Mechanisms of Mainstreaming: Gender, Media, and the Discursive Radicalisation of Democratic Politics

Abstract

This panel interrogates the multifaceted mechanisms through which far-right politics achieve legitimacy and become normalised within liberal democracies, challenging conventional understandings of mainstreaming as a unidirectional or passive process. Papers examine how gender dynamics, media practices, discursive strategies, and elite instruction actively produce and sustain far-right normalisation across institutional and public spheres. The panel brings together empirical research from Germany, Sweden, France, Austria, and the United Kingdom, employing experimental methods, automated content analysis, discourse analysis, and large language model classification to reveal the complexity of mainstreaming processes. Together, papers demonstrate that far-right mainstreaming cannot be understood as a simple story of radical parties moderating or mainstream actors reluctantly responding to electoral pressure. Through attention to gender stereotypes, exogenous triggers, media accreditation practices, active radicalisation, and audience instruction, the panel reveals mainstreaming as a complex, bidirectional, and often actively produced process. Together, these contributions illuminate how far-right ideas become embedded as common-sense positions within contemporary liberal democracies.

Title	Details
Does Mainstreaming Mean Moderation? Measuring Positional Shifts on Immigration in Sweden	View Paper Details
The Role of Women Candidates in Legitimising and Normalising Far-Right Parties	View Paper Details
Beyond Mainstreaming: Multidimensional Accreditation of Far-Right Voices in Political News	View Paper Details
From Accommodation to Radicalisation? Analysing and Understanding the Radicalisation of the Mainstream in Austria (2000-2025)	View Paper Details
Taught Intransigence: How Far-Right Audiences are Trained to Reject Counterarguments	View Paper Details