Speaker 1: 2024 is the biggest election year in global history.
Speaker 1: And many of the several billion voters casting ballots are throwing their support
Speaker 1: behind the so-called far right.
Speaker 1: The far right has gained ground in many parts of the world, particularly
Speaker 1: in Europe across the continent.
Speaker 1: Far right parties have a significant foothold in many national
Speaker 1: parliaments, and some are already in power.
Speaker 1: But what role has economics played in driving their popularity?
Speaker 2: They've been very successful, successful and in recruiting votes
Speaker 2: from voters with lower economic prospects, um, in jobs and sectors
Speaker 2: generally in decline.
Speaker 3: Does economics matter?
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 3: What it really does, particularly for those who are insecure, is it drives
Speaker 3: a lot of the salience of these authoritarian populist parties.
Speaker 1: What do the parties themselves say about the economy?
Speaker 4: You watch?
Speaker 4: What happens if I win?
Speaker 4: We're going to bring those miners back.
Speaker 4: You're going to be so proud of your president.
Speaker 4: You're going to be so proud of your country.
Speaker 2: In the sense that the economy is for them, basically an extension of
Speaker 2: the culture war.
Speaker 1: And how do business leaders feel about the prospect of governments led
Speaker 1: by the far right?
Speaker 2: If a party like FDR says, we need to get out of the European Union, were
Speaker 2: against the European Union, this is very harmful to my business.
Speaker 1: Answers to these questions and more on business beyond.
Speaker 1: We hear the term far right a lot nowadays.
Speaker 1: You're going to hear it a lot in this episode, but what does
Speaker 1: it actually mean?
Speaker 1: And is it the right term to use?
Speaker 1: In the EU, political parties affiliated to a group in the European
Speaker 1: Parliament called Identity and Democracy are routinely labelled
Speaker 1: as far right.
Speaker 1: Some of the themes which bind them nationalism, strong anti-immigration
Speaker 1: sentiment and Euroscepticism.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about parties such as France's National Rally,
Speaker 1: the Netherlands Party for freedom, along with several others across the
Speaker 1: EU.
Speaker 1: Many designate Italy's prime minister, Giorgia meloni, and
Speaker 1: Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban, as far right.
Speaker 1: It's also used for Germany's AfD.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the MAGA movement in the US, and at times, even with
Speaker 1: the Conservative Party in the UK.
Speaker 1: But some experts say the term far right doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 1: One is the political scientist Pippa Norris from Harvard University.
Speaker 3: I try to avoid it, basically because I don't think it's very accurate.
Speaker 3: It's an old fashioned term because Europeans used to think of everything
Speaker 3: in left right.
Speaker 3: Ever since the French Revolution.
Speaker 3: And that made some sense when you had conservative Christian Democrats and
Speaker 3: you had social Democrats and socialist parties.
Speaker 3: Nowadays it's more complicated.
Speaker 1: She thinks classic left right divides over the economy are gradually being
Speaker 1: superseded by a split over cultural issues.
Speaker 3: And it's a wide range of issues on issues like, for example, abortion or
Speaker 3: reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, nationalism versus cosmopolitanism,
Speaker 3: human rights versus a sense of a strong state.
Speaker 1: It helps explain why you're probably more likely to hear politicians like
Speaker 1: Donald Trump or Viktor Orban decrying the so-called woke agenda than
Speaker 1: discussing economic policy.
Speaker 3: Some people again talk about populism, which is a very vague term,
Speaker 3: but really it's about the values, about the moral issues and the social
Speaker 3: issues which divides society.
Speaker 3: And classically, of course, that includes immigration in Europe,
Speaker 3: but many other issues that go along that.
Speaker 3: But I think nowadays the idea that there's a simple, unidimensional
Speaker 3: left right spectrum is more misleading and confuses more than
Speaker 3: actually helps us to understand why these parties appeal to to a wide
Speaker 3: variety of different voters.
Speaker 1: Let's drill a little deeper into this idea that it is culture rather
Speaker 1: than the economy, which has driven support for these parties.
Speaker 1: Philip Roth is a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, and he
Speaker 1: has studied far right parties in detail.
Speaker 1: I asked him to what extent economic policy motivates these parties
Speaker 1: and their voters.
Speaker 2: So they have their first election
breakthroughs in the 80s and 1990s.
Speaker 2: And that was a context
where the economy was very much
Speaker 2: depoliticized in the sense that there was a market conforming consensus and
Speaker 2: economically liberal consensus that depoliticize the economy and
Speaker 2: thereby
Speaker 2: open the door for the politicization of other issues, that is,
Speaker 2: immigration, asylum, gender identity.
Speaker 2: And these are the issues on which these parties are in a good
Speaker 2: position to mobilize.
Speaker 2: That's their territory.
Speaker 2: That's their home turf, if you will.
Speaker 1: Pippa Norris says the issue of immigration in particular shows how
Speaker 1: it is culture rather than economics, which motivates voters to
Speaker 1: support these parties.
Speaker 1: She points to the success of anti-immigrant parties in EU
Speaker 1: countries, where the economy has performed relatively strongly
Speaker 1: over recent decades.
Speaker 3: Think about the countries which have had tremendous economic growth and,
Speaker 3: um, a fairly generous welfare state.
Speaker 3: Think about Sweden.
Speaker 3: Think about Denmark.
Speaker 3: Think about the Netherlands and think about Germany.
Speaker 3: And all of those are ones which weren't that affected by the euro
Speaker 3: crisis in all of these countries.
Speaker 3: I just mentioned.
Speaker 3: In the affluent north of Europe, there's been a strong party which has
Speaker 3: emerged in each case.
Speaker 1: However, immigration is still connected to economic issues for some
Speaker 1: far right supporters.
Speaker 2: In northern Europe.
Speaker 2: They don't go against, uh, foreign goods because they
Speaker 2: have export surpluses.
Speaker 2: They don't go against foreign capital because they, they they have a solid,
Speaker 2: loyal, uh, employee and business class, but they go against foreign
Speaker 2: people in the sense that what they mobilize on is welfare chauvinism,
Speaker 2: because these countries that have relatively high levels of
Speaker 2: immigration, but also relatively high levels of welfare.
Speaker 2: So here the nationalist impulse goes against welfare
Speaker 2: entitlements for foreigners.
Speaker 1: But the experts we spoke to believe that economic indicators do not
Speaker 1: determine where the far right will be strong.
Speaker 3: Economic inequality at the objective level measured by, for
Speaker 3: example, inflation, jobs or unemployment, or other indicators
Speaker 3: such as GDP growth or GDP levels does not predict where you see
Speaker 3: these parties emerging.
Speaker 1: But are there still economic factors which determine why certain voters go
Speaker 1: with the far right after the Brexit and Trump votes in 2016?
Speaker 1: A common narrative was that it was disenfranchised poorer voters who had
Speaker 1: secured the paths to victory.
Speaker 2: There certainly is a correlation.
Speaker 2: Um, but we should also not
underestimate to what extent
Speaker 2: rightwing populism is attractive to
not only sort of the lower income or
Speaker 2: the industrialized voter base.
Speaker 1: That's Eliana Fix, a historian and political scientist.
Speaker 1: And she says it's important to note that far right parties pick up
Speaker 1: support from voters of various socioeconomic backgrounds.
Speaker 2: Crunching down the numbers there also, there's also significant
Speaker 2: support for right wing parties that comes from middle class, sort of
Speaker 2: higher middle class.
Speaker 2: And also not underestimate that.
Speaker 2: Um, you know, it's not the fault of the poor who are only working for
Speaker 2: the populists and voting for the populists of.
Speaker 2: Of the extremists.
Speaker 2: There are also other voter, um.
Speaker 2: Other voters that that attracted by these parties.
Speaker 3: These voters are not the poor.
Speaker 3: Um, so the poor either they vote for the left or don't vote at all.
Speaker 3: Um, so the poor have really a low level of, of of turnout.
Speaker 3: And so what the radical right.
Speaker 3: is that their electoral stronghold is rather among the lower
Speaker 3: middle class and working class.
Speaker 1: While many far right parties grew in the decade which followed the global
Speaker 1: financial crisis, those we spoke to believe it was the refugee crisis of
Speaker 1: 2015, which ultimately drove them to their current positions of prominence
Speaker 1: in Europe at least.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was after that in 2015 that we could see an electoral
Speaker 2: breakthrough of the EVD in Germany, um, of the Sweden Democrats, Sweden,
Speaker 2: of um Vox in Spain, of Chega, um, in Portugal, I think the the the the um,
Speaker 2: the financial crisis led to a broader decline of the political mainstream
Speaker 2: in favor of the left and the right, whereas the refugee crisis was, was,
Speaker 2: um, was a catalyst for, for the radical right, more specifically,
Speaker 2: as we could see the rise of radical right parties that didn't really
Speaker 2: exist or that were fringe parties before the refugee crisis.
Speaker 1: But when these parties do speak about the economy, what do they say?
Speaker 1: They obviously don't all speak with one voice, and they have
Speaker 1: their own domestic agendas.
Speaker 1: But there are some areas where they tend to agree, and one is a strong
Speaker 1: opposition to globalization.
Speaker 1: During his successful 2016 US presidential election campaign,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump tapped into apparent voter frustration around
Speaker 1: a globalized economy.
Speaker 4: Our politicians have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization,
Speaker 4: moving our jobs, our wealth and our factories to Mexico and overseas.
Speaker 4: Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians
Speaker 4: very, very wealthy.
Speaker 4: I used to be one of them.
Speaker 1: Others, such as France's Marine Le Pen, have used the word globalization
Speaker 1: as a catch all term to reflect many of what she sees as society's ills.
Speaker 3: The political choice that the French people will have to make is clear.
Speaker 3: Mr. Macron is the candidate of Uber ization, while globalization and
Speaker 3: security, social brutality, the war of all against all the economic
Speaker 3: ransacking of a large corporations.
Speaker 1: Liana Fix says the backlash against globalization has now
Speaker 1: become quite mainstream.
Speaker 1: But that the idea chimes strongly with an economic idea central to
Speaker 1: far right movements national self-sufficiency.
Speaker 3: The criticism that The White Wing makes is linked to a more cultural
Speaker 3: idea of, well, why don't we go back to the golden age, which has never
Speaker 3: existed of the nation state, where every country can decide whatever
Speaker 3: they want to do from the self and is not dependent on other countries.
Speaker 3: And that is obviously an illusion that age has never really existed.
Speaker 3: Um, international trade always played an important role for
Speaker 3: any nation state.
Speaker 1: But being opposed to globalization goes well with another thread common
Speaker 1: to far right movements, nostalgia for old industry, and a pledge to
Speaker 1: bring it back.
Speaker 2: There's a host of research showing
how these voters, um, lower middle
Speaker 2: class, working class, have experienced, um, status anxieties in
Speaker 2: the sense that they are in jobs that come under pressure
Speaker 2: from deindustrialization, from technological change,
Speaker 2: from globalization.
Speaker 3: Trump himself said he was going to stand for the coal miners of Virginia
Speaker 3: and for the Rust Belt in Michigan.
Speaker 3: And to some extent, that did play with his base.
Speaker 3: And people often said, well, look, you probably can't restore
Speaker 3: manufacturing industry, but at least he speaks for us.
Speaker 3: He speaks for our concerns.
Speaker 1: Another part of the anti-globalization backlash among
Speaker 1: far right movements is opposition to multilateralism.
Speaker 1: In Europe, that typically means fierce opposition to the EU.
Speaker 3: There used to be an agreement, for example, about Europe, the benefits
Speaker 3: of being in the European Union.
Speaker 3: And there was very little question about that.
Speaker 3: The idea was you'd have free markets in the European Union and you'd have
Speaker 3: basically a variety of different standards as well that could be set
Speaker 3: up and could be regulated within that.
Speaker 1: Since the 2016 Brexit vote, various far right parties in Europe have
Speaker 1: flirted with anti-EU positions, although some noticed a softening
Speaker 1: since the turbulence of the UK's exit.
Speaker 3: Not all five parties in Europe demand, for example, the end of
Speaker 3: the European Union.
Speaker 3: Giorgia meloni, for instance, has adapted her approach and is trying to
Speaker 3: change the European Union from within and seems to be much more mainstream
Speaker 3: than what was expected.
Speaker 3: Marine Le Pen in France also has duped the rhetoric against them
Speaker 3: leave the rhetoric in favour of leaving the European Union, but is
Speaker 3: arguing of arguing for a new European Union.
Speaker 1: One party whose anti-EU position has not softened much is Germany's
Speaker 1: alternative for Deutschland or the AfD, currently the second most
Speaker 1: popular party in the country going by opinion polls.
Speaker 1: That party was founded in 2013, in response to the eurozone crisis.
Speaker 1: Understandably, it is fiercely Eurosceptic roots, which it has held
Speaker 1: onto whilst also developing a broader nationalistic
Speaker 1: anti-immigration philosophy.
Speaker 3: They are still explicitly
radicalizing and have sort of not
Speaker 3: toned down the language both towards the European Union.
Speaker 1: The AfD still regularly touts the prospect of a referendum on
Speaker 1: Germany's EU membership.
Speaker 1: It also wants the country to leave the euro currency area, and
Speaker 1: those positions haven't harmed the party's popularity.
Speaker 1: Since July 2022, support for the AfD and nationwide opinion polls more
Speaker 1: than doubled to a high of 22% in January 2024.
Speaker 1: That's come down by a few points since, but the party is currently
Speaker 1: the second most popular in Germany.
But the AfD is beset by controversy.
Speaker 1: They are officially designated as a suspected extremist organization.
Speaker 1: This year, there have been huge protests calling
Speaker 1: for them to be banned.
Speaker 1: One of the main reasons was a secret meeting the party was involved in
Speaker 1: last November with several right wing extremists.
Speaker 1: Among the reported topics a plan for the mass deportation of foreigners
Speaker 1: and even German citizens with a foreign background.
Speaker 1: The controversies have even led to the AfD being ostracized by others on
Speaker 1: the European far right.
Speaker 1: There were recently kicked out of the European Parliament grouping for
Speaker 1: far right parties, due to comments made by one of their leading
Speaker 1: candidates for that parliament, which appeared to play down
Speaker 1: Nazi war crimes.
Speaker 3: The AfD is becoming ever more radicalized, whereas other far right
Speaker 3: parties in Europe have become trying to become more mainstream and
Speaker 3: therefore to appeal to more voters.
Speaker 1: We asked the AfD for an interview about their economic policies, and
Speaker 1: while the party did offer us the chance to speak to one of their
Speaker 1: MEPs, they wanted to approve any answers we used for the interview.
Speaker 1: When we instead send a list of questions to the party press office,
Speaker 1: a spokesperson responded we just don't feel comfortable talking to DW.
Speaker 1: The party lists many of its key economic policies on its website.
Speaker 1: Among their most prominent positions reduce VAT and don't increase taxes.
Speaker 1: Overhaul the German tax system and leave the eurozone.
Speaker 1: The party's parliamentary working group on the economy
Speaker 1: says the following.
Speaker 1: The AfD parliamentary group stands for the social market economy.
Speaker 1: It is the basis of German prosperity and thus our social cohesion.
Speaker 1: We see it as our task to make the social market economy futureproof.
Speaker 1: But critics say their economic policies would not
Speaker 1: benefit their voters.
Speaker 3: Their policies actually translated
would mean that the witch will get
Speaker 3: richer and the poor will get poorer.
Speaker 3: And that is quite surprising that all the official sort of policies and
Speaker 3: declarations would actually not favour those who feel left behind
Speaker 3: by the economy.
Speaker 3: They sort of through other topics like immigration and so on.
Speaker 3: They still appeal to those voters who don't seem to take a close look at
Speaker 3: what exactly those economic policies, policies, policies will lead to.
Speaker 1: And parties like the AfD have a big problem when it comes to the economy.
Speaker 1: By and large, business says it doesn't want them in power.
Speaker 1: A recent survey from the German Economic Institute, which polled
Speaker 1: around 900 companies, found that 75% of business executives in Germany are
Speaker 1: openly opposed to the party.
Speaker 1: Ramona mansour is one such business owner who sees the AfD as
Speaker 1: a direct threat to Germany's economic prosperity.
Speaker 1: She's the owner and managing director of Mueller, a medium sized
Speaker 1: manufacturing enterprise in the southern state of Bavaria.
Speaker 3: If there's a party that that, for example, like the AfD says, okay, we
Speaker 3: should get out of the European Union or the euro is a bad idea.
Speaker 3: It would really, really harm my business on that one side.
Speaker 3: But on the other side also, as I'm dependent on the international
Speaker 3: markets, like for selling my products, but also for bringing
Speaker 3: international or workers with international background to Germany.
Speaker 3: You have or we have to make sure that this wonderful country is it's
Speaker 3: really it's it's pictured in the right way, also abroad.
Speaker 1: She also thinks the AFD's rhetoric on migrants makes Germany a less
Speaker 1: appealing place for people from abroad to come and work in a problem,
Speaker 1: given Germany's much publicised labor shortages.
Speaker 3: It's getting harder and harder to really find the yeah, enough people
Speaker 3: to to be able to, to keep growing, which at the end of the day is so
Speaker 3: important for my business.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so it's, it's unbelievably important that that we, we show
Speaker 3: Germany to, to other countries and people in other countries as
Speaker 3: the wonderful country that it is.
Speaker 3: So and to show them that, that they're welcome here and, and to
Speaker 3: make sure that we integrate them and that they have a chance to really
Speaker 3: build their future in this, this country.
Speaker 1: Far right parties have faced resistance from business elsewhere.
Speaker 1: But in the case of Meloni and Italy and Orban in Hungary, they have also
Speaker 1: found ways to work with business and business has found ways to
Speaker 1: work with them.
Speaker 2: So there is an ambiguous relationship with business.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, business may well side with the radical right when it
Speaker 2: comes to taxation and when it comes to welfare.
Speaker 2: If we look, uh, to Hungary, um, what Orban did was to introduce
Speaker 2: a flat tax.
Speaker 2: Um, the Lega wants to introduce a flat tax.
Speaker 2: They can't for fiscal reasons.
Speaker 2: Um, Meloni wants to a lower taxes and lower and also
Speaker 2: minimum income scheme.
Speaker 2: Um, in the interest of business.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 1: Internationally oriented companies are always likely to have a problem
Speaker 1: with far right movements.
Speaker 1: As the AfD are finding out.
Speaker 2: They feel uneasy about the rise of the radical right in the sense
Speaker 2: that what these parties do and and Trump is perhaps the key example in
Speaker 2: this regard is to disrupt free trade by, um, stimulating a turn towards
Speaker 2: economic protectionism and economic nationalism, which is not in
Speaker 2: the interest of export oriented companies.
Speaker 1: The rise of the far right in Europe has raised the specter of the 1920s
Speaker 1: and 1930s, when economic crises such as unemployment and hyperinflation
Speaker 1: helped bring in fascist rule.
Speaker 1: But there are two key differences between the economies of the 1920s
Speaker 1: and the 2020s employment and welfare.
Speaker 3: While inflation is still high.
Speaker 3: Surprisingly, we have rather a labor problem in Europe, so unemployment
Speaker 3: is very low.
Speaker 3: Um, and companies are really searching for, um, for,
Speaker 3: for, for labor.
Speaker 3: So that is a big difference here.
Speaker 3: Um, the other example, the other difference to that historical period
Speaker 3: is that sort of social welfare structures in Europe are very strong.
Speaker 3: Um, and there was a big pandemic support package that tried to make
Speaker 3: sure, both for companies, but also for individual citizens that try to
Speaker 3: make sure to prevent exactly this sort of sliding down into
Speaker 3: unemployment, sliding down into economic crisis and
Speaker 3: then to radicalization.
Speaker 1: However, if an economic crisis were to emerge that threatened employment
Speaker 1: and the capacity of states to provide welfare, far right parties are well
Speaker 1: placed to capitalise.
Speaker 3: That's obviously a nightmare that is haunting many politicians today,
Speaker 3: that an economic crisis or even an economic downturn, not as big as
Speaker 3: the economic crisis in 1929, could repeat itself and could lead to the
Speaker 3: rise of um right wing parties in Europe.
Speaker 1: For now, far right parties in Europe and elsewhere are thriving on issues
Speaker 1: away from the economy.
Speaker 3: And when you look at, um, their rhetoric, yes, many of the
Speaker 3: economic issues are part of their themes, but they're not really
Speaker 3: the mainstream theme.
Speaker 3: Um, in many, many cases it's the cultural issues, which is where
Speaker 3: they have their bread and butter, where they have issue ownership,
Speaker 3: where they really manage to stir up passions and stir up their base
Speaker 3: support, which become loyalists in that towards those parties.
Speaker 1: There's a famous phrase attributed to the American political
Speaker 1: strategist James Carville.
Speaker 1: The economy, stupid.
Speaker 1: Which means that it's the economy which matters most to voters, even
Speaker 1: when that's not always readily apparent.
Speaker 1: The rise of the far right suggests that it's the culture
Speaker 1: stupid may be a more appropriate political aphorism for our present
Speaker 1: age of discord and division.
Speaker 1: Not that the economy will ever be too far away either.
Speaker 1: That's all from this episode of Business Beyond.
Speaker 1: For more from us, check out our playlist in the video
Speaker 1: description.
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching.
Speaker 1: And until the next time, take care.