Looking for info on European right-wing populism

[Dracon II]

Hi, I'm doing an essay on the effect that Globalization has on the popularity of right-wing populism. I chose Sweden and France as examples of countries where far right parties have been unsuccessful and relatively successful respectively. I'm looking for information on why Sweden's far-right party is not very popular. I heard that it was because their is still a large left - right ideological division... but I need concrete sources. My library has nothing.

Also, I'm wondering how far-right parties can be explained by Marxism... I recall that Marx wrote something about such "law and order" parties in the 18 Brumaire... but I'm not sure.

[Spiffor]

Nonna Meyer has done extensive research about the far right behaviour in France. I imagine some of her books have been translated into English.

[BeBMan]

I only know stuff about our far right parties in German language, so that may not be of great help....

[Buck Birdseed]

The thing is, Sweden has had a right-wing populist party that won a place in parliament in 1991 before collapsing internally and being reduced to nothing by the next elections in 1994.

Nothing ENDURING though, and today's right-wing populist movement is reduced to a few council seats here and there.

There have been books comparing the Front National and the Swedish Sverigedemokraterna, but only in Swedish as far as I know. Still interested?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Similar picture in Britain. Every time a mainstream party with vaguely right-wing politics gets in, the far-rights lose support and go into meltdown. Check out Britain in the early 80's when one amusing side-effect of the Thatcher regime was the NF losing loads of support and splitting to form the BNP.

[Bereta_Eder]

far right-wingism is incorporated in the two big parties here as well. a standalone fart right wing party also came to being relatively recently. fortunately it is too "folklore"

[Zevico]

Strangely enough, there's a similar story with Australia's far right wing party, One Nation: it collapsed once the Liberals (right wing party) were elected into office.

[Dracon II]

The Liberals were also able to absorb some of One Nation's Policies.

Do you think the successes of far right parties can be attributed to globalization?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Dracon II
Do you think the successes of far right parties can be attributed to globalization?

There are many reasons:
- distrust in the established political parties (it's indirectly linked to globalization, because globalization has considerable lessened the power of the political world). A very significant chunk of Le Pen's vote is protest vote.

- fear of getting mugged. At least in France, petty criminality has come under a very bright spotlight until the 2002 elections, and Le Pen's demagogery has made him look like the real thing to fight it (since then, a demagogue from the republican right has offset the Le Pen effect). Useless to say, the fear of petty criminality has a high synergy with xenophobia and racism.

- fear of losing one's job to other countries (European and non-European), as well as losing one's job to an immigrant. Le Pen is the only one who s vocal enough so that his facile radical "solutions" get to the electorate.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Dracon II
The Liberals were also able to absorb some of One Nation's Policies.

Do you think the successes of far right parties can be attributed to globalization?

To an extent, yes. However, in pre-globalisation years, the sorts of attitudes expressed now by far-rights parties tended to be more mainstream (yet not expressed overtly as policies by parties). Therefore, while it might look like increasing political success, it might also display a declining level of popular support- with lingering attitudes being crystallised into fringe politics.

[Zoid]

Dracon, contact Expo. A swedish anti-racist foundation that has extensive knowledge in this area. info@expo.se

rickard.slatt@expo.se is the editor-in-chief of the Expo magazine

Good luck!

[Dracon II]

How about the BNP? Britain has been affected by immigration, crime, globalization and political convergence.... how can far right populism's relative failure be explained? Is it due to the electoral system, political culture, or better socioeconomic conditions?

[C0ckney]

the electoral system, and the fact we don't like facists mostly.

[Zoid]

Searchlight has some good material on BNP. http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Dracon II
How about the BNP? Britain has been affected by immigration, crime, globalization and political convergence.... how can far right populism's relative failure be explained? Is it due to the electoral system, political culture, or better socioeconomic conditions?

The far-right never gained a great foothold in the Working Classes, partly because the Jewish communities in Britain were long-established and well-integrated. People in the East End of London weren't inclined to start developing prejudices against their neighbours.

Secondly, the Left was more firmly established along non-divisive lines due to our long-established Trade Unions, and with similar values extablished by a large sector of the Middle and Upper classes due to the traditions on Liberalism (in the Gladstone and Asquith sense, not the debased US sense). Although we had strife in the 1920's, we bounced back from it pretty well.

This all meant that when things were tough in the 1930's, people were more inclined to turn to either the emerging Labour movement or the old Liberal/Tory axis- not these Johnny Fascist upstarts.

I'd say that Communism failed here for similar reasons. We had satisfactory alternatives within mainstream politics, so extremist varieties never took off. We're a pretty middle-of-the road nation as far as politics is concerned.