Europe at the Crossroads: Confronting Populist, Nationalist, and Global Challenges.

• Author: Bevelander, Pieter

In European countries and their neighbors, nationalism with far-right tendencies is becoming more obscure. Europe at the Crossroads: Confronting Populist, Nationalist, and Global Challenges, edited by Pieter Bevelander and Ruth Wodak, includes investigations of populism, nationalism, and migration. Drawing upon the findings of the symposium, "Contesting the Populist Challenge: Beyond 'Orbanism' and 'Trumpism,'" Europe at the Crossroads evaluates these actors, as well as other European political leaders with far-right tendencies, across several chapters, considering the different conditions, dynamics, and driving points affecting Europe today.

This book consists of eleven chapters. In the Introduction, the editors underline populism, nationalism, and global challenges, and emphasize anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiments as the main issues facing European societies today. Then, the contributing authors explore perceptions, tendencies, and confrontations of both far-right populists and liberals, along with their discourses and political agendas. They shed light on different cases in different countries to help readers understand Europe's current problems. In nearly all of the chapters, a liberal perspective is adopted, and extremism and far-rightist actions are seen as a threat to the future of the continent.

In the first chapter, "On Radical Right Mainstream in Europe and the U.S.," Matthew Feldman scrutinizes the historical trends that have posed a challenge to liberalism, specifically the near-right (illiberal democracy), and far-right, which have converged in Europe. Feld-man offers a fascinating overview and looks at how the interwar-fascist period illuminates today's far-right, interrogating the roots of and reasons behind Europe's rightist political variations (p. 23).

In the second chapter, the EU's value crisis is analyzed. Heather Grabbe and Stefan Lehne argue that authoritarian trends are more threatening than Brexit for the EU now, as many institutions are under attack from populist movements. Grabbe and Lehne show the examples of Hungary and Poland as cases of right-wing populism and underline the vital role of national political leaders in protecting EU values and promoting of rule of law (p. 49).

In "Analyzing the Micropolitics of the Populist Far-Right in the Post-Shame Era," Ruth Wodak shows that the populist far-right has increased its effect by pointing out the increase of the seats of Eurosceptics in the European...