Being Skeptical? Exploring Far-Right Climate-Change Communication in Germany

ABSTRACT

This article explores climate-change communication by the German far right – spanning a continuum which ranges from anti-liberal democracy radical-right populists, to the extreme right and to anti-democratic neo-Nazis – and asks: how do these actors articulate the phenomenon of climate change? In responding to this question, we conduct a discourse network analysis which identifies relations between actors, objects, phenomena, and processes, and points out differences/similarities across a continuum of exemplary far-right sources. The investigated actors put forward a rather skeptical climate change narrative, even though differences exist as the significance attached to the Volk and its sovereignty, rooted in far-right ideology, sometimes overrides, and sometimes is in harmony with, their ideological-driven affinity with nature protection. We thus contribute to the growing body of knowledge on climate-change communication and, more specifically, on the link between ideology and climate-change skepticism.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change denial
• ecology
• fascism
• global warming
• neo-Nazism
• right-wing populism

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Anders Hansen, Özgür Özvatan, Kristian Voss and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this article. All mistakes remain, of course, our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Mudde (2007, p. 23) understands the last feature “as a thin-centered 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.”

2 While climate change and energy sources are obvious macro structures, energy transition toward renewables is also linked to climate change and, potentially, gives rise to climate-change skepticism (Engels, Hüther, Schäfer, & Held, 2013).

3 The number of search words was limited as the four magazines are not digitally available. This hindered us, e.g. looking for Treibhausgase (greenhouse gases), as we noticed early on that the latter was usually present next to “CO₂” or “climate change”/“global warming” (if it was present at all).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by FP7 People: Marie-Curie Actions [grant number 327595].