UNIC Researchers Launch Study on the Mainstreaming of Far-Right Accelerationism

In June, the project ‘Mainstreaming Far-Right Accelerationism: Discourse, Ideology, and Techno-Futurism in a Comparative Perspective’ was launched. The project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation’s Democracy Funding Programme for three years. The research team is composed of Dr. Giorgos Charalambous (Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Politics and Governance, University of Nicosia), Dr. Michaelangelo Anastasiou (Co-Director of Digital Transitions & Society, University of Nicosia), and Dr. Lazaros Karavasilis (Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Tübingen/University of Nicosia/Hasselt University).

The project investigates the rise of far-right accelerationism, an emergent ideological constellation that fuses apocalyptic narratives, techno-futurism, and post-democratic imaginaries. Using comparative discourse analysis, digital ethnography, and (social) media analysis across the U.S., U.K., and Germany, the study explores how accelerationist ideas critique liberal democracy, enable novel political alliances, and become mainstreamed. By systematising and analysing how accelerationist ideas are constructed, iterated, and circulated, the project maps processes of ideological cross-pollination between accelerationist groups, as well as between accelerationist and mainstream ideologies, thus identifying the manner by which accelerationism moves from the fringes to the mainstream.