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The difference between left-wing and
right-wing identity politics
A cross-national comparison between the Netherlands and
Belgium
Politics of Identity bachelor thesis
Author: Stijn Klarenbeek (10760482) Supervisor: dr. M (Mike) Medeiros
25-06-18 Second reader: dr. R. (Roderik) Rekker
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Introduction
Traditionally, at least from the 1960s, identity politics is seen as a left-wing theme or method to make cultural issues salient. In these revolutionary years all kinds of new social movements emerged which focused primarily on identity. Woman, gays, blacks and other kinds of (ethnic) minorities: all these different kinds of identity groups made their entrance into the public discourse. Different than neo-Marxist or other economic approaches, these movements used identity politics to promote their ideals. According to Kaufmann, identity politics is “the belief that identity itself – its elaboration, expression, or affirmation – is and should be a fundamental focus of political work" (Kaufmann 1990: 67). The social movements of the 1960s introduced a new form of politics which politicized various areas of life which were not politicized before, for example sexuality, interpersonal relations, culture and lifestyle (Bernstein 2005: 50).
With the new social movements of the 1960s, identity politics emerged. This does not mean, as the historian Eric Hobsbawm says, that before the 1960s nobody asked themselves questions about their public identity. In some uncertain situations people sometimes did, when someone spoke multiple languages, for example. “However,” Hobsbawm argues, “until the 1960s these problems of uncertain identity were confined to special border zones of politics. They were not yet central” (Hobsbawm 1996: 39). But they became central. During the ‘culture wars’ in the United States and the student revolutions of May 1968 in different European cities, these issues became more and more salient. They became to dominate politics. Why did this happen? “In my view the emergence of identity politics is a consequence of the extraordinarily rapid and profound upheavals and transformations of human society in the third quarter of this [the twentieth] century” (ibid: 40). Hobsbawm continues:
“Men and women look for groups to which they can belong, certainly and forever, in a world in which all else is moving and shifting, in which nothing else is certain. And they find it in an identity group.” (ibid: 40).
Indeed, from the 1960s onwards people began to choose to be part of an identity group. Where it was previously imposed on them from above, they now make the active choice of belonging to a group, of defining who they are, of giving themselves an identity. This focus on identity has not decreased in politics since the 1960s – on the contrary, todays politics is still dominated by cultural themes. Yet in some sense, it has shifted towards to other side of
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the political spectrum. Where identity politics was mainly a left-wing theme, today it has become the dominating force of the right-wing parties, especially of the populist radical right.
Since the 1980s there has been a rise of populist radical right-wing parties (PRR) in Europe. Especially in Western Europe, we have seen these parties – which more or less share the same ideology and rhetoric – ascend into the mainstream. But it is not solely a European phenomenon: populist movements are also rising in the United States and in parts of Latin America, for example. This trend seems to culminate today in what Mudde calls a ‘populist
Zeitgeist’ (Mudde 2004). With populist victories like the Brexit, the presidency of Donald
Trump and the emergence of populist parties in almost all Western European parliaments, they no longer can be called outsiders. They might have become what they always detested: mainstream or establishment politics.
The rise of populist parties can be seen in conjunction with the increase in saliency in cultural issues and the decrease in saliency in economic issues. Although it is not clear in which way this causal mechanism works, it is in fact clear that since the upcoming of populist parties politics has become more focused on cultural themes. In the Dutch case this is even more strong the case than in other Western-European countries, because of Pim Fortuyn, who introduced a cultural line of conflict (Pellikaan et. al 2007: 283). The study of De Vries et al. (2013) shows that this also applies to voters. They investigated on what grounds Dutch people define themselves as either being left of right. Their results show that before the 1980s people would place themselves on the left-right-continuum on the basis of for example economic inequality, whereas they would do it today on the basis immigrant issues (De Vries et al. 2013: 235). The authors write:
“As Dutch politics becomes more and more characterized by the mobilization of cultural issues relating to immigration, the left/right identification of Dutch voters has become more rooted in public attitudes towards immigrants. At the same time, the link between economic issues and left/right identification has weakened.” (De Vries et al. 2013: 235).
Research questions
In this thesis I want to investigate what the differences between left-wing and right-wing identity politics are. As we have seen, identity politics was from the start central to left-wing politics, yet today it also dominates the political right. This poses the fundamental question:
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- What are the differences of left-wing and right-wing identity politics?
To narrow the focus I will concentrate on the Green parties and PRR parties in the Netherlands and Belgium as respectively left-wing and right-wing ideologies. The research question will be answered on the basis of the following sub-questions:
- In which ways make the green parties use of identity politics?
- In which ways make the populist radical right use of identity politics? - In which ways are they connected?
The research questions will be answered as follows. First of all, I will give a short definition of the ideologies of both green parties and populist radical right parties. After that, I will define what identity politics is, via which mechanisms it can work and in which ways it can be used (by political parties) to propagate their ideology. Consequently, I will make a comparison between left-wing and right-wing identity politics on the basis of a discourse analysis. This analysis will be based on party manifestos of both green and PRR parties in the Netherlands and Flanders. In the Case & Methods section this will be explained more thoroughly. Finally, there will be a conclusion in which the results are summarized, and which features also a short discussion.
This thesis has academic as well as societal relevance. It has academic relevance because identity politics is usually seen as a left-wing theme, yet this thesis shows that it is (in a different way) fully endorsed by right-wing parties. This thesis, therefore, provides a broader conception of identity politics. It has societal relevance because todays politics is for a large part focused on cultural issues, like the multicultural society and integration. A comparison between two rival ideas related to this is relevant because it gives insight into the dominant political ideas and the views of a large part of the electorate.
Theory
Populist radical right ideology
What exactly does ‘populist radical right’ mean? Based on the most accepted and influential literature, the ideology of populist radical right-wing parties consists of three elements: populism, nativism and authoritarianism (De Lange 2015). Mudde (2004) defines populism as follows:
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“[Populism is] an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.” (Mudde 2004: 543).
According to populists, the elites are corrupt because they act against the will of the people. They are a small group with all the political power, but they use that power only for self-interest. Populists, on the other hand, claim to speak in the name of the people. They know who the people are, what they want, and promise to act only in their interests. The second element of PRR ideology is nativism. This is:
“An ideology which holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (‘the nation’) and that non-native elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogenous nation-state. […] Historically and ideologically, nativism is closely linked to the idea of the nation-state, a nationalist construction that has become a cornerstone of European and global politics. The idea of the nation-state holds that each nation should have its own state and, although this is often left implicit, each state should have only one nation.” (Mudde 2010: 1173).
Nativism is thus a stronger, more exclusionary form of nationalism. Whereas multicultural nationalism can exist (like for example in Switzerland and Canada), this is not possible in a nativist ideology. This idea rests on the claim that a nation is cultural and ethnic homogenous whole, where every foreign element should be excluded.
The third and final element of the ideology PRR parties is authoritarianism. This is the belief in a strictly organized society with a strong form of law and order (ibid: 1174). This means that every violation of obedience, for example to the police, teachers or parents, should be punished heavily. This idea is not solely an element radical right-wing ideology, but also of classical conservatism (ibid). Apart from law and order, authoritarianism also is the belief in a hierarchical order, which can manifest itself in, for example, traditional relationships between men and woman.
Green ideology
From the 1960s onwards, Green political parties started appearing in European politics. This can be best understood as a reaction to the successes of the industrialization and the negative consequences of it: the profound impact of it on the environment (Richardson
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2006: 14). When Green parties made their entrance into European politics, they were mostly one-issue parties, but along the way they have developed into a broader political ideology, which also consists of, for example, concerns about peace and the Third World. So apart from their obvious environmental issues, they have stances on a wide range of issues (Rihoux 2006: 88). Yet this does not make it easy to place them in the left-right scale. Both left and right, the Green politicians argue, will lead to the same destination: the “abyss” (Richardson 2006: 18). Hence we should go into another direction, namely the Green one (ibid).
Although the Green parties in the Netherlands and Flanders agree with this in terms of environment policies, they do have in fact left-wing stances on social-economic and cultural issues. These Green parties are not solely interested in ecology and the environment, but it concerns the “whole gamut of socio-economic and political activity” (ibid: 19). “The Green vision of society,” Richardson continues, “is one of co-operation and consensus, with policies geared towards the long-term sustainability not only of planetary ecosystems but of human society itself” (ibid). Central to this vision are, according to Richardson, the concepts of social justice, non-violence, decentralization, gender and racial equality, participatory democracy and individual human rights (ibid: 19). These concepts are ideologically left-wing, and are indeed fundamentally different from the concepts we have seen in the ideology of PRR parties. It is, therefore, interesting to compare the use of identity politics between these two political movements. If we want to do that, we first have to define ‘identity politics’.
What is identity politics?
As stated in the Introduction, identity politics is “the belief that identity itself – its elaboration, expression, or affirmation – is and should be a fundamental focus of political work" (Kaufmann 1990: 67). This type of politics emerged in the second halve of the twentieth century, with for example the second wave of feminism, the Black Civil Rights and other kinds of liberation movements. Identity politics and the emergence of the New Left in the 1960s are indeed two inseparable phenomena. As Grant Farred writes: “without the birth, successes, and failures of the New Left, identity politics as we knew it in the final decades of the twentieth century—and continue to understand it now—is an unimaginable project” (Farred 2000: 627). Farred continues:
“The various struggles of the 1960s provided the new social movements—groupings organized around single issues such as gender, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation,
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issues all too frequently ignored in mainstream politics—with their fundamental ideological building blocks. The diversity of political activity in the 1960s demonstrated to its 1970s and 1980s successors how to mobilize marginalized constituencies, how to “politicize” culture, and how to deploy “difference” as an ideological tool in racially hegemonic societies” ibid: 630).
All these movements are based on claims about the injustices done to these particular groups (i.e. woman, gays, blacks). It is linked to the idea that these groups are in one way or the other being oppressed; that they have been the target of violence, discrimination, stigmatization, exploitation, marginalization. They are oppressed by virtue of their membership of a particular social group – and most of the times, these memberships are involuntarily.
Where political identities before these revolutionary years seemed “fixed”, afterwards showed themselves to be fluid and transient. An identity is, in a lot of ways, not something that you are in the biological sense, but something that is imposed to you by societal structures, and norms, and prejudices, and other social mechanisms. This fundamental shift is one of the things that the social movements of the 1960s tried to show. Consequently, because identities are culturally shaped, it means that they can also be altered, if, and only if, the societal structures change – and precisely this is what they aimed for. As Farred writes:
“Identity politics does nothing so well as reveal a society’s conscious—and unconscious— prejudices and discriminatory tendencies. Identity politics, and the very need to conduct the struggles surrounding minority constituencies, shows clearly what a society is; or, more to the point, what it is not” (Farred 2000: 642).
To make an end to this oppression, the subordinate groups try to raise awareness about their position and the role of the dominant group in society, before trying to change it and better their position. Identity politics, Bernstein argues, is not only cultural because identity is “putatively unrelated to institutional structures and the political economy, but also because identity groups advocate for recognition of and respect for their cultural differences, which derive from their distinct group” (Bernstein 2005: 50). And as Sonia Kruks puts it:
“What makes identity politics a significant departure from earlier, pre-identarian forms of the politics of recognition is its demand for recognition on the basis of the very grounds on which recognition has previously been denied: it is qua women, qua blacks,
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qua lesbians that groups demand recognition. The demand is not for inclusion within the fold of “universal humankind” on the basis of shared human attributes; nor is it for respect “in spite of” one's differences. Rather, what is demanded is respect for oneself as different.” (Kruks 2001: 85).
James D. Fearon states that ‘identity’ is nowadays used in two linked senses, which he calls ‘social’ and ‘personal’ (Fearon 1999: 2). In the latter sense, it refers to a characteristic attribute of an individual person (ibid). In the former sense, an identity refers to a social category, which is a set of persons with characteristic attributes marked by a label (ibid). This is the sense employed when we refer to, for example, ‘Americans’, ‘Muslims’, ‘fathers’, ‘woman’, ‘citizens’ (ibid: 10). And it is also in this sense that identities can be and are used in politics, whereas this is less the case with personal identities. From the given examples of social identities it should be clear that every person has multiple identities: I am a man, a student, a son, a citizen of the Netherlands, et cetera. Thus there are multiple predicates that apply to a person and make him or her what he or she is. This is what Brewer has called “the many faces of social identity” (Brewer 2001). If you change or remove or add one of these predicates, the identity changes. Identity, therefore, is a complex set of predicates which define who you are and to which groups you belong. Fearon continues to say that these predicates may be subject of dispute, and indeed contestation over the membership rules or beliefs or moral commitments of particular groups is exactly what political scientists call ‘identity politics’ (ibid).
The term ‘social identity’ provides, according to Brewer, a link between the psychology of an individual and the structure of social groups within which the self is embedded (Brewer 2001: 115). In social identity theory, Brewer states, the “in-group” is a set of people who share a common characteristic or social experience; and social identities, therefore, represent a process of identification with or assimilation to others who share the same common group membership (ibid: 116). In this thesis, the “in-group” is in fact “the nation” or “the people”. What is of concern here is the question of who belongs to this in-group, and what the different answers to this question are if asked to left-wing and right-wing parties.
Following Smith, Muro (2015) defines a nation as a “named population sharing a historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for its members” (Muro 2015: 3).
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Consequently, Muro makes a distinction between three theories of identity, which all “fundamentally differ in their understanding of how stable or malleable ethnic and national identities are” (ibid: 4). These three approaches are 1) primordialism, 2) instrumentalism, and 3) constructivism. I will focus only on the first and the third, since the second is not relevant for this thesis. Primordialism is the approach which is based on the assumption that individuals have fixed, singular identities which are exogenous to human processes. Individuals, in this sense, belong to one and only one ethnic group or nation and that unique group membership remains fixed over a lifetime (ibid: 5). Furthermore, ethnic diversity in this approach is seen as a problem. Therefore, many policies are targeted for the lessening or elimination of ethnic mobility, since multi-ethnic societies are “conflict-prone” (ibid). The second relevant approach, constructivism, states that identity is not (culturally) given, but that it is the result of societal processes (ibid: 6). Nations are in this sense “contingent constructs” that are “constantly evolving” (ibid). Both formal and informal institutions are in this approach important to understand how a certain view of “the nation” is being produced and reproduced, but also how it is being contested. The social movements of the 1960s, for example, contested the then dominant view of “the nation”, and were protesting for a more diverse and inclusive concept of it. “The importance of these paradigms,” Muro writes, “lies in the fact that they show up the constraints political entrepreneurs face when trying to activate and manipulate identity categories in institutionalized politics” (ibid: 4).
These two different approaches are very much in line with respectively the PRR parties and the Green parties. As we have seen in the definitions of their ideologies, the former beliefs in a fixed, nativist, exclusionary form of nationalism; whereas we would expect a much more constructivist approach by the latter. In line with this, they should have different views on integration. Because PRR parties believe in a fixed, homogenous society with one dominant culture, immigrants should “assimilate”. This approach strives for, according to Guimond et. al (2014), the elimination of all differences between groups. It strives for homogeneity and uniformity (Guimond et. al 2014: 146). On the other hand, the Green parties are likely to endorse a “multiculturalist” approach to the nation. This approach comes down to fully accepting differences, appreciating diversity and respecting the identities of minority groups (ibid: 150).
Hypotheses
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1) Left-wing identity politics uses a constructivist approach of a nation; while right-wing identity politics is based on a primordialist approach.
2) Left-wing identity politics focusses on minorities; right-wing identity politics on the majority.
3) Left-wing identity politics endorses multiculturalism; right-wing identity politics endorses assimilation.
4) Left-wing identity politics is inclusionary, views different groups as equal; right-wing identity politics is exclusionary, makes an active distinction between “us” and “them”, “autochthon” and “allochthon”.
Case & methods
To test these hypotheses I will conduct a discourse analysis based on two right-wing and two left-wing parties from the Netherlands and Belgium. The right-wing parties that will be analyzed are the Party for Freedom (PVV) and Flemish Interest (VB); the left-wing parties are GreenLeft (GL) and Green. The PVV and GL manifestos are from 2012, the manifestos from VB and Green from 2014. These are the years in which both the countries held parliamentary elections. In line with Rooduijn & Pauwels (2011), the reasons I choose party manifestos as units of analysis are two-folded. In the first place, manifestos give a clear overview of the ideologies and standpoints of particular parties. In the second place because manifestos are best suited for cross-national studies, because they are well comparable (Rooduijn & Pauwels 2011: 1274). A final reason is that manifestos are the documents that can be analyzed the most objective. If I, for example, included also speeches from political leaders, it would be more difficult to analyze it objectively because speeches always have a particular context, and these contexts are always difficult to interpret. The tone and rhetoric of a speech from a political leader can be very different at a party congress than at a national debate. Since manifestos do not have these problems, they are best suited for this kind of cross-national discourse analysis.
The manifestos will be analyzed on the basis of their use of identity politics. I will analyze the groups that the manifestos are trying to reach and include in their shaped identity group. As the theory suggests, left-wing politics is more inclusionary, whereas right-wing politics focuses more on an exclusionary conception of ‘the nation’ or ‘the people’. The most evident way of analyzing this is by looking at the ways in which the different parties approach immigration and multiculturalism. Therefore I will, similar to what Edwards (2012)
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has done, count how many times the manifestos speak positively and negatively about these issues. Consequently, because of the inclusionary-exclusionary distinction between left-wing and right-wing politics, I will count how many times the manifestos use the words ‘we’, ‘them’, ‘our’, ‘their’. Furthermore, I will look into the ways in which the different parties shape a conception of ‘the nation’ and ‘the people’. Again, as the theory suggests, these can be fundamentally different.
In the same way as Pelizzo (2003) has done, the discourse analysis will consist of a more quantitative as well as a qualitative part. The quantitative part gives an overview of the number of times a manifesto speaks about a certain issue, and if they speak about it in a negative or positive way. The qualitative part is about the content, tone, rhetoric and style in which the manifestos are written. Expanding on the work of Rooduijn (2009), Pauwels (2011) has measured the exclusionary form of populism of PRR parties by coding it on three dimensions, namely anti-elitism, homogenous people and exclusionism. This three elements will be analyzed in a more qualitative way, namely by citing sentences that contain those elements. In the same way, the more inclusive elements of left-wing politics will be analyzed. The tone of the manifestos will be analyzed on emotional factors. It is a widely known fact that PRR parties are anti-establishment and that their rhetoric is in line with this. From this we can infer that their tone is more emotional and in some ways even aggressive. The green parties, on the other hand, are less likely to use this kind of rhetoric. These differences will also be elaborated.
Discourse analysis
Party for Freedom
The party manifesto of the PVV is called ‘Their Brussels, our Holland’. All the separate chapters have the same kind of names: “Our safety”, “Our immigration policy”, etc. The italics are in the original, referring to two specific, separate groups: the elites versus the people. This is the fundamental tenet of the whole manifesto. It is indeed with this program that the Dutch Party for Freedom tries to speak to and at the same time in name of ‘the people’. They have turned against the elites because ‘over the past decades we have witnessed the slow erosion of our freedom and independence’, which is the fault of the ‘progressive elites’ who ‘lured’ ‘us’ into this (PVV 2010: 10). As a result of the loss of sovereignty the Netherlands is in crisis, and therefore we must ask ourselves the question: Are we, the people, still in charge of governing our own territory? (ibid: 6). No, the answer is,
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but their manifesto should change this, because whereas other parties choose ‘the Islam or EU-nationalism’, the PVV chooses the Netherlands (ibid: 6). With the emergence of the PVV, the Dutch people are finally getting awake, the manifesto says, and the progressive elites are horrified by that (ibid: 13). On the whole there is an aversion against EU-bureaucrats, who ‘have to keep their hands off our policies’, because ‘we’ decide what to do (ibid: 37). “We,” the Dutch people, “have to take back the power over the country again” (ibid: 14).
The loss of ‘freedom and independence’, which we have witnessed over the last decades because of the ‘progressive elites’, is becoming more and more problematic (ibid: 7). For a large part, this is due to immigration and forced multiculturalism: “In every place we see immigrants forming an increasingly larger proportion of the population. In practice this means: more and more Islam, more headscarves, more crime, impoverishment, benefit dependency and medieval views” (ibid: 11). This is the ‘gruesome price’ the Dutch people have paid for the ‘lack of patriotism’ of a generation of ‘politically correct’ politicians (ibid: 34). The PVV chooses ‘unequivocally’ for ‘its own population’ (ibid: 24). This means, among other things: no voting rights for non-Dutch people and a ban on all dual nationalities (ibid: 29). Furthermore, it means that no headscarves are allowed in health care, education, the town hall or any other government institution (ibid: 37). This new emphasis on exclusionary Dutch-ness should also find its way into education. The manifesto says that the teachers should be proud of the Netherlands and Western civilization again, including the national anthem and the flag. This means that they should teach national history and talk about the blackest page in the Dutch history: the Holocaust (ibid: 43).
Furthermore, a large section of PVV’s party manifesto is about fighting crime. “We see,” they state, “that things are not going well with the fight against crime. The number of violent crimes is rising and rising. Brutal violence is increasingly being used” (ibid: 30). These statements correlate with their nativist ideas: “This violence can be linked to the import of people from cultures where flat violence is often accepted” (ibid: 30). Also, most of the ‘scum’ comes from ‘cultures of shame’ (ibid: 31). Therefore should all the non-Dutch criminals be removed to their countries of origin and be banned forever on Dutch soil (ibid: 33).
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Flemish Interest open their manifesto by stating that their party is ‘unique’ in the political landscape. After all, they say, our party does not want to get hold of a piece of the pie, it wants to change the recipe of the pie (VB 2014: 3). That is, for the ‘establishment’ parties being part of a government is an end in itself. In order to achieve this, they are prepared to put ‘so much water into the wine that their policy participation ultimately makes no difference’ (ibid: 3). This does not apply to Flemish Interest, according to their manifesto, because they are a ‘program party’, which sticks to its program and says the same things after the election as they did before the election (ibid). This shows that they make a fundamental divide between establishment parties (‘the elites’) and their own party, which is not part of the establishment.
In their manifesto, Flemish Interest makes clear that ‘the government’ is constantly promoting policies which are not in the interest of the Belgian people. They say, for example, that the growing presence of Islam, in combination with the increasing Muslim extremism, is without a doubt the most important threat to public order and peaceful coexistence in Belgium. Yet ‘the government’ has promoted the ‘Islamization’ of Flanders, because mosques were increasingly recognized and subsidized (ibid: 22). What this passage makes clear is that the government, led by elites, promote and carry out policies which are not in the interest of the country, and are against the will of the people.
In the manifesto of VB, a separate chapter is written about their nativist ideology, which is called ‘Boss in our own country’ (ibid: 20). Like we have seen in the PVV manifesto, this rhetoric implies that ‘the people’ are not in control, but that some other group (most often ‘the elite’) is. What they want, therefore, is to recapture power. The loss of power or sovereignty of the people is due to mass-immigration, because ‘despite all the triumph news reports’ the ‘government’ in no way has the problems of ‘asylum and immigration’ under control (ibid: 20). Flemish Interest calls the migration an ‘avalanche’ that has tortured Belgium (ibid: 21). The mass integration, the manifesto reads, comes down to nothing ‘but the import of unemployment, deprivation, crime and conflict’ (ibid: 21). To keep the people ‘pure’ Flemish Interest focusses on what they call ‘effective expulsion’ (ibid: 21).
Furthermore, they focus on strengthening the Dutch language, thereby degrading all other foreign languages. In Flanders, Dutch should not only be the administrative and educational language, but also the social and cultural language (ibid: 31). Thus, “further strengthening our ties with the Netherlands will strengthen the status and the appearance of
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our language and also help to safeguard the place of Dutch in the international institutions” (ibid: 31). Just like language, the Flemish traditions should be preserved and reinforced because “anyone who derives from tradition strengthens our identity” (ibid: 31). Therefore, the strive for the visualization and the integration of heritage in the spatial structure by giving cities and municipalities more responsibility by stimulating a real local heritage policy (ibid: 31). By doing this, it is possible to develop a modern, yet historically responsible vision on the renewal of city neighborhoods, including the protection of the local heritage (ibid: 31). Number of times spoken
about: PVV VB Immigration (negatively) 7 (0.125*) 10 (0.4*) Multiculturalism (negatively) 3 (0.05*) 3 (0.075*)
‘We’ versus ‘them’ 11 (0.20*) 6 (0.15*)
Brussels (negatively) 18 (0.32*) 5 (0.125*)
Islam (negatively) 17 (0.30*) 5 (0.125*)
Table 1. *Average number per page weighted on number of pages of manifesto.
GreenLeft
Compared to the previous two, the manifesto of GreenLeft (GL) is completely different in terms of content, style and rhetoric. It is build up in three chapters, called ‘Green works’, ‘Equal opportunities’, and ‘Open society’. The attention given to these three themes is equally divided: one third of the manifesto is about green policies, one third about fair distribution of income, and one third about diversity and openness. As the titles of the chapters suggest, the GL view of society is based on equality and openness, in contrast to a divided and exclusionary view of the people. In one of the first paragraphs of the manifesto GL make this explicitly clear:
“[…] GreenLeft believes in the power of difference. Everyone has the right to be different. We are proponents of cultural and religious diversity. GreenLeft opts for a society in which the fear of the other does not govern. We are proud of the age-old Dutch traditions of openness and sobriety. Proud of the new generation of Dutch people who find their way up via school, work, sports, art and culture. Proud of freedom of speech, the right to self-determination, non-discrimination, equality between men and
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women and the separation of church and state. That is what the Netherlands makes the Netherlands” (GroenLinks 2012: 5).
This last sentence is especially interesting. Whereas the two previous PRR parties state that immigration and diversity are diluting the national identity, GL states that precisely these phenomena make the Netherlands what it is. For PRR parties they are seen as threats; for GL they are the building blocks of the national identity. In their chapter one the ‘Open society’ they claim to be proud of diversity, because only in an open and liberal society is it possible to be who you really want to be (ibid: 12). Whether you wear a headscarf or high heels, are gay in a traditional Christian village or have a dual nationality: GL chooses a society in which you can be yourself (ibid). In line with this GL believes that the multicultural society did not fail, but that it is just a plain fact. GL does not participate in making groups suspicious: they do not see a generation full of criminals, but a thriving generation, who don’t dream of the Jihad but of freedom and democracy (ibid). Therefore proposes GL a “warm” refugee policy (ibid: 13).
Green
The manifesto of the Flemish Green party shares the same style, rhetoric and message as the GL manifesto. Their manifesto is by far the most extensive (316 pages) and is made up of nine chapters covering all political subjects, from health care to education, and from the EU to taxing policies. The longest chapter is the one called ‘Everyone is with us’. It is 90 pages long and contains stances on all kinds of policies relating to an open and inclusive society. Separate paragraphs are dedicated to, for example, homosexuals and lesbians, transgenders, minority groups and young people. They state that diversity gives society color, although in todays world different groups are being set up against each other (Green 2014: 217). The goal of the Green party is not to create a society in which groups live side by side, but in which they live with each other, because all the citizens and communities have the right to belong to society (ibid). One possible way of achieving this is by organizing an “active dialogue” (ibid: 218). According to the Greens, the current policies cherish a safe feeling of we / them thinking and try to enforce assimilation: “But this is not the right way, because it leads to a growing social inequality and to more polarization” (ibid: 233). What Green proposes instead is an extensive program that mobilizes the positive forces of a diverse society. A policy that wants to maximize the potential of cultural diversity that starts from two essential points: mutual recognition and equal participation in society (ibid). They further propose a zero-tolerance against discrimination and racism (ibid: 234). To prevent
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discrimination and to fully carry out diversity policies, Green proposes policies that aim to better represent ethnic-cultural minorities, for example to not exclude people if they do not fully master the Dutch language (ibid). Another example is the aim to make the cultural world more colorful by supporting cultural institutions and artists with minority backgrounds; the same applies for the media (ibid).
Apart from people with different ethnic and/or cultural backgrounds, the Green party also want to include and better the position of all genders, because there still is a lot of inequality between men and woman (ibid: 241). As a result of societal structures and an interplay between tradition, education, prejudices and power relations, woman are still lower on the social hierarchy. Therefore, active gender policies are needed to better the financial position of woman and to fight against gender stereotypes (ibid). Green further want to endorse the same kind of policies for non-heterosexuals and transgenders, because stereotypical gender roles and a dominating heteronormativity lie at the core of discrimination and violence (ibid: 245).
Numbers of times spoken about: GreenLeft Green Diversity (positively) 7 (0.16*) 114 (0.36*) Discrimination (negatively) 9 (0.25*) 62 (0.20*) Equality (positively) 13 (0.36*) 5 (0.016*) Emancipation (positively) 3 (0.08*) 12 (0.04*)
Table 2. *Average number per page weighted on number of pages of manifesto.
Results
On the basis of the theoretical framework and the discourse analysis of the various party manifestos, we are now able to test the earlier formulated hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1) Left-wing identity politics uses a constructivist approach of a nation; while
right-wing identity politics is based on a primordialist approach.
Although the technical concepts ‘constructivism’ and ‘primordialism’ do not appear in any of the manifestos, we can infer from them that the ideas they pose come in fact down to the definitions of the concepts. Therefore we can confirm the first hypothesis.
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The manifestos of the left-wing parties make clear that they see society as an ongoing process in which citizenship should constantly be promoted actively. This means that the diverse population should participate in forming an open community and thereby lessening the reduced solidarity. Because society is always changing this is a never ending process in which citizens should always try to include different aspects (cultures, religions, people). This does not mean, however, that the Green parties do not believe in a kind of national identity, or culture, and that they are not nationalists at all. They do state that the Dutch language is very important and that there are fundamental traditions such as democracy, rule of law and equality, and that these principles are indispensable in the Netherlands as well as in Belgium. They also believe that the diverse and pluriform population can in fact form a unity, a community, which is to be endorsed by active citizenship. They don’t believe, however, that this community is static, or given, or that it is imposed on us. Indeed, they view society from a constructivist point of view: it is a social creation, and therefore subject to change.
The manifestos of the PRR parties show a completely different perspective. They see the nation not as something constantly evolving, but more as a static, indivisible whole. It is not some kind of social product, but a wholly real entity, with a long history, traditions, language, culture, and people. As the theory suggests, this is in line with a primordialist conception of the nation. In this view, people are seen as members of one, and only one, culture and nation, and this identity remains fixed for their whole lives. From this it follows that multiculturalism, or the immigration of different ethnic or cultural groups into a nation, is prone to conflict – and exactly this is what the right-wing manifestos are trying to make clear. They speak of ‘mass-immigration’ which dilutes the national identity. Furthermore, it is being endorsed by elites who are alienating people from their identity. To make an end to this, PRR parties speak in the name of the people to save the national identity from foreign threats.
Hypothesis 2) Left-wing identity politics focusses on minorities; right-wing identity politics
on the majority.
Based on the discourse analysis there is evidence to support this hypothesis. The manifestos show that the left-wing parties speak repeatedly about ‘subordinated’ groups (whether ethnic, cultural or political, for instance woman) who are, in some way or another, being oppressed, or at least not fully part of society. The focus of the diversity policies of the
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left-wing parties lies at these minority groups. The goal is to give them a proper place in society by, for example, introduce quota, enforce multiculturalism, make the media and the cultural sector in general more ‘colorful’. The underlying tenet is that the different fields of society (media, politics, culture, education) are too dominantly white, and that this state of affairs does not suit our time. Hence, the subordinated minority groups should be uplifted to create a more equal, diverse society, which represents the whole population.
Right-wing identity politics, on the other hand, turns this whole idea upside down. As the manifestos show, they don’t focus on minorities but on the native majority instead. They don’t think that the majority is dominating the (ethnic) minorities, but that (sooner or later) these minorities are beginning to dominate the majority by imposing their language, culture and religion upon them. (This is what the radical-right calls “Islamization”.) In this sense it is indeed the majority that is being oppressed. To escape from this kind of oppression the culture and language of the majority needs to be strengthened, whereas from the minorities it needs to be reduced, and ultimately eliminated. In the manifestos we have seen different kind of policy proposals which aim to realize this goal. The PVV wants more emphasis on the Dutch history in school and to make the Dutch language obligated in public institutions; further they want to ban dual nationalities, stop all subsidy to mosques, and ban all headscarves in public. Flemish Interest proposes essentially the same: they state that Dutch should be the only administrative and educational language, and they want to stop the mass-immigration, which is seen as an ‘avalanche’ that has come over to Belgian people.
Hypothesis 3) Left-wing identity politics endorses multiculturalism; right-wing identity
politics endorses assimilation.
This hypothesis is also confirmed on the basis of the manifestos. I have found that the left-wing manifestos endorsed multiculturalism and diversity on all kinds of levels – for example in the media, culture, politics and education. The ideal society that they picture is what they call an ‘open society’. This comes down to not only accepting differences, but also to celebrate them. Differences are not seen as flaws that should be removed, but as fundamental elements of the nation’s identity. The national identity is what it is precisely
because it contains differences in language, culture, traditions, religions, ethnic groups. To
remove these is to weaken the identity. As a consequence of this, the Green parties act up strongly against discrimination and racism; and also against parties who are said to ‘divide’ society, by which they mean PRR parties. They are against it because it is in their eyes
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against the nation, which consists of a diversity of elements, and to discriminate against one of these elements is to attack the nation.
Again, we see the exact opposite logic in the right-wing manifestos. As their populist radical-right ideology suggests, they see the nation as a homogenous, indivisible whole – yet this unity is being threatened by corrupt elites whose policies run against the wishes of the people. One of these policies is the ‘mass-immigration’ which results in multiculturalism. The immigration of ethnic and cultural minorities is ipso facto the import of different cultures, traditions and languages. This dilutes the national culture and identity because it is seen as monocultural and without any internal differences. Every foreign or ‘strange’ element that enters the national culture is therefore seen as an existential threat. If we want to preserve the national culture and identity (and that is of course what PRR parties want), so the logic continues, then every foreign element should be eliminated and every person who does not fit into the cultural body should assimilate; every cultural fold has to be smoothed out. Precisely this nativist ideology is what the PRR manifestos propose, and assimilation automatically follows from nativism. PRR parties present an exclusive characterization of the nation and its identity, and continue to say that everyone should fit into that picture, otherwise they are corrupt and against the people. This brings us to the last hypothesis.
Hypothesis 4) Left-wing identity politics is inclusionary, views different groups as equal;
right-wing identity politics is exclusionary, makes an active distinction between “us” and “them”, “autochthon” and “allochthon”.
As we have partly seen in the previous hypotheses, the difference between left-wing and right-wing identity politics comes for a large part down to an open conception of the nation versus a closed conception of it. What the Green parties mean by “open” is essentially the inclusionary conception of the nation and of national identity. According to their manifestos, all kinds of minority groups should be included in society; and if they, in one way or the other, are subordinated, they should be uplifted. The Green parties do not make a hierarchical distinction between different ethnic or cultural groups. Every group is of equal value to society and to the nations ideal, precisely because this ideal is based on diversity.
PRR parties, on the other hand, do make a hierarchical distinction between groups. Because the nations identity is based on only one specific culture, every other cultural group is subordinated to it. They are seen as “less Dutch” or “less Belgian”, and are therefore (potential) threats to the culture and the nation. This is the point where PRR parties make the
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distinction between “us” and “them”. It is the native people (“we”) that is culturally threatened by external threats (immigrant groups) as well as internal threats (corrupt elites), which together are “them”. To be part of a nation is therefore exclusionary: only members of the “pure people” with a shared language, tradition and culture are and can be part of it. Other people can at most become part of it if they assimilate completely.
What all the previous results show is that there is a fundamental divide in left-wing and right-wing identity politics. It shows, furthermore, that identity politics is a very broad concept, which can be used by parties with all kinds of ideologies. This means, in effect, that the “classical” conception of identity politics from its emergence in the 1960s is too narrow. From those years onwards identity politics has transformed into a political method or rhetoric that can and is in fact used by parties on all ends of the political spectrum. It can be used to include as well as exclude groups; to frame a nation as open as well as closed; to make a community inclusionary as well as exclusionary. What is interesting about these results is that todays right-wing parties are using traditionally left-wing methods to promote their ideals. They have turned them upside down and are using them to shape a vision of society which stands ideologically on the other side of the political spectrum. This shows the flexibility of identity politics in general.
An important similarity between the two kinds of identity politics is thus its ability and aim to construct a picture of “the nation”. These pictures can, indeed, be fundamentally different, yet their goal is the same: to create an identity group to which people can relate themselves. It is, as Fearon and Brewer have stated, the bridge between the individual and the social (Fearon 1999: 2) (Brewer 2001: 115). Another important similarity is that both kinds of identity politics are used to frame a group as being subordinated, and consequently to uplift that particular group. Traditionally, these groups were minorities. This thesis, however, has shown that for right-wing parties it can also be the majority (“the pure people”) that needs to be uplifted.
Conclusion
From its emergence in the 1960s, identity politics is seen as a left-wing method to uplift all kinds of minority groups. In todays politics, however, it is also used in very different ways. With the upswing of populist radical-right parties the focus of identity politics has turned upside down. This marks an interesting distinction between left-wing and right-wing identity politics. On the basis of a discourse analysis of both green and PRR parties in the
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Netherlands and Belgium, I have found four fundamental differences in their use of identity politics. Left-wing identity politics is focused on 1) a constructivist approach of the nation, 2) minorities, 3) multiculturalism, 4) inclusionary. On the other side of the spectrum it is focused on 1) a primordialist conception of the nation, 2) the majority, 3) assimilation, 4) exclusionary. The former parties endorse diversity and an open society; the latter parties are nativist, in some ways xenophobic and exclusionary.
This thesis has shown in detail the precise characterization of “the nation” viewed from a radical left and a radical right perspective. It has shown, furthermore, that the concept “identity politics” is way broader than it is most of the times viewed and defined. It has provided a more broad conception of the concept which is indispensable in understanding todays politics.
This thesis does, however, have some limitations. Since it is only based on data from the Netherlands and Belgium, it does not necessarily say anything about other countries; further research into other countries is therefore necessary. On the other hand, because the ideologies of both green and PRR parties are across Europe more or less the same, we would expect the same results. Another limitation is the focus on the two specific ideologies that I have analyzed. It would be interesting to see what the results are if parties from other ideologies are taken into account. This thesis has set out the general divide between the left and right, yet it would also be very relevant to dig deeper into the specific differences between multiple left-wing parties as well as the differences between PRR parties and classical conservative and liberal parties. Further research on this topic should give a more detailed picture of this.
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