Beyond Mainstreaming: Exploring the Populist Radical Right Brand of Pluralism

This conceptual paper argues that the contemporary populist radical right is moving beyond mainstreaming: its success is no longer dependent on being mainstreamed by the mainstream parties and media, nor is it achieving success through becoming more streamlined with the political mainstream. Instead, its broadening support and societal legitimacy becomes increasingly tied to its recognition of de facto societal pluralism, which is moulded to be compatible with the grounding values of the populist radical right, i.e. populism, nativism and authoritarianism. In practice, this can be observed e.g. in the populist radical right outreach toward women, ethnic or racial minorities, or some gendered or religious minorities. Based on the empirical data collected in the framework of the SIDESTREAM project, the paper conceptualises the brand of pluralism that populist radical right parties and politicians practice, and also outlines a typology of outreach techniques these parties and politicians use.