The hateful actions of the furthest fringes tend to be tolerated, downplayed or even ignored. In October 2019, England’s national football team played what should have been a humdrum European Championship qualifying match against Bulgaria in Sofia, the country’s capital. But the match soon made headlines for all the wrong reasons, being stopped twice because… Continue reading “Football fandom and fascist generals: Bulgaria’s radical right”
Call for Chapters Routledge Handbook of Non-Violent Extremism: Groups, Perspectives and New Debates Background For a long-time overshadowed by jihadi extremism, non-violent (or vocal) extremism has been the centre of inflamed political and academic debates throughout the world (Cordesman, 2017; Gilligan, 2019; Hamid, 2016; Wali, 2013; Whitespunner, 2018). This debate is fuelled by the massive… Continue reading “Call for Chapters: New Routledge Handbook on Non-Violent Extremism”
For decades, anti-Semitism has been a steady ideological feature of radical-right violence and terrorism in Germany. The suspect in the terrorist attack on a synagogue in the German city of Halle in October, 27-year-old Stephan B., was driven by anti-Semitism and a radical-right worldview. After the murder of Walter Lübcke in June, this was the second deadly… Continue reading “Anti-Semitism Continues to Be a Steady Feature Among Germany’s Radicals”
Militiamen of Ukraine’s nationalist movement are espousing white supremacist views. This is one of the challenges Ukrainian President Zelensky is facing. On October 10, during a “marathon” press conference in Kiev, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that it is impossible to separate the opposing forces of the Ukrainian army and the forces of the self-proclaimed republics in the… Continue reading “Zelensky Struggles To Contain Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Problem”
The Nazis of my generation grew up. They have kids now. But they still carry the hate of their teenage years. On the day the Berlin Wall fell, as it happened, I almost died. Constipated from too much chocolate, I battled for my life in an east-Berlin hospital with my panic-stricken mother at my bedside,… Continue reading “30 years after the Berlin Wall fell, the far right has come of age”
Throughout world history, women have not only been targets of the radical right, they have also been one of the leading forces combatting them. In July of 2019, Donald Trump launched an attack on four female congresswomen who have consistently challenged his use of rhetoric that has time and time again risked inflaming racial tensions… Continue reading “Women’s History Of Combatting The Radical Right”
The trend of Trump support and rise of authoritarian leaders in some African countries showcases the surge of the radical right is beyond the western world. It is true to say that the majority of academic work on the radical right focuses primarily on Europe and the United States. While current political trends across much… Continue reading “The Surprising Trend of Trump Support in Africa”
The proclaimed triumph of liberal democratic ideals failed to eradicate ethnic and religious divisions. Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy in his 1992 seminal classic, “The End of History and the Last Man.” He argued that the legitimacy of liberal democracy had become unrivalled after defeating oppressive political ideologies such as fascism and… Continue reading “Aleksandr Dugin’s Ideology Echoes Through the Alt-Right”
Through fear-mongering, conspiracy theories, and voter suppression tactics, the far-right has poisoned America’s political discourse in pursuit of power. Writing an op-ed column “Why Republicans Play Dirty” in The New York Times, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt describe recent efforts by Republican executives and legislators – at both the state and federal levels – to subvert the… Continue reading “How The Radical Right Took American Politics Hostage”
A new approach to countering the extremism of the radical right is desperately needed. This month, the Commission for Countering Extremism published the findings from its public consultation. Seeking to better understand what extremism is, how it finds form, and most importantly what can be done about it, the commission visited more than 20 towns and… Continue reading “Hateful extremism and the radical right: we need new definitions”