Covid-skepticism, Pseudoscience and the populist radical right: a complicated relationship

The paper will examine the relationship of populist right-wing parties and voters towards the issue of COVID, lockdown regulations, and vaccines. While most research confirms that populist radical right-wing parties – and their voters – typically take covid-skeptical positions, and they are less trustful of vaccines (see for example Italy, Brazil, US), and more critical of lockdowns. Some populist radical right-wing parties on government (e.g. in Poland and Hungary), as well as their take more nuanced positions on the issue, combining (silent) covid-skepticism with an authoritarian push on the vaccines (and sometimes on lockdowns) and the overpoliticization of the vaccine issue that deepens existing divisions. The reasons for this non-heterogeneous and dynamic relationship between right-wing populism, covid-skepticism, and pseudoscientific views are discussed in light of the literature on „populist establishments”: populist right-wing political players on government.