Extreme Political Parties Research Articles

How to Prevent Political Violence

ABSTRACT: In the United States, France, and Germany, political violence has been rising. Three factors are salient: Polarization convinces some people that violence is acceptable to keep opponents from power; extreme political parties normalize polarization and violence, leading to attacks from—and against—their supporters; and the democratically disillusioned use violence, not votes, to express themselves. Political violence can be reduced if: 1) leaders insist on nonviolence; 2) governments and politicians support the rule of law, accountability, and equitable policing; 3) voting systems dampen extremism; 4) communities organize across difference against violence; and 5) activists insist on nonviolence within their movements.

Tolerance, prohibition of political parties and the ECTHR

Is the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) tolerant of extremist political parties? In interpreting Article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights which enshrines the freedom of assembly and association, the Court is concerned with this issue. This article critically discusses some of the theses put forward in the Court’s judgments. It aims to check some of its perspectives and bring philosophical nuances regarding tolerance. Tolerance can help build a plural and free-thinking society that is so important for the realization of political and democratic rights. The Court’s agreement to ban only two political parties allows us to reflect on the willingness to listen to more extreme political convictions, even if they bother, shock and harass the public sphere.

Stylometry analysis of the French presidential election

Abstract This study analyzes the style and content of 25,590 tweets sent by eight candidates during the French presidential election (from 1 September 2021 to 24 April 2022). During this campaign, the candidates have used Twitter intensively to motivate their supporters, putting forward some propositions or to announce their presence on a TV show or at a rally. This study demonstrates that all candidates have sent more tweets during this period, particularly during the last 2 months. In their tweets, they have put forward their propositions by including mentions (@ZemmourEric), hashtags (#Elysee2022), and URLs to information sources supporting their views. As main topics, economic concern ranks first (36% of all tweets) followed by security questions (16.4%) and ecology (13.7%) with the intensity varying among runners. The main target of their criticisms was the incumbent president Macron, with only a few attacks on other candidates. Finally, one can observe a more intense use of Twitter by extreme political parties compared to traditional ones.

Backlash in policy attitudes after the election of an extreme political party

This paper studies how public attitudes towards reduced immigration, the signature policy of the far-right Sweden Democrats, respond once the party increases their political representation at the local level. To identify causal effects, we use panel data from 290 municipal election districts and compare otherwise similar elections where the Sweden Democrats either barely win or lose an additional seat. We estimate that a one seat increase for this far-right, anti-immigration party decreases negative attitudes towards immigration by 1.8 or 4.1 percentage points (depending on which national survey we use), contrary to the party’s policy position. Consistent with these attitudinal changes, we find suggestive evidence the Sweden Democrats lose the incumbency advantage experienced by other small parties in Sweden. Exploring possible mechanisms, we find evidence for higher politician turnover and a rise in negative newspaper coverage. These findings demonstrate that political representation can cause an attitudinal backlash as a fringe party and their ideas are placed under closer scrutiny.

The Banning of Extremist Political Parties as a Measures of Neo-militant Democracy: The Experience of Post-communist States

The paper aims to determine which political parties in post-communist countries were considered hostile to the system and evaluate the systems' capacity to eliminate their enemies with political party banning. The analysis overs Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary. The study covers the period from their democratization to 2020.

Conspiracy theories as a political instrument: utilization of anti-Soros narratives in Central Europe

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the global phenomenon of anti-Soros conspiracy theories, focusing on the Central European region between 2017 and 2019. It surveys how these theories have been employed by two populist leaders, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Róbert Fico in Slovakia. It further discusses these leaders’ motivations for developing conspiracy narratives and the channels through which they spread them. The author argues that the usage and effectiveness of anti-Soros conspiracy narratives in influencing political supporters and the general population has been determined by the type of crisis during which leaders have found themselves and the degree of concentration of power in their hands respectively. The article is distinguished from most of the academic literature on conspiracy theories by focusing on ‘mainstream’ populist leaders, instead of extremist political parties or authoritarian regimes that often use conspiracy theories as well.

Economic growth and political extremism

We argue that the growth rate, but not the level of aggregate income, affects the support for extreme political parties. In our model, extreme parties offer short-run benefits to part of the population at the expense of a minority. Growth effects on the support for such parties arise when uncertainty exists over whether the same subset of individuals will receive the same benefits in the future. More people are willing to take political risks if economic growth is slow. Based on a panel of 16 European countries, our empirical analysis shows that slower growth rates are associated with a significant increase in right-wing extremism. We find no significant effect of economic growth on the support for extreme left-wing parties.

Offline: Public health and the fight against extremism

“Terrible beyond contemplation”, wrote a friend from New Zealand last week after the assaults on two mosques in Christchurch. Most politicians unreservedly condemned the March 15 attacks, examples of white nationalist terrorism that left 50 people dead and many injured. There have been notable exceptions to this worldwide revulsion, with some voices legitimising the hate speech of alleged perpetrator Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian now charged with murder. Australian Queensland Senator Fraser Anning wrote about “the growing fear within our community, both in Australia and New Zealand, of the increasing Muslim presence”. While most responses to these terror strikes have appropriately emphasised solidarity among New Zealand's communities, one regrettably sees that what took place in Christchurch lay at the violent end of a spectrum of xenophobia that is now authorised and accepted in political discourse. No one concerned about protecting and strengthening peaceful and just societies can disclaim responsibility. The health professions have an important part to play in defeating the views that foster far-right hate speech and violence. As Ibrahim Abubakar and colleagues wrote in the UCL–Lancet Commission on Migration and Health, published last December, “Racism and prejudice should be confronted with a zero tolerance approach…Health professionals' and organisations' awareness of racism and prejudice should be strengthened through regulatory and training bodies including accreditation, educational courses, and continuous professional development” (my italics). The task is therefore clear. But we have to do more. Far-right extremists have launched a war of words against diverse and inclusive societies. Dismissing, ignoring, or censoring those views is not an acceptable strategy. Tarrant posted his manifesto—The Great Replacement—minutes before the attacks in New Zealand took place. Although this document has been erased from the internet, his ideas are widespread and mainstream. On Amazon, you can buy Le Grand Remplacement by Renaud Camus. His book explains why the French people are being “replaced” by immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Camus has denounced the Christchurch attacks as “appalling”. But the normalisation of hatred against migrant communities is the foundation for the violence that took place in New Zealand. The health community has a powerful role in shifting political discourse away from ethnic-nationalism and towards an understanding of the value of multicultural societies. One book that helps to change the terms of this dialogue is Paul Morland's recently published The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World. Morland shows how demography has influenced shifts in political power. “The great flow of humanity” is an “overlooked or underplayed contribution to the course of history”. The demographic transitions we see today in nations “may be the most important explanatory factor in world history”. Although demography is not our destiny, Morland suggests that our futures are at least partly dependent on “the human tide”. What is the direction of that tide? It is that societies will be more grey (older), more green (using human ingenuity to create a greener planet), and less white. Morland quotes Cecil Rhodes, an ardent British imperialist: “I shall devote the rest of my life to God's purpose, and help Him to make the world English”. Rhodes' views were not only racist, but also demographically impossible. Global domination by the West was inevitably time limited. Sub-Saharan Africa is today “the final frontier” in the reshaping of world political power. “The biggest news story of the next forty years will be Africa's population growth.” We must embrace and celebrate “a much more fluid world in racial, ethnic, and national identity terms”. In his abhorrent manifesto, Tarrant writes, “If there is one thing I want you to remember from these writings, its [sic] that the birthrates must change.” The justification of all far-right extremist political parties is that white domination is under threat. Morland shows that these shifts in demography are not a threat. They are the predictable evolution of human populations. Health workers have a vital voice in leading public debate about the realities of these transitions and the importance of promulgating the idea of a common, not a divided, humanity. Health leaders must begin to offer a positive and internationalist vision for human societies. Our task is urgent.

Populist, Radical and Extremist Political Parties in Visegrad countries vis à vis the migration crisis. In the name of the people and the nation in Central Europe

Abstract The paper looks at the political party scene in Visegrad countries before and after the influx of refugees and compares how much the negative reactions were instrumentalised not only by the extremist and radical right parties but by the newly emerged populist formations as well as the well-established mainstream parties across the whole political spectra. Until the “migration crisis”, the far right parties focused mainly on Roma issue, anti-Semitism, anti-communism, anti-establishment and used anti-NATO, anti-EU, anti-German, anti-Czech, anti-Slovak or anti-Hungarian card. Since 2015, the parties re-oriented against immigrants, more precisely against the Muslims presenting them as a threat and also increased their criticism on the EU. However, the mainstream parties also accepted far right topics and actively promoted them. The result is then mainstreaming of xenophobia, nationalism and marginalization of far right parties as their flexible voters move to the populist subjects.

Mixed Signals of Europeanization: Revisiting the NPD Decision in Light of the European Court of Human Rights' Jurisprudence

The Article revisits the German Federal Constitutional Court's NPD decision and the concept of militant democracy regarding party bans in German constitutional law. It argues that the Court's new definition of the free democratic basic order approximates its jurisprudence to the standards developed by the European Court of Human Rights. The Article also compares the German and European standards for party bans. It assesses the respective required risks for democracy that a party needs to pose in order to justify a party ban. In this respect, it is argued that the German standard—though elevated—still falls short of the threshold under European human rights law. Finally, the NPD's anti-constitutional—but not unconstitutional—character is examined, and a recent constitutional amendment to exclude extremist political parties from party financing is evaluated.

Still Questioning Cynicism

While political cynicism is often assumed to reduce people’s involvement in politics, others suggest that cynicism may actually increase electoral support for ideologically extreme political parties. Empirical evidence for either statement is often unreliable, contradictive or insufficient. I argue that these inconsistencies are caused by the lack of a proper definition and measurement of political cynicism. While scholars agree that political cynicism is something different than a mere lack of trust, skepticism or even apathy, there is still no widely-accepted definition of cynicism. In this study, I discuss the determinants of political cynicism including untrustworthiness, immorality, dishonesty, incompetence, self-interest and being out of touch with citizens, and I propose a new definition. Given the potential detrimental challenge political cynicism poses to legitimacy and the possible negative impacts of political cynicism on political participation, understanding the nature of citizens’ cynicism is important for assessing the vitality of democratic politics.

Political extremism and economic activity

We study the effect of economic activity on the vote share of extremist political parties in Europe. Using a model that addresses the prevalent endogeneity problem, which is likely to have discouraged similar research, we find that small fluctuations in income per-capita have significant inverse effects on the vote share of far-right parties. Our results explain the widespread success of such parties in entering European parliaments following the 2007–2008 crisis. They also suggest that, ceteris paribus, far-right parties on the margin of electoral thresholds run the risk of losing parliamentary representation in the face of a steadily recovering world economy.

Backlash in Attitudes after the Election of Extreme Political Parties

Backlash in Attitudes after the Election of Extreme Political Parties

Backlash in Attitudes after the Election of Extreme Political Parties

Far-right and far-left parties by definition occupy the fringes of politics, with policy proposals outside the mainstream. This paper asks how public attitudes about such policies respond once an extreme party increases their political representation at the local level. We study attitudes towards the signature policies of two radical populist parties in Sweden, one from the right and one from the left, using panel data from 290 municipal election districts. To identify causal effects, we take advantage of large nonlinearities in the function which assigns council seats, comparing otherwise similar elections where a party either barely wins or loses an additional seat. We estimate that a one seat increase for the far-right, anti-immigration party decreases negative attitudes towards immigration by 4.1 percentage points, in opposition to the party’s policy position. Likewise, when a far-left, anti-capitalist party politician gets elected, support for a six hour workday falls by 2.7 percentage points. Mirroring these attitudinal changes, the far-right and far-left parties have no incumbency advantage in the next election. Exploring possible mechanisms, we find evidence that when the anti-immigrant party wins a marginal seat, they experience higher levels of politician turnover before the next election and receive negative coverage in local newspapers. These findings demonstrate that political representation can cause an attitudinal backlash as fringe parties and their ideas are placed under closer scrutiny.

Řecká pravoslavná církev a její interpretace řecké ekonomické krize

The Orthodox Church of Greece and its Interpretation of the Greek Economic Crisis For various reasons, the Greek economic crisis affected not only the material situation of Greek society, but the crisis also had a psychological impact on it. The decline of the Greek state and its inferior position within the EU created a collective trauma, which was then utilized by radical and extremist political parties. The Orthodox Church of Greece has seen the crisis as an opportunity to increase its influence within the society. In response to the crisis, it opted for a rather nationalist and populist discourse employing conspiracy theories and mobilizing its supporters by referring to critical moments of Greek national history, such as the Axis occupation during the Second World War. Based on an analysis of official statements by the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece and its permanent Synod, this study attempts to explain how the Orthodox Church of Greece interpreted the causes, course, and consequences of the economic crisis, and how it evaluated the austerity measures proposed by the Troika and subsequently adopted by the Greek government and how the Orthodox Church defined its own role during this period. Keywords: Orthodox Church of Greece; economic crisis; populism; conspiracy theories; Troika; Greece DOI: 10.14712/23363231.2017.3

On the Nexus of Eternity Clauses, Proportional Representation, and Banned Political Parties

Constitutional democracies do not usually tie their choice of proportional election with the need to counterbalance this choice by adopting either bans on extremist political parties or the “unconstitutional constitutional amendment” doctrine. Nor do scholars offer countries a “menu” from which they may choose between majoritarian election systems or a system combining proportional representation with either bans on extremist political parties or absolutely entrenched values. This article argues that such a nexus exists empirically and may be justified normatively. This article also argues that when a country has one of the mechanisms—either a ban on extremist political parties or an eternity clause—it may legitimately infer the implicit existence of the other, as both are complementary and intended to protect the same constitutional values. The article explains the benefits that may arise from treating the two tools as mirror images of one another. While it may be easy to criticize countries for using militant democratic tools, majoritarian democratic countries should examine the implications of their own election methods. Some may be surprised to discover that they, too, compromise democratic ideals to sustain long-term democratic ends.

Electoral Non-Participation and Communicative Voting in the EU: Attitudinal Explanations

Recently held elections in a number of established democracies have been characterized by voters' increasing electoral non-participation and a substantial rise in the vote shares of extreme political parties. This paper investigates the role of European citizens’ political attitudes in changing voting dynamics. Empirical analysis first establishes the relationship between citizens’ voting decisions (i.e., both their decision to abstain from voting as well as their decision to communicatively vote for anti-establishment right-wing parties) and their disapproving political attitudes — political dissatisfactions and distrusts — towards existing institutions and actors. Secondly, it lists political attitudes (i.e., dissatisfaction with government, distrust in political parties) that distinguish non-voters from right-wing voters. Finally, I exploit the main results to provide policy implications for the contemporary European political system.

Multikulturalizam u europskom kontekstu: dosezi i nesuglasja

Multikulturalizam u europskom kontekstu: dosezi i nesuglasja

Neo-Nazism in an Established Democracy: The Persistence of Golden Dawn in Greece

The literature predicts that extremist right-wing parties like the Greek Golden Dawn (GD) are doomed to stay in the margins of electoral competition, scaring away voters with their authoritarian views and violent tactics. Defying scholarly expectations and despite the criminal prosecution of its leadership, GD increased its electoral strength in the May 2014 European elections. The article contrasts the neo-Nazi GD with Western European radical right parties and examines the factors that facilitated the persistence of such an extreme political party in an established European democracy. It shows how GD managed to capitalise on the de-legitimation of Greek political institutions and, through its organisational activity, present itself as a socially legitimate anti-system alternative.

The Rise of Golden Dawn: The New Face of the Far Right in Greece

The article examines the rise of the one of the most extremist political parties in Europe, Golden Dawn. It sketches the historical trajectory of the Greek far right, examines the ideological, organisational and voter profile of Golden Dawn, and offers possible explanations for its breakthrough in the 2012 elections. The article shows how the economic crisis has brought a massive realignment of the Greek electorate away from mainstream parties, giving rise to anti-system and anti-immigrant sentiments. Golden Dawn's violent tactics have allowed the party to establish an anti-system and anti-immigrant profile and capitalise on these sentiments. The party's future will depend on its capacity to absorb organisationally any future tensions between party pragmatists and idealists.