| |
| author |
Dana Kit
| | title |
Unraveling White Supremacist Discourse Within Right-Wing Populist Groups
| | abstract |
This thesis aims to provide a comparative focus on Russian and American right wing
populist groups who utilize white supremacist discourse in their work. I provide a brief historical
background of the history of white supremacy both within the United States and within Russia,
along with explaining the differences between democratic and authoritarian regimes in tackling
right wing populism. I draw on a multitude of both academic and contemporary sources to argue
that right wing populist groups adopt a theory of racial great replacement in their discourse,
appealing to an existential doomsday of sorts for the white race. In my research, I refer to six
hand-picked populist groups, three in the United States and three in Russia, analyzing their
official webpages and party manifestoes to better gleam their utilization of white supremacist
discourse in attracting new - mostly college-aged, white male - recruits. I expand on this claim to
assert that such groups move out of the shadowy fringes of online webpages and social media
accounts and into the fore through their adoption by contemporary political parties. In this way,
right wing populism transcends both democracy and authoritarianism (despite traditionally being
conceptualized as being particularly present in democracies) to become a growing ubiquitous
phenomenon with troubling implications for political participation as a whole.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.A. (2022)
|
| advisor |
Sangay Mishra
|
| committee |
Phoebe Mengxiao Tang
Monica Cantero-Exojo
|
| full text | DKit.pdf |
| |
