A "Europe des Nations": far right imaginative geographies and the politicization of cultural crisis on Twitter in Western Europe. Issue 5 (3rd July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ganesh, Bharath; Froio, Caterina
• Is Part Of: Journal of European integration. Volume 42:Issue 5(2020)
• Page Start: 715
• Page End: 732
• Publication Date: 2020-07-03
• Subjects: European integration -- European imaginaries -- far right -- Twitter -- nativism; European federation -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; Europe -- Economic integration -- Periodicals; 341.24205
• DOI: 10.1080/07036337.2020.1792462
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0703-6337

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Contestation over European integration has been widely studied in the rhetoric of parties, leaders, and movements on the far right in a variety of media. Focusing on Twitter use by far right actors in Western Europe, we apply corpus-aided discourse analysis to explore how imaginative geographies are used to politicize Europe among their digital publics. We find that the idea of a crisis of cultural identity pervades imaginaries of Europe amongst far right digital publics. While Europe is presented as facing a crisis of cultural identity, we find that the far right articulates an aspirational imaginary of Europe, the 'Europe des Nations' that rejects liberal-democratic pluralism in the EU and the 'establishment'. We find that the contestation of Europe in far right digital publics relies on a crisis of cultural identity, representing a translation of Nouvelle Droite imaginaries of Europe into the social media space.