The pretence of the cordon sanitaire: non-collaboration as a distraction from discursive congruence

Much has been written about how mainstream parties respond to the emergence of the far right in liberal democracies. Whereas recently mainstream parties have become more open to collaborating and even forming governing coalitions with far right parties (Heinze, 2018), in many countries established centre right/-left parties continue to rule out formal collaboration with the far right. In such cases, the metaphor of the cordon sanitaire (Downs, 2002) is used to highlight how mainstream parties ostracise and form a bulwark against the far right. However, whilst mainstream parties often rule out formal collaboration with the far right, they are more open to adopting some of their reactionary policies and discourses. When the cordon sanitaire is transgressed in policy and discourse, this undermines the formal exclusion of the far right by legitimising the latter’s political demands. In this paper, we analyse these dynamics and compare cordon sanitaires in France, Germany, and the UK. The three case studies give insights into how the cordon sanitaire can be transgressed in policy and discourse in different political contexts. The paper problematises how the cordon sanitaire concept implies a fixed boundary between the mainstream and the far right. However, in all three case studies, although the mainstream parties rule out collaboration and ostracise the far right, they nevertheless adopt some of their exclusionary policies and discourses. Even when adopting similar discourses and policies, mainstream parties invoke the idea of the cordon sanitaire to frame the far right as pariahs that need to be defeated. This allows mainstream actors to present themselves as moderate in contradistinction to the far right whilst at the same time normalising far right discourses without accusations of association. We therefore argue that the concept of cordon sanitaire itself should be scrutinised more closely. We question whether parties can claim to be adhering to the cordon sanitaire if they simultaneously use far right policies and discourses. Moreover, assuming that a formal cordon sanitaire creates a boundary between the mainstream and far right ignores processes of mainstreaming in which the legitimation of far right politics is primarily driven by the mainstream itself. Where public outrage may rightly emerge should mainstream parties formally collaborate with the far right, we argue that discursive dynamics are equally crucial and should evoke similar reactions.