Working Class Support for Right Wing Nationalism: A Comparative Analysis

This thesis studies the working-class support for right-wing nationalism. Aside from being the most dangerous trend of our time, right-wing nationalism plays a divisive role among workers. This requires that we revise our understanding of how right-wing ideologies gain currency among the working classes. This comparative analysis of workers in the U.S. and Turkey identifies similar politics between two cases that differ significantly in their political, economic and cultural structures. White and black workers in the U.S. South have struggled over unionization, while Turkish automotive workers in Bursa received historically significant economic and political gains despite significant oppression. The initial hypothesis is that workers use nationalism to protect their location in labor relations and secure their future. Workers use right-wing nationalism for pragmatic reasons, not for ideological reasons. The research concludes that right-wing social and political organizations, supported by capitalists, maintain social divisions among workers that have already been established.