all right good afternoon thank you for
coming salmon School of International

Affairs I could direct our Center for
European and transatlantic Studies

I'm delighted today to be able to
introduce Dr. Terri Givens who is just

retired semi-retired from academia was
recently as Provost with Menlo College

for that she was vice provost for
international initiatives at the

University of Texas Austin where she
also founded and directed their Center

for European studies she is now engaging
in her passion of trying to help

sure disadvantaged students get into and
stay in higher education in terms of her

presence here is she's one of the
earliest people to study the politics of

immigration and the radical right before
it was cool she is just about as maybe

even this weekend going to finish a
textbook on comparative immigration

policy and she is also working on a
manuscript on historical connections

between the United States and Europe and
immigration and races okay it's great to

have you here thank you so much and
thanks for having me and thanks for

being here
so as you heard I have been working on

the radical right for a long time I
started out in graduate school in 1993

and my first research trip to Europe was
in 1995 and at that time immigration was

just starting to become a big issue in
Europe in terms of the politics of it

and but I had actually really started
back in 1986 as an undergraduate at

Stanford where when I went to do my
study abroad I went to France which I

was very excited about I was an
international relations major at the

time and that happened to be kind of a
critical year for the far right and

immigration policy because 1986 was the
year that the fro Nationale

or the National Front in France had a
bit of a breakthrough in electoral

politics they came in second in a
by-election alleged for a legislative

seat which nobody expected them to do so
that brought a lot of media attention

and then also that was a year that
started there was a growing movement

called tush Pompeu which would basically
don't mess with my friend and that was

really a response to a lot of far-right
rhetoric and even violence towards

immigrants I have been several incidents
not only anti-immigrant but anti-semitic

people tipping over graves and Jewish
cemeteries and attacks on refugee

hostels and things like that
so there was this movement and so that's

kind of what initially piqued my
interest in the issues of immigration

and the politics around it and then I
went on to graduate school at UCLA and

as I was doing my application I just
happened to open up Newsweek magazine

and there was an article on the Republic
honour which is a far-right party in

Germany and so I said oh that's an
interesting topic and it kind of ties

into some of my interests in France and
Germany and politics so I wrote about

that in my application and lo and behold
I actually ended up doing it for my

dissertation which is extremely unusual
to actually do the topic you signed up

for when you applied so I was actually
really grateful to one of my advisers

Ron Rogowski when I got to graduate
school who insisted that I learned

German I already knew French because I'd
started in French in middle school all

the way through college and then he
suggested I learned German because

there's of course a lot of funding for
well you wouldn't know that but there's

a lot of funding out there to do
research in Germany and full bike grants

and things like that so I did take
intensive German at UCLA and then an

intensive course in Germany and that was
actually part of my first research trip

in 1993 back to 1995 so I got married
went on a honeymoon in Europe and then

left my husband for four months to do
research so but it was very interesting

I guess at night
95 was again a time period when there

was a lot of interest in what was going
on with far-right parties you had the

Republic honor and dvu in the German
folk Union and Germany had still had the

full Nationale in France there was a the
Danish People's Party there's various

parties that were on the rise across
Europe and actually the one that really

was an important case for me was the
Austrian freedom party that was led by a

very charismatic figure named Georg
Haider and he and his party ended up by

1999 wedding coming in second place in
the parliamentary elections and I'll

come back to that but in any case I just
wanted to talk a little bit about where

my research came from and I had always
had an interest in Europe since I

started learning French and so it was
very interesting for me from I was

literally the first American to study
the radical right let alone being an

african-american woman so you can
imagine actually it opened a lot of

doors because people were kind of you
know when I would walk in and start

speaking fluent German or fluent French
they weren't expecting that so in any

case but I was able to get in and talk
to a lot of folks and one of the things

I was talk about in my research is
putting things in context because I

think it's very important for us to not
just look at you know I could have gone

and just interviewed radical right
politicians but that doesn't really help

us understand the broader picture
because really they are part of a party

system and we need to understand how
they are functioning as part of that

party system and one of the critical
characteristics of a radical right party

versus your radical right movements like
the skinheads and neo-nazis is that they

are part of the party system they
actually want to function within the

party system a they want to win seats
they want to be part of the structure

even though they place themselves as
being you know not part of the elite

they're really for the common man and so
on so in any case I spent a lot of time

talking to people and mainstream parties
as well as the radical

right because I felt it was important to
give that broader perspective and

actually the the title of my
dissertation was the radical right in

context we are looking at the rise of
radical right parties in Europe and then

I changed this the the title when I got
to the book so that the dissertation was

done in 1999 the book came out didn't
come out and actually until 2005 even

though most of the research and writing
was done by about 2002 but it takes that

long three years is not unusual to get a
book from you know into the publisher

and all through the different processes
you have to go through to get a book

published so and then they had another
important article that came out in 2004

even though again it was accepted in
2002 on the radical right gender gap and

that was the first article to really
look in depth at the difference in the

vote between men and women for the
radical right and so I was able to show

that there were you know consistently
across cases that the radical right to

people more men tended to vote for the
radical right versus women so about 60%

male versus 40% female and that's
actually still something people are

looking at today and I was at Georgia
yesterday cast muda is also another

scholar who's been studying the radical
right for a long time and so he put

together an edited volume pulling
together some of the more relevant

research on the radical right and I was
very happy that my first article was

part of that but it also makes me feel
old because it means oh my god my

research is classic now but in any case
so it's been a good 20 years that I've

been working very seriously on this
topic and of course it's become very

popular now because as I will hopefully
be able to show you escape from here and

go to the browser so um oh actually I
think I have it over here

yeah there we go so as you can see well
first of all the media has just been

obsessed with the radical right in
populism lately

for obvious reasons you know if you look
at what's going on across Europe

you know you have all these parties who
are gaining and it's you know one of the

interesting things to look at is
Switzerland I think is as an outlier

here because the Swiss People's Party
has been around for a long time they

have a different kind of party system
and so but in some of the other

countries you know that's not the first
time the Austrian freedom Party has been

at 26% of the vote they actually got a
higher percentage in 1999 about 27% of

the vote and actually became a part of
government and then the French National

Front what I did when I was doing my
original research back in the late 90s

is try to figure out what's kind of the
base support level for radical right

parties kind of what's their natural
constituency and so to do that I looked

at European Parliament elections and the
reason that European Parliament

elections are relevant here is because
you have a situation where people look

at European Parliament elections of
secondary elections and they're more

likely to vote you know as kind of a
protest vote or as you know they're

gonna vote they're more likely to vote
the party they care about versus what I

call strategic voting in legislative
elections so I'll get into that a bit

because it's kind of important to
understanding the rise of the radical

right or the lack thereof so in any case
I want just to show that you know we

still have about what I figured out
about 20 years ago is that the baseline

support for radical right parties is
about 15% you can go up and down from

there
but in general you know you that thread

and still holds you have a couple places
I don't count Switzerland like I said

because they're kind of weird but
Austria you know they've been there

before at twenty see how they've been at
27 percent even though the party's gone

through various changes your hider was
killed in the car accident but he'd

already left his party leader you had
them go through various phases when they

were in government and so on but in any
case I still think that 15% is kind of

the
baseline of support for these parties

and so seeing the I mean even though
it's not necessarily something that

Germans like to see the 10% that the
alternative for Deutschland oh the

German alternative or alternative for
Germany I got in the most recent

Bavarian elections is not unusual what's
happening what's changed is that people

previously would not have voted for the
off day because they would think that oh

these this part is a party that's not
really going to win any seats why should

I you know vote for them and so my main
argument in the voting radical right

book is that electoral systems play a
critical role in this the success of the

radical right so first of all you have
to have you have to have a party you

have to have a leader you have to have a
platform which usually rests on

anti-immigrant sentiment and then you
have to have a way to get access to the

party system and the electoral system so
proportional representation systems tend

to be more favourable to the success of
radical right parties because of

basically do vers JS law do they know
about do bridges law okay so let's talk

a little bit about do Vij's law and the
important thing there is that du Vernay

says in first-past-the-post systems like
the UK the US France it's hard for small

parties to win because you're going to
go into the voting booth and say oh man

the greens you know I love them but they
just can't you know get into into the

legislature because they're just not
going to win enough high enough

percentage of the vote so you go in and
you know we as Americans most of us go

into the voting booth and say well
really my you know there may be a long

list of especially for a presidential
election there's always a long list of

candidates but you're gonna vote
Republican or Democrat because you know

those other votes are wasted so the idea
is you don't want to waste your vote and

in PR systems however you're not wasting
your vote most of the time because your

party is gonna get whatever percentage
of the seats that they do is when they

vote so if you vote in
for the Green Party in say Denmark there

and they get 5% of the vote they're
gonna get 5% of the seats but if they

only if they were in Germany and when
they got 3% of the vote

they wouldn't make it over a hurdle even
the hurdle of 5 the 5% hurdles so some

PR systems impose restrictions like a 5%
hurdle or you have to win a certain

number of seats and so on so very
briefly that's just the ideas that

strategic voting is critical to you
basically don't want people to vote

strategically for the mainstream parties
if you're an extreme party you want them

to be able to vote for you
or the other component to that is

coalition's so something that I added to
the equation which is was a little novel

at the time is that people look at
coalition's when they're voting so you

know in the Netherlands you know
actually Germany is the probably the

best case to discuss because it's pretty
straight forward Germany you have the

Greens he had the Social Democrats you
have the free Democrats and the

Conservatives and then you know the
far-right and if you looked at German

politics over the last 3040 years
consistently you've had the at least

since the Greens have been able to get
in so the greens were able to break that

5% hurdle and so they've been getting
seats in the Bundestag and Germany and

so the SPD has been going into
coalitions with the Greens and the

Conservatives have been going into
coalition's with the Free Democrats

until they fell out of the Bundestag but
before that the SPD or this the

Conservatives would either one would go
with the Free Democrats because they

were in between the two they weren't
real they were kind of Center and you

had the Social Democrats on the Left the
these conservatives the Christian

Democrats on the right and so either one
would often go into a coalition with the

Liberals and so in any case you had a
situation where it was very difficult

for a far-right party like the NPD got
as high as four point eight percent of

the vote but they couldn't ever break
that 5% hurdle so they never became part

of the Bundestag but the alternative for
Deutschland did in

last election and my argument there is
that you had a grand coalition and

that's what happened in Austria in 1999
is in 1999 in Austria the freedom party

was the outsider party whereas the - the
Social Democrats and the Conservatives

had been in a grand coalition for the
previous electoral cycle and and

actually for off and on for years and so
the freedom party could step in and say

if you don't like what the government's
doing we're the alternative yeah we're

the we're the populist we're the ones
who is for the small man and your Haider

had done a transformation of that party
in the 80s from being a more liberal

party to a clearly radical right
anti-immigrant anti-eu party so they

were quite successful and actually were
able to join the Austrian government

although your haider himself agreed not
to be part of it and his

second-in-command became the vice
chancellor and so that was you know a

really big deal that you you other 14
you countries were pretty upset about it

and imposed sanctions and required a
three wise men to check out the

government and make sure that you know
they weren't doing anything evil they

got through that oh it needs to need the
screen up again sorry although this is a

beautiful picture and in any case the
point just being that you know there are

factors that you it's not just having a
charismatic leader or you know being

anti-immigrant that is allows these
parties to be a success they have to

work within the party system and the
electoral system to be successful so

that was my main argument and the
radical right I mean I looked at a lot

of different things you know or in terms
of what you know what kind of voters

were they getting which tended to be
blue collar you know unemployed or less

employed people men and so on so I
really did try to do very in-depth study

through survey data and actually this
was back in before the lot of data was

on the internet so I collected a lot of
primary data and it was

typing it in myself as a grad student
then even after and so it was a lot of

original work in terms of pulling
together the data looking at the vote at

the you know at regional level so to get
a sense of who the voters were and so on

so as well as figuring out you know I
did some analysis of whether people were

voting strategically or not and actually
Germany was the easiest case to show

that because they have a to vote system
where you can see if people switch their

vote between the first foot which is
basically a PR vote for a party and the

second vote which is a vote for a
representative and it was clear that

people would vote for you know a smaller
party like the FTP or the Greens with

their first vote but they would always
use boat for a CDU or SP d candidate

with their second vote so basically I
was able to show that strategic voting

was happening and was clearly playing a
role in the vote for radical right

parties so after I completed this
research I went on to study the politics

of immigration in the EU because with
the you know deeper integration came new

policy areas that the the European
Parliament and Commission could actually

write legislation on and that one of
those big areas was immigration and you

had the Schengen Agreement in the 90s
and then that was extended out as the EU

grew to new countries that they all
became part of the Schengen area except

for countries like the UK which stayed
out of it but you had a really

interesting time period in from the late
90s until the well until now where the

you started to see more and more
legislation coming from at the EU level

so you had the creation of frontex the
frontier and basically border agency you

had legislation a whole set of
legislation around really focusing more

on immigration control so have a couple
of articles that came out around

early to mid-90s sorry 2000s that looked
at you know where was the legislation

from the EU coming from and and it was
mostly focused on immigration control so

however there was one big piece of
legislation which came in 1999 as a

response to your hiders party being
successful and that was

anti-discrimination policy or the racial
equality directive and that was

something that was direct clearly a
direct response to the rise of your

hiders party and it had been sitting
around for a while waiting to be passed

as legislation because about 20 years
earlier the a member of the European

Parliament named Glenn Ford who was
concerned about the rise of anti-semitic

and anti-violence going on in Europe and
proposed that the European Parliament do

a study of what was going on with not
just the violence but also radical right

parties and so on and so they started a
group investigation that looked into

these issues and and then they they had
a series of reports and then in the

early 1990s this eventually got tied
into the work of what was called the

starting line group and this was a group
of NGOs that was interested in passing

anti-discrimination that they tried to
figure out what can we do to kind of

improve the situation for immigrants and
minorities in our European countries and

they decide pursuing anti-discrimination
policy similar to what was already in

the UK and the u.s. was going to be an
important component of that so in any

case they developed something they
called the starting line which was a

piece of legislation that would require
every EU country to pass laws on

anti-discrimination policy and it was
passed in 2000 a year after year

cardew's party went came into power and
then it was supposed to be implemented

by 2003 unfortunately it was not in many
countries but eventually they all did

but by the time there was a lot of
resistance to it by the time

was being implemented because you had a
lot of conservative wouldn't it was past

there were a lot of left-leaning
governments by the time it was being

implemented you had a lot of
conservative governments and they just

didn't want to put the resources toward
it in Germany you know there was a lot

of actually resistance from a legal
community because things like landlord

rights were considered more important
than the rights of the tenants and so

you know they felt that landlords should
have the right to rent to whoever they

want and not have to follow some
anti-discrimination policy and so you

had a situation where a lot of legal
scholars in Germany didn't think this

was a good thing to do but they'd had to
implement it anyway because they were

members of the EU and however I went
around to the very they had to create

what were called equality bodies which
was similar to what we have with the

EEOC in the US which actually the UK
referred to when they were creating

their Commission for racial equality and
then the commission for Asia will caught

him quality became the model for the
Equality bodies in the rest of the EU

but for example in Germany they only had
20 you know one of the largest Member

States they only had 20 staff people
only half of them were lawyers at its

peak the UK Commission for racial
equality which became the equality and

Human Rights Commission had as many as
500 employees it was their budget was

cutting in half at one point but in any
case you know they were and then in

France they had about a hundred
employees including a lot of lawyers

although they were undermined when
Sarkozy became president so in any case

so there was a lot of up and down in
terms of the anti-discrimination policy

and I was in Brussels in 2015 right
after the book came my book legislating

equality came out in 2014 and it was
interesting because I was meeting with

some members of the European Network
Against Racism who I had interviewed

previously to find out you know how they
were working on anti-discrimination

policy and they were really just really
frustrated by 2015 the directive had

been in place for
been passed in 2000 you know it should

have been implemented for the last 12
years and they were seeing a lot of

problems with implementation and budgets
and so on and yeah at this point in time

and we still had Barack Obama's
president here and you know they were

asking me you know can you give us any
advice you know how we can move forward

on this and I'm like well you know it's
hard when you're dealing with all these

different member states who have
different approaches and so on and then

of course 2016 came and we saw a not
only you know the brexit but we also had

the election of Donald Trump we had kind
of a wave of elections with you know

radical right parties coming into play
and so it was not looking any better in

terms of the implementation of
anti-discrimination policy and the other

component of this has to do with of
course immigration flows when you had

the flow of refugees particularly coming
from Syria but other parts of Africa in

the Middle East then that also put a lot
of strain on the political situation in

Europe Angela Merkel was very welcoming
in terms of the Syrian refugees in

particular but that did not play well
with some of her colleagues including

members of the CSU so she's the head of
the CDU which of the Christian Democrats

everywhere except Bavaria and a
Christian Bavaria have the CSU which has

always been a little bit to the right of
the CDU and so in in previous times the

CSU had kind of absorbed some of the
radical right sentiment and so on and

was kind of a part of the party that
people who had more anti-immigrant

sentiment could look to you and say okay
there's pressure from our immigration

control from there but by this year and
it'll last year with the Bundestag

elections and then this year with the
Bavarian elections you know some people

argue that the CSU went a little too far
and really gave the issue to the

alternative for Deutschland because if
you're going to want somebody to really

push on the immigration if issue and if
been made more salient during election

then it's likely that they're gonna go
for the party that really has the

hardline and so that's why some people
are arguing you know we need to do more

analysis the election was just last
weekend but some people are arguing that

it's because the CSU went so far to the
right on immigration that the

alternative or Deutschland was more
successful although they weren't a

success successful as some people
thought they might be in the elections

the Greens were the big well if you were
in Bavaria the Greens weren't a big

surprise but because they were talking
about it but the Greens actually did

really very well in the election as well
I think they got 17% in the Bavarian

election which is way higher than what
they have in the past so a lot of the

votes were basically we're shifting from
the mainstream parties to the extremes

both the alternative for Deutschland on
the right and the Greens on the left so

basically it's showing a frustration
with the mainstream parties so in any

case so I talked about the immigration
issue a bit I'll talk a little bit more

just to test to go back to some of the
things that are going on there you know

we've had with the flow of refugees you
know it was really more a couple of

years ago a big crisis because you had
over a million refugees coming in every

year Germany absorbed at least a million
refugees and that has also you know just

the numbers are causing problems for
some elected officials because that's a

burden now the reality is a Germany can
actually handle a lot of refugees

because they have a lot of capacity
they're a big country they're doing well

economically and so on go Marco felt
that it was important to be welcoming

and of course Germany's history makes it
important for them to be to show

themselves to be welcoming to immigrants
now what happens to them once they get

there is a whole Miller story which I
won't spend much time on now but you

know it's been a real struggle after
Angela Merkel lately because she you

know heard vote percentage went down
she's had to go into a grand coalition

with the SPD again she was in a grand
coalition with them before so the

coalition negotiations were very
difficult so you know some are arguing

that
the other immigration issue really hurt

her because she came out so positively
for the refugees but we've seen a lot of

the politics of this playing out in
various ways we have a new kind of

extreme right extreme left coalition in
Italy which I won't go into because I

try to stay away from Italian politics
because it's just way too complicated

but you know it's a symptom I think of
what's going on in Europe around the

immigration issue but I also think that
you know the vote totals aren't so crazy

yet that I'm you know concerned that
there's you know rise of fascism or

something going on in Europe I think
what's going on is you're seeing a lot

of frustration with the mainstream
parties particularly the Social

Democrats because they are losing you
know a greater percentage of the vote

you know Matt : and France pulled from
both the left and right when he ran for

president and you know the the socialist
candidates were useless you've seen Left

parties across Europe in decline and so
radical right parties tend to be more

worker oriented and your populist and so
on and so they're absorb they're going

towards the radical right in many ways
but like I said I still don't think the

percentage of the votes they're getting
is you know is really matched with the

kind of media attention they're getting
you know a rally by your radical right

and extreme right folks in Chemnitz
Germany gets more press coverage of the

240,000 people in Berlin marching for
anti racism so you know the media has

really played a role in this as well and
if you're on Twitter and follow me in

cast muda and others you'll see us
complaining about the fact that the

media is really focusing in on this but
I'll show one more item which is you

know we have here gear builders and
Steve King and the US ambassador to the

Netherlands there and I think that's who
that is but in any case know that's in

the US Capitol so that's another
representative is that Louie Gohmert oh

my god I think that's Louie Gohmert from
Texas

but anyway so in any case Steve King
actually

I couldn't find the picture but he
actually went to the Netherlands embassy

this summer there was a tweet about it
and was meeting with the u.s.

ambassadors of Netherlands and gear
builders and I mean this is just you

know he's if you know Steve King Adel
he's from representative from Iowa very

far right and you know it just shows the
ties that have developed between

political officials in the US and
far-right politicians in Europe and

there's actually in 2008 when I was at
University of Texas I had a conference

on links between and particularly
anti-muslim groups in the US and and in

Europe because there's a lot of ties
that have the oh and funding is flowing

into Europe from the u.s. to support
people like your builders and others who

are anti-muslim so anyway that's just
another component of all of this so it

all ties in you know and what's really
interesting to me is you know I can look

back over the last twenty years and you
know the different strands of my

research have really all come together
at this point in time where we've got

problems with immigration the radical
right is still in play and then you know

what's the role for anti-discrimination
policy I think there's a lot of groups

and actually I know of a lot of groups
in Europe they're still trying to push

for equality and less discrimination for
immigrants and so on and that's it's

been a tough road so I'll actually let
me give one more positive note which is

one of my other books was called
immigrant politics which focused on

immigrants who were actually in
different countries who were running for

office and getting involved politically
and that actually is a bright spot in

all of this is that you're seeing more
political activity on the part of people

of immigrant background and actually
I've been involved in a couple of

different organizations that are working
with young people of immigrant

background in both the US and Europe to
get them more involved in politics and

get them to run for office and actually
the US Embassy probably until the last

couple of years was very involved in
supporting young people from immigrant

background in Europe who wanted to get
involved in politics

as well as a German Marshall Fund and
there's several other organizations that

have been working on these issues to
encourage political involvement so it's

not all negative but I'm happy to have a
discussion and answer any questions so

so the question is how much overlap is
there between nationalist populist and

the far-right so for me populism is a
component of radical right their

strategy really and so I would say that
a lot of the people who are part of the

radical right are national is populist
but not all of them are some tend to be

more elite focused so I would say like
alternative for Germany before when they

were more of an anti EU party where they
weren't very populist they were more of

an elite driven entity and now they
become more populist so I would say it's

like a Venn diagram so you have the
nationalist populist and the radical

right and there's a lot of overlap so
it's almost close to being you know a

complete circle but there still there
are some who are definitely either have

been or are becoming more elite driven
and not necessarily as populist

as other parties so I think populism you
know there's some that are more populist

some that are less populist like said I
consider populism to be more of a

strategy and there you have people
populist on the left you have populist

on the right so you can have populist
nationalist on the left as well so you

know nationalism comes in various
flavors as well so in any case yeah

mm-hmm yeah yeah I mean it's you know
there are like I said I mean there's

been funding going to get builders from
the US and other sources so what they're

trying to do and I know people have
mentioned Steve Bannon in this context I

don't think Steve Bannon is going to be
very welcome in certain countries but

he's actually over there trying to you
know work on the European Parliament

elections and bring these guys together
I don't think he's going to be very

successful I think he's just a
opportunist but you know there there

have been XA I could show some pictures
where you get all these different

far-right leaders together and marine
lepen has gotten funding from Russia I

know I think your village has as well
so they are getting external funding and

the sources you know are various but
yeah I mean there are people who

especially Russian sources that would
like to see the far-right you know

basically disrupt the party systems yeah
no worries

I'm curious about is how much of the
timing is coincidental and how much of

it is connected and is there a
connection too

yes actually a good question because I
do think there's a strong link with the

global fiscal crisis because in 2008 you
know you had the hope Greek crisis

various other countries Portugal Spain
Italy Ireland all were under a lot of

financial stress now the way that has
played out has been different because in

you did have a far-right party in Greece
but really syriza which is more of a far

left party was more successful so it
doesn't necessarily mean going in one

direction or the other
but I do think that did play a role in

terms of people's not so much on
immigration necessarily I mean it made

it it created a problem for Greece
because they were having all these

financial difficulties and then on top
of it they have had to house a lot of

the refugees as they're coming through
and so that's created a lot of friction

between Greece in between the fiscal
crisis the bailouts and the fiscal

austerity that Greece had to go through
that's created a lot of friction between

Greece and other EU countries and then
on top of that you had the refugee

crisis so that also has led to I mean
they've been having a lot of difficulty

coming to even the summer a good
solution for new policies around you

know who's going to you receive the
refugees and you know should they be in

detention centers and so on so there's
been I'd say that the main reason it's

been impactful is because it created a
lot of friction between the EU countries

in terms of specialty specific policies
and so that's kind of bled out into

other policy areas and then of course
brexit was clearly factored in there

because you had a situation where it was
intra you not you know migration from

outside the EU so much as you know
Eastern Europeans coming to the UK that

was fueling a lot of the leave vote in
particularly in England I'm not so much

in London per se but you know in other
parts of England and then in terms of

the u.s. that's a little more
complicated because I think what we've

seen is more of a backlash
and a desire to kind of maintain control

over the government in general for the
the right-leaning basically the

Republicans and also just a general
backlash within the population over you

know immigration to a certain extent but
just this you know globalization really

I think is if there's one thing that I
think is consistent between the US and

Europe on this besides anti-immigration
sentiment is global this just basic

resistance to globalization and this
sense that you know in people in

industry particularly men are losing out
that they don't have as many options

anymore and so they're looking for
politicians who are hopefully going to

make promises that they will keep in
terms of growing industrial strength and

jobs
so yeah

no it was just that particular graphic
didn't have pullin and hungry one of the

issues with Poland and Hungary
you know there's been Jovic in the past

and Hungary and but there's you know
people say that you know some of the

mainstream parties have really drifted
to the right and have become very

anti-immigrant in Poland you've got a
situation I mean part of the problem is

actually cast moody and I discussed this
the other day is that you know sometimes

you've got mainstream parties that have
drifted so far to the right you know he

was arguing on Twitter the other day
that they're just mainstream parties now

you know there'd we can't even really
talk about radical right so I think

there are some situations where parties
have taken on the rhetoric and the even

policy positions of the radical right
and it's really hard to distinguish them

even though they were previously
considered mainstream parties it's hard

to distinguish them from the radical
right so I think that's why Hungary and

Poland were left off because it's like
who do you count as radical right there

when you know basically you know Poland
was recently sanctioned by the EU

European Parliament for anti-democratic
moves against journalists and so on and

there been issues with Hungary and the
orb on government is problematic so I

think you know it's just hard to care to
categorize in some of these cases yeah

referred several times to these radical
right parties appeal to I'm stars

inching over there yeah yeah I agree
so you know it's hard for the radical

left because you know the immigration is
a touchy issue for them and there's a

variety of reasons for that first of all
a lot of times they try to appeal to

immigrants themselves because they feel
like that's a growing and it is a

growing constituency and frankly the
Social Democrats were hoping that they

could build on the support of people
from immigrant and minority backgrounds

for the radical left it's sort of the
same but there are some you know like

the Communists and France were pretty
anti-immigrant for a while but they've

kind of disappeared from the scene and
it's I think the problem for the radical

left is immigration is not a winning
issue for them because they're if they

try to appeal to the anti-immigrant
sentiment then you know they're just

boosting the prospects for the radical
right because people are going to

believe the radical right before they're
gonna believe the radical left on the

immigration issue so and that's been a
problematic for the Social Democrats as

well so they've for a variety of reasons
they haven't really gone after they tend

to avoid the issue frankly for the most
part unless they're trying to appeal to

particular migrant populations who but
then they have to be willing to vote

it's the same issue we have here with
the Hispanic population you know we have

a lot of immigrant communities in Europe
don't vote in those high numbers as as

they could so

reaction it's very possible but you know
it's it's an it's hard to say right I

mean if you had asked me in 1999 or say
1998 when I was really digging into the

research a lot of people were telling me
the radical right was going to be a

flash in the pan and that they would you
know that my research wasn't going to be

relevant because they weren't gonna be
around anymore and so on well obviously

that's not true you know 20 years later
we're still dealing if any with anything

more radical right parties and stronger
radical right parties in some ways so I

would say that's hard to predict
obviously there's kind of the left swing

left and right but this seems to me more
of a swing like I said I think it's more

of a backlash than really a swing to
left or right and I do think it'll die

down eventually and but you know I don't
know how long yeah I couldn't tell you

how long this is going to take because
you know I wouldn't have expected it to

well you had intervening crises that
have them impacted so I think if we

hadn't had the fiscal crisis in 2008
then it's possible things wouldn't have

swung so far to the extremes and they've
gotten both directions right not just to

the far right it's gone to the far left
and that's what bothers Cass and I is

that nobody's paying attention to the
swing to the far left with the greens

and some reason and other parties on the
far left that are having some success so

I think if you really pay attention and
look at what's going on both on the far

left and the far right you'll see that
what's happening is an actually in the

class I was talking to you this morning
they had read a piece that was talking

about the hollowing out of the center
and the you know mainstream electoral

system or Park sight party system and
so the the party systems that we've kind

of relied on since you know there was
always zero it's like well the party

systems haven't really changed and I
think Cass would argue to a certain

extent you still have the divide between
left and right it's just that a good

chunk of the vote is going to the
further extremes so the percentages of

people voting right versus the
percentages of people voting left hasn't

changed much what's changed is the
actual parties they're voting for so the

Social Democrats have lots significantly
more of the vote than the Conservatives

to greens and and other smaller parties
who are hours on the or on the right

you've had the Conservatives starting to
lose votes and the Social Democrats

losing votes to the radical right so a
lot of people who voted Social Democrat

or in France communists previously voted
ended up voting more radical right so so

it's just hard to say because it's it's
is it just going more extreme and is it

going to swing back again or are we just
going to see further pushing to the

extremes and I it's hard to say because
I wouldn't necessarily have predicted

what happened what's happening now
except for the fact that we had this

huge fiscal crisis that I don't think
people take seriously enough in terms of

how its impacted the party system so
other questions yes

yeah well certainly people are having
second thoughts about brexit and it's

not help being nigel Faraj and you kept
so you kept his really you know didn't

do very well at all
after brexit and i think that it partly

had to do with people didn't really
understand what was going to happen with

when they decided to vote leave so I
think that's actually played against you

Kip in the UK but it's hard to say you
know marine lepen didn't do very well in

the French presidential election but
Matt kromm is not doing very well in the

polls right now so I think the French
situation is fairly uncertain the so one

of the big events coming up for next
year will be the European Parliament

elections and I think that will give us
a better sense of kind of the first

where the voters are in terms of
frustration with the mainstream parties

and are they even going to vote because
traditionally people tend to abstain

from the European Parliament elections
and higher numbers and they do for

regular legislative elections so you're
going to get the mark streams or the

more motivated voters of the European
Parliament elections and so we're going

to have to see what direction those
elections go as well you know I'm really

interested to see what happens with the
u.s. midterms and and I think there's

going to be some interesting oh I don't
know ways to look at you know the u.s.

midterms of the European Parliament
election to see what's kind of the trend

which direction are things going and so
I think you I can't predict I gave up

predictions after November 8th of 2016

I think they need to work together more
so the question was what's the solution

for the refugee crisis in Europe well
first of all the solution is to help end

the conflicts so that you don't have so
many people coming into Europe and there

doesn't need to be a lot more work done
in terms of development and trying to

you know use diplomacy to end these
crises and figure out ways to deal with

the refugees you know turkey has played
a big role in taking in lots of refugees

and so we really need to look at ways
you know how can we figure out how to to

help these people in a way that helps
them stay either where they are close to

their homes because it's always better
for Refugees if they're closer to their

homes because then if once the conflict
is over or the natural disaster is done

they can go it's made easier for them to
go back but I think the US should be

taking in more refugees I think because
that would help ease the problem to a

certain extent for you so that Europe's
not taking all the burden I think we

should all be doing more in terms of
support for you know development so that

these countries can sustain their
populations and keep people there

because that that's they don't want to
leave you know they aren't happy about

having to leave their homes and have
their homes destroyed and things like

that or to be for economic migrants you
know they just can't you know you can't

work your and so there's so many
different things that could be done I

mean a lot of development aid has
disappeared over the years and but you

know and obviously there's problems with
development aid because it doesn't

always go to the right places or to the
right persons and so we need to find

more efficient ways to get aid to the
people who really need it and but Europe

needs to work together on this and to be
honest brokers with each other I think

there's a lot of political grandstanding
that's going on because politicians fear

for their their jobs and so they're not
really negotiating in good faith in

terms of really trying to find solutions
for the refugee problem in Europe a lot

of countries just doesn't you know Italy
is like we're just gonna you know

send them to the the rest of the guys
and or we're just going to not let them

them enter oh so that's not a realistic
option somebody is you know they have to

deal with these are human beings you
know somebody has to deal with them and

you know it's something we all should be
taking responsibility for because a lot

of the conflicts are because of the
struggles going on between different

groups in different countries outside of
the region so well that's a huge

question um so you mean the u.s. foreign
policy well you know it really varies I

mean I think the company obviously the
big brother two biggest conflicts right

now are Yemen and Syria and you know to
be fair you know the serious it's you

and we have to go back to the Arab
Spring and how a lot of that was

motivated by from you know the
grassroots and so you know I don't you

can go back and you know blame Obama's
administration and their foreign policy

for what's going on in Syria right now
because you know he drew a red line but

then you know stepped back from it when
they actually did have chemical weapons

and but you know you have to go back
further to you know did we do enough to

support the Arab Spring and and the
people who were protesting and so on and

what you know it's a hard line for the
u.s. to take because it's like well to

what extent should we have really in you
know gotten involved in what was an

internal issue in Syria and you know
maybe if we had gotten involved we'd be

getting criticized for that now you know
so it's a really tough line for the u.s.

to take is okay yes we support people
pursuing democracy but to what extent

can we you know basically interfere
in the domestic affairs of these

different countries and of course Syria
turned into this huge conflagration with

the US and Russia and Israel and all
these other entities and Iran you know

playing a role so it's become really an
interesting and sad mess and you know I

just if you told me you know five years
ago where we would be on this I would

have been shocked because it just didn't
seem like it needed to go so far in

terms of the number of people who've
been killed and displaced and so on but

in any case here this is where we are
and I think there been a lot of missteps

along the way going back to the Arab
Spring

basically so big question there's a lot
to discuss there yes sure

I think that's a big part of it so the
question is what role does

respectability play and the vote for the
radical right so I think the fact that

so this gets back to the discourses so
I'm glad you asked that question because

one of the things I didn't mention is
how you know in the 20 years I've been

or more than 20 years I've been studying
this is that you've seen the rhetoric of

the radical right become the rhetoric of
the mainstream parties particularly the

mainstream right and so I think what's
that that's done as you're right it's

made the discourses of the radical right
more respectable and so people don't

feel so bad when they're voting for
these parties because well you know

Leonel Sarkozy and France was saying the
same things about immigrants --is you

know jean-marie Le Pen back in the day
so what's the difference and this is you

know why can't we vote for jean-marie Le
Pen if we think he's more sincere on the

issue so that's the kind of I think
rationale you you see coming through and

a lot of politicians you know you have
this short period of time and he goes

around 2010 the Nicolas Sarkozy Angela
Merkel and David Cameron all came out

within the space of about three months
saying that multiculturalism was dead

it's like well what does that mean what
is multiculturalism first of all because

I don't think any of these countries
accepts to a certain extent the UK even

have multiculturalism and you know
Germany certainly has no real sense of

what multiculturalism is and to say it's
failed or it's dead what does that mean

you know are we no longer going to allow
people to have their different cultures

and so on and and I think the the point
they were trying to make is that while

we've seen you know the rise and
homegrown terrorists and things like

that and it's you know blaming that you
know on multiculturalism which I don't

think is fair because I don't think they
really pursued policies of

multiculturalism but in any case that's
the kind of this you know talk that I

think has led to more respectability for
the discourses of the radical

right and I would love to do a study on
the shift in discourses over time and

because literally stuff that I heard
coming out of the mouths of just radical

right parties you know 20 years ago is
stuff I'm hearing from mainstream

politicians now so thanks for asking
that question