Weaponizing Demography: The Transformation of Radical Right Wing Populism

This book introduces the concept of radical right demographic populism to examine how demographic fears are weaponised to redefine identity and justify exclusion, framing change as an existential threat to a perceived native, heteronormative, and Christian population. By introducing the concept of radical right demographic populism, the volume unveils a new perspective to capture anti-immigrant, anti-gender, and anti-diversity claims, while advocating for the reproductive role of the traditional family rooted in the religious values of Christianity. This concept is applied to various country cases across Europe and the Americas to demonstrate the radical right’s reimagining of demographic change as an existential threat. The chapters illustrate how this idea is communicated through conspiratorial discourses, demographic anxiety, and the vilification of immigrants, religious ‘others’, and advocates of gender equality and diversity. Notably, the book aims to go beyond just documenting these developments within the radical right by inviting scholars and policymakers to contribute to further reflections on the intersection of the radical right, demographic issues, populism, and conspiracy theories across different disciplines and empirical contexts.Opposition to immigration and calls for border closures remain central to the radical right-wing agenda. Meanwhile, a heterogeneous set of issues, such as gender ideologies, abortion, traditional family, LGBTQ+ rights, and Islam, has increasingly been weaponised by leaders and parties worldwide. While scholarship has often considered these issues as cultural and frequently studied them in a separate manner, this book contends that they need to be tackled together and framed as demographic-related issues. This book introduces a new framework for understanding how the radical right reimagines demographic change as an existential threat. Across Europe and the Americas, low birth rates, immigration, and gender equality are reframed as signs of civilisational decline. This volume explores how radical right actors mobilise fears around fertility, migration, race, family, and sexuality through narratives of crisis, ethnic purity, and control over borders, reproduction, and social norms. It examines conspiracy thinking fuelled by demographic anxiety to justify attacks on gender and sexual rights and reinforce exclusionary ideas of national belonging. Grounded in empirical case studies and interdisciplinary approaches, this book reveals how these narratives converge to reinforce dominance of a native, heteronormative, Christian population. In linking domains often treated separately, it provides a timely and critical perspective on the evolving logic of radical right politics worldwide.

Pagina's: 256, Hardcover, Manchester University Press (P648)