Electronic Newsletter of the ECPR-SG on Extremism and Democracy
e-Extreme
Dec. 2012 Volume 13 Number 4
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Volume 13, No. 4, Dec. 2012
Managing Editor Mark Pitchford King’s College, London Email: m.pitchford@tees.ac.uk
Book Reviews Editor Janet Dack Teesside University, UK Email: j.dack@tees.ac.uk
The e-Extreme is the newsletter of the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy and is published quarterly. For any enquiries about the newsletter, please contact the managing editor, Mark Pitchford. For inquiries regarding book reviews please contact the book reviews editor, Janet Dack. Copyright Š 2012 by the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy.
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Table of Contents
Standing Group Announcements …………………………………………………………… 4 Call for Papers: 7th ECPR General Conference …………………………………………... 5 Far Right Forum …………………………………………………………………………….…… 5 Conference Reports ………………………………………………………………………….… 6 Book Review ………………………………………………………………………………….... 10 Publications Alert …………………………………………………………………………..…. 12
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Standing Group Announcements
Forthcoming conferences and workshops Please do visit our website for details of forthcoming conferences and workshops: www.extremism-and-democracy.com
Member database by research interest Also, remember that the website contains a database which enables members to browse and search for other members by research interests, as well as by name. If you would like to update your own details, please just email us at info@extremism-and-democracy.com. Please also encourage colleagues and PhD students to join the Standing Group.
Keep us informed! Please keep us informed of any upcoming conferences or workshops you are organizing, and of any publication or funding opportunities that would be of interest to Standing Group members. We will post all details on our website. Similarly, if you would like to write a report on a conference or workshop that you have organized and have this included in our newsletter, please do let us know. Please also tell us of any recent publications of interest to Standing Group members so that we may include them in the ‘publications alert’ section of our newsletter, and please get in touch if you would like to see a particular book (including your own) reviewed in e-Extreme, or if you would like to review a specific book yourself. Finally, if you would like to get involved in the production of the newsletter, the development of our website, or any of the other activities of the Standing Group then please do contact us. We are always very keen to involve more members in the running of the Standing Group! Email us at: info@extremism-and-democracy.com
Book series in Extremism and Democracy As you might know, the Standing Group has close links with the Routledge Book Series in Extremism and Democracy. Originally founded by Roger Eatwell and Cas Mudde, this series has two strands aimed at different audiences. The ‘Routledge Studies in Extremism and Democracy’ is targeted at students and teachers, while the ‘Routledge Research in Extremism and Democracy’ is aimed at a more specialist readership. Matthew Goodwin recently replaced the estimable Cas. Please contact Roger or Matthew via the Standing Group website if you would like to discuss ideas or suggestions for titles.
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Call for Papers: 7th ECPR General Conference Paper proposal are now invited for the 7th ECPR General Conference, which will be held at Bordeaux Sciences Po, 4-7 September 2013. Our Standing Group is supporting the ‘Perspectives on the New Right’ section, which brings together six different panels. For a description of the section and of the accepted panels, see: http://ecprnet.eu/Events/SectionList.aspx?EventID=5 The deadline for paper proposals is 1st February 2013. For instructions on how to present a paper, please see: http://ecprnet.eu/Documents/Conferences/General/2014BordeauxPaperProposalInstructions. pdf
Far Right Forum The Radicalism and New Media research group at the University of Northampton has developed a new initiative called Far Right Forum. This is a ‘neutral space’ for sharing ideas and best practice on matters connected to tackling the far right. It is an open forum for a wide variety of voices, though facilitated and monitored by a university research group. It is designed to help foster debate on a critical contemporary topic, and create new links between academia and the wider public.
Far Right Forum is modeled as a free-to-access environment; one where any concerned party is free to discuss the far right. So the practitioners, journalists, academics and private citizens who may engage with far right will both be its authors, and also its disseminators. Indeed, Far Right Forum is free to host on any website, social media service, and can be passed on via any relevant mailing list. In its first issue, we have included contributions from many organisations the Radicalism and New Media research group has worked with in the past, but we hope to hear from many more in the future. Far Right Forum will be developed on a bi-annual basis, and so if you would like to contribute a short article on the far right to the next issue, please do get in touch. http://www.radicalism-new-media.org/index.php/far-right-forum
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Conference Report “A Special Relationship of Hate? 50 Years of the Anglo American Far Right” RNM Group, University of Northampton 13-14 September 2012
The conference A Special Relationship of Hate? 50 Years of the Anglo American Far Right was held on the 13th and 14th of September, hosted by the Radicalism and New Media Unit (RNM) at the University of Northampton. It sought to bring together academics and researchers from across the western hemisphere alongside practitioners in the field of antiextremism, something which the RNM group has come to be famous for facilitating with their conferences. It was on this theme that the conference was opened by Doug Rae, Deputy Dean of the University’s School of Social Sciences, who praised the cutting edge thinking of the RNM and how we can draw forward the lessons learned by historians – applying the lessons of Rockwell and Jordan forward to the international links forged by groups such as the American Tea Party movement and the British EDL. Leonard Weinberg, professor at the University of Nevada, opened the conference by laying out the background not just of the far right in both the United Kingdom and United States post-Second World War but also by laying out the historiographical failings that he felt existed. In his call for greater study of the transnational totalitarianism that exists, he put forward for consideration the separation of the far right into the political-based radical right and the violent non-democratic extreme right, something that would provide a thread of debate through the conference. This led into the first of the academic sessions, with Professor Chris Webb who used Enoch Powell as a lens through which to access the rich history of far right interaction. It was not, Professor Webb was quick to observe, always a peaceful relationship – with much fighting between the southern extremists in the US and their British compatriots over British condemnation of the Jim Crow laws. Professor Webb did talk, however, of Powell being seen to import American racism into Britain and thus the need to understand American far right behaviour as a lens through which to understand our own extreme right. Dr Paul Jackson, University of Northampton and host of the conference, built on this narrative by focusing on the attempts of Colin Jordan to build a transatlantic alliance of fascists with the Cotswold Agreement. Pointing to Jordan’s unrepentant Nazi stance as making him ‘Hitler’s Echo’, Dr Jackson described the heuristic value of crafting Jordan into a lens through which we can examine the wider extreme right and the aspects of political religion. Echoing Roger Griffin’s Modernism and Fascism, Dr Jackson also suggested that in these cases academics often trip themselves up by trying to find very exact definitions for Ur-Fascism that prove, ultimately, to provide little wider understanding. It was after this heavy and thought provoking academic session that the conference shifted to practical applications and research of these extreme right groups, with an excellent forensic analysis of the National Socialist Underground of Germany by Daniel Köhler of Germany. The work of EXIT to challenge the concept of this as somehow an isolated group was thorough and also forced discussion on the definitions Professor Weinberg has brought
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up, with lively debate on how separate the political and violent far right truly are. This practical approach to far right group research was built upon by Mark Littler, who broke down his preliminary social media analysis of far right group membership across countries – showing how online self-identification might prove a valuable tool in assessing the influence of a group. This innovative cross-disciplinary application has become somewhat of a staple at RNM conferences and, as always, provoked much debate in the hall. The afternoon of the first day of the conference began with an examination of the English Defence League movement, with Professor Dominic Alessio deconstructing the aesthetic similarities to earlier movements while Rauri Sutherland presented the international aspect of the EDL, with its moves to expand both domestically and abroad. This was followed by the trans-national Volksfront group, with a paper presented from the Ukraine via video link by Dr Anton Shekhovstov and a deconstruction of the use of the Cultural Marxist term within radical right literature presented by Associate Professor Jérôme Jamin. This examination of more vulgar contemporary extreme right movements was counterpointed by a thorough investigation of the pre- and post-war fascist actions of Ezra Pound in relation to Mosley’s British fascist movements. This paper by Dr Matthew Feldman touched on earlier comments of these movements creating their own mythos and worldview, which Curtis Bryan Robinson related back to the Third Reich and the deniability people maintain about the culpability of such movements in the Holocaust. Following a well received and thought provoking keynote address by Leonard Zeskind of the Institute for Research and Education of Human Rights, the second day turned its focus away from the academic dissection of the transnational far right onto more practitioners and onto the steps being taken. This included the launch of the Far Right Forum, a ground breaking new journal project that is monitored by the RNM and that is designed to allow free sharing of ideas and best practice between practitioners, journalists and academics. The two sessions before lunch focused upon policing and community responses to far right activities, with an expert break down of how children had been de-radicalised under the prevent agenda. This raised interesting debates as to whether one can ever separate the violent nature of many far right ideologies from the ideologies themselves. Anjona Roy of the Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council also examined the electoral side of how far right thoughts had managed to burrow into certain communities and damage community cohesion by taking advantage of openings left by more mainstream movements. The second session, presented by Jonathan Birdwell of Demos, was an informative examination of how the advertisement targeting of Facebook gives social researchers a new tool in examining far right membership online and check cross over populations between groups. This fed on from the research presented by Mark Littler on the first day, showing how the research itself was carried out. After lunch on the second day, the Show Racism the Red Card project – represented by Laura Pidcock and Kate Hollingshead – explained their methodology and gave examples of their work in classrooms and school, and the niche they had found by using footballers as role models to address wider concerns of prejudice rather than just within a football setting. This was followed by a chilling piece of research presented by Ryan Lenzand and Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center on the resurgence of very extreme organised ideological groups in the US. Their focus was upon a group known as the Sovereign Citizen movement
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and its creation of a shadow government, but also on how this movement has begun – despite its idiosyncratic constitutional-based ideology – to spread into the United Kingdom via far right groups like the BNP. Finally the conference was rounded off with an interview of Gerry Gable, editor of Searchlight magazine and well regarded veteran of the anti-fascist movement. Under questioning, Gerry told the conference of the roots of the Searchlight movement in the immediate post-war anti-fascist activism of returning servicemen, but also how as they won victories they went dormant. Speaking to the heart of the conference, it was the Cotswold Agreement and the resurgence of the British Nazism and far-right movements on the back of American injections of ideology and money that pushed the anti-fascists to reform and eventually set up the Searchlight publishing group. This interview, and questions from the floor, rounded off a fascinating two-day investigation into the far right linkages across the Atlantic – and the North Sea. This kind of crossdisciplinary platform that the RNM has chosen, and its bringing in of practitioners, once again permitted a new examination and a lively debate of a complex and understudied area.
Daniel Jones
University of Northampton
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Conference Report European wide workshop “Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe”, Georg-Simon-Ohm-University of Applied Science Nuremberg (Germany) 27-28 September 2012,
Right-wing extremism presents a serious problem throughout Europe, which in no way should be underestimated. Far right organizations, movements, and parties gather an increasing number of followers. The main aim of most of these groups is to establish an ethnically homogenous society (“Volksgemeinschaft”) and this leads to practices of exclusion, which range from verbal insults to violent or even fatal attacks against all persons perceived as “different” like migrants, refugees, Muslims, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, Jews, people with non-white skin or homeless people. Although both men and women are active in extreme right-wing groups and parties, the relevance of male and female gender roles on the extreme right has received little attention from social researchers and from those concerned with practical preventive and counter measures. This two-day international workshop, organized by the Georg-Simon-Ohm University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg (Germany), the Centre for Gender & Diversity, and the German Research Network on Women and Right-wing Extremism (“Forschungsnetzwerk Frauen und Rechtsextremismus”), was the first of its kind in Europe. Building on the Research Network on Women and Right-wing Extremism’s longstanding success in public enlightenment on gender and far right politics in Germany, the workshop sought to initiate further cooperation between European researchers. It brought together about forty researchers and several students from twelve European countries (including Hungary, the Netherlands, Serbia, Poland, France, Italy and Great Britain) to discuss gender relations within extreme rightwing parties, gender-related ideologies, the ways extreme right-wing parties and movements make use of gender images, and what (political) steps may be taken against these tendencies. These issues were considered from a country-specific perspective as well as from a comparative one. It became clear that country-specific historical backgrounds and current political circumstances produce particular gendered political subjectivities and that extreme rightwing organizations utilize and vary these roles strategically in their self-promotion. To fight effectively against right-wing-extremism, the gender related strategies of extreme right-wing groups and their transnational networks must be observed with scrutiny. The Nuremberg conference laid the foundations for this. The papers presented at the conference will be published by an international publishing house in 2013. The conference was supported by the Georg-Simon-Ohm University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg, the Nuremberg Foundation for Peace and Human Rights (“Nürnberg – Stadt des Friedens und der Menschenrechte”), the Bavarian Forum of the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation, the Hans-Böckler-Foundation, and the Amadeu-Antonio-Foundation. For further information please contact Ohm-GenderFarRightEurope@ohm-hochschule.de
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Book Review
Jihadi Terrorism and the Radicalisation Challenge: European and American Experiences By Rik Coolsaet (ed.), Second Edition, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 340 pp., ISBN 978-14094-2569-4 Reviewed by Dr Gavin Bailey
Keele University, UK Since 2008, Coolsaet argues, with a new President and a recognition that American Muslims can self-radicalise (a la Fort Hood), the US government has joined the European states in thinking about 'root causes'. This second edition, coming only three years after the first, has been substantially changed in this light. Over half the chapters are new, with most of the rest getting substantial updates. This book is, in essence, about 'radicalisation' or in Sageman's more accurate definitions, the two processes of the 'acquisition of extreme ideas' and the 'path to political violence' in Western Europe and the United States. While the prologue makes a nod to the fact that the vast majority of victims of Islamist terrorism are in the 'Islamic world', this book is concerned with that which effects 'the West'. To say Jihadi Terrorism packs a lot in would be an understatement. Eighteen short chapters cover everything from an assessment of global jihadi terrorism, to a tight focus on the killer of Theo van Gogh. As such, this is a very good introduction to a wide range of perspectives. The first section moves the focus from the world to the West, with a detour through the Islamic Maghreb (Roberts) which demonstrates the complex history of violence in the name of Islam and its relationship with anti-colonial and anti-regime politics. It ends with van de Voorde's negative assessment of the state of terrorism research, as much work just follows government and public trends, reworking assumed models without new research. It is Olivier Roy's section one chapter on al-Qaeda as a global movement, as opposed to organisation or network, that most sets the scene for later chapters, through its emphases on converts and groups of self-radicalising friends. Roy argues that those becoming jihadis are those that would have joined far-left groups 30 years earlier. The second section's chapters comparing jihadi terrorism with fin-de-siècle anarchists and 1970s leftists are a welcome response to the assumption that Islamist terrorism is somehow new: the utopian and vanguard attributes make al-Qaeda inspired groups more like the Red Army Faction than the IRA. Sections two and three are on radicalisation and de-radicalisation, respectively. Social and economic frustration, discrimination and Islamophobia, social processes and group behaviour ('bunch of guys'), the desire to be 'cool' and rebellious, and leadership and ideology are all discussed as causes of radicalisation. With respect to ideology's role, it is noted that any anti-Imperialist sentiment that would once have found an outlet in the farleft now has nowhere to go, bar these strands of pan-Islamism and anti-Americanism. Peters' case study of a single Islamist terrorist, the killer of Theo van Gogh, shows the stages he went through on the route to justifying violence. Importantly, Marc Sageman 'banishes' the word 'radicalisation', preferring to divide it into the two components of developing an extremist politics and moving towards violence. Indeed, comparisons between the US and European case are fraught with misunderstanding due to different definitions
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and different laws: more could be made of the fact that the American right to freedom of speech means that some acts denounced as extremist in Europe are protected across the Atlantic. Sageman's division of radicalisation is reflected in the final section on de-radicalisation with two chapters arguing, with different parameters, that we should distinguish between acts or the instigation of violence and the holding of ideas that go beyond western norms. Lambert admonishes the British government for closing down good work with Salafis who arguably reject integration but nevertheless do not encourage violence. Horgan and Taylor consider desistance from violence to be the goal of counter-terror activity, not ideological reprogramming. Coolsaet assesses European wide counter-terrorism and counterradicalisation activities, arguing that the European emphasis on root causes translates into concern with 'issues of integration, social policy, multiculturalism, and representation of minority groups' (240). Vidino does similar for the United States, arguing that there is a 'reluctance to enter the field of ideology' (255). Despite these thinkers' delineation of radical ideas and violence – Coolsaet's epilogue points out that radicalism is not against the law and in fact is part of the foundation of most nations – it is also noted that neo-radical groups such as Sharia4Belgium are a cause of social polarisation. The problem becomes circular. Fraihi argues that 'emphasising diversity will contribute to reducing the polarisation between Muslims and non-Muslims' (212-3), while Cesari suggests that Muslims, and Muslim incorporation, should not be seen purely in a security paradigm. Perhaps Islamist radicalisation, and the related violence, can be best reduced by a greater focus on a positive strategy. Cracking down harder and harder on the few that cause problems, with the inevitable spillover to those that do not deserve it, is counter-productive. More effort should be made to treat Muslims as a diverse group, some of whom are part of the marginalised in Western societies. Like other sections of society, the group includes a very small number of the angry and violent. Improving the conditions of the majority would also be the right thing to do, whether or not it improved security.
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Publications Alert
Archer, A. (2012) New British Fascism: Rise of the British National Party. Political Studies Review, 10, 451-451. Baehr, P. & Wells, G. C. (2012) Debating Totalitarianism: An Exchange of Letters Between Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin. History and Theory, 51, 364-380. Ballinger, P. (2012) Entangled or 'Extruded' Histories? Displacement, National Refugees, and Repatriation after the Second World War. Journal of Refugee Studies, 25, 366-386. Brandt, M. J. & Henry, P. J. (2012) Gender Inequality and Gender Differences in Authoritarianism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 1301-1315. Cagorovic, N. (2012) Anti-fascism and Montenegrin Identity since 1990. History, 97, 578590. Campbell, C. (2012) Building a Movement, Dismantling the Republic: Women, Gender, and Political Extremism in the Croix de Feu/Parti Social Francais, 1927-1940. French Historical Studies, 35, 691-726. Chabal, P. (2012) The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760-2010. International Affairs, 88, 1113-1114. Covington, C. (2012) Hannah Arendt, Evil and the Eradication of Thought. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 93, 1215-1236. Crosby, A. (2012) Jews and Other Foreigners: Manchester and the Rescue of the Victims of European Fascism, 1933-1940. Northern History, 49, 379-381. Davydova, M. (2012) Ordinary Fascism. Theater Heute, 6-9. de Lange, S. L. (2012) New Alliances: Why Mainstream Parties Govern with Radical RightWing Populist Parties. Political Studies, 60, 899-918. Duriez, B., Klimstra, T. A., Luyckx, K., Beyers, W. & Soenens, B. (2012) Right-Wing Authoritarianism: Protective Factor Against or Risk Factor for Depression? European Journal of Personality, 26, 536-549. Espada, J. C. (2012) The Sources of Extremism. Journal of Democracy, 23, 15-22. Feather, N. T. & McKee, I. R. (2012) Values, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation, and Ambivalent Attitudes Toward Women. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42, 2479-2504. Gallagher, T. (2012) The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and some Lessons of the Twentieth Century. International Affairs, 88, 1141-1142. Kundnani, A. (2012) Radicalisation: The Journey of a Concept. Race & Class, 54, 3-25. Larsson, M. R., Bjorklund, F. & Backstrom, M. (2012) Right-wing Authoritarianism is a Risk Factor of Torture-like Abuse, but so is Social Dominance Orientation. Personality and Individual Differences, 53, 927-929. MacInnis, C. C. &Hodson, G. (2012) Intergroup Bias toward "Group X": Evidence of Prejudice, Dehumanization, Avoidance, and Discrimination against Asexuals. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 15, 725-743. Matthews, M. & Levin, S. (2012) Testing a Dual Process Model of Prejudice: Assessment of Group Threat Perceptions and Emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 36, 564-574. Mudde, C. (2013) The 2012 Stein Rokkan Lecture: Three Decades of Populist Radical Right Parties in Western Europe. So What? European Journal of Political Research, 52, 1-19. Pirie, I. (2012) Representations of Economic Crisis in Contemporary Britain. British Politics, 7, 341-364. Portelli, A. (2012) Myth and Morality in the History of the Italian Resistance: The Hero of Palidoro. History Workshop Journal, 211-223. Sarrasin, O., Green, E. G. T., Fasel, N., Christ, O., Staerkle, C. &Clemence, A. (2012)
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Opposition to Antiracism Laws Across Swiss Municipalities: A Multilevel Analysis. Political Psychology, 33, 659-681. Schwartz, S. H., Cieciuch, J., Vecchione, M., Davidov, E., Fischer, R., Beierlein, C., Ramos, A., Verkasalo, M., Lonnqvist, J. E., Demirutku, K., Dirilen-Gumus, O. &Konty, M. (2012) Refining the Theory of Basic Individual Values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 663-688. Scully, R. (2012) Hindenburg: The Cartoon Titan of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1934. German Studies Review, 35, 541-565. Thoroughgood, C. N., Padilla, A., Hunter, S. T. & Tate, B. W. (2012) The Susceptible Circle: A Taxonomy of Followers Associated with Destructive Leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 23, 897-917. van der Meer, T., Lubbe, R., van Elsas, E., Elff, M. & van der Brug, W. (2012) Bounded Volatility in the Dutch Electoral Battlefield: A Panel Study on the Structure of Changing Vote Intentions in the Netherlands during 2006-2010. ActaPolitica, 47, 333-355. Vari, A. (2012) Re-territorializing the 'Guilty City': Nationalist and Right-wing Attempts to Nationalize Budapest during the Interwar Period. Journal of Contemporary History, 47, 709-733.
ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy Convenors: David Art (David.Art@tufts.edu); Elisabeth Carter (e.carter@pol.keele.ac.uk)
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