(Non-)dominating fear: Analyzing the right-wing populist movement <i>Pegida</i> with neo-Kantian republicanism

This article considers the neo-Kantian republican account of (non-)dominating fear (1) to diagnose the fear-based legitimation narratives of today’s right-wing populist East German movement Pegida (‘Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West’); (2) to provide a progressive, enlightened standpoint on these narratives in terms of fear-based noumenal power, for example, the fear-based legitimation narratives of Wutbürger (citizens of anger) and (3) to present courageous citizen juries as a republican innovation which is needed to contest the right-wing populist fear-based legitimation narratives by generating enlightened deterrence. Becoming such a political agent of courageous citizen juries is the first demand for justice and not an instrumental means-end relation, as could be imagined in the light of present-day neo-republican thought (Pettit).