The Politics of Fear - now amongst so called progessives as well?
One of my favourite authors within the social sciences is Ruth Wodak, who has made extensive contributions both to political philosophy and to methodological frameworks for analyzing discourse. Over the past week, I have been thinking a lot about Wodak’s concept of “the politics of fear.” Basically, this concept means that right-wing groups often construct migrants and their political allies as a threat to the majority society. This, in turn, creates a political climate in which polarization increases and people act irrationally out of fear. In Sweden, we have elections to decide how the Swedish Church should be run. Even though the church has been separated from the state for the past 26 years, these elections often involve the same parties as the parliamentary elections, complemented by a few specifically church-based parties. These elections are frequently controversial, since right-wing parties have often tried to mobilize in them. Because relatively few people vote, it is easier...