Right-wing Populism

Academic freedom is under attack, both in authoritarian democracies and in liberal Western democracies. Dominant discourses about academic freedom and free speech in the global north, lately especially in France and Germany, focus on an alleged threat to academic freedom through "political correctness" and "cancel culture", that, under scrutiny, often turn out to be exactly the opposite, namely defences of plurality and critical voices.

Right-wing extremists and konservatives try to blame the increased spreading of Covid-19 in Spain on the 08th of March demonstrations. Statistics dismantle this hypothesis as invalid and as antifeminist political tactics, with witch they try to hide the true cause of the problem, which is the weak health care system.

The change of government in Austria after the Ibiza affair on the one hand lead to a withdrawal of antifeminist (politically right) populist measures of the prior turquoise-blue government. On the other hand, existing structures of disadvantage and oppression have not been questioned by the successor government.