‘Homeland farming’ or ‘rural emancipation’? The discursive overlap between populist and green parties in Hungary

Abstract

In their attempts to associate the nationalistic ideology with speculative promises to emancipate the people from malevolent 'outsiders', right-wing populists often engage with rural and agricultural topics. Meanwhile, green parties, commonly associated with the progressive ideas of environmentally friendly agriculture, occasionally employ the binary logic of agrarian populism. This paper has three objectives. First, to identify the discursive features of rural (right-wing and agrarian) populism. Second, to examine how these discursive differences unfold in agricultural, party politics. Third, to examine the implications of overlapping ideas of populist and green parties for emancipatory rural politics. The study is predominantly based on the analysis of political discourses in Hungary: Jobbik (right-wing populist) and LMP (green party), while the agricultural discourse of Fidesz, the ruling right-wing populist party will serve as the background to the analysis. Particular attention is given to the aesthetic, symbolic, and material dimensions of land in discourse, including environmentally friendly farming and the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). 'Homeland farming' or 'rural emancipation'?

Populism, Neoliberalism and Agrarian Movements in Europe. Understanding Rural Support for Right‐Wing Politics and Looking for Progressive Solutions

“…For example, Polish Self‐Deference (Samooborona) – a populist movement and, later, a political party – argued that the CAP and other EU policies were destroying the Polish agricultural sector by benefitting national and international elites at the expense of small‐scale food producers. CAP criticism has also been central to rural support for far‐right parties such as the French Front National (Ivaldi and Gombin ) and the Hungarian Fidesz (Lubarda ).…”

Contemporary Land Questions in Sweden, Far‐Right Populist Strategies and Challenges for Inclusionary Rural Development

“…Here, the analysis of populist strategy as one of the political strategies in the political repertoire of far‐right parties allows the avoidance of overgeneralised definitions of far‐right parties as rural populist parties, when what actually defines them are their overall nationalistic and selective anti‐immigration ends. Fourthly, as shown in previous studies, several national right‐wing parties aim today at politically conceiving the countryside as places of national identity, where environmental concerns are also articulated in nationalistic terms (Brooks 2019; Lubarda 2019). Within this context, a focus on far‐right populist strategies and alternative rural visions in Sweden can contribute to the efforts for a more nuanced local‐specific analysis.…”

The Environment and Populist Radical Right in Eastern Europe: The Case of National Alliance 2010–2018

“…In addition, in the 1980s, the Dutch extreme-right Centre Party (Centrumpartij) called for environmental protection, a "radical change" in how nature and environment was viewed and treated, and for more support to scientific research on environmental problems [14]. Hungarian extreme-right party "Movement for a Better Hungary" (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, Jobbik)-which is generally not considered to be a populist party-has voiced populist positions on agricultural and environmental matters, thus, addressing Jobbik's rural electorate [15]. Jobbik's populism consists of projecting a romanticized image of an environmentally friendly "Homeland-farming" that is juxtaposed to the external "Other" threatening the nationalistic idyll, for instance, large corporations or the European Union (EU) [15].…”

“…Hungarian extreme-right party "Movement for a Better Hungary" (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, Jobbik)-which is generally not considered to be a populist party-has voiced populist positions on agricultural and environmental matters, thus, addressing Jobbik's rural electorate [15]. Jobbik's populism consists of projecting a romanticized image of an environmentally friendly "Homeland-farming" that is juxtaposed to the external "Other" threatening the nationalistic idyll, for instance, large corporations or the European Union (EU) [15].…”