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Abstract
Like many other political actors, the extreme right is currently expanding beyond national borders, and, as with any civil society organization, the Internet is assuming a growing role in achieving this goal. To date, however, this topic is understudied. In this article, aiming to empirically filling this gap, we shall explore the new tactics of the extreme right in Europe and the USA in the context of transnational politics. Namely, we investigate the degree and forms of extreme right transnationalization (in terms of mobilization, issues, targets, action strategies, and organizational contacts) and the potential role of the Internet in these developments. The analysis combines qualitative and quantitative data derived from 54 interviews with representatives of extreme right organizations in six European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain) and the USA with a formalized Web content analysis of 336 right-wing websites. We will compare different types of right-wing groups which compose the radical right family (from political parties to associations), underlining the main differences and similarities across groups and across countries.
Acknowledgments
We are particularly grateful to the anonymous referees for the useful suggestions which contributed to improve the article. We also thank Rossella Borri for conducting the interviews and Samuel Arenberg for editing. The authors contributed to writing of the article 50% each.
Notes
1. Cyberhate can be seen as an aspect of cybercrime: “It has not only started to transform the legal landscape and jurisdiction but it has also addressed the problem of online security” (Perry & Olsson, Citation2009, p. 197).
2. Despite the still open debate on conceptual definition and terminology (which is beyond the scope of this article to address), we use, interchangeably, the term extreme/radical right to refer to those groups that exhibit in their common ideological core the characteristics of nationalism, xenophobia (ethno-nationalist xenophobia), anti-establishment critiques, and sociocultural authoritarianism (law and order, family values) (Mudde, Citation2007). It goes without saying that in the empirical reality many of these groups are not easily placed according to traditional political categories, often combining elements of leftwing and rightwing philosophy, mixed with populist language and rhetoric.
3. On the “reputational” approach (see Scott, Citation2000). For the inclusion of an organization in our sample of “radical right-wing organizations/websites,” we relied on the self-definition of the group and the predominant nature of the message transmitted through its website.
4. For the classification of the organizations, we have relied on the most common typologies that have been proposed for the study of the extreme right (e.g., Burris et al., Citation2000; Tateo, Citation2005).
5. The Web content analysis, conducted for the seven countries between August 2009 and January 2011, has been done by coders (country language speakers) trained in the sampling selection and coding procedure. For details on the codebook and its measurements, see also Caiani and Parenti (Citation2013).
6. In this class, there are those groups defining themselves as political parties and movements and that openly partake in political activities (political debates, policy issues, see Tateo, Citation2005). The main differences between the former and latter ones are in the degree of institutionalization and participation in the elections. Political movement’s category also includes youth organizations related to parties, political journals, magazines, and reviews.
7. These groups are characterized by music (which they define as “antagonistic”) and cultural activities as their main interests. Their sites often include fascist or Nazi symbols or symbols taken from Celtic mythology.
8. Most of the interviewees were either leaders or spokespersons of the respective organizations, or in charge of drawing up the general communication and mobilization strategies. More specifically, with regard to political parties, they were party leaders (presidents or general secretaries) and senior/leading members of the party (e.g., members of the executive boards, spokesmen, or regional party leaders). In the political movements, they were presidents, general delegates or secretaries, or website chief editors in the case of online groups. In the case of subcultural youth groups, we relied on group leaders (in two cases even the founder) and people responsible for the Web communications.
9. The interview question, asking which level the association/group is active, allowed more than one choice (5-point scale: from district to the European/transnational level).
10. Sixty-eight percent of groups mobilize also at the regional level. In a recent study on the characteristics of offline mobilization of the extreme right in the same countries (from 2005 to 2009) based on protests reported in the press, the authors found that transnational right-wing initiatives were well below the 10% of cases (see Caiani & Parenti, Citation2013, ch. 5).
11. Research on protest events collected from newspaper sources and focused on left-wing movements stresses the paucity of protests directly targeting supranational European institutions (e.g., Della Porta & Caiani, Citation2009; Imig & Tarrow, Citation2001).
12. Such as the international neo-Nazi gathering, organized by some French skinhead groups, involving 300–400 participants from different countries (Le Monde, 24 January 2005) or the music festival Hammerfest organized in the United States in 2005, involving extreme right bands from all over the United States and Europe (The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 1 October 2005).
13. La Repubblica, “Naziskin d’Europa in arrivo a Milano” (“European Naziskin Coming to Milan”), 25 March 2009; see also Le Monde, 13 January 2007.
14. An example is the foundation in October 2009 of the far-right alliance “European National movements,” a network of various right-wing parties in several European countries, aiming to become a political group within the European Parliament.
15. As confirmed by a not significant Cramer’s V coefficient for the correlation between the type of extreme right organization and the level of its activity.
16. The question on the questionnaire was: “Does the Internet help you to be active beyond the national boundaries?” (4-point scale from “a lot” to “not at all”)
17. shows the intensity of the use of the Internet by right-wing groups for different political functions related to the transnationalization of their action (e.g., information, communication, propaganda). These six additional indexes of the forms of Internet usage are derived from the sum of the lower lever indicators used to empirically investigate each dimension (each lower level feature is recorded as a dummy variable, attributing a value 1 if a given feature is present and 0 if it is not found on the website). The indexes have been then normalized and standardized to the range 0 to 1 by dividing the resulting score by the maximum possible value (for details, see Caiani & Parenti, Citation2013).
18. In all countries, political parties are the most likely to provide tools for communication with the public than political movements and right-wing subcultural groups (e.g., 77.3% for the reachability of the organization and 84.1% provide an email address).
19. In addition, 14.3% of the analyzed right-wing websites also have an archive of the group’s press releases, keeping track of the historical “memory” of the group.
20. For some examples of this informative material, see the websites of the Italian Il Duce (http://www.ilduce.altervista.org/home.htm), Aryan Unity http://www.aryanunity.com/page1.html), the Austrian subcultural group Der Funke (http://www.der-funke.info), the French Party Alsace d’Abord (www.alsacedabord.org), and American Nazi group National Socialist Movement (http://www.nsm88.org/).
21. See for example the website Brigata Nera (http://it.geocities.com/brigatanera88/).
22. 10.4% of the right-wing websites analyzed also contain “online surveys” and “questionnaires” to test and solicit the opinion of their members.
23. More than one quarter (26.8%) of right-wing organization websites have a “newsletter” (to which it is possible to subscribe), providing information about the possibilities for participation in upcoming offline events organized by the group. Another 25.6% of them offer an “event calendar/agenda” on their website.
24. They are the following values for the US case: propaganda (0.39), communication (0.51), information (0.47), ideology (0.74), debate/virtual community (0.19), and mobilization (0.13). With respect to the index of transnationalization through the website, the USA (0.21) is overcome by Austria (0.38) and Italy (0.28).
25. Showing the first or second highest value on five out of seven indexes, for the Italian case they are the following values: propaganda (0.48), communication (0.40), information (0.43), ideology (0.75) debate/virtual community (0.23), internationalization (0.28), and mobilization (0.13).
26. Showing the lowest scores on almost all indexes, for the Spanish case they are the following values: propaganda (0.30), communication (0.36), information (0.35), ideology (0.53), debate/virtual community (0.14), internationalization (0.20), and mobilization (0.09).
27. The interview question was: “Is your organization in favor or against European integration and the EU?” (4-point scale, from 0 “strongly against” to 3 “strongly in favor”).
28. As confirmed by a not significant Cramer’s V coefficient, there are no relevant differences in the attitudes toward European integration between the three organizational types.
29. The existence of a positive relationship between the organizations’ attitudes toward European integration and the country is confirmed by a strong and significant Cramer’s V (0.51*).
30. El País, 9 May 2005.
31. Le Monde, 15 November 2009.
32. The interview question was: “During the last year, which level of political decision making did your organization try to influence?” (6-point scale: local, regional, national own country, national other countries, EU, supranational; multiple choice possible).
33. The interview question was: “During the last year, did your association/group have regular contacts with similar associations/groups in your country?”
34. As indicated by the Cramer’s V coefficient, the correlation between the number of international contacts of right-wing groups and the country is strong and significant (0.58*).
35. The question on the questionnaire was: “Does the Internet help you to create cross-national and supranational contacts with similar organizations in other countries?”(4-point scale from “a lot” to “not at all”).
36. We developed five detailed indicators in the interview questionnaire: (1) “publicizing activities,” which included strategies aimed at informing the public or getting informed about the preferences of the public, for example, via opinion polls; as well as the media-related repertoire including activities such as distributing press releases or giving interviews to the media; (2) “conventional political actions,” including actions addressing the political–institutional sphere such as contributing to specific political campaigns or establishing/maintaining contacts with members of the parliament or government; (3) “court action,” including filing suit or engaging in some sort of litigation; (4) “mobilization” activities (including petitions, protesting, organizing boycotts, striking); (5) “confrontational or violent actions” (including actions such as taking part in illegal demonstrations, clashes with the police or with political adversaries). The additive indexes in show the frequency of the use of the corresponding strategies at the national and at the European level, by different types of organizations and countries. They have been standardized to the range 0 to 1 by dividing the resulting score by the maximum possible value, in order to allow comparability.
37. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 7 October 2008.
38. La Repubblica, 12 November 2009.
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Notes on contributors
Manuela Caiani
Manuela Caiani is Assistant Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) of Wien. After completing her PhD in Political Science, she has worked on several comparative projects on collective action and Europeanization and on right wing extremism in Europe and the USA. She wrote articles on several international journals among which are Mobilization, Acta Politica, European Union Politics, South European Society and Politics. Among her recent publications are: Mobilizing on the Extreme Right: Germany, Italy, and the United States (with della Porta, Donatella and Claudius Wagemann), Oxford University press, 2012; European and American Extreme Right Groups and the Internet (with Linda Parenti), Ashgate 2013; Il Web Nero, Bologna, Il Mulino 2013.
Patricia Kröll
Patricia Kröll received her Master in Political Science at the University of Vienna and is currently pursuing an MSc Degree in the International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She has worked as collaborator on the research project “The Dark Side of the Web: Right-Wing Political Mobilization Using the Internet”, coordinated by Manuela Caiani at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna and she previously contributed to the publication Asylpolitik in Österreich. Unterbringung im Fokus, Wien, Facultas Universitätsverlag, 2011 (edited by Sieglinde Rosenberger).