Practising Populism: How Right-wing Populists Negotiate Political Competence

Abstract

This article introduces a new way to consider right-wing populism in Western Europe through practice theory. While historically, right-wing populist parties have not been seen as one homogenous movement, their populist practices constitute a transnational challenge to the European political establishment. Building on practice theory, we contribute to the question of how these parties negotiate political competence through transnational practices on three levels: claiming competence by establishing a domain, community building and practising competence. These levels are explored through three sites of populist practices: Russia, the European Parliament and rallies by the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (Pegida). Among these sites we consider the French Front National, the Dutch Partij van de Vrijheid, the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs and the German Alternative für Deutschland. We argue that in order to understand contemporary right-wing populism better we ought to not only to consider what it is, but how it is practised.