Providing a collegial and friendly setting to present and exchange ideas, this webinar series welcomes expressions of interest to present. If you are interested, please get in touch via pefrnetwork[at]protonmail.com, including a title and abstract, as well as a preferred date and time (CET). We will get back to you as soon as possible.

If you want to join our mailing list, please also contact us at pefrnetwork[at]protonmail.com.

Past and future presentations include:

February 5^th, Ada: The British far right’s climate change situationship

Although climate denial is still thriving on the British far right, certain fractions are experimenting with strategic acceptance. We will explore how the far right incorporates climate into its messaging, and why civic and ethnonationalists appear to have fundamentally different relationships to carbon emissions.

March 10^th, Imogen Richards (Deakin University): The aesthetic politics of far-right environmentalism

This presentation covers findings and insights from a forthcoming Palgrave Pivot book entitled The Aesthetic Politics of Far-Right Environmentalism. The book introduces a framework for analysing far-right environmentalism and pseudo-environmentalism through the lens of political aesthetics, examining how various types of far-right actors use artistic and cultural forms to promote their political agendas. It explores how these actors exploit ecological crises by employing visual strategies and culturally resonant symbols to construct dichotomous ‘us versus them’ understandings of critical social and environmental issues. Particular attention is given to Walter Benjamin’s theory of the ‘aestheticisation of politics’ and Jacques Rancière’s concept of the ‘distribution of the sensible’, which are used collectively to analyse how far-right groups and organisations normalise their ideologies and mobilise support from susceptible online audiences. The book highlights cases involving visual media distributed on mainstream and alt-tech online platforms, focusing on European political parties and their affiliated organisations, as well as white supremacist online collectives—from tradwives to the distributors of fashwave and schizowave media.

April 8th, Elisabeth Oertel, Leonie Singer, Zadekia Krondorfer and Manès Weisskircher (TU Dresden): The far right’s impact on climate action? The role of conservative parties and the political conflict over wind power in forests

This study analyses the far right’s impact beyond its core issue of immigration, focusing on climate action. Despite Germany’s strong cordon sanitaire, the AfD played a decisive role in passing a law effectively banning wind power in forest areas in Thuringia in December 2023. In analysing this outcome, our study offers three key contributions: First, we highlight the role of mainstream center-right parties in facilitating climate obstruction. Long before the AfD’s rise, the regional CDU had opposed wind power in forest areas, and its actions were crucial for legislative success. The AfD rode the wave, further politicizing the issue. Second, we examine the central lines of argument in the political conflict, focusing on economic, environmental, and climate issues. Third, we show how opposition to climate action enabled cooperation between mainstream right-wing parties and the far right. However, joint voting did not extend to AfD proposals, pointing to selective collaboration. Methodologically, we build on calls in the literature to shift focus from (trans-)national politics to the subnational level, using party manifestos, media coverage, and parliamentary debates as sources.

May 15th, Noémi Gonda (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences): Far-right ecologism at the “far-Left”? How claims of Mother Earth underpin de-democratization in Nicaragua

So far Political Ecologies of the Far-Right (PEFR) perspectives have been essentially mobilized in relation to the far-right in the Global North. Less is known about the precise mechanisms through which seemingly Leftist but in reality nationalist, exclusionary, and authoritarian political regimes in the Global South adopt far-right ecologism to close down possibilities for democratic transformations. In my talk I will try to “trouble” the PEFR perspective by bringing into the discussion the case of Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan government purports to be post-neoliberal, anti-capitalist and Leftist. In particular, I will analyse how the narratives of climate justice have underpinned the consolidation of the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega (2007- nowadays) in ways that very-much resembles to far-right, ethnonationalist, and petro-capitalist politics. In particular, I will discuss how the Vivir Bonito Vivir Bien campaign that puts Mother Earth at the forefront, combined with authoritarian and populist measures targeted towards vulnerable populations, – rural women and Indigenous groups–, serve as a smokescreen contributing to concealing exclusions and hiding the destruction of nature while at the same time serving to consolidate Ortega´s grip on power.