IPPR Progressive Review最新文献

Since the early 2010s, right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) have been on the rise across Europe. In much of Western Europe, RWPPs such as the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), the French Rassemblement National (RN), and the Italian Lega have gradually permeated mainstream ground, increasing their support beyond their secure voter base and becoming progressively embedded in the system either as coalition partners or as credible opposition parties. In Southern Europe, RWPPs are increasingly successful in countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Cyprus that had formerly resisted the RWPP tide. In Central and Eastern Europe, previously mainstream parties including Fidesz in Hungary and Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland have radicalised in government, increasingly adopting populist, illiberal, and authoritarian policy positions. Finally, in the Nordic countries, parties such as the Danish People's Party (DF), the Finns Party (PS), and the Sweden Democrats (SD) have also increased their electoral support, exerting substantial policy influence. These developments have in most cases taken place at the expense of the mainstream: while the average electoral score of RWPPs has been steadily increasing over time, support for both the mainstream left and right has declined.

This right-wing populist momentum sweeping Europe has three features. First, the successful electoral performance of parties pledging to restore national sovereignty and implement policies that consistently prioritise natives over immigrants. Many RWPPs have improved their electoral performance over time, although there remain important cross-national variations.

Second, the increasing entrenchment of these parties in their respective political systems through access to office. A substantial number of RWPPs have either recently governed or served as formal cooperation partners in right-wing minority governments. Examples abound: the Italian Lega, the Austrian FPÖ, the Polish PiS, the Hungarian Fidesz and the Danish DF. The so-called cordon sanitaire – the policy of marginalising extreme parties – has been breaking down even in countries where it had traditionally been effective.

What explains this phenomenon? Researchers and pundits alike tend to emphasise the political climate of RWPP normalisation and systemic entrenchment, where issues ‘owned’ by these parties are salient: immigration, nationalism, and cultural grievances. The importance of cultural values in shaping voting behaviour has led to an emerging, but only partly accurate, consensus that the increasing success of RWPPs may be best understood as a cultural backlash.1 Such theories posit that in a post-material world, societies are divided not by ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, but by those who support and those who reject multi-culturalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalisation. This ‘cultural backlash’ against multiple dimensions of globalisation defined by immigration scepticism translates into voting through support for RW

Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, recently “sparked outrage” for declaring that Hungarians are not “a mixed race” and do not want “to become a mixed race”.1 In a letter of resignation, one of his long-time advisers, Zsuzsa Hegedüs, told him in no uncertain terms that he had crossed a line, saying what was once “anti-migrant and anti-Europeanism” had now turned into “a pure Nazi speech worthy of Goebbels”.2

At a time when the resurgence of far-right politics has become commonly acknowledged as one of the key challenges facing democracies, it may feel reassuring to see prominent figures taking a stand. Yet often, when reactions to, and discussion of, the far-right take an adversarial approach, they tend to portray the threat as exceptional, as a shocking digression from our mainstream norms. Note how Hegedüs appeared comfortable with Orbán's conscious and sustained slide towards far-right politics for years, until the little veneer of respectability was lost and it was no longer possible to deny his far-right status – in this case, comparable to the Nazis no less.

It is as if, in much of our public discourse, racism remains ‘frozen’ in time.7 Of course, this ignores the incredible wealth of research conducted on the concept, demonstrating that, unsurprisingly, it has evolved with its times and taken new shapes and forms.8 Yet it is common to see what should be described as racism, based on most serious research on the matter, instead euphemised under other, less precise, but also stigmatising terms such as ‘nativism’ and ‘populism’. This in turn is what allows those responsible for embracing far-right politics for cheap political gain or clickbait to separate themselves from the caricatural understanding of ‘racism’ when it becomes too obvious, as in the Hungarian case: how can I be racist myself if I denounce racism? This was particularly striking during Euro 2020 when members of the UK government condemned racist abuse directed towards Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka. As England teammate Tyrone Mings rightly pointed out: “You don't get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we're campaigning against, happens.”9 That the racism denounced is just the most illiberal articulation of a malleable ideology serves to excuse, conceal or downplay more mundane but also systemic and liberal articulations.10

As a result, saying that the far-right is a serious threat is not enough. We must not exceptionalise, euphemise or detract from the agenda-setting capacity that elites hold in society. What we urgently require is more accountability for those with privileged access to shaping public discourse. As Katy Brown shows in her research, talking ‘with’ and talking ‘about’ the far-right can mean legitimising, hyping and mainstreaming such politics.17 As such, we must of course seek to unde

“Broadcasting House was in fact dedicated to the strangest project of the war, or of any war, that is, telling the truth. Without prompting the BBC had decided that truth was more important than consolation, and, in the long run would be more effective… Truth ensures trust, but not victory, or even happiness.”1

BBC values were forged in response to the first world war, and repeatedly tested by later conflicts. The corporation was founded a century ago out of revulsion against the misleading propaganda of that war, at a time when there was concern over how the invention of broadcasting would affect politics. There was even fear that voters would act not according to their material interests or ideals, but because public views could be distorted by foreign (or domestic) idealogues. This was soon after the Russian Revolution, and Bolsheviks were discovered inciting the British working class from a suburban house in Penge, so this was not an abstract concern. An alternative anxiety was that the public's views would be bought behind their backs by ‘big business’. None of these worries seems dated now.

John Reith, the first director general and architect of the BBC as a public service, saw broadcasting as a means to share information on an equal basis, so that individuals would “be in a position to make up their own minds on many matters of vital moment”.2 It was to make people's lives richer, and their choices more intelligent and informed, so that society functioned better.

The BBC then developed a set of tools that still work:

And war always brought the BBC into confrontation with government, especially when public opinion was deeply divided, as in the Suez crisis in 1956. The Conservative government objected to the fact that, as part of a review of the British press, the BBC's widely listened to all over the middle east Arabic service had quoted an editorial in the Manchester Guardian, which condemned the invasion. This was then compounded when the BBC gave the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell a right of reply to Anthony Eden's prime ministerial broadcast in which Gaitskell was highly critical of the invasion.5

This tradition of reporting the full spectrum of British opinion, on both internal and external broadcasts, was followed in the knowledge that any discrepancy would fatally undermine the BBC's reputation for impartiality. In the end, the government did not carry through its threats to take over the BBC during the Suez crisis and the BBC reaffirmed the principle that broadcasts overseas could not be modified for the sake of political convenience. To young British soldiers about to risk their lives, hearing that a large section of the British public thought the enterprise morally wrong and practically doomed, must have felt unsettling. Nevertheless, it firmly established the superiority of strategic broadcast objectives over tactical political warfare as the surest way of retaining an audience over the long

In 1989, as a young BBC news producer, I stood in front of the Berlin Wall watching protestors hack lumps out of it. There was a mood of euphoria – everyone recognised this was an historic turning point, ending the Cold War and opening an era of opportunity. It was the start of the satellite age – with dishes lined up along the wall to broadcast events to the world. The internet had not yet arrived. It seemed the culmination of the West's long campaign against communist repression.

The BBC's response to the historic changes of 1989 was much as it had been for the previous 50 years – to bear witness, to offer accurate information and to connect audiences at home and around the world in a unifying moment. Among the more paternalistic responses, the BBC's World Service launched “The Marshall Plan of the Mind” to help Warsaw Pact countries move from command to free market economies offering innovative programming and media support.1 It was the beginning of globalisation, a more connected and interdependent world and an expansion of democracy. The BBC rose to that moment of optimism and growth, and in the years that followed, exploited the arrival of the internet, digital platforms and the multi-channel world to reach out to global audiences.

The BBC was established in the shadow of a traumatising world war and a global flu pandemic, followed by economic depression, with the next war on the horizon. The British Empire was breaking up, provoking questions about national identity. From the outset, the new organisation was conceived as a project to consolidate and unify public opinion through the innovative technology of radio.

Since then, one of the secrets of the BBC's success is its ability to reinvent itself according to the pressures of social, technological or political change. This agility, surprising in what is often seen as a sclerotic institution, has ensured it still occupies a leading position in both the UK and international media markets. For all the frenzied debate about competition, funding or relevance, its reputation and audience reach stand high.

The start of the World Service was less sure-footed, although not lacking in ambition. An early policy paper suggested the BBC's global purpose should be to “prevent the imperial ideal from being swamped by local nationalism”.4 Today we might substitute globalisation for imperialism and autocracy for local nationalism. To that extent at least, the BBC has always been pro democracy, and pro Western values.

In 1932, speaking in the World Service's opening broadcast, the director general, Lord Reith, declared that radio was: “an instrument of almost incalculable importance in the social and political life of the community. Its influence will more and more be felt in the daily life of the individual in almost every sphere of human activity, in affairs national and international … The service as a whole is dedicated to the best interests of mankind.”5

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