Western Democracies And The New Extreme Right Challenge

By the turn of the 1990s, Western democracy appeared destined to become the universal governmental norm. However, as we move into the new millennium there are growing signs that extremism is far from dead. In recent years, the extreme right has gathered notable support in many Western countries, such as Austria, France and Italy. Racist violence, initially aimed at 'immigrants', is on the rise, and in the US, and increasingly in Europe, the state itself has become a major target. This book considers the varying trajectories of the 'extreme right' and 'populist' parties and focuses on the problems of responses to these trends, an issue which has hitherto been neglected in academic literature.

By the turn of the 1990s, Western democracy appeared destined to become the universal governmental norm. However, as we move into the new millennium there are growing signs that extremism is far from dead. In recent years, the extreme right has gathered notable support in many Western countries, such as Austria, France and Italy. Racist violence, initially aimed at 'immigrants', is on the rise, and in the US, and increasingly in Europe, the state itself has become a major target. This book considers the varying trajectories of the 'extreme right' and 'populist' parties and focuses on the problems of responses to these trends, an issue which has hitherto been neglected in academic literature.

The last two decades have seen the emergence of new radical right-wing populist parties in Western democracies. The electoral breakthrough of the French Front National in 1984 was the starting point for the rise of parties combining anti-establishment populism and anti-immigrant politics based on ethno-nationalist ideology, and today radical right-wing populist parties are well represented in national politics in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, and the Netherlands in Western Europe, as well as in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. By bringing together some of the foremost experts within this area of research, this book gives a comprehensive image of different aspects of radical right-wing populism: its causes, ideology, and impact.

What explains the cross-national variation in the radical right's electoral success over the last several decades? Challenging existing structural and institutional accounts, this book analyzes the dynamics of party building and explores the attitudes, skills and experiences of radical right activists in eleven different countries. Based on extensive field research and an original data set of radical right candidates for office, David Art links the quality of radical right activists to broader patterns of success and failure. He demonstrates how a combination of historical legacies and incentive structures produced activists who helped party building in some cases and doomed it in others. In an age of rising electoral volatility and the fading of traditional political cleavages, Inside the Radical Right makes a strong case for the importance of party leaders and activists as masters of their own fate.

The Extreme Right in Western Europe is a concise introduction to one of the most persistent facets of late twentieth-century history, politics and society. The legacy of the Nazi era and the increasingly unacceptable face of extremism all militated against the success of far right-wing parties after World War Two. Nevertheless, contemporary problems and the solutions offered to ever more difficult questions such as immigration, unemployment, and law and order have enabled extremist, nationalist and populist movements to emerge. Focusing on a range of countries including France, Italy, Germany, the UK, Austria, Belgium and the Mediterranean region, Paul Hainsworth: explores the concept of right-wing extremism discusses the varying success of extreme right political parties in Western Europe examines the policies and perspectives of these parties analyses the profile of the extreme right’s electorate assesses the impact of right-wing extremism on aspects of politics in contemporary Western Europe. This accessible and up-to-date analysis of this enduring movement in Western Europe is a must for courses in history, politics and European studies.

Democratic development in Central and Eastern Europe is not a finished project, nor is its progress immune to internal and external threats. The current social, economic, ethnic and political situation within the region presents new dangers. This text identifies and analyses challenges to current East-Central European democracies in terms of potential deconsolidation of democracy reflected in the changes in the institutional and procedural framework (polity), and in the choice of instruments and strategies in the policy area. Specifically examining the regimes of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, these challenges include political extremism and violence, corruption, ethnic and religious conflicts. Presenting original Central European data and utilising the concept of consolidation of democracy from von Beyme and Merkel’s concept, the book demonstrates that these challenges are as much influenced by imported phenomena, such as immigration, organized crime, and other potential systemic undemocratic volatilities, as the domestic situation. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students East European politics, post-Soviet politics, EU Studies, security and strategic studies, international relations, area studies, modern history and sociology.

The populist radical right is one of the most studied political phenomena in the social sciences, counting hundreds of books and thousands of articles. This is the first reader to bring together the most seminal articles and book chapters on the contemporary populist radical right in western democracies. It has a broad regional and topical focus and includes work that has made an original theoretical contribution to the field, which make them less time-specific. The reader is organized in six thematic sections: (1) ideology and issues; (2) parties, organizations, and subcultures; (3) leaders, members, and voters; (4) causes; (5) consequences; and (6) responses. Each section features a short introduction by the editor, which introduces and ties together the selected pieces and provides discussion questions and suggestions for further readings. The reader is ended with a conclusion in which the editor reflects on the future of the populist radical right in light of (more) recent political developments – most notably the Greek economic crisis and the refugee crisis – and suggest avenues for future research.