The Environmental Politics of the Popu-list Radical Right in Italy, Germany and Spain

Abstract

This article investigates the environmental politics of the populist radical right (PRR) by focusing on Germany (Alternative for Germany, AfD), Italy (Brothers of Italy and the League), and Spain (Vox). Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of 24 party documents, this study explores the use of identitarian, sovereignty, sceptic, and authoritarian frames, as well as the main diagnostic and prognostic narratives employed by the PRR. The findings suggest that they typically assign low salience to environmental issues and that they have increasingly resorted to sceptic and sovereignty frames in recent years. The analysis also shows that the PRR’s framing of the environment has grown more confrontational over time, with a stronger rejection of transnational environmental initiatives in favour of national control. Of the cases under investigation, the AfD clearly emerges as the party with the most controversial stance as it encompasses evidence, process and response scepticism.