BrIAS Thursday Seminars: Sofia Serra-Silva & BIFD Oscar Mazzoleni

Explore public engagement in European parliaments and how the contemporary radical right weaponizes democratic institutions and social right Book launch: Open Parliaments: The Reality of Public Engagement in European Democracies by Sofia Serra-Silva Democratic weaponizing: the challenge of the contemporary radical right by Oscar Mazzoleni For most of the twentieth century, the enemies of democracy were easy to recognize: fascist and authoritarian movements openly sought to abolish parliaments, elections and individual rights. The radical right of the twenty-first century doesn’t reject democracy. It weaponizes it. As scholars have pointed out, it turns democratic institutions, procedures and core concepts (tolerance, equality, solidarity, freedom and democracy itself) against the pluralist and universalist substance they were meant to protect. The words stay the same, but their content is replaced. So far, though, this literature has judged the radical right almost entirely against participatory or procedural-liberal ideas of democracy, asking whether it is a corrective or a threat. This lecture argues that this framing is important but misses the socio-economic component. Research shows that a significant part of the European and American public defines democracy as including material security and social rights (e.g. Davis, Gaddie and Goidel 2022). Taking this public view seriously means that labor-market protection, welfare chauvinism and immigration aren’t just policy issues. They’re contested parts of what democracy is represented, and this is where actors of radical right achieve better support. BioOscar Mazzoleni is a professor in political science at the University of Lausanne. His current interests are devoted on political parties, populism, nationalism, regionalism, electoral studies, and Swiss politics in comparative perspective. His last book is “The radical right and demographic populism” (ed. with K. Koxha), Manchester University Press, 2026. How to arrive to BrIAS The event will take place in the Polina Mendeléef Seminar Hall. See the map below for instructions how to arrive to our Seminar hall from Avenue de la Couronne/Kroonlaan.