Spaces for Dissent and Alternative Deliberation

In our previous discussion on what can make a person more receptive to far-right mobilisation, Chapter 3 highlighted the important role of individuals’ grievances. Key drivers of these grievances are usually related to real or perceived economic, cultural and demographic shifts that are regarded as posing personal or collective threats—from status anxiety to fears of ‘cultural displacement’ (Sandel in The Tyranny of Merit. What’s Become of the Common Good? Allen Lane, (Penguin Books), UK, 2020) to white (male) victimhood or even conspiratorial threats of alleged white ‘replacement’. These grievances are often aggravated, and sometimes activated and triggered, by individuals’ sense of being silenced, disenfranchised and that their fears are not being taken seriously in the public debate and by those who hold positions of authority, such as their local or national governments. Given that broader socio-economic, cultural or demographic developments are usually hard to change, at least in the short term, efforts to reduce individual far-right susceptibilities need to challenge the perceptions of these developments as threats but they also need to address the individuals’ sense of marginalisation and disenfranchisement. The latter approach is what this chapter focusses on.