Does adopting far-right rhetoric help or hurt the political center?
AI Summary
A study by the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) published in late September in the European Journal of Political Research suggests that center-right and center-left parties are inadvertently bolstering far-right parties by adopting their rhetoric on immigration issues. The analysis of over 500,000 articles from six German newspapers spanning 26 years indicates that both centrist factions are being pulled towards far-right concerns. This trend is evident in Germany with Chancellor Friedrich Merz's controversial remarks and in the UK where Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has echoed similar sentiments about immigration controls. The study argues that such strategies increase the prominence of issues favored by far-right groups, potentially strengthening their political influence across Europe.
Key Topics & Entities
Keywords
Sentiment Analysis
Source Transparency
This article was automatically classified using rule-based analysis. The political bias score ranges from -1 (far left) to +1 (far right).
Topic Connections
Explore how the topics in this article connect to other news stories