Extreme right
Extreme right, radical right or ultra-right are political terms used to describe political movements or parties that promote and support ultra-conservative positions or discourses, ultranationalists and authoritarians considered extremists.
Used to describe the experiences of fascism and Nazism, far-right politics today includes neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, white supremacism, and other ideologies or organizations that present xenophobic, racist, homophobic, macho, theocratic, or reactionary. Far-right politics can lead to oppression, political violence, ethnic cleansing, or genocide against groups of people based on their perceived inferiority or perceived threat to the native ethnic group, the nation, state, dominant religion or culture, or conservative social institutions.
History
The expressions right or extreme right have their origins in the place where the deputies sat in the French parliament that emerged after the French Revolution: the monarchists and the conservatives of At the time they always sat on the right side and the republicans and liberals on the left. The extreme right thus contrasts with the radical left, and is in a way antagonistic to the revolutionary ideas of the left. Its ideological origin lies in the conservative counterrevolutionary thought of the Frenchman Joseph de Maistre, who, from the end of the XVIII century, claimed the Middle Ages as a model, situating the break at the end of the Old Regime with the Revolution of 1789, with a position that was closer to political involutionism.
Before World War II (until 1945)
In the first half of the 20th century, fascism and Nazism staged tragic episodes in Europe, but ended up being clearly defeated In the Second World War. The ideas that these movements represented have continued over time, such as the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), founded in 1964, or the Spanish Falange, successor party to the one founded in 1933 by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the latter with some ideas based on the Italian fascism of Benito Mussolini with national syndicalist ideas.
Thus, political formations whose ideology was ideologically linked to fascism were considered extreme-right parties through references to its myths and symbols, in addition to following the fascist program. They also carried out an active work to delegitimize democracy through an anti-system opposition, although neo-Nazi groups are also included, whose inspiration is Nazi ideology (a contraction of the German word Nationalsozialistische , which means "national- socialist").
After World War II (1945-present)
The German political scientist Klaus von Beyme distinguished in 1988 three waves in the history of the ultra-right after World War II. Thirty years later the Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde added a fourth wave that would have started in the year 2000.
First wave (1945-1955): "neofascism"
The first wave of the far right began in 1945 and ended around 1955. It was characterized by the existence of small groups that remained loyal to the fascist cause despite the defeat. These groups, called neo-fascists (although they were nothing new, as they remained faithful to the old Nazi or fascist ideology), were placed on the margins of the political system and society due to the anti-fascist consensus reached after the end of World War II (the never again), and initially grouped into support associations for ex-combatants of the Wehrmacht. Those that constituted neo-fascist parties (some of which were banned by the courts, such as the German Reich Socialist Party or the Dutch National European Social Movement), either did not contest the elections, or when they did they obtained very little support. The exception was the Italian Social Movement (MSI, acronym also read as Mussolini Sei Immortale -Mussolini, you are immortal-). It was headed by Giorgio Almirante, a former post in the fascist government, and he managed to enter the Parliament of the recently proclaimed Italian Republic in 1948, which he would not abandon (by revalidating his representation in all the elections) until in 1995 it became the &# 34;post-fascist" National Alliance.
The European neo-fascist parties founded the European Social Movement in 1951, stimulated by the success of the Italian MSI and in which the British fascist Oswald Mosley (of the British Union of Fascists) also participated, but it was an initiative that had no Neither did the American neo-fascist Francis Parker Yockey's proposal to form the European Liberation Front in 1948 have any repercussions. Outside of Europe, only small neo-fascist groups emerged in Latin America, greatly influenced by the Salazar regime in Portugal and the Franco regime in Spain.
Second wave (1955-1980): "right-wing populism"
The second wave of the ultra-right (1955-1980) was characterized by the predominance of right-wing populism, which was defined by its opposition to the elites postwar. The most important example of right-wing populism was poujadism, named after the leader of the Union for the Defense of Merchants and Artisans Pierre Poujade. Unlike the neo-fascist parties, Poujadism was not overtly anti-democratic, although anti-parliamentarism was one of its traits (Poujade went so far as to say that the National Assembly of France was "the biggest brothel in Paris"). In 1955 it became a mass movement reaching four hundred thousand members and winning two seats in the 1956 French elections, one of them occupied by the leader of the Poujadist Youth Jean-Marie Le Pen. With the advent of the Fifth French Republic in 1958, poujadism disappeared. In other European countries, right-wing populist parties also emerged, such as the Progress Party (Denmark), which in 1973 achieved 15.9% of the vote, or the Progress Party (Norway), which did not exceed 5% of the vote.. Both parties defended economic neoliberalism, opposing high taxes and the public sector (the Danish party even called for the suppression of the defense budget). In the United States, right-wing populism was represented by the John Birch Society, by Senator Joseph McCarthy, and by presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and the racist George Wallace, the latter leading the American Independent Party (with connections to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the Citizens' Council).
The neofacism of the first wave continued to be present during the second wave in the political scene of Western countries, although without abandoning marginality. The exception in Europe was the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), founded in 1964 by former senior Nazi officials and which made opposition to immigration of non-European origin one of its hallmarks. Around the same time, the openly racist National Front was founded in Great Britain ("Stop Immigration" or "Make Britain Great Again" were some of its slogans). However, during this second wave, "the far-right formations were no more than a marginal political phenomenon. Neo-Nazi groups could barely demonstrate in the streets without being arrested and anti-immigration parties garnered almost no electoral support.
Third wave (1980-2000): "populist radical right"
Between 1980 and 2000 there was the third wave of the extreme right, during which European parties of second wave right-wing populism were entering parliaments, especially during the 1990s (years in which they reached an average percentage of votes of 4.4%, when in the 1980s they barely exceeded 2%), and by the end of the third wave becoming the dominant ideology of the extreme right. Its growth was due to the increase in unemployment caused by the successive oil crises of 1973 and 1979, and the effects of increased immigration. The first to enter their respective parliaments were the Flemish Vlaams Blok in 1978, the Center Party (Netherlands) in 1982 (whose slogan was "The Netherlands is not a country of immigrants. Stop immigration! ") and the National Front (France) of the former poujadist Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1986 (which obtained 9.6% of the vote). On the other hand, former traditional conservative parties were transformed into radical right parties, such as Jörg Haider's Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and Christoph Blocher's Swiss People's Party. After the 1989 revolutions that caused the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, far-right parties such as the Croatian Party of Rights, the Slovak National Party or the Greater Romania Party were formed.
These parties were characterized, in addition to second-wave right-wing populism, by authoritarianism and nativism, which is why they differ from the second-wave populist right and are known as the radical right populist. "They criticized immigrants and/or autochthonous minorities [such as Roma in Eastern Europe], as well as the European elite and the national, for while presenting themselves as the popular voice that said what the people think". However, they failed to form any international alliance. Outside of Europe, the ultra-right also grew; in India, the Indian People's Party (BJP) was founded in 1980, and in Australia, Pauline Hanson founded the One Nation Party in 1997. In Israel, the neo-fascists Kach and his successor Kahane Chai of Rabbi Meir Kahane were banned in 1994.
The growth of the ultra-right during the third wave, specifically of the populist radical right-wing parties, was responded to by society and the rest of the political formations, which is why these parties continued to be relegated to the margins of the political system. For example, in 1982 there was a large demonstration in The Hague in front of Parliament to protest the entry into the same of the far-right Center Party of Hans Janmaat. The demonstrators carried banners that read: "They have returned" or "Racism is hate towards people". In 2000, the entry into the Austrian government of the far-right FPÖ led to mass protests and a boycott by the international community. Two years later, when the leader of the National Front Jean-Marie Le Pen reached the second round of the 2002 French presidential elections, there was a huge mobilization in favor of the other candidate, the Gaullist Jacques Chirac, who obtained more than 80% of the votes.
Fourth Wave (2000-present): "far right 2.0"
The fourth wave of the extreme right began around the year 2000 and continues to the present day. The Italian historian Steven Forti characterizes it as the predominance of the new extreme right, which he proposes to call extreme right 2.0, because one of its main features is "its ability to use the new technologies, especially with regard to political propaganda". This new extreme right is a radically new political phenomenon, not to be confused with the fascism of the interwar period or the neo-fascism of the second half of the century XX, although this does not mean that it does not represent a threat to the survival of liberal democracy.
Forti includes in this macro-category the parties that make up the Identity and Democracy and the European Conservative and Reformist groups of the European Parliament (the National Front/French National Grouping, the Italian League, the Austrian Freedom Party and the Dutch Freedom Party, Brothers of Italy, Vox, Chega!, Fidesz, Law and Justice, Alternative for Germany, the Danish People's Party, the Swedish Democrats, the Norwegian Progress Party, the Finns Party, the New Flemish Alliance, the Greek Solution, etc.), as well as the Brexit Party, trumpismo and Bolsonarismo.
Neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups would be left out of this macrocategory, "because of their direct ideological link with interwar fascism and for assuming violence as an essential tool in their political strategy"; as well as the governments (and the political movements that support them) of Duterte in the Philippines, Modi in India, Erdogan in Turkey or Putin in Russia, which Forti encompasses within competitive authoritarianism ("regimes which are based on the periodic recourse to formally free elections, but whose realization is fraudulent"). In Latin America, the ultra-right tends to share the objectives of right-wing parties and groups; projects that, in turn, have the approval and, sometimes, the support, of the United States.
The main difference of the fourth wave with respect to the previous three is that the far-right parties are no longer marginal. The traditional parties have begun to adopt some of their postulates and consider them possible allies in the government or in the opposition, mainly because the extreme right has begun to have an increasing electoral and political weight, even in countries where it had had little implantation. Another of the characteristics of the fourth wave is the heterogeneity of the extreme right, which includes not only the predominant populist radical right parties, but also conservative parties transformed into populists (among which the Hungarian Fidesz and PiS stand out). Polish, who have reached the government of their respective countries), and neo-fascist parties such as the Greek Golden Dawn or the Slovakian Kotleba-Our Slovakia People's Party.
It should also be noted as another specific characteristic of the fourth wave the growing importance of far-right parties in the formation of governments, supporting minority governments (such as the Danish DF or the Dutch PVV), forming part of coalition governments (such as the FPÖ in Austria, the National Attack Union in Bulgaria, the Orthodox Popular Rally in Greece or the Northern League in Italy), or even forming solo governments, such as Fidesz in Hungary or PiS in Poland. Outside Europe, three of the most populous democracies on the planet have been or are ruled by far-right leaders: the BJP's Narendra Modi in India, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States.
Finally, it should be noted as a characteristic of the fourth wave that the far-right parties have managed to include their issues in the public debate (immigration, citizen security, the "politically correct& #34;, Islamophobia, "goodism", Euroscepticism, terrorism, etc.) and that the traditional right has assumed some of them in its political agenda. The same has happened with some of its principles, such as nativism, populism or authoritarianism, with the traditional right applying them when they reach government. According to Cas Mudde, "the demarginalization of the extreme right (in terms of its ideology, its proposals and its organization) characteristic of the fourth wave has made the borders between the radical right and the traditional or conventional (and, in some cases, the left, as has happened in the Czech Republic or Denmark) have become increasingly difficult to establish".
A significant part of the ultra-right in Europe is characterized by strong Eurosceptic and anti-globalization sentiment, and strong opposition to immigration in a nationalist and sometimes xenophobic and racist manner. It also tends to have a conservative ideology, in its nationalist, liberal or social aspects. The extreme right has a strong presence in countries such as the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Greece. This growth of the extreme right has caused an enormous concern for the memory of the episodes of the first half of the XX century.
- The causes of the rise of the extreme right in the fourth wave
In the second decade of the XXI century, far-right parties in Europe reached an average of 7.5% of electoral support (when twenty years before it was 4%), and some parties managed to be the most voted in their respective countries, such as the Danish DF, the Hungarian Fidesz, the French National Front, the Polish PiS or the Swiss SVP.
The growth of the extreme right in the fourth wave has been due, according to Cas Mudde, to the impact of three crises: 9/11 of 2001, the Great Recession of 2008 (causing the growing insecurity with which citizens view their future) and the refugee crisis of 2015 (to which Mudde attaches special relevance, since he considers it the catalyst for the process of demarginalization of the ultra-right in Europe, since from then on "anti-immigration demonstrations have become become regulars on the streets of many major European cities, and far-right violence against anti-fascists, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community and refugees has also experienced a notable increase").
Steven Forti agrees with Mudde when pointing out that the formations of the new extreme right "are daughters of this beginning of the beginning of the 21st century" characterized by "the fear of the rapid changes that we are experiencing (in the world of work, communications, technology, etc.) [which] have led to a real crisis of culture and values that is difficult to compare with previous times".
Similar conclusions have been reached by the Spanish political scientist Beatriz Acha, although she acknowledges that "it is not easy to explain the reason for the rise of the extreme right". Acha points out that it has grown because there were "demands [of the citizens] not covered by the existing parties" (more specifically, how to deal with the problem of immigration), a political space that far-right parties have known how to occupy. "The convergence towards the center of the competitive space of the traditional parties, and, very singularly, the moderation of the right-wing parties [for example, on immigration] tends to act, thus, as a good catalyst for the success of the extreme right". But there is also the paradox that when, on the contrary, the traditional right becomes radicalized, it opens the door to the legitimization of the policies defended by the extreme right, and its potential voters can " prefer the original to the copy", according to the famous phrase of the historic leader of the National Front Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Beatriz Acha also deals with the ultra-right type-voter, who is usually identified with "losers of globalization". Thus, her profile would be a young, male, working-class voter with a low or medium level of education, and her vote would be more protest than ideological. But when one speaks of "losers", Acha qualifies, not only are included the social groups that have been victims, or fear that they will be, of the profound economic, labor and social changes brought about by globalization, but also to those people who feel "losers" of cultural modernization. It is what Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, quoted by Acha, have called cultural reaction or cultural backlash: the reaction to "the silent revolution in the cultural values of past decades from authoritarian positions exacerbated by worsening economic conditions and increasing social diversity". The sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, also quoted by Acha, has explained it in the case of the white American working class who lives in racially homogeneous communities and who in 2016 voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump: "They also felt marginalized in terms of Cultural: Their views on abortion, gay marriage, gender roles, race, guns, and the Confederate flag were ridiculed in the national media, which considered them backwards. […] Economically, culturally, demographically or politically, one suddenly feels a stranger in one's own land" (underlined by Acha).
Ideology
The difficulty of defining the term «extreme right» has been pointed out because the formations that represent it define themselves much better by what they reject than by what they propose. "More than offering a program, the representatives of the extreme right present themselves as saviors in any crisis situation, real or invented, and as the alternative to the supposed failure of liberalism and democracy," says José Luis Rodríguez Jiménez. However, this same Spanish historian, despite the difficulty in delimiting it, proposed in 1997 (before the emergence of the "radical populist right") a definition of the extreme right that included the following characteristic features: "the rejection of the philosophy of law propagated by the world of the Enlightenment, denying the notion of society as a sum of individuals in favor of its description as an organic whole»; "the fear of changes in mentality and social and economic transformations (not in the case of fascism), anti-pluralism and rejection of democracy"; "a providential and conspiratorial vision of history"; «ultranationalism and a repetitive insistence on the importance of preserving the “national identity”»; and the defense of "a hierarchical social structure in which charismatic leaders and minority leaders play a leading role, and [of] a model of corporate-type political organization".
The expression "extreme right" has been used by different scholars in a somewhat contradictory way due to the different ideological configurations, as there is no consensus on a specific ideology that defines all the groups framed in the extreme right, especially if we take into account the ideological variations suffered over time. Thus, in the opinion of the Mexican professor Rodríguez Araujo, the term right “is also a concept that has varied according to the traditions and the type of society and power that have been defended throughout history. Many of the political positions that we now consider to be on the right were once on the left."
Consequently, we can affirm that not all extreme right groups share the same ideals, but the majority have a conspiratorial and ultranationalist worldview, which allows them to gather the protest vote against the imperfections of representative parliamentary democracy. They have at least some of the following characteristics in common:
- Nationalism: The national idea is a characteristic common to all extreme right ideologies. The nation is conceived as an ethnic union against the political nationalism of French origin, although at the same time it is the definitions of a nation that sometimes separate these movements: for example, the Spanish extreme right will always be confronted with its British counterpart because of Gibraltar and the latter, in turn, with the Irish nationalists because of Northern Ireland. Beyond that, they also have differences in their conception of national reality. The Italian Northern League, for example, seeks the independence of its region, while the Spanish extreme right seeks the cohesion of its nation.
- Proteccionism: Historically, the extreme right tended to be protectionist by its strong nationalism, and by its general opposition to liberalism and its values, although it must be noted that there is no common economic tendency to the different extreme right movements. On the one hand, historic extreme right-wing governments such as Nazism and fascism practiced a corporatist intervention of the state in the economy, while others (such as Francoism) did not have a definite program and their economic policy was evolving depending on the circumstances. On the other hand, it is undoubted that there have been extreme right-wing governments that have applied liberal economic recipes (such as Pinochetist neoliberalism), and that the neoliberal tendency is clearly rising in the extreme right-wing movements of the early century.XXI about the interventionism that used to defend itself historically.
- Traditionalism: The role of religion in the far right is very varied. Most of the formations of the European populist right radical are defined as "Christian" in a cultural sense, i.e., Christianity is considered as an element of the "national culture", although there are clearly confessional parties such as the Danish People's Party, Democrats of Sweden or the Austrian FPÖ, and above all the PiS of Poland and the ultra-rightish parties of the countries of a Christian majority. In the United States there is also a close link between ultra-right and Christianity—the United States would be a “Christian nation”—. The same happens in Brazil, where Jair Bolsonaro presented himself to the elections with the slogan “Brazil above all, and God above all us”; in India, where the pro ‘hindutva’ parties have come to the government; in Burma, with the growth of the extremist Buddhist groups such as the 969 Movement or the followers of the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, who have encouraged the However, within the far-right Europe there are pagan and openly anti-Christian currents linked especially to the Nouvelle Droite de Alain de Benoist, which defends the destruction of Christianity to create a new “indo-European” paganism, and also those related to wotanism, which has influenced the so-called “Christian identity” movement or the Creative Movement. On the other hand, religion can be a bond for a group and in turn can be a reason for confrontation with a rival right-wing group. This happens, for example, in Northern Ireland, where Irish Catholic nationalists face British Protestant unionists; both are extreme right groups because they share the characteristic of their nationalism (evidently from a very different perspective) unlike the extreme left, which has a universal vision.
- Conservativeism: It is a term used to describe those conservatives who defend national culture and ethnic identity as a way of promoting the growth of society. There are Hegelian groups who defend that the instituted order has been proposed directly by God and cannot and must not change; therefore they will defend the form of state existing by the mere fact that it is the one that has been imposed. In addition, there is an exaltation of values that are considered adequate for society. In general, they are movements that use symbols to develop their policy. They tend to have a certain militaristic tendency to maintain the values of society or to recover them. Nationalist and expansionist policies are very common, as they show the power that the nation itself has achieved against the decaying foreigner.
- Anticommunism: It is the opposition to communism and especially Marxism. Ideologically it is based on the rejection of the concept of historical materialism, and the struggle and difference of classes characteristic of civil society.
- Xenophobia: These movements reject foreigners, defending national and even racial purity, often blaming them of facts such as unemployment or crime.
Dutch political scientist Cass Mudde, one of the leading experts on the ultra-right —has published articles on the subject in major leading newspapers, such as the one he wrote for The Washington Post analyzing the rise of the extreme right in the 2014 European Parliament elections—has proposed to differentiate within the extreme right (far right) the extreme right parties (extreme right) from the parties of the radical populist right (populist radical right):
- Inside the extreme right (extreme right) are the typically neo-fascist parties that show a classic discourse of the European extreme right: anti-Semite, racist, anti-gypsy, anti-communist and xenophobic, as well as Euro-skeptic, Islamophobic, homophobic and advocating for ethnic and irredentist nationalism, white supremacism and so-called "traditional values", thus opposing the rights of sexual minorities and feminists. These parties are often also anti-atlantists being critics of the United States and with more pro-russian stances. Although they are almost all anti-Islamic, they are not favorable to Israel and maintain an anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist discourse. Many of these parties also derive directly or indirectly from the former fascist parties of their countries whose historical image they highlight. Examples of these would be the Hungarian Jobbik, Golden Dawn of Greece, the British National Party, the Italian Social Movement, the German National Democratic Party and Spanish National Democracy, among others.
- Inside the radical populist right (populist radical right) are the parties that defend Euroskeptic and xenophobic positions, particularly towards immigrants of Muslim religion and Islam in general, but that on other issues are more liberal, for example supporting homosexual marriage and several feminist causes. Similarly, they are not anti-Semite and even present a pro-Israel speech (and pro-United States in their war on terrorism). Outside its Islamophobia, they do not show racism or hate message to other ethnic or religious groups, and even in some cases deliberately make a comparative discourse of Islam with Nazism, etc. This is the case of parties such as the Dutch Freedom Party, the Norwegian Progress Party, the Austrian Freedom Party, the Belgian Vlaams Belang, Alternative for Germany and certain factions of the French National Front. In this group of the populist radical right there are also parties that attempt to avoid (although in some cases recently) the racist and anti-Semitic discourse, but not entirely to support Israel or to do it timidly, and without supporting positions such as the rights of homosexuals or the same-sex marriage unlike liberal európhobic parties, focusing mainly on issues such as Euroscepticism and the fight to immigration. Examples of these would be the French National Front, Danish People's Party, Swiss People's Party, Swedish Democrats, Greek Orthodox Popular Concentration, British UKIP, Spanish Vox, etc.
The reasons for these differences are historical and geographical. On the one hand, many Eastern European countries (such as Romania, Hungary, Croatia, East Germany) went through both indigenous fascist dictatorships and communist regimes where persecutions often occurred anti-Jewish. In these countries, in addition to having parties that can derive directly from the traditional historical groups of fascism, the "classic" racial, nationalist and irredentist discourse does not scandalize society as much, and due to the fact that the number of Muslim immigrants is relatively small, it is necessary to a new "scapegoat" (minorities such as Gypsies and Jews). On the contrary, in Western Europe, most countries have not had fascist dictatorships and their main contact with fascism occurred during the Nazi occupation, which is why in many cases they take pride in their past anti-Nazi struggles. For this reason, with few exceptions, the far-right parties of these nations set aside attacks against small Jewish communities and focus on anti-Islamic discourse, Muslim immigration being a major problem for many sectors of the citizenry and even compare Islam with Nazism, the Koran with Mein Kampf, etc., and racist discourse is set aside (to the point that people of black or Jewish ethnicity can belong to these parties).
Today's Far Right: The "Radical Populist Right" or "Far Right 2.0"
According to the Spanish political scientist Beatriz Acha, the current ultra-right threatens "against the essential principles of democracy and threatens peace and social cohesion." Acha gives the example of the Assault on the United States Capitol in 2021, which highlighted the risk posed by the extreme right "for the survival of democracies." "The danger for democracy and its institutions, if [the far-right parties] come to power, is real," concludes Beatriz Acha.
Many far-right political parties take positions of exacerbated defense of national identity and do not advocate the maintenance of democratic institutions and freedoms. Others say they accept democratic norms and that is how their constituents perceive it. leaders of far-right parties often deny having any relationship with fascist-type ideology. However, "they are uncomfortable within the framework of liberal democracy. Although they formally respect it, they do not agree with some of the fundamental principles that support it, such as equality. Hence, one must be cautious when considering them as democratic formations, since they defend an ideology of exclusion that is incompatible, even, with its merely procedural version».
The extreme right has seen growth in recent decades (far-right parties have even surpassed the 20% of the vote threshold in some places). The causes of this relative (and oscillating) growth are difficult to define because, according to Beatriz Acha, the parties involved "try to avoid being categorized as extremists/radicals", "because of their ubiquitous nature (it happens in all countries, in different measure) and because of the difficulty of delimiting it: do Le Pen, Salvini or Wilders represent the same thing? Can we compare them with the parties that govern in countries like Poland or Hungary? Can we also include leaders like Trump, Bolsonaro and Putin in this group?"
In his analysis of the current ultra-right, Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde differentiates between the terms extreme right (far right) and extreme right (extreme right). The term extreme right would encompass all rightists who are "anti-establishment", that is, who are hostile to liberal democracy, while the extreme right would be one of the two subgroups into which Mudde divides the extreme right and which would be characterized by rejecting the essence of democracy, that is, "popular sovereignty and the majority principle," and the most tragically famous example of which would be fascism. The other subgroup of the extreme right would be the populist radical right (populist radical right) which, unlike the extreme right in Mudde's terminology, accepts the essence of democracy, "but opposes elements fundamental principles of liberal democracy, and in a very special way, to the rights of minorities, the rule of law and the separation of powers". This second subgroup of the populist radical right (which the Italian historian Steven Forti calls "extreme right 2.0" for its "ability to use new technologies, especially with regard to political propaganda") is the one that, according to Mudde, predominates in the extreme right of the XXI century (within what Mudde calls the fourth wave of the extreme right that began in the year 2000 and that reaches our days, and whose great "thematic axes" would be immigration, security, corruption and foreign policy, in addition to the question of gender). Thus, the extreme right (extreme right ) and the populist radical right (populist radical right), according to Mudde, would be distinguished because "they hold intrinsically different positions regarding democracy".
Cas Mudde points out the following components of the current far-right ideology:
- Nativism, understood as a combination of nationalism and xenophobia, and whose political ideal would be ethnocracy—and monoculturalism associated with it—. In some cases, nativism can be linked to a particular religion as in the “hindutva” ideology. "All ultra-right ideologies are built upon a strict contrast between us and them, but both that "us" and that "they" can vary over time. The groups change those "others" to those who consider a threat, but, in that process, they not only modify the "they", but also transform their "wes".
- Islamophobia, which constitutes the "most defining prejudice of the current ultra-right" as Islam confuses with Islam.
- Anti-Semitism, although there are many ultra-right parties, especially in Western Europe, which are not anti-Semitism, and even some manifest themselves as they consider Israel a model of ethnocracy and a natural ally in the fight against Islam.
- Ethno-pluralism, a new ideology defined by Nouvelle Droite—and whose opponents consider it a "new racism"—which "contends that people are divided into ethnic groups that are equal in hierarchy, but that they must remain segregated from one another." However, pure racism is still present among the outrageous right—one of the leaders of the EKRE said: “If you are black, return to your home”; “I want Estonia to be a white country”—.
- The authoritarianism, understood by such, "the idea of a society ordered in a strict manner and in which, therefore, the violation of the orders of the authority shall be punished with hardness." Thus, “authoritarians conceive almost all “problems”... from an essentially public order perspective”.
- The populism, an ideology according to which, "the society is ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, which are the pure people and the corrupt elite, and from which it is also defended that politics should be an expression of the ''volonté générale' (general involvement) of the people."
Steven Forti almost completely agrees with Mudde on the ideological traits that characterize the populist radical right, which Forti prefers to call "extreme right 2.0" because of his "ability to use new technologies, especially in regards to propaganda policy". Forti does not include populism, although he acknowledges that he uses "populist tools."
All formations of the extreme right 2.0 have in fact a few common denominators. Among these, we can mention a marked nationalism, identitarism or nativism, the recovery of national sovereignty, a profound criticism of multilateralism—and in Europe, a high degree of Euroscepticism—, the defense of conservative values, the defense of law and order, the Islamophobia, the condemnation of the taintda immigration of "invasion", the criticism of multiculturalism and of the open societies,
Steven Forti proposes adding three other characteristics (starting from the idea that "the extreme right intends to undermine the quality of public debate, promote misperceptions, foment greater hostility and erode trust in democracy, journalism and institutions Which will allow him to have much more fertilized land for the next electoral competition»):
- The aim of polarizing society by marking the political debate with "divisive issues" in order to "show public opinion to the far right" (at this point cultural wars are particularly relevant, a strategy in which the current ultra right follows the trail of the Nouvelle Droite de Alain de Benoist). To do this, the new extreme right frequently resorts to fake newsthe post-truth—the Russian ultra-rightist Aleksandr Duguin has stated: “the truth is a question of belief [...] the facts do not exist”—and it also shows an attitude that is perceived by many of his followers as rebellious and even anti-system as it questions the “politically correct”—the “progressive dictatorship”, according to the leader of Vox Santiago Abascal—and makes his leftist battles. Argentine politician Alvaro Zicarelli has come to say: "Today being a revolutionary is to be right."
- The "exaggerated tacticism: they continually launch sound balloons in the public debate to see if they have traveled and can change positions on crucial issues in a short time" (such as the National Front or the Italian League that began rejecting the euro and the European Union to end up accepting them even if they did not abandon their Euroscepticism), no matter how they were involved in contradictions (such as Vox or the League that at the beginning of the pandemic of the COVI-19. On the other hand, when they observe that a proposal of theirs does not have the backing of their potential electorate—and therefore does not polarize society—they withdraw it, as happened in the case of Vox when in 2019 they proposed the liberalization of the sale of weapons so that each Spanish could have one to self-protect and then forgot the matter.
- The critique of liberal democracy to which extreme right formations tachan of non-democratic for not responding, according to them, to the “voluntad of the people”. They therefore question, among other elements of democracy, the separation of powers or respect for the rights of minorities. Its model would be the "iliberal democracy", whose most finished picture would be the Hungary of Viktor Orbán, "the only successful model to which all ultra-righteous formations—even more in member countries of the European Union and NATO—can look", as would be the case of the Poland of the PiS. It is no accident that the U.S. ultra-rightist Steve Bannon has acclaimed Orban as "Trump before Trump."
The Spanish political scientist Beatriz Acha agrees with Mudde and Forti on the features that define the ideology of the current ultra-right: «the generic term “ultra-right” designates groups that defend issues such as rejection of immigration and the process of European construction, ultranationalism, law and order, the traditional family, and others in which they could come close to the positions of conservative parties but in which they are always much more radical and extreme; and that, unlike these, they maintain much less defined positions -if they have them- in economic matters". Of these features, Acha highlights three:
- "The anti-immigration obsession", since immigration is perceived as a threat to national identity and security, which entails radical rejection of multiculturalism and the adoption of positions proper to cultural racism (e.g., the Freedom Party), has stated in its electoral program: "Millions of Dutch have already had enough of the Islamization of our country. Enough of massive immigration and asylum, terror, violence and insecurity. This is our plan... we want to spend money on the common Dutch, on the foot citizen"; Alternative for Germany, for its part, has proposed to expel the "foreigners" from those who "suspect" who belong to the "organized crime".
- The «ultranationalism extreme, organic, holistic "of an anti-democratic and ethnocentric character" that "is made of an especially aggressive tone." Hence his defense of the “national preference”, the commitment to replace land law with the ius sanguinis and the proposal to strengthen procedures for obtaining nationality and asylum and migration policy in general. Another consequence of ultra-nationalism, for the European right-wing parties, is the hostility to the European construction process as the loss of sovereignty that implies membership in the European Union "shapefully with its defense of national identity/sovereignty". Hostility, which has fluctuated between soft Euroscepticism and the rabid Europhobia, has increased after the 2015 migration crisis in Europe and the success of Brexit.
- "The defense of law and order." "The hardening of sentences to criminals, the establishment of the death penalty or the increase in police resources to strengthen citizen security are recurrent issues in their speeches."
Like Forti, Beatriz Acha also adds criticism of liberal democracy to the traits proposed by Mude. “It is true that most of them do not advocate resorting to violence to subvert democratic regimes. However, as the experts themselves admit, they are uncomfortable within the framework of liberal democracy. Although they formally respect it, they do not agree with some of the principles that support it, such as equality. Hence, one must be cautious when considering them as democratic formations, since they defend an ideology of exclusion that is incompatible, even, with its merely procedural version».
He also agrees with Forti in not considering populism as an essential feature of the extreme right and also warns —in which he again agrees with Forti— that «the concept of populism applied to the extreme right sometimes makes it difficult to analyze, due to its imprecision and wide extension (it applies to many other parties)”. And he adds that “it can confer a certain legitimacy to far-right parties, if not an image of moderation. Proof of this is that the ultra-rightists themselves willingly accept this name (while violently rejecting that of "extremists" or "ultras")". Acha gives the example of Jörg Haider, first leader of the Austrian FPÖ, when he stated:
In this way we are populists, because we think with the head of the citizen, because we fight for the approval of the citizen, because we do not trust, as the old parties do, the pressure exerted by power and comfort, which make the citizen manageable.
The current far-right political agenda
Regarding the issues that are part of the political agenda of the extreme right, Cas Mudde affirms that until the year 2000 only immigration appeared, but with the rise of the radical populist right, four other issues have appeared that have been added to that one: security, corruption, foreign policy and the gender issue. Steven Forti adds a fifth issue: the economy. For her part, Beatriz Acha considers immigration as the central issue of the ultra-right since "it constitutes the fundamental grievance on which they mobilize their voters" and also "it turns out to be a cross-cutting issue that is linked to many others", such as both internal security (the increase in crime in the streets) and external (the threat of Islamic terrorism)..
- Immigration. The ultra-right sees immigration as a threat. The radical populist right regards it as an existential threat to its nation and to its State, and the extreme right, in Mudde's sense, a threat to the white race supported by the State itself with its permissiveness to immigration and its defense of multiculturalism, thus promoting a "white genocide". They often resort to the conspiracy theory of "The Great Replacement," according to which the white population of "West" would be being swept away by the massive upsurge of immigrants. As to the cause of immigration, ultra-right parties consider it not the poverty of developing countries, but the progressive policies of developed countries that encourage and promote it. The president of the Hungarian government Viktor Orbán has come to point to the billionaire Jewish and Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros as the brain of the conspiracy behind massive immigration. The ultra-right also presents immigration as a threat to “native” women—showing “foranists” as sexual predators—and for their rights—because of the Muslim “invasion”—in what has been called “feminationalism”—the use that makes the ultra-right of some postulates of feminism to justify their xenophobic stances. Some parties also present immigration as a threat against the LGTBI collective (“homonationalism”).
- The ultra-right includes in the “threatening” of immigration the descendants of immigrants born in the country even though they possess citizenship, since they continue to consider them “immigrants”, “foraneous” or “foreigners”, especially if they are Muslims, since Islamophobia and the fear of “Islamization” of their societies are an essential part of the ultra-rightist ideology. All this responds to the nativism, ethnocracy and monoculturalism that defends the ultra right. Thus, some parties come to advocate the expulsion of the descendants of immigrants who refuse to assimilate themselves to the “native” culture, although they differ from the degree of assimilation required. “Some consider that only “relative” ethnic groups with the native can be assimilated—that is, for example, that only other Europeans (whites) can become Germans or Hungarians—while others focus mainly on the idea that Islam is incompatible with their nation and therefore that Muslims cannot assimilate themselves in “western” societies.”
- Security. The ultra-right understands the issue of security in a broad sense because it not only refers to that of individuals but also to that of the nation or that of the race, and always aborting it from a nativist point of view because "foreigners" are seen as the main cause of insecurity. Thus, for example, when it comes to crime, it refers almost exclusively to the (supposed) crimes committed by those of "outside"—that is why the ultra-righteous parties frequently call the "foreigners" as criminals—and also denounces that the (supposed) growth of crime is caused by the arrival of immigrants—one of the preferred slogans of the Dutch ultra-rightist is less. According to the authoritarianism that characterizes the ultra-right, to end crime—and to improve security—proclaims the tightening of laws and the compelling action of the courts and law enforcement forces, whose number must be expanded as well as their presence in the streets—for example, Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro declared: "If a police officer kills ten, fifteen, or twenty alleged offenders by putting them at least ten, With this same objective the parties of the ultra-right defend that the educational field must be acted in order to inculcate in the young the sense of discipline and respect and the "traditional values", among which the "family" is included, and at the same time they denounce that the "left" teacher is "doctrinating" them with "perverse" ideas such as "cultural Marxism". On the other hand, the ultra-right parties also closely link terrorism with Islam, and blame the multiculturalism defended by the left as one of the causes of its proliferation. For example, Marine Le Pen came to say in 2017 that France (the multicultural France) had become "a jihadist university".
- Corruption. When the ultra-right speaks of corruption it usually adopts a populist position by linking it with the economic and political elites, to which they often accuse of "anti-nationals" because they "reject the people" and among which they also include the "left"—and the foundations and NGOs supposedly linked to it—to which they accuse in addition of corrupting people's minds and opinions, especially women's, with the "searching". An example can be the following UKIP postbrexit tweet at the end of 2018: "Don't be fooled: the European Union wants to control your thoughts through your way of talking to spread its postmodern neo-Marxist ideology."
- Foreign policy (and geopolitics). The ultra-rightwing parties conceive the world as a jungle so they consider that the main obligation of the real “patriots” would be to put forward the interests of the nation itself, whose best known example would be the ‘America First’ (‘America First’) of US President Donald Trump. As a result, the ultra-right parties are hostile to the supranational bodies such as the European Union, which they consider to be a threat to national sovereignty—in a 2019 rally, Matteo Salvini cried out against the Europe of "the bureaucrats, the bankers, the goodists and the paternal ones"—as a result of the "reforming" of the European project completely: they intend to establish in their place The UN has also been subjected to attacks on the part of the ultra-right by considering it, especially for the ultra-right of the United States (the UN intends to establish a "New World Order" by resorting, among other means, to the "black helicopters" or that of the State of Israel (the UN would be an anti-Semitic organization dominated by the Arab countries), as the first step for the establishment of a devoutable world government. On the other hand, the pre-eminence granted to the own nation sometimes leads to irredentistic positions, that is, to the claim of “lost” territories, as in the case of Fidesz who aspires to reunify in the ‘Great Hungary’ all the territories (of Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine) where they inhabit “Hungarians”.
- Steven Forti warns that in terms of geopolitics there can be very indicted contrasts between the European ultra right because there are radically atlantist formations, such as Chega!, Vox, Brothers of Italy or PiS, and others that show their sympathy for the Russia of Vladimir Putin, such as the Italian League, the Austrian FPÖ, Alternativa for Germany or Hungarian Fidesz.
- The gender issue. Based on the idea that the "family" is one of the foundations of the nation (familism), most of the ultra-right maintains a traditional point of view on women they consider exclusively as mothers (current or future), although there are parties, such as those of the radical populist right of northern Europe, who do not prioritize maternity—they claim that gender equality has already been achieved in their countries—. In addition, the ultra-right parties are sexists, presenting a mixture of "benevolent sexism" (which sees women as pure beings morally and physically weak so they must be protected by men of "truth" because women are the belly of the nation, the mother of the children, those responsible for morally and physically raising the next generation) and the "holy sexism" (which Consequently, the ultra-right is also characterized by anti-feminism because it considers that feminism (and its "gender ideology") undermines the traditional family, thus putting at risk the survival of "the nation", as well as being "external" to the national culture—so that as soon as PiS and Fidesz have reached the government, they have applied policies of "dissecration of the family", of denial of the right to abortion. Thus, most of the ultra-right parties present feminists as an intolerant and oppressive collective (hence the term "feminazis" which they often use). Along with feminism, the other great "threat" to the "family" would be represented by the LGTBI collective with its purported "sexual agenda", although there are some ultra-right parties, such as the English Defense League (EDL) or the PVV, which are not homophobic and accept homosexuality and homosexuals. However, a good number of parties, such as PiS and Fidesz, and ultra-right leaders, such as the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro, are openly homophobic and radically opposed to homosexual marriage—in Hungary the new Constitution proclaims that "it will protect the institution of marriage understood as the union of a man and a woman."
- Steven Forti points out that in the gender issue, and in general in all respects of civil values/rights (which would also include the right to abortion or the rights of the LGTBI collective), there is a great difference between the extreme right of Catholic and Orthodox countries, which defend much more harsh positions, and that of Protestant countries much more tolerant. In the Catholic Hungary, for example, in June 2021 a law proposed by the government of the ultra-rightist Viktor Orbán that prohibits speaking to children under 18 years of sexual and gender diversity in schools and the media (with the intended goal of curbing what they call "gay propaganda", thus linking homosexuality with pornography and pederasty, Apostilla Forti) and previously denied reform of the Istanbul Constitution. These policies contrast, for example, with the defense of the rights of the LGTBI community of the ultra-right-wing Party for the Freedom of the Netherlands Calvinists or with the existence of a gay grouping within Germany's Alternative, called Homosexual Alternative, or with the Gays for Trump in the United States.
- The economy. In this topic there are divergences between extreme right formations. There are them as the French National Front defending Welfare Chauvinism o State of chauvinist well-being (i.e., a state of exclusive well-being for the "nationals", excluding immigrants and other groups excluded from the "nation"), while there are others who advocate a markedly neoliberal economic policy, such as Vox or Chega! An intermediate position can be represented by the Fidesz of Viktor Orbán who has been implanted in Hungary since 2010 and has been called a "neo-liberal regime of social policy". As noted by the Spanish political scientist Beatriz Acha, "for the ultra-right, policies of tax reduction and increased social spending can be raised at the same time, if the immigrant population is excluded from welfare coverage: the benefits of the system must be devoted only to the indigenous population". However, Acha adds, the economy “is not, even far away, the most important issue in its programs”.
Organization
Political parties are not the only form of articulation of the extreme right, although they constitute its central nucleus in the XXI century. There are also far-right social movements, which are well organized but unlike parties do not stand for election, and far-right subcultures, which lack organization. Within social movements are intellectual organizations, media organizations and political organizations. Intellectual organizations "are focused on developing far-right ideas and innovating in that field and on educating, above all, far-right activists." The most important would be the Nouvelle Droite whose origins go back to the founding of GRECE in Paris in 1968 and whose main figure is Alain de Benoist. To the Nouvelle Droite we must add various think tanks from the United States, such as John Bolton's Islamophobic Gatestone Institute, Jared Taylor's American Renaissance or Richard B. Spencer's National Policy Institute (the latter two organizations linked to the alt-right). In Europe we must mention two far-right higher education centers: the Institute of Social Sciences, Economics and Politics of Marion Maréchal-Le Pen and the University of Social and Media Culture of the Polish Catholic priest Tadeusz Rydzyk. As for media organizations, we must highlight the US websites Stormfront (neo-Nazi), Breitbart News (radical right), The Daily Stormer (neo-Nazi), InfoWars (conspiracy), and VDARE (white supremacist). In Europe, Junge Freiheit and Gazeta Polska stand out, and in Israel Arutz Sheva.
As for far-right political organizations, which are usually structured like political parties but differ from them in that they do not stand for election (or have stopped doing so), it should be noted that most of them they are marginal and have very few activists. Some of the best known are the National Socialist Movement in the United States, the English Defense League (EDL), the German PEGIDA or the Japanese Zaitokukai. However, there is a far-right political organization with many members and very powerful: the Nippon Kaigi ('Japan Conference'). in various European countries and in the United States and Canada —in the latter two countries in connection with the alt-right—.
- Ultra Right Subcultures
Among right-wing subcultures there are many national ones, such as Japan's Uyoku dantai, but very few are truly international ones:
- The alternative right (alt-right), driven by the American Richard B. Spencer, who concentrates almost exclusively on the digital environment (by sharing ideas with the "manosphere"), although it also calls for demonstrations such as the Unite the Right (Charlottesville, 11-12 August 2017) that led to violent riots and the murder of a countermanifestant.
- The ultrasonic "hooligans" groups that were born in England but have spread to the rest of Europe (and especially to Eastern Europe), as well as to Israel (where the ultra-group of the Beitar Jerusalem football club known as "The Family" stands out and has played numerous violent incidents, sometimes along with Lehava ultra-rightwing activists).
- Ultraskinheads, though the vast majority of the skins They are apolitical or antiracist (such as the Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, ‘Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice’). The first ultraskinheads emerged in England in the 1970s in relation to the ultra-rightist National Front, one of whose activists was Ian Stuart leader of the Skrewdriver musical group whose song "White Power" became the unofficial hymn of the movement. In the 1980s and 1990s Nazi "skinheads" proliferated in Europe and North America. Since 2000, the ultra skinheads spread across Eastern Europe.
A special case is CasaPound from Italy, since it is both a subculture and a movement, which defines itself as "fascist" -hence the name it has adopted-, and it also stands in the elections, albeit with little success, in addition to having been involved in episodes of political violence.
Violence
The positive assessment of violence is an essential element of fascism (and Nazism). And in recent decades, according to Cas Mudde, "right-wing violence has become more planned and regular, and more lethal, as evidenced by terrorist attacks in, among other places, Christchurch (New Zealand), Pittsburgh (United States), United States) and Utoya (Norway). Mudde cites a study by a specialist in terrorism from the University of Oslo in which 578 violent incidents carried out by the extreme right between 1998 and 2015 in Western Europe have been recorded and in which there were 303 deaths. In another study, referring to the United States, it is verified that there were 368 deaths caused by ultra-right activists between 1990 and 2013 ―in fact, in the United States the extreme right has been responsible for more political violence than the extreme left; the same happens in Germany, Sweden or India. Most of the victims, both in Western Europe and the United States, were people perceived by far-rightists as "degenerates" (feminists, leftists, homosexuals, homeless people...) or "foreigners" (immigrants, refugees, ethnic minorities)., as in the anti-Gypsy pogroms in Eastern Europe or in the pogroms against Muslims and Sikhs in India. There are far-right parties in which violence forms an essential part of their ideology and their activities, such as the Greek Golden Dawn, the Gray Wolves, the youth wing of the Turkish National Movement Party (MPH), or the Jewish Kach party.
Mudde says that "far-right terrorism has become a growing threat in recent years." It is usually the work of "lone wolves", as in the 2018 Macerata shooting in which six African immigrants were injured - the perpetrator was a former Northern League candidate - but the police have broken up far-right terrorist organizations, such as the National Socialist Underground from Germany, National Action from Great Britain or Abhinav Bharat from India. He has also participated in terrorist actions by the American Jewish Defense League and its Israeli heir, the Kach party, which was eventually banned.
One of the protagonists of extreme right-wing violence are paramilitary groups. The Europeans, although they wear uniforms, are not armed -although there are exceptions such as the Azov Battalion, part of the Ukrainian National Guard- and several of them are (or were) linked to certain parties, such as the Hungarian Guard founded by Jobbik, while others do not, like the Scandinavian Soldiers of Odin. On the other hand, in the United States they are heavily armed by what are better known as militias, most of which have a strong anti-federal government orientation, although after Donald Trump became president in January 2017 many went on to support the new president., like the Oath Keepers or the Three Percenters. The anti-federal government attitude is shared by the movement of the sovereing citizens ('sovereign citizens') who have also staged violent incidents with firearms. In Germany there is a movement similar to that of the "sovereing citizens" known as the Reich Citizens Movement, some of whose members have also been involved in shootouts with law enforcement. However, the largest and most violent paramilitary group is in India. It is the Association of National Volunteers (RSS), close to the BJP, whose "Hindutva" militants have participated in numerous violent acts against groups they perceive as national enemies, such as people who eat beef (the cow is a sacred animal in Hinduism) or the Muslim minority (its militants participated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque in 1992 for which the RSS was outlawed for a year).
Far-right by country
Europe
The following table includes the electoral evolution of various parties, movements and groups considered ultra-right in Europe. All those parties with a markedly anti-immigration, populist and nationalist character are included, although some of these parties defend contrary policies on certain points, such as the PVV's support for Israel, or the anti-Semitism of Golden Dawn.
Transnational organizations:
- Nordic Resistance Movement (Scandinavia)
European Union
Declaration of the Madrid Summit (29 January 2022) The European Community was forged as a space of free cooperation between sovereign states. However, there is a growing threat that seeks to transform the Union into a mega-ideological state; a corporation that despises national identity and sovereignty and, therefore, democracy, plurality and the interests of the citizenship of the nations that make up the Union. This drift endangers the Union itself by moving away from the Christian European ideals upon which it was founded. Today, some bureaucrats and some parties mistakenly believe that they can promote agendas without democratic legitimacy, which runs against the needs of Europeans and the survival of Western civilization itself. |
In the European Parliament, these parties usually associate with each other and with other parties of the same characteristics based on their Eurosceptic, nationalist and conservative character. The first official far-right group to be formed in the European Parliament was the Group of European Right (1984-1989) which included the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the National Front (FN) and the Greek National Political Union. It was succeeded by the Technical Group of the European Right (1989-1994) made up of the FN, the German Republicans and the Flemish Vlaams Belang (VB). Later, the Union for the Europe of Nations (1999-2009), the Group for the Europe of Democracies and Differences (1999-2004), Independence and Democracy (2004-2009), Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (2007), Europe of Freedom and Democracy (2009-2019) and the Europe of Nations and Freedoms (2014-2019). Then, as a European political party that brings together some of them, there is EuroNat (founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1997) and the European Alliance of National Movements.
After the 2019 European Parliament elections, Northern League, National Rally (formerly FN), Alternative for Germany, Danish People's Party (DF), FPÖ, Vlaams Belang, Freedom and Direct Democracy, EKRE, Party of Finns and The Freedom Party (PvV) formed the Identity and Democracy, ID, group (successor to the Europe of Nations and Freedoms group), while PiS, Forum for Democracy (FvD), Sweden Democrats, Vox, Revolutionary Organization Macedonian Internal – Bulgarian National Movement, Greek Solution, Italian Brothers and National Alliance joined the European Conservative and Reformist Group (ECR). The far-right parties Golden Dawn, Jobbik and Kotleba - Our Slovakia People's Party decided to remain in the "non-members" group.
In July 2021, the member parties of ID, ECR, and the Hungarian Fidesz, which has just left the European People's Party group, signed a joint declaration in which they affirmed their "commitment to defending a Europe that respects sovereignty, freedom and traditions of the Member States'. The declaration would serve as "the basis for common cultural and political work, respecting the role of the current political groups." The first summit of "Europe's patriotic and conservative forces" took place in early December 2021 in Warsaw under the auspices of PiS, Poland's ruling far-right party. There they agreed "to align our votes on common issues related to the protection of the sovereignty of the Member States".
The next summit took place on January 29, 2022 in Madrid and in the same, as had happened in Warsaw, an agreement was not reached to create a single group in the European Parliament, but in the final communiqué He took a step forward by affirming the purpose of "creating a coordination office as a form of stronger cooperation between the political formations present..., with the aim of joining forces and voting in the European Parliament". Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (of PiS) stated: "One of the issues [we have discussed] was to get closer to a stronger group within the European Parliament, but now the important thing is to work on values and the rest of the movements will come. after".
At the Madrid summit, the possible agreement between the European far-right parties was hampered by the different positions on the Russian-Ukrainian crisis of 2021-2022, although in the end the Atlanticist Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki managed to pull off an agreement minimum which read: "Russia's military actions on the eastern border of Europe have brought us to the brink of war." For his part, the pro-Russian Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán (of Fidesz) limited himself to declaring to the press that he was asking for "de-escalation and negotiation" but without pointing to Russia as responsible for the increase in international tension (it is "a military issue very complicated that no one knows exactly," he said), as Morawiecki had done ("We have an agreement on this matter. Russia is threatening Ukraine and that is why we are discussing this matter deeply. We are aware of the risks. The integrity of Ukraine must be respected," he said). What the parties present did fully agree on was criticizing the European Union for the "inefficiency" of its diplomacy, in addition to accusing it of wanting to become an "ideologized mega-state", which "contempts national identity and sovereignty"., moves away "from the Christian European ideals on which it was founded" and puts "the survival of Western civilization itself" at risk. Instead they proposed that "every nation should have a strong and united voice to preserve peace, territorial integrity and the inviolability of the borders of European nations" and "the primacy of national constitutions over European Union law.". They also denounced "the politically motivated attacks from Brussels against Poland and Hungary, which show total disregard for the basic principles of the EU and violate the spirit of the Treaties".
The host of the Madrid summit, Vox leader Santiago Abascal (who avoided commenting on the Russian-Ukrainian crisis), declared that "all the politicians who meet in Madrid have great coincidences in diagnosing the challenges of Europe and the will to collaborate to build a strong European Union of sovereign nations that collaborate freely. In addition, Abascal called to "seize the opportunity" to "unmask" the "pact" "between the extreme left and the globalist elite." In addition to Orbán and Morawiecki, Marine Le Pen (France) and other far-right leaders from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Romania participated in the Madrid meeting. Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, and Giorgia Meloni, of the Brothers of Italy, did not go to Madrid because of the election of the president of the Republic of Italy that was taking place in Rome. Neither did any leader of the Alternative for Germany attend. The next summit was scheduled to be held in Budapest.
Territory | Party/Group/European Alliance | Europe |
---|---|---|
European Union | Identity and Democracy (ID) | 70 / 705 |
Identity and Democracy Party (ID-P) | 57 / 705 | |
European Conservatives and Reformers Group (ECR) | 63 / 705 | |
European Conservatives and Reformers Party (ECR) | 63 / 705 | |
Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APL) | 1 / 705 |
America
Costa Rica
As in other countries, the phenomenon of the rise of the extreme right and of movements that claim to be nationalist and irredentist appeared in Costa Rica. Different movements associated with ideas of the extreme right and opposed to immigration (especially Nicaraguan immigration) have proliferated in recent years.
In 2018, a wave of false news spread by far-right Facebook pages was accused of inciting hatred and increasing xenophobia. The pages falsely spread that groups of Nicaraguans had burned the Costa Rican flag (when it was about Costa Rican anarchists in a demonstration many years ago) and that they had "taken" La Merced Park in San José (a well-known gathering place for immigrants) when in reality a Nicaraguan flag had been temporarily raised to collect food for refugees.
A march against Nicaraguan migrants was held on August 19, 2018 in which neo-Nazi groups and barras bravas participated. Although not all the participants were linked to these groups, the protest turned violent and the Public Force intervened with a balance of 44 arrested, 36 Costa Ricans and the rest Nicaraguans.
In 2019 pages of the social network Facebook as Diputado 58, Resistencia Costarricense and Salvación Costa Rica described as “ultranationalists” and radically opposed Immigration officials called an anti-government demonstration on May 1, with little attendance.
In 2019, a paramilitary group called itself the July 7 Patriot Front came to light and called through a video whose participants wore masks and fatigue clothing, to carry out a violent coup that would depose the government. Former presidential candidate Juan Diego Castro accused the government of being behind the video and of being a montage, although this turned out to be false when the judicial authorities discovered those responsible.
The group was quickly identified by police authorities and its leadership was arrested a few days after the incident. The leaders reportedly had ties to the ultra-religious extreme right and the former Cobra Command, which carried out violent activities against indigenous people over the years. 90s.
United States
In the United States, an ultra-right organization was born before the appearance of fascism in Europe: the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). It was founded after the civil war (1861-1865) by Confederate soldiers to sow terror among the black slaves who had just been freed and also among the Yankees installed in the South (disparagingly known as "carpetbaggers"). In the first decades of the 20th century a second KKK emerged, spreading to some northern states and no longer targeting to the "Yankees" to go on to attack Catholic immigration, in addition to continuing to maintain African-Americans (and Jews) as their main target. The third KKK, which is the one that exists today, arose as a reaction to the civil rights movement in the United States of the 1960s, and continued to be deeply racist (white) and anti-Semitic, thus identifying more and more with the formations. neo-nazis.
After World War II, a right-wing populism emerged that was represented by the John Birch Society, Senator Joseph McCarthy, and presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and the racist George Wallace, the latter leading the American Independent Party with connections with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the Citizens' Council.
At the end of the 20th century and during the XXI various far-right think tanks appeared, such as John Bolton's Islamophobic Gatestone Institute, Jared Taylor's American Renaissance or Richard B. Spencer's National Policy Institute (the latter two organizations linked to the alt-right), and also media organizations such as the websites Stormfront (neo-Nazi), Breitbart News (right-wing), The Daily Stormer (neo-Nazi), InfoWars (conspiratorial), and VDARE (white supremacist). Far-right movements include the identity movement, in connection with the alt-right, and, in terms of far-right subcultures, the alternative right (alt-right), promoted by Richard B. Spencer, and which focuses almost exclusively on the digital environment (sharing ideas with the "manosphere"), although it also calls for demonstrations such as the Unite the Right demonstration (Charlottesville, August 11-12, 2017) which led to violent riots and the murder of a counter-protester.
The populist radical right came to power in 2017 with the election of Donald Trump as the new president. This was evident from the start. In his inaugural address, which, according to Cas Mudde, "ooded with the typical anger and frustration of anti-establishment political discourse, but projected from the core of the establishment's institutions," Trump said the following:
For too long, a small group of people in the capital of our nation has covered the benefits of the state, while the people bear their cost. [...] All this will change from now, from here to here, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you
During the presidency of Donald Trump (2017-2021) the far-right militia movement ceased to have a strong anti-federal government orientation to support the new president, like the Oath Keepers or the Three Percenters. However, the sovereing citizens ('sovereign citizens'), who had also been involved in violent incidents with firearms, maintained their anti-federal stance. These "Trumpistas", among whom were the Proud Boys, were the ones who staged the Assault on the United States Capitol in 2021, trying to prevent Democrat Joe Biden from being proclaimed as the new president.
Latin America
In the context of the Cold War, various civil wars between left-wing guerrilla forces and right-wing paramilitaries bloodied the region. Different authoritarian regimes traditionally considered extreme right dominated, often in the form of dictatorships, different nations of Central and South America.
Historical political and paramilitary groups
- Argentina: Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, Frente Nacional Socialista Argentino, Liga Patriótica Argentina, Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara, Unión de Estudiantes Nacionalistas Secundarios, Partido Popular de la Reconstruccion
- BrazilBrazil: National Order Reconstruction Party
- ChileChile: Front Nacionalista Patria y Libertad, Avanzada Nacional, Comando Rolando Matus
- ColombiaColombia: Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, Alianza Americana Anticomunista, Muerte a Secuestradores
- Costa RicaCosta Rica: Costa Rica Free Movement
- CubaCuba: Alpha 66, Omega 7
- EcuadorEcuador: Revolucionaria Nacionalista Ecuatoriana
- El SalvadorEl Salvador: Death squads
- GuatemalaGuatemala: National Liberation Movement
- HondurasHonduras: Battalion 3-16
- Mexico Mexico: Popular Force Party, Mexican Democratic Party
- NicaraguaNicaragua: Contras
- Peru Peru: Comando Rodrigo Franco, Grupo Colina, La Resistencia
- Uruguay Uruguay: Death squads
Among others not listed here. Most of these groups are dissolved or inactive.
Current parties or movements
Political leaders and parties
Different contemporary political movements and their candidates have now been described as far-right with nuances of right-wing populism and authoritarianism of varying degrees. Many of the recipients of this description generally disavow it as it is often regarded as pejorative, so it should be noted that mention of these groups is subject to debate and often refuted.
However, different analysts have described as extreme right to; for example, Argentine President Mauricio Macri and his Cambiemos party, Colombian President Iván Duque of the Democratic Center and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party. Mexican political parties Partido Acción Nacional and Partido Encuentro Social have been accused of holding far-right positions. In Costa Rica, the Libertarian Movement of Otto Guevara and Fabricio Alvarado of Nueva República have been accused of being extreme right. In Bolivia, President Jeanine Áñez of the Social Democratic Movement, also the political party Unión Juvenil, has been accused of being extreme right. Cruceñista is accused of holding far-right positions.
In Peru there were two fascist parties: the Unión Revolucionaria (1931-1945), which was the official party during the government of Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro, and the Movimiento Nacional Socialista Despierta Perú (2000-2009). However, in the XXI century, the term «brute and stiff right» (abbreviated as DBA) was adopted, coined by the liberal Juan Carlos Tafur to refer to people of that spectrum.
In Argentina, organizations such as the ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi Patriot Front, commanded at the national level by Alejandro Biondini, stand out. In Chile, the Republican Party stands out, led by its founder and ultra-conservative presidential candidate José Antonio Kast. In Uruguay there have been parties with far-right affiliation: Patriotic Union, led by Néstor Bolentini in 1984, the Eastern Alliance Party in 1994 and the Union for Change Party in 2014.
In Mexico, the beginnings of the ultra-right date back to the beginning of the XX century, with the founding of the Catholic Party in 1911 and, later, with the Cristero movement —sponsored by the Catholic Church and foreign oil companies— that would give rise to Acción Católica Mexicana, La Legión and La Base. From the latter would arise the National Action Party (1939) in its more moderate aspect, and the extremist —fascist in its beginnings— Unión Nacional Sinarquista (UNS, 1937), the latter of anti-communist, anti-liberal, ultra-nationalist and religious fundamentalist ideology and, in turn, highly influenced by Nazism. The UNS organized three political parties: the Popular Force Party (1946-1949), the Nationalist Party of Mexico (1951-1964), and the Mexican Democratic Party (1975-1997).
Asian
The Asian continent has seen a resurgence of far-right movements in recent decades, mostly ultranationalist in nature. The following table shows various parties considered to be far-right in Asia.
Africa
Oceania
Far-right terrorism
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