The far right in western Europe: “From the margins to the mainstream” and back?

Abstract

This paper analyses the rise of the Far Right in Western Europe and the widespread political, social and scholarly concern due to the extremist parties’ recent electoral performances. It holds that, already since the late 1980s, we are witnessing a new (third) “wave” of right-wing extremism in several European countries —with some of these parties having already undergone electoral and political consolidation— and joins other contributions that approach the issue of their “mainstreaming” process. It presents some data on the Far Right’s electoral and political evolution, which seem to confirm that some mainstreaming did take place in the decades between the 1980s and the 2000s. However, more recently the immigration issue and the “refugees’ crisis” seem to have prompted the radicalisation of many (if not all) of these parties, and even of some parties which were not thought to be extremist. The paper reflects on this process of alleged radicalisation of the Far Right. The conclusion speculates on its future evolution and highlights future avenues for research.