Transnational Coalition Building in a European Anti- islam Movement. The Case of Pegida Dresden and the Czech Block Against Islam
Abstract
On January 23th, 2016, 14 European anti-Islam and anti-migrant organizations took part in a conference near Prague. The organizers of this conference, which resulted in the establishment of the anti-Islam and anti-migrant platform "Fortress Europe," were the Czech organization Block against Islam and Pegida Dresden.
Within a short period of time, roughly from October 2015 to spring 2016, Pegida and Block against Islam developed very close and intensive cooperation. It was undoubtedly not only the shared ideological position, which led to their close relationship.
And although there was a significant difference in the mobilizing potential of both organizations, they could both benefit from this cooperation. The proposed paper is based on research combining participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis, which was conducted from October 2015 to October 2016.
This paper aims to show which factors can facilitate or impede cooperation between organizations of the right social movement, using the example of Pegida and the Block against Islam.