An ethnic-nationalist citizens’ movement has finally emerged in Germany too, and in record time; and with the entrance into the Bundestag of the Alternative für Deutschland it is becoming normalised.
The only really new feature is the speed at which this has occurred. The political situation and...
The electoral cycle of 2017 is a turning point in France’s political landscape; the presidential and legislative elections were a major rupture which upset the political field. Historically, French politics were structured by a dividing line opposing two poles along the left/right cleavage, even...
In broad areas of Europe as well as in North America, right-wing populist movements and parties have a substantial following and have chalked up impressive electoral successes. In Germany too, which had long been an exception, this trend has now set in. In Germany and Europe in general, right-wing...
The right-left divide seems to be breaking down in current political representation. In fact this goes back some thirty years when the right turn of European socialism began to blur the boundaries between left-wing and right-wing government management.
It is true that the extreme right has always...
Donald Trump’s election as the 45th President of the United States alarmed policy makers as well as the media and intellectuals all over Europe. Not only because the umbrellas have always been opened up here when rain clouds darken the skies over Washington but because the scenario very much...
The Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti DF)2 was the big winner of the European Parliament (EP) elections in Denmark with 26.7 per cent of the votes. This represented a rise in the party’s votes of 11.2 per cent compared to the EP elections in 2009. The Danish People’s Party was also one of the...
With the Treaty of Lisbon, the financial crisis, austerity, public debt, European top candidates for European Commission President for the first time in European Parliament (EP) elections, all political actors in the European Union (EU), including far right parties, have been confronted with...
The right’s recent success2
The results of the 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections point to a shift to the right in the political spectrum – albeit to varying degrees in different countries. In France, Denmark, and Great Britain in particular, but also in Austria, Sweden, and Finland, as well...
Introduction1
Many serious observers hold that the crisis in Europe has not come to an end. With the restructuring of the Greek national debt and the enlargement of the European Stability Mechanism, only time was bought, yet the fundamental problems of over-accumulation2 and the imbalances of the...
The wave of right-wing populist electoral successes continues to sweep across Europe: Scandinavia is now completely riddled with parties of this type. Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, not to mention other countries, – all have successful right-wing populist parties. But there is...
The massacre on the island of Utøya and the attack in Oslo’s government district targeting the Scandinavian labour movement was horrible, the worst kind of right-wing terrorist act. How could it happen? How could such an extensive and long-term terrorist plot go completely unnoticed by the security...
It is said that the German writer Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) once remarked that if a revolution were to break out in Germany, he would flee to the Netherlands, since there everything happens fifty years later. Whereas this insight might have had some relevance in the mid 19th century, today it seems...
In many discussions the increase of extreme right-wing and right-wing populist parties in a growing number of European countries is regarded as if it were only a matter of parallel individual national phenomena. But there is also a European dimension that is unfortunately rarely considered, one that...
The reinforcement of the European extreme right coincided with the crisis of the 1970s, accompanied by transformations in production, changes in social structure of European societies and the inability of the dominant political forces to face up to the new conditions1.
The economic crisis is...
The Mercer 2010 Quality of Living Ranking shows that the Austrian capital of Vienna (population: 1.7 million) is the world’s best place to live. Critics remark that the criteria for this survey are chosen for the information of ex-pats and do not focus on the life of the average Viennese working...
Today the majority of the media and most analyses of the Belgian situation speak of an “institutional crisis” or a “communitarian crisis”. While this way of conceiving the Belgian situation does reflect a part of the reality, it is to a great extent inadequate. Indeed, although apparently deadlocked...
I hate writing this article. Since I oppose the alarming authoritarian developments in my country and am pleading for the restoration of civil liberties, I might appear to be what I definitely am not: someone who thinks that the 21st-century European variant of liberal democracy is a political order...
Right-wing populist anti-immigration parties, such as the National Front in France, the Freedom Party of Austria, the Progress Party in Norway and the Danish People’s Party have done well in many European countries over the last couple of decades. So far Finland has been seen as an exception in...
Until the beginning of the 21st century, political science generally defined the “far right” differently from the conservative and the liberal right on several fundamental points, even though definitions varied depending on the author. Adhesion of the traditional right to an all-inclusive concept of...
It is a time of monsters. The organic crisis of the old neoliberal project has also brought forth the rise of a new radical right. But what are the reasons behind this? Many different explanations exist, most of which are valuable in certain aspects. This text aims to gain a deeper understanding of their specific relationships with one another.
The new tendency to authoritarian rule does not come from nowhere; the reason for its rise is that neoliberal austerity policy, the dismantling of the welfare states, the degradation and precarisation of the working class has not solved any of Europe’s problems.
Our study on right-wing populism and workers' unions shows that people's everyday lives (at work and in their interactions with the welfare state) provide fertile ground for right-wing populism.[1]
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is a relatively young party. When it was founded in February 2013, it was critical of Europe and the euro and made a name for itself by taking a nationalist stance in opposition to a decidedly neoliberal political climate, while at the same time displaying a nationalist, conservative wing.
This article was written in January 2017 and initially published in the February 2017 issue of the Journal Sozialismus.
In December 2016, the Austrian presidential election finally came out with the rejection of far-right presidential candidate Norbert Hofer. However the defeat of the Freiheitliche...
It has been over a year since the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) took over complete governmental control in Poland. The presidential election won by Andrzej Duda in May 2015 and the victory of PiS five months later, gave party’s leader Jarosław Kaczyński almost total control of the state.
Donald Trump, a relentless right-wing populist, outed as a sexist defender of rape culture, becoming the 45th president of the US proves that the rise of right radicalism is not confined to a number of states and regions and is not a foremost European issue but rather is the expression of a global crisis of politics.
When, in an unanticipated turn of events, Jörg Haider took over the leadership of the FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) in 1986 (at the time the party was part of a coalition government alongside the SPÖ (Socialist Party of Austria)), the party barely won 5 percent of the vote.
The two-day conference on Populist and Radical Right in Europe and Left Strategies for a New Hegemony was hosted by our Swedish member organisation Center für Marxist Studies - CMS in Stockholm in November in cooperation with Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
We have launched a thematical Focus on “Radical, Far and Populist Right” on our website: Can right-wing parties with a nationalist and populist agenda come into power even in the big states of the EU? Of which character is the challenge they are posing to the Left?
The right’s recent success2
The results of the 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections point to a shift to the right in the political spectrum – albeit to varying degrees in different countries. In France, Denmark, and Great Britain in particular, but also in Austria, Sweden, and Finland, as well...
The seminar in the frame of transform!’s priority programme on Left Strategies which was held in Vienna in April 2013 dealt with polarizing democracies and left parties at the crossroads of economic and political crisis. Find the final report, keynote speeches and some country case studies below.
It is said that the German writer Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) once remarked that if a revolution were to break out in Germany, he would flee to the Netherlands, since there everything happens fifty years later. Whereas this insight might have had some relevance in the mid 19th century, today it seems...
The Balkan Society for Theory and Practice will hold its second workshop on July 1-12th, 2019, in Prishtina, Kosovo. We welcome applications from all disciplines and encourage activists and artists to apply even if their work is not in the form of a traditional paper.
A critique of radical -and by now mainstream- anti-immigrant populism in Europe based solemnly on ideals of liberal-humanitarianism, without a systemic critique of capital is misleading in many respects. Such Analysts and commentators fail to understand properly or they just ignore, why...
The report is analysing neoconservative movement that is focusing on opposing laws of and policies on sexual and reproductive rights in Slovenia. These movements are relying on religious beliefs to mobilize citizens to participate in politics around the ultra-conservative agenda related to family issues, gender, sexuality and reproductive health.
The electoral cycle of 2017 is a turning point in the French political landscape. The presidential and legislative elections were a major rupture which disrupted the political field.
The annual Independence march (Marsz Niepodległości) took place in Warsaw on 11 November. Over 60,000 people attended, some of them masked and setting off red smoke bombs. Banners were carried with slogans supporting things such as a ‘white’ Poland and Europe and against refugees.
Hungarian civil groups headed by the Hungarian United Left called for a demonstration for 8 October in the heart of the previous Jewish ghetto of Budapest in order to protest against the presently very powerful autocracy of the right-wing ruling power of FIDESZ and KDNP and the brutal police violence committed against Attila Vajnai.
There was a great sense of relief and much jubilation over the electoral victory of Alexander Van der Bellen, the Green candidate who was supported by a voters’ coalition that ranged from the centre to the Communist Party, and who defeated Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the right-wing radical political party.
It has been over a year since the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) took over complete governmental control in Poland. The presidential election won by Andrzej Duda in May 2015 and the victory of PiS five months later, gave party’s leader Jarosław Kaczyński almost total control of the state.
Donald Trump, a relentless right-wing populist, outed as a sexist defender of rape culture, becoming the 45th president of the US proves that the rise of right radicalism is not confined to a number of states and regions and is not a foremost European issue but rather is the expression of a global crisis of politics.
The rise of the radical right in Europe raises many questions. The key here is the crisis of European democracies. To counteract this development, the Left is confronted with great challenges: overcoming mass unemployment and nationalism, and defending democracy.
Fidesz is not a ground-up movement or the product of a specific political theory or philosophy. Instead, Fidesz is a precision-engineered religion – a power-center controlled by the government and the head of the church.
In last year’s European elections of which in three countries (Great Britain, Denmark and France) radical right-wing nationalist parties became the strongest forces.
To learn better to understand the realities in the different European countries regarding the Right in its various forms and also to study systematically the political issues involved, the Alter Summit network hold this European seminar “Strategies for the Struggle Against the Far Right and Neo-Fascism in Europe” in Budapest on 3 April 2014.
Edited and with an introduction by Dimitris Christopoulos; Authors: Dimitris Christopoulos, Dimitris Kousouris, Dimosthenis Papadatos-Anagnostopoulos, Clio Papapantoleon, Alexandros Sakelariou, 2014
At night of 17 September, Pavlos Fyssas, a 34 years old antifascist hip-hop artist had been stubbed to death by a member of the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn in Keratsini, a district of Piraeus. The murder of Pavlos Fyssas became the springboard of massive developments at the political and judiciary level as it gave rise to a massive legal prosecution progress of the neo-nazi party and its members, who are accused to be members of a criminal gang.
The fact that a Nazi party – namely “Golden Dawn” – made it to the Greek Parliament is part of the broader phenomenon of the rise of far-Right in Europe; it reveals nonetheless some special dimensions of the political and financial crisis in Greece.
From November 11th - 13th there was in Kiev an international conference on the rise of the far right. The conference "Alternatives to the rise of the far right in times of economic, social and ecological crises" was organized by the „Prague Spring II network against right wing-extremism and...
Less than six months after accessing the second round of the presidential election and gathering more than 10 million votes in the second round, the Front National (FN) is in deep crisis.
It has been over a year since the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) took over complete governmental control in Poland. The presidential election won by Andrzej Duda in May 2015 and the victory of PiS five months later, gave party’s leader Jarosław Kaczyński almost total control of the state.
New populisms are haunting Europe. These populisms are shaping the European political rights. Both in the West and in the East. These new waves of the old discriminations, from the social, cultural, political, racial etc. point of view, are sharpened by the new discriminations due to the changes in the contemporary world.