The issue with the 'far-right talking points': the empirical challenges of assessing far-right ecologism among environmental activists

Abstract

The mainstreaming of the far-right worldwide has immense societal effects, one of the main being the normalization of 'far-right talking points', quotidian expressions of far-right worldviews existing well beyond the political proponents of this ideology. Our piece tries to explore the effects of far-right talking points in the environmental domain. We do so by utilizing the theoretical concept of microfascism, the everyday expressions and practices of societal exclusion and the desire for authoritarianism. More specifically, we test the extent to which far-right ecologism, the ideological response of the far right to an array of environmental problems, operates as a set of arguments existing beyond the representatives of this ideology. To do so, we conducted a mixed-methods study, consisting of a quantitative survey of 106 respondents, followed up by 27 semi-structured interviews conducted with environmental activists in Serbia, a dynamic and nascent settings for environmental activism. Our findings illustrate the methodological issue of capturing ideological positioning through diverse methods but more fundamentally, the broader implications of far-right talking points in the environmental domain.