The Politics of Paranoia: How—and Why—the European Radical Right Mobilizes Antisemitism, Xenophobia, and Counter-Cosmopolitanism

Looking at contemporary radical right ideology and its political context, this chapter challenges the aforementioned propositions. It claims that, while racialized hostility against Muslims plays an important role in many radical right mobilizations alongside general anti-immigrant resentment, antisemitism remains an integral element of new radical right ideology. The chapter summarizes the findings of several qualitative content analyses of radical right party manifestos and public campaigns in order to establish the constitutive features of the European radical right's contemporary ideology. It then examines the demand side, the general political context, and favorable conditions for radical right mobilizations of resentment, focusing in particular on the neglected resurgence of political antisemitism and its origins and causal mechanisms. The chapter examines a country where the radical right has been successful electorally: Hungary. The radical right's resurgent and reloaded politics of paranoia in Europe find a special target in Jews and Zionists. Keywords: antisemitism; causal mechanisms; Europe; Hungary; Jews; muslims; paranoia; radical right party manifestos; Zionists