Anti-Islamic PEGIDA Beyond Germany: Explaining Differences in Mobilisation

ABSTRACT

The rise of anti-Islamic PEGIDA (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes) is one of the latest sustained episodes of radical right mobilisation in Western Europe outside the electoral arena. This study provides a first comparative analysis of PEGIDA beyond Germany and its core region of Saxony. Combining protest event analysis with online data and network analysis, we identify why PEGIDA mustered low-scale support in some countries and failed in others. Focusing on Austria, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland the study reveals the pivotal importance of the organisers’ agency and their relations to other radical right players. Unlike the sui generis case in Dresden, the PEGIDA label has become a rallying point appropriated by pre-established radical right activists using it for their own mobilisation efforts. Furthermore, the analysis reveals the significance of protest policing, in the form of state bans, for the fate of PEGIDA beyond Germany. Finally, it demonstrates the importance of online spheres as channels for dissemination of radical right world-views and the interplay of offline and online mobilisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Radical right
• PEGIDA
• Islamophobia
• anti-Islam
• anti-immigrant
• social movements
• online activism
• protest policing
• social movements

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mikael Poul Johannesen, Luigi Ceccarini, Birgit Bahtic-Kunrath, Cas Mudde, Julia Rone, Manuela Caiani and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and input on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Lars Erik Berntzen is a Ph.D. researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute. His research focuses on normative conflict and political violence, with an emphasis on the far right, extremism and anti-Islam.

Manès Weisskircher is a Ph.D. researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute. His research focuses on social movements and political parties, with an emphasis on animal rights, the radical left and the radical right.