Introduction: European crises: contemporary nationalisms and the language of “race”

Abstract

The Introduction begins by outlining the general theme of this special issue, “Race and Crisis”. It then moves to examine populist right-wing politics from 2015. Of the various ways in which the rise of such politics could be charted in this period, here the “success” of anti-immigrant and anti-E.U. parties in national-level elections is the focus. Success is understood in terms of share of the popular vote at national level, and the appeal of the right-wing parties in question gauged from their manifestos. In particular, manifesto proposals for renegotiating the principles of citizenship are considered, and their implicitly racist underpinnings noted. The final part of the Introduction presents some general observations on coded ways of evoking race and prompting racialization in contemporary political discourse. How the contributions to this special issue deal with that is briefly summarized.