eExtreme - February/March 2010

February/March 2010 Volume 11 Number 1

Electronic Newsletter of the ECPR-SG on Extremism and Democracy

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e-Extreme Volume 11, No. 1, Feb/March 2010

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Managing editor Nigel Copsey Teesside University, United Kingdom Email: [email protected]

Co-editors Sarah de Lange University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Email: [email protected]

Matthew Goodwin University of Manchester, United Kingdom Email: [email protected] The e-Extreme is the newsletter of the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy and is published quarterly in March, June, September, and December. For any enquiries about the newsletter, please contact the managing editor, Nigel Copsey. For inquiries regarding book reviews please contact editor Sarah de Lange. Copyright © 2010 by the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy


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Table of Contents

Standing Group Announcement…………………………………………………………3 Conference Report………………………………………………………………………….3 Book Reviews.……………………………………………………………………………….4 Publications Alerts……………………………………………………………………......14

Standing Group Announcement We have now set up a database which will enable members to browse and search for other members by research interests as well as by name. Please update your personal details by completing the update form, and then emailing it to: [email protected]

Conference Report 5th ECPR Conference 10-12 September 2009, Potsdam The 5th general conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) was held at the University of Potsdam. Aside from panels from papers, the conference saw Prof. Gerhard Lehmbruch awarded the ECPR Lifetime Achievement Award and Prof. Richard Rose awarded the Mattei Dogan Foundation Prize in European Political Sociology. Contributions from members of our own Standing Group were mainly given under the umbrella of the section ‗Perspectives on the Radical Right‘ that was organized by Kai Arzheimer (Mainz) and Elisabeth Carter (Keele). Reflecting the literature itself, the section brought together panels and papers pan-European in focus. Individual panels focused, for example, on post-Soviet Russian nationalism, the success and failure of the radical right in Central and Eastern European, and the radical right in Western Europe. Panels also examined the internal organization and activities of these parties, as well as new methodological and theoretical avenues in the study of the drivers of support for the radical right. While examining causes, there was also a strong focus at the conference on the consequences of support for the radical and extreme right-wing. In this spirit, papers investigated the implications of this support at the subnational level (e.g. in Switzerland), the impact of radical right parties in office (e.g. in Austria), the influence of far right party programmes on the electoral system and the relationship between anti-immigrant party support and newspaper coverage. The Standing Group had a strong presence at this conference. Reflecting the broad interests of our group, members also contributed to panels such as Alpine Party Politics and Regionalism, Party-based Euroscepticism and Context Effects in Comparative Studies of Party Choice, among others.

mailto:[email protected]


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Book Reviews

The Oxford Handbook of Fascism

Richard J.B. Bosworth (ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 640 p., ISBN 978-

0199291311.

Reviewed by Andrea Mammone

Kingston University London Richard Bosworth opens his edited volume by stating that ―the word ‗fascism‘ continues to launch a thousand books‖ (p. 1). However, not all of those books have the same quality or impact – and, certainly, not all of them have the virtues of Bosworth‘s volume. This is a welcome contribution to the study of the interwar extreme right and it will soon become an essential reading for both experts in the field and new students of fascism. In the introduction to his volume Bosworth offers a stirring criticism of the recent cultural turn in the study of fascism. Indeed, his volume poses a noticeable, though at times only implicit, challenge to the works of scholars such as Emilio Gentile, Roger Griffin, Renzo De Felice, and A. James Gregor. With his subtle but sharp reasoning Bosworth fully dismisses the new ―intellectual history of fascism‖ and all associated ‗new consensuses‘. Bosworth clearly positions his volume in the historiographical debate about fascism:

―One side is committed to reading (fascist) intellectuals intellectually; the books of fascist theorists are more instructive, it is maintained, than are the behaviour and motivation of a peasant. The other side is more given to reading between the lines and, in so doing, placing fascist thoughts into their social and intellectual context. In this approach, the peasants, being more numerous and perhaps more enduring or anyway possessed of longer and deeper histories than the intellectuals, may well matter the more […]. There is no pure fascist history to be teased apart from the rest. Those who were citizens of the Fascist regime in Italy and those who belonged to fascist movements in other European states […] bore a multitude of attitudes and ideas, and acted in complex and contradictory way […]; like all ideas, fascism was merely one element in the dynamic functioning of human life. If theorists stop the machine, they might be able to see fascism more clearly and point it more strikingly. But they simultaneously lose the context in which the fascism lived and upon which, in despite of itself, it was dependent‖ (pp. 5-6).

In many ways, this is a triumph of the Paxtonian analytical framework, which claims that fascism is best observed empirically (―in action‖) and in its historical context. This framework stresses the importance of fascism‘s development across countries and time, its pragmatism and its actual policies. For this reason, Robert Paxton‘s informative chapter, included in the last part of the volume, should have been placed immediately after Bosworth‘s introductory remarks to offer an immediate ―guideline‖ for students of fascism.

In this context, great emphasis is put on the impact of ―war‖ in the genesis and development of fascism and fascist strategies. The First World War is rightly deemed to have played a key role in shaping the first fascist agenda. According to Richard Bessel, this program was made by an ideal combination of ―struggle beyond reason and war without end‖ (p. 53). Undeniably, it is also accepted that the idea of a ‗mutilated victory‘ in the First World War played a central role in fascist imaginary as well as propaganda. As suggested by


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Guido Bonsaver (p. 113), this ‗victory-non-victory‘ was then mythicized and popularized by Mussolini‘s movement. The aftermath of this war – and the transition from war to peace – had thus a tremendous impact, and Glenda Sulga reminds us how ―it is no coincidence that when, in March 1919, Mussolini founded his Fasci di Combattimento […], he deliberately invoked the symbolism of the war, of a trincerocrazia (trenchocracy) which, he argued, would lead the nation‖ (p. 73). The importance of war and trenchocracy is also highlighted by Richard Bosworth and Alan Kramer. However, the centrality of war is made clearest by Robert Paxton, who argues that ―after power, fascists can ignore some of their first faithful, and, in any event, they have a new device for unifying the people: war‖ (p. 558). The importance of war, in this case the Second World War, is also highlighted by David Rodogno. His chapter emphasizes the importance of combat and conflict as key issues for fascism. According to this author, in fascist ideology war has always been linked to foreign expansion, the conquest of ―living space‖, racism, and, unsurprisingly, the creation of a warrior race. ―The ideal type of the new man‖ Rodogno claims, ―was to be first and foremost a warrior ready to die for the regime and his Duce‖ (p. 240).

In the first three parts of the volume, a sort of ‗everyday fascism‘, as well as the fascist ideology and imaginary are analyzed. The latter are observed in a good number of areas and policies (for example, gender issues, repression, squadrism, the youth). However, most chapters in these parts of the volume focus on Fascist Italy. This is, for example, the case of Philip Morgan‘s chapter on corporatism, in which the impact of fascism on the economic aspects of everyday life is observed, or the investigation of the position of peasants under the fascist regime provided by Roger Absalom. Yet, while the analyses of Italian fascism are excellent, the volume offers only an introduction to fascism outside this country. Indeed, as mentioned by the editor, the focus is mainly on Italy. Mussolini is seen as a sort of key ‗historical landmark‘ of fascism. Hitler is sometimes missing from the overall picture, with the exception of a number of chapters that adopt a comparative framework. The emphasis on the Italian permutation might give the wrong impression that Richard Bosworth‘s volume considers foreign movements as exclusively influenced by Mussolini and that it completely ignores the influence exerted by Hitler and his National Socialism. Or that, conversely, this book falls into the same narrow interpretation of domestic history which argues that there exist incomparable ‗extreme-right worlds‘, as developed, for example, by René Rémond or Renzo De Felice. This is not at all the case, as is well-explained by Robert Paxton and Kevin Passmore. The latter accurately points towards the fact that scholars should look at the material conditions which promoted the rise of fascism and that fascism ―was not the product of specific national traditions‖ (p. 29). Indeed, Mussolini was in many ways the right man in the right place (and at the right time), but his thinking was also influenced by some foreign intellectuals, such as Gustave Le Bon and Georges Sorel (Bonsaver, p. 113).

To be fair, a number of chapters in the last part of the book are devoted to non-Italian forms of fascism. Some of these chapters have a genuine comparative nature, while others – in particular the excellent chapter by Bruno De Wever on Belgium – adopt an exciting transnational framework and highlight the local fascination with both Mussolini and Hitler. However, in the eyes of some historians a number of these chapters might lack an empirical foundation, as they are only based on secondary sources. Moreover, experts on the history of the ―dark years‖ might also have expected the adaptation of a truly comparative approach, or a more systematic cross-national investigation. What it is often missing is attention for the connections between geographical spaces and the process of cross-fertilization between fascist and authoritarian movements. A ‗European focus‘ would have not clashed with Robert Paxton‘s call for a comparative analysis of fascism (pp. 547-565), it would have simply implemented it by offering a more fruitful perspective on the


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phenomenon. Indeed, Paxton‘s argument, de facto, does not exclude the need to find out similarities and connections.

Finally, several chapters on foreigner fascisms analyze the development of the extreme right in the postwar or post-socialist era. This offers another interesting view on the evolution of fascist ideas, or on the long-term impact of fascism and racial politics in contemporary democratic communities and post-authoritarian societies. ―‘Never again‘‖, Richard Bosworth writes at the beginning of his introductory chapter, ―is a slogan to which the vast majority subscribes‖ (p. 1). Yet, some contributors rightly show that fascism did not fully die, including in terms of collective memory as highlighted by the chapters of the same Richard Bosworth and Nathan Stoltzuf. Fascism has also re-emerged in a modern adaptation, as a sort of fascist racism as is demonstrated by Robert Gordon (p. 314). The involvement of the granddaughter of il Duce, Alessandra Mussolini, in Italian politics is probably the most prominent example of such a re-emergence. Elsewhere I have argued that this trend is best described as a ―contemporarization of neo-fascism‖ and a possible ―eternal return‖ of fascist ideas (Mammone 2009). This focus on the post-1945 era also introduces the final chapter on neofascism by Anna Cento Bull. By adopting a strong theoretical framework and a ―diachronic approach to neofascism‖ (p. 598), and convincingly looking at the Paxtonian idea of different contexts and stages of fascism, Cento Bull elegantly traces the journey of a – prevalently still fascist in its ideological core and legacy (p. 603) – extreme right up until our recent times. An excellent way to end an excellent volume.

References Mammone, Andrea (2009) ‗The eternal return? Faux populism and contemporarization of neo-fascism across Britain, France and Italy‘, Journal of Contemporary European Studies 17(2): 171-192

Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal times: Culture, Security and Populism in the New Europe Mabel Berezin (London: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 324 pp., ISBN: 978-0521547840.

Reviewed by Luís de Sousa and Riccardo Marchi Instituto de Ciências Sociais, University of Lisbon

When one goes through the first pages of Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times: Culture, Security and Populism in the New Europe, one is led to believe that the book will present a novel argument about the rise of right-wing populism in Europe. However, the book reveals to be less innovative than is suggested. The strength of the theoretical arguments put forward at the outset of the book fades after the first two chapters and the empirical analysis of episodic events reduces the explanatory potential of the book. Although the book does not provide an innovative theoretical and empirical approach to populism in Europe, it does offer some interesting insights into the French case. Most of the book is devoted to this case, with some references to Italy and other western European countries. However, Central and Eastern Europe democracies, where populist parties are also highly successful, have unfortunately been left out of the book. The absence of a strong comparative dimension is one of its major weaknesses. In this regard, the reference to a ―New Europe‖ in the title is misleading. Concepts


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The first conceptual question that comes to mind when reading the title of the book is: What is the New Europe? The author defines the New Europe as ―an opportunity space primarily for individuals and groups who are able to compete in trans-European economic, social and cultural markets‖ (p. 7). This definition is not particularly innovative and does not identify what is new about Europe. An Europhile elite has existed since the second half of the 19th century. Although European cosmopolitanism and transnationalism were disrupted by the First and the Second World War, a group of Europhiles pushed for a European project shortly after the Second World War ended. With the end of the Cold War, the globalization of economies and financial markets, the growth of the tertiary sector and the increased regulatory role of the European Union, this group has become larger, but it still represents a minority of the European population.

The second conceptual question that comes to mind when reading the title of this book is more substantive: Why is populism about illiberal politics? The answer to this question is by no means straightforward, since (il)liberalism means different things to different people. There are right-wing populist leaders and parties that claim to be heirs of a ‗liberal‘ tradition (e.g. Silvio Berlusconi‘s Forza Italia or Pim Fortuyn‘s List Pim Fortuyn), even if their doctrine invokes ‗illiberal‘ measures. At the same time most economic neoliberal tenets heralded and implemented since the early 1980s by the Thatcher governments in the United Kingdom or the Reagan and Bush administrations in the United States are in profound dispute with a traditional liberal democratic conception of the state and the role it should play in the economy. In other words, labels do not necessarily match political practice. To cut the argument presented by Berezin short, populism is about illiberal politics because it is against every principle that liberal democracy stands for: liberal democracy is about tolerance, populism is about condemnation; liberal democracy is about protecting minority rights against the tyranny of the majority, populism is about the power of the people (defined by some ‗common‘ identity traits); liberal democracy is elitist, populism is anti-elitist; liberal democracy is about the politics of negotiation and consensus-building, populism is about ‗just‘ politics… and ‗just‘ can never be wrong in the mindset of populists. With this conceptual difference in mind, it is possible to discern why populism relates to Euroscepticism and anti-globalization and why it has expanded in recent years, as discussed in this book. Context According to the author, the emergence of right-wing populism is an unexpected historical surprise rather than the expected outcome of deeper social, cultural and economic conditions. She argues that ―The accelerated process of Europeanization that includes political, economic and cultural integration is the core trans-European context, I suggest, within which the right-wing populist moment emerged‖ (p. 8). This contextualization restricts the analysis of the emergence of right-wing populism to Europe or, more specifically, to the context of post-Maastricht European integration. What is so peculiar about this context that makes it an historical mark in the study of right-wing populism?

When we talk about European integration we refer to a polymorphous and multilevel process and not a product. There is a certain degree of surprise in the way historical events unravel. Few political leaders saw the Irish no vote to the Lisbon treaty as inevitable. However, if there is one thing we have learnt about the lengthy treaty revision negotiations, it is that the institutional progress of Europe is quite predictable and elite-engineered. Maastricht was no exception and this is why it became an easy target for populists.

Traditionally, politicians tended to ignore the role of public opinion in shaping support for or mistrust of the European integration process, backing or rejecting political decisions and putting pressure on actors. There were good reasons for keeping public opinion at bay in the initial stages of this process, the first and foremost being the fact that


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the EU was not conceived as an inclusive political project, but mainly as an exclusive technocratic, elite-based, functional solution to structural and macro-economic problems. When public opinion was not completely ignored or dismissed from this process, researchers and decision-makers alike always suggested that intergovernmental bargaining, elite preferences, or the actions of organized interests at the base of European integration took place under an aura of ‗permissive consensus‘, a mixture of loyalty, blind faith and apathy. During the process of ratifying the Maastricht Treaty, right-wing populist parties saw a window of opportunity to express their discontent about this modus operandi in Europe. In 1992-1993, the Danish ‗No‘, the narrow French ‗Yes‘, and the rejection of the treaty by the British Conservative rebels was the first serious challenge to Europe as a political project, in a period when it was moving towards its full political development (Moury and De Sousa 2009). The reason why the 1992 Maastricht Treaty became an historical landmark, and not the 1986 Single European Act that prepared the establishment of a Common Market, has less to do with the contents of the treaty and more with the dynamics of globalization and European geopolitics.

The emergence of populism (and not just right-wing populism) after the Cold War is related to the perceived failure of national governments and the European Union to deal with the challenges of globalization both at the social and economic level (transnationalism) and the cultural and identity level (cosmopolitalism). What changed with globalization was the multifaceted sense of security that European countries were able to provide to their large middle classes: security of returns to their investments and savings; job security; health care security; domestic security and security against external threats. Europe‘s sense of amalgamated security community was shaken by external dynamics with an internal impact: the shock of global financial markets, the transfer of labour intensive industries eastwards, the sequence of terrorist attacks in European soil, the intensification of illegal immigration and asylum seekers from neighbouring territories whilst most European states show an accentuated demographic decline, the rise of localism and in particular Islam as a political force as a reaction to the cultural homogenization promoted by a western-like globalization. Populism emerges as an illiberal reaction to these challenges of modernity, mostly from the insecure and impoverished lower and middle classes (Mughan et al. 2003). Whether opposing Americanization, immigration, neo-liberalism, or the New World Order, ―national populist groups are among the most vocal opponents of globalization‖ (Mudde 2004).

In addition to these shifting gradations of the landscape, Europe is also facing changes in the nature of liberal democracies that can account for the rise of populism. With the weakening of traditional societal cleavages and the declining representative role of key political institutions, such as political parties and parliaments, liberal democracies have experienced a widening schism between the constitutional and the popular pillars of legitimacy (Mény and Surel 2002). They have been challenged by the increased directness and personification of contacts and the lowering cost of transmitting different political messages. The dynamism and mediatisation of contemporary democratic politics has made it necessary to convey clear, brief and often superficial ideological or policy statements, which has in turn led to the rise of various populist tendencies.

In a context of governmental insufficiency to curtail the costs of globalization and crisis of representation, populists were able to pulse and aggregate a series of frustrations in their rhetoric to mobilize the disillusioned masses. The external shocks which stripped European nation-states of the sense of solidarity and sentiments of likeness that the author clearly outlines, such as the decline in welfare provisions, the growth of unemployment, the impact of globalization in local production systems, the increase of immigration from outside Europe, and the increase of urban violence and crime, offered propitious conditions for the rise of populism. As the author puts it: ―When exogenous threats to the system occur, most


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people, independently of the ideological labels they espouse, are likely to retreat to ‗authority‘, or, more colloquially put, pleas for law and order. The political party that exploits that commitment, whether left-wing or right-wing, is likely to garner electoral support.‖ (p. 34). The observation that the ―losers of modernity‖, i.e. those who have not been able to respond positively to the new challenges raised by the intertwined dynamics of European integration and globalization, are the big winners of the populist mobilization against these processes is not new (see for example Betz 1994, 2002; Ignazi 1992; Kitschelt 1995; Mudde 2004). Method For the author, most political and sociological explanations of right-wing populism in Europe commit the same positivist fallacy: whilst trying to explain the dynamics of this phenomenon by using survey data that tap into political attitudes, voting behaviour and party strategy, they are unable to explain why Europe is experiencing a right-wing populist moment right now. As the author underlines, not only ―contemporary right-wing parties and movements do not match neatly onto interwar right-wing parties and movements‖ (p. 45), they have also been ―a marginal feature of European politics for much of the post-World War II‖ (p. 37).

The alleged methodological reformulation proposed in this book is somewhat tautological or, at best, ill-explained. The author rejects the basic tenet of legacy theories that history will repeat itself, but then draws on path dependency theory to explain ―the right-wing populist moment‖ whilst rejecting the deterministic tone of economic historians. The historical approach is central to the methodology adopted, but if followed only in a very loose manner. The author opts to look at ―public political events‖ as ―templates of possibility‖. In other words, she focuses on an observable set of social relations and interconnections at the micro and macro level that ―speak to collective resonance, present possibilities, and offer visions of possible paths – even if those paths are not pursued‖ (p. 56). Predicting the outcomes of observable attitudes and behaviour is not important to the author. What matters is how events are collectively interpreted and how such collective evaluation may alter future political actions. ―Who interprets what, causing what impact?‖ is something that the author does not explain clearly to the reader. The author‘s attempt to explain, in one paragraph, how and why events were selected is more confusing than elucidating. She states that ―these events were not randomly chosen but rather manifested themselves as important in a flood of occurrences‖. Without more clarification, the alleged methodological innovation seems like a narrative of episodes with little explanatory potential. Analysis The author‘s selection of the ―top 3‖ events does not clarify why the French Front National is crucial to the understanding of the rise of right-wing populism in Europe. Why focus on France and not on Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, or the United Kingdom? With regard to the French case, the author concludes that the shift from European to non-European immigration is not the only explanatory variable for the success of right-wing populism at the ballot box. This conclusion is not novel. In a similar vein, the observation that Le Pen faces competition from Sarkozy and that less committed voters will be inclined to support less controversial candidates (p. 245) is not novel either. The neutralization impact of Europeanization in the French right is, nevertheless, overstated. The author argues that ―the ramifications of European integration have moved the right‘s issues into the mainstream of French politics and diminished the political capacity of the extreme right‖ (p. 247). In reality, however, the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in the 2005 referendum, whether on the


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grounds that it would enforce a neoliberal economic model or as a threat to the French sovereignty and identity, was a victory of both the extreme left and right.

Moreover, the author‘s claim that Jean Marie Le Pen‘s actions in France have influenced Gianfranco Fini‘s political choices in Italy (p. 57) is solely based on newspaper statements and not rigorously investigated (pp. 233-4). Her approach to Italian populism is superficial and does not seem to distinguish between different types or gradients of the same phenomenon. By ignoring the differences between the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano and its leader Gianfranco Fini, Forza Italia and its leader Silvio Berlusconi, and the separatist and xenophobic Lega Nord and its leader Umberto Bossi, the author overstates the impact of Europeanization upon the electoral mobilization strategies of these three populist players.

During the early 1990s, the Movimento Sociale Italiano attempted under the leadership of Gianfranco Fini to capitalize on popular discontent about domestic and European politics and developed a political discourse that largely resembled that of the Front National: anti-elitist, anti-systemic, and anti-European. This proved to be electorally unappealing. The Italian post-World War II political culture and social reality was not receptive to this type of rhetoric. Following the small interregnum of Pino Rauti (1990-1991) and in response to the moralization climate paved by the Mani Pulite (clean hands) investigations, Fini began a requalification process of the Movimento Sociale Italiano‘s modus operandi, political discourse and electoral strategies. The new ―justicialist‖ anti-corruption discourse produced better electoral results than the previous xenophobic one. In other words, in the case of Movimento Sociale Italiano, bashing Europe was not a preponderant factor for its electoral success. The 1995 party congress was the turning point for the Italian far right party. The Movimento Sociale Italiano was officially dissolved and most of its ideological tenets were rejected. Its successor, the Alleanza Nazionale, still included most of its predecessor‘s elites plus some figures from the dismantled Christian Democracy and Italian Liberals, following the implosion of the post-World War II party system as a consequence of the Mani Pulite investigations into political corruption scandals. The neo-fascist image of the party and its leader had been successfully recycled, partly because Fini‘s leadership image was more associated to the Movimento Sociale Italiano‘s role in parliamentary politics than to its street/protest actions. The Alleanza Nazionale was less threatening to the Italian electorate and did not raise the phantoms of the past; and Fini had successfully opted for a power strategy – in favour of power sharing, consensus-building, and an intergovernmental Europe – rather than an anti-system, anti-party, anti-elite, anti-Europe stand, which is still identifiable in Lega Nord‘s current electoral strategy. The author ignores the importance of the Mani Pulite investigations and the passage from the First to the Second Republic to this reformist process of the Italian right-wing populism.

In order to understand the rise of Silvio Berlusconi in Italian politics and how he has managed to survive despite failed political reforms, constant bad scoring in the economy, continuous corruption scandals involving him or his cabinet members directly, deliberate and unintentional international gaffes, and tempted constitutional reforms that make Italian contemporary politics better described as ―regime‖ rather than a fully fledged democracy, one also needs to go back to the early 1990s and the crisis opened with the Tangentopoli (bribesville) allegations and culminating in the Mani Pulite investigations into illicit political financing. The post-Mani Pulite political landscape was one of complete distrust in the traditional party formations and party politics in general. The implosion of the nearly 50 year ruling Christian Democrats and the escape from justice of the former prime Minister – and Berlusconi‘s close friend – Bettino Craxi, had opened a political vacuum in the centre-right political spectrum and placed Silvio Berlusconi under a lot of pressure from the Milan attorney-general‘s office. In late 1993, Berlusconi began to put in place an electoral support apparatus loosely based on football fan clubs: the Forza Italia political clubs. One year later,


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after the March general elections were announced Berlusconi decides to scendere in campo (enter the playing field) by making his campaign announcement via a massive TV-release. Berlusconi‘s Forza Italia represents a new type of tele-populismo in a context of TV dominated political life or videopolitica as Giovanni Sartori coined it (1989). The leader‘s charisma appealed to a large number of discredited and less committed voters who felt sympathetic with Berlusconi‘s media constructed qualunquism. His image as a self-made, risk taking, pragmatic, ideologically detached, efficient, successful leader and an ―outsider‖ of the system did not come naturally. He invested considerably in building his charismatic leadership, whilst consolidating his economic power through politics. His unique economic and media power helps to construct his charisma which, in its turn, enables him to bypass traditional representation mechanisms and empowers him to take illiberal measures – such as immunity laws preventing senior political figures from being taken to court on corruption charges – whilst enjoying continuous voter support.

The Lega Nord represents a third type of populism which Taguieff (2003: 128-9) defines as protest populism, which began as a fiscal protest to evolve towards a chauvinistic, Islamophobic identity/cultural based protest. Both Forza Italia and the Lega Nord act within the framework of democratic politics, whilst rejecting its rules of etiquette and modus operandi. Contrary to the author‘s claim, it is the issue of immigration, more than Europeanization that triggers the illiberal discourse of these two new populist parties. The author argues that European integration has tamed Bossi‘s right-wing populism while highlighting Fini‘s nationalism (p. 247). The reality shows us exactly the opposite: Bossi is still one of the few Italian politicians that openly criticizes the European Union, demanding the withdrawal of Italy from the Euro Zone, advocating for a ―sovereign‖ monetary and fiscal policy, and opposing the implementation of the European arrest warrant in the name of Padania‘s territorial integrity. Fini, by contrast, has completely abandoned any nationalistic opposition to Europe and in that regard the Alleanza Nazionale has interiorized this political stance.

To conclude, the author‘s claim that Europeanization, as ―a variant of globalization‖ (p. 36), is eroding the social solidarity and norms of reciprocity and trust upon which nation-states have been based, paving the way for a new era of populism requires further theoretical elaboration and empirical support. Although Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times does not seem to offer a sound explanation for the rise of populism within the context of European integration, it is still a very interesting book to read, if only to understand the historical trajectory of the French Front National. References Betz, Hans-Georg (2002) Against globalization: xenophobia, identity politics and exclusionary

populism in Western Europe, in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (eds.) Fighting Identities: Race, Religion and Ethno-Nationalism. London: Merlin, pp. 193-210.

Ignazi, Piero (1992) The silent counter-revolution. Hypotheses on the emergence of extreme right parties in Europe, European Journal of Political Research 22(1-2): 3-34.

Kitschelt, Herbert (in collaboration with Anthony McGann) (1995) The Radical Right in Western Europe. A Comparative Analysis. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Mény, Yves and Surel, Yves (eds.) (2002) Democracies and the Populist Challenge. New York: Palgrave Macmilan.

Moury, Catherine and De Sousa, Luís (2009) Institutional Challenges in Post-Constitutional Europe. Governing Change. London/NY: Routledge.

Mudde, cas (2004) ‗Globalization: The Multi-Faced Enemy‘, CERC Working Paper 3/2004, Victoria (Aus.): the Contemporary Europe Research Centre/ The University of Melbourne. (Available online:


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http://www.cerc.unimelb.edu.au/publications/CERCWP032004.pdf, accessed 3 January 2010).

Mughan, A., Bean, C. and I. McAllister (2003) ‗Economic globalization, job insecurity and the populist reaction‘, Electoral Studies, Vol. 22, Issue 4, December, pp. 617-633

Sartori, Giovanni (1989) ‗Videopolitica‘, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica 19(2): 185-198. Taguieff, Pierre-André (2003). L‘illusione populista. Milano: Mondadori The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Right-wing Movements and National Politics. Rory McVeigh (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 244 pp., ISBN 978-0816656202.

Reviewed by Chip Berlet Political Research Associates

This impressive and accessible book is of interest to anyone who wants to understand how right-wing social and political movements mobilize constituencies, recruit members, and influence local and national politics. While McVeigh‘s focus is the 1920s Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the United States, the book is a detailed articulation of his groundbreaking ―Power Devaluation‖ model for understanding the dynamics of right-wing movements. It is volume 32 in the series ―Social Movements, Protest, and Contention‖, which has emerged as a significant outlet for contemporary sociological research on movements around the world.

Most people think of the KKK in its late 1800s incarnation as a Southern terrorist group bent on terrorizing newly-freed Black former slaves back into a system of White dominance. The Klan, however, has returned as a significant social movement in the United States several times since its inception. During the 1920s millions of Americans joined the Klan and it became a major electoral force in several states and played an important role in national politics.

For most of the 1920s the U.S. economy flourished, and this has long posed a problem for social scientists looking for an economic explanation for the growth of the KKK during this period. Beginning in the 1950s, several social science models were advanced to account for right-wing mobilizations which were seen as irrational outbursts by angry people unable to play by the rules of modern civil society. Participants were cast in a role as politically dysfunctional, anxious about their falling social status, alienated from societal ties, psychologically maladjusted, and attracted to ―paranoid‖ conspiracy theories. These theories in various combinations are known as the Classical Theory of collective behavior, the Pluralist School, or Centrist/Extremist theory.

McVeigh picks the valuable nuggets out of the earlier Classical theories and discards much of the rest. He recasts what appears to be irrational and conspiratorial rhetoric in right-wing groups into new sociological explanations of how movement activists ―Frame‖ political struggles from certain advantageous perspectives and tell stories or ―Narratives‖ to teach their recruits about who is an enemy, who is an ally, and what behavior is considered heroic. Scholars have been nibbling around the edges of these ideas for several decades. McVeigh offers a full meal and recipes. His work on his theoretical model dates back to the early 1990s when he was an (under)graduate student, which resulted in his dissertation on the ―Power Devaluation Model‖ in 1996.

Starting in the mid 1970s, sociologists began to rebel against the older collective behavior theories, and in researching left-wing social movements began to examine the role of the mobilization of economic and other resources by social movement leaders to build their struggle, as well as how the expansion and contraction of political opportunities needed to be managed by these leaders. In a superb overview of these trends in

http://www.cerc.unimelb.edu.au/publications/CERCWP032004.pdf


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sociological research, McVeigh brings us to his Power Devaluation model as a necessary tool to understand why right-wing movements behave differently from left-wing movements in certain respects.

McVeigh argues that it is shifts in power dynamics and hierarchies in economic, political, and social spheres that launch the processes in which right-wing groups attract members and sometimes a mass base large enough to intrude into the larger society. According to McVeigh, the Resource Mobilization and Political Process models work better with left-wing movements and movements in which relatively oppressed groups are seeking equality or liberation. Using as his analytical example the Klan in the 1920s, McVeigh demonstrates that the right-wing KKK in the 1920s was composed of White people attempting to defend their relatively more privileged position in the social, political, and economic life of their communities.

Research has shown there is no direct causal relationship between national economic indicators such as unemployment or wage levels and the growth of ethno-nationalist groups and ethno-violence. Something more complicated is involved. Studies since the 1990s have teased out a role for economic competition and anxiety coupled with other factors in prompting ethnic conflict promoted by the political right, but no over-arching coherent explanation emerged. McVeigh uses his Power Devaluation model to explain why White Protestant Klan members in the 1920s would fear losing economic power at a time of national prosperity, and argues the same model can help explain the dynamics in other right-wing groups at different historic periods.

McVeigh‘s work gives a boost to the growing scholarly lens called Race, Gender, Class analysis in which all three are seen as inextricably woven together in societal struggles over power. Add in the role of ethnicity and religion in certain geographic areas and we have a well-stocked toolkit for studying social movement conflict around the world.


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Publications Alert

Adler, F. H. "Italian Jews and Fascism." Temps Modernes 64, no. 656 (2009): 144-69. Antic, A. "Fascism under Pressure Influence of Marxist Discourse on the Ideological

Redefinition of the Croatian Fascist Movement 1941-1944." East European Politics and Societies 24, no. 1 (2010): 116-58.

Auers D. and A. Kasekamp. "Explaining the Electoral Failure of Extreme-Right Parties in Estonia and Latvia", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17, no. 2, (2009): 241-254 (Special Issue: The Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: History, Interpretation and Performance).

"Baader-Meinhof Returns: History and Cultural Memory of German Left-Wing Terrorism." Forum for Modern Language Studies 46, no. 1 (2010): 107-07.

Bachmann, J., and J. Honke. "'Peace and Security' as Counterterrorism? The Political Effects of Liberal Interventions in Kenya." African Affairs 109, no. 434 (2010): 97-114.

Bakić, J., "Extreme-Right Ideology, Practice and Supporters: Case Study of the Serbian Radical Party", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17, no. 2, (2009) (Special Issue: The Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: History, Interpretation and Performance), pp. 193-207.

Balagangadhara, S. N., and J. De Roover. "The Saint, the Criminal and the Terrorist: Towards a Hypothesis on Terrorism." Journal of Political Philosophy 18, no. 1 (2010): 1-15.

Bhatt, C. "The 'British Jihad' and the Curves of Religious Violence." Ethnic and Racial Studies 33, no. 1 (2010): 39-59.

Bickmore, K. "Educating against Extremism." Comparative Education Review 54, no. 1 (2010): 129-31.

Bowman-Grieve, L. "Exploring Ostormfronto: A Virtual Community of the Radical Right." Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 32, no. 11 (2009): 989-1007.

Brooks, R. "Researching Democracy and Terrorism: How Political Access Affects Militant Activity." Security Studies 18, no. 4 (2009): 756-88.

Bustikova, L. and H. Kitschelt. "The Radical Right in Post-Communist Europe. Comparative Perspectives on Legacies and Party Competition," Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 42, no. 4 (2009): 459-483.

Bustikova L., "The Extreme Right in Eastern Europe: EU Accession and the Quality of Governance", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17, no. 2 (2009) (Special Issue: The Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: History, Interpretation and Performance): 223-239

Clauset, A., and F. W. Wiegel. "A Generalized Aggregation-Disintegration Model for the Frequency of Severe Terrorist Attacks." Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 1 (2010): 179-97.

Coker, C. "Ethnic Conflict and Terrorism: The Origins and Dynamics of Civil Wars." Armed Forces & Society 36, no. 2 (2010): 374-77.

Cooper, C. "The Everyday Resilience of the City: How Cities Respond to Terrorism and Disaster." Urban Studies 47, no. 2 (2010): 458-60.

Copsey, N. "Opposition to the New Party: An Incipient Anti-Fascism or a Defence against 'Mosleyitis'?" Contemporary British History 23, no. 4 (2009): 461-75.

Corthorn, P. "W. E. D. Allen, Unionist Politics and the New Party." Contemporary British History 23, no. 4 (2009): 509-25.

Downs, W. M. et al. "Revisiting the 'Moderating Effects of Incumbency': A Comparative Study of Government Participation and Political Extremism ", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17, no. 2 (2009): 151-169.


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Eatwell, R., and M. J. Goodwin (eds) (2010) The New Extremism in Twenty-First Century Britain. Routledge.

Ellinas, A., "Chaotic but Popular? Extreme-Right Organisation and Performance in the Age of Media Communication", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17, no. 2 (2009): 209-221.

"Evidence to the UK Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry on Preventing Violent Extremism." Race & Class 51, no. 3 (2010): 73-80.

Field, A. "Tracking Terrorist Networks: Problems of Intelligence Sharing within the UK Intelligence Community." Review of International Studies 35, no. 4 (2009): 997-1009.

Fielding, S. "Never a Gabriel over Whitehall: Fictional Representations of British Party Politics During the Mosley Era." Contemporary British History 23, no. 4 (2009): 559-72.

Ford, R. and M. J. Goodwin, ―Angry White Men: Individual and Contextual Predictors of Support for the British National Party‖, Political Studies 58, no. 1 (2010): 1-25

Frusetta, J., and A. Glont. "Interwar Fascism and the Post-1989 Radical Right: Ideology, Opportunism and Historical Legacy in Bulgaria and Romania." Communist and Post-Communist Studies 42, no. 4 (2009): 551-71.

Gil-Alana, L. A., and C. P. Barros. "A Note on the Effectiveness of National Anti-Terrorist Policies: Evidence from Eta." Conflict Management and Peace Science 27, no. 1 (2010): 28-46.

Goodwin, M. J. 'Activism in Contemporary Extreme Right Parties: The Case of the British National Party (BNP)', Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, 20, no. 1 (2010): 31 —

54 Goodwin, M. J., Ford, R, Duffy, B & Robey, R ‗Who votes extreme right in twenty-first century

Britain? The social bases of support for the National Front and British National Party‘, in R. Eatwell & M.J. Goodwin (eds) The new extremism in 21st century Britain, Routledge (2010)

Jarvis, L. "Old and New Terrorism: Late Modernity, Globalization and the Transformation of Political Violence." International Affairs 86, no. 1 (2010): 266-67.

Kelly, M. "The Fenian Problem: Insurgency and Terrorism in a Liberal State, 1858-1874." Journal of British Studies 49, no. 1 (2010): 197-99.

Mammone, A., "The Eternal Return? Faux Populism and Contemporarization of Neo-Fascism across Britain, France and Italy", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17, no. 2 (2009): 171-192.

Minkenberg, M. "Leninist Beneficiaries? Pre-1989 Legacies and the Radical Right in Post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe. Some Introductory Observations." Communist and Post-Communist Studies 42, no. 4 (2009): 445-58.

Neumayer, E., and T. Plumper. "International Terrorism and the Clash of Civilizations." British Journal of Political Science 39 (2009): 711-34.

O'Rourke, L. A. "What's Special About Female Suicide Terrorism?" Security Studies 18, no. 4 (2009): 681-718.

Ofer, I. "A 'New' Woman for a 'New' Spain: The Seccion Femenina De La Falange and the Image of the National Syndicalist Woman." European History Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2009): 583-605.

Palin, P. "How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns." Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 6, no. 1 (2009).

Pape, R. A. "Introduction: What Is New About Research on Terrorism." Security Studies 18, no. 4 (2009): 643-50.

Patyk, L. "The Odd Man Karakozov: Imperial Russia, Modernity and the Birth of Terrorism." Russian Review 69, no. 1 (2010): 158-60.

Perliger, A., B. Hasisi, and A. Pedahzur. "Policing Terrorism in Israel." Criminal Justice and


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Behavior 36, no. 12 (2009): 1279-304. Roberts, D. D."'Political Religion' and the Totalitarian Departures of Inter-War Europe: On the

Uses and Disadvantages of an Analytical Category." Contemporary European History 18, no. 4 (2009): 381-414.

Roislien, H. E., and J. Roislien. "The Logic of Palestinian Terrorist Target Choice? Examining the Israel Defense Forces' Official Statistics on Palestinian Terrorist Attacks 2000-2004." Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 33, no. 2 (2010): 134-48.

Shekhovtsov, A. 'Apoliteic Music: Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial and "Metapolitical Fascism"', Patterns of Prejudice, 43, no. 5 (2009): 431-457.

Shekhovtsov, A. and A. Umland. 'Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? "Neo-Eurasianism" and Perennial Philosophy"', The Russian Review, 68, no. 4 (2009): 662-678.

Shekhovtsov, A. 'Aleksandr Dugin's Neo-Eurasianism: The New Right a la Russe', Religion Compass, Vol. 3, No. 4 (2009), pp. 697-716.

Woodbridge, S. "Fraudulent Fascism: The Attitude of Early British Fascists Towards Mosley and the New Party." Contemporary British History 23, no. 4 (2009): 493-507.

Worley, M. "Introduction: The New Party." Contemporary British History 23, no. 4 (2009): 421-23.

ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy

Convenors:

David Art ([email protected]); Elisabeth Carter ([email protected])



eExtreme - February/March 2010

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