Deradicalization in Germany

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Arie W. Kruglanski ◽  
David Webber ◽  
Daniel Koehler
Keyword(s):  
Right Wing ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
History Of

The purpose of Chapter 3 is to elucidate the deradicalization and counter-extremism approaches that have been used in Germany. Relative to other countries, Germany has had a sustained history of involvement in efforts to rehabilitate extremists (right wing and other) that could serve as models for similar efforts worldwide. These tactics are often referred to as countering violent extremism (CVE). The chapter is divided into sections discussing the history of CVE in Germany, constraints and difficulties encountered by the German CVE enterprise, assessment of the success of CVE efforts in Germany, and anticipated developments within the field.

Countering terrorism or criminalizing curiosity? The troubled history of UK responses to right-wing and other extremism

2021 ◽  
pp. 147377952198934
Author(s):  
Lucia Zedner
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Hate Crime ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Right Wing Extremism

The growth of right-wing extremism, especially where it segues into hate crime and terrorism, poses new challenges for governments, not least because its perpetrators are typically lone actors, often radicalized online. The United Kingdom has struggled to define, tackle or legitimate against extremism, though it already has an extensive array of terrorism-related offences that target expression, encouragement, publication and possession of terrorist material. In 2019, the United Kingdom went further to make viewing terrorist-related material online on a single occasion a crime carrying a 15-year maximum sentence. This article considers whether UK responses to extremism, particularly those that target non-violent extremism, are necessary, proportionate, effective and compliant with fundamental rights. It explores whether criminalizing the curiosity of those who explore radical political ideas constitutes legitimate criminalization or overextends state power and risks chilling effects on freedom of speech, association, academic freedom, journalistic enquiry and informed public debate—all of which are the lifeblood of a liberal democracy.

From Propaganda to Scholarship: Dr Joseph Schechtman and the Origins of Israeli Polemics on the Palestinian Refugees

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Masalha
Keyword(s):  
Right Wing ◽  
Population Transfer ◽  
Arab Population ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Arab States ◽  
Refugee Problem ◽  
Secret History

In 1948 an official ‘Transfer Committee’ was appointed by the Israeli Cabinet to plan the Palestinian refugees' resettlement in the Arab states. Apart from doing everything possible to reduce the Arab population in Israel, the Transfer Committee sought to amplify and consolidate the demographic transformation of Palestine by: preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes; the destruction of Arab villages; settlement of Jews in Arab villages and towns; and launching a propaganda campaign to discourage Arab return. One of the Transfer Committee's initiatives was to invite Dr Joseph Schechtman, a right-wing Zionist Revisionist leader and expert on ‘population transfer’, to join its efforts. In 1952 Schechtman published a propagandists work entitled The Arab Refugee Problem. Since then Schechtman would become the single most influential propagator of the Zionist myth of ‘voluntary’ exodus in 1948. This article examines the leading role played by Schechtman in promoting Israeli propaganda and politics of denial. Relying on newly-discovered Israeli archival documents, the article deals with little known and new aspects of the secret history of the post-1948 period.

A Left History of Liquorice: What It Means to Write "Left" History

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan D. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Historical Study ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Special Edition ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

This article is part of a special Left History series reflecting upon changing currents and boundaries in the practice of left history, and outlining the challenges historians of the left must face in the current tumultuous political climate. This series extends a conversation first convened in a 2006 special edition of Left History (11.1), which asked the question, “what is left history?” In the updated series, contributors were asked a slightly modified question, “what does it mean to write ‘left’ history?” The article charts the impact of major political developments on the field of left history in the last decade, contending that a rising neoliberal and right-wing climate has constructed an environment inhospitable to the discipline’s survival. To remain relevant, Palmer calls for historians of the left to develop a more “open-ended and inclusive” understanding of the left and to push the boundaries of inclusion for a meaningful historical study of the left. To illustrate, Palmer provides a brief materialist history of liquorice to demonstrate the mutability of left history as a historical approach, rather than a set of traditional political concerns.

Primul mythos de stânga al literaturii române contemporane

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 139-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radu Vancu
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Ideological Bias ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Romanian Literature

Mihai Iovănel’s History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020 is the first leftist major narrative of Romanian literature – and the shockwaves it generated were due even more to this firm ideological option (the first such one in the history of major Romanian literary histories) than to its literary content proper. The present article aims at asserting the main three accomplishments and shortcomings generated by this ideological option – namely that: i) it succeeds in coalescing the first coherent narrative of the last three decades of Romanian literature; ii) it sometimes turns from an ideological option into an ideological bias – and modifies the factuality of Romanian literature, eliminating important writers, exaggerating the qualities of some other ones, searching to distribute merits (to leftist writers) and punishments (to right-wing ones) according with their political option, and not with their literary qualifications; iii) it is an impressive stylistic achievement in itself, even though quite ironically its author disregards the virtues of aestheticism.

Intertextualities in Elfriede Jelinek’s Rein Gold: Ein Bühnenessay

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-133
Author(s):  
Britta Kallin
Keyword(s):  
Hate Crime ◽  
First Century ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Communist Manifesto ◽  
German Identity ◽  
Ethnic Germans ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ring Cycle ◽  
Twenty First Century

Elfriede Jelinek’s postdramatic stage essay Rein Gold (2012) interweaves countless texts including Richard Wagner’s operas from the Ring cycle, Karl Marx’s The Capital, and Marx and Friedrich Engels’s The Communist Manifesto as well as contemporary writings and news articles. Scholarship has so far examined the play in comparison to Wagner’s Rheingold opera, which serves as the base for the dialogue between the father Wotan and daughter Brünnhilde. This article examines intertextualities with the story of the National Socialist Underground, an extremist right-wing group that committed hate-crime murders and bank robberies, and with the exploitative history of workers, particularly women, in capitalist systems. Jelinek compares the National Socialist Underground’s attempt to violently rid Germany of non-ethnic Germans with Siegfried’s mythical fight as dragon slayer in the Nibelungenlied that created a hero who has been cast as a German identity figure for an ethnonational narrative and fascist ideas in twenty-first-century Germany.

Networked Collective Actions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyunjin Seo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
South Korean ◽  
History Of ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Key Participants

Massive and sustained candlelight vigils in 2016–2017, the most significant citizen-led protests in the history of democratic South Korea, led to the impeachment and removal of then President Park Geun-hye. These protests took place in a South Korean media environment characterized by polarization and low public trust, and where conspiracy theories and false claims by those opposing impeachment were frequently amplified by extreme right-wing media outlets. How then was it possible for pro-impeachment protests seeking major social change to succeed? And why did pro-Park protesters and government efforts to defend Park ultimately fail? An agent-affordance framework is introduced to explain how key participants (agents), including journalists, citizens, social media influencers, bots, and civic organizations, together produced a broad citizen consensus that Park should be removed from office. This was accomplished by creatively employing affordances made available by South Korea’s history, legal system, and technologies. New empirical evidence illustrates the ongoing significant roles of both traditional and nontraditional agents as they continue to co-adapt to affordances provided by changing information environments. Interviews with key players yield firsthand descriptions of events. The interviews, original content analyses of media reports, and examination of social media posts combine to provide strong empirical support for the agent-affordance framework. Lessons drawn from citizen-led protests surrounding Park Geun-hye’s removal from office in South Korea are used to offer suggestions for how technology-enabled affordances may support and constrain movements for social change elsewhere in the world.

Privatization—Chipping Away at Government

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-128
Author(s):  
Donald Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Public Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

This chapter focuses on the right wing's astonishingly successful efforts to privatize public goods and services. Privatization has been one of the highest priorities of the right wing for many years, and the chapter shows how it threatens both labor and democracy. Intentionally blurring the lines between public and private institutions, private companies and market forces undermine the common good. This chapter documents the history of privatization in the United States, from President Reagan's early efforts to Clinton and Gore's belief in private markets. Showing how privatization undermines democratic government, the chapter describes complex contracts that are difficult to understand, poorly negotiated “public–private partnership” deals, and contracts that provide incentives to deny public services. With huge amounts of money at stake, privateers are increasingly weighing in on policy debates—not based on the public interest but rather in pursuit of avenues that increase their revenues, profits, and market share. Privatization not only destroys union jobs but also aims to cripple union political involvement so that the corporate agenda can spread unfettered. Nevertheless, community-based battles against privatization have succeeded in many localities, demonstrating the power of fighting back to defend public services, public jobs, and democratic processes.

ARENA

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-165
Author(s):  
James Loxton
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Death Squad ◽  
Powerful Source ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Level

This chapter examines ARENA in El Salvador and argues that, like the UDI in Chile, its success was the product of authoritarian inheritance and counterrevolutionary struggle. The first section discusses El Salvador’s long history of right-wing military rule. The second section examines the October 1979 coup and the resulting establishment of a left-wing Revolutionary Governing Junta. The third section discusses the intense counterrevolutionary response that the junta triggered. This included large-scale death squad violence, with future ARENA founder Roberto D’Aubuisson playing a key role. The fourth section examines the formation of ARENA in response to an impending transition to competitive elections. The fifth section shows how D’Aubuisson’s role as a high-level official in the pre-1979 military regime endowed ARENA with several valuable resources. The final section discusses how ARENA’s origins in counterrevolutionary struggle served as a powerful source of cohesion.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document