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

This book analyses the actions, networks and frames of right wing extremism. If research on extreme right political parties is growing, the extreme right has however only very rarely been studied as a social movement. To fill this gap, this volume compares the extreme right in Italy, Germany and the United States using some main concepts and methods developed in social movement studies. In particular, it describes the discourse, repertoires and organizational structures of the extreme right, and explains it on the basis of the discoursive and political opportunities and resources available to them. A combination of empirical methods is used in order to collect and analyse data on the extreme right organizations. The frame analysis looks at the cognitive mechanisms that are relevant in influencing organizational and individual behaviour. The network analysis looks at the (inter‐) organizational structural characteristics of the right-wing organizations. Finally, the protest event analysis allows for an empirical summary of the actions undertaken by right-wing extremists over the last decade. The substantive chapters address the organizational structure of the extreme right, the action repertoires of the extreme right as well as the framing concerning, respectively, the definition of the ‘us’, the struggle against modernity, old and new forms of racism, opposition to globalization and populism. Finally, in the conclusions, the authors reflect on the contributions that social movement studies give to the understanding of the phenomenon, as well as, vice‐versa, how research on the extreme rights could contribute to the theorization on social movements’ dynamics.