Strategies for Combating Right-Wing Extremism in Europe

By Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung

Right-wing extremism is a phenomenon that can be found throughout Europe. All democratic societies are threatened by racist, anti-pluralistic and authoritarian ideas. Even though the so called "radical right" differs in character and ideology in the various European countries it strives to restrict civic and human rights as well as to change the constitutional structures that are based on the principles of democracy and liberty. Individual European countries deal with this challenge differently. The various policy approaches found in these countries are a good source for developing improved practices for fighting rightwing extremism in Germany and worldwide.
With this publication the Bertelsmann Stiftung presents an overview of the radical right in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. It also includes the most successful strategies against right-wing extremism found in these countries. The main focus of this publication is the actions pursued by the governments, political parties and actors of the civil society. Judicial provisions are highlighted as well as the implementation of laws, special action programs, the effectiveness of prosecution of right-wing crimes, cooperation of parties, institutional responsibilities, cooperation of authorities with NGOs and civil commitment against right-wing extremism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung
• Release date: Jul 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9783867932608

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The Radical Right in Europe: Challenges for Comparative Research

Michael Minkenberg

Introduction: Terms and concepts in the research on the radical right

In the research on the radical right, definitions of right-wing radicalism (or extremism, for those who prefer this term) vary widely and the terminology remains contested. As early as the mid-1990s, Cas Mudde reported that there were 26 approaches to a definition in the literature on the radical right, including at least 58 different criteria (Mudde 1996: 229). Most of the terminological debate centers on labeling the family of radical-right parties. For comparative-analytical as well as politicalstrategic purposes, the concept of radical right should include parties and non-party formations before a decision is made on which formation should be studied (or both, as is suggested here). Also, the question of whether these groups reject democracy should not be settled in the definition but left open for empirical scrutiny. For these and other reasons, it seems preferable to use the broader and more inclusive term radical instead of extreme (cf. Minkenberg 1998: chap. 1; idem 2000; Kitschelt 2007: 1178; Norris 2005).

One way to overcome the shopping-list quality of many definitions is to tie them to the theoretical concepts of social change that underlie most analyses of the radical right. The logic of modernization theories provides some conceptually grounded criteria for comparative purposes that can be applied to Western democracies and new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Generally, modernization can be understood as a growing autonomy of the individual-that is, status mobility and role flexibility-and an ongoing functional differentiation of society-that is, segmentation and growing autonomy of societal subsystems (cf. Rucht 1994).

In this light, right-wing radicalism can be defined as the radical effort to undo or fight such social change by radicalizing inclusionary and exclusionary criteria (cf. Minkenberg 1998: 29-47; idem 2000; Carter 2005: 14-20; Kitschelt 2007: 1179). The counter-concept to social differentiation is the nationally defined community; and the counter-concept to individualization is the return to an individual’s traditional roles and status in such a community. The overemphasis on or radicalization of images of social homogeneity characterizes radical right-wing thinking. In other words, right-wing radicalism is defined as a political ideology, the core element of which is a myth of a homogenous nation, a romantic and populist ultranationalism that is directed against the concept of liberal and pluralistic democracy as well as its underlying principles of individualism and universalism.

This approach is positioned against: (1) those who prefer the term fascism (e. g., Griffin 1991), which is rather closely linked to particular historical experiences and references; (2) those who prefer the term right-wing populism (e.g., Decker 2000), which is rather vague and, since it denotes more of a political style than a political message, covers a wide range of political groupings, including some mainstream parties and politicians; and (3) those who belong to the school of extremism theory (very prominent in German circles, especially those close to Verfassungsschutz; e.g., Backes and Jesse 2005), which defines the radical right according to constitutional criteria and is quite state-centered. Indeed, the school borrows its definitional criteria from state authorities and focuses on parties, groups and individuals outside the democratic arena, that is, the political establishment. But the social and political location of right-wing radicalism is in parties and other organizations as well as in the media and in currents and milieus of the general population.

For a comparative analysis of the radical right covering Western and Eastern Europe as well as for the development and evaluation of strategies to combat it, some fundamental distinctions along ideological and organizational lines should be observed. Regarding ideological distinctions, the comparative literature offers two basic approaches: the one world approach and the many worlds approach. Among the former are the works of those who postulate one generic phenomenon, such as, for example, Lipset’s (1963) extremism of the center, Griffin’s (1991) fascism, Betz’s (1994) right-wing populism and Mudde’s (2007) populist radical right. The other camp has embedded ideological distinctions in the concept itself, such as, for example, Ignazi’s (2003) distinction between the classic extreme right and the post-industrialist extreme right, Kitschelt’s (1995) typology of fascism, welfare chauvinism, anti-statist populism and new radical right, and Carter’s (2005: 50 f.) five-group typology of neo-Nazi parties, neo-fascist parties, authoritarian xenophobic parties, neoliberal xenophobic parties and neoliberal populist parties.

Here, I want to suggest that we follow a reasoning that: (1) posits a fundamental ideological dividing line that determines whether today’s radical right embraces historical movements, ideologies or regimes of Nazism or fascism, or whether it advocates a more contemporary racist or ethnocentrist nationalism; (2) allows for a more populist and less extreme version of the radical right; and (3) introduces the element of religion-based exclusionism. Following these considerations, a fourfold typology is proposed. This typology combines various aspects of the other ideological typologies in the literature and follows the aforementioned modernization-theoretical argument in that the ideological variants can be identified according to the concept of nation and the exclusionary criteria can be applied. The four variants of radical-right forces are: (1) autocratic-fascist; (2) racist or ethnocentrist; (3) populistauthoritarian; and (4) religious-fundamentalist.¹ All four variants have in common a strong quest for the internal homogeneity of the nation through the primary we group-that is, a rejection of difference and pluralization-and a populist, anti-establishment political style (cf. Minkenberg 1998: chaps. 1, 7, esp. 236-245; Kitschelt 2007: 1179f.)

Regarding structural distinctions, most comparative research on the radial right focuses on political parties. But that perspective misses something. Therefore, starting from the concept of party or movement families (Beyme 1984; Rucht 1994), it is important to ask under what conditions the radical right manifests itself in the form of a movement rather than in the form of a party and to what extent other organizational forms of the radical right support or constrain the particular organization’s mobilization efforts (cf. Minkenberg 1998: chap. 8; Rydgren 2007).

The organizational variants are distinguished according to their approach to institutional political power and public resonance. There are: (1) parties and electoral campaign organizations that participate in elections and try to win public office; (2) social movement organizations that also try to mobilize public support but, instead of running for office, identify with a larger social movement (e. g., a network of networks with a distinct collective identity) and offer interpretative frameworks for particular problems (cf. Tarrow 1994: 135f.; Rucht 1994: 177); and (3), finally, smaller groups and sociocultural milieus that operate relatively independently from parties and larger social movements and do not exhibit formal organizational structures. This last group can, however, also be characterized as networks with links to other organizations and a collective identity that tends to be more extreme than that of the parties or social movement organizations (which can be manifested, for example, through higher levels of violence). They represent the micro-mobilization potential of the radical right (cf. Bergmann 1994; Stöss 2000).

The organizational variants are distinguished according to their approach to institutional political power and public resonance. There are: (1) parties and electoral campaign organizations that participate in elections and try to win public office; (2) social movement organizations that also try to mobilize public support but, instead of running for office, identify with a larger social movement (e. g., a network of networks with a distinct collective identity) and offer interpretative frameworks for particular problems (cf. Tarrow 1994: 135 f.; Rucht 1994: 177); and (3), finally, smaller groups and sociocultural milieus that operate relatively independently from parties and larger social movements and do not exhibit formal organizational structures. This last group can, however, also be characterized as networks with links to other organizations and a collective identity that tends to be more extreme than that of the parties or social movement organizations (which can be manifested, for example, through higher levels of violence). They represent the micro-mobilization potential of the radical right (cf. Bergmann 1994; Stöss 2000).

A final distinction should be introduced by identifying those groups belonging to the radical right that try to influence public debate and the minds of people rather than mobilize groups or voting behavior. These groups-which can be think tanks, intellectual circles or political entrepreneurs-are labeled the New Right in the literature and include: France’s Nouvelle Droite groups Club de l’Horloge and, especially, GRECE; Germany’s Neue Rechte, which is inspired by its French counterpart but also by the Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic; and Italy’s Nuova Destra. The ideas of these groups are disseminated largely in journals (such as France’s éléments and Gemany’s Junge Freiheit and criticón), in workshops for multipliers (e. g., teachers and journalists) and, increasingly, on the Internet.

This New Right builds a bridge (or hinge) between established and traditional conservatism and the organizations of the radical right (cf. Gessenharter 1994). It is characterized by its effort to create a counter-discourse to the ideas of 1968. It more or less successfully appropriates the strategies and issues of its political opponents, especially the New Left and new social movements (cf. Minkenberg 1998: 159f.). This process of issue framing aims to bring about a culture war of the right-a Kulturkampf von rechts or gramcisme de droite-with the goal of filling the terms of public debate with the right-wing meaning of a homogenous nation and a strong state as well as discrimination against all things foreign. The New Right has gained ideological relevance by contributing a programmatic renewal to the radical-right discourse in the concept of ethnopluralism, which distinguishes New Right thinking from old-fashioned ideas of biological racism and white supremacy. Moreover, the traditional radical right’s search for a third way between Western capitalism and Eastern communism-that is, the rejection of what has been termed vodka-cola imperialism-has been largely replaced by a principled but not unrestrained support for the capitalist order (cf. Minkenberg 2000).

Patterns of variation and contextual factors

The general picture of the European situation must include the relative strength of the radical right and its major manifestations, parties and movements as well as their contextual factors. On the basis of trends in national election results and organizational data, a European map of radical-right mobilization can be constructed that includes major independent variables in the cultural and structural context for the cases discussed in this volume’s country reports.

Although there is no agreement in the comparative literature on how best to study the radical right, there is some convergence in the identification of the most relevant cultural and structural context factors that the following remarks build on (cf. Kitschelt 1995, 2007; Minkenberg 1998, 2003a; Ignazi 2003; Carter 2005; Rydgren 2007; Mudde 2007). Difficulties of measurement and in the availability of relevant data arise because there have been no comprehensive and systematic comparative studies of the non-party sector of the radical right in Europe.

As a starting point, the electoral fortunes of the radical right in the countries covered in the following reports are summarized in Table 1.

The trends in electoral strength lead to several important insights. First, voting support increased markedly between the 1980s and the 1990s. Second, the countries fall into two categories. In four of them (Austria, Belgium, Denmark and France), right-wing party strength can clearly be considered to have been strong and consolidated in the 1990s. This is also true for Italy and Norway (cf. Minkenberg 2003a). The opposite was the case in Germany, Sweden, Great Britain and the Netherlands (with the rise of the Dutch List Pim Fortuyn in 2002 being a flash phenomenon; see below). The democratic newcomers Spain and Portugal may be added here as well (cf. ibid.; the classification by Veugelers and Magnan 2005, with data for 1982- 1995; and Carter 2005: 4-5, with data for 1979-2003). Finally, in some countries, support for parties of the radical right slumped after 2000 and, especially, after the 2004 European elections. This was most notable in Austria, where the participation of the Freedom Party in government evidently led to widespread disillusionment among the voters, but also in Italy, where the Alleanza Nazionale was reinvented under Fini’s leadership as a nationalist and conservative party (cf. Ignazi 2003; Tarchi 2003). In smaller countries, such as Denmark and Belgium, the radical right continued to attract growing support in the new millennium.

Table 1: The election results (in %) for radical-right parties in national parliamentary elections (1980-2004, base on five-year averages) and the 2004 elections for the European Parliament (EP) in selected European countries

Sources: Minkenberg 2003a; Minkenberg and Perrineau 2007; Veugelers and Magnan 2005.

Explanatory models for these variations usually include various demand-side and supply-side factors as well as the relevant political opportunity structures. Prominent supply-side factors include the type of electoral system, the structure of party competition and the radical-right parties’ ideology, organization and leadership. The demand side typically includes trends in public opinion or shifts in voter preferences (cf. Carter 2005; Kitschelt 2007; Mudde 2007; Rydgren 2007). Here, however, the focus is not only on the parties of the radical right, but also on other formations and their relationship to these parties. Hence, a slightly different set of factors is identified that encompasses the factors noted above in addition to the cultural context for the mobilization of the radical right-including demographic, immigrationrelated and religious characteristics-as they are often deemed to have specific effects on the mobilization (cf. Betz 1994; Carter 2005).

A country’s political culture must also be considered as a general factor or cultural context for the radical right. In a comprehensive sense, political culture is the subjective dimension of politics; it gives meaning to political action by connecting symbols and political meanings. Fundamentally, the effects of political culture can be inferred in the form and content of politics. This means that political culture comprises, on the one hand, the style of politics and the conflict pattern with respect to political norms in the sense of Almond and Verba (1963) and, on the other hand, underlying values and beliefs of legitimacy of political action.

Two central aspects demonstrating the effect of political culture are important for comparative investigations of the mobilization conditions of the radical right: (1) the political space in which the radical right can operate as well as the ideological and strategic options arising from it; and (2) the political language or speech of a society and the framing of problems stemming from it, in particular with questions pertaining to the nation as a whole (cf. Minkenberg 2003a). With regard to the latter, nation type or national identity is a major cultural frame of reference for the radical right as it is defined here. For the group of countries under consideration- and following the vast literature on national identity and nationalism (cf., e. g., Brubaker 1992)-one can distinguish, on the one hand, between a political nation type (e.g., those in Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands) and, on the other hand, between an ethnocultural nation type (e.g., those in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Hungary).

A related set of factors concerns the inflow and presence of immigrants into these countries and the impact this has on nationhood and nationalism. For our purposes, both the share of the foreign-born population and the net migration flows are indicative. Table 2 presents data from EU statistical sources.

From these data, it is clear that there are significant differences in the countries included here when it comes to the size and proportion the foreign-born population is of the entire population (numbers here include EU nationals), with Austria topping the list in total numbers, followed by Germany and Sweden. By contrast, Germany joins the Netherlands and Denmark with a low level of net migration, whereas Austria, Italy and Switzerland are clearly above the average EU level. Similar variations exist with regard to the rate of asylum applications. In this case, Germany and Sweden top the list, while Italy and Hungary are at the bottom. In both instances-that is, the share of foreigners and the rate of asylum applications-, the relationship between these rates and the electoral support for the radical right is unclear (see Table 1).

Table 2: Population data in selected European democracies

Sources: Münz 2006; Mudde 2007: 212.

In addition to immigration patterns, religious patterns have been identified as cultural constraints or opportunities for right-wing radical mobilization. On the one hand, part of the literature often refers to the constraining effect Catholicism had on the appeal of interwar fascism in European populations while-at least in the case of Germany-Protestant milieus were seen as more receptive (cf., e. g., Lipset 1963; Falter 1991). On the other hand, it has been argued that, during the interwar period, Catholic countries were more susceptible to fascist promises, with Germany being a notable exception (cf. Bruce 2003). Either way, the radical right’s use of cultural codes of otherness can be tied to the nexus between nation-building or national identity and the dominant religious traditions, and these interconnections should be tested for their implications for ideological and organizational variants of the radical right in each country. The role of religion acquires additional relevance through recent trends of religious pluralization and fragmentation, which can also feed into the radical right’s framing of us versus them. Table 3 shows the dominant religious traditions in selected European countries as well as some significant trends in cultural pluralism.

Table 3: Trends in religious composition (ca. 2000) and pluralism in selected European democracies (ca. 1980-2000) (in percent); average jump in pluralism value for EU-10 plus Switzerland (minus Hungary): 0.15

Sources: Minkenberg 2007: 898 f.; Pollack 2003: 447; for Hungary, cf. also www.nepszamlalas.hu/eng/volumes/18/tables/load1_26.html (accessed April 14, 2008).

As in most Western democracies today, Islam is the third- or even second-largest religious community (Minkenberg 2007: 898f.). All Western European countries in our sample belong to this group. In historically homogenous Belgium, France and Denmark, Islam is the second-largest religion today; and, in Austria, Muslims are on the verge of overtaking Protestants. Not surprisingly, Islam is almost invisible in Hungary. Moreover, from around 1980 until around 2000, religious pluralism increased in all European democracies (except Sweden). In countries with a longer history of immigration and/or biconfessionalism (e. g., the Netherlands, Britain, Switzerland and Germany), religious pluralism has increased from an already high level. In the other western European countries-all of which are traditionally Catholic, except Denmark-, the jump started from a much lower level and has been particularly pronounced.

Against this backdrop (and this is another contextual dimension), Europeans have shown widespread, although not majoritarian, intolerance for immigrants and minorities and resistance to immigration and a multicultural society. Although with significant variations, numerous public-opinion surveys document a stable level of anti-immigrant sentiments throughout the European Union. For example, a 2000 Eurobarometer survey showed substantial cultural intolerance-or xenophobia- across EU member states (cf. EUMC 2001). In Greece as well as, to a lesser extent, in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany, levels of intolerance clearly exceeded the EU average. Austria and the United Kingdom were close to the EU average, while Sweden and Finland were below it. However, despite some congruence in the cases of Belgium, France and Denmark, underlying attitudes of intolerance are not associated with voting for right-wing or far-right parties, (ibid.: 20-23; Table 1, above; Minkenberg 1998: ch. 5; Norris 2005: 180). Likewise, a survey by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia covering the period 1997-2003 (see Figure 1) shows that resistance to a multicultural society lies at or above the EU mean in Greece, Belgium, (eastern and western) Germany, Austria and Italy. Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands and Great Britain, on the other hand, are below average in resistance to multiculturalism. With the exception of Germany and France, resistance to a multicultural society is strongest in Catholic societies in which Islam is also strong. This is particulary surprising in France given the fact that that country’s elites have opposed multiculturalism and the major parties have attempted to co-opt the radical right.

A final set of contextual factors includes those that are labeled structural or supply-side variables in the literature (cf. Carter 2005; Minkenberg 1998; Mudde 2007; Rydgren 2007). Political opportunity structures can be understood generally as consistent, but not necessarily formal or permanent, dimensions of the political environment that provide incentives for people to undertake collective action by affecting their expectations for success or failure (Tarrow 1994: 85). Among these formal institutions, the role of authority-in particular, the role of the state-and the strategies of established elites and parties must be counted. The nature of access to the political system stands at the center of consideration, along with formal institutions, such as universal suffrage and other rules, the forms of political participation and the possibility of running for public office. Generally, a decisive role is conceded to electoral laws governing the formation of new parties with respect to the development of party systems as well as to the chances of establishing and prospects for the success of movements (Kriesi et al. 1995: 29-30).

However, the discussion of the significance of electoral laws has made it clear that the effects of the electoral system open up opportunities for new-and, in this case, radical right-wing-parties in an indeterminate way and that they often do so only in cooperation with other factors, such as political culture, major cleavages and elite behavior (cf. Beyme 1984: 325-330; Kitschelt 1995; Carter 2005). For this reason, attention should also be paid to specific aspects of institutional structures, such as the state in its entirety, the structure of party competition and major trends of convergence or polarization, as well as to the degree to which parties are open or closed to responding to demands from outside the system (cf. Tarrow 1994: 92; Rucht 1994: 308-309).

Figure 1: Resistance to a multicultural society in the EU-15 (% rejecting it)

Source: EUMC 2003: 42.

Table 4 provides an overview of the structural features of the 11 countries that are seen as particularly relevant in the literature. In the domain of the electoral system, only two of the western European countries employ a majoritarian (i. e., first past the post) system and, in France, it is a qualified version with the tworound winner-takes-all formula. Repressive state and party strategies toward the radical right can be found mostly in Germany, the Netherlands (only until the late 1990s) and Sweden, but Germany stands out as the most militant democracy. Trends of convergence (for this, cf. Kitschelt 1995; Carter 2005) between the major parties are mostly found in Austria and Belgium and, to a lesser extent, in the Netherlands and Switzerland. These are also the countries, along with Germany, that are characterized by a consociational or consensus type of democracy in which compromise and the inclusion of many actors are the hallmark of decision-making (cf. Lijphart 1999). Finally, a new post-industrial or post-materialist cleavage (i.e., New Politics) can be identified in several countries, especially those with an above-average share of post-materialists as well as strong Green parties and new social movements (cf. Dalton 2006: 88). On the other hand, this cleavage is virtually absent in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe.

Table 4: Elements in political opportunity structures in selected European democracies in the 1980s and 1990s

Sources: Kitschelt 1995; Almond et al. 2005; Minkenberg 1998; Carter 2005: chap. 4, 157; Dalton 2006: 88 (review of country specifics in Minkenberg 2008).

Comparison and conclusion

How do these cultural and structural patterns inform the patterns of radical-right party and movement strength? Table 5 summarizes the findings discussed earlier and indicates that some countries have strong radical right-wing parties and a weak movement sector, while others have weak radical right-wing parties and a strong movement sector (cf. also Minkenberg 2003a; Koopmans et al. 2005). Certain contextual factors, such as conventional religious traditions and the presence of Islam, seem to have a bearing on this pattern. Four of the six cases in which radical right-wing parties scored high in the 1990s are Catholic countries; or, seen from another angle, in no Catholic country do radical-right parties score below-average results. Other than Norway, by the end of the 1990s, Denmark was the only Protestant country to have joined the group, and Switzerland joined as a religiously mixed country. Moreover, in all countries where Islam is the second-largest religion, the radical-right parties garner strong support.

Table 5: Party strength and movement strength of the radical right and context factors in selected European democracies (ca. 2000)

One might argue that the combination of a homogenous Catholic or Protestant tradition and the prominence of Islam increases the resonance and mobilization of the radical-right parties. The Catholic tradition has been characterized by religious homogeneity or even monopoly, while Catholic dogma has a holistic outlook, as opposed to the more individualistic Protestant traditions (cf. Bruce 2003). A particularly strong Islamic presence may challenge this homogeneity more than it would Protestant or more pluralistic traditions. In fact, in the early 1980s, no strong radical-right parties emerged in countries with a relatively high level of pluralism except in Switzerland.

At the same time, however, this clearly does not apply to movement mobilization. Indeed, Catholic countries exhibit comparatively weak radical-right movements or- as far as available comparable data shows-racist violence. These seem highest in Protestant countries. In the domain of cultural factors, the role of national identity, the proportion of the foreign-born population and resistance to multiculturalism appear less significant than religion. For example, party strength is high regardless of whether the proportion of foreigners is moderate or high (cf. also Mudde 2007: 212- 224).

Structural variables seem to have, at best, weak effects in this classification. Our overview confirms the finding of others that the type of electoral system seems only marginally relevant (cf. Kitschelt 1995; Carter 2005: 157). The convergence of established parties can claim more explanatory power (Carter 2005: 211), but it may be more relevant for the breakthrough of radical right-wing parties than for their consolidation (cf. Kitschelt 2007; Schain et al. 2002). The role of other state and political actors appears to be more significant. Where these actors have shifted from excluding the radical right to partially collaborating with them, radical right-wing parties seem to have benefited (cf. Minkenberg 2009). Where established parties have brought the radical right into government, however, as was the case in Austria and (briefly) in the Netherlands, the radical right has suffered. On the other hand, when established parties and the state have taken a rigid stand against the radical right, radical right-wing parties have not flourished. Instead, the movement sector has developed-even in the face of the state’s repertoire of repression.

All this reinforces the insight that the organizational strength of the radical-right parties (along with their degree of fragmentation and level of violence) and the success of their electoral mobilizations seem conditioned less by popular demand and more by the responses of their political environment, particularly the established parties and the state. This type of analysis, however, is still in its infancy. More data-and especially comparable data-are needed, especially when examining (successful) ways of dealing with the varieties of the radical right in Europe.

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Veugelers, John, and Andre Magnan. Conditions of Far Right Strength in Contemporary Western Europe: An Application of Kitschelt’s Theory. European Journal of Political Research (44) 6: 837-860, 2005.

Country Report Austria

Anton Pelinka

Executive summary

The radical right in Austria has some specific qualities: As a result of the role Austria has played in the rise and the rule of the NSDAP in Europe, the Austrian far right has always to be observed regarding its connection with the Nazi past. As the Austria government and the Austrian legal system-partly responding to international expectation and pressure-singles out Nazism as a kind of defining other of Austria’s democracy, the legal and official attitude in Austria is strongly and consistently against the Nazi variety of the far right.

This does not mean that neo-Nazi groups and activities don’t exist in Austria. But it does imply that this hard-core phenomenon of the radical right is comparatively isolated and weak: The résumé of Austria’s fight against the radical right as far as it can be identified as rooted more or less openly in Nazism can be called rather good.

But the field in which Austria’s radical right should be observed, analyzed and fought is not so much the hard-core neo-Nazi elements. It is a rather broad gray zone between legitimate democratic attitudes and activities and antidemocratic elements who-especially not in their own perception-may not be called extremist; they have negative stereotypes of Jews and Africans, display emotional aggressiveness against migrants, and show a tendency to play down some of the specific qualities of Nazism-beyond the usually broadly condemned crimes against humanity.

In the political arena, this is expressed especially by the tradition of the pan-German camp, now organized in two parties-the FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) and the BZÖ (Alliance for Austria’s Future): The former is considered to be more radical; the later is seen as being more interested in being respected by the Austrian mainstream. Different from other European countries like Belgium and France, there is not an effective cordon sanitaire between the political center (represented by the moderate right ÖVP-Austrian People’s Party and the moderate left SPÖ-Social Democratic Party of Austria). And different from Germany, FPÖ and BZÖ cannot be considered to be pure neo-Nazi parties. For that reason, the Austrian legal instruments (like the Prohibition Status, directed against the renewal of Nazism) cannot be used against those parties that are combining legitimate populism and radical-right elements.

The absence of a cordon sanitaire concept leads to an acceptance of possible alliances between the center and the far-right parties-as can be seen in the two coalition governments between SPÖ and FPÖ (1983-1986) and ÖVP and FPÖ (and BZÖ) (2000-2006). For that reason, the government institutions are rather keen to observe and report hard-core neo-Nazi activities, and Austrian’s Criminal Law provides for harsh penalties for certain offenses, such as Holocaust denial. But the government institutions are not really able to take care of the gray zone-because certain elements of the gray zone have become intermingled with the government. This is a result of alliances, but also the consequence of electoral strategies which- in doubt-do not hesitate to pander to specific (e. g., anti-immigrant) prejudices.

The consistent legal doctrine of defining Austria’s democracy as a kind of antithesis to Nazism is the reason why all data-provided by the Austrian government and by Austrian NGOs-demonstrate a rather weak hard-core right wing. But the data-especially those collected by NGOs-also demonstrate the significance of certain radical-right attitudes and acts in the gray zone.

For that reason, the consequence is not so much the cry for new laws and new police activities. The consequence is the demand for educational strategies in the broadest sense-for schools and for other socialization actors. If the weak point in Austria’s strategy against the radical right is the acceptance of certain prejudices and sentiments linked at least indirectly to the far right, whose hard-core elements are systematically persecuted by the Austrian government, these prejudices and sentiments must become less acceptable. They should be excluded consistently from being accepted by the political mainstream-and, therefore, the populist incentive to pander to these prejudices and sentiments has to end. But it will not end as long as electoral designs of maximizing votes tell the political actors another story.

Structure of the radical right

History

The radical right in Austria has to be seen in direct connection with the history of the 20th century’s first half and with particular roots going back into the 19th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, two different variations of antidemocratic traditions were competing for the pole position within the right-wing milieu in Austria. Both can be called-with different meaning and different weight-radical right:

• The antiparliamentary faction within the mainstream center-right party, the Christian Social Party. This party, articulating the interests of the Catholic-conservative camp, was the political arm of what has been called Political Catholicism. In a country with an overwhelming Catholic population, this camp and its party could speak for about 40 percent of the electorate between 1918, when the Austrian republic was founded, and 1933/34, when it ended in spiralling toward civil war.

• The Austrian Nazi movement (the Austrian NSDAP), offspring of the extreme anti-Semitic and pan-German movement established by Georg von Schönerer at the end of the 19th century, favored the full integration of Austria into Germany after the Nazi party took over Germany in 1933. Differently from the right-wing tendencies within the Catholic-conservative camp, this brand of right wing extremism did not even claim to stand for a new variety of democracy. Although, in 1930, it was still a rather small movement, the Austrian NSDAP grew fast, especially after the beginning of Hitler’s rule in Germany. As there were no free elections in Austria after 1933, the strength of this movement cannot be easily quantified. But due to the attractiveness the party had beginning in 1933 at the cost of the Catholic-conservative and the socialist camp, it can be estimated that the Austrian Nazi party had the sympathy of at least one-third of the population in 1938.

The first variety has been responsible for the establishment of the semi-fascist authoritarian regime, which-backed by Mussolini’s Italy and the Catholic Church- ruled Austria between 1934 and 1938. This tradition can be called radical right insofar as-despite an important democratic tradition of a significant part of the Catholic-conservative camp-it was responsible for destroying democracy and following fascist tendencies, as was the case in many especially Central-Eastern European countries.

The second variety was responsible for cooperating with the German Nazi government against Austria’s independence, for instigating Austria’s occupation and for the active participation of Austrians in World War II as well as in the Holocaust.

After 1945, the at least potentially radical-right tendencies within the Catholic-conservative camp were reined in by the democratic role the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), the successor of the Christian Social Party that articulated the interests of the Catholic-conservative camp, was able to play in the Second Republic of Austria. The ÖVP, in cooperation with the social-democratic SPÖ, defined the position of the newly established democratic Republic of Austria. Since this republic portrayed itself-in correspondence with the Allies’ Moscow Declaration of 1943-as Nazi Germany’s victim, and since-for understandable reasons-the tradition of the Nazi party was seen from the experience of an aggressive war and the Holocaust, radical-right tendencies in Austria became more or less synonymous with Nazi tendencies-whether in the form of explicit neo-Nazism or in the indirect form of the continuation of qualities specifically linked to Nazism, such as outspoken anti-Semitic or other racial prejudices.

For that reason, the nationalistic element-part of the Austrian radical-right as it is of any other radical-right group in Europe-is not Austrian-oriented but, rather, German-oriented. Although it is not necessarily (at least not any longer) against Austria’s independence, the most intense part of the Austrian radical right follows the concept of a German, and not an Austrian, nationalism. As pan-Germanism in Austria defines Austria as a German state and the Austrians part of the German nation, it is not Austria’s but, rather, Germany’s greatness that the extreme right has in mind whenever its representatives speak of national identity, national unity, and national supremacy.

European integration has opened to the radical right possibilities for activities of a new kind:

• The Austrian radical right tries to cooperate with extreme rightist elements outside Austria, first and foremost (but not exclusively) in Germany; and the party which represents the continuity of pan-German nationalism, the FPÖ, tries to build a transnational alliance of nationalist parties within the EU.

• The European Union provides the radical Right with a new scapegoat that can be held responsible for all the evils linked to globalization-from unemployment to migration and the crime rate.

But Europeanization has certain limitations. As the radical right in all European countries is fervently nationalistic, and as the different nationalisms are usually in conflict, the Austrian radical right is, e. g., unable to cooperate with the radical right in Italy due to the completely contradicting perspective regarding South Tyrol; and it is also unable to cooperate with the Czech or Slovak radical right because the historical narratives of events of the 20th century history-such as the Benes decrees and the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia in 1945-exclude any common interests beyond very general enemies, such as the European Union. It is precisely for this reason that the FPÖ tries to build alliances with parties whose narratives it does not find too contradictory, such as France’s Front National and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang.

Actors

Political actors who can be seen as part of the radical right in Austria must be distinguished today into different groups:

• There is a rather very small hard-core that is in the tradition of Nazism: believing in the ideology of German (or Aryan) supremacy, claiming to defend their country (more or less a fictitious Greater Germany) against a (Jewish-led) conspiracy, denying (or openly defending) the Holocaust, willing to use violence against specific groups of scapegoats (migrants and any kind of foreigner). The hard-core extremism is acting outside the legal frame of the Austrian political system, not acknowledging the rules of democratic competition-and not accepted by the rules as a legitimate way to deal with political problems. The hard-core is linked to right-wing extremism beyond Austria-especially to German neo-Nazism. Hard-core radicalism, including phenomena like skinheads and hooligans, is defined by a program fitting into an overall radical-right agenda.

• There is a broad gray zone bridging the gap between the hard-core neo-Nazism and the political mainstream in Austria. A significant minority in Austria is using (or accepting) some of the hard-core arguments but not all of them; respecting the taboos Austrian law has built regarding the promotion of the Nazi regime and Holocaust denial but, at the same time, playing down the significance of some of Nazism’s most atrocious crimes. But the main emphasis the gray zone radical right is on contemporary topics: migration and its (real or presumed) negative consequences (crime, Islamization, etc.). The gray zone is going deep into the political mainstream, is especially strong (in relative terms) in the right-wing populist FPÖ, but is also visible among the followers of the two major parties-the center-left SPÖ and the center-right ÖVP. Gray-zone radicalism does not have a consistent program. It is overlapping with some of the populist agenda some of the established political parties are standing for.

In the past-meaning especially the interwar period, but also the first two decades after 1945-the radical-right groups (not only, but especially hard-core radicals) were characterized by social qualities which since have changed. In the interwar period, Austrian universities were dominated by a majority of students who were leaning toward the radical right. More or less openly antidemocratic, openly anti-Semitic and openly racist, the students were the expression of a socialization by a romantic, anti-rational understanding of ethnicity and identity.

This changed in the decades after 1945. Higher education became an effective instrument to push back the dominance of hard and/or soft radical-right thinking at Austrian universities. In the 1950s, the FPÖ’s student organization-the RFS (Ring Freiheitlicher Studenten)-was still significantly stronger at the universities than the FPÖ’s overall strength in national elections. This had changed in the 1990s. The FPÖ’s rise from a 5 percent to a 27 percent party-between 1983 and 1999- had no immediate impact on an increase in its student organization. On the contrary, the FPÖ’s student organization was (and is) only a shadow of its former strength.

This is confirmed by the electoral data. The FPÖ’s rise in the 1990s was the result of its increasing attractiveness to voters without higher education. The FPÖ of the 1990s was over-proportionally a blue-collar party. In 1999, for the first time in history, the FPÖ-and not the SPÖ-received the majority of blue-collar votes. This was not repeated in 2002 and 2006, when the FPÖ’s overall share of voters declined compared with 1999, but the FPÖ is still a party with an over-proportional appeal to lesser educated voters, who traditionally have been considered voters of the left (Kurt Luther in Plassser and Ulram 2007: 243; Luther 2008: 115).

As it is not possible to call the FPÖ in general terms radical right-at least not in the sense of hard-core radicalism-this shift in political tendencies reflects a decrease in higher educated (especially younger) Austrians being attracted by the gray-zone radicalism, which the FPÖ stands for at least more than any other party, and an increase of less-educated Austrians being attracted by the gray-zone radicalism of this party. It was not about Anschluss, not about an explicit pan-German ideology, not about defending the Nazi past-it was all about the fear of modernization and Europeanization exemplified by the topic of migration. With an exclusive hard-core right radical propaganda alone, the FPÖ would not have been able to be as successful as it was in the late 1990s. But, without considering the hard-core right-wing extremism that some elements of the FPÖ also represent-and especially the FPÖ as, as far as personal continuity is concerned, successor party of the NSDAP-the party’s ambiguity and complexity will not be fully understood.

But there are also groups of different outlook that are part of the radical right: Skinheads, hooligans, and an aggressive, more or less openly racist music scene. These activities are watched over by the Austrian police as part of the general observation of the radical right (BMI 2007: 65-68). But it can safely be assumed that this cultural aspects of the radical right is not a specific Austrian phenomenon and is quite similar to the parallel developments in other European countries of the same degree of socioeconomic development. The actors of the cultural extreme right sub-milieu are part of the hard-core radicalism that is treated not acceptable to the authorities, i. e. government and police-neither by legal nor by political standards.

Main traits

The radical right is able to use an organizational tradition going back to the 19th century. As these organizations have an interest in staying legal, they usually don’t want to be identified as radical right and distance themselves vehemently from any suspicion of neo-Nazism. Among these organizations, especially the duelling fraternities and the Turnerbund (Gymnastics Association) are the most significant ones. Some segments of veteran organizations-especially the Kameradschaft 4. the organization of SS veterans-are part of this organizational milieu also. As the Turnerbund has a mass membership consisting of sport activists in its many regional branches, in many (probably in most of the) cases, the members do not realize the ideological background of the organization: The Turnerbund not as such, but its leadership is part of an ideological right-wing network. Differently from the Turnerbund, the duelling fraternities (Burschenschaften and Corps) are groups without mass membership. Activists in any of these student organizations, especially the Alte Herren (old gentlemen-the former students still affiliated to the fraternities and important for financing the activities) must be aware of the radical-right dimension of this group.

These organizations provide the background for the understanding of some of the very specific Austrian aspects of the radical right:

• pan-German ideology: Deeply rooted in an ethno-nationalist understanding of contemporary Europe, the outlook of these groups is to consider Austria part of the German nation. As these groups do accept Austrian independence after 1945-at least due to the possibility of otherwise being outlawed, this kind of pan-Germanism without a distinct Anschluss agenda is vague and sometimes more directed to excluding people not considered to be true Germans. In the past, this was especially used to exclude Jews. As this has-officially-become impossible, even this impact has been lost. But the pan-German ideology is able to strengthen an us vs. them attitude directed first and foremost against immigrants. It also still includes revisionist elements by contradicting the mainstream narrative of World War II and German (Nazi) responsibility (Gärtner 1996).

• Recruitment basis for the FPÖ: The Freedom Party has always been-like its predecessors (pan-German People’s Party and the Landbund, the Country League) in the First Republic and, beginning with the 1930s, also the Austrian NSDAP-the political arm of the pan-German milieu. Many leading representatives of the FPÖ and-after the break between FPÖ and BZÖ in 2005-also of the BZÖ have been recruited out of this milieu and its different organizations. These organizations are the backbone of the still-existing pan-German camp-a milieu that has changed some but not all of its attitudes: It is not anymore favoring Anschluss and has no distinct anti-Jewish agenda; but the ethno-nationalist exclusiveness surfaces in cases such as the treatment of non-German speaking minorities and immigrants (Schiedel 2007: 122-126).

These organizations cannot be seen as part of hard-core radicalism. But, in many cases, hard-core neo-Nazism has been nourished in the pan-German milieu. The Austrian NDP (National Democratic Party)-outlawed in the 1980s due to its hardcore right-wing radicalism understood as neo-Nazism-was established by a group of former FPÖ activists who had been socialized in duelling fraternities. And some of the radical-right activists who had been convicted of acts of right-wing violence had been members of duelling fraternities. Some organizations, such as the Bund Freier Jugend (BFJ, League of Free Youth), which is observed by the police as a hard-core extremist organization, are on the outer fringe of this milieu and have contact with neo-Nazi organizations in other European countries (Schiedel 2007: 93-96). As the executive is especially watching over the most extreme organizations, they change their organizational structure from time to time, including their names.

One integrative figure for all these fragments within the milieu is Andreas Mölzer, an FPÖ member of the European Parliament since 2004. He is the editor of the journal Zur Zeit, which links the FPÖ with all the different pan-German submilieus, despite being anxious to distance himself and his journal from time to time from the violent fringe of the Austrian radical-right. Mölzer had a decisive role in the (soon disintegrated) radical-right party group in the European Parliament in 2007 (ibid.: 141-144) and, again, in the establishment of a European umbrella organization for parties of the extreme right in January 2008-including FPÖ, Front National, Vlaams Belang and Bulgaria’s Ataka.

It can be argued that the pan-German milieu as such cannot be considered part of the radical right-despite clear evidence that there is a sub-milieu within the milieu which qualifies for the term neo-Nazism. However, generally, it must be said that the pan-German milieu represents an environment from which some of the (more or less isolated) cases of hard-core radicalism come; and that a significant part of gray-zone radicalism is linked to that milieu.

Socio-political environment

The emphasis in the Austrian political and legal system on fighting the hard-core radical right has an ambivalent consequence. On the one hand, nobody who is interested in playing an acceptable role in Austrian politics dares to do anything identifiable with neo-Nazism, which has become ostracised completely. But, as Nazism has been a mass phenomenon and the roots of Nazism did not just disappeared in 1945, the gray-zone phenomenon-usually dissociating itself in any possible way from the hard-core phenomenon-has a significant impact in Austria, its society and its politics.

Beginning in 1945, Austrian politics had to face a quantitative challenge with qualitative consequences: About one-third of Austria’s population was linked to the Nazi regime either officially through party membership (between 12 percent and 15 percent of Austrians were registered as members of the NSDAP) or by family links or political sympathies. When, with the exception of major representatives of the Nazi party (e.g., high-ranking party officials and SS officers), most of the former party members were entitled to vote in 1949, the logic of party competition resulted in an effort especially of the two major parties (the center-right ÖVP and the center-left SPÖ) to win over this significant segment of the electorate. To make matters even more complex, the newly established League of Independents (Verband der Unabhängigen, VDU, predecessor of the FPÖ, founded in 1955) articulated especially the interests of former Nazis.

According to all ex-post analyses, the vote of (former) Nazis split more or less evenly in 1949: one-third went to the VDU, one-third to the ÖVP, and one-third to the SPÖ. A pattern was established that would hound the Austrian democracy in the following decades: To protect their voting shares, the two major parties did not want to confront the crimes of Nazism too openly, as there had been more Nazi perpetrators as Nazi victims in Austria in 1945. Due to the consequences of forced exile and the Holocaust, the competition for votes resulted in the tendency to play down the atrocities of Nazism and to portray everybody as a victim: either a victim of political persecution by the Nazi regime or of World War II, in general, and the allied bombardments or the deeds of the Red Army, in particular. Most former Nazis-excluding major perpetrators-could feel integrated into a nation consisting of only victims.

It was the result of generational change that Nazism and its unique criminal nature became discussed more openly. Some special conflicts-such as the Waldheim Affaire in 1986 (Mitten 1992)-were a catalyst for the confrontation between the older generation and representatives of the younger generation. The tendency to forget especially Austrian anti-Semitism was challenged by representatives of a younger generation of Austrians who started to criticize the culture of general victimization and forgetfulness (Wodak et al. 1990).

The political environment in the first decade of the 21st century is still characterized by a divided perspective: zero tolerance for the hard-core elements of the radical right, but not much interest in terms of confronting the gray-zone elements in a systematic and consistent political way. Whenever some activists of a youth group get caught in some hard-core activities (e. g., using Nazi symbols or desecrating Jewish cemeteries), all the official organizations, including the FPÖ, promptly dissociate themselves from such activities, declaring that they have no responsibility whatsoever, even if those neo-Nazi activists were members of, e.g., a FPÖ youth organization. An open debate about not a legal, but a political responsibility for nourishing a special radical-right attitude in a special political milieu usually falls victim to the overwhelming strategic interest in not alienating certain elements in the own rank and file-or not destroying possibilities of future political alliances.

This is the explanation for some of the most striking Austrian phenomena:

• Despite an obligation by international law, and despite a clear ruling by the Austrian Constitutional Court, no Austrian government has been able to implement official bilingual signs in the traditionally bilingual region of Southern Carinthia. Since this would be seen by the regionally dominant pan-German sentiment as a concession to Slovene interests, no government of any political learning has dared to fulfill its constitutional obligation.

• Despite an agreement signed in Washington, D.C. in 2001, the Austrian government is still hesitant to finance the restoration of Jewish cemeteries in Austria- despite the care the Austrian government shows in how it preserves the cemeteries of Wehrmacht soldiers.

In both examples, mainstream politics in Austria seem to be anxious not to be seen too open-minded regarding the fulfilment of obvious obligations: In the first case, Carinthia, the SPÖ and ÖVP are paralyzed by the fear of losing local and regional elections because of the populist uproar the FPÖ, using its pan-German milieu, would be able to orchestrate. In the second case, the Jewish cemeteries, the two major parties seem to be interested in demonstrating their unwillingness to treat Jewish interests in Austria as legitimate Austrian interests.

Current state of data concerning the radical right

The hard-core radical right is regularly observed by the Austrian security forces, which are represented by the police under the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The ministry publishes an annual report, Verfassungsschutzbericht, which details the trends regarding neo-Nazi activities in violation of Austrian laws (BMI 2007).

The Verfassungsschutzbericht 2007 focuses on different forms of violent threats directed against Austria. The fields the report covers are:

• Right-wing extremism

• Left-Wing extremism

• Militant animal rights groups

• Extremism and terrorism with foreign links (especially militant Islam)

Among these different variations, the report on the extreme right covers 36 pages; the report on the extreme left six pages; the report on the militant animal rights groups eight pages; and the report on international links 27 pages. This can be used to underline the vigilance regarding the radical right: The Austrian government is not negligent in observing and dealing with the radical right.

The gray-zone radical right is observed by research institutions and NGOs. Among them, the Documentary Center of the Austrian Resistance (Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes, DÖW) is the leading source. The center’s publications supplement the offical police data included in the annual reports of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, and they document not only cases of neo-Nazism, but also related tendencies discussed in more academically oriented research.

The DÖW understands right-wing radicalism in a broader sense: Beginning with expressions of nostalgia regarding the Nazi past, historic revisionism about World War II and Holocaust denial, the DÖW-founded in the 1960s to document Austria’s anti-Nazi resistance-also focuses its activities on linguistic minorities, political refugees, migrants, and the other usual scapegoats instrumentalized by the extreme right-wing milieu. It does not exclude certain tendencies within the two major mainstream parties, but the concentration is clearly-besides hard-core neo-Nazism-on the pan-German camp, the FPÖ and activities in the FPÖ’s environment.

The DÖW has started to document and analyze the radical right in Austria in a systematic way from its beginning. In 1979, it published a volume on right-wing radicalism in Austria-later updated in different editions-combining empirical evidence and academic analysis. (DÖW 1979). The DÖW’s framework data continues to be collected and analyses are published fulfilling the function of a watchdog (cf., e.g., Schiedel 2007).

The EU’s European Monitoring Center (EUMC) is another organization able to provide data, especially regarding gray-zone aspects-xenophobic incidents, racist rhetoric, anti-Semitic writings and other related activities in Austria. The EUMC is using the national Focal Points in each of the EU member states to collect data. The Austrian Focal Point, through the EUMC, collects and integrates observations that different Austrian NGOs are responsible for. This is more or less parallel- without the dense NGO network the EUMC is able to organize-to the observations the ECRI, the Council of Europe’s anti-racism watchdog publishes (cf., e.g., ECRI 2004).

Another source of data are the regular public opinion polls the EU conducts, which-like the EUMC and ECRI data-makes the situation in Austria comparable to the situation in the other European countries. The impact different layers of radical right attitudes have on public opinion can be seen in the publications of the Eurobarometer.

All the comparisons and all