‘The Great Replacement’ – Reproduction and population policies of the far right, taking the Identitarians as an example

Abstract

The starting point of this paper is a reconstruction of the key argumentation patterns that the extreme right in German-speaking countries use for supporting their reproduction and population policies. It will then continue with an analysis of relevant narratives, taking the far-right group of Identitarians as an example and in particular their campaign Stoppt den Großen Austausch (‘Stop the Great Replacement’), which was initiated in 2014 by their Austrian chapter (IBÖ). Within the framework of a critical discourse analysis, I will investigate how the Identitarians in Austria and Germany have updated the key argumentation patterns of far-right reproduction and population policies – although they basically only modernized the language of decades old ideas – and which role gender-specific aspects have played in this context.