The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse

NGO Academy aims to build up and strengthen skills and know-how in topics relevant to the development and sustainable implementation of projects within NGOs and Social Enterprises in Central and South-Eastern Europe. By offering a range of high-quality programmes for executives and members of these organisations, NGO Academy enables building up capacity, as well as transnational networks within its community.

NGO Academy

Join us for a deep dive into how far-right rhetoric is being mainstreamed by capitalising on fear and shaping a dangerous new normal.

About this eventAcross Europe and beyond, once-taboo rhetoric is entering the political mainstream, and hereby reshaping public discourse, policymaking, and democratic norms. In her keynote, Ruth Wodak will explore the phenomenon of “shameless normalization”: a process through which provocation, denial, and conspiracy theories are not just tolerated but strategically deployed by political actors to shift the limits of the sayable.The keynote will examine how political communication increasingly relies on strategies of blame avoidance, victim-perpetrator reversal, and the erosion of truth. This coarsening of public dialogue, what some call “coarse civility”, is accompanied by growing hostility toward watchdog institutions, NGOs, and civil society actors who challenge authoritarian drift. Through concrete examples from EU institutions and national political arenas, including Austria’s far-right FPÖ, Ruth Wodak will trace how these discursive shifts contribute to a dangerous “new normal”, undermining democratic values, delegitimizing dissent, and closing space for civic engagement.The event invites the NGO Academy network to engage critically with these developments and their implications for European democracy.

About Ruth WodakRuth Wodak is Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, UK, and affiliated to the University of Vienna. Her research interests focus on discourse studies; communication in organizations; gender studies; identity politics and the politics of the past; political communication and populism; crisis communication; and on ethnographic methods of sociolinguistic field work. Ruth has published 12 monographs, 29 co-authored monographs, over 60 edited volumes and special issues of journals, and ca 430 peer reviewed journal papers and book chapters.Prizes and Awards:Besides various other prizes, she was awarded the Wittgenstein Prize for Excellence in Research in 1996, an Honorary Doctorate from University of Örebro in Sweden in 2010, and an Honorary Doctorate from Warwick University in 2020. She is past-President of the Societas Linguistica Europaea. 2011, she was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria, and 2018, the Lebenswerk Preis for her lifetime achievements, from the Austrian Ministry for Women’s Affairs. She is member of the British Academy of Social Sciences and member of the Academia Europaea. In March 2020, she became Honorary Member of the Senate of the University of Vienna. In June 2021, she was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for her lifetime achievements, in November 2022 she received the Paul Watzlawick Ehrenring of the Medical Society + City of Vienna. She is member of the editorial board of a range of linguistic journals and co-editor of the journals Discourse and Society and Critical Discourse Studies.Professorships and Fellowships:She has held visiting professorships in University of Uppsala, Stanford University, University Minnesota, University of East Anglia, Georgetown University, and at the Central European University (CEU), Budapest and Vienna. 2008, she was awarded the Kerstin Hesselgren Chair of the Swedish Parliament (at University Örebrö). In the spring 2014, Ruth held the Davis Chair for Interdisciplinary Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC. In the spring 2016, Ruth was Distinguished Schuman Fellow at the Schuman Centre, EUI, Florence. 2017, she held the Willi Brandt Chair at the University of Malmö, Sweden. 2018/2019 and 2021, she was a senior visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (IWM).Book Publications:Recent book publications include Das kann noch immer in Wien passieren (Czernin Verlag 2024). Identity Politics Past and Present. Political Discourses from Post-War Austria to the Covid Crisis. (Exeter University Press 2022; with M. Rheindorf). The Politics of Fear. The shameless normalization of far-right populist discourses (Sage 2021, 2nd revised and extended edition); Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Migration Control (Multilingual Matters 2020; with M. Rheindorf); Identitäten im Wandel. (Springer 2020; with R. de Cillia, M. Rheindorf, S. Lehner); Europe at the Crossroads (Nordicum 2019; with P. Bevelander); The Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics (Routledge 2018, with B. Forchtner); Kinder der Rückkehr (Springer 2018, with E. Berger); The Politics of Fear. What Right-wing Populist Discourses Mean (Sage, 2015; translated into the German, Russian, Bosnian, Chinese, and Japanese); The discourse of politics in action: ‘Politics as Usual’ (Palgrave, revised 2nd edition 2011; translated into the Chinese).See http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/profiles/Ruth- Wodak for more information. Abstract:Much research illustrates that formerly taboo subjects and expressions in mainstream discourse are being accepted more and more (‘normalization’) and have become part and parcel of mainstream politics (Bevelander &amp; Wodak 2019; Wodak 2021, 2022; Wodak &amp; Rheindorf 2022). Such normalization goes hand in hand with a certain ‘shamelessness’: the limits of the sayable are shifting regarding both the frequency of lies (Block 2019) and the violating of discourse and politeness conventions – as well as regarding repeated attacks on salient democratic institutions. Discursive strategies of provocation, blame avoidance, denial, Manichean division, victim-perpetrator reversal as well as eristic argumentation and conspiracy theories dominate official communication, accompanied by ever more nativist nationalism and the racialization of space. For example, normalizing the assessment of migrants and refugees (all labeled as “illegal migrants”) as a threat to inner security, a burden on the welfare state and education system must be perceived as an international development – generally instrumentalizing a “politics of fear” and reinforcing a “coarse civility” [rohe Bürgerlichkeit] (@Heitmeyer 2018). Recent research on the new “migration Pact” of the European Commission substantiates this kind of normalization. In my lecture, I will deal inter alia with some aspects of EU policy papers and the resonance and reactions of the EU Parliament (Sommer 2024). Moreover, “shameless normalization” is currently resulting in the imaginary of a “new normal” (Krżyanowski, Wodak, Bradby et al. 2023, Wodak 2024). I will also focus on the imaginary as propagated by the leader of the Austrian far-right party FPÖ as one of many examples. Block, D. (2019). Post-Truth and Poli:cal Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Beverlander, P. and Wodak, R. (eds) (2019). Europe at the Crossroads: Confronting Populist, Nationalist, and Global Challenges. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.Heitmeyer, W. (2018). Autoritäre Versuchungen – Signaturen der Bedrohung. Frankfurt/Main:Suhrkamp.Krzyżanowski, M., Wodak, R., Bradby, H. et al. (2023). Discourses and practices of the ‘NewNormal’. Journal of Language and Politics, 22(4): 415-437.Sommer, H. (2024). “Denials of Existence”. Univ. Vienna.Wodak, R. (2024). „Herbert Kickl und der Rechtsextremismus. In Österreich kündigt sich ein autoritäres Regime bereits an“ Gastbeitrag. DER SPIEGEL 8/2024. www.spiegel.de/kultur/herbert-kickl-und-der-rechtsextremismus-in-oesterreichkuendigt?sich-ein-autoritaeres-regime-bereits-an-a-f3f35fdb-5e6d-49n-b9c1-6cc.Wodak, R. (2022). Shameless normalization as a result of media control: The case ofAustria. Discourse and Society, 33(6): 788-804.Wodak, R. (2021). The Politics of Fear: The shameless normalization of far-right discourse. (2nd rev. &amp; ext. ed.) London: Sage.Wodak, R. and Rheindorf, M. (2022) Identity Politics Past and Present. Exeter: Exeter Univ. Press

The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse

Weitere Events von NGO Academy

Entdecke weitere Events von NGO Academy, von Politik bis hin zu anderen Erlebnissen, die dir gefallen könnten.

Noch auf der Suche nach dem richtigen Event?

Entdecke alle Online-Events und filtere nach Datum, Kategorie und mehr.

The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse

Weitere Events von NGO Academy

Entdecke weitere Events von NGO Academy, von Politik bis hin zu anderen Erlebnissen, die dir gefallen könnten.

Das könnte dir auch gefallen...

Stöbere durch weitere Events mit verschiedenen Daten, Preisen und Formaten, um dein nächstes tolles Erlebnis zu finden.

Noch auf der Suche nach dem richtigen Event?

Entdecke alle Online-Events und filtere nach Datum, Kategorie und mehr.