Islamophobia and Translations of Securitization in the UK, France, and Italy

Islamophobia and Translations of Securitization in the UK, France and Italy contributes to research on Islamophobia by exploring how three Western European mainstream left parties (the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party, and the Italian Democratic Party) have securitized Islam. While there is abundant research on right-wing Islamophobia and on the right-wing nationalist appropriation of liberal-progressive themes, the securitization of Islam by left-wing parties has been mostly neglected. The author argues that the securitization of Islam travels across and inside parties through a process called translation, which occurs throughout the appropriation of tropes and policies traditionally belonging to the other political pole. Building on this analytical framework, the chapters on Britain, France and Italy show that translation is an active, collective and contextual process. Moreover, the author shows that parties translate in the name of different ideological references: the ideal of multicultural coexistence, for Labour; secularism (laïcité) for the Socialist Party; humanitarian and progressive values, for the Democratic Party. In analyzing the translation from Right to Left, the book discloses a general rightward movement of mainstream left parties when they are challenged by questions related to Muslim minorities, security and terrorism.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Ugo Gaudino is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of Islamophobia and Translations of Securitization in the UK, France and Italy (OUP, 2025) and co-author of Methodologies in Critical Terrorism Studies: Gaps and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Routledge, 2024). His works were published in international politics journals such as Security Dialogue, European Journal of International Security and Review of International Studies. His research interests include critical approaches to security and terrorism; Islam and Islamophobia in the West; history and ideology of political parties; and conspiracy theories. He taught at Kingston University, London School of Economics, University College London, and University of Kent.