Extreme Right-wing Research Articles

O Kasper está morto? Domesticação e doutrinação do Kaspertheater durante o Nacional-Socialismo

ABSTRACT The text presents preliminary results of research on the strategies employed in the appropriation of Kaspertheater for propaganda purposes under National-Socialism. This popular form of German puppet theater was adapted into Nazi ideological plays, and performed on various circuits, including war fronts. The article examines the relationship between art and politics in this context and discusses the ambiguities of the use of comicality linked to right-wing extremist programs, as a counterpoint to contemporary performances of Kaspertheater. It investigates the relations between popular culture and the legitimization of national identity projects, with the intention of contributing to this debate in Brazil.

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction

Эволюция феномена терроризма в Италии

European security today faces new challenges that are not directly related to military force. Among them, first of all, is the threat of terrorism, which has both internal and external dimensions. The article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of terrorism in the European Union on the example of Italy. The author analyses four types of this threat posed by terrorists according to their political motivation: separatism, left- and right-wing domestic political terrorism, and Islamist terrorism. Italian law distinguishes between the concepts of terrorism, radicalism and subversion. According to the 2015 law, terrorism is defined as conduct that, by its nature or context, may cause serious harm to a country or an international organization. It is aimed at intimidating the population or forcing the State or international organizations to commit or refuse to commit any action. The evolution of the phenomenon of terrorism in Italy is of particular interest because it reflects both general and specific features of the terrorist threat in Europe. From the late 1960s to the 1970s and until the beginning of the 1980s, Italian society had been facing the most brutal manifestations of terrorism. During this period, terrorism evolved from ideological far-right extremism to ultra-left revolutionary extremism, which turns to violence against the State and its servants, calling for a communist transformation of society. By the end of the 1980s, the terrorist threat in Italy had been significantly reduced. The decline in terrorist activity in the 1980s is explained, in addition to the increased effectiveness of the intelligence services and the police, by the decline in political activity in Italy after the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. The author draws attention to one of the paradoxes of Islamist terrorism in Italy. Despite the fact that Italy bears the main flow of migration waves that can carry the threat of terrorism to Europe, the country has so far been spared from the large-scale threat of such kind. The example of Italy is also important because today the country’s leadership is the most effective in counterterrorism in comparison with other EU states.

CHARACTERISTICS OF EXTREMIST POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES: THE CASE OF THE SPANISH FASCIST FRONT BASTION

This work analyses the concept and characteristics of extremist political ideologies through the study of previous works on European and American far-right extremism. This analysis explores how in some societies, like the Spanish one, certain types of extremist political ideologies are tolerated. The author proposes an additional characteristic to the ones analyzed, which helps to classify and understand these ideologies and their sympathizers. This proposed characteristic is based on the use of force to impose an ideology. The case of the Spanish extremist group Bastion Front, of fascist and Francoist ideology, is analyzed through the mentioned characteristics. The discourse given by Isabel Peralta in 2021 in memory of the Blue Division in Madrid is included to demonstrate the tolerance of extremist and fascist public speeches. A review of the main characteristics and values of Spanish national-Catholicism extremist political ideology is presented, as well as those of the historical fascist party Falange, still active today. This work exposes the rhetorical use of Russia by Western fascists as a supposed leader of an illiberal system opposing the American and English order. The author concludes that extremist political ideologies like fascism are tolerated in Spanish society and the Spanish legal system today.

“Tomorrow belongs to us”: Pathways to Activism in Italian Far-Right Youth Communities

AbstractBased on long-term ethnographic research, this article contributes to the growing scholarship on far-right social movements by presenting an in-depth account of the Italian far-right scene. In presenting personal accounts of three activists and situating them within the milieus in which they are active, it sheds light on a variety of factors that push youth to engage in far-right militancy. Many researchers of far-right extremism have asserted the need to provide more in-depth knowledge on far-right militants, yet there remain important gaps that this article strives to address. First, it demonstrates the value of the ethnographic approach in the study of far right, which offers unique insights into the motivations for involvement and the relations between ideas, beliefs, and practices. Second, it shows the importance of situating present-day activism in a historical context, not only by looking for long-term patterns but also by paying attention to the ways studied actors engage with historical comparisons. Third, in engaging critically with some commonsensical approaches to far-right activists, the paper suggests that ethnographic studies of far-right activism can give us fresh perspectives on broader social phenomena beyond the far right per se.

The structure of the Eurosceptic movement in Poland – political and civil far-right extremists

Far-right extremist groups in Poland have undergone the substantive evolution over the course of last thirty years – from being marginalized, small in number group to being one of the most developed and numerous movements in civil society, as well as on the political landscape. The article examines the history of this movement, its stages of development and demonstrates how pivotal is the role of far-right groups in Euroscepticism in Poland.

Far-Right Extremism’s Threat to Police Safety and the Organizational Legitimacy of Law Enforcement in the United States

Цель: to analyze the far-right extremism’s anti- government ideology as an external threat to law enforcement officers. Methods: dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena, using the general and specific research methods based on it. Results: The relationship between far-right extremism and law enforcement in the United States has a long and complicated history. In 2020, this relationship was on display as both far-right extremists and law enforcement agencies were brought into the national spotlight for their roles in multiple unprecedented events. This research discusses how far-right extremism’s anti- government ideology represents an external threat to law enforcement officers. This threat is discussed through the presentation of 30-years of data on law enforcement officers killed in the line-of-duty by far-right extremists from the Extremist Crime Database. In addition, the research also examines law enforcement’s implicit and explicit support for far-right extremism, which creates an internal threat against the legitimacy of the profession. Finally, policy initiatives that come from, and build upon, prior research are discussed to reduce these threats.Scientific novelty: for the first time, the work substantiates that far-right extremists threaten the safety of law enforcement officers in the United States. Antigovernment extremists, who do not believe that they are subject to the laws of the jurisdiction where they live, pose the risk of escalating to violent acts when encountering law enforcement when they engage in both ideologically motivated and routine criminal activity. In addition, law enforcement agencies who hire far-right extremists face the very real prospect of becoming illegitimate in the eyes of the communities to whom they are sworn to serve and protect. Decades of criminological research has shown that lack of trust in law enforcement makes the job of policing a community more difficult and more dangerous. Although multiple paths forward were outlined that build on prior research and empirical knowledge, only decisive action by law enforcement and policymakers will result in outcomes that reduce the risk of external violent victimization to police and protect law enforcement agencies from being delegitimized by the presence of far-right extremists within their ranks.Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific, pedagogical and law enforcement activities when considering issues related to the prevention, suppression and investigation of extremist crimes.The article was first published in English language by Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society and The Western Society of Criminology Hosting by Scholastica. For more information please contact: CCJLS@WesternCriminology.org.For original publication: Parkin, W. S., Mills, C. E., Gruenewald, J. (2021). Far-Right Extremism’s Threat to Police Safety and the Organizational Legitimacy of Law Enforcement in the United States, Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society, 2021, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 1–24. Publication URL: https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/article/26321-far-right-extremism-s-threat-to-police-safety-and-the-organizational-legitimacy-of-law-enforcement-in-the-united-states

COVID-19 and Emancipatory Gerontology: Perspectives of Political Economy and the American Rescue Plan

The present historic moment – a pandemic worsened by far-right extremism – reveals how mounting individual and collective precarity across the lifecourse and in old age resides within societal institutions of colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. Contradictions between systems of democracy and capitalism construct an ageist society aligned with neoliberal ideologies attempting to dismantle and privatize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. These issues confront the call for a critical inquiry that matters in the lives of those who daily experience social injustices (Denzin, 2017). This paper presents emancipatory gerontology (Estes & DiCarlo, 2019) as a critical praxis to challenge assumptions, frameworks, and delirium writ large in American society as it relates to how we conceive of age, aging, and generations. We elucidate how the $1.9 trillion 2021 American Rescue Plan represents a paradigm shift that aims to supplant austerity economics with human, public, and community benefit. This knock on the hegemonic commitment to austerity and its mantra is an opportunity to interrogate the effects of, and advance, emancipatory policies and practices. Gerontology is inadequate without a lens for examining how critical analysis and social action might inform one another. To shift from disruption to transformation in the “new normal,” scholars must bring the past and future into the present to engage realistic utopian pedagogies of hope. Emancipatory gerontology offers a theoretical framework and vocabulary for interrogating individual and social consequences of major policy and institutional forces in relation to aging and generations across the lifecourse.

Morally Homogeneous Networks and Radicalism

Online radicalization is among the most vexing challenges the world faces today. Here, we demonstrate that homogeneity in moral concerns results in increased levels of radical intentions. In Study 1, we find that in Gab—a right-wing extremist network—the degree of moral convergence within a cluster predicts the number of hate-speech messages members post. In Study 2, we replicate this observation in another extremist network, Incels. In Studies 3 to 5 (N = 1,431), we demonstrate that experimentally leading people to believe that others in their hypothetical or real group share their moral views increases their radical intentions as well as willingness to fight and die for the group. Our findings highlight the role of moral convergence in radicalization, emphasizing the need for diversity of moral worldviews within social networks.

The Contextual Qur’anic Interpretation of Jihad

In the 20th century, Indonesia was faced with issues of right-wing extremism in thename of religion which affected the benefit of the people. Several acts of terror, thediscourse of the caliphate, returning to the sunnah, and dictation of takfiri havebecome the center of topics in our country, where the issue of "jihad" against religionand the state is often misinterpreted in a harsh and coercive way. Thus, throughanalyzing the contemporary interpretation of the Double Movement, the interpretationof the verse is more inclined towards more universal values, which are humanist,freedom (al-hurriyah), equality (al-musawwah) and justice (al-'adalah). So that itproduces some understanding that jihad is not just about war, but can be done invarious ways by looking at the contextuality of the times, as in the viewpoint of HabibLutfi, that defending the country and homeland as the term "jihad today" is one of thealternatives in silencing the understanding. “Conventional jihad” brought about byelements in destroying religion and the state, including strengthening knowledge ofhistory, increasing the achievement of the nation's children and understanding ofukhuwah wathaniyah which are interconnected to silence as a form of love for thehomeland and jihad for the advancement of religion and the state.

Canada’s Right-Wing Extremists: Mapping their Ties, Location, and Ideas

Canada has often been seen as a progressive country that is welcoming to immigrants, promotes multiculturalism, and generally as a kind and tolerant society. This study used a two-month close examination of Canada’s RWE online presence surrounding the 2019 federal election. Using social network analysis, this study fills a needed empirical gap in current understanding of this network that are known to produce and sustain domestic terrorism and extremist hate crimes in Canada. Then using both discourse and correspondence analysis, we find that Canada’s Right-Wing Extremists (RWEs) galvanize around the following key ideas: leftist-propensities towards violence, projecting especially views against the Antifa, anti-immigration, media corruption and dishonesty, anti-elite and anti-establishment values, anti-liberalism, populism, anti-LGBT, anti-environmentalism, biological determinism, white victimization, and anti-consumerism. By determining Canadian RWE’s ties, location and ideas our findings reveal that many RWE leaders are seen as authoritative for their views in the network and create content and community, potentially inciting active participation. As social contagion theory reminds us, these authorities in the RWE network may inspire others into concrete violent action and are of great concern to public safety.

Beyond Prepper Culture as Right-wing Extremism: Selling Preparedness to Everyday Consumers as How to Survive the End of the World on a Budget

Beyond Prepper Culture as Right-wing Extremism: Selling Preparedness to Everyday Consumers as How to Survive the End of the World on a Budget

The mindset of extreme right-wing youth in neofascist songs from the late seventies

ABSTRACT The article analyses the mindset of right-wing extremist youth during the second wave of the protest movement in the seventies, making use of a source that historians have totally overlooked, namely neofascist political song. These songs were all but entirely self-produced, independently of the record industry, and scarce availability has led to them being largely forgotten. However, thanks to recent publications, along with many original audio files uploaded to YouTube, it is now possible to access this documentary heritage and enter a world of images, symbols and portrayals that, in the second half of the seventies, represented a clean break with classical neofascist iconography.

Necropsia de la democracia brasileña

This article explains by what means ongoing democratic backsliding takes place in Brazil, after the pinnacle of its democratic experience. Unlike mainstream concerns about the death of democracies and quality of democracy, it started neither by the action of outsiders, nor through Executive aggrandizement. Institutions regarded as protectors against abuse of power, such as media, the Judiciary, Public Prosecution and Parliament, led to democratic disrupture. Consequences were militarization, party system deterioration and undemocratic elections, favouring far-right extremist Bolsonaro.

The Youth Appeal of Far-Right Music Festivals

This article explores an important, yet infrequently explored, topic in youth studies: far-right festivals. Drawing upon contemporary international examples, this article suggests the powerful imagery of embodied militancy in far-right festivals may cut through to potential young recruits, especially young men, on a visceral and emotional level. They experience a strong sense of nationalist heritage, cultural belonging and radical political identity. Youth may be attracted to the far-right through festivals because they seem to be an exciting space to express resistance against the mainstream, including hatred for ethnic minorities. There is an active process of becoming that takes place. Through collectively lived experience, young people, especially young white men, are guided towards right-wing extremist membership. Such events offer not only a powerful face-to-face experience for youth, but later become a compelling digital recruitment tool, targeted at young people, when photos and videos of the festival are uploaded on social media.

The Pleasure and Pain of Passing as (Dis)abled: Rudi Dutschke’s Exile in the United Kingdom (1968–1971) and the Ableism of the West German Student Movement

The Pleasure and Pain of Passing as (Dis)abled: Rudi Dutschke’s Exile in the United Kingdom (1968–1971) and the Ableism of the West German Student Movement

Taking Nativism to the Streets

In this article, I give an overview on nativist street protests in Germany from the early nineteenth century to the present from an historical perspective. In a preliminary remark, I will reflect on some recent developments in Germany, where nativist protest campaigns against immigration took place in the streets when voters were turning towards the populist radical right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). In the first section, I will outline an older tradition of anti-immigration protest in nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany, which is closely connected to modern antisemitism. In sections two and three, I will retrace how, from the late 1960s onward, the far right in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) discovered concerns about immigration in the German population, addressed them in protest campaigns and developed narratives to integrate such sentiments into a broader right-wing extremist ideology, itself deeply rooted in antisemitism. Studying nativism and the radical right from an actor-oriented perspective, I will focus on traditionalist movements, including the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) and neo-Nazi groups.

A Biographical Perspective on Processes of Radicalisation

This article reconstructs four ideal types of biographical self-descriptions outlining radicalisation processes that are based on longitudinal biographical interviews conducted with male (former) right-wing extremists. In the first self-description, the biographers explain how they were born into radicalised families whose ideological norms and values they adopted without question. The second self-description outlines how the biographers’ actions were guided by a longing for stability and community. Initially, ideology plays a tangential role, with involvement in Kameradschaften and violence providing key momentum. In the third self-description, biographers refer to their German heritage and glorify National Socialism. They see themselves as guardians of the German Volk, and partly resort to violence to defend this idea. The fourth self-description outlines engagement with right-wing extremism as an outlet for frustrations with social discrimination. During our analysis, we examine whether any of these ideal types also correspond to self-descriptions given by Islamists, concluding that the latter do indeed describe their pathways into radicalisation in a similar manner.

Societal Responses to Right-Wing Extremism: Antifascist Mobilisation against Golden Dawn in Greece

ABSTRACT The literature on how democratic polities deal with right-wing extremism focuses on political and institutional actors at the expense of societal agency. This article offers a corrective by analysing antifascist mobilisation against one of the most extreme parties in Europe, Golden Dawn in Greece. It uses in-depth interviews with antifascists to sketch the developmental trajectory of Greek antifascism. It then utilises an original dataset of thousands of antifascist events to document spatial and temporal patterns of antifascist mobilisation. The article shows how antifascist mobilisation affected the developmental trajectory of the party and ultimately led to the conviction of its leadership.

A Climate of Misogyny: Gender, Politics of Ignorance, and Climate Change Denial – An Interview with Katharine Hayhoe

ABSTRACT In this interview, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe discusses with Sophie Bjork-James and Josef Barla: the issue of gender inequality in the natural sciences; the toxic entanglement of right-wing extremism, sexism and anti-science rhetoric in discourses on climate change; the far-reaching institutional and social consequences of the Trump administration’s attacks on climate science research and advocacy; as well as the politics of ignorance and promising ways to rebuild trust in shared values and a shared world in the face of multiple planetary crises and challenges from climate change to biodiversity loss to the rise of far-right extremism.