Far-right parties and groups have been getting increasing support across Europe. Parties that are characterized as being far-right have performed quite well in the recent domestic elections, often occupying second and third place.
In some of these cases, they even join governing coalitions. Examples can also include the French Front National (FN, also known as the Rassemblement National), the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), the Austrian Party for Freedom (FPÖ), the Norwegian Progress Party (FrP), the Italian Lega Nord (LN), the Sweden Democrats (SD), as well as the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
They share a lot of values, but mainly an obsession with sovereignty. their skepticism of how Europe works, their ongoing emphasis on strict immigration policies, and the placing of “native” inhabitants first in areas like welfare and social services, are some of the main characteristics of the far-right movement.
Such policies promote a “new nationalism,” and they have allowed researchers to compare these parties, often under the umbrella of the “far right.” But the term in itself somehow subsumes a broader range of parties and groups, that greatly differ in both agenda and policy, especially economic and welfare ones, but also the extent to which they are behind acts of violence.
This specific category includes both parties that have moderated their own agendas, distancing themselves from fascism to appeal to broader electorates, vigilante street groups, and extreme parties that continuously employ violence, like the Greek Golden Dawn (GD), the English Defence League (EDL), Britain First, and the Italian Casa Pound. For all these reasons, the use of the term “far right” is somehow contested. So is it really appropriate to group these different organizations under the same label?
More about its terminology
To answer briefly, “yes”. Considering all the significant variations that currently exist between these parties and groups, any term that links them together and compares them will have its own limitations.
However, the term “far right” is truly the least problematic, especially since it can be used, on one hand, to spot the overarching similarities that make them comparable in the first place, and on the other to distinguish between different variants, allowing researchers to take into account the idiosyncrasies of specific cases.
So the “far right” umbrella also encompasses parties and groups with a shared commonality: they all justify a specific but broad range of policy positions on socioeconomic problems, based on nationalism. The bottom line is not just the fact that all of them are, to some degree, nationalists. Rather, they use nationalism to justify their positions on all socioeconomic problems.
Now, this term, “right-wing populism” is definitely less appropriate here. Populism is even a bigger umbrella, that often includes disparate parties and groups. To effectively narrow down this specific category, we often tend to conflate populism and nationalism, finding a party as being populist, not because of its populist attributes, but more so on the basis of its nationalist attributes.
However, despite the similarities discovered between “populism” and “nationalism,” which both put emphasis on conflicting lines, focus primarily on the collective, and put forward a vision of the perfect society, the two concepts are awfully different.
As the former pits the people against the elites, the latter pits the in-group against the outside group. Hence, here lies the issue. If nationalism is nothing but a feature of the far right, as the wide majority of researchers would agree, what is then the added value of the term “populism”?
To put it differently, what is the main difference between a radical right-wing party and a populist radical right-wing party? As populism might or might not be an attribute of some mention-worthy far-right parties, it is still not their main feature. Nationalism is, however.
Extreme vs radical
Under the same “far right” umbrella, we could distinguish between two, smaller categories: extreme and radical right. The extreme right represents both vigilante groups and political parties that more often than not, are openly racist, have well-established ties to fascism, and more often than not, employ violence and a series of aggressive tactics.
These groups can operate either outside or within the realm of electoral politics. They usually oppose procedural democracy by default.
For instance, let’s take the Greek Golden Dawn. It was formed as a violent grassroots movement by far-right activists. Besides the elections of the Greek parliament in 2012, the party’s principal activities took place in the streets. Researchers named this party as fascist or neo-Nazi.
Other relevant examples include the UK-based street movement Britain First, the English Defence League, and its former leader Tommy Robinson, as well as others. We can also add various white supremacist organizations to this specific category, like Stormfront in the United States. It is worth mentioning that these groups often have ties between them. Stormfront, for instance, promotes various Golden Dawn activities with its online presence.
The radical right is far more widespread and successful in Europe, as it seems. These parties, such as the French FN, Dutch PVV, Sweden Democrats, and the AfD, comply with procedural democracy and try to distance themselves from fascism. They also oppose the far-right label.
Moreover, these parties use nationalism to justify their policy positions. However, instead of the ethnic nationalist narrative that’s commonly adopted by extreme right parties, focusing on blood, creed, and common descent, radical right parties use a civic nationalist narrative to effectively promote anti-immigrant agendas, which also lets them seem more legitimate to a broad section of the population.
This specific civic nationalist rhetoric encompasses how culture can be a value issue, justifying exclusion on purported threats posed by those who don’t share “the usual” liberal democratic values. This also reinforces the ability of the aforementioned parties to distort mobilization on issues like terrorism by linking anti-Muslim narratives to immigration and security.
The justification is that some cultures and religions are simply intolerant and inherently antithetical to democracy.
It also puts emphasis on social welfare as a crucial aspect of the social contract between the state and citizens. The positions of all these parties are increasingly more protectionist, as well as welfare chauvinist, allowing them to use the economically insecure ones by linking immigration, unemployment, and even a purported welfare scarcity.
This position isn’t completely incompatible with “far right” terminology. Extreme right variants have often been strict in their own economic orientations. The best example is fascism. Radical right variants are increasingly departing from the neo-liberal economic formula of the past years, focusing more on an economically centrist position.
In this case, comparable doesn’t equal identical. The BNP isn’t the same thing as UKIP. On a similar note, Golden Dawn is definitely not the same as the FN, the PVV, or the AfD. However, these groups are comparable, still.
They all somehow justify their policies on the exclusion of an outsider group. Comparing them can help us understand how successful they are in different European countries, as well as to know more about the different forms they take, depending on context and circumstance.
For instance, in northwest Europe, the shiniest far-right parties are all radical right variants that place now more than ever an emphasis on immigration and a cultural backlash, like the PVV, the FN, and the SVP. In the meantime, in crisis-ridden southern Europe, successful far-right parties, like Golden Dawn, are known to be more extreme variants that propose statist economic agendas.
Even if these parties differ in many different ways, their progressive entrenchment in their national political system raises very similar questions about outside group exclusion, anti-immigration narratives, as well as mainstream responses. This kind of progressive entrenchment has comparable, and quite significant, implications for the nature of democracy, as well as policymaking in Europe.
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