Front cover (in link)

🚨New policy study🚨

There must be an alternative: Against mainstream defeatism and towards the rejuvenation of the democratic public space

We make seven key recommendations to turn the tide

@feps-europe.eu

🧵

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feps-europe.eu/publication/...

Slide with recommendations available in chapter

I had to mention Theroux's documentary in a lecture on the role of the media in the mainstreaming of reactionary politics

In particular, it struck me how it goes exactly against the recommendations @k8ebrown.bsky.social and I made in a recent chapter (in link)

aurelmondon.com/2026/01/28/t...

Fantastic from @zackpolanski.bsky.social to call out the media's responsibility in the mainstreaming of far-right politics

The mainstream elite (media, politicians etc) have played a key part in hyping issues that benefit the far right

I explore this here

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Thank you! 😊

Thank you! 😊

Thanks Luke! :)

Thank you @discodiscourse.bsky.social and @benjamindecleen.bsky.social for the kind endorsements, and to the many people who helped get this over the line, especially @aurelmondon.bsky.social 🙂

Book front cover: Discourse Theory, Critical Discourse Studies and Corpus Linguistics - A Practical Guide

Book back cover: Discourse Theory, Critical Discourse Studies and Corpus Linguistics - A Practical Guide

Pretty exciting delivery today - hard copies of my first book!

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲, 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐮𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬: 𝐀 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Can eco-populism help defeat the far right? Far-right narratives have become normalised. One politician has launched a left-wing populist project in response, though not everybody necessarily agrees that it's the right way forward.

When @zackpolanski.bsky.social launched his leadership bid for the Green Party on a platform of eco-populism, I felt hopeful about politics for the first time in a while.

Does his project have the legs to take on the far right? I took a closer look at the evidence for my newsletter, Sower ⬇️

A political-media class capable of colluding in genocide has *already proven* itself capable of the dehumanisation of Others that can sustain fascism at home. Aimé Césaire wasn't kidding about the imperial boomerang.

Thank you! 😊

Discourse Theory, Critical Discourse Studies and Corpus Linguistics This book provides a practical guide to combining three diverse traditions within the field of discourse studies and Corpus Linguistics.

Pivot >> Discourse Theory, Critical Discourse Studies and Corpus Linguistics: A Practical Guide
By Katy Brown @k8ebrown.bsky.social
Free to download
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Book cover of 'Discourse Theory, Critical Discourse Studies and Corpus Linguistics: A Practical Guide' by Katy Brown

So pleased to see my first book published! 📙🥳

I look at how and why we might want to combine poststructuralist discourse theory, critical discourse studies and corpus linguistics.

👉 bit.ly/DtCdsCl

@mcrlinguistics.bsky.social @springernature.com

👏 Very important new paper on the much-debated concept of the 'cordon sanitaire'. 📖

The pretence of the cordon sanitaire: non-collaboration as a distraction from discursive congruence Much has been written about how mainstream parties respond to far-right challengers in liberal democracies. Whereas some mainstream parties have become more open to forming coalitions with far-righ...

New article out!

@luke-shuttleworth.bsky.social,
@k8ebrown.bsky.social & I teamed up to explore whether the concept of 'cordon sanitaire' remains useful in the current stage of mainstreaming of far right politics

Read the full article, open access, here

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www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Congrats Niall! 😊🥳

Case in point...

Reform's momentum is making the political weather Nigel Farage's party has seen four recent defections from the Tories, with Labour reshaping its approach in response

Not so much Reform making the political weather themselves as having it made for them.

All this feeds into the hype, when really the gov. is actively choosing to pursue exclusionary policies. They're not forced to by the threat of Reform & the impact is being felt now
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

In search of Labour’s ‘working people’ – the paradox at the heart of Keir Starmer’s first year in power The new Labour government is pitching “change” to “working people” but it needs to update its idea of who these people are.

I published a piece in @uk.theconversation.com
on Starmer's use of the term 'working people', his pitting of this demographic against 'non-working people', and what this can tell us about the chaos and confusion of his Labour government's first term. See below
theconversation.com/in-search-of...

‘Post-fascism’, or how the far right talks about itself: the 2022 Italian election campaign as a case study While the mainstreaming of the far right is attracting growing scholarly interest based on its contemporary relevance, the role that far-right self-representation strategies play in this process ha...

Mine and @k8ebrown.bsky.social's article on normalisation strategies of the far right in Italy has been assigned an issue in @critdiscstuds.bsky.social Sadly, the normalisation/legitimation strategies we identify are certainly not unique to Italian politics...
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

🤓 Next up, @ecpr-ead.bsky.social: Rolf Frankenberger presenting some work-in-progress on our research into Everyday Extremism. Thanks to @manesweisskircher.bsky.social for chairing and @k8ebrown.bsky.social for agreeing to serve as discussant!

Summer School - Reactionary Politics Research Network

📣Applications for the second Reactionary Politics Summer School are open📣

The summer school provides a space to develop key skills for the research of reactionary politics. It will be hosted hybrid and attendance is free. Bursaries are also available. Sign up below!

reacpol.net/summer-schoo...

Screenshot from BBC News, reading: Mohammed Ghareeb, a local journalist in Rafah, tells the BBC that thousands of Palestinians had gathered near a US-backed humanitarian aid distribution centre when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd. Ghareeb says the crowd of Palestinians had gathered near Al-Alam roundabout around 04:30 local time (02:30 BST), close to the aid centre run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, shortly before Israeli tanks appeared and opened fire. "The dead and wounded lay on the ground for a long time," Ghareeb says. "Rescue crews could not access the area, which is under Israeli control. This forced residents to use donkey carts to transport victims to the field hospital," he adds.

Every single one in this succession of grotesque, genocidal crimes against humanity was made possible by the support of politicians outside of Israel, including the current UK government.

Great interview with @georgenewth.bsky.social, explaining key points in our co-authored article with @aurelmondon.bsky.social:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Thank you! 😊 Glad it's been useful

🧵THREAD: On "Populism" and the Far Right
I want to highlight the excellent work of @aurelmondon.bsky.social , @k8ebrown.bsky.social and @aaronwinter.bsky.social, and then share some of my own thoughts about "populism" which partly go in a different direction (I'll do my best to outline my thoughts)

Overall, we hope these discussions around terminology, binaries and the wave metaphor can provoke further debate on these issues. We emphasise the critical importance of reflecting on the paradigms and explanations that we develop because they are not devoid of consequence.

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Keir Starmer giving speech on immigration on 12 May

We can also see how far-right politics is increasingly mainstream in the current context, as exemplified by Keir Starmer's speech on immigration this week, as well as 'stop the boats' discourse under the previous government.

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We use the UK as a case study to show how much of what is described as far right is neither new nor exceptional in the British context. It was part of and in fact core to the building of the British nation and liberal democracy more broadly.

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We question whether we've entered a fifth wave where far-right politics is effectively mainstream.

This interpretation ensures the far right is not viewed as innately distinct from the mainstream and avoids an idealised past where the mainstream was essentially 'good'.

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