The Nouvelle Droite in Portugal: a new strategy for the radical right in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy

Marchi examines how the French Nouvelle Droite (ND) was introduced into Portugal at the end of the Salazarist regime and during the transition to democracy. The relevance of the Portuguese case lies in the fact that the early diffusion of the ND in Europe coincided with the profound crisis of the radical right in Portugal as it faced the liberalization of the authoritarian regime and repression during the revolutionary transition. For that reason the far right in Portugal, in comparative terms, can be seen to have been subject to historical constraints quite different from those in Spain and other Western European democracies. Marchi describes the groups on the Portuguese radical right, and certain figures who were inspired by the ND and disseminated its ideas in Portugal. His analysis of their main publications, their statements and the media campaign to promote the ND from the end of the 1960s to the beginning of the 1980s highlights the different reasons for and ways in which Portuguese radicals engaged and dealt with the ND. Marchi also looks at the reactions of the national right-wing milieu to the spread of ND ideas. As part of his paper’s contribution to comparative studies on the transnational radical right, it also provides new evidence, derived from the Portuguese case, of the way in which one of the most important schools of right-wing thought at the end of the twentieth century has influenced extreme-right milieux all over Europe. In light of Tamir Bar-On's analysis of the ND's cultural and pan-European impact, the findings presented here confirm its transnational character while drawing on this and other cases from southern Europe to question the French movement's long-term effectiveness in reorienting the culture of the right-wing milieu.     

The French secular hypocrisy: the extreme right,the Republic and the battle for hegemony

ABSTRACT

The success of the extreme right in France in the past two decades has not been limited to its electoral rise. A more long-lasting victory has taken place in the ideological field, where the discourse of the extreme right now occupies a prominent place in the mainstream liberal democratic agenda. Increasingly, its ideas are seen in the media and in the platforms of mainstream parties as ‘common sense’ or at least acceptable. The growing acceptance of this ‘common sense’ is the result of very carefully crafted strategies put in place by extreme-right thinkers since the 1980s. For over three decades now, in order to change perceptions and renew extreme right-wing ideology, New Right think tanks such as the French GRECE believed it was necessary to borrow the tactics of the left and, more specifically, the Gramscian concept of hegemony: cultural power must precede political power. With the use of contemporary examples, Mondon's article demonstrates the continuing impact these ideas have had on the Front national and French politics and society, and how this change originated in the association of populist rhetoric with the neo-racist stigmatization of the Other.     

Revitalizing and de-territorializing fascism in the 1950s: the extreme right in France and Italy,and the pan-national (‘European’) imaginary

ABSTRACT

In this article Mammone explores a still relatively neglected story in the history of post-war neo-fascism, notably the attempts by some French and Italian right-wing extremists to revitalize fascist ideology after the war by means of two interconnected strategies, namely, radicalization (rejection of the democratic system) and ‘de-territorialization’ (in the sense of converting narrow fascist nationalism into pan-European nationalism). Mammone describes these project(s), as well as the influence of thinkers such as Julius Evola and Maurice Bardèche, and their location in the wider ideological context of the extreme right in the 1950s. The immediate outcome of this ‘de-territorialized fascism’ was the creation of an extreme-right international association, the Mouvement Social Européen, in which French and Italian activists played a central role. Mammone breaks new ground regarding the non-national dimension of extreme-right thought, a topic too often studied within the boundaries of a given geographical territory and nationalist ideological landscape. By utilizing a transnational framework, he also shows the continuous connections and interactions between the Italian and the French extreme rights.     

How to stay populist? The Front National and the changing French party system

Abstract

The main aim of this contribution is to assess the relevance of the notion of ‘exclusionary populism’ for the characterisation of the Front National (FN) in France. Since its emergence in the 1970s, several categories or notions have been applied to this political party. Once considered as the resurgence of a traditional extreme right, it has since been classified as a case of a new European right-wing extremism, or as one of the neo-populist parties that obtained electoral successes in the 1990s. The recent evolution of the party has also been described as a sort of ‘normalisation’. Is therefore ‘exclusionary populism’ still a category that can grasp the evolution of the party, as well as its present position in the French party system? To answer this question, this article examines political discourses and various electoral platforms of the Front National to gather some empirical evidence. The argument is twofold: The Front National, despite its ‘dédiabolisation’ strategy, is still a classic populist party characterised by exclusionary populism and a sort of ‘catch-all populism’; its evolution is, however, dependent on the recent evolution of the French party system.     

Right-wing Euroscepticism and populism: investigating the concept of ‘the people’

ABSTRACT

Right-wing Eurosceptic political groups gained ground in the elections for the European Parliament in May 2014. The electoral victory of right-wing Euroscepticism was accompanied by a concern that populism is (once again) spreading in Europe. Associating right-wing Eurosceptics with populism raises the question of whether critiques of populism can be directly extended to right-wing Euroscepticism. By reconstructing the right-wing Eurosceptic concept of ‘the people,’ this article demonstrates that the Eurosceptic concept of the people has a dual meaning that encompasses both a transnational and a national concept of the people. The article concludes that while Euroscepticism shares ideological features with populism, it is problematic, due to the internal structure of the promoted concept of the people and the European political environment, directly to extend recent critiques of populism to right-wing Euroscepticism.     

Introduction: the history of anthropology

Abstract

On 24 January 1999 a new party was formed by the former Front national (FN) number two, Bruno Mégret. The Front national–Mouvement national was subsequently renamed twice: it became the Mouvement national (MN) following the loss of a court case, and later the Mouvement national républicain (MNR). Mégret claims that the MNR is a party not of the extreme right but of the moderate right, labelled by him the ‘national right’. This is a definition with which many political analysts in France seem to have concurred. In this article Bastow analyses the extent to which the characterization is a true one. First, he outlines the context in which Mégret formed the MNR, focusing on his political background and the strategy which he previously sought to impose on the FN. An extended treatment of the policy proposals put forward by the MNR is then followed by an analysis of the extent to which these amount to a break from an ideology which can be identified as extreme right. He concludes by assessing the prospects for the MNR's success.     

Between two rights: Julien Freund and the origins of political realism in France

Julien Freund (1921–93) was a French sociologist and political theorist who taught at the University of Strasbourg in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he is the author of over two dozen books, Freund remained throughout his lifetime something of a marginal figure in his own country. Yet, strangely, Freund is now receiving more scholarly attention in France than ever before. The question is why? This paper attempts to provide an answer by looking at Freund's attempt to establish an alternative intellectual canon in France that was heavily indebted to the German tradition of political realism. The story begins with Freund's early relationship with Raymond Aron, and suggests, perhaps provocatively, that Freund is responsible for luring Aron back into his studies on Max Weber dating from the 1930s. It then moves on to explore Freund's relationship with Carl Schmitt. Freund became Schmitt's closest French friend and, for forty years, exhibited a veritable obsession with disseminating Schmitt's work in France. Finally, it suggests that recent attempts by those who wish to place Freund within a current tradition of French liberalism are mistaken. Instead Freund must be placed within a German Neue Rechte context, and specifically his desire to introduce the German tradition of political realism into France. In the end the article argues that the French Nouvelle Droite—with its stress on the cultural and ethnic foundations of the nation-state—pushed Freund's political thought in a decidedly anti-liberal and seemingly pseudo-fascist direction.     

Shifting borders: Islamophobia as common ground for building pan-European right-wing unity

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Islamophobia has become a useful tool for right-wing parties to mobilize electors in many European nation-states. The general xenophobic campaigns of the 1980s have given way to Islamophobia as a specific expression of racism. It is not only the new incarnations of right-wing populist parties that are making use of Islamophobic populism, but also right-wing extremist parties, whose traditions hark back to fascist or Nazi parties. This development appears unsurprising, as Islamophobia has somehow become a kind of ‘accepted racism’, found not only on the margins of European societies but also at the centre. Another interesting concomitant shift is the attempt by such parties to gain wider acceptance in mainstream societies by distancing themselves from a former antisemitic profile. While the main focus on an exclusive identity politics in the frame of nation-states previously divided the far right and complicated transnational cooperation, a shared Islamophobia has the potential to be a common ground for strengthening the transnational links of right-wing parties. This shift from antisemitism to Islamophobia goes beyond European borders and enables Europe's far right to connect to Israeli parties and the far right in the United States. Hafez's article explores this thesis by analysing the European Alliance for Freedom, a pan-European alliance of far-right members of the European parliament that has brought various formerly antagonistic parties together through a common anti-Muslim programme, and is trying to become a formal European parliamentary fraction in the wake of its victory in the European elections in May 2014.     

Apoliteic music: Neo-Folk,Martial Industrial and ‘metapolitical fascism’

ABSTRACT

Shekhovtsov suggests that there are two types of radical right-wing music that are cultural reflections of the two different political strategies that fascism was forced to adopt in the ‘hostile’ conditions of the post-war period. While White Noise music is explicitly designed to inspire racially or politically motivated violence and is seen as part and parcel of the revolutionary ultra-nationalist subculture, he suggests that ‘metapolitical fascism’ has its own cultural reflection in the domain of sound, namely, apoliteic music. This is a type of music whose ideological message contains obvious or veiled references to the core elements of fascism but is simultaneously detached from any practical attempts to realize these elements through political activity. Apoliteic music neither promotes outright violence nor is publicly related to the activities of radical right-wing political organizations or parties. Nor can it be seen as a means of direct recruitment to any political tendency. Shekhovtsov's article focuses on this type of music, and the thesis is tested by examining bands and artists that work in such musical genres as Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial, whose roots lie in cultural revolutionary and national folk traditions.     

Is extreme right-wing populism contagious? Explaining the emergence of a new party family

Abstract.  This article presents a new model for explaining the emergence of the party family of extreme right-wing populist parties in Western Europe. As the old master frame of the extreme right was rendered impotent by the outcome of the Second World War, it took the innovation of a new, potent master frame before the extreme right was able to break electoral marginalization. Such a master frame – combining ethnonationalist xenophobia, based on the doctrine of ethnopluralism, with anti-political-establishment populism – evolved in the 1970s, and was made known as a successful frame in connection with the electoral breakthrough of the French Front National in 1984. This event started a process of cross-national diffusion, where embryonic extreme right-wing groups and networks elsewhere adopted the new frame. Hence, the emergence of similar parties, clustered in time (i.e., the birth of a new party family) had less to do with structural factors influencing different political systems in similar ways as with cross-national diffusion of frames. The innovation and diffusion of the new master frame was a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the emergence of extreme right-wing populist parties. In order to complete the model, a short list of different political opportunity structures is added.     

From slime mould to rhizome: an introduction to the groupuscular right

Conventional academic research into the legacy of inter-war fascism has generally neglected the myriad minuscule and often ephemeral formations of the extreme right that have sprung up since 1945, and has concentrated instead on abortive attempts to emulate the success of the Nazi and Fascist party-based mass movements, and more recently on non-revolutionary ‘neo-populist parties’. However, when examined closely, many of these formations can be observed to behave as fully developed, highly specialized and largely autonomous grouplets that simultaneously form the constituents of an amorphous, leaderless and centreless cellular network of political ideology, organization and activism that is termed here ‘the groupuscular right’. As such, these ‘groupuscules’ are to be seen as the product of a sophisticated process of evolutionary adaptation to post-1945 realities that allows extreme variants of revolutionary nationalism to survive in the ‘post-fascist’ age in a form that is largely resistant to attempts to suppress them, and may represent a number of permanent, if mostly inconspicuous, threats to liberal democracy.     

Other(s) Worlds: Mysticism and Radicalism at the Fin de Siècle

Abstract

Over time our understanding of the ‘political’ has been progressively shaped by the secular rational calculations of modern European political thought. This paper aims to critique these ‘calculations’ with reference to crucial moments of departure and flight within western philosophy itself. It concludes by reclaiming fin de siècle radicalism/philosophy as a forgotten instance of empirical-metaphysical hybridity: a form of politics or ethics capable of housing the imperatives of both desire and prayer.     

Between Breivik and PEGIDA: the absence of ideologues and leaders on the contemporary European far right

In the aftermath of the Norwegian terror attacks of 22 July 2011, the question of agency with regard to the convicted perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, has frequently been discussed. Did he really act on his own? Were his actions self-directed? Was he, as a typical ‘lone wolf’, inspired by the prevalent far-right concept of ‘leaderless resistance’ or, simply, a blind tool, a string puppet pushed and pulled by dark forces, as some commentators have claimed? His cut-and-paste manifesto points to inspiration from ideas circulating in the European Counter Jihad Movement (ECJM), in itself a contradictory mix of ideological positions. A number of these ideas were given new life when the so-called ‘populist right-wing movement of indignation’, the Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (PEGIDA) took to the streets of Dresden in the autumn of 2014. The driving force behind PEGIDA, Lutz Bachmann, with a past as petty criminal and doorman, is an unlikely front man for one of the most successful political initiatives in post-unification Germany. Comparing Breivik and PEGIDA, Önnerfors argues that the ECJM is part of the ‘third generation’ of right-wing discourse that is without a consistent world view, dominant leaders and prolific ideologues. Instead, in a new atmosphere of ‘politics of passion’ and ‘post-politics’, fuzzy ECJM ideology turns into a screen upon which diffuse uneasiness with current political affairs can be projected and channelled. Outside the scope of Önnerfors's article but worth noting is the considerable impact these developments have had on electoral support for right-wing populist parties such as the Front National in France, the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the Sverigedemokraterna in Sweden.     

Euro Area entry in east-central Europe: Paradoxical Europeanisation and clustered convergence

Economic and Monetary Union offers a useful case study for critically examining Europeanisation and conditionality as explanatory variables for the euro entry strategies of east-central European states. This article highlights the paradoxes of extreme and limited Europeanisation and of extreme ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ conditionality with multiple sources of uncertainty. These paradoxes have provided the context within which east-central European governments have evolved political strategies for the temporal management of euro entry. These strategies reflect in turn different ‘clusters’ of convergence in the Baltic States, the Visegrad states, and Slovenia. Euro Area accession in east-central Europe offers insights not just into how Europeanisation works in a central political issue area but also into the temporal management of EU policy and ‘clustered’ convergence.     

Jean Thiriart in Cairo and Bagdad

ABSTRACT

In the ‘poor’ result achieved by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2007 presidential elections, many commentators saw the demise of the Front National. However, when asked by a journalist whether it was the end of her father's political career, Marine Le Pen smilingly replied: ‘I don't think so. In any case, this is the victory of his ideas!’ In this question and answer lies the whole story of the Front National and its impact on mainstream politics in the past two decades. First, Le Pen's defeat was exaggerated, the same way his victory had been in 2002. What Mondon argues in this paper is that the 2002 presidential elections did act as an ‘earthquake’ within French politics. However, this ‘earthquake’ did not trigger a tsunami of support for Jean-Marie Le Pen, but rather a tidal wave of misinformation and misunderstanding as to the real significance of the election results. By concentrating on the 2002 and 2007 presidential elections, Mondon highlights how this reaction led to the consecration of right-wing populist politics, best exemplified in the landslide election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. He also provides an insight into the slippery slope Sarkozy's government took after its election, leading to an extremely rightward-leaning 2012 presidential campaign and new heights for the Front National.     

Rejecting refugees in illiberal Poland: The response from civil society

ABSTRACT

Since 2015, the European Union and its members have been responding to the increased arrivals of migrants and refugees at Europe’s southern shores. The states and societies of East and Central Europe are rarely discussed in this context. Even though their governments support the overall EU policy objectives in the area of freedom, security and justice, they vocally refused to participate in EU ‘burden sharing’. In this way these countries earned the label of uniquely xenophobic. This article seeks to complicate this perception by highlighting how civil society in Poland responded to the right-wing Polish government’s anti-refugee stance. Through the lens of Aronoff and Kubik’s concept of Legal Transparent Civil Society (LTCS) the author examine the evolving relationship between the ruling Law and Justice party and civil society organizations, proposing that activities for the benefit of refugees offer an insight into the transformation of civil society in the emerging illiberal political system.     

The Singapore developmental state in the new economy and polity

Abstract

This article presents a counterpoint to the popular portrayals of political transitions in the Philippines and Indonesia as ‘people power’ driven by civil society mobilisation. Inherent in this kind of analysis is the popular assumption that transitions from sultanistic regimes are likely to be driven almost completely by forces outside of the regime, as they do not allow for independent actors or institutions that could peacefully arrange for transition ‘from within’. This article suggests that, despite the appearance of a ‘people power’ revolution, the key driver behind the fall of the Marcos and Suharto regimes was forces internal to the regimes. Sultanistic regimes could collapse not only as a result of society-led displacement; sultanistic rulers could also be brought down by an alliance of moderate opposition elites and regime soft-liners, which opens up the way for a much less revolutionary path out of sultanism. More importantly, this article suggests that these elites emerged as a result of their growing marginalisation in the patronage system. Their challenge to the sultan was motivated less by strong democratic conviction than by desire to gain greater access to state patronage.     

Politics and enlightenment: Kant and Derrida on cosmopolitan responsibility

Walter Benjamin once remarked of the enterprise of translation ‘that it is nowhere’: that the labour of transcribing the sense, inflection and difference of any particular language and text must always situate the translator in a space which is neither ‘of the original, nor ‘of the language into which it is to be transcribed. This ‘non‐position’ of the translator—between the original and its analogue, between the ‘spirit’ and the ‘letter’, the difference and the acceptability of the text—marks the labour of translation as an ethical responsibility: that of communicating the significance of something—a gesture, a story, a custom, a tradition—which has appeared to this/our socio‐linguistic culture as strange and unfathomably alien; and to achieve this communication without annulling its strangeness, its alterity. The purpose of my comparison of Kant and Derrida's remarks on cosmopolitical responsibility therefore, is fourfold. First, I want to suggest that it is this ‘stricture’ of translation—this difficult responsibility of both judging and respecting the difference of foreign’ cultures—which marks the (non‐Kantian, non‐situated) ‘territory’ of cosmopolitical responsibility. Second, by using Kant's remarks on the relationship between the political evolution of European Enlightenment culture and a possible world confederation of sovereign states, I want to point up the hierarchies and secondarizations involved in the determination of universal standards of moral, ethical and political conduct (even if these standards are originally prosecuted as the legislative conditions of a ‘radical democracy'). Third, I want to look at the ways in which the stricture of translation has been articulated as a theory of ‘global’ responsibility—particularly in the divergent ethical and political approaches of Jurgen Habermas and Jean‐Francois Lyotard. Fourth, I want to suggest that it is Derrida's idea of a ‘dual responsibility’ of critical thought to the political and philosophical resources of European Enlightenment and to the difference of non‐European nations and cultures, that marks the difficulty (the stricture) of acting responsibly within the global economics of power, identity and legislation. I want, in other words, to show that the ‘nowhere’ of Benjamin's translator, is a ‘place’ whose possibility demands a certain ‘Kantian’ right of reflection; that is, the right to pursue the ‘transcendent’ principle of respect for the other.     

The dark side of the German ‘welcome culture’: investigating the causes behind attacks on refugees in 2015

In 2015, Germany experienced a record high influx of refugees – and received international praise for its ‘welcome culture’. At the same time, however, attacks on refugees rose to an alarming level. This article describes the distribution of these attacks and probes their causes, using detailed socioeconomic and political data while modelling a hierarchical data structure. Controlling for further relevant factors taken from the extant literature, the analysis first tests whether the strength of extreme right political parties plays a role and, second, it models a contagion effect, taking into account spatial as well as temporal proximity. The findings suggest that the strength of right-wing parties in a district considerably boosts the probability of attacks on refugees in that area. They also corroborate the idea of behavioural contagion. The set of social-structural variables employed as controls yielded only limited explanatory power.     

The image of the Jews in Hungarian public opinion

ABSTRACT

Nowhere has the debate about a ‘new antisemitism’ been as fierce and relevant as in France. In recent years this country has witnessed high recorded levels of antisemitism, prompting many commentators to claim the existence of an anti-sémitisme nouveau. Something has indeed changed, at least in terms of the nature, frequency and perpetrators of antisemitic violence in France. Previously connected exclusively to the extreme right, it has now also become associated with a group that is itself a victim of discrimination: ethnic minority youths living in the poor suburbs (banlieues). Peace first discusses and explains the statistics produced by the French watchdog on racism and antisemitism as well as the effects of the Middle East conflict. He then traces the debate on this ‘new antisemitism’ in the French context, contrasting the views of the label's promoters and opponents. He argues that, while antisemitism has undoubtedly evolved, the ‘new’ label is effectively erroneous as it fuses supposedly leftist and ‘Muslim’ antisemitism into one entity when they are not necessarily linked. In addition, he offers vital clarification of the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism along with suggestions for further research.