The radical right and demographic populism

Oscar Mazzoleni, Klaudia Koxha

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781526192240
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526192233
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book introduces a new framework for understanding how the radical right reimagines demographic change as an existential threat. Across Europe and the Americas, low birth rates, immigration, and gender equality are reframed as signs of civilisational decline. This volume explores how radical right actors mobilise fears around fertility, migration, race, family, and sexuality through narratives of crisis, ethnic purity, and control over borders, reproduction, and social norms. It examines conspiracy thinking fuelled by demographic anxiety to justify attacks on gender and sexual rights and reinforce exclusionary ideas of national belonging. Grounded in empirical case studies and interdisciplinary approaches, this book reveals how these narratives converge to reinforce dominance of a native, heteronormative, Christian population. In linking domains often treated separately, it provides a timely and critical perspective on the evolving logic of radical right politics worldwide.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: populism and demography
• 1 Grounding anti-immigration and pro-traditional family values in science? An exploration of discursive normalisation of the great replacement theory online in Italy and France
• 2 Unborn populism: transnational anti-abortion strategies and demographic talk
• 3 Resisting homophobic populism in Latin America
• 4 Politicising demography: the Latin American populist radical right in historical perspective
• 5 Politicising demographic change in Austria: how the populist radical right mobilises against Muslims
• 6 Strategies of normalising demographic fears: Fratelli d’Italia from the margin to the mainstream
• 7 Radical-right populism, youth and demographic issues: the Austrian Freedom Party
• 8 Demographic entanglements: fascist and colonial reflections in the discourse and policy of the populist radical right on natality
• 9 Bolsonaro’s (anti-)gender ideology: social policies and attitudes among female supporters
• Conclusion: demographic populism, conspiracy and the radical-right counter-revolution
• Index