to conclusions that could satisfactorily answer all the research questions raised in the Introduction. But, of course, some conclusions can be drawn. The methodological approach outlined in Sect. 3 aimed at calibrating scales for a number of attitudes which were topics of the European Value Study over the past forty years to find out where on these scales the “average European” was positioned and where the endpoints of these scales could be determined all over Europe. This was done with the traditional technique of factor analysis. The second step was an in-depth analysis of the distribution of all European respondents and, on the other hand, of all respondents in a country during each of the study waves. There were less than half of all analysed scales which were symmetric with respect to all countries and waves:

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• attitudes towards private versus government responsibility and income equality (see Fig. 1); • attitudes towards immigrants (see the left diagram in Fig. 2); • confidence in various institutions (see Fig. 5); • satisfaction with democracy (see the leftmost diagram in Fig. 6. This analysis soon revealed that the distribution of respondents’ answers over most of these scale was far from normal but usually skewed with a long tail on one side and a steep slope on the other side, where the density maximum usually lay between the mean and the steep end of the distribution, a finding which makes clear that respondents on one end of the scale near the density maximum showed a moderate attitude with respect to the items in question while the fewer respondents at the other end of the scale showed extreme attitudes opposed to those of the moderate majority. This observation applied not only to all respondents over all countries and waves but also to most individual countries and waves whenever the distribution over a scale turned out to be skewed on the all-European level. This points to societies with moderate majorities and radical minorities with respect to most attitudes that were the object of the EVS. Very rarely have such asymmetric distributions of political attitudes been discussed in the past—the usual response to nonnormal distributions is that they raise difficulties for statistical testing and/or that they should be transformed to become more normal, with the exception of Trafimow et al. (2018) who argue that “Skewness Is a Friend and Not an Enemy!” (see also Micceri (1989) for an overview of the literature using skewed distributions, mainly in psychology). That skewed distributions show something interesting and important about the societies from which respondents were surveyed was discussed nearly a century ago for the first time (Rice, 1928) and again 65 years ago in Downs’ seminal “Economic Theory of Democracy” (1957, pp. 121, 131) where he motivated a skewed attitude distribution with a shift of one party near the middle towards another party farther from the left, leaving the right end of the scale for the founding of a new, more extremist party—a development that used to occur, e.g. in Germany, whenever the two largest parties formed a coalition creating new prospects for extremist parties and extraparliamentarian movements. If this latter argumentation is valid, one has to diagnose that European societies are in an state where a majority is highly committed to mainstream attitudes while minorities take a stand far away from the mainstream. One might wonder whether this result is surprising and whether there is a theory that could explain the skewness of the distributions of most attitude scales in most countries—but there is. Six decades ago, Abelson and Bernstein (1963) published an early agent-based simulation model that can explain why the finding reported here is so common. They simulated the attitudes of citizens in a local referendum campaign about the fluoridation of drinking water in a county in the USA. The model contained several hundred citizen agents, a handful of “sources” (politicians, journalists, etc.) sending messages every simulated “week” about the pros and cons of fluoridation through a number of “channels” (newspapers, radio stations). The citizen agents were exposed to these messages as well as to messages which they sent each other,

Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change as Traceable …

153

mimicking a discussion in small groups of citizen agents influencing each other and being influenced by the “sources”. Abelson and Bernstein did not care much about the distribution of the citizens’ attitudes, of their interest in the fluoridation issue and of their probability to vote for or against the fluoridation or to abstain, but concentrated on the voting result. A replication in Troitzsch (2021a) made it possible to follow up the attitude and interest distribution over the ten weeks simulated by Abelson and Bernstein—and showed that in most runs the skewness of the attitude distribution was extreme: from simulated week 0 to week 10, 11 out of 30 simulation runs showed an increasing skewness of the attitude distribution deviating from a symmetric distribution significantly on the five-percent level, and the same held for 12 out of 30 runs with respect to the interest distribution; the same applies to the deviation from the normal distribution, measured as the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test statistic. A more recent replication (Troitzsch, 2023a; 2023b) which uses the same attitude space as the analyses in this chapter (distributions of the exponential family with means around zero and variance around one) comes to the same results. Hence what is not surprising in the results reported here is the often observed skewness, but what is surprising is that it has so rarely been detected in earlier work. While this conclusion so far emphasised what seems to be common across the societies covered by the EVS, this chapter also showed cleavages between countries. More often than not differences could be shown between Western Europe and Eastern Europe although it seems that that these differences have become smaller over time. And it could also be shown that the integration of more and more countries into the European Union seems to have been the cause of this rapprochement. Hence the cultural changes observed when comparing the results of EVS waves within countries seem to have been driven by a European integration where they occurred (perhaps with the exception of the surprisingly growing confidence of Russian respondents in the institutions of the Russian Federation, see Sect. 5). Although it was difficult to identify “populism” in the EVS data, some hints were found in the context of the discussion of attitudes related to anti-elitism and criticism against deficits of democracy. But it could also be the case that the often observed “moderate majority”, particularly when it manifests itself in a large parliamentary majority of one party or a tight coalition is a pathway to populism.

Overview of the supplementary material at DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_7 1. Additional remarks about the methods used in the main paper and about data availability 1.1 Additional information about the Cobb algorithm 1.2 A few words about the post-materialism indexes 2. Attitudes with respect to government and private responsibility and towards income differences (Tables 1 and 2)

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2.1 Parameters by country and wave of the distributions of the factors extracted from the items reflecting attitudes with respect to government and private responsibility and towards income differences 2.2 Two-dimensional distributions of the factors extracted from the items reflecting attitudes with respect to government and private responsibility and towards income differences 3. Attitudes with respect to immigration, the European Union and the importance of being born in one’s country (Table 3) 3.3 Factor “immigrants are welcome” and “unimportant to be born in the country” 4. What people believe to be justifiable (Table 4) 4.4 Factor “divorce, etc. justifiable” versus factor “cheating, etc. justifiable” 5. Confidence in institutions (Table 5) 5.5 Factor “general confidence” versus factor “confidence in church and army” 5.2 The case of Russian’s confidence in their parliament 6. Satisfaction with democracy 6.6 Factor “effective democracy” 6.7 Factor “defective democracy” versus factor “anti-elitist” 7. Characteristics of democracy 7.8 Factor “free elections” versus factor “people obey their rulers” 8. Frequency density functions of the factors extracted from the “what children should learn” items 8.9 Factor “obedience versus responsibility” versus factor “saving money versus unselfishness” 8.10 Factor “good manners versus perseverance” versus factor “respect versus imagination” 9. Extreme respondents in countries and waves for all factors used in this chapter (Tables 11 to 27) 9.11 9.12 9.13 9.14 9.15 9.16 9.17 9.18 9.19 9.20 9.21

Private versus government responsibility Left versus right political orientation Immigrants unwelcome versus welcome Born in country: important versus unimportant What children should learn: obedience versus responsibility What children should learn: hard work and thrift versus unselfishness What children should learn: good manners versus perseverance What children should learn: independence versus tolerance Divorce, etc. justified Cheating, etc. justified General confidence

Populism, Extremism and Cultural Change as Traceable …

9.22 9.23 9.24 9.25 9.26 9.27

155

Confidence in church and army Democracy is effective Democracy is defective Anti-elitist Democracy is characterised by: elections, civil rights Democracy is characterised by: obedience to rulers.

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Polish-Belarus Border in the Political Narrative During the Migration Crisis in 2021–2022 Katarzyna J˛edrzejczyk-Kuliniak

1 Introduction Contrary to predictions that in the twenty-first century, the model of the state based on the principles of territorialism and autonomy will become a thing of the past, borders still have an important function in delimiting political supremacy. The dynamics of the transformation of the geopolitical environment, the increased mobility of people, goods, and ideas, and the activity of non-state actors in the international arena give physical and mental borders a new dimension. The catalog of threats to the security of states has expanded to include economic, ecological, demographic, cultural, social, and other problems. The intensification of migration processes is currently a concern, while the optimization of migration policies and stemming the tide of irregular immigration have become one of the priorities of European countries. The third century highlights new threats of a non-traditional, military, and political nature including transnational, asymmetric dimensions of security (hybrid warfare) are becoming increasingly important: migration and its consequences, unemployment, economic crises, transnational organized crime, terrorism, energy security, and cyber security (Buzan, 1997). This text presents an analysis of events that took place between 2021 and 2022 in the area of Polish-Belarusian border crossings, in connection with increased attempts by third-country nationals to illegally cross the EU external border. However, it is informed by the political developments on the issue that resulted from the record post WWII migration flows that Europe experienced in 2015 and 2016. The migrant crisis, which has affected directly many EU countries, was a consequence of, among other things, the Arab Spring, domestic war in Syria, and armed activities of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The author asks whether the narrative used by the K. J˛edrzejczyk-Kuliniak (B) Institute of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wrocław, Koszarowa 3/21, 51-149 Wrocław, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_8

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political elites in this context can be inscribed in the broader discourse underpinning the dichotomous split of the world into “us” and “them,” West and East. The research hypothesis adopted by the author is that the 2021 border crisis was instrumentalized by the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwo´sc´ —PIS) party in order to consolidate the electorate and create an image of a strong party capable of defending the state against threats. To this end, the narrative of border defense and the securitization of migration was used. The following research questions were posed: 1. What are the main key-drivers behind the migration crises on the Poland-Belarus boarder? 2. How do two orders, the humanitarian-legal order and security-political order, influence the perception of the Polish-Belarus border crisis? 3. How does the narrative of borders influence the public’s reception of the decision to build the wall?

2 Security of the State in the Political Discourse The political debate on migration has a long history, and in recent decades, immigration has become a contentious issue in Europe. There is a need to reconcile the new migration policy resulting from the migration flows experienced by countries, with the fear of migrants. Radical right-wing populist and nationalist parties, like Alternative for Germany (AFD) VOX in Spain, the League in Italy, French National Rally or Polish Law and Justice (PiS), and Confederation oppose new immigration and reject cultural diversity in their states but disavow openly proclaimed racism by promoting the concept of ethnopluralism (Silver, 2022). This political idea proclaims the need, even the necessity, for the separation of different cultures, without their interpenetration or “mixing”, therefore, it argues against non-European migration to Europe. Every national community has the right to develop in its own state, practicing its traditions and customs without succumbing to the cultural influences of foreign migrants. The postulate is the cultural purity and religious unity, rooted in Christianity of the Old Continent (Rueada, 2021). The principle for cultural security is therefore regional, ethnic, or racial separatism, the existence of diverse groups in separate cultural enclaves surrounded by national borders. Under the slogans of respect for multiple identities, the cultural homogeneity of states is promoted. Ethnic pluralism, while proclaiming the need for physical separation of different cultures, officially rejects the hierarchy between cultures, while denying the equality of newcomers in the state space (Ł˛etocha, 2018; Lipi´nski, 2013). The physical separation of cultures and nationalities is gaining new importance in public far-right discourse despite the progressive integration of states and the multidimensional processes of globalization. National security can be defined as the freedom from the threats that endanger the survival and development of a society organized in the form of a state (Zi˛eba, 1999). Taylor defines national security not only as the protection of the nation and territory from physical attack, but also as the protection—by various means—of

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vital economic and political interests, the loss of which would threaten the vitality and fundamental values of the state (Taylor & Jordan, 1981). Under this framework, the core values for any state include survival, ensuring territorial integrity, protecting territory, political independence, sovereignty, and socio-economic development (Zi˛eba, 1999). The state adopts an appropriate set of measures to safeguard these values, which vary and depend on the nature, size, and strength of the threats. Population movements can pose threats to the functioning of states and societies in many dimensions, especially if they are unregulated. Although there is no universally accepted definition of irregular migration, in line with EU and UN guidelines, the term “irregular/undocumented migrant”, should be used in public discourse to avoid the negative, and in many cases, overtly judgmental alternative labeling of “illegal” migrant. Referring to Resolution 1509 (2006) of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, “illegal” is preferred when referring to a status or process, whereas “irregular” is preferred when referring to a person (Council of Europe, 2006). Language is inherently political, and the language used to describe migrants crossing the border illegally is also a tool to influence public opinion. According to recommendations of the UN Refugee Agency, due to its link to criminality, the term “illegal migrant” has discriminatory connotations, is dehumanizing, affects the public perception, and impacts on states policy by preventing fair debate about migration (IOM, 2022; PICUM, 2022). States attempt to control the influx of migrants through the available legal and political instruments that are part of migration policy. These include border protection, entry and residence rules or visa policy, and regulations on foreign labor. In a crisis, it is also possible to strengthen the protectionism of the state aimed at limiting the inflow of immigrants by closing borders, limiting the possibility of permanent residence, and tightening or sealing border control. Since the multidimensional migration crisis that hit the continent in 2015–2016, most European countries have faced the challenge of protecting their external borders both as individual states and collectively as part of the European Union. Poland was missed by this large-scale migration wave. Nonetheless, the securitization of migration was a key issue for the winner of the 2015 Polish parliamentary election, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party. Politicians of that party used linguistic phrases of a populist nature in their media statements during the parliamentary election campaign, expressed anti-immigration rhetoric, disagreement with the forced placement of migrants, and labeled immigrants as one of the greatest threats not only to the state, but also to its Christian tradition (Adamczewska, 2016; Cywi´nskie et al., 2019). Securitization can be understood as the process of bringing the definition of threats into the wider public consciousness and activating extraordinary security measures to deal with these threats. Issues raised in the public debate can be securitized, i.e., present everything in the category of threat, with the appropriate language and political narrative. Anti-immigration rhetoric emphasizing the need to defend the borders was reinforced in 2021. With the appropriate language and political narrative, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS) invoked these sentiments in his widely circulated speech about the sanctity of the Polish-Belarusian border: “The Polish border

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is sacred. He who fails to defend his border, at the same time exposes himself to great danger—he is not respected by others and shows his weakness. (…) Millions of Poles must not feel terrorized, must not feel under pressure, because our border is leaky. (…) Poland, the Poles, belong to those countries, those nations, which defend their borders, because this border is also hallowed by blood. With the blood of our ancestors, therefore it is our sacredness” (GOV.PL, 2022). The right-wing politicians’ use of an anti-immigrant narrative, persuasive techniques, one-sided media messages and emotional messages reporting on the situation at the Polish-Belarusian border reinforced the securitization of migration in Poland (Buraczy´nski, 2015; Legut & P˛edziwiatr, 2018). The narrative appealed to national myths, the sacralization of territory, and geopolitical visions of Poland’s role among other countries in Europe (Dijink, 2002).

3 The Function of the Borders Borders are a manifestation of the territoriality of the state. According to Sack (1986, 32), territoriality is easy to communicate because it essentially requires only one kind of marker or trace—the border. Even though borders can exist at different spatial scales, this “communicative function” is particularly evident in the case of state borders. Borders are an essential element of a sovereign state. Zbigniew Rykiel (2005) defines a border as a dividing line between areas of different political, administrative, cultural, social, institutional, competency, environmental or other nature, constituting a basis or reason for differentiation. The concept of a border has evolved over time, from extensive zone boundaries to finely drawn linear boundaries. As an example of the first linear borders, one can point to the northern and eastern borders of the Roman Empire (Konopska & Barwi´nski, 2021, 10). According to Maria Bar˘amova (2010), the Roman limes delimited the sphere of contact between the “Roman civilization” and the “barbarian world” and were a line of defense more than a definition of the area of the empire. Despite the deterritorialization of many phenomena under the influence of globalization processes, the twenty-first century has not reduced the importance of physical space in political processes. Geopolitical thinking has not disappeared. Geopolitics can be understood as the relationship between space and politics, the geographical awareness of the state, which examines the changing balance of power in an unchanging space (Moczulski, 1999, 75). In this article, Saul Cohen’s view of geopolitics as the study of value systems, the “sense of space” and geopolitical projections of the collective imagination of a particular political community (Cohen, 1963, 7–15) is crucial. The unchanging space in a changing world becomes an essential component of group and individual identity: “Influencing the ontological distinctiveness of the individual as well as of the collective occupying an area, identity becomes legitimized by space, which consists of meaningful places (…)” (Burdzik, 2012). Space is not

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only a backdrop for events, a place of interaction, but also a factor shaping the sense of distinctiveness (from others), identity (with certain others), continuity, and integrity. In the age of globalization arbitrary, conventional borders between states have not disappeared. They remain formalized barriers that restrict the migration of people, the flow of goods and services, and sometimes the flow of ideas (Barwi´nski, 2020). O’Dowd et al. (2004) emphasize the change in functions of borders under the influence of European integration. The authors distinguished four groups of functions of political borders: borders as bridges, borders as barriers, borders as symbols of identity, and borders as resources (O’Dowd et al., 2004, 19–29). The functions played by borders are currently undergoing transformations. They ceased to be a barrier to economic activity or military action, but they continue to mark the line of religious, linguistic, and political distinctions. It is possible to speak of a modification of the functions of borders from barriers to bridges, but at the same time, borders that used to be places of contact are taking on the features of barriers or obstacles, as is the case with the external borders of Europe. If there were no borders, whether physical or symbolic, nationalism could not exist; but neither could national borders exist without nationalism. Space has a physical character as the territory of a community surrounded by borders and a symbolic character that reinforces the awareness of territorial belonging, on the basis of which myths can be created that consolidate the members of a given collective (Edensor, 2004, 138). The French scholar Lefebvre put forward the thesis that “(social) space is a (social) product” (Lefebvre, 1991, 26). Thus, its interpretation is subject to social dynamics, a reflection of ideologies, power structures, social arrangements, and relationships (Creddwell, 2004; Malapas, 1999). Space is therefore closely linked to social reality and cannot be separated from it, meaning that space does not exist “in itself” but is produced and manufactured (Schmid, 2008, 28). According the Koter (2015), the most important function of a border is to define the territorial extent of different states and to separate different political jurisdictions. It, therefore, has a primarily strategic-military significance. A border is one of the basic attributes of a state’s political-legal sovereignty. Nowadays, due to the processes of integration and deterritorialization, its functions are changing, but its defensive importance is not disappearing. Despite technological advances, walls remain an instrument to ward off strangers and the threats they bring with them. In material terms, a wall creates a specific space and influences the perception of it as open or closed. Walls are not a passive element in space. As Fere´nski and Sobo´n (2000, 37) point out, walls as an element of space significantly influence the perception of reality, behavior, and thinking patterns. They analyze many examples of contemporary and historical walls, their importance in the collective imagination, and point out that walls “are not only elements that co-create physical and mental maps of the environment but are also closely linked to the supreme qualities and values of human existence, which in modern times include freedom and security, among others” (Fere´nski & Sobo´n, 2000). Currently, there are at least 77 border walls in the world, with another 15 in the pipeline (Saddiki, 2017). At the end of the Second World War, there were only five, and when the Berlin Wall fell, only 12. More than half of these walls were erected in the last two decades. The erection of

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various types of border infrastructure to stop migrants is a common practice used by many countries, including the United States on the border with Mexico, Turkey on the border with Iran, Greece on the border with Turkey, Hungary on the border with Serbia, Spain on the border between Ceuta and Morocco or Ariel Sharon’s Israeli wall on the border with the Palestinian Authority, which is over than 500 km long. As physical border defenses, these walls also create a series of tensions between societies and become symbols of unresolved conflicts, rather than merely physical obstacles. Emotions such as fear, resentment, and even hostility as well as the desire to isolate oneself from undesirable phenomena and people are inscribed in the creation of a wall. Indeed, a state border is also associated with a charge of emotions, especially when its course is contentious, or its demarcation has meant the shedding of blood by a community. It is not only a physical point on the map, but also a symbol of belonging to a particular group, its culture, and traditions. These barriers, at every level, promote an “us and them” mentality, and in many cases, are erected to somehow protect “us” from “them”. They are important for creating, sustaining, and promoting a sense of national identity (Marshall, 2019). Research indicates (Carter & Poast, 2017; Mutz & Simmons, 2022) that the decision to build a wall can be influenced by three groups of factors: the nature of the power relations between the bordering states (especially the existence of asymmetries), the behavior of neighboring states, and events of international significance, such as acts of terrorism, or mass population, movements. What distinguishes a wall from a boundary line that can be drawn following the end of a war, a negotiation between two states, is its unilateral nature. One state separates itself from the other, a permanent immovable barrier that, at least in theory, makes the border impermeable.

4 The Strategic Narrative Through this perception of space, it is possible, under the influence of current political interests, to create a particular image of the world, which becomes an important element of the narrative, the competition for power, and the reproduced “cultural pattern”. The concept of strategic narrative as a coherent story with a specific political purpose is a relatively new field of enquiry in international relations and security studies. It is one of the tools of persuasive communication with which political actors justify their actions, giving meaning to sequences of events linked by a common thread and influencing the desired behaviors of the actor’s environment. These narratives are strategic not only because they talk about events of importance to group life, but also because they are the result of intentional actions by actors shaping a vision of international reality. One of the first to research the use of narratives was Lawrence Freedman (2006), who noted that the construction of strategic narratives is crucial for governments to legitimize military campaigns. Strategic narratives use past discourses, ideas, and images to explain political actions in the present. As James Pamment (2014) noted, through narrative, actors not

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only create their own image and reputation, their own interpretation of past or present events, but also create images of other actors. Strategic narratives are fundamental to the way reality is interpreted; it is a flexible tool to help persuade and influence the behavior of other actors (Roselle et al., 2014). Narratives as representations of the history of a community are also directed at bonding the identity of the citizens of one’s own state, by identifying with a particular interpretation of the history of the state or nation. In order to make the message clear and understandable to the potential audience, dichotomous divisions of the surrounding reality are used. Therefore, there is a sphere of the self and the stranger, the friendly and the hostile (NadskakułaKaczmarczyk, 2020, 29). The us/them distinction is, according to Karl Schmitt, an axiom of politicalness. The stranger/other is a potential enemy and a threat to the community, which is at the forefront of political thinking. The enemy is a public category and is defined in a collective way, as a distinct, recognized enemy group, regardless of the activity and behavior of the individuals who are part of it. As long as the dividing lines concern public space and are addressed in political discourse, the criteria for distinguishing the enemy are many: religious, ethnic, national, and economic (Schmitt, 2000). “In an existential sense, the enemy is the other, he is the stranger, and this is entirely sufficient to definé his essence. (…) For each individual must decide for himself whether, in the case of a particular conflict, the othernes´s of the stranger means the negation of his own form of existence and whether, in order to save his own way of life, the stranger must be driven out or fought against” (Schmitt, 2000, 198). The figure of the stranger may fulfill an integrating function, strengthening the cohesiveness of the group.

5 The Narrative of Border Protection In the Polish historical narrative, the threat to the survival of the community comes from both the East and the West. Classical geopolitical concepts not only emphasized the fatalism of the geopolitical position, but also the bridging nature of the state (Pawluszko, 2021). The West embodies civilization and good, and the East (Orient), barbarism and evil. The East–West divide embodies an archetypal case of binary us-them categories. Contemporary critical geopolitics (Tuathail, 1996) focuses on identifying the hidden origins of geopolitical concepts and locating them in a social space defined by tradition, culture, and historical experience. Geopolitical concepts such as Polonia Antemulae Christianitatis serve to produce and impose a specific image of the world (Potulski, 2010, 46). Poland began to be defined in this way in the fifteenth century. It seems that Polish diplomacy used this concept to argue that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, by defending its borders against the Tatars and Turks, was acting for the benefit of the entire Christian world (Tazbir, 1984). The idea of the “antemurale” emphasizes Poland’s special role in defending against religiously and culturally alien peoples and states and the uniqueness of Poland’s geostrategic position for both military and civilizational reasons. Poland in this vision was not only the gateway to Europe, but also the first barrier defending its borders. Almost from its

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inception, the concept of Poland as the frontier of Christianity had two dimensions: religious (a barrier against Islam) and civilizational-political (a barrier protecting European civilization against Asian barbarism). The Antemurale Christianitatis has permanently entered the arsenal of Polish national myths, the best-known example being the defense of Vienna in 1863 by King Jan III Sobieski’s army against Turkey. This myth is eagerly used by the Polish political right in drawing an image of Poland protecting the West against invaders from the Middle East. The Polish cavalry of the Vienna Glory, known as winged horsemen-hussars, have become a one of the symbols of right-wing patriotism, widely used in right-wing media and pop culture (Saryusz-Wolska, 2016; Rauszer, 2015, 48). The situation on the Polish-Belarusian border can be understood as a clash between East and West. Unregulated migration to EU countries across the Polish border is inspired by Russia, keen to maintain the tension between EU and NATO countries, and Belarus (Bryjka & Legucka, 2021; Perkowska, 2021, 61). Russian hegemonic aspiration and desire to dominate Eastern Europe are described by some historians as one of the perennial threats to Polish state existence. These superpower inspirations destroyed Poland for 123 years, during the period of partitions (1772, 1793, 1795). Historian Norman Davies has even described Poland as a “country on wheels” due to its frequent entrances and exits from the political maps as a sovereign state (Davis, 2005). The fear of losing territory and integrity and the need to defend the state at all costs is one of the national myths that make up the narrative of the sacred dimension of borders. According to it, Poles must defend their borders so that history does not repeat itself and the state does not disappear from the political map.

6 Securitization of Migration and the Figure of the Stranger Poles’ attitudes toward foreigners have changed over the years and mostly depend on the geopolitical situation in the world. For many years, Polish society was characterized by a very high level of homogeneity, which meant that citizens could not build their attitudes toward migrants based on real experiences, they reproduced media and pop-culture stereotypes, often negative, exaggerating the threat of migration (Lipi´nski, 2020, 155). The concept of security is constructed by relative and subjective norms, and depends on the political objectives of each actor, on each issue. Securitization is defined as the identification through a “speech act”—the central form of communicative action in the construction of security (usually by a political leader) of an issue as a threat to survival, which then allows (with the consent of a significant audience) the use of extraordinary measures and the suspension of the “normal politics” procedure to deal with the issue (Buzan et al., 1998; Fijałkowski, 2012, 155). In other words, securitization is the process by which a regular, typical political matter is transformed through a speech act and becomes a new security threat. It means

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shifting the topic from the political sphere to the realm of the emergency, so as to create the conditions for legitimate or illegitimate action in disregard of the typical rules of conduct in accordance with existing procedures (Balzacq et al., 2016). This process consists of three basic phases: the securitization of the actor, the designation of the object, and its acceptance by the recipients (Waever, 1995). The securitization process begins with a verbal explanation or reference to a specific actor as a potential threat. Then, the potential threat is identified as an actual threat that requires immediate countermeasures, and finally, the audience accepts both the existence of the threat and the need to respond. This situation takes place in an atmosphere of growing fear (Balzacq et al., 2016). A variety of political, economic, and social issues, such as terrorism, war, or migration, can be the subject of securitization. The politicization of migration in Europe has been evident since the 1980s. It was a result of geopolitical changes in the region, European integration processes, and the construction of the Schengen area. Migration was increasingly seen as a destabilizing factor in the public order of European countries and regions. The external borders of EU states became tighter, their security was increased, and the number of deportations and surveillance instruments for migrants increased, despite the continuous expansion of the European Union’s borders. Subsequent discussions in the European forum have revolved around the nature and causes of migration, as well as its effects in political, economic, and social terms and the implications for host countries. The trigger for strengthening the securitization process was the terrorist attacks carried out on September 11th, 2001, in the United States, and since then the issue of securitization has been considered on a global level, as well as on a regional, European level. Georgios Karyotis argues that the terrorist attacks only reinforced the process of securitization of migration in the Old Continent that had been in place since the 1980s, and thus it can be concluded that terrorism was not a major factor for securitization in the EU (Karyotis, 2007). More likely, the reason for securitization in Europe was related to the protection of European identity and culture and the threats that migrants may bring to a thriving, economically united Europe. This is reflected in the concept of “Fortress Europe” or “Schengenland”, which describes an internally integrated area with permeable borders that facilitate the movement of people, capital or ideas. External borders, on the other hand, are subject to controls and strict rules for crossing (Huysmans, 2006). The securitization of migration is understood as the excessive presence of migration and migrants in the public space, accompanied by rhetoric of threat and the use of images and language that instill fear and equate migration with a threat to state security. Through these treatments, resentment and hostility toward “foreign newcomers” are built. The language used to describe migration is of great importance. The language of dehumanization was pointed out by Zygmunt Bauman (2016, 101) using the term “human remnants”. Reduction to “remnants” leads to adiaphorization (Bauman, 2016, 43), dehumanization, and indifference, whereby specific people are no longer seen as objects of moral concern, as individuals for whose lives one should be responsible. In this way, these persons become dehumanized and are treated as strangers situated outside society; as enemies who should be neutralized because they threaten the sense of ontological security of other subjects. Language is a way

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of manifesting attitudes towards the world by world-separate communities (Adamczyk, 2021, 27). Language turns out to be crucial because it creates social reality: it is not, despite appearances, an objective tool of description, and the use of certain words does not go unchallenged. The way in which people crossing the borders of Poland are described in the pro-government media (TVP) and on social networks (Twitter, Facebook), the use of terms such as “wave”, “deluge”, “invaders”, “biological weapons”, and the use of words such as “invasion”, “elements of Russia’s hybrid war against Poland” in this context, is a manifestation of the dehumanization of migrants (Brunatna, 2023; Tymi´nska, 2022). As early as 2015, Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczy´nski emphasized during election meetings that migrants pose a threat because they carry diseases and protozoa (Kaczy´nski, 2015). In 2017, this most influential politician of the right-wing camp said in an interview with the German daily FAZ that opening the borders to immigrants would result in “the end of a civilization based on Christianity”, which is “the most human-friendly” (Schuller, 2017). Anti-immigration rhetoric was used during the parliamentary election campaign. This message was reinforced during the Polish-Belarusian border crisis. An example is the press conference of the Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak and the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration Mariusz Kaminski in September 2021. Right-wing politicians accused immigrants of having zoophilic and pedophilic tendencies. The shocking language was also accompanied by images containing video footage allegedly from confiscated phones of people illegally trying to cross the Polish-Belarusian border (Mierzy´nska, 2021). The use of this type of language can instill fear in audiences, increase prejudice, and contribute to negative attitudes toward foreigners, making them see them as a threat. Beyond language, images are important. As Lisa Malkki (1996) wrote, refugees are imagined as a mass, a “sea of human misery”, and there is no room for an individual story in this narrative. The refugees should be malnourished, maimed, should be suffering because then they evoke sympathy. However, this does not apply to all migrant groups. Not all in the anti-immigrant rhetoric deserve help.

7 The Escalation of Polish-Belarus Border Crisis Poland was not directly affected by the migration crisis of 2015–2016. While Poland was until recently a transit or emigration country, it has now become a country where the number of incoming migrants has significantly exceeded the number of Poles going abroad. According to “Polityka Insight,” 2018 was the first year of a positive Polish migration balance. Poland became an emigration-immigration country (Helak & Szyszkowski, 2022, 13; Okólski, 2021). The Belarusian government’s decision to pressure the EU’s borders was also linked to an attempt to destabilize European countries. The Belarusian authorities, in response to the sanctions introduced by EU countries, decided to use migrants to destabilize the security of the EU area. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has emphasized that he will flood the West with drugs and migrants, 26th of May

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2021, appearing before the Belarusian parliament, he said: “We used to stop drugs and migrants—now you will catch and eat them yourself” (Lukashenko, 2021; Thebault & Dixon, 2021). The origins of the migration crisis at the EU’s eastern border can be traced back to the political crisis born in Belarus in August 2020 after the unlawful re-election of Alyaksandr Lukashenko. The outcome of these elections remains unrecognized by part of the international community and marked the continuation of Lukashenko’s presidential term, which first began in July 1994. Since 2004, the European Union has pursued a restrictive policy toward Belarus as a response to violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, breaches of democratic principles, and the persecution of the political opposition and Belarusian civil society. The Belarusian special services, with the unofficial participation of Russian services, launched Operation Lock, aimed at instrumentalizing migrants. The authorities in Minsk began organizing flights to facilitate the transit of persons mainly from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria to the EU (Wawrzusiszyn, 2022, 50–51). At first, the “Lock Operation” targeted Lithuania. Later, Latvia and Poland experienced unprecedented tension on their borders. Data from the Polish Border Guard indicate that 39,697 attempts to illegally cross the Polish-Belarusian border were recorded in 2021 (this is 300 times more, compared to 2020) (Border Guard, 2022). An additional factor destabilizing the situation in the region was the Zapad 2021 military exercises, which involved the largest number of Russian and Belarusian Armed Forces in the last 10 years. This crisis highlighted internal tensions in the EU and the lack of a unified migration policy of EU states. The increased migration flow from 2015 to 2016 prompted EU states to adopt common rules to combat irregular migration. These demands include a strategy for sending migrants to their countries of origin, improving the protection of the EU’s borders, including the maritime area, and condemning those who organize and support illegal migration. According to the Border Guard, the number of foreigners attempting to enter the territory of Poland, and thus the territory of the European Union, has increased every day since August 2021. In August, the Border Guard recorded over 3,500 attempts, in September, almost 7,700, and in October, almost 17,300 attempts to illegally cross the state border from Belarus into Poland. The peak of the migration crisis was in October when a total of 17,447 such attempts were recorded (Boarder Guard, 2022). There were riots and clashes between migrants and border guards, as a result of which the state authorities closed the Ku´znica crossing. On the international level, the Polish-Belarusian border crisis highlighted the need for a common approach of states and solidarity, as exemplified by Estonia sending support to Poland to build the wall. A coherent policy of EU states, NATO, and regional organizations such as the Visegrad Group, assuming that migration pressure ´ from outside the EU will increase, is required (Sliwa & Olech, 2022, 95–97). Another issue is the creation of concrete solutions, such as the use of the EU Border Protection Fund to respond to the threats of instrumentalization of irregular migration by EU states.

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The construction of a 2.5 m high fence on the Polish-Belarusian border had already started on 25 August 2021, about a week before a barbed wire, the socalled concertina, was placed along the border. The decision on this construction was communicated by the Minister of Defense on August 23rd, 2021. The next step taken by the Polish authorities was the introduction of a state of emergency in the border provinces, which was passed on August 31st, 2021, by the Council of Ministers and ratified on September 2nd, 2021, by the President of the Republic of Poland, introduced due to what the authorities consider to be a particular threat to citizen security and public order. This decision was taken in response to the daily increase in attempts to illegally cross the Polish border with Belarus and the West 2021 Russian-Belarusian exercises, which were perceived as a provocation to EU states. The state of emergency was in force in 115 towns in Podlaskie Voivodeship and 68 towns in Lubelskie Voivodeship. It restricted certain rights and freedoms of citizens, including suspension of the right to organize public assemblies; prohibition to stay in the area under a state of emergency with certain exceptions (e.g., permanent residents); restriction of access to public information on activities carried out in the area under the state of emergency in connection with the protection of the state border and the prevention and prevention of illegal migration; prohibition of recording, videotaping, and photographing of objects and areas covering border infrastructure, including the image of Border Guard officers, Police, and soldiers (Dz.U., 2022 poz. 1972; Siwek, 2022, 35). The 30-day state of emergency was extended by 60 days by presidential decree with the approval of the Sejm on the proposal of the Councils of Ministers on September 30th, 2021. The situation at the border became increasingly tense and the imposition of the state of emergency limited the media’s ability to report on the crisis and the access to humanitarian, relief, and medical organizations. As a result, the information flow was restricted to messages relayed by the government and the Border Guard, which reported on attempts to force the border and thereby created an atmosphere of danger. Since the beginning of the crisis situation on the Polish-Belarus border, Polish authorities have adopted a strict policy toward migrants. Their stated goal is to prevent migrants from entering Polish territory and successfully applying for international protection. According to activists of the Border Guard Group (it’s a social movement encompassing the activities of different non-governmental organizations), the Border Guard is practicing illegal push-backs—dropping migrants off at the border without carrying out a formal return procedure against them and forcing them to cross the Belarusian border (Grupa Chrzczonowicz, 2022; Granica, 2022). What is more, the implemented law requires that any person apprehended on the territory of Poland after illegally crossing the external border of the European Union should immediately leave the territory of Poland. The government party and representatives of the Border Guard strongly deny that there have been any human rights violations by officers. On September 30th, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe strongly condemned the practice of returning migrants “to a third country where they cannot be guaranteed international protection” and reminded Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland of the prohibition of collective expulsion of foreigners. The jurisprudence of the Court of Justice and the European Union and international standards for the

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protection of human rights prohibit this practice. Applications were not accepted by many persons seeking international protection (Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, 2022; RPO, 2021). In response, the Polish government announced on October 8th that it interpreted the behavior of the Belarusian side as “aggressive actions against Poland”. A ˙ spokesman for the coordinator of the Polish special services, Stanisław Zaryn, said on September 27th that 20% of the detained migrants had links to Russia, which was allegedly supported by evidence found on the migrants and refugees. Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski, in turn, reported that Belarusian border guards had supplied psychotropic drugs to the migrants, including children. Tensions continued to rise, especially in October when large groups of migrants began to use violence against Polish officers, by throwing stones, pieces of wood, and metal pipes ripped from border security. It is important to note that the Belarusian side inspired and encouraged the migrants to attack the Polish Board Guards. In view of this situation, the Border Guard units were supported by the regular army, police, and Territorial Defense Forces. What is more, the migrants were guarded by Belarusian officers, and thus were unable to retreat. Without the possibility to retrace their steps, migrants at the Polish-Belarusian border found themselves with no way out other than pushing through Polish territory (Fraszka, 2021). Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki described the situation as a “hybrid aggression” against the European Union, the scenario of which was developed by Minsk in close cooperation with Moscow. The term “hybrid threat”, “hybrid aggression” or “hybrid warfare” raises a lot of controversies because it lacks definition. According to NATO, it consists of the interaction or combination of conventional and unconventional instruments of force and diversion. Hybrid operations take place below the threshold of armed action or direct overt aggression (Bilal, 2021). Combining migration with hybrid warfare can be seen as an attempt to weaponize migration. The idea of “refugees as weapons” has entered the public debate permanently as Kelly Greenhill writes (Greenhill, 2010). A continuation of the actions of the state authorities was the enactment of the Act on the Construction of State Border Security. The Act was signed by the President of the Republic of Poland on November 2nd and came into force on November 4th, 2021. The main barrier was supposed to be a 5.5-m-high wall, built on a 180-km section of the Polish-Belarusian border by the end of June 2022. The construction of the wall on the Polish-Belarusian border was to be accompanied by the official narrative that it was not a wall, but a physical barrier, or electronic dam. Technical terms with neutral overtones were intended to minimize the negative connotations and symbolism of the wall. The government side also reinforced this message by using the discourse of “hybrid war” and emphasizing the need to erect border security systems (Tymi´nska, 2022). This rhetoric served to rationalize the actions taken and redirect public attention toward a rational (not emotional) response of the state apparatus to a problem of a geopolitical nature, minimizing its humanitarian dimension. However, the term wall can be used to describe classic stone or concrete structures as well as steel fences or barbed and razor wire fences.

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The narrative of the state authorities and the consistent actions taken have gained the support of the public. According to a survey conducted by the Centre for Public Opinion Research (CBOS) in September 2021, more than three-quarters of respondents (77%) supported the demand to strengthen controls on the border with Belarus. The November/December 2021 CBOS survey found that 66% of respondents supported the construction of a barrier (the phrase used by CBOS) on the border with Belarus to impede illegal migration. Only 26% were against. However, the introduction of a state of emergency and a special zone restricting access to border areas to unauthorized persons was controversial as 74% of Poles thought that people from humanitarian aid organizations should have access to the border area and 71% would give access to journalists. Protective reinforcements on Poland’s eastern border increase the country’s resilience to migratory movements. However, they are also a symbol of the escalating conflict between the EU and the Belarusian regime. The concept of “border security” is defined by the government as preventing people seeking protection from crossing the border if they do not have the required documents. The creation of the wall is also part of the narrative of a strong state that is able to solve a key security problem. This narrative is not only directed at citizens, but also at external public opinion. The most important element in Polish politicians’ statements on this issue was to emphasize that the eastern border is tight and secure. At the beginning of 2023, the scale of the migrant presence on the border with Belarus was small. The Border Guard reports that about a hundred people, mainly from Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iran, attempt to cross into Poland per day (Border Guard, 2023). The images from the Polish-Belarusian border focused not on women and children, but on young men, well-dressed, equipped with smartphones, whose real reason for migration is a dream of a comfortable life, a good job, and the benefits of the social security system offered by the Western countries. Law and Justice (PiS), the right-wing party in power since 2015, had already used anti-immigration rhetoric during the election campaign, distancing itself from its political opponents, who had supported the admission of refugees from Western EU countries during the crisis. One of the main slogans was to disagree with the admission of immigrants and to integrate the anti-immigrant narrative into the political discourse (Klaus, 2017). During one election meeting, party leader Kaczynski expressed fears that migrants would spread diseases, parasites, and protozoa (Adamczyk, 2021). The anti-immigrant narrative has been correlated with anti-Muslim sentiments strongly rooted in the consciousness of the Polish public. The securitization of the migration crisis is also one of the elements shaping the contemporary image of the threat of Islam in Europe. It is influenced by the centuries-old clash between Christianity and Islam, symbolized by spectacular victories over Muslim invaders forcing their way across Europe’s borders, and is part of the clash of civilizations paradigm (Cardini, 2006). The perceived aim of this perennial confrontation is to Islamize Europe, introduce religious law, and uproot Europeans from their identity. As one of the most culturally homogeneous countries in Europe, Poland easily adopted this narrative. Additionally, after the collapse of the bipolar order, the new geopolitical

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situation fundamentally redefined the concept of the enemy. The threat carried to Poland and Poles by enemies came from abroad. “Poland’s foreign enemies” were, on the one hand, specific individuals-the immigrant, the Arab, the Muslim, a person from a geographically distant place, practicing a different religion and speaking a different language, a representative of a different culture—and, on the other hand, phenomena and keywords—Islamization, the wave, security threats, crime, cultural conflict-intended to generate the felling of threat. The image of the other was used by populist and nationalist groups to build their own support by reproducing stereotypes of migrants, primarily those from the Middle East, such as alleged terrorist intentions, fanatical religiosity, or unwillingness to work and orientation toward “preying” on the social support system (Tymi´nska, 2022). At the time, the securitization of migration effectively reduced support for open-door policies (CBOS, 2017). Anti-migrant and anti-Muslim sentiment dominated society, exacerbated by the terrorist attacks in Western Europe, which strengthened the political capital of PiS. Poland’s acceptance of migrants from countries in armed conflict was disapproved of by nearly half of the Poles surveyed—48%—and approved by two-fifths—41%— according to a CBOS survey (CBOS, 2021b). As pointed out by CBOS, Poles’ attitudes to Poland’s acceptance of refugees vary—more often reluctant than favorable. Of these, the majority of those in favor of accepting refugees believe that we should only provide shelter until they can return to their country. 9% also agree with them settling in Poland. Compared to surveys conducted in 2017, Poles’ attitudes toward accepting refugees have clearly warmed, although, as CBOS stresses, “the survey was conducted in a different world situation” (CBOS, 2021a). The number of those who are reluctant has decreased, while those who approve of accepting refugees for both temporary and permanent residence has increased. The survey shows that opinions on this issue are strongly influenced by the political preferences of respondents. Supporters of the Left Party (91%, although, according to CBOS, a small number of this party’s electorate participated in the survey), the Koalicja Obywatelska (Civic Coalition) (78%), and Szymon Hołownia’s Poland 2050 (59%)—the main opposition parties—have a favorable attitude to accepting refugees. Supporters of Law and Justice (together with Solidarity Poland—Solidarna Polska) 72% and the majority of supporters of the Freedom and Independence Confederation (Konfederacja Wolno´sc´ i Niepodległo´sc´ )—61% disagree with an open-door policy. The poll also shows a negative attitude of respondents toward the reception of migrants from Middle Eastern countries, Africa, and Afghanistan who are staying at the Polish-Belarusian border. Only one third of Poles—33%—believe that migrants staying at the PolishBelarusian border should be allowed to apply for asylum. As many as 52% are of the opposite opinion (CBOS, 2021a). In order to securitize effectively, it is necessary to manage fear. That is, to implement an appropriate political manipulation strategy by evoking or directing in the public the emotions of fear and anxiety toward a chosen phenomenon, while at the same time showing the one who uses this strategy as the best defender against this phenomenon. In this case, the paradigm of protecting the territory of the state and its border from threats, which is strongly rooted in Poland for historical reasons,

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was used (Cywi´nski et al., 2019). The instrumentalization of the issue of migration and irregular migrants, and their treatment as a tool of war and pressure by the Lukashenko regime, means that they are seen primarily as a weapon in a hybrid war and as a demographic weapon against democratic European governments. This, however, raises the risk of their dehumanization. At the same time, it is also a justification for special measures other than those provided for by law, such as pushback (Bender, 2022). Linked to the instrumentalization of migration is its militarization, the treatment of illegal border crossers as a threat that requires security and a firm response. The rationalization of the crisis is linked to the use of an appropriate narrative. Simply referring to people as “tools” or “weapons” in the hands of dictators deprives those who attempt to cross the border without valid documents of their human status. Yet, the war in Ukraine showed the other face of migration rhetoric. The authorities did not criminalize migration, they supported those providing assistance at the border and in the country to migrants. The open-door policy toward neighbors experiencing war just across the Polish border is in line with the age-old myth of Polish hospitality, and the state authorities are presented as open and empathetic. Perhaps the arguments about geographical neighborhood, cultural and religious proximity, as well as the commonality of historical experiences, including tragic ones, were important here. Polish public opinion has been favorably disposed toward Ukrainian refugees since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine. A humanitarian imperative was evident, seeing migration in terms of humanity, accepting liberalization of migration laws, and supporting relief efforts.

8 Conclusions The Polish-Belarusian border remains closed in 2023. Despite this, there are still attempts to illegally cross it. Migrants try to choose less guarded sections, through marshes, and attempt to force their way through the barrier by toppling trees over it in, sometimes deadly, efforts to enter Polish territory. According to the Border Group, 34 migrant bodies had officially been found by the end of January 2023 (Chrzczonowicz, 2023). At this point, it is worth noting that the response of the state system related to the right to protect its borders has been met with opposition from parts of the public. There has been criticism, for example, of the authorities’ imposition of a state of emergency, which has restricted media freedom by preventing coverage of events at the border and prohibiting the entry of medical and humanitarian aid workers without exception (Bodnar & Grzelak, 2023, 59–62). From a human rights perspective, the wall is not a humanitarian solution. The actions of the authorities are conducted around the sovereign right of the state to protect its own borders, to shape its own migration, and internal and security policies, while at the same time downplaying the importance of international standards of human rights protection and humanitarian law, as critics of such solutions point out.

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The main key drivers behind the migration crises on the Poland-Belarus border were related to the geopolitical situation. The issue of migration and migrants during the analyzed period 2021–2022 at the Polish-Belarusian border was framed in the political and public debate as a threat to citizens and state stability. This was influenced by the geopolitical situation related to the aggressive policy of Russia evident from the war in Georgia in 2008, followed by the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Additionally, the politicization of the migration issue was influenced by the situation; migration in Europe since 2015. The multifaceted crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border and the borders of Belarus with Lithuania and Latvia is not just a problem for these countries, it is an EU-wide issue, just as migration to Italy or Greece is not just a problem for these countries. The need to protect the borders is unquestionable, as is the fact that the Belarusian regime, inspired by Russia, has succeeded in polarizing society and provoking a debate about the threats (real and imagined) from migrants. When analyzing the issue of the Polish-Belarusian border, attention should be paid to two orders: humanitarian-legal and defense-political, which cannot be combined (Bachmann, 2021). Dichotomous and antagonistic in nature, they are an exemplification of the conflict of values. The state, exercising sovereignty over all events happening on its territory, has the right to defend its borders and implement immigration policy. At the same time, refugees have the right to international protection, and the public has the right to a reliable, uncensored, flow of information. Tightened border regulations have reduced the permeability of the border and, due to the ongoing war in Ukraine since February 2022, a general consensus has emerged on the need for further tightening of controls. The lack of security guarantees and the dynamics of the international situation allow for an increase in the control measures applied at the border. The priority of the Polish authorities was to maximize efforts to ensure border security, which were, however, controversial, such as the introduction of a state of emergency in border areas and the construction of a wall. The responsibility for this crisis lies with the Belarusian regime inspired by Russia, but the actions of the Polish authorities led to a deepening humanitarian crisis and increased the securitization of migration and polarization of society. On the one hand, the state authorities were accused of violating human rights, and not applying international law. On the other hand, part of society, appealing to the humanitarian imperative, violated the ad hoc legal solutions introduced. These two orders of humanitarian-legal and securitypolitical at this stage seem irreconcilable, especially since, through effective and coherent narratives, policymakers gained the approval of a large part of society, as shown earlier. The narrative of borders caused a positive reception of the decision to build the wall. The rhetoric of fear used by the authorities, according to which we must defend ourselves against the threat suddenly “coming” from the eastern border, was reinforced by militarization, the application of the doctrine of securitization, the gradual normalization of violence, and the rationalization of the crisis. The rhetoric of defending the borders against the threat coming from the East and the ability to impose its vision on part of the population served to portray power as efficient and effective, able to secure the territory of the community. Political elite appealed to

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the myths and ideas referring to the Christian roots of the state, cultural differences, and threats to the order and stability of the state were highlighted. The aim was to integrate and mobilize citizens and to give social legitimacy to actions aimed at realizing the social order according to their own vision. This approach is part of the securitization process. Threats are not precisely identified; the focus is on the conditions under which there is a risk of their emergence. The more broadly defined the threats are, the broader the range of measures for increasing security can be. Restrictive legal solutions, the mobilization of forces to physically protect the border and anti-immigrant discourse raise questions about the appropriateness of the measures applied to migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border. It seems that the messages conveyed by policymakers were intended to arouse a sense of threat and justify the adoption of radical solutions by the authorities, as well as to portray the ruling political elite as capable of acting independently in a crisis situation. The generated sense of threat resulted in the perception of migration and migrants as a threat to public order, stigmatizing acts of helping migrants. This resulted in a majority of the public supporting the construction of a wall on the border. The authorities focus on the historically firmly rooted tops of a state protecting against external threats interacted with the narrative of a strong government defending Polish identity and culture. The anti-migration narrative was instrumentalized to manage fear of otherness and strangers. Fundamental differences can be seen in the rhetoric of the Polish-Belarusian and Polish-Ukrainian borders. The former is a sealed border against a hybrid threat in the form of migrants “supplied” by a Belarusian regime inspired by the Russian Federation. It is NATO’s Eastern Flank, a symbol of the permanence of the alliance and the solidarity of Western countries with Ukraine. It is also the EU’s external border, but unlike the Polish-Belarusian border, it is not a barrier but a bridge between countries that value democracy, the rule of law, and pluralism. In both cases, Poland is the first country to shoulder the defense of the rest of Europe and the Western world. In a broad context, the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border is part of a complex chain of events, much wider in time and space. Its origins are to be found in the armed conflicts and poverty in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia; climate change, which affects the Global South the most; in the political situation in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as in the EU and globally, to which the COVID-19 pandemic has also contributed (Halemba, 2022). The internationally and politically motivated crisis, due to its scale and intensity, and the border protection measures applied, as well as its humanitarian nature, has reintroduced the securitization of migration, the rhetoric of war, the gradual normalization of violence, and the rationalization of the crisis into the political discourse (Wyligała, 2022). This is one of the major challenges for state security and integration policies. It also remains an open question as to where the limits of defending the territory of state are in order not to violate at the same time the fundamental principles of a democratic state under the rule of law, including freedom of speech and the right to assembly (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 Wall on the Polish-Belarusian border, near the crossing point in Ku´znica, February 2023 (author’s resources)

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Make Live and Let Die: Biopolitical Borders, Migrants, and Refugees in PiS’s Poland Alexandra Yatsyk

1 Introduction Since the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwo´sc´, PiS) party assumed power in 2015, Poland has experienced four migrant and refugee influxes.1 The first was the European refugee crisis of 2015 which in fact had no significant impact on the country as Poland was geographically distant from the Middle East and North Africa, the regions where most of the refugees came from (Beki´c, 2022, 163; Kabata & Jacobs, 2022, 2). Once PiS took office in October 2015 it annulled the previous agreement with the EU on accepting 6200 refugees (WP, 2016). The then Prime Minister Beata Szydlo justified this decision by pointing out that the country had reached its limits on hosting new refugees after already “accepting almost one million Ukrainians” (Reuters, 2016). This argument was used by PiS as part of its “we would like to help, but…” strategy, which includes the image of “desirable” refugees (women, children, the elderly, Christians) (Kabata & Jacobs, 2022, 7). 1 I share the UNHCR’s definitions of the concepts of “refugees” and “migrants”. According to UNHCR, “refugees are specifically defined and protected in international law” (such as “The 1951 Convention” and its “1967 Protocol”). The concept of “migrants” is an umbrella term; it can describe people moving “across international borders to improve their lives by finding work, or in some cases for education, family reunion, or other reasons. People may also move to alleviate significant hardships that arise from natural disasters, famine, or extreme poverty. Those who leave their countries for these reasons would not usually be considered refugees under international law” (UNHCR, 2016). When using the expression “migrant and refugee influx”, I follow the UNHCR’s definition of this group as “people travelling in mixed movements”. According to UNHCR, this expression allows one to acknowledge “that all people on the move have human rights which should be respected, protected, and fulfilled; and that refugees and asylum-seekers have specific needs and rights which are protected by a particular legal framework” (Refworld, 2016).

A. Yatsyk (B) Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion (IRHiS) UMR 8529, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Université de Lille, 59653 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_9

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The second human influx took place in mid-2016 at the Belarusian-Polish border. Unlike the Mediterranean case, it remained almost invisible to the world’s attention (Szczepanik, 2018: 70). For several months, illegal migrants and refugees, mostly Chechens with Russian citizenship, tried to cross the border to receive asylum status in Europe. Many were accompanied by underage children and could not go back to Chechnya as doing so would expose them to being interrogated and possibly tortured by Kadyrov’s regime. According to the Polish Office of Foreigners, 8994 Russian citizens applied for asylum status in Poland in 2016. This is at least half as much as the number of those who applied for this status in 2015 and 2017: 5015 and 3536 Russian citizens did so, respectively (Rusilowicz et al., 2015, 2016, 2017). In 2016 only 10 applicants from Russia received refugee status (Rusilowicz et al., 2016, 7). Human Rights Watch reports that the majority of those who asked for international protection at the Belarusian-Polish border in 2016 even did not have the chance to submit their applications. Polish Border Guards considered those people “economic migrants” and denied them their right to seek asylum (HRW, 2017). Polish authorities described the situation as “testing a new Muslim migration route” through Poland, thus referring to possible terrorist threats that might be brought by the migrants. The then Minister of the Interior and Administration Mariusz Błaszczak questioned the legitimacy of Chechen asylum claims, stressing that since the war in Chechnya has ended its residents should no longer be considered “genuine refugees”, so the “border is closed” (Cichowlas, 2017; Szczepanik, 2018, 80). The third human influx took place at the Belarusian-Polish border in October– November 2021. In contrast with the previous influxes, this one was artificially created by Lukashenko’s regime who used several thousand migrants from the Middle East and Africa as a hybrid weapon against the EU (Leyen, 2021). After crossing the Belarusian border, migrants found themselves blocked by Polish troops and stuck in the inter-border zone in the Białowie˙za forest. In October, the Polish government passed legislation allowing border guards to expel migrants illegally crossing the border without allowing them to submit an asylum request. Some pointed out that, from a strictly legal perspective, this decision was a violation of international law and the principle of non-refoulement (Beki´c, 2022, 161; UNHCR, 1977). Media reported that at least 20 people died in the forest because of freezing winter conditions (RFE, 2022). On October 1, 2022, Poland completed the construction of a 5.5 m-high and 186 km-long wall along the border with Belarus, which is intended to stop any future waves of migrants and refugees (DoRzeczy, 2022a). The fourth human influx was triggered by Russia’s fully-fledged invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. As of April 24, 2023, more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees have registered for temporary protection in Poland (UNHCR, 2023), which the Polish government assesses as a declaration of intention for a long-term stay (Ptak, 2023). In contrast with previous refugee and migration influxes, Polish society and the irreconcilable political opponents—the ruling PiS party and the main political opposition party, the Civic Coalition (Koalicja Obywatelska, KO)—unanimously expressed their full support for Ukrainians fleeing the war (Feliksiak, 2022, 9). In terms of rights that the Ukrainian war refugees received from the EU and the Polish government, they significantly differed from the other refugees; they were covered

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by the provisions of the Temporary Protection Directive. This was the first time in EU history that the Directive’s provisions had been put into practice. The Directive “makes the status of war refugees from Ukraine similar, but not the same, as that of EU citizens in terms of rights under the free movement of persons” (Duszczyk & Kaczmarczyk, 2022, 167). The all-Polish surveys conducted in February 2023 demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of Poles warmly support Ukraine; 81% of respondents think Poland should continue to accept Ukrainian refugees from areas affected by war. This is just slightly less than was the case in April 2022 (94% thought so) (Scovil, 2023, 5). More than a year after the Russian invasion, 63% of Poles still perceived Ukrainian refugees positively (in April 2022, 82% had positive attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees) (Scovil, 2023, 5). This chapter tackles the question of how the illiberal EU members tailor their border politics to the democratic principles of humanitarianism. To answer this, I develop three conceptual arguments. First, I address the ideas of biopolitical sovereignty as justification of power (Vardoulakis, 2020) and otherization as its basic discursive strategy (Vaughan-Williams, 2015b). Second, I refer to the study of Kabata and Jacob (2022) on PiS migration narratives as justification of the “we would like to help, but…” strategy (Kabata & Jacobs, 2022, 6–7). Based on discourse analysis of materials from PiS mouthpiece Do Rzeczy (published from February 2022 to April 2023),2 I demonstrate how this strategy is used by PiS in the context of the Belarusian-Polish border migration crisis of 2021 and the Ukrainian refugee influx of 2022. Third, I posit the question of how two different biopolitical logics that the PiS government applies toward migrants/refugees (one is focused on reinforcing borders, including the construction of the wall, and another suggests transparent borders) coexist and cooperate. I refer to the key biopolitical dilemma of how to “make live and let die” and seek possible resolutions, including through the concept of immunization (Esposito & Campbell, 2006; Vaughan-Williams, 2015a).

2

The paper applied elements of critical discourse analysis (CDA) as exemplified by its Foucauldian tradition (Wodak & Meyer 2001, 18, 121–38). In the paper, I follow Fairclough’s idea that a “primary focus of CDA is on the effect of power relations and inequalities in producing social wrongs, and in particular on discursive aspects of power relations and inequalities: on dialectical relations between discourse and power, and their effects on other relations within the social process and their elements” (N. Fairclough 2010, 20). The materials from PiS media Do Rzeczy, published from February 2022 to April 2023, were selected through the key words (in Polish) #uchod´zc*, # migranc* (#refugee*, #migrants*). After the first selection round I selected the op-eds that discussed the Belarusian-Polish border conflict of 2021 and the Ukrainian war refugees of 2022. When analyzing the discourse of the Belarusian-Polish border conflict, I intentionally chose the post-year publications since there are numerous works scrutinizing the conflict during 2021. Materials from the Polish liberal media, including Polityka, were analyzed to better understand the arguments of PiS opponents.

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2 Biopolitical Security and Bordering in the (Post)biopolitical Approach The biopolitical perspective is more than a middle-level social theory; it is a paradigm, a theoretical framework, that is instrumental in understanding the complexity of social reality (Rose, 2007). Esposito (2019, 319) points out that the importance of the biopolitical approach as a system of knowledge has been growing since the 1960s when the issues of bioengineering, genetics, gender, and climate change came to the forefront of political debates. Foucault conceptualized this “biopolitical turn” (Esposito, 2019, 319) with the idea of biopower, a power operating the biological manifestations of human beings (health, hygiene, nutrition, birth, sexuality, and mobility) as political objects (Foucault, 2009, 1). For Foucault, biopower is a form of human management aimed at “taking care” of living and maintaining life rather than stopping it. For him, biopower and biopolitics—a set of body-oriented policies—are features of modern states drawn by liberalization and thus applying softer managerial tools and rules to the population (Foucault, 2003, 239–265). I share the opinion on biopolitics as an untimely product (Abbinnett, 2018; Agamben, 1998; Biddick, 2016; Rabinow & Rose, 2006; Rose, 2014; Ross, 2012; Vaughan-Williams, 2015c). As many demonstrate, biopower is not the principal element of biopolitics; the “power of death”, thanato- and necropolitics are its intangible parts (Agamben, 1998; Biddick, 2016; Vaughan-Williams, 2015a). Moreover, biopolitical analysis of totalitarianisms, like the racism of the Nazis and Soviet Stalinism, shows that both are products of modernization projects, believing that mass killing is indispensable for nation-building (Agamben, 1999; Losurdo, 2004; Macey, 2009; Primera Villamizar, 2014; Prozorov, 2016; Sinnerbrink, 2005). In the words of Lemke, biopolitics explains “how the production and protection of life are articulated with the proliferation of death” (Lemke, 2011, xi). In the field of border and migration studies, this biopolitical dilemma finds itself in the debate on biopolitical security and othering. It raises the question of how a “border between life and death operates at diverse sites of encounter between European border security authorities and ‘irregular’ migrants” or “between human and animal subjectivities” (Vaughan-Williams, 2015a, 11). A biopolitical approach to borders emphasizes the issues of human management, including “differentiations, classifications, and categorizations” of those groups of a population who are considered the subject of “protection” and those who bring potential risk of destabilization, insecurity, and chaos (Vaughan-Williams, 2009). Biopolitical othering (Vaughan-Williams, 2015b) is the core of this process. It is displayed when distinguishing between those who are “worth to live” and those who are “useless,” and these differences are drawn on the basis of “forms of life” (DeCaroli, 2017). Thus, rhetoric on rights, values, and institutions is substituted with biological meanings (sexual behavior, reproductive attitudes, ethnicity, race, etc.) “Biopolitical others” (migrants, refugees, LGBTQ, Muslims, etc.) could be easily demonized and dehumanized (Corso, 2022; Goh, 2014; Minca, 2015; Round & Kuznetsova, 2016).

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Agamben and his followers conceptualized this process as homo sacer-ization, a marginalization of groups of persons by excluding them from the field of political regulations. Homo sacer is an outlaw figure, living the “bare life,” a borderline life existing between normal and politically regulated social life (bios) and wildlife (zoe). Modern detention centers and refugee camps are what could be called the ultimate manifestations of bare life (Agamben, 1998; Diken, 2004; Martin et al., 2019; Ross, 2012). Homo sacer and biopolitical others are related to sovereign power which operates through bans (Agamben, 1998). Sovereign power creates the concepts of normality and deviation and puts those who do not suit those canons into spaces of exception. The nature of the sovereign power could be seen through the way it justifies its exercising of violence which, in the case of modern sovereignty (biopolitical sovereignty), is “creating fabulatory narratives, thereby appearing as if the means of its power are mere tactical effects” (Vardoulakis, 2020, 201). The (post)biopolitical approach argues that biopolitical analysis of borders and migration should go beyond the “two poles” of the Foucauldian dilemma on whether migrants will be a subject of “making live” or “letting die” (Vaughan-Williams, 2015a, 12). For Vaughan-Williams, “understanding of biopolitical governance as to ‘make live and let die’ is inadequate as a diagnosis of situations in which some ‘irregular’ migrants are endangered precisely by the authorities associated with humanitarian border security: the ‘letting die’ part of his equation entails a passivity that belies concerted efforts to police ‘irregularity’ via lethal modes of biopolitical abandonment” (Vaughan-Williams, 2015a, 12). Vaughan-Williams emphasizes that “we should recognize the managerial conditions that entailed the loss of migrants’ lives on borders as the intentional sovereign’s ban” (Vaughan-Williams, 2015a, 12). According to Vaughan-Williams, Esposito’s idea of immunization can explain how “affirmative and productive and the…negative and lethal” powers coexist (Esposito & Campbell, 2006, 24). Esposito and Campbell (2006) draw parallels between physical and political bodies. He suggests, using the metaphor of immunization, that … … while in the biomedical sphere the term immunity refers to a condition of natural or induced refractoriness on the part of a living organism when faced with a given disease, in political-juridical language of immunity alludes to a temporary or definitive exemption on the part of the subject with regard to concrete obligations or responsibilities that under normal circumstances would bind one to others (Esposito & Campbell, 2006, 24).

For them, a small dose of pathogen that “blocks and contradicts natural development” (Esposito & Campbell, 2006, 24) protects living organisms, whereas an overdose can kill it. Vaughan-Williams elaborates on this idea, saying that “when bordering practices develop excessively defensive immunitary mechanisms they acquire the characteristics of an autoimmune disorder, which ultimately comes to threaten the very lives, communities, and values such practices are designed to optimize” (Vaughan-Williams, 2015a, 13–14). In this sense, the EU’s system of border security is an immune system that “seeks to defend the life of body politics” (Vaughan-Williams, 2015a, 9) and gets its “vaccination” through refugee/migrant crises.

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In the next part of the chapter, I will discuss how the ideas of biopolitical othering and the justification of (sovereign) violence could be seen in PiS migration discourses in the context of the Belarusian-Polish border conflict of 2021 and the Ukraine war refugee influx of 2022.

3 “Invaders” Versus “brothers”: The Double-Janus Face of PiS Discourse on Refugees and Migrants In February–March 2023, Janina Ochojska, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and founder of Polish Humanitarian Action, criticized PiS policy in response to the 2021 migrant crisis at the Poland-Belarus border. She claimed that close to 300 MENA refugees “disappeared” in the Polish-Belarusian border forest and might be dead and buried in a mass grave (DoRzeczy, 2023e). She considered the Polish government’s policy racist (DoRzeczy, 2023d) and compared it with Nazi practices at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where prisoners were deliberately sent to gas chambers en masse: “the level of cruelty is the same” (DoRzeczy, 2023b). For her, PiS border policy has not followed the humanitarian principle and has violated human rights for international protection. In Ochojska’s view, PiS’s explanation that the country had already accepted a considerable number of Ukrainian refugees, and thus had reached its receiving capacity, sounded ridiculous. In fact, PiS is responsible for people’s deaths, she concluded (DoRzeczy, 2023c). Ochojska’s criticism was widely discussed in the mainstream media as defamation against PiS (DoRzeczy, 2023e, 2023f). The Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro ordered the prosecutor’s office to initiate criminal proceedings against her (DoRzeczy, 2023a). The latter rearticulated further discussion on PiS’s migration/ refugee policy, which revealed the old narratives introduced by the party in 2015. Kabata and Jacobs point out that during the refugee crisis of 2015, PiS acted within the framework of “we would like to help, but…” which included basic “justification” of its refusal to accept MENA refugees (Kabata & Jacobs, 2022, 6–7). The scholars see this as maneuvering between the paradigm of humanitarian aid (protection of people as part of the principle of non-refoulement) and the politics of building borders (national security) (Kabata & Jacobs, 2022). The space for maneuvering occurred due to “fundamental differences between the legal status and the treatment of voluntary and forced migrants who cross international borders” (Szczepanik, 2018, 74). As a result, different countries choose their own border approaches ranging from inviting all refugees to restricting access and “sealing the borders against the ‘invaders’” (Szczepanik, 2018, 74). The latter is usually represented by justificative rhetoric which some conceptualized as “framing” a certain type of discourse that reduces vague topics to simple and precise meanings (Snow and Benford, 1988). The PiS government actively uses the technique of framing to justify its border policy of pushing back (Andersson, 2022; Fomina & Kukharczyk, 2018; Krzy˙zanowski, 2020; Stepaniuk, 2022; Szczepanik, 2018).

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According to Kabata and Jacobs (2022, 6–7), PiS’s justificatory narratives include seven basic semantic constructions: • The first states the priority of security over a humanitarian approach to nonpopulation. It says that refugees can be accepted only with verified identity and on the condition that doing so will not compromise national security. • The second construction declares that the principles of humanitarian aid will be applied only to persons at risk, and not to economic migrants. This rhetoric was widely used by PiS during the 2016 and 2021 crises on the Polish-Belarus border (Buchowski, 2020; Klaus & Szulecka, 2022; Stepaniuk, 2022). • The third narrative argues that the migration crisis is a German problem because Germany practiced the politics of “open doors” and invited MENA refugees in 2015. According to this line of argumentation, Poland has not chosen this way and should not share the burden of “care” for refugees. • The fourth justification refers to a moral-historical objection, saying that Poland is not responsible for the “sins” of the colonial past of other EU members, including Germany. Both points, however, were considered perfectly acceptable by PiS in the case of Ukrainian war refugees in 2022. During his election campaign in 2022, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczy´nski stated that Poland, contrary to Germany, demonstrates “genuine care” for the Ukrainian refugees: it managed to accommodate them in families and has not created any “refugee camps” (DoRzeczy, 2022b). The latter is a usual practice of EU border policy, often criticized for inhuman living conditions and the total control and surveillance of camp residents (Diken, 2004; Martin et al., 2019). • The fifth construction describes the desirable image of refugees, saying that Polish migration policy prioritizes help to the most vulnerable groups, including women, children, the elderly, and religious minorities (Christians, particularly). The justification for choosing Christians as “desirable” refugees was also presented by PiS as the “better way” for integration into Polish society. The Polish narrative of migrants as oriental invaders and biopolitical others (Buchowski, 2020) resonates with the national myth of the bulwark of Christianity. • This rationale was expressed in the sixth PiS justification, implying a willingness to provide humanitarian aid to MENA refugees from a distance but not entailing their physical accommodation on Polish territory. • The other, seventh, elements of the Polish discourse of “borders of (in)solidary” are racial, gender, and geopolitical dimensions (Opioła et al., 2022, 14). Seen from this perspective, Ukrainians are perceived by Poles as “Familiar others” (ethnically and culturally close to the “us” group), whereas Muslims are attributed as “Significant others” (representing threats to the nation) (Buchowski, 2020, 73– 74; Stepaniuk, 2022). In contrast to MENA refugees who were mostly young men (meaning potential threats) coming from countries whose political positions were undefined and untamed for many Poles (in Syria, for instance, an authoritarian leader confronted with jihadists), the majority of Ukrainian refugees are represented as women, children and aged people who have suffered from a cruel aggressor and the historical Polish enemy (Opioła et al., 2022: 14–16). These perceptions were also

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related to structural characteristics of pre-war migration from Ukraine to Poland, including a substantial number of Ukrainian immigrants dominating the Polish labor market, well-developed social mobility between the two countries, elaborated migrant networks, and others (Duszczyk & Kaczmarczyk, 2022, 165). Finally, PiS emphasized the fact that Poland was considered by MENA refugees as a transit country and was never seen as a final destination. This argument also referred to EU refugee legislation which commits asylum seekers to remain in the first safe country on their route. The PiS government argued that Poland would not want to force people to stay in a country where they had not planned to live. In practice, this rhetoric often corresponds with “inaction by the authorities, whose passive approach to the reception (and then integration) of asylum seekers…constitutes a kind of encouragement to move on further to other EU member states” (Klaus & Szulecka, 2022, 13). The argument about Poland as an EU frontier country also consisted of PiS’s “justification” for building the wall on the border with Belarus in response to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s attempt to “weaponize” migrants in 2021. ˙ In the words of Poland’s Secretary of State Stanisław Zaryn, Poland was “attacked” by EU members, particularly by Germany, for building the wall and for Poland’s hardline position on preventing any illegal entry by “refugees” from the Eastern ˙ border. Zaryn was referring to statements made by Bundestag Vice-President Katrin Goering-Eckardt who said that Poland applies “double standards” to refugees. In response, the PiS representative stated that, in the case of Lukashenko’s “hybrid war”, Poland was defending not only its borders, but also providing security for the whole of the West (DoRzeczy, 2022c).

4 Conclusion Since its very first experience of a refugee crisis in 2015, the PiS has been consistently developing the key pillars of its border policy, which has evident biopolitical features. The latter could be exemplified by the description of MENA refugees as “undesirable” biopolitical others who were “framed” in domestic hegemonic discourse as bringing diseases and immorality. At the same time, within the EU humanitarian paradigm, PiS’s self-exemption from “sharing “refugees” was explained as a task for the protection of the most “vulnerable” (or the most culturally “safe” for Poles) groups (children, women, Christians). This PiS vision of border security was, firstly, normalized (Krzy˙zanowski, 2020, 505) and, secondly, developed by the PiS during the consequent refugee crises at the Eastern Polish-Belarusian borders in 2016 and 2021. Even though the practice of the forcible defense of borders was not new to EU members (Andersson, 2022, 227), PiS’s Poland strengthened it by building a physical 186 km-long wall on its border with Belarus. Against this background, PiS’s tanathopolitics (“letting die”) toward MENA refugees was balanced by “making live” to Ukrainians. PiS successfully managed to host, accommodate, and support almost two million people, which dominated over

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the “letting die” to MENA refugees in the assessment of EU-Poland relations—even despite critical voices from PiS’s political opponents and civil activists. Klaus and Szulecka (2022, 16–18) suggest that Polish border policy toward “unwanted” migrants consists of three elements. The first is the “selective deterrence at the border” which can often be driven by racist stigmatization but is still a form of legal violence. The second element is represented by the practice of creating “exclusionary spaces’dedicated’ to humanitarian migrants inside the country”. In biopolitical vocabulary, these are zones of exception (detention centers and camps). The third element promotes the departure of humanitarian (unwanted) migrants from the territory. This can be done through a combination of policies “(of not granting them international protection and keeping them for a long time in legal limbo), practices (of not preventing smugglers’ offers in assisting them in unauthorized travels to other EU countries), and neglect (in properly addressing their needs and in providing effective integration programs)” (Klaus & Szulecka, 2022, 18). As a result, migrants often leave the country “voluntarily”. Some point out that a humanitarian approach to migrants and refugees is “more probable when it is organized not in abstract terms of ‘human rights’, ‘saving lives’, and/or ‘rescuing these poor things’, but when it is articulated by deeper bonds— of being a neighbor, a sister/brother, an ally, an (assimilated) Other or an aspiring European” (Opioła et al., 2022, 14–16). This difference is obvious in Polish border policy and discourse on migrants and refugees from the MENA regions and Ukraine. One could say that the Polish—extremely successful—experience of accepting and supporting almost 2 million Ukrainian war refugees is a sort of “vaccine” shot toward strengthening its own biopolitical sovereignty within the EU. However, this argument could be questioned and taken as a starting point for further discussion on the meanings of “immunization” as presumably “affirmative” (Esposito & Campbell, 2006; Murray, 2016; Prozorov, 2017). Another argument awaiting further elaboration is that (sovereign) power which focuses, at the same time, on the militarization and physical embodiment of one border (driven by national security interests) and on opening the other (within the liberal policy of EU democracy) are two different sovereign powers which cannot reinforce each other (Deleixhe, 2019, 649). In terms of migrant and refugee policy, it takes us back to the issue of the biopolitical “useful” and “useless” others as well as to the figure who makes this order. Acknowledgements This chapter is supported by the I-Site grant “Les chemins vers la modernisation en Europe centrale et orientale” (IRHiS-CNRS 8529, University of Lille) (2021–2024) and the PARROT program under the project “The effects of the war in Ukraine on the political decisionmaking and strategic narratives in Estonia, France and the European Union” (2023–2024). Any opinions expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of the funding organizations.

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Refworld (2016). New York declaration for refugees and migrants: Resolution. UN General Assembly. Retrieved 28 April 2023, from https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ceb74a4.html?_ gl=1*1pjmtel*_rup_ga*NjM2MTgyMjE2LjE2ODg0OTMyNzQ.*_rup_ga_EVDQTJ4LM Y*MTY4ODQ5MzI3NC4xLjAuMTY4ODQ5MzI3NC4wLjAuMA Reuters. (2016). Ukrainian ambassador rejects Polish premier’s ‘million refugees’ claim. Reuters. Retrieved 28 April 2023, from https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-migrants-poland-ukr aine-idUKKCN0UY2BN RFE. (2022). Poland finishes construction of wall on Belarusian border to keep migrants out. Radio Free Europe. Retrieved 28 April 2023, from https://www.rferl.org/a/poland-belarus-border-wallcompleted-migrants/31923263.html Rose, N. (2007). The politics of life itself: Biomedicine, power, and subjectivity in the twenty-first century. Princeton University Press. Rose, M. (2014). Negative governance: Vulnerability, biopolitics and the origins of government. Transactions - Institute of British Geographers (1965), 39(2), 209–223. Ross, A. (2012). Agamben’s political paradigm of the camp: Its features and reasons. Constellations, 19(3), 421–434. Round, J., & Kuznetsova, I. (2016). Necropolitics and the migrant as a political subject of disgust: The precarious everyday of Russia’s labour migrants. Critical Sociology, 42(7–8), 1017. ˙ Rusilowicz, K., Łysienia, M., & Ostaszewska-Zuk, E. (2015). AIDA country report: Poland. Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, ECRE. Retrieved 4 July, 2023, from www.asylumineurope.org ˙ Rusilowicz, K., Łysienia, M., & Ostaszewska-Zuk, E. (2016). AIDA country report: Poland. Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, ECRE. Retrieved 4 July 2023, from www.asylumineurope.org ˙ Rusilowicz, K., Łysienia, M., & Ostaszewska-Zuk, E. (2017). AIDA country report: Poland. Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, ECRE. Retrieved 4 July 2023, from www.asylumineurope.org Scovil, J. (2023). Polacy o wojnie na Ukrainie w rok po jej wybuchu. CBOS. Sinnerbrink, R. (2005). From Machenschaft to biopolitics: A genealogical critique of biopower. Critical Horizons, 6(1), 239–265. Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. D. (1988). Ideology, frame resonance, and participant mobilization. International Social Movement Research, 1, 197–217. Stepaniuk, J. (2022). How refugees transformed polish society during the past year (September 2021–September 2022). Contemporary Southeastern Europe, 9(2), 44–53. Szczepanik, M. (2018). Border politics and practices of resistance on the eastern side of ‘Fortress Europe’: The case of Chechen Asylum Seekers at the Belarusian-Polish border. Central and Eastern European Migration Review, 7(2), 69–89. UNHCR. (1977). Note sur le non-refoulement EC/SCP/2. UNHCR. UNHCR. (2016). ‘Refugees’ and ‘Migrants’—frequently asked questions (FAQs). UNHCR. Retrieved 4 July 2023, from https://www.unhcr.org/us/news/stories/refugees-and-migrants-fre quently-asked-questions-faqs UNHCR. (2023). Refugees from Ukraine registered in Poland. UNHCR. Retrieved 28 April 2023 from https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine/location/10781 Vardoulakis, D. (2020). Democracy and its other: Biopolitical sovereignty (pp. 153–199). Fordham University Press. Vaughan-Williams, N. (2009). The generalised bio-political border? Re-conceptualising the limits of sovereign power. Review of International Studies, 35(4), 729–749. Vaughan-Williams, N. (2015a). Europe’s border crisis: Biopolitical security and beyond. Oxford University Press. Vaughan-Williams, N. (2015b). Thanatopolitical borders. In Europe’s border crisis (pp. 45–69). Oxford University Press. Vaughan-Williams, N. (2015c). Zoopolitical borders. In Europe’s border crisis (pp. 70–93). Oxford University Press. Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2001). Methods of critical discourse analysis. Introducing qualitative methods. SAGE.

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Promoting Peace to End Russia’s War Against Ukraine: An Unholy Alliance Between the Far Right and Far Left in Germany? Florian Hartleb and Christoph Schiebel

1 Introduction Recently the “Washington Post” has pointed out that there are Russian efforts to unite far-right and far-left parties behind a pro-Russian narrative of the war against Ukraine. Russia’s focus has been on Germany with the Left politician Sahra Wagenknecht being a preferred target (Belton et al., 2023). What are Germany’s far-rights and far-lefts up to? Are their positions converging in light of Russia’s war against Ukraine? And what is unique—due to the fact that mainstream forces have built up ties and networks, most prominently the Social Democrats under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (1998–2005) who has cultivated his friendship with Vladimir Putin? Straight after Schröder lost the elections he became a lobbyist for Russian companies such as Gazprom, he has kept his ties even after the war against Ukraine started (see the recent investigative book (Bingener & Wehner, 2023)).1 In February 2023, within a few days, a manifesto for peace against the delivery of arms to Ukraine and for the conduct of peace negotiations calling on both war parties to make concessions has been signed by almost half a million people. The manifesto for immediate peace was written by two icons of Germany’s political left, the feminist F. Hartleb (B) University of Passau, Passau, Germany e-mail: [email protected] European Institute for Counter Terrorism and Conflict Prevention (EICTP), Vienna, Austria Catholic University Eichstaett-Inglostadt, Eichstätt, Germany University for Police Saxony-Anhalt, Aschersleben, Germany C. Schiebel KU Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany 1

Gerhard Schröder is not the only mainstream politician working for Russia and its interests since even in other countries such as in Austria or Hungary, a network has been built up beyond the radical left and right, especially with a focus on energy.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_10

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Alice Schwarzer and, more important, the media-savvy politician of the socialist party The Left (in German: Die Linke) Sahra Wagenknecht. Wagenknecht is an expert on Marxism and a representative of the Communist platform within the party. It caused a stir and discomfort among some of its supporters when it turned out that it had additionally canvassed support by the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany; Alternative für Deutschland) (Tagesspiegel.de, 2023). On Saturday, February 25, 2023, roughly 13,000 people demonstrated in front of the Brandenburg Gate guided via speeches from Wagenknecht (and her husband, the former cofounder of The Left, Oskar Lafontaine) as well as Schwarzer (Deutsche Welle, 2023). Wagenknecht herself spoke, in self-overestimation, of more than 50,000 participants (Die Linke im Deutschen Bundestag, 2023). Wagenknecht has represented the “communist platform” within the party (former Party of Democratic Socialism, PDS, later Die Linke) and came from the margins in the 1990s (despite being elected to the party board) to more and more influence from within (Oswald, 2002). She has been seen as a hazard to her own party, but, because of high popularity beyond her own party, she has managed to remain a member of the left-wing populist party (Hough & Keith, 2019). Despite her communitarianism, which is sometimes at odds with the party’s partly cosmopolitan and diverse outlook, Wagenknecht is important for mobilizing left-wing supporters who are also critical of immigration. Nonetheless, her rhetoric can be likened to that of the right-wing radical populist AfD, which has placed her under constant political fire. Both Wagenknecht and the AfD have tried to attract blue-collar workers (Adorf, 2018). The goal of our research is to sketch out differences and common ground of the two radical populist parties. In so doing, we will focus on one policy subject, i.e., Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine since its outbreak on February 24, 2022. First of all, we need to outline the premises from which we want to analyze and compare German radical populist parties in the light of their foreign policy since the onset of Russia’s war against Ukraine. We implement a one-country-two-cases study, which goes deeper than a more extensive comparative study. Braghiroli (2023) has already provided for an overview of Russia-friendly far-left and far-right parties. Further, he showed that those parties do not necessarily back Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war. Our idea is to check official communications such as plenary documents and party statements. There has already been research on the German radical right’s foreign policy dimension (Ostermann & Stahl, 2022).

2 Background Potential ideological key features of the anti-war movement have to be clarified before analysis: Pacifism has been defended in a variety of ways: by appeal to religious authority, by grounding in fundamental moral principles, and by empirical claims about the negative consequences of violence and war (Brock, 1998; Cortright, 2008). Pacifist struggle, therefore, encompasses many possibilities: campaigning against

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particular instances of organized political violence; campaigning for international modes of conflict resolution; publicly affirming pacifism in war and peace; conscientious objection; non-violent modes of protest from strikes to civil disobedience; campaigning against the arms trade; anti-nuclear activism; setting up communities organized on principles antithetical to the militarized state system (Hutchings, 2018). Pacifism opposes unilateralism and calls for opposition and resistance to war at an international level. There are three conceptual approaches to the rejection of military violence: • The uncompromising radical rejection of any military violence is called pacificism. According to pacifism, the existence of military forces embodies the right to preparation and conduct of state-approved killing (Schneider & Toyka-Seid, 2023). • Anti-militarism does not exclude the resort to military violence as self-defense by referring to the real conditions in international relations. Antimilitarists make use of weapons to challenge the state and to pursue their own goals, but reject the official infrastructure not controlled by left-wing extremists. Nevertheless, they oppose offensive warfare (van Hüllen, 2023). • Isolationism is a political concept advocating a national foreign policy which opposes involvement in political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entanglement in military alliances and mutual defense pacts (Der Brockhaus, 2023). It famously refers to US isolationism (Kupchan, 2020). Isolationism has also been defined as a policy or doctrine of trying to isolate one’s country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter alliances (Rydgren, 2009). Pacifists and isolationists oppose foreign wars, but for different reasons. Isolationists ask, “What’s in it for me?” Pacifists ask whether violence ever really solves anything. Anti-Americanism cruises on conspiracy theories and the search for scapegoats. In general, anti-Americanism is known for these two elements. AntiAmericanism turns a legitimate critique of current and concrete examples of US foreign and military policy into a stereotypical characterization of the US as an enemy and even the nemesis. The argument then goes that Americans are blinded by irrational patriotism. US foreign policy is allegedly driven by a religious and fundamentalist missionary spirit (Diner, 2002, 8). Anti-Americanism is a particularly murky concept because it invariably merges antipathy toward what America does with what America is Markovits (2007). Antipathy toward the US is shaped more by what it does in the international arena than by what it stands for politically and economically. On the Western European populist right, the idea is to make anti-Americanism sound acceptable in society. In so doing, right-wing radical populists spread the negative image of the American “world police.” Right-wing anti-Americans focus less on cultural aspects. Furthermore, this type of anti-Americanism is about power. Military and economic aspects are at the center of this right-wing discourse. On the populist left, anti-Americanism means that nationalist and internationalist objections to the US are combined to ramp up resistance against the US. The populist left rejects capitalism and imperialism embodied

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by America. Its representatives argue that US imperialism and colonialism have worked against independence, emancipation, and equality (O’Connor, 2020). In both cases anti-Americanism involves anti-globalism (Chryssogelos, 2010). Populism is a thin-centered anti-establishment ideology combined with nationalism on the right (Mudde, 2017) and socialism on the left (Rooduijn & Akkerman, 2017). Russia’s foreign policy and affiliated anti-war protest are marked by anti-westernism and proRussian sentiment. That is, they reject western values and show sympathy for and/or even embrace Russian foreign policy. By so doing, they prefer Russian imperialism (Hill, 2015; Tsygankov et al., 2021). The creation of anti-establishment parties is a real threat to conventional parties. Astonishingly, research into the types of anti-establishment parties (to the concept Hartleb, 2015; Schedler, 1996) focuses more on the anti-systemic features of the extreme or radical right. However, European party politics has become highly dynamic, which means that its future has to be considered in a more general manner. In Germany, it seems as if there was an unholy alliance of the far right and far left: On April 28, 2022, following weeks of intense debate, the Bundestag, i.e., the German parliament, passed a bill authorizing the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine. 583 Bundestag members voted in favor, while 100 opposed. 50 others either abstained or were absent (Deutscher Bundestag, 2022b). The vote breakdown by party shows that the majority of those who voted against weapons deliveries to Ukraine came from two parties: the AfD and The Left. Evidently, the AfD and The Left do not always stage themselves as polar opposites. Both parties are known for their criticisms of the West’s harsh stance toward Russia, but how have they justified their position on the Russian-Ukraine war so far? A nexus between protest from the right and the left is seldom seen. The Swiss historian Urs Altermatt is one of few academics who describe common ground between the right and the left when it comes to fundamentalism, populism, and racism. Truly, both protest movements differ given their antagonism but provide for a multifaceted underlying phenomenon (Altermatt, 1994, 8). Pro-Russian sentiment can be defined as a general approval of Putin’s policies by politicians of the AfD and The Left (including Sahra Wagenknecht and Oskar Lafontaine). Until recently, however, Pro-Russian sentiment was shared by representatives of more moderate parties (Heinemann-Grüder, 2022). Traditionally, German radical populist parties on the left and right of the political spectrum should have little in common. However, certain politicians of The Left (Die Linke) such as the media-savvy communitarian and socialist figurehead Sahra Wagenknecht have been accused of reaching out to right-wing radical populist ideas. Wagenknecht has been criticized for her vision of a national social democracy instead of internationalism. Obviously, national social democracy has been a concept embraced by some relatively successful European socialists (Dale, 2017). Wagenknecht emphasizes the communitarian contribution to defining borders and national identity as well as social cohesion (Zürn, 2020). In recent years the AfD has shaken the German political landscape (Hartleb, 2022; Rensmann, 2018), similar as the Left did before (Hartleb, 2004). Both parties have in common that they have been excluded from government at the federal level as of April 25, 2023. In east Germany the AfD and The Left are in part competing

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for the same constituency (Berbuir et al., 2015; Olsen, 2018; Weisskircher, 2020). The astonishing east–west divide (three decades after German Reunification) is still relevant with the AfD scoring higher in the approval ratings in east Germany than in west Germany. Disenchantment with the aftermath of German Reunification looms large more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall (Weisskircher, 2020). What is more, both parties have sometimes opposed the same foreign policies and domestic government policies. This opposition may have been for different reasons. Despite their divergences in domestic affairs, both ends of the political spectrum strike a similar non-interventionist tone in the Bundestag (Wenzelburger & Böller, 2020; Böller, 2022). It has attracted those within east Germany skeptical of modernization, such that the AfD could assume the legacy of the PDS (now The Left) as a political force mobilizing frustration toward the modus vivendi of the reunification process and cultivating political and cultural nostalgia. The aspect of social caretaking (as a so-called Kümmererpartei) plays an important role there. The AfD as well as the Left have taken a pro-Russian stance. In federal states (in German: “Bundesländer”) such as Saxony and Thuringia, the parties are much more a visible part of society than they are in Western Germany. And, the AfD has become a rival of The Left as the results in the 2021 federal elections confirm. Both German right-wing populism and left-wing populism are embodied by one major opposition party which has managed to obtain seats in the Bundestag. It comes as no surprise that those two parties are the two obvious suspects to be called the Kremlin’s Trojan Horses (Polyakova et al., 2016). On the far right, the AfD, the funding of which remains unclear, plays the role of open advocates of Russia, putting appeasement actions toward it as its major foreign policy priority. The AfD, a far-right party which started as a Eurosceptical single-issue party in 2013 (Arzheimer, 2015; Wurthmann et al., 2021), has a pro-Russian record. In 2017, prior to parliamentary elections in Germany, the party urged for an end to sanctions against Russia (Spahn, 2018). AfD MPs have visited the occupied Crimea peninsula in violation of Ukrainian law many times, and repeatedly called for the German government to recognize the supposed Russian territory (von Salzen, 2019). The AfD has often courted Russia (Maksan, 2022). There is a relatively stable cordon sanitaire in place against the AfD (Schäfer & Hartleb, 2022). Therefore, the AfD has been an isolated opposition party in Germany. On the campaign trail the AfD has also addressed the Russo-German community. 1.5 million Russo-Germans have the right to vote in Germany (Frumkina & Stöber, 2021). Markus Frohnmaier, who for many years acted as chairman of the AfD youth organization and who was then elected to the Bundestag, was depicted within internal Russian government documents as a Russian agent (Der Spiegel, 2019). The AfD itself has even a strong pro-Russian lobby as is shown by numerous visits to Crimea. In east Germany, the AfD has entered a rivalry with The Left to mobilize anti-Western, specifically anti-American attitudes (Olsen, 2018). On the far left, Moscow finds its always reliable ally in the socialist party The Left. Their agenda is clear—to bash the West and the US for basically everything plus always relativize atrocities committed by the Kremlin. The Left has a long history of ties with Russia, but those ties could at least be perceived as the party’s East German

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legacy. The Left’s predecessor, the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism; in German: Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus) assumed the succession of the major ruling party of the GDR (German Democratic Republic) autocracy, i.e., the SED (Socialist Unity Party; in German: Sozialistische Einheitspartei). Rooted in self-proclaimed democratic socialism, The Left and its predecessor have been an almost permanent party in the Bundestag since German Reunification in 1990. The Left has succeeded in absorbing disgruntled people in east and west Germany. Other left-wing parties such as the SPD (Social Democratic Party) and the Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) have sometimes formed a coalition government with The Left. Nevertheless, the Left remains a solitary player at the federal level (Faas & Klingelhöfer, 2022). The annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine were a reality check for Germany’s Russia policy. Over the last twenty years, “Russia-friendly” networks of experts, journalists, politicians, and lobby institutions have been established (Golova, 2020). In particular, the German-Russian Forum (GRF) established in 1993 and the St. Petersburg Dialog (PD), founded by former chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and President Vladimir Putin in 2001, have become key institutions for these networks (Meister, 2013). The very President of the Russian Federation was invited to give a speech in front of the Bundestag in 2001. Back then, Putin made an attempt to reach out to Europe and to warn against its dependence on the US (Deutscher Bundestag, 2001). Before Russia’s hostilities against Ukraine from 2014, Germany and Russia had held friendly relations for a few decades. This had been the result of the Social Democratic German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, which was aimed at reconciliation. His four successors Helmut Schmidt (Niedhart, 2016), Helmut Kohl, Gerhard Schröder, and Angela Merkel managed to further the agenda of rapprochement, which culminated in German Reunification. In 1990 the agreement on German Reunification was especially to the credit of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. However, Helmut Kohl (CDU; Christian Democratic Union) and Germany benefited more from this step than the dismantling Soviet Union, and the domestically hapless Gorbachev (Newnham, 2017). Before 2014 it was also Angela Merkel (CDU) who succeeded in diplomacy thanks to her Russian language skills obtained in the East German education system where Russian language lessons were obligatory (Meister, 2013). Granted, the ties between her predecessor Schröder and Vladimir Putin had been particularly close. After Schröder quit office as German Chancellor in 2005, the close friend of Putin’s has worked as a supervisor and lobbyist for Russian state-owned companies (Newnham, 2011). Even under Merkel’s aegis, the German government advanced the project of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline albeit seen as dividing the West (Loskot-Strachota et al., 2018). The idea of the pipeline was to transport gas to Germany without crossing the territory of third countries. In 2022 after Russia’s attempt to invade Ukraine, Germany finally buried this infrastructure project, which was seen as essential for the provision of Germany with gas from Russia. Official Russo-German relations have turned bleak. With little diplomatic exchange going on, mutual international sanctions have led to another low since 2014, when Germany continued to act as a conciliatory force. Germany at least tried to offer mediation as

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was the case with the Minsk Agreement, which was supposed to be a step toward an armistice (Åtland, 2020). In modern history, Germany has one of its worst records when it comes to Eastern Europe and Russia. Bearing the atrocities of two World Wars in mind, Germany has found it hard to balance national interests and morals (Snyder, 2009). Since former Chancellor Willy Brandt, Germany has made the effort of pulling through a benevolent and conciliatory Ostpolitik (Hofmann, 2007). Recent Russian aggression could be related to anger with the US and Western Europe, and Germany’s insensitive and insensible handling of the once highly acclaimed Russo-German relations. This is a stance sometimes taken by pundits of international relations and diplomats who warn against jeopardizing the security interests of an imperialist actor such as Russia. At times, this camp of experts, prevailing in Germany before February 24, 2022, has been named Putinversteher in German, which means those understanding or trying to understand Putin (Spanger, 2022; Stelzenmüller, 2017). However, Eastern European neighbors demand that their interests and sensibilities also be taken into account. These neighbors also suffered under German occupation and cruelties during World War II and have seen Russia as another international security threat (Lanoszka, 2016). People who see the situation this way have recently been setting the tone. Most political parties have followed suit. This has led to those condemning the Russian invasion and calling for weapons supplies to Ukraine prevailing German public discourse. (Wöllenstein, 2022). Thus, there is now hegemonic pro-Ukrainian discourse where there once was a Pro-Russian one. This shift in public discourse has been accompanied by a U-turn in the relevant policies of the Greens and the SPD. Rooted in the peace movement, the Greens have had difficulty agreeing on weapons deliveries before the outbreak of Russia’s war against Ukraine. For the SPD, it was even harder to break with their tradition of Ostpolitik. Chancellor and SPD member Olaf Scholz has spoken of an epochchanging event (“Zeitenwende”) (Deutscher Bundestag, 2022a, 8).

3 Comparative Analysis of Peace Communications by the Alternative for Germany and the Left A comparison of right- and left-wing populism is not new in German or also European politics (Hartleb, 2004). Anti-liberalism can be seen as one of the core elements which includes an affinity for authoritarian leaders such as Vladmir Putin (Hartleb, 2021, 41). The idea of this chapter is to compare the peace communications of a far-right and a far-left party. The next step is to describe the content of both communications: Since the AfD’s founding in 2013, leading AfD politicians have stuck to a vision of Realpolitik in foreign affairs. Preceding our framework of analysis, Alexander Gauland, the long standing spiritus rector of the AfD, highlighted the importance of bolstering Russia (FAZ, 2013). He argued that “Germany and Europe have no interest in further weakening Russia” (FAZ, 2013) and proposed going back to Otto

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von Bismarck’s policy of neutrality and non-intervention toward Russia (FAZ, 2013). This reek of isolationism. The AfD’s goal was to avoid involvement with a military conflict and being dragged into alliances. From the beginning, the AfD has taken an isolationist stance, attaching importance to state sovereignty. The AfD has been criticized for assuming isolationist positions and Russian propaganda. The analyst Julia Smirnova (2023) maintained: Just after the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion, AfD party leaders sought to be more cautious and to avoid expressions which could be seen as an approval of the Russian attack. Meanwhile, however, Russian narratives of disinformation and propaganda are being reiterated at each party level, and even party leaders are backing these narratives.2

On December 15, 2021, AfD Co-Chairman Tino Chrupalla claimed that the Scholzled government was continuing the policy of antagonism pursued by the preceding Merkel-led government. Chrupalla said that a policy aimed at declaring Russia as an enemy to finally vindicate the freezing of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline endangered German energy safety (Deutscher Bundestag, 2021, 370). Evidently, the AfD wanted to favor economic interests over morals or ethics. This was a stance also taken by the AfD after Russia began its war against Ukraine. On March 23, 2022, AfD leader Chrupalla complained about the Scholz-led government’s approach to common sanctions against Russia. As a result, the Economy Minister Robert Habeck was forced to woo other autocratic regimes like Qatar. Thus, doing without cheap natural gas supplies from Russia to starve Russia’s economy meant following double standards. Moreover, this was a move on the back of German citizens, fueling tendencies of de-industrialization. Chrupalla spoke in favor of a German military ready to defend its country and no longer stripped of personnel and equipment (Deutscher Bundestag, 2022c, 1931). Hence, the AfD put economic interests ahead of values in international relations. On that front, continuity in the AfD’s positions can be seen. The AfD referred to double standards in German foreign policy, i.e., moral inconsistency. On May 12, 2022, there was a parliamentary debate on an initiative by some The Left MPs to terminate at-arms-training in Germany. The AfD MP Hannes Gnauck gave a statement on this proposal, thereby referring to the ongoing war and military escalation in Ukraine. Moreover, Gnauck spoke out against the arms delivery approved by the Bundestag on April 28, 2022. He added that even by that point the training of Ukrainian soldiers by the US Army had taken place on German territory. According to Gnauck, the then German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced on May 6, 2022 that the German military was also going to train Ukrainian soldiers at weapons. Gnauck criticized the belated information of the German public and the non-decision by the Bundestag. He called for a detailed plan concerning the engagement of armed forces and the implications for the German budget. What 2

“Gleich nach dem Beginn der großangelegen russischen Invasion versuchte die Parteispitze der AfD, vorsichtiger zu sein und Ausdrücke zu vermeiden, die als Billigung des russischen Angriffs gesehen werden konnten, aber mittlerweile werden russische Desinformations- und Propagandanarrative auf allen Ebenen der Partei wiederholt und auch die Parteispitze steht zu diesen Narrativen.” (Julia Smirnova quoted from Das Erste 2023).

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is more, he also said that Germany would leave safe territory of not being a war party by taking this step. Gnauck warned against the risk that German military training sites could become Russian military targets and expressed the concern that the Bundestag no longer served German interests and was sleepwalking into war, thereby not assuming the role of a sovereign state. The MP was also skeptical of The Left’s motivation, and its pacifism and anti-militarism. Gnauck claimed that all parties except for the AfD had neglected defense capabilities and German troops, and that the steps taken to change this were belated and for the wrong purpose (Deutscher Bundestag, 2022d, 3188f). Thus, the AfD preferred non-interventionism to the toll of strategic partnership with the West. The AfD opposed military cooperation with Ukraine. On the AfD’s official homepage, the AfD parliamentary party leader Alice Weidel argued against the delivery of fighter planes to Ukraine. Referring to the deputyforeign minister of Ukraine Andrij Melnyk’s call for western fighter planes, Weidel expressly opposed this demand. According to Weidel the use of weapons in Ukraine cannot solve the conflict. She said that such a decision could be the next step leading up to World War III. The international community of states should urge for peace negotiations to de-escalate the situation (AfD, 2023). There has been the leitmotif of escalation by military support for Ukraine and the specter of World War II. The AfD tabled a plan for peace in Ukraine on February 9, 2023. The AfD’s speech to present its peace initiative was delivered by Gauland, who began his statement as follows: “I do not imagine convincing you of the necessity of a peace initiative with our move, (…]. Truly, you are stuck too deep into purely military thinking. However, you will have to justify in front of the people, why ever-more and everstronger weapons are meant to pave the way to peace. Instead of diplomacy Leopard tanks are supposed to put things right. Today it is tanks, tomorrow it will be fighter planes; there is already an ongoing discussion about that. And, later, perhaps NATO soldiers on Ukrainian soil?”3 Obviously, the AfD warned against the escalation of the military conflict. The AfD rejects a military solution to the conflict and calls for diplomacy. Further, Gauland called for peace negotiations to test Putin’s willingness to compromise. He argued that diplomacy was necessary because Ukraine could not win the war on the battlefield. Thus, the AfD takes a pragmatic stance in the Bundestag. This is neither pacifism nor anti-militarism but isolationism (Deutscher Bundestag, 2023, 10104f). In the Bundestag there were other noteworthy statements by AfD members. AfD Chairman Chrupalla said: I consider bringing nuclear power to its knees really for far-fetched. And even more on the Ukrainian’s back. The Americans are fighting in Ukrainian territory until the last Ukrainian 3

Ich bilde mir nicht ein, Sie mit unserem Antrag von der Notwendigkeit einer Friedensinitiative überzeugen zu können. […] Dazu stecken Sie schon viel zu sehr in rein militärischem Denken fest. Doch Sie werden vor den Menschen begründen müssen, warum immer mehr und immer stärkere Waffen den Weg zum Frieden ebnen sollen. Statt Diplomatie soll es der Leopard richten. Heute sind es Kampfpanzer, morgen Kampfflugzeuge; es wird bereits darüber diskutiert. Und übermorgen vielleicht NATO-Soldaten auf ukrainischem Boden?” (Deutscher Bundestag 2023, 10104).

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falls. They (the US] are the actual beneficiaries of this war, and this cannot go on that way (Das Erste, 2023).

AfD leader Chrupalla evoked the specter of German soldiers fighting against Russia: “At the end German soldiers will probably be sent to fight at that front.” (Das Erste, 2023). Commenting on the delivery of Leopard tanks to Ukraine his AfD colleague Petr Bystron said: “German tanks against Russia in Ukraine. That has already been tried by your grandfathers.” (Das Erste, 2023). In its proclamation of the peace initiative the AfD maintains that a lack of sovereignty of European states has led to the war in Ukraine. The AfD says that international law only works between independent states which see to their own interests. Moreover, the AfD is in favor of a peace treaty which safeguards the security interests of both Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine could ensure to enter neither the EU nor NATO in exchange for privileged partnership with the EU. Individual European states could subsequently build and nurture political and economic relations with Russia. As opposed to the provision of Ukraine with weapons, the AfD has made a peace proposal. The AfD refers to the peace efforts of individual third-party states, one of Pope Francis’s appeals for peace and compromise, and a move by French President Emmanuel Macron to see to Russian security interests. The AfD calls for an OECD-managed ceasefire succeeded by negotiations on an armistice resulting in a peace agreement. The Russian-occupied regions are supposed to hold referendums under OSCE supervision as to which country they want to be part of AfD im Bundestag (2022). With this proposition, the AfD is closer to Russia’s positions than Ukraine’s, which would stand to lose. This stance is even closer to pacifism than the AfD’s positions on the conflict before. Yet it remains isolationism cloaked as anti-militarism. Björn Höcke, seen as the clandestine leader of the AfD’s far-right wing, has made the following anti-American statement: These tanks just mean another four weeks of war and a few ten thousand young men who have died for nothing. After that, there will not be Leopard tanks at the new eastern front. They have set Germany checkmate.4

Höcke maintains that the US is hostile to Germany and harbors sinister intentions. The AfD features anti-Americanism and pro-Russian sentiment (Dückers, 2023). Traditionally, Germany’s left is closer to anti-militarism than the rest of the political system. This is also true for the socialist party The Left. For The Left, its parliamentary party leader Amira Mohamed Ali criticized the aggressive tone the German Foreign Ministry was striking in the face of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on December 15, 2021. What is more, Mohamed Ali spoke up for moderation and out against escalation. She said her party preferred a Brandt-like foreign policy to one inspired by the former Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (Deutscher

4

“Diese Panzer bedeuten lediglich vier Wochen länger Krieg und ein paar zehntausend junge Männer, die sinnlos gestorben sind. Danach gibt es keine Leopardpanzer mehr an der neuen Ostfront. Die USA haben Deutschland schachmatt gesetzt.” (quoted from Dückers 2023).

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Bundestag, 2021, 362). This can be seen as an anti-militarist stance which prefers diplomatic solutions to military conflicts. This position would set the tone after the Russian invasion. On March 23, 2022, The Left parliamentary party leader Dietmar Bartsch introduced his words by mentioning that for 28 days war was raging in Ukraine thanks to the aggressor Putin. Accordingly, this has made the civil population, especially women and children, suffer (Deutscher Bundestag, 2022c, 1935f). Bartsch added the following: “This war has turned a president into a war criminal.”5 Bartsch criticized the German Economy Minister’s double standards on Russia, on the one hand, and Qatar, on the other hand. Bartsch described how Habeck was courting Qatar to make up for frozen relations with Russia. The dilemma was as follows: to dismiss one autocrat Germany had to cooperate more with another autocrat. Bartsch blamed the dilemma on the dependence on fossil fuels and called for an end to being boxed in between two bad options. He complained about missing tax reform to rake in funds for planned re-armament worth 100 billion euros. Eventually, Bartsch closed by pointing out that the bill for re-armament would have to be paid for by the socially disadvantaged and common people (Deutscher Bundestag, 2022c, 1935f). Therefore, The Left warned against the humanitarian and socio-economic toll of the war and double standards set by the German establishment. In April 2022, Sevim Da˘gdelen, a former deputy leader of The Left in the Bundestag, praised German protesters who opposed an increase in German military spending, and she described it as “madness” to deliver military weapons to Ukraine (Deutsche Welle, 2022). In addition, Da˘gdelen was in charge of the demonstration on February 25, 2023 (Huesmann, 2023). The following parliamentary proposal by The Left demonstrates its inclination for pacifism: On May 12, 2022, some members of The Left parliamentary party tabled a proposal to end at-arms-training in Germany and to rule it out in the future. The objective was to prevent Germany from becoming a war party in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Arguing in favor of the proposal, the Left MP Zaklin Nastic declared that The Left absolutely condemned Russia’s war of aggression violating international law. Nastic was critical of the large amount of weaponry delivered to Ukraine within the first eight weeks of war. Notwithstanding this provision of arms there was still an ongoing war in Ukraine as Nastic established. She asserted that two The Left delegates had been asked for humanitarian and medical aid on their field trip to Ukraine. In addition, Nastic warned those MPs who held different views on the raging war not to risk extending the military conflict to Germany. According to Nastic at-arms training was a dangerous step in that direction. Nastic added that 28 German celebrities and 270,000 people had signed an open letter to Scholz pointing out that an atomic war could be the result of respective escalation regardless of who had started the conflict. Nastic called on the Bundestag’s special responsibility for peace in Europe. Furthermore, she reminded that Scholz’s initial rejection of the call for at-arms-training had been right, and that the government should resort to reason. Nastic concluded that a World War III had to be avoided 5

“[D]ieser Angriff hat einen Präsidenten zu einem Kriegsverbrecher gemacht” (Deutscher Bundestag 2022c, 1935).

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(Deutscher Bundestag, 2022d, 3183f). Thus, The Left is strictly opposed to warfare and its logistics with an eye to the prospect of World War III. When the AfD presented its peace initiative to the Bundestag, The Left retorted that the AfD’s peace initiative was grotesque since the AfD had fascists among its members. The Left’s MP Ali Al-Dailami warned against further escalation of the war. Thanks to its delivery of Leopard II tanks to Ukraine, Germany was slip-sliding more and more into becoming a war party in the conflict. According to Al-Dailami this was an irresponsible step. Al-Dailami sounded a cautionary note on double standards. Germany was not participating in diplomatic efforts but relying on autocracies to broker peace in Ukraine. Additionally, Al-Dailami said that the Global South was not willing to take part in the West’s economic sanctions, which were affecting even the German population. The Left saw no interest of the Global South in the conflict, and the official statement praised especially the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s role in promoting peace. Obviously, The Left struck a partly anti-Western and anti-American note and took more a pacifist than an anti-militarist stance. This was because The Left had a deeper conviction and longer record of pacifism in Germany. What is more, The Left called for an international solution to Russia’s war in Ukraine and criticized the West for its sensibilities (Deutscher Bundestag, 2023, 10111f). Wagenknecht denies the struggle of Ukrainian democracy against Russian dictatorship. According to her it is a war between two oligarchic forms of capitalism (Frankfurter Rundschau, 2023). On its official homepage, The Left calls for stopping the war in Ukraine from escalating. The Left urges the West and Germany to stop the delivery of weapons. According to The Left, peace negotiations have to begin immediately. In addition, the Left demands Russia withdraw its troops from Ukraine at once and concedes that Ukraine has the right to defend itself against the Russian invasion. The official statement says that the situation in Ukraine will exacerbate if the war in Ukraine continues. The Left warned against even more suffering and the provision of fighter planes and soldiers. The idea of The Left is that the delivery of more arms does not result in peace, but peace can only be achieved by diplomacy (Die Linke, 2023). The Left seeks to establish a diplomatic solution establishing peace in Ukraine to arms deliveries. The left-wing party fears that things could escalate out of control. Wagenknecht suggests making an offer to Putin through diplomatic channels (Die Linke, 2023). There has been a current discussion on The Left’s mixture of anti-Americanism and pro-Russian sentiment (Dückers, 2023). Sevim Da˘gdelen has expressed the following anti-American idea: The US are sending Germany like a vassal into fire. The German government coalition’s decision at Washington’s request paves Germany the way into war. Fatally, Scholz crossed the red line drawn by himself. The idea is to fall into the arms of warmongers now.6 6

“USA schicken Deutschland wie einen Vasallen ins Feuer. Entscheidung der Ampel auf Geheiß Washingtons bereitet Deutschland den Weg in den Krieg. Fatal, dass Scholz die einst von ihm selbst gezogene rote Linie überschritten hat. Es gilt jetzt den Kriegstreibern in den Arm zu fallen!” (quoted from Dückers, 2023).

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The question is as to what the similarities and differences of the far-right AfD and the far-left The Left are? The AfD is neither anti-militarist nor pacifist party, but rather refers to self-determination, independence, and sovereignty. The AfD wants Germany to reduce its dependence on the US, and the party sees Russia as a natural partner not to fight against. The AfD does not pursue a moralist or idealist foreign policy but warns against the toll of fighting against Russia in Ukraine. National interests are more important to the AfD. Moreover, the AfD sees Germany ending up in the role of a war party in the Russian war against Ukraine. The AfD sounds a cautionary note against further escalation, and World War III or atomic warfare. Nevertheless, the AfD at least mentions the infringement of international law on the part of Russia by starting a war of aggression. Even so, the AfD has an important pro-Russian constituency it pays lip service to. The AfD speaks out against a global hegemon and wants Germany to act as a sovereign state making its own decisions instead of a supranational community interfering with national interests. Granted, the AfD has performed a relative shift to pacifism or anti-militarism. Anyhow, the AfD tables a complex peace proposal regardless of its content. Evidently, the AfD is driven by anti-establishment populism and nationalist as well as anti-Western isolationism. Rooted in left-wing ideals, The Left is in part both a pacifist and an anti-militarist party as far as its officials are concerned. The Left is poised against more military spending or the German military whatsoever. It is concerned about the global and regional ramifications of war, i.e., in Ukraine but not only there. This includes the Global South. The Left warns against cultivating double standards and demands a diplomatic solution in the face of a World War III or other forms of escalation such as the use of nuclear weapons. The origins of Russia’s war against Ukraine are clear to the Left. The Russia-friendly party refuses, however, to restrict responsibility for the ongoing war to Russia. That is, The Left speaks out against German arms supply to Ukraine and elsewhere. The Left is located somewhere between pacifism and anti-militarism since the party offers a more internationalist outlook than the AfD. Therefore, The Left is striving for a more just and peaceful world, but it also sees its shortcomings, mentioning double standards. Anti-establishment and anti-Western populism is combined with pacifism and/or anti-militarism inspired by socialism. The table provides you with an overview of the salient features of both parties’ stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine (see Table 1). This paragraph deals with the criteria mentioned in the table above. The AfD sees the military conflict from an isolationist angle, while The Left is ideologically alternating between anti-militarism and pacificism. Both parties call for immediate peace negotiations and a stop of arms supplies to Ukraine. Although it has been argued that the AfD and The Left are united in their anti-Americanism und proRussian sentiment, there is scarcely common ground when it comes to their respective arguments for immediate peace talks in the case of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Both parties’ populism is illustrated by their anti-establishment attitude toward German politics. Surely, their motivations diverge, but both parties urge for an end to the hostilities and call for concessions from the West and Ukraine. They demand a stop of logistical support of the Ukrainian military through arms deliveries. At any rate,

210 Table 1 Stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine, created by the authors

F. Hartleb and C. Schiebel

Positions

AfD

The left

Pacifism

X

Anti-militarism

X

Isolationism

X

Anti-establishment protest

X

X

Anti-Westernism

X

X

Anti-Americanism

X

X

Pro-Russian sentiment

X

X X

Stress on values Stress on interests

X

Internationalism Nationalism

X X

the AfD attaches great value to a well-equipped German military for the sake of selfdefense only. The Left focuses less on German industry than on socio-economically disadvantaged parts of German society. Both parties blame parts of the trouble on the German establishment’s double standards.

4 Outlook This chapter has demonstrated some astonishing similarities in the agenda between the far right and far left in Europe. The war Russia has caused could be seen as a driving force for a new alliance which is not new, rather “old ghosts in new sheets” (so the title of Chryssogelos, 2011). More than 30 years after German Reunification, the so-called new peace movements stand in line with the old ones from the 1980s. This refers to the old Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the latter of which regarded itself—despite the shooting of people who wanted to escape over the Berlin wall—as an antifascist bloc. In West Germany, the fear of having a nuclear war was a central point for mobilization. This can be likened to the 2023 Wagenknecht manifesto. Wagenknecht can be seen as the key figure of the current anti-war movement in Germany. The movement is linked to antiAmericanism and anti-Westernism as well as pro-Russian sentiment. What is more, the far right has sought to hijack a movement spearheaded by some left-wing activists. Somehow, it is difficult to disentangle the anti-war movement from populism. Mobilization to protest for peace is nothing new in modern history: On June 20, 1981 at the demonstration “Be afraid, the nuclear death is a death for us all” in Hamburg around 100,000 people gathered. The demonstration “A common action against the nuclear threat and against militarism” on October 10, 1982 in Bonn saw even around 300,000 participants (Hartleb, 2006). Oskar Lafontaine, Wagenknecht´s husband, former Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD)

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and a later cofounder of the Left claimed even in a book he published in 1983: Die USA use the strategy of the nuclear warfare. A nuclear war in Germany is a horrible vision (Lafontaine, 1983). Lafontaine left the party The Left in 2022. Wagenknecht is currently struggling besides her popularity in the public. There are some rumors that she is going to create a new party as once Lafontaine did. And AfD-voters and even leaders show their sympathy to the former Stalinist Wagenknecht, especially in Eastern Germany. The common line in past and present is anti-Americanism which is not just about “abolishing NATO” but ideologically driven (“Ami, go home!”). At the Brandenburg gate, Wagenknecht spread a video message with the conspiracy theory, a “coup d´état” initiated by the US had happened in Ukraine. To analyze the arguments since the outbreak of the Russian war, the far right and far left are united by the same goals. In this context, it is no surprise that Björn Höcke has offered Sarah Wagenknecht to join his party, the AfD. All these dynamics show that anti-Western approaches have obtained new ground in an unstable new “world disorder” (Neumann, 2022), and this trend could result in another debate about the horseshoe theory in political science. This asserts that the far left and right resemble each other, in analogy to the way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are closely together (Backes & Jesse, 1993, 33). In the light of the Russian war against Ukraine but also the West, new evidence can be revealed for Germany and beyond. Populism itself is no longer an unchallenged leitmotif of far-right or far-left parties. In practice, there is no difference at least in some regards concerning the foreign policy positions of the far-right and the far-left in Germany, although The Left is seen as more inclusionary in the academic discourse (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013). It seems likely that “peace promotion” will stay an important topic for both parties. If it will enter the mainstream further, remains an open question. But the recent social movements during the pandemic including the so-called Reichsbürger (state deniers) indicate that a Pro-Russian stance has tradition and potential for mobilization at the same time (Hartleb et al., 2023). And all these developments proof that that the role of ideologies shouldn´t be underestimated in the study of the far right and left. In other words: Not all is just about thin-centered populism.

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The Impact of War in Ukraine on the Political and Ideological Agenda of European Post-communist State Conservative Populists: The Case of EKRE Illimar Ploom , Vladimir Sazonov , and Noel Foster

1 Introduction Moscow’s February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine has challenged the hitherto ambiguous positions of Central and Eastern European conservative populists towards the Kremlin, most evident in terms of their rhetoric and narratives. At the time when Ukrainians are fighting for their right to live according to European values, an ambivalent position towards the Kremlin and to its rhetoric seems not only morally but also (geo)politically unacceptable. Yet grey areas remain. Most visibly, the Kremlin’s aggression has brought a steep divide between Hungary and Poland, two Central European countries ruled singlehandedly and over several election cycles by right-wing populist parties, Fidesz and PiS, respectively. Stances towards Vladimir Putin’s aggression between Fidesz and PiS diverge sharply, the former refusing to take a clear stance towards the initiator

Published with support of project O-006 “Strategic communication in the context of the war in Ukraine: lessons learned for Estonia”, Estonian Military Academy. I. Ploom Department of Strategy and Innovation, Estonian Military Academy, Riia 12, 51013 Tartu, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] V. Sazonov (B) Estonian Military Academy, Riia 12, 51013 Tartu, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia N. Foster U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI, USA University of California Institute On Global Conflict and Cooperation, La Jolla, CA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_11

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of the war, and the latter becoming a foremost supporter of Ukraine in its war of liberation. Against this backdrop, this chapter intends to explore the similarity of the rhetoric of EKRE towards the Kremlin’s values and narratives as well as its stance towards Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. As it will be argued, while the urgent need for geopolitical positioning has not left EKRE untouched, it yet remains to be seen if it will also affect EKRE’s values and practices. We consider this latter aspect a far more crucial one for grasping the vicissitudes of European civilization. In brief, our argument concentrates on the ambiguity of the conservative nature of the right-wing populists as well as the Kremlin. We do not claim that the values and ideology of the Kremlin and the CEE populists are identical, yet they have clear similarities. When calling them conservative, we not only bind them together, but we also legitimize their views. For the label conservative carries an essentially Western connotation. The chapter intends to demonstrate that the views of the CEE populists can hardly be seen as unequivocally conservative. While the regime of the Kremlin is not under scrutiny, its views are even far more remote from the populists’ acclaimed conservatism. We suggest that it is better to view the ideology of conservative populists as composed of at least three layers, including elements from conservatism, but much more deeply defined by those of neo-traditionalism and non-democratic populism. The mix we call pseudo-conservatism since it goes against some core values of modern conservatism. The crux of the argument revolves around the concept of the rule of law. In terms of rhetoric as well as practice, there appears to be little regard among the populists for that concept. Instead, next to the rhetoric, also the deeds of the so-called conservative populists go strongly against the institution of the rule of law. Suffice it here to mention the policies of Fidesz in Hungary and PiS in Poland. Since not having (had) an overwhelming majority in the parliament, so far EKRE in Estonia is following the suit merely rhetorically. Nevertheless, as will be argued, there exist elements in their rhetoric which point to the possibility of similar practical moves as in Hungary and Poland. In this context, we will inquire into the attitudes of the CEE populists towards the Kremlin and their rhetoric and narratives in order to see to what extent it is similar to that of the Kremlin. The aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in 2022 constitutes a disjuncture and provides an analytical leverage point that we exploit to better grasp the nuances in the views of the populists. The chapter will inquire thus what changes have occurred to the views and actions of EKRE, projecting them to the changes visible in the positioning and rhetoric of Fidesz and PiS.

1.1 Definitions Firstly, we employ the term populism (see, e.g., Canovan 1981) as it is presented by Ernesto Laclau (2007). According to Laclau (2007), populism is a never-ending discursive struggle for hegemony through infusing meanings in key concepts, which

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are inherently open to interpretation (“empty signifiers,” “nodal points”) (see also Makarychev & Sazonov, 2021). We should notice here that there are several types of populism (right-wing, left-wing, centrist, etc.) as it was shown by several authors (see, e.g., Mölder & Sazonov, 2020a, b; Kasekamp et al., 2019; Weyland, 2013). Secondly, in our article we focus primarily on the conservative or right-wing populists in Estonia represented by the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE). A rightwing politician in Estonia—as well as in other Baltic states and more widely in East European countries, e.g., in Hungary, Poland—have relied on kaleidoscopic value charts which combine democratic and non-democratic elements. Prominent in these charts are populist aspects with referendums and all manner of majority voting techniques, whereas rule of law is given a far less important place, if not downplayed by them. Likewise, liberal values are downgraded while so-called traditional values are hailed. In Estonia, populism of the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) is oriented against liberalism of the West with the EU (Makarychev & Sazonov, 2021). Before the war in Ukraine, the EKRE attacked the political establishment of Estonia, which bases its policy on the principle of European solidarity (and Estonia’s interests as relying on its alignment with the EU and NATO), while the party’s rhetoric on values has not seldom come to resemble that of Russia, otherwise perceived in Estonia as a geopolitical enemy. In this context, EKRE rhetoric presents the EU as a threat or a failure, while Russia appears ambiguously as a role model along certain dimension. However, the war in Ukraine has lain bare the intrinsic contradictions in EKRE’s longstanding equivocation in simultaneously praising Russia’s values and condemning its foreign policy and forced that party to reveal its preferences. The main research problem of the current article is how Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine changed EKRE’s current ideology and platform, compared to its pre-war stances, and what changes could this bring to the cohesion of Estonian multi-lingual political community? Jakobson and Kasekamp (2023, 115) highlighted that Estonia was an outlier in the European populist Radical Right scene, with no party being elected to parliament. This changed with the electoral breakthrough of the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) in 2015. Compared to Jakobson and Kasekamp, we offer a more elaborated theoretical backdrop as well as an extended empirical study that complement other works written recently about EKRE, its populist rhetoric and approach (see, e.g., Makarychev, 2023, in this volume).

1.2 Methodology Our analysis is based on two different types of sources, which we collected for our research, collated and then analyzed, and which was used in current study to analyze the empirical data (interviews and articles published in mainstream media) by using a hidden pilot sample (Kuckartz, 2014). First, we analyze several articles published in leading media sources between 2019 and 2023, which contents or represents populist narratives and rhetoric of

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EKRE before COVID-19, during COVID-19 and during Russo-Ukrainian war. As a pilot, to perform primary coding, four articles from four different media outlets (e.g., Postimees, Err.ee, Bloomberg, Radio Free Europe, etc.) were selected. Altogether we analyzed more than forty articles using qualitative content analysis. Secondly, we also based our study on twelve semi-structured interviews conducted by Vladimir Sazonov and Illimar Ploom from March 2018 to March 2023 in Tallinn and Tartu, with different experts who specialize in researching right-wing populism in Europe and more specifically in Estonia. We conducted additional interviews with EKRE members as well. Several experts interviewed wished to remain anonymous, and for that reason are referred to as Expert A, B, C, D, etc.

2 Literature Review: Pseudo-conservative Populist Politics in Post-communist Europe1 In this chapter, we argue for the significance of counterintuitive similarities between the rhetoric of EKRE—but also that of PiS2 and Fidesz3 —and that of the Kremlin. At the same time, we analyze key differences, such as the positioning of PiS as decisively opposing Russia’s foreign policy and imperialism, whereas Fidesz staying much closer to the Kremlin. We ask in this chapter whether these differences are substantial or formal. We intend to show that the similarities are real; the rhetoric of the parties is close in many of their major elements. In more detail, content-wise, support for (neo-)traditional values makes European post-communist state conservative populists appear to echo those values the Kremlin propagates. What is more, as far as governance techniques are concerned, reliance on a formalized and majoritarian concept of democracy pushes populists in European post-communist states closer to Kremlin’s “managed democracy.” Nevertheless, what divides the conservative populists is geopolitics. Geopolitics is the decisive axis which separates and opposes EKRE and PiS from the Kremlin, while aligning Fidesz with Moscow. In conclusion, we find that as most of European post-communist state countries are former Soviet colonies, even if the liberal momentum has been lost in terms of holding high liberal values, the urge towards formal geopolitical independence is still very much alive. Thus, this article argues that the worldview of EKRE—and, by implication, that of European post-communist state populists as well as of Putin—while parasitizing modern conservative values, has lost its core, i.e., a true appreciation of rule of law and individuality.

1

Central and Eastern Europe. PiS—Prawo i Sprawiedliwo´sc´ —Law and Justice. 3 Fidesz—Hungarian Civic Alliance. 2

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2.1 Contextualizing Populist Politics: Major Vectors of Impact The context for the emergence of conservative populism in CEE is versatile, among the facets three surface as the most important ones: the financial crisis, the cultural shock related to the extent and speed of globalization, including the speed of European integration, and the influence of the non-democratic regimes. In this paper we will focus almost exclusively on the last factor, yet the other two deserve also brief attention, not least because the latter could be said to pave the way for the influence of the non-democratic measures. The first facet is related to the deep and wide socio-economic problems within Western societies that either appeared with, or were caused by, the global financial crisis. Despite strong measures taken by the governments and the European Union to handle the crisis, its aftermath still lingers on, the post-II WW inclusive and egalitarian social (especially in Europe) and dynamic economic (primarily in the U.S.) models being severely damaged. Although it could be argued that the seeds for the crises were sewn much earlier with the rise of neoliberalism and the most recent wave of globalization, it was the crisis and the concomitant social insecurity in Western societies that has given a direct impetus to the rise of the populists, among them prominently the conservative ones (Hopkin & Blyth, 2020). The second aspect involves the relatively deep and speedy cultural changes that accompanied the most recent globalization wave. Though there are more nuances to it, a salient feature concerns the need to position oneself towards foreign peoples and cultures. It can be said to be largely an outcome of the neoliberal economic policies that, by way of removing the restrictions from the movement of capital, either exported the jobs or imported cheaper workforce (Blyth, 2002; Reinert & Kattel, 2013). Of course, the rise and role of technologies that have also facilitated or literally brought societies around the world closer together cannot be downplayed. The effect of these changes has seen both the rise of fundamentalism as well as globalism (Barber, 1995). Here also the fatigue from the speedy European integration could be accommodated that mostly brought negative demographic trends in CEE and were mirrored in the anti-immigration sentiment in 2015–16 (Krastev & Holmes, 2020). The third aspect concerns the rise of consciousness and global re-positioning of the non- or semi-democratic regimes, perhaps most clearly evidenced by the leap into prominence of the BRIC countries. While relatively contentedly witnessing the effects of the global financial crisis, what they termed the decline of the West, especially the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China have not remained neutral. They have initiated several actions (e.g., in Africa, in the MENA region), but also campaigns of propaganda and dissemination of what can be called strategic narratives (mostly targeting the West) (Doshi, 2021; Hinck et al., 2018; Miskimmon et al., 2018; Mölder et al., 2021) to help dismantle the social fabric of the West. In this context, we argue for the significance of counterintuitive similarities between the rhetoric of EKRE—but also that of PiS and Fidesz—and that of the

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Kremlin. At the same time, we analyze key differences, such as the positioning of PiS as decisively opposing Russia’s foreign policy and imperialism, whereas Fidesz staying much closer to the Kremlin. We ask in this chapter whether these differences are substantial or formal. We intend to show that the similarities are real; the rhetoric of the parties is close in many of their major elements. What divides the conservative populists is geopolitics. Geopolitics is the decisive axis which separates and opposes EKRE and PiS from the Kremlin, while aligning Fidesz with Moscow. At the same time, content-wise, support for (neo-)traditional values makes European post-communist state pseudo-conservative populists appear to echo those values the Kremlin propagates. Most importantly, as far as governance techniques are concerned, reliance on a formalized and majoritarian concept of democracy pushes populists in European post-communist states closer to Kremlin’s “managed democracy.” In conclusion, we find that as most of European postcommunist state countries are former Soviet colonies, even if the urge towards formal geopolitical independence is still very much alive, the liberal momentum has been lost in terms of holding high liberal values. Thus, this article argues that the worldview of EKRE—and, by implication, that of European post-communist state populists as well as of Putin—while parasitizing modern conservative values, has lost its core, i.e., a true appreciation of rule of law and individuality.

2.2 The Nature of Post-communist Populism: A Tale of Three Discourses, the Populist, the Pseudo-democratic, and the Pseudo-conservative Conservative or right-wing populism (Wodak, 2015; Wodak et al., 2013) in European post-communist states has many facets and has been studied on many axes, such as economic, political, and cultural. The economic reasons and underpinnings for the rise of conservative populism in Europe’s post-communist nations have been mapped, debated, and substantiated (see, e.g., Gozgor, 2022). The effects of fatigue with Westernization in post-communist Europe combined with the heavy demographic toll of the period of Euro-integration have been prominently discussed by Holmes and Krastev (2018). From a cultural angle, a neo-traditionalist perspective highlights how modernizing values and their foreign origin of progressivism are countered (Melito, 2021). Also, populism in European post-communist states has been related to the illiberal turn and democratic backsliding (see, e.g., Jenne & Mudde, 2012; Hanley & Vachudova, 2018). In order to understand the character of EKRE’s conservative populism, we see it as containing three main elements: a post-communist populist mélange containing several characteristics like, e.g., nationalism and anti-elitism; a practical toolbox of instruments that over-exploit the majority principle of democracy; and a core, consisting of a take of conservatism that over-emphasizes the traditionalist side at the expense of the rule of law and individuality.

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We call the conservative aspect the core element as we see it as the primary theoretical model that underlies the other two aspects outlined above. We claim that it is able to explain the other two elements. First, we see the conservative element as finding its expression in, or providing the source for, what we call the populists’ outer layer, thus following the logic of “thin ideology.” Second, we argue that in over-exploiting the majority principle of democracy the populists omit some core democratic aspects that also go strongly against conservative values. Thereby, we show how, on the one hand, the populists partly follow conservative values, but how on the other hand they caricature modern conservatism in neglecting the liberal side of the conservative ideology. However, while pursuing the conservative thread, we build on previous research on the illiberal turn in democracies and democratic backsliding. By assuming a perspective from the European conservative tradition, we expect to better understand European post-communist state right-wing populism. For that purpose, this chapter sketches the contours of a map for analyzing what we term pseudo-conservative populism in post-communist Europe. With this map, we intend to identify the general character of conservative or right-wing populism in order that the impact of Russian aggression against Ukraine could thereafter be analyzed. A straightforward conservative identity is sometimes attributed to right-wing populists of the European postcommunist world (e.g., Deak & Amon, 2015; Guillard & Paris, 2011). At the same time, this identity is not studied in much detail. As we will argue, there is indeed some substance to the primacy of conservative identity, yet it is merely a major departing point for the populists who go far beyond that, at least by the example of EKRE, creating a peculiar ideology of pseudo-conservative populism. Classical and modern conservatism, in distinction to early conservatism (see, e.g., Mannheim, 1986) has fully embraced the liberal constitutional order with which the right-wing populists clearly clash. And yet, the conservative backdrop proves the importance of mapping the peculiarities of the latter. Thus, we analyze the populists by staking out three complementary layers of explanation of underlying values forming the basic layer or a core, of majority-exploiting techniques forming the mid-layer, and of a populist outer layer or crust of adjacent concepts. We use the conceptual framework developed by Freeden (1998). What we intend to show thereby is that right-wing populism in Europe’s post-communist countries may be understood in its ideological character by presenting it as a combination of layers. The first layer sees the neo-traditional elements dominating against liberal elements of a populist party’s pseudo-conservative ideology. The second layer witnesses the domination of the majority voting elements (e.g., Tocqueville) over the rule of law elements (e.g., Locke, Montesquieu, Dicey) in a democracy. In turn, the populist crust sees coming to the fore of themes like nationalism, anti-elitism, welfare chauvinism, and economic nationalism.

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A Pseudo-conservative Interpretation of Conservative Values

In modern conservatism both the traditional side (e.g., Mannheim) and liberal side (e.g., Burke) coexist. In as different accounts as Oakeshott (1991) and Scruton (1984), this mixture is clearly visible. Thus, the traditional versus liberal values are seen against the backdrop of the conservative ideology. What we intend to show is that to understand the peculiarities of right-wing populism in post-communist European democracies, it is useful to juxtapose the two elements in a modern Burkean conservative ideology, its traditionalist and liberal layers (see, e.g., Scruton, 1984). In post-communist Europe, just as populists tend to reduce democracy to its majority voting aspects, they tend to reduce conservatism to its traditionalist aspects, forgetting the liberal side of its genealogy. This reduction ends up in creating a simulacrum of modern conservatism, resembling at best the most reactionary elements of the ideology. Although the most salient features of early conservatism are related to its traditionalist side (see, e.g., Mannheim, 1986), and sometimes the traditionalist features of modern conservatism are given primacy (Scruton, 1984) the conservative tradition in its British Burkean or the continental Christian democratic brands has clearly embraced and adopted the liberal constitutional paradigm into its nature. A good illustration of a modern conservatism that puts clearly forward both traditionalist and liberal sides can be seen in Michael Oakeshott’s (1975, 1991) version. While he stresses the anti-rationalist elements of conservatism (Rationalism in Politics, 1991), he is perhaps even more adamant in his account of the rule of law elements within the conservative tradition (On Human Conduct, 1975). Modern conservative tradition thus bases its values on a liberal paradigm, appreciating the individualist core of modern life, and only rejects the most rationalistic aspects of liberalism. However, right-wing populists in European post-communist states often claim a conservative inheritance yet tend to select some of its traditionalist values at the expense of its liberal basis. Therefore, these populists’ understandings of conservatism become relatively reactionary.

2.2.2

The Pseudo-democratic Reality: Prevalence of Majority-Exploiting Techniques

Majority voting elements, when stressed at the expense of the elements of rule of law in a democracy, also typify right-wing populism in post-communist Europe. In these relatively young democracies, democracy is all too often equated with the majority voting mechanism. In short, democracy is taken as the question of determining the prevailing majority. Drawing on that, as one of the major arguments that they put forward, populists claim that in a democracy the voice of the majority must prevail. By the same token, as a secondary argument, they not only assert that minorities cannot simply dismiss majority views in a society, but that a majority viewpoint must, as a principle, dominate over the minority preferences. This understanding of democracy is obviously biased, as it disregards the primacy of the rule of law for a democracy. It can be argued that both historically as well

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as logically, the rule of law as the primary element of democracy arrived earlier compared to democracy. In the gradual development of individual rights, the rule of law laid down its basic level in terms of privacy, etc., whereas specific political rights were only a later addition, established in some cases only in the nineteenth, but mostly in the twentieth century (e.g., Heywood, 2007). What is more important, though, in terms of the growing forms of modern individuality in European and Western societies, the rule of law and the basic admittance of individuality of a person comprise a more fundamental category compared to the right to have a vote in elections. The voting right is, of course, far from unimportant, to the contrary, it is one of the utmost expressions of individuality. Nevertheless, precisely because of that, voting rights cannot be reduced to the majority principle. Instead, what matters is that every individual vote carries an equal weight. Thus, it is an expression of a person’s individuality that necessitates the counting of votes. And the majority, figuratively speaking, is merely a function of individuality. This understanding of democracy is clearly also acknowledged and accepted by classical conservatives (see, e.g., Burke). Sometimes even the primacy of the rule of law is admitted in a democratic state (e.g., Oakeshott, 1975). All in all, the complementary roles of a democratic mechanism and the rule of law are an essential part of the modern British, Anglo-American as well as the continental Christian democratic traditions.

2.2.3

The Populist Layer: Adjacent Concepts as Derivatives of the Conservative Ideology

As regards populism, several scholars, such as Mudde (2004), put forward a thesis of “thin ideology,” interpreting different versions of populism as derivative ideologies that live on the classical ones. We find it a useful concept to understand the rightwing populists, in as far as they can be seen to use only partially the conservative ideas and ideology. For example, rather typically for Central or Eastern European right-wing populists, they tend towards people-centrism, which sees a people as a unified body. Here the basic liberal quality of Western societies comes under attack, as individuality and rule of law are downgraded. Here also the conservative aspect is coming to the fore inasmuch as modern conservatives have fully accepted the central position of rule of law for a modern (Western) society. Thus, we argue that instead of appreciating minority rights that are being protected by the rule of law, majority principle is overstressed by the populists. This makes populism an obvious opponent to pluralist societies. Next to it, as a part and parcel of the people’s unity view, anti-elitism considers the ruling elites as corrupt (Mudde, 2004). Based on that, the populists find their role in articulating the true views of a democratic majority and setting the domestic political scenery right again. However, Mudde’s treatment has also been subjected to criticism. For one, according to Schroeder (2020), contrary to Mudde’s definition, populism has distinctive elements which include welfare chauvinism and exclusionism, economic nationalism and a beggar-thy-neighbor, “my nation first” foreign and trade policy. For

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another line of critique, Aslanidis sees Mudde’s ideological connotations as illconceived both conceptually and methodologically. As he argues, Mudde’s account is characterized by normative implications and failure to acknowledge the graded nature of populist behavior. Instead, Aslanidis suggests dropping the ideological clause and simply conceiving populism as a discursive frame (2015). Nevertheless, the authors consider Mudde’s conceptualization of populism as inspiring, in that it helps draw out the relationship between modern conservatism and pseudo-conservative populism. And, as we propose, Mudde’s more abstract view of populism does not necessarily have to contradict the existence of more specific characteristics of a populist ideology. Following that idea, we consider certain relevant adjacent concepts as part of post-communist state pseudo-conservative populists’ agenda. As we show, they can be related to the conservative core, and they diverge from it in a similar way as the majority voting mechanism does. Hence, following Pirro, who regards populism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), one can outline several core features of populism such as clericalism, opposition towards ethnic minorities, and EU-pessimism. In addition, Pirro (2014) also cites key secondary features like irredentism, anti-corruption, and social-national economics. When, in the following sections, we turn to analyze the rhetoric of EKRE in detail, we see the presence of nearly all these characteristics. However, at this juncture, it is relevant to refer them to the conservative context. To bring some salient examples, the stress on ethnic majority dominance over minorities demonstrates the relative unimportance given to the rule of law. The more the former is stressed at the expense of the latter, the stronger the populist radical position the ideology assumes. Or the stance on European integration is mostly related to the promotion of liberal values against which the radical populist tends to identify itself. Here it is the liberal inheritance which the populists deny, thereby departing from the values of the conservatives. Likewise, support for clericalism carries a clear neo-traditionalist agenda. Estonia may seem an exception, but even in one of the most non-religious societies in Europe there are some links between EKRE and conservative religious activists like Varro Vooglaid and Markus Järvi (Pirro, 2014).

2.2.4

Conclusion

So, on one level, this chapter has juxtaposed neo-traditional values with liberal values, presenting a balanced combination of liberal and traditional values as the original conservative ground which the populists have deserted. On another level, the authors juxtapose the majority techniques and the rule of law, attributing the majority voting cum rule of law position to the original conservative tradition. Again, the populists can be seen deserting one vital part of that territory. Finally, on a level of adjacent concepts, we see them as pointing to the same basic tendency evident in the two outlined levels. Our argument, for the sake of using these criteria, stresses not only the practices of right-wing populists in European post-communist states, but also the pragmatic value of both majority voting logic as well as neo-traditional values to these populists. Both these positions traduce the liberal constitutional order without its essential features.

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Mere majority voting without appreciating fundamental rights may end in populist dictatorship, and traditional values without the appreciation of a liberal paradigm end in a reactionary paradigm that intends to stop, if not reverse, the gradual progress of individuality. Based on the above, we assert that establishing conservative ideology as the reference point enables us to better appreciate the peculiar nature of right-wing populism in Europe’s post-communist sphere. This logic distinguishes the populist and radical sides from the mainstream ideologies.

3 Conservative Populist Parties in Post-communist Europe 3.1 Attitudes Towards the Kremlin and Russia Before and After 2022. Pro-Russian and Anti-Russian Discourses Right-wing populist parties in Europe are ironically united only in their diversity. There are the more extreme (Ignazi, 2002; Norris, 2005; Shekhovtsov, 2018) and the more moderate (Fielitz & Laloire, 2016; Wodak, 2015). Critical to our analysis, there are those who before 2022 had quite clearly demonstrated a pro-Kremlin discourse, those that have been neutral towards the Kremlin and the Putin regime, and those that are critical of the Putin regime. But we should note here that the main goal of Kremlins’ information activities and influence operations in the West is to widen the (political) gap between Europe and the US. The second purpose of Russian influence operations is to shape public opinion and to mobilize populist movements in the Western societies that oppose democratic principles and are hostile towards constitutional guarantees for the rights of minorities and the protection of individual rights, on behalf of the Kremlin’s strategic interests (Sazonov et al., 2022). In that case, the Kremlin often targets European right and left populist movements and parties.4 Below we present some examples of European right-wing politicians who

4

The aim of Russian strategic narratives as understood here is to disable their potential adversaries. To these ends, the Kremlin very often targets various populist movements and groups in Europe from left to right, seeking to align populists of the right and left against the center. Interestingly, Russia claims to protect and promote worship against liberalism and tries to promote the notion that Russia is protecting conservative and family values (Mölder & Sazonov, 2020b). Russia’s influence operations disseminated strategic narratives for promoting narratives of ‘Pax Russica’ among the Russophone community in Estonia for years, trying to influence the whole of Estonian society and the Estonian state, to split it, but also to shape the political environment. Kremlin’s strategic narratives are opportunistically targeted at potential target audiences, among them populist movements, radical (but also non-radical) political figures and forces, several international target groups, alternative or anti-establishment groups, anti-US, anti-NATO movements, anti-EU, anti-vaxxers etc. (Mölder & Sazonov, 2020a).

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all share similar conservative values (as do the Russian political elite) but whose attitudes towards the Kremlin and Russia differ.5 The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) provides an edifying example of rightwing populism in post-communist Europe.6 This populist party was originally a far-right movement, conservative both by its nature and in the values that it promoted, although later the Serbian Progressive Party adopted distinctly pro-European as well as some neoliberal policies (Gorup, 2013, 72). Historically SNS enjoyed longstanding and close ties with the Kremlin and politicians in Russia (BalkanInsight, 2008). On October 27, 2010, the party signed a cooperation agreement in St. Petersburg—specifically cooperation between the ruling United Russia (UR) party and the SNS. Boris Gryzlov, then chairman of the Supreme Council and chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation took part in the ceremony from the Russian side and Tomislav Nikoli´c (chairman of the SNS) from the Serbian side (B92, 2010). Both parties agreed to consult and exchange information on topical issues. Several years later, on March 18, 2019, in Belgrade the Serbian Progressive Party signed a joint statement on improving partnership between Russia and Serbia and national brotherhood with the United Russia Party. Up to 2022, Serbian president Aleksandar Vuˇci´c has consistently shown his partiality towards the Kremlin. Even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Serbian Progressive Party has maintained a friendly policy towards the Kremlin and on April 6, 2022, Vuˇci´c declared that: it is crucial for Serbia to maintain good relations with Russia. Serbia is interested in Russian gas. The Serbian army also has close cooperation with the Russian army” (Radio Free Europe, 2022).

A few months before the war, Vuˇci´c commented that his meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who was in Belgrade on 11–12 October 2021 for the 60th anniversary summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, had been their most open and most sincere to date, and noted that Serbia and Russian Federation maintained good ties in all areas (Dragojlo, 2022). As recently as April 2023, Vuˇci´c highlighted that “Serbia has not and will not export weapons to Ukraine”, nor will it send ammunition to either side of the war, which began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 (Radio Free Europe, 2023). The example of Serbia is, of course, exceptional and it is well known that Serbia has long historical good relations with Russia, and it is not part of the 5

For years, Russia has tried to exploit populist forces on both the right and the left (Kuzio 2018), attracting some with its Soviet-era nostalgia and coherence (the Left) or as a proponent and defender of so-called conservative values. One of the biggest political forces in Europe to which, in addition to the extreme left, the Kremlin has contributed are the right-wing conservative forces. Shelby Butt and Daniel Byman (2020) highlight that one of Moscow’s most pernicious efforts is its support for white-supremacist and other far-right groups, encouraging them with propaganda, and making them stronger and more dangerous. 6 The Serbian Progressive Party was founded in 2008. In this treatment, we consider Serbia as an apt comparison with the core cases in post-communist Europe, given the Yugoslav legacy. Comparative case studies of Estonia and other former Yugoslavian states have previously yielded analytical leverage, e.g., Petsinis (2016, 2020).

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European Union, so it does not fit well into our sample. Nevertheless, we have highlighted it here as one illustrative example. Another example of support for Moscow and echoing of the Russian state discourse can be found in the political rhetoric of several members of the Hungarian government, led by Viktor Orban and the conservative Fidesz party. Fidesz has long exhibited support for the Kremlin in its political rhetoric and its statements, as well as those of its politicians, and at the ideological level in its congruence with the Kremlin’s discourse of defending conservative values and attitudes. Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto received Russia’s award for “great contribution to bilateral relations, economic and investment cooperation” in 2021. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (in the Hungarian pro-government newspaper Magyar Nemzet August 23, 2021 says that relations between Russia and Hungary have reached “unprecedented levels” (Hungary Today, 2021). Later in April 2022 Peter Szijjarto accused the Ukrainian government of trying to interfere in the Hungarian parliamentary elections when representatives of Kyiv held talks with the Hungarian opposition ahead of the elections of 3rd April 2022. Szijjarto claimed that there was “ongoing coordination between the Hungarian Left and representatives of the Ukrainian government,” and that Ukraine was trying to influence Hungary’s election in April in favor of a coalition of opposition parties to Fidesz (Spike, 2022). As recently as March 2023, Peter Szijjártó claimed that Hungary does not believe that the Russian Federation poses a direct security threat to its territory. Budapest understands and respects that other NATO member states think otherwise, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Brussels on Wednesday after a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers. Szijjártó stressed that as a NATO member, Hungary has always been loyal to its allies and additionally to that Hungary has contributed to NATO’s Eastern flank reinforcement measures and Hungary will continue to contribute to increasing the security of the Baltic region (Hungary Today, 2023). One can observe a certain shift in the rhetoric of the Hungarian government, and Budapest is clearly trying to signal that it is NATO-minded and supports other NATO members. But it seems that by mid-2023 the Hungarian government (possibly under international pressure or as result of public reactions to the brutality of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the legacy of Moscow’s 1956 invasion of Hungary) was also beginning to rethink its Russian policy. In any case, such signals have come from Budapest. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stated in early March 2023 that Hungary will probably have to rethink its relations with Russia, as the geopolitical situation has changed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While it is in Orban’s interest to maintain ties with Russia, especially because of energy dependency, Europe’s relations with the Kremlin may not be restored after the end of the war. This, in turn, will also force Hungary to adapt (Simon & Gulyas, 2023). At the same time, as recently as early June, 2023, the Hungarian government launched a campaign on social media titled “It’s time for peace!”, calling on its neighbor to sit down and reconcile with its Russian invaders. In this call on the Hungarian government’s official social media accounts, Budapest presented a video with a map showing that Russian-occupied

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Crimea not as part of Ukraine, but rather as part of the Russian Federation (Lind, 2023). However, looking at the speeches and political rhetoric of some Serbian and Hungarian politicians, one has to agree with the following assertion made in his dissertation by Anton Shekhovtsov (2018, 12): There has been a growing concern in the West about the convergence or, at least, marriage of convenience between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and far-right forces in the West, most notably in Europe. Indeed, we have witnessed the increasing number of far-right politicians’ statements praising Putin’s Russia and contacts between the European far right and Russian officials and other actors.

While Shekhovtsov is right in many respects, we should note that far from all rightwing parties (both moderate and far-right) in Europe have praised Putin’s regime, they are in the minority. However, such a tendency was noticeable, especially before 2022. But when Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, the pro-Kremlin discourse either vanished or faded from European political discourse. At the same time, conservative politicians in Europe have also shown criticism of Kremlin policies. For example, compared to the Fidesz or the SNS, the Polish PiS and its members have shown their fierce support for Ukraine in both words and deeds, and have been vocal in their criticism of Russian imperialism and aggressive politicking both before the war and especially after the 2022 war. The Polish ruling conservative party Law and Justice (in Polish, Prawo i Sprawiedliwo´sc´ ) or PiS is well known for its anti-Kremlin policy and strong anti-Russian discourse. Poland is also one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine in the current Russo-Ukrainian war. It should be noted here that PiS was founded in 2001 by twin brothers, the late Jarosław Kaczy´nski and Lech Kaczy´nski, and PiS was created as a direct successor to the Centre Agreement after it split from the Solidarity Electoral Action. As a conservative party, Prawo i Sprawiedliwo´sc´ took office for the first time in the 2005 parliamentary and presidential elections, after which Lech Kaczy´nski became President of Poland. PiS led a parliamentary coalition with the Union of Polish Families and the Union of Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland, from 2005 until the 2007 elections. It came second and remained in opposition in parliament until 2015. PiS candidates were also re-elected president in the 2015 elections and later the party won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections. PiS have retained positions after the elections in 2019 and 2020. Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki (Gov.pl., 2023) and President Andrzej Duda openly criticized Putin’s regime and its war against Ukraine and supported Ukraine (DW, 2022; Polskie Radio, 2022). Therefore, in the case of PiS, we see a very different rhetoric from that of Fidesz or SNS.

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3.2 The Defense of Neo-traditionalist Values. Critical Right-Wing Populist Discourse Towards the Courts, Sexual Minorities, and Migrants In addition to a pro-Kremlin discourse, we can also find in Fidesz rhetoric elements typical for a western right-wing populist party—chiefly supporting and defending traditional family and religious values, criticism towards the LGBT community, a critical approach towards the judicial system, and hostility towards migrants (Gall, 2018; Szakacs, 2019). Topics related to LGBT and traditional family values are also primordial to Fidesz and Viktor Orbán, and a number of conservative politicians from his party position themselves as defenders of traditional Hungarian values against “LGBT ideology,” which was their populistic slogan during the 2022 elections (Than, 2021). For example, during the refugee crisis that began in 2015 and as migrants streamed into Europe from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries, Fidesz used this theme for populist electoral purposes, often referring to terrorists and criminals among the Syrian refugees and other Middle Eastern migrants. Experts H (2018), I (2018) and K (2018) noted that the Kremlin used these fears in Hungary, influencing right-wing populist forces, but not only in Hungary, but also in Germany, the Czech Republic, etc. Through the refugee crisis, the Kremlin has strengthened its position in Hungary (Expert H, 2018). In Poland, as in Hungary, we also see themes related to family and religious issues, such as the prohibition of abortion for women (Dziennik Ustaw, 2021), as well as issues related to LGBT and migrants. Also, in the field of IPR are the courts, which the Polish authorities have tried to control. December 2016 brought some new developments in Poland’s constitutional crisis. PiS legislators introduced a new package of three statutes, allowing the Law and Justice Party to take full control of Poland’s constitutional court, the Constitutional Tribunal. This constitution gave Polish President Andrzej Duda—who has either been a PiS member or an independent aligned with PiS since 2005—the right to appoint a commissioner to conduct elections for a new chairman of the CT, bypassing the constitutional right of the vice president to do so (Matczak, 2017). However, Fidesz, SNS, and PiS presented common right-wing populist narratives and approaches, they are also very different. Namely, Fidesz and especially Serbia’s SNS have shown certain support for the Kremlin or shared pro-Kremlin views, particularly before 2022, when Putin launched a second invasion of Ukraine, but Polish conservatives from PiS at the same time have been and remain very critical towards Russia, Putin’s regime, its policy and imperialistic approaches. In its political rhetoric, EKRE and its leaders have also been often critical towards the judicial systems of Estonia, criticizing the court system and its decisions for years (Einmann, 2017; Koorits, 2018). Lately, representatives of Estonian opposition parties EKRE, the Centre Party, and Isamaa announced on May 17, 2023 that they would appeal to the Supreme Court of Estonia regarding the actions of the coalition and the Parliament (Riigikogu) leadership during the sessions of the Parliament. According to the opposition, their right to obstructionism in the Parliament was curtailed when MPs from the Reform Party, the “Eesti 200” and the Social Democratic

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Party (coalition), on a proposal from the leadership of the Parliament, voted in favor of stopping the adoption of bills and questions. On June 22, 2023, EKRE parliamentary group member and former chairman of the Parliament Henn Põlluaas, stated that he considered the Supreme Court’s decision on the opposition’s appeal to be biased and the work in handling it to be deficient. Henn Põlluaas (2023) proposed replacing state judges in Estonia with “more competent” ones.

4 EKRE and Its Rhetoric: The Populist Layer Building on the arguments of the theory, we address the following aspects based on an analysis of the evidence. The similarities in the rhetoric of EKRE, PiS and Fidesz with that of the Russian conservative circle and Putin’s regime. Yet meaningful differences (PiS against the Kremlin, Fidesz for the Kremlin) abound. Are these differences stylistic or substantive? We show that the similarities are real: the rhetoric is close in major elements. We show that the thin traditionalist ideas and reliance on populist majorities surface in EKRE’s argument. And these values and techniques make EKRE comparable to Kremlin’s values. EKRE has much in common with Orban in its spreading of conspiracy theories through their rhetoric (Experts A, 2023; Experts B, 2023; Experts C, 2023 and others). EKRE used the following topics related to conspiracy theories: conspiracies about George Soros, the Left and multiculturalism, which is somewhat imported from the rhetoric of the U.S. alt-right. What is similar between conservatives in Poland and Estonia is the strong cultural antagonism that has been going on for decades because of this Russian theme. Counterintuitively, in spite of Moscow’s legacy in Estonia and EKRE’s appeal to Estonian nationalism, EKRE narratives have converged with those of Moscow—and the global alt-right. This does not owe itself to collusion, but rather to uncoordinated rhetorical convergence between two hostile actors in the context of global far-right narratives. PiS and EKRE share the same values—values opposed to softness and progressivism, support for a strongman leader, a more patriarchal social order, and family values, chiefly but the contexts of Estonia and Poland are so different as to yield discrepancies in rhetoric and policy. Populist strategic narratives cannot be built on a blank slate, but rather have to fit into some kind of framework that already exists within cultural memory. Here the social and historical juxtaposition between Estonia and Poland no longer holds (Expert B, 2023). Mart and Martin Helme deliberately made an idol of former U.S. President Donald Trump for EKRE members (Postimees, 2023). Even after the party had joined Estonia’s governing coalition in 2019 and was thus no longer an opposition party with greater latitude in foreign affairs, EKRE chose a highly critical stance towards Democrats in the U.S. in general and Joe Biden in particular. Aggrieved that Trump had not been re-elected, EKRE leaders joined in Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rhetoric wholeheartedly, alleging that the 2020 U.S. presidential election had been stolen. On November 8, the Estonian Interior and Finance Ministers at the time, Mart

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Helme and his son Martin Helme, as well as MEP Jaak Madison asserted on TRE radio that the U.S. presidential election results were rigged, and that Joe Biden’s presidency would be the beginning of the downfall of America. According to Mart Helme, Joe Biden was elected President of the United States by a “Deep State”: The operating logic of the deep state is to plant rodents, corrupt, blackmailable rodents everywhere in order to secure its own freedom of action. Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are corrupt types (Hussar, 2020).

On 8 November 2020, Mart Helme on the EKRE’s political show “Let’s talk about it” claimed: I had a dream before the US elections. There was such a field and I saw Trump coming across the hayfield. This field was covered with intestines and guts. But Trump stepped through it. Trump will win in the end…

Helme also stresses: “It will come at the cost of a huge fight, maybe even bloodshed, but he will win in the end—justice will be done.” According to the leading politicians of the EKRE, every person who considers himself or herself normal should understand that the U.S. presidential election is rigged (Hussar, 2020). According to several interviews (Expert C, 2023, Expert D, 2023) several politicians from EKRE also are trying to imitate Trump and his right populist rhetoric. On June 9, 2019, Mart Helme stated: I won’t go into the fact that more than seven hundred people from all over the world came, that I had very useful and fruitful meetings with two people close to Donald Trump, to whom I assured them unequivocally that if our party becomes Prime Minister in the Estonian government, we will immediately recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and we will establish our embassy there.

It seems that Mart Helme followed Trump’s populist intention to move the capital to Jerusalem (Einmann, 2019). Compared to Polish right-wing populists, EKRE finds itself in a more difficult situation, because it cannot draw from the deep well of religious support and cultural attitudes that PiS can in Poland. In Estonia, religious morality arguments or the Kremlin’s “Gayropa narrative” fail to resonate as they do in Poland or in America, because Estonians on average are not deeply religious or socially conservative (Expert B, 2023). According to Expert B (2023), some EKRE members wished to spread narratives similar to the Kremlin’s, they must do so on the margins, not openly and not directly. They know it will not be forgotten, the general mood is still very hostile towards Russia, and they are not irrational. In Estonia, the EKRE tells two different stories—the Russian audience is presented with a much more pro-Kremlin narrative, the Estonian audience less so. They use the topic that is trending at the moment, insomuch as they are opportunists. Here it is important to pause and consider the media in relation to their message. EKRE narratives are relayed by two key sites, Uued Uudised and Objektiiv. Uued Uudised presents homegrown Estonian far-right content while importing content from global alt-right websites. In stark contrast, Objektiiv is paradigmatic of the contemporary globalized alt-right local online newspaper, bringing global alt-right

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and conservative Catholic content to what is not necessarily a receptive audience. With fewer than 9,000 Catholics in Estonia it is clear that if highly conservative Catholics in Estonia were the target audience for Objektiiv, that target audience was far too small to be self-sustaining.7 Instead, Varro Vooglaid may instead rely on funding from ultraconservative Catholic networks outside of Estonia, such as Ordo Iuris, a Warsaw-based organization dedicated to opposing abortion, divorce, and LGBT causes associated with the Brazilian ultraconservative Catholic organization Tradition, Family, Property.8 Thus Varro Vooglaid instead draws on external support from transnational ultraconservative movements to disseminate global farright narratives to a broader far-right audience in Estonia.9 Both sources have succeeded in their appeal to a counterintuitive coalition that constitutes a reliable, if small audience. By analyzing the rhetoric of European post-communist state right-wing populists, we can see that support for (neo-)traditional values makes these right-wing populists similar to the Kremlin, but that doesn’t automatically mean they all are necessarily pro-Russian. Let us now take a closer look at what kind of rhetoric could be observed in the rhetoric of some prominent EKRE politicians and public figures since 2022 when the war in Ukraine started. Some experts interviewed argued that Western liberals are a bigger enemy for right-wing populists than Putin (Expert G, 2019; Expert I, 2018; Expert K, 2018), who shares similar values with such populists (Expert A, 2023). EKRE’s rhetoric, even during the war, has been much closer to this whole Kremlin stance than PiS, but with some references to the desire for Ukrainians to leave (Expert D, 2023). Even before the war in Ukraine started in 2022, they were skeptical about Ukrainian seasonal workers.10 They are also looking for a balance on assisting Ukraine, even though they know that assisting Ukraine is necessary for victory, meanwhile they say, “we may need that weapon ourselves.” For them, this is a domestic rather than an international issue. This is, of course, domestic rhetoric, because they (EKRE) know perfectly well that their position will not change anything in foreign policy terms’. According to several experts (e.g., Expert D, 2023), we can see that EKRE’s rhetoric during the Russo-Ukrainian war did not change dramatically, but it 7

Catholics in 2021 numbered only 8,690 out of 1.3 million Estonians, according to the Estonian census, and data on politically conservative Catholics is sparse. https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat/rah valoendus__rel2021__rahvastiku-demograafilised-ja-etno-kultuurilised-naitajad__usk/RL21451. 8 Staff, Harri Tiido: Poola marukatoliiklike ühenduste sidemetest lähiriikidega, Err, April 8, 2021, retrieved May 29, 2023, from https://www.err.ee/1608170194/harri-tiido-poola-marukatoliiklikeuhenduste-sidemetest-lahiriikidega. See as well, Dauksza et al., The Golden Lion Roars from Crakow, VSquare, December 30, 2020, retrieved May 29, 2023, from https://vsquare.org/the-gol den-lion-roars-from-cracow/. 9 This surprising phenomenon allegedly owes much to French managerial support as well as ten million euros in funding routed from Poland, according to investigative journalism coming from the ranks of the staff of Eesti Päevaleht: Kund, 2020. 10 While EKRE’s base in rural areas is linked to the state of Estonian agriculture, and with that seasonal farm labour, the party has consistently expressed hostility towards Ukrainian agricultural workers.

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transformed. After the war in Ukraine started, on the one hand they remained highly skeptical towards any migration, including war-time migration. On one hand, if you are against entire migration during the war, you will be Ukraine-sceptic. Ukraine would be for you a source of insecurities rather than a country which needs help. On the other hand, the war confirmed what EKRE was standing for many years, that Russia is a very unfriendly and intrusive neighbor. They try to find a balance between these two positions. (Expert D, 2023). If we came back to events when the last major European refugee crisis took place, amid the Syrian war in later 2015 and later, here it would probably be appropriate to give an example of the opinion of an EKRE politician, which to a large extent reflects the general attitude of the EKRE towards foreigners and migrants in particular. As Jaak Madison in 2015 asked: So, what is more important to you now, to follow the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia and the will and desire of the Estonian people, or to go against it and accept people regardless of their background? (Kaukvere, 2015).

EKRE has used several narratives related to anti-refugee and anti-migration politics, and especially narratives related to domestic security (e.g., radical Islamism and terrorism), issues related to integration of migrants and narratives of identity. These narratives have been openly promoted by EKRE and its leaders (notably Mart Helme, Martin Helme, and Jaak Madison) and relayed by the party’s supporters and opinion leaders in their promotion of fear, panic, and mistrust of refugees from Muslim countries (Jaak Madison): (...] I really stand for it with all my body and soul, that Estonian culture would not be mixed up and would not be spoiled by a foreign religion or Islam.

Martin Helme doubled down in his rhetoric: (...] If we know that the Islamic State has even declared that it is infiltrating its fighters among these immigrants, what are Estonia’s procedures?”; “Who, where, do you investigate, with whom do you exchange information, what kind of background research is done to prevent radicals from coming to Estonia? How does the Estonian school system, where catering is contracted out, intend to cope with providing halal food for Muslims?

Then Party leader Mart Helme used the same topics to stoke fears among the Estonian population: “If thousands of refugees come, then girls can no longer ride bicycles in Rocca Al Mare”11 Kaukvere, 2015; see also Makarychev & Sazonov, 2021). Expert H (2018) noted that when there was a refugee crisis in Europe in 2015– 2017, when many refugees fled Syria from the civil war, Russian speakers in Estonia, to summarize their views, were rather conservative, traditionalists. Publicly, Russophones express strong support for family values, the Russian Orthodox faith, and socially conservative ideas, while voicing opposition to migration. In terms of the influx of refugees from Syria and the Middle East and Africa more generally, this was a topic through which EKRE—a right-wing party associated with ethnic Estonian nationalism—found an opportunity to gain some support among Russian-speaking 11

Rocca al Mare is an iconic beachfront in the Estonian capital Tallinn.

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Estonians. Because, for the most part, the Russian-speaking population is against migrants, based on their traditionalism, rather xenophobic towards everything alien.

4.1 Governance Techniques: Majoritarian Democracy Similarly, to PiS (Reuters, 2023), Fidesz (Makszimov, 2021), and other right-wing conservative parties, EKRE’s rhetoric has consistently included proposals for various referenda on reforms outside of parliamentary activity, showing their support for majoritarian democracy. For example, in 2015 several EKRE members of parliament argued that the nature of the EU had changed dramatically since Estonia became a member of the EU, and that the Estonian government should therefore obtain a new mandate from the people in a referendum to continue its cooperation with Brussels. Jaak Madison, an influential member of EKRE and member of the Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu, highlighted: Compared to 2003, the situation has changed beyond recognition. The European Union, which had a noble and good purpose when it was first conceived, has become a stagnant and bureaucratic old man trying to keep 28 different countries, each with its own legitimate objectives, under a single control (Objektiiv, 2015).

Another such example of referendum’s which was proposed by EKRE is the marriage referendum (Helme, 2020, 2021). In November 2020 then Finance Minister of Estonia Martin Helme (EKRE) confirmed on the radio talk show “Let’s talk about it” that the marriage referendum should take place on April 25, 2021 and that the date has also been agreed with the electoral service. Martin Helme said also that a meeting of the working group on democracy, which is planning the referendum, agreed that the referendum could take place on 25 April (Helme, 2020). The issue of a referendum on marriage has been raised repeatedly by the EKRE, most recently in 2022. Markus Järvi, editor-in-chief of the online portal “Objektiiv” and then candidate for the Estonian People’s Party in November 2022, said that if the EKRE will be elected to Estonian government a marriage referendum will have to be held in Estonia (Hindre, 2022). And majority democracy has also been discussed by EKRE opinion leaders. Jaak Valge (EKRE), a member of the Estonian Parliament, argues (2019) that “direct democracy does not oppose representative democracy, but supports it, and such a change does not dismantle the Estonian system but improves it.” According to Valge, one of the most important provisions of the new power-sharing agreement is seen as the introduction of a popular initiative for binding referendums. This will also require an amendment of the constitution. If we consider ourselves to be a democratic society, and if we view democracy in the classical sense—as a social order centered on the choice of the majority of the people—then this change is entirely appropriate (Valge, 2019). Jaak Valge stresses that about four-fifths of Estonian citizens support the introduction of this change. With smart thresholds, direct democracy does not oppose

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representative democracy, but supports it, and such a change does not dismantle but improves the Estonian system (Valge, 2019). In its majoritarian impulses and by planning (but not implementing) referenda on a series of wedge issues, such as LGBT rights, EKRE presents parallels with PiS and Fidesz in form and substance. Reliance on the majoritarian aspect of democracy brings right-wing populists in a sense closer to Kremlin-led democracy, but it need not imply that EKRE shares ideological platform with the Kremlin.

5 EKRE’s Conservative Populism in the Context of Kremlin’s Rhetoric and Deeds Firstly, it should be noted here that it is often exceedingly difficult to make clear and thus claim that some populist politicians share the views or narratives of the Kremlin, particularly in post-communist countries where there are electoral penalties to expressing pro-Kremlin sentiment publicly. In these cases, electoral incentives may lead to preference falsification (c.f. Kuran, 1995). Cases where populist ideas (right or left) (Wodak, 2015; Weyland, 2013; Paier & Sazonov, 2020) coincide in some places with the Kremlin’s narratives, or somewhat resemble the Kremlin’s discourse, are likely to be more frequent. Nevertheless, we can provide some key examples where we can find some meaningful similarities and differences with the Kremlin strategic narratives, which Russia creates and disseminates. In comparing PiS, Fidesz, and EKRE, we can observe several similarities between them in sharing similar conservative values and also in rhetoric—all these things make EKRE, PiS and Fidesz similar, but at the same time they are different too. We can see some similarities in their political agenda, rhetoric, and narratives. Expert A (2023), Expert C (2023), and Expert E (2023) highlighted that those parties’ behavior patterns are similar, Expert A (2023) also stresses that regardless of whether they (EKRE) position themselves as anti-Russia (PiS), tolerant (Fidesz) or supportive, they share similar values. Globally, conservative populists have certainly proven important allies of Putin’s Russia in advocating for changes to the world order and cosmopolitan values. It is no coincidence that Estonia’s criticism of the German and French governments in the context of the invasion of Ukraine was sometimes stronger than its criticism of Russia. Here probably we can see the influence of Russian influence operations as well as that of Poland. This criticism reflects the ideological conflict between conservatives and liberals, which is why, for example, in the context of the elections, criticism in Estonia was stronger against Emmanuel Macron than against Marine Le Pen, who was essentially neutral (having previously been pro-Putin). Western liberals are a bigger enemy for all of them than Putin, who shares similar values (Expert A, 2023). Faced with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, EKRE … … didn’t design it themselves, they took this Kremlin package through Prigozhin or somebody. They took this Kremlin package that was offered in Poland, Hungary and a few other

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places, the big plus of which is that there are some responses that are already thought out... there are some psychological patterns that are already thought out... the whole discourse is built around the fact that the Russians brought them (in Ukraine) electricity and railways, they were ungrateful, stole a whole lot more land and didn’t understand the need to give it back (Expert C, 2023).

This ambivalent relation to the war is probably a common issue among such populists, if we agree with statements of Expert A (2023) who accentuates those conservative populists more broadly, in Europe and elsewhere, have a real tendency to ignore war. “The consequences of the war are blamed on their own governments, on the EU, on liberals, rather than on Russia” (Expert A, 2023). However, experts point out that the 2022 war has brought changes in the rhetoric of the EKRE and their attitude towards national security affairs. Before 2022, we can see that for years the European right-wing and far-right have often been united in similar language, critical of the EU and European integration. As in the case of Fidesz, the ruling party in Hungary. In Estonia, EKRE has shown the greatest skepticism towards European integration,12 as Ploom and Veebel (2017, 57) showed in their research on Mart Helme and EKRE: Helme who led EKRE for a decade, is known for his controversial statements where, on the one hand, the importance of close economic and cultural ties and security cooperation in Europe is stressed, but on the other hand, a referendum on Estonia’s EU membership has been demanded for years already.

But with war in Ukraine EKRE’s rhetoric has evolved, and as Expert D (2023) pointed out that EKRE became much more pro-NATO, in stark contrast to its skepticism only a few years before. The same expert highlights an evolution in the internal EKRE party discussion in the space of these few years. The internal consensus has shifted from the sense that NATO might not be serving Estonia’s interests—as defined by EKRE insiders, naturally—to a recognition of NATO’s utility. With war in Ukraine, any lingering debate has come to an end, and EKRE can no longer accurately be presented as a NATO-sceptic party. “This is kind of a change. I think the same concerning the EU. I mean there is a greater consolidation of EKRE’s support to Putin/Kremlin’s resistance” (Expert D, 2023). So, there is definitely a change in the sense that while before 2022 there was skepticism about NATO among some of the EKRE politicians, in 2022 their approach became very NATO-oriented. In the past, clear Euroscepticism has been observed in the case of EKRE and EKRE-supporting elected representatives. For example, in April 2021 Mart Helme, deputy chairman of the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE), stated in an interview with ERR that he would like to set up a support group in the Estonian Parliament aimed at Estonia’s leaving the European Union (Kiisler, 2021). Therefore, Mart Helme stated in October 2022 that EKRE did not want to leave the European Union, but that if EKRE came to power, EKRE would strive to defend Estonia’s interests in Brussels more firmly (Nizamedtinov, 2022). But earlier, in the context of BREXIT, several EKRE supporters floated ideas of 12

In spite of the potential gains of EU structural adjustment funds and Common Agricultural Policy subsidies for EKRE’s base of voters in smaller towns and rural areas.

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an “ESTEXIT” on social media. Expert F (2021) added one interesting example about the narrative “Estonia exit EU” (#ESTexitEU) used on social media, which was promoted with anti-EU purposes: Can we say that #ESTexitEU was a centrally planned and executed operation? I do not know. In this new paradigm, the telling indicator is the use of big numbers. Many desired effects become possible if the operation achieves a critical mass of messages. A targeted person may then perceive that everybody around him thinks a certain way and those messages are massively repeated. For the analyst, it means that if you can record growth in numbers of posts or accounts that carry certain narratives then we can really talk about serious interference (Expert F, 2019).

At the same time, of course, not all experts concur, and some argue that EKRE has not changed much in its rhetoric (e.g., Expert A and Expert E). For example, Expert A (2023) underscores that in his opinion EKRE have not changed anything and there are certainly politicians in the EKRE who are against Russia, even though they share similar values. But conflict is programmed into the world they are building. And by emphasizing one collective identity, an enemy must be found for it, and Russia, which shares similar values, can fit into this role (Expert A, 2023).

A certain degree of euroscepticism also characterizes other European right-wing populist movements and parties, such as PiS and Fidesz, presenting similarities with EKRE.

5.1 The Different Discourses of EKRE Politicians and Attitudes to the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War If you look at the statements made by the politicians and politicians of the EKRE, they can be broadly divided into several subcategories and these subcategories are the following: 1) The pro-Ukrainian discourse, 2) the discourse, which does not support Ukraine or the Russian Federation, 3) sharing of pro-Kremlin propaganda narratives.

5.1.1

The Pro-Ukraine Discourse

Expert A (2023) along with several other experts interviewed pointed out that there are certainly politicians in the EKRE who are against Russia, even though they share similar values. But conflict is programmed into the world they are building, and in a duel, you need two parties. In other words, by emphasizing one collective identity, an enemy must be found for it, and Russia, which shares similar values, can fit into this role. One of the biggest supporters of Ukraine and its people in the context of RussoUkrainian war among members of EKRE is MEP Jaak Madison, though he and Anti Poolamets are far from alone on their stance (Uued Uudised, 2022).

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According to Jaak Madison, Vice-Chairman of the EKRE, Mart Helme’s position that the EKRE is not for either Ukraine or Russia is not common in the EKRE. Martin Helme, the party’s chairman (and Mart Helme’s son), holds the same view: First of all, it should be mentioned that Helme gave an interview to the Russian-language ERR, and since my Russian is not the best, I can’t say exactly what he meant, but if the translation is correct, that the EKRE is not for Russia or Ukraine, but for peace, then who wouldn’t be for peace?

The question is how peace can be achieved and maintained over the next decades, both in Ukraine and in Estonia. The position of the overwhelming majority of the EKRE is that we are in favor of peace, but we are also in favor of Ukraine, because peace can only come if Ukraine is able to defend its independence and is able to defend itself against the aggressor, which today is undoubtedly Russia. Jaak Madison stressed that every statement must be commented on by its author: I believe that Mart Helme sincerely wants peace, but what he meant by saying that the Estonian People’s Party is neither for Ukraine nor for Russia, he must explain himself.

The debate on Ukraine is not very lively in the EKRE, Madison highlighted that: There will be a truce and a ceasefire, but the war cannot end with Ukraine ceding territory, because that could mean starting a war in a few years on the soil of another country neighboring Russia (Err.ee, 2022).

Madison has also previously seen a pro-Kremlin discourse as a problem and a threat to Estonia’s security. In 2018 in an interview, Jaak Madison pointed out that many Russians living in Estonia are under the influence of Russian propaganda. Jaak Madison acknowledged that residents of the predominantly Russophone districts in Tallinn like Lasnamäe or city Maardu, who are influenced by Russian propaganda, do not trust Muslims and refugees (Expert J, 2018; see also Makarychev & Sazonov, 2021). He later already when war in Ukraine started (2022) Madison compared Russian gas and oil to narcotics, pointing out that dependence on Russian energy is a major threat, he pointed out: Russia’s gas and oil is like a drug that Europe has been taking for a long time, but now it needs to be weaned off. Yes, it is painful, but because of Europeans’ addiction, men, women and children are dying every day in Ukraine. For some, death comes only after long agony, as many women and children had to experience in Butcha. Putin could not have attacked Ukraine if he had not been sure that the export of fossil fuels, which keeps the Russian economy afloat, would not end (Madison, 2022).

Jaak Madison stressed that Russia would not have been able to attack Ukraine had Moscow not been sure that exports of the fossil fuels that keep the Russian economy afloat would continue to flow. Nor is Madison the only senior member of EKRE who shares such critical views of Russia—e.g., Anti Poolamets and many others (Uued Uudised, 2022a).

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The Discourse, Which Does not Support Ukraine or the Russian Federation

At the same time, while we can see that the EKRE’s rhetoric has similar elements to conservative ideas and narratives propagated by the Kremlin, the EKRE is far from being straightforwardly pro-Kremlin. This idea is borne out by the statements and actions of EKRE politicians themselves and by expert opinion. The similarity of discourses (EKRE and Moscow) does not mean that their relationship is like that of principal and agent. EKRE is not an agent. What is at hand is simply the overlapping of discourses. But what makes them similar to each other is their policy of splitting the political landscape of Estonia, rather than consolidating it (Expert D, 2023). Here it may be useful to analyze some of Mart Helme’s statements towards Ukraine and Ukrainian war refugees, since they constitute a good illustration of the acerbic and inflammatory nature of his rhetoric towards Ukrainian refugees. In remarks in the Estonian parliament in early April 2022 Mart Helme stated that war refugees from Ukraine bring infectious diseases to Estonia and may start engaging in prostitution: I have one son, a doctor, I communicate with doctors. The doctors say that this picture of health is terrible. HIV is coming back. Infectious diseases are being brought in from Ukraine, which we have thought will never be available in Estonia again. No, they‘re coming back to us because tens of thousands of people are coming and bringing us here (Delfi, 2022).

That of course doesn’t necessarily mean that Mart Helme is pro-Russian or against Ukraine, but rather such anti-refugee rhetoric, typical of Mart Helme and other members of EKRE in the past, including on migrants from the Middle East and on Ukrainian workers in 2020 when Estonian farmers hired workers from Ukraine to harvest their agricultural crops, has not varied since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When Mart Helme was in government his anti-immigrant stance caused considerable consternation and was generally not well received by farmers (Expert B, 2023). Nor can it be said that these attitudes have changed very much with the war (Expert L, 2019). When hundreds of thousands of Syrians and other Arabs arrived in Europe in 2015–2016 in the context of the Syrian war, the EU decided to accommodate them in EU member states besides Italy, Greece, and other countries where they had initially arrived (Expert L, 2019). In Estonia, in principle the attitude towards immigrants is rather negative (Expert L, 2019). And this is one of the key populist slogans. In fact, none of the Estonian right-wing populist politicians ever thought that an influx of immigrants would flood into Estonia. Therefore, the use of fears and arguments that were borrowed from Hungarian, Czech, and Polish narratives were employed by the ECRE to elicit these phantom pains in the Estonian people and in the Russian-speaking part of Estonian citizens in order to increase their popularity with potential voters. If one compares the Kremlin’s discourse with what the Kremlin propaganda has been saying about Ukraine and Ukrainians, one can see a certain analogy. Among other propaganda statements pro-Kremlin channels disseminated similar narratives for years, for example claiming that Ukrainian women are prostitutes (EuroMaidan

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Press, 2014). Later, in October 2022 Mart Helme, has said that EKRE takes neither side in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Helme stresses: We believe that the best way out is a peace treaty, no matter how difficult it is for both sides, so at least people won’t die. We are not for Russia or Ukraine; we are for peace.

This statement by Mart Helme provoked a storm of criticism from Estonian politicians and public figures (Tribuna.ee, 2022). Helme suggested that the conservatives’ neutral stance on the war in Ukraine might also have influenced the EKRE rating: “We believe that the best way out is a peace agreement, no matter how difficult it is for both sides—at least this way people won’t die. We are not for Russia or Ukraine; we are for peace.” This typically equivocal approach, where Mart Helme hoped to appeal to Russian-speaking voters in Estonia by promoting popular narratives among a Estonian Russophone electorate (“we are for peace”, “we are against the war”) characterizes the elder Helme’s rhetoric (Nizamedtinov, 2022; Raag, 2022). Another controversial figure to join forces with EKRE—albeit refusing to become a party member—is well-known Estonian lawyer and family values activist, Varro Vooglaid. Vooglaid is the co-founder and leader of Foundation for the Protection of the Family and Tradition SAPTK (SA Perekonna ja Traditsiooni Kaitseks). He also stands out for incendiary statements that have provoked heated debate in Estonian society. He was one of the organizers of anti-vaccine protests in Estonia 2020– 2021 during COVID-19. “Call it the Republic of Estonia or the Province of Estonia or something else”, Vooglaid stated, in one of his most controversial statements only eight days before Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering an uproar in the public discourse in Estonia. Vooglaid also said that he can live in Estonia which can be part of Russia and he can accept Russian occupation (Kelomees, 2022). KAPO (The Estonian Internal Security Service) has not found any ties between SAPTK and the Kremlin, although Varro was suspected of as much by some Estonian journalists.13 In January 2023 Varro Vooglaid, who was running for Estonian parliament on the EKRE list (he is now a member of the Estonian parliament) without being an EKRE member, stressed that relations between Russia and Estonia should be improved, but that no one dared to touch the subject. Jaak Madison says that everyone would no doubt welcome friendly relations between the neighbors, but this is not possible in the near future. At the end of his broadcast on the Objektiiv portal, Varro Vooglaid stated that when the conditions were right, he would be ready to reconcile with the Russian power in Estonia. This passage was preceded by a long series of accusations against the Estonian government (Vasli, 2023). In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine Vooglaid made his thinking explicit in a social media post. “The need to act in this direction is clear. But this position has been so demonized by Stratcom that no one dares touch it” and he also accentuates: To the best of my understanding, national defense does not begin with stockpiling arms and military units from other countries on Estonian territory, but with responsible diplomacy. 13

In an interview with “Otse Eloga”, the spokesman of the KAPO, Jürgen Klemm, confirmed that the Defence Police have not identified any Russian links between Varro Vooglaiu and the Foundation for the Protection of Family and Tradition, which he heads (Vaher, 2022).

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Unfortunately, our government is doing the exact opposite, constantly trying to be at the forefront of calls to take hostile steps towards Russia. (Err.ee, 2023).

It is notable that on November 21, 2022 Vooglaid rejected accusations that he was pro-Russian. He says: Of course, I consider it very important that the blue-black and white flag flies at the top of Pikk Hermann, but I consider it no less important that the Republic of Estonia does not step by step increasingly renounce the ideal of national independence that this flag is meant to symbolize (Vooglaid, 2022).

Vooglaid has criticized current Estonia’s security policy and the provision of arms aid to Ukraine, arguing that by giving all of Estonia’s howitzers to Ukraine, Estonia has created a capability gap: At the same time, there is incomprehensible talk as if Estonia’s independence is being defended in Ukraine with Estonian weapons, as if Estonia and Ukraine form one and the same political entity - which is simply wrong.

Vooglaid was also critical towards Estonia’s decision to expel thirteen Russian diplomats from Estonia, which—according to Vooglaid—led to the expulsion of the Estonian ambassador to Russia, a sharp deterioration in diplomatic relations, and the collapse of diplomatic channels. And he added: It is very difficult to see what real need in Estonia’s interests could have prompted this move. However, as a rhetorical question, one might ask how to resolve disagreements between countries in a very tense situation when diplomatic channels are blocked or disappear (Err.ee, 2023).

Martin Helme, chairman of EKRE, held another opinion, however, and in an interview with ERR highlighted that he did not understand the controversy in the public about Vooglaid’s security policy positions, and also largely shared Vooglaid’s criticism of the Estonian government. But at the same time, Helme stressed that Vooglaid does not represent the views of the EKRE when expressing his security policy positions, and according to Martin Helme the Estonian government should be busy arming itself while keeping a low diplomatic profile (Err.ee, 2023).

5.1.3

Supporting of the Pro-Russian Discourse

In addition to those on the margins of EKRE, such as Vooglaid, who has been accused of being pro-Russian but has adamantly denied being pro-Kremlin, there are also those among the EKRE who have openly supported Kremlin narratives or have helped to spread them. Here are a few illustrative examples. One example is case of Andres Raid, a former journalist and candidate for the Estonian People’s Party’s (EKRE) Parliament, who as recently as April 2023 told Kuku radio that he had visited the Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast to investigate whether reports that Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and taken to Russia were true and to find out where the refugees are coming from (Kuku radio, 2023).

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Recently Estonian media outlets drew attention to the fact that Kertu Luisk, a member of the EKRE, openly spreads pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian narratives in social media without commenting on it and trading on that ambiguity to disseminate Kremlin messaging without having to defend it publicly. According to information received by Eesti Uudised, Kertu Luisk, a member of the EKRE faction of Võru City Council, was actively spreading Russian propaganda. Luisk’s activities have caused consternation in other factions of the council (Eesti Uudised, 2022; Võsoberg, 2022). In January 2023 Estonian newspaper Eesti Ekspress wrote that in Estonia’s largest Russian-language social media group of Facebook “Tallintsy”, EKRE member Vsevolod Jürgenson14 claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi was a drug addict and that 99% of Estonia’s aid to Ukraine was being stolen (Kusma, 2023). According to Jürgenson, helping Ukraine is pointless because it is the most corrupt country in the world. Jürgenson also claimed that: “The president of Ukraine is a drug addict!”. “Our aid won’t get there—maybe it will be stolen in Latvia, maybe in Poland.” EKRE’s response was quick. EKRE reached out to the Estonia press to state that “EKRE unequivocally supports Ukraine’s fight for its state, its people and its independence” and that they have voted in favor of all the resolutions for supporting Ukraine. “Many members of the party are making personal efforts to support Ukraine by collecting donations and taking them to Ukraine themselves.” EKRE also highlighted that Jürgenson does not represent the EKRE in any elected representative body, has never been a candidate for the EKRE, and will not stand for the upcoming elections as a candidate on EKRE’s list for the State Assembly” (Kusma, 2023). Shortly thereafter, EKRE expelled Jürgenson (Err.news, 2023).

6 Conclusion The worldview of European post-communist state populists (and Putin) mimics modern conservative values but has lost its core of the rule of law and individuality. As most European post-communist countries are former colonies or satellites of Russia and/or the Soviet Union, and even if the post-1991 momentum of convergence towards liberal values has been lost, the urge towards formal geopolitical independence is still alive. As we can see, the EKRE has in general opportunistically exploited every opportunity that presented itself. Fidesz, PiS, and other right-wing populists in Europe support family values, traditionalism, majoritarianism, and are critical of the judiciary and generally are broadly similar in these issues. We can see significant differences, most notably the role of religious values for Fidesz and PiS, given the roles of Catholicism in Hungary and Poland, whereas for the EKRE the religious issues are less salient, given secularist trends in Estonian society. 14

Jürgenson joined the EKRE in November 2021. Before that, he has been a member of the Centre Party for two decades.

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The difference between the EKRE and Fidesz is also more obvious in that while Fidesz has exhibited a consistent party line in favor of the Kremlin and critical of Kyiv, EKRE is on the contrary remains pro-Ukraine and strongly critical of Russia, in spite of dissonance among EKRE influencers at the very top, such as Mart Helme, as well as similarities with the Kremlin discourse on a variety of subjects. This puts the EKRE more in line with PiS, which is generally quite critical of the Kremlin and supportive of Ukraine in spite of similarities with the Kremlin’s messaging on social questions and migration.

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Interviews Expert A, interview conducted on 5 April 2023, via e-mail. Expert B, interview conducted on 28 March 2023, Tartu. Expert C, interview conducted on 25 March 2023, Tartu. Expert D, interview conducted on 28 March 2023, Tartu. Expert E, interview conducted on 4 April 2023, Tartu. Expert F, interview conducted 22 March 2021, via Zoom. Expert G, interview conducted on 08 May 2019, Tallinn. Expert H, interviews conducted on 28 February 2018 and 15.05.2020, Tartu. Expert I, interviews conducted on 10 April 2018, Skype. Expert J, interview conducted on 22 March 2018, Tallinn. Expert K, interview conducted on 19 March 2018, Tallinn.

The Russia Discourses of Estonian Populists: Before and After the War in Ukraine Andrey Makarychev

1 Introduction One of the major dividing factors among European conservative populist parties is the question of relations with Russia. This article discusses the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) as a part of governing coalition and an opposition force whose domestic political agenda is structurally similar to the Kremlin’s social conservatism and EU-skepticism. Three questions are central to my analysis: how EKRE’s attitudes towards Russia are formulated and articulated; why these attitudes change; and what this case can add to the extant scholarship on populist foreign policies. Arguably, the party I analyze is both employing populist rhetoric and actions, and is also fostering nationalist policies, be it a linguistic, cultural, or ethnic nationalism. Yet, populism-nationalism nexus has its historical and geopolitical specificity in the Baltic Sea Region. Unlike Western European countries, Estonia does not have profound racial divides, cases of terrorism, or a strong adherence to Christianity. In the meantime, this country considers itself a victim of imperial policies of their stronger neighbors. These historical grievances are powerful generators of populist discourses, along with the contemporary disillusionment with the EU among some constituencies and attempts to position countries located at the EU’s periphery as frontrunners in a conservative redefinition of Europe. In particular, for EKRE the Finno-Ugric connection is an important argument used in anti-EU narratives. Methodologically, this research is framed by a discourse analysis complemented by a definition of populism as a performative phenomenon. I find it most useful to rely on two arguments developed by the school of critical discourse analysis. Firstly, in the words of Ernesto Laclau, discourse is … … a link between social elements where each of the elements, considered in isolation, is not necessarily linked to the other… (T)here is no ‘natural’ or ‘necessary’ relationship between A. Makarychev (B) Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_12

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elements that precedes the act of linking itself. Therefore, linking them involves some kind of intervention. This intervention is exactly what we call hegemony (Hansen & Sonnichsen, 2014, 256–257).

This methodological guidance allows looking at how EKRE builds its discourse towards international affairs in general and relations with Russia in particular. In the course of my analysis, I shall show how the party discursively constructs its political profile through Russia policies, blending elements coming from various fields—economics, culture, geopolitics, and so forth. Secondly, as seen from Laclau’s perspective, political subjects—including parties—are inherently… … dislocated, incomplete, and unfinished. The subject positions constituting a subject as a structure overlap, contradict one another, leave empty areas, fit awkwardly” (Jakobs, 2018, 301).

It is at this juncture that discourse analysis intertwines with the theory of performativity that was born in a polemic with essentialist and reductionist readings of identity (Nelson, 1999, 340). From the performative perspective … … populism as an attribute of political claims… is a way of framing political messages…(P)opulism is something political actors do, not something they are’ (Bonikowski, 2019, 63).

In this regard, populism is a flexible concept that lacks ideological content of its own (Jenne et al., 2021, 174) and therefore might be mobilized for any kind of political projects, including nationalism, nativism, and illiberalism more generally. Some authors reduce performativity to staging emotional political shows and investing in the sphere of cultural and symbolic representations (Eklund, 2020), with the concomitant extravaganza and flamboyant style of campaigning (Murduck, 2020, 888). However, I am more in agreement with scholars who are interested in discussing performativity as a discursive construct (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2013, 343). In a broader sense, discursive approaches primarily focus on the “content,” and see style as secondary, while the performative “approach apportions primacy to the stylistic realm… and is sensitive to the contours of the contemporary political landscape, which is intensely mediatized and ‘stylized’” (Moffitt & Tormey, 2014, 390). Empirically, in this analysis I use different sources of political argumentation, such as speeches, interviews, declarations, party, and government documents, as well as media analyses. Due to the explicit performativity of some populist public pronouncements, I also analyze video materials covering specific statements or visualized comments relevant for this research.

2 Conceptual Frame This analysis is grounded in the ongoing debate that seeks to find a balance between the concepts of populism and nationalism that, by and large, can be understood as matters “of degree: instances can be populist and nationalist in some respects but not

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in others” (Brubacker, 2020, 62). Attempts to more or less strictly dissect the two concepts from one another were based on a distinction between the vertical populist dimension which positions the people against the elite, and the horizontal nationalist dimension which creates intense polarization and fixed boundaries between groups of people (Brubacker, 2020, 63). Without rejecting the validity of this categorization, I however adhere to a different interpretation of the dissimilarity between the two concepts: in my opinion, nationalism refers to the ideological and identity-laden dimension of the nexus (France24, 2018), while populism connotes its performative and communicative aspects. In the meantime, I am sympathetic with a hybrid conceptualization that makes populism-nationalism nexus epistemologically more important than differentiation between them. Since “populism and nationalism are two strands of the same logic of identity” (Heiskanen, 2021, 345), it would be pertinent to apply an intertextual approach to study both discourses as mutually constitutive and reinforcing each other. This synthetic approach is visible in the extant literature: for example, one may speak about nationalist/nativist/anti-pluralist and conservative dimensions of right-wing populism (Wodak, 2020, 237), or about populism as a “fantasy-based approach to” nationalism (Hedetoft, 2020, 101). In this sense, it appears fully legitimate not only to refer to “populist-nationalist politics,” but also to reflect upon “the power of this connection” (De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2019, 320). By the same token, nationalism and populism appear to be two “master frames” constitutive for sovereignty (Jenne, 2021, 328), which leads us to a broader phenomenon of global transformations within the liberal international order (Hobson, 2012). Generally, populist foreign policy discourses lean towards autonomy and “anti-core orientations” (Wehner & Thies, 2020). In this context, populism can be regarded as an attack against the entire “post-1989 project” (Rupnik, 2016, 81), which explains the conflation of populism and nationalism with anti-globalist (Miller-Idriss, 2019) and EU-skeptic discourses (Leconte, 2015). One may also argue that “populism is a reaction to the internationalization of the state” (Chryssogelos, 2018, 3) and the hegemony of the human rights agenda (O’Byrne, 2018, 263–266). Therefore, sovereignty is probably a term that quite accurately captures the populist logic of international affairs (Chryssogelos, 2017a, b). However, the populist imagery of sovereignty always remains incomplete and idealized (Jenne, 2021, 325). In international politics, “populism does not primarily and most profoundly affect the content or substance of foreign policy…. what emerges is a fluid and less intelligible international order, not a radical reconfiguration of world politics driven by populists’ ‘anti-globalism” (Destradi & Plagemann, 2019, 729). I agree with Andrew Moravcsik (2021) that populists attack “global elites” without having a well-articulated foreign policy vision, and—as experiences of populist parties in Austrian, Finnish or Italian governments show—change very little in national foreign policies, as well as in the EU in a broader sense. Angelos Chryssogelos (2021, 2) similarly argued that “populists do not diverge from mainstream foreign policy positions as much as is often assumed.” The limited ability of populist parties to foster foreign policy changes might to a large extent be explained by the performative nature of the phenomenon of populism. I also consent that in many

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cases populist parties represented in national governments intentionally overfocus on non-essential or secondary issues, thus engaging with symbolism and rhetoric (YouTube, 2020a, b, c), which might be viewed as a particular case of diversionary politics (Enterline, 2010). There are other arguments I wish to critically engage with. First, some authors argue that “populist-nationalist leaders are likely to see diplomacy … as a zero-sum rather than a positive-sum game” (Carpenter, 2017, 42), which means that populists are prone to reproduce a Realpolitik type of thinking. Within this allegedly realist frame … the dilemma of populists in the East would become explicitly geopolitical: to secure a place for themselves in the inner core (with all the constraints that this would place on their power), or to drift toward an authoritarian periphery of Europe (Rupnik, 2018, 36).

This argument deserves some qualification, since populist geopolitics, as I see it, is not necessarily embedded in an either-or dilemma. Populist parties’ positivesum-games imply different balances between the membership in the EU and NATO, on the one hand, and some forms of openness towards Russia, on the other. Neither populism implies rational calculations of national interests since its performative language always includes a meaningful portion of ideational arguments. Second, in the interpretation of some authors, populists are reluctant to pursue policies of integration as detrimental to national sovereignty. Allegedly, “they are likely to resist any kind of multilateral institution” (Drezner, 2017, 28). In a radical form, this characterization might go so far as to portray populists as sympathizers of “closed borders” (Metawe, 2020). This study does not fully support this argument, and I shall develop my counterpoint further on. Third, the frequent characterization of populists as Eurosceptics also has its limitations: many populist parties do consider themselves Europeans, but in a sense that drastically differs from the EU mainstream. Some populists would claim that they are “saving Europe” from liberalism, multiculturalism, and “cultural Marxism.” By the same token, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán frequently pictured himself as a devoted supporter of the EU as a union of sovereign nations instead of an EU of deepening integration (Mos, 2020). I deem that these accounts require further contextualization. This case-based study suggests that each of them might be counterbalanced with compelling counterarguments to be unpacked in my analysis that aims to shed light on EKRE’s attitudes towards Russia. The core reason why I choose the Russia-policies of EKRE is connected to the above-mentioned autonomist and anti-core-oriented populist discourses (Wehner & Thies, 2020). EKRE has been highly critical to the deepening integration of the EU and considers themselves de facto Euroskeptics. Moreover, the party had serious conflicts with the EU over issues related to the rule of law and human rights. Hence, for a political party that is in such a situation, orienting its foreign policy towards Russia—either only to use the Eastern orientation as a bargaining chip vis-a-vis Brussels (Jenne, 2021), or motivated by genuine EU-skepticism—could be a logical policy option. That is why, as described in the introduction, this study analyzes to what extent the general logic of befriending the

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adversary of one’s adversary can be adapted to the particular historical, cultural, and domestic political contexts in which EKRE is operating vis-a-vis Russia. Besides, I also assess to what extent the Russian policies of the party are driven by nationalist ideology and their populist style.

3 Presenting the Case As a result of the parliamentary election of March 2019, for the first time EKRE (Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond) was participating in the government coalition. Since two established parties—Pro Patria (11.4%) and the Center Party (23.1%)—accepted EKRE as a coalition partner, EKRE came in third place with 17,8% of the total vote. Instead of isolating EKRE and leaving it in a minority position in the parliament, Pro Patria and the Center Party teamed up with their national populist rivals to form a new government. The participation of the Center Party that had been building up a reputation as the most Russophone-friendly was particularly controversial. Given EKRE’s systemic anti-Russian pronouncements, its coalition with the Center Party that claimed to represent Russian voters in Estonia was puzzling at the outset. On January 13, 2021, the ruling coalition collapsed due to the resignation of Prime Minister Juri Ratas, and EKRE left the government. The 2015 refugee crisis became a major booster for Estonian populists. EKRE ostensibly positioned itself on the anti-immigrant/nativist flank of the political spectrum. For EKRE’s leader Mart Helme, all eastern neighbors (Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Belarus) are in the same category of sources of immigration in Estonia (Postimees, 2020a). Domestically, the party has successfully lobbied for limitations on foreign labor in general and Ukrainian seasonal workers in particular, as well as restrictions over international students from non-EU countries (Restrictions …, 2020). The COVID-19 has additionally boosted EKRE’s previous efforts to reduce the inflow of many categories of foreigners into Estonia. In particular, the Estonian Interior Ministry controlled by EKRE in 2020 was behind a bill limiting the working time of foreign students to 16 h per week and canceling the grace period for foreign graduates of Estonian universities to stay in the country, and some other similar measures. EKRE’s political philosophy also opposes liberalism as a left-wing ideology inherently connected with globalism, cosmopolitanism, feminism, and the human right advocacy. Ruuben Kaalep, the head of EKRE’s youth group named “Blue Awakening” (Sinine Äratus) and a member of the Estonian parliament (2019–2023), has dubbed the mission of Estonian nationalists as metapolitical in the sense of focusing on mindsets, mentalities, and cultural narratives rather than on practical/institutional politics. This explains the performative style of public pronouncements by EKRE

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members, many of whom believe that the Singing Revolution1 of the late 1980s– early 1990s remains unfinished, since it was not about economic affluence or other materialist purposes, but about identity (YouTube, 2017a). In this context, EKRE stands for ethnic and cultural homogeneity of the Estonian nation, resistance to EUimposed multiculturalism and tolerance (that, in the party’s view, causes insecurity), and ultimately calls for a re-signification of Europe in traditionalist and conservative categories. EKRE’s political worldviews have little to do with Realpolitik and are rooted in the retrospective tribalism with a strong accent on Finno-Ugric grassroots traditions of paganism that are contrasted with the “violent Christianization” of the country by foreign oppressors. EKRE’s mindset is marked by a sense of anti-rational spirituality that is “totally different from the mechanistic mainstream in the West’”. In this sense, as EKRE proclaims, their views are closer to “the animistic beliefs of black Africa or Australian aboriginals who still have their roots” (YouTube, 2017b). “Shamanic wisdom of our Baltic ancestors” seems to serve a major reference point for this narrative. EKRE’s political arsenal includes references to the neo-paganist mystique and Finno-Ugric supremacist rituals. This version of Estonian nationalism includes cultural justification of ancient/pre-Christian beliefs, and a symbolic detachment of “the real, pristine Estonia” from today’s European cultural/political mainstream. These self-victimized Estonian postcolonial narratives gave a strong boost to cultural nationalism which is interpreted by EKRE as a struggle for ethnopluralism (Chryssogelos, 2017a, b): “What makes the world beautiful is real diversity.” For example, by supporting Catalan independence (HotNew, 2017), EKRE advocated for a staunchly nationalist vision of cultural identity. The emphasis on national identity explicates EKRE’s foreign policy discourse which prioritizes relations with Baltic countries, the Visegrad Four, and countries of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. EKRE was explicitly in solidarity with Poland and Hungary as countries allegedly pressured by Brussels on normative issues (Postimees, 2020b). By the same token, EKRE is supportive of the Three Seas Initiative and the Intermarium project (Kaalep, 2020) as a means to stay beyond imperial projects and team up with small neighbors. When it comes to relations with non-democratic governments, EKRE takes the chance of positioning itself on the Western side of the debate. This is, for example, the case of Iran: Jaak Madison, EKRE’s representative in the European Parliament, strongly spoke out against human rights abuses committed by the regime in Tehran. Although this argument was meant more to support Donald Trump’s policy towards Iran rather than certify EKRE’s sympathies with EU foreign policy, it still allowed to performatively articulate his party commitment to the democratic norms in international affairs (YouTube, 2020c). However, the EU for EKRE’s is an externalized incarnation of the poignant “elite” whose existence allows populists to position themselves on the “people’s” side of the debate. This party is known for its sympathies to Brexit (YouTube, 2020a) and strong 1

A generic name of a mass scale peaceful movement for Estonia’s independence from the Soviet Union, deeply grounded in cultural traditions of Estonian-language music festivals.

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rhetoric against multiculturalism and permissive attitude to refugees (YouTube, 2020b). In this vein, some of EKRE’s public pronouncements were perceived as shaking the foundations of cooperative relations with Estonia’s major partners. For example, as Mart Helme once mentioned, the coalition government allegedly was preparing for a “plan B” in case NATO “fails.” This hollow declaration seems to be part of EKRE’s performative strategy of transforming skepticism towards the West into critical remarks toward individual European countries. Thus, in January 2021 Mart Helme criticized the quality of democratic elections in Lithuania and Romania, which made the Estonian Foreign Minister disavow this statement (ERR, 2021). Another illustrative case in point was Mart Helme’s verbal offense of the Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin: in December 2019 he characterized the new coalition government in Finland as an “evidence of leftist efforts to destroy the country from within … What has happened in Finland now still makes the hair stand on end” (ERR, 2019c). “Now we see how one salesgirl has become a prime minister and how some other street activists and non-educated people have also joined the cabinet,” Helme added, making the prime minister of Estonia apologize for this insult (Reuters, 2019). A few months later Estonian Ambassador to Finland Harri Tiido resigned due to his disagreements with the government in Tallinn; he particularly cited the episode with Mart Helme’s attack on Sanna Marin: They may think they are saying it … for domestic consumption. However, everyone gets to know everything nowadays, and if (Estonian] diplomats need to ask Finland for support, for example, after this type of statement, then it’s going to be hard to approach them. (ERR, 2020).

4 From Intransigence to Accommodation with Russia In this section, I seek to find out how the vision of Estonia as a country deeply embedded in Western institutions (NATO and the EU) and in the meantime bordering on Russia contribute to the discursive and performative construction of Russia and Estonian-Russian relations. EKRE was trying to portray Estonia as a country with equidistant relations with the EU and Russia as two obviously different, yet in this party’s opinion, symmetrical and comparable sources of external imposition aimed at depriving Estonia of its sovereignty. Typical in this sense is Ruuben Kaalep’s mistrust to Russia “oppressing Finno-Ugric people,” and to Europe as a source of liberal ideology of denationalization: “In the West we have insecurity due to immigrants, in the East we have Russia who doesn’t respect our independence.” Both Russia and Europe are, in this view, “empires that come and go, but the Balts remain” (YouTube, 2019a). EKRE’s Russia narrative by and large is consonant with traditional Estonian national(ist) discourses that were targeted against Russian imperial policies; consequently, they treated the Estonian Russophone minority as Soviet-time immigrants who needed to be culturally and linguistically assimilated. The origins of EKRE’s foreign policy agenda were explicitly Russia-unfriendly. It torpedoed the signing of

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the Border Treaty with Russia and demanded material compensation from Russia for the Soviet occupation. EKRE’s position during the Bronze Soldier “monumental” conflict in 2007 was overtly anti-Russian. Whenever it is politically expedient, EKRE refers to the Estonian Russophones as Soviet-time under-integrated immigrants, which serves as an argument against accepting new refugees (YouTube, 2019b). The former speaker of the Estonian Parliament and member of EKRE Henn Põlluaas had accused Russia of annexing about five percent of the Estonian territory, which “is no different from the occupation and annexation of Crimea” (ERR, 2019a). “A sick bear can be as dangerous as a healthy one”—this pronouncement by Ruuben Kaalep also well characterizes EKRE’s thinking about Russia (YouTube, 2020d). Martin Helme, former Estonian Finance Minister from EKRE, has explicitly referred to the threats coming from Russia’s illicit financial activities in Estonia, including the money laundering affair with Danske Bank (Voice of America, 2019). “Blue Awakening” has publicly expressed concerns about suppression of ethnic minorities in Russia and the policies pursued by Putin’s regime towards Finno-Ugric ethnic groups (Sinine Äratus, 2020). In 2020, this EKRE-related group has organized public commemoration of the Udmurt national activist Albert Razin who had committed suicide in the city of Izhevsk protesting Russification of his people’s language and deprivation of its culture (YouTube, 2020e). This all fits the postcolonial perspective (Peiker, 2016, 113–132) in which Russia played a role of Estonia’s colonizing “Other.”

However, Estonian public opinion is divided between those who think that EKRE is inherently inimical to Russia, and those who see this party gravitating towards a pro-Russian position (Naylor, 2019). The debate is grounded in interpretative and subjective assessments and marked by an ambiguity complicated by two factors. First, some of EKRE’s ideas correspond with Russia’s foreign policy mainstream and may be potentially beneficial for the Kremlin’s overall strategy of attacking the West, but, as we know from cases like SYRIZA in Greece or “Law and Justice” in Poland, symmetry does not necessarily imply policy coordination. EKRE’s alleged “pro-Russian” credentials are often deduced from the correspondence of its narratives with the Russian political mainstream. This includes an emphasis on the conservative agenda that implies the rhetoric of protecting national identities and traditions from proliferation of “non-European” cultures and religions, and from the EU-driven emancipatory liberalism. Another good example is EKRE’s Ukraine-skeptic rhetoric that is partly consonant with the Kremlin’s discourse. Yet, EKRE’s portrayal of Ukraine as a source of cheap workforce prone to misconduct (to overstay, or to disobey the COVID-related restrictions) is largely motivated by this party’s domestic rhetoric of keeping foreign labor under the state. Secondly, as an indirect result of EKRE’s participation in the governmental coalition, this party’s discourse has transformed from rigid nationalism (“Estonia for Estonians”) to engagement with local Russophones, for which some toning down of the anti-Moscow narrative was a prerequisite. This amplified the voices arguing that EKRE’s public pronouncements might be in line with Moscow’s interests (Braghiroli, 2019). Arguably, “EKRE has been noted to have trustworthy relationships with some high profile, Russia-friendly, far right political figures in Europe” (Leivat, 2020). Playing the conservative card and aligning themselves with like-minded nationalist

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forces in Europe known as pro-Kremlin parties exposed EKRE to domestic criticism (Postimees, 2019). However, most of these contacts are sporadic and symbolic. A good example is Marine Le Pen’s visit to Tallinn in June 2019 that sparked speculations in the media about a possible drift of EKRE towards Russia. Yet, the event is remembered mostly for Ruuben Kaalep’s selfie with the gesture of an “OK” sign symbolizing supremacists support for white power (Frazin, 2019). Kaalep was posing with Marine Le Pen who later insisted he delete the picture from his Facebook page; however, Martin Helme pledged to continue to use the gesture as a sign of defiance to “left-wing radicals who want to hijack the language” (Montgomery, 2019).

5 Russophones as an Electoral Resource Another powerful domestic factor allowing the interpretation of EKRE’s standpoint as “pro-Russian” is this party’s explicitly admitted intention to win a certain percentage of Russophone votes. This shows that for EKRE, political roles of local Russian speakers remain situational: they are rejected as Soviet-time immigrants, yet potentially accepted as bearers of conservative values and opponents of the new “Oriental invasion” of refugees and asylum-seekers. Indeed, EKRE might be popular among certain traditionalist constituencies within the Russian-speaking community who adhere to family values and are skeptical of other ethnic/religious groups from outside. In particular, Mart Helme’s controversial remarks about EKRE’s disdain for the LGBTQ community was meant, according to some interpretations, to add new Russian votes to this party. The same logic applies to the disproportionate attention given by EKRE to the immigration issue (ERR, 2019b). Thus, Ruuben Kaalep assumed that “Russians might come to support our party: two white groups need to stick together” (Ibid). This statement is a part of a larger shift of EKRE to a more inclusive attitude towards the Russophones as potential allies in the struggle against the alleged “Orientalization” of the country. Another EKRE member Jaak Madison concurred that conservatively oriented Russophones might be sympathetic with populist nationalists, and “don’t trust Muslims and refugees” (YouTube, 2020f). This explains EKRE’s relative openness to Russian language media in Estonia as part of its electoral strategy that contains a high degree of political opportunism and pragmatism as opposed to a coherent ideology. EKRE’s first experience of participation in the trilateral coalition government in 2019–2020 was a major boost to its political identity as an all-Estonian party, which logically presumed that no part of the country should remain beyond its reach and interest. In competition for Russophone votes, EKRE faced a challenge of inscribing its populist nationalism into the specific context of the Russian-speaking electorate. This strategy was based on three interrelated pillars, all being projections of global discourses onto Estonian political scenery and politically exploiting the existing societal anxieties concerning moral, economic, and health-related changes in society. All three core issues are meant to propose a political agenda to ultimately detach

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Estonia from the post-Soviet space and chart new lines of distinctions, different from the traditional for Estonian domestic politics ethno-political conflict between the Estonian majority and the Russophone minority. In fact, the possibilities for a more Russia-friendly discourse were implanted in all three pillars of EKRE’s electoral agenda. The emphasis on social conservatism made EKRE’s narrative largely compatible with the Kremlin-promoted illiberal ideology of “traditional values” with its homophobic tones. The anti-Green-Deal narrative quite popular in Ida-Virumaa refers to the current uncooperative relations with Russia as a significant factor negatively affecting the state of the local economy in Estonia’s east and setting limits on its eventual diversification (Postimees, 2020). And when it comes to the vaccination debate, the Russophone sympathizers of EKRE raise the issue of acceptance of Sputnik V in Estonia (ERR, 2021d), de facto discarding the policies of the European Medicines Agency.

6 The War in Ukraine: Old Legacies and New Contexts The war against Ukraine that Russia relaunched on February 24, 2022, has added new dramatic contexts to my research. The military invasion put EKRE in a complicated position, making it find a precarious balance between nationalism, the legacy of Russia-wary attitudes, and maintaining electoral attraction for Russophone voters. These three priorities defined the party’s attempts to adapt to the new geopolitical situation and revealed the controversies of this adaptation. In line with its traditional critical posture towards Russia, in May 2022 EKRE introduced a parliamentary bill demanding the Estonian government to withdraw its signature from the Russian–Estonian Border Treaty concluded in February 2014 yet not ratified so far. The proposal failed to get support from the Riigikogu but was used by EKRE to remind the public of this party’s resolve “to bring Russia to the negotiating table and make the continuing validity of the Tartu Peace Treaty the starting point of the talks” (Postimees, 2022). After the war restarted, EKRE also initiated parliamentary hearings on the demolition of all Soviet-era memorials in Estonia. EKRE’s program for parliamentary election of March 2023 pointed to NATO as the main security instrument for Estonia and called for raising military budget to 3 per cent of GDP, augmenting the Estonian self-defense forces to 55 thousand servicemen, and upgrading technical capabilities of the army (Spasiom…, 2023). In a symbolic but quite meaningful gesture EKRE expelled from the party one of its functionaries who publicly referred to Ukrainian president in an offensive way (ERR, 2023). When it comes to the nationalist rhetoric, EKRE’s qualified Russia’s aggression against Ukraine as an existential threat to Estonia not because of the war itself, but rather because it provoked a mass-scale influx of people from Russia and Ukraine to Estonia. The party’s statement reiterated its long-standing resistance to immigration and accusation of the governing coalition of “dismantling the Estonian nation state” (EKRE Statement, 2022). To sustain this position, Martin Helme suggested that

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Estonia’s capacity to help displaced persons is exhausted, and that the government should stop allowing Ukrainians applying for the status of war refugees to cross the border (ERR, 2022a). Mart Helme went even farther having suggested that “this is not Estonia’s war, and we are neither for Russia nor for Ukraine,” for which he was strongly lambasted in Estonian media (Leivat, 2022). This ambiguity might be explained by the specificity of threat perception among right-wing nationalists: they securitized—though differently—both the Russian invasion and those effects that stem from Estonia’s support for Ukraine, including the policy of welcoming Ukrainian refugees and different forms of military and nonmilitary assistance to Ukraine. This discursive construction of security was conducive to a duplicitous attitude to Ukraine both as a victim and a source of new insecurities for Estonia. In this vein, Mart Helme has provocatively assumed that. … HIV and other infectious diseases are going to “return” to Estonia, brought in by war refugees from Ukraine, many of whom may get involved in prostitution here (ERR, 2022b).

EKRE also spoke out against military assistance to Ukraine that the party qualified as weakening Estonian defense resources (EKRE MP, 2022). This ambiguity explains attempts to maneuver and experimentally find a balance between condemnation of Russia and avoiding far-reaching solidarity with Ukraine as two different logics of securitization: “The peace narrative is a subtle way of undermining support for Ukraine without appearing to be overtly pro-Russian” (Jakobson & Kasekamp, 2023, 117). An additional factor of traction of the Ukraine-skeptic rhetoric was its positive resonance among Estonian Russophones whose significant part shares Moscow’s anti-Ukrainian propaganda. This consonance of EKRE’s critical attitude to Estonia’s self-identification with Ukraine’s fight against Russian military intervention created preconditions for multiple suspicions of EKRE’s clandestine connections with Kremlin propagandists who could allegedly influence, in one way or another, this party. In particular, in spring 2023 Andres Raid, a member of EKRE, visited the occupied Mariupol (Okupeeritud…, 2023), which was largely perceived as evidence of this party’s liaisons with Moscow. The apotheosis of these accusations was an article in Politico magazine whose investigative journalists claimed to have evidence of some kind of communication between EKRE and Evgeniy Prigozhin’s media machine (Banco & Aarup & Carrier, 2023). As argued in the story, in Estonia, as across the entire Euro-Atlantic West, the Kremlin’s messengers for years were trying to establish connections with local parties and groups whose political strategies enshrined the broadening of existing political cleavages and the amplification of extant tensions within society. EKRE predictably called the Politico article a speculative insinuation and promised to sue an Estonian expert who supported the allegations. Unsurprisingly, the publication spurred an avalanche of comments from all major political forces in the country. The aggregate effect of this discussion was a strengthened anti-Putin consensus in Estonian mainstream politics, and a clear understanding that even uncertain allegations of some liaisons with the Putin regime might be detrimental for the reputation of domestic political actors.

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7 Conclusions In the concluding section, I briefly come back to the three questions posed in the beginning of this study. First, I wanted to understand how Estonian populists discursively construct Russia and, more specifically, what arguments contribute to different forms of engagement with Russia. Two conclusions seem to be most important at this juncture. One is that populists’ penchant for an in-between positioning in Europe, which largely disregarded the fundamental distinctions between Russia and the EU, reproduced one of the major elements in the Kremlin’s foreign policy narrative and thus paved the way for different overtures with Russia. Another conclusion ascertains a structural symmetry between anti-EU illiberal pronouncements of Estonian populists and the Russian political mainstream, yet this resemblance does not necessarily make Estonian populists simple “clients” or “puppets” of Moscow, as some journalists and policy experts simplistically deem (Kross, 2018). In other words, the occasional overlap of anti-Western discourses cannot be directly translated to causality, and particularly not to any kind of patron-client relationship. This corroborates my initial thesis of a gap between political discourses of populist parties and policy practices (including legislative behavior), particularly when it comes to foreign, security, and defense policies. In other words, pro-Russian rhetoric does not necessarily transform into practical actions, and definitely not to the extent that would endanger Estonia’s performance within the EU and NATO, which leaves only limited room for pro-Russian actions. Secondly, I intended to explicate why the perceptions of—and attitudes to—Russia are quite controversial. In Estonia, the key domestic factor influencing EKRE’s attitudes towards Russia is the presence of a sizable Russian minority that is unlikely to support this party’s conservative agenda unless it includes a less confrontational stance towards Russia. Apart from that, EKRE’s discourses on Russia are heavily embedded in historical debate and are less sensitive to issues of economic benefits. Thirdly, I sought to explain what this study might contribute to the scholarly debate on populist foreign policies. This case-based analysis made clear that the zero-sum logic does not necessarily dominate the populist parties’ geopolitics, which to a significant extent is grounded in the reinvigoration of issues of national identity. I have also found out that the party’s discourses include its own understanding of diversity as ethnopluralism, a concept that is pragmatically used as a cultural and political alternative to the EU unifying project. EKRE’s support for the Intermarium concept demonstrated their alternative geopolitical imageries of integrative projects, rather than the rejection of regional integration as such. Trying to re-signify Europe from the margins, Estonian populists, in the meantime, discursively engage in one way or another with Russia, yet rather as an external actor than as a part of Europe.

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War of Narratives and Revisionist Challenge—The Evolving Strategic Partnership Between the New Right Movement in the United States and the Russian Federation Holger Mölder

1 Introduction In the present century, especially after the global economic crisis of 2007–2009, conservative populism has gained more popularity among public audiences. In 2016, the New Right movement got their first big political successes in the Western world after Donald Trump won the presidential election in the United States and the Brexit referendum took the United Kingdom out of the European Union. The New Right challenge to the liberal world order has been built on efficient production and dissemination of revisionist strategic narratives, by which former marginal populist movements intend to get attention, increase their political support and as a final result, come to power. The extreme views of conservative populists make their collaboration with mainstream parties more difficult and as a result, we are facing ideologically polarized societies where half of society is sharply contrasted with the rest. The New Right challenge was significantly supported by the revisionist international actors, first of all by the Russian Federation which strongly self-esteems itself as a more conservative alternative to the Western liberal democracy, but also the “China first” ambitions strengthened in Beijing under Xi Jinping’s leadership. Alternative movements in the Western political landscape (see the introductory chapter of this volume) do not fit the mainstream right-wing and left-wing description and their structure is normally built around a featured idea or person, and therefore resemble a religious cult more than a political party that places them in opposition to mainstream Western political traditions based on competition of ideas. Normally, alternative movements express stronger ideological stands with excessive turn to H. Mölder (B) Department of Law, Tallinn University of Technology, Akadeemia tee 3, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] Estonian Military Academy, Tartu, Estonia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2_13

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collective identity building. In this chapter, the author applies the term “New Right” to describe contemporary conservative populist movements, which associate themselves with the alternative right wave. The New Right movement is characterized by a strong anti-establishment sentiment with the shared principles of conservative fundamentalism and defending traditional and national values (i.e., they claim Europe is declining, migration causes cultural changes, climate change does not exist—among others). The social base of these alternative movements is different from traditional conservatism and is based on the socially oppressed sections of society, which so far have been targeted mainly by leftist movements (see, e.g., Furedi, 2017). The New Right movement has been strongly influenced by “welfare chauvinism,” by which welfare services should be restricted to certain groups (Andersen & Bjørklund, 1990). In the United States, the New Right movement strengthened with the populist Tea Party movement launched in 2009 in the Republican Party, after they lost presidential elections in 2008. The Tea Party movement represented a judicial populism of arguing that the political establishment does not represent the individual rights of the people and set the stage for the triumphant emergence of Donald Trump in 2016. In Europe, the New Right movement was significantly pushed by the European migration crisis of 2015–16, which became one of the major challenges of the ongoing populist wave. The New Right movement, unlike many earlier alternative movements, often turns to democratic procedures to pursue power, effectively using vulnerabilities of liberal democracies on behalf of their power ambitions, but by using democracy to seize and secure power they may tend to authoritarianism in justifying it by the will of the people. In some examples (e.g., Trump in the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil), they are not always keen to recognize electoral losses and give up power after losing elections. In the West, the New Right movement is based on the premise of emerging grassroots populist movements, which can be created and sponsored by large corporations to increase support for their strategic goals and shape public opinion in their favor (Cho et al., 2011). While earlier conservative grassroot movements have been embedded in social networks linked to churches, the New Right movement found support from conservative media (e.g., Fox News in the United States) and social media networks (Williamson et al., 2011, 27). Nevertheless, there is also a proestablishment New Right which has successfully established control over state structures and has strong roots in Eastern Europe. Ruling parties like Fidesz in Hungary, Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland, and the All-Russian Political Party “United Russia” in the Russian Federation are probably the most visible examples, but there are strong alternative moments in almost all Eastern European countries. In Russia, the regime of Vladimir Putin has turned to conservative fundamentalism and introduced itself as a defender of national and traditional values to the rest of the world (Curanovi´c 2015). This trend became more visible in 2005–2007, after Putin called the collapse of the Soviet empire “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” in his annual state of the nation address of 2005: First and foremost, it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory (NBC News, 2005).

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Internationally, Russia’s imperialist strategic ambitions were forced after the hawkish speech of Putin in the 2007 Munich Security Conference, where he stood against what he called “the United States’ monopolistic dominance” (Charbonneau, 2007). Ideological polarization resulted in the ending of the Kantian cooperative security governance wave of the 1990s and by replacing it with the highly polarized Hobbesian concept of hyper-competitiveness (see introductory chapter of this volume). In her State of the Union speech of 2021, the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave a warning: We are entering a new era of hyper-competitiveness. An era in which some stop at nothing to gain influence: from vaccine promises and high-interest loans, to missiles and misinformation (von der Leyen, 2021).

This new era may serve well populist and revisionist challengers who intend to change democratic principles of the global order by using its vulnerabilities. The new Hobbesian challenge along with the revolutionary development of communication technologies brought along the emergence of a new phenomenon—worldwide largescale psychological warfare, referred to as Global Knowledge Warfare (GKW) by Mölder and Shiraev (2020, 2021). The general target of ongoing GKW is to change knowledge—conceptual thinking about fact, reality, and truth, supported by imagination, creating characters, and combining data with fictional narratives (Sungju, 2014, 361–2). This chapter focuses on strategies of populist and revisionist movements to influence mass societies and build strong collective identities, which help them secure the support of the masses. The most visible outcomes of the New Right challenge, proTrump organizations in the United States and pro-Putin movements in the Russian Federation follow close ideological patterns, which emphasize traditional and conservative values that make them potential allies in the GKW. The study presumes that both movements actively promote ongoing culture wars by generating and disseminating revisionist political discourses.1 Therefore, the identification and examination of New Right strategic narratives in the United States and comparing them to the corresponding narratives in Russia will be a crucial task for this study.

2 Conservative Crusade Against Western Liberalism One of the founders of the Occupy movement, Kalle Lasn, explained in his interview to the author of this chapter that the success of conservative populism stands with their ideological clarity and building a competitive collective identity shared by many. 1

Culture wars refer to conflicts that rely on values, beliefs, morality and lifestyle, which has become a central issue for the New Right movement. They identify themselves as defenders of traditional values, by rejecting multiculturalism, gender rights, homosexuality, abortions, climate change and supporting capital punishment, racial and national prejudgments, the right to bear arms that they identify as natural rights to mankind. Culture wars between conservative and liberals have polarized the Western societies in the twenty-first century (ECPS, 2023).

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I have to admit that although I don’t like the ultra-conservatives and what they stand for, they have a very beautiful and natural idea of who we are. Extreme conservatives like to look back in history and emphasize who we were in the past and where we came from, where Western civilization came from. Now, 1000 years later, we are fighting whether we have the same human rights for all, or whether we have a certain tradition that we carry on top of that (Mölder, 2020).

For Lasn, the rise of conservative populism is the result of the global economic crisis, when people’s living standards became worse and they could afford much less than, for example, 50 years ago, when after the Second World War, suddenly everyone thought they could afford a good life, acquire decent housing, and achieve social security. But 50 years later it is no longer possible, maybe 1–2 billion still can, but the remaining five billion cannot afford to realize their “American Dream.” This has given politicians their base of support, from which the current wave of conservative populism gathers strength (Mölder, 2020). The technological revolution in communication with the birth of digital media also made it possible for previously marginal ideas to reach their potential consumers. Furedi (2017) claims that technocratic governance has ridiculed ordinary people’s habits, customs, and traditions, which accounts for why conflicting attitudes towards cultural values escalated into a veritable war during the 2016 US presidential elections. From these processes emerged what became known as “Trump’s Base”,2 mostly white workingclass voters who do not hold a college degree and report annual household incomes below the median (Pew Research Center, 2020). This became the foundation of the Trumpist movement in the United States and to whom he promised to “drain the swamp” of the political establishment in Washington. Boukhari and Yiannopoulos (2016) call Donald Trump perhaps the first truly cultural candidate for US President since Pat Buchanan.3 Populist movements often emphasize the collective identity of the crowd. In 1930, the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset published the work “The Revolt of the Masses,” where he analyzed a deep anti-individualistic phenomenon of masses built on a strong collective identity and solidarity in which people attempt to blend into masses and not distinguish from others. Ortega y Gasset (1930) suggests that to be different is considered to be inappropriate in mass society. The masses can crush everything that is different, good, individual, qualified, and selected. Anyone who does not think like everyone is confronted with the threat of being eliminated from society, although it is clear that everything does not necessarily answer everyone, and the truth has always a relative value (Blaz Gonzalez, 2007). Populism usually refers to a complex confrontation between the unity of the mass identifying itself 2

Even though the term “base” is common in American political vernacular, the “Base” for the Trumpist movement has a symbolic value to identify the “true believers “of his cult of personality, which has given close to divine status to their leader. During his presidential election campaign in Iowa, Trump stated: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” (Dwyer, 2016). 3 Pat Buchanan is a conservative author who opposes multiculturalism and abortion and supports isolationism in foreign policy. He set his candidacy for the US presidential elections in 1992 and 1996 from the Republican Party. In 2000, he represented the Reform Party.

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by the people’s will and the special needs of a minority that differs in it. Nowadays, a reference to the identity of all people means the identification with a mass that describes the brutality of this confrontation. In mass society, individualism acquires the dimensions of sin. Ortega noted that fascist and syndicalist species were characterized by a type of human being who did not care about the causes or even the truth but had simply decided to establish their opinion (Blaz Gonzalez, 2007). It was something novel for mainstream politics, the right not to be fair, the right not to be reasonable, but to rely on unjustified prejudices. This is how populism was born. It did not seek the truth, but the justification for their beliefs. It did not seek the cause but the culprit. New Left philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who belonged to the Frankfurt School, argued that modern society produces one-dimensional people, products of the mass society or the marketing society, who perceive the world as static, are unable to adapt to changes, and are therefore easily manipulated by the authorities (Marcuse, 1991). Marcuse sees the effect of modern means of influence used for mass communication and propaganda (e.g., television, radio, print media, cinema) on the creation of such an archetype. Nowadays the internet and social media can be added to the tools of mass communication and propaganda. In the era of mass culture, a large part of the consumer base of the media space perceives the world in a one-dimensional way, or the media has created such an illusion, which is why it is possible to easily influence and provoke such an audience through the promotion of opposing images (Marcuse, 1991). The media-ruled society is characterized by the governance of the collective truth, which is adopted by the masses. A consumer-oriented market world based on popular narratives is an essential outcome for the masses, because only to the masses it is possible to successfully sell the truth packaged as a consumer product. The collective truth is always relative, and it has been reinforced with the force of the masses whose loud voice overlooks the individual truths of the individual members of society. In the modern society, the beginning of the mass revolt can be placed in the second half of the 1970s, when the outbreak of various alternative movements in the 1960s and 1970s caused fear in the Western ruling elites and they intended to control the masses with the invasion of the primitive needs of the consumer society in silencing social dissatisfaction, which gradually grew into a conservative revolution. During this time period, the worldwide colonial system also collapsed, which fostered global antiWestern sentiments. The satisfaction of the individual became a personal problem, which did not prevent the victory of the mass society. In the 2002 release of the British film studio Aardman Animations “Chicken Run” expresses the chicken’s opposition to automation of the chicken farm, which their owner plans to subdue them. The chickens finally found their freedom island, but the ability of human society to break out of the influence of consumer society is more doubtful. One of the main goals of the New Right movements has been the fight against the liberal worldview, which has been often associated with European values. In the 1990s, liberal values strongly dominated global narratives that described the international system (Cooley, 2015, 50). September 11, 2001, sparked a Global War on Terror that led to a widespread culture of fear and hatred and finally ended in the

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powerful nationalist-protectionist wave (see introductory chapter of this volume), which supposedly indicated the failure of the existing social order. There is significant evidence of fundamental cultural change, “while the 1990s saw the steady expansion of global civil society and transnational networks, the 2000s witnessed the globalization of anti-constitutionalist measures for purposes of fighting terrorism and strengthening state security,” (Cooley, 2015, 51). The increasing instability in international relations laid the cornerstone for the conservative revolution, which was supported by the global economic crisis and the chaos amplified by the increasing influence of media and consumer society. The ideological turn from liberal to conservative came along the strengthening of revisionist challengers to the Western supremacy—the economic strengthening of Russia thanks to higher oil prices in the mid-2000s leaned the country to the authoritarian side and the growing influence of totalitarian China on the international stage, which was largely based on the rapid growth of the country’s economic competitiveness. However, the West found itself unprepared against revisionist challenges that opened a door to landing from Kantian security governance to Hobbesian polarization (see Frederking, 2003). The Kantian order has failed to convince large groups of political elites and in particular populations at large on the effectiveness and legitimacy of international institutions (Sørensen, 2011, 161). The United States during the Bush administration and especially after the Iraqi operation of 2003 started to move away from the Western unity. The powerful narratives about a militarily strong United States from Mars and a weak and declining Europe from Venus (see Kagan, 2002) started to spread, which to great extent helped to destroy the new liberal paradigms introduced into the world order after the Cold War. The worldview attitude “liberal” has traditionally denoted progressivity in the European cultural space, which can refer to proponents of free markets, procedural democracy, or inclusive social policies designed to minimize discrimination depending on its context (Borenstein, 2019, 133). However, liberal views have been commonly used in describing tolerance towards others, which is difficult to reconcile with nationalism and protectionism. In the twenty-first century, it has suddenly become a widely used curse word due to the growing influence of the New Right propaganda. The New Right blamed the crisis on liberals who have retreated from traditional values and led the international system into chaos. The New Right considers the liberal world order and globalization to be the major cause of various social problems the underprivileged people may face, and instead of capitalists as it was with the case of Marxism, the hostile social classes for them are foreigners, homosexuals, and globalists. From the political agenda and social focus, the present triumph of alternative movements remembers alternative movements in the 1920s and the 1930s. They may propose different tools for solutions, but their social patterns, how they have been shaped by social networks and efficient collective identity building by creation of powerful symbols and images are close. An important impetus for the rise in popularity of conservative populist movements in Europe was given by the migration crisis, which was able to successfully rally different social strata against refugees aspiring to a welfare society in Europe

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and spread a culture of fear. Many New Right movements mobilized power from antimigration and anti-Islamic sentiments, where “responsiveness on the national policy level implies the implementation of protectionist, isolationist, and anti-immigrant policies,” (Walter, 2021, 430). The 2004 and 2007 Eastern enlargements of the European Union forced democratic backsliding, Euroscepticism, the rise of radical right populism, and an authoritarian intention throughout the new Eastern European members of the European Union (Ekman & Lane, 2022, 9). The German antiimmigrant movement PEGIDA emerged in Eastern Germany with anti-migration demonstrations in 2014 in Dresden, but national conservative ideas gained strength in all Visegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia). The success of alternative movements in former Communist countries may refer to certain common patterns in alternative movements regardless of whether they represent the right or left wing of the political spectrum. The political success of conservative populism in some countries can lead these countries to introduce irrational responses to international challenges. In order to increase the influence on public opinion, alternative movements and revisionist powers intend to increase the role of instability and anxiety in social discourses and relationships supported by strong images, which are built according to the best strategies of Hollywood movie industry and transferred to international politics. Therefore, conspiracy theories perfectly fit with the strategic ambitions of revisionist powers that are interested in changing the status quo. In the post-truth environment, conspiracy theories can be effectively used in promoting cultures of fear and uncertainty by revisionist actors interested in challenging the valid international system. Conspiracy theories bind together various alternative movements interested in destroying liberal democratic order and effectively sowing ideological polarizations in Western societies (see also Krouwel & Önnerfors, 2021). There are similar patterns that characterize the narratives used by U.S. alternative right and anti-establishment movements (including QAnon),4 but also Russian political warfare in their status conflict with the West by promoting conspiracy theories (e.g., the Kalergi plan, Great Replacement theory) (Mölder, 2021).5 The enemy list is an important source for conservative populists to motivate their supporters. Russia’s apparent enemies include Muslims, Communists, oligarchs, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Georgians, Ukrainians, a rainbow coalition of “color revolutionaries,” homosexuals, Harvard University, and Jews (Borenstein, 2019, 30). The Western alternative right movement and Russia’s revisionism can unite by demonizing certain public characters who invested significantly to democracy promotion in the Eastern Europe (e.g., George Soros) or to sustainable technologies (e.g., Bill Gates) or promoted climate change activism (e.g., Greta Thunberg). 4

QAnon conspiracy engages US Democratic Party politicians, Hollywood actors, liberal business tycoons, and medical experts as members of the cabal. The conspiracy emerged in 2017 in US alternative right circles and motivated its followers to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. 5 The Kalergi plan (after Austrian pan-European philosopher Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi) claims a plot to mix white Europeans with other races. The Great Replacement emerged under the influence of French novelist Renaud Camus and claims that white Europeans will be replaced through mass migration, demographic growth, and a drop in the birth rate.

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The New Right movement introduced a widespread reference to conspiracy theories to acquire their populist strategic advantages. Their goal is to produce misperceptions and promote conspiracy theories leading to massive confusion among the targeted audience. There has been plenty of evidence that a foreign power on behalf of alternative movements has been interfering with elections, referendums, and other domestic democratic procedures. Russian interference in US elections of 2016 and 2020 in support of the Trumpist movement has been widely discussed, but similar patterns describe the principled political fight throughout between liberal institutionalists and conservative populists in the Western world (e.g., the Brexit referendum of 2016 in the UK, elections in France of 2016). The recent COVID-19 pandemic has revealed another vulnerability, which can be used for increasing mistrust and instability around the world, while the global problem itself will be hardly solved by national responses.

3 Strategic Narratives can Change the World Storytelling and image-building became an essential part of studying strategic communication after the extensive virtualization of the media space since the 1990s (Connolly-Ahern & Broadway, 2008). The contemporary world is much about narratives by which people understand ongoing processes in the world. Narratives can explain a situation, define a problem that changes the initial situation, and then provide a resolution to the problem (Goldstein, 1993; Riessman, 2008; Antoniades et al., 2010; Bushell et al., 2017). A strategic narrative is a consciously developed story to achieve the strategic goals of actors, communicate a desired end state and the means of getting there (Miskimmon et al., 2013). The impact of influence operations of revisionist actors can be measured by the successful introduction and adaptation of strategic narratives, which will resonate with the target society. Revisionist actors are efficiently using strategic narrative in shaping patterns of the international system, and they help to produce intentional changes in how the system has worked. If political actors succeed in aligning the narratives with their strategic goals, they might have a greater chance to increase their influence in international relations (Miskimmon et al., 2018, 3). Similarly, the success of conservative populism is forced by the effective dissemination of fear-induced strategic narratives, which have skillfully been used to trigger social anxiety in the democratic societies and should produce a desired change in the targeted political and security environment. The international order has always been influenced by a dissonance between rational norms and irrational behavior, which can end up as a warfare-like situation, as GKW currently indicates. Such warfare-like situation to great extent characterizes the present environment we call the post-truth world,6 where emotionally packaged and 6

According to the Oxford Dictionaries (2021), post-truth describes the situation “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”.

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marketed truth can be marketed by appropriate business strategies based on dissemination of strategic narratives. Modern psychological warfare uses the cyber dimension to reach a potential consumer and advertise extreme principles of their political agenda and strengthens images of fear and hatred among potential adversaries. For initiating a cultural change and moving patterns of the international system, strategic narratives can become an effective tool in the imagined war of narratives, in which massive information campaigns supported by a limited number of military-related special operations, could strengthen images of fear and hatred among the target group narratives (Achcar, 2010; Rickli & Kaspersen, 2016; Mölder, 2016). Based on personal beliefs, the post-truth environment affords everyone to build their own world which is able to fight with other worlds sharing opposite beliefs. Therefore, the war of narratives is not just between states or nations but can involve different actors at very unlike asymmetric levels. The “mainstreaming” of alternative policies has become another hot topic in the ongoing war of narratives. There is growing evidence that electoral successes of radical conservative populist parties induce mainstream parties to shift their policy positions in a more globalization-skeptic, anti-immigrant, and protectionist direction (Walter, 2021, 432). The result they intend to achieve is to provoke highly securitized societies, which are influenced by a rapidly transmitted culture of fear. Zbigniew Brzezinski (2007), an American political scientist and former national security adviser to President Carter, has called the development of a culture of fear one of the main driving forces, because it hides the causes of phenomena, strengthens emotions, and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize public opinion in support of the policies they want to implement. In July 2011—immediately after Anders Behring Breivik’s massacres in Oslo and on the island of Utøya—then Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who later became NATO Secretary General, was asked by journalists what the country’s response to terror would be. Are there plans to increase control over Norwegian society and restrict citizens’ rights for security reasons? Stoltenberg answered that Norway will not give up democratic values or pride and they will respond to terrorism with more democracy and openness and greater political participation (Orange, 2012). If Norway were to abandon democratic values and an open society, it would simply mean that the extremists have achieved their goal. Stoltenberg’s response was different from the response of the Republican administration of George W. Bush in the United States a decade earlier, after the attack of Islamic terrorists on New York and Washington. The Bush administration triggered the Global War on Terrorism and led to restrictions on all social groups regardless of their external characteristics or origin. It is a matter of choice whether, under the pretext of seemingly greater security, one is willing to limit or even give up the individual freedoms that come with a liberal society. The populist status contenders in the contemporary security environment can be characterized by their skeptical attitudes towards international institutions and cooperative security efforts. The influence operations can effectively shape fear-induced perceptions and misperceptions among the public, which in turn can be transferred into political processes, including political decision-making. There was a strong

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cooperative wave in the 1990s, where international organizations had influenced to establish the UN-led international security governance, where regional organizations (NATO, the European Union, ASEAN, the African Union among others) had also a significant role in stabilizing peace. This cooperative wave was gradually quelled by a reverse nationalist-protectionist wave that appeared in the 2000s. In his work “A Cultural Theory of International Relations,” Richard Ned Lebow (2008) draws attention to a paradigm shift in the American worldview after the decade of peace following the Cold War, when 2001 brought security back to the fore. The Americans’ shock can even be understood given the context of the events of 9/11, as it was the first serious attack on their soil since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941. This may have increased the internal solidarity of society—everyone took the side of the victims—but it also made society more easily influenced by the threat rhetoric and subjected to fears. The role of the media can be seen here primarily in the amplification of popular and simplified images and in the “Hollywoodization” of the world image created for the consumer society, with which the information produced by them is shaped according to the consumer’s expectations and is released to the market based on the same rules as it is done with marketing Hollywood blockbusters (See also Mölder, 2022). There is a mutual interdependence between politicians and the media, because the media is an important tool for politicians through which one can take their political messages to the masses, at the same time, the popularity of politicians and the election results directly depend on their ability to connect their political goals with the popular images spread in the media. The heroes and anti-heroes, gods and demons of the media world are constructed with the Hollywood blockbuster production methodology in mind for a one-dimensional consumer base as discussed by Herbert Marcuse earlier in this chapter. Next to the image of the hero, an anti-hero must be created—it matters little of this is Vladimir Putin or Barack Obama—all according to the expectations of the potential consumer, because this way the positive qualities of the hero stand out more strongly. However, an anti-hero can become a hero for a certain segment of society, who is dissatisfied with the prevailing ideology for some reason. In this way, society is flooded with artificially created pseudo-problems, which are successfully solved and presented as victories while ignoring the real problems. Especially light is to tune a one-dimensional audience against something to be presented as an enemy, because a target group that values a static society adapts to changes painfully. This is the role of Big Brother’s reviled political rival Emmanuel Goldstein, borrowed from George Orwell’s 1984. Dissatisfied with society, they wish to return to a safe past instead of a seemingly uncertain future. A suitable narrative can always be built on top of a visual symbol, which can be sold to the alarmed masses in a sauce suitable for them and thereby bring the desired goals to the target group. This may lead to a cancel-culture, because it feels that after destroying the symbol, the fear will be canceled. Why are monuments, caricatures, and other objects with symbolic value often fought over, instead of experiencing strength in the battle of ideas? Why was the editorial office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo attacked in Paris? Why did caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish daily newspaper JyllandsPosten receive widespread international attention? The skillful visualization of the

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image gives it the capacity to mobilize the masses comparable to the destructive power of a nuclear weapon.

4 The Culture of Fear and the Insecurity Dilemma in Highly Securitized Societies In highly securitized societies, the security dilemma becomes a prioritized factor of life cycle as people are constantly worried about their security. The Danish political scientist Georg Sørensen (2007, 358) states that the classic security dilemma, if one country acquires a military capability to increase its security, the other can perceive it as an intention to attack, with the net result of a decrease in security instead, i.e., the situation in international relations, where the perception of the subjects’ security was modeled on the perception of the offensive and defensive solutions of the other side is being replaced by new securitized dilemmas like the insecurity dilemma and the associated value dilemma. In the contemporary security environment, the perception of a threat covers a much wider scale, for example, threats to values may be perceived as an existential threat to security, but it is just a different kind of fear and a different kind of conflict if compared to earlier formations. In the context of the United States, an insecurity dilemma arose after the attacks of 2001, when a crime committed by 19 terrorists and resulting in the death of 3,000 people, was perceived much more widely as an attack by Islamic civilization on Western liberal values, but in order to protect these values, it was desired to bring personal freedoms under greater control. However, contrary to expectations, total security can actually aggravate the insecurity dilemma in society, which can cause a person to perceive security threats in practically all spheres of life. Instead of criminalizing the activities of Al Qaeda, pacifying society, and suppressing fears, the Bush administration in 2001 decided to take advantage of the situation played into its hands and launch an ambitious war on terrorism, which in fact was the right thing to do, but the question remains did the methods which remember the foundational principles of cancel culture found appropriate for that? For the Global War against Terrorism, Osama bin Laden was molded into an effective anti-hero as a seven-headed dragon, imitating Hollywood images, but even an anti-hero can become a hero for someone over time, especially if it takes a decade to decapitate him, during which the film script develops into a multi-part series (Mölder, 2022). The invasion of Iraq in 2003 is a striking example of the expansion of the script in an attempt to kill several birds with one stone. The reaction of the Americans to the attack of Islamic terrorists led to the increased security of vital issues for the country and society and the explosive spread of the culture of fear. The result of increasing fear and uncertainty may end up with highly securitized societies. The culture of fear that has become widespread in American society after the 2001 attack, created an apparent justification for a large-scale demonstration of force, which was used not only to punish the immediate perpetrators of the act, but to create a unified portrait

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of the enemies, which is certainly easier to market to the public. Later the increased insecurity was adapted by social segments in other Western societies and supported by the influence operations from the Russian Federation. Canadian-born social theorist Brian Massumi (2005) refers to the color-coded alerts of the Homeland Security Advisory System (NTAS) introduced by the United States Department of Homeland Security after the 2001 attack, where different colors correspond to different levels of national security threat. The used color gamut has also been used elsewhere to demonstrate security—green (low), blue (controlled), yellow (high), orange (high), red (serious). The assessment of the security posture of the United States has routinely fluctuated between “elevated” and “high” since 2001. The rating of “safe” does not exist at all on this scale, so Massumi argues that the changes in American society after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 led to the paradigm shift, which made the society’s transformation of insecurity into normality. With Russia’s military attack against Ukraine in 2022, there was an attempt by the Putin regime of Russia to make another paradigm shift by which revisionist powers intend to bring “war” into normality as a widely recognized tool in international relations even though it is not supported by the foundational principles of the UN Charter.7 The attack was justified by Russia’s insecurity against NATO. Massumi (2005) uses the example of connecting the population to a wireless network, through which the government reaches into the individual central nervous system of each citizen and, by entering certain keywords, triggers self-defense reflexes against perceived threats, whereby the perception of threats occurs through irritation. An upset person is not interested in finding a solution, but in identifying the culprit. With the help of emotions, society is attuned to support one or another decision, and through predetermined behavior patterns that citizens imitate from each other, society is mobilized to implement these decisions. The role of the media in creating a wireless network cannot be underestimated. Through the press, widely popular images of the Muslim as a born terrorist began to spread in Western society. At this point, we might recall how Anders Behring Breivik’s action was also attributed to Islamists immediately after it took place, because it corresponded to the current image—several Islamist terrorist organizations even managed to attribute the crime to themselves before the perpetrator of the attack was caught. The spread of the culture of fear does not depend only on the strategies born in the silence of the cabinet of politicians or officials. If the media did not lend a helping hand to politicians, the latter would be left alone with their fears. When citizens perceive a threat to their security, whether real or imagined, they may accept the restrictions inherent in a closed society. Fear, especially fear of others whose logic of behavior we do not understand or do not want to understand, can also be one of the criteria promoting the formation of strong collective identity based on group solidarity. Massumi (2005) concludes that pandering to fears and using a powerful political machine to amplify them does not make society safer, and that the United 7

Even though in his Munich speech, Putin (2007) said: “I am convinced that the only mechanism that can make decisions about using military force as a last resort is the Charter of the United Nations.”

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States is no safer now than it was before the 2001 attacks. At the same time, the stage was set for the windfall that many populist politicians are currently reaping. So, the spread of the culture of fear does not depend only on the strategies born in the silence of the cabinet of politicians or officials. If the media did not lend a helping hand to politicians, the latter would be left alone with their fears. Securitization requires moving away from the traditional approach to security, in which a military attack originating from outside the country’s borders was seen as the only possible destabilizer of security, and in which the concept of internal security had not yet entered the public consciousness. The broader approach to security recognizes that alongside military threats, political, economic, social, and environmental threats, among others, security can affect the country, society, and the individual on multiple levels. Conspiratorial thinking has been a widely used political tool to keep society in a single constructed information space and helps to disseminate fears and uncertainties. During the Soviet era, there was the belief that Western countries dreamed of destroying and humiliating the Soviet Union, which was widespread in Soviet society, and such conspiratorial thinking has been transferred to today’s Russian Federation (Yablokov, 2018). American investor George Soros has been demonized by both the U.S. New Right movements and Putin’s regime because of his support for the democratization of Eastern Europe. Similar to the U.S. New Right movement, Russia’s strategic narratives support various conspiracy theories. Putin’s regime shares alternative right conspiracy theories that the future of the West is threatened mostly by liberals, migrants, and homosexuals, who together are responsible for Europe’s decadence. Trumpism, at the same time, is closely related to QAnon conspiracy, which engages world political elites in cannibalism and pedophilia (Monti et al., 2023). In highly securitized societies, people are exposed to different forms of security, and it is no longer enough to provide new tanks and warplanes to reduce the fear and uncertainty people face in an insecure environment. For an ordinary citizen, such an expansion of the term can make his head hurt and increase his sense of fear. For example, if a politician in his speech treats the “brain drain” from the country as a security threat and recommends that something should be done to prevent it, this makes the “brain drain” a securitization issue. When citizens perceive a threat to their security, whether real or imagined, they may readily accept the restrictions inherent in a closed society.

5 Conservative Revolution: The Emergence of New Right Ideology in the United States The emergence of neoconservative movement in the United States and its influence on the Bush administration started to change strategic patterns of the international system which moved towards confrontation and started to abandon cooperative principles that shaped the principles of the international security environment in the

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1990s. During the administration of President George W. Bush in the 2000s, neoconservatives rose to leadership positions in the United States government, and their influence on the Bush administration’s policy grew rapidly after the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda and the Iraq War. The liberal institutionalism of the 1990s based on US leadership of the global security community began to change to more nationalist policies, which refer to the hyper-competitiveness of a multipolar world. It ended with Donald Trump’s openly nationalist and protectionist “America First” concept, but the trend itself started during the Bush administration.8 The neoconservative movement emerged in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s by combining conservative, interventionist, nationalist, and Marxist values. On the ideological level, conservative movements in the United States have been greatly influenced by political philosopher Leo Strauss, and some future neoconservative ideologues (most notably Paul Wolfowitz) were among Strauss’s students at the University of Chicago, where he was a professor of political science from 1949. Strauss considered the main reason for the crisis of Western society to be that it has lost its purpose and believed that lies can even be used to restore morality and justice if they support the “right purposes.” The neoconservative movement originates from the Trotskyist circles of the United States, among the like-minded people of Max Shachtman9 and borrowed some of its principles from there. Trotskyists believed that Stalin was wrong in trying to build socialism in one country rather than through world revolution, which somehow characterizes neoconservative interventionism and neoconservatives see foreign policy as a crusade instead of in terms of national interest or balance of power (Judis, 1995, 125–126). Francis Fukuyama, formerly related to the movement, has portrayed the views of neoconservatives as Leninist because, like Leninists, neoconservatives also believe in reshaping history by force and will as well as the existence of a long-term process of social evolution (Fukuyama, 2006). However, differently from Kantian liberals who built an institutional security governance in the 1990s, neoconservatives turned to the Hobbesian culture to express their strategic ambitions and to establish the US primacy over the global international order. Neoconservatives believe that the world is similar to Thomas Hobbes’ seventeenth century philosophical work “Leviathan,” where there is a “war of all against all” and Western democracy, like any other ideology, can be spread with the help of weapons and force, as Lenin and Trotsky believed. 8

Sceptical perceptions towards international agreements and institutions characterize both conservative camps - neoconservatives and the New Right. Trump has threatened to dissolve NATO and withdraw the U.S. from Paris Climate Agreement, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Iran nuclear deal, UNESCO, UN Human Rights Council among multiple other agreements, but already the Bush administration decided to leave the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2001 and not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and International Criminal Court. 9 Max Shachtman once associated with Trotskyism was an American Marxist theorist who criticized Stalinism as an imperialistic ideology and opposed US withdrawal from the Vietnam War. From major figures in the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol was related to Trotskyism, but several others, Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, Midge Decter had also leftist views in their student days (King, 2004, 251).

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One of the leading ideologues of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol (2003), summarized their foreign policy principles into five postulates: patriotism is essential; world government (the UN) is a terrible idea; a statesman must accurately distinguish friends from enemies; protecting national interests at home and abroad is of primary importance; having a strong military is in the national interest. Later, Kristol’s postulates were perfectly adapted by the New Right movement, even though there are fundamental ideological clashes between Neoconservative internationalism and New Right protectionism, which led many neoconservative leaders later to the anti-Trump camp. Differently from the neoconservatives, the New Right movement in the United States has its roots in a paleoconservative ideology that values traditionalism, Christian ethics, limited government, protectionist economic policies, foreign policy isolationism, and national patriotism. For them, culture, not economic efficiency, is the paramount value (Bokhari & Yiannopoulos, 2016). They oppose U.S. military intervention in foreign countries, multicultural policies, and are quite anti-immigration, especially from outside Europe, advocating a closed society. The social base of this movement reconciles a disparate coalition of conservative Catholics and Evangelical Protestants ranging along the Bible Belt to the Rust Belt in the Northeast, from retirees in the Sun Belt to Americans who think themselves forsaken and forgotten in “flyover country” in the “Heartland.” As is characteristic of all conservative movements in the United States, they oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, but support the unrestricted right of citizens to bear arms and the death penalty. Paleoconservatives have sharply criticized both the neoconservative and libertarian movements. Oswald Spengler, H.L Mencken, Julius Evola, Sam Francis, Pat Buchanan, and the French New Right have inspired the leaders of the US alternative right (Bokhari & Yiannopoulos, 2016).10 Polarization, in the form of an ideological divide, in the United States has grown significantly over the past few decades. The Tea Party movement of the United States appeared on the crest of the global economic crisis in 2009 and it may be called a forerunner of the Trumpist wave. The movement opposed the political establishment, professional politicians whose activities and worldview have been formed in the corridors of power in Washington. A conservative media personality, popular radio, and television commentator Glenn Beck (2007) articulated many of the movement’s goals—limited central government, low taxes, and preservation of traditional rights such as free speech and the right to bear arms. Trumpism borrowed from the Tea Party movement its main object—a disaffected “middle American” who is scared of growing immigration, declining jobs, and mandatory health insurance provided by so-called Obamacare. 10

Russell Kirk and his book of 1953 “The Conservative Mind” has influenced the US New Right Movement, where the most influential figure has been Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of alternative media network Breitbart News Network who became a Chief Strategist for the Trump administration in 2017. Bannon quickly started to lose his influence, he was moved from the National Security Council in early April 2017, and he left the White House in August 2017 shortly after the Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally. However, despite some critical notes on the administration, he continued to support Trump after his resignation.

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The New Right Movement is concentrated around media publications such as Fox News, Newsmax, One American News Network, and Breitbart News, through which extreme conservative media icons like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity can reach such large audiences as to influence American society. One of the characteristics of the New Right movement in the United States is so-called white nationalism, which has arisen as a reaction to the strengthening of minority rights movements, which introduced political correctness, cancel-culture, wokeism, and other leftist paradigms. The alternative right movement, which had long been marginalized, significantly increased its influence in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Breitbart contributors Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos (2016) published the political treatise “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right,” in which they presented the political postulates of the New Right in the United States. In 2017, Richard Spencer organized protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, prompted by the authorities’ removal of monuments to Confederate leaders who fought in the U.S. Civil War, which led to counter-protests and clashes, and one anti-New Right protester was killed when he was hit by a vehicle driven by an extremist. Steve Bannon, who (in no small part through his own narratives) went down in history as a Trump-maker, has called himself a Leninist with similar intentions to change the world with revolutionary methods and in his goal of destroying the conservative establishment. In his interview with Ronald Radosh (2017), Bannon mentioned: “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment.” After the 2016 presidential elections, he became a main ideologist to Donald Trump. In his interview to Michael Lewis (2018), Bannon explicitly emphasized the important role of proper image-building and dissemination of culture of fear in promoting New Right slogans: “We got elected on Drain the Swamp, Lock Her Up, Build a Wall. This was pure anger. Anger and fear are what gets people to the polls.” Since Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 elections, the New Right movement in the United States has taken over one of the country’s major political parties, the Republican Party. In 2016, Donald Trump’s fear-based presidential campaign was surprisingly effective, and despite how the political establishment of the Republican Party was not happy with him, they realized that with Trump’s image they can successfully aspire to power, by which they became dependent on him. Trump is centered on a strong visual image-building good and offers simple solutions that are visible and tangible to combat the fears that spread in the public space. The insecurity felt in society is accumulated into political capital by skillfully amplifying the culture of fear. If the image circulating in society is that Mexicans threaten the social security of their northern neighbors and take away their jobs, then to illustrate the threat, a wall must be built between the two countries and the Mexicans must be made to pay for it.11

11

The fear of immigrant labor is typical to the New Right. In the same way, the fear of the cheap labor of Eastern Europe spread in certain sections of society led Great Britain to leave the European Union following the Brexit referendum.

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The term Trumpism is increasingly being used to refer to the personal adherence to the former U.S. president Donald J. Trump. It means an ultra-conservative ideological movement that is very different from how conservatism has traditionally been defined. The ideological basis of Trumpism is authoritarianism and leadership cult, antielitism, protectionism in the economy and nationalistic slogans. Some elements of Trumpism remember typical settlements of religious cults. Trumpism and loyalism also collide, because while the former is based more on alternative right ideological motives (like Steve Bannon), the others have tied their political careers to the loyalty to the president (like Jared Kushner).12 Though Trump lost presidential elections in 2020, which cost him some influential donors, he continues to influence his political base, which seems to be the most influential electorate for the Republican Party.13 “The rottenness of the deep state” and “a fake news media serving the nation’s failed ruling class” have been the main strategic narratives promoted by the Trumpist movement on their way to power. In 2020, the narrative of a stolen election was added to Trump’s political agenda. Trump offered a powerful narrative of “Make America great again” which stood in stark contrast to the grassroots games in the corridors of power in Washington, with which the opposing candidate, Hillary Clinton, was deeply involved. Whatever changes in the U.S. foreign policy a Trump presidency instituted, it suggests a rapprochement between American and Russia on the discursive level (Borenstein, 2019, 240). His actions to cancel several major international agreements and threatening to dissolve NATO also confirm isolationist strategic narratives of the Trump administration, which makes him different from George Bush’s neoconservative internationalism, that was characteristic to the Republican Party establishment. In promoting the divisiveness in the Western society, the Trumpist wave in the United States as well as with the conservative and populist movements in Europe got support from Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The Trumpist narratives about Putin’s regime were controversial. He often described himself as the toughest US president against Russia but praised President Putin on several occasions. After Russia’s military invasion against Ukraine, the American New Right has remained mostly silent. In February 2022, in his interview to Fox News at the dawn of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, Trump praised Putin: I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine—of Ukraine—Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful, (Clay & Buck, 2022).

He criticized the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and blamed the Biden administration for Russia’s attack. However, later the New Right movement mostly ignored the topic, characterized by the words of Trump-supported senator from Ohio J. D. Vance: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the 12

Jared Kushner, husband of Trump’s daughter Ivanka, became in 2017 an influential Senior Adviser to President Trump. 13 In the Congressional midterm elections of 2022, many influential anti-Trump GOP representatives (e.g., Liz Cheney) who supported the impeachment of Trump after the January 6 riots, lost their seats in the Congress.

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other” (Kirkpatrick et al., 2022). There is an obvious discursive solidarity between Trump and Putin. A year later, Trump declares: I would have never done it. That’s without even negotiating a deal. I could have negotiated. At worst, I could’ve made a deal to take over something, there are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could’ve worked a deal, (Baragona, 2023).

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had different paths to power, even though their ideological agenda is based on similar strategic goals. Vladimir Putin is the product of Russia’s establishment, made and supported by a narrow circle of policymakers. Trump is representing a model of anti-establishment celebrity, whose success indicates the increasing role of the media, effectively used in his image-building by following the Hollywoodized path to power. Nevertheless, both of them represent an image of an authoritarian strongman that would be adored and respected by his audience, because only a strongman can handle their fears and insecurities.

6 Vladimir Putin and His Strategic Challenge In the 1990s, the West considered the ideological confrontation of the Cold War to be definitely over and began to build a more open and institutional international system. Russia, however, having emerged from the Soviet Union faced difficulties in integrating the Western-led international system, in spite of Western aid and its invitation to join the major Western intergovernmental forum the Group of Eight (the G8, formerly the G7) and join the Western-led international system in the same right as Japan. Russia established a strategic partnership in NATO, in 1994 joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, in 1997 the NATO–Russia Founding Act was signed and in 2002 NATO-Russia Council was founded. However, the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004–05 and the Russo-Georgian War in 2008 damaged Russia’s relations with the West, the United States and NATO. Russia’s February 2014 invasion of Luhansk and Donetsk annexation of Crimea led to the European Parliament resolution of 2015, which stated that Russia is no longer a strategic partner with the EU. The debate over when the Kremlin decided it could not or did not wish to join the Western-led international order rages, but what remains clear is that Russian society never reconciled itself with its Soviet past, in the sense of the German term Vergangenheitsbewältigung (“the struggle to overcome the past”), but instead in some dimensions remained a prisoner of the Cold War. Russians continued to live with familiar and habitual symbols and behavioral patterns. NGOs such as Memorial, which examined and publicized the crimes of Stalinism, proved devise among Russians. This may explain the narratives produced by Putin that justify attacking Ukraine in 2022. The processes that started perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet Union and led to the demise of the Berlin Wall between the East and the West, but in Russia these feelings remained mostly among a narrow circle of intellectuals in Moscow and St. Petersburg, without reaching the periphery, where a large part of

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Russia still lives behind the “Iron Curtain” and where fears of invading NATO tanks remain as vivid as they were only a few decades ago. Gradually the liberal opposition became marginalized in Russia, and as accused of weakening the state, they lost their influence in the Russian society. Many of today’s politicians have been grown up during the Cold War, for whom the lost world order represents controllable stability, and this might be a reason why the paradigms of the Realist school of thinking (those who believe that world politics will be always about status and power in pursuing interstate conflicts, and they disregard liberal paradigms on international institutions and interdependence) is a dominating way of thinking among political circles. This may become the main reason why the Kantian security governance of the 1990s failed–the politicians did not believe in that. When Russia attacked Ukraine in 2014, the narrative of the returning Cold War was promulgated again.14 Well-known Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer explained it in an interview to the Estonian magazine “Diplomaatia” that the leaders of today’s Russia and the West are people from the Cold War era, and there is nothing unnatural for them in returning to the confrontation of that time. Moreover, military interests are always very material: a predictable situation with a predictable opponent satisfies everyone, allows the military industrial complex to be expanded instead of converted, to keep old and develop new equipment, and to demand an increase in the budget (Tammsaar, 2015). Under Putin’s regime, authoritarian tendencies in Russia became more powerful, and Russia adapted nationalist-protectionist ideas, which resemble the New Right challenge in the United States at the same time. The worldwide nationalistprotectionist wave was to be the spiritual awakener of Vladimir Putin, on whose example he wanted to turn Russia into exceptionalism, and to treat him like the Soviet leaders as an equal to the United States as a global hegemon. Added to all this was the revanchism in Russia “for defeat in the Cold War.” Ideologically, Putin’s world rests on conservative Russian nationalism, many attributes borrowed from the ultranationalist Russkii Mir (Russian world) concept, which is supplemented by Soviet symbolism. But Putin’s Russia has no friends, permanent allies, which is a major difference with the international relations of the Soviet Union in the Cold War system. Of course, Putin’s regime can find allies united against a common enemy under the anti-Western political agenda, but Russia’s strategic ambitions can be limited to areas that are culturally influenced by Russia, or the so-called “near abroad,” because Russia is not economically or demographically competitive with other potential challengers to the world order. In the present-day Europe, Russia can be defined as the only true traditional Hobbesian (militarily Clausewitzian) power with a strong orientation towards balancing other powers, which allows to explain the reasons for the West-Russia confrontation according to traditional schools of security studies. 14

The phrase “new Cold War” can be often found in the Western academic terminology. For example, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson claimed: “And we’ve now forgotten so much of that history that we don’t realize that Cold War II began some time ago,” (Swatminanhan & Kelley, 2022).

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More successful than producing credible alliances with other states, Russian has been in building an ideological strategic partnership with alternative movements around the world. The ideological alliance between the New Right movement and the Putinist regime of Russia has a significant impact on recent strategic challenges. In an interview with Britain’s Financial Times newspaper (2019), Vladimir Putin described liberalism as an “outdated” ideology that supports depraved sexual minorities and praised closed borders and ethno-nationalist policies. The interview with Vladimir Putin was a reminder of how closely Russia is tied to anti-liberal movements across Europe. The common fight against the liberal worldview has made Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán an ideological ally of Putin and has grown his influence in Eastern Europe in recent years. At the same time, he does not despise the support of the alternative left movements, which stick to Russia for its Soviet past by referring to the historical Soviet symbols, and they share the opposition to the Western influence (Pomerantsev, 2015, 43). Putin’s world credo is conservatism—a return to the “good old days”—which also explains the support of rabid nationalist circles in Europe for his annexation of Crimea. In his opposition to the liberal world, Putin is applying for the position of protector of the worldwide New Right movement, traditional and conservative values. Conservative populism helps them stay in power uncritically, diverts attention away from domestic problems, and therefore destroys all the opposition to it with all its might. Vyacheslav Volodin, who became a successor of Vladislav Surkov as the main ideologist of the Putin’s regime, describes liberals as a dangerous “fifth column,” against whom the New Right forces must mobilize (Pomerantsev, 2015, 41–42). The motive of fear makes it close to the New Right ideology, is fear, based on narratives on how liberals intend to destroy past symbols, which makes Putin a staunch supporter of the Hobbesian world in which wars between states become normal again. Keeping fear-induced narratives alive is in the interests of Russia’s ruling circles, who have discovered that an ideology built on Russian nationalism sells well to bring them support of the Soviet heritage population. The strong affiliation with conservative, nationalist, and traditional values appears in Putin’s understanding of how the world system operates, where the focus is on similar concerns as the New Right movement has in the West. The following statements have been made by Vladimir Putin in 2013 in his meeting at the Valdai International Discussion Club: • Today we need new strategies to preserve our identity in a rapidly changing world, a world that has become more open, transparent, and interdependent … • For us, questions about who we are and who we want to be are increasingly prominent in our society … • It is evident that it is impossible to move forward without spiritual, cultural, and national self-determination … • We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious, and even sexual … (Valdai Discussion Club 2013).

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However, Putin’s interpretation about the world system has also been transferred to the post-Soviet space, especially for fueling regional conflicts and for accusing the West in anti-Russian conspiracies (Mölder & Sazonov, 2019). The post-Soviet space, according to the Russian imperialist thought, is a part of the empire, over which Russia has the divine supremacy to rule based on its victorious history. In his essay to “The National Interest,” Vladimir Putin justified the annexation of the Baltic states by the strategic interests of the Soviet Union: In autumn 1939, the Soviet Union, pursuing its strategic military and defensive goals, started the process of the incorporation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Their accession to the USSR was implemented on a contractual basis, with the consent of the elected authorities. This was in line with international and state law of that time, (Putin, 2020).

Russia’s strategy towards its so-called near abroad follows the imperialist divide et impera (divide and rule) policy. By establishing zones of frozen conflicts in Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Donbass among others, Russia hopes to maintain control over the former Soviet republics. The rhetoric from Moscow often emphasizes Russia’s historical responsibility over the postSoviet space. In his speech on September 30, 2022, Putin used history to justify his imperialist ambitions: I want the Kyiv authorities and their real masters in the West to hear me, so that they remember this. People living in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens. Forever, (Reuters, 2022).

Putin said the lands he referred to as “Novorossiya,” (New Russia) were sanctified by victories of the Emperor Catherine the Great and Russian heroes from the eighteenth century.15 Russia’s strategic narratives on the international system describe Western institutions (EU, NATO) primarily as corrupt and declining powers, which are suffering from liberal democratic values equated with weakness (Szostek, 2017; Sakwa, 2007). Therefore, Russia has elaborated strategic narratives that should provoke a cultural change in the international system. Russia supports alternative forums of international cooperation, which exclude the West (e.g., BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, Republic of South Africa, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union) (Hinck et al., 2018, 27). In its opposition to US hegemony, Russia portrays Washington as a power that violates the norms of international law. However, Russia itself does not just contest liberal norm-building but may claim the status of international norm-maker (Lewis, 2022, 660). They would rather apply gaps in norms in justifying their activities, but also claiming that “the international legal system is put to the test: a small group of states is trying to replace it with the concept of a rules-based world order” (The Concept… 2023). On the political level, the nationalist-protectionist strategic narratives get strength from exceptionalist policies of “America first,” “Russia first,” or “China first” carried by leaders like Trump, 15

Historically, “Novorossiya” refers to a large swath of territory conquered by the Russian Empire from the Ottoman Empire after the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774.

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Putin, or Xi, which place national interests over global cooperation and international institutions. Strategic narratives emphasizing identity present two dominant motives that are strongly emerging during Putin’s regime: the patriotic image of Russia as a great power and a distinct civilization; and the need to secure Russian society (Kuhrt & Feklyunina, 2017). Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept (2023) states: Russia, taking into account its decisive contribution to the victory in World War II and its active role in shaping the contemporary system of international relations and eliminating the global system of colonialism, is one of the sovereign centers of global development performing a historically unique mission aimed at maintaining global balance of power and building a multipolar international system, as well as ensuring conditions for the peaceful progressive development of humanity on the basis of a unifying and constructive agenda.

In Russian propaganda, Russia’s uniqueness and standing as an alternative to Western political and economic elites is paramount, therefore Russian exceptionalism is strongly manifested in their conceptual thinking. Relying on anti-Westernism, they can easily find common ground with dissatisfied communities in Western countries, something which poses a serious challenge to both Western internal stability and ideological unity in defending liberal democratic values. Paradoxically, while the Soviet Union turned to the building and support of an alliance of Communist states in its claims to superpower status, Putin’s Russia is focusing on building alliances with various, mutually opposing and sometimes fringe alternative political movements. Therefore, the Trumpist movement in the United States due to its ideological proximity may become a credible partner for Putinist Russia through their common struggle against the liberal world order.

7 Conclusions The Putin regime’s strategic narratives demonstrate considerable similarities on several axes with those of the New Right movement of the United States. Both movements gained strength from the worldwide nationalist and protectionist wave which powerfully arose in the twenty-first century and opposed the post-Cold war liberal institutionalism. The main weapons of such movements in turning the world around are the promulgation of a culture of fear and building highly securitized societies where fear becomes a dominant motive and helps to build a strong collective identity around their supporters. As the reaction to the Hobbesian hyper-competitiveness, constant insecurity renders these societies highly securitized. Nevertheless, increasing securitization may lead revisionist actors to irrational responses as we see in case of the Ukrainian war in 2022. Fear and uncertainty correspond to the new phenomenon of grassroots New Right movements, which are looking for solutions to strengthen their damaged self-esteem from nationalism and protectionism, by valuing national pride instead of multiculturalism and closedness instead of openness. The emerging nationalistprotectionist wave received support from revisionist challengers to the post-Cold War

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Kantian world order like Russia and China, but also from the Trump administration, which supported ideological warfare between conservatives and liberals. Since the Putin administration, the Russian Federation has turned to oppose the Western-led liberal institutionalism and actively promoted the “Russia first” policies, which are competing with the similar nationalist-protectionist narratives of “America first” or “China first.” Their reaction to the post-Cold War Kantian security governance was to promote a status conflict between Russia and the West. At the same time, and despite their ideological closeness, there are some structural differences between the Trumpist movement in the United States and the Putinist movement in Russia. The Trumpist movement identifies itself as an antiestablishment constituency, even though their goal is obviously to become a new establishment. How the Trumpist movement took over the Republican Party after the 2016 elections and ousted mainstream politicians critical of the leader, proves their long-term strategic ambitions. Even genuinely an anti-establishment movement, Trump is building a new establishment, which includes New Right leaders as well as ideologically agnostic Trump loyalists. Vladimir Putin and his party, United Russia, were both crafted by the Russian political establishment that emerged under Boris Yeltsin. But over the years, Putin consolidated his unlimited control over the party, which has become Russia’s de facto ruling party today. Both leaders build their backing through the construction of a cult of personality with quasi-religious aspects, in which the leaders of political movements are heroized. On an ideological level, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin share similar values and similar conservative populist slogans. As we see from Trump’s reaction to the war in Ukraine, it refers to ignorance, this war represents normality in his Hobbesian worldview. They may not necessarily be close friends in daily politics, but they are building an identical strategic environment based on increasing fear and uncertainty, promoting conspiracy theories, and demonizing liberal democracy among the public audience. Acknowledgements This chapter is supported by the Vabamu Research Fellowship grant at Stanford University, “Strategic Imagination in Psychological Warfare: New Techniques to Analyze the Impact of Strategic Narratives Produced by Russia, China, and the United States” (2023) and the PARROT program under the project “The effects of the war in Ukraine on the political decisionmaking and strategic narratives in Estonia, France and the European Union” (2023-2024). Any opinions expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of the funding organizations. The author thanks Noel Foster, Larry Diamond, and Eric Shiraev for their contribution.

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Afterword

A few summers ago, the two co-editors of this book and I were sitting together on the gorgeous bank of the Emajõgi River in Tartu, Estonia, just before the sunset. We were talking about our families, our work, and, of course, the world’s future. We were cautiously optimistic in our opinions that evening. The path to a world of peace, cooperation, and prosperity was still clear, uneasy, yet seemingly reachable. During our friendly discussion, we didn’t refer often to rampant populism, increasing illiberalism, or extremism. Nationalism was on the rise, but it seemed to us as a temporary atavism on the inevitable path to progress. What a difference a few years made. A major war broke out in Europe. Authoritarian regimes were strengthening under the masks of fake legitimacy, staged elections, or utter fear. Liberal democracy was seemingly on retrieve globally. “What would you expect?”, a pessimist can ask. “Every action in politics causes a counteraction, every development causes inevitable responses.” It is a valid point. Consider technologies, as an example. Each technological breakthrough in the past had unintended consequences. The wheel expedited travel and trade but also helped the armies to conquer. New frigates and galleons were great for commerce but also stimulated colonization. The dynamite was initially planned for mining. The early airplane was not intended for carpet bombing. The Internet was created for human connectivity, not for war propaganda and disinformation produced by bots powered by Artificial Intelligence. Similarly, in global politics, many progressive changes have been reversed, because certain political ideas and methods didn’t work as planned and then they were weaponized politically. Illiberalism can be a response to several key faults of liberal policies. Extreme nationalism can be a response to economic failures of governments and their cultivation of the culture of fear in their populations. Populism can be a response to people’s growing sense of entitlement. US President Kennedy’s famous quote: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” now sounds like a source of irritation for a populist politician.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Mölder et al. (eds.), Producing Cultural Change in Political Communities, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43440-2

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Will the 2020s be a new era of authoritarian and illiberal revival? Hopefully, not. The authors of this volume do not judge democracy’s difficulties or failures in the past from the vintage point of today. They realize that populism and extremism are mostly about grandstanding. They also know that at the end of the day the world will need good governance rather than grandstanding. Speaking of “the end of the day” …. I hope we will get together, rather sooner or later, on the banks of the Emajõgi river in Tartu or the Potomac River in Washington DC to discuss and build the world of good and better governance. But before that, let’s read this great volume and discuss what lies ahead. Eric Shiraev George Mason University Washington DC Co-Author: “International Relations” (4/e) and “Cross-Cultural Psychology” (8/e)