2020 - Page 2

With the siege on the U.S. Capitol Building, right-wing extremists with disparate agendas and goals seized a political opportunity to move into violent action and accelerate social chaos. While there are still many unknowns, six questions are likely to be key to what will happen in the U.S. in the near future.

Taken together, the emerging groups of the Georgian far right obtained less than 5% in the October 2020 elections to the national Parliament. But limited electoral success does not mean that the far-right has limited political power, in Georgia and elsewhere in the world.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Over this past week, the Indian capital of Delhi has been home to violence between Hindus and Muslims with a rising death toll each day. Eviane Leidig shows not only how this is the most recent manifestation of a legacy of right-wing extremist activity in India, but also that the response of global far right actors suggest a more disturbing connection between the extreme right in India and the West. 

Are European party systems experiencing the emergence of a ‘new’ religious cleavage originating from the exclusion of Islam? In a study recently published in Party Politics, Jakob Schwörer and Belén Fernandez-García show how religious discourses have increased substantially among radical right parties since the turn of the century and that nativist out-group constructions are a crucial driver for positive references to Christianity and secularism.

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. 

What role does religion play in Western European politics nowadays? Is it true that the radical right rediscovered religion for its political communication? C-REX visiting fellow Jakob Schwörer and Xavier Romero-Vidal address these questions in a recently published article in “Religion State and Society”. The text analysis on 36 European parties suggest that nativist parties are focusing on rejecting a religious outgroup, namely Islam, but hardly refer to religious in-groups such as Christians. Since the radical right rarely refers to other religious dimensions than the exclusion of Muslims, there is limited empirical evidence of the so-called “rise of religion” in party politics.

Conspiracy theories have been crucial in the radicalization process of the perpetrator of the Hanau-attack in Germany. Terje Emberland suggests that they were not only important on a political level but also, and perhaps most importantly, on a personal level – as they can help explain why individuals decide to engage in political violence.

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. 

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.  

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.