Mobilizing on the Extreme Right Germany, Italy, and the United States

by della Porta, Donatella; Caiani, Manuela; Wagemann, Claudius

• ISBN13: 9780199641260
• ISBN10: 0199641269
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Research on the extreme right is rare, and the extreme right has even more rarely been analysed as a social movement. In this volume, the extreme right is compared in Italy, Germany, and the United States using concepts and methods developed in social movement studies. In particular, the book describes the discourse, action, and organizational structures of the extreme right, and explains these on the basis of the available discursive and political opportunities. Three mainempirical methods are used in the research. Firstly, the frame analysis looks at the cognitive mechanisms that are relevant in influencing organizational and individual behaviour. Second, network analysis looks at the (inter-) organizational structural characteristics of right-wing organizations. Finally,protest event analysis allows for an empirical summary of the actions undertaken by right-wing extremists over the last decade. The substantive chapters address the organizational structure of the extreme right, their action repertoires, the framing of protest events, the definition of 'us', the struggle against modernity, old and new forms of racism, opposition to globalization, and populism.

Author Biography

Donatella Della Porta has directed the Demos project, devoted to the analysis of conceptions and practices of democracy in social movements in six European countries. She is now starting a major ERC project Mobilizing for Democracy, on civil society participation in democratization processes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Among her recent publications are: L'intervista qualitativa, Laterza 2011; (with M. Caiani), Social Movements and Europeanization, Oxford University Press, 2009; (ed.) Another Europe, Routledge, 2009; (ed.) Democracy in Social Movements, Palgrave, 2009; Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences (with Michael Keating), Cambridge University Press. She is professor of Sociology in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute.

Manuela Caiani has worked on several comparative projects on collective action and European mobilization and on right wing extremism and violence. She has been recently awarded by the European Commission with the Marie Curie fellowship for a project on 'Disengagement from Terrorism: underground organizations in Spain and Italy'. Her main research interests concern social movements and collective action, right wing extremism in Europe, Europeanization and the public sphere. Among her publications: "Quale Europa, Europeizzazione, Identita e Conflitti", Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006 (with della Porta Donatella) and "Social Movements and Europeanisation", Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009 (with Donatella della Porta). She is Assistant Professor in Comparative European Politics at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) of Wien.

Claudius Wagemann graduated from the European University Institute (EUI) with a thesis on breakdown and change of Private Interest Governments and continued to work at the EUI as a research assistant. He is also an international expert on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and fuzzy set methodology. His publications include; Set-Theoretic Methods: A User's Guide for Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Fuzzy Sets in Social Science (with C. Q. Schneider), Cambridge University Press, 2012, and Breakdown and Change of Private Interest Governments, Routledge, 2011. He works at the Istituto italiano di scienze umane (SUM) in Florence as a lecturer and scientific secretary of the doctoral program.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. xii
List of Figures	p. xiv
Abbreviations	p. xv
The Extreme Right and Social Movement Studies: An Introduction	p. 1
Defining the extreme right	p. 4
The extreme right as a social and a social science problem	p. 6
The extreme right as a social movement	p. 9
Framing right-wing concerns	p. 13
(Right-wing) repertoires of collective action	p. 16
This volume	p. 18
Methodological Choices in the Analysis of the Extreme Right: Research Design and Research Methods	p. 20
Triangulating approaches, sources, and methods	p. 20
Frame analysis	p. 23
Social network analysis	p. 30
Protest event analysis	p. 32
The Context of the Extreme Right	p. 36
The legal situation	p. 37
Institutional allies	p. 39
Discursive opportunities	p. 43
Opportunity structures	p. 48
Issue areas and actors in the discourses of the radical right	p. 49
Conclusion	p. 51
Networking Online	p. 53
Introduction	p. 53
The structure of the network	p. 57
Characteristics of the organizations	p. 68
Conclusion	p. 72
The Action Repertoires of the Radical Right: Violence and Beyond	p. 76
Introduction	p. 76
Political opportunities and action repertoires: country and time	p. 79
Organizational characteristics and violence	p. 88
Radicalization in action: issues and interactions	p. 94
Conclusion	p. 101
Framing the 'Us': Identity Building in the Extreme Right	p. 103
Identity building in the extreme right: an introduction	p. 103
Producing identities in action	p. 107
Organizational forms and discourses	p. 110
Identity framing	p. 118
The 'us' for the extreme right	p. 121
The protectors	p. 125
The victims	p. 127
Conclusion	p. 130
Fighting Modernity: The Extreme Right and Conservative Values	p. 132
Introduction	p. 132
The mobilization of the extreme right on conservative values: focusing on actors and strategies	p. 134
The discourse of the extreme right on conservative values: focusing on God, family, and nation	p. 141
Conclusion	p. 145
Racism: Old and New Forms?	p. 148
Introduction	p. 148
Racism in deeds and discourses	p. 151
Immigrants as the problem	p. 157
Traditional and new anti-Semitism	p. 160
The 'black' and 'white' opposition	p. 164
Racism and the extreme right: some concluding remarks	p. 166
The Other 'No Globals': Right-wing Discourses on Globalization	p. 168
Globalization and the extreme right: an introduction	p. 168
Extreme right facing globalization	p. 170
Economic globalization and its losers	p. 176
The invasion of the 'other': cultural globalization (and Americanization)	p. 180
Political globalization and European integration	p. 182
Conclusion	p. 186
The Extreme Right, Populism, and Politics	p. 190
Introduction	p. 190
The 'people' in the discourse of the extreme right	p. 192
Linking populist and anti-establishment frames	p. 197
The 'American' variant of populism: blaming domestic politics in the light of international affairs	p. 201
Conclusion: the extreme right and the populist paradigm	p. 203
The Extreme Right: A Conclusion	p. 205
Framing: cognitive work in the extreme right	p. 206
Repertoires protest beyond voting and violence	p. 209
Networking in the extreme right	p. 210
Political and discursive opportunities for the extreme right	p. 211
Where do we go from here? Caveats and perspectives	p. 212
Appendix	p. 214
References	p. 228
Index	p. 245
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