Backlash Politics

[Call for proposals has been closed. We thank all applicants for their submissions. Selected participants have been contacted by the organizers.]

The project builds upon a special issue published in the "British Journal of Politics and International Relations" in Winter 2020 which sets out a definition and a proto-theory of backlash politics. Our definition of backlash politics consists of three elements that are jointly necessary and mutually co-constitutive: i) a retrograde objective of returning to a real or imagined prior social condition; ii) extraordinary goals and tactics that challenge dominant scripts; and iii) a threshold condition of entering mainstream public discourse. We added the notion of frequent companions which tend to be associated outgrowth of the three necessary backlash elements: nostalgia, emotional appeals, taboo breaking and institutional reshaping. The project seeks to develop this framework further.

Barrier-free WZB: The venue is wheelchair accessible.

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