<p> The purpose of this research is to explore the shifts in the rhetoric utilized by the European Far-Right political parties in response to terror attacks. The subjects of study are the National Front and Alternative for Germany within France and Germany respectively with both states having experienced attacks by Muslim terrorists within recent years. This study was conducted through the employment of Image Theory through a content analysis, specifically through the lens of the Barbarian and Enemy Images and if they can be observed in either party&rsquo;s rhetoric. This shift in rhetoric can be seen expressed by both parties as they acted and reacted through their policy platforms over the years of observation.</p><p>

<p> This study examines the discourse of Beppe Grillo, founder of the Five Star Movement, a populist political movement created on his personal blog in 2009. It analyzes three of the texts published on Grillo&rsquo;s blog about the constitutional referendum proposed by the ex-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in 2016 by applying various linguistic models from the field of Critical Discourse Analysis to demonstrate some of the most salient linguistic patterns that coincide with characteristics commonly found in populist discourse. By examining the socio-political background of the movement, this study also aims to reveal the significance of the blog as a tool in the success of their campaign against the referendum. We seek to place Grillo&rsquo;s discourse within the realm of populist discourse by observing how he utilizes the referendum to promote his movement and challenge the established parties of Italy.</p><p>

<p>Through comparative case studies of Slovakia and Hungary, I explore the competitive relationship between governing parties and radical right parties in post European Union accession parliaments. This research highlights the roles of ethno-nationalism and populism and employs Slovakia&rsquo;s ethnic Hungarian minority, as manifested through the 2009 Slovak language law and the 2010 Hungarian citizenship law, as a focal point of competition between party groups. I argue that this competition reveals a more influential role than typically attributed to radical right parties. The first half of the article tests these cases against Meguid&rsquo;s (2008) position, salience, and ownership theory of competition between unequals. The second half of the article analyzes this competition and points to electoral strategies, coalition and opposition policy payoffs, governing party reputations, and each country&rsquo;s legal landscape as areas affected by the radical right&rsquo;s presence. </p><p> <i>Keywords</i>: Radical right; Hungarian minority; language; citizenship; accommodation, issue ownership, issue salience; competition. </p>

<p> In the years since unification, the phenomenon of xenophobia (<i> Ausl&auml;nderfeindlichkeit</i>) in Germany has been largely understood as an "east German problem." The recent discovery of a series of murders by an underground cell of eastern German neo-Nazis &ndash; who killed eight Turkish immigrants and one Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2006 &ndash; has again directed Germany's attention to the problem of <i>Ausl&auml;nderfeindlichkeit </i> and right-wing extremism in eastern Germany. Scholars, politicians, and members of the media base their treatment of the subject on the assumption that eastern Germans are more xenophobic than western Germans, despite the fact that very few foreigners actually live in eastern Germany. This thesis employs historical analysis, population data, and public opinion survey data to determine whether or not this assumption holds true.</p><p> <i>Ausl&auml;nderfeindlichkeit,</i> meaning "hostility toward foreigners," is a type of prejudice in which native Germans view non-German immigrants to be inferior based on characteristics such as culture, religion, and ethnicity. In both East and West Germany, as well as in united Germany, <i> Ausl&auml;nderfeindlichkeit</i> has led to social and institutional discrimination and even violence against foreigners. Since the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent revelation that part of the attacks were planned by immigrants in the northern German city of Hamburg, the primary target of <i>Ausl&auml;nderfeindlichkeit</i> in Germany has been the country's Muslim population, which is comprised primarily of Turkish immigrants and their German-born offspring. Though many countries around the world experience prejudice within their societies, this problem is of particular importance and interest in the German case because of the country's Nazi past.</p><p> German population data shows that only about 5% of the 7.4 million foreigners in Germany live in the eastern part of the country. Foreigners comprise less than 3% of the total population in eastern Germany. Turkish immigrants in particular are highly concentrated in the west and only 1% of the Turkish population lives in eastern Germany. Despite the smaller number of foreigners living in eastern Germany in comparison to western Germany, a majority of the public opinion surveys consulted show that eastern Germans have more negative attitudes towards foreigners than western Germans. Other survey data, on the other hand, finds no statistically significant difference between eastern and western German attitudes towards foreigners, making it unclear if eastern Germans really are more <i>Ausl&auml;nderfeindlich.</i> The public opinion survey studies consulted also found that <i>Ausl&auml;nderfeindlich </i> attitudes vary within the eastern and western regions themselves and that in several western German states, anti-foreigner sentiment is just as high as in the east, facts which are obscured when <i>Ausl&auml;nderfeindlichkeit </i> is only looked at in terms of east and west. Survey data makes it clear that significant portions of both eastern and western German society hold negative attitudes towards foreigners.</p><p> In light of these findings, this thesis advocates a shift away from this east-west paradigm in the study of <i>Ausl&auml;nderfeindlichkeit </i> in Germany. Instead, the issue must be dealt with on the national level, with the recognition that the potentially higher levels of xenophobia in the east do not absolve western Germans of a need to deal with prejudice in their own region.</p>

At the current moment, with voter turnout low and mass popular uprisings refashioning the political map, questions of political participation and dissent are extremely pressing. In established democracies and newly democratized states alike, an active and potentially dissenting citizenry is often seen as the necessary balance to overreaching state power and unregulated market forces, but scholars struggle to keep abreast of a proliferation of new foci and forms of engagement. This dissertation focuses on the form of collective political engagement enacted at centri sociali occupati autogestiti (occupied, self-managed social centers) or CSOA in Bologna, Italy. As they enact political alternatives through everyday practices of self-management and cultural production, social center participants complicate conventional analytical distinctions between revolution and reform or between individual transformation and larger social change. Through participant observation at three specific centers, interviews with participants and visitors and discourse analysis of recent legislation and policy, the investigator explores the character of social center participants’ cultural and political practice, internal organization and decision-making processes, and the heated conflict surrounding social centers in order to discern the opportunities afforded and tensions generated by this form of political engagement. The author argues that CSOA participants experience a form of belonging constructed on the basis of participation rather than ascribed statuses or adherence to shared ideological positions. Furthermore, participants seek to establish an autonomous space wherein key obstacles to participation have been deliberately dismantled or drained of authority in order to render this form of belonging more inclusive. In the shadow of post-9/11 securitization processes at the supra-national, national and local levels aimed at governing migrant mobility and public expressions of dissent, CSOA participants seek to displace the ethnic, religious, linguistic, generational and class-specific norms that define the cultural dimensions of contemporary Italian citizenship. Drawing on the concept of cultural citizenship, the author therefore argues that the political imaginary proposed by CSOA participants represents a deliberate contestation of both the authority and function of state-based citizenship models and can be understood as new model of citizenship characterized by an alternative, less exclusive relationship between belonging and participation.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Carol Leff. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-203) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.