‘Ecobordering’: casting immigration control as environmental protection

Climate Change: Bad News for Populism? How the Rassemblement National Used COVID-19 to Promote Its Environmental Agenda

“…A number of them, such as the French Rassemblement National, the Italian Lega, and the Freedom Party of Austria, are characterized by a type of "green patriotism" that is hostile to climate action yet strongly supportive of environmental protection "for nationalist not global interests" (Schaller and Carius 2019, 39). Turner and Bailey (2021) similarly find that, although denialism remains a "prominent" position within this party family, an "alternative" discourse has emerged that blames immigration for ecological degradation and casts border controls as a solution to the climate crisis. Strong or moderate manifestations of "eco-bordering" appeared in the environmental communication of 15 of the 22 parties examined in their study, occasionally coexisting but more often "displacing" denialist positions (Turner and Bailey 2021).…”

“…Turner and Bailey (2021) similarly find that, although denialism remains a "prominent" position within this party family, an "alternative" discourse has emerged that blames immigration for ecological degradation and casts border controls as a solution to the climate crisis. Strong or moderate manifestations of "eco-bordering" appeared in the environmental communication of 15 of the 22 parties examined in their study, occasionally coexisting but more often "displacing" denialist positions (Turner and Bailey 2021). The cross-national spread of this exclusionary proenvironmental discourse, documented in emerging literature (Audikana and Kaufman 2021;de Nadal 2021;Machin and Wagener 2019;Oswald et al 2021), provides further evidence against the common identification of the PRR with climate denial.…”

“…This is the view that informs Hans-Georg Betz's (2020a, 47) prediction that the PRR will be hurt by the pandemic because, unlike climate change, "the rising death toll […] cannot be dismissed as a hoax." But leaving aside that climate change has become more and more difficult for anyone to ignore, research shows that a growing number of PRR parties are responding to the growing salience of climate change by incorporating green politics into their agenda (Oswald, Fromm, and Borda 2021;Ruser and Machin 2019;Turner and Bailey 2021). Given that the existence of a causal link between the environmental crisis and COVID-19 has been widely discussed and recognized since the early days of the pandemic (see below), we might expect some PRR parties to use the pandemic as an opportunity not only to promote their usual anti-immigration policies but also to showcase their environmental commitments.…”

What Do Far-Right Parties Talk About When They Talk About Green Issues? ĽSNS in 2016–2020 Parliamentary Debates

“…We argue that green issues serve as a proxy for these parties to present other positions within the mainstream discourse and are used opportunistically to push other far-right agendas. We build on studies that provide an understanding of the ideological sources of the far right"s environmental positions, particularly those on nature protection as an integral part of far-right ideology (Forchtner -Kølvraa 2015;Olsen 1999) and studies examining how the far-right misuses environmental issues, mostly in relation to immigration (Neumayer 2006;Turner -Bailey 2022). To answer our research question, we examine how members of the Slovak national parliament (the National Council of the Slovak Republic; Národná rada Slovenskej republiky) elected for the Slovak far-right political party Kotlebovci-People"s Party Our Slovakia (Kotlebovci-Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko; ĽSNS) communicate green issues.…”

“…Existing literature focuses mostly on analysis of the environmental issues incorporated into the far-right manifestos and public statements (e.g. Huber et al 2021;Szenes 2021;Turner -Bailey 2022;Jeffries 2017) or even online presence of the far right (Mix 2009), examination of the attitudes of far-right electorate or broader public in relation to the support for far right and populist politics in general (Huber 2020;Jylhä et al 2020;Kulin et al 2021) or analysis focused on theoretical aspects of the far-right ideology and environmentalism (Meyer 2008). Third, there has been no previous examination of ĽSNS activities over a full parliamentary term.…”