Uwe Backes is a Professor of Political Science and a Deputy Director at the Hannah Arendt Institute on Totalitarianism Research and teaches Political Science at the University of Dresden, Germany. He studied Political Science, History, and German Language and Literature at the University of Trier, Germany (Ph.D. 1987). Post-Doctoral Dissertation at the University of Bayreuth 1997. He was a Feodor Lynen Grantee of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Centre d’Étude de la Vie Politique Française (CEVIPOF) in Paris (1997/98) und a Heisenberg Grantee of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in 1998/99. He was a Visiting Professor in Paris-Nanterre, Nancy and Strasbourg (France). Important publications in English: Political Extremes (Routledge, 2010); Right-Wing Extremism in Europe (Ed. with Patrick Moreau, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2012); Ideocracies in Comparison (Ed. with Steffen Kailitz, Routledge, 2016).
Opposite Nationalisms in Europe
There can be no doubt that in the course of the past few decades the chances to realise political attempts at a renationalisation of politics in Europe have become bigger. Obviously, however, this is no coherent movement but a variety of groups pursuing goals which sometimes are almost contradicting. The lecture attempts to work out the variety of different kinds of nationalism, by shedding light on the different basic motifs explaining the attractiveness of these kinds of nationalism. This way also lines of conflict are made visible which separate the various groups from each other and make it difficult for them, if not impossible, to work out any coherent project for the future.
