The Racialised Geographies of the Far-Right: Climate Politics in Finland and Russia

In the past decade, the parliamentary far right has become one of the most significant political actors. The far right has promoted the mainstreaming of various forms of racism, such as Islamophobia, and it has also emerged as one of the key forces slowing down climate policy.

The doctoral dissertation of Sonja Pietiläinen, M.Sc., contributes to the research literature on the political ecologies of the far right by examining the racial dimensions of far-right climate politics. The dissertation focuses on two far-right groups: the Finnish parliamentary party, the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), and the Russian extra-parliamentary far-right organisation, the Izborsk Club. The empirical material draws on interviews with Finns Party members of parliament, local politicians, and grassroots activists, as well as an analysis of the political publications of the Izborsk Club.

Comprising three independent research articles and a summary, the dissertation demonstrates that both groups engage in climate obstruction—that is, the delaying, slowing down, and denial of climate policy. It shows that far-right climate obstruction is intertwined with both sensationalist and subtle forms of ecological racism, in which, for example, climate crises are framed—through the mobilisation of degrading stereotypes—as the fault and political responsibility of racialised people and places. Far-right climate obstruction reproduces racist structures by redefining the meaning of “race,” undermines the realisation of climate justice, and thereby intensifies human vulnerabilities to environmental crises.