Search

It is hard now (although, unfortunately not impossible) to envisage an account of the extreme right that does not take the importance of gender seriously. Instead the great danger may now be that studies will recognise the importance of the relationship between the extreme right and women but in such a way as to obscure its complexity. Introduction The relationship between populist radical right parties and women has been the subject of much commentary but surprisingly little serious research. The first academic article published in a prominent English-language academic journal appeared only in 2004 (see Givens 2004). The situation is not much better in other academic sources, including edited volumes and less prominent journals. As far as women and “the extreme right” are topics of research, most academic work still focuses on historical fascism rather than on the contemporary populist radical right. As is often the case in this field, the situation is somewhat better in the German-language literature, although even here the research is limited and, arguably, not representative. The main studies are based on in-depth interviews with a very small number of female activists within extreme right (often neo-Nazi) nonparty organizations (for a recent overview, see Hammann 2002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberalism and right-wing populism go hand in hand. All the great patriots and nationalists in Europe are merely Trojan horses of Big Business. Introduction The academic literature on the populist radical right puts strong emphasis on the alleged neoliberal economic program of the party family. According to numerous authors, neoliberal economics is an essential feature of the parties' ideology and success. At first sight, it is not surprising that the populist radical right is linked to neoliberal economics. After all, contemporary understanding of “the right” in (empirical) political science is first and foremost in economic terms, standing for a trust in the market over the state, i.e. neoliberal economics (see also 1.5). Few scholars have provided substantial empirical evidence for the alleged neoliberal content of the socioeconomic programs of the populist radical right. In fact, as is so often the case in the field, the claim is just assumed to be correct and broadly accepted. However, systematic analysis does not substantiate these claims; even in their early days most populist radical right parties at best expressed neoliberal rhetoric without fronting a consistent neoliberal program. Could it be that the populist radical right parties were just trying to fit the neoliberal Zeitgeist of the 1980s? Does the populist radical right actually share a coherent and collective (socio)economic program? And, if so, is this a core feature of their ideology? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is widespread agreement in the literature that the upsurge of radical right-wing activities has to be seen in the context of a combination of global and domestic structural change … There is less agreement, however, on the exact link between right-wing mobilisation and sociostructural change. Introduction Given the explosion of literature on populist radical right parties in the past two decades, it comes as no surprise that explanations for their success abound. Nearly every author on the subject provides some reason for the electoral success of the party family in contemporary Europe, however implicitly or generally it may be presented. Most scholars' understanding of the phenomenon has been highly influenced by classic theoretical work in the social sciences, especially that concerning (historical) nationalism and fascism. Interestingly, only very little attention has been paid to the electoral failure of populist radical right parties, even though these cases are (far) more numerous (De Lange & Mudde 2005). In addition to the pure theoretical work, which remains fairly general and underdeveloped, the bulk of articles in refereed academic journals dealing with the topic have involved empirical tests of various aspects of these theories. Overall, the conclusions largely contradict each other, which furthers both the debate and the stream of publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though formal definitions or derivations based on the history of ideas largely failed to provide a convincing concept for ‘right-wing extremism’, research work on political parties of the right has not had serious problems in selecting appropriate cases. Introduction Both the academic and public debate about the “extreme right” lends credence to Von Beyme's assertion that we know who they are, even though we do not know exactly what they are. However, I fundamentally disagree with the belief that “the extreme right is easily recognizable” (Anastasakis 2000: 4). Practice certainly reveals that we do not know who they are (also Mudde 2000a): while there is consensus with regard to the inclusion of some parties in this category, the proper classification of many others remains contested. Indeed, there are some special circumstances that make the implications of this assumption especially problematic for this particular party family. Some scholars consider the Scandinavian Progress Parties to be the first of the recent wave of “right-wing populist” parties (e.g. Decker 2004; Betz 1994), whereas others exclude them from their analysis on the grounds that they are not “extreme right” (e.g. Mudde 2000a). Similarly, while the Italian Lega Nord (Northern League, LN) is included in most comparative studies of the populist radical right party family, at least one prominent scholar (Ignazi 1992; 2003) has consistently excluded it. The confusion with respect to classifying the parties in Eastern Europe is even more striking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Nationalistes de tous les pays unissez-vous!” [Nationalists of all countries unite!] “Das einzige, was viele rechte europäische Parteien gemeinsam haben, ist das, was sie trennt.” [The only thing that many right-wing European parties have in common is that which divides them.] Introduction International cooperation among populist radical right parties has thus far received little academic attention. Some scholars have studied the internationalization of the extreme right, notably neo-Nazi and racist groups (e.g. Kaplan & Weinberg 1999), and there have been a few publications on the cooperation among populist radical right parties in the European Parliament (e.g. Stöss 2001; Veen 1997). However, overall this topic has been the domain of antifascists and freelance journalists, and there has been virtually no systematic empirical challenge to their often grotesque misrepresentations of a “brown network” based largely on bizarre conspiracy theories (e.g. Svoray & Taylor 1994). As far as European cooperation between more or less relevant populist radical right parties is concerned, opinions differ quite substantially. Some scholars believe that “[t]he attempts at cross-linking [Vernetzungsbemühungen] of the extreme right in Europe have increased in the last years, and particularly the development of an extreme right Europe ideology is presently taking concrete shape – despite all national specifics and differences” (Salzborn & Schiedel 2003: 1209). Others are more cautious, arguing that it does not seem correct “to speak of one European right-wing extremism in the sense of a political actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The belittlement of definitions is wrong on three counts. First, since definitions declare the intended meaning of words, they ensure that we do not misunderstand each other. Second, words are also, in our research, our data containers. Therefore, if our data containers are loosely defined our facts will be misgathered. Third, to define is first of all to assign limits, to delimit. Introduction Several recent studies on the topic of our concern have started by paraphrasing the famous opening sentence of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto: “A specter is haunting Europe, it's the specter of …,” followed by the author's term of preference (e.g. Jungwirth 2002b; Papadopoulos 2000). The author will then simply assume that the preferred term accurately labels the “specter,” that the term itself has a singular and comprehensible meaning, and that readers are in agreement with the categorization of the various manifestations of that “specter.” In fact, during the last few decades commentators worldwide have concurred in their assessment of the similarities and dangers of European political parties as seemingly diverse as Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front national (National Front, FN), Pia Kjærsgaard's Danske Folkeparti (Danish People's Party, DFP), or Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal'no-demokraticheskoi partii Rossii (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, LDPR). But seldom did they manage to agree on terminology. Both in the media and in the scholarly community an unprecedented plethora of different terms has been put forward since the early 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whose democracy is it anyway? Introduction Although the populist radical right is not antidemocratic in a procedural sense, as argued in chapter 1, core tenets of its ideology stand in fundamental tension with liberal democracy. Various authors have discussed this tension, although mostly at an abstract level without much reference to concrete positions of the parties in question (e.g. Betz 2004; Decker 2004; see also Lipset 1955). To understand the nature and scope of this tension, we must examine the societal and systemic consequences of the three key features of the populist radical right: nativism, authoritarianism and populism. The following sections will discuss the populist radical right parties' views on nativist democracy, authoritarian democracy, and populist democracy, respectively. In the conclusion the populist radical right view of democracy will be constructed and compared to the key features of liberal democracy in general, and the way they are implemented in contemporary European countries in particular. This exercise should also help provide a clearer insight into the key question on the mind of many authors and, indeed, readers: how dangerous are populist radical right parties for liberal democracy? Nativist democracy: it's our country! The key concept of the populist radical right is nativism, the ideology that a state should comprise “natives” and that “nonnatives” are to be treated with hostility. Like all ideologues, nativists are torn between the ideal and the practice, the dream and the reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Other lies at the heart of radical right politics, and for the radical right, which understands the world in terms of struggle, in terms of “us” versus “them,” the Other is translated into “the Enemy.” Introduction Identity politics, of which the populist radical right is (just) one form, is always based upon an “us–them” distinction. To construct the native identity, one needs to delineate the boundaries with other identities, i.e. those of the nonnatives. In other words, to construct the ingroup (“us”) one needs to construct the outgoup(s) (“them”). This process of ingroup–outgroup differentiation, which social psychologists and others have described as standard behavior in identity building (e.g. Brewer 1999; Tajfel 1982), has been said to be even more crucial to the populist radical right than to other actors engaged in identity politics (e.g. Geden 2005; Pelinka 2005). Within the literature, various scholars have pointed out the dissimilarities between the ways the populist radical right differentiates between ingroup and outgroup(s) and the process of identity construction among, for example, Greens or gay and lesbian activists. First, populist radical rightists are believed to hold a Manichaean worldview: the world is divided into “good” and “bad” (e.g. Eatwell 2000; Ramet 1999b). Indeed, one of the key characteristics of populism is the dominance of morality (e.g. Mudde 2004; Taggart 2000). Consequently, the “us–them” division is transformed into a Schmittian friend–foe distinction in which the “Other” is demonized (e.g. Abts & Rummens 2005; Mouffe 1995; Gessenharter 1991). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]