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The denial of the 1995 genocide against Bosniaks in the UN security zone of Srebrenica, has continued uninterrupted for 25 years. This denial has taken various forms and manifestations during that time; from denying the extent and character of crimes and the number of victims, to not accepting relevant court verdicts and especially, ignoring the consequences of genocide. As time passes, we are beginning to get the impression that an additional phase to the denial of the genocide in Srebrenica has emerged, in which, through the glorification of convicted war criminals and their affirmation in society, genocide is affirmed as an acceptable procedure and activity. We believe that this 25-year period of persistent denial, and even celebration of the genocide in Srebrenica, largely corresponds to the strengthening of neo-fascist and right-wing ideas and movements in European countries, which has been accompanied by an increasingly louder denial and relativization of the Holocaust. In this paper, we intend to analyze the connection between these phenomena, because we believe that the ideas pedaled by deniers of the genocide in Srebrenica, are significantly suited to strengthening the neo-fascism and Holocaust denial and are using this atmosphere to intensify genocide denial against Bosniaks and yet paradoxically, affirm the genocide, by glorifying the convicted war criminals and their ideas.

This article aims to investigate the way in which converts contribute to the redefinition of Shi’ism in Italy and to show how that contribution is reshaping Shi’ism in the peninsula. In order to do...

Euroscepticism is frequently presented as a key ideological feature of far right parties, however, this definition masks important variations between them. This paper argues that far right position...

In this article the author analyses the Fascists’ ability, after the end of the war, to present a memory of the recent past which achieved its aims at least among a significant number of Italians. ...

Global capitalism is visibly showing up unacceptable inequalities and social contradictions. Three camps have emerged in the ruling class in response to over-accumulation, poverty, middle-class stagnation and environmental crisis: inclusive capitalism; militarised accumulation; the Green New Deal. All fractions adhere to neoliberal principles. Inclusive capitalism – neoliberalism with a nod to Keynesianism – means continued stagnation since it avoids the need for a social-democratic regulatory system. A turn to authoritarianism – the police state of twenty-first century neo-fascism, according to theorist William I. Robinson – is unlikely, though militarised accumulation is now an essential outlet for capital. Green capitalism, in which China is now the leading global investor, particularly with transnational public and private partners, neither breaks with neoliberalism, nor can potentially reverse environmental disaster. That would take social movements defining a Green New Deal for a sustainable capitalism to be an effective hegemonic bloc.

During and after Ukraine’s celebrated Euromaydan (literally: European Square) Revolution of 2013–2014, a whole number of novel Ukrainian political and societal phenomena emerged. One of the most in...

This paper will examine the relationship between Fascism and football in Italy from the regime’s origins in the mid­-1920s through to the present day and will seek to explain the far right’s continued presence in the game. Contextualising Italian football’s development within the nation’s postwar history, it will argue that while the Fascist regime laid the foundations of the contemporary game, its influence was not profound enough to explain the far­-right’s existence in Italian stadiums since the 1980s. By situating the politicisation of Italian football within theories of post­-Fascist memory and via the examination of specific incidents of pro­-regime and anti­-Semitic activity within the stadiums, this paper will argue that the failure to combat the far­-right’s presence has been a direct consequence of the weakness/absence of the Italian state. Este artigo analisa a relação entre o fascismo e o futebol na Itália, desde as origens do regime em meados da década de 1920 até aos nossos dias, e tenta explicar a presença contínua da extrema­-direita no jogo. Contextualizando o desenvolvimento do futebol italiano na história pós­-guerra do país, argumenta­-se que, embora o regime fascista tivesse lançado as bases do jogo contemporâneo, a sua influência não foi suficientemente profunda para explicar a presença da extrema­-direita nos estádios italianos desde os anos 80. Situando a politização do futebol italiano nas teorias da memória pós­-fascista e através da análise de incidentes específicos de atividade pró­-regime e antissemita dentro dos estádios, este artigo argumenta que o fracasso em combater a presença da extrema­-direita é consequência direta da fraqueza/ausência do Estado italiano. Cet article se penche sur la relation entre le fascisme et le football en Italie, à compter des origines du régime, dans les années 1920, à nos jours et tente d’expliquer la présence continue de l’extrême droite dans ce sport. En contextualisant le développement du football italien dans l’histoire de l’après­-guerre du pays, nous soutenons que, bien que le régime fasciste ait lancé les bases du jeu contemporain, son influence ne fut pas suffisamment profonde pour expliquer la présence de l’extrême droite dans les stades italiens depuis les années 80. En situant la politisation du football italien dans les théories de la mémoire post­-fasciste et par le biais de l’analyse d’incidents spécifiques de l’activité pro­-régime et antisémite dans les stades, cet article défend que l’échec constaté dans le combat à la présence de l’extrême droite est une conséquence directe de la faiblesse/absence de l’État italien.

New political groups directly or indirectly related to the European fascist past are gaining strength and significance in the political arena of the new millennium. Starting from an analysis of CasaPound in Italy, a movement and party whose activists define themselves as ‘third millennium fascists’, this article explores the legacy of fascism in current Italian politics. Analysing CasaPound’s history, political programme and some of the main features of its organization as a community, the article examines the prominent role the fascist legacy plays in structuring this movement, for which history constitutes a source of legitimization and identity formation. Fascism is not traced as something isolated in history, but instead its history is presented as a legitimate legacy with a significant place in Italy’s political landscape.

This chapter assesses the attempts of the British National Party, now the major extreme Right formation to impact on the Ulster problem in the 1990s, a decade which would see the Provisional IRA and loyalist paramilitary ceasefires and the difficult and torturous process that would produce the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement of 1998, an agreement that effectively ended the Troubles. For the BNP, however, the decade would be one of evolution as John Tyndall’s control of was gradually broken by Nick Griffin. Influenced by the electoral success of Jean Marine Le Pen’s Front National in France, Griffin would begin the process of party modernisation that would see the BNP gain 60 local council seats a two seat in the European Parliament in the first decade of this century. As the BNP’s British fortunes brightened Ulster as an issue gradually disappeared from its literature. British progress sweetened the pill of failure in Northern Ireland as the previous unfruitful experience of the extreme Right in Northern Ireland was repeated; with even the White Nationalist Party failing to make a major impact even as Northern Ireland developed a serious racist problem.

This article argues that analysis and contextualization of the history of the Francoist veterans of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) leads to an understanding of Franco’s dictatorship as a fascist regime typical of the late 1930s and early 1940s. It reveals the congruence of the regime with the phenomenon of neo-fascism during the Cold War era. Drawing on a large range of archival and published sources, this article examines the history of the main Francoist veterans’ organization, the Delegación Nacional de Excombatientes (DNE) of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS (FET-JONS), between 1939 and 1959. The evolution of the Francoist veterans’ organizational structures and political discourses can be understood as part of a process of fascistization and defascistization, which provides rare insights into the overall relationship between fascism and war.

The Neoliberal Landscape is a collection of nine essays exploring the economic, political, social, and historical dynamics behind the rise of Islamic political parties in the Middle East, particularly the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkey. For scholars studying Turkey and the wider Middle East, understanding the rise of the AKP as well as its internal and external undercurrents has been a challenge. On the one hand, its founding leaders marketed their party as a democratic Islamic party, similar to Christian Democrats in Europe, and claimed to focus their efforts on democratizing Turkey by limiting the military and Kemalist hegemony. To this end, they formed alliances with the liberals and the liberal-left as well as the outward oriented business groups, and used the support of the European Union and the United States as leverage to increase their legitimacy. The AKP's strong neoliberal stance in economic policy also allowed it to win over domestic and international capital to its side. The changing times in global politics were also in the AKP's favor, coinciding with the post-9/11 period when the United States and its allies were desperate to find a liberal and democratic Muslim country with a market economy that they could use as a showcase. The AKP project, however, proved to be short-lived as it has increasingly become authoritarian at home, bordering on neo-fascist, and confrontational abroad. In fact, many analysts have suggested that what Turkey is experiencing is nothing short of a regime change, moving the country from a secular republic, albeit a semi-democratic one, to a neo-fascist one-party state with some Islamic flavor, ruled by a strong-man with no pretense of democracy. In fact, since the 7 June 2015 elections, the country has moved to a de facto presidential system, even without constitutional change.

Operation Condor was a Latin American organization—the relationship between General Augusto Pinochet and the Italian Neo-Fascists also provides a fascinating and unique picture of Fascism’s transnational features. Firstly, it demonstrates the persistence of transnational relations between Fascists and Fascist sympathizers over decades. The influence of Fascism on Chilean nationalist movements and the link between Pinochet and Junio Valerio Borghese, who represented a myth for different Fascist generations, is illustrative. This feature ensured the survival of the Fascist transnational network, which originated from the relations that revolved around the spreading of Fascism at a transnational level, throughout several decades. A further factor fostering the survival of the network was the logistic support provided by friendly regimes to the network’s members. Former Nazi and Fascist militants wanted for war crimes as well as Italian Neo-Fascists seeking to avoid judicial prosecution in Italy were all welcomed by sympathetic regimes such as Spain, Chile and Argentina. The opportunity of finding a safe refuge in those countries also promoted regular exchanges between the interwar Fascist generation and the post-war one. This chapter examines the dynamic transnational trajectories of Fascist militants and ideas and the resilience of relations within the transnational network. The collaboration between Pinochet and Italian Neo-Fascists was mutually beneficial—in 1975, they cooperated in the attempted murder of Bernardo Leighton in Rome. In 1976, thanks to the transnational links between Latin American Juntas, Fernandez Larios and Pinochet’s agent Michael Townley obtained fake Paraguayan passports which they used to enter the US and assassinate Orlando Letelier.

The political transformation in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s was marked by the establishment of a nationalist political mainstream. As a consequence of the Yugoslav wars, nationalism gained broad acceptance in most post-Yugoslav societies. This led to the emergence of many radical right groups, the majority of which support the nationalist policies of the Yugoslav successor states. Since the regime changes in most post-Yugoslav states around the year 2000, the nationalist paradigm has shifted towards a new mainstream, combining the promise of EU accession with neoliberal economic reforms, and slowly abandoning nationalism as a means of political mobilization/demobilization. The radical right groups in the post-Yugoslav area were generally on the right side during the 1990s, but they now face marginalization and even prosecution by state authorities. When pushed to the edge of the political field, however, these groups reorganize themselves. At the same time, several developments are fostering their existence and activities, namely the discursive normalization of nationalism, an unchallenged nationalist revisionism of history, and the reluctance of large parts of society to deal critically with the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Finally, due to the lack of strong left-wing parties and organizations, the radical right groups represent the only political alternative to the new pro-European mainstream. This article looks at the formation and development of radical right groups in the post-Yugoslav area, and situates this in the political context of the last two decades.

The rise of the Far-Right in Europe over the past decade has attracted the attention of both academics and police. Popular sports tend to reflect societal trends so it is not bizarre that a popular European cultural practice such as football has seen a rise in supporters with neo-fascist sympathies. Football (Soccer in the USA), specifically in Italy, has been linked since the beginning to politics (Porro, 2001;2008) and its stadiums have always been one of the most efficient public Agorá for the socialization of the Italian youth. In recent years, together with an ideologisation of the football terraces, there has been a noticeable increase in conflict between hardcore Football supporters and the Italian police at and around the stadium. These conflicts often involve the UltraS as the main participants. The final capital S identifies neo-fascist oriented fans, distinguishing them from mainstream hardcore Football supporters, known as ultrá (Testa and Armstrong 2008; Testa 2009; Testa and Armstrong 2010). This paper is the result of ethnographic research lasting six years (2003 to 2009). The research aimed to investigate the world of the UltraS by using two notorious national and international UltraS as case study. The groups, the Boys and the Irriducibili, support the AS Roma and SS Lazio, respectively. Both are located in the Italian capital city of Rome. The present paper aims to investigate the relationship between the neo-fascist UltraS and the institutions that they identify as their enemies namely the Italian State and the police.

(1997). Problems of nationalism, neo‐fascism and national identity in post‐unification Germany. Journal of Area Studies: Vol. 5, Nation, Place and Culture: Issues of Identity in Contemporary Europe, pp. 66-86.

The presence of a well-established neo-fascist party, the MSI, and the absence of a legitimate conservative Right has been considered for long time one of the anomalies of the Italian party system. The birth in 1995 from the ashes of the MSI of a new more moderate party, Alleanza Nazionale, and its rise to power in Berlusconi's 1994 and 2001 cabinets has been interpreted as the sign of a new era of success for the Italian Right. Nevertheless, four years after the dissolution of Alleanza Nazionale into the Berlusconi's Popolo della Libertà, the list led by the former AN leader, Gianfranco Fini, and the other "post-fascist" lists gathered in the whole, at the 2013 general elections, only 3,3% of the vote and only 9 deputies. This article tries to explain the main factors both of the sudden rise and the unexpected decline of this political family.

The present works sets up to analyze the relationship between radical right activism and the unfolding of the financial crisis in Europe, investigating the extent to which the current economic circumstances have influenced right-wing movements’ political supply and repertoires of action. Using the case study of the Italian neo-fascist group CasaPound, and based on a mix of historiography and ethnographic methods, the present work systematically analyzes the ways in which the group tackles the economic crisis. We find that the crisis offers a whole new set of opportunities for the radical right to reconnect with its fascist legacy, and to develop and innovate crisis-related policy proposals and practices. The crisis shapes the groups’ self-understanding and its practices of identity building, both in terms of collective rediscovery of the fascist regime’s legislation, and in terms of promotion of the fascist model as a ‘third way’ alternative to market capitalism. Even more importantly, the financial crisis plays the role of the enemy against which the fascist identity is built, and enables neo-fascist movements to selectively reproduce their identity and ideology within its practices of protest, propaganda, and consensus building.

Les AA. soulignent que l'Europe et l'Amerique du Nord connaissent une vive resurgence du racisme et de l'antisemitisme. Ils montrent que les mouvements neofascistes et racistes utilisent des technologies de pointe, notamment Internet, en ce qui concerne la dissemination de leurs idees. Ils se demandent si ces technologies contribuent a creer les mouvements neofascistes. Ils s'efforcent de savoir comment ces derniers concilient l'utilisation de technologies a caractere transnational et une rhetorique faisant appel aux notions de sol, de race. Ils analysent le discours raciste des jeunes et principalement la symbolique du corps. Ils montrent que la culture neofasciste est une culture globalisee et hybride

In Italy, as in the rest of Europe, open antisemitism is chastised and isolated through social condemnation and legal means. Most traditional antisemitism is confined to the publications and websites of extreme groups. The tendency to minimize the nature of a threat hinders efforts to formulate a right response to the newest manifestations of antisemitism. Recent public opinion surveys in European countries measured traditional antisemitic prejudice and tried to determine if and how antisemitism makes its way into the coverage—and the public perception—of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Extremism is the starting place for a survey of antisemitism in Italy. As the birthplace of Fascism, Italy still has a strong tradition of Fascist nostalgia. Keywords:antisemitism; Italy; Jews

Despite their presence in Italian football stadiums, the UltraS have been the subject of limited empirical research. I use the capital S to identify neo-fascist oriented fans to distinguish them from the wider football supporters ultra' (Testa and Armstrong 2008; Testa 2009; Testa and Armstrong 2010a). This study is part of a series of publications to fill in this lacuna; it is part of an ethnographic research project carried out from 2003 to 2009. The research aimed to analyze the UltraS social world using as a sample two hardcore subculture of fans at the two main Rome football clubs - AS Roma and SS Lazio. With neo-fascist sympathies, these groups -the Boys at Roma and the Irriducibili at Lazio- are political and well-organized (Testa and Armstrong, 2010a).\ud The present paper focuses on the relationship between the UltraS and the Italian media; the media are often considered by the UltraS as enemies because believed to be biased against them. To complement the ethnographic data, three renowned Italian sports journalists were interviewed in 2008. One was Franco Arturi, deputy director of La Gazzetta dello Sport, which is the most established and popular of the Italian sport newspapers. Another was Giuseppe Tassi, a sport journalist and deputy director of Quotidiano.net (internet edition of the Resto del Carlino, La Nazione and Il Giorno editorial group). The third was Gabriele Marcotti, journalist for the British The Times and the popular Italian daily IL Corriere dello Sport. Analysis stresses the importance of media coverage in influencing the UltraS deviant dynamics and suggests, considering the experiences of other European countries, a reduction of media attention towards the UltraS as a strategy to contain this phenomenon.

'Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Interaktion zwischen Rechtsextremismus und Populismus durch eine Analyse rechter Diskurse in Italien und Deutschland. Die Studie fokussiert sich auf verschiedene Typen von rechtsextremen Organisationen (politische Parteien, gewalttätige subkulturelle/ junge rechtsextreme Gruppierungen und politische Bewegungen) aus der Perspektive der sozialen Bewegungsforschung. Anhand einer Frame-Analyse diverser Dokumente (Zeitungen, Internetseiten, Online-Gästebücher und -Foren sowie andere Veröffentlichungen) wird über einen Zeitraum von 2000 bis 2006 für insgesamt 4000 Frames empirisch erforscht, wie die extreme Rechte Populismus konzeptionalisiert. Dabei wird die Verbindung von Bürgeraufrufen mit traditionellen Begrifflichkeiten der extremen Rechten wie Nativismus und Autoritarismus dargestellt und herausgestrichen, wie zentrale Populismus-Frames (die einfachen Leute gegen die Elite) mit rechtsextremen Definitionen von 'wir' und 'die anderen' verlinkt sind, wenn Diagnosen, Prognosen und Handlungsmotivationen entwickelt werden. Diskursive Ansätze und die Analyse politischer Gelegenheitsstrukturen erscheinen als geeignet, um die je nach Land und Organisationstyp unterschiedliche Konfigurationen populistischer Frames zu erklären.' (Autorenreferat), 'This paper addresses the interactions between the extreme right and populism, looking at right wing discourses in Italy and Germany, focusing on different types of extreme right organizations (political parties, violent subcultural/ young right wing groups, and political movements), and adopting a social movement perspective. Through a frame analysis conducted on several types of organizational documents (newspapers, websites, online guest books and forums, and other forms of publications), covering a period from 2000-2006, for a total of 4000 frames, it explores empirically the aspect of the conceptualization of the populism by the extreme right, showing the bridging of the appeal to the people with some traditional frames of the extreme right, such as nativism and authoritarianism, and stressing how the central populist frames (the people versus the elite) are linked to the extreme right definition of the 'us' and the 'them', when developing diagnoses, prognoses and motivations to action. A political opportunity and discursive approach will be useful in explaining the different configurations of populist frames depending on country and organizational type.' (author's abstract)

In recent years, there has been a rise in the conflict between the Italian police forces and football fans. This situation is a result of the resurgence of the UltraS (the S capital is a neologism of this study to suggest neo-fascist oriented fans' and to differentiate them from the wider hardcore football supporters -ultra’). However, despite their popularity among the Italian curve (football terraces), the UltraS have been the subject of fairly little ethnographic research. This paper is the result of ethnographic research conducted continuously between 2003-2006 and updated from 2007 to the first part of 2009. The research sought to evaluate the UltraS phenomenon via an examination of the internal and external dynamics of two nationally well-known groups located in the Italian capital of Rome (the Italian centre of the political power). The groups are the Boys Roma and the Irriducibili of Lazio who enact their performances on their respective curve (football terraces) of the city’s Olympic stadium. The present paper argues that the ideological alliance between the UltraS of Lazio and Roma (followed as example by other UltraS groups throughout Italy) , the death of Lazio fan Gabriele Sandri in 2007 (and concomitant violent UltraS’ reaction against the police) together with the existence of the UltraS Italia (a national organisation which unites the main Italian Ultras groups) are all elements that signify the beginning of a common meaningful opposition to the perceived repressive Italian State. Most importantly these elements appears indicating the UltraS as an emerging social movement.

Over the past two decades the link – perceived and actual – between political extremism and football fans has been the subject of academic, political, and policing debate. It is not rare to witness manifestations of intolerance and ideological statements referring to regional, national and international issues at football stadia. In Italian football stadia, political representation has been evident for decades; politics has been integral to all realms of Italian society and culture since the origin of the nation. As one of the most significant Italian cultural practices, football has not been an exception. This combination of theory and action inspires thousands of young male football supporters. The football stadium might thus be interpreted as a twenty-first century social Agorá, where political opinions – otherwise ghettoized in society – can be freely expressed in pursuit of a wider consensus. This paper explores the under-researched milieu of neo-fascist ideology as displayed in contemporary Italian football stadia. Contributing original material and employing as conceptual frameworks the New Consensus Theory on fascism and the works of Julius Evola and Georges Sorel, this analysis hypothesizes that the neo-fascist tenets manifested by the ideologically-oriented ‘ultras’ fan groups, may be understood as both a consequence of, and a resistance against the dominant socio-cultural and political values of contemporary Italy. The research conducted between 2003–2007 sought to evaluate two internationally renowned ultras groups located in the Italian capital of Rome: the Boys of AS Roma and the Irriducibili of SS Lazio who enact their performances on their respective 'curve' [football terraces] of the city's Olympic stadium. Utilizing the ethnographic method, unique access was achieved in a notoriously difficult research milieu bringing the researcher into the social-cultural world of the participants and to the echelons of the extra-parliamentary Italian far right. Research sought to uncover the groups’ social interactions, values, and political beliefs, as a way of contributing to an understanding of both the Italian ultras of the twenty-first century and indeed the wider political milieu of the modern nation-state of Italy.

Fascism was made in Italy. Though the prewar intellectuals subsequently labeled as “fascist” came from various countries, as a mass movement Italian fascism was the pristine case. The very word is Italian, from fascio , a tied bundle of sticks, used then to describe any small, tight-knit political group – the sense being that sticks would have more force if bound tightly together, as human groups would if bound by strong comradeship. Note that this indicates organization, not values. Mussolini additionally emphasized its derivation from the Latin fasces , the ancient Roman Republic's symbol of popular authority, an axe bound with rods, which he used as the movement's icon. Though ideas later called “fascist” were aired in prewar Italy, fascism proper emerged only at the end of World War I. After declaring for neutrality in 1914, the Italian government joined the Entente in 1915, lured by promises of territories to be won from the Habsburg Empire. But there was serious conflict over entry into the war. The years 1915 and 1916 saw mass demonstrations, rioting, and street-fighting between pro- and antiwar movements. This had followed hard on two further disruptions: a large extension of the male suffrage suddenly introduced (for tactical reasons) by prime minister Giolitti in 1912 and a period of industrial unrest that had increased the power of the left “maximalist” wing of the Socialist Party. Many conservatives and liberals feared that liberal parliamentarism was being threatened from the streets.

ÖZET MİLLİYETÇİ HAREKET PARTİSİNİN TÜRK SİYASAL HAYATINDAKİ ROLÜ VE ETKİSİ Emre Arslan Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Tez Yöneticisi: Aslı Çırakman Bu tez, Milliyetçi Hareket Partisinin (MHP) Türk siyasal hayatındaki rolünü ve etkisini anlamaya ve açıklamaya çalışacaktır. Bu çalışma hem bir siyasal parti hem de bir siyasal hareket olarak MHP'nin son yıllardaki yükselişini incelemektedir. Bu nedenle, MHP'nin rolü ve etkisi onun köklerine, tarihine, stratejilerine ve ideolojisine göre ele alınmaktadır. Ayrıca, partinin değişen rolü ve önemi, değişen tarihsel koşullar içinde değerlendirilmektedir.Bu dönemde egemen ideolojilerin yaşadığı kriz, MHP'nin ve ideolojisinin yükselmesinde etkili olmuştur. Cumhuriyet tarihi boyunca sorgulanmadan Türk devletinin ve toplumunun temel ideolojisi addedilen Kemalizm 1990larda Siyasal İslam ve Kürt milliyetçiliği tarafından ciddi sorgulamalara maruz kalmıştır. Ayrıca, 1980lerde hegemonik ideoloji konumuna ulaşan Yeni Sağ, 1990'larda çekiciliğini yitirmiş ve büyük ölçüde aşırı milliyetçi söylemi kullanma yoluna gitmiştir. Çatışan, içice geçen, ve form değiştiren farklı milliyetçiliklerin etkili olduğu 1990ların ideolojik ikliminde, MHP milliyetçiliği egemen ideolojileri eklemleme başarısı göstererek etkili bir ideoloji konumuna gelmiştir. Bu argüman çerçevesinde, çalışmada MHP'nin değişen ideolojisi ve stratejisi konu edilecektir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Milliyetçilik, MHP, İdeoloji, Neo-faşizm, Hegemonya ABSTRACT THE ROLE AND INFLUENCE OF NATIONALIST ACTION PARTY IN TURKISH POLITICAL LIFE Emre Arslan Department of Political Science and Public Administration Supervisor: Dr. Aslı Çırakman This thesis is an attempt to explain and explore the role and influence of Nationalist Action Party (MHP) in Turkish political life. This study examines the rise of MHP in recent years both as a political party and as a political movement. For this reason, MHP' s role and influence is evaluated in terms of its origins, history, strategies and ideologies. Furthermore, the changing role and influence of the party is assesed within the context of changing historical conditions. In this period, a crises of dominant ideologies has influenced the rise of MHP and its ideology. Kemalism, which is deemed as the official ideology of Turkish state and society throughout the history of Republic, has been challenged by Islamist movements and Kurdish nationalism in 1990s. Furthermore, the New Right as the hegemonic ideology of 1980s has lost its appeal and employed an extreme nationalist discourse to a great extent in recent years. In the ideological climate of 1990s, which is strongly influenced by competing, intermixing and changing nationalisms, the MHP nationalism has become a rising and influential ideology by articulating the dominant ideologies. Within the framework of above argument, this study adresses the changing ideology and political strategies of the MHP. Keywords: Nationalism, MHP, Ideology, Neo-Fascism, Hegemony 162

Im vorliegenden Beitrag geht es um die Frage einer gesamtnationalen Lösung der sicherheitspolitischen Problematik des Staates Rußland. Vom Verlauf der Reformen hängt es ab, wie sich die Beziehungen zum Westen und zu der NATO gestalten. Die Hauptgefahr für die Sicherheit verlagert sich aufgrunddessen in das Innere des Landes. Der Sieg der rechtsextremen Kräfte und der Kommunisten führen seit 1994 zu Ungewißheiten, zu außenpolitischen Meinungsverschiedenheiten und zu Bestrebungen, die Sicherheitspolitik zu korrigieren, um die Kritik der Wahlsieger abzuschwächen. Der politische Kurs gegenüber der NATO wird seitdem ebenfalls ständig korrigiert. Breiten Militärkreisen fällt es zudem schwer, zu begreifen, daß es im Grunde keinen Feind gibt und daß die Armee neue Funktionen übernehmen muß. So sind in Rußland lange wie heftige Konfrontationen und ein Kampf zwischen den Anhängern des Fortschritts und den konservativen bzw. national-neofaschistischen Kräften zu erwarten. Verlauf und Ausgang dieses Kampfes werden nicht nur das Schicksal Rußlands bestimmen, sondern sie werden auch einen wachsenden Einfluß auf die gesamteuropäische und sogar auf die weltweite Entwicklung ausüben. (psz)

(1988). The Movimento sociale Italiano‐Destra Nazionale and neo‐fascism in Italy. West European Politics: Vol. 11, Right‐Wing Extremism in Western Europe, pp. 19-33.

The action of the French National Assembly in the late summer of 1954 finally ended the hopes of proponents of the European Defense Community Treaty. Today the treaties and protocols of the London and Paris Conferences which proposed the creation of a Western European Union are the objects of official scrutiny. Both Italy and Germany will become members of the Western European Union after the appropriate ratifications of these documents. The restoration of Germany to a status of equality with that of other Western European states and her admission into NATO have been proposed by the Foreign Ministers of the Western powers. But behind these actions there has lurked a fear which is reflected in many European countries, the fear of a neo-fascist rebirth in Western Germany and Italy. The image of a rearmed Germany, feeding on the industry of the Ruhr and associated with a Nazi revival, frightens many French parliamentarians. In Britain, the Bevanites have expressed left-wing Laborite fears of German rearmament and have associated it with probable fascist direction. Said their leader on November 18, 1954, in a parliamentary exchange: "Do you think the people of this Country will be safer against the prospects of war if German armies and their Nazi officers have atom and hydrogen bombs?" The neutralism prevalent among some groups in Western Europe can be interpreted in part as their reaction to similar questions. And in the United States, there has not been lacking in some quarters a belief that there is a dangerous spectre which is haunting Western Europe and the world, namely a neo-fascist revival on the north side of the Rhine. At the moment this fear is being fully exploited by Soviet leaders. Deputy Premier Maxim Z. Saburov recently charged that "Hitlerite generals" and others who plotted "Hitler's agressions against France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union and other peace-loving countries" were again gaining power in Germany. The text of the Soviet note of November 13, 1954, to France proposing an all-European Security Conference charged that "a West German army is being created under the leadership of those German generals who headed the Hitler army in the years of the Second World War and were coparticipants in the Fascist creation and cultivation of Hitler's New Order in European countries."' This charge constitutes an effective weapon which Soviet propagandists have directed against efforts to secure a greater degree of political and economic unification and military integration in Western Europe.