„Frieden, Freiheit, Souveränität“: Symbolische Herrschaft im verschwörungsideologischen Souveränismus am Beispiel der ‚Reichsbüger:innen‘

So-called ‘Reichsbürger’ not only rebel against the prevailing order, they also aim to institute their own (symbolic) rule. Based on a digital ethnography this article examines how the scene confers authority to their own ideas of order that they convey through three political objectives: peace, freedom and sovereignty. The chapter argues that Reichsbürger try to gain symbolic power through making reference to values that are widely recognised and commonly understood as universal. At the same time Reichsbürger appropriate these values in a naturalistic way, so that the political demands they put forward, as an expression of symbolic violence, implicate racist ideologems. Here, universalism and naturalism mutually reinforce each other, whereby their own – particularist – ideas of order appear ineluctable.