2020

The Supreme Court of Finland issued a ban on the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement in the September of 2020. The historical decision follows a case that has been ongoing for several years and has already seen the Finnish right-wing extremist scene change in different ways.

Far-right extremists are exploiting the fear and uncertainty of this global pandemic, and it’s high time that we also respond with necessary preventive action.

What are the consequences of being labeled as a “violent extremist”? How does labeling affect individual activists, their organizations, and the social movement they are part of? In a recent study, we show that labeling – and the associated stigma – affects different radical groups in different ways and that it sometimes fails to demobilize the primary targets of the repressive actions, that is, the most militant groups. Rather, the effects are most evident amongst organizations that mobilize inclusively and openly, using primarily conventional protest tactics. From this we highlight the potential “backfire effects” of labelling, as the most militant groups might be further radicalized by this form of soft repression.

In the aftermath of the festive month, Dutch PhD candidate Iris Beau Segers looks back on the annually recurring issue of Black Pete in the Netherlands, whose blackfaced appearance has been at the heart of a controversial public debate for almost a decade.  

Every month, Right Now! publishes the book reviews that have appeared in the latest volume of E-Extreme the newsletter of the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism & Democracy. In this post, C-REX affiliate Tamta Gelashvili discusses Cas Mudde's latest volume The Far Right Today. 

Every month, Right Now! publishes the book reviews that have appeared in the latest volume of E-Extreme the newsletter of the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism & Democracy. In this post, David Jofré (University of Glasgow) discusses Kristoffer Holt's Right Wing Alternative Media.

How does a relatively small far right group, with little electoral support, attract international media attention and influence national politics? A recently published book by C-REX researchers Pietro Castelli Gattinara and Caterina Froio uses the example of CasaPound Italia to illustrate the new and often surprising forms that right-wing extremism is taking across the globe.

How did the global far right politicize Covid-19 ? How did far-right actors seize the public health crisis? In a comment for ISPI (Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale) Graham Macklin argues that the far right was quick to capitalize upon the Coronavirus pandemic too, though its response has varied widely across countries.

Multiagency collaboration structures are given a central role in preventing the recruitment of youth to extremism. In this study of Nordic policies developed to counter extremism and prevent crime, we have mapped and compared how multiagency collaboration is to be organized, what practices that are to be utilized and the legal frameworks that guides information sharing practices in collaborative work. The findings entail previously unknown discrepancies, similarities and differences between the Nordic countries that can help to inform a sometimes heated and polarized debate on how extremism is being handled. 

The January 6 attack on the US Capitol was not unexpected. It was anticipated by numerous warning signs, and it built upon a years-long process of radicalisation that involves, but is not limited to, Trump supporters.

The RTV trend report recently published by C-REX shows that, since the 1990s, severe forms of right-wing terrorism and violence in Western Europe have decreased, particularly gang-related and unorganized forms of violence. Today, so-called ‘lone actors’ carry out most of the violence, a trend that has been reinforced by the emergence of various online platforms.  

White women have long been part of white supremacist movements in the U.S. and elsewhere.  That continues today.  But what place do they occupy in deeply misogynist movements that force white women into idealized categories of white mother, sexual partner, or racial fighter?

Suicide attacks are virtually absent in far-right terrorism. A recent study of the subcultural, strategic, and historic references to martyrdom, self-sacrifice, and suicide in the contemporary far right shows the potential reasons for this, highlighting the peculiar political mythology of “martyrdom” that characterizes this extremist environment.

As far right politics is becoming an ever bigger part of mainstream politics, opponents and scholars of the far right have to leave their 20^th century thinking behind and critically review their received wisdom. What might have been true in the 1990s, might no longer be true today. Taboos have been broken, preferences have shifted, and the broader political context has become much more accepting to far right politics and politicians.

Few countries in Western Europe experience as much severe right-wing violence as Spain. However, the nature of right-wing violence in Spain differs from most other countries as it is seems more related to old, rather than new, political conflicts. 

On February 19^th, a 43-year-old German man carried out a far-right terror attack in the city of Hanau, in central Germany. He shot nine people at two locations in the city centre, as well as his own mother before committing suicide. He left a lengthy manifesto outlining his anti-migrant and racist worldview. In a month marked by the breaking of the country's long-enduring political ‘cordon-sanitaire’ , coupled with evidence of extensive far-right terrorist mobilisation and its most deadly terror attack since 1980, it is clear that Germany’s institutions are at a critical juncture in the struggle against right-wing extremism.

Efforts to implement “Muslim bans” and “extreme vetting” as a way to prevent Jihadism are rooted in a fundamental misconception: that Muslim immigrants bring violence and that Islam is more prone to violence than other religions. Our study shows that Jihadism is not like an exotic virus that one can “keep out”. Rather, it is like a cancer: it can appear anywhere in the world, and it is more likely under certain environmental circumstances, notably relative deprivation. Policy makers may therefore find it more effective to reduce the threat of Jihadism by reducing the stigmatization of Muslims living in the West, rather than banning Muslim migrants.

Discussions on the fourth wave of far-right politics, referring to its mainstreaming and normalization, can not ignore the role of social media platforms in current-day politics.

No other country in Western Europe has in recent decades experienced as much severe and deadly right-wing violence as Germany. Moreover, the nature of this violence is more complex than in other countries, making it even more difficult to prevent.  

While the Golden Dawn verdict is a positive step for Greek democracy, it is still important to understand why circa 500,000 Greek citizens voted this criminal organization in the parliament, despite the fact that its violence was well known. The Golden Dawn is an openly neo-Nazi party and its rise in Greek politics should be understood not just as the product of Greece’s economic malaise, but rather of the culmination of the economic crisis into an overall crisis of democracy and political representation. 

In recent years, Greece has experienced more severe right-wing violence per capita than any other country in Western Europe. It is long past time for a more comprehensive and effective response to far-right extremism.

While the year 2019 in Western Europe was neither very violent in terms of fatal attacks, nor particularly deadly in terms of fatalities, we witnessed a worrying emerging global trend of right-wing lone-actor terrorists carrying out, or trying to carry out, mass-casualty attacks. Here are some main findings from the RTV Trend Report 2020.

Activists wearing Yellow Safety Vests started taking the streets in France since October 2018. Many commentators linked their grievances to radical right and “anti-establishment” politics. Why is it not so simple?

As the volume of research on terrorism and far-right extremism (FRE) grows, so too does a corresponding recognition for a need to pay greater attention to research methodology, especially as this applies to participant interviews.

Can a cumulative perspective on extremism help us understand the ebb and flow of political violence and mobilization? Focusing on left- and right-wing extremism, Chris Holmsted Larsen discusses the interdependency between mutually hostile movements in Denmark