The Normalization of Far-Right Populism

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During the center-left Gentiloni government in Italy immigration-related policies became increasingly restrictive. This shift was marked by an array of anti-immigration measures, among which the Memorandum of Understanding with Libya stands out as most apprehensive causing systematic and repetitive violations of migrants human rights since the beginning of 2017. This dynamic is representative of a European as well as a global phenomenon called the normalization of far-right populism in which mainstream parties move towards the right of the political spectrum and ideologies which had been labelled as radical and unacceptable, became normal, i.e. social accepted. This thesis explores the normalization of far right-populism in the context of Italy's anti-immigration politics by looking at the discursive shifts which indicate this transformation. By means of the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA), this study analyzes the discourse of the former Italian Interior Minister, Marco Minniti - during the center-left Gentiloni government - and shows that it endorses the so-called politics of fear and a negative evaluation of the migratory phenomena.