Beyond nativism: New mobilising issues on the transnational far-right

Transnational cooperation on the far-right is on the rise. From the United States to India, far-right parties and movements are increasingly adopting a discourse which juxtaposes a transnational ‘us’ with a transnational ‘them’. While scholars have looked primarily at nativism, and in particular Islamophobia, as the glue that links these actors transnationally, this paper investigates ‘new issues’ on which the far-right is mobilising in the transnational arena. To do so, it asks: What issues are prominent in the far-right transnational discourse, and how has the salience of these issues changed over time? The empirical analysis draws on an original corpus of hundreds of speeches of far-right actors at transnational events which occurred between the early 2010s and 2023. Specifically, I examine trends in issue salience by using Structural Topic Models. The paper contributes to our knowledge of far-right politics by uncovering the extent to which the transnational far-right has moved beyond nativism and mobilises on ‘new issues’ like gender, climate change, and electoral integrity.