Seeds of authoritarian opposition: Far-right education politics in post-war Europe.

Anja Giudici

doi:10.1177/1474904120947893

Abstract

Since the 1980s, right-wing extremism, radicalism, and populism have emerged as transformative forces in European politics. This unexpected resurgence has triggered an interdisciplinary scholarly effort to refine our understanding of the far right. Educationalists, however, have largely been absent from this endeavour, leaving us unable to theorise and address the potential effects of the far right’s political and cultural growth on European education. This article aims to provide an empirically based conceptional groundwork for educational research on the far right. Drawing on archival research and content analysis of programmatic material produced by diverse and influential far-right organisations in France, (West) Germany, and Italy, I show that the post-war European far right disposes of the two essential features of a social movement: an action-oriented frame that reduces educational reforms to a common contentious theme, and a dense organisational network. The latter engages in institutional and contentious politics, as well as education. Theoretically, these findings suggest that, in the realm of education, the far right ought to be conceptualised as a social movement that seeks to influence education policy, and represents itself an educational actor. Addressing the far right’s multifaceted educational engagement thus requires a combined effort across European education research.

Highlights

In the last few decades, the far right has moved from fringe status to mainstream player in European politics
The concepts and theories developed by social movement research, this study suggests, provide a suitable common ground for such a combined research agenda
What it does show is that to address such effects, a focus limited to institutional politics, to far-right parties’ participation in elections, parliaments, and government, only reveals part of the picture

Summary

Introduction

In the last few decades, the far right has moved from fringe status to mainstream player in European politics. A series of highly publicised electoral gains has granted far-right parties unprecedented access to political institutions, both at the level of the states and the European. It is among voters that the far right seems to have lost its stigma. Far-right intellectuals’ access to the mainstream media has progressively established their ideas as a legitimate alternative in the societal debate (Mudde, 2016; Rydgren, 2018). Far-right parties are increasingly being considered as partners for government coalitions, while their policy preferences have found their way into other parties’ programmes (Abou-Chadi and Krause, 2020; Mudde, 2019). In the twenty-first century, the far right has become part of Europe’s ‘political normalcy’ (Minkenberg, 2000: 170)

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