At the tender age of 84, Ian Wachtmeister has died. In the early 1990s, he co-founded New Democracy, a short-lived and at times rather entertaining Swedish Radical Right outfit. Wachtmeister’s Wikipedia bio is here. Later in life (quite late in his case), he was somewhat close to the Sweden Democrats. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Photo…
Seven months before the election, what’s up with the Alternative für Deutschland? I’ve kept repeating this since the Alternative für Deutschland’s ascendancy in the polls began in late 2015: the AfD’s electoral popularity depends on a) steering away from open right-wing extremism, which has frustrated previous attempts to establish a right-wing populist party in Germany, and…
Does the European Radical Right present a united front vis-a-vis the European Union, and is there a Trump effect that could further the cause of the Radical Right in Europe? I don’t think so (and here is an automated English translation). [contentcards url="http://www.dn.pt/mundo/interior/ue-debaixo-de-fogo-dentro-de-casa-no-ano-do-vai-ou-racha-5637863.html"]
For obvious reasons, books on the AfD are thin on the ground. It took me an unduly long time to review this one, not because there was anything wrong with the book but rather because something was wrong with my timekeeping and project mismanagement. Hopefully, the review should appear in one of the next issues of German Politics, but for the time being, I’m posting the author’s version here.
Why is there support for the Radical Right? I’ve just submitted the final (hopefully) draft of a chapter that I’m preparing for Jens Rydgren’s forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. The job description was to Explain Electoral Support for the Radical Right (read the pre-print here). In 8000 words or less. Sure thing. No…
The right-wing website Breitbart, one of the key allies of the Trump campaign, has told Reuters (link to the article is below) that they want to expand their network to include sites for France and Germany. Breitbart already has a site in the UK, which was an important part of the pro-Brexit network. Allegedly, they have…
The #AfD’s leadership is highly fragmented. Regional figures play an important role for the ideology and image of the party. The national executive has not one, but two party chairs. While Frauke Petry is the more prominent and visibly radical of the two, co-leader Jörg Meuthen, an academic economist, has long refused to be sidelined…
In passing, the Huffington Post mentions my AJPS article on Contextual Effects. Very flattering, though the whole story is a bit more complicated than the Post suggests. [contentcards url="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-global/heres-what-science-says-a_b_12806252.html"]
Cas Mudde’s excellent Populist Radical Right Reader is finally out. The book brings together 32 texts that have previously been published as chapters or articles over the course of the last three decades. The reader covers topics such as right-wing ideology, organisations including parties, leaders and members, or right-wing voters. Perhaps most importantly, there is also one section on…
Which publishers are the most relevant for Radical Right research? Good question. https://twitter.com/FFRBookSeries/status/789509504576651269 Radical Right research by type of publication Currently, most of the items in the The Eclectic, Erratic Bibliography on the Extreme Right in Western Europe (TM) are journal articles. The books/chapters/articles ratios have shifted somewhat over the years, reflecting both general trends…