by Alessia Capasso
translation by Anna Irma Battino
Nationalists, conspiracists, misogynists and enemies of the ‘different’, radical right-wing parties are advancing. Political scientist Andrea Pirro explained to Today.it how they manage to stay in power and how difficult it is to remove illiberal regulations once they have been introduced.
The parties of the ultra-right family are growing in the polls ahead of the European elections. Some lead governments or are part of ruling coalitions, as in the case of Fratelli d’Italia and Fidesz in Hungary, others aspire to exponential growth like Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. What unites these political formations, in many cases heirs of fascism or Nazism, and what happens once they come to power?
Today.it asked Andrea Pirro, Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna and member of the research team of The Far-Right Protest Observatory (Farpo).
What do we mean today by “far-right” and what role has it assumed in Europe over the last ten years?
“As an overall phenomenon, the ultra-right has gone from being an opposition force to a governing force in many European countries and has managed to exert substantial influence on the current political processes. This change has led to a normalisation, even with a certain complicity on the part of the media. As in the case of Italy, where we have a coalition with ultra-right-wing traction that is defined as ‘centre-right’, when in reality the only element that could be defined as such might be Forza Italia. We should also note the ‘mainstreaming’ of their issues, especially on immigration issues, which have been taken up by both traditional right-wing parties as well as centre or centre-left formations. Thus, the political centre of gravity has shifted increasingly to the right over the years.
The ultra-right has also experienced a European-wide ideological convergence. To a large extent, the differences that existed, for example, between Eastern and Western European formations have disappeared. In terms of their ‘targets’, since the peak of the 2015 migrant crisis, ultra-right parties and movements have targeted migrants, refugees and asylum seekers as a common goal. With a few rare exceptions, they also share ultraconservative themes of socio-cultural conformity where the ‘natural’ family is central, regressive positions on abortion and the rights of Lgbtqia+ people, along with everything that falls under the notion of ‘traditional morality’. Finally, they all present Eurosceptic positions”.
What has happened instead at the level of movements?
“We see a greater interaction between institutional representatives and activists, i.e. between actors who aspire to legitimacy in order to gain access to power and those anti-democratic fringes that operate outside the institutions. At the international level, we have also seen increased cooperation. For example, the German anti-Islam movement Pegida has expanded into Austria, England and other countries at the height of its success; it now openly cooperates with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. There have also been campaigns with an openly transnational character such as ‘Defend Europe’, promoted by the French Identitarians in the summer of 2017, and aimed at opposing humanitarian rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea.”
Far-right organisations have in the past often been associated with violent attacks. Has this changed with the entrance of the ultra-right into institutions?
“The interpenetration between institutional and non-institutional politics clearly emerges from striking cases of violence such as the attack on the CGIL headquarters in Rome in October 2021 and before that from the racist attack perpetrated by Luca Traini in Macerata in February 2018. Let us not forget cases such as the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in Greece in September 2013 by members of Golden Dawn, whose leader was later convicted and imprisoned for being the head of a criminal organisation. There were the burnings at reception centres in Sweden between 2015 and 2017 that were part of the same wave of rejection of refugees policies by the Swedish government. Going outside European borders, I can mention the attack on Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021 in the United States, for which Donald Trump is now on trial, as well as the attack on the Brazilian congress on 8 January 2023 in which former president Jair Bolsonaro is suspected to have played a role. These are all acts of political violence that clearly undermine the foundations of the democratic structure of individual countries. These are only the most striking cases of political violence, but there are others on a smaller scale that often pass under the radar’.
You speak of different episodes, of a different nature and in different countries. Can we really say that they have the same matrix?
“Of course. They all have a racist or politically motivated matrix. We would have expected that, with the presence of the ultra-right in the institutions, the violence would have gone down. Instead, we see that it is still present in the repertoire of this part of the political spectrum and that the growing legitimacy enjoyed by the ultra-right parties is contributing to the spread of movements in the protest arena’.
What are the points in common and those that distinguish ultra-right parties, such as the Rassemblement national in France or Fidesz in Hungary, Fratelli d’Italia or Vox in Spain?
“Although there are differences, this party family remains united by an ultra-nationalist vision, which includes the exclusion of elements considered ‘foreign’, be they people or ideas (communism, progressivism, liberalism). As well as their adherence to principles such as ‘authority’, ‘discipline’ and ‘socio-cultural conformity'”.
What has been the hallmark of the ultra-right in recent years?
“What they have in common is that for at least a decade they have been willing to modernise and present themselves as mere ‘conservative’ forces, particularly when they manage to enter government coalitions or come to power. These parties do not espouse or have over time abandoned openly neo-fascist and neo-Nazi ideologies, with the exception of cases such as Golden Dawn in Greece. This is to the detriment of their political respectability and electoral prospects, which are intrinsically linked to a democratic veneer of moderation. However, this does not exclude that activists with a history of militancy in extremist movements can run on the lists of these parties, and the cases are diverse across Europe’.
What are the points of contact between parties and movements?
“The rise of the ultra-right has opened up the idea of white supremacism and conspiracy theories, previously relegated to marginal contexts and openly extremist circuits. Think of the various conspiracy theories concerning a process of ‘ethnic substitution’, first accepted by Lega and then by Fratelli d’Italia, which were previously the exclusive preserve of neo-fascist formations such as Forza Nuova’.
Why has environmental protection ended up in the crosshairs of the ultra-right?
“These parties are engaged in an all-round cultural battle and, consequently, the environment is also part of it. Everything the progressive movements fight for, they react back to, as they have already done by taking sides against the rights of the Lgbtqia+ community or anti-feminism. Then there is a more purely economic issue, since in most cases the ultra-right embraces neo-liberal views, espousing capitalism and the market economy. Their intention is to be able to preserve the status quo, avoiding the environmental constraints of ecological transition policies, because these require costs that would burden capital and the entrepreneurs themselves’.
When Matteo Salvini says that he wants to defend the ‘traditional’ car or the ‘traditional’ house, by obstructing green transition reforms, is he really advocating a ‘popular’ policy?
“In Italy, both Lega and Fratelli d’Italia – however much they may present themselves as champions of the common citizen or the ‘Italian people’ – are merely continuing the neo-liberal policies started by Berlusconi in the 1990s. All the grand proclamations against financial speculation or ‘big interests’ then end up in nothing or in the preservation of the status quo with economic and financial interests attached’.
What happens when ultra-right parties come to power as happened in Poland and Hungary?
“At the national level the danger to the quality of democracy is high and concrete. Within the ultra-right there has been a process of ‘institutional learning’ through which, through more or less successful experiences of government, these parties have managed to understand the stratagems for staying in power and implementing their political agenda. They have thus succeeded in shaping what I have called an ‘illiberal score’ through which the ultra-right manages to exploit grey areas of legislation in a regressive manner or stands in open rupture with the liberal-democratic status quo, which guarantees rights and freedoms for all and ensures pluralism and supervision by independent institutions’.
How do they differ from the ultra-right of the last century?
“Today, the democratic erosion being pursued and implemented is no longer blatant. We should not expect power grab marches or coups. The dismantling of (liberal-)democracy takes place gradually, through apparently legal procedures legitimised by the popular mandate, following free and competitive elections. This is what we are also witnessing in Italy with Meloni’s government, through attempts to reconfigure the institutional set-up, the obstacles placed in the way of access to pregnancy interruption, humanitarian interventions in the Mediterranean or the further criminalisation of migrants, the increasing pressure on the media and the judiciary or the discriminatory measures against Lgbtqia+ people. Whether or not this agenda succeeds will depend on the ability of parliamentary oppositions and civil society to counter these processes, and it is up to independent institutions such as the constitutional court to stem illiberal drifts’.
So, what role have the oppositions played in this growth of the ultra-right?
“There has always been the appearance that incorporating the anti-immigration policies of the right could succeed in stemming the advance of these parties. This presumption has turned out to be wrong because the electorate always prefers ‘the original’ to the copy. A centre or centre-left party will not be considered credible or ‘progressive’ if it puts forward anti-immigration proposals; it only creates a cognitive short-circuit in the electorate, which therefore prefers abstention to proposals with which it does not identify. The progressive area has proven to win only by articulating left-wing positions, especially on economic issues, but these have ceased to be the compass for many left-wing parties.
Are we in danger of ending up like Hungary?
“The Italian context enjoys antibodies of a different kind than the Hungarian case. Hungary under Viktor Orbán is now a regime that can no longer be described as openly democratic. One must be careful, however. In the Polish case – which under the leadership of the Pis openly drew on the Hungarian experience – we have seen that, even with the return of the liberal opposition to power, the process of democratic erosion undertaken is not easily healed. Attempts to restore liberal-democratic principles are coming up against all the barriers put in place by the Pis itself while it was in government. This shows how difficult it is to turn the institutional and rights clock back to the previous experience’.
The Pis has been courting Fratelli d’Italia for some time. It is rumoured that Ursula von der Leyen is willing to ask Giorgia Meloni to join the EPP. Is this realistic?
‘At the moment this prospect is bordering on speculation, in the sense that there is a clear desire on the part of Meloni to legitimise herself as a moderate actor, despite the illiberal profile of her party. This would be a quantum leap. At the level of the EPP, however, there is not the same transversal enthusiasm to welcome a party like hers. It is unlikely to open the door to organic collaborations with parties like the Polish Pis, which openly act in contrast to some of the values advocated by the EPP and the (at least on paper) liberal and Christian-democratic structure that accumulates the group. It should not be overlooked, however, that there are fringes of the EPP that wink at the policies of the ultra-right, moving in a more anti-immigration and conservative direction in socio-cultural terms’.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says he refuses to govern in Europe with the Afd. But is there a substantial difference between Afd and the parties with which Forza Italia governs?
“In the name of an alleged moral superiority, in the past the mainstream right has targeted a number of formations such as Haider’s Austrian Fpö or the Front National, predecessor of Marine Le Pen’s Rn. The ultra-right was initially stigmatised. Today, the party perceived to be furthest to the right of the political spectrum among those with real electoral potential is the Afd; the German party has not embarked on any process of ‘de-de-bolisation’, unlike the previously mentioned parties. On the contrary, we could say that the Afd has radicalised from its foundation to the present day, to the point that it is now monitored by the Office for the Constitution for instances of extremism and is therefore liable to be banned. Saying no to the Afd and saying yes to the Rassemblement national is pure opportunism, because there is no greater or lesser respectability of one or the other party. The threat these actors pose to liberal democracy is essentially the same’.