scholarly journals From Paramilitaries to Parliamentarians: Disaggregating Radical Right Wing Extremist Movements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Blazakis ◽  
Colin Clarke

The global far right is extremely broad in nature and far from monolithic. While the “far right” is often used as an umbrella term, using the term runs the risk of over-simplifying the differences and linkages between white supremacist, anti-immigration, nativist, and other motivating ideologies. These beliefs and political platforms fall within the far-right rubric, and too often the phrase presents a more unified image of the phenomena than is really the case. In truth, the “far right” and the individual movements that comprise it are fragmented, consisting of a number of groups that lack established leadership and cohesion. Indeed, these movements include chauvinist religious organizations, neo-fascist street gangs, and paramilitary organs of established political parties. Although such movements largely lack the mass appeal of the interwar European radical right-wing extreme, they nevertheless can inspire both premeditated and spontaneous acts of violence against perceived enemies. This report is intended to provide policymakers, practitioners, and the academic community with a roadmap of ongoing shifts in the organizational structures and ideological currents of radical right-wing extremist movements, detailing the difference between distinct, yet often connected and interlaced echelons of the far right. In particular, the report identifies and analyzes various aspects of the broader far right and the assorted grievances it leverages to recruit, which is critical to gaining a more nuanced understanding of the potential future trajectory of these movements.

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Olga Patrikeeva

A Majority system of elections to the State Duma of the Russian Empire pushed the political parties participating in election campaigns to the conclusion of electoral blocs and agreements. The purpose of this article is to find out whether the generated block of Octobrists and reactionaries in the elections in the II State Duma? Compromised if the leadership of the “Soyuz 17 oktyabrya” the pre-election agreement with such odious political force? The methodological basis of this work was the principles of historicism, scientific credibility and objectivity, as well as traditional methods of historical research: problem-chronological, comparative. Based on the analysis of preserved in the archives of the party’s correspondence and also periodicals of the time the author comes to the conclusion that the election agreement of the “Soyuz 17 oktyabrya” with the right-wing political parties did not take place. The reason is the difference in the views of the moderate and far-right politicians to solve the “Jewish question” in Russia in the early twentieth century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 197-209
Author(s):  
Astrid Barrio

This paper analyses why Populism has failed to take root in Spain despite a ‘soil’ that has favoured its seeding and growth elsewhere. At first sight, Spain seems to provide the conditions in which Populism can thrive: a deep economic crisis (which began with the financial meltdown in 2008) and a succession of corruption scandals affecting all the main political parties. Even so, Populism has failed to gain a hold in Spain. The traditional Far Right is very weak, and new parties such as Podemos and Ciudadanos cannot be considered Populist. While Vox displays all the features of a radical right-wing party, it is one from which Populism is absent. We argue that the lack of Populism in Spain can mainly be explained by the highly fractured nature of the country’s politics, with left-right and national fault lines shaping how political competition plays out in the nation.


Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten ◽  
Scott Blinder ◽  
Lise Bjånesøy

The “populist radical right” is a contested concept in scholarly work for good reason. This chapter begins by explaining that the political parties usually grouped together under this label are not a party family in a conventional sense and do not self-identify with this category. It goes on to show how political science scholarship has established that in Europe during the past thirty or so years we have seen the rise of a set of parties that share a common ideological feature—nativism. The nativist political parties experiencing most electoral support have combined their nativist agenda with some other legitimate ideological companion, which provides deniability—a shield against charges that the nativist agenda makes the parties and their supporters right-wing extremist and undemocratic. The chapter goes on to explain that in order to make progress on our understanding of how and why the populist radical right persuades citizens, we need to recognize: first, that nativism is the only necessary ingredient without which the populist radical right loses its force; and second, that nativism in contemporary established democracies has tended not to persuade a large share of voters without an ideological companion.


Author(s):  
John S. Huntington

Willis E. Stone watched aghast as mid-century liberals expanded the size and power of the federal government. Stone, a former industrial engineer and unbending anti-statist, believed this liberal surge obfuscated and abetted an imminent red tide of communism. He founded the American Progress Foundation and its flagship periodical, American Progress , to spread a hardline libertarian message, hoping to spark conservative resistance against federal power. In the pages of American Progress , Stone and a coterie of other right-wingers published conspiratorial, anti-statist diatribes and promoted Stone’s proposal, the Liberty Amendment, to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment. Right-wing business owners joined the fray, sponsoring American Progress through advertisements, and over time Stone’s movement expanded to form a collaborative network with other far-right groups. This article illustrates how American Progress served as an activist and ideological nexus for the broader ultraconservative movement, which helped establish a hardline brand of libertarianism that reverberated throughout the modern American Right. Furthermore, by analysing the scope and influence of radical right-wing publications, this article provides a critical counterweight to the traditional left-wing focus of periodical studies.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL F. MILLS

This article examines the politics of American “doomsday” prepping during Barack Obama's presidency. It challenges claims that growing interest in prepping post-2008 arose exclusively from extreme apocalyptic, white supremacist, and anti-government reactions to Obama's electoral successes – claims that suggest prepping to be politically congruent with previous waves of extreme right-wing American “survivalism.” Drawing on ethnography, this paper argues that, while fears of Obama have been central to many preppers’ activities, much of their prepping under his presidency centred on fears that sit outside survivalist politics. Building on this, the article illuminates connections between prepping and America's twenty-first-century electoral mainstream. Engaging with discussions about the “remaking” of American conservatism during Obama's presidency, it particularly frames prepping's growth as being engaged with, and shaped by, currents of mainstream anti-Obama fear that similarly undergirded the Tea Party's rise within popular Republicanism at this time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512092663
Author(s):  
Vanessa Ceia

That Twitter is a major form of political mobilization and influence has been well documented. But what is the role of linked media—references to newspapers, photos, videos, and other external sources via URLs—in political Twitter messaging? How are linked references employed as campaign tools and rhetorical devices in messages published by political parties on Twitter? Is there a quantifiable relationship between a party’s ideology and linked media in tweets? With the spread of fake news, threats to a free press, and questioning of the legitimacy of political messaging on the rise globally, the sources on which parties draw to convince voters of their online messaging deserve critical attention. To explore the above questions, this article examines uses of linked media in tweets generated by the official accounts of Spain’s top five political parties during, in the lead-up, and in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish General Elections held on April 28, 2019. Grounded in a corpus of 10,038 tweets collected between March 1 and May 15, 2019, this study quantifies, compares, and critiques how linked media are integrated and remixed into tweets published by the left-leaning Spanish Workers’ Socialist Party (@PSOE), right-wing Popular Party (@populares), left-wing Podemos (@ahorapodemos), neoliberal Citizens (@CiudadanosCs), and far-right Vox (@vox_es) parties. Evidence reveals that each party links to media from somewhat homophilic groups of news outlets, journalists, and public figures, an analysis of which can shed light on how parties construct their digital self-representations, ideological networks of information, and attempt to sway voters.


2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 569-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Stockemer ◽  
Tobias Lentz ◽  
Danielle Mayer

In this article, we summarize the individual demand-level factors explaining the radical right-wing vote in European countries. To do so, we first review 46 quantitative peer-reviewed articles featuring the individual vote choice in favour of a radical right-wing party as the dependent variable. To identify relevant articles, we use Kai Arzheimer’s bibliography on the radical right and employ the following inclusion criterion: the articles must be written in English, they must use the individual vote for a radical right-wing party as the dependent variable, they must use a quantitative methodology and they must include some type of regression analysis. Using this strategy, we conduct a meta-analysis of 329 relevant models and find that over 20 individual variables are tested. Because many variables such as attitudes towards immigration, employment, age, education and gender only show moderate success rates in attempting to explain an individual’s propensity to vote for the radical right, we complement the review of quantitative studies with an analysis of 14 qualitative publications. The review of these qualitative works shows that the processes through which somebody becomes a voter, supporter or activist of the radical right are often more complex than the commonly used surveys can portray them. Frequently, feelings of relative economic deprivation and dissatisfaction with the political regime trigger an awakening that makes individuals seek engagement. However, the processes behind this awakening are complex and can only be partially captured by quantitative studies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1018-1027
Author(s):  
Dr. ELHAM Ghobain

In this paper, I attempt to present an example of following Hallidays grammatical system in analysing a text that can bear racial references. Doing so, the text analysis can be viewed from a critical discourse analysis perspective. The text chosen, titled Europe Must Close Its Borders or be Swamped by Third World, published in 2009, exhibits a typical example of the political rhetoric used by far-right political parties represented by one of its leaders in Britain, Nick Griffin. My assumption is that every word, every verb, and every phrase used is carefully chosen to convey the intended agendas of the party to its prospect voters in a clever way, which achieves its maximum effect with little or no apparent violation to the press guidelines. I also believe that such a stirring text, as far as the paper is concerned, would benefit from the use of various types of verbs and phrases that should suffice the requirement of the analysis. The paper may be of good use to students interested in studying this system of analysis as it deeply goes into the details of the used text.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Villamil ◽  
Stuart James Turnbull-Dugarte ◽  
José Rama

Literature on the determinants of far-right support has increased markedlyduring the last few years, expanding our knowledge on who votes for these par-ties. Little is known, however, about the relationship being a member of the mil-itary and voting for the far-right. Recent scandals within the armed forces ofsome developed democracies underscore this gap. In this paper, we argue thatthere is an ideological affinity between the military and far-right parties based onshared values over nationalism and authoritarianism. We use two distinct empir-ical strategies to test this argument in Spain. First, we pool together data fromseveral survey rounds to show that individual military personnel are significantlymore prone to support Spain’s new populist radical right-wing party, VOX. Sec-ond, we show that the location of military facilities across Spain is linked to highersupport for VOX. Using spatial statistics, we show evidence of a diffusion effect.Our findings are relevant to both the literature on far-right support and our knowl-edge of civil-military relationships.


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