Eles não são como nós: populismo, islamofobia e alteridade na extrema-direita britânica e alemã (2013-2024)

Abstract

The study investigates how Islamophobia became a structuring political narrative within the discourses of Reform UK and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) between 2013 and 2024, analyzing how these parties constructed Muslims as cultural, securitarian, and identitarian threats. The research is based on the hypothesis that Islamophobia operates beyond reactions to migratory flows or terrorist events, functioning as a political tool capable of reorganizing collective identities and redefining the symbolic boundaries of the European community. The theoretical framework combines postcolonial perspectives with theories of right-wing populism. The methodology combines qualitative discourse analysis with the quantitative processing of a corpus of 60 tweets collected from the X accounts of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, AfD, and Alice Weidel, using the R software for lexical analysis, distribution of discursive tone, and engagement patterns. The results show that both parties share a common logic of threat construction, adapted to the conditions of each country, and that discursive ambiguity functions as a strategy for expanding political reach. The research concludes that contemporary Islamophobia functions as a way of constructing the “other”, whose strength lies in its ability to adapt its form over time without losing its role within far-right discourse.