Far-Right Populism, Social Movements, and Higher Education Policy  in Southern Europe

Far right parties have become prominent political actors and winning several national elections, and thereby gaining respectability and public trust. Far-right movements secure insider allies and challenge policy gains achieved by left-wing movements over decades. In parallel to these discussions, crises of higher education have increasingly been put under the spotlight in the past few decades concerning higher education finance policies, problems with stratification, and discussions of free speech and culture wars. This paper examines the far-right’s rhetorical tactics concerning higher education policies as a means to cultivate their own brand of populism. The transformation of higher education, particularly through the endorsement of neoliberal policymaking, has been led by center-right parties. Some center-left parties have also apologetically followed this path, leaving themselves open to criticism from more leftist parties. The far-right’s populist challenge to higher education policies, marked by nativist and anti-elitist rhetoric serves two purposes: (1) undermining left-wing issue leadership surrounding the negative consequences of the neoliberal transformation of higher education systems, and (2) threatening to nullify the progressive liberal achievements of the past decades. Within this context, this paper proposes historical and cross-national comparisons and demonstrate the junctural and geographical paths of convergence. The analysis is based on  higher education policies articulated in 9 electoral manifestos of far-right (movement) parties in southern Europe, identifying two distinct paths of diffusion of policy proposals:  the “depoliticization” of scientific research via accusations of ideological bias and an anti-elitist emphasis with implications of devaluation of higher education. Finally, the paper argues that variation in party platform emphasis can be attributed to grassroots organization on campuses and student movement mobilization in each national context.