TOWARDS GREEN POPULISM? Right‐wing Populism and Metropolization in Switzerland

Ander Audikana and Vincent Kaufmann

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2022, vol. 46, issue 1, 136-156

Abstract: Switzerland is an interesting laboratory for studying right‐wing populism. Populist movements, notably the Swiss People's Party (SVP), have undergone momentous development over the last few decades based on anti‐immigration and anti‐European discourses. This transformation has been commonly associated with an ethno‐nationalistic reaction against the globalization process and the defense of Swiss economic, political and cultural specificities. Based on an analysis of popular immigration initiatives in 2014, this essay identifies the rapid and intense metropolization of Switzerland as a correlative factor explaining the success of populist narratives in that country. The analysis shows that the strong and omnipresent metropolization process within a limited territory has created a fertile breeding ground for right‐wing populism in terms of urban development, housing scarcity, traffic, infrastructure development, energy consumption, pollution and transformation of the landscape. Thus the conventional nationalistic and identitarian narratives characterizing right‐wing movements can progressively combine with concerns and arguments associated with environmental discourse. This process of updating right‐wing populist narratives on the basis of environmental concerns can evolve under different modalities and in different contexts, leading to the emergence of a ‘green populism’.

Date: 2022
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