Research news and events

We are very glad to invite you to submit papers and full panels to the 2020 ECPR General conference in Innsbruck, Section Populism, Radicalism and Extremism: At the Margins and into the Mainstream.

The Section is endorsed by the Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy and will be chaired by Pietro Castelli Gattinara (C-REX, University of Oslo), Léonie de Jonge (University of Groningen), and Ofra Klein (European University Institute).

Ethnonationalism has been as common in Georgia as in other post-Soviet countries, but the far-right social movement has especially been gaining traction for the past five years, gradually becoming larger, more diverse, and more violent. The parliamentary elections approaching in 2020 create a window of opportunity for far-right actors to gain access to mainstream politics. ​

During the last few years, especially around the refugee crisis in 2015-16, vigilante groups popped up all over Europe and North America, patrolling the streets and national borders. They claimed to protect the local citizenry against crime and security threats constituted by illegal migrants and minority groups.

Little is known about how governments put together and put to use policy advisory commissions. In her dissertation, Stine Hesstvedt seeks to find out if and how politics play a role in the Norwegian policy advisory commission system.

Who is a dissident? When did the word enter international political vocabulary, and how did it come to mean human rights activists rather than religious heretics?

Liberal Roots of Far-Right Activism, by Lars Erik Berntzen, discusses the nature and implications of the anti-Islamic turn of the contemporary far right in Western Europe, North America and beyond.

This Working paper intends to give a thorough introduction of the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) and Generation Identity (GI) to inform future research, policy-making, and preventive work.

Decision-makers are often trusting of scientific and technical expertise. But could expertise replace democratic control?

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are highly hereditary diseases. But is it possible to predict who will get them? That is one of the aims of Associate Professor Lars Tjelta Westlye, who is now to receive the Anders Jahre Prize for Young Scientists.