‘FAR RIGHT’
CATEGORIZING FAR RIGHT ORGANIZATIONS
After having determined the ideological tenets of the far right, I will now return to the plurality of organizations, which make up the current European far right scene. They vary in terms of both worldview, organization form, and activity types, and they are ever changing and re-forming according to the given opportunities for gaining influence and resonance (see e.g. Wright 2009). According to Fielitz and Laloire (2016), the current far right actors can broadly be divided into two types, both of which are going through a “process of restructuring”. On the one hand, there are the more regressive and ‘traditional’ organizations, which “have begun to fundamentally alter their image and political positions”, while, on the other hand, other groups “[…]
draw on new forms of mobilization, agitation and (transnational) networking while integrating ideological components that had previously been alien to far-right ideologies and constituencies” (Fielitz & Laloire 2016: 13f).
In short, these actors span from:
…right-wing parties to several radical political movements, from neo-Nazi groups to fascist nostalgic/revisionists and cultural associations, from publishers, commercial sites and militaria to a radically differentiated subcultural radical right area composed of skinhead, music and sports groups. (Caiani & Parenti 2013: 45)
All of these actors can be considered challengers “for political and cultural hegemony in contemporary liberal democracies” (Veugelers & Menard 2018: 286). Together they form the ‘galaxy’ of the European far right, a plethora of actors that have increasingly begun aligning their views. Today, they agree more or less about their oppositions, namely towards (liberal) democracy, proponents of liberalism, and immigrants, particularly of Muslim faith, often combining “elements of left-wing and right-wing philosophy with populist language and rhetoric” (Caiani & della Porta 2018: 340).
The following categorization again largely draws on the works of Minkenberg (2015), yet, with some added categories. Minkenberg considers the actors in relation to their approach to, and role in, institutional politics. He differentiates between political parties (which seek to win institutional seats), social movement organizations (which attempt to mobilize public support, but not to be elected), and finally, “smaller groups and socio-cultural milieus” (independent from parties and movements, and without formal organizational forms) (2015: 4).
The subcultural actors usually gather in smaller, underground, groups without formal organizations or leadership. They may have access restrictions, only permitting
“individuals considered reliable and worthy of trust” to become part of the core group, while other activists remain at the margins of the group, making the boundaries rather
‘fuzzy’ (Bjørgo 2009: 30). Such groups develop their collective identity around “their own symbols, myths, and language” (Caiani et al. 2012: 3), which usually is “more extreme than that of the parties or movement organizations,” and may include the employment of violence (Minkenberg 2015: 31). In 2003, Griffin developed the related term groupuscule (derived from French), which he defines as a “non-hierarchical, leaderless and centreless (or rather polycentric) movement with fluid boundaries and constantly changing components” (2003: 30). These groups have
“tighter boundaries around membership and stricter rules over action,” yet, they are more likely to strike ‘pragmatic’ and ‘informal’ alliances with other far right groups (Veugelers & Menard 2018: 295).
In addition to these three categories and drawing on the article by Veugelers and Menard (2018), the category of ‘Alternative Media Outlets and Publishers’ is also added, due to the role such actors places for the dissemination of far right worldviews.
The category includes political blogs, think tanks, publishing houses, and so on, certain of which also became members of Fortress Europe.
Table 4.1 below thus attempts to categorize various political organizations according to their position on both the ‘far right’ and ‘organization’ scale. Such a definitional task is in itself challenging, and can thus best be ideal-typical. However, in order to employ the terminology convincingly throughout the analysis (especially in terms of the ‘radical’ and ‘extreme’ right distinctions), the following table depicts the position of numerous current far right non- and institutional organizations on the basis of their ideology. Nevertheless, a caveat must be given: The great volatility in the organizations’ standpoints on certain issues infers that, one year, they can be classified as belonging to one group, and over time, maybe move either more right-wards (e.g.
Alternative for Germany), or closer to the centre (such as Front National and the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) have allegedly done). Again, this entails that the table should not be considered irrefutable.
The groups mentioned below are not all part of the ensuing analysis, but should rather be considered as current examples of the given far right category. As can be seen, certain of the groups have been placed in more than one far right category, as their worldviews bridge several far right categories. This form of ‘multiple belonging’
again accentuates the difficulty of defining the far right political spectrum.
166 4.1: Categorization of European far right organizations.
PartiesMovementsandprotest
groups Subcultural groups Alternative Media
Outlets
eme right -fascist/neo-zi) National Democratic Party(NPD) (DE)
Golden Dawn (GR) DutchPeople’sUnion (NVU) (NL) Worker’s Party (DS) (CZ) Hogar Social (SP)
CasaPound (IT)
Nordic Resistance
Movement (N, S, DK, FIN) Neo-Nazis (all)
Skinheads (all)
Blood & Honour (all)
Student associations (like
Burschenschaften (DE/A))
Autonomous Nationalists Deutsche Stimme (DE)
White Media (CZ)
Right
nopluralist,
olitical
da) Front National (FR)
Alternativefor Germany
(AfD) (DE) Generation Identity (all) Identitarian Bloc (FR)
Generation Identity (all) Riposte Laïque (FR)Junge Freiheit (DE)Institute for State
Policy (IfS) (DE)
Compact! (DE)-IslamParty for Freedom (NL) European Defence League
Blok Against Islam (CZ)IVČRN (CZ)
HoGeSa (DE)
PEGIDA (all) Gates of Vienna
Stop the Islamization of
Europe (SIOE)
Free Press Association(TFS) (DK)
ulist Radical
ht Front National (FR)
Freedom Partyof Austria(FPÖ)
Alternativefor Germany
(AfD)
Northern League (IT)
EKRE (EST)
Dawn (CZ) PEGIDA Germany (DE)Burschenschaften (DE/A)
Student associations (FR +
IT)
Radio Maryja (PL)
actors. Particularly PEGIDA Germany could also be argued to form part of the Populist radical right due to its strong use of populist frames and more general opposition to the political establishment, which is expressed somewhat differently than by its European namesakes (see e.g. Vorländer et al. 2018). The various GI groups mainly draw their inspiration from the Nouvelle Droite (or the ‘New Right’), and are thus placed among the radical right actors. Yet, as the GI groups also have adopted many of the neo-fascist CasaPound’s frames and protest repertoires (see e.g.
Zúquete 2018), several scholars, particularly in German- and French-speaking countries, classify GI as a neo-Fascist mobilization (see e.g. Goetz et al. 2017; Bruns et al. 2017; Bouron 2014). The GI groups’ worldview thus consists of a mix of the two expression forms (i.e. New Right and neo-Fascism); again further accentuating the tricky task of categorising the actors on the far right.
The following chapter will introduce the GI and FE extra-parliamentary actors’
worldview and expression forms in a more detailed manner, which especially will emphasise the varied objectives with their mobilizations and how this relates to their worldviews. Hence, it will differentiate between GI’s New Right meta-political ambitions verus the FE groups’ anti-Islam populist demands for change.