The far right is back with a vengeance. After several decades at the political margins, far-right politics has again taken center stage. Three of the world’s largest democracies – Brazil, India, and the United States – now have a radical right leader, while far-right parties continue to increase their profile and support within Europe. In this timely book, leading global expert on political extremism Cas Mudde provides a concise overview of the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics, exploring its history, ideology, organization, causes, and consequences, as well as the responses available to civil society, party, and state actors to challenge its ideas and influence. What defines this current far-right renaissance, Mudde argues, is its mainstreaming and normalization within the contemporary political landscape. Challenging orthodox thinking on the relationship between conventional and far-right politics, Mudde offers a complex and insightful picture of one of the key political challenges of our time.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art analysis on the fourth wave of far-right politics in Germany by leading scholars in the field. Innovatively, the book focuses not only on the role of the electoral breakthrough of AfD, the Federal Republic’s first-ever nationally established far-right party, but also on the many crucial instances of non-party activism, such as the ‘New Right’ intellectual circles, PEGIDA street protest, and political violence. For a long time, Germany was regarded as an exceptional case because of the lack of an established far-right party on the national level. Times have changed – but Germany still remains unique. The book highlights four features that continue to make the case exceptional within Western Europe: (I) The strong diversity of vibrant far-right political players in Germany and their many interconnections, (II) the electoral success of AfD, i.e. the delayed electoral breakthrough of a far-right party on the national level, (III) the importance of ‘militant democracy’, specifically how established players have responded to AfD, and (IV) the relevance of the east-west divide for understanding far-right politics in Germany. Contributions on these topics highlight the broader theoretical relevance of the analysis of the German far-right, connecting to many research questions that have occupied scholars also in other contexts. The book is essential reading for all those with an interest in the far right, German and European politics, as well as in the interconnections between political parties, social movements, and subcultural milieus.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art analysis on the fourth wave of far-right politics in Germany by leading scholars in the field. Innovatively, the book focuses not only on the role of the electoral breakthrough of AfD, the Federal Republic’s first-ever nationally established far-right party, but also on the many crucial instances of non-party activism, such as the ‘New Right’ intellectual circles, PEGIDA street protest, and political violence. For a long time, Germany was regarded as an exceptional case because of the lack of an established far-right party on the national level. Times have changed – but Germany still remains unique. The book highlights four features that continue to make the case exceptional within Western Europe: (I) The strong diversity of vibrant far-right political players in Germany and their many interconnections, (II) the electoral success of AfD, i.e. the delayed electoral breakthrough of a far-right party on the national level, (III) the importance of ‘militant democracy’, specifically how established players have responded to AfD, and (IV) the relevance of the east-west divide for understanding far-right politics in Germany. Contributions on these topics highlight the broader theoretical relevance of the analysis of the German far-right, connecting to many research questions that have occupied scholars also in other contexts. The book is essential reading for all those with an interest in the far right, German and European politics, as well as in the interconnections between political parties, social movements, and subcultural milieus.

In spite of the fact that Conservative, Christian democratic and Liberal parties continue to play a crucial role in the democratic politics and governance of every Western European country, they are rarely paid the attention they deserve. This cutting-edge comparative collection, combining qualitative case studies with large-N quantitative analysis, reveals a mainstream right squeezed by the need to adapt to both 'the silent revolution' that has seen the spread of postmaterialist, liberal and cosmopolitan values and the backlash against those values – the 'silent counter-revolution' that has brought with it the rise of a myriad far right parties offering populist and nativist answers to many of the continent's thorniest political problems. What explains why some mainstream right parties seem to be coping with that challenge better than others? And does the temptation to ride the populist wave rather than resist it ultimately pose a danger to liberal democracy?

This book explores the anti-Islamic turn and expansion of the far right in Western Europe, North America and beyond from 2001 and onwards. Driven by terror attacks and other moral shocks, the anti-Islamic cause has undergone four waves of transnational expansion in the period since 2001. The leaders and intellectuals involved have varied backgrounds, many coming from the left, uniting historically opposed sets of values under their banner of a civilizational struggle against Islam. The findings presented in this book indicate that anti-Islamic initiatives in Western Europe and the United States form a transnational movement and subculture characterized by a fragile balance between liberal and authoritarian values. The author draws on a broad array of data sources and methods, including network analysis and sentiment analysis, to analyze the impact of the anti-Islamic expansion and turn at a macro level, and the theoretical implications for our understanding of the current far right flowing from this. Offering an overview of anti-Islamic activism, the book explores the background of their leaders and ideologues, provides an in-depth look at their ideology, online organizational networks, and the views expressed by their online members as well as which emotions and messages continue to drive their mobilization. The book will be of interest to scholars in the social movement field as well as political scientists, sociologists, and general readers interested in issues such as populism, extremism and understanding the ways in which the contemporary far right challenges liberal democracies.

This book is a systematic consideration of the link between the extreme right and the discourse about developments in regard to gender issues within different national states. The contributors analyze right-wing extremist tendencies in Europe under the specific perspective on gender. The volume brings together the few existing findings concerning the quantitative dimension of activities carried out by men and women in different countries, and illuminates and juxtaposes gender ratios along with the role of women in right-wing extremism. Along with the gender-specific access to right-wing groups, the chapters look at networks, organizational forms, specific strategies of female right-wing extremists, their ideologies (especially regarding femininity and masculinity), hetero normativity, discourses on sexuality, and preventive and counter-strategies. The book will be of use to students and scholars interested in gender and politics, European politics, and political extremism.

Did digital media really "cause" the Arab Spring, or is it an important factor of the story behind what might become democracy's fourth wave? An unlikely network of citizens used digital media to start a cascade of social protest that ultimately toppled four of the world's most entrenched dictators. Howard and Hussain find that the complex causal recipe includes several economic, political and cultural factors, but that digital media is consistently one of the most important sufficient and necessary conditions for explaining both the fragility of regimes and the success of social movements. This book looks at not only the unexpected evolution of events during the Arab Spring, but the deeper history of creative digital activism throughout the region.

In an era of traditional political party decline, this book explores a new phase of nativist mobilization, in which street politics plays an increasingly important role. Pietro Castelli Gattinara and Andrea L. P. Pirro delve into the hybrid and transitional nature of far-right movement parties, i.e. collective actors that contest elections like political parties and mobilize in the protest arena like social movements. Movement parties offer an exceptional object of study since they challenge the conventional distinction between institutional and non-institutional politics. Examining the 'production structure' of ten movement parties across nine European countries, the authors identify key factors that affect their engagement in protest activity. They address the internal organization, decision-making processes, and external mobilization of these collective actors using unique empirical material, including quantitative data on far-right protest mobilization spanning over a decade, protest network visualizations, and qualitative interviews with high-ranking officials. The book provides fresh insights into how the far right spreads its influence and relates to non-institutional politics, making it essential reading for anyone concerned about the way in which nativist collective actors transform society from the ground up. A compelling study looking at the relationship between electoral politics and grassroots activism, Movement Parties of the Far Right illuminates the complex organizational and strategic choices underlying far-right mobilization.

The populist radical right is one of the most studied political phenomena in the social sciences, counting hundreds of books and thousands of articles. This is the first reader to bring together the most seminal articles and book chapters on the contemporary populist radical right in western democracies. It has a broad regional and topical focus and includes work that has made an original theoretical contribution to the field, which make them less time-specific. The reader is organized in six thematic sections: (1) ideology and issues; (2) parties, organizations, and subcultures; (3) leaders, members, and voters; (4) causes; (5) consequences; and (6) responses. Each section features a short introduction by the editor, which introduces and ties together the selected pieces and provides discussion questions and suggestions for further readings. The reader is ended with a conclusion in which the editor reflects on the future of the populist radical right in light of (more) recent political developments – most notably the Greek economic crisis and the refugee crisis – and suggest avenues for future research.

Zusammenfassung: This book traces the rise of the far right AfD from its inception in 2013 to its re-election to the Bundestag in 2021, emphasizing the party's nature as a "populist issue entrepreneur" and covering the three major crises that have shaken European party politics - the Eurozone crisis, the so-called refugee crisis, and the COVID pandemic. Currently, books on the topic of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) are largely limited to historical treatments and surface level analyses of the political party. This volume has the virtue of being both empirically rigorous as well as conceptually nuanced: it seeks to understand the party's political trajectory and attraction to supporters by analyzing its voters using advanced quantitative methodologies, as well as interpreting the party's communication strategies through mixed empirical methods. It embeds this account within a theoretically well-grounded argument. The argument emphasizes three important explanatory conditions - a favorable political opportunity structure, issue entrepreneurship, and the party's stages of political development. Michael A. Hansen is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Turku, Finland. He previously held a Postdoctoral position at Lund University and was an Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin Parkside. Jonathan Olsen is Professor and Chair, Department of Social Sciences and Historical Studies at Texas Woman's University, USA