1 Constructing a conceptual framework
The belittlement of deﬁnitions is wrong on three counts. First, since definitions
declare the intended meaning of words, they ensure that we do
not misunderstand each other. Second, words are also, in our research,
our data containers. Therefore, if our data containers are loosely deﬁned
our facts will be misgathered. Third, to deﬁne is ﬁrst of all to assign limits,
to delimit. (Sartori 2004: 786)
1.1 Introduction
Several recent studies on the topic of our concern have started by
paraphrasing the famous opening sentence of Karl Marx’s Communist
Manifesto: “A specter is haunting Europe, it’s the specter of . . . ,” followed
by the author’s term of preference (e.g. Jungwirth 2002b; Papadopoulos
2000). The author will then simply assume that the preferred term
accurately labels the “specter,” that the term itself has a singular and
comprehensible meaning, and that readers are in agreement with the
categorization of the various manifestations of that “specter.”
In fact, during the last few decades commentators worldwide have
concurred in their assessment of the similarities and dangers of European
political parties as seemingly diverse as Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front
national (National Front, FN), Pia Kjærsgaard’s Danske Folkeparti
(Danish People’s Party, DFP), or Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal’nodemokraticheskoi
partii Rossii (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia,
LDPR). But seldom did they manage to agree on terminology. Both in
the media and in the scholarly community an unprecedented plethora of
different terms has been put forward since the early 1980s.
Without claiming to be exhaustive, titles of (comparative) books and
articles in various languages on the topic include terms like extreme
right (e.g. Schain et al. 2002a; Perrineau 2001; Hainsworth 2000a;
Ignazi 1994; Pfahl-Traughber 1993; Stouthuysen 1993), far right (e.g.
Jungerstam-Mulders 2003; Roxburgh 2002; Marcus 2000; Cheles et al.
1995), radical right (e.g. Ramet 1999a; Minkenberg 1998; Kitschelt &
11
12 Concepts
McGann 1995; Merkl & Weinberg 1993), right (e.g. Betz & Immerfall
1998; Hockenos 1993), radical right-wing populism (e.g. Zaslove 2004a;
Betz 1994), right-wing populism (e.g. Eismann 2002; Decker 2000;
Pfahl-Traughber 1994), national populism (e.g. Backes 1991; Taguieff
1984), new populism (e.g. Lloyd 2003; Taggart 1995), neopopulism (Betz
& Immerfall 1998), exclusionary populism (e.g. Betz 2001), xenophobic
populism (e.g. DeAngelis 2003), populist nationalism (e.g. Blokker 2005),
ethno-nationalism (e.g. Rydgren 2004a), anti-immigrant (e.g. Gibson
2002; Fennema 1997), nativism (e.g. Fetzer 2000), racism (e.g.
MacMaster 2001; Husbands 1988; Elbers & Fennema 1993), racist
extremism (e.g. Mudde 2005a), fascism (e.g. Ford 1992; Laqueur 1996),
neofascism (e.g. Fenner & Weitz 2004; Karapin 1998; Cheles et al. 1991),
postfascism (e.g. Mell´on 2002), reactionary tribalism (e.g. Antonio 2000),
integralism (e.g. Holmes 2000), and antipartyism (e.g. B´elanger 2004).
This terminological chaos is not the result of fundamental differences
of opinion over the correct deﬁnition; rather, it is largely the consequence
of a lack of clear deﬁnitions. Few authors deﬁne their topic by offering a
clear and unambiguous deﬁnition and showing that the parties in question
also meet this deﬁnition (see Kolovos 2003; Mudde 1995b). Instead, they
often do not provide a deﬁnition at all, and use different (undeﬁned) terminology
interchangeably. In fact, it is not exceptional to see one author
use three or more different terms to describe the same party or group of
parties in one article, if not on a single page.
In recent years, a number of scholars have started to devote more serious
attention to the question of terminology. Rather than simply choose
one term to describe the phenomenon they are studying, or wield several
that capture the phenomenon more fully but with a signiﬁcant sacriﬁce
in precision, they provide an elaborate discussion of the pros and cons of
different terms before presenting the one they prefer (e.g. Betz & Johnson
2004; Backes 2003a; Ignazi 2003). Some authors also point to the
existence of different subgroups within the larger political family of “the
extreme right” (see also Carter 2005; Camus 2003; Kitschelt & McGann
1995). This positive development notwithstanding, the increased academic
attention devoted to deﬁnitions and terminology has not brought
us any closer to a consensus. While some single-case studies might not
need more than a speciﬁc working deﬁnition to get started, studies that
are comparative either in place or time, particularly of the scope applied
here, require clear deﬁnitions that can travel beyond a speciﬁc locale or
temporal context.
Therefore, the ﬁrst matters of concern in this book are deﬁnition
and terminology. These tasks are not as straightforward as it might
seem, which partially explains their neglect in the literature. The
Constructing a conceptual framework 13
complexity of rectifying our terms will become clear through the following
discussion.
1.2 How to start? The challenge of circularity
In deﬁning what is still most often called the “extreme right” party family,
one is faced with the problem of circularity: we have to decide on
the basis of which post facto criteria we should use to deﬁne the various
parties, while we need a priori criteria to select the parties that we want
to deﬁne. In other words, whether we select as representatives of the
party family in question the Dutch Lijst Pim Fortuyn (List Pim Fortuyn,
LPF) and the Norwegian Fremmskrittpartiet (Progress Party, FRP) or
the Italian Movimento Sociale–Fiamma Tricolore (Social Movement–
Tricolor Flame, MS-FT) and the German Nationaldemokratische Partei
Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany, NPD) will have
a profound effect on the ideological core that we will ﬁnd, and thus on
the terminology we will employ.
One solution to the problem of circularity is to adopt the Wittgensteinian
concept of “family resemblance” (cf. Collier & Mahon 1993);
i.e. none of the parties are exactly the same, but each family member
will have some features in common with all other members. Schematically,
one could picture this as a collection of concentric circles, but one
in which no section is part of all circles. In other words, no ideological
feature is shared by all parties.
While the Wittgensteinian concept of family resemblance might afford
great ﬂexibility, it will render theoretizing with respect to the success and
failure of this group of parties extremely difﬁcult, if not impossible. For
instance, the sharp increase in immigration might explain the success
of parties that share an anti-immigrant or xenophobic streak, but how
does it relate to the one or more family members who do not share that
particular ideological feature?
A second approach is based on Max Weber’s famous ideal typical
model; i.e. the family is deﬁned on the basis of an “ideal type,” which
no family member resembles fully, but all will look like in one way or
another (e.g. Kitschelt & McGann 1995). The problem is fairly similar
to the one described above. First of all, it is unclear how much resemblance
is required to be included in the family, an ambiguity compounded
by the overlap between ideal types. Second, when it is unclear which parties
share which features of the ideal type, theoretizing for the whole party
family becomes problematic.
A third method is quite similar to that of the ideal type, but deﬁnes the
whole family on the basis of an existing party, a kind of primus inter pares
14 Concepts
or prototype – one party that exempliﬁes the whole family. The problem,
obviously, is how (i.e. on the basis of which criteria) to select the pater
familias? For example, Piero Ignazi (1992) argues that the Italian Movimento
Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement, MSI) has functioned as
the deﬁning party for the whole party family, while others see the French
FN in this role (e.g. Rydgren 2005b; Backes 1996; Kitschelt & McGann
1995).1
None of the authors provides empirical evidence for his or her
claim, however.2
In other words, one has ﬁrst to deﬁne the core (ideology)
of the FN and then ﬁnd out whether this core is shared by the other
family members. If this is the case, one can try to deﬁne the whole party
family on the basis of that core (ideology) of the FN.
The last two approaches are related and can be seen as opposite strategies.
They are similar in the fact that they do not share the weaknesses
of the earlier three approaches. Most importantly, they work with classical
rather than radial categories (e.g. Mahoney 2004; Collier & Mahon
1993), which is far less problematic in terms of theorizing on the basis of
the concept. Consequently, the conceptualization used in this study will
be based upon these two approaches.
The fourth approach is to deﬁne the group on the basis of the “lowest
common denominator,” i.e. on the basis of the (few) features that
all individual members have in common. This would lead to a so-called
“minimum deﬁnition” (cf. Eatwell 1996), which delineates the bare core
of the ideologies of the individual parties, but at the same time the full core
of the whole party family. Obviously, this is the most difﬁcult approach,
because ideally one would need to study the ideologies of all (alleged)
members of the party family. Alternatively, one could use a “most dissimilar
system design” (Przeworksi & Teune 1970), i.e. look for similarities
among a selection of party family members from backgrounds as
dissimilar as possible.3
The ﬁfth, and last, approach is the direct opposite of the previous one
in that it looks for the “greatest common denominator” and employs a
“most similar system design” (Przeworksi & Teune 1970), i.e. similarities
among a selection of party family members from backgrounds as similar
as possible. The aim is to ﬁnd a “maximum deﬁnition,” i.e. the greatest
1 In later publications Ignazi has qualiﬁed his earlier statement, arguing that the MSI is
the deﬁning party of the subgroup of “traditional” extreme right parties and the FN “the
prototype of postindustrial extreme right parties” (1997: 57).
2 The only partial attempt has come from Jens Rydgren (2005b), who has argued that the
FN has provided the “extreme right” in Western Europe with a “new master frame” to
overcome their previous phase of marginalization as a consequence of the legacy of the
Second World War.
3 Implicitly, this was done in a recent study analyzing parties from Belgium, Italy, New
Zealand, and Switzerland (Betz & Johnson 2004).
Constructing a conceptual framework 15
possible number of similarities within (part of) the family (see Mudde
2000a).
In the following sections I will develop both a minimum and a maximum
deﬁnition for the party family under study.4
Obviously, the two
cannot be used interchangeably; the choice between a minimum and a
maximum deﬁnition has severe consequences for the inclusion and exclusion
of individual parties. Consequently, the two have to be seen as different
if overlapping party families, with the “maximum” group being a
subgroup of the “minimum” group.
1.3 The minimal deﬁnition
The construction of a minimum deﬁnition depends to a large extent on
how broadly applicable, or in other words how “minimum,” the deﬁnition
needs to be. Should it be able to accommodate all political parties that
have at some time been linked to this party family, including the Slovak
Hnutie za demokratickˇe Slovensko (Movement for a Democratic Slovakia,
HZDS) or the Portuguese Partido do Centro Democr´atico Social
(Social Democratic Center Party)? Or should the deﬁnition be more
exclusive, yet still able to include all those parties that are generally considered
to be part of the group, such as the French FN and the Hungarian
Magyar Igazs´ag ´es ´Elet P´artja (Hungarian Justice and Life Party, MI ´EP)?
It makes sense to base the minimum deﬁnition on the second approach.
In other words, the aim of the minimum deﬁnition is to describe the core
features of the ideologies of all parties that are generally included in the
party family.
In his inﬂuential work on political ideologies, Michael Freeden (1996)
has argued that every ideology has core and peripheral concepts. Following
up on this insight, Terence Ball has elaborated:
A core concept is one that is both central to, and constitutive of, a particular
ideology and therefore of the ideological community to which it gives inspiration
and identity. For example, the concept of ‘class’ (and of course ‘class struggle’)
is a key or core concept in Marxism, as ‘gender’ is in feminism, and ‘liberty’
(or ‘individual liberty’) is in liberalism, and so on through the list of leading
ideologies. (1999: 391–2)
Core concepts can also be seen as “individually shaped coathangers on
which additional concepts may be draped” (Freeden 1997: 5).
4 This is not the same as the recently developed “min-max strategy” (Gerring & Barresi
2003), which develops minimum and maximum deﬁnitions for the same term, whereas
here different terms are used for the two deﬁnitions, to prevent conceptual stretching.
16 Concepts
If one looks at the primary literature of the various political parties
generally associated with this party family, as well as the various studies
of their ideologies, the core concept is undoubtedly the “nation.” This
concept also certainly functions as a “coathanger” for most other ideological
features. Consequently, the minimum deﬁnition of the party family
should be based on the key concept, the nation. The ﬁrst ideological
feature to address, then, is nationalism.
1.3.1 Nationalism
Hundreds of books and articles have been written about the concept of
nationalism. While there is some truth in the critique that the contemporary
studies are more numerous but less innovative than the earlier
literature, particularly compared to the classics of the pre-1960s (e.g.
Deutsch 1953; Kohn 1944; Hayes 1931), many important contributions
have been made since the earlier “Golden Age” of nationalism studies.
Most notably, under the inﬂuence of grand scholars like Ernest Gellner
(1983) and Eric Hobsbawm (1990), nationalism was redeﬁned as a
political doctrine rather than an attitude.
It is also in this tradition that nationalism will be deﬁned here, that
is, as a political doctrine that strives for the congruence of the cultural
and the political unit, i.e. the nation and the state, respectively. In other
words, the core goal of the nationalist is to achieve a monocultural state.
As Koen Koch (1991) has elaborated, a key process for achieving this is
internal homogenization, which ensures that the state includes only people
from one’s “own” nation. Internal homogenization can be achieved by
(a combination of) various strategies, including separatism, assimilation,
expulsion, and ultimately genocide.
Koch also distinguishes the process of external exclusiveness, which
aims to bring all members of the nation within the territory of the state.
In a moderate form, this can be achieved by population transfer, i.e. by
moving extraterritorial nationals (back) inside of the state boundaries. A
more radical interpretation considers a certain territory as belonging to
the nation, whether inhabited by nationals or not, and wants to enforce
external exclusiveness by means of territorial expansion (irredentism).
While irredentism might be supported at the theoretical level, it is not
considered a primary and realistic goal by all contemporary nationalists
(see also 6.2.1).
To use the term “nationalism” in a nonqualiﬁed way is virtually meaningless
these days. Conceptual stretching has made nationalism an almost
omnipresent concept with a plethora of subtypes. Indeed, some authors
even talk of “nationalist multiculturalism” (Nimni 1999) or “multicultural
nationalism” (Maddens & Vanden Berghe 2003). Among the most
Constructing a conceptual framework 17
widely used distinctions is that between ethnic (alternatively: “cultural” or
“racial”) nationalism, on the one hand, and state (alternatively: “civic,”
“territorial,” or “political”) nationalism, on the other (e.g. Greenfeld
2001; Spencer & Wolman 1998).5
While nationalism may not be universal (Gellner 1997), it has been
the founding ideology of the global division of territory into (so-called)
nation-states since the late eighteenth century. Indeed, state nationalism
is so pervasive in the founding ideologies of many countries (e.g. France)
and even supranational organizations (e.g. the United Nations) that it fails
to distinguish clearly between different party families (cf. Billig 1995).6
That said, limiting the maximum deﬁnition to just ethnic nationalism
might overcome the problematic delineation of boundaries, but only at
the cost of creating new problems of exclusiveness.
As Andreas Wimmer (2002) has shown convincingly in a recent
comparative study, nationalism always includes political/civic and cultural/ethnic
aspects. In other words, in practice nationalism always
includes a combination of (elements of) ethnic and state nationalism.
We will therefore interpret nationalism in a holistic way in this study,
i.e. including both civic and ethnic elements. Within this interpretation
the combination of nationalism with internal homogenization and external
exclusiveness also makes far more sense. Moreover, if the distinction
between state and ethnic nationalism is exchanged for a deﬁnition of
nationalism that includes elements of both, but does not require either
one in full, the classiﬁcation of several political parties will no longer prove
so problematic.
While this (re-)deﬁnition of nationalism will solve many problems
involved in distinguishing the parties we are interested in here from other
parties, it might still be too broad. Most notably, it will not be able to make
a distinction between “moderate” nationalists, notably so-called liberal
nationalists,7
and the “radical” nationalists with whom we are concerned.
In this respect, the term nativism provides the answer.
5 Obviously, there are other distinctions as well, such as that between “Risorgimento” and
“integral” nationalism (e.g. Alter 1989), but they are less dominant in the nationalism
literature and, more importantly, in the discussions about the parties that concern us
here.
6 One could argue that other party families, ranging from secular conservatives to social
democrats, also subscribe to basic state nationalist ideological tenets.
7 I have serious reservations regarding the term liberal nationalism, which seems a contradictio
in terminis as liberalism is essentially an individualist ideology, yet nationalism is
fundamentally collectivist. However, I feel unqualiﬁed to argue this position convincingly,
and do not believe it is vital for the primary arguments advanced here. Consequently, in
this study liberal nationalism will simply be accepted as a legitimate subtype of nationalism
(on liberal nationalism, see most notably Tamir 1983; for an empirical critique, see
Abizadeh 2004).
18 Concepts
1.3.2 Nativism
The term nativism is mainly current in the American literature, and has
so far been applied only scantily in studies on the European party family
in question (see Betz 2003a; Veughelers & Chiarini 2002; Fetzer 2000).
The concept of nativism is used in various academic disciplines, including
anthropology, education, history, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology,
though not always in an identical manner.
In anthropology, nativism has been applied to social movements that
proclaim “the return to power of the natives of a colonized area and the
resurgence of native culture, along with the decline of the colonizers. The
term has also been used to refer to a widespread attitude in a society of
a rejection of alien persons or culture” (www.encyclopedia.com). While
anthropologists reserve nativism for nonindustrial cultures (e.g. Wallace
1969), historians have applied the term also to Western contexts (most
notably US American). Some have employed it in a manner consistent
with its use in anthropology; contemporary European authors use the
term “anti-immigrant” (e.g. Gibson 2002; Fennema 1997) to describe
“anti-alien” movements (e.g. Bennett 1990).
In Strangers in the Land, the famous study of American nativism (1860–
1925), John Higham rejects “reducing nativism to little more than a
general ethnocentric habit of mind” (1955: 3). Instead, he argues that
nativism is “a certain kind of nationalism,” leading him to the following
conclusion:
Nativism, therefore, should be deﬁned as intense opposition to an internal minority
on the ground of its foreign (i.e., ‘un-American’) connections. Speciﬁc nativistic
antagonisms may, and do, vary widely in response to the changing character
of minority irritants and the shifting conditions of the day; but through each
separate hostility runs the connecting, energizing force of modern nationalism.
While drawing on much broader cultural antipathies and ethnocentric judgments,
nativism translates them into a zeal to destroy the enemies of a distinctively
American way of life. (Higham 1955: 4)
According to Walter Benn Michaels, “as nationalism turns into nativism
. . . it becomes also a kind of pluralism. From the standpoint of the
‘native,’ this must involve the repudiation of any attempt to blur differences”
(1995: 69). Moreover, he argues, “[i]n pluralism one prefers one’s
own race not because it is superior but because it is one’s own” (Michaels
1995: 67). In other words, “the essence of nativism is its preference for
the native exclusively on the grounds of its being native” (Michaels 1995:
14). This interpretation of pluralism (at least within nativism) is remarkably
similar to the “ethnopluralist” argument of Alain De Benoist and
the nouvelle droite, i.e. nations/cultures are “equal but different” (e.g. De
Benoist 1985; cf. Betz 2003a).
Constructing a conceptual framework 19
If the anthropological and the historical deﬁnitions are combined, and
stripped of their particular spatial and temporal features (cf. Friedman
1967), a generic deﬁnition can be constructed, which closely resembles
the combination of xenophobia and nationalism. In this interpretation,
nativism is deﬁned here as an ideology, which holds that states should be
inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (“the nation”) and that
nonnative elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the
homogenous nation-state. The basis for deﬁning (non) “nativeness” can
be diverse, e.g. ethnic, racial or religious, but will always have a cultural
component (cf. Bennett 1990; Friedman 1967; Higham 1955).
Obviously, the determination of native(ness) is subjective, i.e. “imagined,”
like that of the nation (Anderson 1983). Hence, it will often be
contested. For example, both WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants)
and various “Indian” tribes claim to be the true “native Americans,”
the latter having currently won the symbolic yet important battle over
the right to bear the name. Similarly, both Arab Palestinians and Jewish
Israelis claim to be the true native people of the territory of the current
state of Israel.
In this interpretation, the term nativism clearly constitutes the core of
the ideology of the larger party family. Moreover, as a minimum definition,
it is far more suitable than alternative terms like nationalist,
antiimmigrant, or racist. In comparison to the broad term nationalism,
nativism has the advantage of excluding liberal forms of nationalism.
Furthermore, while nativism could include racist arguments, it can also
be nonracist (including and excluding on the basis of culture or even
religion). And, ﬁnally, while acknowledging the tremendous importance
of xenophobia and opposition to immigration to the parties in question
(e.g. Betz 1994; Von Beyme 1988), nativism does not reduce the parties
to mere single-issue parties, such as the term antiimmigrant does (see
Mudde 1999).
This is particularly important if the concept is to “travel” to the Eastern
part of the European continent. In postcommunist Europe mass immigration
has so far remained a fairly marginal concern, yet xenophobia
and nationalism have played an important role in various parts of the
region. The term nativism, as deﬁned above, is able to accommodate
the xenophobic nationalist reactions to (so-called) indigenous minorities
from parts of the majority populations (e.g. “Estonian Estonians” versus
“Russian Estonians” or “Slavic Slovaks” versus “Hungarian Slovaks”);
as well as those from minority members to either the majority population
or other minorities (e.g. “Hungarian Slovaks” against “Slavic Slovaks”
or against “Gypsies”).
Though the term nativism is a more accurate and inclusive alternative
to the terms most commonly employed in the literature, it is not
20 Concepts
entirely free from liability. Most notably, the term’s currency has largely
been limited to the English language, speciﬁcally the American and Australian
literature. Indeed, it has no equivalents in other major languages.
However, this is not a compelling reason to reject the term.
1.4 A maximum deﬁnition
In an earlier work, I employed a similar system design to conduct qualitative
content analysis of the internally and externally oriented party literature
of ﬁve parties in three countries: the Vlaams Blok (Flemish Block,
VB) in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (i.e. Flanders); the Deutsche
Volksunion (German People’s Union, DVU) and Die Republikaner (The
Republicans, REP) in Germany; and the Centrumdemocraten (Center
Democrats, CD) and the Centrumpartij ’86 (Center Party ’86, CP’86)
in the Netherlands (Mudde 2000a).
The three countries clearly differ in many respects, but within even the
limited larger context of Western Europe they constitute a fairly homogeneous
group. They are all highly developed welfare states, which share,
admittedly in different ways, a “Germanic” culture. Furthermore, they
are each home to a variety of parties alleged to share an ideological core,
generally identiﬁed as “extreme right,” that differ, inter alia, in terms of
the extremity of those ideological features (for a full clariﬁcation of the
selection criteria, see Mudde 2000a: 17–18).
The study established the key ideological features of the individual
parties (see table 1.1) as well as the four core ideological features that
the ﬁve parties have in common (i.e. nationalism, xenophobia, welfare
chauvinism, and law and order). In an effort to ﬁnd a suitable designation
for this ideological combination, I came to the following unsatisfying
conclusion:
It seems therefore most useful to stick with the term ‘extreme right’. Though the
ideological core falls only just within the deﬁnition of right-wing extremism, and
the term provides some semantical confusion, alternative labels do not justify the
rejection of what is still the most generally used term to describe this particular
party family. (Mudde 2000a: 180)
Since then, inspired by the skepticism of my students and the critical and
encouraging critiques from various colleagues, I have come to the conclusion
that my earlier ﬁndings have to be revised on at least two accounts.
First, some deﬁnitions of the concepts used in the original study turned
out to be either inaccurate or too confusing. As argued above, the rigid
distinction between state and ethnic nationalism has both empirical and
theoretical problems (cf. Rensmann 2003: 108–11). Additionally, the
Constructing a conceptual framework 21
Table 1.1 Summary table of ideological features per party∗
(C = core; p =
present, not core; i = indication, not explicit)
FEATURE REP DVU VB CD CP’86
NATIONALISM C C C C C
Internal homogenization C C C C C
External exclusiveness i i C C
Ethnic nationalism i i C C
State nationalism C
EXCLUSIONISM
Ethnopluralism i C C
Anti-Semitism p C C
XENOPHOBIA C C C C C
STRONG STATE
Law and order C C C C C
Militarism i
WELFARE CHAUVINISM C C C C C
TRADITIONAL ETHICS C p C p p
REVISIONISM C C C i
Note: ∗ I have left out idiosyncratic core features, like chauvinism (DVU) and ecologism
(CP’86).
Source: Mudde (2000a: 170)
conceptualization of the strong state as an ideological feature is complicated
by its traditional association with militarism. While militarism has
become relatively obsolete, updating the concept by eliminating it leaves
only the very general feature of law and order, which, though relevant,
does not capture the essence of the parties’ emphasis on hierarchical
authority. Finally, populism was deﬁned as a political style, in line with
much of the literature within the ﬁeld of extreme right parties at that
time (see Mudde 2000a: 13). Since the study was based on the central
concept of the party family, deﬁned exclusively through the criterion of
ideology (see Mudde 2000a: 2–5; also Mair & Mudde 1998), populism
was disregarded in the content analysis. In retrospect this was an unfortunate
decision, based largely on my too limited knowledge of the broader
literature of populism at the time.
The third and last problem with the earlier approach deals with the
(lack of) internal hierarchy of the ideological features. All four features of
the maximal deﬁnition were taken to be of equal importance. However,
if the ideological core is also analyzed using the “causal chain approach”
(Mudde 2000a: 23–4), it becomes clear that welfare chauvinism is less
important than the other ideological features. In fact, economics is a topic
22 Concepts
of secondary importance to these parties (see chapter 5), and welfare
chauvinism can be understood as a nativist vision of the economy.
In light of these revisions, the maximum deﬁnition should be revised
into a combination of three core ideological features: nativism, authoritarianism,
and populism. Before continuing with the quest for the correct
term to label this combination, a short discussion of the three features of
the revised ideological core is necessary.
The key ideological feature of the parties in question is nativism, as
deﬁned above, i.e. as an ideology, which holds that states should be inhabited
exclusively by members of the native group (“the nation”) and that
nonnative elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to
the homogenous nation-state.8
The nativist dimension includes a combination
of nationalism and xenophobia, two of the key features from the
earlier study.
The second feature, authoritarianism, is deﬁned very differently in
various ﬁelds of study. In research on democracy and democratization
the term “authoritarian” refers to nondemocratic regimes, often distinguished
from the even more restrictive totalitarian regimes (e.g. Linz
1993). However, in this study authoritarianism is deﬁned in line with the
dominant tradition in social psychology and the Frankfurter Schule. The
concept is informed by the operationalization of “The Authoritarian Personality”
of Theodor Adorno and his collaborators, who interpret authoritarianism
loosely as “a general disposition to glorify, to be subservient to
and remain uncritical toward authoritative ﬁgures of the ingroup and to
take an attitude of punishing outgroup ﬁgures in the name of some moral
authority” (Adorno et al. 1969: 228).
Whereas Adorno and his colleagues conﬂate authoritarianism with various
other attitudes and ideological features, including anti-Semitism and
ethnocentrism (e.g. Kirscht & Dillehay 1967; Christie & Jahoda 1954),
Bob Altemeyer has disentangled the various elements and bases his deﬁnition
of “right-wing authoritarianism” on a combination of three features
of the famous F-scale: authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression,
and conventionalism (1981: 147–8). According to him
The right-wing authoritarian believes authorities should be trusted to a relatively
great extent, and that they are owed obedience and respect . . . Criticism of
authority is viewed as divisive and destructive, motivated by sinister goals and a
desire to cause trouble. (1981: 151)
Right-wing authoritarians are predisposed to control the behavior of others
through punishment. (1981: 153)
8 The ideological predominance of nativism can also be found among the parties’ members
(e.g. Klandermans & Mayer 2005) and voters (e.g. Lubbers 2001).
Constructing a conceptual framework 23
Altemeyer speaks of “right-wing” authoritarianism because his operationalization
refers to “established” authorities (1981: 152). There is
no reason to limit the concept of authoritarianism in this way, however,
particularly if it is deﬁned in an ideological rather than an attitudinal
sense. Thus, authoritarianism is deﬁned here as the belief in a strictly
ordered society, in which infringements of authority are to be punished
severely. In this interpretation, authoritarianism includes law and order
and “punitive conventional moralism” (Smith 1967: vi). It does not necessarily
mean an antidemocratic attitude, but neither does it preclude
one. In addition, the authoritarian’s submission to authority, established
or not, is “not absolute, automatic, nor blind” (Altemeyer 1981: 152). In
other words, while authoritarians will be more inclined to accept (established)
authority than nonauthoritarians, they can and will rebel under
certain circumstances.
The third and ﬁnal core feature is populism, which is here deﬁned as an
ideological feature, and not merely as a political style. Accordingly, populism
is understood as a thin-centered ideology that considers society to
be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups,
“the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite,” and which argues that politics
should be an expression of the volont´e g´en´erale (general will) of the
people (Mudde 2004: 543; also Jagers 2006). Populist ideology reveres
the “common sense” of the people, or of “the heartland” (Taggart 2000).
In the populist democracy, nothing is more important than the “general
will” of the people, not even human rights or constitutional guarantees
(see, in more detail, chapter 6).
1.5 Towards a conceptual framework
Having satisﬁed the quest for deﬁnitions, it is now time to ﬁnd the best
term to describe the maximum deﬁnition. Given the terminological confusion
within the ﬁeld, this is not an easy task. There is no consensus to
follow, let alone a conceptual framework that relates the different terms
to each other. To help ﬁnd an answer to the question of terminology, I
have constructed a ladder of abstraction (Sartori 1970) of the “family”
of nativist ideologies on the basis of a large variety of international secondary
sources. Obviously, this conceptual framework is based more on
my interpretation of the literature than on the exact deﬁnitions of individual
authors.
The basis of the conceptual framework is the ideological feature of the
minimum deﬁnition, i.e. nativism. We hope to ﬁnd the best-suited term
by ascending the ladder, i.e. moving step by step upwards from nativism
to, ultimately, the extreme right – which is deﬁned here as a combination
of nativism, authoritarianism, and antidemocracy (see table 1.2).
24 Concepts
Table 1.2 Ladder of abstraction of nativist ideologies
Ideology Key additional feature
Extreme right
Anti-democracy
Radical right
Authoritarianism
Nativism
Xenophobia
Nationalism
This conceptual framework, however, is limited by its inability to accommodate
populism. While some authors have included populism as part of
their deﬁnitions of subsets of the extreme right, notably fascism and National
Socialism (e.g. Grifﬁn 1991; Linz 1976), they tended to interpret
populism more loosely than it is construed in this study; i.e. identifying
it in the basis of the party’s support (i.e. cross-class) and organizational
structure (i.e. direct leader–masses link and mass mobilization). If populism
were to be included at a lower level of the ladder, e.g. between
nativism and radical right, this would mean that the radical right (and
all types above it) cannot be elitist, as this is the antithesis of populism
(Mudde 2004). This contrasts with much of the literature, which stresses
the centrality of elitism in many nativist ideologies, including fascism and
National Socialism (cf. Gregor 2000; Payne 1995; De Felice 1977).
In light of this conceptual framework then, the maximum deﬁnition
best ﬁts the term radical right, albeit a speciﬁc subtype, i.e. a populist
version of the radical right. Most logically, this leads to the adoption of
the term “radical right populism” or “populist radical right.” However,
before settling the question of terminology we ﬁrst have to solve two
potential problems regarding both terms: clarity and semantics.
The term “radical” in contemporary usage is often associated with
“the right” but it originated at the other end of the political spectrum.
Traditionally, the term radical was used for the supporters of the French
Revolution, i.e. the “left” (Schwartz 1993; also Ignazi 2003), and, particularly
within the Latin languages, it is still used with respect to left-wing
groups, such as the French Parti radical de gauche (Radical Left Party)
and the Dutch Politieke Partij Radikalen (Political Party Radicals), or
by progressive liberal groups, such as the French Parti radical (Radical
Party) and the Partido radicale italiano (Italian Radical Party).9
9 Simon Hix and Christopher Lord distinguish between two main streams within the liberal
political family, of which the “Radical Liberals emphasize social and political freedoms”
(1997: 32).
Constructing a conceptual framework 25
Hans-Georg Betz and Carol Johnson have argued that “[r]adical rightwing
parties are [thus] radical both with respect to the language they
employ in confronting their political opponents and the political project
they promote and defend” (2004: 312). This comes close to Ignazi’s
(2003) recognition of the “antisystem” dimension of these groups, a key
criterion in his deﬁnition of the extreme right. The problem with both
deﬁnitions is that they are (too) relativist. What is considered to be “radical”
depends to a large extent on the political culture of the country:
the same language or project can be deemed radical in one country, yet
mainstream or moderate in another. And what is antisystem obviously
depends on, well, the system.
Therefore, in this study radical is deﬁned as opposition to some key features
of liberal democracy, most notably political pluralism and the constitutional
protection of minorities (Mudde 2006a, 2005c). Obviously,
this deﬁnition renders the term most useful within a liberal democratic
context; but it does not preclude its use in other political systems. However,
since the term “radical” does refer to many different ideologies and
movements it requires additional designation to indicate the direction of
radicalization.
The concept of the “right” (or “right-wing”) is hardly less problematic.
Within political philosophy, “‘[t]he Right’ in its most general sense
denotes a philosophy that was hostile to the politics of modernity, with its
ideas of emancipation and rationality” (Schwarzmantel 1998: 112; also
Eatwell 1989). Some authors also deﬁne the contemporary radical right
in terms of a radical opposition to (post)modernization (e.g. Minkenberg
1998). However, opposition to modernity does not feature (prominently)
in the ideologies of many of the contemporary parties. In fact, as various
scholars have argued, the quintessential extreme right, i.e. Italian Fascism
and German National Socialism, was not unequivocally antimodern
either (e.g. Sternhell 1996; Grifﬁn 1991; Gregor 1974). Rather, one
could argue that the radical right strives for an “alternative modernity”
(Grifﬁn 1999a: 301).
Within most empirical political scientiﬁc studies, the right is deﬁned
ﬁrst and foremost on the basis of the socioeconomic dimension. Here,
the right believes in the self-regulating power of the market and thus
favors a government laissez faire attitude towards it, while the left distrusts
the market and wants the state to play an important role within
the economy (e.g. Schwartz 1993). There are two reasons why this definition
of the right does not make much sense here. First, economics
is not a core feature of the party family’s ideology. Second, many of
the parties in question are not right-wing in this sense, as they support
a (chauvinist) welfare state and protectionist policies (see further in
chapter 5).
26 Concepts
Norberto Bobbio (1994) provides an alternative distinction between
left and right based on the key feature of (the propensity to) egalitarianism
that better illuminates the difference between the parties in question and
the traditional right. Following Bobbio, the key distinction in this study
will be based on the attitude toward (in)equality: the left considers the
key inequalities between people artiﬁcial and wants to overcome them by
active state involvement, whereas the right believes the main inequalities
between people to be natural and outside the purview of the state.10
As
Gill Seidel argues, “right-wing discourse is a discourse of order grounded
in nature” (1988b: 11).
Thus, while concepts that include confusing and contested terms such
as radical and right are not ideal, they can be used if clear deﬁnitions are
provided. Here, the term radical is deﬁned as opposition to fundamental
values of liberal democracy, while right is deﬁned as the belief in a natural
order with inequalities. Consequently, the combination of ideological
features of the maximum deﬁnition can best be labeled as either populist
radical right or radical right populism. The choice is not completely
arbitrary, however.
The reason the term populist radical right is preferred here over radical
right populism is not the all-too-common urge to be original, given
that the former term is quite rare (e.g. Filc & Lebel 2005) compared
to the relatively common latter term (e.g. Evans 2005; Rydgren 2005a;
Betz 1994). Rather, the prime rationale is of a semantic nature. In “radical
right populism” the primary term is populism, while “radical right”
functions merely to describe the ideological emphasis of this speciﬁc form
of populism. Populist radical right, on the other hand, refers to a populist
form of the radical right. Given that nativism, not populism, is the ultimate
core feature of the ideology of this party family, radical right should
be the primary term in the concept. Henceforth, this study will focus on
populist radical right parties, i.e. political parties with a core ideology
that is a combination of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism.
1.6 Delineating the borders
If the concept of the populist radical right is to be of any use in the
study of party families, it must be able to delineate a unique family of
political parties. In other words, while these parties should share the core
of ideological features deﬁned above, members from other party families
10 This is more a personal interpretation and summary than a literal quotation of Bobbio’s
arguments, who deﬁnes the two more strictly and relatively, i.e. on the basis of their
relative propensity towards egalitarianism.
Constructing a conceptual framework 27
should not. This does not seem to present a problem for the larger party
families of the center-right (i.e. Christian democrats and liberals) and
the left (i.e. communists, Greens, social democrats). But in the case of
some other (smaller) party families, particularly among the right, certain
ideological features will overlap. Consequently, it is important to clearly
delineate the borders between the populist radical right and other party
families.
1.6.1 Conservatives
Although the conservatives belong to one of the oldest party families in
Europe, their character and distinctiveness is much in dispute. Whereas
most scholars include a separate conservative family in their list of party
families (e.g. Gallagher et al. 2005; Lane & Ersson 1999; Von Beyme
1985), some group them together with other parties. Indeed, most scholarly
contributions on conservative parties are published in edited volumes
that also include Christian democratic parties (e.g. Delwit 2003; LaytonHenry
1982a; Veen 1983); though some feature “moderate” (Morgan &
Silvestri 1982) or “center-right” parties (e.g. Wilson 1998).
The term conservative is a notoriously difﬁcult concept to deﬁne. It has
both an absolute and a relative meaning, which are often conﬂated. In its
relative meaning, conservative denotes an attitude to conserve the status
quo, in contrast to the progressive favoring of change, and reactionary
preference for a return to the past. Obviously, relativist concepts are highly
problematic in comparative studies, whether they are spatial or temporal.
What is conservative in one country or at one time, could be progressive
or reactionary in another country or at another time. Consequently, an
absolute deﬁnition is preferable.
In its absolute meaning, conservative refers to a certain ideology,
although its speciﬁc character is again highly contested. In the literature
on political parties, rather than political philosophy, conservatism is most
often deﬁned on the basis of the following features: authoritarianism, traditionalism,
religiosity, and nationalism (e.g. Layton-Henry 1982b: 1).
With this deﬁnition the boundaries between conservative and (populist)
radical right parties are hard to establish. However, nationalism in this
conceptualization of conservatism tends to refer speciﬁcally to loyalty to
the nation, which is fundamentally different from the way nationalism is
understood in this study, and might better be referred to as patriotism.
In the 1980s two of the major conservative parties in the West,
the British Conservative Party and the US Republican Party, changed
their core ideology signiﬁcantly. Whereas conservatives had traditionally
been only moderate supporters of the free market, fearing the moral
28 Concepts
perversions of capitalism (e.g. materialism, socialism), Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan combined social conservatism with strident
neoliberalism (in rhetoric rather than practice). This new conservative
consensus went by various names in the literature, including “new
right,” “neoconservative” and “conservative liberal” (e.g. Raniolo 2000;
Girvin 1988).
Interestingly, neoconservatism and the populist radical right have been
linked by many of the leading scholars in the ﬁeld. Most extremely, the
combination of social conservatism and neoliberal economics is identical
to the deﬁnition of “the winning formula” that Herbert Kitschelt
and Anthony McGann (1995: vii) provide in their inﬂuential comparative
study of “the radical right.” It also strongly resembles deﬁnitions
employed by authors who stress the neoliberal character of populist radical
right parties (notably Betz 1994). Finally, Ignazi (1992) has largely
collapsed the two together in his “silent counter-revolution” argument.
Fundamentally, however, the two groups are quite far apart. First and
foremost, nativism is not a core ideological feature of neoconservatives,
although they do tend to be strong defenders of national state interests,
which also largely explains their propensity towards isolationism
and Euroskepticism. Second, the socioeconomic agenda is secondary to
populist radical right parties, and most of them do not hold neoliberal
views. Third, traditional ethical and religious values are not a deﬁning
feature of the populist radical right party family, although they are at the
core of the ideologies of some parties.
1.6.2 Nationalists and (Ethno)Regionalists
One of the borders between party families that has led to some confusion,
for example with respect to the classiﬁcation of the LN and
VB, is that between populist radical right parties and (ethno)regionalist
parties. The latter party family goes under many names: autonomist,
regionalist, ethnoregionalist, regional nationalist, moderate nationalist,
and nationalist (see in De Winter & T¨ursan 1998). Before establishing
the borders between this diffuse party family and the populist radical
right, we ﬁrst have to address the relationship between nationalism and
regionalism.
In an ideological typology, it does not make sense to distinguish
between nationalists on the basis of the existing state borders. Consequently,
regionalism should not be used for parties that strive for separatism
to fulﬁll their nationalist aspirations of a monocultural nation-state.
According to Michael Keating and John Loughlin, regionalism is related
to views and movements that demand “greater control over the affairs
Constructing a conceptual framework 29
of the regional territory by the people residing in that territory, usually
by means of the installation of a regional government” (1997: 5). Thus,
regionalism is best limited to groups that call for more autonomy of a
region within a larger state structure. So deﬁned, there is also a clear
distinction between nationalists (including populist radical rightists) and
regionalists: ﬁrst, regionalists accept a multinational state and, second,
their call for autonomy is not necessarily culturally deﬁned.
If we exclude regionalism from the core feature of this party family,
does it still make sense to distinguish between the populist radical right
party family and a separate nationalist party family? As argued above, not
all nationalists are also populist radical right; some will not be authoritarian,
others not populist. In short, while all populist radical right parties
are nationalist, only subsets of the nationalist parties are populist radical
right. The populist radical right is thus a subfamily of a broader nationalist
party family.
1.6.3 Populists
In some lists of party families, a distinction is made between general
“populist” or “protest” parties and particular “right-wing extremist” or
“fascist” parties. For example, Klaus Von Beyme (1985) distinguishes
between a “protest” and a “fascist” party family, while Jan-Erik Lane
and Svante Ersson (1999) separate “discontent (populist)” from “ultraright”
parties. To a certain extent, the party family of the populist radical
right is positioned in between the two. Not surprisingly, various parties
that are classiﬁed as populist radical right here tend to be placed in either
one or the other group in other studies. Thus, a short discussion is necessary
to clarify the positioning of the populist radical right party family
in terms of these two categories, and to explain some possibly contested
classiﬁcations.
The ﬁrst family has been caught in many different nets: alternative
(Delwit 2001), antipolitical establishment (Abedi 2004; Schedler 1996),
protest (Von Beyme 1985), discontent (Lane & Ersson 1999), or unorthodox
(Pop-Elechus 2003). Despite the different terms, deﬁnitions and
classiﬁcations, the main criterion for these party families is a core antiestablishment
position. Using such a broad criterion might be useful for
some studies (e.g. Abedi 2004, 2002), but it is too narrow a basis for
deﬁning a separate party family; also it reduces these parties to singleissue
movements. The term “populism,” however, if deﬁned in a clear and
distinct manner, does have enough leverage to discriminate among party
families. Three groups of parties deserve our attention here: right-wing
populists, neoliberal populists, and social populists.
30 Concepts
Starting with the last, which is the easiest to distinguish from the family
of the populist radical right, social populists combine socialism and
populism as their core ideological features (see March & Mudde 2005).
Clearly the similarities with the populist radical right are in the shared
radicalism, notably populism. However, the differences are even more
important, as the social populists are essentially egalitarian and thus leftwing.
Moreover, they will not have a nativist ideological core, even if some
individual parties at times clearly espouse such ideas (see 2.4.1).
The term right-wing populism is one of the most popular within the
ﬁeld, particularly within the German literature (e.g. Decker 2004; Eismann
2002; Pfahl-Traughber 1994). As deﬁned here, the term denotes
nonegalitarian populism, and is too imprecise to deﬁne one particular
party family. However, it can be used as an umbrella term for different
subgroups of parties, most often referred to as neoliberal populism and
national populism. As the party family of the national populists roughly
overlaps with the one termed populist radical right here, this discussion
will be limited to the neoliberal populists.
Betz has distinguished between “neoliberal” (or “libertarian”) and
“national” (or “authoritarian”) populists on the basis of the “relative
weight” of liberalism and nationalism in their party ideology, implying
that the two constitute the (ideal typical) poles of one dimension (1994:
108; also 1993a: 680). I both agree and disagree. While the main difference
between the two is the centrality of neoliberalism and nationalism
(or better: nativism), respectively, the two do not constitute the poles of
one dimension. In other words, they are at least as different as they are
similar. They share one core feature (populism), but their other core ideological
element(s) differ(s). In essence, neoliberal populism is deﬁned
by a core ideology of neoliberalism (primarily in terms of economy) and
populism. In contrast to the populist radical right, the ideological feature
of nativism is either not present or not central to the neoliberal populist
party family, while the same applies to neoliberalism for the populist radical
right.
1.7 Conclusion
Before discussing the various aspects involved in classifying individual
political parties, most notably how to categorize populist radical right
parties, we needed to reformulate the way the term populist radical right
relates to the other key terms used in the ﬁeld. The ladder of abstraction,
presented above, constitutes the basis of this discussion.
First and foremost, the populist radical right is a speciﬁc form of nationalism.
Therefore, while all populist radical rightists are nationalists, not all
Constructing a conceptual framework 31
nationalists are populist radical rightists. Most importantly, nonxenophobic
nationalists are excluded, which includes many of the historic liberal
nationalist movements of nineteenth-century Western Europe (e.g. Alter
1989; Anderson 1983). Secondly, elitist nationalists are excluded, which
includes many of the authoritarian nationalist movements of the twentieth
century, including the pre-fascists in France (e.g. Sternhell 1978;
Nolte 1965) and the intellectuals of the German Konservative Revolution
(e.g. Wiegandt 1995).
Second, the populist radical right is not merely a moderate form of
the extreme right, including fascism and National Socialism and its various
‘neo’-forms. There are fundamental differences between the two.
Most importantly, the radical right is (nominally) democratic, even if
they oppose some fundamental values of liberal democracy (see chapter
6), whereas the extreme right is in essence antidemocratic, opposing the
fundamental principle of sovereignty of the people (e.g. Mudde 2006a,
2005c).
Third, the populist radical right is a special form of the broader radical
right, which also includes nonpopulist ideas and movements. It makes
sense to see the populist radical right as the temporary dominant form of
the radical right, as a radical right reﬂection of the contemporary populist
Zeitgeist (Mudde 2004). However, while populism might be a deﬁning
feature of the radical right of the current era, this does not mean the
radical right always has to be populist. Even today nonpopulist or even
elitist radical right movements exist, though they are far less prevalent
and relevant than their populist brethren.
In this book populist radical right parties in contemporary Europe are
the prime unit of analysis. However, reference to other nativist, nationalist,
populist, and nonpopulist radical right parties will occasionally be
made as well, at times to show the differences, occasionally to point out
the similarities. But before this can be done, we must classify individual
parties according to the various categories. This will be the topic of the
next chapter.
2 From conceptualization to classiﬁcation:
which parties?
Though formal deﬁnitions or derivations based on the history of ideas
largely failed to provide a convincing concept for ‘right-wing extremism’,
research work on political parties of the right has not had serious
problems in selecting appropriate cases. (Von Beyme 1988: 3)
2.1 Introduction
Both the academic and public debate about the “extreme right” lends credence
to Von Beyme’s assertion that we know who they are, even though
we do not know exactly what they are. However, I fundamentally disagree
with the belief that “the extreme right is easily recognizable” (Anastasakis
2000: 4). Practice certainly reveals that we do not know who they are (also
Mudde 2000a): while there is consensus with regard to the inclusion of
some parties in this category, the proper classiﬁcation of many others
remains contested. Indeed, there are some special circumstances that
make the implications of this assumption especially problematic for this
particular party family.
Some scholars consider the Scandinavian Progress Parties to be the ﬁrst
of the recent wave of “right-wing populist” parties (e.g. Decker 2004; Betz
1994), whereas others exclude them from their analysis on the grounds
that they are not “extreme right” (e.g. Mudde 2000a). Similarly, while
the Italian Lega Nord (Northern League, LN) is included in most comparative
studies of the populist radical right party family, at least one
prominent scholar (Ignazi 1992; 2003) has consistently excluded it. The
confusion with respect to classifying the parties in Eastern Europe is
even more striking. According to some observers the Hungarian Fiatal
Demokrat´ak Sz¨ovets´ege–Magyar Polg´ari Sz¨overts´eg (Alliance of Young
Democrats–Hungarian Civic Movement, FIDESz-MPS) is part of this
family (e.g. Bohlen 2002; Jungwirth 2002a; Rupnik 2002), while others
reject their inclusion and label the MI ´EP the only major populist radical
right party in Hungary (e.g. Bern´ath et al. 2005; Karsai 1999).
32
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 33
There are different reasons for this lack of taxonomical accord but the
root of the problem seems to be less related to the plethora of concepts
and deﬁnitions than to the limited attention paid to the classiﬁcation of
political parties. Few authors have established a clear method for categorizing
political parties, i.e. to establish on the basis of which criteria
certain parties should be classiﬁed as populist radical right, and others
should not. This chapter will draw upon earlier work on party families
(e.g. Mudde 2000a; Mair & Mudde 1998) to develop an effective method
of classiﬁcation and discuss the various problems involved in classifying
individual parties.
2.2 How to study party ideology?
Given that we have deﬁned the populist radical right party family exclusively
on the basis of ideological features, it follows that individual parties
should be classiﬁed purely on the basis of party ideology as well. However,
this raises several important questions: who determines the ideology
of a party, on what basis, and how should the representative source be
studied?
2.2.1 The classiﬁer: parties vs. researchers
The ﬁrst question to be answered is who determines the ideology and thus
the categorization of a party, the researcher or the party itself? There is
undoubtedly much to be said for relying on the parties’ self-classiﬁcation;
after all, who knows a party better than the party itself? This approach
has the likely advantage of producing results very compatible with the
general self-understanding of the parties. Moreover, it would be costand
time-effective.
In the literature on party families, the two criteria employed most frequently
in classiﬁcation, party name and transnational federations (e.g.
Gallagher et al. 2005; Mair & Mudde 1998), assume that parties know
themselves best. Both criteria work relatively well for some party families,
but are of little use for classifying members of the populist radical right
party family.
The criterion of party name seems particularly suited for the Christian
democratic, the socialist and social democratic, the communist, and the
Green party families. In these families, most members have (part of) the
family name in their party name. However, with regard to conservative,
liberal, or ethnoregionalist parties this criterion is far less useful. How
does one classify parties with names like Soldiers of Destiny (Fianna
34 Concepts
F´ail), Alliance for a New Citizen (Aliancia nov´eho obˇcana, ANO), or
People’s Union (Volksunie, VU)?
Establishing ideological similarity through party names is possibly even
more dubious in the case of the populist radical right. What do party
names like Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang, VB), League of Polish
Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin, LPR), or National Front (NF) have in
common? At ﬁrst glance one could surmise that their common feature
is a nativist ideology based on the fact that all party names refer to the
(own) nation. But when one considers the fact that the names of virtually
all political parties in Flanders or Slovakia share this reference, it is obvious
that this is not a very robust conclusion. What then might one read
in names such as Center Democrats (CD), The Republicans (REP), or
Truth (Veritas)?
Some authors have identiﬁed the refusal of populist radical right parties
to call themselves “party” because of their alleged antidemocratic
or antiparty position as a reliable indicator of ideological similarity (e.g.
Decker 2004; Heinisch 2003; M´eny & Surel 2002b). This assertion is
problematic on two counts. First, there are several populist radical right
parties using the term “party” in their name, such as the British National
Party (BNP), the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MI ´EP) or the Greater
Romania Party (Partidul Romˆania Mare, PRM).1
Second, many nonpopulist
radical right parties, particularly on the (center-)right, do not
have the term(s) of their party family in their name; examples include the
Belgian Reform Movement (Mouvement R´eformateur), the Norwegian
Right (Høyre), and the Polish Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska).
The use of transnational federations as a criterion of classiﬁcation
assumes that political parties will align themselves cross-nationally with
ideologically similar organizations. Consequently, all members of the Liberal
International are counted as liberal parties, while all members of the
Party of European Socialists are classiﬁed as socialist. Unfortunately,
things are not that simple. The ideological diversity within transnational
party federations is quite extensive, not just in global organizations like
the Socialist International, but even within geographically more conﬁned
groups like the European People’s Party. According to both academics
and the organizations themselves, transnational parties may have a core of
political parties sharing a common ideological heritage, but “their political
identity is obfuscated by the inclusion of parties, and parts of parties,
that do not belong to the same political family” (Andeweg 1995: 64; also
1 Paradoxically, it is particularly in postcommunist Europe that populist radical right parties
use the term “party” in their name, despite the fact that it has an even more negative
connotation there because of the link with “the Party,” i.e. the former ruling communist
party.
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 35
Bardi 1994). In short, electoral and political relevance are sometimes
more important criteria for inclusion in a transnational federation than
ideology, particularly when a suitable ideological representative cannot
be found in a (large) country.
But even if membership in transnational federations could be seen as
an indication of ideological similarity, it is an even less useful criterion of
classiﬁcation than party name. Currently it is only relevant to the larger
party families, as most smaller ones have either geographically limited
transnational federations or none at all. In the case of the populist radical
right, no transnational federation exists. Even in the European Parliament
there have been few examples of a pure populist radical right faction.
Some alleged populist radical right parties are part of groups with members
of various party families, but most are nonaligned (see chapter 7).
A third method of letting the parties classify themselves is use of their
self-identiﬁcation. If different parties deﬁne themselves in a similar way,
their common self-deﬁnition could be a relatively simple and efﬁcient
way of categorizing a given party. Leaving aside the problem of circularity,
i.e. which parties you look at inﬂuences the character of the selfidentiﬁcation
(see chapter 1), a quick overview of the self-identiﬁcation of
some (alleged) populist radical right parties presents a ﬂurry of different
terms and identities.
Not surprisingly, given the limited use of the term, and the negative
connotation associated with nearly all of its components in most
countries, no political party deﬁnes itself explicitly as populist radical
right. Only a few smaller parties will deﬁne themselves as populist;
for example, the self-identiﬁcation of Espa˜na-2000 (Spain-2000) is
“populista, social y democr´atico” (populist, social and democratic) on
its website (www.espana2000.org), while the Bulgarska otechestvena
partiya-Natsionalen suyuz (Bulgarian Fatherland Party–National Union)
proclaimed that its “social policy has a populist character” (Mitev 1997:
81). In some cases populist radical right politicians have adopted the term
“populism” as a nom de guerre. J¨org Haider, then leader of the Austrian
FP ¨O, said in an interview: “Populism is gladly used as a term of abuse for
politicians who are close to the people (volksverbundene Politiker), whose
success lies in raising their voice for the citizens and catching their mood. I
have always considered this designation as a decoration” (in Worm 2005:
9). Similarly, FN-leader Jean-Marie Le Pen once claimed in an interview:
“The FN is a national-populist movement . . . A populist movement takes
care of people’s interests” (in Birenbaum & Villa 2003: 47).
Also, some parties will identify themselves as “popular”; for instance,
the Italian MS-FT describes itself in various pamphlets as the “alternative
nazionalpopulare” (national-popular alternative). Very few will deﬁne
themselves as radical, however, a still-contested term within the party
36 Concepts
family. One of the few exceptions has been Miroslav Sl´adek, who at the
founding party congress of February 1990 deﬁned the new Sdruˇzeni
pro republiku–Republik´ansk´a strana ˇCeskoslovenska (Association for the
Republic–Republican Party of Czechoslovakia, SPR-RS ˇC) as a “radical
right party.”
Even with regard to the broad categories of left and right, the selfidentiﬁcations
of individual populist radical right parties differ
signiﬁcantly. Whereas various parties identify themselves openly and
unequivocally as right-wing (e.g. Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), Popular
Orthodox Rally (LAOS), Slovak National Party (SNS), VB), most
members of the populist radical right party family reject a positioning
in terms of left and right (e.g. CD, FP ¨O, MI ´EP, PRM, Slovene
National Party (SNS)).2
Finally, some parties will deﬁne themselves as
part of different political families: for example, the Croatian Hrvatska
stranka prava (Croatian Party of Rights, HSP) considers itself to be “neoconservative”
(HSP n.d.a), the Swiss Schweizerische Volkspartei–Union
d´emocratique du centre (Swiss People’s Party, SVP) as “liberal conservative”
(in Hennecke 2003: 159), while the Russian LDPR even calls itself
the “liberal democratic” party of Russia.
In conclusion, while reliance upon self-classiﬁcation by parties is
appealing, if only for its efﬁciency, it presents many fundamental
problems for categorizing populist radical right parties. Consequently,
researchers must confront the task themselves. The question remains
how. The ﬁrst step toward a solution is determining what or who represents
the (core) ideology of a political party.
2.2.2 The data: what or who represents the (whole) political party?
Some scholars have categorized populist radical right parties (partly) on
the basis of the special characteristics of the party electorates. Two different
approaches can be distinguished within this group. The ﬁrst group of
scholars works on the basis of the famous model of cleavage politics, in
which political parties are primarily seen as representatives of speciﬁc
social groups (Lipset & Rokkan 1967). Consequently, party families are
deﬁned on the basis of certain sociodemographic characteristics of their
(core) electorates (e.g. Kitschelt & McGann 1995). The second group
does categorize party families on the basis of ideology, but deﬁnes the
ideology of individual parties (in part) on the basis of the attitudes of the
voters of these parties (e.g. Ignazi 2003).
2 For example, the FN used to consider itself as “ni gauche, ni droite” (not left, not right),
while the FP ¨O (still) sees itself as “jenseits von rechts und links” (beyond right and left).
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 37
There are several problems involved in these two approaches. First,
electorates might and do change, irrespective of whether the parties do
as well. Partly as a result of their electoral success, the electorates of
many populist radical right parties transformed signiﬁcantly in the 1990s.
However, while the “proletarization” (Betz 1994) of the party electorates
was accompanied by a (slight) change in the socioeconomic policies of
some parties, the latter change was rather superﬁcial (see chapter 5). In
other words, whereas the core electorate of populist radical right parties
changed, their core ideology did not. Second, their electorates are far
from homogeneous, which is true for different parties within the wider
family, notably the more electorally successful ones (see further 9.5).
Another approach might be the categorization of political parties on
the basis of the ideology of their members (e.g. Ivaldi 1996), but this
method is also intrinsically ﬂawed. According to John D. May’s famous
“special law of curvilinear disparity,” rank-and-ﬁle members are the most
ideologically extreme of all party supporters, compared to the voters, on
the one side, and party leaders, on the other (e.g. May 1973; also Narud
& Skare 1999; Kitschelt 1989). Furthermore, while the membership of
a party is generally more stable than the electorate, the other problems
listed above persist with this approach: party members often do not have
a clear proﬁle, and different parties will include various subgroups (the
FN provides an excellent example; see 2.3).
Focusing exclusively on party membership would also give rise to some
serious practical problems, most notably the lack of accurate data on the
membership of these groups. The few studies that are available either
have quite limited information on the members in question, or are based
on a very small section of the membership, of which it is impossible to
ascertain whether the selected portion is a representative sample (e.g.
Klandermans & Mayer 2005; Orfali 1997).
Some studies have classiﬁed political parties on the basis of the ideological
views of party leaders. A variety of different data and methods have
been employed within this approach, including ofﬁcial speeches, published
media interviews, or original interviews with party leaders (e.g.
Fennema & Pollmann 1998; Gardberg 1993). Again, this approach has
some important weaknesses. First, who speaks for the party? In other
words, who are party leaders and how does one know that the views
of the leaders are representative of the (whole) party?3
Second, these
3 A dramatic example can be found in the very original work of Annvi Gardberg (1993),
who interviewed all but one (i.e. Franz Sch¨onhuber) of the MEPs of the REP to study the
ideology of that party. However, by the time he had ﬁnished his study, all but Sch¨onhuber
had left the REP and now represented the Deutsche Liga f¨ur Volk und Heimat (German
League for Ethnic People and Homeland, DLVH).
38 Concepts
data might not provide a very accurate picture. The manner in which
an interview is (semi-)structured seriously inﬂuences the answers of the
interviewee (e.g. Schuman & Presser 1981). Also, interviews and ofﬁcial
speeches will almost certainly produce a socially acceptable picture, i.e.
what Jaap Van Donselaar (1991) has referred to as the “front-stage” of
the populist radical right.
While a political party is constituted of a collective of individuals, it is
not limited to its leaders or those who claim membership. A political party
is more than the mere collection of the individuals involved; it is an actor in
its own right. Therefore, only the party can truly represent itself, which it
does through the ofﬁcial party literature. Indeed, the (few) authors who
have analyzed the party ideologies of populist radical right parties have
acknowledged this and have generally focused on party literature as the
deﬁnitive voice of the party rather than reducing the party to its leadership,
voters or electorate (e.g. Kolovos 2003; Ivaldi & Swyngedouw 2001;
Mudde 2000a, 1995b).
However, some important limitations have to be taken into account (see
also Mudde 2000a: 20–2). First, only ofﬁcial party publications should be
included, rather than publications by individuals or organizations “close
to” the party (see also Spruyt 1995). Second, only publications from
the national party should be studied. Obviously, local and other subnational
publications can provide important insights, but they cannot be
considered representative of the national party. Third, the selected literature
should entail both externally and internally oriented literature, so
as to minimize the chance of catching only the “front-stage” of the party.
2.2.3 The method: qualitative vs. quantitative
Having established which data to use, only one question remains
unanswered: which method is best suited for the study of party ideology?
Most comparative research on party families is based on quantitative content
analysis, most notably the ECPR-sponsored party manifesto project
(on populist radical right parties, see Cole 2005; in general, see Budge
et al. 1987). Huib Pellikaan recently developed an alternative method,
based on a confrontational rather than a spatial approach (on populist
radical right parties, see De Lange 2007a; in general, see Pellikaan
et al. 2003). Leaving aside the exclusive use of election programs in these
studies, which is a data rather than a method problem, neither approach
is particularly well suited to the study of party ideology. Both approaches
primarily code policy initiatives, which often translate only marginally to
complex ideological features. Moreover, the strict coding scheme leads to
conceptual rigidity, particularly when applied over time (a major weakness
of the manifesto project).
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 39
Qualitative content analysis is a far more effective approach to studying
phenomena like the core features of a party ideology. It provides the
proximity to the data and ﬂexibility in operationalization necessary for
studying highly complex concepts such as nativism, authoritarianism,
and populism. Moreover, the “causal chain approach” can separate core
from secondary ideological features on a more accurate and logical basis
than simplistic quantiﬁcation (Mudde 2000a: 23–4). While qualitative
content analysis of a broad range of party literature is admittedly laborintensive,
various studies have shown that it can create analyses that are
useful in the comparative study of political parties (e.g. De Raad 2005;
Kolovos 2005, 2003; Mudde 2000a; Jungerstam 1995).
2.2.4 The problems: factions, strategies, changes
While qualitative content analysis of party literature is the best method for
analyzing the ideology of an individual political party, there are nonetheless
important problems with this approach to party classiﬁcation that
must be addressed. Political parties are aggregates of diverse yet intersecting
factions (ideology- or interest-based) that are in dynamic relation
to one another and to the larger political scene. Party literature may variously
reﬂect or obscure the competing ideologies within a party as it
addresses the party faithful or reaches beyond them to attract a broader
audience. Consequently, we cannot always simply equate party with ideology
nor ideology with party literature. This difﬁculty is not limited to
analysis of the populist radical right but extends to the broader study of
party politics. Unfortunately, this study can do little more than signal the
problems and provide some provisional solutions.
The ﬁrst problem with classifying political parties on the basis of their
ideology is the internal heterogeneity of some political parties. Actually,
this is the Achilles heel of most comparative research on political parties,
which operates under the often implicit assumption that political parties
are unitary actors. Only through this assumption can one speak of the
party and classify it on the basis of the party ideology. However, as Maurice
Duverger already noted over ﬁfty years ago, “[a] party is not a community,
but a collection of communities” (1954: 17). And as a general rule, one
could say that the bigger the party, the larger the importance and number
of these communities (better known as factions).4
The problem of heterogeneity might pose fewer difﬁculties for classifying
the party on the basis of its core ideology, however. First of all, a
4 In the late 1960s, Lipset and Rokkan noted: “Most of the parties aspiring to majority
positions in the West are conglomerates of groups differing on wide ranges of issues, but
still united in their greater hostility to their competitors in the other camps” (1990: 93–4).
40 Concepts
political party is to some extent an amalgam rather than a mere sum of
its internal factions. Secondly, the various factions may disagree on some
issues, but will probably concur on (most) core ideological features. For
example, the different factions within the FN all share a core populist
radical right ideology, but each complements it with some additional,
speciﬁc features (see 2.3).
Political parties that include both factions that share the populist radical
right core ideology and factions that do not will still pose a challenge
for deﬁnitive classiﬁcation. My preferred solution is to exclude political
parties that have signiﬁcant ideological wings that are not populist radical
right.5
In other words, only parties with a populist radical right core
ideology and without any signiﬁcant alternative faction(s) are classiﬁed
as members of the populist radical right party family.
The strategic employment of rhetoric by political parties can also
present a challenge to accurate classiﬁcation on the basis of ideology.
Parties may appear schizophrenic if their rhetoric diverges from their ideology
and the researcher is left with the dilemma of which image to trust.
This problem will most often present itself as different ideological discourses
in the internally and externally oriented literature. Particularly
during election campaigns, political parties that do not have a populist
radical right core ideology can adopt the rhetoric of the populist radical
right in an attempt to win voters (e.g. Bale 2003). However, if this situation
continues for a long time, it becomes increasingly difﬁcult to decide
what constitutes ideology, and what strategy. The causal chain approach
(Mudde 2000a) can provide some answers by tracking the hierarchy of
ideological features, but ambiguities will continue to exist.
The last two problems of categorizing political parties have been
described vividly for the situation in Eastern Europe by Michael
Minkenberg: “Studying the radical right in transformation countries in
Central and Eastern Europe not only resembles shooting at a moving
target but also shooting with clouded vision” (2002b: 361). While these
problems might be more pronounced in Eastern Europe, they are certainly
not limited to that part of the continent. Even with regard to various
established political parties in Western Europe the problems of party
change and limited information about their core ideological features create
substantial hurdles in their categorization.
While parties are generally disinclined to change their ideological core,
given the large potential costs involved (Downs 1957), it does happen.
The development of the British Labour Party under Tony Blair (e.g.
5 I am indebted to Michael Minkenberg, who suggested this solution in a discussion at a
conference in Geneva in 2004.
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 41
Ludlam 2000) or of the Flemish VU in the 1970s (e.g. De Winter 1998)
is clear evidence that party ideology is not inalterable. Unfortunately, it is
not always easy to pinpoint exactly when a party is in which party family.
The process of change (sometimes back and forth) can go on for decades,
often leading to sustained periods of ideological hybridization.
The party political situation has been even more volatile in Eastern
Europe, particularly during the transition phase in the ﬁrst decade of
postcommunism. As many authors have noted, most postcommunist parties
have so far been mere vehicles of small groups of elites, which sported
diffuse and highly similar ideologies and held very weak links with social
groups in society (e.g. Lewis 2000; Kopeck´y 1995). Ideological change
bore little cost for a party that mainly served the political survival of the
party leader(s). In this climate, various parties went through a populist
radical right stage, particularly in the ﬁrst years of postcommunism when
nationalism seemed to be “the sine qua non for political success” in certain
parts of Eastern Europe (Fischer-Galati 1993: 12).
Now that we have established the best method to ascertain the core
ideology of a party family, and discussed the main problems involved in
classifying (some) political parties on this basis, it is time to determine
which political parties belong to the populist radical right party family,
and which do not. However, as the list of political parties to be classiﬁed is
almost limitless, attention will be paid, ﬁrst and foremost, to the so-called
“usual suspects”; i.e. those parties that most authors classify under the
headings of “extreme right,” “radical right,” “right-wing populism,” etc.
Obviously, all this is done within the severe limitations faced by any one
researcher who studies such a broad range of parties (e.g. data, language,
time).
2.3 Populist radical right parties
The most famous populist radical right party, the French Front national,
considered the prototype by various scholars, was founded in 1972 (e.g.
Davies 1999; Simmons 1996). Initially, the FN was not much more than
a confederation of extreme and radical right groupuscules under the leadership
of veteran radical right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. While different
and occasionally opposing factions continue to exist within the party,
for example, the pagan nouvelle droite (new right) faction and the orthodox
Catholic Chr´etient´e-Solidarit´e (Christian Solidarity) faction, they all
share a populist radical right core ideology (e.g. DeClair 1999). The split
in 1999 did not change this; rather, it added another populist radical right
party to the French political system, the Mouvement national r´epublicain
42 Concepts
(National Republican Movement, MNR) of Bruno M´egret (e.g. Bastow
2000).
Almost equally famous is the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei ¨Osterreichs
(FP ¨O) and its former leader J¨org Haider. From its beginning in 1956, the
party has been divided between a “national” and a “liberal” faction (e.g.
Luther 1991; Riedlsperger 1998). The populist radical right takeover of
the party is commonly considered to have taken place in 1986, when
Haider was elected Bundesobmann (Federal Chairman) with the help
of the national wing. While the FP ¨O continued to include a nonpopulist
radical right faction with prominent members like Heide Schmidt, at least
until the split of the Liberales Forum (Liberal Forum) in 1993, Haider’s
grip on the party was strong and within a few years he had transformed
“his” FP ¨O into a full-ﬂedged populist radical right party (e.g. Luther
2003). In 2005 Haider and his most loyal supporters, including his sister
(then FP ¨O-leader) and the federal FP ¨O-ministers and state secretaries,
founded a new political party, the B¨undnis Zukunft ¨Osterreichs (Alliance
for Austria’s Future, BZ ¨O). The differences between the BZ ¨O and FP ¨O
are largely personal and strategic rather than ideological, and both parties
are essentially populist radical right.
Despite its relatively poor electoral results, the German Die Republikaner
(REP) is among the most well-known populist radical right parties
in contemporary Europe. It originated as a national conservative
split-off from the Bavarian Christlich Soziale Union (Christian Social
Union, CSU) in 1983. After a short power struggle, Franz Sch¨onhuber
took the party in a populist radical right direction, inspired by the
ﬁrst electoral successes of the French FN (e.g. Mudde 2000a; Jaschke
1994). While the REP went through various ideological and leadership
struggles, it remained loyal to its populist radical right core ideology.
However, with the exception of the 1989 European election, the
party has never been able to top the 5 percent hurdle in nationwide
elections.
Belgium is home to two populist radical right parties, both strongly
inﬂuenced by the French FN. The Front national (Belge) (National Front
(Belgian), FNb) is the populist radical right in the French-speaking part
of the country, contesting elections in Brussels and Wallonia (e.g. Coff´e
2005; Alaluf 1998). Founded in 1985, it copied the name and logo from
its successful French brother. This notwithstanding, the FNb is in many
ways the opposite of the FN: it has no party organization to speak of
and its leader, Daniel F´eret, lacks the charisma of Le Pen. To the degree
that the party has a developed ideology, it is populist radical right, with a
nativism driven far more by xenophobia than Belgian state nationalism.
Over the years the FNb has seen many splits, including the Front nouveau
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 43
de Belgique (New Front of Belgium, FNB), another populist radical right
party in Brussels and Wallonia.
In the Dutch-speaking part of Flanders, the Vlaams Belang (VB) is in
many ways the antithesis of the FNb. It originated in 1978 as Vlaams Blok,
an electoral cartel of two radical splits of the nationalist VU, and continues
its radical push for Flemish independence against the Belgian state. After
its beginning as an old-style radical right party, with some elitist elements,
the VB developed into a well-organized populist radical right party in
the 1980s, under the impetus of young leaders like Gerolf Annemans,
Filip Dewinter and Frank Vanhecke (e.g. Mudde 2000a; Spruyt 1995).
Convicted for inciting racial hatred in 2004, the party quickly changed
its name, but so far not its ideology (e.g. Erk 2005).
In Denmark the populist radical right Dansk Folkeparti (DFP) is in
many ways a special party. First of all, it is one of the few splits that have
been able to fully overshadow its mother party. Second, the DFP was
founded and is still led by a woman, Pia Kjærsgaard (see also chapter
4). Third, because of the Danish tradition of minority government, the
DFP is one of the few populist radical right parties that are not formally
part of the government, but that does ofﬁcially weigh heavily on it. From
the outset the party has been unequivocally populist radical right, despite
keeping its distance from similar parties like the FN and VB (e.g. Rydgren
2004b; Hasselbach 2002; Widfeldt 2000).
While the usual suspects in Western Europe will have been well known
to most readers, the situation in Eastern Europe might be less familiar.
Given the few comparative sources on the populist radical right in
postcommunist Europe (e.g. Mudde 2005a, 2000b; Minkenberg 2002b;
Ramet 1999a), it seems a bit presumptuous to speak of “usual suspects”
in this respect. This notwithstanding, all parties discussed below are identiﬁed
by most authors and experts in the ﬁeld as being unequivocally part
of what is usually called the radical or extreme right.
The Croatian Hrvatska stranka prava (HSP) was founded in 1990 by
former dissident Dobroslav Paraga and a group of associates living inand
outside of Croatia (e.g. Irvine 1997; Zakoˇsek 1994). It presented
itself as the direct continuation of the original HSP of Ante Starˇceviˇc,
founded in 1861. Starˇceviˇc’s ideal of an independent Great Croatian state
(including Bosnia-Herzegovina) had also inspired Ante Paveliˇc, the leader
of the infamous Ustaˇsa state (the fascist Croat puppet state during the
Second World War). Initially, the “new” HSP moved between the populist
radical right and the extreme right, in part because of the activities of
its paramilitary arm, the Hrvatske obrambene snage (Croatian Defence
Force, HOS). Under pressure from the Tu ¯dman regime in 1992, the HSP
was forced to moderate its actions and ideology and split: the pro-Tu ¯dman
44 Concepts
Table 2.1 Main populist radical right parties in contemporary Europe
Country – Party High Score (Year)a
Austria – Freiheitliche Partei ¨Osterreichs (FP ¨O) 26.9 (1999)
Belgium – Front national (Belge) (FNb)
– Vlaams Belang (VB)
6.9 (1995)
16.8 (2003)
Croatia – Hrvatska stranka prava (HSP) 6.8 (1992)
Denmark – Dansk Folkeparti (DFP) 13.2 (2005)
France – Front national (FN) 14.9 (1997)
Germany – Die Republikaner (REP 2.1 (1990)b
Hungary – Magyar Igazs´ag ´es ´Elet P´artja (MI ´EP) 5.5 (1998)
Poland – Liga Polskich Rodzin (LPR) 8.0 (2005)
Romania – Partidul Romˆania Mare (PRM) 19.5 (2000)
Russia – Liberal’no-demokraticheskoi partii Rossii (LDPR) 22.9 (1993)
Slovakia – Slovensk´a n´arodn´a strana (SNS) 11.7 (2006)
Notes: a These are the national results in elections for (the lower house of) the parliament.
In the case of the two Belgian parties this obscures their real strength, as they only contest
national elections in certain parts of the country.
b The REP gained 7.1% in the (nationwide) European election of 1989.
faction of Ante Djapic got the ofﬁcial right to the party name, while the
faction of the original leader founded the HSP-1861. In the end, both
parties moderated their discourse somewhat, but still remained ﬁrmly
within the populist radical right. But while the HSP was able to continue
its parliamentary presence, although mainly through electoral coalitions
with nonpopulist radical right parties, the HSP-1861 disappeared into
political oblivion.
The Hungarian Magyar Igazs´ag ´es ´Elet P´artja (MI ´EP) was founded
by Istv´an Csurka, a well-known populist playwright under communism
and one of the founders and vice-presidents of the Magyar Demokrata
F´orum (Hungarian Democratic Forum, MDF), the main opposition
party at the end of the communist era and the clear winner of the ﬁrst
election in postcommunist Hungary (e.g. Bern´ath et al. 2005; Szˆocs
1998). After years of incidents, including various anti-Semitic statements
and a challenge to the moderate MDF leadership, Csurka and
several of his followers were expelled in 1993 and founded the MI ´EP.
The new party is unequivocally populist radical right, even if it does not
have a particularly modern image and seems stuck in classic Hungarian
radical right issues such as anti-Semitism and irredentism (Greater
Hungary).
For a long time, ambitious Polish radical right politicians operated
mainly within broader nationalist and right-wing electoral coalitions, such
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 45
as the Akcja Wyborcza Solidarnoˇsˇc (Solidarity Electoral Action, AWS).
Shortly before the 2001 parliamentary election, some AWS backbenchers
founded the Liga Polskich Rodzin (LPR), which gained a surprising 8
percent of the votes (e.g. Kostrze˛bski 2005; Pankowski & Kornak 2005).
Its initial election results were to a large extent the result of strong support
from Father Tadeusz Rydzyk and his inﬂuential Catholic nationalist
Radio Maryja (Maria) media empire. However, in recent years the LPR, a
populist radical right party that combines Polish nativism with orthodox
Catholicism, has been able to consolidate its electoral success, despite
only lukewarm support by Rydzyk. In 2006, after several months of supporting
the minority government of the national conservative Prawo i
Sprawiedliwoˇsˇc (Law and Justice Party, PiS), the LPR joined a coalition
government with PiS and the populist Samoobrona Rzeczypospolitej Polski
(Self-Defense of the Polish Republic), despite internal divisions.
One of the oldest and most successful populist radical right parties in
Eastern Europe is the Partidul Romˆania Mare (PRM), founded in 1991
as the political arm of the Romˆania Mare magazine (e.g. Andreescu 2005;
Shaﬁr 2001, 2000). From the beginning the party has been led by the
erratic and ﬂamboyant Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who gained a shocking 30
percent of the votes in the second round of the 2000 presidential elections.
The PRM is one of the more extreme populist radical right parties, having
been a key player in the coup d’´etat of some radical miners in 1999. Its
discourse regularly crosses into the realm of antidemocracy and racism,
even if the core ideology remains within (nominally) democratic boundaries.
Authoritarianism has become increasingly central in the election
campaigns of the PRM and its leader, “Vadim the Righteous.”6
Russia is home to undoubtedly the most eclectic and erratic of all
populist radical right parties, the ill-named Liberal Democratic Party of
Russia (LDPR).7
This is largely because of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the
democratically elected dictator of the party, who has been described in
such unﬂattering terms as “political clown” (Wilkiewicz 2003: 173) and
“buffoon” (Service 1998: 180). Notwithstanding the erratic behavior and
bizarre statements of party leader Zhirinovsky,8
most analysts agree that
the core ideology of the LDPR has remained relatively stable and populist
6 In 2005 Tudor brieﬂy stepped back as party leader and the party added the term “popular”
to its name, becoming the Partidul Popular Romˆania Mare (Greater Romania Popular
Party), in a feeble attempt to gain membership of the European People’s Party (EPP).
7 The LDPR was founded as the Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union in 1989
and changed its name after the demise of the Soviet Union.
8 One author has described Zhirinovsky as “part fascist, part communist, part liberal, part
imperialist, part fantasist” (e.g. Service 1998: 196). Zhirinovsky himself has claimed,
among many other things: “I shall not be linked to an ideological trend and I shall remain
faithful to my voters” (Williams & Hanson 1999: 276).
46 Concepts
radical right (e.g. Shenﬁeld 2001; Service 1998; Umland 1997b). While
the boundaries of its preferred state have changed over time, Russian
nativism, authoritarianism and populism have always been core features
of the party ideology.
Slovakia is one of the few countries where the populist radical right
has not only made it into government, but has even come out of government
with additional votes. The Slovensk´a n´arodn´a strana (Slovak
National Party, SNS) was founded in postcommunist Czechoslovakia in
April 1990. From the outset the party claimed to be the successor to
the historical SNS (1871–1938), a nationalist party that later formed a
coalition with the pro-fascist Hlinkova Slovensk´a ludov´a strana (Hlinka’s
Slovak People’s Party), the ruling party in the clerico-fascist Slovak State
of the Second World War (e.g. Fried 1997; Kirschbaum 1996; Strahn
& Daniel 1994). The party’s historical ties were ambiguous, however, as
internal divisions led it to claim the tradition of other pre-communist parties
as well (i.e. the historical SNS and the national-conservative Agrarian
Party).
After Slovakia achieved national independence, internal problems
increasingly divided the party, culminating in a split in 1993. When
the conservatives left and formed the Demokratick´a ´unia (Democratic
Union), the SNS became a full-ﬂedged populist radical right party. Under
new leader J´an Slota it became a junior party in the third Mˇeciar coalition
(1994–98), almost doubling its electoral support along the way. However,
relegated to the opposition benches because of the losses of its coalition
partners, the SNS soon got entangled in a vicious leadership struggle
between chairman J´an Slota and vice-chairwoman Anna Mal´ıkov´a. The
party’s internal strife led to splits and mergers, but most notably perhaps,
to loss of parliamentary representation in 2002. However, after long
negotiations a truce was signed between the two leaders and in the 2006
parliamentary elections the SNS reentered parliament with a stunning
11.7 percent of the vote.
2.4 Nonpopulist radical right parties
Having identiﬁed the most important populist radical right parties among
the usual suspects, it is now time to turn our attention to those parties
that are not included in the populist radical right party family. The discussion
is limited mostly to political parties that are mentioned regularly
in relation to the “extreme right” (and related terms), but some unsuspected
parties will be discussed as well, mostly to clarify the boundaries
between party families. As far as possible, the aim is not only to argue
why these parties are not populist radical right, but also to determine their
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 47
party family. In most cases the party belongs to one of the families that
border and partly overlap the populist radical right, as already discussed
at a more general level in the previous chapter.
2.4.1 Nonradical right populists
Most usual suspects that are excluded from the populist radical right
party family belong to the larger and more diffuse category of populist
parties. Two subgroups are most relevant in this respect: social populists
and neoliberal populists. The latter category is most closely related to the
populist radical right; together they form the loose category of right-wing
populism. The core ideology of neoliberal populism, as deﬁned in the
previous chapter, is the combination of primarily economic liberalism
and populism.
A good if somewhat extreme example of a neoliberal populist party is
the Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet (FRP), whose status has always been
debated within the ﬁeld. Founded in 1973 as the Anders Lange Parti til
sterk nedsettelse av skatter, avgifter og offentlige inngrep (Anders Lange
Party for a Strong Reduction of Taxes, Duties and Public Intervention),
the party changed its name a few years after the death of its founder.
Under the leadership of Carl Ivar Hagen, the FRP has been erratic in its
electoral results as well as its ideological positions. The party began as
an antitax party, morphed into a neoliberal party in the 1980s, and then
embraced an opportunistic populism in the 1990s (e.g. Lorenz 2003).9
Notwithstanding the protean nature of the FRP, it is quite clear that
nativism does not constitute part of its core ideology.10
Despite its occasional
highly xenophobic campaigns, or its more recent defense of welfare
chauvinism, the FRP is best classiﬁed as a neoliberal populist party.
Among the parties most often confused with the populist radical
right, the following parties are most accurately categorized as neoliberal
populist: the Bulgarian Balgarski biznes blok (Bulgarian Business
Bloc, BBB), the Danish Fremskridtspartiet (Progress Party, FPd), the
Dutch Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF), the German Schill-Partei and Partei
Rechtsstaatlicher Offensive (Constitutional Offensive Party, PRO), the
Italian Forza Italia (Go Italy, FI), the Polish Unia Polityki Realnej (Union
9 Various authors have argued that opportunism is a key feature of (neoliberal) populist
parties (e.g. Decker 2003; Lorenz 2003; Pissowotzki 2003; M´eny & Surel 2002a). As
we deﬁne party families exclusively on the basis of ideology, strategic features (however
important for certain parties) cannot be considered in the classiﬁcation.
10 In fact, at various times in the existence of the FRP there have been struggles between
nativists and the party leadership, notably Hagen, which mostly led to the nativists either
leaving the party voluntarily or being expelled forcefully (e.g. Decker 2004: 106–7).
48 Concepts
for Real Politics, UPR), the Swedish Ny Demokrati (New Democracy,
ND), and the Swiss Schweizer Autopartei/Parti Suisse des automobilistes
(Swiss Car Party, AP).11
Though most of these parties have been linked to
xenophobic campaigns, nativism is not central to their ideology.12
Moreover,
their xenophobic rhetoric is primarily informed by their liberalism.13
Finally, some parties are best classiﬁed as social populists. In the core,
social populism combines socialism and populism, and is thus a form
of left-wing populism rather than right-wing. One of the best-known
examples of a social populist party is the Greek Panellinio Sosialistiko
Kinima (Panhellenic Socialist Movement, PASOK), at least under the
leadership of Andreas Papandreou (e.g. Sotiropoulos 1996; Spourdalakis
1988). Among the more relevant contemporary representatives of this
party group we ﬁnd the Dutch Socialistische Partij (Socialist Party, SP),
the German Die Linke. PDS (The Left.PDS), and the Scottish Socialist
Party (SSP) (e.g. March & Mudde 2005).14
A party that seems better classiﬁed as social populist than populist radical
right is the Polish Samoobrona Rzeczypospolitej Polski. Founded in
1992, Samoobrona exists as both a political party and a (farmers’) trade
union annex social movement (e.g. Krok-Paszkowska 2003; Wilkiewicz
2003). Its diffuse ideological party program and complex organizational
structure, as well as differences in the use of terminology between East
and West, make any consensus on labeling the party impossible. The one
thing most experts agree upon is that Samoobrona is a populist party;
whether it is left- or right-wing is a matter of great dispute, however
(Schuster 2005). More detailed and structured analysis of the party ideology
is needed, but for the moment Samoobrona is best excluded from
the populist radical right party family. Similarly, the Romanian Partidul
11 It would be going too far to argue all these cases individually. For detailed analyses
of the (core) ideologies of these parties, see Mitev (1997) on the BBB Gooskens
(1994) on the FPd; Mudde (2007) and Lucardie & Voerman (2002) on the LPF;
Decker (2003) and Hartleb (2004) on Schill and the PRO; Grassi & Rensmann
(2005) and Pissowotzki (2003) on the FI; Pankowski & Kornak (2005) on the UPR;
Taggart (1996) and Westlind (1996) on the ND; and Altermatt & Furrer (1994) on
the AP.
12 In this respect, Decker’s (2004: 219–20) distinction between “opponents to” and “sceptics
of” multicultural society can be useful, with the populist radical right belonging to the
ﬁrst category and the neoliberal populists to the second.
13 Good examples are the Islamophobic remarks of Pim Fortuyn and Silvio Berlusconi,
who have both criticized Islam (interpreted as Islamic fundamentalism) as being fundamentally
opposed to liberal democracy; see Akkerman (2005) and Pissowotzki (2003),
respectively.
14 Somewhat surprisingly, the SP has been one of the ﬁrst Dutch parties to militate against
immigration, but on the basis of socialist rather than nativist grounds, i.e. to protect the
Dutch workers against capitalist oppression. Similarly, the SSP has supported Scottish
independence because the party believes this increases the chances for a socialist Scotland
(which remains just a ﬁrst step towards global socialism).
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 49
Socialist al Muncii (Socialist Labor Party, PSM) is better labeled social
populist, despite its occasional nativist discourse (e.g. Shaﬁr 2000).
2.4.2 Nonpopulist right
This study draws a clear line between populist radical right parties
and various forms of the extreme right, including neofascism and neoNazism.
Most importantly, extreme right parties are undemocratic, and
often elitist, whereas populist radical right parties are (nominally) democratic
and populist. This means the exclusion of many of the parties
that Ignazi has called “traditional” (2003) or “old” (1992) extreme right,
such as the Austrian Nationaldemokratische Partei (National Democratic
Party, NDP), the German NPD, or the Greek Ethniki Politiki Enosis
(National Political Union, EPEN) – but not others, which do meet the
deﬁnition of populist radical right, such as the British National Party
(BNP) and the Dutch Centrumpartij ’86 (CP’86).15
In Eastern Europe various smaller organizations are more accurately
deﬁned as extreme right. This includes political parties like the Czech
Prav´a Alternativa (Right Alternative), the Polish Narodowe Odrodzenie
Polski (National Rebirth of Poland, NOP), the Romanian Miscarea
pentru Romˆania (Movement for Romania), the Russian Russkoe natsionalnoe
edinstvo (Russian National Unity, RNE) and Natsionalbolshevistskaya
partiya (National Bolshevik Party, NBP), and the Ukrainian
Ukrainska natsionalna assembleya–Ukrainska natsionalna samooborona
(Ukrainian National Assembly–Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense, UNA-
UNSO).16
There are also some parties that are radical right but not populist.
While this combination used to be quite common, the experience of
semi-permanent opposition and the current populist Zeitgeist (Mudde
2004) have brought most radical right parties to adopt populism. Good
examples of such transformations are the Belgian VB and the French FN,
which both originated as nonpopulist radical right parties in the 1970s.
One of the few relevant contemporary examples of a radical right party
that is not populist is the Turkish Milliyet¸ci Hareket Partisi (Nationalist
Action Party, MHP). Founded in 1965 as the Cumhuriyet¸ci K¨oyl¨u
15 Again, these decisions are made on the basis of various primary and secondary sources
and cannot be discussed here in detail. As an indication, the following literature can be
mentioned: Mudde (1995b) on the NDP, Flemming (2004) and Mudde (1995b) on
the NPD, Kolovos (2003) on EPEN, Eatwell (2000) on the BNP, and Mudde (2000a)
on the CP’86.
16 All extreme right political parties are marginal in both electoral and political terms.
On the post-Soviet parties, see, among others, Umland (2005), Shenﬁeld (2001) and
Solchanyk (1999); on the Central and East European parties, see the various country
chapters in Mudde (2005a) and Ramet (1999a).
50 Concepts
Millet Partisi (Republican Peasant National Party), it changed its name
in 1969 and remained relatively marginal until its surprise achievement of
18 percent in the 1999 parliamentary election and the consequent stint
in government (e.g. Yavuz 2002; Aras & Bacik 2000). While the core
ideology of the MHP includes both authoritarianism and nativism, the
party does not simply follow the vox populi. In fact, it has strong elitist
and statist beliefs: “The MHP always sides with the state when there is a
tension between state and society” (Yavuz 2002: 211).
2.4.3 Conservatives
Conservatism has many permutations, some closer to the populist radical
right than others. The neoconservatism that developed in Britain and
the US in the 1980s in particular has been linked to the populist radical
right (e.g. Ignazi 1992). Indeed, Kitschelt and McGann’s famous “winning
formula” (1995) better deﬁnes neoconservatism than the (populist)
radical right. Crucially, while the two share authoritarianism and a concern
for the national interest, nativism and populism are not core features
of conservatism, while neoliberal economics is not a core feature of the
populist radical right.
The obvious differences between the two political ideologies notwithstanding,
much confusion remains with regard to various individual parties.
For example, in an article on “the new populism,” Ian Hall and Magali
Perrault (2000) collapse some usual populist radical right suspects,
like the Austrian FP ¨O and the Slovak SNS, together with parties that
are normally labeled conservative (liberal), such as the Czech Obˇcansk´a
demokratick´a strana (Civic Democratic Party, ODS) and the Hungarian
FIDESZ-MPS. This is not completely without reason, as several authors
have pointed out nativist and populist statements by leading members of
these latter parties (e.g. Segert 2005a; Hanley 2004; Kiss 2002). Still,
while populist radical right sentiments at times play an important role
in electoral campaigns of some conservative (liberal) parties, they do not
constitute their core ideology. Consequently, parties like the British Conservative
Party, the Czech ODS, and the Dutch Volkspartij voor Vrijheid
en Democratie (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, VVD) are
excluded from the populist radical right party family.
2.4.4 Ethnoregionalists
As we have seen in the previous chapter, the ethnoregionalist party family
is quite diffuse in terms of the terminology used to designate criteria
for membership and the resulting variety of parties it includes. While
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 51
exclusion of some populist radical right parties from this family is pretty
straightforward, in other cases the differences are far less obvious and
signiﬁcant. The key distinction within this diffuse party family is between
the regionalists and the nationalists (see 1.6.2).
Regionalists can be clearly distinguished from nationalists (including
the populist radical right) given the concern of the former group with
autonomy for a region within a larger state structure. Consequently, various
political parties can be excluded from the populist radical right party
family: notably those parties that primarily call for regional autonomy
to increase the power of an ethnic minority, such as the Dutch Frysk
nasjonale partij (Frisian National Party), the Polish Ruch Autonomii
Slaska (Movement for Silesian Autonomy), the Slovak Magyar Koal´ıci´o
P´artja-Strana madarskej koal´ıcie (Party of Hungarian Coalition), and the
Spanish Converg`encia u Uni´o (Convergence and Union).
The second distinction between “nationalists” and the populist radical
right is more difﬁcult. Do parties like the pan-Irish Sinn F´ein (We Ourselves,
SF) and the Spanish Herri Batasuna (People Unity, HB) belong
in a different party family than, say, the Italian LN and the Belgian VB?
The former parties would deﬁnitely claim so, even though substantial
sympathy exists for them within the latter parties. Most authors seem to
share the opinion that the parties should not be grouped together, as they
do not even explicitly address their omission of parties like the SF and
HB from the populist radical right.
The separation of these parties from the populist radical right seems
mainly based on the socioeconomic left–right distinction: the “nationalist”
parties are believed to be on the left, favoring strong state intervention
(including nationalizations and elaborate welfare policies), whereas the
populist radical right are said to be on the right, defending a dominant
market model (i.e. neoliberalism). This distinction is highly overstated:
not all nationalist parties are socioeconomically on the left, while many
populist radical right parties are not really on the right. Moreover, it separates
nationalist parties on the basis of a secondary aspect of their party
ideology (see chapter 5).
Obviously, not all nationalists are populist radical rightists. Some
nationalist parties are not fundamentally populist, such as the Belgian
Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (New-Flemish Alliance) or the Albanian
monarchist Partia L¨evizja e Legalitetit (Movement of Legality Party). In
fact, some self-proclaimed nationalist parties are not even truly nationalist.
For example, the Scottish National Party (SNP) is better described
as separatist than as nationalist. In the words of the party chronicler,
“[s]elf-government/independence for Scotland has always been its fundamental
aim not self-government/independence for Scots” (Lynch 2002:
52 Concepts
Table 2.2 Some borderline parties that are not populist radical right
Core populist radical right ideological features*
Party name nationalism xenophobia authoritarianism populism
AP + +
FRP (−) +
LPF (+) (−) +
MHP + + + (−)
NPD + + + (−)
N-VA + (+)
Samoobrona + +
Schill/PRO (+) + +
SF + + +
VVD +
Note: ∗+ = core, (+) = present, not core, (−) = opposite present, but not core
For the sake of clarity, the separate features of nationalism and xenophobia, rather than the
integrated feature of nativism, are included here (although they are not identical).
4).17
This has also become true for Plaid Cymru (The Party of Wales),
the main political representative of Welsh nationalism (e.g. Christiansen
1998; McAllister 1998).
Most problematic is the categorization of the SF, the political arm of
the terrorist Irish Republican Army (IRA), which contests elections both
in the Republic of Ireland and in (British) Northern Ireland (e.g. Maillot
2004; Feeney 2002). SF has traditionally been strongly nationalist,
populist, and authoritarian – the latter both ideologically, in terms of law
and order, and practically, in support for IRA actions and structure.18
The party does not seem to be xenophobic, although nativist strands are
present within the organization (mostly against English and Protestants).
Paradoxically, SF presents an extremely open position regarding immigrants,
notably in its highly pro-multicultural policy paper Many Voices
One Country: Cherishing All the Children of the Nation Equally. Towards an
Anti-Racist Ireland (SF 2001). As this makes the SF nationalist but not
nativist, the party will not be included in the category of the populist
radical right, despite its satisfaction of many other criteria.
17 Consequently, the SNP openly campaigns for an independent yet multicultural Scotland.
For example, party leader John Swinney said in his 2003 address to the National Council:
“I take pride in the SNP’s belief in a multicultural, inclusive Scotland.”
18 There are also striking parallels with the populist radical right in the ﬁerce antidrug
campaigns of the SF (see Maillot 2004: 90–4).
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 53
2.5 Residual cases
Having classiﬁed the so-called usual suspects, largely either as populist
radical right or as neoliberal populist, two important categories of residual
parties remain to be discussed: unusual suspects and borderline cases.
The former are political parties not normally associated with the populist
radical right, or that do not feature commonly with usual suspects like
the FN and FP ¨O in the literature, but that do hold a populist radical right
core ideology. In the ﬁrst subsection we will identify a few key cases, which
actually belong(ed) to the most relevant populist radical right parties in
Europe.
Borderline cases are political parties that defy unequivocal classiﬁcation
in terms of the populist radical right. This is not so much the result
of ﬂaws in the method of classiﬁcation chosen, but rather reﬂects the
various problems involved in studying political parties (see 2.2.4). Some
parties are coalitions of highly diverse ideological factions, which ﬁght
over party domination with different levels of success over time. In other
parties, signiﬁcant discrepancies exist between the externally oriented
party discourse, and sometimes even implemented policies, and the core
ideology of the internally oriented literature. Finally, some parties have
been developing in a populist radical right direction over the past decade
or so, but cannot yet be considered full-ﬂedged populist radical right
parties.
2.5.1 Unusual suspects
While many authors have described Eastern Europe as a hotbed of nationalism
in the early postcommunist years (e.g. Bogdanor 1995; FischerGalati
1993), very few have linked it explicitly to the radical right (e.g.
Tismaneanu 1998). Consequently, while state politics from the Baltics
to the Balkans were described as authoritarian, nativist and populist, the
qualiﬁcation “radical right” was normally limited to the more marginal
usual suspects (e.g. Ramet 1999a). Unfortunately, few empirical studies
of party ideologies at that time are available, so it is hard to classify
the leading parties of that period unequivocally. This notwithstanding,
it does not seem far-fetched to argue that at least some Eastern European
parties, which are nonradical now, started out as populist radical
right.
This was probably most pronounced in the Baltic states, speciﬁcally in
Estonia and Latvia. Both newly independent states started their process
of state- and nation-building confronted with a huge Russian-speaking
54 Concepts
population within their borders and a hostile Russian state just beyond
them (see further 6.2.2). Particularly in the early 1990s this led to polarization
between a self-conscious, nativist Estonian/Latvian parties block,
on the one hand, and a marginalized and nostalgic Russophone parties
block, on the other. The nativist idea of a “Latvian Latvia,” combined
with “anticolonization” rhetoric, was common to virtually all Latvian
parties, most notably the Latvijas Nacion¯al¯as neatkar¯ıbas kut¯ıbas (Latvian
National Independence Movement, LNNK) and the T¯evzeme un
Br¯ıv¯ıbai (Fatherland and Freedom, TB), which later merged (see Kalnina
1998). However, from the mid 1990s onward nativism became less pronounced
and in both countries the main party discourses and policies
slowly but steadily accepted a multicultural state (e.g. Kelley 2004).
A similar development could be noted in Yugoslavia and its main components,
Serbia and Croatia. One of the ﬁrst openly nativist parties in
Serbia was the Srpski pokret obnove (Serbian Renewal Movement, SPO)
of the later Foreign Minister Vuk Draˇskoviˇc. The SPO was founded in
1990 as a populist radical right party struggling for a Serbian Greater
Serbia. Draˇskoviˇc was a ﬁerce critic of Slobodan Miloˇseviˇc, whom he
accused of being too soft on anti-Serbian forces (i.e. Albanian, Croatian
and Slovene separatists). As a consequence of the various wars and the
increased repression by the Miloˇseviˇc regime, Draˇskoviˇc moderated his
authoritarian and nativist positions. While the SPO still voices nationalist
and populist positions at times, these features have lost their prominence
since the party became part of the pro-Western coalition after the fall of
Miloˇseviˇc in 2000 (e.g. Bieber 2005).
Despite its dubious reputation, and well-documented links to the
extreme and radical right, the Croatian Hrvatska demokratska zajed
(Croatian Democratic Movement, HDZ) is seldom classiﬁed as populist
radical right. It has been more common to describe the HDZ as a conservative
nationalist umbrella party with an “extreme right faction” (e.g.
Grdeˇsiˇc 1999; Irvine 1997; Zakoˇsek 1994). But analyses of the ofﬁcial
party literature show that it was fundamentally a populist radical right
party; this was also evident in the actions of its single-party governments
(e.g. Maleˇseviˇc 2002; Uzelak 1998).19
Since the death of its founder, the
late President Franjo Tu ¯dman, and the party’s consequent relegation to
the opposition in 2000, the HDZ seems to have transformed into a truly
conservative party (e.g. Buric 2002).
19 Indeed, in terms of its revisionist views on the period of the Second World War, the HDZ
even closely resembles some extreme right organizations (e.g. Drakulic 2002; Goldstein
& Goldstein 2002; Milentijevic 1994).
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 55
This process was strengthened by several expulsions and splits of radical
individuals and factions, among them a group around Miroslav
Tu ¯dman, whose new party, Hrvatski istinski preporod (Croatian Integrity
and Prosperity), remains loyal to the populist radical right legacy of
the HDZ of his father. The Hrvatska demokratska zajednica Bosne i
Hercegovine, originally the Bosnian branch of the party, has become
more independent and radical than its Croatian mother party since the
death of Tu ¯dman (see Kasch 2002). Both parties are therefore (still)
included in the populist radical right party family.
A striking, unusual case is the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of the
infamous Reverend Ian Paisley, the nemesis of SF in Northern Ireland.
Founded in 1971, the DUP is to a large extent sui generis: while having
only a regionalist basis, contesting elections only in Northern Ireland
(or Ulster), its nativism is not restricted to this regional territory. The
DUP defends a British nationalism that is virulently xenophobic (notably
against Catholics, but also against homosexuals and other “deviants”).
Furthermore it is fundamentally authoritarian and populist. However,
unlike most other populist radical right parties in Europe, the DUP is
also religious fundamentalist. Its fundamentalist Protestantism makes the
party somewhat similar to the Christian Right in the US, rather than to
the orthodox Catholic LPR in Poland.
2.5.2 Borderline cases
In Hungary the radical right originated within the broader national conservative
anticommunist movement MDF (see 2.3). However, even after
the expulsion of the Csurka-group and the consequent foundation of
MI ´EP, populist radical right forces remained active within the national
conservative camp. Since the late 1990s the previously liberal FIDESzMPS
has ﬁlled the space left by the imploded MDF, a process accompanied
by increasing populist radical right rhetoric. While the boundaries
between ideology and strategy have become more and more blurred (e.g.
Bayer 2005), in line with the dominant literature FIDESz-MPS will still
be regarded as essentially (national) conservative for the moment (e.g.
Enyedi 2005; Oltay 2003).
For obvious reasons, postwar Italy has always been linked to strong
“extreme right” parties. According to Ignazi (1992), the MSI was the
deﬁning party of the whole “extreme right” party family before the 1980s.
While this might be true, the party very much stood for an old-fashioned
extreme right, which was both antidemocratic and elitist. Even if one
focuses more on the practice of the party, i.e. acceptance of democratic
practice, it is at best a radical right party, lacking the core feature of
56 Concepts
populism.20
The MSI is therefore not included in the populist radical
right party family.
The Alleanza nazionale (National Alliance, AN), MSI’s main legal successor,
is similarly excluded from the populist radical right family but for
different reasons. After some initial ambivalence, the AN transformed
itself into a conservative party, in which neither nativism nor populism is
prominent (e.g. Ignazi 2005; Tarchi 2003; Grifﬁn 1996). This is not the
case for the MS-FT, which claims to have remained loyal to the “fascist
heritage” of the MSI but is in fact both nativist and populist. The MS-FT
is therefore included in the populist radical right party family.
The classiﬁcation of the Lega Nord (LN), which originated in 1991 as
a coalition of regionalist “leagues” in the north of Italy (e.g. Tarchi 2002;
Cento Bull & Gilbert 2001; Betz 1998; Visentini 1993), is more contested
and problematic. Many scholars have included the party (initially)
in the “(ethno)regionalist” rather than the “extreme right” party family
(e.g. Hix & Lord 1997; Gallagher et al. 1995; Ignazi 1992). Moreover,
while populism has always been a core feature of the LN and its dominant
leader Umberto Bossi, authoritarianism and nativism have not. As some
skeptical observers have noted, “[t]he Lega is too politically opportunistic
to be ideologically coherent, hence its relatively chaotic ideological
references” (Fieschi et al. 1996: 241).
The League started out as a fairly liberal party, both in terms of economics
and rights, but became increasingly authoritarian in the 1990s.
And while nativism has been present throughout its existence,21
the party
has often been torn between regionalism and nationalism. In conclusion,
the LN might not (always) be a perfect example of the populist radical
right, but it is too similar to be excluded from the party family.
The same cannot be argued for the Lega dei Ticinesi (League of Ticino,
LdT), which contests elections in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino
in Switzerland (e.g. Albertazzi 2006). Although this one-man party, built
around the “president for life” Giuliano Bignasca, clearly tried to skim off
the success of its Italian neighbors to the south, the LdT differs from the
LN in some important aspects. Most notably, the LdT has steadily maintained
a regionalist stance, never aspiring to independence for the Italian
Swiss. In addition, unlike the LN the Swiss League is not authoritarian.
In the words of one of its foremost experts, Daniele Albertazzi, “on issues
20 In his more recent work, Ignazi (2003) has qualiﬁed his thesis, labeling the MSI as the
deﬁning party of only one subtype of extreme right parties, the traditional.
21 Originally, the LN directed its nativist sentiments mainly against terroni, which literally
means “those of the land,” a derogatory term for people from the south of Italy. In
the mid 1990s the party also started targeting immigrants, and became the most vocal
anti-immigrant party in Italy.
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 57
such as homosexuality, women’s rights and alternative lifestyles, the LDT
has little in common with the radical right, with which it is often confused”
(2006: 137). The LdT will therefore be excluded from the group
of populist radical right parties.
The Serbian Socijalisticka partija Srbije (Socialist Party of Serbia, SPS)
is sometimes linked to the populist radical right, mostly because of the
actions and speeches of its (former) party leader, Slobodan Miloˇseviˇc
(e.g. Markotich 2000). The conclusions to be drawn from the behavior
of Miloˇseviˇc, however, are open to debate. Looking at his political
career, Miloˇseviˇc seems better classiﬁed as a “radical opportunist” than
a “radical nationalist” (Stojanoviˇc 2003: 60).22
Furthermore, there is a
methodological problem with accepting the party’s designation as populist
radical right. Parties are classiﬁed here exclusively on the basis of
their core ideology, which in this case is best understood as social populist
(e.g. Bieber 2005). Thus, the SPS is not included in the populist radical
right party family.
A similar conclusion should be drawn with regard to the Slovak Hnutie
za demokratickˇc Slovensko (HZDS)23
and its party leader Vladim´ır
Meˇciar. While some authors have classiﬁed this party as part of the populist
radical right family (e.g. Kneuer 2005), this overstates both the
importance of certain party ﬁgures and speeches, and the coherence of
the party and its ideology. Despite attempts to develop an integrated political
party with a consistent ideology, the HZDS has always remained a
diffuse and opportunistic alliance of various factions, including a populist
radical right one, under the towering dominance of party leader Meˇciar
(e.g. Thanei 2002; Haughton 2001).
The most problematic party to classify is the Schweizerische
Volkspartei–Union d´emocratique du centre (SVP), which originated as
an agrarian party in the German Protestant cantons of Switzerland. In
recent decades the SVP has changed in terms of both its ideological proﬁle
and its electoral and geographical support basis. However, as Swiss
politics is ﬁrst and foremost cantonal, it is not always easy to speak of
truly national parties (e.g. Kriesi 1998). In theory, and sometimes even
in practice, political parties can hold very distinct ideologies in different
cantons.
Ideological diffusion at the cantonal level has existed within the SVP
for much of the 1980s and 1990s (e.g. Kriesi et al. 2005a; Altermatt
22 In the words of Takis Pappas, “Miloˇseviˇc must be seen as a political entrepreneur who
recognized the importance of ‘cultural identity’ to the Serbian nation and used it as a
political resource in his bid for power” (2005: 193).
23 In 2003 the HZDS added the preﬁx Ludov´a strana (People’s Party), becoming the
LS-HZDS.
58 Concepts
& Skenderovic 1999). There are two very important cantonal branches
in Switzerland in general, and within the SVP in particular: Berne and
Zurich. In the canton of Berne, the capital of Switzerland, the SVP has
always been a centrist governmental party with a strong liberal character.
In sharp contrast, in the ﬁnancially and economically strong canton
of Zurich, the party has developed a more conservative and oppositional
character since the mid 1970s, particularly under the leadership
of Christoph Blocher. During the 1990s the Zurich branch slowly but
steadily took over the national SVP, in part through the founding of various
new cantonal branches loyal to Blocher (see Skenderovic 2005).
For decades the SVP has been considered as either an agrarian/center
party (e.g. Gallagher et al. 2001; M¨uller-Rommel 1993) or a conservative
(liberal) party (e.g. Helms 1997). Still, there is no doubt that the
party has radicalized under the leadership of Blocher. The main question
today seems to be whether the SVP is (neo or national) conservative, as
some scholars and the party itself claim (e.g. Hennecke 2003), or populist
radical right, as the new consensus asserts (e.g. Geden 2005; Betz
2004; Husbands 2000). Although classiﬁcation has been hindered by the
decentralized structure of Swiss politics, and the prominent position of
the Berne faction, at least since 2005 the SVP has to be put in the category
of the populist radical right. With the entrance of Blocher into the Swiss
government that year, the moderate Berne faction lost its ability to counterbalance
the populist radical right rest of the party (see, in particular,
Skenderovic 2005).
2.6 Conclusion
Many debates on the populist radical right party family base the often
implicit classiﬁcation of individual political parties on the age-old common
wisdom: if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a
duck, it is a duck. At the very least, this chapter should have raised serious
doubts about this “method.” Despite the logistical and conceptual
difﬁculties it entails, party family scholars will have to take the issue of
categorization and classiﬁcation more seriously. This chapter has taken
a ﬁrst step by identifying the best data and method to employ, and by
presenting a provisional classiﬁcation of most parties linked to this party
family.
The classiﬁcation of the usual suspects has led to some unexpected
outcomes. To stay in the terminology of animal metaphors, we have found
some wolves in sheep’s clothing, i.e. populist radical right parties that are
not recognized as such (e.g. DUP, HDZ), but even more sheep in wolves’
clothing, i.e. nonpopulist radical right parties that are often perceived as
From conceptualization to classiﬁcation 59
populist radical right (e.g. AN, HZDS, LPF). Most of the latter belong
to a separate, if somewhat overlapping, party family, that of neoliberal
populism (e.g. FI, PRO, UPR). In addition, some parties within the
conservative (e.g. FIDESZ-MPS, ODS, VVD) and (ethno)regionalist
families (e.g. HB, SF) show striking similarities to the populist radical
right, but are in essence, i.e. in their core ideology, not part of this party
family.
Some remarkable observations can be made regarding the group of
correctly classiﬁed populist radical right parties, too. First, several of the
key parties did not originate as populist radical right; some started as
clearly nonradical right (e.g. REP, SVP), as nonpopulist radical right
(e.g. FN, VB), or as diffuse with a populist radical right faction (e.g.
FP ¨O, SNS). Second, a number of parties that originated as populist
radical right have since transformed, mostly into conservative parties (e.g.
HDZ, LNNK, SPO). This does not automatically mean that “the radical
right has proven to be considerably more ﬂexible and ﬂuid than rigid
classiﬁcation schemes allow for” (Betz 1999: 305). Rather, it reminds us
that classiﬁcations can only be valid temporarily, as political parties and
ideologies can and sometimes do change over time.
This chapter has discussed only the most important and well-known
parties. A more comprehensive list of populist radical right parties in
contemporary Europe is presented in appendix A. In most cases only
parties that have independently gained over 1 percent in the parliamentary
elections at least once since the 1980s are included. In certain cases even
smaller parties have been included, mostly because they will be referred
to in the following chapters. Obviously, this list is very tentative, as much
more work will have to be done on many individual parties to establish
a correct and comprehensive classiﬁcation of the whole populist radical
right party family.