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In this post Håvard Haugstvedt examines social workers' participation in multi-agency prevention work against violent extremism. The additional responsibilities cause tension in client meetings in particular, as social workers feel drawn to both their traditional ways of doing business, and to practices more influenced by police and security services. Social workers handle this by using both emotion management strategies, and social support from peers and supervisors.

In early 2022 the story of the foreign fighters in Ukraine seemed largely over: most of the original combatants from 2014 came back to their host countries, retired or settled. This changed in late February 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This rejuvenated the old foreign fighter networks and also produced - allegedly - thousands of new recruits for the Ukrainian military’s internationally oriented International Legion.

Levels of physical violence frequently escalate during waves of far-right or anti-minority protests. Joel Busher, Julia Ebner, Zsófia Hacsek, Gareth Harris, and Graham Macklin examine why, and what policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders can do to inhibit this.

Extremists, such as far-right nationalists, ISIS, and QAnon conspiracy theorists, are often considered to hold irrational beliefs. By drawing on recent, but underexplored ideas from academic philosophy, Finlay Malcolm will identify three ways by which extremist beliefs might be irrational and suggests how some of these ideas might be useful for research and policy on deradicalisation.

The majority of white Norwegians hold deep-seated racist attitudes and stereotypes, but superficially display egalitarian behaviour, according to Nina Høy-Petersen. In a recently published article, she shows that the duality of human cognition obscures people’s awareness of their own negative stereotypes, and argues that this makes confronting racism difficult.

Liberal democracy is under pressure, and illiberalism remains a threat across the globe. Cas Mudde argues that key events in 2021 should be a wake-up call to those who think illiberalism is the inevitable future, and emphasizes the crucial need for consistent, genuine, and inspiring liberal democratic politics.

The Russian far-right activist Vladislav Pozdnyakov is largely seen as a marginal character by far-right scholars. However, Elizaveta Gaufman argues that Pozdnyakov and his now banned organization “the Male State” need to be examined more closely as they represent yet another example of a global misogyny trend on par with the incel movement.

RightNow! editor Iris Beau Segers summarizes the year 2021 on the blog. What have C-REX scholars, affiliates and guest contributors written about prominent events and elections,  ideological trends, right-wing violence and terrorism, and more?

The Independence March passed through Warsaw once again. This time, no flat was burnt, no shops were vandalized, no squat or embassy attacked, and no freshly planted trees were torn out. According to Przemyslaw Witkowski, this is a worrying development, as it signals that nationalists are gaining political power in Poland and beyond.

The far right today is a global and diverse phenomenon, that encompasses a wide range of different actors and organizations. Tamta Gelashvili argues that scholarship on the far right would benefit from the use of Protest Event Analysis (PEA) to analyze and compare far-right mobilization across cultural contexts and over time.

In a recently published book, Celestine Kunkeler compares the political cultures of the Swedish National Socialist Workers’ Party (Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarepartiet, NSAP) and the Dutch National Socialist Movement (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, NSB). Central to the analysis is the construction of political myths: myth-making or mythopoeia of the largest fascist parties in these countries, neither of which ever came close to seizing power in the 1930s.

In recent years, and particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, far right forces have increased efforts to systematically undermine the principles of academic freedom. Léonie de Jonge, Iris Beau Segers and Cathrine Thorleifsson highlight the urgency of defending academic freedom against governmental interference and protecting researchers from threats and intimidation.

The electoral showing of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, Alternative for Germany) at past Sunday’s general election in Germany highlights once again that it is essential to scrutinize the party’s strength in eastern Germany, writes C-REX Postdoctoral Fellow Manès Weisskircher. 

“Foreign terrorist fighters” (FTFs) are commonly understood as being synonymous with jihadists. But what if we were to be faced with a foreign terrorist fighter, who is not a jihadi and is hardly ideologically motivated at all? C-REX Postdoctoral Fellow Kacper Rekawek discusses the recent conviction of three Czech foreign fighters involved in the conflict in Ukraine, who fall into that category. Their cases differ substantially from their jihadi counterparts and offer a fascinating insight into how different Western states approach the issue of their citizens or inhabitants deploying to foreign wars.

Right-wing terrorism and violence in Western Europe in 2020 was not significantly influenced by COVID-19 nor by the activism of the Black Lives Matter movement. Instead, the RTV report recently published by C-REX shows that 2020 represents a continuation of previous trends.

In May this year, the latest round of hostilities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict set in motion a wave of antisemitic attacks targeting Jews in Europe and the US. A closer look at these incidents demonstrates the ideological and cultural diversity of current Jew-hatred. In order to understand this diversity, a broader historical perspective is helpful.

The Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug’s use of the conspiratorial term ‘sneaky Islamization’ is a prime example of right-wing populist rhetoric.

There is a significant potential for conflict among Norwegians regarding how they understand the terrorist attack July 22 a decade after, according to Anders Ravik Jupskås and Øyvind Bugge Solheim.

Right-wing terrorists do not pose the greatest far-right threat to liberal democracies, according to C-REX scholar Jacob Aasland Ravndal.

Anti-Muslim views have become more widespread in Europe over the past 30 years, but it is important to distinguish between criticisms of certain forms of Islamic practice and the belief that Muslims are taking over Europe, according to Katrine Fangen.

Over the past few years, sexuality education has become a topic of focus within radical right advocacy in East and Southern Africa. Organisations such as Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA), Family Policy Institute, and Cause for Justice have been campaigning against comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) within school curricula, and have attempted to erode and block LGBTIQ+ and reproductive rights.

In this blog post, Bart Schuurman and Sarah Carthy discuss their multiyear research project on the differences between extremists who use terrorist violence and those who do not. Specifically, how to collect data on individuals who on account of their not having done something are unlikely to be accessible through traditional sources such as academic papers and newspaper articles?

The April 2021 Bulgarian Parliamentary elections showed a nationalist shift in the political landscape. There has been a rise in more banal forms of nationalist participation represented by the new Ima Takuv Narod party while the more ultra-nationalist formations such as IMRO and NFSB seek consolidation for the next round of elections in July.

Right Now! regularly publishes 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, Callum Downes reviews Liberal Roots of Far Right Activism: the anti-Islamic Movement in the  21st Century, by Lars Erik Berntzen.

Jordan McSwiney examines the state of the far right in Australia today, tracing its evolution through three recent phases of organising. Beginning with a series of protest mobilisations and followed by a period of electoral growth, the Australian far right is today increasingly coalescing around more extreme and potentially terroristic neo-Nazi cells, raising significant concerns for Australian security.