Reflections on the Extreme Right in Western Europe, 1990–2008 2020002271, 9781138389410, 9781138389427, 9780429060076, 1309409049

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Preface
Notes on presentation
Applied abbreviations of frequently cited newspapers
First-publication and permission details of each chapter
Introductory essay
1. What goes around comes around: A critical review of some major contemporary attempts to account for extreme-right racist politics in western Europe
Country case studies
2. France: The support for the Front National: Analyses and findings
3. Federal Republic of Germany: Militant neo-Nazism in the 1990s
4. The state’s response to far-right extremism: The case of Die Republikaner and the German national and regional authorities
5. The Netherlands: Irritants on the body politic
6. Belgium: Flemish legions on the march
7. Switzerland: Right-wing and xenophobic parties, from the margin to the mainstream?
8. Great Britain: Selective legislative and political strategies against the extreme right, 2000–2008
Comparative studies
9. Aggregate-data analyses of urban racist voting: Methodological limitations, lessons, and experiences from France, the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Switzerland
10. Support for right-wing extremism in western Europe: An examination of the ‘wave hypothesis’ on the basis of time series of polling results in five countries
Appendix: List of parties and institutions with abbreviations and translated titles
Index

Citation preview

REFLECTIONS ON THE EXTREME RIGHT IN WESTERN EUROPE, 1990–2008

During the last three decades or so there has been a significant growth of extremeright voter support, in Europe and elsewhere in the world.The chapters in this book look at an earlier period before most of this increase. Comprising eight previously published articles or book chapters and two hitherto unpublished studies, this book gives extended accounts of the major extreme-right political parties or movements in a number of west European countries, looking both at their antecedents and also at their support and significance in the 1980s and early 1990s. The countries covered in detail are France, the Federal Republic of Germany (old and new regions), the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria. During the last three decades some earlier parties of the extreme right in these west European countries have disappeared into oblivion, to be superseded by replacements; others have survived and flourished. Given the date when most of these chapters were written, they are now to be regarded as contributions to a modern history about the status and relevance of the respective parties or movements. The book also includes an introductory essay that discusses issues arising from the disputed labelling terminology used to describe such parties and identifies themes that feature in the more recent literature about the subsequent and current state of the extreme right in Europe. The book will be of particular interest to researchers on the contemporary politics of the extreme right in Europe, as well as being a valuable resource for those teaching courses on this topic or on general political sociology. Christopher T. Husbands is Emeritus Reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Since the 1970s he has published many articles on extreme-right politics in several countries and is the author of a book on the British extreme-right party, the National Front.

ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT Series editors Nigel Copsey, Teesside University, UK and Graham Macklin, Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX), University of Oslo, Norway. This new book series focuses upon fascist, far right and right-wing politics primarily within a historical context but also drawing on insights from other disciplinary perspectives. Its scope also includes radical-right populism, cultural manifestations of the far right and points of convergence and exchange with the mainstream and traditional right. Titles include: The Rise of the Dutch New Right An Intellectual History of the Rightward Shift in Dutch Politics Merijn Oudenampsen A Fascist Decade of War 1935–1945 in International Perspective Edited by Marco Maria Aterrano and Karine Varley No Platform A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech Evan Smith Reflections on the Extreme Right in Western Europe, 1990–2008 Christopher T. Husbands American Antifa The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism Stanislav Vysotsky Hitler Redux The Incredible History of Hitler’s So-Called Table Talks Mikael Nilsson Researching the Far Right Theory, Method and Practice Edited by Stephen D. Ashe, Joel Busher, Graham Macklin and Aaron Winter For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-­ Studies-in-Fascism-and-the-Far-Right/book-series/FFR

REFLECTIONS ON THE EXTREME RIGHT IN WESTERN EUROPE, 1990–2008

Christopher T. Husbands

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Christopher T. Husbands The right of Christopher T. Husbands to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Husbands, Christopher T., author. Title: Reflections on the extreme right in Western Europe, 1990-2008 / Christopher T. Husbands. Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Fascism and the far right | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020002271 | ISBN 9781138389410 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138389427 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429060076 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Political parties—Europe, Western. | Right-wing extremists— Europe, Western. | Conservatism—Europe, Western. | Europe, Western— Politics and government—1989Classification: LCC JC573.2.E85 H87 2020 | DDC 324.2/1309409049—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020002271 ISBN: 9781138389410 (hbk) ISBN: 9781138389427 (pbk) ISBN: 9780429060076 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK

In memory of Joyce Margaret May Husbands, 1910–2002, fighter for justice

CONTENTS

List of figures ix List of tables x Prefacexii Notes on presentation xvii Applied abbreviations of frequently cited newspapers xix First-publication and permission details of each chapter xx Introductory essay   1 What goes around comes around: A critical review of some major contemporary attempts to account for extreme-right racist politics in western Europe

1

22

Country case studies   2 France: The support for the Front National: Analyses and findings 47   3 Federal Republic of Germany: Militant neo-Nazism in the 1990s 83   4 The state’s response to far-right extremism: The case of Die Republikaner and the German national and regional authorities 109   5 The Netherlands: Irritants on the body politic

141

viii Contents

  6 Belgium: Flemish legions on the march

171

  7 Switzerland: Right-wing and xenophobic parties, from the margin to the mainstream?

196

  8 Great Britain: Selective legislative and political strategies against the extreme right, 2000–2008

212

Comparative studies   9 Aggregate-data analyses of urban racist voting: Methodological limitations, lessons, and experiences from France, the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Switzerland 225 10 Support for right-wing extremism in western Europe: An examination of the ‘wave hypothesis’ on the basis of time series of polling results in five countries Appendix: List of parties and institutions with abbreviations and translated titles Index

245 266 274

LIST OF FIGURES

9.1 A graphical demonstration of the different overall correlational results from opposite-directed relationships within local areas between common dependent and independent variables 10.1 Percentage quarterly opinion-poll support for racist political parties in five west European countries, 1982–1995

229 255

LIST OF TABLES

1.1 Prominent and principal extreme-right/racist political phenomena in seven countries of western Europe and in the United States, 1945–2000 23 2.1 Summary of the major determinants of support for the Front National/Jean-Marie Le Pen mentioned in various studies using aggregate data, 1983–1988 51 2.2 Correlation matrix and principal-components factor analysis of variables related to Le Pen voting, as introduced in Table 2.1 59 2.3 Summary of the findings of studies of characteristics of supporters of the Front National/Jean-Marie Le Pen, 1984–1988, in unweighted percentage-point differences from full-sample percentages 62 3.1 Numbers of militant neo-Nazi groups and activists in the Federal Republic of Germany (old and new regions), 1990–1993 85 3.2 Summary of recorded offences presumed or proven to have been committed by right-wing extremist perpetrators in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1992 and 1993 89 3.3 Offences of violence presumed or proven to have been committed by right-wing extremist perpetrators in old and new regions of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1992 90 3.4 Recorded offences of xenophobic character with presumed or proven extreme right-wing motivation in the old and new regions of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1993 91 3.5 Some social characteristics of those involved in extreme-right offences of violence in the Federal Republic of Germany, 100 1991–1993 (in percentages)

List of tables  xi

5.1 Percentages voting for extreme-right parties in various elections between 1959 and 1991 in the Netherlands as a whole and in the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague 150 5.2 Selected univariate statistics of percentaged support for the Centrumpartij/Centrumpartij ’86 and Centrumdemocraten and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients between these distributions and some aggregate characteristics in seventy-eight subdistricts (buurtcombinaties) of Amsterdam, 1982–1991 162 5.3 Selected univariate statistics of percentaged support for the Centrumpartij/Centrumpartij ’86 and Centrumdemocraten and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients between these distributions and some aggregate characteristics in twenty-five subdistricts (wijken) of Rotterdam (excluding Hook of Holland), 1982–1991163 5.4 Selected univariate statistics of percentaged support for the Centrumpartij/Centrumpartij ’86 and Centrumdemocraten and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients between these distributions and some aggregate characteristics in thirty-three subdistricts (wijken) of The Hague, 1982–1991 165 9.1 Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients among distributions of the foreigner-population among forty-two subdistricts (Ortsteile) of Frankfurt am Main, 31 December 1985–31 December 1987 235 9.2 A summary of various findings about the locational distribution of support for racist political parties in nine cities in four west European countries, 1979–1989 237 10.1 Support for extreme-right parties in elections at the national or near-national level (with simultaneous opinion-poll support figures) in five west European countries, 1981–1995, in percentages249 10.2 Various univariate statistical values about support levels of extreme-right parties as seen in quarterly and monthly opinion polls in five west European countries during relevant time periods (in percentages) 257 10.3 Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients of quarterly and monthly opinion-poll data on levels of support (in percentages) of extreme-right parties in pairs of west European countries during relevant time periods 258 10.4 Loadings from principal-components analyses of relevant Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients of quarterly and monthly opinion-poll support levels (in percentages) of extreme-right parties in five west European countries, as introduced in Table 10.3 260

PREFACE

At some point in the 1980s, I was commissioned to write a book to be titled Racist Political Movements in Western Europe. I was even confident enough, or deluded enough, about its completion to cite it as ‘forthcoming’ in one or two of my smaller publications of that period. For a variety of personal reasons the book was not completed; however, as the publisher had optimistically pre-advertised it, its nonexistence has not prevented a number of later phantom citations, or perhaps those issuing such citations had seen my own ‘forthcoming’ references and had held a touching faith in my implied productivity. Whatever the reason, perhaps giving such a citation only on the basis of such apparent evidence is the barium meal for testing whether or not an author is the sort who has actually handles the works that he/she cites. I still have regrets about the non-completion of the intended book, which was certainly like many other intended works promised to publishers by academics, though mine had at least the merit of having been actually started, even if never completed. I even had a bottle of champagne dedicated to be drunk only on completion and delivery of the book; in a spirit of good faith to the intended principle of that dedication, the champagne was disposed of undrunk, albeit not without some remorse about the waste, when it became clear that the book was unlikely to be completed as originally proposed. Life does sometimes, however, provide a second chance. The following essays, most of them written over a period of around ten years between 1990 and 2000, contain some of the intended chapters that, before their later editing to be these articles, were supposed to go into that book. The collection as a whole is what I consider some of my more important articles on their subject written in that period. In the changed and, in many respects, more troubling political atmosphere of the present, they are considered of current relevance and contemporary importance for their analyses of some of the political movements and phenomena that are the predecessors of today’s extreme-right movements in these respective countries.

Preface  xiii

They may, it is hoped, assist in theorizing a better social-scientific explanation of how matters came to be as they now are when examining the current movements. The academic ‘shelf life’ of the average academic book, in terms of later citations of it, is relatively short; that of the average academic journal article, even if published in a ‘prestige’ journal, is shorter still, and of the average academic book chapter shorter yet again. Of course, there are examples of each that defy their average and receive continual citations; some such within the social sciences are monographs, a few are journal articles, and a tiny few are chapters in books. The lesson of this, if one is aspiring to reputational longevity, is perhaps to seek to write just monographs that one hopes will be highly cited. Very occasionally, in moments perhaps of misplaced vanity, I have inspected later writings on subjects about which I had previously written – impelled, I suppose, by a naïve curiosity about whether their authors cited any of my earlier related work. The answer, as often as not, was negative. I was not offended and certainly not particularly surprised, for shelf lives – like weekends, like life, as the protagonist of Kind Hearts and Coronets observed – are short and my amour propre survived unscathed and not insulted. True, there have been occasional exceptions that have cited my work, such as Carter (2005), though the subtitle of her book looks very much of its time when viewed from the more troubling perspective of 2020. The articles reprinted as chapters in this volume certainly defied almost all the principles for increasing their likelihood of later citation, let alone for guaranteeing reputational posterity. None comes from a standard monograph, three were published as articles in journals of varying academic prestige (one of these originally in a foreign language), two were never properly previously published, and five come as chapters from edited collections on whose topic there were a number of other competing books at the time and have been since. What then is the claim that their republication is merited, apart from mere nostalgia and the likelihood of oblivion otherwise arising from the sources where they were first published? The claim in this case is twofold: first, the distinctiveness of their contribution to the issues of their subject matter at the time; and second, the value for researchers on currentday extreme-right movements, in these and other countries, of knowing more of the research on the movements that came before them. It is hoped that others will agree that this twofold claim has been justified in the republications in this volume. My overall perspective was partly influenced by two factors that I hope make my contributions to a degree distinctive. My background of doctoral research in the United States at the University of Chicago during the 1960s, writing a thesis on support for the American Independent Party’s candidacy of George Corley Wallace in the 1968 Presidential election, as well as in earlier primary elections, attuned me to the extensive sociological literature on the then-recent or contemporary extreme right in the United States (such as McCarthyism and the John Birch Society), as well as to historical work on earlier American extreme-right movements, such as the version of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and the Depression-era examples such as the Coughlinites and Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth movement. I read much of the then-existing literature on the People’s Party, the original American Populists,

xiv Preface

whose reputation – whilst not without controversy – has been rather traduced by the manner in which this label has come to be used in current political rhetoric. Given also the importance of the University of Chicago in the establishment of urban sociology as a distinct branch of the discipline, my studying there sensitized me to the importance of micro-spatial urban processes of spatial competition, segregation, and housing-market process in accounting for political choices and outcomes. These interests were the basis of my book-length study on the support of the National Front (NF) in the 1970s and early 1980s, Racial Exclusionism and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front (Husbands 1983).They are also used in several of the studies in this collection of voting for extreme-right alternatives, especially Chapters 5, 6, and 9. This perspective has been less explored in the literature of the topic than more mainstream ones that have emphasized the implications of standard categories of social structure, although Linehan (2015) is an exception. Chapter 1 argues that theories being used to explain the appeal of extremeright parties in the 1990s were to a large extent versions, mutatis mutandis, of those once used in the 1950s by earlier sociologists and political scientists in the United States to explain the appeal of the extremism of their time. There is a debate to be had about whether current theoretical approaches – many based on globalization tropes – are really much different from earlier theoretical explanations. The early relationship of social class in the support for the Front National (FN) in France was often predicated on the claim in much of the early literature on the NSDAP vote that it was heavily middle and lower-middle class in terms of class structure. That perspective has been much disputed by later research, but there can be no denying the hold that it had on later writing about the extreme right. Chapter 2 reviews the rise of the FN under Jean-Marie Le Pen and was one of the first in English to note a degree of proletarianization of its support, if only to a limited degree. Chapters 3 and 4, both on Germany, take a slightly different approach – less on the mass voting support for the extreme right, though there have been numerous examples of that – and more on the small groups of hard-core activists constituting social movements as much as political parties. Chapter 3 updated to the 1990s, in the years after German reunification, an earlier essay on militant neo-Nazism that had been confined to the situation in the former West Germany of the 1980s (Husbands 1991); the later article had the advantage of being able to include analyses of the effects of the reunification on the national extreme-right scene. Chapter 4, published in this form for the first time, looks at the operation of a specifically German bureaucratic process – how national and regional offices formally assigned the task of protecting the constitution approached the emergence of Die Republikaner (REPs) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Chapters 5 and 6 were early considerations in the English-language literature of the extreme right in the Low Countries, whose circumstances were rather eclipsed in the early 1990s by the greater focus of social scientists and journalists on the situations of France and Germany but in which there has been considerable later

Preface  xv

interest and knowledge, especially in the light of the success of Geert Wilders’ Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) in the Netherlands and the periodic political instability of Belgium. Chapter 5 reviewed the pre-war extreme-right phenomenon in the Netherlands, the post-war episodes of ‘flash’ political parties, and the situation during the 1970s and 1980s with respect to three small parties, the Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU), the Centrum Partij ’86 (CP ’86), and its breakaway Centrumdemocraten (CDs). Chapter 5 reviews how, after a period of quiescence in the late 1980s, these parties made breakthroughs in the early 1990s, achieving representations in several city councils and in the national parliament, the Second Chamber, anticipating according to some perspectives the later successes of Wilders’ party. Chapter 6 was an early discussion of the hitherto less-discussed topic of the extreme right in Belgium, especially the Vlaams Blok (VB) – later, in 2004, renamed as the Vlaams Belang (VBg). Both chapters contained micro-spatial analyses of the respective parties’ urban support, showing the significance of territoriality and local interethnic hostility in their voting support. Chapter 7 discusses Switzerland, hitherto also rather neglected as a case study of the extreme right. It analyses Switzerland as a case of exceptionalism, not because it had no extreme right, though its incontrovertibly extreme-right parties were almost insignificant, but because many of the attributes of extreme-right ideology, especially ethnic exclusionism, were seen in one of the major parties of the country’s governing coalition and thus affected Government policies. Chapter 8 is the exception in the book in terms of its focus on the period from 2000 to 2008. Written in the latter year for a general overview of strategies in Great Britain against the extreme right, it is an excerpt from this larger statement and focuses on the legislative and legal issues raised by the issue. It discusses both relevant legislation and also legal cases featuring the British National Party (BNP). Chapter 9 is a new contribution edited from conference papers written in 1989 and 1990. It has two purposes: first, to itemize the various practical difficulties facing the study of the urban geography of extreme-right voting; and secondly, to analyse the subarea distributions of extreme-right support in nine cities of four west European countries in order to demonstrate the inferences about such support that may be extracted from this research method. Although thirty years old, it was perhaps ahead of its time; a recent essay on support for the extreme right has said that ‘studies in small(ish) areas are currently one of the most promising avenues of research into the radical right vote’ (Arzheimer 2018, p. 159). Chapter 10 argues that different countries are specific in their experience of extreme-right politics, which in the period concerned rose in significance in the light of country-level circumstances – thus metaphors about, for example, a ‘wave’ of the extreme right simultaneously engulfing western Europe needed correction or at least modification. They raise the question whether this country-level distinctiveness, a feature of the 1990s, remains the case in the Europe of 2020. Most of these chapters were written in the 1990s, immediately or soon after 1989, the year that saw the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Several review their respective countries’ previous history of extreme-right politics in the decades before that year

xvi Preface

and so are now to be regarded as historical contributions to analysing these political phenomena. The events of 1989 may have briefly looked like a new beginning, when the easing of Cold War tensions might have seemed a precursor to a happier period of European politics. However, even if such optimism was ever seriously entertained, it was soon shown to be illusionary and any new beginning was extremely brief. By the time when these chapters were written, events had taken a nastier turn in numerous countries, as discussed in the Introductory Essay. The growth of the extreme right in both western and eastern Europe between the 1990s and 2020 cannot but suggest a phrase from a famous poem by Robert Browning, albeit one written for a different context – ‘never glad confident morning again’.

References Arzheimer, Kai. 2018. ‘Explaining electoral support for the radical right’. Pp. 143–65 in Jens Rydgren (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carter, Elisabeth. 2005. The Extreme Right in Western Europe: Success or Failure? Manchester: Manchester University Press. Husbands, Christopher T. 1983. Racial Exclusionism and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front. London: George Allen & Unwin. Husbands, Christopher T. 1991. ‘Militant neo-Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s’. Pp. 86–119 in Luciano Cheles, Ronald Ferguson, and Michalina Vaughan (eds.), Neo-Fascism in Europe. Harlow: Longman. Linehan, Thomas. 2015. ‘Cultures of space: spatialising the National Front’. Pp. 49–67 in Nigel Copsey and John R. Richardson (eds.), Cultures of Post-War British Fascism. London: Routledge.

NOTES ON PRESENTATION

I was presented with various dilemmas in the preparation of these chapters for republication. One of the first concerned the use of tenses. Because some of these materials were describing a then-current situation, their verbs are in the present tense. As one knows that the present situation is, or may be, different, this often reads oddly twenty or thirty years later, and so I was tempted into a wholesale change of tenses to reflect the character of these chapters as history. However, an alternative consideration eventually prevailed; it seemed more important that the chapters reflected the zeitgeist when they were written and, accordingly, tenses in most cases have been left unchanged. There have been some exceptions; where there was a possibility that retention of the present tense might have had defamatory implications because the statement concerned was not now true, or might no longer be, the tensing has been adjusted, along with certain necessary smaller concomitant editing changes; such changes are indicated by the use of emboldened text placed within square brackets. The date when each chapter was written should always be borne in mind. My principal further concession to the present has been to add occasional extra referencing when some incidental fact could also be referenced by another appropriate source; the major example concerns the obnoxious nineteenth-century insult überjüdeln in Chapter 7, Note 5. A couple of related later additions have been given in bold type within square brackets and signed ‘CTH, 2020’. Furthermore, the year of death (when ascertainable) of certain individuals who have died in the intervening period has been added in bold text. Certain chapters had originally been published with their references in footnotes or endnotes; the referencing in these has been reformatted into the Harvard style, though some endnotes were retained for their inclusion of substantive material.The reformatting sometimes involved small necessary non-substantive reformulations of the relevant text.

xviii  Notes on presentation

Non-English-language titles of political parties and institutions are used within the text only with their indigenous-language title and an associated abbreviation, and there is an appendix at the end of the book that consolidates all such names by country, along with their abbreviation and a translation into English of their title. Any subsequent mentions within the same chapter use only the abbreviation, with occasional exceptions when it was more appropriate still to use the full title, as in Chapter 4. Also, a word about certain vocabulary: from a current-day perspective I was sometimes troubled by the occasional diction then used to describe specific phenomena. The most obvious was ‘outgroup’, a word with a perfectly reputable history of use in social psychology and in writings on ethnic and racial studies.This was once, routinely and without intention to offend, used in respectable writing on race relations to refer to certain ‘minority groups’, usually ethnic minorities, asylumseekers, or non-indigenous groups in particular countries. With present sensibilities this usage is embarrassing, even offensive, to describe ethnic or similar populations who have been established in a particular country for two or more generations. I was initially tempted to change this particular usage to some more neutral alternative, or even to resort to so-called ‘apology quotation marks’. However, different counsel prevailed since any such changes seemed akin to bowdlerization, and so I have left such vocabulary unchanged, merely here reminding readers of the time when these chapters were first written. Finally, some of these chapters were published originally with an introductory epigraph or some appropriate literary allusion; others were not. In the interest of consistency, I have added epigraphs to those cases that had been published without. Some of these reflect the import of the respective chapter at the time and also what, with the benefit of hindsight, has happened there since.

APPLIED ABBREVIATIONS OF FREQUENTLY CITED NEWSPAPERS

DM DVK FAZ FR Gu HP HVV LM NHB NZZ Sp SZ TT

De Morgen De Volkskrant Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Frankfurter Rundschau The Guardian Het Parool Het Vrije Volk Le Monde NRC Handelsblad Neue Zürcher Zeitung Der Spiegel Süddeutsche Zeitung The Times

FIRST-PUBLICATION AND PERMISSION DETAILS OF EACH CHAPTER

Chapter 1, Originally published with the title, ‘How to tame the dragon, or What goes around comes around: A critical review of some major contemporary attempts to account for extreme-right racist politics in western Europe’. Pp. 39–59 in Martin Schain, Aristide Zolberg, and Patrick Hossay (eds.), Shadows over Europe:The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in Western Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Chapter 2, ‘The support for the Front National: Analyses and findings’. Pp. 381–415 in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 14(3), 1991; republished by permission of the publisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd, www.tandfonline.com) Chapter 3, ‘Militant neo-Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1990s’. Pp. 327–53 in Luciano Cheles, Ronnie Ferguson, and Michalina Vaughan (eds.), The Far Right in Western and Eastern Europe. 2nd ed.; Harlow: Longman, 1995; republished by permission of Pearson Business. Chapter 4,‘The state’s response to far-right extremism:The case of Die Republikaner and the German national and regional authorities’. Edited from a paper presented at a Conference on the Radical Right in Western Europe organized by the Western Europe Studies Center, University of Minneapolis, 7–9 November 1991. Chapter 5, ‘The Netherlands: Irritants on the body politic’. Pp. 95–125 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers, 1992; republished by permission of Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. Chapter 6,‘Belgium: Flemish legions on the march’, Pp. 126–50 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers, 1992;

First-publication and permission details of each chapter  xxi

republished by permission of Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. Chapter 7, ‘Switzerland: Right-wing and xenophobic parties, from the margin to the mainstream?’. Pp. 501–16 in Parliamentary Affairs, 53(3), 2000; republished by permission of Oxford University Press and the Hansard Society. Chapter 8, An edited extract from ‘Country Report Great Britain’. Pp. 249–83 in Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed.), Strategies for Combating Right-Wing Extremism in Europe. Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2009; republished by permission of Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung. Chapter 9, ‘Aggregate-data analyses of urban racist voting: Methodological Limitations, lessons, and experiences from France, the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Switzerland’. Edited from a paper presented at the Joint Sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2–7 April 1990. Chapter 10, Translated into English and edited by the author from his ‘Die Anhängerschaft des Rechtsextremismus in Westeuropa: Eine Überprüfung der Wellenhypothese anhand von Umfragen-Zeitreihen in fünf Ländern’. Pp. 313–29 in Politische Vierteljahresschrift – Sonderheft Rechtsextremismus: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung, 27, 1996; translation published by permission of Springer Nature.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

Socrates: Heraclitus is supposed to say that all things are in motion and nothing at rest; he compares them to the stream of a river, and says that you cannot go into the same water twice. Plato, Cratylus, in The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 1 (trans. Benjamin Jowett, 1871) Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, in Les Guêpes (1848) The chapters in this book, except Chapter 8, were written between 1989 and 2000; Chapter 8 was written in 2008. Since the 1990s decade and even since 2008 much has changed, even if a few matters have stayed the same, or almost. Many of today’s relevant political parties have emerged since. During the last three decades some earlier parties of the extreme right in western Europe have disappeared into oblivion, to be superseded by replacements; but other parties have survived, and even flourished. In the Federal Republic of Germany the era of Die Republikaner (REPs) has long gone (though the party still exists), and the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) merged in 2011 with the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutchlands (NPD) (which does also still exist), but the current movement of importance on the extreme right is the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), founded in 2013.1 In the Netherlands the Centrumpartij ’86 (CP ’86) and the Centrumdemocraten (CDs) have both gone, the first declared illegal and dissolved in 1998 and the second dissolved in 2002.They were initially replaced in terms of some of their appeal by the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF), founded in 2002 and dissolved in 2008, though Fortuyn himself had been assassinated in 2002, shortly after the founding of his party. The later replacements have been Geert Wilders’s Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) and, more recently,Thierry Baudet’s Forum voor Democratie (FvD), the former founded in 2006 and the latter

2  Introductory essay

as recently as 2016; Wilders has been the object of various prosecutions and, during the summer of 2019, Baudet’s party was embroiled in well-publicized internal controversies about corruption, an expulsion of a co-founder, and the departure of several of its parliamentary representatives (DVK, 3 September 2019, p. 3; NHB, 3 September 2019, p. 9). In Great Britain the British National Party (BNP) has been reduced to insignificance, and the English Defence League (EDL) briefly flourished as an anti-Muslim social movement, but both have since been overwhelmed by the anti-Europe sentiment expressed by other right-wing alternatives such as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and, in 2019, the Brexit Party. In Belgium and France, on the other hand, parties’ labels have changed but otherwise party representation is much the same. In Belgium the Vlaams Blok (VB), after legal difficulties under that name, merely metamorphosed in 2004 into the Vlaams Belang (VBg). It briefly had a right-wing stablemate in the Lijst Dedecker, founded in 2007 and renamed in 2011 as Libertair, Direct, Democratisch (LDD) and has also faced some competition from the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA), founded in 2001 and generally regarded as centre right, though aspects of its policies have been equated with those of the VBg. In France the Front National (FN), no longer led by Jean-Marie Le Pen but by his daughter Marine, sought to sanitize its image by a name change in 2018 to the Rassemblement National (RN). However, in Austria the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) has remained the same in name throughout, although Jörg Haider had left it and in 2005 founded the Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (BZÖ); Haider himself died controversially in a car accident in 2008. What has certainly changed since the 1990s is the political and economic situation of that decade in Europe. Facing the year 2020, Europe faces a much darker future from right-wing extremism. Back in the 1990s, albeit with some exceptions, extreme-right parties in most countries of western Europe were irritants with limited voter appeal or, at worst, appealed only to minority constituencies. However, in western Europe in recent years there have been major surges by the extreme right in France, the Federal Republic, the Netherlands, and even the United Kingdom, as well as in Finland, Italy, Spain, and Sweden, among others. Students of the extreme right and of ethnic studies never bought into Fukuyama’s now-notorious ‘end of history’ optimism about the fall of the Soviet bloc. It was not long thereafter before examples of the extreme right appeared in a number of countries where they had previously been dormant or insignificant, or they became stronger in others where there was already some existing foothold (Husbands 1991). Also, the Gadarene rush to German unification from many in the former German Democratic Republic was fuelled less by a penchant for liberal democracy and a nebulous yearning for liberty than by the seemingly immediate prospect of affluence and the means to it – motivated more by the tenets of Croesus than by those of Voltaire or Rousseau. The former Yugoslavia broke up amid the worst large-scale inter-ethnic violence seen in Europe since 1945. Many of the countries of the former Soviet bloc have revealed themselves as having substantial pools of intolerance – Hungary and Poland, for example, have elected governments that many commentators have classified as, if not quite extreme-right, then intolerantly

Introductory essay  3

nationalist. In the first round of the Slovakian Presidential election in March 2019 the extreme-right Marian Kotleba, who had been elected Governor of a Slovakian province from 2013 to 2017, won more than 10 per cent of the national vote. Reactions to the refugee crisis in Europe in 2015 merely gave grist to the mill of these parties’ support. Most Marxists were equally as unimpressed by post-1989 developments, although their complaint was less against the illusory optimism of the immediate post-Soviet era than against the assumptions of the era of neoliberalism whose popularity had preceded the year 1989 by at least a decade. Their complaint was against the ideological accommodation which social democracy felt that it had to make in order to come to terms with the new zeitgeist. The rise of extremeright political parties was seen as resulting from a failure of this attempted accommodation, as politics did not satisfy the expectations of so many. Mouffe, writing in 2005 and so before the 2008 financial crash, expressed this perspective succinctly: Instead of looking for the causes [of the rise of populist parties] in signs of ‘backwardness’, either in the history of the country or in the social status of the electorate, it is to the shortcomings of the main political parties that we have to turn our attention. (Mouffe 2005, p. 66) and: With respect to domestic politics, … the strong appeal of ‘anti-establishment’ parties is due to the incapacity of established democratic parties to put forward significant alternatives and it can only be grasped within the context of the consensual mode of politics prevalent today. (Mouffe 2005, p. 69)

Emerging themes in the new literature on the extreme right The title of this book, it could be suggested, may be offering a hostage to fortune. Describing the phenomena and political parties in it as ‘extreme-right’ might be seen by some as increasingly old-fashioned and as a sign of an inability to escape from the paradigms of yesteryear. None the less, the adjectival ‘extreme-right’ is to be used extensively in this Introductory Essay, as well as in the title and some of the chapters of the book, and this is an appropriate place to offer a defence of my continued preference for this label of the political phenomena of the book. Minkenberg (2018) has recently offered an extensive analysis of several terms – right-wing populism, right-wing extremism, and right-wing radicalism – used to describe the phenomena of this book and he sets out how labelling fashions have varied. Mudde’s recent book also offers a helpful discussion of how descriptive practices on this topic have varied over the years, leading to the enthusiasm

4  Introductory essay

among many writers, including Mudde, for ‘populism’, ‘right-wing populism’, ‘radical-right populism’, and verbal permutations thereof (Mudde 2019, pp. 5–8); intriguingly, however, Mudde’s 2019 book is titled ‘far right’. If fashions on this matter have varied over the years, they have also varied between different countries. In the United Kingdom, albeit with several recent exceptions, there has been a general preference for ‘extreme right’ or ‘far right’. The first usage of ‘radical right’ came, however, from Germany, as I review in Chapter 4, where a purported distinction between Rechtsextremismus and Rechtsradikalismus also later became a criterion by which the official constitution-protection authorities decided whether or not a particular party’s activities should be monitored. The latter term would seem to have been adopted post-war because of the Sozialistische in the title of the Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP), with the word’s implication of radicalism; the SRP was an extreme-right party banned as unconstitutional in 1952. The label was then adopted, without attribution, into American sociology by Seymour Martin Lipset’s use of ‘radical right’ and it is especially in the United States where it has retained its currency, though even Lipset himself later accepted the term ‘rightwing extremism’ in the subtitle of a co-authored book (Lipset and Raab 1970). In Germany the later fashion among political scientists rather moved away from Rechtsradikalismus towards Rechtsextremismus. Thus, my personal preference, held consistently throughout, has rather won out in many circles. My understanding of radicalism implies not merely a demand for social change, but an ideology also based on redistributive and democratic principles – and the record according to these latter criteria of most so-called radical-right regimes, whether in or out of office, has been distinctly patchy. Attempts have been made to claim that many who have voted for the ‘radical right’ in western Europe were motivated specifically by concerns about immigration but were not generally xenophobic or racist. One proponent of this argument was Rydgren (2008), who eschewed altogether the label ‘extreme-right’ and argued on the basis of logistic regression analyses of the European Social Survey that, with individual exceptions in certain countries, his thesis was generally supported. However, despite the incontrovertibly high quality of his analyses, doubts may be permissible. A concern about immigration could well be a sanitized expression for xenophobic or racist views to which many of this survey’s respondents were unwilling to admit. However, if ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobic’ are appropriate, it might be conceded that this does not answer a further question of whether ‘extreme-right’ is also applicable. From a different perspective, Rydgren’s article did offer a further interesting discussion of the potential relevance of locality-based contacts between settled residents and recently arrived immigrants that may be a dynamic of racist voting, a subject about which Chapter 9 of this book, available in that form for the first time, offers pertinent evidence; there are cities where this may well have been the case (as in Rotterdam), but others where there is little evidence that it was. The subject of variant terminology is a confusing one because the amount of literature produced in the past two decades on extreme-right parties, and their purportedly related ones, and on theories about the possible causes of their success,

Introductory essay  5

is now vast, and labelling sometimes seems to have been dictated as much by fashion as by theory. In reviewing this literature, one sees the emergence of a number of themes that were absent or less salient when the chapters in this book were written. Whilst immigration was always a relevant topic in relation to extreme-right support, it assumed a distinctive salience in the light of the Islamist terrorist events in several countries since 2000 and especially of the 2015 refugee crisis; this latter was a major factor in the rise of the German AfD and the Dutch FvD and also led to rigorously pursued exclusionist policies in a number of countries, notably Italy and several eastern European countries – most notoriously Hungary. Italy has adopted strongly exclusionist policies toward political and economic refugees who have attempted to reach it via sea passage across the Mediterranean, a policy especially associated with the country’s one-time Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini. Especially since the 2001 attack on New York’s World Trade Center and the later incidents of Islamist terrorism in many European countries, Islamophobia also became a potent theme for the extreme right, superimposed on the immigration topic; prominent examples are Wilders’s PVV in the Netherlands, and the BNP and the post-2018 UKIP in Great Britain. Also, as discussed in more detail below, one cannot ignore the 2008 financial crash as a factor leading to a general uncertainty that fuelled extreme-right support among several social groups.

A classification of emergent themes No set of categories to classify the recent literature on the extreme right can be mutually exhaustive or exclusive; there will necessarily be omissions and overlaps, both theoretical and empirical. However, in reviewing the content of this literature, certain dominant new theories, themes, and research styles can nonetheless be identified. These fall into one of two different subcategories, here termed macropolitical and micro-political. The former are zeitgeist themes about the failure of political systems and the rise of cultural tropes centred on nationalism and often also on religious themes about the supposed superiority of the Christian religion. The latter include themes arising from the social base of extreme-right parties, as comprising the individuals, both voters and hard-core activists, who have supported such parties; with respect to activists, it is also concerned with the organizational structure of extreme-right movements, especially those with only small, but activist, memberships. The emergent macro-political themes may be summarized as: • • •

the cultural – this category encompasses the ever-growing literature that focuses on the dysfunctions and angsts of the present; the political – a number of authors have argued that customary party systems have collapsed, leading, inter alia, to a loss of faith in political elites; the populist – there has been a massive increase of interest since the 1990s in invoking the concept of populism to describe the character of the contemporary extreme right;

6  Introductory essay

• •

the nationalist – there is also an increasing literature analysing the rise of chauvinistic nationalisms; and the economic – this approach focuses on the failures of neoliberalism in contemporary capitalism, analysing particularly the dysfunctional consequences of globalization for many citizens in modern societies, especially by increasing economic inequality.

The new micro-political themes include: •

•

•

•

a number of studies that move forward the views about the social base of extreme-right support from some of the themes of the earlier literature of the 1980s; increased discussion in parts of the recent literature on the role of gender and of gender differentials in examining voters’ and activists’ support for the extreme right; a change in the urban focus of extreme-right support discussed in Chapter 9 to see how some authors see new forms of urban patterning having a bearing on the degree of local support for the extreme right; and the emerging ideology and activities of activists of the extreme right.

The cultural There is very much a sense that one source, albeit an indirect one, for the current success of the extreme right in so many countries is a succession of general discontents that have been accumulating in the last three or so decades. The 1990s, certainly in their early part, were not, as already discussed, a period of unalloyed optimism about the future, notwithstanding the fall of the Soviet bloc. However, there was certainly none of quite the sense of current and impending crisis that has come to be a persistent trope in a substantial amount of recent polemical literature. Current publishing is sardined with books with their particular analyses of the present malaise. It would be otiose to attempt a full review of these, but certain authors have particularly caught the popular zeitgeist. Klein’s The Shock Doctrine (Klein 2007) was an early example of this style of polemic. It was a purported analysis of the rise of ‘disaster capitalism’ through a review of every sort of dysfunctional political and economic development in an assemblage of diverse countries – from the UK to the USA, from Chile to China – over the past half century. Mishra’s Age of Anger (Mishra 2017) takes an historical view of the current ressentiment, which he sees as a continuation of fractures that began with the Enlightenment and can be seen previously in a whole number of earlier episodes in many countries – the Dreyfus affair in France, Hindu nationalism and the assassination of Gandhi in India, and many others. Davies’s Nervous States (Davies 2018) adopts a different perspective, analysing the present in terms of the decline of rationalism, as seen, for example, in increased suspicions about vaccination or generally about the advice of experts.

Introductory essay  7

The political It is a commonplace of current political science that in many countries the customary system of political parties is in disarray or has collapsed, leading, inter alia, to a loss of faith in political elites. The arguments for this, and even the symptoms of it, vary, often by country, but there is a common view that the fracturing is not unconnected to a consequent success of the extreme right in several countries. Mouffe’s analysis was quoted earlier – that political parties were increasingly moving towards a corporatist centralism that excluded the representation of significant sections of the population. Castells has offered a similar view, blending the political to the rise of globalization that has fractured national economies and led in turn to anti-globalization reactions, of both left and right (Castells 2019, pp. 13–16, 35–7). There is no doubt some truth in these depictions. In the UK critics with a shorter-term perspective place blame on the role of New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, seeing this as a continuation in modified form of policies originally associated with the previous Conservative Government’s neoliberalism; in support of that view, Evans and Menon (2017, pp. 25–30) cite evidence for the convergence since the mid-1980s of the promises in Labour’s and the Conservatives’ election manifestos. Since 2005 Germany has had a succession of increasingly parlous coalition governments, with the Christian Democrats as the principal component. The victory in France in 2017 of Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche! was a consequence of the collapse of the traditional French party system, albeit assisted by the idiosyncrasy of the electoral system to its Assemblée nationale. Mair, in the posthumously published Ruling the Void (Mair 2013), much of which was written before the 2008 financial crash, developed a number of related themes, including the well-established declines in voter turnout and in party identification and the rise of electoral volatility in most west European electorates. Mair was explicitly critical of the European Union (EU) for its contribution to this democratic erosion and, some might say presciently, saw it as a particular agent in the process of voter disenchantment. Since Mouffe’s and Mair’s contributions, events have conspired to accelerate these processes. The 2015 refugee crisis in Europe that fomented the rise of the AfD in Germany increased precariousness of the country’s national coalition, and had wider destabilizing effects across Europe. In the UK the mood was uniquely complicated by the result of the referendum in June 2016 to leave the EU. The referendum enabled a whole range of grievances to be expressed outside the party system (Evans and Menon 2017, pp. 24–45). Partly in the light of this, both major parties moved their ideological position; the Labour Party, or parts of it, moved to the left, though that process had been underway from before 2016, and the Conservative Party went to the right. Paradoxically, however, they, or rather their leaderships, were initially not wholly different from each other in what they said in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result about leaving the EU.

8  Introductory essay

While the great majority of Labour Party members and a majority of Labour voters did not favour leaving, the Party’s leadership was equivocal, initially saying that it would respect the result of the 2016 referendum. After much anguish in the Party’s leadership, Labour eventually and belatedly moved to a position of favouring a further referendum on the issue, though its then-leader was unwilling personally to commit to campaign for a ‘remain’ vote; Labour’s serious loss of the UK’s general election on 12 December 2019 made any equivocation irrelevant. The Conservative Party was always more enthusiastic about leaving but, by the originally intended leave-date of 29 March 2019, the Conservative Government had not managed to achieve this; some of its MPs and even some of its voters were in any case opposed to leaving, and certainly to leaving without a negotiated deal. Even so, the hostility to the EU within large parts of the Conservative Party’s normal voter support and the failure of the Conservative Government to negotiate leaving by the first-intended date, along with the extended vacillation about its position in the case of the Labour Party, led to two divergent consequences – a rush to a newly established right-wing Brexit Party by those (many of them normally Conservative voters) who were disappointed by the prospect of the UK’s not having left the EU, and a simultaneous rise, which turned out to be very short-lived, of a centrist pro-remain constituency (many of them normally Labour voters) briefly focused around support for the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, as exemplified by the UK’s results in the elections to the European Parliament in May 2019.

The populist Mudde (2007)’s now much-cited contribution to this subject performed at the time a useful service by offering an early compilation of the numerous terms that had been applied by different analysts to movements that were the subject of his book on ‘populist radical right parties’ (pp. 11–13). He emerged from his exercise in conceptual classification with a basic distinction drawn between the non-populist extreme right (by which he meant neo-fascism and neo-Nazism, as well as several contemporary party examples) and the populist radical right, which included the then-emergent versions of the Belgian VB/VBg and the French FN (Mudde 2007, p. 49). The former were seen as undemocratic and often elitist, whereas the latter were purportedly democratic. As I said above, I was not wholly convinced by this distinction, being myself still willing to label all such parties as ‘extreme-right’, whilst nonetheless recognizing some smaller differences between them. Even Mudde was then perhaps not wholly convinced by the distinction that he was drawing and he offered a parenthetic ‘nominally’ in claiming that populist radicalright parties are democratic. Two in particular of Mudde’s publications after his 2007 book (Mudde 2010, 2013) furthered a thesis that voting for what he continued to call ‘the populist radical right’ was not actually an aberrant phenomenon in formally democratic societies – as he claimed was the leitmotif of much previous related research – but instead was

Introductory essay  9

a case of ‘pathological normalcy’; i.e., merely a more extreme, if unhealthy, version of attitudinal features widely held in most such societies. He focused particularly on hostility to immigration and events associated with this that might push even the normally mainstream voter into supporting a populist radical-right party pushing an exclusionist agenda. One can note that phenomena which might now attract the label ‘populist’ have occurred on many occasions across both time and space. A basic premise of populism is that there is a ‘will of the people’ that is being denied and frustrated by a nefarious elite, though that concept has a definitional looseness which goes back to debates on the meaning and operationalization of Rousseau’s la volonté générale and before, especially on non-consensual issues. Incontestable examples of what would be regarded by many as historical ‘populism’ are numerous, some generally considered ethically reputable, such as the Levellers of the late English Civil War period, and others less so, such as Boulangism in the French Third Republic at the end of the 1880s. However, ‘populism’ as a specific political term in English has a surprisingly recent provenance, dating only from the last decade of the nineteenth century. Usually then spelt with an upper-case ‘P’, it became a usage applied to, and by, the American People’s Party of that era. This movement once also had a respectable historical reputation for its political radicalism by oppressed farmers against exploitative interests, such as the purchasers of their produce or the railroads that carried it (e.g., Hicks 1961 [1931]). This view of the Populists lasted until a revisionist historiography appeared in the 1950s. Hofstadter, for example, offered some concessions to the traditional view but his larger analysis attributed to 1890s Populism such failings as nativism, anti-Semitism, fundamentalism, narrow-mindedness, and anti-rationalism (Hofstadter 1955, pp. 23–93, esp. p. 82). In a later essay he was even more hostile about Populism, using to make his case an 1895 statement claiming an alleged conspiracy ‘between the gold gamblers of Europe and America’ that was signed by ‘a number of leaders’ of the People’s Party (Hofstadter 1964, p. 8). Shils (1956, p. 99), in the same vein, was equally dismissive, with accusations of anti-Eastern effeteness, a belief in conspiracies against ‘the people’, and a hostility to ‘overeducation’. Such revisionist views then attracted several examples of a counter-revisionism (e.g., Nugent 1963; Rogin 1967; Goodwyn 1976); however, unlike Newton’s third law of motion whereby, when one body exerts a force on another body, this second body exerts a force on the first body that is equal in strength and opposite in direction, it is the greater strength of the first revisionist view about Populism in particular and populism in general that won out largely to prevail to influence, or taint, later analyses of the subject. Thus, its current application to any movement or political party that purports to represent a disenfranchised mass against the supposed machinations of an elite, but that adopts anti-rationalist and ethnically intolerant tropes to do so, or that purports to dismiss expertise and intellectualism, owes something to Hofstadter’s and Shils’s depictions and to those of like-minded writers.The current academic literature about populism almost universally adopts the critical and rejectionist standpoint.

10  Introductory essay

Many of the contributions in the recently published The Oxford Handbook of Populism offer examples of this, though the editors’ initial overview (Kaltwasser et al. 2017) is a balanced account of the history of the concept, also noting its earlier and more innocent beginnings. However, the short work by Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017) is very much in the criticizing tradition, whether referring to right-wing or left-wing populism. Müller (2016), Hartleb (2017), and Eatwell and Goodwin (2018) are further examples that might be cited. However, the question that is raised by this literature is surely whether it is useful to hang an analysis so heavily on a term that, both theoretically and empirically, is so elusive and nebulous – and that has been attributed to both right-wing and left-wing examples. As some earlier writers have pointed out, taking a more nuanced view of the subject, populism has no single form and has existed in numerous different embodiments (e.g., Canovan 1981, p. 289) or, in Betz’s case, two (Betz 1994, pp. 107–39). That is why the essays in this book, with just four small exceptions that loose usage allowed to slip in, confined their use of the term to critiques of it and to its use by others in quotations and book titles. My preference instead was, and is, for ‘extreme right-wing’/‘rightwing extremism’; true, there are indeed debates about whether certain particular parties or movements should be so classified, but the term itself is more definite and less variegated in its meanings than is ‘populism’.2

The nationalist In the nineteenth century and among one-time colonies of the era of European colonialism, nationalism had for many a reputable face, being associated with a legitimate goal of national self-determination. The history of much of Europe in the twentieth century put paid to that for the European theatre, even if the concept still retained a degree of lustre when applied to colonies seeking liberation and independence. The twenty-first century has given a very different complexion to most forms of contemporary nationalism, which are often xenophobic, Islamophobic, racially exclusionist, narrow-minded, and ready to arrogate to the domestic nation a purported superiority over other nations and foreigners in general.Valluvan (2019, pp. 58–60) is also sceptical about the allegedly positive examples of contemporary nationalism, such as the Scottish and Catalan cases, and his book is partly an essay about how contemporary nationalism in Britain of the type that is currently dominant has invoked tropes about race that are straightforwardly racist. Examples from other countries of the negative approach among contemporary political leaders are not hard to find. Donald Trump and his support base would surely qualify; his 2016 slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’ (threatening for 2020 to become ‘Keep America Great’) is nationalistic, as is his pursuit of America-centric trade policies and his well-attested rudeness about certain countries (Woodward 2018, pp. 208 and 320–1 respectively). Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, with its exclusionist policies and its concern about the supposed dilution of Hungarian culture, would be a further example. Not all authors would accept a

Introductory essay  11

specific role of nationalism per se in this context; Eatwell and Goodwin (2018, esp. pp. 48–64), discussing the British case, attribute to populism a celebration of ‘the popular will’, whereas it is fascism that celebrates the nation.

The economic Seeking economic reasons for the success of the extreme right has always been one standard approach to its analysis. There is nothing new there. What has given a recent particular impetus to this perspective is the financial crash of 2008 and its continuing consequences. An economic approach was often used in an extensive literature before this financial crash, although at least one study, that by Rydgren (2008), which was based on data collected in 2003 from six west European countries, downplayed the significance of economic factors in predicting radicalright support. None the less, the events of 2008 and thereafter gave a convincing credibility to the effects that economic factors might have in stimulating extremeright support, especially as exemplified by purported failures of the neoliberal model. For example, Peck’s (2010) book was published in the years immediately after the crash and offered a general critical analysis of neoliberal capitalism and its effects, whether on increasing uncertainties in the labour market or increased regional and other disparities. For the 2008 financial crash led to a shaking up of the neoliberal consensus that had dominated in many west European countries since the 1980s, fuelling in the process a rise of Euroscepticism that worked to the advantage of extreme-right parties focusing on nationalist agendas. Crouch (2011) also analysed the crisis of neoliberalism and the failures of globalization, though he argued that it had survived nonetheless, even emerging strengthened in the light of an absence of successfully attempted alternatives; the other side of that story, however, is the rise of extreme responses among those who have suffered the negative consequences of this purported recovery. Collier’s book, The Future of Capitalism (Collier 2018), is one of several general books on this topic. He sees some very direct links between developments in contemporary capitalism and the success of extreme-right politics: the aggravation of regional disparities; the decline of traditional industries in late-capitalist countries (whether of car-manufacturing, ceramics, coal-mining, steel, or whatever); the outsourcing of many such production activities to developing countries with cheaper labour costs; the growth of the casualized labour market; and increasing levels of income inequality. Even if not wholly absent, this particular economic focus was less evident in the research on the extreme right in the 1980s and 1990s, which was very much concerned to explain it in ethnically exclusionist terms. Of course, as said above, that latter focus still has a central status in current research – whether immigration concerns and Brexit, the induced moral panic about illegal migration on America’s southern border and Trump, or the refugee crisis of 2015 and the successes of the AfD in Germany, of Fidesz in Hungary, or of the Lega Nord (now just the Lega) in Italy.

12  Introductory essay

The social base of extreme-right support A dominant stereotype offered about support for the extreme right has much empirical support but, though claiming exhaustiveness, it was nonetheless perhaps based to a degree on wishful thinking about a hoped-for limit to the phenomenon’s appeal. As discussed in Chapter 1, the Modernisierungsverlierer (‘losers from modernization’) thesis, originally associated with Wilhelm Heitmeyer, was in various forms the major theoretical paradigm of the 1990s and itself had antecedents in earlier theories about such support. The correlates of that view were that concentrations of support would be found among certain groups of the economically less well-off, they were likely to be ethnically homogeneous and white, and that men were more likely to be supporters than women. Parts of that perspective continue to be seen in current tropes about ‘left behind’ groups, or even about the ‘just about managing’. The extent to which these were stereotypes, usually based on small percentage-differences in national samples of voters, is shown in the case of the French FN in Table 2.3 of Chapter 2. True, some small subgroups were indeed distinctive for being relatively more pro-FN (e.g., the self-employed and owners of small businesses), or relatively more anti-FN (e.g., teachers, and medical and social workers), but these were a small fraction of the total electorate. The debate about the social basis of the extreme-right vote and about the relevance of the Modernisierungsverlierer depiction has moved on, especially in the light of later large-scale survey-based research unpacking the dimensions of this depiction and their various effects. Support has shown differences over both time and place; some themes (and findings) have changed, but others have not. One systematic and comprehensive attempt at an evaluation of these issues was that by Spier (2010), who used a cumulated data-file collected from 2002 to 2004 by the European Social Survey in nine west European countries, though – of the nine – only Italy is unambiguously from southern Europe. He attributed to the Modernisierungsverlierer syndrome four particular attitudinal features – xenophobia, authoritarianism, misanthropy, and political dissatisfaction – and he then analysed a large number of social and economic characteristics as being potential components of it and contributors to it. His summarizing global explanatory model of propensity to vote for an extreme-right party (right-wing populist ones in his terminology), in a model employing full statistical controls, identified those items with the most significant net effect upon such voting as being of low socio-economic status, being socially excluded, being in an intermediate occupation, and not being economically active (p. 189). Perhaps surprising is that small employers and the self-employed were not distinctively in favour of the extreme right when other variables were controlled for. Spier’s attitudinal features equally predicted such voting, particularly the first three when in an interaction model with political dissatisfaction. Bringing this discussion closer to looking at the present, there is now a significant recent literature on the purportedly less extreme rejectionist forms of modern politics, such as favouring Brexit, voting for Donald Trump, or supporting the AfD, as well as the massive literature on extreme-right support. In the case of Brexit and

Introductory essay  13

Trump, Eatwell and Goodwin (2018, pp. 9–39) have assembled many modifications of the arguments that these movements, especially Brexit, were based heavily on the votes of ‘angry old white men’ or that Trump’s electoral support was exclusively white – as well as countering other uncertain claims. In the case of the AfD, one study has shown that its principal engine was a cultural backlash, though economic factors also played a subsidiary role (Rippi and Seipel 2018). However, for larger analyses there are a number of studies taking a wider international perspective. Norris (2005) and Mudde (2007) were two classic examples of such studies of the recent period from the post-2000 decade. Norris, looking at what she labelled ‘radical right’ support, noted some of the features that recur in the literature, albeit that changes have occurred over time in the role of some variables. Looking at eight European countries with 2002 data, support tended to be disproportionately male, usually somewhat older, (unsurprisingly) from non-ethnic minorities, more from the self-employed and the working class (especially the unskilled), and also from the least religious (Norris 2005, pp. 145–6). Some of these findings are reminiscent of those noted in Table 2.3 of Chapter 2 about FN support during the late 1980s. However, there is at least one exception: FN supporters in 2002 were on average slightly less young, and Norris’s country-by-country breakdowns, including more than her original eight countries, showed that, as with late 1980s FN support, radical-right support in the Czech Republic, Russia, and Slovenia – the former two in the ex-Soviet bloc and the last in ex-Yugoslavia – was relatively higher among younger cohorts. Norris and Inglehart (2019) is a major updating of Norris’s 2005 book. Extended to a larger number of countries, it offers numerous analyses mostly using ordinary least-squares regression, but its Table 8.4, which analyses voting support for extreme-right parties across twenty-one European countries, offers one of the book’s principal findings. Inferring from the partial coefficients, those born after 1945 have positive values (showing their higher support under control conditions), as do those for men and for residents of more urban areas, whereas the partial coefficient for those with higher education is negative (Norris and Inglehart 2019, pp. 284–5). Pauwels’s study of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands produced more variable findings for the VBg in Belgium and the PVV in the Netherlands, especially about age.VBg support was less religious and younger, as was that for the PVV (Pauwels 2014, p. 160). Two more novel themes have emerged in some of the recent literature about extreme-right support: the changing role of gender, regarding both voters and activists; and the possibly changing relevance of urbanism.

Gender Comments, if not necessarily detailed analysis, about gender and the extreme right have long been one staple of research on the topic, and purported recent changes in support for the extreme right according to gender have attracted extensive discussion. Most previous studies had found that, among the extreme right’s

14  Introductory essay

ordinary voters, there was a fairly consistent gender voting differential, even if not a large one: women were generally less likely than men to vote for extreme-right parties. One received view to explain this was not that women were attitudinally more tolerant than men, but that they were somewhat less inclined to translate their intolerance into an actual vote, deterred – it was thought – by the extroverted machismo of the male leaders of some extreme-right parties. What recent research has asked is whether, among ordinary voters, women continue to be less likely than men to give such support, and, if such a difference continues to exist, whether it has attenuated. Also asked have been more qualitative questions about women’s participation as activists in extreme-right movements. A much-cited earlier statement on this matter is Givens (2004), who found evidence for the gender gap in voting in France in 1997 and in Austria in 1999 but not in Denmark in 1998, though the differences in the first two cases were not explained by attitudes to immigration. The seven-nation study of Spierings and Zaslove (2015), using data collected in 2010 and citing a large amount of earlier literature, found among many findings that the gender difference in extremeright support exists but has been overemphasized; this study found that voters of both genders favoured such parties largely for the same reason – because of anti-immigrant attitudes that interpreted the zero-order gender-vote relationship. The study by Harteveld et al. (2015) of 2009 electoral data in seventeen west and east European countries explained the gender gap, as others have done, not by differences between men and women in the relevant attitudes, but by the fact that men were more likely to turn those attitudes into an actual extreme-right vote. In the case of France, the gender-gap finding was confirmed by analyses of an earlier period, but recent research has shown changes in the gender configuration of the French extreme-right vote, attributable – it is claimed – to its increased appeal to women now that the FN/RN is under the leadership of Marine Le Pen rather than of her father and also to its lesser emphasis on the hard-core masculinity often attributed to the extreme right (Amengay, Durovic, and Mayer 2017). The recent change of name from FN to RN is part of this image makeover. The recently published compendious analysis of the extreme right, The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Rydgren 2018), contains analyses according to discourse, country, and also theme, including gender. Coffé’s (2018) chapter on this summarizes a great deal of the literature on voting support and, as much of this has focused on the reality of a gender gap, it discusses the various reasons to which this has been attributed. Her chapter is less thorough, however, in its discussion of extreme-right activists; it points to specific women leaders of extreme-right parties, and notes that their representation among those representing such parties in various elected fora is usually well under 50 per cent. There is less discussion of female representation among normal activists, either in political parties or in nonparliamentary extreme-right social movements. However, a question asked by some recent, usually qualitative, studies is whether the presence of women on the extreme right has been underplayed in earlier research by an over-reliance on findings from electoral studies and opinion polls – women’s role as activists being merely less

Introductory essay  15

visible rather than less. This is a theme of a number of studies in Köttig, Bitzan, and Pető (2017), such as those by Dauber (2017) on Great Britain and Bitzan (2017) on Germany. The focus of the contributions in this book is less on a quantitative comparison with male presence and more of the importance of the roles played by those women who are active in extreme-right movements. These authors and others in the book emphasize the presence of women activists in such movements, even if public awareness of this is less. Even so, it is as well to bear in mind an earlier note of caution from Mudde (2007, pp. 90–1) of wrongly assuming the general presence and relevance of women in such movements based only on small-scale, usually qualitative, studies of probably unrepresentative samples of female activists.

Urbanism The role of urbanism and what this is comprised of have been important in many analyses of extreme-right support, especially electoral support, and particularly over the post-war period. If such support was a negative reaction to the presence of perceived outgroups, and these latter were likely to be disproportionately resident in urban areas, it is unsurprising that such voting was found there.True, the geographical patterning of such support was unlikely to be wholly urban-based3 but, looking just within cities, in those with very high levels of racially and ethnically based residential segregation (as in many American ones), any voting for the extreme right might be explained by what could be called ‘proximity racism’ expressed by those living adjacent to differently ethnically composed neighbourhoods. Also, in the few crossover neighbourhoods of such cities, where the ethnic composition was changing, or in ethnically mixed cities with a rather lower level of ethnic residential segregation (as in some Dutch cities discussed in Chapter 5), one might expect what I call ‘contact racism’ to explain such voting.That would be a favoured explanation particularly where there was a high positive correlation across urban subareas between the level of extreme-right racist voting and the presence of a certain ethnic group (or groups). Although there are plenty of studies showing that extreme-right voting in western Europe is disproportionately an urban, not a rural, phenomenon, there are rather fewer that seek to distinguish between explanations that operate overall on a city-wide basis and those where the dynamic is in a much smaller number of subareas within a larger city. The latter approach would require micro-spatial data on voting behaviour and, ideally, also data that enable the calculation of ethnically based indices of residential segregation. The current fashion in research on the extreme right has instead been on macro-sociological studies, often including a number of different countries in expensively financed multinational studies. This perhaps reflects the assumed current preferences of journal editors and publishers, whose effect may have been that smaller-scale micro-spatial intra-urban research for studying extreme-right support has been little advanced in recent years since the essay in Chapter 9 was first written.True, there are some more recent examples, but their focus is upon processes within single urban neighbourhoods used as case

16  Introductory essay

studies (e.g., Heitmeyer et al. 2012; Grau and Heitmeyer 2013).4 There has been less research using intra-city micro-spatial analysis looking at internal dynamics within the entirety of individual cities in the manner conducted in the earlier years of the twentieth century by some researchers of the classical Chicago School of urban sociology. It is the advantages and limitations of research using perspectives from that tradition that I sought to introduce in Chapter 9 and that I used more directly in Chapters 5 and 6. If cities are undergoing various internal geographical and social changes, that may have an effect on the patterning of any urban-based extreme-right support. In the case of France, for example, geographers such as Charmes (2011, 2019) have discussed the rise of what he called ‘peri-urbanization’ – changes in locations around cities, sometimes former villages, with few immigrant residents whose residents may travel outside the area to work but who value their social environment. It is in those areas with less well-off households on the fringes of cities where one may see the peak of extreme-right support; however, this is not any specific reaction to perceived outgroups. In his books Charmes (e.g., 2019, pp. 75–81) discusses RN voting only by implication, but he was asked about this directly in an interview published in Le Monde (2019). The reality is often locally nuanced, but generally the tendency is clear: the more one moves away from the centre, the more the extreme-right vote increases. … It is necessary to understand that the less well-off residents of these areas often experience a thwarted social course to their lives.They were hoping that, once they had become homeowners, they would be progressing upwards. However, what with the bills to be paid to the bank and the costs of transport, they wind up at the end of every month in more straitened circumstances than when they were renting. It is on that breeding ground, in that deteriorated social situation, aggravated by the anomie that dominates in the world of work, that the RN gains its votes [my translation]. It is unclear quite what the effect of such a process might be on the spatial patterning of the extreme-right vote within a city such as Paris itself, as seen in Table 9.2 of Chapter 9. Already with a high degree of dispersion throughout the city (though note the caveat about possible invalidity in note 3 of Chapter 9), these developments would suggest a further degree of dispersion as support extended beyond the city boundary.

Activism and ideology on the extreme right Analyses of extreme-right activism have always presented a research challenge – being usually of necessity qualitative, they raise issues very different from quantitative studies of mass support based on large-scale surveys, or from studies relying on published reports (such as those of the German BfV), on newspapers or on election results, as almost all the chapters in this book do. There are issues that I did not face

Introductory essay  17

about access to groups who may be suspicious even, or especially, of researchers who are open about their research purpose. There are ethical issues about possible deception or whether to report any apparently positive findings about such groups (e.g., Bizeul 2019). Those who infiltrate the more violent of such movements may do this at not inconsiderable personal risk – and perhaps themselves then attract the suspicious interest of the state’s police and monitoring authorities. There is now an extensive recent literature on the British situation that discusses both activism and ideology (e.g., Copsey and Richardson 2015; Copsey and Worley 2018). A work with a wider international focus that approaches the many difficulties, ethical and practical, of extreme-right researching is Toscano (2019), especially his concluding evaluative essay (pp. 140–5).5 However, there is a developing body of literature on a different, if related, phenomenon – the ideology of the extreme right and how some of the themes in the pseudo-science of the extreme right are becoming routinized. Obscure academic journals once read and contributed to only by a small group of academic apostates who were pariahs to the mainstream practitioners of their discipline have emerged to be given a degree of wider respectability. Saini has dubbed this The Return of Race Science and a journal that she has particularly in mind is Mankind Quarterly (Saini 2019, pp. 98–110).After mainstream social science had rejected the concept of race and those who had sought to use it as an explanatory category were visited with controversy and obloquy, Saini claims that such ideas have attracted some recent mainstream interest, if not in sociology or anthropology, then in parts of genetics and biology.

Conclusions This is perhaps the place to reprise the two epigraphs introducing this essay. In some respects the extreme right, and the findings about it, are now a different river; however, to continue the metaphor, though the water may be different, it often tastes the same. For this is not a subject on which one is particularly pleased to have been proved correct; however, in my 1983 book on the National Front in the UK (Husbands 1983, pp. 147–8), written before the collapse of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, I concluded the final chapter with what was intended as both a genuine view but also a bit of a rhetorical flourish at the end of the book – quoting from the conclusion of the final scene of Berthold Brecht’s Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui) Der Schoβ ist fruchtbar noch, aus dem das kroch. (The womb from which that crawled is still fertile.) The subsequent success of the BNP in Great Britain, even if relatively shortlived, exemplified this continuing truth, and UKIP and even the Brexit Party emerged to take over that mantle. Sadly, present-day tendencies in numerous west European countries and in a whole number of former Soviet bloc ones also attest to the same truth.

18  Introductory essay

Yet there still remains a question of whether there can be an optimistic future facing those concerned about the present global mood and the successes of the extreme right that have arisen as a reaction to this. One view, as was seen, would want a return to a more confrontational conventional politics, the logic of the position of a writer like Mouche. Most writers on this subject see the role of inequality, or sometimes relative deprivation even among the better-off, as a factor in the rise of the extreme right, whether in support for Donald Trump in the USA, or for Brexit in the UK, or for the RN in France. However, there is a school of thought, exemplified in a recent work by Ginsburg and Huq (2018), using the United States as their principal but not only example, that sees the kernel of the problem as one of ‘democratic erosion’. By this they mean, not that differences between the major political parties have become less pronounced (rather the opposite in Hungary, Poland, the UK, the United States, and numerous other countries), but that formal constitutional processes have become degraded by overkill from the executive, whether, for example, by gerrymandering political constituency boundaries or by making partisanship-determined judicial appointments. Indeed, it may be the depth of the ideological gulf between a country’s major parties that pushes the executive to behave in such ways. Certain techniques of erosion may be specific to the United States, but the authoritarian-democratic regimes of some other countries may be achieving similar effects by different means. Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz Government in Hungary has compromised the independence of the judiciary, just as Jarosław Kaczyński, now the power behind the throne of Poland’s Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) party has sought to do there. Both have hampered press freedom and sought to control broadcasting outlets, meaning that these countries now fall far short of a conventional understanding of a democracy with free and independent institutions of justice and the media. Other examples could be given from a number of formally democratic countries – Russia, Turkey, India, and so on. So far, the countries of western Europe, despite their domestic extreme-right parties and sentiments, have survived without lapsing too far into becoming such autocratic democracies, though the UK has not been immune to such dangers. Sadly, however, it seems that Brecht’s aphorism will long be a pertinent observation.

Notes 1 Chapter 3 concentrates on the militant neo-Nazism among hard-core activists who numbered a few thousands nationwide, but the current centrality of the AfD should not suggest that such activism is no longer relevant or is not occurring. There have been extreme-right assassination attempts against pro-immigrant politicians such as Henriette Reker in 2015, when she was about to be elected the Mayor of Cologne, and Andreas Hollstein, the Mayor of Altena (in North Rhine-Westphalia), in 2017. On 2 June 2019 the CDU politician, Walter Lübcke, was assassinated by a right-wing extremist with a history of violent crime; the latter opposed Lübcke’s pro-immigrant views. Death threats against German politicians with similar views are a common occurrence. A recent survey has also recorded a noticeable rise in anti-Semitism in the wider German population,

Introductory essay  19

even among the better-educated well-off, although the same study did show substantial proportions being willing to take some form of action against anti-Semitism (SZ, 24 October 2019, p. 1). 2 In consistency with my position being proposed in this essay, I was tempted to edit out these incidental intrusions, but that would have been dishonest and so they have been left unchanged. My misgivings about the label of ‘populism’ for these phenomena are shared even more strongly by Valluvan (2019, pp. 60–6); however, his alternative labelling emphasis is on nationalism, whereas mine is on the extreme right. 3 That was certainly the case with some extreme-right movements. George Wallace’s American Independent Party Presidential candidacy in 1968, for example, attracted support in Northern cities especially from white neighbourhoods adjacent or proximate to black ones, though he also collected considerable support in the North from impoverished rural areas far from any local black population (e.g., Husbands 1972). 4 However, one recent study using an urban dynamic is Linehan (2015). 5 My own experience in the 1980s and 1990s was that groups whom I would have been wary of approaching in person were nonetheless very willing to supply copies of their political literature, perhaps because the request came from a different country.

References Amengay, Abdelkarim, Durovic, Anja, and Mayer, Nonna. 2017. ‘L’impact du genre sur le vote Marine Le Pen’, Revue française de science politique, 67(6): 1067–87. Betz, Hans-Georg. 1994. Radical Right-wing Populism in Western Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Bitzan, Renate. 2017. ‘Research on gender and the far right in Germany since 1990: developments, findings, and future prospects’. Pp. 65–78 in Michaela Köttig, Renate Bitzan, and Andrea Pető (eds.), Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Bizeul, Daniel. 2019. ‘Reporting the “good deeds” of far-right activists’. Pp. 75–89 in Emanuele Toscano (ed.), Researching Far-Right Movements: Ethics, Methodologies, and Qualitative Inquiries. London: Routledge. Canovan, Margaret. 1981. Populism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Castells, Manuel. 2019. Rupture: The Crisis of Liberal Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Charmes, Éric. 2011. La Ville Émiettée: Essai sur la Clubbisation de la Vie Urbaine. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Charmes, Éric. 2019. La Revanche des Villages: Essai sur la France Périurbaine. Paris: Seuil. Coffé, Hilde. 2018. ‘Gender and the radical right’. Pp. 200–11 in Jens Rydgren (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Collier, Paul. 2018. The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties. London: Allen Lane. Copsey, Nigel, and Richardson, John E. (eds.). 2015. Cultures of Post-War British Fascism. London: Routledge. Copsey, Nigel, and Worley, Matthew (eds.). 2018. ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Us’: The British Far Right since 1967. London: Routledge. Crouch, Colin. 2011. The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Dauber, Andrea S. 2017. ‘The increasing visibility of right-wing extremist women in contemporary Europe; is Great Britain an exception?’. Pp. 49–64 in Michaela Köttig, Renate Bitzan, and Andrea Pető (eds.), Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Davies, William. 2018. Nervous States: How Feeling Took over the World. London: Jonathan Cape.

20  Introductory essay

Eatwell, Roger, and Goodwin, Matthew. 2018. National Populism: The Revolt against Liberal Democracy. London: Pelican. Evans, Geoffrey, and Menon, Anand. 2017. Brexit and British Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ginsburg, Tom, and Huq, Aziz Z. 2018. How to Save Constitutional Democracy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Givens, Terri E. 2004. ‘The radical right gender gap’, Comparative Political Studies, 37(1): 30–54. Goodwyn, Lawrence. 1976. Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Grau, Andreas, and Heitmeyer, Wilhelm (eds.). 2013. Menschenfeinlichkeit in Städten und Gemeinden. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa. Harteveld, Eelco, van der Brug, Wouter, Dahlberg, Stefan, and Kokkonen, Andrej. 2015. ‘The gender gap in populist radical-right voting: examining the demand side in Western and Eastern Europe’, Patterns of Prejudice, 49(1–2): 103–34. Hartleb, Florian. 2017. Die Stunde der Populisten: Wie sich unsere Politik trumpetisiert und was wir dagegen tun können. Schwalbach: Wochenschau Verlag. Heitmeyer, Wilhelm, et al. 2012. Gewalt in öffentlichen Räumen: zum Einfluss von Bevölkerungsund Siedlungsstrukturen in städtischen Wohnquartieren. 2nd rev. ed.; Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Hicks, John D. 1961 [1931]. The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Hofstadter, Richard. 1955. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. New York: Vintage Books. Hofstadter, Richard. 1964. ‘The paranoid style in American politics’. Pp. 3–40 in his ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ and Other Essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Husbands, Christopher T. 1972. ‘The campaign organizations and patterns of popular support of George C. Wallace in Wisconsin and Indiana in 1964 and 1968’. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago. Husbands, Christopher T. 1983. Racial Exclusionism and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front. London: George Allen & Unwin. Husbands, Christopher T. 1991. ‘Neo-Nazis in East Germany: the new danger?’, Patterns of Prejudice, 25(1): 3–17. Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira, Taggart, Paul, Espejo, Paulina Ochoa, and Ostiguy, Pierre. 2017. ‘Populism: an overview of the concept and the state of the art’. Pp. 1–24 in Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser et al. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Klein, Naomi. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. London: Allen Lane. Köttig, Michaela, Bitzan, Renate, and Pető, Andrea (eds.). 2017. Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Le Monde. 2019. ‘L’embourgeoisement touche aussi les campagnes périurbaines’, 12 January, p. 8. Linehan, Thomas. 2015. ‘Cultures of space: spatialising the National Front’. Pp. 49–67 in Nigel Copsey and John R. Richardson (eds.), Cultures of Post-War British Fascism. London: Routledge. Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Raab, Earl. 1970. The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790–1970. New York: Harper & Row. Mair, Peter. 2013. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London: Verso. Minkenberg, Michael. 2018. ‘Was ist Rechtspopulismus?’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 59(2), 337–52.

Introductory essay  21

Mishra, Pankaj. 2017. Age of Anger: A History of the Present. London: Allen Lane. Mouffe, Chantal. 2005. On the Political. London: Routledge. Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mudde, Cas. 2010. ‘The populist radical right; a pathological normalcy’, West European Politics, 33(6): 1167–86. Mudde, Cas. 2013. ‘Three decades of populist radical right parties in Western Europe; so what?’, European Journal of Political Research, 52(1): 1–19. Mudde, Cas. 2019. The Far Right Today. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mudde, Cas, and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira. 2017. Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Müller, Jan-Werner. 2016. What Is Populism? Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Norris, Pippa. 2005. Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Norris, Pippa, and Inglehart, Ronald. 2019. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nugent, Walter T. K. 1963. The Tolerant Populists: Kansas Populism and Nativism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Pauwels, Teun. 2014. Populism in Western Europe: Comparing Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. London: Routledge. Peck, Jamie. 2010. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rippi, Susanne, and Seipel, Christian. 2018. ‘Modernisierungsverlierer, cultural backlash, Postdemokratie; was erklärt rechtspopulistische Orientierungen’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 70(2): 237–54. Rogin, Michael Paul. 1967. The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rydgren, Jens. 2008. ‘Immigration sceptics, xenophobes or racists? Radical right-wing voting in six West European countries’, European Journal of Political Research, 47(6): 737–65. Rydgren, Jens (ed.). 2018. The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Saini, Angela. 2019. Superior: The Return of Race Science. London: 4th Estate. Shils, Edward A. 1956. The Torment of Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American Security Policy. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Spier, Tim. 2010. Modernisierungsverlierer?: Die Wählerschaft rechtspopulistischer Parteien in Westeuropa. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Spierings, Niels, and Zaslove, Andrej. 2015. ‘Gendering the vote for populist radical-right parties’, Patterns of Prejudice, 49(1–2): 135–62. Toscano, Emanuele. 2019. ‘Conclusions: doing research on far-right movements’. Pp. 141–5 in Emanuele Toscano (ed.), Researching Far-Right Movements: Ethics, Methodologies, and Qualitative Inquiries. London: Routledge. Valluvan, Sivamohan. 2019. The Clamour of Nationalism: Race and Nation in Twenty-firstcentury Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Woodward, Bob. 2018. Fear: Trump in the White House. New York: Simon & Schuster.

1 WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND A critical review of some major contemporary attempts to account for extreme-right racist politics in western Europe

… the odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon. William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 4, Scene 15, lines 66–8 Theorizing about the causes and occurrences of extreme-right racist politics during the past five decades is an activity with variations in fashion and interest. While extreme-right racist political movements have been present in greater or lesser degree in most western European countries since the Second World War, there have been particular periods of more intense activity and associated theorizing, although not all periods of heightened extreme-right activity have produced a corresponding flurry of new theorizing. This chapter discusses some of the principal cases of extreme-right racist political activity in the period since 1945. It divides occurrences of such activity into two types using a temporal criterion; the first, corresponding to the period from 1945 to about 1980, it calls ‘modern’ and the other, corresponding to the period after 1980 to the present, it calls ‘late-modern’. There is no intention, by the choice of these terms, to reify them or to add further to the unconscionable neologizing in which many sociologists have indulged with respect to the word ‘modern’. However, the year 1980 is a convenient break-date, as the period since then has seen a ‘rash’, distinctive in national location, geographical extent, and levels of popular success, in extreme-right politics.1 Having made this distinction, the chapter then describes some major theoretical positions used to account for the ‘modern’ occurrences in the years prior to the early 1980s. It then looks at theories that have been applied to ‘late-modern’ extreme right-wing racism, distinguishing between ‘traditional’ approaches that call upon theoretical tools once applied to

What goes around comes around  23

earlier ‘modern’ movements and purportedly ‘new’ approaches that claim to derive from the specificity of late-modern social and political circumstances. It then discusses critically how genuinely novel many of these new approaches actually are.

Principal extreme-right racist political phenomena in western Europe and the United States, 1945–2001 In Table 1.1 are presented principal examples of extreme-right and racist political phenomena in western Europe and the United States since 1945. In determining what should be entered into this table, the emphatic criterion has been ‘principal’. Omission of a particular country in a particular decade does not mean that there was absolutely no extreme-right activity to report – merely that such activity was relatively insignificant in the political climate of the time and produced no specific theoretical contribution towards a general explanation of right-wing extremism. In Great Britain, for example, the Union Movement (UM) of Oswald Mosley was active from the late 1940s into the 1960s. Even the National Front (NF), the country’s most successful post-war extreme-right movement, began its activities in 1967. In Belgium and the Netherlands a number of movements celebratory of the wartime occupation and collaboration quietly continued in the 1940s and 1950s (van Donselaar 1991, p. 79; Husbands 1992a, 1992b). Other movements, some short-lived and others still persisting, took off in a number of countries (such as the Boerenpartij (BP) in The Netherlands and Fremskridtspartiet (FP) in Denmark). Some of these in their time attracted not inconsiderable research interest and may be marginal cases for inclusion. TABLE 1.1  Prominent and principal extreme-right/racist political phenomena in seven

countries of western Europe and in the United States, 1945–2000 ‘Modern’ period 1945–1960

FRG France Italy USA

1961–1970

FRG France Italy Switzerland USA

Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP) Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP) Union de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans, ‘Poujadism’ (UDCA) Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) ‘Radical right’ (McCarthyism/John Birch Society) Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) ‘Algérie française’ activities Tixier-Vignancour’s Presidential bid MSI Schweizerische Republikanische Bewegung (SRB) Nationale Aktion (NA) American Independent Party (AIP) (‘George Wallace movement’) Supporters of Senator Barry Goldwater (Continued)

24  What goes around comes around TABLE 1.1  (Continued)

‘Modern’ period 1971–1980

Great Britain Netherlands, The

National Front (NF) Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU)

Switzerland

SRB/NA

Austria Belgium FRG

Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) Vlaams Blok (VB) Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) Die Republikaner (REPs) Extreme-right youth activities Front National (FN) Centrumpartij (CP) Centrumdemocraten (CDs) Centrumpartij ’86 (CP ’86) Nederlands Blok (NB) Schweizer Demokraten (SDs) Freiheitspartei der Schweiz (FPS)

‘Late-modern’ period 1981–2000

France Netherlands, The

Switzerland USA

Christian extreme-right Militias

Discussion of theories to account for the extreme right has approached the matter from two opposite perspectives. On the one hand, looking at countries like Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Italy, and so on, analysts have considered what may be the factor(s) that singly or together explain the occurrence of the extreme right in these countries/locations where (with several different qualifications) it has sometimes been relatively successful. On the other hand, those writing about such countries as Great Britain, the Netherlands, Spain (since 1975), and several others have focused upon the factors that impeded the growth/occurrence of extreme-right politics in these countries, where such politics in general have not been very successful. This chapter concentrates upon perspectives taking the first approach, although the second is necessarily introduced by discussing some cases upon which there have been analyses of extreme-right politics as a locally transitory phenomenon. The focus in the chapter is particularly upon the electoral aspects of extreme-right phenomena and less on the activist side, although the latter is the more significant feature that must be included in the discussion of some cases (for example, in the new German Bundesländer). One of the general assertions of the chapter is that the analysis of extreme-right behaviour is rather slow to take on specific new theoretical perspectives, despite currents happening elsewhere. Many approaches to the analysis of extreme-right voting

What goes around comes around  25

have been methodologically identical to analyses of mainstream voting, bouncing their interpretations from tendencies simultaneously observed about mainstream politics (for example, emphases on general electoral volatility or Politikverdrossenheit, turning away from politics).When purportedly new perspectives are applied, they are often updated ‘retreads’ of earlier theoretical approaches or they began life applied to the analysis of other phenomena and have been ‘lifted’ for their application to extreme-right politics. Thus, attempts to apply, for example, ‘new social movements’ perspectives to the extreme right are extended from the application of this term to the contemporary ecology movements, feminism, ethnic-minority and anti-racism movements, and so on, all of which fit neatly into the postmaterialist pantheon.

Approaches to the analysis of ‘modern’ extreme-right politics The immediate post-war period saw a number of rightist or extreme-right examples, including the Qualunquismo (Indifference) movement and later the foundation of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) in Italy and the Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP), among several similar parties, in Germany. However, social science at the time was not particularly interested in these, doubtless largely sharing a general view that, given the recent political histories of these countries and the intractability of certain political legacies, they were examples of political atavism that were only to be expected in the circumstances. The subsequent proscription of the SRP by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVG) and the ‘settling down’ of the post-war political system removed the incentive extensively to analyse the SRP and similar German parties, although several subsequent researchers have revisited this case at greater length (for example, Dudek and Jaschke 1984) and early post-war right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic did give to social science the widely used word Rechtsradikalismus. One of the very earliest social-science uses of this was apparently Wald (1952), but it was brought by Lipset into American social science in his 1955 essay, ‘The Sources of the “Radical Right”’ (Lipset 1964a [1963]), to which much attention is given below.2 This linguistic loan was seemingly without attribution to its employment in contemporary German literature, except to say that his intellectual sources were too numerous to footnote. For American political scientists of the 1950s, the ‘exciting’ European movement was Poujadism, the Union de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans (UDCA), led by Pierre Poujade, that apparently out of nowhere collected 10 per cent of the vote in the French Parliamentary elections of 2 January 1956. This interest was despite the short life of this movement, or perhaps for some because of it. Lipset, in Political Man (Lipset 1963 [1960], pp. 155–65), devotes a substantial discussion to this, comparing it with the simultaneous emergence in France of Gaullism, a movement that at its outset was regarded with more international suspicion than one can say with hindsight it deserved. Although it would be wrong, indeed a travesty, to suggest that Lipset had no interest in ideology, his emphasis on the social basis of the movement mirrors a major preoccupation (then, now, and always) in the social origins of mainstream political behaviour; his typology of fascisms

26  What goes around comes around

according to their class base typifies this approach. For to him Poujadism ‘was essentially an extremist movement appealing to and based on the same social strata as the movements which support the “liberal center”’ (Lipset 1963 [1960], p. 157). Other contemporary analysts took somewhat different focuses. Hoffman (1956), in the single most detailed study, emphasized several other factors, including rural decline, and Duncan MacRae (1958, 1967) downplayed the social determination of the movement by an emphasis on its more evanescent character. Indeed, some commentators were minded to mention a tradition of ‘flash’ movements in French political history that goes back to pre-Second Empire Bonapartism and to Boulangism in the late 1880s (Hutton 1976). Interestingly from a sociology-of-knowledge perspective, it was not a European movement but an American one that gave greatest impetus to the social-science analysis of extreme-right politics in the 1950s. While the American entertainment industry perhaps suffered the most public distress and selective obloquy from the McCarthyite pursuit of domestic Communism in the American politics of the 1950s (an episode with emotional resonances to the present day), American social science, with its mainstream liberal traditions, was also touched, although not so publicly exposed, despite a concern about the resurgence of anti-intellectualism in American life (for example, Hofstadter 1963). The New American Right (Bell 1955) was a book of essays conceived at Columbia University in 1954 (the so-called Army-McCarthy hearings that marked the beginning of the end of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s influence occurred from April to June 1954 and the Senate’s motion of censure against him occurred from November to early December 1954; see Griffith (1987, pp. 243–317)).The book was republished in a new edition in 1963 titled The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated; it contained five essays by the original authors that commented in various ways on their earlier essays and also three new essays, two by previously unrepresented authors and one by Lipset. It also contained a very revealing reprise by Bell in his preface, written in 1962, of the origins and influence of the earlier edition. Reprinted in 1964 as a Doubleday Anchor paperback (Bell 1964 [1963]), The Radical Right became perhaps the most widely read and influential book in American political sociology since Lipset’s Political Man, published in 1960. Neither edition, certainly not the expanded and updated one, contained a wholly homologous theoretical perspective, but as Bell acknowledges in his 1962 preface, there were certain dominant positions. The historian Richard Hofstadter and Lipset, as a political sociologist, focused in slightly different ways on the issue of ‘status’. With an amorphous genuflection to Weber, Lipset argued a distinction between ‘class politics’, which were a feature of periods of economic difficulty, and ‘status politics’, which characterized periods of economic growth and recovery. In the latter circumstances, certain social groups became concerned about their social status with respect to previous comparator groups, because the increased modernity that was a correlate of economic growth differentially favoured emerging groups, to the self-perceived status detriment of ‘older’ ones. Thus, a concern with domestic Communism was, as it was argued, merely a smokescreen for these selfperceiving status-declining groups’ real concerns, which arose from the trends of

What goes around comes around  27

modernity. This, it might be argued with hindsight, was why the entertainment industry, always a manufactory of nouveaux riches, was especially excoriated. Hofstadter was simultaneously applying these ‘status concerns’ to a number of phenomena in American history, especially the early-twentieth-century Progressive Movement, in his hugely influential The Age of Reform (Hofstadter 1955, pp. 131– 214), which he regarded as fuelled by ‘status insecurity’. Moreover, ‘status’ explanations were not confined to these movements. These writers, collectively dubbed pluralists by some critics (for example, Rogin 1967), claimed to identify earlier movements of intolerance in American history that have arisen in periods of prosperity, such as the 1850s Know Nothing Movement (analysed at greater length by Lipset in his 1970 book with Earl Raab, The Politics of Unreason (Lipset and Raab 1970, pp. 47–67)) and especially the 1920s Ku Klux Klan, the so-called second KKK. This was a mass movement widely interpreted as a reaction by white, Anglo-Saxon Americans, predominantly rural or small-townbased, against the increase in the political influence of ‘the cities’, often machinebased and increasingly run or controlled by Catholic ethnic groups such as the Irish and Italians. Indeed, the 1928 American Presidential election between Al Smith, the city-based Democrat, and Herbert Hoover, the more traditional Republican, is interpreted by American historians as the playing out of this tension on the national political stage, with the victory of the latter in that election being both pyrrhic and short-lived. Of course, Lipset’s view of the 1920s KKK was not novel. Indeed, it was more or less an extension of received earlier wisdom about this movement from the first major work on it by Mecklin (1924). Only in the 1960s was there produced a revisionist historiography about the second KKK, a change exemplified by Jackson (1967), whose emphasis on the significance of urban anti-black racism in accounting at least for its urban support is consistent with perspectives being applied to George Wallace’s American Independent Party (AIP) support. However, in tune with the paradigms of the times,Vander Zanden (1960) was attributing the emergence of the third KKK of the 1950s to ‘status disorientation’. Back in the 1950s and 1960s ‘status’ in various guises was also used as a major explicans of other social-movement phenomena, including the American temperance movement (Gusfield 1963) and Goldwater support in 1964, although McEvoy (1969) dismissed this in the latter case. It was also taken up in a somewhat different way from Lenski’s notion of ‘status crystallization’, the consistency or lack of it of one’s position across several different purported status hierarchies (income, education, occupational status, ethnic-group membership, etc.; as in Lenski 1954). Those with discrepant statuses across such dimensions were held to be likely to be more radical, whether to left or to right; this view was advanced by Lipset in his 1962 essay in The Radical Right (Lipset 1964b [1963], pp. 401–7), and more generally by others (for instance, Rush 1967). Status crystallization theory rather lost its popularity in the later 1960s, after Blalock (1966, 1967) and others demonstrated a methodological issue (‘the identification problem’) that made it questionable whether one could unambiguously isolate effects of status crystallization or lack of it per se.

28  What goes around comes around

It is important also to mention two other perspectives towards either McCarthyism or extremism in general that emerged from 1950s pluralism. Parsons, writing in 1955, also saw the dysfunctional consequences of change as being relevant. His approach is usually labelled generically as ‘social strain theory’: the strains of the international situation have impinged on a society undergoing important internal changes which have themselves been sources of strain, with the effect of superimposing one kind of strain on another. … It is a generalization well established in social science that neither individuals nor societies can undergo major structural changes without the likelihood of producing a considerable element of ‘irrational’ behavior. (Parsons 1964 [1963], p. 217) McCarthyism is best understood as a symptom of the strains attendant on a deep-seated process of change in our society, rather than as a ‘movement’ presenting a policy or set of values for the American people to act on. … [Its] negativism is primarily the expression of fear, secondarily of anger, the aggression which is a product of frustration. (Parsons 1964 [1963], pp. 227–8) Parsons was writing quite specifically about McCarthyism, but Kornhauser’s The Politics of Mass Society (Kornhauser 1959), explicitly in the celebration-of-pluralism camp, spread his compass much more widely. Extremism of all types was, to him, the enemy of pluralism and was the product of a social structure with a specific set of deficiencies. The absence of intermediate groups and relations between élite and ‘mass’ and the lack of the cross-cutting ties that were supposed to emerge from multiple membership of different groups led to the alienation of the ‘mass’ and to their supposedly consequential availability for mobilization into extremist political behaviour. This latter category included fascism, Nazism, Communism, and, of course, McCarthyism. Taking up the conclusion of Kerr and Siegel’s (1954) highly influential study of the conditions favouring strike-proneness in particular industries (a study that stressed the facilitating effect of being in an isolated but internally cohesive and networked community), Kornhauser particularly noted the anti-system political behaviour of ‘isolated workers’ (Kornhauser 1959, pp. 212–22). Although in this particular case the direction of extremism was usually leftward, it is instructive to note that, usually without reference back to Kerr and Siegel or to Kornhauser, a number of later analysts have applied some variant of this perspective to support for the contemporary extreme right. Of course, American social science in the 1950s was also approaching these tasks in the context of post-war attempts to understand ethnic prejudice, both anti-Semitism in the light of the Holocaust and anti-black racism in the light of the changed race relations in America in the post-war period. Studies such as Adorno and colleagues’ The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al. 1950), Bettelheim and Janowitz’s Social Change and Prejudice (Bettelheim and Janowitz 1964 [1950]) and

What goes around comes around  29

Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice (Allport 1958 [1954]) remain landmark studies from this era. There were also a number of studies by American political scientists to attempt to explain electoral support for Nazism itself and the beginnings of what was to become a major research endeavour, based on various levels of aggregate data, are to be seen in the modest works, some using mapping techniques or simple statistical tools, stemming from this era (for example, Loomis and Beegle 1946; Heberle 1951; Lipset 1963 [1960], pp. 138–52). However, McCarthyism, on which so much research interest focused in the 1950s, did not fit wholly congenially into such a literature because of its undoubtedly ideological difference from Nazism and from conventional ethnic prejudice. McCarthyism had a number of highly unpleasant characteristics, but despite intermittent dispute on these points, it is now generally accepted that it was not obviously anti-Semitic nor particularly anti-black. The subsequent decade necessitated a paradigm shift in the analysis of American extreme-right mobilization, although paradoxically in Europe the 1950s American pluralists continued to be influential in some of the approaches to analysing the rise of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in the 1960s. Scheuch and Klingemann’s widely cited essay purported to discuss the circumstances of Western industrial societies but was particularly concerned with Germany and was explicit in its intellectual debt to the essayists of The Radical Right, especially to Parsons’s strain theory (Scheuch with Klingemann 1967). However, in the United States the emergence on to the national stage of George Wallace, whose first political forays outside his native Alabama were in three northern Democratic Presidential primaries in 1964 and who continued to be an intrusive presence in national politics until the attempted assassination against him in 1972, gave currency to explanations based on simple urban racism. Wallace had become nationally notorious for his stand, histrionic and ineffective though it was in the longer run, in favour of racial segregation. His support tended to be from the less well-off, although there were exceptions, as in Wisconsin in 1964 (Rogin 1966). It was not disproportionately urban in strength (for example, Lipset and Raab 1970, p. 382) but nonetheless had a strong localized base within several cities, for example, in white areas proximate to black ghettos. In fact, many of Wallace’s best local results in the North in 1968 were in depressed rural areas, indicative perhaps of a rural disaffection such as had favoured Poujadism, or sometimes in localities settled from the South in the nineteenth century (Husbands 1972). For the last decade of the defined ‘modern’ period, 1971–80, the theoretical and empirical focus switched to Europe, where three countries, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, were the location of non-negligible explicitly racist or xenophobic movements. It is unnecessary to rehearse the significance of the NF during this decade (Taylor 1982; Husbands 1983) and the Netherlands too came to terms with the uncomfortable fact that it could produce domestic political racism; the Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU) certainly made an impact in the 1970s and it is probably only because of the outrageousness of its leader, Joop Glimmerveen, that it was not more successful (Bovenkerk et al. 1978; Bouw, van Donselaar, and Nelissen 1981; Husbands 1992a). The Swiss ‘anti-Überfremdung’ movements and initiatives

30  What goes around comes around

had in fact been a feature of Swiss politics since the early 1960s, first associated with James Schwarzenbach (Husbands 1988, 1992c). The years after their foundation were marked by splits but by the 1970s these parties had become accepted features of the Swiss political landscape, albeit only in some cantons of the country. It is hardly the case that the American literature was a very direct or specific influence on how 1970s social science in Europe approached the analysis of these movements, whose ideologies were explicitly racially expulsionist or exclusionist. Despite occasional attempts to explain away support for such parties as very largely a result of general political anti-system alienation (for example, Backes 1991), most analysts regarded them as racist movements supported by individuals with racist motives. Numerous empirical studies supported the contention that movements attracted supporters with uniquely and single-mindedly racist beliefs and the explanatory task was to account for the differential presence and expression of such feelings (Husbands 1993), although the Austrian Freiheitlichen (the Fs) led by Jörg Haider may be a partial exception since it has been shown that their supporters are not noticeably more xenophobic than those of the other major Austrian parties, but the former do nonetheless have a particularly dismissive attitude to the political system. Studies of proximity to ethnic-minority populations as the stimulus of such political behaviour were at the forefront of some research agendas, although there was also a policy discussion in the Netherlands concerning oude wijken (‘old neighbourhoods’) that was an obvious corollary of the debate about the ‘inner-city crisis’ in British urban policy in the 1970s. There was certainly a fear in both countries that dilapidated and depressed inner-city neighbourhoods that had become victims of the dynamics of change in the modern capitalist city provided the materialist seedbed for the fomentation of racist sentiments. Thus, what have in recent years become referred to by some, embarrassingly in my view, as ‘rational choice’ explanations of racism, which dissect the particular materialist, as well as non-materialist, motives and bases of racist beliefs, feature as part of this explanatory pantheon.

Theoretical approaches to the analysis of ‘late-modern’ extreme-right politics Genuinely comparative studies of the contemporary extreme right are in fact rather rare. Most of the standard edited texts consist of a sequence of discrete countrylevel chapters by different authors, not always written to a common format,‘topped’ or ‘tailed’ by some form of editorial overview (for example, Hainsworth 1992; Merkl and Weinberg 1993), although occasional examples of this genre contain more comparative approaches (De Schampheleire and Thanassekos 1991). Even multi-country studies by the same author(s) often, to greater or lesser degree, adopt a country-by-country approach (Elbers and Fennema 1993; Ignazi 1994), although Elbers and Fennema do attempt a genuine comparison between the ideologies of different racist parties and Ignazi, as discussed below, has an encompassing theoretical perspective that he seeks to apply to these movements.

What goes around comes around  31

In reviewing contemporary approaches to explaining ‘late-modern’ extremeright politics, reference is made as relevant to the theories reviewed above to explain earlier, ‘modern’, movements; however, as will be seen, it is not only earlier theories about the ‘modern’ extreme right that are in some cases reprised, usually without acknowledgement, but often also more general theories about intergroup relations, such as the ‘contact hypothesis’ of traditional social psychology.

Extreme-right politics as late-modern ‘populism’ Betz (1994) too has an encompassing perspective, and his analysis of contemporary right-wing extremism in terms of its ‘populism’ is merely one of several examples that approach their analysis of the phenomenon from this fundamental perspective, while of course grafting on other elements for an attempt at a complete explanation. Other examples include Pfahl-Traughber (1994) and several contributors to De Schampheleire and Thanassekos (1991), including Backes (1991) and De Schampheleire (1991) himself. Betz sees ‘radical right-wing populism’ as having two ‘faces’, one particularly neoliberal and libertarian and the other xenophobic and racist. Different examples adhere more to one or the other of these types; the Scandinavian and Austrian cases purportedly fit the former, the French, German, and Belgian ones more definitely the latter. Interestingly, Betz develops his argument without any major attempt to conceptualize the context or history of the word, although Pfahl-Traughber does attempt such a definition. To the latter, populism is not an ideology but rather a type of politics with three distinctive characteristics (Pfahl-Traughber 1994, pp. 18–19; my translation). •

• •

A relationship to the ‘people’ understood as a political unity. Thus, populist discourse consciously ignores the political and social differences of individuals and interest groups in favour of these absolutely superordinated attitudes and values. Recourse to an unmediated and direct relationship between the base, the ‘people’, and the populist actor. Adherence to existing everyday, ‘saloon-bar’ (Stammtisch) discourse, attitudes, resentments, and prejudices.

As is implicitly conceded by the above attempt to define ‘populism’ as a political style rather than an ideology, the word is a difficult and in many cases unsatisfactory one for political analysis. A major book on the topic thirty years ago (Ionescu and Gellner 1969, especially (Donald) MacRae 1969) sought to define the concept in its various forms and embodiments but left a sense that the enterprise had not really succeeded. Later attempts have not really transcended these earlier efforts (for example, Goodwyn 1976). However, our concern here is less with the explanatory utility of an attribution of populism in this respect but rather with its non-innovative character. For, although Pfahl-Traughber (though not Betz) does refer extensively to the

32  What goes around comes around

nineteenth-century origins of the term and, when used with upper-case P, its application to the People’s Party that was an active force in American politics in the late 1880s and early 1890s (coincidentally around the heyday of Boulangism in France), he does so apparently largely innocent of the historical debate about Populism that ascribed to it some of the same unsavoury features held by post-war and contemporary extreme-right politics (such as general intolerance, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism). Hofstadter, writing his The Age of Reform at the height of McCarthyism, had been most instrumental in launching this historical revisionism (Hofstadter 1955, pp. 60–93) and Ferkiss (1957) went even further, controversially claiming to see in nineteenth-century populism the roots of twentieth-century home-grown American fascist movements. There were some who, totally at odds with the historical facts, saw McCarthy as a latter-day populist; thus Riesman and Glazer talk of ‘Senator McCarthy, with his gruff charm and his Populist roots’ in their 1955 essay, ‘The Intellectuals and the Discontented Classes’ (Riesman and Glazer 1964 [1963], p. 112), an error of historical interpretation forcefully corrected by Rogin (1967, pp. 84–99). Thus, Betz’s and Pfahl-Traughber’s contributions have very much the flavour of mainstream 1950s American social science’s writings about McCarthyism, even down to the insinuation by Betz, without much explicit defence, of the word Radical into the title of his book, although it is interesting that Pfahl-Traughber, though German and doubtless steeped in a tradition of Rechtsradikalismusforschung, does not use this concept. By using the concept of ‘populism’ and continuing as they do in this tradition of excoriating populism for its supposedly unpleasant and unacceptable features, they are susceptible to the same criticisms about interpretation and attribution made against the earlier writers. It is not merely that the populist attribution gives to these movements a homogeneity that they do not have but rather it may give them the wrong sort of homogeneity. If some of these movements really are defined ideologically in terms of neoliberalism or libertarianism and others in terms of xenophobia and racism, then it should be recognized that they are different types. Or perhaps, more plausibly, it might be conceded that the latter pair is a more potent component in the ideologies of all these movements than the ‘two faces’ approach allows.

Extreme-right politics as a late-modern reaction against postmaterialism Although rejected by Betz (1994, p. 175) as being inconsistent with attitudinal data about support for extreme-right politics, there has been a major strain of analysis that regards those attracted to such parties as being motivated by a reaction against the emergence of postmaterialist values (see Inglehart 1977 for the original principal statement of the postmaterialism thesis). Minkenberg, a German political scientist who studied in the United States as a student of Inglehart, and the Italian political scientist Piero Ignazi are perhaps the foremost exemplars of this approach.

What goes around comes around  33

In an article on the German extreme right (which he calls the ‘New Right’), Minkenberg says that it is conceptualized as the populist-extremist version of a neoconservative reaction to fundamental change in culture and values in various Western democracies, to the related emergence of a new conflict axis cutting across existing cleavages, and to the transformation of contemporary conservatism and that neoconservatism, including the New Right movements in various Western democracies, is a reaction against a fundamental change in culture and values and does not reflect the old cleavages expressed in class and partisan lines, but a new cleavage based on value change. (Minkenberg 1992, pp. 56, 58) Ignazi (1992, 1994) talks of a ‘silent counter-revolution’ and distinguishes four particular factors that have assisted the emergence of the extreme right (Ignazi 1994, p. 245; my translation): • • •

•

The establishment of a new cultural tendency, ‘neoconservatism’. The push towards a greater radicalization and polarization. The emergence of a subterranean and increasing crisis of legitimacy of the political system and (above all) of the parties (in which respect the counterrevolution is to be especially observed). The explosion of issues around law and order and immigration.

Again, although called ‘neoconservatism’ by Minkenberg and Ignazi and although grafted on to one of the paradigmatic axioms of the past two decades of American political science (the ‘postmaterialism thesis’), this approach has uncanny resemblances to Hofstadter’s 1955 notion of ‘pseudo-conservatism’, a term taken by the latter (with due acknowledgement) from The Authoritarian Personality: ‘Pseudo-conservative subjects, although given to a form of political expression that combines a curious mixture of largely conservative with occasional radical notions, succeed in concealing from themselves impulsive tendencies that, if released in action, would be very far from conservative’ (Hofstadter 1964 [1963], pp. 76–7). Riesman and Glazer’s (Riesman and Glazer 1964 [1963], p. 109) complementary notion of ‘discontented classes’ is very similar. Thus, analogously to how these 1950s pluralist writers interpreted McCarthyism as a response to a fear of aspects of modernity, so the ‘silent counter-revolution’ may be interpreted in exactly the same way – as a rejection of the emergence of green issues, feminism, multiculturalism, and a whole syndrome of what is embodied in 1990s cultural modernity.

34  What goes around comes around

Extreme-right politics as a late-modern reaction to modernity/globalization Modernity – and purportedly critical reactions to it – loom large in each of the theories that have been critically discussed, to such an extent that one might be superficially tempted to see them as essentially the same, or as at least having substantial overlaps. Such overlaps do exist, but it is nonetheless possible to make some distinctions among them. ‘Populist’ explanations invoked a political style that was at odds with political and representational features of modern political systems. ‘Counter-revolutionists’ regard extreme-right supporters as reacting against particular cultural shifts. ‘Anti-modernity/anti-globalization’ explanations of the type now to be examined see such supporters as reacting against structural and economic changes that characterize modernity. Indeed, such theories, in the German literature, have been summarized, brutally but not wholly unfairly, as being about Modernisierungsverlierer (‘losers from modernization’). Wilhelm Heitmeyer’s research, though on extreme-right youth rather than on the entire core of extreme-right voters, is considered a good example of this approach. The first research by Heitmeyer was among a sample of 1,300 16- and 17-year-olds in the old West Germany in the 1980s (Heitmeyer 1988) and he also followed this up more intensively between 1985 and 1990 with a study of a sample of thirty-one young men aged between 17 and 21 (Heitmeyer et al. 1992). Clearly, motivations and characteristics of those attracted to the extreme right are complex, but as found also by Hennig’s study in the early 1980s, materialist factors played a significant role (BMI 1982; Hennig 1982). Heitmeyer noted that ‘the research was conducted among young people of whom many found themselves in a difficult position because the basis of their social identity, their occupational future, was and remained very threatened’ (Heitmeyer 1988, p. 188; my translation). The emergence of extreme-right militancy in the ‘new regions’ (see Husbands 1995) gave scope for Heitmeyer to extend his thesis. Clearly, as he recognized, there were new features that had to be incorporated into a coherent explanation of extreme-right support there (Heitmeyer 1993); the authoritarian upbringing of those who had grown up in the cradle of the GDR state and the psychological unpreparedness of accommodating to foreigners (given the GDR’s ghettoization of its small immigrant-worker population) when the country’s asylum-seeker crisis obliged impoverished eastern Bundesländer to accept their ‘fair share’ of refugees. However, the massive cultural and economic dislocation brought about by German unification, as internationally uncompetitive and obsolete East German industries were closed and suitable alternative employment opportunities were non-existent or slow to materialize, offered ample grist to Modernisierungsverlierer theory. And how does such theory, purportedly ‘late-modern’, reprise former ‘modern’ theory of extreme-right support? At first, it may appear little different from materialist/deprivation theories that have fuelled much social-movement analysis in general, with a dash of ‘scapegoat theory’ thrown in so that the tendency is predicted as being in a rightward rather than leftward political direction. This approach, after

What goes around comes around  35

all, was a staple of much (non-Marxist) theorizing about the electoral rise of Nazism. However, perhaps more definite earlier analogies can be found. For although Heitmeyer does not mention Parsons (in fact, his English-language references are remarkably few), what does his perspective amount to but a resurrection, mutatis mutandis, of our former acquaintance, ‘social strain theory’? Of course, forty years and an ocean apart, the actual ‘strains’ are specific to their respective time and place. However, the combination of internal and external national factors identified by Parsons have their analogues in the German situation, in both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Bundesländer – the disruptions, social, economic and personal, that followed the collapse of the Eastern Bloc; the insecurity and loss of predictability about the future that particularly affected the East; the asylum-seeker issue and, in the ‘old regions’ especially, the Aussiedler issue3 that placed such pressures on the infrastructure of German society (on housing, for example); and the fact that, as mentioned, the ‘new’ Bundesländer had no psychological preparedness for these phenomena. Although the 1950s pluralists like Lipset and Hofstadter sought to regard status issues as features of economic prosperity, there is a clear connection between status (that is, how one is regarded by others) and self-esteem, on the one hand, and having a secure and remunerated occupational future, on the other. Thus, even in that respect does Modernisierungsverlierer theory recycle this aspect of the intellectual past.

Extreme-right politics as a response to late-modern urbanism Late-modern extreme-right manifestations in western Europe have been particularly, although not exclusively, urban phenomena. True, city environments have not been universally receptive to extreme-right racism, but some of the most dramatic and best-publicized successes and breakthroughs have been in cities (and/or their deprived peripheries – part of la banlieue syndrome in the French context) and in larger towns (Paris’s 20th arrondissement in 1983, Marseilles, Berlin, and Frankfurt am Main in 1989, Antwerp from the mid-1980s, the cities of the Dutch Randstad, the East End of London, and so on). Even Dreux, scene of early successes by the Front National (FN) in 1983, though a town of relatively modest size (about 35,000 inhabitants), has had more than its share of typical urban tensions and deprivations. Explanations deriving in some way from the features of late-modern urbanism per se (as opposed to how such features may be merely surrogates for the other processes described in the earlier sections of this chapter) can be classified into three principal types: those asserting the operation of a specifically urban racism; those emphasizing fear and suspicion of the ‘urban stranger’, as immigrant and ethnicminority populations are regarded in this perspective; and those invoking a form of ‘urban anomie’.

Urban racism Explanations based on a concept such as this have a self-confessedly long pedigree – certainly as long as ‘race relations’ has been regarded as a subject for academic

36  What goes around comes around

study – and there is no sense in which those, such as I, who in general favour this ‘traditional’ perspective would regard it as a theoretical novelty, or an unattributed retread of some formerly voguish but now forgotten perspective. However, given the ideologies of extreme-right parties – and for many of the supporters of most of these their xenophobia and anti-ethnic-minority aspects are the sine qua non of their existence – there is a reasonable suspicion among ‘traditionalists’ about those attempts to pass off or excuse such supporters’ behaviour as being not really or primarily motivated by racism but instead by one of the other processes discussed already. This is not the place to reprise the arguments of 1970s urban sociology about what is the ‘specifically urban’. Urban racism encompasses a whole range of different possible processes, some materialist and some not, some cultural and some not, some territorial and parochial and others less so. Elsewhere (Husbands 1993) there is given a typology of possibilities. Perhaps, however, it is fair to say that materialist explanations based on ‘rational choice’ decisions about competing for scarce resources such as housing, jobs, good-quality state education, and so on, have been most popular. Thus, many of the microspatial correlational findings of the covariation across urban space of extreme-right support and the presence of numerically significant ethnic minorities are usually interpreted, explicitly or implicitly, in competition terms, although explanations based on cultural hostility may be additionally or equally applicable. For example, confronted with the very high positive correlations in a city like Rotterdam between strength of the Centrumdemocraten (CDs) and the percentage-presence of Turks and Moroccans (in the region of +0.8 across urban subareas), one must – in the absence of individual-level attitudinal data about CDs’ voters – consider both materialist and cultural-hostility explanations. What suggests the undoubted relevance of the former, if certainly not to the exclusion of the latter, is the equally high positive correlation between the CDs’ strength and indices of economic deprivation (Husbands 1992a).

Fear of the ‘urban stranger’ This type of explanation has been attractive to those seeking comfort from consideration that extreme-right racist voting is the product of fear of the unfamiliar. Once people become acquainted with those to whom they are initially hostile, this hostility will be reduced. There are several examples of attempts to apply this comforting perspective but an especially good one occurs in an early article on the FN by Pascal Perrineau (1985), who has since turned himself into one of the foremost academic French researchers on support for the FN. Basing his analysis on FN support in the 1984 Euro-election across thirty-one communes in the Grenoble urban area, Perrineau had made much of its negligible correlation with the relative presence of immigrants in the same subareas. From this he proposed the idea that it was not the actual experience of contact with immigrants but fear of such contacts. There are a number of points to be made about this type of argument. Less crucial,

What goes around comes around  37

though not irrelevant, is that this study has been one of the very few to report the absence of such a correlation (Husbands 1991). More important is that it was a highly speculative finding made without the support of individual-level data and is readily amenable to other explanations. In 1996, for example, Pierre Martin – in a widely discussed pamphlet from the Fondation Saint-Simon4 that provoked a bad-tempered exchange in Le Monde between him and Nonna Mayer, a co-worker of Perrineau – wrote: Without dismissing the influence of this type of phenomenon, it is nonetheless appropriate to emphasize that this … effect has other explanations, perhaps more important ones, even if they are less optimistic. First, this phenomenon can reflect the composition of the electorate in high-immigrant areas where one finds the highest levels of French citizens of immigrant origin, whether by naturalization or by birth, and they are naturally little disposed to the Front National. Second, those French people most hostile to immigrants do their best to live elsewhere. Whilst French people generally have a very remote attitude towards politics, they attach great importance to where they live: their anti-immigrant hostility will have even more influence on where they choose to live than on their vote.Voters most hostile to immigrants choose to go and live where accommodation is not too expensive and where there are few immigrants: these are working-class urban areas near to immigrant areas or else rural zones on the urban periphery. (Martin 1996, p. 21; my translation) This style of approach perhaps has some transient analogy to the ‘isolated workers’ perspective that, as described above, was introduced by Kerr and Siegel in the 1950s and then adopted by Kornhauser in The Politics of Mass Society, except that this is perhaps properly applied only to long-standing and established communities. Certainly, some working-class areas with a particular local culture and a selfidentifying cohesion have been well-known extreme-right hotspots. Examples are parts of the East End of London (Husbands 1982, 1994) and the Feijenoord area of Rotterdam, both with a coincidental history in the docks industry. Martin himself does not invoke this theoretical pedigree, but in general one cannot help feeling that he has a point with his observations. However, of more central importance to the argument of this chapter, is the status of this debate, being based as it is only on aggregate data. For anybody with any knowledge of American urban sociology or of American social psychology of the 1940s and 1950s, it is like being in a time warp. For this debate in France was conducted without apparent reference to any of the large literature in the United States about the role of racism and ‘white flight’ in the changing racial composition of urban neighbourhoods; this literature is enormous, but Star (1964) and Van Valey, Roof, and Wilcox (1977) are well-known examples (respectively early and late in the principal debate) focusing on interracial tension, mobility, and neighbourhood change. Moreover, the huge literature on the ‘contact hypothesis’ concerning the reduction of hostility receives no mention (for

38  What goes around comes around

an early example, see Deutsch and Collins (1951), excerpted in Proshansky and Seidenberg (1965, pp. 646–57)). This is especially deficient, given that the general burden of relevant research was that this hypothesis was often wrong or only at best contingently correct, a conclusion that would have some bearing on the direction in which one might resolve this Perrineau–Martin disagreement.

‘Urban anomie’ Perrineau pushed his ‘fear of the “urban stranger”’ argument in a couple of later publications but by 1989 he was also advancing with Nonna Mayer a thesis based on ‘urban anomie’, quoted approvingly by Betz (1994, p. 177) as being consistent with his ‘populist’ perspective. However, in no way do Mayer and Perrineau ignore the theoretical pedigree of their particular approach, going straight back to the master, Émile Durkheim, and his discussion of anomic suicide (Mayer and Perrineau 1989, pp. 346–7; my translation): This general analysis of the extreme-right vote as a symptom of a certain social and political anomie works on the local level. The immigration and law-and-order issues that stimulate FN voting seem to have fullest effect when the local systems of social and political integration are blocked. The deep simultaneous crisis in systems of local government and political representation has opened up a gap into which the FN has rushed. Urban growth has been stopped, state policy concerning urban development zones is uncertain. The state is withdrawing and, for example, in Marseilles the system of clienteles and local notables is being replaced little by little by specialists in urban planning who are attempting to recapture the position abandoned by the State. However, they have not managed to control the city or contain the suffering of those who feel that they have been abandoned. This perspective, at least, is not quite reinventing a theoretical wheel, although its superficial similarity to aspects of, say, ‘strain theory’ could repay longer discussion.

Conclusions One suspects that currently voguish theoretical explanations in other fields of sociology could equally be submitted to the ‘recycling test’ and would emerge positive, but in the case of extreme-right politics it does seem somewhat ironic how much of the attempted theorizing has been conducted with little or no reference back to earlier work on obviously related post-war phenomena that was widely influential in its time. Other ‘late-modern’ perspectives on the extreme right from other disciplines (for example, Kitschelt with McGann 1995) would not necessarily emerge unscathed from the ‘recycling test’. However, although critical remarks about various contemporary theories have been made, the primary purpose of this chapter has been not to assess which ones are most consistent with available

What goes around comes around  39

evidence but rather to show how much they mirror earlier post-war theoretical approaches to the analysis of extreme-right phenomena. Of course, knowledge is supposed to move forward on the achievements of past researchers in a respective field, but that is a rather more noble evolution than using theoretical devices that either are ignorant of very similar ideas used in the past or are oblivious to them. Perhaps it is a sign of professional cynicism or even conservatism, but in a subject in which today’s trendy ideas often become tomorrow’s tired shibboleths, one cannot but sympathize with Cleopatra when she was confronted by the prospect of a world without Mark Antony and agree with her that perhaps indeed ‘there is nothing left remarkable / Beneath the visiting moon’.

Notes 1 However, any suggestion that there has been a single simultaneous western Europe-wide ‘wave’ of such activity should be strenuously rejected (see Husbands 1996). 2 Following Lipset’s launch of the term ‘radical right’ upon American social and political science, it was widely used during the 1950s and 1960s in order to describe phenomena that most British analysts would have called ‘right-wing extremism’. In the Federal Republic of Germany the term Rechtsradikalismus was for a long time the predominant usage, as reference to any standard dictionary will confirm. Only quite recently has this word been largely superseded by Rechtsextremismus (for example, PVS 1996). The distinction was also a bureaucratically important one, however, since a purported and casuistic distinction between Rechtsradikalismus and Rechtsextremismus was the basis according to which the German Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) justified varying monitoring and control strategies towards different right-wing formations. At least two German Ministers of the Interior arrogated to themselves the legal and philosophical knowledge to sound off about this dubious distinction, usually in their introductory remarks to one of the Annual Reports of the BfV. 3 Aussiedler were those of German extraction from within Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union who were exercising their right to emigrate from there into the Federal Republic. 4 The Fondation Saint-Simon was a centre-left think tank active from 1982 until it was voluntarily wound up in 1999 and was described by Le Monde as being based on ‘a vision of social relationships abhorred by the critical sociology of a Pierre Bourdieu’ (LM, 24 June 1999, p. 11).

References Adorno, Theodor W., Frenkel-Brunswik, Else, Levinson, Daniel J., and Sanford, R. Nevitt. 1950. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper & Row. Allport, Gordon W. 1958 [1954]. The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Backes, Uwe. 1991. ‘Nationaal-populistische protestpartijen in een Europees perspectief: zeven theses’. Pp. 229–34 in Hugo De Schampheleire and Yannis Thanassekos (eds.), Extreem-rechts in West-Europa/L’extrême droite en Europe de l’ouest. Brussels: VUB-Press. Bell, Daniel (ed.). 1955. The New American Right. New York: Criterion Books. Bell, Daniel (ed.). 1964 [1963]. The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company.

40  What goes around comes around

Bettelheim, Bruno, and Janowitz, Morris. 1964 [1950]. Social Change and Prejudice, Including Dynamics of Prejudice. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Betz, Hans-Georg. 1994. Radical Right-wing Populism in Western Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Blalock, Hubert M., Jr. 1966. ‘The identification problem and theory building: the case of status inconsistency’, American Sociological Review, 31(1), 52–61. Blalock, Hubert M., Jr. 1967. ‘Status inconsistency and interaction: some alternative models’, American Journal of Sociology, 73(3), 305–15. BMI (Bundesministerium des Innern). 1982. Neonazistische Militanz und Rechtsextremismus unter Jugendlichen. Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer. Bouw, Carolien, van Donselaar, Jaap, and Nelissen, Carien. 1981. De Nederlandse Volksunie: Portret van een racistische splinterpartij. Bussum: Wereldfenster. Bovenkerk, Frank, Douwes, Annette, Cloudi, Millie, and van Velzen, Joop. 1978. ‘De verkiezingsaanhang van de Nederlandse Volksunie’. Pp. 103–18 in Frank Bovenkerk (ed.), Omdat zij anders zijn: Patronen van rasdiscriminatie in Nederland. Meppel: Boom. De Schampheleire, Hugo. 1991. ‘De hedendaagse extreem rechtse populistische partijen in West-Europa’. Pp. 394–400 in Hugo De Schampheleire and Yannis Thanassekos (eds.), Extreem-rechts in West-Europa/L’extrême droite en Europe de l’ouest. Brussels: VUB-Press. De Schampheleire, Hugo, and Thanassekos, Yannis (eds.). 1991. Extreem-rechts in WestEuropa/L’extrême droite en Europe de l’ouest. Brussels: VUB-Press. Deutsch, Morton, and Collins, Mary Evans. 1951. Interracial Housing: A Psychological Evaluation of a Social Experiment. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Dudek, Peter, and Jaschke, Hans-Gerd. 1984. Entstehung und Entwicklung des Rechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik: Zur Tradition einer besonderen politischen Kultur. 2 vols. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Elbers, Frank, and Fennema, Meindert. 1993. Racistische partijen in West-Europa: Tussen nationale traditie en Europese samenwerking. Leiden: Stichting Burgerschapskunde, Nederlands Centrum voor Politieke Vorming. Ferkiss, Victor C. 1957. ‘Populist influences on American fascism’, Western Political Quarterly, 10(2), 350–73. Goodwyn, Lawrence. 1976. Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Griffith, Robert. 1987. The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate. 2nd ed.; Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Gusfield, Joseph R. 1963. Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Hainsworth, Paul (ed.). 1992. The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. Heberle, Rudolf. 1951. Social Movements: An Introduction to Political Sociology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Heitmeyer, Wilhelm. 1988. Rechtsextremistische Orientierungen bei Jugendlichen: Empirische Ergebnisse und Erklärungsmuster einer Untersuchung zur politischen Sozialisation. 2nd ed.; Weinheim: Juventa Verlag. Heitmeyer, Wilhelm. 1993. ‘Hostility and violence towards foreigners in Germany’. Pp. 17–28 in Tore Björgo and Rob Witte (eds.), Racist Violence in Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Heitmeyer, Wilhelm, et al. 1992. Die Bielefelder Rechtsextremismus-Studie: Erste Langzeituntersuchung zur politischen Sozialisation männlicher Jugendlicher. Weinheim: Juventa Verlag.

What goes around comes around  41

Hennig, Eike. 1982. ‘Neonazistische Militanz und Rechtsextremismus unter Jugendlichen’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte: Beilage zur Wochenzeitung ‘Das Parlament’, 12 June, pp. 23–37. Hoffman, Stanley. 1956. Le Mouvement Poujade. Cahiers de la Fondation des Sciences Politiques, 81. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin. Hofstadter, Richard. 1955. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. New York: Vintage Books. Hofstadter, Richard. 1963. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. New York: Vintage Books. Hofstadter, Richard. 1964 [1963]. ‘The pseudo-conservative revolt’. Pp. 75–95 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company. Husbands, Christopher T. 1972. ‘The campaign organizations and patterns of popular support of George C. Wallace in Wisconsin and Indiana in 1964 and 1968’. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago. Husbands, Christopher T. 1982. ‘East End racism, 1900–1980: geographical continuities in vigilantist and extreme right-wing political behaviour’, London Journal, 8(1), 3–26. Husbands, Christopher T. 1983. Racial Exclusionism and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front. London: George Allen & Unwin. Husbands, Christopher T. 1988. ‘The dynamics of racial exclusion and expulsion: racist politics in western Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 16(6), 701–20. Husbands, Christopher T. 1991. ‘The support for the Front National: analyses and findings’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 14(3), 381–415. [In this volume as Chapter 2.]. Husbands, Christopher T. 1992a. ‘The Netherlands: irritants on the body politic’. Pp. 95–125 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. [In this volume as Chapter 5.]. Husbands, Christopher T. 1992b. ‘Belgium: Flemish legions on the march’. Pp. 126–50 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. [In this volume as Chapter 6.]. Husbands, Christopher T. 1992c. ‘The other face of 1992: the extreme-right explosion in western Europe’, Parliamentary Affairs, 45(3), 267–84. Husbands, Christopher T. 1993. ‘Racism and racist violence: some theories and policy perspectives’. Pp. 113–27 in Tore Björgo and Rob Witte (eds.), Racist Violence in Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Husbands, Christopher T. 1994. ‘Following the “continental model”?: implications of the electoral performance of the British National Party’, New Community, 20(4), 563–79. Husbands, Christopher T. 1995. ‘Militant neo-Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1990s’. Pp. 327–53 in Luciano Cheles, Ronnie Ferguson, and Michalina Vaughan (eds.), The Far Right in Western and Eastern Europe. 2nd ed.; Harlow: Longman. [In this volume as Chapter 3.]. Husbands, Christopher T. 1996. ‘Die Anhängerschaft des Rechtsextremismus in Westeuropa: eine Überprüfung der Wellenhypothese anhand von Umfragen-Zeitreihen in fünf Ländern’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift – Sonderheft Rechtsextremismus: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung, 27, 313–29. [Translated in this volume as Chapter 10.]. Hutton, Patrick H. 1976. ‘Popular Boulangism and the advent of mass politics in France, 1886–90’, Journal of Contemporary History, 11(1), 85–106. Ignazi, Piero. 1992. ‘The silent counter-revolution: hypotheses on the emergence of extreme right-wing parties in Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 22(1), 3–34. Ignazi, Piero. 1994. L’Estrema Destra in Europa. Bologna: Società Editrice Il Mulino.

42  What goes around comes around

Inglehart, Ronald. 1977. The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ionescu, Ghiţa, and Gellner, Ernest (eds.). 1969. Populism: Its Meanings and National Characteristics. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Jackson, Kenneth T. 1967. The Ku Klux Klan in the City: 1915–1930. New York: Oxford University Press. Kerr, Clark, and Siegel, Abraham. 1954. ‘The interindustry propensity to strike – an international comparison’. Pp. 189–212 in Arthur Kornhauser, Robert Dubin, and Arthur M. Ross (eds.), Industrial Conflict. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. Kitschelt, Herbert, with McGann, Anthony J. 1995. The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Kornhauser, William. 1959. The Politics of Mass Society. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Lenski, Gerhard E. 1954. ‘Status crystallization: a non-vertical dimension of social status’, American Sociological Review, 19(4), 405–13. Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1963 [1960]. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company. Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1964a [1963]. ‘The sources of the “Radical Right” (1955)’. Pp. 307–71 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company. A rather different version, titled ‘The radical right: a problem for American democracy’, had appeared in the British Journal of Sociology, 6(2) (1955), 176–209. Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1964b [1963]. ‘Three decades of the radical right: Coughlinites, McCarthyites, and Birchers (1962)’. Pp. 373–446 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/ Doubleday & Company. Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Raab, Earl. 1970. The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790–1970. New York: Harper & Row. Loomis, Charles P., and Beegle, J. Allan. 1946. ‘The spread of German Nazism in rural areas’, American Sociological Review, 11(6), 724–34. MacRae, Donald. 1969. ‘Populism as an ideology’. Pp. 153–65 in Ghiţa Ionescu and Ernest Gellner (eds.), Populism: Its Meanings and National Characteristics. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. MacRae, Duncan, Jr. 1958. ‘Religious and socioeconomic factors in the French vote, 1946–56’, American Journal of Sociology, 64(3), 290–8. MacRae, Duncan, Jr. 1967. Parliament, Parties and Society in France, 1946–1958. New York: St Martin’s Press. Martin, Pierre. 1996. Le vote Le Pen: L’électorat du Front National. Notes de la Fondation Saint-Simon (Dossier) 84, October-November. Paris: Fondation Saint-Simon. Mayer, Nonna, and Perrineau, Pascal. 1989. ‘L’introuvable équation Le Pen’. Pp. 343–53 in Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau (eds.), Le Front National à Découvert. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. McEvoy, James, III. 1969. ‘Conservatism or extremism: Goldwater supporters in the 1964 Presidential election’. Pp. 241–79 in Robert A. Schoenberger (ed.), The American Right Wing: Readings in Political Behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Mecklin, John Moffatt. 1924. The Ku Klux Klan: A Study of the American Mind. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company. Merkl, Peter H., and Weinberg, Leonard (eds.). 1993. Encounters with the Contemporary Radical Right. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Minkenberg, Michael. 1992. ‘The new right in Germany: the transformation of conservatism and the extreme right’, European Journal of Political Research, 22(1), 55–81.

What goes around comes around  43

Parsons, Talcott. 1964 [1963]. ‘Social strains in America (1955)’. Pp. 209–38 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company. Perrineau, Pascal. 1985. ‘Le Front National: un électorat autoritaire’, Revue Politique et Parlementaire, July-August, 918, 24–31. Pfahl-Traughber, Armin. 1994. Volkes Stimme? Rechtspopulismus in Europa. Bonn: Dietz Taschenbuch. Proshansky, Harold, and Seidenberg, Bernard (eds.). 1965. Basic Studies in Social Psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. PVS. 1996. Politische Vierteljahresschrift – Sonderheft Rechtsextremismus: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung, 27. Riesman, David, and Glazer, Nathan. 1964 [1963]. ‘The intellectuals and the discontented classes (1955)’. Pp. 105–35 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company. Rogin, Michael. 1966. ‘Wallace and the middle class: the white backlash in Wisconsin’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 30(1), 98–108. Rogin, Michael Paul. 1967. The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rush, Gary B. 1967. ‘Status consistency and right-wing extremism’, American Sociological Review, 32(1), 86–92. Scheuch, Erwin K., with Klingemann, Hans D. 1967. ‘Theorie des Rechtsradikalismus in westlichen Industriegesellschaften’. Pp. 11–29 in Heinz-Dietrich Ortlieb and Bruno Molitor (eds.), Hamburger Jahrbuch für Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik, 12. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Star, Shirley A. 1964. ‘An approach to the measurement of interracial tension’. Pp. 346– 72 in Ernest W. Burgess and Donald J. Bogue (eds.), Contributions to Urban Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Taylor, Stan. 1982. The National Front in English Politics. London: Macmillan. van Donselaar, Jaap. 1991. Fout na de Oorlog: Fascistische en Racistische Organisaties in Nederland, 1950–1990. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker. Van Valey, Thomas L., Roof, Wade Clark, and Wilcox, Jerome E. 1977. ‘Trends in residential segregation, 1960–1970’, American Journal of Sociology, 82(4), 826–44. Vander Zanden, James W. 1960. ‘The Klan revival’, American Journal of Sociology, 65(5), 456–62. Wald, Eduard. 1952. Der Rechts- und Linksradikalismus in Niedersachsen und Bremen: Übersicht Mai 1952. Hanover: Landesbezirksvorstand Niedersachsen des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes.

Country case studies

2 FRANCE The support for the Front National: analyses and findings

Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts. Francis Bacon, Essays, On Vain-Glory (1625) Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National (FN) that he leads became significant features of the French political scene quite suddenly in 1983, after Le Pen’s rather unexpected personal success in the 20th arrondissement in Paris’s municipal elections in March of that year. Thus came to an end a period of more than two decades that Le Pen had spent in the political wilderness. Within little more than a year came successes by the FN in a number of by-elections, most notably Dreux (in the Eure-et-Loir département), culminating in the entry of Le Pen and a group of his colleagues into the European Parliament in June 1984. Le Pen’s personal background and the trajectory of his success are now wellknown to all who take even the slightest interest in this subject and have been the subject of several books (e.g., Bergeron and Vilgier 1985; Dumont, Lorien, and Criton 1985); there has also been a resurgence of publishing on the history of the extreme right in France, historically and in the present (e.g., Milza 1987; Chebel d’Appollonia 1988). Equally, French political scientists and political pollsters (in France these two categories are not mutually exclusive) have devoted a considerable amount of energy to seeking the reasons for this surge in Le Pen’s support and the characteristics of these supporters. There is now a large body of more analytic literature on these latter subjects, which complements the more descriptive accounts that focus upon Le Pen’s own background and the details of his emergence to political prominence. A major summary is Mayer and Perrineau (1989). In classifying the analytic material on the Le Pen phenomenon, one may distinguish four principal approaches: these emphasize the dimensions of, respectively, time, location, social structure, and political origin (i.e., previous voting behaviour).

48  Country case studies

• •

•

•

There are a number of writers who, in their different ways, have addressed the issue ‘why then?’ – why did the Le Pen phenomenon ‘take off ’ when it did? There is another, rather larger, literature with a different emphasis which, seeing Le Pen voting as an already ongoing phenomenon, asks ‘why there?’ – why does it display its specific locational features? The database for such studies is aggregate geographical data, often at the département level, sometimes at the sub-département level (e.g., communes), also at the intra-urban level (e.g., arrondissements, quartiers, polling districts/bureaux de vote), and very occasionally for other types of aggregation (e.g., cities). Correspondingly, there is a further body of literature which, also seeing Le Pen voting as an ongoing phenomenon, asks ‘why them?’ – why does it display its specific social-structural features? The database for such studies is almost always individual-level poll data collected by political pollsters, although some indirect inferences have been based upon aggregate data. Lastly, using the same type of poll data as in the ‘why them?’ approach, there are numerous studies asking the different and more explicitly descriptive question, ‘from where?’ – what were the previous partisan attachments (if any) of Le Pen supporters? Again, the database for such studies is almost always individuallevel poll data, although occasional attempts – usually unsatisfactory ones – to answer such questions using aggregate data have been made.

The ‘why then?’ literature is purportedly concerned with specific precipitating factors or triggering mechanisms, accepting the long-term presence of underlying and predisposing factors; the second and third approaches, ‘why there?’ and ‘why them?’, seek contextual, ideological, or situational factors specific by location or social structure that dispose in favour of Le Pen. The fourth and more descriptive approach has been dominated by whether there has been a relationship between the rise of the FN and the decline of the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) and between the FN’s success and the inability of the mainstream right of the Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF) and Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) (especially the RPR) to mount a consistent electoral challenge to the left. There has been almost no interest in the extent to which the FN may be mobilizing previous abstainers – the focus of the old mass-society-based debates about the origins of some Nazi voters in 1930 – although there has been occasional attention to Le Pen’s success among new and/or young voters. This article focuses only upon the second, third, and fourth of the above categories. In doing so, it combines exegesis and critique, particularly as applied to the more analytic pretensions of the ‘why there?’ and ‘why them?’ approaches. It works to a conclusion that, although much is doubtless known about Le Pen’s supporters, the reason for this lies rather in the simplicity of certain basic truths about them than in the richness of the analyses that have sought to discover these truths, whether such analyses have been based upon aggregate data or individuallevel poll data. Much of both these types of analysis is uncritically empiricist, using

France  49

ex post facto inference and/or failing to use adequate analytic procedures, despite the possibilities of doing so that are actually presented by the data. It is also argued that much, though not all, of this literature has been developed piecemeal and either fails to consolidate existing available findings or generalizes dangerously from once-off and sometimes aberrant and unrepresentative results. Finally, although it is accepted that some existing work does permit the inference of basic truths about Le Pen supporters, it is also argued that many gaps still exist in our knowledge about the minutiae of the general factors that dispose to FN sympathy. The claim that may be made for aggregate-data analyses of support for the FN – when properly conducted – is not that they can be definitive but that they should be examples of a more acceptable critical empiricism – based upon the more robust, though not the only relevant, statistical techniques that may be applied to such data. This critical empiricism is the limit to the type of analysis that such aggregate data are likely to allow. The interpretations to be drawn from such exercises are correspondingly preliminary, to be used largely to buttress conclusions about the attitudinal motivation of FN voters to be taken from alternative types of data, usually individual-level data. The only unique interpretations, albeit necessarily tentative ones, coming from aggregate analysis concern the relevance of specific local political traditions having a bearing upon the disposition towards Le Pen.

Why there? Arguments about the location of the Le Pen phenomenon It might be thought that French social science, with its long tradition of spatial analysis – of both non-electoral and electoral phenomena – that goes back to the nineteenth century and with an abundance of data on numerous subjects for subareas in an extended hierarchy of aggregation, would be uniquely placed to provide precise answers to the question ‘why there?’, whatever the phenomenon. Yet it remains the case that a very large proportion of spatially oriented research on many subjects, including Le Pen voting, is better suited to answering the question ‘where?’ than ‘why there?’ This is true of French political science. Very little of the sophistication that one sees in spatial analysis by American, German, Dutch, Scandinavian, and even British political scientists seems to have been adopted by the French. Even the humble correlation coefficient is something of a rarity and regression analysis is almost unknown, although odd examples are found; instead, there is a persisting preference for the visual comparison of maps. Thus, the concept of collinearity between independent variables and the consequent one of statistical control are almost entirely absent from spatial analyses of Le Pen’s support. Although opponents of certain types of multivariate analysis often criticize it for its supposed empiricism and its inductive nature, this stricture is even more blatantly applicable to much of the French work on support for Le Pen. The approach to analysis is to note the spatial distribution of Le Pen’s voting, to cast around for some phenomenon with a broadly similar distribution and then to infer ex post

50  Country case studies

facto a supposed motivation of the Le Pen voter. Thus, a whole number of factors have been adduced to ‘explain’ Le Pen’s sympathy – among them, the presence of immigrants or foreigners in general, the presence of Algerians or Maghrébins1 in particular, high criminality, the presence of ex-colonial settlers, or merely the general traumas of urban life. As we shall see, all of these (except the presence of ex-colonial settlers) are highly correlated with each other, both at the département level and, where relevant, often also at the level of urban subareas within cities. Before developing this point and presenting a fuller discussion of the consequences that flow from it, it is instructive to offer a summary of some of the studies that have used aggregate data in their analysis of Le Pen’s vote. In Table 2.1 is given a comprehensive presentation of the most important of such studies published between 1983 and 1989. As may be seen, most of the individual studies are based upon départements in mainland/metropolitan France,2 although a number of intra-city studies have been done and are cited. It can readily be seen how primitive are the conventional techniques of analysis, the visual comparison of maps and mere verbal assertion being predominant. In four cases correlation coefficients have been calculated from graphed or mapped data in the original sources. In at least the cases of Giblin-Delvallet (1988) in Seine-Saint-Denis département in 1986 and Etchebarne (1983) in Roubaix, these coefficients imply a rather less exclusive emphasis on the role of proximity of foreigners/Algerians than their authors might have given if they themselves had calculated such statistics. Even so, as Table 2.1 shows, almost all studies do report at least a moderate aggregate relationship with the presence of immigrants or foreigners in general or else with Algerians or Maghrébins in particular. Such relationships are noticeably stronger in the département-based analyses than in the intra-city ones.3 Moreover, there are a couple of studies that are exceptions or that have a rather more complex or sophisticated perspective. Rather than comment in detail, and inevitably with considerable repetition, upon each of the studies cited in Table 2.1, discussion is confined to those that are of more theoretical interest in attempting to account for Le Pen’s support. Mayer’s work (1987, 1989) is of relevance particularly for what it shows about changes in the spatial distribution of Le Pen’s support in the city of Paris between the June 1984 Euro-election, the March 1986 elections for the Assemblée nationale, and the 1988 Presidential and Assemblée nationale election. Although on all occasions the actual correlation with foreigners in their entirety was rather similar, that with Maghrébins increased substantially from 1984 to 1986 and thereafter, purportedly displaying the decline of the bourgeois component of Le Pen’s Parisian support after 1984. In fact, the correlation between the presence of Maghrébins and Le Pen’s support percentaged on the number of registered electors (as opposed to actual voters) was non-existent in 1984 (–0.05) and moderate (0.40) in 1986. Perrineau’s (1985) article is also important, having been very widely quoted by subsequent authors (including Mayer), largely it seems because of its distinctive status, since it is one of the few studies that reported an example lacking any real relationship between the local concentration of immigrants and Le Pen’s support,

Reference of study

Yes (+) Yes (+) Yes (+) No

1984 1984 1984

1984 1984 1984 1984

1984/85

Le Gall 1984 Mayer 1987; 1989 Milza 1987, pp. 405, 407 Ogden 1987 Ogden 1987 Ogden 1987 Perrineau 1985

Perrineau 1985

Todd 1988b, p. 268 1984

Yes (+) Moderate (+) Yes (+)

1984

Le Bras 1986a

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

1984

Yes (+)

Year of election Nature of relationship

Jaffré 1984c

Immigrants/foreigners in general

Determinants of support

data, 1983–1988

96 départements

Type of data

Type of analysis

(Continued)

Inter-category comparison of weighted means France 94 départements Visual comparison of maps and linear regression France 96 départements Verbal assertion Paris 80 quartiers Correlation (r=0.48) France 96 départements Visual comparison of maps and verbal assertion France 96 départements Correlation Urban France 36 largest cities Correlation Paris 20 arrondissements Correlation Grenoble urban area 31 communes Scattergram and correlation (r=0.081)1 France 96 départements Visual comparison of maps France 96 départements Correlation (r=0.89)

France

Geographical universe

TABLE 2.1  Summary of the major determinants of support for the Front National/Jean-Marie Le Pen mentioned in various studies using aggregate

France  51

1986

1986

1986

1986

1986

1986 1988

1988

Giblin-Delvallet 1988

Giblin-Delvallet 1988

Lancelot 1986

Le Bras 1986b

Le Gall 1986

Mayer 1987 Mayer 1989

Perrineau 1988b

1983

1984

1984

Etchebarne 1983

Mayer 1987, 1989

Ogden 1987

Yes (+)

Moderate (+)

Moderate (+)

Yes (+)

Moderate (+) Moderate (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Moderate (+)

Moderate (+)

Year of election Nature of relationship

Reference of study

Algerians/Maghrébins in particular

Determinants of support

TABLE 2.1  (Continued)

Urban France

Paris

Roubaix (Nord départements)

France

Paris Paris

France

France

France

Seine-Saint-Denis département

Lille urban area (départements)

Geographical universe

Visual examination of maps and correlation (r=0.584)2 Visual examination of maps and correlation (r=0.489)3 Visual examination of maps Visual examination of maps Inter-category comparison of weighted means Correlation (r=0.51) Correlation (r=0.47/0.48)4 Verbal assertion

85 communes

Correlation

Correlation (r=0.35)

80 quartiers 36 largest cities

Visual comparison of maps and rank-order correlation (rs=0.489)5

45 electoral districts

96 départements

80 quartiers 80 quartiers

96 départements

96 départements

96 départements

39 communes

Type of analysis

Type of data

52  Country case studies

1986

Mayer 1987

Ex-colonial settlers

Unemployment

1984

1984 1984 1984 1986

Jaffré 1984c

Le Gall 1984 Ogden 1987 Ogden 1987 Lancelot 1986

Yes (+) Yes (+) Yes (+) Yes (+)

Yes (+)

No

1988

1986b

Yes (+)

1984

Milza 1987, pp. 405, 407 Perrineau 1988b

Le Bras 1986b

Yes (+)

1984

France Urban France France France

France

France

France

France

France

Paris

Moderate (+) Yes (+)

Paris

Moderate (+)

Jaffré 1984c

Criminality/breakdown of law and order (insecurité)

1984

Ogden 1987

96 départements 36 largest cities 96 départements 96 départements

96 départements

96 départements

96 départements

96 départements

96 départements

80 quartiers

(Continued)

Comparison of weighted means between categories of TixierVignancour’s 1965 vote Verbal assertion Verbal assertion Verbal assertion Verbal assertion

Visual comparison of maps

Inter-category comparison of weighted means Visual comparison of maps and verbal assertion Verbal assertion

Correlation (r=0.53)

20 arrondissements Correlation

France  53

1984

1984

1984

1987

1986

1986

1988

Le Gall 1984

Milza 1987, pp. 405, 408

Ogden 1987

Le Bras 1986b

Lancelot 1986

Perrineau 1988b

Secularization

Todd 1988b, pp. 270–1

1984

Todd 1988b, p. 269 1984

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Year of election Nature of relationship

Jaffré 1984c

Reference of study

Break-up of traditional working class

Urbanization

Determinants of support

TABLE 2.1  (Continued)

France

France

France

France

France

France

France

France

France

Geographical universe

Visual comparison of maps and verbal assertion Correlation Visual comparison of maps Verbal assertion Verbal assertion

96 départements 96 départements 96 départements 96 départements 96 départements

94 départements

Verbal assertion

Verbal assertion

Verbal assertion

96 départements

94 départements

Inter-category comparison of weighted means

Type of analysis

96 départements

Type of data

54  Country case studies

Todd 1988b, pp. 271–5

1988

Perrineau 1988b

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

Yes (+)

France

France

France

France

Visual inspection of map Visual inspection of map

96 départements

Visual inspection of map and verbal assertion

Verbal assertion and visual comparison with map of 1984 abstention by département

96 départements

96 départements

94 départements Paris, Lyons, Marseilles

1

The product-moment correlation coefficient was not presented by Perrineau and has been calculated from the data graphed on his scattergram; with the omission of one very obvious outlier, the coefficient rises to 0.183. 2 This study is described in the rubric of the relevant figure as being of the FN’s support in the Lille urban area in the March 1983 municipal elections. However, Le Monde (8 March 1983, p. 21) reported no candidacy in Lille in these elections whose results match those in Giblin-Delvallet’s diagram. These results are in fact those of the March 1986 Assemblée nationale elections. The product-moment correlation coefficient was not presented by Giblin-Delvallet and has been calculated from the relevant map in the article. 3 This product-moment correlation coefficient was not presented by Giblin-Delvallet and has been calculated from the maps that are in the article. An ana1ogous calculation for the Marseilles urban area was not practicable because differently-sized aggregated areas were used in the presentations of the FN vote-percentages and the levels of foreign population respectively. 4 Mayer (1989, p. 252) provides both these values, one being the correlation with Le Pen’s Presidential support and the other with the FN’s support in the 1988 Assemblée nationale elections. 5 This study was of a pro-FN list entitled ‘Roubaix for the Roubaisians’ headed by Marcel Lecluse in the March 1983 municipal elections. The Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient was not presented by Etchebarne and has been calculated from the maps that are in the article.

1984

1986

1984

Milza 1987, pp. 402–4

The South/South-east and North-east

Lancelot 1986

The South/South-east

Anomie

France  55

56  Country case studies

although footnotes in Mayer’s two articles do mention the study by Rey and Roy (1986) of Seine-Saint-Denis in 1984 and 1986 that claims a similar finding; however, Table 2.1 includes Giblin-Delvallet’s (1988) study of the same département showing some degree of correlation between FN voting in 1986 and the presence of foreigners. The works noting a relationship between Le Pen voting and the presence of immigrants – whatever the level of aggregation, from commune to département – tend to imply the operation of what many British and American social psychologists of race relations have called ‘contact racism’, although this is usually an implication left unstated and the French studies do not use any directly equivalent expression. On the other hand, Perrineau and those citing his 1985 study may have overelaborated the non-experiential dynamic of Le Pen’s support. He claims from his analysis of Le Pen’s 1984 vote around Grenoble that some racist voting is motivated by a fear of the unknown, arising ‘more from illusion than from the presence of discomforts or dangers that are objectively experienced’ – a view complementary to the ‘contact hypothesis’ about the diminution of racist attitudes, which has enjoyed oscillating popularity in English-language social psychology for more than forty years. Le Bras’ analysis, especially that of the 1984 Le Pen vote in his book, Les Trois France, is worth considering in some detail for, despite its excessively simplified caricature by some of its detractors (e.g., Mayer 1987, 1989), it is more sophisticated than a mere assertion that foreigners produce Le Pen voting. In fact, like the work of Todd (1988b), it is an attempt to apply an essentially Durkheimian style of analysis and theoretical perspective to contemporary France. Le Bras calculated what he called ‘the Le Pen equation’, a simple linear regression of Le Pen’s 1984 percentage vote against the proportion of foreigners in 1982, estimated on the ninety-four mainland départements, with an intercept and a residual term (1986a, p. 216). However, his major substantive interpretations are based on the geographical pattern of residuals rather than on the equation itself. With some ingenuity, albeit with no direct supporting data, he says of départements where Le Pen’s support is underpredicted by the proportion of foreigners (notably in the Paris Basin and the coastal départements of Provence): ‘Any blow to national prestige or identity is directly played out at the local or family level. A crisis of identity for France is experienced as a crisis of individual identity’ (Le Bras 1986a, p. 219). Elsewhere in his book, Le Bras is also keen – pace Mayer – to deny a simple galvanic relationship between Le Pen support and the presence of foreigners; in fact, he claims a higher correlation between Le Pen voting and the distribution of foreigners in 1851 than that in 1982.Thus, Le Pen voting is more than straightforward xenophobia based on some mechanism of contact racism but is also a reflection of a political crisis that has deep historical roots (Le Bras 1986a, pp. 64–6). Todd’s book, La Nouvelle France, is in a similar style. He argues that the past two decades or so have seen major changes in France that have particularly affected certain regions. One of the more significant developments, so he claims, is the

France  57

breakup of the manual working class, exemplified in the decline of the PCF vote, but also in the rise of an immigrant fraction within the working class, especially in cities. Where the process of secularization has occurred most rapidly and where, correspondingly, anomie is most developed, are strongholds of the FN (Todd 1988b, pp. 269–75). Table 2.1 also identifies a number of other factors that are mentioned in the literature. Higher criminality, the presence of ex-colonial settlers (mostly, of course, French rapatriés from Algeria), urbanization in general, and certain geographical sectors of mainland France are mentioned by one or several writers, although unemployment is infrequently mentioned because of its lack of zero-order correlation with Le Pen’s vote, as Le Bras (1986b) noted explicitly.

Uncritical empiricism in aggregate-data studies of Le Pen’s support Although it may seem surprising to raise the issue, one is in fact justified in asking how the various factors mentioned have emerged to prominence in attempts by aggregate-data analysts to account for Le Pen’s voting. Why these factors, one may ask. Why not certain others? Being slightly flippant, why not, for example, the historic rate of suicide (from 1875 to 1895), or the proportion of illegitimate births in 1911 acknowledged by the father, both of which have distributions apparently similar – according to Le Bras’ maps (1986a, pp. 63, 175) – to that of Le Pen’s support? Indeed, average summer temperature would probably correlate quite highly with his vote. The response to the question of why certain factors rather than others are chosen may well be that those mentioned in the literature (or some of them, at least) are incontestably relevant because they can be ‘read off ’ from the programmatic emphases of the FN (e.g., on immigrants or law and order) or perhaps from the concerns, attitudes, or characteristics of FN supporters revealed by opinion polls. However, in using aggregate data alone, there can be no justifiable theoretical basis for choosing one variable (say, the presence of Maghrébins) as causally pre-eminent and ignoring some other (say, high criminality) with which there is a strong positive relationship at the aggregate level. This, in effect, is what many studies reported in Table 2.1 have done; alternatively, they have presented a series of variables correlated with Le Pen voting, leaving the reader to assume that all may be of equal causal status. Only a few authors (perhaps Mayer, certainly Le Bras and Todd) aspire to greater sophistication or ingenuity. We are now in a position to explore these issues further. Table 2.2 presents a correlational analysis and principal-components factor analysis at the département level of all variables introduced in Table 2.1 for which it has been possible to assemble relevant data. It is possible to operationalize all variables in a reasonably defensible manner, with the exception of secularization (see note 1 of Table 2.2); most such operationalizations are incontestable. It may be noted that data on ex-colonial settlers from Algeria in each département were taken from the 1968

58  Country case studies

French census – this being the only one to ascertain this information – but, despite the lapse of time, these data may still be regarded as a good contemporary indicator of the relative presence of such settlers in each area. The percentage-point change from 1962 to 1982 in the percentage of household heads who were manual workers is intended to measure, albeit crudely, the breakup of the traditional working class. Anomie has been operationalized, following Todd’s own practice, by the level of abstention in the June 1984 Euro-election. The south-east and north-east sectors of mainland France have been devised in the light of Todd’s discussion of territorial division by the valleys of the Rhône, Seine, and Loire rivers; their exact composition is described in note 3 of Table 2.2. As Table 2.2 shows, the correlations among several of these separate indicators may be described as strong (say, exceeding 0.6 or less than –0.6) or very strong (say, exceeding 0.75 or less than –0.75). The variables concerned are thus close numerical equivalents and so it becomes a matter of perhaps irresolvable debate which is to be regarded as theoretically primary in accounting for Le Pen voting. The principal-components factor analysis that is also reported confirms this message. In extracting factors by perhaps the most popular of several techniques and then using widely applied criteria for their subsequent rotation, the original ten variables are reducible to five factors, or principal components. This was the solution with the minimum number of factors that was still consistent with the relationships existing among the original correlation coefficients; it was felt after their inspection that solutions with fewer than five factors were taking too many Procrustean liberties with the original data. The first rotated factor, explaining 46 per cent of the variation in the matrix, has heavy loadings on as many as five variables: foreigners, Maghrébins, criminality, urban residence, and the change in the manual working population from 1962 to 1982 – the last perhaps in any case a ‘floor effect’, since it was the more urbanized départements with higher initial percentages of manual workers whose scores had further to fall, in a numerical sense, given that there was an overall downward trend. Thus, there is among these five variables a considerable degree of measurement duplication.The second factor, explaining a further 17 per cent of variation, loads on two further variables, ex-colonial settlers from Algeria and the south-east sector of the country.The third one, accounting for 11 per cent of variation, loads on the two sector-defining variables; thus the south-east sector variable loads on two separate factors. The fourth one, accounting for 10 per cent of variation, is based heavily upon the rate of unemployment. The fifth one, accounting for 6 per cent, loads on abstention levels in the 1984 Euro-election, Todd’s indicator of anomie. A further dubious feature of the French aggregate-data research on Le Pen’s support is its almost total obliviousness to the levels-of-analysis debate – the distinction between aggregate-level and individual-level inference – that has been central to the American ‘ecological fallacy’ literature since the early 1950s, going back to Robinson (1950) and Menzel (1950), although Mayer (1987) does mention this, referring en passant to an unpublished 1984 paper by Frédéric Bon

(1) (1) % foreigners of − total population, 1982 (2) % Maghrébins of total population, 1982 (3) Total criminality per 1,000 residents, 1984 (4) % economically active who were unemployed, 1985 (5) % ex-colonial settlers of total population (6) % population living in urban communes, 1982 −0.250 −0.086 0.592

−0.835 0.383

0.127

0.399

−

0.285

−

−

0.725

0.011

0.333

0.203

−0.059 0.076

−0.605 0.138

0.356

0.537

−0.758 0.342

0.230

0.774

(9) 0.276

−

0.360

(7) (8) −0.761 0.326

−0.062

(6) 0.755

0.628

(5) 0.329

−

(4) −0.220

(3) 0.665

(2) 0.912

0.176

0.199

0.206

0.245

0.354

(10) 0.263

0.371

0.187

II 0.164

0.894

0.290

0.154

0.871

−0.024 0.110

0.756

0.865

I 0.890

0.966

0.261

−0.044 0.165

(Continued)

0.226

−0.106

−0.028

−0.028

−0.138 0.144

IV V −0.268 0.115

−0.035 0.220

0.108

0.013

0.233

III 0.127

PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS2

TABLE 2.2  Correlation matrix and principal-components factor analysis of variables related to Le Pen voting, as introduced in Table 2.11

France  59

−

−

0.087 0.166

0.212

0.537 −

0.069

−

0.226

0.137

0.791

0.940

0.506

0.133

0.091

−0.089 0.059

−0.028 0.964

−0.108 −0.016 −0.066

−0.055 0.096

−0.283 −0.148 –0.243 −0.911 0.037

PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS2

 his principal-components factor analysis presents the factor loadings for each variable after orthogonal varimax rotation of the five extracted factors. Loadings greater than 0.5 T or less than −0.5 have been italicized.

 he two specified sectors of mainland France have been constructed as follows from the relevant official mainland French regions: the South-east, comprising Rhône – Alpes, T Languedoc – Roussillon, and Provence – Alpes – Côte d’Azur; and the North-east, comprising Champagne – Ardennes, Picardy, Upper Normandy, Bourgogne, Nord – Pas-deCalais, Lorraine, and Alsace.

2

3

1

This analysis omits an operationalization of secularization used in Table 2.1, since no suitably current indicator of this concept was available. Todd’s (1988b, pp. 270–1) discussion presents no quantitative cumulative geographical data on this point in his book, although elsewhere (p. 66) he does give a département-based map of the proportion of adults attending Sunday mass around 1965. In any case, such data describe a situation rather than a process, which secularization is.

(10) South-east and north-east sectors3

(9) South-east sector

(8) % abstainers of registered voters, 1984

(7) %-point change in % of household heads who were manual workers, 1962–82

TABLE 2.2  (Continued)

60  Country case studies

France  61

that ‘reinstates the French expression’. The general reluctance to present findings in a manner that conforms to this paradigm may be due to its seeming irrelevance or to a disdain towards the issues of a debate that often seemed to meet the metaphor about numbers of angels able to dance on a single pinhead. Thus, no one noting a relationship between foreigners or criminality and the strength of FN voting is likely to assume that this is due to a greater propensity of foreigners or criminals to vote FN, although those of a waggish disposition might debate this point with respect to the second group! These relationships are presented by analysts, and presumably accepted by those reading their reports, as purely contextual effects. However, the issue of whether one is dealing with an individual-level effect or a contextual one – and if the latter, which type (Davis, Spaeth, and Huson 1961) – is not always trivial or straightforward. Some aggregate variables are apparently being used by their authors as surrogates for individual-level equivalents (e.g., the presence of ex-colonial settlers) and the implication of these presentations seems to be that such aggregate-level relationships reflect corresponding ones at the individual level (i.e., ex-colonial settlers as individuals are disproportionately disposed to Le Pen). As it happens, there are some individual-level poll data to support this particular assertion (e.g., Jeambar 1987) but, from the aggregate-data relationship alone, this can by no means be taken for granted. A little arithmetic can show that such an aggregate relationship is consistent with a whole series of different corresponding relationships at the individual level. Indeed, there are actual examples that may be cited; thus, Husbands (1983, pp. 98–101) showed that, although at the constituency level there was a very strong positive aggregate relationship between the presence of manual workers and support for the British National Front, there was almost no class distinctiveness to such sympathy within its areas of strength. Or, to take another example that is relevant in the case of the FN itself: although Le Bras (1986b) asserted the absence of a relationship at the département level between rate of unemployment and FN support, there are a number of individual-level studies (as Table 2.3 will reveal) that show a tendency (albeit not a very strong one) for the unemployed disproportionately to favour the FN.4 In short, except perhaps for those studies in the Durkheimian tradition, almost all aggregate-data studies of FN support are purely descriptive in both univariate and bivariate senses. Of themselves, they reveal little that can contribute to a causal analysis of Le Pen voting. Almost all of them suffer from their implicit assumption that to demonstrate such voting to be concentrated around where (say) immigrants happen to be – and with département-level data the two phenomena could in any case be kilometres apart – is the same as showing that the presence of immigrants is the cause of this voting. Thus, most studies are largely ex post facto interpretations achieved only by alternative prior knowledge taken from other and more relevant sources, such as individual-level data on voting motivation.

11

* −5 * −6 * +2 * +6 * *

* +1 * − * +1 * − * *

* − * −1 * +2 * +4 * *

2 * − −2 * −2 * +1 * −1

11

844

Age 18 to 20 years 18 to 24 years 21 to 24 years 25 to 34 years 35 to 44 years 35 to 49 years 45 to 59 years 50 to 64 years 60 to 69 years 65 to 74 years

11

843

+2 −3

18

842

A: SOCIAL-STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS Gender Male +1 +2 +3 Female −1 −2 −3

Total % with a preference for FN/Le Pen

841

−1 * +1 −2 * −1 * +2 * *

+2 −2

11

845

percentage-point differences from full-sample percentages

* +1 * −2 * +1 * +1 * −

+2 −2

9

856

* − * −1 * +1 * +2 * *

+1 −1

9

857

* −1 * −2 * −1 * +2 * *

+2 −3

10

868

* +1 * −1 * −1 * +2 * *

+2 −3

10

869

* +1 * −3 −1 * +2 * −10 *

+2 −3

11

8710

−2 +1 +2 −4 * +2 * −1 * *

+3 −4

15a

8811

* +2 * − * +3 * −1 * *

+4 −4

15

8812

* +2 * −1 * +1 * +1 * *

+1 −2

15

8813

* +1 * +2 * +2 * −4 * *

+3 −4

15

8814

* +6 * − * −2 * − * *

+2 −3

9

8815

TABLE 2.3  Summary of the findings of studies of characteristics of supporters of the Front National/Jean-Marie Le Pen, 1984–1988, in unweighted

* +5 * −1 * −2 * − * *

+2 −3

10

8816

62  Country case studies

Occupationb Farmers, agricultural workers Small businessmen, craftsmen Small businessmen, craftsmen, employers Small businessman, industrial employers Senior managers Professionals Senior managers, Professionals Senior managers, professionals, manufacturers, owners of large businesses Middle managers/ professionals Non-manual workers

65 years or more 70 years or more 75 years or more

* * * +3

*

+11

+6 +9 *

*

+2

−1

*

+10

* * +1

*

+2

+1

*

* * *

−2

*

*

*

*

*

*

+4

*

+9

*

−3

* * −5

+18

+4

− * *

+2

−2 * *

−2

+5 * *

−

−2

+3

* * *

*

*

+6

−2

−1 * *

+1

*

*

* * +1

−2

−1

*

−3 +5 *

*

*

+6 *

+5

*

−1 * *

*

−3

* * −6

−3

−

*

* * −1

+4

*

*

+1

−1 * *

−1

−2

*

* * −4

*

+5

*

−1

−1 * *

−

−

*

+2 * *

*

*

+5

−3

* −6 *

−1

−3

*

−1 +6 *

*

*

+16

+3

−3 * *

−1

−

*

* * −4

+12

*

*

+5

−4 * *

−

−

*

−4 −7 *

*

*

+7

−9

−4 * *

−2

−3

*

* * +4

*

+12

*

−2

−3 * *

−2

−4

*

* * −

*

−4

*

−7

− * *

(Continued)

+2

−2

*

* * −1

*

*

+7

+2

−2 * *

France  63

* −2

* −4

*

*

+1

Sector of education of children Private-sector

*

*

*

+6 +2 −2 *

*

*

* * * *

*

842

*

841

Sector of employment Self-employed Private sector Public sector Public-sector enterprise

Non-manual workers in public sector Non-manual workers in private sector Teachers, medical and social workers Middle managers, nonmanual workers Middle managers, foremen Manual workers

TABLE 2.3  (Continued)

*

* * * *

* −

*

*

*

*

843

+5

* * * *

* −2

−1

*

*

*

844

+6

+5 +1 −2 *

* −1

*

*

*

*

845

*

*

* * * *

* −

− −1

* * * *

*

*

*

*

857

*

*

*

*

856

*

+3 +2 −3 *

* +1

*

*

*

*

868

*

* * * *

* +3

*

*

*

*

869

+3

* +1 −1 −

* +3

*

*

*

*

8710

* *

+6 −9

*

+9 − −2 *

* +1

*

+10 +1 −3 *

* +6

*

*

−4

*

8812

8811

*

* * * *

* +5

*

*

*

*

8813

*

+6 +2 −4 *

* +4

*

*

*

*

8814

*

* * * *

* +1

*

*

*

*

8815

*

−3 +3 −1 *

* +9

*

*

*

*

8816

64  Country case studies

Religious practice Regularly practising Catholics Occasionally practising Catholics Non-practising but believing Catholics Non-practising Catholics Other religions No religion Other religions, no religion

Educational attainment Primary Secondary Technical or commercial Higher Holders of degrees Holders of highereducation diplomas

Public-sector Both

*

*

*

* * * *

*

*

* * * *

* * * * * *

* *

*

* * * * * *

* *

* − * * *

+4 * −4 *

+1

+4

*

−

−3 − +1 +1 * *

−2 *

+2

* * * * * *

* *

+1 −2 −5 *

*

+2

+1

−2 +1 +2 +1 * *

−2 +3

+1 * * −2

*

−

−2

* * * * * *

* *

− −4 −3 *

*

+2c −1 −4 −3 *

+1

−1

* * * * * *

* *

+1

−

* * 8 * * *

* *

* * * *

*

*

*

* * * * * *

* *

* * * *

*

*

−3

* * * * −3 −4

* *

+4 −5 −6 *

*

+2 +1 −6 −4 *

−2

−3

* * * * * *

* *

+2

−4

+1 +1 − −3 * *

* *

* * * *

*

*

*

* * * * * *

* *

+2 * −6 *

*

+1

−8

− −2 +3 −3 * *

* *

+1 * −1 *

*

−

−5

−3 +2 +2 − * *

* *

(Continued)

* * * *

*

*

*

* * * * * *

* *

France  65

+3 −5

+8 −5

* *

−2 +1

−2 +4

* * * *

* +2

* *

* −1

+1 *

+14 +5 −9 −4

* +3

* +3

* −1 *

844

* − *

843

* * * *

* * *

842

* * *

841

B. POLITICAL ORIGINS PRESIDENTIAL, 1st round, 1981 Jacques Chirac * Valéry Giscard d’Estaing * Georges Marchais * François Mitterrand * PRESIDENTIAL, 2nd round 1981 Valéry Giscard d’Estaing * François Mitterrand *

Specific groups Service workers Housewives Women in the labour force Pensioners Those not working, pensioners Pupils and students Unemployed

TABLE 2.3  (Continued)

* *

* * * *

−2 +1

* −1

* * *

845

* *

* * * *

* *

* −1

−7 * *

856

+4 −4

+11 − −7 −4

+2 −

− *

* * *

857

* *

* * * *

* +4

* −1

* * *

868

* *

+4 +1 −8 −4

* *

* −

* * *

869

* *

* * * *

−8 −

−3 *

* * −3

8710

* *

* * * *

−6 +4

−3 −2

+1 −1 *

8811

* *

* * * *

−3 +2

* −

* +1 *

8812

* *

* * * *

−5 *

−2 *

* +2 −1

8813

+4 −6

* * * *

* *

* −3

* * *

8814

* *

* * * *

* *

* −

* * *

8815

* *

* * * *

* *

* −1

* * *

8816

66  Country case studies

* * * * *

*

*

PRESIDENTIAL 1st round 1988 Raymond Barre * Jacques Chirac * André Lajoinie * François Mitterrand * Jean-Marie Le Pen *

PRESIDENTIAL 2nd round 1988 Jacques Chirac *

François Mitterrand

*

* * * * * *

* * * * * *

*

*

* * * * *

* * * *

* * * *

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 1984 PCF List * PS List * UDF−RPR List * FN List * ASSEMBLÉE NATIONALE 1986 PCF * PS−MRG * UDR−RPR−Other right * FN * Abstained * Too young to have voted *

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

* * * *

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

* * * *

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

* * * *

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

−8 −8 −4 +53

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

* * * *

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

−9 −8 −6 +54

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

* * * *

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

* * * *

*

*

*

*

* * * * *

* * * * * *

−12 −10 − +75 −2 +4

* * * * *

* * * *

* * * *

*

*

* * * * *

−10 −9 +2 +75 * *

* * * *

−6 (Continued)

+4 −6

−10 −5 −10 −7 +56

−10 −7 −3 +71 * *

* * * *

+7

−8 −7 −7 −8 +47

* * * * * *

* * * *

France  67

a

Notes Some studies round to 14 per cent and some to 15 per cent in quoting Le Pen’s level of support in the 1988 Presidential election. The discrepancy arises from the citation by certain studies of the level of Le Pen’s support in mainland France either with or without Corsica (both 14.6 per cent) and of that in all France, including overseas départements and territories as well as Corsica (14.4 per cent) by others. Although they seldom openly acknowledge the fact, French polling organizations almost always restrict their operations to mainland France (i.e., also excluding Corsica) and so, in rounding to the nearest integer, the figure of 15 per cent is here the more appropriate comparator. b There is no full uniformity in the occupational classification used by different studies; as their labelling makes immediately apparent, these categories are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, whether data refer to the actual interviewee or to the respective head of household is not always clear. c In its religious classification this study distinguishes between ‘non-practising but believing Catholics’ and ‘non-practising Catholics’ (Bouzerand 1985). In the case of other studies, it is to be assumed that the latter designation includes those in the former group.

Symbols – No percentage-point difference * Not applicable/not available

Sources 1 SOFRES survey conducted on 5–10 May 1984 on ‘The image of M. Jean-Marie Le Pen’ and the extreme right in the run-up to the European elections (N: not stated) (SOFRES 1985, p. 178); entries are percentage-point differences from 18 per cent of those reporting being attracted to Jean-Marie Le Pen a lot or to some extent in response to the question, ‘Personally speaking, are you attracted to Jean-Marie Le Pen a lot, to some extent, little, or not at all?’ 2 Bull-BVA exit poll, European Parliament elections, 17 June 1984 (N: 7500) (Perrineau 1988b). 3 IFOP-RRTL-Le Point exit poll, European Parliament elections, 17 June 1984 (N: 10,136) (Mossuz-Lavau 1984; Richard 1984). 4 SOFRES exit poll, European Parliament elections, 17 June 1984 (N: 5886) (Julliard 1984); some of the data on religious practice are quoted by M. Charlot (1986, p. 41). 5 SOFRES exit poll, European Parliament elections, 17 June 1984 (N: 6703) (Dupoirier 1985, pp. 208–9, 228); the data in this column are those in the previous one, except apparently that a further 817 interviews conducted between 20.00 between 22.00 are present in the analysis. Different material from the same dataset is also used by Jaffré (1984c). 6 Bull-BVA exit poll, Cantonal elections (first round), 10 March 1985 (N: 4350) (Perrineau 1985). 7 IFOP-RTL-Le Point exit poll, Cantonal elections (first round), 10 March 1985 (N: 2851) (Parodi 1985); the data on religion are cited by Bouzerand (1985). 8 Bull-BVA exit poll, Assemblée nationale elections, 16 March 1986 (N: 4229) (Perrineau 1988b). ­9 IFOP-Etmar exit poll, Assemblée nationale elections, 16 March 1986 (N: 6090) (IFOP-Etmar 1986). 10 IPSOS-Le Point, 5–16 November 1987 (N: 2800) (Jeambar 1987). 11 BVA exit poll, Presidential election (first round), 24 April 1988 (N: 2837) (Le Monde, 27 April 1988, p. 12; BVA Actualités 1988). 12 CSA exit poll, Presidential election (first round), 24 April 1988 (N: 5782) (Libération, 27 April 1988, p. 12); cited by Perrineau (1988a, 1988b) with 5424 respondents. 13 IFRES exit poll, Presidential election (first round), 24 April 1988 (N: 4109) (J. Charlot 1988). 14 SOFRES survey conducted in two waves on 19–25 May 1988 with a retrospective question on voting in the Presidential election (first round) (N: 2000) (SOFRES 1988). 15 Bull-BVA exit poll, Presidential election (second round), 8 May 1988 with a prospective question on voting in the Assemblée nationale elections (first round): ‘If the new Assemblée nationale elections were taking place next Sunday, which candidate would you be most likely to support?’ (N: 3173) (BVA Actualités 1988). 16 SOFRES survey conducted in two waves on 14–23 June 1988 with a retrospective question on voting in the Assemblée nationale elections (first round) (N: 2,000) (SOFRES 1988).

TABLE 2.3  (Continued)

68  Country case studies

France  69

Why them? Arguments about the social basis of the Le Pen phenomenon Rather as one can criticize many aggregate-data studies of Le Pen voting for being better at answering ‘where?’ than ‘why there?’, so one can say that many individual-level studies of Le Pen’s support are better at answering ‘who?’ than ‘why them?’ The French polling industry has been particularly assiduous in collecting and publishing individual-level data on the support for Le Pen, from 1983 to the present, and it is upon such studies that most political scientists have drawn when discussing the social location of the Le Pen vote. It is well known that there have been a number of problems with opinion-poll studies of the FN, due largely to the unwillingness of some FN sympathizers to admit their disposition to pollsters (e.g., Dupin 1988a). This problem has been most publicly discussed in connection with studies seeking to ascertain likely distributions of voting intention during election campaigns; reweighting samples by the distribution of voting behaviour at some previous election is common practice to overcome the problem.5 However, such attempts have not been without their critics or their failures, as the almost invariant under-reporting of Le Pen’s actual support suggests. Some studies of Le Pen’s supporters (including, in the early days, sympathizers of the Parti des Forces Nouvelles, PFN) merely cumulated from a series of omnibus studies till a reasonable number of such sympathizers was obtained; the distributions of various social characteristics of this cumulated subsample were compared with those of a criterion population, either the entire French electorate or (on occasion) voters for the French right as a whole or earlier samples of FN voters.6 The early emphasis in many such studies was the socially eclectic character of FN support; it was held to be in most social and demographic respects a reasonably close reflection of the whole French electorate. For example, Perrineau (1985) calls it ‘sociologically dynamic’ and ‘heterogeneous’, noting that it was an inter-class phenomenon and that it bridged the generation gap, although it was disproportionately male and tended also to come from non-practising Catholics. Largely socially and demographically indistinctive, it was nonetheless remarkable in its ideology and opinions. Le Pen tended to draw equally from all social groups those who were obsessed with immigrants – the importance attributed to this one issue in making a voting decision being a major discriminating factor between Le Pen’s voters and the rest. By 1987 there was a new emphasis in the writing on the social basis of Le Pen’s voting; Jaffré’s article in Le Monde (Jaffré 1987) was probably the first example of the new style of analysis. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Le Pen’s support was going ‘proletarian’. Jaffré’s data showed that in 1984 18 per cent of Le Pen’s support was from those in manual-worker households, whereas in April 1987 this figure was 37 per cent. Jeambar’s (1987) article later in the year presented poll data from which a similar message was to be extracted. Certainly, by 1988 the supposed penetration of the manual working class by Le Pen was the substantive theme of a number of commentaries (e.g., Dupin 1988b; Todd 1988a). However, some

70  Country case studies

analysts (e.g., Perrineau 1988a) argued that, by 1988, Le Pen’s support had become not merely more working-class but rather a synthesis of groups of radicalized rightwing voters who in 1984 had regarded the RPR and UDF as too feeble in their denunciation of the left, as well as protest-oriented voters who in 1986 had been seeking scapegoats for their anxieties and fears; it is unclear whether ‘synthesis’ means that the two groups merely merged together in 1988 but, on the basis of available evidence, one may seriously doubt whether such a neat distinction may be drawn. It is intended at the end of this section of the article to offer a critique of the techniques of analysis used in these poll-based studies but, before that, let us see how these various characterizations of Le Pen’s vote are supported by available polling evidence. In Table 2.3 are presented in summary form the results of sixteen studies conducted between 1984 and 1988 in connection with Le Pen’s support in the national French electorate. It is not claimed that this table contains a comprehensive presentation of all relevant studies, nor even that it is a random sample of such studies; however, some care has been taken to assemble all major reported studies and a good sprinkling of products of the major French polling organizations.7 As note 1 says, the findings of these various studies are summarized as unweighted percentage-point differences from the respective full-sample percentages; presented in this way, it is a simple matter to observe what are the trends and what the stabilities in the FN vote between 1984 and 1988. Let us take each social-structural variable in turn, as identified in Block A of Table 2.3. All commentators remark upon the male disproportion in the FN vote, a now very well-known feature shared by other extreme-right movements upon which individual-level data on mass support exist. There is anything from a 2-point to an 8-point percentage-difference between the genders, with the average being about 6 points.There is a very slight tendency for the 1988 studies to show a larger genderdifference than those between 1984 and 1987. Any neat conclusion about age is slightly frustrated by the different practices of the various polling organizations concerning categorization, but some general conclusions are possible.There is a slight tendency for those aged 18 to 24 especially to favour Le Pen, but only two of the five 1988 studies report a percentagedifference to which great significance may be attached. Those aged 25 to 49 are marginally less likely to favour Le Pen, although the evidence on this is perhaps patchy. Those in their fifties are drawn to Le Pen, and those of 65 or more are distinctively less attracted by him. Of course, occupation, given its clue to the social-class composition of Le Pen’s vote, is the variable of major interest with reference to the debate about the supposed change in his support. Unfortunately, the occupational classifications used by different polling organizations vary somewhat, although all seem to be derived from specific occupations or aggregations of occupations listed in the ‘shorter’ (eight-level) or the ‘longer’ (twenty-four-level) scale used by the Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE), the office responsible for the processing of the census and for compiling official French statistics; it should also

France  71

be noted that French polling organizations tend to follow the practice of INSEE and list the retired separately, rather than coding them according to their onetime occupation. The findings on Le Pen’s support among farmers and agricultural workers are inconsistent, in part because polling organizations apparently define this seemingly similar category in different ways. However, there can be no dispute about the pro-Le Pen disposition of the small-businessmen category, whether alone or, as in some studies, combined with other groups. All but one maverick study – a post-election poll by SOFRES of the 1988 Assemblée nationale election – show positive percentage-differences, sometimes quite substantial ones, even if one such example (the May 1984 SOFRES poll on Le Pen’s image) was not actually a study of voting intentions. Still, it is fair in general to conclude that Le Pen’s movement has been, ever since its early success in 1984, in a tradition of ‘flash’ movements in French politics appealing particularly to the small-businessmen stratum, although its undoubted persistence means that it is no longer correct to characterize it by such a term.Table 2.3 (Block A) does show that Le Pen was initially successful in appealing to routine non-manual and professional groups but this support tended to fall away slightly, even if different studies around the same time are not fully consistent – doubtless because of small case-bases. The change of disposition occurred between 1984 and 1986. In the former year these non-manual and professional groups were slightly disproportionate in their support for Le Pen; by 1986, and more assuredly still by 1988, the tendency of these groups was away from Le Pen. Interestingly, one poll – BVA’s 1988 Presidential-election exit poll – distinguished more specifically than others between public- and private-sector employees.White-collar workers in the public sector, as well as teachers, medical, and social workers (most of whom are likely to be in the public sector) were noticeably different from white-collar workers in the private sector; the first group was rather unlikely to favour Le Pen, the latter was disproportionately disposed. The data for support levels among manual workers do indeed show that there has been some shift towards Le Pen among this group since 1984. In fact, the drift to Le Pen has been fairly steady year by year. The medians of the data in Table 2.3 (Block A) in the row for manual workers are, year by year from 1984 to 1988: –2, –0.5, +2, +3, and +4.5. The latter figure is +6 if two slightly discrepant BVA polls are omitted. Thus, a change in the disposition of manual workers towards Le Pen did occur over the four years but how one regards it is a matter of emphasis. In 1984 perhaps an average of 20 per cent of Le Pen’s vote came from those defined as manual workers, whereas by 1988 the figure was about 35 per cent. Yet such interpretations are relative and any such phrasing as the ‘proletarianization of [Le Pen’s] electorate’ (e.g., Perrineau 1989, p. 49) still risks ascribing to it a degree of class homogeneity that it clearly lacks. Our findings also cast some doubt on the simple ‘synthesis’ assertion made elsewhere by Perrineau, which in the form expressed would imply a distinctive non-manual base in Le Pen’s vote in 1984, a manual distinctiveness in 1986, and a decline in such distinctiveness by 1988; instead, the pro-manual trend between 1984 and 1988 is steady and unidirectional. Even so, it would be wrong to suggest that manual

72  Country case studies

workers were necessarily becoming especially racist. It may be more appropriate to account for the shift in the manual direction in Le Pen’s support by a greater initial reluctance by some manual-worker voters to associate themselves with a candidacy that had usually appealed to some sections of the upper bourgeoisie, or by the greater early receptivity of non-manual voters to Le Pen’s appeal because of their higher degree of contact through the mass media with the nature of his appeal, or by the emergence of specifically contact racism among manual workers as the immigration issue was increasingly discussed in French politics. Those studies that report upon sector of employment all tend to show disproportionate Le Pen support in the private sector and, in part a consequence of the finding about small-businessmen, among the self-employed, findings that persist fairly consistently from 1984 to 1988, thus transcending any shift in the class base of Le Pen voting. Only the maverick SOFRES poll of June 1988 disturbs the relative symmetry of this pattern. The findings on educational attainment do not merit extensive comment, except to say that there is an indication of a very slight move away from Le Pen among the better educated, doubtless as the class base of his support changed. Moreover, it is not merely in the sphere of production but also in that of consumption that the public-/private-sector distinction is relevant. A few studies provided information about how children were educated.Two studies in 1984 and one from 1987 show a pro-Le Pen disposition among those choosing private-sector education and an opposite effect upon parents choosing the public sector. True, this is unlikely to be quite the same as the analogous inter-sector distinction in British education, since the French private sector includes churchbased schooling; even so, it is one further piece of evidence in a case that may be assembled for the significance of the private sector in accounting for Le Pen’s support. Fundamentalist intégriste Catholicism is an important activist component of Le Pen’s movement; indeed, a traditional mass is a common accompaniment of his more formal public meetings. However, because this is very much a minority movement within French Catholicism – the judgement of some writers, albeit not without equivocation, being that the French Catholic hierarchy of the recent past has been deliberately liberal (e.g., Vassort-Rousset 1986) – it has not disposed the bulk of practising Catholics to Le Pen. Indeed, almost all studies presenting evidence for this group reveal a relative aversion to Le Pen that became more marked with the passage of time. Certainly, by 1987 practising Catholics were noticeably less for Le Pen than average and it is reasonable to attribute this to the effect of anti-Le Pen pronouncements by sections of the Catholic hierarchy, even if such an effect cannot be proved with available evidence. Todd’s (1988b, pp. 270–1) ascription of this lesser Catholic disposition towards Le Pen to the antianomic effects of religious commitment is less convincing than the effects of the anti-Le Pen statements of several leading Catholics because of the perceptible trend over time away from Le Pen among practising Catholics. Groups of Catholics variously described by different pollsters as ‘occasional practising’, ‘non-practising but believing’, and ‘non-practising’ have a slight general tendency throughout

France  73

the whole period to be relatively pro-Le Pen. Of course, some in these groups may be Catholic traditionalists offended by the liberalism of mainstream French Catholicism but who practise their Catholicism little for lack of opportunity to find examples of the traditional variety. However, this is unlikely to be the case very often. Given the widely noted degree of secularization in French society during the last several decades, most in these groups are doubtless what are conventionally defined as ‘lapsed’. Among specific groups not included in previously discussed social categories there are several interesting tendencies, even if few such groups are dramatically distinctive. Despite the FN’s attempts to woo the elderly, pensioners are not especially disposed to Le Pen, in part as would be anticipated from the findings about age. Pupils and students, despite the tendency noticed earlier for Le Pen to become increasingly attractive to those aged 18 to 24, are not in general pro-Le Pen and have moved away as manual workers (often younger ones) have moved in his direction. Lastly, many studies show a slight pro-Le Pen disposition among the unemployed, although this is not a remarkable effect and might well disappear with controls on age and/or gender. One study, based on nearly 3,000 cases, does give indications of Le Pen sympathy among other particular groups, not included among those in Table 2.3 (Block A) (Jeambar 1987). With a sample-wide figure of 11 per cent favouring Le Pen, his support was 24 per cent among ex-colonial settlers (a finding to which reference has already been made and which confirms much speculation about the special susceptibility of this group), 16 per cent among ex-servicemen, and 15 per cent amongst those on the minimum wage; slightly whimsically, it was 17 per cent among motorcyclists and 16 per cent among hunters, all of which may partly confirm a few stereotypes!

Deficiencies in the social-structural analyses of the Le Pen phenomenon It would perhaps be churlish again to damn the social-structural analyses of Le Pen support as examples of uncritical empiricism, as was done in the case of the aggregate-data studies. However, if that is too harsh, it is nonetheless legitimate to criticize them for their lack of imagination and their use of merely the crudest bivariate methods of cross-tabulation analysis. The presentations in Table 2.3 (Block A), based upon a succession of bivariate cross-tabulations, are the almost invariant form in which these data are analysed and made public by the polling organizations that have produced them. It is the bivariate ‘facesheet-variable’ approach adopted generally by market researchers. French academic political scientists – some of whom consult for, or even direct, major private political-polling organizations – tend for their research reports merely to take such data as published and reproduce them. Even special analyses (e.g., Jaffré 1984a, 1984b, 1987) are based upon conventional methods of bivariate crosstabular analysis. There seem to be few genuine examples of secondary analysis of what is now a considerable body of accumulated data on Le Pen supporters, although the author of one study (Mitra 1988) apparently commissioned, or used personal

74  Country case studies

influence to secure, some analyses that did slightly transcend this simple bivariate norm. His study includes simultaneous analyses of more than one background variable against Le Pen support – both gender by age and occupation by age. The data shown in Table 2.3 (Block A) remain essentially descriptive, since no studies attempt to explain or interpret these relationships using, say, attitudinal or situational variables, in the manner described by, say, Davis (1971, pp. 81–132). Even the limited further explanation and interpretation that might be provided by multivariate analyses using sets of available background variables are missing. Take, for example, unemployment: what significance is to be ascribed to the small but noticeable bivariate relationship with Le Pen voting reported in a number of studies? Would it disappear under certain control conditions – by simultaneously considering gender, age, or occupation, for example? Perhaps. Or would there be revealed some sort of conditional relationship – with particular subsets of the unemployed especially disposed to Le Pen? Either outcome is a possibility but, without access to the necessary multivariate analyses, one cannot tell. Consequently, theoretically important questions about the social basis of Le Pen voting and, by derivation, about its social causes still remain unanswered.

From where? Arguments about the previous partisan attachments of Le Pen supporters The presentations in Table 2.3 (Block B) address the political origins of Le Pen supporters, a subject of some importance that has been mentioned already, specifically concerning the supposed mutuality of FN growth and PCF decline. It is important to be as specific as possible about the time span being considered. True, there was some decline in percentage support for the PCF between 1981 and 1984, but this was not the period of dramatic loss by the PCF. Georges Marchais’s first-round Presidential candidacy in 1981 had won 15.3 per cent of votes cast on a turnout of 81.1 per cent, whereas in 1984 the PCF list in the European Parliament elections won 11.2 per cent on a turnout of 57.1 per cent. The figures of the IFOP exit poll in the 1984 European election show that only about 2 per cent of those claiming to have voted for Marchais in the first round in 1981 voted for Le Pen three years later, meaning that no more than 2 to 3 per cent of Le Pen’s 1984 support was composed of 1981 Marchais voters. First-round 1981 Mitterrand supporters were around 15 per cent of Le Pen’s 1984 support and the rest – that part not coming from new voters or other, smaller, parties – came equally from Giscard d’Estaing and Chirac voters in 1981, perhaps approaching 40 per cent in each case. So far, as would be expected from data on the social basis of FN voting in 1984, there is little evidence of serious switching from the PCF to the FN; what is suggested about 1984 is a particularly heavy abstention by 1981 Marchais supporters. Still, it is usually upon the 1981–6 and 1986–8 periods that commentators focus when discussing possible PCF-to-FN turnover. However, in neither case is the evidence especially convincing. In the 1986 Assemblée nationale elections the PCF’s candidates won 9.7 per cent on a turnout of 78.5 per cent, almost a

France  75

6 percentage-point decline over five years. The IFOP-Etmar poll of March 1986 claimed, however, that only 2 per cent of Marchais’s 1981 support had chosen Le Pen in 1986, implying that a maximum of 3 per cent of the FN’s 1986 vote came from this source; even if one adjusts for the possibility that Le Pen’s emergence took potential votes from the PCF – those of young voters newly entering the electorate – that would otherwise have gone to the latter, the case for massive switching in even this extended sense is not strong. By the 1988 Presidential election, when the vote for the official PCF candidate, André Lajoinie, was down to 6.8 per cent on a turnout of 81.4 per cent (i.e., a further slippage of almost 3 points in only two years), SOFRES’s exit poll reported that only 5 per cent of those who had supported the PCF in 1986 supported Le Pen’s Presidential bid; thus, no more than about 3 per cent of Le Pen’s vote came from those who had voted for the PCF in 1986. If, as is inherently improbable, all the 1986–8 slippage in PCF support had simply switched to Le Pen’s total of nearly 15 per cent of votes cast, something like 20 per cent of this latter would have been composed of 1986 PCF voters. Of course, there are places where direct switching from the PCF to the FN has occurred; Marseilles and the once-Communist Paris suburbs are examples that have been cited (although not always with irrefutable evidence),8 but these do seem to be the exceptions rather than the rule. Two further possibilities might be mentioned. Some commentators have sought to bolster the argument of PCF-to-FN switching by doubting the existing poll evidence, arguing that some one-time PCF supporters are reluctant to admit to such a switch between what are formally political opposites because they fear implied aspersions upon their rationality. To be sure, this is at face value a sustainable argument; French pollsters have by tradition experienced difficulties in ‘winkling out’ admissions of PCF voting and, as we saw, they have analogous contemporary problems concerning FN support.Yet, precisely because of this past experience, it does seem improbable that there is a large number of voters who are willing to admit to current FN voting and yet are afraid to mention past PCF support because of apprehension about aspersions on their rationality. The second possibility is that PCF-to-FN switching occurred in two stages – via a third party used as a halfway house. This does have slightly greater plausibility, with the Parti Socialiste (PS) being the most obvious candidate for this latter status. Unfortunately. there seem to be no panel data on voting intentions at three or more relevant points in time (say, 1981, 1984, and 1986, or 1981, 1984, 1986, and 1988), although the IFOP-Etmar exit poll of the March 1986 legislative elections does contain recall data on 1981 and 1984 (but presented only separately, bivariate in each case with 1986 voting). Six per cent of those who voted for a Parti Socialiste–Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche (PS–MRG) candidacy in 1986 favoured Le Pen in April 1988, according to the SOFRES exit poll, meaning that perhaps 12 or 13 per cent of Le Pen’s Presidential support came from 1986 Socialist voters. On the other hand, the fact – to be calculated from the IFOPEtmar exit poll of March 1986 (IFOP-Etmar 1986, p. 5) – that less than about 2 per cent of the 1986 PS–MRG vote came from those who had voted for the PCF

76  Country case studies

list in 1984 means that there are not too many votes available to accommodate the demands of this halfway-house argument, even if all these could be shown to have switched to Le Pen in 1988, itself rather unlikely. In fact, the more significant point about FN voting, already apparent in 1986 and more so in 1988, is the degree to which it has come to be based upon genuine partisan attachment. It was no longer merely a ‘flash’ movement, as one may say that it once was, but a party with a bedrock of support from a consistent and relatively stable section of the French electorate. Fully 90 per cent of 1986 FN supporters claimed in SOFRES’s exit poll in the 1988 Presidential election to have voted for Le Pen on the latter occasion, higher in fact than the respective figures for all the other political groupings.

Conclusions The criticisms to be levelled against the ‘from where?’ literature on Le Pen support are less fundamental than those to be made against the other types of analysis already discussed. Rather, they are laments for the lack of adequate long-term panel data, which is not really a criticism to be derived from considerations of theory or statistical analysis. It may be noted, however, that this lack does force an uncritical recourse to recall-data on past voting behaviour, which have a welldocumented record of low validity (e.g., Himmelweit, Biberian, and Stockdale 1978) but which most French analysts who have used them seem to take fully at face value. Except in the location of regionally-based political traditions relevant in understanding pro-Le Pen mobilization (Le Bras’ work being one example), the aggregate-data analyses – especially those at the département level – tell us remarkably little of theoretical and causal significance about Le Pen’s support, despite the great popularity of this approach. Most of our genuine knowledge about Le Pen’s mass support comes from individual-level data, mostly from polls. Yet here too there are deficiencies in what we know. The failure of published research to employ appropriate techniques of analysis means that it is only the most distinctive and/ or persistent findings about the social-structural characteristics of FN voters upon which much faith may be placed. The gender-bias among these voters, Le Pen’s support about small businessmen and craftsmen, his attractiveness to ex-colonial settlers, the trend (albeit not to be exaggerated) in his favour since 1984 among manual workers – these especially seem ‘safe’ conclusions, although no great theoretical insight may be claimed in understanding Le Pen’s success if findings of such generality are some of the principal outcomes of five years’ accumulation of relevant data. In any case, results of such distinctiveness have necessarily been rather unusual. Often the possible significance of some particular factor (say, unemployment) remains frustratingly unproven because of the failure to employ adequate multivariate analysis. Most such factors are unlikely to be revealed as having major explanatory power, even with appropriate analytic techniques. If one is seeking to characterize Le Pen’s voters, it still remains more accurate to

France  77

emphasize their general lack of social distinctiveness, as compared to the entire French electorate (e.g., Perrineau 1988a). Le Pen has clearly succeeded in mobilizing in almost every social group most of those with an obsession about immigrants and foreigners, an attitudinal characteristic obviously in large measure independent of conventional socialstructural situations. True, large majorities of the French electorate have been revealed by numerous surveys as having some misgiving or intolerance about immigrants, but it is uniquely Le Pen’s supporters who have given this factor such priority in determining how they vote. This point was noted by Schain (1987) in his early review of the emergence of the FN in France and a good later example is seen in an April 1988 Presidential-election exit poll among 18- to 29-year-olds conducted by IFOP-Etmar. This asked: ‘Among the following problems, which are the ones that have mattered most in how you voted today?’ ‘Immigrants’ attracted a mention from 61 per cent of Le Pen’s voters. Among those supporting one of the other major candidates the highest corresponding figure was a mere 9 per cent among Chirac’s voters (IFOP-Etmar 1988, p. 15). Yet, precisely because it is clear that this obsession is largely independent of conventional social-structural situations (as defined or operationalized in demographic or economic terms), one necessarily asks what are its specific social or situational origins. To what extent is it, say, experientially based? If so, what have been the relevant experiences: are they work-based, neighbourhood-based, or what? Or, slightly differently, is it based upon a particular type of socialization and/or social-psychological orientation? If so, what are the social origins of these? The fact is that genuine answers to these questions, as opposed to unsatisfactory speculations, are not available, despite the plenitude of survey data about Le Pen. The writings that give information upon individual Le Pen supporters are restricted to activists (obviously not the same as ordinary voters) and in any case much of this work, while interesting, is unsystematic and therefore unsatisfactory for achieving an understanding of the motivational origins of pro-FN sympathy (e.g., Tristan 1988). French social science responded in a piecemeal and eclectic way to the task confronting it of explaining the rise of Le Pen’s support and, despite five years of published studies, there is still a whole research programme remaining to be realized – one that is based upon the formulation and testing of theoretically informed hypotheses in order progressively to accumulate a body of systematic knowledge upon the supporters of Le Pen.

Acknowledgements Some of the data reported in this article were assembled during a research visit to France supported financially by the British Academy’s Small Personal Research Grants scheme. My thanks are extended to the British Academy. I should also like to express my gratitude to members of the following agencies for their help in giving me access to their poll data used in this article: BVA, IFOP-Etmar, and SOFRES.

78  Country case studies

Notes 1 The Maghreb – from the Arabic word for ‘West’, the old French version of maugreb seemingly being never used – is Arab north-west Africa. In practice in the French context, this usually means Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. 2 By ‘mainland France’ is here meant the ninety-four mutually contiguous départements of the French land mass, excluding the two on Corsica and the overseas départements and territories; by ‘metropolitan France’ is meant these départements plus the two that Corsica comprises. 3 It should not be forgotten that the average département approximates in size and population the average British county. These are scarcely micro-spatial units. 4 One of the few works that discusses the importance of different ‘levels of observation’ is Sechet-Poisson (1988), though not quite in the sense of individual-versus-contextual being employed here. 5 This is clearly done by the procedure known to English-language pollsters as ‘rimweighting’, which is a computer-based procedure that defines in advance the percentagedistributions on specified variables desired for a sample and then calculates case-weights iteratively until these percentage-distributions are reproduced on all the specified variables, within some accepted limit of tolerance. When this procedure is done by English-language pollsters, the specified variables are usually social and demographic in nature and it is unusual, though not unknown, also to include previous voting behaviour as a variable in the rim-weighting process. However, among French pollsters this latter practice is conventional. The original statement for what became the rim-weighting procedure was that of Deming and Stephan (1940). 6 Table 2.3 will report levels of support for the FN/Jean-Marie Le Pen in the form of percentage-differences (positive or negative) from the overall level of such support in the sample concerned. This is a meaningful practice only if that overall level exceeds some minimum figure, perhaps 5 per cent. Furthermore, certain studies report their findings only as (for each variable) percentages to 100 within the group of FN supporters, the resulting distributions being then compared with the corresponding ones of the criterion population; the purpose is to seek disproportions within specific social categories. Thus, at least one early and widely cited study of the Le Pen phenomenon (Jaffré 1984a) is omitted from the table because of its method of data-presentation. That study was based on a cumulated data-file of ten studies conducted by SOFRES between September 1983 and January 1984; it contained 10,000 respondents, of whom only 3 per cent (about 300 individuals) had been clarified as FN (or PFN) sympathizers, having favoured one or the other as their first- or second-choice parties. Le Pen’s national support was undoubtedly higher than 3 per cent, even as early as this period, and this is clearly a further demonstration of the difficulty for French pollsters of eliciting admissions or sympathy for the FN. Two later studies conducted by SOFRES – the first in May 1984 by combining four separate samples of 1,000 respondents each and the second in April 1987 by combining three samples of 1,000 each – also had to be excluded from Table 2.3 because of their method of data-presentation (Jaffré 1984b, 1987). Other studies have been excluded because they failed to trawl a sufficient number of FN supporters to provide a reasonable basis for systematic analysis. Thus, the Eurobarometer Study No. 21, conducted in March-April 1984, found just seventeen respondents (2 per cent) who expressed a political preference for the FN or the extreme right, out of 841 giving a substantive response. The Eurobarometer Study No. 22, conducted in OctoberNovember 1984, found twenty-eight such respondents (3 per cent) out of 735; in a recall-question on voting in the European Parliament elections in the previous June, the

France  79

same study produced eighteen admitted FN voters (4 per cent) out of 427 respondents offering a named list as a recall of their vote. The large-scale survey (N: 4,032) taken in May 1988 after the second round of the Presidential election and used by Mayer (1990) and in the book produced by the Centre d’Étude de la Vie Politique Française (CEVIPOF) research team (Boy and Mayer 1990) has not been included in Table 2.3 because only 10.9 per cent of those recalling a firstround Presidential vote said that they had voted for Le Pen, in contrast with the actual figure of almost 15 per cent. It would therefore have been anomalous to include it beside those studies that had reweighted their samples to produce Le Pen’s actual level of support. Mayer eschews the practice of reweighting because, so she claims, those who admit Le Pen sympathy are significantly different from those who dissimulate on the matter. 7 Table 2.3 has been assembled from a large selection of major studies of Le Pen support conducted in most cases in connection with a national election. The data as presented in secondary reports or, in many cases, the actual reports published by the relevant polling organizations are the sources of these figures, as detailed in the sources below the table. In terms of social structure, the presentation focuses upon dimensions that have been most central to the debate about Le Pen’s support and, in general, upon data that are available in three or more of the sixteen cited studies. A couple of studies give information by household income, trade-union affiliation (i.e., Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT), Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), or Force Ouvrière (FO)), partisan sympathy and self-identification on a left-right scale; however, these variables are not produced in Table 2.3, either because of the infrequency of their availability or because the general interpretations to be derived from them may be equally made from other data that are presented. 8 In the aftermath of the 1988 Presidential election some newspaper vignettes on locations where Le Pen had polled well implied much PCF and/or PS switching to the FN, although the evidence adduced was often ephemeral (e.g., Libération, 26 April 1988, pp. 6–8). The case for massive PCF-to-FN switching even in locations such as Marseilles and the once ‘red’ Paris suburbs is controversial. In analysing vote-transfers in Marseilles between 1981 and 1986, Morel and Sanmarco (1988) claim from some tentative simulations that perhaps 30,000 PCF votes in 1981 contributed to the FN’s 1986 total of 85,004. Rey (1988), in analysing the growth of the FN in the département of SeineSaint-Denis – traditionally the best-known ‘red’ suburb north-east of Paris – says that it was the RPR that contributed especially to FN growth there between 1981 and 1986. The same point is repeated in Platone and Rey (1989).

References Bergeron, Francis, and Vilgier, Philippe. 1985. De Le Pen à Le Pen: Une Histoire des Nationaux et des Nationalistes sous la Ve République. Grez-en-Bouère: Éditions Dominique Martin Morin. Bouzerand, Jacques. 1985. ‘Le Pen en pénitence’, Le Point, 18 March, p. 47. Boy, Daniel, and Mayer, Nonna (eds.). 1990. L’Électeur Français en Questions. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. BVA Actualités. 1988. Présidentielle 1988.Viroflay: BVA. Charlot, Jean. 1988. ‘Le séisme du 8 mai et la nouvelle donne politique’. Pp. 28–32 in Philippe Habert and Colette Ysmal (eds.), L’Élection Présidentielle, 1988: Résultats, Analyses et Commentaires. Paris: Le Figaro/Études Politiques.

80  Country case studies

Charlot, Monica. 1986. ‘L’émergence du Front National’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 36(1), 30–45. Chebel d’Appollonia, Ariane. 1988. L’Extrême-droite en France: De Maurras à Le Pen. Brussels: Éditions Complexe. Davis, James A. 1971. Elementary Survey Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Davis, James A., Spaeth, Joe L., and Huson, Carolyn. 1961. ‘A technique for analyzing the effects of group composition’, American Sociological Review, 26(2), 215–25. Deming, W. Edwards, and Stephan, Frederick F. 1940. ‘On a least squares adjustment of a sampled frequency table when the expected marginal totals are known’, Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 11(4), 427–44. Dumont, Serge, Lorien, Joseph, and Criton, Karl. 1985. Le Système Le Pen. Antwerp: Les Éditions EPO. Dupin, Eric. 1988a. ‘Pourquoi les sondages varient’, Libération, 15 April, pp. 8–9. Dupin, Eric. 1988b. ‘Les métamorphoses du vote lepéniste’, Libération, 18 April, pp. 8–9. Dupoirier, Elisabeth. 1985. ‘L’électorat français, le 17 juin 1984’. Pp. 207–30 in SOFRES (ed.), Opinion publique, 1985. Paris: Gallimard. Etchebarne, Serge. 1983. ‘L’urne et le xénophobe à propos des élections municipales à Roubaix en mars 1983’, Espace-Populations-Sociétés, 2, 133–8. Giblin-Delvallet, Béatrice. 1988. ‘Le cas du Front National: changements et bouleversements récents dans la géographie électorale française’, Géographie Sociale, 7, 285–96. Himmelweit, Hilde T., Biberian, Marianne Jaeger, and Stockdale, Janet. 1978. ‘Memory for past vote: implications of a study of bias in recall’, British Journal of Political Science, 8(3), 365–75. Husbands, Christopher T. 1983. Racial Exclusionism and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front. London: Allen & Unwin. IFOP-Etmar. 1986. Les Élections Législatives et Régionales du 16 mars 1986: Sondage à la Sortie des Urnes. Paris: IFOP-Etmar. IFOP-Etmar. 1988. Élection Présidentielle, Premier Tour: Sondage Sortie des Urnes auprès des 18/29 Ans – 24 avril 1988. Paris: IFOP-Etmar. Jaffré, Jérôme. 1984a. ‘Les fantassins de l’extrême droite’, Le Monde, 14 February, pp. 1, 12–13; reprinted in edited form in ‘Qui vote Le Pen?’, in Edwy Plenel and Alain Rollat (eds.), (1984), L’Effet Le Pen, Paris: Éditions La Découverte/Le Monde, pp. 121–7, and in revised form in SOFRES (1985), Opinion Publique, 1985, Paris: Gallimard, pp. 186–92. Jaffré, Jérôme. 1984b. ‘Qui sont les électeurs des petites listes?’, Le Monde, 6 June, pp. 1, 8; reprinted in part in ‘Qui vote Le Pen?’, in Edwy Plenel and Alain Rollat (eds.), (1984), L’Effet Le Pen, Paris: Éditions La Découverte/Le Monde, pp. 127–30. Jaffré, Jérôme. 1984c. ‘Les élections européennes en France: l’ultime avertissement du corps électoral’, Pouvoirs: Revue Française d’Études Constitutionnelles et Politiques, 31, 123–47. Jaffré, Jérôme. 1987. ‘Ne pas se tromper sur M. Le Pen’, Le Monde, 26 May, pp. 1, 12. Jeambar, Denis. 1987. ‘Barre: ses chances, ses électeurs, ses réseaux’, Le Point, 30 November, pp. 37–42. Julliard, Jacques. 1984. ‘Les dégâts d’un électrochoc’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 22 June, pp. 27–9. Lancelot, Alain. 1986. ‘Le brise-lame: les élections du 16 mars 1986’, Project, 199, 7–21. Le Bras, Hervé. 1986a. Les Trois France. Paris: Éditions Odile Jacob. Le Bras, Hervé. 1986b.‘Où naissent les lepénistes’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 4–10 April, pp. 28–9. Le Gall, Gérard. 1984. ‘Une élection sans enjeu, avec conséquences’, Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 910, 9–47. Le Gall, Gérard. 1986.‘Mars 1986: des élections de transition?’, Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 922, 6–18.

France  81

Mayer, Nonna. 1987. ‘De Passy à Barbès: deux visages du vote Le Pen à Paris’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 37(6), 891–906. Mayer, Nonna. 1989. ‘Le vote FN de Passy à Barbès (1984–1988)’. Pp. 249–67 in Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau (eds.), Le Front National à Découvert. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Mayer, Nonna. 1990.‘Why do they vote for the National Front?’, Paper presented to a Workshop on ‘The Extreme Right in Europe’ at the European Consortium for Political Research Joint Sessions of Workshops, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2–7 April. Menzel, Herbert. 1950. ‘Comment on Robinson’s “Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals”’, American Sociological Review, 15(5), 614. Milza, Pierre. 1987. Fascisme Français: Passé et Présent. Paris: Flammarion. Mitra, Subrata. 1988. ‘The National Front in France – a single-issue movement?’, West European Politics, 11(2), 47–64. Morel, Bernard, and Sanmarco, Philippe. 1988. ‘Marseille sous la menace’, Hérodote: Revue de Géographie et de Géopolitique, 50–1, 66–95. Mossuz-Lavau, Janine. 1984. ‘Les femmes se recentrent’, Le Monde, 15 August, p. 2. Ogden, Philip. 1987. ‘Immigration, cities and the geography of the National Front in France’. Pp. 163–93 in Günther Glebe and John O’Loughlin (eds.), Foreign Minorities in Continental European Cities. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Parodi, Jean-Luc. 1985. ‘La répétition des européennes’, Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 918, 5–18. Perrineau, Pascal. 1985. ‘Le Front National: un électorat autoritaire’, Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 918, 24–31. Perrineau, Pascal. 1988a. ‘Portrait-robot du “lepéniste”’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 26 April–5 May, p. 26. Perrineau, Pascal. 1988b. ‘Les ressorts du vote Le Pen’. Pp. 19–21 in Philippe Habert and Colette Ysmal (eds.), L’Élection Présidentielle, 1988: Résultats, Analyses et Commentaires. Paris: Le Figaro/Études Politiques. Perrineau, Pascal. 1989. ‘Les étapes d’une implantation électorale (1972–1988)’. Pp. 37–62 in Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau (eds.), Le Front National à Découvert. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Platone, François, and Rey, Henry. 1989. ‘Le FN en terre communiste’. Pp. 268–83 in Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau (eds.), Le Front National à Découvert. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Rey, Henri. 1988. ‘Seine-Saint-Denis: la mobilité des électorats en banlieue’, Hérodote: Revue de Géographie et de Géopolitique, 50–1, 38–49. Rey, Henri, and Roy, Jacques. 1986. ‘Quelques réflexions sur l’évolution électorale d’un département de la banlieue parisienne’, Hérodote: Revue de Géographie et de Géopolitique, 43, 6–38. Richard, Michel. 1984. ‘Front national: Le Pen a ratissé large’, Le Point, 18 June, pp. 22–3. Robinson,William S. 1950.‘Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals’, American Sociological Review, 15(3), 351–7. Schain, Martin A. 1987. ‘The National Front in France and the construction of political legitimacy’, West European Politics, 10(2), 229–52. Sechet-Poisson, Raymonde. 1988. ‘“Ses hommes sont là!”: de la pertinence de plusieurs niveaux d’observation dans une géographie du vote Le Pen’, Géographie Sociale, 7, 273–84. SOFRES. 1985. ‘L’effet Le Pen’. Pp. 177–85 in SOFRES (ed.), Opinion Publique, 1985. Paris: Gallimard.

82  Country case studies

SOFRES. 1988. Les Élections du Printemps 1988: Sondages Post-Électoraux, Mai–Juin 1988. Montrouge: SOFRES. Todd, Emmanuel. 1988a. ‘La carte électorale de Le Pen’, Le Point, 11 April, pp. 28–9. Todd, Emmanuel. 1988b. La Nouvelle France. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Tristan, Anne. 1988. Au Front. Paris: Gallimard. Vassort-Rousset, Brigitte. 1986. Les Évêques de France en Politique. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf.

3 FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Militant neo-Nazism in the 1990s

‘And this also,’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth.’ Joseph Conrad, in Heart of Darkness An earlier article by the author on militant neo-Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s1 discussed the background and characteristics of a group of individuals who were a tiny, ostracized, and marginal fragment of the total German social structure and were of course confined to what, since German unification, have come to be called the ‘old regions’. At the end of the 1980s the number to be counted as militant neo-Nazis, defined following the usage being employed here, was (by official count, at least) no more than 1,500 individuals and may even have been falling, perhaps because of the undoubted increase in membership of electorally oriented extreme-right groups such as the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) and Die Republikaner (REPs).The focus in the earlier article was on fringe groups who were under the active surveillance of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) – those associated with the notorious Hitler celebrant, Michael Kühnen, for example, or the Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (FAP), or the Nationalistische Front (NF). For this reprise article five years later, the situation is rather different. Most noticeably, but far from exclusively in the ‘new regions’, there has been an apparent epidemic of violently xenophobic, diffusely organized neo-Nazism directed particularly against foreigners and asylum-seekers and coming especially from sections of the alienated young, especially young men. Well-orchestrated but localized physical attacks by large groups of neo-Nazi youths, some of them skinheads, propelled the Federal Republic of Germany into the international headlines, with uneasy parallels sometimes being drawn between what was happening there to foreigners in the 1990s and what had happened to Jews in the 1930s. Some of these events had their provenance in socio-pathological features of the society of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). However, their extent was more general, as militant neo-Nazis in the old regions – since the early 1980s having been successfully kept within strict bounds by the efficiency of the

84  Country case studies

German state in confronting any threat that they posed – were now encouraged to increase their xenophobic activities, particularly against immigrants (often Turkish ones) and also asylum-seekers. This chapter considers militant neo-Nazism in the contemporary Federal Republic, examining the following topics: • • • • • •

numbers of groups and individuals; the extent of neo-Nazi criminality, especially that motivated by xenophobia; militant neo-Nazism and the German state, including the use of proscriptions against particular organizations; types of neo-Nazi militancy and characteristics of those engaging in it; theories to explain the growth of militant neo-Nazism during the 1990s; and in conclusion, scenarios for the future development of militant neo-Nazism.

In contrast with the 1980s, slightly less emphasis needs placing in the present climate upon the actual organizations composing the militant neo-Nazi scene, or upon ideological subtleties that distinguish between particular strains of neo-Nazism. As described later in the chapter, several of the more significant organizations have been proscribed in recent years, and debates about the role of Strasserism,2 which was an important theme in any description of militant neo-Nazism in the 1980s, have been superseded by the predominating emergence of a crude and often violent xenophobia that makes little claim to ideological or political sophistication. Instead, it is now the extent and nature of the activities in which such groups and those more loosely attached to them engage that go towards establishing the essence of the contemporary movement; this means not only crimes of violence committed and other infractions of public order but the extension of their activities into new domains, such as music (e.g., the followings generated for neo-Nazi skinhead bands), racist and xenophobic computer games, and even electronic networking.

The extent of militant neo-Nazi activism The marginalized militant neo-Nazi scene of the 1980s in the Federal Republic was transformed after the opening of the Berlin Wall and the abolition of the inner German frontier in November 1989 and by the unification of October 1990. The centre of gravity of militant neo-Nazism moved eastward, as events in the former GDR revealed the extent to which there was potential for outbursts that combined xenophobic aggression with neo-Nazi symbolism. What especially distinguished these occurrences from the racist attacks that had long been a feature of the old Federal Republic was their organized scale, their frequent insouciance towards the possibility of intervention by state authorities, the numbers of perpetrators often involved in individual incidents, and the recklessness of their defiance of purportedly constituted authority. Before the collapse of the GDR regime, militant neo-Nazism in the former Federal Republic had faced a hiatus. The BfV’s 1989 report (BfV 1990) had said

Federal Republic of Germany  85

that there were twenty-three neo-Nazi groups, with a total of 1,500 members, compared with twenty-three and 1,900 respectively in 1988. This membership number was based upon 1,100 individuals who were members (including some with multiple memberships), and an additional 200 persons classified as neo-Nazis who were not members of any organization. There were reported to be about 250 neo-Nazi skinheads. ‘The Movement’, identified in earlier reports from the BfV, continued to be split into two fiercely opposed wings. The FAP had become unambiguously the instrument of one of its wings, having almost everywhere excluded Kühnen’s supporters. However, having become more exclusive, it thereupon lost members. Kühnen’s supporters established a number of new local groupings in various places in the aftermath of the proscription in March 1989 of his Nationale Sammlung (NS). In May 1989 the Deutsche Alternative (DA) had been established in Bremen.3 A year later, in July 1990, a further break-away group from the FAP, the Nationale Offensive (NO), was set up. The collapse of the innerGerman frontier led to attempts by Kühnen and other neo-Nazis, as well as by members of the more conventional extreme right, to woo GDR citizens to their cause. On 25 April 1991 Kühnen died of an AIDS-related illness. The situation concerning groups and activists reported by the BfV for the four years from 1990 to 1993 is summarized in Table 3.1 (BfV 1994). The number of formally structured militant neo-Nazi groups varied between twenty-seven and thirty-three over these years; membership rose to 2,100 in 1991, before settling back to 1,500 in 1993. However, reflecting the changed situation of the 1990s, other right-wing extremist groupings, less formally structured and less purely committed to a neo-Nazi ideology but tending to be more straightforwardly aggressively xenophobic, displayed a different trajectory.Their number remained relatively stable around an average of thirty-eight but their membership significantly increased, by more than 40 per cent between 1990 and 1993, so that more than 4,000 individuals TABLE 3.1  Numbers of militant neo-Nazi groups and activists in the Federal Republic of

Germany (old and new regions), 1990–1993

Neo-Nazi groups: Number of members Number of groups Other right-wing extremist groupings: Number of members Number of groups Militant right-wing extremists, especially right-wing skinheads: Number of groups Sources: BfV (1993, 1994) * Not separately available

1990

1991

1992

1993

1400 27

2100 30

1400 33

1500 27

2900 34

3950 38

4000 41

4100 38

4200

6400

5600

* *

*

*

4

86  Country case studies

now identified with these groups. Finally, since separate counting was conducted from 1991, there were in 1993 an estimated further 5,600 militant right-wingers, including right-wing skinheads. In addition, the BfV estimated a further 950 neoNazi individuals in 1993 who were not members of any group. Behind many of these figures is the growth of neo-Nazi activities in the former GDR, although there has been some controversy, as shall be seen, about how far changes after the 1980s have been a new-regions phenomenon.The growth of neoNazi sentiment in the former GDR (as elsewhere in the former Eastern Bloc) was initially greeted with some surprise by many commentators. Once it became clear that there was indeed a burgeoning neo-Nazi scene in the new regions, mainstream commentary on this performed almost a volte-face and interpretations inclined to the purported inevitability of such a development. This may be an exaggeration but, as frequently observed by those writing about neo-Nazism in the new regions, the GDR itself was not immune from neo-Nazi phenomena, even in its prime. From the early 1980s some disaffected youths, especially working-class males, were attracted to neo-Nazi activities and were often loosely organized around support for certain football clubs. Related court cases were being reported from the late 1980s, and criminologists and students of youth culture in the former GDR were systematically researching the phenomenon (e.g., Assheuer and Sarkowicz 1990, pp. 95–111; Ködderitzsch 1990; Ködderitzsch and Müller 1990, pp. 11–23; Hirsch and Heim 1991, pp. 77–89; Husbands 1991b; Siegler 1991, pp. 61–73).4 A number of surveys into extreme-right sentiments among sections of youth were conducted in the GDR period, especially by the subsequently disbanded Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung (ZfJ), once based in Leipzig.5 It is now clear that, even during the 1980s, there were links between neo-Nazis in the west and those in the east. Indeed, several of those purportedly political prisoners who were liberated for cash from GDR gaols by the Federal Government and brought to the west were in fact neo-Nazis, some of whom resumed their activities in the west and were particularly useful as link-persons between west and east, as the old GDR regime was collapsing (Schmidt 1993, pp. 59–63). Thus, despite attempts by apologists for the former GDR to suggest that the recent neoNazism in the new regions was a western import, it is more plausible to argue that it has become a largely self-generated phenomenon with its own character – less exclusive, more anarchistic, more violent, less conventionally ideological, more single-mindedly xenophobic, and indeed more widely supported – than in the west. Indeed, because of the breadth of support, militant neo-Nazism has in some places – such as certain housing estates of Dresden (Saxony), and of Cottbus and Frankfurt an der Oder (both in Brandenburg)6 – been able to operate with a clear territorial base. Thus, although the contacts between west and east arranged by such people as Kühnen perhaps had some precipitating effect, the GDR regime itself had a number of features that encouraged neo-Nazism among those who became socially alienated. Its authoritarian character, its own particular celebration of the leadership principle, its intolerance of diversity, its ghettoizing treatment of its foreign-worker population,7 its aggressive nationalism in (for example) sport – these characteristics

Federal Republic of Germany  87

produced a population in which certain marginal groups were attracted to extremeright options when conventional social controls were removed by the collapse of the regime and the consequent Gadarene rush to unification. A major issue in the early official commentary on neo-Nazis in the GDR had revolved around the question of numbers (Husbands 1991b, pp. 9–10). At the end of 1990 the Gemeinsames Landeskriminalamt (GLKA) in Berlin had talked of 1,500 neo-Nazis known to the police.8 This was later increased to 2,000. In September 1991 the BfV was unable to confirm or deny this figure (Sippel 1992, p. 6). Later, however, in December 1991, the BfV estimated that the number of ‘militant right-wing extremists’ (apparently to be understood as those active in the extreme-right scene) was at least 4,500 in the whole of Germany (SZ, 12 December 1991, p. 2),9 equating reasonably closely with the estimate of the number of activist skinheads. This meant that there were considered to be perhaps twice as many such individuals in the new regions, despite their having only a quarter of the old regions’ population. Others have argued that the potential for extreme-right sympathy, especially concentrated among the young, was in any case much more substantial there, perhaps amounting to 50,000 individuals. One study conducted in the new regions in 1992 among young people aged 14 to 25 years reported that a third of job trainees and a quarter of school pupils held the opinion that ‘we should keep pure what is German and prevent interbreeding of different peoples’. Fifty-four per cent of respondents were reported as having a negative attitude to foreigners. Twenty-four per cent of male trainees agreed that ‘the Jews are our misfortune’; in December 1990, in an earlier study, the figure had been 7 per cent (SZ, 9 July 1992, p. 5).

Criminality and militant neo-Nazism Criminality, especially xenophobic violence, is the feature of militant neo-Nazism that has attracted the most publicity, as well as the most concern, although in recent years the authorities have been monitoring more scrupulously other aspects of extreme-right criminality. The BfV’s report for 1991 (BfV 1992), the first comprehensively to cover all sixteen regions, noted sharp increases in violence against foreigners, even in comparison with 1990. Overall, the number of reported individual outrages attributable to the extreme right increased by more than 400 per cent, from 270 in 1990 to 1,483 in 1991 (BfV 1992, p. 7). In 1992 the number was 2,584 (BfV 1993, p. 70), a 74 per cent increase since the previous year and a twenty-two-fold increase over ten years.10 Of the 2,283 acts of violence against foreigners in 1992, 681 were attacks by arson or use of explosives against asylumseekers or their possessions (BfV 1993, p. 77). Arson attacks on asylum-seekers’ hostels occurred at a similar per-capita rate of population in east and west Germany; 116 such cases were registered from the east. However, 31 per cent of all extremeright acts of violence occurred in the east, a clear disproportion in per-capita terms. Many such acts were to be laid at the door of the country’s 4,200 skinheads, of whom 3,000 were from the new regions.

88  Country case studies

It would be wrong to suggest that the locus of militant neo-Nazism in the contemporary Federal Republic has moved wholly from the old to the new regions. An increase in racial attacks since February 1991 (especially against asylum-seekers’ hostels) has been the most obvious example of militant neo-Nazi influence in both zones of Germany. Still, although many such attacks have undoubtedly been perpetrated by individuals who would not immediately identify with the extremes of militant neo-Nazism, it seems that a higher proportion of perpetrators in the east do self-consciously see themselves as being a part of this phenomenon. The types of contemporary criminality associated with the extreme right may be explored more thoroughly in Table 3.2, which covers the two most recent years for which there are full, publicly available data.11 Offences have been classified according to whether they involve overt violence against persons or property and whether or not a xenophobic motivation has been imputed. Although two years’ data do not permit the inference of trends, there are certain patterns, which continued into 1994. The number of death-related offences increased in 1993 but the number of arson attacks was clearly lower, by more than 55 per cent; this reflected the tougher attitude towards prosecution and sentencing against arsonists, including a more frequent readiness to resort to attempted murder charges in arson attacks on inhabited premises, a development to which we shall return in a later section. Attacks against the person in 1993, when directed against foreigners, saw an increase of 24 per cent compared with 1992. However, xenophobically motivated property damage declined by nearly 50 per cent, again perhaps a reflection of prosecutorial practice. Overall, xenophobic acts of violence were considerably fewer in 1993 than in 1992.12 This pattern of decline continued in 1994, in the first eleven months of which there were 1,233 recorded acts of extreme right-wing violence, a decline of 35 per cent over the corresponding period of 1993 (SZ, 5/6 January 1995, p. 6). The picture presented in Table 3.2 by the data on offences other than those involving violence is rather different. Certain types of offence showed dramatic increases between 1992 and 1993; however, given their more peripheral nature in comparison with crimes of violence, these increases seem likely to reflect not only more assiduous recording practices but also perhaps a displacement from more to less serious offences in response to heightened prosecutorial deterrence against crimes of violence. This latter change, if true, may reflect favourably on vigorous police responses to extreme-right outrages but should not obscure the fact that even ‘less serious’ xenophobically motivated crime can be highly stressful to its victims. Recorded offences of threatening behaviour increased by 25 per cent, though the increase for those xenophobically classified was rather less. Recorded propagandadirected offences increased by 24 per cent from 1992 to 1993, with a similar lesser increase in those showing hostility to foreigners. The residual category of nonviolent offences shows a huge year-on-year increase, and it would be difficult to deny that greater recording enthusiasm by the authorities was doubtless responsible for much of this change. An increase of nearly 600 per cent in xenophobic offences so classified is difficult to explain in terms of objective circumstances.

Federal Republic of Germany  89 TABLE 3.2  Summary of recorded offences presumed or proven to have been committed by

right-wing extremist perpetrators in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1992 and 1993 1992 Xenophobic Other Offences involving violence Crimes resulting in death Explosions Arson attacks Breaches of the peace Attacks against the person Property damage with   extreme violence Subtotals: Other offences Threatening behaviour Graffiti-writing, fly-posting, giving Hitler salute Others (e.g., incitement, insulting or disparaging behaviour) Subtotals: Grand totals:

1993 Total

Xenophobic Other

Total

6 11 656 * 585 1019

10 3 43 * 173 133

16 14 699 * 758 1152

20 3 284 36 727 539

3 0 27 57 172 364

23 3 311 93 899 903

2277

362

2639

1609

623

2232

1191 1211

163 1914

1354 3125

1414 1437

285 2437

1699 3874

329

237

566

2261

495

2756

2731

2314

5045

5112

3217

8329

5008

2676

7684

6721

3840 10,561

Source: BfV (1994) * Not separately available

As mentioned already, there has been some debate about whether militant neo-Nazi trends since 1990 have been the features particularly or exclusively of the former GDR or rather a country-wide phenomenon. Tables 3.3 and 3.4 enable us to make some observations on this matter. Table 3.3 examines extremeright crimes of violence standardized against population size in each case, using available data from 1992. These data include all offences of violence, whether or not xenophobically motivated, and so may insufficiently control for the availability of the victim population. In the case of all but one of the types of crime listed in Table 3.3, the new regions show a significantly higher per-capita rate; the exception is explosions, for which the case-base is very small. Attacks against the person are particularly higher in the new regions compared with the old ones. An attempt in Table 3.4 is made to control upon the availability of a victim population by examining 1993 data on all 6,721 recorded extreme-right offences of a xenophobic character, whether or not involving violence; it must be remembered that these data are those showing the dramatic, mostly recording-related, increases between 1992 and 1993 discussed above. This analysis standardizes separately and then together for the non-foreign population (as the ‘pool’ of potential perpetrators) and also the

90  Country case studies TABLE 3.3  Offences of violence presumed or proven to have been committed by right-

wing extremist perpetrators in old and new regions of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1992 Old regions Number

Crimes resulting in death Explosions Arson attacks Attacks against the person Property damage with extreme violence

Per 1,000,000 non-foreign inhabitants

New regions1 Number

Whole country

Per 1,000,000 non-foreign inhabitants

Number

Per 1,000,000 non-foreign inhabitants

8

0.14

7

0.40

15

0.20

13 487

0.23 8.55

1 221

0.06 12.73

14 708

0.19 9.53

418

7.34

307

17.69

725

9.76

793

13.92

329

18.96

1122

15.10

Source: Calculated from data on numbers of offences in BfV (1993) 1 Though not specified, this apparently includes the whole of Berlin.

foreign population (as the ‘pool’ of potential victims). Controlling merely on nonforeign population seems to imply that the former GDR has a lesser susceptibility to xenophobic outrages; however, given that the old regions have more than 9 per cent of their resident population classified as foreign, whilst the new regions have 3 per cent including all Berlin, and merely 1.2 per cent excluding Berlin, this is not the entire story. Controlling in Table 3.4 on the presence of foreigners already means that the new regions are more inclined to xenophobic activity. Controlling on both non-foreign population and foreign population shows that the new regions are perhaps between five and ten times more likely to be the location for any extreme-right xenophobic action. Although control on size of victim population may be particularly stringent in this circumstance, the case seems unexceptionable that there has been a hugely disproportionate amount of xenophobic crime in the new regions, pace the fact that in absolute numerical terms violence in the old region of North Rhine-Westphalia far exceeds that in any other region, old or new (e.g., BfV 1993, p. 72). Certain events have become notorious in the development of neo-Nazism in the new regions. Thus, in and around Dresden there was an internationally publicized murder at the end of March 1991 of a Mozambican immigrant who was thrown from a moving tram, and then the shooting in May 1991 of the self-styled neo-Nazi leader and Kühnen associate, Rainer Sonntag [1955–91], after he had announced his intention of getting rid of a local brothel. The two accused of the crime, coming from the red-light underworld of Mannheim (Baden-Württemberg), were

Federal Republic of Germany  91 TABLE 3.4  Recorded offences of xenophobic character with presumed or proven extreme

right-wing motivation in the old and new regions of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1993 Old regions

Number of offences Per 1,000,000 non-foreign inhabitants Per 100,000 foreigners Per 1,000,000 non-foreign inhabitants and 100,00 foreigners

5831 102.4 101.9 1.8

New regions: Including Berlin

Excluding Berlin

890 51.3 164.0 9.4

540 37.8 305.9 21.4

Whole country

6721 90.4 107.4 1.4

Source: Calculated from data on numbers of offences and demographic information in BfV (1994).

later acquitted after it was decided that they had acted in self-defence. The more jaundiced interpretation of Sonntag’s actions was that, far from wanting to cleanse Dresden of brothels, he was attempting to muscle in on this activity. In April 1992 about a thousand neo-Nazis from the whole of Germany demonstrated in Dresden against the outcome of the trial, shouting general slogans against ‘murderers, foreigners and pimps’. In September 1991 in Hoyerswerda, a small town in Saxony, a large assembly of neo-Nazis, including many skinheads but vocally supported by numerous local inhabitants, attacked a hostel for asylum-seekers that housed Romanian gypsies – forcing the authorities to evacuate them from the town and thus making it ausländerfrei (‘free of foreigners’), a reprise for contemporary circumstances of the earlier judenfrei (‘free of Jews’). An even more serious replication later occurred in Rostock (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) over a number of nights from 22 to 28 August 1992, as up to 1,200 neo-Nazis and numerous police, including specially trained units subsequently brought in to assist, fought each other around the central reception building for asylum-seekers. Numbers of participants increased over this period due to media publicity and up to 3,000 bystanders offered vocal, if passive, support to the attackers, who succeeded in burning down part of the complex that housed Vietnamese immigrant workers, as well as a temporarily present team of reporters. There was much criticism of the behaviour of certain senior police officials in this matter but, albeit tardily, state authorities did respond and at the end of 1992 over 400 investigations were still pending and some custodial sentences had been handed down, but none was for longer than eight months; only in March 1993 was a sentence as long as two-and-a-half years imposed for a conviction for grievous bodily harm, breach of the peace, and weapons offences arising from the incidents at Rostock. Still, some of the perhaps most notorious incidents by neo-Nazi militants actually occurred in the old regions. On 22 March 1992 two drunken neoNazi skinheads in Buxtehude (Lower Saxony) beat up and killed a man who

92  Country case studies

had been critical of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. The culprits were later sentenced to imprisonment for eight-and-a-half years and six years respectively for homicide. On 23 November 1992 in Mölln (Schleswig-Holstein) arson attacks on two houses inhabited by Turkish families resulted in the deaths of a 51-yearold Turkish woman, her 10-year-old granddaughter, and her 14-year-old niece. Several other people received injuries in the attack, which had been announced to the local police and fire services by telephone with a ‘Heil Hitler’ salutation. Two skinheads, one 19 and the other 25 years old, were subsequently convicted of these murders, the latter havingbeen identified as the leader of a group of young men in their early twenties who had been involved in a number of xenophobic attacks in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in September 1992. Later, on 29 May 1993 two women and three children were killed, and seven others were injured, in an arson attack on a Turkish-occupied multi-family dwelling in Solingen (North Rhine-Westphalia); four young neo-Nazis apprehended for this attack were still being tried at the end of 1994. Another phenomenon of the 1990s has been the increased significance of anti-Semitic crimes, as opposed to xenophobic ones, by militant neo-Nazis. In 1993 there were seventy-two acts of violence by the extreme right with presumed anti-Semitic motivation. Some were attacks on the person, but a common crime was the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. For example, the oldest Jewish cemetery in Worms (RhinelandPalatinate) was twice vandalized in 1993 (BfV 1994, p. 88). Perhaps most seriously, a synagogue in Lübeck (Schleswig-Holstein) was firebombed on the night of 24–25 March 1994, being about to open for the first time since 1938; eight people living in flats above it managed to escape unhurt. At the end of 1994 four young men were being tried on five charges of attempted murder in connection with the attack.

Militant neo-Nazism and the German state The German state has been subjected to much criticism over alleged halfheartedness in its pursuit of neo-Nazi militants and, although it has been keen to scotch any reputation for complacency, it has to be said that overall the pattern of response is a mixed one, differing between levels and institutions of government and between different types of constituted authority.

National and regional governments and politicians In April 1991 the then Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP) Foreign Minister, HansDietrich Genscher, expressed his concern about rising xenophobia and hostility to foreigners in the new regions, moved particularly by his anxiety for his country’s international reputation. Chancellor Kohl, however, was rather more belated in his condemnation, speaking out unequivocally only in June 1991. The former Christlich-Demokratische Union (CDU) Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang

Federal Republic of Germany  93

Schäuble, expressed his disquiet most publicly in August 1991, when launching the BfV annual report for 1990 (BfV 1991).13 In fact, it has been suggested that the question of how to handle neo-Nazi outrages became an implicit pawn in a bitter inter-party debate about how the Federal Republic should control the arrival of asylum-seekers. The most extreme form of accusations of official laxity was that the events were responded to in such a way as to sharpen the case in favour of a restriction upon the right to political asylum originally guaranteed by Article 16, Paragraph 2, of the Basic Law. Whilst it is certainly hard unequivocally to prove that the Federal Government was slow to act effectively against the mounting tide of violence in order to panic the opposition Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) and the governing-partner FDP into giving their approval to such an amendment, it was in August 1992 that the SPD, after officially opposing attempts to restrict the right of asylum, bowed to internal and external pressure and executed a volte-face on the issue. Also, although on 13 August 1992 the then Minister of the Interior, Rudolf Seiters, had strongly condemned the growing numbers of attacks on foreigners when presenting to the press the BfV annual report for 1991, there were suggestions that he failed to act upon received intelligence anticipating the organized attacks against the asylumseekers’ hostel in Rostock less than two weeks later. SPD sources accused both him and his opposite number in the region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lothar Kupfer, of being less than total in their condemnations of the Rostock events and of allowing the police to use tactics that encouraged the rioters (Gu, 26 August 1992, p. 16). On the other hand, the BfV, which had earlier been scheduled for a partial rundown in the light of the changing international situation after the end of the Cold War, was instead kept at full complement to monitor the extreme-right threat; a new group to counter the extreme right was formed in the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA); and a special service for the reporting of xenophobic violence was also established. The German authorities were initially hesitant about the use of proscription against neo-Nazi organizations, although of course this weapon had been used on several occasions in the past (Husbands 1991a, passim). However, resort to conspiracy explanations of such hesitancy is not called for; one can fairly accept that pragmatism more than complicity accounted for the reluctance to use proscription, since experience had shown that the memberships of banned organizations often mutate into smaller, more diffuse and localized groupings that are more difficult to monitor than the original banned organization. However, particularly in the light of the atrocity at Mölln on 23 November 1992, the German government was under considerable domestic and international pressure to be more assertive in its response. It resorted heavily to proscription, largely it must be said as a faute de mieux policy. Three neo-Nazi groups were banned by the Federal Minister of the Interior: •

on 27 November the Nationalistische Front (NF): founded in November 1985, led by Meinolf Schönborn (born in 1955), with 130 to 150 members, and originally distinctive for its commitment to Strasserism;

94  Country case studies

•

•

in 10 December the Deutsche Alternative (DA): founded at the instigation of Michael Kühnen in May 1989, led by Frank Hübner (born in 1967), and particularly active in the new regions, especially the Cottbus area of Brandenburg; and on 22 December the Nationale Offensive (NO): founded in July 1990 as a breakaway grouping from the FAP, led by Michael Swierczek (born in 1961), with about 140 members, and especially active in Saxony.

All three appealed unsuccessfully against this ban, citing their purported status as political parties. However, Hübner has evaded the proscription by standing in the Brandenburg local elections of December 1993 as candidate for mayor of Cottbus for the REPs-breakaway Deutsche Liga für Volk und Heimat (DLVH), receiving 3 per cent of votes (Sp, 4 April 1994, pp. 53–5). On 21 December 1992 the Ministry of the Interior of Lower Saxony proscribed in this region the Deutscher Kameradschaftsbund (DKB), a small group with about thirty members, founded in November 1991 in Wilhelmshaven, and particularly virulent and xenophobic. On 9 December 1992 the Federal Government used Article 18 of the Basic Law to petition the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVG) for the removal of certain civil rights from two neo-Nazis, Thomas Dienel (born in 1961) and Heinz Reisz (born in 1938). This proscriptive approach continued in 1993, both nationally and regionally. In September 1993 the Federal Government and the Bundesrat petitioned the BVG for the proscription of the FAP, a procedure differing from proscription by the Ministry of the Interior under the law on associations and thought necessary in this case because of the FAP’s presumed status as a political party; anticipating a ban, it had already cut back on its production of written material. In August 1993 the Hamburg Senate petitioned for the outlawing of the neo-Nazi Nationale Liste (NL), also considered a political party.This had been founded in Hamburg in March 1989 by two Kühnen followers,Thomas Wulff (born in 1963) and Christian Worch (born in 1957); it was originally intended to be confined to Hamburg, although both men, especially Worch, have been active on the national level, the latter having been a major organizer of a Hess memorial rally at Fulda in August 1993. A judgment by the BVG published on 24 February 1995 rejected the respective motions against the FAP and the NL, stating that neither satisfied its criteria to be regarded as a genuine political party. This pushed the initiative back to the Ministry of the Interior and the Hamburg authorities, who immediately proscribed these groups using their powers under the law on associations. The FAP leader, Friedhelm Busse [1929– 2008], had earlier been sentenced to twenty months’ imprisonment, suspended for three years for his use of the FAP to reconstitute the outlawed Aktionsfront Nationaler Sozialisten/Nationale Aktivisten (ANS/NA), which had been banned by the Federal Government in 1983, and in February 1995 the former FAP general secretary, Jürgen Mosler (born in 1955), was given two years’ probation for the same offence, with his sentence reduced because of his purported willingness to reveal how the FAP had been infiltrated by former ANS/NA members.

Federal Republic of Germany  95

In 1993 three groupings were also banned regionally by the respective interior ministers of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and North Rhine-Westphalia: • •

•

on 11 June the Nationaler Block (NB): founded in July 1991 by another supporter of Kühnen and active only in Bavaria; on 14 July the Heimattreue Vereinigung Deutschlands (HVD): founded in December 1988 and, with about eighty members, the largest neo-Nazi organization in Baden-Württemberg; and on 2 September the Freundeskreis Freiheit für Deutschland (FFD): emerged in June 1989 but identical with the Freundeskreis Unabhängige Nachrichten (FUN) founded in 1969 (Fromm 1994, p. 85).14

More recently, on 10 November 1994, the Federal Minister of the Interior, Manfred Kanther, announced the banning of the youth organization, Wiking-Jugend (W-J), the largest neo-Nazi youth movement in Germany with 400 members and originally founded in 1952 from, among other groupings, the youth wing of the banned Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP) (Anon 1995).

The police One might be more sanguine about the complete commitment of the German state to fighting neo-Nazi militancy if it were conspicuous that all sections were actively opposed to it. However, there have been disturbing suggestions of covert sympathy in some sections, especially the police, and there have been accusations of ‘sail-trimming’, even at the highest levels, in approaches to actual policing against neo-Nazi attacks.These accusations transcend the suspicions of laxity in the Federal Government’s early response that were mentioned above.The accusations occurred particularly in the early years after unification – the background to the Rostock incidents of August 1992 being notorious – but serious examples continue to be reported, especially in the new regions. In Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt) on 12 May 1994 forty or so neo-Nazis attacked five Africans under the eyes of the police and many members of the public. The victims themselves accused the police of encouraging the perpetrators (FR, 17 May 1994, p. 1). Forty-nine people were arrested for this crime but all but one were released; the police there were widely criticized for their failure to make prosecutions and to use existing video evidence to assist their enquiry. Recently, three policemen in Gera (Thuringia) were accused of complicity when, in July 1994, they failed to try to establish the culprits concerned after a busload of skinheads stopped on their way to the former concentration camp of Buchenwald, and threatened and beat up passers-by (SZ, 18 January 1995, p. 6). The legitimacy of the police in the eastern regions suffered badly from their association with the previous regime. In addition, they were initially underequipped and had little sustained experience of handling large-scale riot situations. There were a number of claims that many ordinary police in regions such as Saxony

96  Country case studies

covertly sympathized with much neo-Nazi behaviour, especially against foreigners.15 Attempts by the Federal Government to improve the training and equipment of the police in the east have necessarily been slow to bear fruit. Moreover, given the findings of innumerable studies in different countries that police officers have a disposition towards authoritarianism, sympathy among some for neo-Nazi actions would not be unexpected. In any case, the fight against neo-Nazi criminality has met with only indifferent detective success, although this is not always indicative of police laxity. It was admitted in September 1994 that investigation into almost three-quarters of all cases of extreme-right criminality in Germany in the first three months of 1994 had been suspended because the perpetrators could not be discovered. Those responsible were undetected in 2,905 of the total of 4,163 cases. In 529 cases there was a conviction, 178 (34 per cent) of these being offences against foreigners (NZZ, 8 September 1994, p. 2).

The courts and prosecuting authorities In the early years of the neo-Nazi surge there were many suggestions that offences were not being sufficiently seriously prosecuted and that many sentences were inadequate. In the autumn of 1992 there was an extensive discussion as to whether existing laws were adequate and what amendments, if any, were needed. In September 1992 Rudolf Seiters published his Ten-Point Plan against right-wing extremists, which called for the tightening-up of powers of sentencing and detention, more powers to use bugging techniques, and so on.16 On 20 May 1994 the Bundestag approved measures to counter extreme-right violence, which included increased penalties for various crimes (a maximum of five years’ imprisonment instead of three for assault, for example) and preventive detention without a warrant for up to seven days in certain circumstances. From early 1993 or so there does seem to have been some modest increase in the severity of sentencing, if only for the more serious crimes. The following examples, though not scientifically sampled, are perhaps reasonably typical. In October 1994 a juvenile court in Weimar (Thuringia) sentenced three of eight youths accused of desecrating a memorial at the former concentration camp at Buchenwald to between six to twenty months’ custody, suspended in two cases, after prosecution demands for between ten months’ custody suspended and two years’ imprisonment (NZZ, 16/17 October 1994, p. 2). An arson attack on an asylum-seekers’ hostel in Zwickau (Saxony) by a 17-year-old right-wing extremist and his colleagues, accompanied by stone-throwing at the hostel and at the police who had been summoned and by the shouting of Nazi slogans, produced a fifteenmonth sentence for breach of the peace, incitement, and displaying the symbols of an unconstitutional organization.Yet a regional court in Schwerin (MecklenburgWestern Pomerania) sentenced two young men to only two years suspended for attempted murder after an arson attack on accommodation being used by foreigners (SZ, 7/8 January 1995, p. 8). Sentences in little-publicized cases do seem appreciably

Federal Republic of Germany  97

less, despite the gravity of some of the offences, than those in more notorious ones. For example, Michael Peters and Lars Christiansen, who were convicted on 8 December 1993 for the Mölln atrocity a year earlier, received maximum sentences of life imprisonment and ten years respectively, although the latter (aged 20) was technically a juvenile.17 Nonetheless, in general there has been some tendency to sharpen charges, say from breach of the peace to attempted murder in the case of arson attacks, and prison sentences for such crimes are often about four years (SZ, 2 May 1994, p. 5). However, even in gaol favoured extreme-right prisoners often receive the care and attention of extreme-right charities, such as the Hilfsorganisation für nationale politische Gefangene und deren Angehörige (HNG); prisoners associated with FAP have been particularly favoured in this respect. While inside, this may mean money; and on release, assistance with finding accommodation and work (SZ, 7/8 January 1995, p. 8). The HNG was founded in 1979; now led by the neo-Nazi activist Ursula Müller (born in 1933), it has become a focus for a number of older neo-Nazis. As well as attending to the concerns of imprisoned neo-Nazis, it also publishes a professionally produced newsletter (Husbands 1991a, pp. 100–1).

Further types of neo-Nazi militancy and characteristics of those engaging in it Clearly, extreme-right criminality is the feature of militant neo-Nazism upon which there is most public attention, partly because of the amorphous manner in which the neo-Nazi scene developed in the new regions. However, it would be wrong to leave the impression that violent xenophobia was the whole story, even if many other activities relate directly or indirectly to this. The proscriptions since November 1992 have led to a restructuring of the organizational basis of contemporary militant neo-Nazism, involving the actual or attempted formation of new groupings or more informal circles of the former memberships of the banned organizations. Some former members of the DA sought without conspicuous success to reform as the Brandenburgische Volkspartei (BVP). More successful was the establishment by the same individuals of a group calling itself the Deutsche Nationalisten (DN). This was established in Mainz (RhinelandPalatinate) on 21 July 1993, headed by Michael Petri (born in 1972), formerly head of the DA in Rhineland-Palatinate. It was intended that the DN should participate in elections in order to obviate proscription as a successor organization of the DA, but a prominent part of its programme is the compulsory repatriation of foreigners. Although not so far banned, the group has attracted the attention of the authorities. For example, on 10 December 1994 a meeting being held in a tavern in Hohenschönhausen, an area of the former East Berlin, was raided by the police. Among the thirty-five participants was Petri, the national leader. Nineteen people were briefly arrested as a grouping of former DA members. Also, the homes of three DN members were searched, leading to the confiscation of propaganda material and weapons (SZ, 12 December 1994, p. 5).

98  Country case studies

In 1993 there emerged a group calling itself Direkte Aktion/Mitteldeutschland (DA/MD) as a successor to the earlier Förderwerk Mitteldeutsche Jugend (FMJ), active particularly in Berlin and Brandenburg.18 This comprised a group who had been one-time members of the banned NF but, in anticipation of proscription, had left to establish an autonomous group. In January and February 1994 it was the object of police raids (Sp, 4 April 1994, pp. 53–5). Other groups of longer standing continue to exist. The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei–Auslandsund Aufbau-organisation (NSDAP–AO) based in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the United States and headed by Gary Rex Lauck (born in 1953), an American citizen, has been active since the early 1980s as a supplier of propaganda to the German neoNazi scene, especially his bimonthly NS Kampfruf (National Socialist Battle Cry); Kühnen himself had reputedly been a member, according to Lauck. The latter is now persona non grata in the Federal Republic but this has not seriously affected the distribution of the material that he produces; in fact, as the authorities have increasingly harassed the producers of such material in Germany, the importance of Lauck and other overseas suppliers has increased. In June 1994 the head of the BKA, Hans-Ludwig Zachert, approached the American Federal Bureau of Investigation in a meeting with its representatives in Berlin about prosecution of Lauck but was informed of difficulties under American law of prosecuting for other than criminal acts, although the Hamburg State Prosecutor has approached the American authorities about possible prosecution (SZ, 30 June 1994, p. 6). Cultural groups such as HNG have been already mentioned, and others continue to exist: those individuals surrounding the Holocaust denier, Thies Christophersen [1918–97], who fled to Denmark in 1986 to escape prosecution; and Manfred Roeder’s [1929–2014] Deutsche Bürgerinitiative (DBI). These are active mostly in producing propaganda material, some of it explicitly anti-Semitic, although Roeder has also associated himself with a so-called Deutsch-Russisches Gemeinschaftswerk – Förderverein Nord-Ostpreussen (DRGW–FNOP), whose stated purpose is to offer material and personal help to ethnic Germans in the eastern republics of the former Soviet Union to settle in what was once East Prussia (in Russia). The trend on the neo-Nazi scene away from organizational structure is seen in the metamorphosis of the once-important Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front (GdNF).The ideological heir to the ANS/NA, banned by the Federal Government in 1983, it was during Kühnen’s lifetime a real, if amorphous, grouping of his supporters who sought to achieve his national-socialist goals. Since his death it has become little more than a publishing collective, based in the Netherlands, for the publication, Die Neue Front (The New Front), although on 8 April 1992 Thomas Brehl (born in 1957), a Kühnen loyalist and former ANS/NA leader, was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for having sought through the GdNF to reinstate the banned ANS/NA. During October and November 1994 Christian Worch was charged in Frankfurt am Main with the same offence; he was convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment (SZ, 1 December 1994, p. 6). A further reason for the GdNF’s diminished status has been the imprisonment since January 1992 of the Austrian neo-Nazi, Gottfried Küssel (born in 1958), who had been designated by Kühnen

Federal Republic of Germany  99

as his successor; in September 1993 a Viennese court sentenced Küssel to ten years’ imprisonment without probation for neo-Nazi activities. He was also well-known to have been a member of the NSDAP–AO since the 1970s. Many of militant neo-Nazism’s current organizational initiatives are elusive and secretive; attempts at public emergence by these small, reclusive, sect-like groups have not infrequently been frustrated by anti-fascist opposition. More impact has been made in other ways. Hitler’s birthday (on 23 April) and the anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess (on 17 August) are notorious for their mobilization of neoNazis of numerous persuasions; the latter is often the commemorative occasion for a single consolidated march under the nose of the authorities. On 17 August 1991 this was held in Bayreuth (Bavaria); on 15 August 1992 it was at Rudolstadt (Thuringia), attended by almost 2,000 domestic and foreign neo-Nazis (Fromm 1994, p. 11). A year later, a similar march held in Fulda (Hesse) on 14 August was a particular propaganda coup and attracted considerable attention and publicity, as well as criticism of the authorities for allowing it to take place. The anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom (on 9–10 November) also mobilizes neo-Nazis; there was a celebratory public march in Halle (Saxony-Anhalt) in 1991, for example; even the Day of German Unity (on 3 October) has been a focus for xenophobic neo-Nazi activity. Neo-Nazism has attempted to increase its influence by extending itself into aspects of conventional life. Neo-Nazi computer games, for example, have entered circulation and skinhead influence is apparent in certain styles of popular music and culture (Schröder 1992, pp. 91–9).Videocassette technology has facilitated the manufacture and distribution of neo-Nazi material; in November 1994, for example, Ewald Bela Althans (born in 1966) went on trial in Munich charged with possession of printed material and videocassettes purveying National-Socialist ideology and intended for educational purposes, items that he had produced himself;19 he was subsequently convicted for these acts of incitement to racial hatred. In fact, it has been thought that technology is increasingly being used by neo-Nazis to overcome recent organizational difficulties and state harassment, by resorting to email, box numbers for computer contact, mobile radios, and so on; the effective policing of the use of such facilities would require considerable resources (SZ, 16 September 1994, p. 2). There is, of course, plenty of incidental evidence that those who participate in the more public types of militant neo-Nazism are young and male, a pattern that continues what was seen in the 1980s; as then, this is apparent from pictures of any neo-Nazi public gathering. In the more anarchic parts of the neo-Nazi scene, which are a considerable component of the whole, participants may be as young as their early and middle teens. However, there are subtle differences from the 1980s. Table 3.5 shows some basic social data on those known to have been involved in extreme-right acts of violence from 1991 to 1993. Although this is a particularly violent subset of neo-Nazi activists (small and of unconfirmed representativeness since these are those perpetrators who were detected, and it may even include some from outside the neo-Nazi scene or in other extreme-right groupings), it

100  Country case studies TABLE 3.5  Some social characteristics of those involved in extreme-right offences of

violence in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1991–1993 (in percentages)1 Age (in years)

%

Gender

%

Occupation

%

Less than 18

21

Male

96

34

18 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 or more

44 31 3 1

Female

4

School pupils, students, those in vocational training Skilled manual workers Unskilled manual workers White-collar employees Military, including those due for call-up Unemployed Other occupations

29 11 6 8 11 2

Source: BfV (1994) 1 Data for age and gender are based upon 763 cases for 1991, 1,088 for 1992, and 1,397 for 1993. Data on occupation are based upon 494 cases for all three years with available information.

contains some instructive possibilities about the composition of hard-core neoNazism. The almost-total male predominance is unsurprising20 but the age data are worthy of comment. The median age of these offending activists is less than 19.5 years, which contrasts with the nearly 27 years of those involved in acts of extremeright violence up to 1985.21 Moreover, it contrasts with the findings on the age of neo-Nazi perpetrators of crimes of violence during an earlier period when there was a neo-Nazi surge, after the December 1959 Cologne synagogue-daubing incident. That event seemed to mobilize a number of rather older neo-Nazis to emerge ‘from the woodwork’, many in their thirties, who would have experienced significant socialization during the Hitler years (Dudek 1985, pp. 87–8). In the 1990s, on the other hand, the neo-Nazi scene is much more youth-based. Many of those on the fringe, who will not have perpetrated such serious violence, will be even younger. Consistent with this portrayal is the far higher percentage of school pupils, students, and those in vocational training than of a comparable group in the early 1980s. Paradoxically, this younger age-profile may be one source of longerterm weakness rather than of strength, since youth activists in any movement tend to transitoriness, although their youth does not preclude replacement by their following age-cohort.

Explaining the growth of militant neo-Nazism during the 1990s There has necessarily been extensive theorization about the causes of right-wing extremism but much of this, because of a focus on voting behaviour, is of only incidental value in accounting for the far more exclusive and extreme phenomenon of militant neo-Nazism.Thus, the Modernisierungsverlierer approach (those losing out from modernization), variants of which have long been influential in theoretical accounts of extreme-right voting in a number of countries including Germany, can

Federal Republic of Germany  101

be only a very preliminary basis for explaining neo-Nazi militancy in the 1990s. Furthermore, the particular subject of interest is not merely what determines how individuals make the transition to neo-Nazism but why in the 1990s a rather larger number (even if still a tiny proportion of the population) have been willing to do so than was the case in the 1980s. As discussed at greater length elsewhere (Husbands 1991a, esp. pp. 110–11), despite the plethora of publications in the 1980s on the German extreme right, there was relatively little systematic work on the social psychology of militant neoNazis. In the early 1980s Hennig conducted in-depth interviews with a number of young neo-Nazis in the west, from which he was able to construct some elements for a causal model. There was usually a materialist base for their activism, in the sense of a number of economic frustrations consequent upon the state of the economy. However, built upon these not atypical experiences were further personal ones, such as parental problems, difficulties of various sorts at school, with girls, and finally at work, all precipitating the decision to resort to ‘political soldiering’ and away from a conventional career path; in some cases the male camaraderie and group bonds offered by neo-Nazism were especially attractive (BMI 1982; Hennig 1982). The other major pieces of empirical work with relevance for understanding West German neo-Nazis are those conducted by Heitmeyer and his colleagues, first in the mid-1980s with a large survey of 1,300 16- and 17-year-olds (Heitmeyer 1988), and then more intensively between 1985 and 1990 with a sample of thirtyone young men between 17 and 21 (Heitmeyer 1992). However, even though Heitmeyer presents his results less accessibly than those given by Hennig, the former focuses on some of the same factors as determinants. He summarizes (Heitmeyer 1988, p. 188): ‘The research was conducted among young people of whom many found themselves in a difficult position because the basis of their social identity, their professional future, was and remained very threatened.’ This led in some cases to feelings of social exclusion, isolation, and inferiority that, when combined with an authoritarian and nationalist disposition, produced an extreme-right susceptibility; in other examples, feelings of higher self-worth were associated with this susceptibility. However, in general, rejection of extremeright positions depends on satisfying relationships at work, in the family, and in the immediate social milieu. The application of such perspectives to militant neo-Nazism in the 1990s, since it took off with such ferocity in the new regions, presents special difficulties, however, even if Heitmeyer himself has sought to present a model appropriate to the new circumstances, whilst recognizing the complexities of doing this (Heitmeyer 1993).22 For the western situation, Heitmeyer, consistent with his 1980s’ perspective, emphasizes feelings of estrangement and isolation, especially when confronted by difficulties and status anxieties from the world of work. For the east, he especially notes the consequences of having grown up within an authoritarian state, with the psychological problems of adjustment to its removal, particularly when accompanied by economic uncertainty from ‘enforced modernization’, which loosened some bonds and permitted a brutalization of social perspectives.

102  Country case studies

Actually applying such perspectives to the known facts about neo-Nazism in the 1990s brings home the difficulty of separating confirmed knowledge from theoretical speculation. Even so, the distinctiveness of the phenomenon in the new regions is undeniable and, despite the many organizational and personnel continuities from the neo-Nazism of the 1980s, the overall character of the 1990s’ version has been dramatically affected by events in the east. Those features of GDR society that were mentioned already are a crucial context; but what marks neo-Nazi activity in the east is its banalization of violence in the youth culture of the new state.23 Economic uncertainty as the realities of unification were revealed, especially in the light of the large-scale factory closures of the early years, fed a hitherto barely concealed xenophobia, which assumed an especially resentful form because of the forced imposition upon the new regions of their ‘fair share’ of the country’s arriving asylum-seekers.24 This was a phenomenon for which the new regions were particularly ill-prepared psychologically, given what had been the GDR state’s own treatment of foreign workers in the country. The consequent hostility also spilled over against the east’s own small foreign-worker population. The fact that neo-Nazism in the new regions has been so unidimensional in character, marked largely by its xenophobic violence, has contributed some of the organizational anarchy and diffuseness that have been its obvious feature, and still remains so despite suggestions of recently increased networking. This has confined it to simplicities and has militated against the development of subtlety or sophistication in ideology, especially in the younger sections of skinhead culture. Thus, although it has shown a frequent ability at local mobilization for the purpose of anti-foreigner violence, this with some exceptions has been the limit of its concerted group-based activity, unless numbers have been circumstantially inflated by presence at, say, some sporting gathering.

Scenarios for the future development of militant neo-Nazism As with the discussion in the previous section of theories to explain the growth of neo-Nazi militancy, it is necessary to remember that this does not equate with extreme-right party politics, despite some overlap and mutual contagion. A summary of the present status of militant neo-Nazism in the Federal Republic needs to strike a balance between conflicting trends, especially when assessing implications for the future. Certainly, xenophobic violence attributable to the extreme right has declined somewhat since 1992 and 1993 and the German state has shown itself able to handle the constitutional challenge then posed by the phenomenon. For, two or three years ago, particularly in the period from mid-1992 to early 1993, it would not have been an exaggeration to say that militant neoNazism was a serious constitutional threat. This was not because a few thousand skinhead activists had the power to overthrow a democratic constitution, even if they had wanted to do so. They were not a threat even in the sense that they were the on-the-street force of an organized political party, as was the case with Brownshirts in the Weimar period. As discussed already, they had shown themselves

Federal Republic of Germany  103

almost self-consciously anarchic and deliberately loosely organized beyond their immediate localities. Rather, the threat that they posed came from the pernicious effects upon the quality of life of so many in the country and upon its social institutions if neo-Nazi outrages could be conducted with impunity, remain unpunished, or, worse, achieve their objectives. The events at Hoyerswerda in 1991 and Rostock in 1992, for example, had led to arrests and convictions for a few of those involved but this was secondary to the fact that these outrages had achieved their objective. The victims in both cases had been evacuated and dispersed by the regional authorities.The neo-Nazis had confronted the constitutional state and had won: the localities in question were then ausländerfrei. If every foreigner or asylum-seeker on urban public transport has to be constantly on guard against the possibility of physical attack; if passers-by are ready to applaud neo-Nazi violence; if every major mass sporting event offers the likelihood of such violence; if schools or colleges become the locus of xenophobic attacks: a society in which such incidents are commonplace and occur uncontrolled loses any reputation for fairness and decency, even if the great majority of its citizens actively deplore these occurrences. As was documented above, there has in recent years been a more concerted state response to neo-Nazi outrages, in terms of proscriptions but also of prosecution and sentencing. These initiatives, if not always completely successful, have clearly had an impact. On the other hand, there are some distressing continuities from the past, which seem repeatedly to emerge. The at-best criminally complacent and lax approach of the police in Magdeburg to the attacks on five Africans in May 1994 was mentioned above. In September 1994 Werner Hackmann, the Hamburg official with responsibility for its internal affairs, felt obliged to resign, albeit somewhat quixotically, because of alleged attacks on foreigners by up to twentyseven Hamburg policemen; seven of them have subsequently been indicted. The German office of Amnesty International said at the time that the Hamburg case was by no means exceptional (SZ, 15 September 1994, p. 2) and similar accusations have been made in Berlin and elsewhere. Such police attitudes do not imply a likely enthusiasm for combating xenophobic violence by neo-Nazis. Moreover, attacks on asylum-seekers and their hostels continue to be reported with depressing frequency, especially but not exclusively from the east, even if the splash factor in the coverage is now generally less and overall numbers of such incidents have declined. Many examples could be cited but one case can suffice: around twenty extremeright youths caused a disturbance and some damage at a hostel in the town of Siedenbrünzow (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) on 2 October 1994; fourteen of them were briefly held by the police but then released (SZ, 4 October 1994, p. 6). Moreover, there is accumulating research evidence that many young people have attitudes that approach, if not equate with, those of neo-Nazism, although it must be said that many such attitudes, if they were to persist into adulthood, would emerge rather in political alienation and perhaps extreme-right voting rather than in the much more exclusive phenomenon of neo-Nazi militancy. A recent study in Bremen, where the DVU is active, reported, for example, that 25 per cent of older

104  Country case studies

pupils agreed with extreme-right positions (SZ, 14/15 January 1995, p. 6). In a national survey of young people between 14 and 27 years in February and March 1993 and published by the Bundesministerium für Frauen und Jugend (BMFJ), 8 per cent of those in old regions and 18 per cent of those in new ones said that they had sympathy (Verständnis) for people being violent to asylum-seekers; among those with only ordinary secondary education, the figures were 13 and 24 per cent respectively (Institut für Praxisorientierte Sozialforschung 1993). In 1993 and 1994 an ongoing debate on the state of the extreme right in the Federal Republic concerned the extent to which neo-Nazi groups were nationally, even internationally, organized and the nature of such organization. At the end of 1993 the Landeskriminalamt (LKA) in Baden-Württemberg claimed that neoNazis in the German south-west were involved in attempts to build a unified national right-wing front, which certainly involved deliberately increased contacts (SZ, 9 December 1993, p. 6). In March 1994 a meeting of most of the central figures of the neo-Nazi scene (such as Swierczek, Hübner, and Worch) met in the resort of Berggiesshübel (Saxony) to discuss the viability of a single group that could avoid state proscriptions, although little concrete has so far emerged from the venture (Sp, 4 April 1994, pp. 53–5). Certainly, there is much evidence that neo-Nazis are better organized, or merely more numerous, than in the 1980s; their ability to mobilize significant numbers of supporters at particular events is testimony to this (e.g., locally in the numerous coordinated attacks on asylum-seekers’ hostels and nationally in incidents like Hoyerswerda and Rostock or the Hess commemorative rallies). However, despite ‘radical’ claims of a large-scale, internationally organized conspiracy,25 the evidence for more than a skeletal national or international network is not totally compelling. True, in early 1994 a nationwide list of target individuals, computerized into a database, was discovered but this is not itself crucial evidence that there exists an explicitly organized network among neo-Nazi groups.26 More alarming, however, but perhaps more probable as a result of continued state monitoring and proscriptions, is resort to serious and more sustained terrorist actions. Whilst this is not a likely trajectory for the youngest adherents of the neo-Nazi scene, there is a hard core of older neo-Nazis, some with mercenary military experience in Bosnia and elsewhere, who have the requisite knowledge and incentives to take such steps.27 This then perhaps will be the legacy of militant neo-Nazism’s ‘golden years’ of the early 1990s.

Notes 1 See Husbands (1991a). The broad definition of militant neo-Nazism being employed encompasses groups (and sometimes individuals) who for the most part eschew electoral participation and indulge in activities celebrating various aspects of the Third Reich (although not necessarily Hitler himself) and/or engage in specific other activities (often acts of violence), usually within the confines of small local and highly exclusive groups of dedicated activists. Such other activities are often xenophobic, or anti-Semitic, or directed against left-wing opponents or what are regarded as examples of cultural antinomy (e.g., punks, gays, prostitutes, and fringe artistic groups).

Federal Republic of Germany  105

Right-wing extremism, in Germany as elsewhere, has been the focus of a publishing explosion since the 1980s, which has, if anything, accelerated during the 1990s. However, a large amount of this literature focuses upon the more conventional extreme right that takes a political-party form; militant neo-Nazism receives very little attention in, say, Kolinsky (1992) nor in Zimmermann and Saalfeld (1993), where the principal reference to militant neo-Nazism concerns the 1977–85 period, when extreme-right political parties were unsuccessful. Even so, it is usual in some of the general review studies of the extreme right to include a discussion of neo-Nazi militancy; see, for example, Husbands (1992). 2 The Strasser brothers, Gregor (1892–1934) and Otto (1897–1974), represented the ‘left’, anti-capitalist, wing of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) and were influential in assisting the party’s growth in northern Germany during the 1920s. The former was murdered on Hitler’s order on the occasion of the so-called Röhm Putsch of June 1934. In the mid- and late 1980s a wing of the German neo-Nazi scene had been particularly attracted to the eponymous Strasserism and even well-known Hitler celebrants such as Michael Kühnen had had to make concessions to the attraction of Strasserism to some neo-Nazi sympathizers. 3 These reports are hereafter cited by the year whose events they describe (e.g., BfV, Annual Report 1989); the year of publication is invariably the subsequent one. The BfV’s annual report for 1993 was the most recently available when this chapter was being prepared. 4 There is a further extensive literature that could be cited on this aspect of GDR society. 5 Various results from these studies have appeared in a number of different publications, authored or co-authored by Walter Friedrich, who had been head of the Zf J; see, for example, Friedrich (1992a, 1992b). 6 For Dresden see, for example, Hockenos (1993, pp. 58–68). For Cottbus see, for example, Schröder (1992, pp. 48–9). Frankfurt an der Oder, being on the German-Polish border, was a particularly likely place for attacking Polish citizens who entered Germany after the visa requirement was removed in April 1991. 7 The numbers of these foreign workers were tiny in comparison with foreign-worker populations in west European countries. In 1989 in the GDR there were 60,000 from Vietnam, 51,000 from Poland, 15,000 from Mozambique, 15,000 from the former Soviet Union (excluding members of the Red Army), 13,000 from Hungary, 8,000 from Cuba, 3,000 from Czechoslovakia, 1,400 from Angola, and 1,200 from Romania (Runge 1992, pp. 76–80). 8 Bernd Wagner, the GDR’s police specialist on neo-Nazis gave this figure in an interview to the newspaper Neues Deutschland in May 1990 (Assheuer and Sarkowicz 1990, p. 111). 9 This chapter is based extensively on material taken from the press, especially but not exclusively the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Referencing each individual source is otiose and would have led to a proliferation of newspaper citations. Those instances that would be readily verifiable in other standard sources (such as other newspapers of record or Keesing’s Record of World Events) have therefore not been referenced; explicit referencing has been reserved only for more esoteric and obscure incidents or facts. 10 This figure for 1992 was increased to 2,639 in the annual report for 1993 (BfV 1994, pp. 79–80). 11 Of course, these data include offences attributable to members of any extreme-right groups, not merely those on the militant neo-Nazi fringe. Relevant offences by members of, say, the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) will also be covered by these data. Also, like any data on these types of offence, those in Table 3.2 may be susceptible to reporting vagaries.

106  Country case studies

12 It is obvious that many acts of xenophobia will be committed by individuals who do not belong to the militant neo-Nazi scene, or even to one of the other extreme-right groupings. However, it is useful to place the German data in some perspective. Perhaps a larger proportion of xenophobic acts have an extreme-right background in Germany than in Great Britain but it is important to emphasize that xenophobic/racist violence is not uniquely nor even predominantly German. In 1993, for example, 9,762 racial incidents were recorded by the police in England and Wales (Gu, Tabloid section, 2 November 1994, pp. 4–5). 13 Further details of the Federal Government’s response to the evolving situation in the new regions are given in Husbands (1991b, pp. 6–7). 14 Fromm’s book is an excellent source of information about individual neo-Nazi and other extreme-right groups or parties in the Federal Republic.The neo-Nazi scene contains its continuities but many aspects change continually; hence, compilations such as this soon become obsolete. Hirsch (1990) similarly describes the situation of the late-1980s. 15 For a discussion of such reports, see Husbands (1991b, especially pp. 15–16). 16 Fuller details are given in Husbands (1993). 17 It must be remembered that sentencing policy does vary from one country’s system of criminal justice to that of another, in terms of length of sentence, use of suspended sentences and probation, and use of remission. In 1991 the United Kingdom had the second-highest per-capita prison population in the European Union, with almost 100 incarcerated per 100,000 population. The Federal Republic was only sixth-highest, although its figure was almost 80 per 100,000 (Central Statistical Office 1994, p. 162). Differences such as these are better explained in terms of variations in sentencing policy, rather than by different amounts of crime and differential clear-up and conviction rates. The United Kingdom has a widely known reputation for using incarceration; however, given that the German rate is not far behind, one may wonder whether many of the sentences being imposed by German courts for these types of offence are as stringent as those that might be imposed by British ones. The juvenile status of most offenders is perhaps seen as a mitigating consideration. 18 Mitteldeutschland is the name used in many extreme-right circles for the former GDR, showing claim to areas of the former German Reich further east that are now in Poland or Russia. The DA, for example, had reacted to the collapse of the GDR by calling more assertively for the restoration of the former Reich, especially in the light of the formalization by treaty of the frontier between the Federal Republic and Poland as the Oder-Neisse line. ‘Not the FRG, not the GDR – we want the Reich,’ as one of its slogans demanded. 19 Althans [was when this chapter was first written] a neo-Nazi [then] associated with no particular group but he was once a follower of Kühnen until a disagreement over the latter’s overt espousal of homosexuality in a pamphlet on National Socialism and homosexuality. Althans was drawn to the German neo-Nazi, Ernst Zündel [1939–2017], who lives in Canada and has financed a number of neo-Nazi initiatives, including a series of attempted radio broadcasts in German sent on various short-wave frequencies from the United States (SZ, 8 November 1994, p. 16; BfV 1994, p. 153). 20 It must be remembered that these data cover perpetrators of violence. Women do participate in some neo-Nazi groups (say, HNG, for example), where both gender and age distributions are undoubtedly less skewed. 21 Willems, using data on xenophobic incidents in general collected by questionnaires to regional police forces, found a gender, age, and occupation structure very similar to that reported in Table 3.5. Although his data cover not merely those offenders who were overt extreme-right sympathizers, it is clear that many were in extreme-right or skinhead groups (Willems et al. 1993, pp. 110–30).

Federal Republic of Germany  107

22 For a statement by Heitmeyer specifically on his views about the new regions, see Heitmeyer (1992, pp. 100–15). For a further discussion that separately considers the old and new regions, see Merten and Otto (1993, pp. 13–33).The following discussion draws in part upon all these sources. 23 This aspect is particularly emphasized by Lynen von Berg (1994, pp. 103–26). 24 For some further details, see Husbands (1991b, p. 5). 25 This is a major theme of, for example, Schmidt (1993). 26 In early 1994 there were reports about a neo-Nazi telephone line disseminating information about anti-fascists (SZ, 12 January 1994, p. 5). 27 This possibility has been expressed by Michael Wolf, head of the Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) in Schleswig-Holstein (SZ, 14/15 January 1995, p. 6).

References Anon. 1995. ‘Die “Wiking-Jugend”’, AVS-Informationsdienst, 15(1), 9–10. Assheuer, Thomas, and Sarkowicz, Hans. 1990. Rechtsradikale in Deutschland: Die alte und die neue Rechte. Munich:Verlag C. H. Beck. BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz). 1990. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1989. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. BfV. 1991. ‘Rechtsextremistische Bestrebungen’, Verfassungsschutzbericht 1990. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. BfV. 1992. ‘Rechtsextremistische Bestrebungen’, Verfassungsschutzbericht 1991. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. BfV. 1993. ‘Rechtsextremistische Bestrebungen’, Verfassungsschutzbericht 1992. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. BfV. 1994. ‘Rechtsextremistische Bestrebungen’, Verfassungsschutzbericht 1993. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. BMI (Bundesministerium des Innern). 1982. Neonazistische Militanz und Rechtsextremismus unter Jugendlichen. Stuttgart:Verlag W. Kohlhammer. Central Statistical Office. 1994. Social Trends 24. London: HMSO. Dudek, Peter. 1985. Jugendliche Rechtsextremisten: zwischen Hakenkreuz und Odalsrune, 1945 bis heute. Cologne: Bund-Verlag. Friedrich, Walter. 1992a. ‘Einstellungen ostdeutscher Jugendlichen zu Ausländern’. Pp. 22– 46 in Walter Friedrich (ed.), Ausländerfeindlichkeit und rechtsextreme Orientierungen bei der ostdeutschen Jugend. Leipzig: Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung. Friedrich, Walter. 1992b. ‘Einstellungen zu Ausländern in der ehemaligen DDR’. Pp. 47– 62 in Walter Friedrich (ed.), Ausländerfeindlichkeit und rechtsextreme Orientierungen bei der ostdeutschen Jugend. Leipzig: Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung. Fromm, Rainer. 1994. Am rechten Rand: Lexikon des Rechtsradikalismus. 2nd ed.; Marburg: Schüren Presseverlag. Heitmeyer, Wilhelm. 1988. Rechtsextremistische Orientierungen bei Jugendlichen: Empirische Ergebnisse und Erklärungsmuster einer Untersuchung zur politischen Sozialisation. 2nd ed.; Weinheim: Juventa Verlag. Heitmeyer, Wilhelm. 1992. ‘Die Widerspiegelung von Modernisierungsrückständen im Rechtsextremismus’. Pp. 100–15 in Karl-Heinz Heinemann and Wilfried Schubath (eds.), Der antifaschistische Staat entläβt seine Kinder: Jugend und Rechtsextremismus in Ostdeutschland. Cologne: PapyRossa Verlag. Heitmeyer, Wilhelm. 1993. ‘Hostility and violence towards foreigners in Germany’. Pp. 17– 28 in Tore Björgo and Rob Witte (eds.), Racist Violence in Europe. New York: St Martin’s Press.

108  Country case studies

Hennig, Eike. 1982. ‘Neonazistische Militanz und Rechtsextremismus unter Jugendlichen’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte: Beilage zur Wochenzeitung ‘Das Parlament’, 12 June, pp. 23–37. Hirsch, Kurt. 1990. Rechts, REPs, Rechts: Aktuelles Handbuch zur rechtsextremen Szene. Berlin: Elefanten Press. Hirsch, Kurt, and Heim, Peter B. 1991. Von Links nach Rechts: Rechtsradikale Activitäten in den neuen Bundesländern. Munich: Goldmann Verlag. Hockenos, Paul. 1993. Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe. London: Routledge. Husbands, Christopher T. 1991a. ‘Militant neo-Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s’. Pp. 86–119 in Luciano Cheles, Ronnie Ferguson, and Michalina Vaughan (eds.), Neo-Fascism in Europe. London: Longman. Husbands, Christopher T. 1991b. ‘Neo-Nazis in East Germany: the new danger?’, Patterns of Prejudice, 25(1), 3–17. Husbands, Christopher T. 1992. ‘The other face of 1992: the extreme-right explosion in western Europe’, Parliamentary Affairs, 45(3), 267–84. Husbands, Christopher T. 1993. ‘Racism and racist violence: some theories and policy perspectives’. Pp. 113–27 in Tore Björgo and Rob Witte (eds.), Racist Violence in Europe. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Institut für Praxisorientierte Sozialforschung. 1993. Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene in Deutschland. Bonn: Bundesministerium für Frauen und Jugend, June. Ködderitzsch, Peter. 1990. ‘Neofaschistische Aktivitäten in der DDR’. Pp. 155–65 in Kurt Bodewig, Rainer Hesels, and Dieter Mahlberg (eds.), Die schleichende Gefahr: Rechtsextremismus heute. 2nd ed.; Essen: Klartext Verlag. Ködderitzsch, Peter, and Müller, Leo A. 1990. Rechtsextremismus in der DDR. Göttingen: Lamuv-Verlag. Kolinsky, Eva. 1992.‘A future for right extremism in Germany?’ Pp. 61–94 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. Lynen von Berg, Heinz. 1994. ‘Rechtsextremismus in Ostdeutschland seit der Wende’. Pp. 103–26 in Wolfgang Kowalsky and Wolfgang Schroeder (eds.), Rechtsextremismus: Einführung und Forschungsbilanz. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Merten, Roland, and Otto, Hans-Uwe. 1993. ‘Rechtsradikale Gewalt im vereinigten Deutschland: Jugend im Kontext von Gewalt, Rassismus und Rechtsextremismus’. Pp. 13–33 in Hans-Uwe Otto and Roland Merten (eds.), Rechtsradikale Gewalt im vereinigten Deutschland: Jugend im gesellschaftlichen Umbruch. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Runge, Irene. 1992. ‘Verschobene Proportionen: Ausländer im Osten’. Pp. 76–80 in Walter Friedrich (ed.), Ausländerfeindlichkeit und rechtsextreme Orientierungen bei der ostdeutschen Jugend. Leipzig: Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung. Schmidt, Michael. 1993. The New Reich: Violent Extremism in Unified Germany and Beyond. London: Hutchinson. Schröder, Burkhard. 1992. Rechte Kerle: Skinheads, Faschos, Hooligans. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Siegler, Bernd. 1991. Auferstanden aus Ruinen …: Rechtsradikalismus in der DDR. Berlin: Tiamat. Sippel, Heinrich. 1992. Rechtsextremismus im vereinten Deutschland. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. Willems, Helmut, et al. 1993. Fremdenfeindliche Gewalt: Einstellungen, Täter, Konflikteskalation. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Zimmermann, Ekkart, and Saalfeld, Thomas. 1993. ‘The three waves of West German rightwing extremism’. Pp. 50–74 in Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg (eds.), Encounters with the Contemporary Radical Right. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

4 THE STATE’S RESPONSE TO FAR-RIGHT EXTREMISM The case of Die Republikaner and the German national and regional authorities

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis. (I fear the Greeks, even when they are bearing gifts.) Virgil, Aeneid, Book 2, line 49

Constitutional protection in the Federal Republic of Germany: the background In most countries of western Europe the major task of monitoring political groups that are a real or potential danger to the stability of the political system falls to a branch of the country’s Interior Ministry or Home Office and/or to a part of conventional policing arrangements.This is true, to an extent, of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), but there are additional constitutional complexities about the arrangement. Article 87 (Para. 1), taken with Article 73 (No. 10), of the country’s Basic Law provided for the establishment of facilities for the ‘protection of the constitution’, at both federal and regional levels.The provisions were enacted by the Law the Cooperation of the Federation and the Regions in Issues Concerning the Protection of the Constitution, passed on 27 September 1950. The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) was thereupon formally established on 7 November 1950 (Schwagerl 1985, pp. 35–6). It falls within the governmental jurisdiction of the Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI) (BMI 1989, pp. 46–60) – the Interior Minister, not the head of the BfV, writes (or at least signs) the preface to its annual reports, which are published by the Ministry – but the BfV does operate ­semiautonomously as a monitoring body. The national office is in Cologne, rather than Bonn. Essential assistance in the monitoring task is given by complementary bodies established in the individual regions of the country, although the resources devoted

110  Country case studies

to this in Saarland are apparently limited, as the Appendix to this chapter describes. Most but not all of them publish their own annual reports (with a preface by the respective regional Interior Minister), feed their information to the federal office, and, as we shall see, have some collective influence over monitoring policy. There are now moves afoot in the new regions of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) to establish constitution-protection offices there and so far three of them – first Thuringia, second Saxony-Anhalt (SZ, 26 July 1991, p. 6),1 and, most recently, Brandenburg (SZ, 27 September 1991, p. 6) – have formally moved to set them up; initial steps have also been taken in Saxony (SZ, 13/14 April 1991, p. 2). Although concerned with extreme-right activities, these new offices see one of their principal tasks as guarding against infiltration by former agents of the GDR’s Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS, ‘the Stasi’) into the governmental organs of the new regions.2 The national office has traditionally been divided into eight sections, although the unification of Germany has entailed some rearrangements of duties. Those sections with the most public visibility have been the ones that monitor rightwing extremism (including terrorism); left-wing extremism; left-wing extremist terrorism; and activities by foreigners in the FRG that threaten internal security. These categories, or variants or amalgamations of them, have affected the principal sectioning of the BfV’s annual reports. Reasonably typical is that for 1989,3 which began with a summary of findings and continued with coverage of: extreme l­eftwing activities; extreme right-wing activities; extremist activities by foreigners constituting a threat to internal security; and counter-espionage. Over the years the annual reports have varied about whether the section on extreme right-wing activities preceded or followed that on extreme left-wing ones; there have been suggestions from the political left that, since the arrival in power of the centre-right coalition of the Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP) and Christlich-Demokratische Union/Christlich-Soziale Union (CDU/CSU) in 1982, there have been more efforts devoted to the monitoring of the extreme left than of the extreme right. The BfV operates further categorizing principles among the right-wing extremist phenomena that it monitors, principles whose implementation has been altered somewhat over the years in the light of prevailing circumstances. Thus, the 1989 annual report draws major distinctions between: •

•

So-called New National Socialism (Neo-Nazism): this covers groups whom Husbands (1991) has called ‘militant neo-Nazis’, including those formerly associated with the now-deceased Michael Kühnen (e.g., the Deutsche Alternative (DA), the Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (FAP), and the Strasserist Nationalistische Front (NF)). The so-called National-Freiheitliche (N-F), together with the NationalDemokraten (N-D). The former label is used to accommodate the numerous initiatives of Dr Gerhard Frey, particularly his Deutsche Volksunion (DVU), originally founded in 1971,and his DeutscheVolksunion–Liste D (DVU–Liste D), founded in March 1987 in order to carry through his electoral aspirations.

State’s response to far-right extremism  111

• •

The latter label covers the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD), which has been around since its foundation and successes in the 1960s. These were till 1987 considered separately in the BfV’s annual reports but in 1988 the two groups, the DVU–Liste D and the NPD, agreed to work together in an electoral pact and so have come to be considered similar. Other extreme right-wing groups, covering a residue of around three dozen smaller combinations; and Extreme-right youth groups, notably Wiking-Jugend (W-J), which has strong links to the some of the mainstream neo-Nazi organizations.

The 1989 report gives further relevant information in other sections. Thus, there is: a numerical overview, giving details of organizations and of their memberships, the circulation of periodicals, and the number of right-wing extremists working in the civil service and local government; a section on newspaper and magazine publications, publishing ventures, sales services, and (since the 1988 report) computer games; a section on connections with foreign right-wing extremists; a section on German extreme-right terrorism; a section on offences with an extreme right-wing character; and a section on legal measures against right-wing extremists. Although it would be wrong to say that the presentation of the monitoring activities of the BfV concerning the extreme right has become ossified through habituation and repetition in more or less the same form, there is a certain sense in which the BfV is a prisoner of its past practices. Even the physical appearance of its annual reports – the various glossy illustrations, the ample reproductions of sample pages of publications by the organizations concerned – has long remained unchanged. Moreover, despite some alterations of focus from year to year – the reports in the early 1980s gave more prominence to acts of terrorism by rightwing extremists, especially in the light of the activities of the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann (WSG Hoffmann) – there is considerable continuity in the approach of the BfV to its monitoring of the extreme right. Thus, its choice of objects for official monitoring has not always been without controversy.

The emergence to public prominence of Die Republikaner When on 29 January 1989 Die Republikaner emerged from what had hitherto been progressive obscurity to take 7.5 per cent of votes cast and eleven seats in the election for the West Berlin House of Deputies (after a campaign fought on an aggressively anti-foreigner, anti-asylum-seeker ticket), questions were raised in some quarters about why Die Republikaner had never been monitored by the BfV. In fact, there is some irony in that it was this non-monitoring that gave the party its breakthrough. Die Republikaner had been founded as early as November 1983 and hitherto had had one brief flurry of success, when they won overall 3.0 per cent of the votes cast in the Bavarian Regional Parliament elections in October 1986, a percentage that rose to nearly 9 per cent in the most successful localities. In late 1988 they looked increasingly to be on the ropes. True, many

112  Country case studies

observers did believe that an electoral breakthrough by the extreme right was quite probable, as the FRG continued to grapple with the issues of immigration and, more particularly, with the escalating number of asylum-seekers arriving from the Third World and eastern Europe under the provision of Article 16, Paragraph 2, of the Basic Law. However, it was widely thought that either Frey’s DVU–Liste D and/or the NPD would be the probable beneficiaries of this mood; the former had already won a seat in the Bremen regional parliament in elections there on 13 September 1987, when it surpassed the 5 per cent hurdle in Bremerhaven. The two looked especially dangerous in the light of their pact to work together. On the other hand, Die Republikaner, a Bavarian-based party, announced publicly in late 1988 that they were withdrawing from other regions and were concentrating their efforts on Bavaria, specifically the Munich Municipal Council elections that were not due until March 1990 (FAZ, 26 November 1988, p. 4). However, there was the matter of the West Berlin election, where few initially gave them much chance. The NPD had wanted to offer candidates there but, precisely because it was monitored by the BfV as being unconstitutional, it was prevented from standing by the Allied authorities; on the other hand, no such impediment faced Die Republikaner.They were thus the only party in the election making unashamed appeals to racial prejudice – their television broadcast becoming famous for its shots of Turkish children, drug addicts, and left-wing anarchists, all presented to the background of the Ennio Morricone melody, Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod (Play me the song of death) – and they accordingly drew from a reservoir of racist resentment, especially among the less educated. The West Berlin performance started a bandwagon that rolled through 1989 and into 1990, far eclipsing the results of the DVU–Liste D and the NPD – through elation at the success on 18 June 1989 in the election to the European Parliament (7.1 per cent of votes cast overall, 14.6 per cent in Bavaria, and a total of six Euro-seats) to what had looked like certain further gains in the GDR as the regime became increasingly fragile, long before German unification actually occurred in October 1990. The fact that the party was founded by CSU dissidents (Backes 1990) rather than by those with an unambiguous record of involvement in the affairs of the extreme right (as had been the case with the NPD in 1964) may have been the principal factor that saved Die Republikaner from the attention of the monitoring authorities. Moreover, Franz Schönhuber, who was elected to the leadership in June 1985, had been a well-known television journalist in Bavaria, at least until the publication of his autobiography revealing his past in the Waffen-SS (Schönhuber 1981). For obvious reasons, Schönhuber has repeatedly sought to distance himself from Frey’s various initiatives and from the NPD, as well as from other extremeright groups; for example, in August 1989 the Federal Council of Die Republikaner unanimously passed a resolution stipulating ‘total and permanent exclusion’ for members of such parties (SZ, 8 August 1989, p. 2). The immediate reaction to the success of Die Republikaner in West Berlin was calls from within the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) that they be monitored, as demanded by the SPD’s head of the Bundestag’s Interior Committee,

State’s response to far-right extremism  113

Hans Gottfried Bernrath (SZ, 3 February 1989, p. 6). Later, the SPD revised its opinion on this matter (SZ, 16 February 1989, p. 6). Still, the manner of expression of the appeal of Die Republikaner, focusing especially on opposition to foreigners and an obsession about supposedly bogus asylum-seekers, did raise prima facie the question of their constitutionality, even if opposition as such to foreign workers and asylum-seekers was scarcely a monopoly of Die Republikaner. In official circles some differences of opinion emerged about the line to be taken towards Die Republikaner, but one frequently and sometimes apparently genuinely believed response to complaints about their not being monitored opted for a semantic distinction. The president of the Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) in BadenWürttemberg, Eduard Vermander – in a speech drawing on the (then) unpublished BfV figures on right-wing extremism in 1988 – said that Die Republikaner were clearly ‘right-wing radical (rechtsradikal)’ but nonetheless had ‘scarcely revealed rightwing extremist (rechtsextremistisch) tendencies’ (SZ, 6 February 1989, p. 6; emphases in original). As some would say, a fine distinction, if ever there was one, although we shall see that it has for some time had considerable official significance! The head of Hamburg’s LfV, Christian Lochte, was quoted making the same casuistical point, although (as we shall see) the Hamburg office did subsequently monitor the activities of Die Republikaner. On the other hand, an official of the North RhineWestphalia office felt that the differences between the DVU, the NPD, and Die Republikaner were ‘hardly worth labouring over and were at most philosophical distinctions’ (Sp, 13 February 1989, p. 60). However, in early 1989 the rechtsradikal/ rechtsextremistisch distinction was apparently the explicit basis of the BMI’s refusal at that time to monitor, as expressed by Hans Neusel, a BMI official (SZ, 16 February 1989, p. 6).

The rationale for extreme-right monitoring and the origin of rechtsradikal/Rechtsradikalismus It is perhaps ironic that a purported criterion, even a preliminary one, of whether an extreme-right organization should be regarded as unconstitutional is whether it is rechtsextremistisch, as opposed to being rechtsradikal. Since the 1950s German social scientists have been widely applying the latter designation to movements and activities that they, as political analysts, and the Government, as protector of the democratic order, would regard as unconstitutional and thus as appropriate objects for monitoring (e.g., the Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP) proscribed in 1952 and the NPD). Until the mid-1970s the Government was happy to use this same term, and, of course, in the left-wing context, being radikal was historically an invitation to official attention rather than a guarantee against it (e.g., Günsche and Lantermann 1979). Is there in fact any basis for a distinction in meaning and usage between the two words rechtsradikal and rechtsextremistisch? One approach to this question is to explore the history of the German words rechtsradikal and its noun Rechtsradikalismus. Both are certainly of post-war provenance; they were first associated with the SRP, and

114  Country case studies

one can find very occasional examples of usage dating back to the early 1950s, although it is of interest that these first usages were not by social scientists. Indeed, Büsch, in Büsch and Furth (1957, p. 18) gave an example dated April 1950 from a religious periodical and another (p. 17) dated May 1950 from a newspaper article, where it was apparently being used by one extreme-right faction against another. Examples thereafter accumulate; Jenke (1961, p. 469; Jenke 1967, p. 207) cited a study by Wald (1952), where it was used in conjunction with Linksradikalismus (leftwing radicalism), this source seemingly a development from an earlier document (LNDGB 1951, cited by Jenke 1961, p. 470) that was probably also written by Wald.4 Büsch and Furth (1957, p. 40) also cited a reference dated 1955 by an antifascist research institute. Although it would be now be very difficult to substantiate evidentially the surmise, one possibility is that it was the Sozialistische in the title of the SRP that first stimulated the radicalism association, at a time when the newly established Federal Republic was still seeking mainstream democratic normalcy. It was only from the mid-1950s onwards that the words rechtsradikal and Rechtsradikalismus began being used in German social science, from which they went into official usage and finally, more widely, as a universally accepted designation, through a process of what one may call ‘linguistic osmosis’. Nobody apparently thought it worth discussing the origin of these words or how their usage developed, despite German being linguistically distinctive in applying these words to a phenomenon more generally known in other languages as right-wing extremism. Although German social science has its own rich analytical traditions with which to approach the study of extreme-right phenomena (particularly traditions derived from Marxism), it nonetheless contained in the 1950s, as now, intellectual currents that were clearly influenced by certain theories and paradigms dominant in American social science. Awareness of writings by authors such as Lipset, as discussed below, may well have been an impetus to the adoption of these terms by German authors. Streit (1955)’s and Büsch and Furth’s (1957) studies of the SRP are two early examples of the use of the term Rechtsradikalismus; another is Bracher (1956), who referred to ‘irrational and distorted feelings that can result psychologically as resentments, sociologically as prejudice-based ideologies, and politically as an excessively developed nationalism’. Jenke (1961) and Knütter (1961) are two slightly later ones. Streit’s essay, dated late 1955 and so especially interesting in this matter, defined the ideology of Rechtsradikalismus as neo-fascism, discussed at length the latter concept but used the former without any ancillary explanation. Büsch and Furth, writing individual studies about the SRP, both frequently used rechtsradikal to describe both this and earlier extreme-right movements, but gave no account of its linguistic history. Jenke’s (1961) comprehensive study gave a list of biographical entries under the title Zum Rechtsradikalismus, used the word repeatedly (including his designation of six deputies from the Deutsche Rechtspartei (DReP) elected to the Bundestag from Lower Saxony in 1949), but he nowhere indicates what its linguistic origins might have been. Knütter (1961, pp. 9–22) opened his book with a lengthy discussion of the concept of Rechtsradikalismus; despite a comprehensive analysis (but citing no English-language authors), he was silent about

State’s response to far-right extremism  115

its provenance, stating merely that ‘it has already been introduced into the scientific literature and, of all the quoted designations [also Neofaschismus, Neonazismus, and Rechtsextremismus] is still the most value-free’. By the 1960s rechtsradikal had become a widely used term with which to describe the extreme right (e.g., Frederik 1964; Fetscher 1967; Hirsch 1967, pp. 17, 186–9)5 and from the later 1960s it was common practice to discuss the then-successful NPD as an example of Rechtsradikalismus. Even so, some commentators did prefer other labels, such as the more traditional ‘nationale Rechtspartei’ (in quotation-mark equivalents in the original, meaning ‘national(ist) right-wing party’) (Maier and Bott 1968) or Rechtspartei (right-wing party) (Liepelt 1967). Kühnl’s (1968) literature review, though devoted heavily if not exclusively to the NPD, was titled to cover Rechtsextremismus. Backes (1989, pp. 55–69) provided a long and interesting account of the history of Extremismus and Radikalismus, even making some references to Rechtsradikalismus, but nowhere did he describe the provenance of the last word; his book with a co-author (Backes and Jesse 1985) is similarly silent. In an earlier publication with the same co-author, Backes cited Lipset as one inspiration for the increasing post-war popularity of Extremismus in German, claiming that this was little used before 1945; confusingly, however, several of the consequential references are to Lipset’s ‘radical right’ writings (Backes and Jesse 1985, pp. 18–19). Scheuch, with Klingemann’s (1967) widely cited ‘Theorie des Rechtsradikalismus in westlichen Industriegesellschaften’ (‘Theory of right-wing radicalism in western industrial societies’) referred to the Bell/Lipset literature in passing but offered no account of the origin of the term in German. Instead, they were able to seek to justify its social-scientific status by implication through reference to the supposed ‘similarity in the appearance of extreme-left and extreme-right political movements’, following very directly in the steps of the 1950s American pluralists. However, the title of the section of their essay in which they did this was ‘The character of extreme-right political ideas’ (Scheuch, with Klingemann 1967, pp. 21–2; emphasis added).6 By 1962 the BfV was also using the term rechtsradikal, having published a series of reports on rechtsradikal and anti-Semitic tendencies in the early and mid1960s (BMI 1962–6). Rather belatedly, it appears, the word was then recognized more widely and started to appear in German and German-to-foreign-language dictionaries. Intriguingly, the monolingual German dictionaries were slower than some of the bilingual ones in recognizing rechtsradikal. The 15th edition of the etymologically authoritative Duden Rechtschreibung (the latter word means ‘orthography’ – it has nothing to do with the political right!), published in 1961, did not contain rechtsradikal, although it did have linksradikal. By the 16th edition, which appeared in 1967, there was also an entry for the former word, though not for Rechtsradikalismus, which did not appear until the 17th edition of 1973. However, Gerhard Wahrig’s Deutsches Wörterbuch, a significant one-volume German dictionary copyrighted in 1968 and 1971, does not contain an entry for either.7 German social scientists were generally using rechtsradikal and rechtsextremistisch almost, if not quite, interchangeably by the 1960s; those following Scheuch and

116  Country case studies

Klingemann were in a particular theoretical tradition that owed much to Parsons’s (1964 [1963]) ‘social strain theory’ and so they were able to take advantage of the seemingly oxymoronic character of the term to push their views about the similarities of left- and right-extremisms. The BfV was happy to follow the same labelling practice until 1973, after which the designation was changed, perhaps because the SDP under Willy Brandt was the major party of the government coalition of the time and demurred at this perversion of the meaning of Radikalismus. The Interior Minister said in the BfV’s report for 1974 that being ‘radical’ in the conventionally understood sense of going to the root of an issue was not necessarily against the constitution, whilst this could not be said of the general understanding of ‘extremist’ (Schwagerl 1985, pp. 62–71; Stöss 1989, pp. 35–7). By the mid-1970s – perhaps, according to Backes and Jesse (1985, p. 18), because of the effect of 1960s student movement – Radikalismus was more positively evaluated in some (if not all) quarters and was associated mostly with left-wing phenomena (e.g., Bossle 1975). However, by the 1960s, especially for authors such as Scheuch and Klingemann, the increasing popularity of rechtsradikal in the German language was in part attributable to following the example of the analyses of the American social-science pluralists of the 1950s, who were then seeking to understand McCarthyism and were later criticized so distinctively by Rogin (1967, esp. pp. 9–58). The first use of the term ‘radical right’ in American social science seems to be uncontested. The book, The Radical Right, was published in 1963, edited by Daniel Bell and subtitled The New American Right Expanded and Updated. The earlier book had been published in 1955 (Bell 1955). Bell’s preface to the new book, dated June 1962, described the genesis of the earlier volume and said (Seymour Martin) Lipset argued that McCarthyism was a species of status politics, and McCarthy’s followers were the ‘radical right’ – a term coined by Lipset [said Bell] and used for the first time in the original edition of this book – because they represented a form of extremism, rather than a genuine effort to bespeak the conservative point of view. (Bell 1964 [1963], p. ix) It is unclear what, if any, was the influence on Lipset in adopting this description; there is no evidence in his biography of any lengthy period before this that he had spent in Germany. Lipset’s 1955 essay, ‘The sources of the “radical right”’ (quotation marks in original – CTH) had begun: In the last five years we have seen the emergence of an important American political phenomenon, the radical right [without quotation marks – CTH]. This group is characterized as radical because it desires to make far-reaching changes in American institutions, and because it seeks to eliminate from American political life those persons and institutions which threaten either its values, or its economic interests. (Lipset 1964a [1963], p. 307)8

State’s response to far-right extremism  117

Lipset titled his 1962 contribution to The Radical Right ‘Three decades of the radical right: Coughlinites, McCarthyites, and Birchers’, using the term in quotation marks only once, in his opening sentence (Lipset 1964b [1963], p. 373). Nowhere, apparently, does Lipset himself give an account of how he came to the expression (or it to him). In his The End of Ideology Bell included an amended version of his 1955 essay,‘Interpretations of American politics’, from The New American Right; the revision apparently dates from about 1959 and was retitled ‘Status politics and new anxieties’ and with the subtitle ‘On the “radical right” and ideologies of the fifties’ (Bell 1962 [1960], p. 103). Bell’s use of quotation marks around the term seems to be a form of deference to Lipset, but ‘radical right’ was certainly being more widely used in the United States without attribution or indication of its specificity by 1958 (e.g., Millis 1958).

The national government and the monitoring of Die Republikaner The downgrading of those organizations described as rechtsradikal as being less unfriendly to the constitution than rechtsextrem(istisch) ones has been fortuitously convenient to the present German federal authorities when faced with demands from the political left that Die Republikaner be monitored. It was recalled by the Interior Minister,Wolfgang Schäuble, in his first introduction to a BfV annual report (that for 1988), produced in July 1989 at a time when the debate about whether Die Republikaner were to be officially monitored was becoming heated (BfV 1989). He repeated the same text in his introduction to the BfV’s 1989 report, produced in ­mid1990, when this debate still had life left in it. His remarksare worth quoting at length (BfV 1990[A]9, p. 4), although the criteria that he lists do recur in many publications: The Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVG] has provided the criteria for differentiating between extremists and democrats in its proscription judgments of 1952 [against the SRP] and 1956 [against the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands [KPD]]. It said that activities and initiatives were politically extreme when concrete indications existed that their goals or the ways and means approved for the achievement of these goals wholly or partly conflicted with the liberal democratic order. The fundamental principles of this are: respect for the human rights set down in the Basic Law, above all for the right of the personality to live and to develop unfettered; popular sovereignty; the division of powers; the responsibility of the government; the legality of the administration; the independence of the courts; the multiparty principle; equality of opportunity for all political parties; and the right for an opposition to form and to exercise its role consistent with the constitution.

118  Country case studies

Schäuble continued, in words that were verbatim those of his predecessor in the report for 1974: Until 1973 such activities were sometimes described as ‘radical’. On the other hand, the concept ‘extremist’ takes account of the fact that political activities or organizations are not unconstitutional merely because they have set goals that are ‘radical’ according to general linguistic usage, i.e., in going to the roots of an issue.They are ‘extremist’ and therefore hostile to the constitution in the legal sense only if they are directed against the basic content of our liberal democratic order, as set out above. Nowhere in this preface are Die Republikaner mentioned but, given the furore about them in the recent past, the subtext of what Schäuble wrote (or copied) is surely his agreement with the validity of the rechtsradikal/rechtsextremistisch distinction and an implied message to the effect that Die Republikaner – inclining more to the former than to the latter label – are not necessarily objects for official monitoring.The text of the 1989 annual report dismissed them in a single footnote to the first sentence of the section on extreme-right activities.The section began that at the end of 1989 there were seventy extreme right-wing organizations in the FRG, to which the footnote added: Die Republikaner party is not considered here. In 1989 only the regional organization in North Rhine-Westphalia was being observed, with intelligence-gathering techniques, by the regional authority for constitutional protection for suspicion of extreme right-wing activities. (BfV 1990[A], p. 108) As we shall see, however, the picture is de facto rather more complicated than this. There have been several variations of practice in different regions on the question of whether Die Republikaner should be fully monitored. After initially rejecting the case for monitoring by reference to the rechtsradikal/rechtsextremistisch distinction, the next reaction of the national office, followed by most regional ones, was to accept Die Republikaner as a so-called test case (Prüffall), which meant that there was considered to be against them at least a prima facie case of unconstitutionality. This involved preliminary monitoring (often referred to as Vorprüfung), purportedly to establish whether there was an argument for further monitoring. Such a preliminary process covers, for example, the collection and examination of available publications of the organization concerned, the analysis of its leaders’ political speeches, and attendance at its public meetings. Full monitoring, on the other hand, would resort to intelligence techniques to gather information, which would include recruiting confidants inside the organization, the observation of suspects, covert photography, and perhaps infiltration by agents. In addition, at least one region has, as we shall see, instituted a form of monitoring that has gone beyond the preliminary phase – in that the argument for observation was considered proven – but falls short of full monitoring because the techniques being used are those of a test-case investigation.

State’s response to far-right extremism  119

As quoted above, the basic criterion for being considered ‘extremist’ and hence a necessary object for monitoring is having aims or engaging in activities that wholly or partly conflict with ‘the liberal lawful constitution’ (freiheitliche rechtsstaatliche Verfassung). Elsewhere are summarized the criteria that define ‘rightwing extremism’. Distinctive of extreme-right activities are their nationalist, populist (völkisch), collectivist and racist (especially anti-Semitic) aims, even if – for tactical reasons – the latter are mostly hidden. Inequality between human beings as being innate is put forward and argued for with emotional assertiveness and it is claimed that racist and political elites are destined for ‘leadership’. Also characteristic are an exaggerated nationalism and the rejection of democracy as a ‘foreign’ and ‘unnatural’ form of power. (BMI 1989, p. 51) These were the general criteria against which Die Republikaner would have been assessed, by the federal and most of the regional authorities, although the latter in certain cases introduced additional considerations.10 The purported outcomes varied, as we shall see, although the actual reasons, as opposed to those publicly stated for a particular decision, are not always easy to ascertain. There does exist the possibility of genuine objective differences between the activities of Die Republikaner in the several regions, with some meriting monitoring and others less so. There is also the possibility that some regions considered Die Republikaner to be a marginal case for monitoring but feared that doing so would merely generate for them the undesirable oxygen of publicity. More worrying, if it could be proven, would be the non-monitoring of Die Republikaner out of surreptitious sympathy, or because they were taking votes from one’s political opponents and it was feared that negative publicity from public monitoring might blunt that effectiveness, or because their basic goals were not dissimilar to those of one’s own party, or because their declared unconstitutionality would lose them as possible coalition-makers. The last possibility has been raised by numerous SPD critics of the CDU (e.g., SZ, 13 September 1989, p. 7). Shortly before the 1989 Euro-elections, the CDU did give a hostage to fortune in publishing a swingeing exposé of Die Republikaner that put on record the party’s opposition, at least among its national officials, to this option (CDU 1989, p. 3); although careful in the choice of words, the overall subtext of this whole document is that Die Republikaner are highly unpleasant and extremist. The attitude of the BfV towards full and official monitoring of Die Republikaner was one of procrastination about a final decision, which continued long past their electoral peak. In part, however, this indecisiveness was due to disagreement among the regions as to whether full official monitoring was appropriate, although the head of the BfV, Gerhard Boeden, clearly personally felt that the party was within the democratic threshold. The final decision about monitoring was to be taken by the Ständige Konferenz der Innenminister und -senatoren der Länder (IMK), of

120  Country case studies

which the federal Interior Minister is a member ex officio. In May 1989 Boeden stated that Die Republikaner had to reckon that they might be monitored. They were not to be classified as extremist, he said, yet they were on the extreme margin of the democratic spectrum and thus were not far removed from the threshold to extremism (SZ, 11 May 1989, p. 2).This perspective was repeated in an interview in June 1989. Reporting on the progress of the preliminary-monitoring stage, he said: Everything that we have so far been able to see in the statements of Die Republikaner’s leader, as well as of other party functionaries, has led us to the preliminary conclusion that, as far as we are concerned, they are at the extreme-right edge of the democratic party spectrum. (SZ, 16/17/18 June 1989, p. 12) The final decision about monitoring, based on the accumulated preliminary analysis of the BfV, was scheduled to be taken by the federal and regional authorities in September 1989, under the auspices of the IMK. Although North RhineWestphalia and Bremen decided around that time that they intended to monitor the party independently (even if Bremen soon changed its mind), the decision was postponed until November.At the November meeting of the IMK no common line emerged from the regional Interior Ministers because of the independent stance of North Rhine-Westphalia. The rest decided to await a further report intended to cover the results of preliminary monitoring by the BfV until the end of the year, before they made a decision, although the Schleswig-Holstein Interior Minister has said that the IMK had wanted a clear indication by the end of the year of the Federal Government’s view (Wenzel 1990[A], p. 95). However, the BfV did prepare a preliminary report dated 20 November 1989, since it was partly on the basis of this, as well as of its own research, that Hamburg decided to begin full monitoring in January 1990. In the event, the BfV’s promised final report still had not been delivered by late January 1990, apparently because the office was digesting the content of the new party programme, which had been unveiled by Schönhuber at a press conference in Bonn on 27 November 1989 amid much discussion of its deliberately moderate content and it was later debated and passed at the Die Republikaner conference at Rosenheim on 13–14 January 1990. It has been claimed by the SchleswigHolstein Interior Minister that in mid-December 1989 the BMI wrote to the regions suggesting that they should use the results of the North Rhine-Westphalia monitoring operation in order to decide their own policy. An additional report by the BfV on the new programme was not forthcoming in late January 1990, despite requests for it (Wenzel 1990[A], p. 95). The attitude of the BfV towards monitoring Die Republikaner became progressively dilatory as the urgency of this issue seemed to decline and, in a press release accompanying the launch of the 1990 report (BfV 1991) in mid-August 1991, they received no mention at all. Clearly, then, the BfV prevaricated in this matter and, given its importance as a lead-giver to the regions, it must bear a

State’s response to far-right extremism  121

substantial responsibility for the fact that Die Republikaner, equipped now with their Rosenheim programme, have escaped proper monitoring. However, the process of non-decision was reciprocal. While the BfV was clearly reluctant on its own account, it was buttressed in its negative approach by a complementary view among most of the regions, especially the CDU-controlled ones. Only Bavaria, CSU-controlled and exceptional because of Die Republikaner’s base there, departed from the standard orientation in the mainstream right – and, as we shall see, this was strictly temporary.

The regions and the monitoring of Die Republikaner In this section we examine seriatim the practices in this matter of the ten ‘old regions’ of the FRG, plus Berlin. This should be read in conjunction with the Appendix of the chapter, which lists the material on constitutional protection from 1989 to the present that was consulted in the course of its preparation.

Baden-Württemberg It was the president of the LfV in Baden-Württemberg, it will be recalled, who was one of the popularizers of the distinction between rechtsradikal and rechtsextremistisch, as applied to Die Republikaner. Thus, it is unsurprising that the region has not been involved in the debates about whether they should be monitored. The 1990 annual report does not mention Die Republikaner. The region’s Interior Ministry is content to note that the party is not considered extremist or hostile to the constitution and that its future evolution is to be kept under observation by the national government and the regions (Personal communication to the author from the Innenministerium Baden-Württemberg, 19 August 1991).

Bavaria The position of the Bavarian authorities towards Die Republikaner is especially crucial in the analysis of how the German state responded to their rise, since they were originally, as we saw, a Bavarian-based party; they sought to retreat back to this region in times of adversity, and (as in the June 1989 Euro-poll) it provided them with some of their best electoral performances. The CSU was the major loser to the success of Die Republikaner, so the former’s leaders feared. Thus, although there were a number of individual contributions in 1989 to a debate by members of the CSU in Bavaria and of the CDU in certain other regions about the suitability of Die Republikaner as coalition partners, the major orientation within the CSU eventually emerged during 1989 as opposition, after a certain ambiguity of response. Just over two weeks before the Euro-poll, the CSU published what was intended to be a full-frontal attack on Die Republikaner. The document, called Republikaner auf Radikalkurs (Republicans on a Radical Course) spoke of a ‘spiral of fanaticism’, use of ‘demeaning language’, ‘the spiral of violence’,

122  Country case studies

‘the fomenting of xenophobia’, and ‘neo-Nazi and extreme-right infiltration’ from groups such as the DVU–Liste D and the NPD (CSU 1989). A week or so later the Bavarian Interior Minister, Edmund Stoiber, announced that he had instructed the LfV to gather material about Die Republikaner from publicly accessible sources in order to gain information about the possibly unconstitutional goals of the party; observers would also attend their public gatherings (SZ, 8 June 1989, p. 24). Of course, Schönhuber was quick to say that the party had nothing to hide. The Süddeutsche Zeitung published an interview with Stoiber on 30 June 1989, in which he further justified his collecting material about Die Republikaner, saying that his preliminary-monitoring approach was consistent with what had been agreed at the meeting of the IMK in April of that year. However, at that stage he did not feel that the case for full monitoring had been proven (SZ, 30 June 1989, p. 15). The Bavarian LfV never switched to full monitoring but nonetheless must count among the regions that, at least for a time, conducted a genuine monitoring job on Die Republikaner, even if only as Vorprüfung. However, by mid-1991 the attitude of the authorities was markedly different. The region, originally among the keenest for pragmatic reasons to monitor Die Republikaner, gave them an official imprimatur of democratic health with the publication of the 1990 report of the region’s LfV – though at the press conference and press release announcing the report’s publication and not in its actual text. The relevant paragraph of the press release, dated 26 June 1991, stated confidently: Concerning Die Republikaner party, the Interior Minister reported that careful analysis had failed to confirm the originally held suspicion that the aim of Die Republikaner could possibly be directed against the liberal democratic order. Extremist positions were absent from the new programme, from the party’s practice, and from the composition of its personnel, which had in the meantime been purged. Any cooperation with the NPD or DVU was categorically rejected and had not yet been substantiated. Stoiber explained this altogether positive development by the fact that two years ago Bavaria was one of the first regions to decide on, and publicly announce, the introduction of a test process against this party. In summary, the Interior Minister concluded:‘There is no longer any reasonable ground for continuing the test process, at least in Bavaria.’ This complacent attitude was a long way removed from the tone of Republikaner auf Radikalkurs of 1989 and two SPD regional parliament deputies, Klaus Hahnzog and Peter Paul Gantzer, called this exoneration of Die Republikaner a partisan and opportunistically calculated whitewash (a Persilschein, the term once used colloquially for a denazification certificate). A year earlier, they said, Die Republikaner had been competitors for votes with the CSU but subsequently at the local level they had frequently become much-needed ‘majority-makers’ for the party, so that they could no longer be marginalized (SZ, 29/30 June 1991, p. 25).11 It might even be argued that the CSU wanted to remove the stigma of implied unconstitutionality from

State’s response to far-right extremism  123

Die Republikaner in part to discourage defections from their groupings in some local councils in Bavaria that had hitherto buttressed CSU minority control. Certainly, there have been several occasions in local politics in Bavaria when current or defecting Republikaner councillors have assumed a strategic significance, even if the circumstances have varied. Sometimes departures out of the party of councillors originally elected as Republikaner produced some uncertainty in conventional alliances. In May 1991 two members of the previously six-member Republikaner group on the Augsburg City Council (a city where Die Republikaner had been particularly successful) resigned to become members of the Freie BürgerUnion (FB-U). Thereupon, Die Republikaner had to give up their seat in all the council’s committees to a so-called Fraktion der Mitte (FM), which grew from three to five members with the arrival of the Republikaner defectors.The CSU had been particularly concerned by these defections because, with only twenty-seven votes in a council of sixty, it had relied almost blindly on the support of the six Republikaner to provide a majority against an alliance of SPD, the Greens, and the FM. This had been despite a decision of the local CSU organization taken in July 1989 that there should be no cooperation between the CSU and Die Republikaner in party affairs or in local politics (SZ, 29/30 May 1991, p. 27). Sometimes, on the other hand, the CSU had an interest in wanting to discourage Die Republikaner from supporting the opposition. Thus, in a controversy about the planning of an industrial site in the Munich suburb of Taufkirchen, the single Republikaner on the municipal council became the strategic vote in the decision by the SPD, the FDP, and two independents to favour the project (SZ, 26 July 1991, p. 19). In the Munich City Council Die Republikaner were saying by May 1991 that they felt themselves no longer marginalized (SZ, 14 May 1991, p. 13).

Berlin Berlin might be thought to have a special interest in the affairs of Die Republikaner, since it was the location of the party’s first major success outside Bavaria. However, after the January 1989 election, its significance in the city quickly waned. Its seven members of the House of Deputies revealed themselves as inadequate for the job; the party became engaged in major internal controversy that led to resignations and revelations of internal irregularities, including in April 1989 the resignation of its deputy leader, Alexandra Fiche; its one-time head in Berlin, Bernard Andres, revealed himself to be of dubious mental stability, was expelled and then attempted to found a new party. The Berlin LfV felt no great need to devote specific attention to Die Republikaner, merely following the test-case practice of most of the regions. The LfV’s press release of 25 March 1990 describes its activities in categories used more widely by the annual reports of the BfV and the other LfVs. Nowhere are Die Republikaner mentioned in it. Instead, the Berlin regional organization of the party was treated as a test case by the city’s LfV, but no actual criteria emerged within the

124  Country case studies

jurisdiction of the office for concluding that the party was engaging in ‘activities against the liberal democratic order’ in the sense of Article 2 (Para. 1, No. 1) of the law concerning the Protection of the Constitution (Personal communication from the Berlin LfV, 12 August 1991). Indeed, the Berlin SPD Senator for Interior Affairs, Erich Patzold, had told the November 1989 meeting of the IMK that in Berlin Die Republikaner consisted essentially of former CDU members and so it would therefore be ‘frivolous to consider them as anything other than a right-wing conservative party’ (SZ, 4/5 November 1989, p. 6).

Bremen Bremen has an analogous interest in the extreme right since the success there of the DVU–Liste D in the September 1987 regional parliament elections. However, Die Republikaner have not been the objects of any specific initiative by Bremen. In early October 1989 it was announced that, like North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen would independently monitor Die Republikaner; however, this announcement was later withdrawn and Bremen decided to wait for agreement on an all-regional policy on monitoring (SZ, 21 November 1989, p. 6), which of course never came. The publication of the Senator für Inneres (1989[A]), published in September, was a wide-ranging document that contained some material on Bremen, as well as the rest of the FRG, but being concerned only with the period until the end of 1987, it omitted any mention of Die Republikaner, who had in fact themselves stood in the September 1987 election there, coming well below DVU–Liste D with only 1.2 per cent of votes cast.

Hamburg The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, now controlled by the SPD, is one of the three regions that have moved beyond the test-case position and have conducted a further monitoring of Die Republikaner. However, the actual decision to do so was made relatively late, on 4 January 1990, in the light of the Hamburg LfV’s interpretation of some preliminary analysis of Die Republikaner conducted by the BfV and presented on 20 November 1989 to the regions, although preliminary monitoring had apparently begun in September 1989. As we saw, the 1989 annual report of the BfV did not mention Hamburg as a region formally monitoring Die Republikaner during 1989. The statement announcing formal monitoring began: At the conclusion of a long test phase, in which the question of the unconstitutional aims of Die Republikaner party was paramount, the conclusion can be drawn that this party in Hamburg pursues right-wing extremist aims. The case for this conclusion was based on the declared racism and völkisch character of Die Republikaner’s ideology, as well as their disdain for internal and external

State’s response to far-right extremism  125

democracy. The publicly available results of the monitoring process are a series of lengthy but unpublished documents giving a wide range of information concerning the party (see Appendix), in Hamburg but mostly in the country as a whole. Frequent focuses of interest have been their electoral performances, internal party developments, and their problematic relationships to the NPD, DVU, and neo-Nazi groups. As well as focusing on activities by Die Republikaner in Hamburg, there were reports from April 1990 about the party in the GDR. In May 1991, perhaps in anticipation of the decision of the Bavarian LfV to discontinue any monitoring of Die Republikaner, the Hamburg office was moved to defend its own continuing monitoring policy. Of course, it is entirely possible that the activities of a party are unambiguously extremist and deserving of monitoring in one region, whereas they are more moderate in another. It might be thought that this could be especially a possibility with Die Republikaner, given that they are Bavarian-based and thus the national leadership doubtless has more control over what happens in that region than perhaps elsewhere. However, Hamburg’s case in 1991 for continued monitoring was based on its interpretation of the evolution of the party at the national level, not specifically on what was happening in Hamburg. Developments that had purportedly impressed the Bavarian authorities and drawn them to the view that the party had purged itself of suspicions of extremism – the content of the new programme, Schönhuber’s ultimately successful run-in with the one-time NPD activist, Harald Neubauer, formerly head of the Bavarian organization, as well as former’s expressed desire to avoid the stigma of an extremist label in order not to risk electoral loss – were interpreted by the Hamburg office as mere ideological camouflage. It is conceded that ‘the variable treatment of Die Republikaner shows the plurality of interpretations of the “liberal democratic order” or rather the plurality ofassessments of supposed infractions against it’. However, the author concludes: Anyone who allows political analysis to supplement legalistic examination must come away with the impression that a wide chasm separates Die Republikaner from the spectrum of the liberal democratic parties, whilst only a very narrow ridge separates them, if at all, from right-wing extremism. (LfV, unpublished document, May 1991 [A])

Hesse Hesse has followed the majority position and has taken no initiative in monitoring Die Republikaner. The preface to its 1989 annual report states: The present report concerns itself only with groupings that are objects of monitoring by the Hesse LfV. It therefore contains no statements about Die Republikaner party, which is (still) treated as a test case by the federal constitution-protection authorities and those of most of the other regions.

126  Country case studies

It continues: However, the LfV in no way closes its eyes where they [Die Republikaner] are concerned but collects publicly available material about them and examines it for possible hostility to the constitution. In the preface of the Hesse LfV report for 1990 is merely restated the position of a year earlier in the briefest possible terms: ‘Die Republikaner continue to be treated as a “test case”; however, their significance is greatly reduced’ – the implication seeming to be that their less elevated circumstances justified the passage of a full year without any final decision on the outcome of the test-case procedure.

Lower Saxony The situation in Lower Saxony with regard to monitoring Die Republikaner is similar to that in Hesse.

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia is of interest because it was the first region that decided fully to monitor Die Republikaner. Like Hamburg, its regional government is­ SPD-controlled. Back in June 1989, the SPD leader in the North Rhine-Westphalia regional parliament, Friedhelm Farthmann, was calling for monitoring of the party by the constitution-protection authorities, describing Die Republikaner as being ‘at the limit of unconstitutionality’ (SZ, 22 June 1989, p. 6). Farthmann repeated this call in September 1989, saying that ‘it was no longer sufficient just to collect newspaper clippings’. Even as late as this, he was purportedly against North RhineWestphalia as a single region fully monitoring alone. At the same time, the SPD premier of the region, Johannes Rau, apparently opposed any monitoring (SZ, 13 September 1989, p. 7). Of course, such opposition to monitoring, either as­ go-it-alone or at all, may have been a strategic ploy to discourage other regions from being content to allow North Rhine-Westphalia to do the lion’s share of the hard work involved. However, fears expressed by some in the regional SPD that the CDU there would use Die Republikaner as coalition partners proved groundless. After some inconclusive results in local elections in October 1989, there were no moves by the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia to form alliances with Die Republikaner; instead, a number of other coalition combinations were universally favoured (SZ, 21/22 October 1989, p. 5). As we shall see, this rather contrasts with what happened in Rhineland-Palatinate. At the November 1989 meeting of the IMK, Herbert Schnoor, the region’s Interior Minister, had justified his go-it-alone position by arguing that there were dedicated neo-Nazis in leadership posts in his region (SZ, 4/5 November 1989, p. 6).

State’s response to far-right extremism  127

The LfV’s descriptions of Die Republikaner do not mince words, as we shall see. In any case, itself suggestive of a rather different orientation in this region towards the extreme right is that the section on these phenomena precedes that on those about the extreme left in the annual reports of its LfV. In the 1989 annual report, in the section on right-wing extremism, it states that, on the matter of Die Republikaner, it can be confirmed that an examination of generally available sources carried out since the spring of 1989 has produced indications of suspect activities in the sense of Article 3, Para. 1 (No. 1) of the constitution-protection law of North Rhine-Westphalia. Thus, ‘a systematic monitoring of the regional organization [of Die Republikaner] has therefore been conducted since 30 September 1989’. In justifying this policy, the text itself argued that there is a fluid boundary between, on the one hand, statements that are aggressively nationalistic and that attack foreigners and, on the other, the baiting of foreigners in a manner hostile to the constitution, like the denial of human rights guaranteed in the Basic Law. The specific reasons for the monitoring were, besides the nature of the people making up the regional leadership, the recognizable tendencies expressed in the programme, other written material and various announcements, which were directed against the central principles of the liberal democratic order, particularly human rights embedded in the Basic Law. In addition, the party was said to exercise a strong suction-effect on supporters of the established extreme-right organizations, such as the NPD and DVU. The North Rhine-Westphalia authorities were unimpressed by the party’s new programme. Although this ‘is concerned to remove doubts about the constitutionality of Die Republikaner, nothing has changed in terms of actual goals and the behaviour of its supporters’ (LfV 1990[A], p. 20). The LfV’s report for 1990, offering more detail, claimed that, despite the new programme, the reasons for suspicion of extreme-right activities had actually strengthened. They now included: defamatory comments about representatives of democratic institutions; xenophobia directed against human rights embedded in the Basic Law; contacts with representatives of extreme-right organizations; agitation against the so-called re-education of the German people by the victorious powers; undemocratic practices inside the party; the filling of party posts by persons with extreme-right backgrounds. In fact, the elections at the regional party conference in August 1990 were declared null and void because they violated party rules and had to be rerun at another such conference two months later.

128  Country case studies

Rhineland-Palatinate In March 1989 the CDU Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Carl-Ludwig Wagner, caused some stir, both within the CDU/CSU and elsewhere, by his suggestion that Die Republikaner might be suitable coalition partners for the CDU. Although he was forced to withdraw his remarks, they are a clear indication about how he, and doubtless others in this region, were thinking (SZ, 17 March 1989, p. 1). In June 1989 in a series of local elections, the SPD overtook the CDU in share of the vote for the first time in this region; Die Republikaner, though offering candidates in only some locations, won sufficient seats to be a force and deprived the CDU of a former absolute majority in at least one municipality. Despite adjurations from Helmut Kohl that the CDU should not deal with Die Republikaner, one local CDU official was willing to do so in order to secure a majority (SZ, 23 June 1989, p. 1). Thus, in Rhineland-Palatinate there were certainly some in the CDU prepared to regard Die Republikaner as democratically respectable and this doubtless had a bearing on the low-key approach adopted there towards monitoring them. Rhineland-Palatinate is also one of the regions that does not feel Die Republikaner merit formal monitoring.The matter was dismissed in a footnote in the 1989 annual report, which does attract additional interest, as it contains a further perspective on the word rechtsradikal. The right-wing radical (rechtsradikal) (the political standpoint on the most extreme-right limit of the democratic spectrum) Republikaner party won 7.1 per cent of the votes and so six seats [in the European Parliament election]. … Since March 1989 the Rhineland-Palatinate LfV has been examining whether Die Republikaner are pursuing aims hostile to the constitution. The material for this examination is generally accessible information and documents. The currently demonstrable facts are not so far sufficient, according to the common view of the national government and the regions, to classify Die Republikaner as right-wing extremist. Only North RhineWestphalia and Hamburg, because of their specific circumstances, conduct monitoring using intelligence methods. (LfV 1990[A], p. 84) The 1990 annual report, published in April 1991, did not mention Die Republikaner at all.

Saarland There are apparently no specific monitoring activities concerning Die Republikaner in Saarland; the Appendix to this chapter summarizes relevant information available about this region.

State’s response to far-right extremism  129

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein, SPD-controlled since 1988, offers an interesting case, where full monitoring was seriously considered, where a form of monitoring going beyond the test-case phase was implemented, but where the intelligence-gathering paraphernalia of full monitoring were not employed. In early 1990 Hans Peter Bull, the regional Interior Minister, was highly vocal about the unconstitutionality of Die Republikaner. In Wenzel (1990[A], pp. 57–8), published early in the year, it was stated that, on the basis of examining publicly accessible material, there were a series of indications of clearly right-wing extremist tendencies that could justify the suspicion that Die Republikaner were also pursuing aims that were hostile to the constitution. This assertion was supported by a number of relevant quotations.Then, in his contribution on 24 January 1990 in the regional parliament to a debate on right-wing extremism in Schleswig-Holstein, Bull repeated his belief that there was a case for monitoring, perhaps with full intelligence methods; however, ‘this is not a basic matter of for or against’, he said, ‘it is a matter of practicality’. The region was awaiting the final decision of the BfV, which had allowed itself to be stalled by the appearance of the new draft party programme in November 1989. Bull clearly regarded this as dodging the issue, there being plenty in the evidence still available to show that the new programme had changed little of the character of the party. Schleswig-Holstein, he continued, would make its own decision about monitoring, irrespective of the federal position, although it was not inclined to use full intelligence-gathering procedures (such as agents), which were clearly too demanding on LfV resources and whose advantages in this context could be exaggerated (Wenzel 1990[A], pp. 94–6). The decision on formal monitoring, by methods that were usually reserved for test-case investigations, was announced on 8 February 1990 in a press conference. Bull’s statement to the gathering was additionally interesting because it offered a list of justifying criteria, several of which were more critical even than those in the Hamburg or North Rhine-Westphalia statements on Die Republikaner: seeking to establish a Volksgemeinschaft that places the ‘people as a whole’ above the rights of the individual: exaggerated nationalism and extreme xenophobia; defamation of other political parties and so expressing a basic hostility to democracy; insufficiently distancing itself from the National Socialist regime and the latter’s crimes; considerable similarity with groups hostile to the constitution such as the NPD and DVU, in political demands as well as in membership composition (e.g., former NPD members who were Republikaner officers). Yet, although the principle of genuine monitoring has been accepted in Schleswig-Holstein, the use of only test-case methodology has doubtless meant that the emergent data are necessarily relatively superficial and of a type that any conscientious private researcher could equally well have accumulated. Thus, by 1991 the issue in Schleswig-Holstein lacked the same urgency and importance, symptomatic of which may be that Bull’s 1991 press release on the LfV’s activities, dated 21 March, did not mention Die Republikaner at all!

130  Country case studies

Variations in orientations towards monitoring: possible determinants The whole question of whether Die Republikaner merited monitoring for their alleged unconstitutionality raises some embarrassing questions, even for those regions that did consider them so meriting and did (or do) conduct monitoring. After the party was founded in 1983, it was by 1987 active outside Bavaria with an ideology not very different from the one it held when it started coming to the serious attention of constitution-protection authorities. Yet, only after the Berlin success did Die Republikaner become the object in official circles of a debate about monitoring. In any case, one must raise the question whether it is possible to be systematic in seeking to explain the apparently different interpretations by the various regions about how Die Republikaner were to be treated. Certainly, the three regions where monitoring beyond test-case status has been conducted were and are SPD-controlled, although they are not the only ones with that political character. Moreover, recent electoral defeats of the CDU or of coalitions in which they were the senior partner have not led to any immediate changes of practice towards monitoring Die Republikaner. Also, although it could be thought that different circumstances in different regions might dictate variable approaches towards monitoring, it has already been seen that this position is difficult to substantiate for all cases in view of the nature of Hamburg’s reasoning behind its continued formal monitoring. One could accept that there may have been, or may be, some genuine marginality about Die Republikaner’s status according to the conventional criteria, given that there can be varying interpretations about precisely what constitutes an infraction of the ‘liberal democratic order’. In that case, it may be that specific significant individuals in certain offices adopt interpretations that are more ‘strictconstructionist’ – for example, by insisting on the fulfilment of all, or nearly all, possible criteria, or by regarding the meeting of certain ones as more crucial than the meeting of others. The fact that SPD-controlled North Rhine-Westphalia began full monitoring on 30 September 1989, independently of the BMI and of the other regions, when only two weeks earlier the SPD leader in the regional parliament had opposed a go-it-alone policy and the SPD premier had spoken against any monitoring, suggests the importance of specific individuals in the LfV or regional Interior Ministry. Still, this rather ad hoc argument has to recognize the conditional significance of the political complexion of the region’s government and, even if it has any merit in explaining why, exceptionally, only three of ten LfV offices were drawn to formal monitoring, it scarcely accounts for the change of heart seen in Bavaria after earlier suspicions about the constitutionality of the party had been publicly stated (in mid-1989) in the most forthright terms. Of course, Die Republikaner could have ‘become’ constitutional, achieving a state of grace in their maturity through their new 1990 programme after an adolescence of reprobation! As we saw, however, this argument cut little ice with the non-CSU mainstream

State’s response to far-right extremism  131

parties in Bavaria and, in view of the still widely-held agnosticism about the present constitutional status of Die Republikaner, the action of the Bavarian authorities looks premature; to that extent, it does have the taint of political pragmatism.

The German state and the future of Die Republikaner In late 1991 it seems to be felt by most regions and by the Federal Government – whether justified or not – that whether or not Die Republikaner should be monitored is now less urgent; the Hesse LfV annual report for 1990 had more or less said as much. The party has been in a downward spiral almost since its success in the Euro-election of June 1989 and, as said already, there have been the damaging public divisions among the leadership.12 Die Republikaner now look less threatening, as innumerable defections, of both small fry and larger fish, have harmed the party. For example, a Republikaner councillor in the Munich City Council recently left his party for a new splinter party, the Deutsche Liga für Volk und Heimat (DLVH) (SZ, 20 September 1991, p. 15). More significantly, the former regional leader in Schleswig-Holstein,Thomas Schröder, along with two deputy leaders, resigned in August 1991 and left the party, citing as the reason ‘long-standing quarrels and arguments’ within it (SZ, 5 August 1991, p. 5). Various local examples of reversion to the CSU could also be mentioned. It is now the left rather than the right that attracts new initiatives from the national and regional constitution-protection authorities. Although the policy may have changed since the arrival in power of an SPD-Green coalition, the thenCDU-controlled office in Hesse was, for example, doing preliminary monitoring of the Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS), the successor party to the former GDR’s Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), although only as a precautionary measure and without a formal decision that it is unconstitutional and extremist (SZ, 15 March 1991, p. 5). However, Wolfgang Schäuble has declared himself against monitoring of the PDS on a country-wide basis, as had been demanded by the Bavarian Premier Max Streibl,13 and against its proscription (SZ, 8/9 May 1991, p. 2). Bavaria’s LfV has been active in the new region of Saxony, but not to concern itself with Die Republikaner but to unearth information on former MfS agents active in Bavaria (SZ, 19 April 1991, p. 2) and, along with the office of Baden-Württemberg, to assist in establishing a constitution-protection office in Saxony (SZ, 13/14 April 1991, p. 2). In July 1991 Die Republikaner had no difficulty in receiving permission for a regional meeting and demonstration in Leipzig on 20 July by the Saxony branch. Leipzig’s legal officer, Hans-Eberhard Gemkow was quoted as saying: ‘Die Republikaner are a constitutional party and have assured that they will see to the orderly running of both events with their own stewards’ (SZ, 15 July 1991, p. 5). Still, this gathering was less than a spectacular success, attracting nothing like the thousand anticipated participants.

132  Country case studies

Where the trend is not towards monitoring the left and rooting out MfS agents, constitution-protection developments in the regions, and nationally, vary; the activities of Die Republikaner do not feature in reasons given for making changes. Thus, in Schleswig-Holstein constitutional protection has recently been made more accountable (SZ, 28 February 1991, p. 1) and the number of employees of the LfV has been dramatically reduced in the light of the changed security situation since the collapse of the GDR. For the same reason the new SPD-Green coalition in Lower Saxony reduced the number of employees in its LfV from 406 to 248 on assuming power from the CDU-FDP coalition (SZ, 7 March 1991, p. 6). At the time of the [first] Gulf War it was suggested that the national office should receive the additional duties of monitoring firms making illegal exports of arms, nuclear materials, or dangerous chemicals (SZ, 29 January 1991, p. 2), and there have also been suggestions that it should seek information on drug-dealing. However, when the former president of the BfV retired (subsequently to appear as head of a commission for reorganizing the Berlin LfV), his successor, Eckart Werthebach, announced that his principal tasks, as he saw them, were fighting terrorism and conducting counter-espionage. Die Republikaner, or similar organizations, were not mentioned and he said that ‘he could not at present think that the government or Parliament would transfer additional tasks’ to his office (SZ, 21 February 1991, p. 2). In a later interview Werthebach was content that the office continue as it had in the past; he explicitly opposed the additional tasks of monitoring illegal exports and drug-handling.The emphasis of most of Werthebach’s comments was on the status quo; internal dangers came from the left, or rather the so-called ‘new left’ and from the persistence of covert networks of former MfS agents. Right-wing extremism was certainly mentioned by Werthebach – although in the former GDR, about which he was agnostic on the matter of numbers. Die Republikaner (even if not fully monitored), along with the NPD and DVU, may have been intended to be covered by his following comment: For the old part of the Federal Republic I can say that 1989 was the peak for the right-wing extremists and that this peak has declined since unification. When I look at the most recent election results of the extreme right, I find that I can sleep very much more soundly. (SZ, 9/10 March 1991, p. 10) Whether or not Die Republikaner were intended to be covered by this comment, it does not seem that monitoring the extreme right (except for neo-Nazism in the new regions) is going to be conducted by the competent authorities as thoroughly as some of their other concerns. Unless Die Republikaner ‘take off ’ again, this time in the east, they are unlikely to attract much inquisitiveness from the German authorities. However, it may be of interest to note that, at a recent press conference by the Bundeskriminalamt giving data on attacks on foreigners in the Federal Republic, Die Republikaner were apparently bracketed with the NPD as ‘rechtsextrem’ and accused of contributing to the present xenophobic climate (SZ, 24 October 1991, p. 2).

State’s response to far-right extremism  133

A take-off by Die Republikaner does still seem a somewhat unlikely possibility, although – given the hostile state of contemporary German emotions, in both east and west, about foreigners and asylum-seekers, as well as the increased cynicism in the east towards the parties of the mainstream right – it clearly cannot be precluded. After all, one competitor of Die Republikaner on the extreme right, the DVU– Liste D, has recently resurrected itself. In the Bremen regional parliament elections on 29 September 1991 it improved on its performance in September 1987 to win 6.2 per cent of the votes overall and six seats; in the port of Bremerhaven, its base within the region of Bremen, it won 10.3 per cent in the simultaneous election to the town council, making it the third-strongest party. Much of its gain was apparently at the expense of the SPD, which lost its overall majority. The issue of asylum-seekers in the Federal Republic gives ample material for racist propaganda.

Notes 1 The left-liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung is the major journalistic source of material for this chapter. 2 On the case of Thuringia, see SZ, 22 April 1991, p. 5. 3 The 1990 Report, the first covering events in both West and East Germany, was published only in mid-August 1991; the 1989 Report was the most recently available when most of the work on this chapter was being done. 4 This document exists as the reference cited for it, but it has proved impossible to trace any copy, either in British libraries or in the Deutsche National-Bibliothek. It is particularly interesting as a source for this discussion because Eduard Wald (1905–78) was a journalist and former Communist, later SPD, politician who had been an active anti-Nazi and had been imprisoned by the Nazi regime from 1937 till his release in 1945. The concern of the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB) in Lower Saxony and Bremen about this issue and at this time is unsurprising since it was in Lower Saxony that the SRP secured 11.0 per cent in regional Landtag elections in May 1951; later, in October 1951, it won 7.7 per cent in Bremen. Both results were sufficient to give the SRP representation in the respective legislatures. 5 Frederik’s book is a listing of extreme-right phenomena in Germany since 1945; he cites no academic literature, though the book contains an interesting discussion of the stages of post-war development of the German extreme right, Fetscher does frequently put rechtsradikal in quotation-mark equivalents, as though still regarding it as an oxymoronic neologism. Hirsch presents an Appendix of Rechtsorientierte und Rechtsradikale Organisationen, 1946–1966. 6 Not all social-science sources in which one would expect an entry on Rechtsradikalismus do contain one.There is no reference to it in von Beckerath et al. (1964). Hartfiel (1976) gives a conventional definition, but nothing on its first use in German, and his earliest reference is Knütter (1961). 7 Interestingly, the word rechtsradikal has caused difficulties for some bilingual dictionarycompilers seeking an English-language equivalent to offer to their conventional users not versed in the intricacies of social science’s analysis of extreme-right phenomena. Most have apparently felt that ‘right-radical’ or ‘right-wing radical’ would not be accurate and might be puzzling for many users.The German-English volume of Wildhagen’s English-German German-English Dictionary (1st edition, 1953, and later editions) was almost certainly the first German-English dictionary by several years to include rechtsradikal, which it

134  Country case studies

translated by the inelegant ‘rightist’ – not really appropriate since this, unlike ‘leftist’, has scarcely ever been an English usage. The German-English section of Langenscheidt’s Concise German Dictionary (7th edition, 1965) also offers ‘rightist’ and for linksradikal has the complementary ‘leftist’ and, more unflatteringly, ‘red’, though neither is wholly satisfactory since ‘leftist’ and certainly ‘red’ have pejorative connotations in English that linksradikal does not quite have in German. Linksradikal would also often be used in German political science, whereas ‘leftist’ would seldom be used in writing of equivalent status in English. Harrap’s Standard German and English Dictionary (1975) variously gives ‘of the extreme right’, ‘extreme rightist’, and, best, ‘right-wing extremist’ for the noun. The update of the famous Muret-Sanders dictionary, Langenscheidt’s Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the English and German Languages, updated in 1974 and published in 1975, also opted for a more meaningful translation of rechtsradikal as ‘right-extremist’, though for the noun Rechtsradikale it opted for ‘right (or Right) extremist’ and ‘extremist of the Right’. The editor of this work was an American and his translation perhaps reflects that, by 1975 and before, ‘right-wing extremism’ was emerging as a recognized usage in American social science (e.g., Lipset and Raab 1970). Harrap’s Concise German and English Dictionary (1982) offers the conflation rechtsradikal/rechtsextremistisch [sic, not minding alphabetical ordering] and translates them as ‘with radical/extreme right-wing views’; one wonders whether the former would have been understood by the lay reader unless in the context of its juxtaposition with the latter.The Oxford–Duden German Dictionary (1990) is one of the few to give an almost direct translation of rechtsradikal; its offering, an unsatisfactory one, is ‘radical right-wing’, a translation maintained in its later editions. 8 As Lipset says, the real intellectual origin of the concept, if not the label, was perhaps Hofstadter’s notion of ‘pseudo-conservatism’ in his 1955 essay, ‘The pseudo-conservative revolt’ (Hofstadter 1964 [1963], pp. 75–95), which had been written in 1954 (Hofstadter 1965, pp. 41–2). 9 References to material listed in the Appendix of this chapter are shown by a bracketed ‘A’ after the year of publication. 10 Most, but not all, social scientists writing on Die Republikaner have been less concerned explicitly to assess the legalistic question of whether the party’s aims and ideology are hostile to the constitution and therefore merit its being monitored. Backes (1990), who offers a good summary account of the history and character of the party, calls them ‘nationalist’, ‘populist’, and ‘ultra-conservative’, but eschews ‘extremist’. He claims that the party’s newspaper, Der Republikaner, is more moderate than those of the DVU or NPD, except that some of its advertisements hark back to the National Socialist past. Yet, most of the writers in the now voluminous literature on Die Republikaner or on Schönhuber do not hesitate to think of them and him as extremist. See, for example, Hirsch and Sarkowicz 1989; Leggewie 1989; Müller 1989; Stöss 1989; Hirsch 1990; Leggewie 1990. Stöss (1990, pp. 81–6) directly addresses the question whether Die Republikaner are right-wing extremist, which he answers strongly in the positive, rejecting an absolute distinction between a social-scientific and legalistic definition of right-wing extremism. For a wider discussion of the issue of extremism and its treatment in democratic societies, see Backes (1989). 11 The Greens and the FDP were equally critical of the decision to discontinue monitoring of Die Republikaner, which – as might be expected – this party greeted as a ‘longoverdue declaration’ that their party was not unconstitutional and as a ‘resounding slap in the face’ for all those politicians, trade unionists and journalists who ‘sought to discredit Die Republikaner with their constant accusations of alleged right-wing extremism’ (SZ, 29/30 June 1991, p. 25).

State’s response to far-right extremism  135

12 The German state, in addition to debating the monitoring question, has at the same time engaged in small acts of routine harassment against Die Republikaner, although none can count as serious or surprising. In mid-1989, just after his success in the Euro-poll, Schönhuber was accused of fraud and malfeasance in connection with election costs in the Bavarian Regional Parliament election nearly three years earlier in October 1986, an action later suspended for lack of evidence (SZ, 22/23 September 1989, p. 2). In March 1991 the Election Committee of the Bavarian Regional Parliament threw out all individual complaints, made at the instigation of Die Republikaner, about incidents to their alleged detriment in the Regional Parliament election in October 1990, when with 4.9 per cent of votes cast they were 16,333 short of what was needed to overcome the 5 per cent hurdle. Some claimed irregularities were proven among the twenty purported incidents but these were not sufficient to invalidate the election. One complainant, who produced an elaborate and convoluted story of alleged vote fraud, courted prosecution for perjury (SZ, 20 March 1991, p. 21). Die Republikaner later sought unsuccessfully to persuade the Bavarian Constitutional Court to order a recount, claiming some votes for them had been declared invalid for insufficient reason (SZ, 25 April 1991, p. 26). Even defecting Republikaner had their problems; some who tried to set up a new party with the name Deutsche Allianz (DAL) were deterred from using this name by threat of legal action from the Allianz Versicherung, an insurance company (SZ, 16 July 1991, p. 2). 13 In fact, the Bavarian LfV, like that in Hesse, has been doing its own monitoring of the PDS, a practice condemned by the regional Greens as ‘idiotic snooping’ (SZ, 29/30 June 1991, p. 25).

References Backes, Uwe. 1989. Politischer Extremismus in demokratischen Verfassungsstaaten: Elemente einer normativen Rahmentheorie. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Backes, Uwe. 1990. ‘The West German Republikaner: profile of a nationalist, populist party of protest’, Patterns of Prejudice, 24(1), 3–18. Backes, Uwe, and Jesse, Eckhard. 1985. Totalitarismus Extremismus Terrorismus: Ein Literaturführer und Wegweiser zur Extremismusforschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. 2nd updated and expanded ed.; Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Bell, Daniel (ed.). 1955. The New American Right. New York: Criterion Books. Bell, Daniel (ed.). 1962 [1960]. The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties. New, rev. ed.; New York: Collier Books. Bell, Daniel (ed.). 1964 [1963]. The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company. BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz). 1989. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1988. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. BfV. 1991. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1990. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. BMI (Bundesministerium des Innern). 1962–6. Erfahrungen aus der Beobachtung und Abwehr rechtsradikaler und antisemitischer Tendenzen. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. BMI. 1989. Bundesministerium des Innern: Geschichte, Organisation, Aufgaben. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. Bossle, Lothar. 1975. ‘Soziologie und Psychologie des Radikalismusphänomens in der Politik’, Politische Studien, 220, 113–22. Bracher, Karl Dietrich. 1956. ‘Rechtsradikalismus in der Bundesrepublik’, Colloquium: Zeitschrift der Freien Studenten Berlins, 10(2), 9–11; 10(3), 10–11.

136  Country case studies

Büsch, Otto, and Furth, Peter. 1957. Rechtsradikalismus im Nachkriegsdeutschland: Studien über die ‘Sozialistische Reichspartei’ (SRP). Berlin and Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Franz Vablen GmbH. CDU (Christlich-Demokratische Union). 1989. Die REP: Analyse und politische Bewertung einer rechtsradikalen Partei. Bonn: Christlich-Demokratische Union. CSU (Christlich-Soziale Union). 1989. Republikaner auf Radikalkurs. Munich: ChristlichSoziale Union. Fetscher, Iring (ed.). 1967. Rechtsradikalismus. 2nd ed.; Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. Frederik, Hans. 1964. Die Rechtsradikalen. Munich: Humboldt-Verlag. Günsche, Karl-Ludwig, and Lantermann, Klaus. 1979. Verbieten Aussperren Diffamieren: Hundert Jahre Sozialistengesetz und verwandte Praktiken. 2nd ed.; Cologne: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. Hartfiel, Günter. 1976. Wörterbuch der Soziologie. 2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag. Hirsch, Kurt. 1967. Kommen die Nazis wieder? Gefahren für die Bundesrepublik. Munich:Verlag Kurt Desch. Hirsch, Kurt. 1990. Rechts REPs Rechts: Aktuelles Handbuch zur rechtsextremen Szene. Berlin: Elefanten Press. Hirsch, Kurt, and Sarkowicz, Hans. 1989. Schönhuber: Der Politiker und seine Kreise. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag. Hofstadter, Richard. 1964 [1963].‘The pseudo-conservative revolt’. Pp. 75–95 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right:The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company. Hofstadter, Richard. 1965. ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ and Other Essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Husbands, Christopher T. 1991. ‘Militant neo-Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s’. Pp. 86–119 in Luciano Cheles, Ronald Ferguson, and Michalina Vaughan (eds.), Neo-Fascism in Europe. Harlow: Longman. Jenke, Manfred. 1961. Verschwörung von Rechts? Ein Bericht über den Rechtsradikalismus in Deutschland nach 1945. Berlin: Colloquium Verlag. Jenke, Manfred. 1967. Die Nationale Rechte: Parteien, Politiker, Publizisten. Berlin: Colloquium Verlag. Knütter, Hans-Helmuth. 1961. Ideologien des Rechtsradikalismus im Nachkriegsdeutschland: Eine Studie über die Nachwirkungen des Nationalsozialismus. Bonn: Ludwig Röhrscheid Verlag. Kühnl, Reinhard. 1968.‘Der Rechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik: Ein Literaturbericht’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft, 9(3), 423–42. Leggewie, Claus. 1989. Die Republikaner: Phantombild der Neuen Rechten. 2nd ed.; Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag. Leggewie, Claus. 1990. Die Republikaner: Ein Phantom nimmt Gestalt an. Fully revised and expanded new ed.; Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag. Liepelt, Claus. 1967. ‘Anhänger der neuen Rechtspartei: Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion über das Wählerreservoir der NPD’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft, 8(2), 237–71. Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1964a [1963]. ‘The sources of the “radical right” (1955)’. Pp. 307–71 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company. A rather different version, entitled ‘The radical right: a problem for American democracy’, had appeared in the British Journal of Sociology, 6(2) (1955), 176–209.

State’s response to far-right extremism  137

Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1964b [1963]. ‘Three decades of the radical right: Coughlinites, McCarthyites, and Birchers (1962)’. Pp. 373–446 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/ Doubleday & Company. Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Raab, Earl. 1970. The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790–1970. New York: Harper & Row. LNDGB (Landesbezirksvorstand Niedersachsen des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes). 1951. Zur Entwicklung des Rechts- und Linksradikalismus in Niedersachsen und Bremen, Übersicht I (November). Hanover: Landesbezirksvorstand Niedersachsen des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes. Maier, Hans, and Bott, Hermann. 1968. Die NPD: Struktur und Ideologie einer ‘nationalen Rechtspartei’. 2nd ed.; Munich: R. Piper & Co. Millis, Walter. 1958. ‘The rise and fall of the radical right’, Virginia Law Review, 44(8), 1291–300. Müller, Leo A. 1989. Republikaner, NPD, DVU, Liste D … 2nd ed.; Göttingen: Lamuv Taschenbuch. Parsons, Talcott. 1964 [1963]. ‘Social strains in America (1955)’. Pp. 209–38 in Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right:The New American Right Expanded and Updated. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday & Company. Rogin, Michael Paul. 1967. The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Scheuch, Erwin K., with Klingemann, Hans D. 1967. ‘Theorie des Rechtsradikalismus in westlichen Industriegesellschaften’. Pp. 11–29 in Heinz-Dietrich Ortlieb and Bruno Molitor (eds.), Hamburger Jahrbuch für Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik, 12. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Schönhuber, Franz. 1981. Ich war dabei. 1st ed.; Munich: Langen Müller. Schwagerl, H. Joachim. 1985. Verfassungsschutz in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Heidelberg: C. F. Müller Juristischer Verlag. Stöss, Richard. 1989. Die extreme Rechte in der Bundesrepublik: Entwicklung, Ursachen, Gegenmaßnahmen. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Stöss, Richard. 1990. Die ‘Republikaner’:Woher sie kommen;Was sie wollen;Wer sie wählt;Was zu tun ist. 2nd revised and expanded ed.; Cologne: Bund-Verlag. Streit, Wolfgang. 1955. ‘Der Neofaschismus: zur Ideologie des Rechtsradikalismus’, Die Neue Gesellschaft, 2 (September–October), pp. 48–55. von Beckerath, Erwin, et al. (eds.). 1964. Handwörterbuch der Sozialwissenschaften, 8. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer. Wald, Eduard. 1952. Der Rechts- und Linksradikalismus in Niedersachsen und Bremen: Übersicht Mai 1952. Hanover: Landesbezirksvorstand Niedersachsen des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes.

Dictionaries consulted for researching the etymology of rechtsradikal/Rechtsradikalismus Duden: Rechtschreibung der deutschen Sprache und der Fremdwörter. 1961. 15th ed.; Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. Duden: Rechtschreibung der deutschen Sprache und der Fremdwörter. 1967. 16th ed.; Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. Duden: Rechtschreibung der deutschen Sprache und der Fremdwörter. 1973. 17th ed.; Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut.

138  Country case studies

Gerhard Wahrig’s Deutsches Wörterbuch. 1968 and 1971. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag. Harrap’s Concise German and English Dictionary. 1982. London: Harrap. Harrap’s Standard German and English Dictionary. 1975. London: Harrap. Langenscheidt’s Concise German Dictionary: German-English. 1965. 7th ed.; London: Hodder and Stoughton. Oxford Duden German Dictionary. 1990. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wildhagen’s English-German German-English Dictionary. 1953. 1st ed.;Wiesbaden: Brandstetter Verlag.

Appendix: material consulted on constitutional protection from 1989 to mid-1991 Federal Government BfV. 1990. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1989. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. The 1990 report, the first covering events in both west and east Germany, was published only in mid-August 1991 and was not available when most of the work on this chapter was being done.

Regional governments Baden-Württemberg Innenministerium Baden-Württemberg. 1991. Verfassungsschutzbericht, Baden-Württemberg 1990. Stuttgart: Innenministerium Baden-Württemberg. Reports for earlier years are no longer available to order.

Bavaria BSI (Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern). 1990. Verfassungsschutzbericht, Bayern 1989. Munich: Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern. BSI. 1991a. Verfassungsschutzbericht, Bayern 1990. Munich: Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern. BSI. 1991b. Verfassungsschutzbericht Bayern 1990: Stoiber: ‘Verfassungsschutz ist Bürgerschutz’. Press release, 26 June.

Berlin The Berlin LfV has not so far published annual reports (Personal communication from the Berlin LfV, 12 August 1991). However, it has extensively summarized its activities and findings in a press release in March 1990. Senatsverwaltung für Inneres. 1990. Schwerpunkte der Arbeit des Landesamtes für Verfassungsschutz Berlin. Press release, 25 March.

Bremen The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen does not produce its own reports on the protection of the constitution but the Senator für Inneres, Peter Sakuth, has been involved in publishing

State’s response to far-right extremism  139

initiatives about the extreme right and has produced the document cited below (Personal communication from the office of the Senator für Inneres der Freien Hansestadt Bremen, 5 August 1991). Senator für Inneres. 1989. Ursachen, Auswirkungen und Lage des Rechtsextremismus. Bremen: Senator für Inneres.

Hamburg Slightly surprisingly, the annual reports of the LfV of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg are classified as confidential and are not publicly available (Personal communication from the LfV der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, Behörde für Inneres, 14 August 1991). However, this office has produced a number of unpublished documents on its monitoring of Die Republikaner, copies of which have been made available. They are: Die Partei ‘Die Republikaner’ (REPs): Bestandteil des Bundesrepublikanischen Rechtsextremismus. March 1990. ‘Die Republikaner’ – Aktivitäten und Aktuelle Entwicklungen im ‘Entscheidungsjahr 1990’ – (Januar–März 1990). April 1990. ‘Die Republikaner’ in der Existenzkrise (April–Juli 1990). August 1990. ‘Die Republikaner’ zwischen Konsolidierung und Niedergang (August–Oktober 1990). November 1990. Die ‘Republikaner’ im Wandel? – Aktuelle Entwicklungen nach der ‘Wende von Ruhstorf ’ – (November 1990–April 1991). May 1991.

Hesse Hessisches Ministerium des Innern. 1990. Verfassungsschutz in Hessen: Bericht 1989. Wiesbaden: Hessisches Ministerium des Innern. Hessisches Ministerium des Innern. 1991. Verfassungsschutz in Hessen: Bericht 1990. Wiesbaden: Hessisches Ministerium des Innern.

Lower Saxony Niedersächsischer Minister des Innern. 1990. Verfassungsschutzbericht, Niedersachsen 1989. Hanover: Niedersächsischer Minister des Innern. The 1990 Report was not available when the work on this chapter was being done.

North Rhine-Westphalia Innenminister des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. 1990. Verfassungsschutzbericht des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 1989. Düsseldorf: Innenminister des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. Innenminister des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. 1991. Verfassungsschutzbericht des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 1990. Düsseldorf: Innenminister des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Rhineland-Palatinate Ministerium des Innern und für Sport. 1990. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1989. Mainz: Ministerium des Innern und für Sport.

140  Country case studies

Ministerium des Innern und für Sport. 1991. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1990. Mainz: Ministerium des Innern und für Sport.

Saarland Saarland does not produce its own reports on the protection of the constitution, nor has it produced other relevant publications (Personal communication from the Saarland Ministerium des Innern, Kabinetts- und Parlamentsreferat, 7 August 1991).

Schleswig-Holstein The Schleswig-Holstein Landesbehörde für Verfassungsschutz has not produced its own annual report since 1987. Since 1989 the region’s Interior Minister has reported on extremist developments there by issuing a press release and having a press conference. Innenminister des Landes Schleswig-Holstein. Press releases, 8 February 1990 and 21 March 1991. Präsidentin des Schleswig-Holsteinischen Landtages (ed.). 1990. Rechtsextremismus: Auseinandersetzung und Bekämpfung, Landtagsforum am 15. November 1990. Kiel: Der Landtag Schleswig-Holstein. Wenzel, Rüdiger (ed.). 1990. Rechtsextremismus in Schleswig-Holstein, 1945–1990. 2nd ed.; Kiel: Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

5 THE NETHERLANDS Irritants on the body politic

And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say This is the worst. William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1, lines 27–8

Introduction In Bleak House Dickens chided Mrs Jellyby for her ‘telescopic philanthropy’, for being more concerned about the natives of Borrioboola-Gha than about those unfortunates nearer home; her eyes ‘seemed to look a long way off, as if … they could see nothing nearer than Africa’. British political science has not been quite as telescopic, although it is ironic that less is known and taught about the politics of the Netherlands than about those of many more distant countries, despite the fact that in some aspects of social structure and historical experience it is a country that closely resembles Great Britain.1 Political racism, a crucial factor in understanding the contemporary extreme right in the Netherlands, developed there rather similarly – if later – to the pattern of its growth in Great Britain. In character and content, it has many affinities to the British National Front when the latter was most active during the 1970s. Thus, although the Netherlands, unlike Britain, had a truly significant national-socialist movement during the 1930s, much post-war extreme-right activity, certainly in the 1980s, has had only ambiguous links to the pre-war phenomenon. During the Second World War, the Netherlands experienced full occupation after a short attempt at resistance against difficult odds, described succinctly by, for example, Shirer (1960, pp. 721–3). Alone of cities in the Netherlands, Rotterdam was heavily bombed on 14 May 1940, leaving a symbolic memory of what the Dutch suffered. Occupation was often particularly brutal and it left an understandable legacy of bitter feelings in Dutch politics about Nazism and the War that has lasted to the present. During late 1988 and early 1989 there was a major controversy (including a debate in the country’s nationally elected legislature, the Second Chamber) about the pensions being paid by the state to the widows of Meinoud Marinus Rost van

142  Country case studies

Tonningen and Graaf De Marchant et d’Ansembourg, two leading figures in the pre-war Dutch national-socialist movement, the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB), and also in collaboration. The former died in mysterious circumstances just before his execution, although he is usually reckoned to have committed suicide. The widows’ entitlements to their pensions were based upon their husbands’ election to the Second Chamber in the May 1937 general election. Also, the question of whether the last two German war criminals imprisoned in the Netherlands, Ferdinand aus der Fünten and Franz Fischer (popularly called ‘The Two of Breda’, after the location of the gaol where German war criminals had been kept), should be released out of compassion for their age and health caused a spirited debate in January 1989, splitting the major political parties on a free vote in the Second Chamber before their release was finally granted and they were thereupon deported to the Federal Republic of Germany as ‘undesirable aliens’ (NHB, 28 January 1989, p. 1). The authorities are still attempting to pursue Dutch war criminals who collaborated with the German occupation and managed to escape arrest at the end of the Second World War, mostly by flight to South American countries. The Dutch wartime experience discredited the extreme right more comprehensively than was the case in France, for example, where the presence of an albeit short-lived puppet regime in a part of the country left a mixed legacy. Moreover, the Dutch history of decolonization was relatively painless, unlike that of France. True, between 1945 and 1949 there was intermittent conflict between Dutch and nationalist forces in the Dutch East Indies, subsequently Indonesia, although negotiated sovereignty was given to the nationalists in December 1949; this was nothing like the costly and bloody wars of liberation faced by the French in Indo-China and Algeria.

Post-war demography and immigration in the Netherlands Even so, the fact that the Netherlands was once a significant colonial power in the Caribbean as well as the Far East has had important consequences for its demography.2 It now contains a sizeable population originally from one-time Dutch colonies. Initially entitled to Dutch nationality on criteria which, though containing only an element of patriality, were nonetheless quite generous, many such settlers were assimilated into Dutch society without demur, and unless in some way distinctive like the South Moluccans, were difficult to isolate in any demographic attempt to count the ‘non-indigenous’ population of the country. However, there are now reasonably good estimates of the size of the two most important groups of colonial origin, those from Surinam and the Dutch Antilles. Surinam was granted independence in 1975 largely to be able more easily to stem the flow of its residents to the Netherlands itself. During the early 1970s immigration from this source increased sharply in reaction to economic difficulties in the colony and the great need for labour in the Dutch economy. At the beginning of 1971 there were about 31,700 Surinam-born residents in the Netherlands. Four years later the figure was 68,500 and there was a precipitate

The Netherlands  143

entry during 1975 to beat the barrier whose imposition after independence was feared. The figure for the beginning of 1976 was 103,500. During 1979 and 1980 there was a further minor wave of new arrivals and by 1983 the Surinam-born population was assessed at 141,000, from which it has been estimated that the ‘Surinamese population’ (including those born to a Surinamese parent) was around 180,000 to 190,000 (van Amersfoort 1986, p. 18, 1987); this was about 1.3 per cent of the resident population of the country at that time.The Dutch Antilles produced a smaller but still important population.The estimate of the Central Bureau of Statistics at the beginning of 1983 of the number of Antilles-born residents of the Netherlands was 34,900, about 0.2 per cent of the national resident population. The Surinamese were especially seen as a ‘problem’ group in Dutch society, though they were in truth an internally heterogeneous population. However, the reputation of the Surinamese in the Netherlands has undoubtedly been overtaken by that of other and more recent arrivals for, like France and the former West Germany, the Netherlands now contains groups that are typical of labour migrations to northern Europe from the European periphery and North Africa. In the case of the Netherlands, Turkey and Morocco have been the most important sending countries. These were recruited during the 1960s, when there were shortages of labour in certain older industries that could not be accommodated by the indigenous labour force or by colonial migration. These nationalities came to dominate the foreign population of the Netherlands from the 1960s, to the detriment of the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians who had composed the bulk of the foreign population in the early period of importation of migrant labour from the European periphery. On 1 January 1984 according to the estimate of the Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 155,280 Turks and 106,435 Moroccans in the country, respectively 1.1 and 0.7 per cent of the resident population. These figures greatly exceed the numbers of registered foreign workers from these countries who were active in the labour force, which on 31 March 1987 were 33,600 Turks (0.2 per cent) and 23,200 Moroccans (0.2 per cent) (Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics 1989, p. 141). These two groups have become especially important for understanding the geographical distribution of political racism in the Netherlands. Support for racist political parties has been most pronounced in certain parts of the major cities, especially Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and, to a lesser extent, Utrecht (all of them by coincidence or association having football teams with supporters holding some notoriety for their hooliganism) in the provinces of North Holland and South Holland (i.e., in the so-called Randstad). It is particularly in these cities where the foreign groups were concentrated. At the beginning of 1985 2.4 per cent of the population of Amsterdam were Turkish nationals, 3.7 per cent were Moroccan nationals, and the total non-Dutch population of the municipality was 12.3 per cent. The respective figures for the other mentioned municipalities were: Rotterdam: 3.8, 2.0, and 10.1 per cent; The Hague: 2.3, 1.7, and 8.2 per cent; and Utrecht: 2.7, 4.0, and 9.3 per cent.3

144  Country case studies

Some of the circumstances of these foreign populations resemble those of similar groups in other West European capitalist economies, although the more ordered system of labour recruitment of the Federal Republic of Germany is closer to the Dutch model than is the chaotic pattern seen in France during the heyday of labour migration to that country in the 1960s and early 1970s. Nevertheless, the disadvantage that has been the invariant and amply documented lot of immigrant workers in western Europe in such spheres as housing, education, and the labour market is repeated in the Netherlands. On the other hand, there have been important differences in how Dutch policy towards immigrant workers was conceived and executed (Entzinger 1984, pp. 67–158). The Dutch government has long been officially committed to multiculturalism, and in many respects the Dutch system has been closer to the Scandinavian model – or at least the onetime Scandinavian model until the restrictions on asylum-seekers and immigrants introduced in all the Scandinavian countries during the past few years – than to those of the former West Germany or France. This is especially true where civic rights and civic integration have been concerned, though in any case immigration and immigrant workers have not been an issue exploited by mainstream politicians, especially those of the right, in the flagrant manner to be seen in the former West Germany, France, or (going back to the 1950s) Great Britain. One indication of this difference is the provision of the franchise, which continues to be a contentious and unpopular matter in contemporary French politics and is equally a cause for trauma in German politics. Dutch non-citizens have had the right to vote in all municipal council elections since March 1986, and the first experiment of extending the franchise in this way occurred in six voting districts of Rotterdam on 28 May 1980 (Rath 1983), although these had been preceded by so-called immigrant councils in a number of Dutch cities during the 1970s, to which each ethnic group could elect only its own ethnic peers. Prejudice against the country’s ethnic minorities has been thoroughly researched in the Netherlands since the 1970s. For example, van Praag (1983) performed secondary analyses on a number of studies conducted between 1975 and 1983, both those concerned explicitly with prejudice and those also dealing with other subjects. The principal finding from these nationwide samples was the difficulty of explaining prejudiced attitudes using as independent variables the social characteristics of respondents (van Praag 1983, p. 73). There have recently been other studies that have examined the attitudes of the Dutch to ethnic minorities. For example, van Leusden and Moors (1988) reported on a survey done in late 1986–early 1987, being a follow-up of a similar one in 1983, in which 1,451 respondents were asked their views on foreigners. Although only basic results were published, they revealed considerable indifference or hostility: thus, over 50 per cent favoured financial incentives to foreigners to encourage them to return to their country of origin; nearly 60 per cent saw no benefit from their presence. In a more sophisticated manner, the social psychologists Hagendoorn and Hraba have extensively developed an ethnic hierarchy concept, successfully isolating the criteria of differentiation by which the native Dutch locate themselves cognitively closest

The Netherlands  145

to the English and most distant from Moluccans and Turks (Hagendoorn and Hraba 1989). For reasons discussed by several writers elsewhere (e.g., Husbands 1988), the question of whether one country’s population is more or less inherently racist or ethnically intolerant than that of another, although not an impossible research task, is nonetheless fraught with contextual and methodological problems that make an absolute answer rather difficult. However, consistent with the already mentioned fact that this issue has been less emotively used in Dutch politics than in those of certain other countries, it is worth noting the findings of a Eurobarometer study conducted in March-April 1984. Levels of agreement with a statement, ‘We have too many immigrant workers’, were, for the Netherlands, 40 per cent broadly or completely agreeing and 23 per cent completely agreeing.The respective results for the Federal Republic of Germany (old regions), France, and the United Kingdom were: 59 and 30 per cent; 58 and 34 per cent; and 51 and 29 per cent (BASS 1984). Thus, the Dutch population certainly contains a strain of ethnic intolerance; even so, this may not be an issue of major relevance to the theme of this chapter, since the penetration of general attitudinal racism is not necessarily correlated with the contemporary occurrence of political racism and extreme right-wing support with its specific metropolitan and regional concentration. Along with other western European countries, the Netherlands has been attempting in recent years to deal with the increased numbers seeking political asylum, which have grown from fewer than 1,000 in 1981 to around 14,000 in 1989. The pressure began particularly in 1987 when the Second Chamber was urged to deal with the large number of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka (NHB (Saturday Supplement), 12 May 1990, p. 5).The increase in asylum-seekers is widely seen as a major factor in the re-emergence of the European extreme right in the late 1980s, especially since the issue has been problematized by certain politicians and sections of the mass media in many countries. The Netherlands too has been caught in a hypocrisy trap, attempting to retain the purported generosity of its reputation on asylum issues, and at the same time wanting increased restriction. It has therefore participated enthusiastically in the general move to restrict asylum. It has been proposed by the Minister of Justice, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, that asylumapplicants should be physically segregated into two types of camp during the processing of their applications, one for those with a reasonable chance of success and one for those without, the latter available for ready deportation. However, this plan was originally opposed by the Second Chamber, especially when the security problems in concentrating large numbers of desperate no-hope cases within individual enclosures were pointed out (NHB, 10 June 1991, p. 3). With its new asylum law that came into force on 1 October 1991, the Netherlands has accelerated the procedure by which asylum cases are processed and, as necessary, deported if rejected. A number of stratagems have been adopted to keep out as many asylum-seekers as possible, especially by labelling claimants as economic refugees: ‘For this group the right of asylum does not apply. They are not wanted. Even the Netherlands is not a land of milk and honey’, said Aad Kosto, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice (SZ, 17/18 August 1991, p. 9).

146  Country case studies

Having reviewed the contemporary ethnic dimensions to Dutch society and discussed the country’s difficulties in reconciling its purported liberal credentials with its desire to restrict the arrival of asylum-seekers, this chapter now considers the extreme right in the Netherlands since 1945 under the following principal organizational headings: •

•

•

• •

•

the legacy of the pre-war extreme-right and post-war developments, specifically concerning the small groups that sought clandestinely and semi-clandestinely to perpetuate the pre-war ideologies of the extreme right; the new extremism from the 1960s onwards, which is measured (in Table 5.1) by the election results for the extreme right from 1959 to the present, making clear the timing of peaks and troughs during the past thirty years for the several parties concerned and periodizing their respective importance in the light of the consequential sections; the emergence of a form of populist right-wing ressentiment in the 1960s in the shape of the Boerenpartij (BP), representing the first major post-war electoral resurgence of a recognizably extreme-right phenomenon; the emergence of anti-foreigner and anti-immigrant politics in the Netherlands in the 1970s in the shape of the Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU); the continuation of these politics from the early 1980s to the present with the Centrum Partij (CP) (to metamorphose into the Centrum Partij ’86 (CP ’86)) and later also the Centrumdemocraten (CDs); and in brief conclusion, the future of the contemporary extreme right in the Netherlands in comparison with that in other West European countries, especially Great Britain, France, and Belgium.

The sections on the immediate post-war groups, the period dominated by the BP, and that in which the NVU was a temporary force, each give some indications of these parties’ origins, ideologies, and programmes, their leadership characteristics, and, for the BP and NVU, their mass support, as well as general historical details. However, because of the greater and continuing significance of the CP and the CDs and the growing analytical literature about them, and considering the contemporary role of the politics of ethnic exclusionism in the Netherlands, the fifth section not only gives a general account of the history of the CP and CDs and some information about their leaderships but also contains two further specific subsections: (a) these parties’ ideologies and programmes; and (b) the debates about the character of their mass support, based upon available individual-level data from nationwide surveys and from local and citywide studies, and upon aggregate data, both at the national level and within the major cities where they have attracted particular support (notably Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague).

The Netherlands  147

The legacy of the pre-war extreme right Van der Wusten, in discussing the extreme right in the Netherlands during the 1930s, wrote that: ‘no fascist movement, with the exception of the NSB, ever had more than a little over one thousand members in the entire inter-war period’ (van der Wusten 1987, p. 213). The NSB had been formed by Anton Adriaan Mussert in December 1931 (Meyers 1984, pp. 55–67), and its major membership surge occurred from 1933 till 1935, when it achieved its maximum of 47,000 members; this declined to 28,000 by the occupation of the country in May 1940, after which unsurprisingly there was a rapid influx, assisted in 1941 by the consolidation of all Dutch fascist groups into the NSB. The NSB’s most successful electoral performance was in the provincial council elections of April 1935, when it won 7.9 per cent of votes cast. In the elections to the Second Chamber in May 1937 it won only 4.2 per cent of the national vote, although it did secure four seats in the legislature. There has been some discussion and controversy about the support for the NSB. De Jong, in the first volume of his monumental multi-volume history of the Netherlands in the Second World War (1969, p. 302), summarized this as follows: Considered overall, it seems that the NSB electorate consisted, in regional terms, of dissatisfied farmers and sometimes also of agricultural workers and, in national terms, of dissatisfied members of the middle class – with considerable support among the best-off in society (the results in the wealthiest municipalities and in the richest neighbourhoods of Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam point in this direction). The rural focus of this encapsulation does, however, need some modification. The Netherlands is divided into eighteen constituencies, and in 1935 the NSB won 12.0, 10.8, and 9.0 per cent of the votes in The Hague, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam constituencies, in comparison with its 7.9 per cent overall (DVK, 27 May 1937, p. 1). Kooy (1964, p. 290) has shown that there was no direct correlation in the 1935 results between NSB support and levels of urbanization and his general, if to be disputed, conclusion is that the party’s success was to be explained by the effect of Mussert’s charismatic appeal upon the awakening class consciousness of the petite bourgeoisie of both city and country (p. 292). Passchier and van der Wusten (1979) were among the first to seek to modify the earlier work of Kooy. They emphasized the importance of urbanization after controls upon levels of affluence. In general, those municipalities that they defined as urbanized supported the NSB disproportionately, especially if well-off and having lower levels of unemployment. However, in poorer rural municipalities, greater unemployment predicted higher levels of NSB support. van der Wusten and Smit (1980) also mention the wealthier, better-educated component of the NSB vote, along with more marginal, unintegrated groups. In the case of the city

148  Country case studies

of Amsterdam itself, Schmidt’s (1979) study with ecological data demonstrates the strong dependence of the NSB vote on the affluence of individual neighbourhoods, although structural factors were less important after 1935. Passchier (1987) has recently reasserted this basis to NSB support in Amsterdam in 1935, to be contrasted (as will be seen) with support there for the CP in the June 1984 Euro-election and with the generally more marginalized support for the contemporary extreme right in the Netherlands. Thus, despite the debate about the nature of NSB support, the contribution to this of sections of the more affluent, most indisputably in certain urban populations, is now widely accepted. This is a characteristic to be found in 1930s fascism in a number of countries; it is well established for several, though not all, German cities (Hamilton 1982, e.g., pp. 64–128), despite recent arguments against such class distinctiveness overall in Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) support (Falter 1991, pp. 285–9). The NSB collapsed in 1945, of course, amid suicides and trials for collaboration of its leaders and members. The level of collaboration in the Netherlands may have been higher than that in most other occupied countries, at least in western Europe, or perhaps it was more purposefully prosecuted after the war, although some, especially non-Dutch, historians of the German occupation have rather moved away from a polarization between the ‘evil’ who collaborated and the ‘good’ who resisted (e.g.,Warmbrunn 1963, pp. 272–5; Hirschfeld 1988, p. 7). In the summer of 1945 more than 100,000 people were being held pending judgments about their collaboration with the occupying Germans (van Donselaar 1991, p. 28), including those who fought in the Westland regiment of the Waffen-SS, which was composed of Dutch and Flemings. Although by 1950 most had been freed, often conditionally, and had had their civil rights restored, the issue of wartime collaboration remained a sensitive one in the Netherlands and, as described in the introduction to this chapter, does so to this day. The first attempted revival of the Dutch extreme right in the post-war era was the so-called Stichting Oud Politieke Delinquenten (SOPD), which claimed to be nonpolitical in character. Various small groups of those with NSB and collaborationist backgrounds had been formed in the late 1940s and the consolidating organization was founded in April 1951. The deliberately mischievous title of the new group was intended as a facetious variation on Stichting Toezicht Politieke Delinquenten (STPD), the body originally responsible for supervising the parole of those charged with collaboration after they had been conditionally released. The SOPD survived without proscription, which encouraged its activists to consider the founding of a formal political party in the mould of the pre-war NSB.The name chosen for the new group, formally founded in June 1953, was the Nationaal Europese Sociale Beweging (NESB), whose initials were a deliberate resonance of NSB and which became the Dutch component of the internationally based Europese Sociale Beweging (ESB), founded in 1951. The push for the Dutch branch of this latter movement came from Paul van Tienen, one-time Waffen-SS Untersturmführer, who, although having been sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in 1948, benefited from an

The Netherlands  149

amnesty in 1949. However, unlike the preceding SOPD, the NESB was eventually in effect proscribed by April 1955 after a complexity of legal machinations involving its principal leaders. As van Donselaar says (1991, p. 79):‘ten years after the war the limit of what was permissible was established; a coterie of national socialists was tolerated but a political party of national socialists definitely was not’.

The new extremism: the Boerenpartij and beyond As van Donselaar’s comprehensive account describes, there were a number of clandestine neo-Nazi initiatives after the proscription of the NESB. The only nonclandestine extreme-right body that sought electoral support was the ineffective Nederlandse Oppositie Unie (NOU). More interesting and relevant to the mainstream development of the Dutch extreme right is, however, the emergence in the early 1960s of an example of right-wing populism in the BP and later, in the 1970s, of an ethnically exclusionist extreme right. Because of the continuing significance of the electoral dimension in developments from the early 1960s, it is helpful to present as a single table details of the levels of success of all the relevant parties. The four parties considered in this summary coverage are the BP, the NVU, the CP (later renamed CP ’86), and the CDs. This presentation is defensible as a means of giving an indication of the oscillations in support for the extreme right, even if the BP is ideologically rather different from the other parties. Table 5.1 presents data on levels of support for the country as a whole and then separately for the three largest cities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague; the latter are considered individually because of their importance in providing electoral support for the parties concerned and because there exist a number of studies using aggregate and individual-level data on the characteristics of this support within them. Table 5.1 covers all elections from 1959 to the present in which one or more of these parties was standing and where it is possible to provide nationwide and/or citywide calculations of the results.Thus, it features elections to the European Parliament, the Second Chamber, the provincial councils, and the municipal councils.4 It may be seen from Table 5.1 that electoral support for the Dutch extreme right has varied noticeably over time. Slightly arbitrarily, an election or series of elections where the cumulated extreme-right support among all the above parties competing exceeds 2.0 per cent nationwide and/or 4.0 per cent in one or more of the three cities considered, is to be seen as indicating a period of heightened support. Since 1959 there have been four such episodes, which are italicized in Table 5.1. These periods are: • • •

from before the May 1963 Second Chamber elections to after the February 1967 Second Chamber elections; around the provincial council elections of March 1974; from before the September 1982 Second Chamber elections to after the June 1984 European Parliament election; and

–

–

–

6.7

5.71

4.7

1.7

1.9

1 June 1966 (Municipal Councils)

15 February 1967 (Second Chamber)

18 March 1970 (Provincial Councils)

3 June 1970 0.61 (Municipal Councils)

1.1

23 March 1966 (Provincial Councils)

28 April 1971 (Second Chamber)

29 November 1972 (Second Chamber)

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

2.1

15 May 1963 (Second Chamber)

–

0.7

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.9

1.1

0.6

1.7

4.7

5.7

6.7

2.1

0.7

1.0

0.5

0.7

1.5

4.6

9.5

9.0

1.9

1.2

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.0

0.5

0.7

1.5

4.6

9.5

9.0

1.9

1.2

BP NVU CP/ CDs Total CP ’86

BP NVU CP/ CDs Total CP ’86

12 March 1959 (Second Chamber)

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague

0.9

0.4

0.7

0.9

2.4

7.2

4.2

0.9

0.6

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

BP NVU

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

0.9

0.4

0.7

0.9

2.4

7.2

4.2

0.9

0.6

CP/ CDs Total CP ’86

Rotterdam

1.0

0.4

0.6

1.1

3.4

10.9

6.9

1.1

0.8

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.0

0.4

0.6

1.1

3.4

10.9

6.9

1.1

0.8

BP NVU CP/ CDs Total CP ’86

The Hague

TABLE 5.1  Percentages voting for extreme-right parties in various elections between 1959 and 1991 in the Netherlands as a whole and in the cities of

150  Country case studies

0.34

–

–

–

–

8 September 1982 (Second Chamber)

14 June 1984 (European Parliament)

19 March 1986 (Municipal Councils)

21 May 1986 (Second Chamber)

18 March 1987 (Provincial Councils)

–

–

–

–

–5

–

*

2 June 1982 (Municipal Councils)

–

31 May 1978 0.11 (Municipal Councils)

0.2 0.13

–

–

29 March 1978 0.52 (Provincial Councils)

26 May 1981 (Second Chamber)

–

0.4

0.8

25 May 1977 (Second Chamber)

–7

0.46

*

2.5

0.8

0.2

0.13

–

–

–

29 May 1974 0.71 (Municipal Councils)

–

–

3.1

27 March 1974 (Provincial Councils)

*

0.5

0.3

0.16

0.37

2.5

1.1

0.2

0.4

0.1

0.5

1.2

0.7

3.1

*

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

– –

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

0.2 0.3

–

–

0.2

0.5

0.6 1.2

0.9

2.1

–

1.5

2.6

6.9

2.8

1.5

1.0

–

–

–

–

–

6.9

3.3

1.5

1.0

0.2

0.5

1.8

0.9

2.1

1.4 1.4

0.6 2.1

0.9 3.5

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

0.2

*

–

–

0.3

0.3

0.7

1.8

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.1

–

–

–

1.5

3.4

8.1

4.0

1.7

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.6

0.4

0.6

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.6

1.9

4.0

8.1

4.2

1.7

–

–

0.3

1.4

0.7

1.8

–

–

–

–

0.2

*

–

0.2

0.5

0.4

–

1.9

–

–

–

–

0.3

–

–

–

–

1.3

1.8

–

–

1.0

2.0

6.4

2.2

1.3

1.0

–

–

–

–

–

1.3

1.4

3.1

6.4

2.7

1.3

1.0

0.2

0.5

1.7

1.8

1.9

(Continued)

1.3

0.4

1.1

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

The Netherlands  151

*

–

–

–

–

0.38

–

–

–

–

–

–

0.5

1.3

1.08

0.9

0.8

0.5

0.9

0.8

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.4 4.1

5.5

6.8

3.1 3.1

2.3 2.3

2.4 4.4

–

–

BP NVU CP/ CDs Total CP ’86

BP NVU CP/ CDs Total CP ’86

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.7

3.3

–

–

3.4

2.7

4.1 5.8

3.8 7.1

3.4

2.7

BP NVU CP/ CDs Total CP ’86

Rotterdam

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

1.5

2.1

–

–

4.5

4.3

3.2

2.3

6.0

6.4

3.2

2.3

BP NVU CP/ CDs Total CP ’86

The Hague

1

I n the various municipal council elections between 1966 and 1978 the BP did not offer lists in many municipalities. The percentages given are of votes received where the party stood, calculated upon votes for all parties cast in the country as a whole. In 1966 the BP covered fewer than a third of municipalities, being particularly sparse in the south of the country. In 1970, 1974, and 1978 there were also very many municipalities without a BP candidacy. 2 In the 1978 provincial council elections the BP had no candidacies in the provinces of Drenthe, Friesland, and Limburg. 3 In the 1981 Second Chamber elections the NVU had no candidacies in the provinces of Drenthe, North Holland, and South Holland, and the CP had none in South Holland (except in The Hague). 4 By the 1982 Second Chamber elections the BP had altered its name to the Rechtse Volkspartij. 5 In the 1982 Second Chamber elections the NVU stood only in Amsterdam and The Hague. 6 In the 1986 Second Chamber elections the CP had no candidacies in the province of Drenthe, and the CDs had none in Limburg. 7 In the 1987 provincial council elections the CP ’86 stood only in the province of Flevoland (where it won 1.2 per cent of votes cast); the CDs stood only in the provinces of South Holland, Utrecht, and parts of North Holland. 8 In the 1991 provincial council elections the CP ’86 stood only in the provinces of North Holland, South Holland, and North Brabant; the CDs stood in the provinces of Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, North Brabant, North Holland, South Holland, and Utrecht.

Symbols – No candidacy standing * Party concerned not listed separately in the official statistics of election results published by the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics

15 June 1989 (European Parliament) 6 September 1989 (Second Chamber) 21 March 1990 (Municipal Councils) 6 March 1991 (Provincial Councils)

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

TABLE 5.1  (Continued)

152  Country case studies

The Netherlands  153

•

from before the March 1990 municipal council elections until the present (late 1991), as seen in the March 1991 provincial council elections(although this latest upsurge was partly anticipated in the September 1989 Second Chamber elections, which saw the success of the leader of the CDs in securing renewed membership of the legislature).

In the first two episodes the beneficiary was the BP and in the latter two it was the CP/CP ’86 and/or the CDs. However, although it is important to appreciate that support for the extreme right has come in waves and troughs, it is now sensible to restructure the following presentation in decades since, albeit rather loosely, the 1960s were the decade of the BP, the 1970s of the NVU, and the 1980s of the CP/ CP ’86 and the CDs. This compartmentalization is defensible in terms of profile even if, during the early 1970s, the BP (though declining) still attracted some votes, outpolling the NVU in the country as a whole in the May 1977 Second Chamber elections; in fact, the NVU’s few electoral appearances were not marked by conspicuous success.

The era of the Boerenpartij The BP is still considered to have been an enigma in Dutch politics; even its name belies the fact that, at its peak, it had disproportionate electoral appeal in the country’s largest cities, and as is later mentioned, within certain cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam the subdistrict-based distribution of its vote in some elections anticipated that for the extreme-right parties of the 1970s and 1980s. The BP particularly flourished in the period when Dutch politics was being generally restructured; the telescopic style of political science with which this chapter was introduced did condescend to mention in the Dutch case the concept of verzuiling (‘pillarization’ is the usual ungainly translation), by which the religious and class divisions of Dutch society were mirrored in its political system. By the 1960s the politics of verzuiling were in some disarray and the BP was undoubtedly able to profit from the disruption of political partisanships. Also, the albeit shortlived Poujadist movement in France in the later 1950s had provided a model for such a style of political movement and in recent decades the Scandinavian Progress Parties have been later examples. Interestingly enough, Denmark had supposedly provided the initial inspiration to Henrik Koekoek, who founded the BP in 1958 after the example of a Danish agrarian party (van Donselaar 1991, p. 122).5 ln his research on the support of the BP, Nooij (1969), author of a standard work on the party, adopted a social-psychological approach, employing concepts such as authoritarianism and disaffection.The party’s urban successes show that it was able to transcend its agrarian origins, though one must emphasize its extreme-right nature. Its expansion between 1963 and 1967 was greeted with universal surprise, though this meant that it suffered a not uncommon fate among right-wing parties achieving sudden and unexpected electoral success in countries with voting systems incorporating some form of

154  Country case studies

proportional representation: it suffered from a dearth of suitable people to cover the election seats that it won. In the BP’s case there emerged a number of individuals with unpalatable wartime pasts. Partly as a result of one such scandal, the BP’s support fell from 6.7 per cent in the March 1966 provincial council elections to 4.7 per cent in the Second Chamber elections less than a year later. Nonetheless, the BP managed to increase its parliamentary representation to seven seats from the three won in May 1963. In June 1968 the parliamentary group split into two, four members forming a party called Binding Rechts (BR) later in the year. It was hoped that this would prove more successful than the BP; however, it quickly disappeared. As the result of its performance in the April 1971 Second Chamber elections, the BP held only one seat. There was a modest recovery in the Second Chamber elections of November 1972 (two seats) and the party achieved 3.1 per cent of the national vote in the March 1974 provincial council elections, partly as a consequence of the economic crisis of the period. However, Dutch politics were more settled by the 1970s and the BP was by then politically functionless. In the May 1977 Second Chamber elections, it managed just one seat with less than 1 per cent of the national vote. This was lost in 1981 after an inopportune attempt to revive the party with a change of name to Rechtse Volkspartij (RVP). What is left, from the perspective of the political analyst, is a debate about whether or not the BP is to be regarded as a neo-fascist and/or extreme-right party. Certainly, it sought strenuously to distance itself from such an attribution. However, Nooij (1969, p. 217) had no hesitation in regarding it, if not as fascist, then as an extreme-right party on the basis of the oppositional character of its programmes and the strenuousness of this opposition.Van Donselaar (1991, p. 125) is more measured: ‘The question of how far the description “extreme-right protest party” offers sufficient leverage in order also to label it as fascist can in no sense be simply answered and lends itself to a great degree of subjectivity.’ The degree of territorial continuity in support for the BP and between support for it and other or later examples of the Dutch extreme right depends very much on the period and the context. Within Amsterdam, for example, there is a correlation of 0.879 between percentaged BP support in the Second Chamber elections of May 1963 and February 1967 across sixty-eight subdistricts (buurtcombinaties), though one of only 0.145 between the latter occasion and the Second Chamber results in May 1977 across sixty-six subdistricts. There are small variations in the correlations between BP support in 1963, 1967, and 1977, and that for the NVU in May 1977: 0.384, 0.447, and 0.441. There are larger variations with that for the CP in September 1982: 0.001, 0.148, and 0.616. Across Rotterdam’s twenty-five subdistricts (wijken) the BP’s percentaged support in the April 1971 and November 1972 Second Chamber elections correlated respectively 0.769 and 0.753 with NVU support in May 1977, and 0.752 and 0.685 with CP support in September 1982. However, across the 129 economic-geographical areas covering the whole country, BP support in May 1977 correlated negatively at –0.335 with NVU support on the same occasion, and –0.413 with CP support in September 1982. At the BP’s peak, its greatest strength was in the east of the country: in the February 1967 elections it

The Netherlands  155

won 6.5 per cent of the votes in the province of Drenthe, 5.7 per cent in Overijssel, 7.0 per cent in Gelderland, and 6.7 per cent in North Brabant, compared with 4.7 per cent in the country as a whole.

The era of the Nederlandse Volksunie The NVU dominated the Dutch extreme right in the later 1970s, despite the fact that it never won a single parliamentary seat and, even if partly because of legal harassment, never managed to elect members to municipal councils. It achieved its short period of attention largely through its aggressive anti-foreigner policies, whose outspokenness was very much a novelty in Dutch politics in the 1970s (in contrast to Great Britain, of course), even though the BP was also on record as being opposed to the presence in the Netherlands of immigrant workers. The NVU was formed in 1971 with, according to van Donselaar (1991, p. 143), a persistent presence of former NSB members among its leadership. Although the early years were uneventful, the party was pushed into the headlines by Joop Glimmerveen when he stood for the municipal council in The Hague in May 1974 on an unabashedly racist platform opposing ethnic minorities. Glimmerveen came to be the figure most associated with the party, though he had not originally been in its national leadership. The party’s leader, Bernard Postma, had in fact taken a decision that the NVU should ‘sit out’ the municipal council elections of May 1974 rather than risk an embarrassing performance (Bouw, van Donselaar, and Nelissen 1981, p. 81). However, opinions were divided, and Glimmerveen was able to win an endorsement of his wish to press ahead and stand in The Hague. His election pamphlet was pointedly direct: The Hague must stay white and safe! Away with the Surinamese and Antillianese who parasite on our energy and welfare. Help me free our city from the plague of Surinamese and Antillianese. Glimmerveen won 3,977 votes, 1.8 per cent of those cast and just a few hundred short of the 2.2 per cent that would have secured one seat in The Hague municipal council. Postma’s hesitation in supporting Glimmerveen cost him his leadership position; he resigned in October 1974 and eventually left the party in 1976. Glimmerveen became the new leader, buttressed by the fact that the media were already recognizing him as such because of the personal publicity arising from the campaign in The Hague. The party became even more prominent as the 1970s progressed: by 1976 antifascist and anti-racist committees of action were being formed to oppose it in numerous cities (Bouw, van Donselaar, and Nelissen 1981, pp. 94–5). The NVU itself was not slow to seize opportunities to pass on its message. In August 1976 there was a minor riot in the city of Schiedam, west of Rotterdam, when Dutch youths attacked Turkish residents after a Dutch person had been murdered by a Turk. The

156  Country case studies

NVU was quick to distribute pamphlets whose contents were subsequently held to be inciting to riot and racial hatred and those distributing them were arrested and charged; in March 1977 Glimmerveen himself was sentenced to fourteen days in gaol as a result.The NVU indulged in other attempts to stir up animosities between Dutch and non-Dutch, for example in Lelystad (a new town east of Amsterdam on reclaimed land that is now the Province of Flevoland) and in Utrecht. Despite the poor performance of the NVU in the May 1977 Second Chamber elections (0.4 per cent nationally, well under the 0.67 per cent needed to secure one seat), there was a continuing fear about the NVU that in 1978 produced attempts to impose a de facto proscription. The process was a complicated one, initiated and carried through not (at least directly) by the national ministries concerned but by local officials.The law officer in Amsterdam moved to proscribe the party, basing his case on the party’s programme and pamphlets, what its leaders had said, and the convictions against Glimmerveen. This meant that the party was prevented from participation in the May 1978 municipal council elections. In April 1978 Glimmerveen attempted to circumvent this by handing in lists without the party designation, though with himself as first candidate. This was done in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, and election officials ruled these lists invalid in all three cases. Also, by an interesting coincidence, Glimmerveen was called to serve his two-week gaol term during the time of these elections. Later, in 1979, the Dutch Supreme Court confirmed the decision of the lower court de facto to proscribe the NVU but did not impose any consequences of this confirmation; thus, electoral participation remained theoretically possible, albeit rather difficult. Still, these frustrations at the hands of the state’s authorities, although in the end not conclusive, were sufficient to harass the NVU into inconsequentiality. By late 1979, with the electoral road effectively blocked, the party and its publications had lapsed overtly into neo-Nazi sympathy, bemoaning the continued imprisonment of Rudolf Hess and openly adopting revisionist positions about the Holocaust. In 1981 Glimmerveen was deposed as leader by the rump of the party, though he returned to lead a minuscule group in 1983. In the May 1981 Second Chamber elections the NVU managed 0.1 per cent of votes cast; it had no lists in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or The Hague. Still, although the NVU lapsed into insignificance, its role and that of Glimmerveen in putting racist politics on to the Dutch political agenda must be recognized. Despite the limited electoral support of the NVU, there has been one study of its voters, using aggregate data. Bovenkerk et al. (1978) point out that the two provinces of North Holland and South Holland gave it disproportionate support in the May 1977 Second Chamber elections; support was higher in cities rather than the countryside, especially older industrial areas. Only in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague did it exceed 1 per cent, and then only barely. In The Hague it was higher in impoverished, older neighbourhoods containing many Surinamese and foreign workers. A similar, if less clear, pattern was found in Rotterdam, although in Amsterdam support for the NVU seemed a more dispersed phenomenon.

The Netherlands  157

The NVU largely anticipated the geographical distribution of later support for the CP in the 1980s, both nationally and locally. The correlation coefficient between NVU support in 1977 and CP support in 1982 was 0.854 across the 129 Dutch economic-geographical areas; it was as high as 0.929 across thirtyone subdistricts (wijken) in The Hague and 0.835 across twenty-five Rotterdam subdistricts. However, as to be expected from its more dispersed character, it correlated rather less, at 0.549, with the CP’s support in 1982 across sixty-five Amsterdam subdistricts.

Into the 1980s: the Centrumpartij and the Centrumdemocraten As the NVU collapsed into semi-clandestinity and became a political sect rather than a party, moves were afoot on the Dutch extreme right to found a party with a clear ethnically exclusionist appeal, though without the connotations of outright extremism and neo-Nazism attached to the former party. The CP was the outcome of this process. In December 1979 the immediate forerunner of the CP was founded, called the Nationale Centrum Partij (NCP). Four young men (according to Brants and Hogendoorn 1983, p. 18) or three (according to van Donselaar 1991, p. 173), disappointed in the NVU and finding that Glimmerveen’s politics were going rather too far, decided to set up a new party. The man who was to become almost synonymous with the Dutch extreme right during the 1980s, Hans Janmaat, holder of a degree in political science, was an early member, though not one of the founders. Brants and Hogendoorn (1983, p. 20) say that his background was in the KatholiekeVolkspartij (KVP) – to become a component of the centre-right ChristenDemocratisch Appèl (CDA) (Gladdish 1991, pp. 54–6) – although van Donselaar emphasizes Janmaat’s varied political past in support of several of the mainstream parties. Janmaat joined this venture under fortuitous circumstances. At the first congress of the NCP in February 1980, two of the founders had left the event with some cronies, intending to attack a group of illegal immigrants seeking refuge in a nearby church.The attackers were repulsed and the two were arrested.The principal of the founding leaders, Henry Brookman, thereupon expelled them and dissolved the NCP, establishing instead the CP. Janmaat, allegedly attracted by the publicity and harbouring a growing resentment about foreigners, contacted Brookman to express his interest. The latter himself was facing a dilemma: his political activities had attracted some dubious publicity for his employers and he was forced to choose between his career and his party. He decided to choose his career and Janmaat was able to emerge as the new party leader. The latter had some attractive features, as far as Brookman had been concerned. He was well-educated and respectably employed as a teacher. He was untainted by a past on the extreme right, not having been a member of the NVU. During 1980 Janmaat moved into the leadership. The CP and NVU sparred with each other in the early days of the former, though it was not long before the NVU was finally eclipsed. However, the CP’s very modest result in the May 1981 Second Chamber elections (0.1 per cent of the national vote) scarcely augured well for racist politics in the Netherlands.There was

158  Country case studies

some slight increase in the June 1982 municipal council elections, although even in the three principal cities, the CP failed to win any council seats. Then, the extreme proportionality principle of the Dutch electoral system permitted Janmaat to win a seat in the Second Chamber in the September 1982 general election when, amid jubilation from its supporters, the CP won 0.8 per cent of the national vote. Still, its major successes occurred in 1983 and 1984. In September 1983 the CP became the third-largest party by winning 9.1 per cent of the vote and two seats in a municipal election in newly incorporated Almere, an Amsterdam overspill town in the reclaimed province of Flevoland. Van Donselaar and van Praag (1983, pp. 89–95) have considered the Almere result in some detail, arguing that it was in part due to political alienation rather than contact racism against ethnic-minority residents, since, in contrast in particular to Rotterdam and The Hague, the CP vote correlated poorly with ethnic-minority presence. In December 1983 one survey, based upon telephone interviews with 21,000 people, even calculated the CP’s national support as 2.5 per cent (de Hond 1983, p. 1), which turned out to be the CP’s percentage of the national vote in the Euro-poll of June 1984 – not enough for a seat but still a significant performance in Dutch terms. However, in the late summer and autumn of 1984, all this success began to fall apart as the party split badly, expelling its parliamentary representative in a bitter internal row in which malfeasance, misappropriation of funds, and sexual impropriety were alleged (HVV, 11 October 1984, p. 5; Leidse Courant, 13 October 1984, p. 1). Janmaat refused to surrender his Second Chamber seat and in mid-November 1984 he riposted rather feebly by setting up his own new party, the CDs. For a while, they both competed in elections, certainly in the municipal council and Second Chamber elections of March and May 1986, when the CP performed noticeably better than the CDs. However, as Table 5.1 shows, neither party was especially successful, although the CP did elect single members to the Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Almere, and Lelystad municipal councils in March. The activity of the representative in the council chamber of Amsterdam was marked more by taciturnity than intervention. Later in 1986 the CP went bankrupt, to be refounded subsequently as the CP ’86. By 1987 it was apparently finished, and in the March 1987 provincial council elections, except for its presence in Flevoland, the CDs fought a lone and rather futile contest. However, by 1989 the principal parties were nervous on the issue of political asylum, which was clearly a vote-loser if too generously granted. In the September 1989 general election Janmaat returned to the Second Chamber, the CDs winning 0.9 per cent of the vote. However, the CP ’86 did not manage to present any lists on that occasion. In the municipal council elections six months later, the CDs and the resuscitated CP ’86, having survived a legal challenge from Janmaat claiming that it was not the original party, made a significant breakthrough, especially in the larger cities. Their electoral performances were even more impressive than the raw percentages suggest, since they are based on an electorate that includes non-Dutch voters; excluding these from the base (since few are likely to have chosen these parties) the percentage-level of support for the combined CP ’86 and CDs often rises markedly – for example, reaching nearly 15 per cent in such

The Netherlands  159

inner-city localities as Schildersbuurt and Transvaalkwartier in The Hague (a third of the former’s population and over a quarter of the latter’s were Turkish or Moroccan at the end of 1989).These successes produced eleven council members for the CDs and four (later three) for the CP ’86. The CDs are represented now in Amsterdam (two seats), Dordrecht (one), The Hague (two), Haarlem (one), Purmerend (one), Rotterdam (one), Schiedam (two), and Utrecht (one); the CP ’86 has councillors in Amsterdam (one), The Hague (one), and Rotterdam (one). In Almere, the CP ’86 also won a seat though there was no one available to take it up. There were protests by several hundred people in Amsterdam, The Hague, Dordrecht, Purmerend, and elsewhere against the installation of the extreme-right councillors (NHB, 1 May 1990, p. 2; DVK, 2 May 1990, p. 7; Trouw, 2 May 1990, p. 3). According to data prepared by the Anne Frank Stichting, of the fourteen municipal councillors elected in March 1990, three had been found guilty of spreading racist propaganda, one of these on several occasions, and a fourth had been prosecuted for condoning violence against foreigners as a legitimate method of resistance against the Dutch government’s minorities policy (Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 11 April 1990, p. 5). A police raid on the fifth one, the CDs’ councillor in Purmerend (north of Amsterdam), found Nazi propaganda, though in October 1990 he was acquitted on a technicality after being summoned for being a member of the forbidden neo-Nazi organization, Aktiefront Nationaal Socialisten (ANS), and for illegal possession of firearms (NHB, 24 October 1990, p. 7). The general reaction of the other parties to the extremeright councillors was ostracism and exclusion. Amsterdam officials intended to keep their servicing of these councillors to an absolute minimum and in numerous cities, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, other parties deliberately excluded CDs and or CP ’86 councillors from committees (HP, 2 April 1990, p. 11; DVK, 25 April 1990, p. 7; Nederlands Dagblad, 25 April 1990, p. 3), although in the context of national politics a mainstream right-wing member of the liberal-right Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD) called in May 1990 for a discontinuation of the Second Chamber’s ostracism policy against Janmaat (HVV, 8 May 1990, p. 5). In the provincial council elections in March 1991 the two parties slipped back very slightly, although the CDs still performed well enough to take single seats in the North Holland, South Holland, and Utrecht provincial councils, with 2.1, 2.1, and 1.6 per cent of votes cast respectively. Janmaat was elected to both the first two councils, as head of both of the party’s lists, but he withdrew from each in favour of an alternate in view of his parliamentary commitments (Trouw, 21 March 1991, p. 4). As in the past, both the North and South Holland councillors were the targets of anti-racist protests when they later took up their seats for the first time (NHB, 17 April 1991, p. 7).

The ideologies and programmes of the CP/CP ’86 and the CDs Political racism by extreme-right parties is seldom expressed with any concessions to subtlety and in this respect the Dutch parties are fairly typical.6 Perhaps the only major distinctiveness is their self-conscious use of the word ‘Centrum’ in

160  Country case studies

their titles. This, of course, was a legacy from the short-lived NCP, although the CP came to display the slogan ‘Neither right nor left’ prominently on much of its literature. Still, its political pamphlets necessarily had to demand policies other than the exclusion of foreigners. One produced in 1983 listed these as the introduction of the referendum; full employment for all Dutch people; an attack on the ‘scandalous housing shortage’; multilateral disarmament; an out-and-out attack on the drugs trade; the reduction of government expenditures and activities; no cutback on social payments, though an attack on their abuse; an attack on the evasion of social security contributions and on tax fraud; no aid to undemocratic countries; a purposeful attack on the mistreatment of animals, environmental pollution, and despoiling of the countryside; and (finally) ‘The Netherlands is not an immigration country; therefore stop the flood of foreigners’. In short, there was a pot­pourri of measures apparently intended to cultivate a populist cross-class audience. Unsurprisingly, the contemporary CDs have a similar appeal, having also continued using the ‘Neither right nor left’ slogan. Of course, some of the issues have been updated. Asylum-seekers are mentioned more explicitly; yet the ‘Stop the flood of foreigners’ has persisted too.The ‘deliberate infection with AIDS’ should be a punishable offence.Although the CDs do not aspire to great intellectual sophistication in defence of their position, their quarterly publication, CD-actueel, a rather cheaply produced effort, does include some articles with pretensions to scholarship. The CP ’86 is perhaps somewhat more interesting. Now much smaller than the CDs, it has been faced with a problem of self-definition vis-à-vis the latter. It has apparently resolved this by a self-conscious resort to aggressive nationalism, combined paradoxically with a form of Europeanism. It has developed links with the German Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands; it now calls itself ‘the national-democratic party in The Netherlands’ and attempts to mobilize around slogans such as ‘A new fatherland; a new Europe’. It has also developed links with the Belgian Vlaams Blok. Of course, it too has latched on to the asylum issue, as well as calling for enforced emigration of certain groups of foreigners.

Mass support for the CP/CP ’86 and the CDs There have been a number of studies on support for these two parties, both during the CP’s first phase of success and also in the post-1989 surge for both parties. Some of these studies are based on individual-level data, either nationally or locally collected; others are based on urban subdistrict data, usually in the three largest cities. Before introducing and discussing some of these studies, certain primary data for the three principal cities are presented. It has already been seen that there are geographical continuities between support for some of the earlier extreme-right candidacies and those of the CP, though the pattern is less clear in Amsterdam than in Rotterdam and The Hague. Tables 5.2 to 5.4 now give correlational analyses for Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague between subdistrict distributions of support in elections from

The Netherlands  161

1982 to 1991 and various aggregate social characteristics that reflect ethnicminority presence and general social and economic status.7 These data show both similarities and differences, Amsterdam being significantly aberrant from the other two. Table 5.2 shows that, inferring from the values of the coefficients of variation,8 support for the CP/CP ’86 and the CDs has generally displayed throughout this period a similar spread across the subdistricts of Amsterdam, except for the more concentrated character of the CP’s performance in the 1984 Euro-election and the suggestion of slightly more dispersed distributions in the 1990 and 1991 elections. These vote distributions generally correlate only mildly with the loCal presence of foreigners, but the reason for this is not so much the exceptionalism of Amsterdam in comparison with the other two cities but rather that this variable is a particularly poor operationalization of the presence of ethnic outgroups in the former case. However, the correlation coefficients with the number of Turks and Moroccans considered separately, these being among the most distantly regarded outgroups in the Netherlands’ ethnic hierarchy (Hagendoorn and Hraba 1989), are higher and compare better with the respective results for the other two cities; even so, there are indications of a decline in this relationship in the 1991 results. Loef (1990), using data on the larger subdistricts of Amsterdam (the seventeen stadsdelen), reported a correlation coefficient of 0.89 between CD support in September 1989 and the percentage-point change in the presence of Turks and Moroccans between 1982 and 1988. He also observed that CD support was higher in the western, twentiethcentury part of the city than in the nineteenth-century zone. In Amsterdam the localities with numerous Turks and Moroccans are not particularly those with the highest levels of unemployment or the lowest status scores,9 unlike Rotterdam and The Hague. Therefore, the relationships seen in Table 5.2 between extreme-right support and these latter indices are effectively negligible, especially after 1982. Van Amersfoort (1984, p. 224) has mapped the distribution of the Turkish population in Amsterdam in 1982, showing two concentrations: one in the west and the other in the south-east, both outside the canal-interspersed inner city. Table 5.3 shows a rather different pattern in the case of Rotterdam. These parties have consistently – from 1982 to 1991 – performed noticeably better in impoverished, low-status neighbourhoods, in which in this case there are also higher proportions of Turks and Moroccans; variations from this characterization have over the past decade been minimal. Moreover, in Rotterdam, the presence of foreigners better operationalizes ethnic outgroups than in Amsterdam and the coefficients are not greatly different from those for the presence of Turks and Moroccans. These findings do not imply a single epicentre for such voting. An early geographical analysis, looking at CP support in September 1982, noted that it was concentrated in central and older neighbourhoods, but there were pockets of support elsewhere (Mik and Stikkelbroek 1985, p. 107). There have been slight changes in character over the decade; one feature of support for the extreme right in Rotterdam that is worthy of comment and has not been noted by Dutch researchers is its tendency to somewhat greater spatial variation in the post-1989 results, suggesting that it is

6.8 1.4 0.6 2.0 1.4 2.3 3.1 2.9 5.4 8.3 1.5 4.1 5.6

CP

CP CDs Total CDs

CDs

CDs

CP ’86 CDs Total CP ’86 CDs Total

0.55 0.60 0.55 0.64 0.57 0.56

0.50

0.49

0.42 0.44 0.39 0.42

0.32

0.44

Coefficient of variation

0.505 0.512 0.541 0.318 0.353 0.362

0.389

0.357

0.404 0.317 0.410 0.421

0.232

0.385

% foreigners1

0.593 0.623 0.650 0.489 0.556 0.565

0.566

0.526

0.672 0.523 0.681 0.683

0.695

0.717

0.125 0.104 0.118 –0.063 –0.052 –0.058

–0.008

–0.020

0.029 0.117 0.060 0.043

0.025

0.259

% Turks and Moroccans1 % unemployed1

0.068 0.101 0.095 –0.013 0.007 0.001

0.044

–0.049

0.119 0.228 0.164 0.166

0.117

0.289

Status score1

1

 he respective data for 1 January 1984 are those correlated with the 1982 and 1984 candidacies; data for 1 January 1987 are correlated with the 1986 and 1987 candidacies; and T data for 1 January 1990 are correlated with the candidacies from 1989. 2 Because the city of Amsterdam redesigned the boundaries of its buurtcombinaties before 1986 and because aggregate data were published only upon certain combinations of the pre-1986 subdistricts the correlation coefficients in these rows have been calculated upon thirty-seven consolidated subdistricts. 3 For the March 1990 municipal council elections the levels of percentaged support for the extreme-right parties have been adjusted by an estimate of the presence of foreigners in order to exclude them from the numerical base on which the percentaged support has been calculated.

6 March 1991 (Provincial Councils)

18 March 1987 (Provincial Councils) 15 June 1989 (European Parliament) 6 September 1989 (Second Chamber) 21 March 1990 (Municipal Councils)3

2.8

CP

8 September 19822 (Second Chamber) 14 June 19842 (European Parliament) 21 May 1986 (Second Chamber)

Unweighted mean

Party

Date and type of election

moment correlation coefficients between these distributions and some aggregate characteristics in seventy-eight subdistricts (buurtcombinaties) of Amsterdam, 1982–1991

TABLE 5.2  Selected univariate statistics of percentaged support for the Centrumpartij/Centrumpartij ’86 and Centrumdemocraten and Pearson product-

162  Country case studies

CP

CP

CP CD Total CD

8 September 1982 (Second Chamber)

14 June 1984 (European Parliament)

21 May 1986 (Second Chamber)

CD

CP ’86 CD Total

CP ’86 CD Total

6 September 1989 (Second Chamber)

21 March 1990 (Municipal Councils)3

6 March 1991 (Provincial Councils)

2.1 4.9 7.0

4.9 5.6 10.5

4.0

3.1

1.8 0.5 2.3 1.8

9.2

4.4

Unweighted mean

0.45 0.44 0.43

0.46 0.47 0.45

0.38

0.32

0.35 0.44 0.35 0.31

0.32

0.37

0.666 0.613 0.647

0.826 0.754 0.810

0.734

0.733

0.764 0.657 0.770 0.820

0.828

0.826

Coefficient of variation % foreigners1

0.686 0.668 0.692

0.841 0.790 0.838

0.765

0.758

0.732 0.655 0.745 0.758

0.800

0.765

% Turks and Moroccans2

–0.769 –0.700 –0.741

–0.840 –0.814 –0.850

–0.808

–0.811

–0.841 –0.711 –0.845 –0.841

–0.843

–0.796

Annual income per earner, 1982

0.721 0.628 0.675

0.846 0.775 0.832

0.765

0.756

0.824 0.707 0.830 0.830

0.858

0.834

Status score, 1986

2

1

 he respective data for 1 January 1986 are those correlated with the candidacies up to 1987; those for 1 January 1988 are correlated with the later candidacies. T The respective data for 1 January 1984 are those correlated with the 1982 and 1984 candidacies; those for 1 January 1988 are correlated with the later candidacies. 3 For the March 1990 municipal council elections the levels of percentaged support for the extreme-right parties have been adjusted by an estimate of the presence of foreigners in order to exclude them from the numerical base on which the percentaged support has been calculated.

CD

15 June 1989 (European Parliament)

18 March 1987 (Provincial Councils)

Party

Date and type of election

product-moment correlation coefficients between these distributions and some aggregate characteristics in twenty-five subdistricts (wijken) of Rotterdam (excluding Hook of Holland), 1982–1991

TABLE 5.3  Selected univariate statistics of percentaged support for the Centrumpartij/Centrumpartij ’86 and Centrumdemocraten and Pearson

The Netherlands  163

164  Country case studies

becoming rather less an entrenched characteristic of certain areas at the expense of others, as shown by the trend in the values of the coefficient of variation. Table 5.4 shows a median pattern for The Hague, although the similarities are greater with Rotterdam. There is the same picture of continuity and concentration in poorer, low-status neighbourhoods with higher numbers of outgroup members, especially Turks and Moroccans (though the presence of foreigners is a good surrogate for the latter in this case). However, there is no clear pattern or trend in the data on spatial variation from which a substantive interpretation could be drawn. It is worth observing that the Netherlands offers one specific model of what can happen to the electoral support of the extreme right when there is a party fission. In some cases, one new party attracts a reactionary bourgeois support, whereas the other collects the votes of working-class racists, as happened in Switzerland’s split in the 1970s between the Schweizerische Republikanische Bewegung and the formerly named Nationale Aktion für Volk und Heimat. However, in the Netherlands the two parties which emerged from the split apparently have types of support that in social and motivational terms have been rather similar, in both cases generally working-class voters opposed to the local presence of particular ethnic outgroups. In the light of the CDs’ success in the September 1989 Second Chamber elections, there was a renewed debate about whether the surge was xenophobic in origin, either a reaction to the presence of non-indigenous people or to a local increase in their numbers, or merely a consequence of, say, political alienation. A study by Hoogendoorn et al. (1990) sought to answer this – highly unsatisfactorily – by correlating CP results in the September 1982 Second Chamber elections at the subdistrict level merely with the proportion of non-indigenous residents in the three principal Dutch cities, and then repeating the same analysis with the CD results in the election seven years later.The outcome, concentrating only on a single independent variable (and one that is a crude operationalization of its research intention), was unconvincing and the exercise has even less sophistication than those in Tables 5.2 to 5.4. As Tanja (1990) says, the research hardly deserved the media attention that it received. However, there have been a number of studies of individual-level support, most of them dating from the early 1980s phase of CP success. These are drawn upon generously by van Donselaar and van Praag (1983, pp. 62–74) in their round-up of relevant research, which also included the aggregate data research then available. De Hond’s (1983) large-sample analysis derived from 21,000 telephone interviews showed some particular, often predictable, distinctivenesses in CP supporters. They tended to be male and to have lower educational attainment, lower-thanaverage incomes, and no religious affiliation, in comparison with the general Dutch population. As we know, they were more urban-based, stronger in the west of the country and (unsurprisingly) had little trust in government. Daudt (1983) showed that over a fifth of CP voters in the September 1982 Second Chamber elections came from the May 1981 supporters of the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA), the country’s conventional social-democratic party, and about the same number were

CP

CP CD Total CD

8 September 1982 (Second Chamber)

21 May 1986 (Second Chamber)

CD

CP ’86 CD Total CP ’86 CD Total

6 September 1989 (Second Chamber)

21 March 1990 (Municipal Councils)2

2

1

2.2 4.6 6.8 1.5 4.6 6.1

2.8

2.3

1.0 0.4 1.4 1.3

2.1

Unweighted mean

0.57 0.55 0.54 0.73 0.60 0.60

0.67

0.52

0.64 0.61 0.62 0.47

0.67

Coefficient of variation

0.551 0.466 0.506 0.520 0.531 0.553

0.533

0.517

0.494 0.674 0.561 0.601

0.614

% foreigners1

0.715 0.663 0.696 0.670 0.709 0.732

0.678

0.696

0.636 0.762 0.692 0.721

0.736

% Turks and Moroccans1

0.640 0.549 0.593 0.377 0.669 0.615

0.570

0.616

0.694 0.653 0.704 0.779

0.739

% under fl. 8,000 per annum, 1971

0.791 0.718 0.760 0.583 0.790 0.768

0.682

0.751

0.765 0.686 0.766 0.857

0.788

Status position

 he respective data for 31 December 1980 are those correlated with the 1982 candidacy; those for 31 December 1989 are correlated with the later candidacies. T For the March 1990 municipal council elections the levels of percentaged support for the extreme-right parties have been adjusted by an estimate of the presence of foreigners in order to exclude them from the numerical base on which the percentaged support has been calculated.

6 March 1991 (Provincial Councils)

CD

15 June 1989 (European Parliament)

18 March 1987 (Provincial Councils)

Party

Date and type of election

product-moment correlation coefficients between these distributions and some aggregate characteristics in thirty-three subdistricts (wijken) of The Hague, 1982–1991

TABLE 5.4  Selected univariate statistics of percentaged support for the Centrumpartij/Centrumpartij ’86 and Centrumdemocraten and Pearson

The Netherlands  165

166  Country case studies

from the previous year’s CP voters. Rath’s study of voting for the local councils in Rotterdam in 1984 showed the usual pro-male disposition among CP voters; there were even occasional CP supporters in his sample of non-Dutch and Surinamese/ Antillianese voters (Rath 1985, pp. 187–9). Rather interestingly, Buijs and Rath’s (1986, p. 48) research on the Rotterdam municipal council elections in March 1986, which sampled in two predominantly working-class areas of the city, found no extra disposition among the unemployed to favour the CP. Rath’s (1990, p. 31) study of the same elections four years later presents little data on CP ’86 and CD support, except that it is clear the pro-male disposition persists.

Conclusion: what does the future hold for the Dutch extreme right? Although Dutch radicals and anti-fascists are prone to see dangers in the resurgence of the extreme right there since 1989, it has to be said that, in contemporary Europe, the Netherlands presents an interesting, though minor, example of the phenomenon: merely an irritant on the body politic.Very differently from countries such as Belgium and France, Ó Maoláin’s (1987, pp. 198–202) compendium reports relatively few extreme-right groups. The European Parliament’s report drawn up on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia mentions the CDs and CP ’86, plus only three small neo-Nazi groups, none of them particularly important in profile (European Parliament 1990, pp. 29–30). Looking at the wider public, Dutch opinion polls by NIPO, the Dutch affiliate of Gallup International, were reporting support for the CDs at less than 0.5 per cent nationally in its 1990s omnibus polls – hardly une situation française! Thus, the Dutch extreme right, despite the assistance that it has received from the country’s voting system in local and national elections and despite its street presence in the major cities of the country, is really rather comparable to that in Great Britain. The CDs had about 1,000 members in 1990, only about a hundred of them active; the CP ’86’s national membership was put at a mere seventy-five (European Parliament 1990, p. 29). Certainly, there is no sense in which the Dutch example has the importance of that in France or even Belgium, where Flemish nationalism has so stimulated the Vlaams Blok’s support. Of course, the Dutch extreme-right parties have to an extent set the agenda, as elsewhere in western Europe, though the recent restrictive initiatives on immigration and asylum are likely to have been adopted in any case.

Acknowledgements In the preparation of this chapter I have benefited from being able to consult material made available to me by the Anne Frank Stichting and the Steinmetzarchief in Amsterdam, by the Central Public Libraries, the Elections Offices and the Statistical Offices of the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, and by a number of Dutch academic colleagues. Research visits to the Netherlands to collect material

The Netherlands  167

were supported financially by the British Academy’s Small Personal Research Grants scheme and the Nuffield Foundation’s Small Grants scheme. My thanks are extended to the British Academy and to the Nuffield Foundation.

Notes 1 A very recent textbook addition to the literature on Dutch politics is Gladdish (1991); unfortunately, what he says on the extreme-right parties is minimal and, in any case, not fully accurate. For a summary (in Dutch) of electoral research about the Netherlands, concentrating on electoral geography and including a section on the extreme right, see van der Wusten (1991). 2 Summaries of patterns of colonial and labour migration to the Netherlands are given in a number of sources. An early account is Schumacher (1981). Several of van Amersfoort’s authored or co-authored articles contain information on the history of the phenomenon (e.g., van Amersfoort 1984, 1986; van Amersfoort and Surie 1987). His book (van Amersfoort 1982) provides a fuller treatment, but only up to 1975. More recent is Entzinger’s (1984) comparative account and one of the latest summaries is Cornelis (1990). 3 There has been no Dutch census in the conventional sense since 1971 and it has been adjudged that equally or more accurate demographic data may be compiled using both large-scale sample surveys, such as the labour-force survey required of member countries of the European Community (in the technical processing of which the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics has been a pioneer, developing computer hardware and software subsequently adopted in other countries), and also the registration of the population, which enables the ready preparation of up-to-date data on essential demographic characteristics for a complex hierarchy of subdistricts. 4 The Netherlands’ national Parliament in The Hague has two chambers, the Second Chamber being directly elected. Second Chamber elections normally occur every four years, unless called early, the most recent being in 1989. The country has twelve provinces: Drenthe, Friesland, and Groningen form the North; Flevoland, Gelderland, and Overijssel form the East; North Holland, South Holland, Utrecht, and Zeeland form the West; and Limburg and North Brabant form the South. The most recent addition, Flevoland, has existed separately since 1 January 1986. Elections to the provincial councils are held every four years (most recently in 1991), except that those originally scheduled for 1986 were held in 1987.The Netherlands has 677 municipalities (gemeenten), ranging in population from the very largest, Amsterdam (695,162), Rotterdam (579,179), and The Hague (441,506) (as of 1 January 1990) to rural municipalities with a few thousand residents, the mean population being about 22,000. Municipality boundaries are not infrequently altered, usually by amalgamations. Municipal council elections are held every four years, the most recent being in 1990. 5 This was Ventre, the Liberal Party, which won over 25 per cent of the vote in the May 1957 Danish general election, a high point in its level of support. 6 Of course, there is by now a quite sizeable exposé literature about the history and the ideology of the CP and, to a lesser extent, the CP ’86 and the CDs. Much of it has been prepared by self-consciously anti-fascist groups. See, for example, FOK (1986), Kriesmeijer (n.d.), SUA (1983), and, on extreme-right support among the young, VKPG (1985). A slightly more extended discussion of the ideology of the contemporary extreme-right parties in the Netherlands is given by Lucardie and Voerman (1990).

168  Country case studies

7 There are certain clarifications about Tables 5.2 to 5.4 that should be given. First, it is considerably easier to acquire historical data on subdistrict voting for Amsterdam than for the other two cities. Full results for each buurtcombinatie (the basic urban subdistrict in Amsterdam) have long been published in the Amsterdam press, especially by Het Parool. The Rotterdam and The Hague press have not done this service and it is not possible readily to acquire historical data from the relevant electoral office, since records of these results have been inaccessibly archived. Thus, an analysis of The Hague’s European Parliament results of June 1984 could not be included. Rotterdam collects subdistrict social and economic data on a variable basis but does not publish a regular compilation. Whereas Amsterdam annually publishes a comprehensive data book, Amsterdam in cijfers, that for The Hague has not been published since 1980, thus accounting for the ancient status of some of the data cited. 8 The coefficient of variation is a dimensionless measure of dispersion, independent of the absolute values of the distribution concerned, which is calculated by dividing the standard deviation of the distribution by its mean. 9 ‘Status scores’ are derived directly or indirectly from subdistrict factor scores of the socio-economic dimension of a factor analysis of standard socio-economic variables. They have been taken from relevant official sources in the cases of Rotterdam and The Hague and have been calculated by the author from his own data compilation in the case of Amsterdam. In order to maintain scoring consistency among the socio-economic variables, numerically lower factor scores indicate higher status.

References BASS. 1984. Eurobarometer 21 (BASS 8420). Brussels: Belgian Archives for the Social Sciences. Bouw, Carolien, van Donselaar, Jaap, and Nelissen, Carien. 1981. De Nederlandse Volks-Unie: portret van een racistische splinterpartij. Bussum: Het Wereldvenster. Bovenkerk, Frank, Douwes, Annette, Cloudi, Millie, and van Velzen, Joop. 1978. ‘De verkiezingsaanhang van de Nederlandse Volksunie’. Pp. 103–18 in Frank Bovenkerk (ed.), Omdat zij anders zijn: patronen van rasdiscriminatie in Nederland. Meppel: Boom. Brants, Kees, and Hogendoorn, Willem. 1983. Van vreemde smetten vrij: opkomst van de Centrumpartij. Bussum: De Haan. Buijs, Frank, and Rath, Jan. 1986. De stem van migranten en werklozen: de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen van 19 maart 1986 te Rotterdam. Publication No. 25, Centrum voor Onderzoek van Maatschappelijke Tegenstellingen (COMT), Leiden: Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden. Cornelis, B. 1990. ‘Migratie naar Nederland’. Pp. 13–30 in Henri Bernhard Entzinger and P. J. J. Stijnen (eds.), Etnische minderheden in Nederland. Meppel: Boom. Daudt, H. 1983. ‘Wisselende kiezers’, Acta Politica, 18(2), 274–86. de Hond, Maurice. 1983. De opkomst van de Centrumpartij: een onderzoek onder de aanhang van de Centrumpartij in het najaar van 1983. Amsterdam: Inter/View B.V. de Jong, L. 1969. Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog: Deel I,Voorspel. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Entzinger, Henri Bernhard. 1984. Het minderhedenbeleid: dilemma’s voor de overheid in Nederland en zes andere immigratielanden in Europa. Meppel: Boom. European Parliament. 1990. Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia on the findings of the Committee of Inquiry. European Parliament Document A3-195/90. Falter, Jürgen W. 1991. Hitlers Wähler. Munich:Verlag C. H. Beck.

The Netherlands  169

FOK. 1986. Opkomst en afgang van Centrumpartij en Centrumdemocraten. Amsterdam: Fascisme Onderzoek Kollektief. Gladdish, Ken. 1991. Governing from the Centre: Politics and Policy-making in The Netherlands. London: Hurst & Company. Hagendoorn, Louk, and Hraba, Joseph. 1989. ‘Foreign, different, deviant, seclusive and working class: anchors to an ethnic hierarchy in The Netherlands’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 12(4), 441–68. Hamilton, Richard F. 1982. Who Voted for Hitler? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hirschfeld, Gerhard. 1988. Nazi Rule and Dutch Collaboration: The Netherlands under German Occupation, 1940–1945. Oxford: Berg Publishers. First published in German in 1984. Hoogendoorn, J., et al. 1990. Extreem-rechts en allochtonen in de vier grote steden: een problematische relatie. Working Paper No. 122, Planologisch Demografisch Instituut, University of Amsterdam. Husbands, Christopher T. 1988. ‘The dynamics of racial exclusion and expulsion: racist politics in western Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 16(6), 701–20. Kooy, G. A. 1964. Het echec van een ‘volkse’ beweging: nazificatie en denazificatie in Nederland, 1931–1945. Assen:Van Gorcum & Comp. Kriesmeijer, J. n.d. De crisis en de nieuwe zondebok: de racistische politiek van de Centrumpartij. Amsterdam: Anne Frank Stichting. Loef, K. 1990. Centrumdemocraten in Amsterdam: een cijfermatige analyse in opdracht van Het College van B en W. Amsterdam: Amsterdamse Bureau voor Onderzoek en Statistiek. Lucardie, Anthonie P. M., and Voerman, Gerrit. 1990. ‘Extreem-rechts in Nederland: de Centrumdemocraten en hun radicale rivalen-II’, Namens, 5(7), 4–8. Meyers, Jan. 1984. Mussert: een politiek leven. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers. Mik, G., and Stikkelbroek, J. H. 1985. Verkiezingen in Rotterdam: een geografische verkenning van de verkiezingsuitslagen 1970–1982 en een nadere analyse van de ruimtelijke structuur der Tweede Kamerverkiezingen van 1982. Amsterdam: Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap; Rotterdam: Economisch Geografisch Instituut, Erasmus University. Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics. 1989. Statistical Yearbook for the Netherlands, 1988. The Hague: SDU/Publishers. Nooij, A. T. J. 1969. De Boerenpartij: desoriёntatie en radicalisme onder de boeren. Meppel: J. A. Boom en Zoon. Ó Maoláin, Ciaran (Comp.). 1987. The Radical Right: A World Directory. Harlow: Longman. Passchier, N. P. 1987. ‘Centrumpartij en N.S.B.: een vergelijking vanuit het social-ecologisch gezichtspunt’, Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap Geografisch Tijdschrift, 13(1), 39–50. Passchier, N. P., and van der Wusten, Herman. 1979. ‘Het electoraal succes van de NSB in 1935; enige achtergronden van verschillen tussen de gemeenten’. Pp. 262–72 in P. W. Klein and G. J. Borger (eds.), De jaren dertig: aspecten van crisis en werkloosheid. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff Educatief. Rath, Jan. 1983. ‘The enfranchisement of immigrants in practice: Turkish and Moroccan islands in the fairway of Dutch politics’, Netherlands Journal of Sociology, 19(2), 150–79. Rath, Jan. 1985. Migranten, de Centrumpartij en de deelraadsverkiezingen van 16 mai 1984 te Rotterdam. Publication No. 20, Centrum voor Onderzoek van Maatschappelijke Tegenstellingen (COMT), Leiden: Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden. Rath, Jan. 1990. Kenterend tij: migranten en de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen van 21 maart 1990 te Rotterdam. Utrecht:Vakgroep Culturele Antropologie, University of Utrecht. Schmidt, O. 1979. ‘A quantitative analysis of support for the National-Socialist Movement (NSB) from 1935 to 1940 in the City of Amsterdam’, Acta Politica, 14(4), 479–508.

170  Country case studies

Schumacher, Peter. 1981. De minderheden: 600.000 vreemdelingen in Nederland. Amsterdam: Van Gennep. Shirer, William L. 1960. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster. SUA. 1983. De rechterkant van Nederland: een overzicht van conservative, extreem-rechtse en fascistische verschijnselen in Nederland en hun onderlinge contacten. Amsterdam: SUA. Tanja, J. 1990. ‘Wetenschappelijk gebroddel: rapport over extreem-rechts en allochtonen’, Afdruk, 12–13. van Amersfoort, Hans. 1982. Immigration and the Formation of Minority Groups: The Dutch Experience, 1945–1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. First published in Dutch in 1974, with ‘1945–1973’ in the subtitle. van Amersfoort, Hans. 1984. ‘Immigration and settlement in The Netherlands’, New Community, 11(3), 214–24. van Amersfoort, Hans. 1986. ‘Nederland als immigratieland’. Pp. 15–46 in Lotty van den Berg-Eldering (ed.), Van gastarbeider tot immigrant: Marokkanen en Turken in Nederland, 1965–1985. Alphen aan den Rijn: Samson Uitgeverij. van Amersfoort, Hans. 1987. ‘Van William Kegge tot Ruud Gullit: de Surinaamse migratie naar Nederland: realiteit, beeldvorming en beleid’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 100, 475–90. van Amersfoort, Hans, and Surie, Boudewijn. 1987. ‘Reluctant hosts: immigration into Dutch society, 1970–1985’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 10(2), 169–85. van der Wusten, Herman. 1987. ‘The Low Countries’. Pp. 213–41 in Detlef Mühlberger (ed.), The Social Basis of European Fascist Movements. London: Croom Helm. van der Wusten, Herman. 1991. ‘Onderzoek van verkiezingsuitslagen’. Pp. 1–35 in Compendium politiek en samenleving, April. Alphen aan den Rijn: Samson Uitgeverij. van der Wusten, Herman, and Smit, Ronald E. 1980. ‘Dynamics of the Dutch National Socialist Movement (the NSB): 1931–35’. Pp. 524–41 in Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet, and Jan Petter Myklebust (eds.), Who were the Fascists: Social Roots of European Fascism. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget. van Donselaar, Jaap. 1991. Fout na de oorlog: fascistische en racistische organisaties in Nederland, 1950–1990. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker. van Donselaar, Jaap, and van Praag, Carlo. 1983. Stemmen op de Centrumpartij: de opkomst van anti-vreemdelingen partijen in Nederland. Publication No. 13, Centrum voor Onderzoek van Maatschappelijke Tegenstellingen (COMT), Leiden: Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden. van Leusden, H., and Moors, H. 1988. ‘Mede-landers?: meningen en opvattingen over buitenlanders in Nederland’, Demos: Bulletin over Bevolking en Samenleving, 4(5), 33–6. van Praag, Carlo. 1983. Vooroordeel tegenover etnische minderheden: resultaten van Nederlands opinieonderzoek. Publication No. 37, Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, Rijswijk. VKPG. 1985. Rechts-extreme jongeren. Amsterdam: Vakgroep Kollektief Polititiek Gedrag, University of Amsterdam. Warmbrunn, Werner. 1963. The Dutch under German Occupation, 1940–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

6 BELGIUM Flemish legions on the march

I will do such things – What they are yet I know not, but they shall be The terrors of the earth. William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4, lines 283–5 Tolstoy began Anna Karenin by saying that all happy families resemble one other, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Contemporary extremeright phenomena in the various countries of western Europe are similar in many elements of their political extremism though they possess features that make each case idiosyncratic. Common to all of them – the only traditional exception being perhaps the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) – is their use of racist mobilization based on hostility to one or more of a common collection of outgroups (immigrant workers, particular ethnic groups, asylum-seekers, foreigners in general). However, transcending this similarity are country-level specificities that derive from different political or historical circumstances. Until recently, the extreme right in Belgium has received little international attention,1 except perhaps from the Netherlands. Belgium does offer an interesting crucible of extreme-right activity, in some ways mirroring what one sees elsewhere (if not universally) in western Europe. However, partly because of the distinctive political situation within the country, it has its own model of the right-wing extremist phenomenon. Although one might dispute the implicit emphases, this chapter is organized on the premise that there are three particular themes for the analysis of the contemporary Belgian extreme right. •

Suggestions have been made about the infiltration of certain higher levels of the state, particularly the security service, the police, and parts of the Army, by a well-organized extreme-right conspiracy. A comparable instance might perhaps be Italy during, say, the early 1970s but such organized infiltration is rare elsewhere. True, in the early days of the Federal Republic of Germany

172  Country case studies

•

•

there were hold-overs from the Nazi era in some offices. More recently there, as also in France, plenty of evidence has emerged that lower- and middle-ranking elements in the police have been drawn disproportionately to supporting the extreme right. However, since the decline of suspicion in the early and mid-1960s about the disposition of the Army, this type of infiltration has not been a major factor in analysing the French extreme right. Although it is difficult to be definitive, the infiltration aspect is a phenomenon more of the French-speaking than the Dutch-speaking section of the Belgian extreme right. There is the proliferation of numerous small extreme-right groupings (charmingly known in French as groupuscules), in both the French- and Dutchspeaking parts of the country, none of which has attracted much electoral support (at least until recently) and several of which do not even seriously contest elections. However, they do exist to a disproportionate degree in Belgium, often cooperating on the international level with similarly oriented groups elsewhere (e.g., in France and the ex-Federal Republic of Germany, in particular, and the Netherlands). Some of the older activists in these groups have experienced political extremism back to the immediate post-war era and even before. Finally, there is the self-defined electoral (and now increasingly successful) extreme right, which in the present situation in Belgium means the Vlaams Blok (VB), based particularly in the Antwerp area but also active in parts of the provinces of East Flanders and Brabant. Inevitably, a substantial section of this chapter is devoted to an analysis of the characteristics and support of the VB.

These three themes form the basis for the major sections of this chapter. Although there is necessarily some substantive overlap (especially between the second and third themes), the three are nonetheless autonomous because the significant linkages between them, such as personnel, are not always known. In the first section of the chapter are summarized some of the accusations and themes of the literature on elite infiltration by the extreme right. In the second section is provided a brief historical overview of the history of extreme-right groupings since 1945. The third section is devoted exclusively to VB, given its significance in the contemporary situation. A concluding section then examines the likely future prospects of the extreme right in Belgium and discusses contemporary reactions in the mainstream of the country’s politics to the rise of the VB and certain other groups, especially intended changes in policies on citizenship, immigration, and political asylum.

The infiltration of institutions of state Among certain circles in Belgium there has for some time been quite serious talk of an ‘Italian situation’ in the country.2 Some left-wing commentators have drawn an explicit analogy between the political instability of Italy during the 1970s, when

Belgium  173

there was endemic violence from both political extremes and attested accounts of extreme-right sympathy among some agencies of state security, and Belgium’s so-called ‘black years’ of the 1980s, when there were comparable outbursts of violence from left and right, including a wave of bloody supermarket hold-ups (Gijsels 1990, esp. pp. 203–4).The latter came to be known as ‘the Brabant massacres’. There have been persistent suspicions about the reliability of the police and state security services in defending the country against dangers from the extreme right. This is not a new phenomenon. One episode in the 1930s was an attempted coup d’état by the police, according to De Bock (1984a), although others have dismissed such a Manichaean interpretation.Whatever the truth about that particular incident and despite questions about the political disposition of the Belgian king, Leopold III (e.g., De Bock 1984b), it seems during the 1930s – more so than in some other countries with fascist movements – to have been especially in the coercive state apparatuses where such sympathies and activities were concentrated. This particular tendency emerged in the 1970s and 1980s in a number of incidents that showed extreme-right activity not only in the same institutions of state, but also within some of the conventional political parties. Certain of these incidents have indicated extreme-right sympathies among full-time and often quite senior functionaries of the institutions concerned. Others indicate easy penetration by individuals or small groups of extreme-right activists anxious to obtain secret information from the penetrated organization. Indeed, such affairs have become the material of periodic scandals in Belgian public life. There is a significant exposé literature concerning them and there have been parliamentary inquiries into these matters, the most recent of which reported at the beginning of May 1990 (Mottard and Haquin 1990). Extreme-right sympathies among senior officials were exemplified in a series of incidents that happened at the beginning of the 1980s. Around that time there was a clear expansion of extreme-right racist activity, associated particularly with the Vlaamse Militanten Orde (VMO) in Dutch-speaking Flanders and the Front de la Jeunesse (FJ) in French-speaking Wallonia, the history of both of which is summarized later in this chapter.The FJ was disbanded in May 1981 as a paramilitary organization, its members having participated in numerous well-attested outrages, including arson attacks on buildings and facilities used by immigrants and an attack on the office of the left-wing weekly publication, Pour (Maesschalk 1984, esp. pp. 159–60). Members of the VMO also attracted the increasing attentions of the authorities and it too was subsequently condemned in May 1983 as a private militia. Public disquiet about the developments on the extreme right had been instrumental in the establishment by Parliament of a special Senate inquiry, called the Wijninckx Commission, although certain Senate members were responsible for leaking details of its supposedly secret deliberations to some of those being investigated (De Bock 1984c). An example of penetration is seen in the case of the shadowy neo-Nazi organization calling itself Westland New Post (WNP). In February 1982 two gruesome professional murders were discovered by the police in Anderlecht, a

174  Country case studies

suburb outside Brussels. The crime was solved only later, in August 1983, after the police elsewhere arrested a drunken right-wing extremist called Marcel Barbier in the street, after he had been threatening passers-by with a revolver. In a subsequent search of his residence, which was shared with a like-minded friend called Michel Libert, the police found secret NATO documents and blank passes to an army barracks. Both Barbier and Libert were former members of the proscribed FJ and had been instrumental in the emergence of the WNP organization between 1978 and 1981. Between 1980 and 1983 the WNP succeeded in penetrating the Belgian military security services with a spy-cell of seven hardened militants, who provided a substantial amount of secret military information concerning both NATO and the Belgian Army (Haquin 1984, 1985; Gijsels 1990, pp. 103–18).The same incident aroused suspicions about police sympathy for the extreme right, since it has also been alleged that many of the documents of the WNP previously confiscated in police raids were then retrieved with the active connivance of the police (Gijsels 1990, pp. 117–18). When Barbier was eventually tried for the double murder and condemned to life imprisonment in May 1987, he attempted to retract a confession made when arrested in August 1983. His trial excited some interest in Belgium because of the questions it necessarily raised about the relationship between the extreme right and certain law enforcement functionaries, specifically who was infiltrating whom (LM, 27 May 1987, p. 13). In fact, it is difficult to offer a summary judgement about the precise significance of these various shady activities; unsurprisingly, many of the questions that they provoke necessarily remain unanswered. The extent of their linkage, if any, with many of the more publicly visible extreme-right phenomena has not been adequately established and there is a tendency by more sanguine commentators to dismiss their importance, even if not their actual occurrence. Even so, the more engagé assessments do worry about the health of a polity where such events seem to happen with disturbing frequency.

Extreme-right groups in Flanders and Wallonia Overlying much of the extreme-right scene in Belgium is the Flemish–Walloon linguistic, cultural, and nationalist division of the country, which has also intruded into mainstream politics, especially since the rise of the linguistic issue in the early 1970s.3 This has affected the organization of the extreme right in terms of the numbers of its groups and geographical coverage, for example, the nature of its appeal, and its ideological orientations, which do tend to distinguish the Belgian extreme right from that in other countries. Ó Maoláin (1987, pp. 23–34), in discussing the position between 1985 and 1987, listed twenty-nine active extreme-right groups of one or another sort in Belgium, eighteen based in the Dutch-speaking part, eight in the French-speaking part, and three with bilingual names. In November 1987 a confidential list of subversive groupings in Belgium (of both left and right) produced by the Ministry of the Interior and reprinted by Gijsels (1990, pp. 192–3) gave a somewhat different

Belgium  175

collection of thirty-three apparently right-wing groups, ranging from extremeright study groups (e.g., a Centre d’Étude et de Recherche Socio-biologiques et Raciales (CERSBER)), through terrorist groups like the former VMO and the WNP, to diffuse collections of skinheads. Of these, fourteen had clearly Dutch names, nine had obviously French ones, five were French–Dutch, one Dutch– French, two German, and two were linguistically ambiguous (including the WNP, though this is to be considered French). In fact, both lists excluded a number of the smaller and more marginal electoral groupings that we shall mention; even so, the variety among those actually listed – in size, level of activity, degree of extremism, propensity to violence, ideological orientation, and level of interest in electoral participation – is of course considerable.Any summary can discuss only the principal groups, although an attempt will be made to describe the historical continuities and traditions to be seen on the contemporary extreme right in Belgium. As elsewhere, there have long been extreme-right or explicitly authoritarian movements in Belgian politics. Before the War there was the Rex movement of Léon Degrelle, which was active and popular in Wallonia, and the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV) and the Verbond van Dietse Nationaal-Solidaristen (VERDINASO) in Flanders (van der Wusten 1987). Although drawing from a variety of social sources and two different nationalist traditions, however, these never succeeded in managing a large-scale take-off. The Second World War, of course, damaged the legitimacy of the extreme right and for a while afterwards it was deemed tactically unwise to mobilize publicly. In Flanders there had been a well-known degree of pro-German sympathy, although this was far from unique to that part of the country. Active collaboration had been only a minority phenomenon. Even so, in the whole country after the War there had been as many as 346,283 cases of collaboration with the enemy, many dealt with in absentia. Among the 1,247 condemned to death, 699 were French-speaking and 548 Dutch-speaking. In view of the fact that collaborators from the country’s two linguistic groups were fairly equally prosecuted, much of the extreme right within both traditions – and especially, of course, former collaborators – went into what became called the ‘catacombs period’ (Cappelle 1984, p. 67). A 1962 report of the Centre de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Politiques (CRISP) – inspired by a series of newspaper articles on the extreme right in Belgium arising from the supposed extensions of the activities of the French Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS) and the neo-fascist Jeune Nation (JN) – remarked that ‘public manifestations of extreme-right opinion (including notions of extreme nationalism and authoritarianism) were extremely rare in Belgium until 1960’ (CRISP 1962a, p. 2).Then, in July 1960 the Mouvement d’Action Civique (MAC) was founded, inspired by Belgium’s lost colonial role and activated by some of those returning from the Congo. Also, a Parti National Belge–Belgisch-Nationale Partij (PNB–BNP), commemorating the thought of Charles Maurras, won 0.1 per cent of votes cast in the 1961 legislative elections (CRISP 1962b, p. 2). Between 1974 and 1976 CRISP published a further summary of the extreme right in both parts of the country, isolating types that it described in the French

176  Country case studies

case as conservative, traditionalist, national, national-revolutionary, and nostalgic (Verhoeyen 1974). New groups had arisen since 1962 and in certain intellectual circles there was an interest in the French new right and its ideas, represented best by the Groupement de Recherche et d’Études pour la Civilisation Européenne (GRECE) and writers such as Alain de Benoist. However, the more interesting and relevant development since 1962 was the rise of an extreme-right current within Flemish nationalism (Verhoeyen 1975). There had long been a ‘Flemish movement’ in Belgium devoted to the general social and political emancipation and cultural self-determination of the Flemish population.4 It had traditionally included groups as much from the political left as from the right, and during the twentieth century it had been an important current in the mainstream political parties. However, militant Flemish nationalism was more specific, being devoted to the aim of establishing a separate Flemish state. Given some of the twentiethcentury resonances of this idea, it is unsurprising that this nationalism was the seedbed of extreme-right activity or that this latter was therefore accorded more tolerance than extreme-right phenomena elsewhere in western Europe. Among those untainted by suspicions of wartime collaboration, there had been an immediate and significant renewal of Flemish nationalism after the War. The smaller group of nationalists who had identified with the pre-war VNV was obliged to be more cautious before ‘breaking cover’. The Flemish party of the post-war years, the Vlaamse Concentratie (VC), was an important vehicle of their nationalism. Founded officially in May 1949 for the parliamentary elections of that year, its general acceptance was assisted by the anti-Communist mood of the time. It attracted suspicion of extreme-right sympathy by calling in its programme for a general amnesty for wartime collaborators (Gijsels and Vander Velpen 1989, pp. 19–21). As it was an organization that included former members of the pre-war VNV (even if forming only a fraction of activists), the left regarded it as politically questionable and on occasion attacked it.The VC therefore felt the need to establish a protection squad for defending its meetings and for other duties.This was provided by the later-to-be-notorious VMO, created in 1949 or 1950 (there has been some dispute about the exact date) and subsequently to play such an important part in militant extreme-right Flemish nationalism. When the VC metamorphosed into the Volksunie (VU) in December 1954 and the latter became the inter-class-based respectable arm of Flemish nationalism, the VMO extended its protection service to the newly founded grouping. However, VMO activists came to feel resentful at their exclusion from VU deliberations and there was a formal parting of the ways in October 1963. The VMO went through several phases, including a slight change of name to Vlaamse Militantenorganisatie (VMOrg). Then, in June 1971 its founder and leader, Bob Maes, announced its dissolution. This was not accepted by a more radical wing of the membership and in July that year a group of militants in Antwerp reconstituted the VMO under its original name. The new VMO was open in seeking connections with extreme-right groups in other countries, in its calling for the destruction of the Belgian state, and in its hostility to parliamentary democracy. In April 1974, under a new leadership, theVMO announced its intention

Belgium  177

of enlarging its activities to oppose leftist influence in Flemish life. It also produced various small spin-off organizations, mostly in the Antwerp area.5 Also active around Antwerp and important as the seedbed for some of the present leadership and activist membership of the VB was an organization founded in 1963 called Were Di, Verbond van Nederlandse Werkgemeenschappen (WD, VNW). It sought to maintain what it regarded as certain essential features of Flemish nationalism and reproached the VU for having allegedly compromised these. Neither a mass movement, nor very large in membership, it grew with the dissolution of the original VMO, being joined by Maes and other former VMO activists. In fact, WD, VNW is an important link, in both ideology and even personnel, between the pre-war VNV inheritance and the present VB. As indicated above, the late 1970s and early 1980s were particularly turbulent years in Belgian politics. For example, there were political problems over the implementation of the 1977 so-called Egmont Pact – a scheme for the devolution of power into three political and economic regions, Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels – agreed to by the four parties of the 1977–9 coalition, including (to the disapproval of many Flemish nationalists) the VU. In fact, the scheme was not implemented, because the coalition government fell. Moreover, economic difficulties faced Belgium, perhaps greater than those which faced other industrialized countries in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. Partly in consequence, the issue of immigration and the position of Belgium’s not inconsiderable number of immigrants not only from black Africa but also especially from the North African littoral and Turkey, became an issue in domestic politics. The VMO, long tainted by racist ideological elements, as Verhoeyen (1975, p. 29) has explained, became aggressive in its activities against immigrants, organizing antiimmigrant marches that often led to violence from anti-fascist demonstrators and to counter-marches. For example, the VMO organized a public march through Antwerp in October 1980, bringing about a later counter-demonstration against racism and fascism by 50,000 people in Brussels in the same month. When the VMO was finally proscribed as a private militia in 1983, its membership – as is a frequent consequence of such proscriptions – metamorphosed into various alternative groupings, including a Vlaamse Nieuwe Orde (VNO), with some finding their way into theVB. Furthermore, there have been doubts about the proper enforcement of this proscription. In any case, the electoral success of anti-immigrant mobilization in France from 1983 gave the impetus to a different type of extreme-right politics in Belgium.The VB, as the next section describes, having existed formally since May 1979, increased its anti-immigrant profile from about 1982, perhaps pushed in this direction in part by the injection of former VMO activists. A number of extreme-right initiatives also emerged in Wallonia after 1983 or, having existed for some time previously, increased their public profile. However, they were not notably Walloon nationalist in their ideology, on which subject the situation remained as Dumont (1983, p. 41) had described it in 1983: ‘although well-developed in Flanders, regionalist extremeright movements are, on the other hand, mere splinter groups in the Frenchspeaking part of the country’. He mentioned only the Mouvement Nationaliste Wallon (MNW). Mainstream Walloon nationalism has tended to be more left-wing.

178  Country case studies

Of course, there were and are in Wallonia other types of extreme-right groupings not especially dedicated to Walloon nationalism. The Union Démocratique pour le Respect du Travail (UDRT), founded in April 1978 and led by Robert Hendrickx, had a Poujadist flavour and was regarded by commentators as a part of the extreme right. There was also the so-called ‘Nols phenomenon’, named after Roger Nols, mayor of Schaerbeek (a suburb of Brussels) from 1970. His original notoriety was based on his illegal imposition of, as it were, a linguistic apartheid in his town, establishing separate municipal reception points for Dutch-only speakers. However, by the early 1980s, he had altered his appeal to being anti-immigrant. In the 1982 municipal elections, he was sweepingly re-elected in Schaerbeek after an exclusively anti-immigrant campaign, especially against North African immigrants. Subsequently, in 1984, Nols flirted with the idea of starting his own political party, inspired by the success in France of Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French Front National (FN). Following the latter’s June Euro-poll success, he was invited to address a meeting in Schaerbeek in September, where he announced that he had come to launch ‘the foundations of a wide national and popular front in Belgium’. Nols thereupon founded a number of so-called Nols Clubs as the basis for an independent political party. However, although (as described below) such a party was later established, it was not done through Nols’s particular initiative, which was not successful. He resigned as a parliamentary deputy in February 1987 and further compromised himself with his former mainstream political allies by too ardent contact with explicitly extremeright figures. His list lost support in Schaerbeek in the 1988 municipal elections and he retired from politics on health grounds. Even so, he is still an important figure because of his role in placing the issue of immigration so centrally on to the Belgian political agenda. Essentially, he had been doing this for a number of years before the publication of his book on the subject (Nols 1987). There are another two important groupings on the French-speaking extreme right, both now basing their principal appeal on the immigration issue.6 The Parti des Forces Nouvelles (PFN) has been in existence in a number of forms since 1975, when it saw itself not as a political party but as a collection of activists, then calling itself merely Forces Nouvelles. In fact, in France there is a breakaway party from the FN having the same name, founded in 1974 by former Ordre Nouveau (ON) militants dissatisfied with Le Pen. Although anti-immigrant, the Belgian version has also identified with anti-Semitism, including revisionist perspectives on the Holocaust, and the anti-abortion campaign. Its progress has been hampered by internal divisions and its electoral forays have so far been undistinguished; thus, it won only 4,190 votes (1.1 per cent of those cast) in the French-speaking lists of the Brussels regional election on 18 June 1989. The other important grouping is more recent – the Front National–Nationaal Front (FN–NF), which was founded in late 1984 and early 1985 and led by Daniel Féret and is effectively an organization of French speakers, despite the concession to bilingualism in its title.7 Describing itself as anti-immigrant, anti-Communist, antisocialist, and against the ‘cowardice of the liberals’, it brought together individuals from a range of earlier groupings on the extreme right, including some with

Belgium  179

highly questionable international connections (Gijsels et al. 1988, p. 41). Despite its newness, it has now clearly eclipsed the PFN in Brussels, largely because its title brings it some reflected glory from its French namesake. In the 1985 parliamentary elections it won only 3,738 votes (0.5 per cent) in the Brussels arrondissement8 while the PFN won 6,035 (0.7 per cent). In the corresponding elections two years later support for the FN–NF increased to 7,596 votes (0.9 per cent) and that for the PFN fell to 4,317 votes (0.5 per cent). In the October 1988 municipal elections the FN–NF won a surprise seat in Molenbeek, a Brussels suburb. Then the FN–NF’s 14,392 votes in the June 1989 Brussels regional election gave it 3.9 per cent of those cast on that occasion within the French-speaking list. Anti-immigration politics have now shown some growth potential in the Belgian capital, although they are in general less entrenched in Wallonia. Riding on the general anti-immigrant wave, the council of Schaerbeek (where we recall that Roger Nols was the former mayor) in 1989 passed a local ordinance permitting only French, Dutch, or German to be used in shop signs (LM, 15 July 1989, p. 5). In the parliamentary elections in November 1991, the FN–NF won 1.7 per cent of French-speaking votes, thus giving it a seat for the first time in the House of Representatives. A more detailed analysis of the extreme right in Belgium would have considered the Flemish and Walloon situations separately in view of the considerable degree of autonomy between them. The importance of specifically Flemish nationalism for the mainstream Flemish movements, in addition to Belgium’s linguistic antagonisms, is a powerful factor enforcing separate development. On the other hand, anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner exclusionism is the powerful common theme that undoubtedly underlies much, though not all, of the popular support for the extreme right.

The Vlaams Blok The rise to significance of the VB in Belgian politics may for many be one of the more worrying developments on the extreme-right scene in western Europe during the 1980s, even though its roots can be traced back to before the Second World War, as Gijsels and Vander Velpen’s (1989) recent book on the VB has demonstrated. Yet, perhaps because of the lower salience of Belgium on the international and European stage, there has been far less comment on this phenomenon in the English-speaking world than about what has happened in France, the Federal Republic of Germany, or even Austria. As suggested above, perhaps only in the Netherlands’ press, more interested than other Europeans in the affairs of a fellow Benelux country, has there been much analysis of the rise of the VB, especially as the municipal elections in the Netherlands of March 1990 saw a revival of the country’s own extreme-right parties. This analysis of the VB is organized under the following headings: • •

major developments since its founding; the principal points of its programme, including its material prepared for recent local elections and for the 1989 European Parliament elections;

180  Country case studies

• • • •

its organization and structure; the extent and nature of its support, including some suggestions of the mix of motives that contribute to this support; its links with extreme-right movements abroad; and the impact of the country’s linguistic division upon its character and success.

Developments since the founding of the VB The rise to prominence of the VB since the late 1970s is closely related to the idiosyncratic linguistic division in Belgium, which has continued to give to politics there a marked degree of tension and has on occasion threatened the stability of the polity. Having been subordinate throughout most of the history of Belgium since its independence in 1831, the Dutch-speaking Flemings have come to be the predominant linguistic group. The French-speaking Walloons were by tradition the more powerful. However, since the Second World War,Wallonia has become the region with the declining industries, whereas Flanders has unwontedly prospered. There has been an increasing demographic shift in favour of the Flemings, who dominate in numerical terms in a ratio of about six to four. There has long been a tradition of Flemish nationalism, especially in the area around Antwerp, and, as already mentioned, there were some questionable accommodations with the German occupiers during the Second World War. During the 1970s the linguistic issue threatened the breakup of the polity, and in an attempt to meet this threat the major parties agreed various constitutional reforms in the aforementioned Egmont Pact in May 1977.The fact that, as a member of the four-party coalition government of the time, the VU was a party to this pact, was one impetus from which the VB was able to grow, since the Egmont Pact was far from universally popular, especially in Flanders, and indeed the issue split the VU, losing it both activists and votes to the benefit of the emerging VB. After the pact there were preliminary but unsuccessful negotiations between two figures well known in Flemish nationalist circles, Karel Dillen and Lode Claes. Although the latter has no further role to play in this account, the former assumes particular significance. Now 67 years old and an accountant by profession, Dillen had been active in the Flemish nationalist cause since shortly after the Second World War. In October 1977 he founded the Vlaams Nationale Partij (VNP), and at the beginning of November of that year, Claes established the Vlaamse Volkspartij (VVP). In the autumn of 1978 new negotiations were held between the two groups with a view to putting forward a common list in the forthcoming parliamentary elections on 17 December 1978.The name chosen for this list was the Vlaams Blok. On that occasion the programme was not overtly xenophobic, instead making a conventional middle-class appeal against high taxes and political corruption. The party won over 75,000 votes for the House of Representatives (about 1.4 per cent) and over 80,000 in the Senate; Karel Dillen was elected to the House. In the spring of 1979 negotiations between the VNP and some from the VVP led to the conclusive metamorphosis of the VNP into the VB.

Belgium  181

The new party avoided the 1979 Euro-elections and in the parliamentary elections of 8 November 1981 Dillen was re-elected to the House, though at 1.2 per cent of votes cast, support for the VB was slightly down in comparison with 1978. In local elections in October 1982 the VB made its first local breakthrough, with two councillors elected to the Antwerp City Council: the VB won 16,528 votes, 5.2 per cent of those cast. The parliamentary elections of October 1985 saw Dillen re-elected, although the party still received only 85,000 votes (1.4 per cent). However, two provincial councillors were simultaneously elected to the Antwerp provincial council. By 1987 the VB was clearly in the ascendant. In the December parliamentary elections it received 116,410 votes for the House (1.9 per cent, which was enough to elect two representatives) and 122,925 for the Senate (sufficient for a seat there for the first time, which was occupied by Dillen). In the simultaneously held provincial elections the VB elected four members to the Antwerp provincial council. The VB’s cause was undoubtedly further assisted also by the fact that the VU had again been a member of the national government since 1987. Then, in the municipal elections on 9 October 1988, came the breakthrough that for the first time attracted serious foreign interest to this aspect of extreme-right activity in Belgium. The VB elected twenty-three councillors in ten municipalities. The major success was in Antwerp, where ten councillors in a fifty-five member council were from the VB. In Antwerp alone the VB won 54,163 votes, 17.7 per cent of those cast. Its success was particularly at the expense of the VU, which lost nearly half its support received in the previous contest in 1982. The VB also won three seats in Mechelen (whose other reputation is based on its football team) and two in Ghent, as well as individual seats in other smaller localities in the provinces of Antwerp and East Flanders. In the June 1989 Euro-election the VB rather confounded the Belgian pollsters by winning 240,668 votes, enough to see Dillen into the European Parliament. It won 62,355 votes in the city of Antwerp itself, 20.8 per cent of those cast, better even than in October 1988. In a simultaneous contest for a new Brussels regional council the VB won 8,999 votes, only 2.1 per cent of all cast, though 13.4 per cent of the Flemish lists (which received 15.3 per cent of all votes cast) (Blaise, Lentzen, and Mabille 1989, p. 7). This performance was enough to cause consternation because it put a VB member on to the seventy-five-seat council holding one of the eleven seats for the Flemish lists. Thus, it is fair to say in late 1991 – especially with the decline in mass support for the Federal Republic of Germany’s Die Republikaner (REPs) since the 1989 Euroelections, as that party has descended into internal vituperations – that Belgium contains one of the most successful (albeit localized) contemporary extreme-right examples in western Europe, putting it into the company of France, Austria, and perhaps Italy and Norway. The headquarters of the local VB branch in Antwerp, located a short walk from the city centre, are comparatively modest, being an office converted from what was once a conventional terraced residence with its front door opening directly on to the pavement. Even so, it exudes a sense of presence and selfimportance, for a flag with the Brabant lion rampant is often draped ostentatiously from the first-floor balcony.

182  Country case studies

The programme of the VB Among several articles in the left-wing newspaper, De Morgen, that analysed the phenomenon of the VB and were written in the light of the latter’s successes in the Antwerp municipal elections in 1988, one headlined the ideological progression of the VB between 1979 and 1988 as ‘from Flemish nationalism to racism’ (DM, 11 October 1988, p. 4). The VB’s early programmatic themes were constitutional reform and independence from Brussels. However, by 1982 there was a change of direction explicitly towards a ‘foreign workers out’ position. After some inconsequential election performances in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the party was desperate to find an issue that could galvanize its fortunes. The success of the Dutch Centrumpartij (CP) and later the French FN in mobilizing against foreign workers and immigrants undoubtedly provided a model that the VB was keen to imitate. In 1982 the VB had issued a publication called Dossier gastarbeid (van de Wal 1982), one chapter of which had posed as alternative scenarios integration, ghettoformation, and repatriation. A year later, the party had proposed a bill in favour of financial inducements to foreign workers to return to their countries of origin. In 1984 the party’s election material for the Euro-election announced: ‘500,000 unemployed. Then why foreign workers? Vote Vlaams Blok’. A list of the party’s principal programme positions (VB 1990) gives first place to the demand for an independent Flemish state. Brussels, as capital of Flanders and of Europe, should as such receive a special constitution. The sixth point, headed ‘A stop to immigration’, demands the return of the great majority of foreign workers to their own country through the provision of work in their own area. It also mentions the re-orientation of development aid and no voting rights for foreigners. Some of the more dramatic material produced for the 1988 municipal elections was more emphatic in its anti-foreigner appeal. Headed ‘Own people first …’,9 one leaflet contained a cartoon-style drawing with numerous ‘foreign’ symbolisms (black faces, Sikh turbans, fezzes, chador-clad women, black Zapata-style moustaches, and, significantly perhaps, an obvious financier figure with the ambiguously drawn features of an anti-Semitic stereotype). Standing behind these representations of various foreigners was the standard ‘own people’ family, with father, mother, and baby – the man holding up his right hand implying simultaneously and ambiguously a gesture to demand attention and, more subtly, the last desperate wave of a man before disappearing below the surface of the ‘sea’ of foreigners pictured around him – ‘not waving but drowning’, to recall the title and refrain of the famous Stevie Smith poem.10 The inside centre column of the same leaflet announced: The number of foreigners is increasing every day.The foreign-worker problem does not exist in the same degree everywhere. The Vlaams Blok wants the cities and municipalities that have not experienced it to be protected from it. The Vlaams Blok wants the cities that are plagued with it to be freed from it. … The Flemish cities and municipalities must remain cities and municipalities of towers and cathedrals and must not become North African ghettos with mosques [my translation].

Belgium  183

During recent years the VB has established a profile based upon issues other than Flemish nationalism, xenophobia, and racism. It has been strongly anti-homosexual (the leaflet quoted above also proclaimed that ‘the Vlaams Blok chooses youth, not paedophiles and other deviants’). In October 1989 a VB member was sentenced to a fine and a suspended prison sentence for participating in an attack in March 1985 on a gay activist distributing leaflets on a college campus (DM, 7 October 1989, p. 11). The VB has also been vigorously anti-abortion and has organized campaigns on this specific theme. ‘Because people are important … oppose the law for destroying babies!’ (geen baby-rot-op wet) and ‘This life is in danger’ (accompanied by the picture of a fetus), claimed one leaflet. The party’s newspaper (Vlaams Blok, October 1989, p. 8), under a title of ‘Abortion: an ethical analysis’, contained an extended consideration of the anti-abortion case, complete with an unflattering photograph of the woman Representative who had brought forward a pro-abortion bill in Parliament.

Organization and structure of the VB It would be a serious mistake to regard the VB as a one-person band; it has avoided the difficulties faced by some extreme-right parties that achieve sudden growth of having a dearth of suitably intelligent and qualified people to fill the elected offices won by their success, problems that have affected the German Republikaner and the Geneva-based Vigilance. It has instead been able to draw upon a depth of experience in the Flemish nationalist tradition. However, although several of its leading members show obvious competence, the figure of Karel Dillen as its leader and now its Member of the European Parliament stands supreme above his peers. His was the initiative that founded the party, as we saw. The anti-fascist publication Verzet (1989) gives some details about each of the VB’s principal leaders. Dillen, born in Antwerp in 1925, was in 1949 a co-founder of the Jong-Nederlandse Gemeenschap (JNG), an initiative of a former leader of the Nationaal-Socialistisch Jeugdverbond (NSJV). During the 1950s Dillen was active in the VU and in 1962 founded WD, VNW (which was mentioned earlier) and led this until 1976. In 1973 he became leader of the Vlaams-Nationale Raad (VNR). The VB, typical of extreme-right groups, has a fairly centralized organizational structure: even the important Antwerp branch refers written queries to the Brussels headquarters. The party’s national administration consists of the leader, deputy leader (who chairs the national council), treasurer, and a number of other officers, including the leader of the party’s youth wing, Vlaams Blok Jongeren (VBJ). The party’s national council consists of representatives of each arrondissement where there are local branches, as well as of each relevant provincial party administration. Each arrondissement administration has a collection of officers complementing most of those at the national level. There is an arrondissement council containing representatives of individual local branches. This lowest level has its complement of officers. Individual membership is at the branch level.

184  Country case studies

The extent and nature of VB support Enough has already been said to make clear certain aspects of the VB’s popular support. It is still heavily concentrated in the city of Antwerp and its environs, with a levelling-off as one moves away from this epicentre. In parts of Antwerp itself the VB has won a third of the vote, as we shall see, and there are other areas of strength such as the town of Sint-Niklaas (before whose gate, ‘in one of the traverses of the trench opposite to the salient angle of the demibastion of St. Roch’, Uncle Toby received his notorious war wound in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy). The VB’s strongholds, absolutely and relatively defined, are in the provinces of Antwerp and East Flanders, with noticeable distance-decay as one moves away from Antwerp. Whereas in Antwerp the VB vote in the June 1989 Euro-poll was the 20.8 per cent mentioned above, in Sint-Niklaas it was 7.9 per cent, in Aalst 4.7 per cent, and in Oudenaarde (otherwise famed for the battle there in 1708) 2.3 per cent. We shall return to the implications for analysing the extreme right in Belgium of this remarkable concentration around one epicentre of electoral support. It certainly stands out very clearly in the cartographic presentation of voting levels (e.g., Delruelle-Vosswinkel et al. 1989), although the fact that the Province of Antwerp contains much more than 10 per cent of Belgium’s population should perhaps temper a too excessive emphasis on local concentration. After its national-level 1.9 per cent in the December 1987 parliamentary elections, the VB was registering significantly in opinion polls, as revealed, for example, in the omnibus polling of the organization, DIMARSO, the Belgian affiliate of Gallup International, and reported regularly in De Morgen. Its national samples are self-weighting and are based on 1,500 cases, 600 in Flanders, 600 in Wallonia, and 300 in Brussels. In late 1989 and the first part of 1990 the VB was averaging about 3 per cent nationally and 5 per cent in Flanders alone. Its support continued to maintain itself through 1990 and 1991. Even so, it was a considerable shock to mainstream politicians when, in the November 1991 parliamentary elections, the VB won 10.4 per cent of the Flemish vote, enabling it (at least to a certain extent) to break out from its traditional bastion around the immediate Antwerp area. The city of Antwerp remains its undoubted stronghold, of course; it won over 25 per cent of the votes there and became the individual party with the highest support. Its representation in the country’s House of Representatives rose from two to twelve seats, as the VU’s dropped from sixteen to ten. In the Senate the VB finished with five seats. Small-case-base problems have clearly limited systematic analysis of the social background characteristics of VB supporters.11 However, some conclusions may still be drawn on this matter from such individual-level data as do exist and from aggregate-data analyses. Unfortunately, the available individual-level studies do not offer unambiguous consistency. It is likely that the VB’s activist support, in this respect like that of more or less all extreme-right movements, is disproportionately male, although Swyngedouw, De Winter, and Schulpen (1990, p. 28) report that no party’s support in the Flemish constituency in the June 1989 Euro-poll contained

Belgium  185

a significant gender differential. They also report an interaction effect on voting for the VB between educational attainment and age, support being disproportionately high among those aged 36 to 45 and among those aged 46 or more with higher educational attainment. There was no differential by religious belief, though they do report slightly higher support overall among those in low-status occupations (Swyngedouw, De Winter, and Schulpen 1990, pp. 29–37). On the other hand, though not necessarily inconsistent, there is also evidence of the particular appeal of the VB in recent years to the young, again in agreement with similar findings about many (though not all) other such movements. A study of youth partisanship in Mechelen, reported in rather sparse detail by De Morgen (11 October 1988, p. 17), found that 16 per cent of pupils and students aged from 14 to 20 favoured the VB and among those aged 17 and 18 the figure was 24 per cent – much higher than the citywide percentage. Perhaps the most significant question to be asked about the support of a racist political movement is its predominant social class base, since this may offer important indications about the motive and type of racism being analysed (e.g., Husbands 1988). The slightly lower-status character of VB support overall in the June 1989 Euro-poll was mentioned above, and some further tentative suggestions may be made on this matter about the Antwerp case as well as elsewhere. It does seem likely that the VB in Antwerp, as its support has increased, has transcended its probable earlier working-class base to become a more genuinely inter-class movement now comprising considerable representations of Flemish activists disappointed with the VU, working-class racists, and right-wing extremists motivated by anti-Communism and anti-Semitism. There has been a decline over the years, as its general support has grown, in the extent to which its vote on a subdistrict (wijk) basis correlates with the local concentration of foreigners, suggesting – as far as aggregate data permit such inference – a dispersal of support away from the working-class areas of the city where foreign workers are disproportionately located. At the end of 1988, about 15 per cent of the city of Antwerp’s population were foreigners, Moroccans being the most significant non-European group; in three subdistricts of the city the percentage of foreigners was between 20 and 25 per cent. In three selected elections between 1982 and 1989 – the 1982 municipal elections, the 1985 parliamentary elections, and the 1989 European Parliament elections – VB support citywide was 5.1, 7.0, and 20.8 per cent respectively.12 The zero-order product-moment correlation coefficients, calculated across fourteen subdistricts of the city for which all the relevant data were available, between percentage-levels of VB support and the percentage of foreigners in the locally resident population at the end of 1987 were, correspondingly, 0.559, 0.440, and 0.241, showing a numerical decline that was especially apparent in the 1989 results.13 Although data were unavailable to permit more complex statistical analyses, even these simple relationships suggest that factors other than merely some contactracism-based mechanism – as expounded in Husbands (1988) – are now at work in producing VB voting in the city.True, there are areas where high VB support and high foreigner-concentration coincide. One such is Stuivenberg near the docks to

186  Country case studies

the north of the old city, where over 21 per cent of residents were foreigners in 1987. However, in the nearby Dam-Eilandje neighbourhood, where the VB won 34.1 per cent of the poll in the 1989 European elections, the percentage of foreigners is about that of the city average. In the 1989 Euro-poll the VB won a third of the vote in Oud-Borgerhout, to the immediate east of the city of Antwerp proper, although in Borgerhout as a whole only 16 per cent of residents were foreigners in 1988. On the other hand, it is a place of inter-ethnic tension, as evidenced by a reported incident in May 1990 when there was an unpleasant altercation between a group of young Moroccans and some young local basketball-players (Het Niewsblad (Antwerp), 22 May 1990, p. 11). Clearly, the VB is by any conventional definition a xenophobic party, but the correlational data presented above suggest, as both VB activists have claimed and also other commentators have argued, that its support is now underpinned by a complex of motivations. Gijsels et al. (1988, p. 18) note that in Limburg province, where the foreigner population is a more important factor (albeit also older) than in Antwerp, the VB has fared badly, its better performances there being in places with significant numbers of unemployed miners. Thus, there may well be some truth in the claim of Eric Deleu, who headed the VB list in the October 1988 municipal elections in Antwerp and said of the VB’s success then that it was not merely ‘due to our standpoint in connection with the immigrant problem but also to our fight against politicization, the selling-off of the docks, rising crime, the breakdown of law and order, and the impoverishment and brutalization of the city’ (Gazet van Antwerpen, 10 October 1988, p. 2).

The VB’s links with extreme-right movements abroad Flemish nationalism arises from a proud and self-conscious tradition. It has historically taken various forms and in a sense has been self-centred and insular. In other respects, however, it has been cosmopolitan and internationally oriented; this is certainly true of its extreme-right variant. The notorious international neo-Nazi gathering, long held annually at Diksmuide, is organized through the efforts of the VMO and its successor organizations. Such Flemish nationalists have always been happy to cultivate contacts abroad, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands (though less keen on the ‘Greater Netherlands’ concept of some Dutch neo-fascists).14 Most annual reports of the German Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) mention the VMO in connection with activities abroad of the German extreme right (e.g., BfV 1989, p. 138).To a lesser extent Flemish nationalists have also developed contacts with the extreme right in Great Britain and France. Le Pen had looked to the Flemish nationalists, even before the 1989 Europoll, as a possible contributor to the critical minimum number of deputies needed to compose an official grouping in the European Parliament, a status that carries a number of important privileges. Indeed, VB representatives had usually been guests at the FN’s annual celebratory gathering. Until the spring of 1989 it seemed unlikely that there would be a significant German contribution to any extremeright grouping in the European Parliament; in any case, till then Dr Gerhard

Belgium  187

Frey’s Deutsche Volksunion–Liste D (DVU–Liste D) was more likely to make an electoral breakthrough than were the REPs. In late 1988 three VB leaders had been welcomed at a congress of Frey’s organization in North Rhine-Westphalia and the VB was the object of much flattering attention from Le Pen’s FN. Certainly, the 1988 success of the VB in municipal elections was an inspiration to the European extreme right more generally, suggesting a possible revival in the 1989 Euro-poll. Even so, Dillen’s success in becoming a member of the European Parliament was not predicted properly by pre-election polls. Of course, he joined the European Right group in the European Parliament, with the deputies of the French FN and the German Republikaner. In the quarrel within this group, particularly between Die Republikaner and the Italian MSI representatives, Dillen sided strongly with the former. In fact, the quarrel – centred upon the status of South Tyrol (Alto Adige to the Italians), which the latter wanted to keep as Italian and which the Germans felt should be offered independence – led to the departure of the elected MSI deputies from the European Right group (LM, 10 October 1989, p. 10). Dillen saw parallels between the status of the South Tyrol and that of Flanders. In an interview in the FN publication, National-Hebdo, he said that ‘it [the quarrel] was a problem between Italians and Germans’ though ‘we others, as Flemings, are sensitive to the fact that this region has been made Italian by force’. He continued: ‘We could compare this case to that of Brussels, which we want to have as the capital of our future Flemish state.’

The linguistic factor and the character of the VB As we saw in the previous section of this chapter, not all extreme-right phenomena in Belgium precisely mirror the linguistic cleavage that has become so important in the country’s domestic politics. There are groups that purportedly attempt to cultivate a broad national appeal and sport bilingual titles. On the other hand, some of this is merely cosmetic and the groups concerned are effectively on one or other side of the dividing line. This is true of the FN–NF, for example, which is really French-speaking. Militant extreme-right Walloon nationalism has been largely inconsequential in Belgium’s post-1945 politics, whereas Flemish nationalism, culminating in the contemporary VB, has been a major ingredient in the ideology and motivation of the extreme right there, especially in the Antwerp area. This aspect is paradoxical to the extent that Flemish nationalists have actively cultivated international contacts. On the other hand, it does make the extreme right in Belgium different from other major examples of the phenomenon in western Europe, such as in France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, or the Netherlands. Instead, if one is seeking analogues of the VB, one has to look at some of the more recondite examples of the extreme right, such as Protestant militancy in Northern Ireland or, as implied, the extreme-right German separatism of South Tyrol. Thus, although Flemish nationalism has now taken its place on the European stage, its equivalents are not the other major contemporary examples of extreme-right success.

188  Country case studies

It has undoubtedly been nurtured by the particularity of Belgian politics and society. It came from the extreme-right tradition of the pre-war and wartime period, and was kept alive by a strand within cultural Flemish nationalism and by the political nationalism of the VU. It received its decisive impetus from reactions within Flemish nationalism to the country’s political crisis in the late 1970s, before assuming in the 1980s – under the influence of some of the younger members of its leadership – the exclusionist strategy and ideology of well-known extreme-right parties elsewhere in Europe. Even so, its Flemish nationalism remains incontrovertibly an idiosyncratic feature that still serves to differentiate it from the latter.

Prospects and reactions The extreme right in Belgium has undergone numerous changes since 1945, although there are also some remarkable continuities. During the immediate postwar years, the ‘catacombs period’, it kept a low profile before, in the Flemish case, emerging in renewed forms of Flemish nationalism. During the late 1950s there was some reaction to Belgium’s decolonization in the forms and expressions of extreme-right activity, though scarcely more so than in Great Britain. The early 1960s saw suggestions of influences from the French OAS; however this period passed without leaving a major long-term impact. A more persistent French influence, even if only really upon a minor and self-consciously intellectual wing of the Belgian scene, was the new right, exemplified by GRECE, especially in the 1970s after the emergence of left-wing radicalism in 1968. Then, during the 1980s, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s success was used as a model by both French and Flemish wings of Belgian extreme-right politics, when he (along with the Dutch) demonstrated the viability of anti-immigrant agitation. Thus, by the late 1980s anti-immigrant Flemish nationalism is clearly the major component. From the 1970s and especially during the early 1980s, there has been a parallel leitmotif of the participation of law enforcement agencies in extreme-right terrorism. Perhaps two major questions are raised by the present state of the extreme right in Belgium. The first, of course, concerns its likely future development, a subject that may be addressed under two headings: •

•

the future stability of the Belgian polity in the light of suspicions about extreme-right sympathies within some of its major law enforcement agencies; and the electoral prospects of right-wing extremism in Belgium, especially the VB, and to a lesser extent, such groups as the FN–NF and the PFN.

The second major question is how the mainstream political groups and the government have responded to an extreme-right advance that, though locally concentrated, has placed on to the political agenda a number of items that mainstream politics prefer to eschew.

Belgium  189

The stability of the Belgian polity The report of the recent parliamentary commission, Les tueries du Brabant (Mottard and Haquin 1990), reviewed at length the events of the early 1980s. Although it is clear that some at least of the extreme-right criminals of that era are now behind bars, the questions about police and security service connivance live on. Those responsible for the Brabant massacres were never caught and the Commission’s discussion of whether their activities amounted to politically motivated terrorism or mere banditry (pp. 309–11) is thoroughly inconclusive.The response of the current Minister of the Interior, Louis Tobback, to the publication of the report was to call for the disbandment of the security police, claiming that it was not performing suitably. Also, the former Belgian Prime Minister, Wilfried Martens, suspended the police counter-terrorist chief, who was implicated in the report (p. 68).

Electoral prospects of right-wing extremism The rise in recent years of the electoral support for the extreme right in Belgium is, of course, analogous in one sense to the anti-immigrant politics to be seen in numerous other countries of western Europe. However, as in other respects already mentioned, the Belgian case has its own ambiguities and specificities. Whilst the liberal outsider may stand aghast at support levels of 20 per cent in free elections and at a city council with nearly a fifth of its members from the extreme right, it remains true that VB strength is, even after the November 1991 parliamentary elections, still fairly locally concentrated – far more so when compared with similar movements in western Europe, except perhaps the British National Front in the 1970s (Husbands 1983, pp. 50–95) – and that its reliance on a type of Flemish nationalism confined to a small part of the country may perhaps militate against its wider success. This does to an extent contradict the judgement of the current mayor of Antwerp, who in an interview revealed how he had received burnt fingers for several of his pro-immigrant worker policies and in pointing to urban racism elsewhere (as in the Netherlands), concluded, ‘we are dealing with a European phenomenon’ (Eppink 1990). On the other hand, levels of support for the FN–NF in French-speaking Belgium and on French-speaking electoral lists have not so far been genuinely significant, despite its recent small successes in the Brussels area.

Mainstream political responses to the extreme right Of course, it is true that the emergence of the VB has noticeably increased tensions in Antwerp itself upon its foreign population, the local press, and the mainstream political parties. A third of the readers of the largest regional daily, the traditionally Catholic Gazet van Antwerpen, were purported VB voters and the correspondence to it has been full of anti-foreigner declarations. The rise of the VB in Antwerp has not occurred without anti-racist activities, as when 1,500 demonstrated while the new VB members of the City Council were installed in January 1989 (DM,

190  Country case studies

4 January 1989, p. 2; NHB, 4 January 1989, p. 5), though the role of anti-racist activism in stemming the tide of racist voting is perhaps as unclear here as in other situations where it has been attempted (e.g., the Anti-Nazi League against the British National Front in the late 1970s and SOS-Racisme against the FN in France more recently). Six months later the VB improved its percentage support in the Euro-poll and has continued to be publicly assertive in the streets of the city. In Antwerp, the mainstream parties have sometimes seen themselves forced to adopt VB policies. For example, in September 1988, shortly before the municipal elections, the Christelijke Volkspartij (CVP), while stressing that it would not work with the VB, accepted the latter’s demand that there should be no more mosques built in Antwerp. Such absorption tactics, whose analogues on the national level are discussed below, have clearly not been conspicuously successful in Antwerp. There have also been ramifications at the national level. Shortly before the 1989 Euro-poll five mainstream parties, the VU, the CVP, the Socialistische Partij (SP), the Partij voor Vrijheid en Vooruitgang (PVV), and Agalev (the radical ecologists), made an agreement to eschew all political contact with the VB. In the light of the VB’s Euro-poll success, three of the five participants felt that it was not possible to isolate and stigmatize the VB in this way, claiming that it would merely increase VB support because of political martyrdom. Both CVP and PVV wanted to abandon the agreement, and the VU (a major loser of votes to the VB, of course) was similarly inclined, all nonetheless claiming that they still wanted no contact with the VB. Only the SP and Agalev seemed keen to maintain their earlier position (DM, 27 June 1989, p. 7), although the former especially had also lost earlier votes to the VB in the 1989 Euro-poll (Swyngedouw, De Winter, and Schulpen 1990, p. 54). In the light of theVB’s 1988 electoral success, the Belgian government pledged itself to examine its policies on immigration. One result of this was a greater commitment to the full integration of immigrants already in the country. In November 1989 the commissioner for immigrants, Paula D’Hondt, published proposals that would give automatic Belgian citizenship to third-generation immigrant children, as well as a number of other measures intended to accelerate integration (NHB, 24 November 1989, p. 4). Unsurprisingly, the VB opposed these steps. However, there has also been a more draconian side to the Government’s response. Perhaps more significant, and a story to be seen elsewhere in Europe, has been a hardening of the Belgian position on immigrants and asylum-seekers. Back in 1987 the government had already introduced a tightening of policy on asylumseekers designed to discourage Iranians in particular from coming to Belgium. The change was carried out, despite some bad publicity from attempted suicides by some of those forcibly repatriated. In May 1990 the Government introduced further restrictive measures because, said the Minister of Justice,‘Belgium can accept no more foreigners’. Certain cities already having large foreigner-populations are entitled to refuse non-EC nationals ‘to prevent ghettos from forming’. At the same time the asylum-application process was accelerated – at present as many as 90 per cent of applications are in any case refused – and the principle of carrier liability on airlines was tightened (NHB, 11 May 1990, p. 4).

Belgium  191

What one might call the ‘Danegeld’ approach to confronting the rise of the extreme right – attempting to convince the public of the stringency of existing or intended legislation on immigration and asylum matters – has a very mixed record of success. It scarcely worked for the 1974–9 Labour Government in Britain, although, ruthlessly applied, it was successful for its Conservative successor. Neither governments of left nor right have been very successful with it in France, where the FN remains a major minority movement. One wonders, in the light of the fragmentation of the Belgian party system and the breakthrough by the VB revealed in the November 1991 parliamentary elections, whether Belgium’s use of this timehonoured but questionable approach to the rise of electoral racism on the extreme right is likely to be any more successful, especially as several studies of the general population have revealed the extent of ethnic intolerance in Belgium.

Acknowledgements In the preparation of this chapter I have benefited from being able to consult material made available to me by the Anne Frank Stichting in Amsterdam, the Central Public Library of Antwerp, the Election Office and the Statistical Office of the City of Antwerp, the Royal Library of Belgium, and the Vlaams Blok. I am grateful to have been given permission by Dr Luc Schulpen, Director of the polling agency DIMARSO in Brussels, to use polling data collected by his company. A research visit to Belgium and the Netherlands to collect these materials was supported financially by the British Academy’s Small Personal Research Grants scheme. My thanks are extended to the British Academy.

Notes 1 Harris (1990, e.g., pp. 40–2) gives some incidental information on the extreme right in Belgium, not all of it completely accurate; there is a similar summary in European Parliament (1990, pp. 13–15). 2 To provide a suitably balanced perspective, it should be added that the left-wing assertions about extremist infiltrations of the apparatuses of state have been dismissed as exaggerated and alarmist by many in the political mainstream. Consequently, the literature upon which this section draws has all been written by self-defined left-wing journalists and writers. The mainstream, not accepting the purported seriousness of the threat, has consequently not written on it. 3 The non-specialist is perhaps unaware of the extent to which the linguistic issue dominates so many aspects of Belgium’s life, very obviously its politics; for one study of this phenomenon, see Murphy (1988). 4 The origins of the ‘Flemish movement’ go back to the mid-nineteenth century as a search for self-determination in the light of the French-language domination of the newly autonomous Belgian state. It was common to compare the fight for self-determination by the Flemings with that by the various ‘nationalities’ of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There is an extensive analytic and documentary literature on the Flemish movement. For nineteenth-century material, see, for example, Willemsen (1974), which is the first

192  Country case studies

volume of a three-volume series. Zolberg (1974) gives a general account of the origins and consolidation of the Fleming-Walloon cleavage during the nineteenth century. 5 The city of Antwerp features prominently in the contemporary development of militant Flemish nationalism and its associated extreme-right aspects. Disproportionately severe urban decline has clearly exacerbated community tensions during recent years. The longer-term reasons for the city’s status as the epicentre of such nationalism are more tentative, especially since the more general phenomenon of Flemish nationalism has been far from restricted to Antwerp. However, French-Dutch linguistic divisions were particularly tense there in the pre-war period. Dutch has convincingly ‘won out’: the JARDIN ZOOLOGIQUE engraved on one pillar (with DIERENTUIN on the other) of the rather shabby entrance to the city’s zoo next to Antwerpen-Centraal railway station being one of the more whimsical reminders of the city’s genuinely bilingual past. 6 It should be mentioned that certain other small extreme-right parties have operated during the 1980s. The PNB–BNP, around as we saw since the early 1960s, won tiny fractions of the vote in Brussels in the 1978 and 1981 parliamentary elections. The Union Nationale des Francophones (UNF) won 0.3 per cent of the vote in the 1981 parliamentary elections. The Union Nationale et Démocratique (UND) won 0.6 per cent in 1985 and the Parti Libéral Chrétien (PLC) (later the Parti de la Liberté du Citoyen (PLdC)) won 0.5 per cent in 1985 and 0.6 per cent in 1987. 7 In fact, there is also a tiny militant ultra-nationalist Flemish non-electoral group called the Nationaal Front (NF) led by Werner Van Steen (a one-time leader of the VMO), which organized a Europe-wide ‘Euroring’ meeting of neo-Nazis at Kortrijk (in West Flanders, north of Lille) in August 1988. Van Steen apparently told Le Pen to stay away ‘because he [Le Pen] was a democrat’ (LM, 30 August 1988, p. 6). 8 A Belgian arrondissement, not to be confused with the French intra-city subdistrict, is a substantial administrative area within a province. Belgium as a whole contains nine provinces: four (Antwerp, Limburg, East Flanders, and West Flanders) are in Flanders and are predominantly Dutch-speaking, four (Hainaut, Liège, Luxembourg, and Namur) are in Wallonia and are largely French-speaking. Brabant, in which Brussels is located, is considered bilingual. 9 Incidentally, this phrase is also the title of a book by Filip Dewinter (1989), leader of the VB’s youth wing, the VBJ, and at 29 years old already one of the senior party’s emerging leaders. 10 This particular drawing has been seen as significant by others. After completing a preliminary draft of this section of the chapter, I obtained a copy of Gijsels and Vander Velpen (1989).They concentrate on the same features (p. 149), although the ‘own people’ man’s gesture is seen by them as an ambiguous approximation to the Hitler salute, an interpretation that they see as strengthened by the man’s hairstyle. 11 One obvious source for studying the electoral support of the VB – omnibus opinionpoll data – seems not to have been adequately exploited. Thus, none of these data has apparently been cumulated in order to produce a large enough sample for full social background analysis. In any case, there is a frequent flaw in such an approach, which is that only the most dedicated supporters of extreme-right racist movements may actually admit such support to opinion-pollsters.The quoted data from DIMARSO on recent VB strength are sufficiently high to suggest that this problem may be less acute in the example of support for the VB, although a poll in Antwerp in April 1988 did report a level of VB support of only 6 per cent, well below the October municipal election figure, as we have seen. For one of numerous examples of this approach to the analysis of extreme-right support whose dataset is likely to be affected by this problem, see Jaffré (1984).

Belgium  193

12 It is instructive to note the decline in VU support across the same three elections – from 12.4 per cent in 1982, to 10.8 per cent in 1985, and to 4.5 per cent in 1989. 13 The Election Office of the City of Antwerp was unable to supply election results disaggregated by subdistrict (wijk) or district for Antwerp, and suggested that the political parties would be able to do this. These data were in fact supplied by the Vlaams Blok in Antwerp, albeit with some occasional gaps. Data on proportions of foreigners by subdistrict of Antwerp have been taken from Stad Antwerpen (1989, p. 18), table 13, ‘Stand van de werkelijke bevolking op 31 december 1988’. 14 Pan-Dutch sentiment does exist in parts of the Belgian extreme right, as in the organization, Voorpost. However, it is very much a minority current. The European Parliament’s recently published report drawn up on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia (European Parliament 1990, p. 13) claims on the basis of a quotation from Filip Dewinter that the VB itself is a strong supporter of pan-Dutch sentiment. However, this is rather misleading, for such claims do not figure prominently in the VB’s policy statements. It is true that the VB does maintain a great interest in the activities of the extreme right in the Netherlands, and in 1989 – under the title ‘The Dutch right-wing parties and the pan-Dutch idea’ – its newspaper published two articles on the recent history of the Centrum Partij (CP)/Centrum Partij ’86 (CP ’86) and the Centrumdemocraten (CDs) there (Vlaams Blok, July-August 1989, p. 8; September 1989, p. 8). It also reported the successes of the two Dutch parties in the country’s municipal elections in March 1990 (Vlaams Blok, May 1990, p. 8). On 7 August 1990 sixteen members of the VB and CP ’86, including Karel Dillen, were arrested in Dordrecht (about 20 km south-east of Rotterdam), when they attempted to hold a forbidden press conference against an exhibition opposing the various extreme-right parties of several European countries (NHB, 7 August 1990, pp. 1, 3).

References BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz). 1989. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1988. Bonn: Bundesministerium des Innern. Blaise, Pierre, Lentzen, Evelyne, and Mabille, Xavier. 1989. ‘L’élection régionale bruxelloise du 18 juin 1989. Centre de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Politiques (CRISP)’, Courrier Hebdomadaire du CRISP, 1243(18), l–43. Cappelle, Jan. 1984. ‘L’ombre noire de la bourgeoisie flamande’. Pp. 67–117 in Walter De Bock et al. (eds.), L’extrême-droite et l’État. Berchem: EPO. CRISP (Centre de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Politiques). 1962a. ‘Nouvelles formes et tendances d’extrême-droite en Belgique – I’, Courrier Hebdomadaire du CRISP, 140(6), l–22. CRISP. 1962b. ‘Nouvelles formes et tendances d’extrême-droite en Belgique – II’, Courrier Hebdomadaire du CRISP, 141(7), l–20. De Bock, Walter. 1984a. ‘L’extrême-droite et la gendarmerie 25 octobre 1936: une tentative de coup d’état en Belgique’. Pp. 11–57 in Walter De Bock et al. (eds.), L’extrême-droite et l’État. Berchem: EPO. De Bock, Walter. 1984b. ‘La question royale: Léopold III, figure de proue de l’extrêmedroite’. Pp. 59–65 in Walter De Bock et al. (eds.), L’extrême-droite et l’État. Berchem: EPO. De Bock, Walter. 1984c. ‘Le ministre, son baron et la Sûreté de l’État’. Pp. 239–50 in Walter De Bock et al. (eds.), L’extrême-droite et l’État. Berchem: EPO. Delruelle-Vosswinkel, Nicole, Noel, F., Vanlaer, J., and Vandermotten, C. 1989. ‘De gemeenteraadsverkiezingen van 9 oktober 1988: evolutie van de politieke families en

194  Country case studies

electorale geografie’, Driemaandelijke Tijdschrift van het Gemeentekrediet van België, 43(3), 33–52. Dewinter, Filip. 1989. Eigen volk eerst: antwoord op het vreemdelingenprobleem. Brussels: Vlaams Blok. Dumont, Serge. 1983. Les brigades noires: l’extrême-droite en France et en Belgique francophone de 1944 à nos jours. 2nd ed.; Berchem: EPO. Eppink, Derk-Jan. 1990. ‘Racisme in maatkleding’, NRC Handelsblad (Saturday Supplement), 12 May, p. 7. European Parliament. 1990. Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia on the Findings of the Committee of Inquiry. European Parliament Document A3-195/90. Gijsels, Hugo. 1990. De Bende & Co: 20 jaar destabilisering in België. Leuven: Uitgeverij Kritak. Gijsels, Hugo, et al. 1988. Les barbares: les immigrés et le racisme dans la politique belge. Berchem: EPO. Gijsels, Hugo, and Vander Velpen, Jos. 1989. Het Vlaams Blok, 1938–1988: het verdriet van Vlaanderen. Berchem: EPO. Haquin, René. 1984. Operatie Staatsveiligheid: de staatsveiligheid en de WNP. Berchem: EPO. Haquin, René. 1985. Des taupes dans l’extrême-droite: l’sûreté de l’État et le WNP. Berchem: EPO. Harris, Geoffrey. 1990. The Dark Side of Europe: The Extreme Right Today. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Husbands, Christopher T. 1983. Racial Exclusionism and the City: The Urban Support of the National Front. London: George Allen & Unwin. Husbands, Christopher T. 1988. ‘The dynamics of racial exclusion and expulsion: racist politics in western Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 16(6), 701–20. Jaffré, Jérôme. 1984. ‘Qui vote Le Pen?’. Pp. 121–30 in Edwy Plenel and Alain Rollat (eds.), L’effet Le Pen. Paris: Éditions La Découverte et Journal Le Monde. Maesschalk, Anne. 1984. ‘Front de la Jeunesse: une milice privée d’extrême-droite’. Pp. 139– 69 in Walter De Bock et al. (eds.), L’extrême-droite et l’État. Berchem: EPO. Mottard, Jean, and Haquin, René. 1990. Les tueries du Brabant: enquête parlementaire sur la manière dont la lutte contre le banditisme et le terrorisme est organisée. Brussels: Éditions Complexe. Murphy, Alexander B. 1988. The Regional Dynamics of Language Differentiation in Belgium: A Study in Cultural-Political Geography. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, Geography Research Paper No. 227. Nols, Roger. 1987. La Belgique en danger: la verité sur l’immigration. Brussels: Éditions La Ligne Claire. Ó Maoláin, Ciarán (comp.). 1987. The Radical Right: A World Directory. Harlow: Longman. Stad Antwerpen. 1989. Jaarverslag 1988. Antwerp: 5e Directie. Swyngedouw, Marc, De Winter, Lieven, and Schulpen, Luc 1990. De verkiezingen voor het Europees Parlement 1989. Brussels: DIMARSO. van de Wal, D. 1982. Dossier gastarbeid. Brussels:Vlaams Blok. van der Wusten, Herman. 1987. ‘The Low Countries’. Pp. 213–41 in Detlef Mühlberger (ed.), The Social Basis of European Fascist Movements. London: Croom Helm. VB (Vlaams Blok). 1990. Voornaamste Programmapunten. Brussels:Vlaams Blok. Verhoeyen, Étienne. 1974. ‘L’extrême-droite en Belgique (I), Centre de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Politiques (CRISP)’, Courrier Hebdomadaire du CRISP, 642–3(16), l–43.

Belgium  195

Verhoeyen, Étienne. 1975. ‘L’extrême-droite en Belgique (II): L’extrême-droite au sein du nationalisme flamand, Centre de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Politiques (CRISP)’, Courrier Hebdomadaire du CRISP, 675–6(9), l–62. Verzet. 1989. ‘Wie is wie in het Vlaams Blok: de partijkaders van het Vlaams Blok’, Verzet, January, 8–11. Willemsen, A. W.. 1974. De vlaamse beweging: I, van 1830 tot 1914. Hasselt: Heideland-Orbis NV. Zolberg, Aristide R. 1974. ‘The making of Flemings and Walloons: Belgium, 1830–1914’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 5(2), 179–235.

7 SWITZERLAND Right-wing and xenophobic parties, from the margin to the mainstream?

Iron hand in a velvet glove Thomas Carlyle, after Napoleon, Latter-Day Pamphlets, ‘No. 2, Model Prisons’, 1 March 1850; also Charles V of Spain (attributed) Switzerland presents a paradox to most of its observers. Its surface appearance is of calmness and serenity, a surprising success in the task of blending together into a single polity communities that are disparate in language, religion, and cultural traditions. Indices of economic and social success are exemplary, due to the benign consociational effects of multiple cross-cutting social cleavages (van den Berghe 1981, pp. 193–7): an almost-zero strike rate because of corporatist accommodations between employers and trade unions; rates of unemployment that, despite increases compared with thirty years ago, are still below those in most other west European countries; and official crime rates so much lower than those of many comparable countries that attempts at explanation once attracted international criminological attention.1 There are contradictions, however, as well as social divisions not far beneath its apparently smooth surface. Despite attempts by popular initiative, unsuccessful in any case, to change its military call-up practices, it remains a militaristic society long after the objective need for a large available military has evaporated; its adult males still face the prospect of compulsory service until the age of 50. Yet Swiss soldiers’ involvement in military action has usually been little more than that of the Divisionaire Krueger (sic, the French word now always has double-n) in Graham Greene’s 1980 novel, Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party; despite a long career in military service, the only wound in action that the Divisionaire had ever received was a nip on his finger from a live lobster served at a private dinner party. The unfortunate Switzerland has intermittently been the butt of such sarcasm, on a previous occasion most famously with the jibe about the cuckoo clock in The Third Man, a film whose screenplay was written by Greene, although the specific speech was supplied, as well as spoken, by Orson Welles.

Switzerland  197

The Swiss government has since 1959 been a four-party corporatist coalition of the liberal Freisinnig-Demokratische Partei der Schweiz (F-DP), the left-leaning Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz (SPS), the centre-right Christlichdemokratische Volkspartei der Schweiz (CVP), and the right-wing populist and currently controversial Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP).2 The continuity of this coalition became so apparently assured, at least until the electoral success of the SVP in 1999, that participation in general elections in a county whose constitution elevates participatory democracy almost to a fetish, with its commitment to referenda and popular initiatives, is usually among the lowest in western Europe. Indeed, many domestic critics have long been observing that, on the basis of actual participation in elections, Switzerland has become a democracy in crisis. Several other examples of subterranean tensions may be seen in the past couple of decades, such as squatting movements and riots by squatters in some of the major cities such as Zürich. However, its vulnerabilities are perhaps best revealed in its attitude to its resident foreign population, despite the fact that Switzerland has been an immigrantdependent society and economy throughout the twentieth century and back into the nineteenth. If reaction to immigrants is the ‘barium meal’ test of a society’s cultural maturity, Switzerland has often failed to pass it. For example, naturalization and citizenship processes are handled by the country’s individual cantons and it is true to say that not all are equally inflexible and narrow-minded in their practices and policies on this matter. Nonetheless, some have in the past insisted on various demonstrations of ‘Swissness’, a test failed spectacularly in one of the Germanspeaking rural cantons in the 1980s in a case that attracted minor international notoriety, when an unfortunate soul was rash enough to admit to disliking the sound of cowbells, even after many years in the country. The attitudinal syndrome revealed by such incidents is a subject that liberal and radical Swiss writers, filmmakers, and playwrights have satirized, gently or with considerable causticity. Rolf Lyssy’s 1978 Die Schweizermacher poked elaborate fun at the procedures used by two police immigration officers to establish ‘Swissness’. Also, one Italian applicant for Swiss citizenship in the film had so over-identified with Wilhelm Tell during his naturalization interviews that, while subsequently rejoicing in his success at finally achieving citizenship, he allowed himself at the celebratory party to be goaded by his less ‘Swissness’-afflicted former compatriot friends into shooting an apple from his son’s head using a bow and an arrow tipped with a rubber sucker. However, from the Italian perspective the same theme was not a subject for humour. Franco Brusati’s not wholly impressive 1973 film, Pane e Cioccolata, contained some amusing vignettes, especially in the early scenes, but soon changed to a much more embittered mood. The Swiss cultural and literary avant-garde has long been attracted by the tensions and dramas associated with the Swiss and immigration. For example, Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta, Swiss film directors who between them did much to keep alive the otherwise limited reputation of Swiss cinema during the

198  Country case studies

1970s and 1980s, dealt challengingly in some of their work with the foreignerimmigration issue in Switzerland. The Marxist Tanner’s stunning Le Milieu du Monde, made in 1974, concerned an ultimately unsuccessful relationship between an Italian immigrant-worker waitress, played by Juliet Berto, and a bourgeois (and married) Swiss politician, who was unable to accept her across the nationality and class divisions between them. The man, incidentally, could not at first believe that in contemporary Switzerland there existed accommodation with only shared toilet facilities! Goretta’s La Mort de Mario Ricci, which appeared somewhat later, in 1983, concerned a journalist who was pursuing a story in a Swiss village and became distracted from this by raising queries about the death of the eponymous young Italian immigrant worker. Even more famously, the playwright, Max Frisch, has produced perhaps the most acerbic single aphorism about the attitudes of many Swiss towards the immigrants working in their country. Now perhaps dated by the emergence of the politicalasylum issue, it still has an undoubted directness: ‘A puny master race sees itself in danger: it called for a labour force and those who are coming are human beings. They do not destroy prosperity; on the contrary, they are essential for prosperity. But they are there.’ (Frisch 1965, p. 7). Andorra, probably Frisch’s most famous drama, first produced in 1961, was about how a community turned against its Jewish member in response to an outside threat, a clearly intended allegory of aspects of Switzerland’s behaviour during the Second World War, which only in very recent years has received serious, and even then contentious, attention in the country. Its ambivalence and uncertainty towards foreigners, both those outside and those in its midst, has historical analogies to some contemporary reactions to those seeking to come in. Professional historians, such as Alfred Häsler (1967) in Das Boot ist voll with a new edition in 1989, which was drawn upon in a film of the same title made in 1981 and directed by the avant-garde film-maker Markus Imhoof, long ago documented the story of Swiss attitudes to Jewish refugees, large numbers of whom were turned back into Nazi Germany to their death. It is ironic to note the durability of the ‘boat’ metaphor in land-locked Switzerland and the same phrase is widely used, in Switzerland and other west European countries to summarize the case against the admission of political asylum-seekers. As will be seen, this latter issue has been central to the appeal of the extreme and neoconservative right in contemporary Switzerland. The critical international scrutiny during the last several years of many aspects of Switzerland’s role during the Second World War, including numerous questionable features of its relationship with Nazi Germany beyond its treatment of Jewish refugees attempting escape and the dubious, often unscrupulous, attitudes of some of its bankers towards the deposits made by Holocaust victims has been far from welcome in some sections of Swiss society. Indeed, it is noteworthy that some of the functionaries of the SVP have been especially hostile. The whole issue has undoubtedly produced a certain defensive nationalism. Even the liberal Neue Zürcher Zeitung, whilst giving much space to articles on ‘Shadows of the Second World

Switzerland  199

War’, has not been immune to occasional displays of schadenfreude when morally unacceptable behaviour by other non-combatant countries, such as Sweden, has been exposed.

Extreme-right and xenophobic politics in Switzerland, 1930–2000 In the year 2000 it may fairly be said that xenophobic fringe political parties are of almost inconsequential significance in Switzerland, largely due to the successful surge during the 1990s of the SVP and also because they are victims of a general shift in recent Swiss electoral politics against all small marginal parties. However, before describing how this situation came about, it is useful to consider the historical evolution of extreme-right and xenophobic politics in Switzerland. This is presented in three periods: the pre-war and Second World War period till 1945; the post-war period till 1985, when the Autopartei der Schweiz (APS) was founded; and the period from 1985 till the present.

The period till 1945 The multilingual and consociational character of Switzerland is a rich source of diversity and multiplication in national life, in politics as well as in other spheres. Although some Swiss political parties may seek to be organized on a national basis and have titles equally in all the national languages, most have a particular identity with one rather than the other linguistic communities and so draw their support accordingly. Others unabashedly organize only within one linguistic community and the potential for multiplicity is correspondingly increased.Taking only Germanspeaking Switzerland, some forty fascist movements have been identified between 1925 and 1944, with particular surges of organizational activity in 1933 (the year of the so-called ‘Front spring’ in the light of contemporary events in Germany), 1940, and 1941 (Cantini 1992, p. 16).The Nationale Front (NeF) is undoubtedly the most important of these movements. Founded in Zürich in 1930, it had two hundred local groups by 1935, as well as others abroad. Wearing the grey shirt as its uniform had been proscribed in 1932. At its height it had 9,200 members and national and cantonal electoral representation. For example, in Zürich canton it won 6.2 per cent of votes and six of 180 seats in 1935. In Schaffhausen canton (in north-east Switzerland) in September 1933 it won 27 per cent of the vote.The party dissolved itself in March 1940 in order to avoid proscription and prosecution as a consequence of an ongoing official enquiry. It had absorbed the Neue Front (NFr) in 1933 and worked with similar movements in launching publicity and meetings.3 Perhaps its now best-known supporter was the soldier, Emil Sonderegger (1868–1934), who had been in charge of troops in Zürich in the country’s 1918 general strike and was the Chief of the Army’s General Staff from 1920 to 1923 (Zeller 1999). In French-speaking Switzerland the Fédération Fasciste Suisse (FFS) was the only French-speaking movement with pan-Swiss support and organization. Founded in

200  Country case studies

1933 and led by Arthur Fonjallez (1875–1944), who had been a university teacher of war history, it had connections with Mussolini’s Italy. A further movement, the Union Nationale (UN), subject of a major study by Joseph, was founded in 1932 in Geneva and also aspired to pan-Swiss influence (Joseph 1975). It was active till 1939, when it dissolved amid internal divisions, although some of its senior activists founded or moved into other movements and in some cases worked for the Germans during the War. Unsurprisingly in view of the proximity to Mussolini’s Italy, the Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland, Ticino, also produced extremeright activities. The Lega Nazionale Ticinese (LNT) was founded in 1933 by Alfonso Riva, a lawyer, who had also been influenced by Charles Maurras’s Action Française (AF). In February 1935 it won two of sixty-three cantonal seats in Ticino, although with only 2.5 per cent of votes. After the cessation of overt hostilities in June 1940 in western Europe between the Germans and their conquered neighbours, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the French, and in the light of the country’s abutment on to Austria and Italy, the Swiss had every expectation that they would be invaded by Hitler’s Germany, a fear that persisted into 1941 (Urner 1990, esp. pp. 13–84). In 1940 there had been panic movements by the civilian population away from border areas. There seems no doubt that, had Germany successfully invaded, there would have been a core of fascist sympathizers willing to offer their services to the occupying power, as was the case in the Netherlands and of course, perhaps most famously, Norway. On the other hand, this core would probably have been relatively small and it would be a mistake to contribute to the impression that an invasion of Switzerland or a Swiss Anschluss would have been welcomed in the style of the Austrian example in 1938.

The post-war period till 1985 As in other west European countries after the War, extreme-right activities in Switzerland necessarily entered a ‘catacombs period’ from which some have never emerged. True, there are neo-Nazi tendencies in Switzerland, in recent years often associated with sporting defence groups or with skinheads, but the Swiss state has managed to maintain control over these.4 On the other hand, whereas the extreme right in western European politics has only since the mid- and late 1970s come to rely strongly on xenophobic and racist appeals, Switzerland (like Great Britain) offers early, quite successful, examples of the xenophobic politics that later emerged in many other west European countries. Switzerland, as mentioned earlier, has a long tradition of using immigrant labour, a practice that stretches back well into the nineteenth century. Indeed, in Zürich in July 1896 there were major riots involving attacks on Italian workers (Bory 1987, pp. 21–42) that had exactly the hallmarks of ‘communal riots’, to use the expression introduced by Janowitz (1979, pp. 261–86) in the 1960s and as seen in the United States, for example, famously in Chicago in 1919 or in Detroit in 1943. By the post-war period Swiss immigration policy had been fully formalized and the country had, and still has, a distinctively high foreign-resident population.

Switzerland  201

A strongly parochial strain in Swiss national culture, associated especially but far from exclusively with the German-speaking section of the country, reacted against the importation of foreign influences, seeing these as diluting intrinsic features of the Swiss national character. The concept of Überfremdung, already established in the German language from the 1920s with at that time a distinctly anti-Semitic and then racist connotation (which remained one of its principal meanings in the Nazi era, although it was also used to mean monopoly ownership by foreign concerns),5 was applied in order to describe the perceived threat to national culture and identity. Indeed, with that in mind, James E. Schwarzenbach (1911–94) established as early as 1961 the Nationale Aktion gegen die Überfremdung von Volk und Heimat (NAgUVH). Schwarzenbach was a substantial figure, the son of an industrialist; he had studied history at the University of Fribourg and was the owner of a publishing house. He later wrote a book giving his argument why there was Überfremdung in Switzerland (Schwarzenbach 1974). The Nationale Aktion (NA)’s first foray into national politics was in the October 1967 elections to the National Council (the lower chamber of the Swiss national legislature), when it won 0.6 per cent of the vote but stood only in the Zürich and Basel-City cantons. This, however, was enough to win for Schwarzenbach a single parliamentary seat from Zürich. By 1971 Schwarzenbach had split from the original organization to found the rival Schweizerische Republikanische Bewegung (SRB) and between them the two formations won more than 7 per cent of the vote in the 1971 National Council elections; their successes were even higher in certain cantons.Yet that was a temporary peak, followed by slippages in 1975 and 1979. This haemorrhaging of support was one factor inducing NA to change its name, which it did in 1977 to Nationale Aktion für Volk und Heimat (NAVH). By 1983, as the asylum-seekers issue first emerged on to the national political agenda, there was a noticeable upturn to 3.5 per cent won by a joint ticket of NA and the SRB. Throughout the 1980s the former benefited at national, cantonal, and municipal levels from controversies about asylum-seekers in Switzerland, this being a particular form of xenophobia that has continued its influence to the present. In Berne City Council elections in 1984 NA won 10.9 per cent of the vote and nine out of eighty seats. In Zürich in March 1986 it won almost 10 per cent of votes in City Council elections, giving it eleven out of 125 seats. In Geneva, its companion anti-immigrant movement, Vigilance (which was based exclusively in the Geneva canton and had been founded as long ago as 1964) won 19.0 per cent of votes and nineteen seats in elections to the cantonal parliament in 1985.

The period from 1985 till the present In 1985 a group of conservative activists led by Michael E. Dreher, a Zürich lawyer, founded the then-called Autopartei der Schweiz (APS), renamed from 1992 (if only after some internal controversy) the Freiheitspartei der Schweiz (FPS). The party began, as its name implies, as a bourgeois party oriented to the interests of motorists and was self-avowedly anti-environment, resorting on occasion to phrases

202  Country case studies

like ‘ozone hysteria’. However, it also came to adopt a xenophobic and ‘outside right’ position, being equally active in a number of referenda and initiatives whose subjects emphasized Swiss autonomy (see below). The APS started modestly in the National Council elections in 1987, winning two seats, but by the equivalent 1991 elections it was able to benefit from the partial meltdown of political allegiances in a number of west European countries that came about with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequential upheaval in international relations. NA, now renamed the Schweizer Demokraten (SDs), won five National Council seats in 1991 and the APS as many as eight. There was some relapse in 1995, although the SDs and the FPS between them still retained ten National Council seats, with significant shares of the vote in some cantons. However, the 1999 National Council elections were marked by the fruition of a process that had begun in the early 1990s, when the SVP (starting in particular with its Zürich group under the now internationally known Christoph Blocher) became more strident in its opposition to asylum-applicants in Switzerland.The party’s share of the National Council vote rose from 15 to 23 per cent between 1995 and 1999, making it the largest national party. The SDs fell back to 1.8 per cent and one parliamentary seat, retaining a significant share of the vote in very few cantons, of which one was Basel-Country. The FPS effectively suffered obliteration and some local groups have attached themselves to other parties, especially to the SVP. A relative similarity between the FPS’s social base and that of the more successful SVP has weakened the former since at least the mid-1990s – in 1996, for example, its President, Roland Borer, was earnestly seeking to re-establish his party as the ‘only middle-class opposition party’ (NZZ, 12 February 1996, p. 13). By February 2000, as the party faced disintegration and internal schism, it was announcing in a press release as a riposte to internal dissidents that ‘the Freiheitspartei wants with calmness, peace and friendship to separate itself from those who see their political home in another party’ (NZZ, 14 February 2000, p. 10). As already mentioned, there has been a general winnowing of the Swiss party system that has affected almost all of the smaller parties. For example, the Landesring der Unabhängigen (LdU), active since 1935 and with sixteen out of 200 National Council seats at its height in 1967, retained a mere one in 1999, when it disbanded. The left-wing fringe and even the Swiss Greens have also suffered a disintegration of support during the 1990s. That said, it remains plausible to argue that the SDs and the FPS have been the eventual victims of the classic squeeze faced by singleissue or few-issue parties (NZZ, 26 October 1999, pp. 13–15); they are vulnerable to having the principal basis of their appeal co-opted, even if in sanitized form, by a mainstream party offering greater possibility of implementation. Even a cursory examination of the press propaganda and the website of the SVP made very clear that the purported ‘abuse of asylum’ was a central issue upon which it campaigned before the 1999 National Council elections. Of course, this process is not necessarily irreversible; but, as long as such a mainstream party can retain its nerve in pushing for issues in ways that other mainstream political actors may nonetheless view as unsavoury, there is every prospect of a permanent death blow to these fringe parties.

Switzerland  203

Other marginal right-wing parties It is relevant to mention that there are in Switzerland a number of other marginal right-wing parties that are of sufficient size to feature in some of the reported election and referendum data, although they scarcely attain the status even of bit players in the dramas described in this chapter. Perhaps foremost is the Lega dei Ticinesi (LT). Founded in the late 1980s and with a title that is a deliberate analogue of the Italian Lega Nord of Umberto Bossi, this is a right-wing formation advocating greater autonomy for the largely Italian-speaking canton of Ticino. Having emerged with two seats from the 1991 National Council elections, it has worked at the parliamentary level with the SDs, who of course have had only a single National Council seat since 1999.

The ideological basis of the Swiss xenophobic parties It is a paradoxical task to attempt an account of the ideological features of the Swiss xenophobic parties. The reason is that the SDs in particular and in recent years the FPS have undoubtedly been associated in the public mind very much with immigration and asylum issues; yet both parties, in their propaganda, their election manifestos, and – within the past couple of years – their websites, have had publicly disseminated stances on most other issues of contemporary Swiss politics. Of course, this characterization needs nuancing; the FPS, for example, sufficiently remembers its roots to want to continue holding the fort for the supposedly embattled motorist against the assaults of the environment lobby. The SVP, as a mainstream party that has recently cultivated xenophobic mobilization, fits this single-issue designation much less easily; nevertheless, for its newly acquired voters even its image has been heavily implanted with the immigration and asylum issue, particularly since its popular initiative ‘against illegal immigration’ (actually directed against asylumseekers), which was voted upon in December 1996 but had been launched in 1992 and submitted in 1993 with more than 100,000 valid signatures; with 46 per cent of the vote, it was almost accepted on an above-average turnout of 47 per cent. During the 1960s and 1970s there had been a number of anti-immigration or anti-foreigner initiatives, most particularly associated with James Schwarzenbach and/or NA or the SRB, although the first was actually one from the Zürich Demokratische Partei (DP) that demanded a reduction in the percentage of immigrants in the population to a maximum of 10 per cent. It was withdrawn in 1968 after pressure placed upon its initiators by the Federal Assembly. In 1969 was launched what is still perhaps the best-known of the anti-immigrant initiatives, often called ‘the Schwarzenbach initiative’, which was narrowly defeated in June 1970 with a vote of 54.0 per cent against on an unusually high turnout of 74.7 per cent. Schwarzenbach had left NA at the end of 1970 but in 1971 the party launched an initiative ‘against foreign incursion and overpopulation of Switzerland’, which sought to limit the numbers of naturalizations and of foreigners, as well as placing restrictions on seasonal and border workers; this was rejected in 1974. A further

204  Country case studies

initiative that it launched in 1973 sought the right of referendum concerning international treaties; this was rejected in 1977. In 1974 Schwarzenbach tried again with an initiative seeking to reduce the foreign population to 12.5 per cent in ten years; this was rejected in 1977. Yet another NA initiative in 1974 to limit naturalizations was rejected in 1977 and a 1973 one ‘against the selling-off of the national soil’ (directed against foreigners wanting to buy property in Switzerland) was rejected in 1979. In 1985 the party launched another initiative for the limitation of immigration that was rejected in December 1988 with less than a third of those voting being in favour.6 Now are examined the present ideological character and policy positions of, in particular, the NA/SDs and the APS/FPS by examining their stances on a relevant selection of significant consultative and mandatory referenda and on popular initiatives from 1987 to the present, earlier identified as a distinctive recent period in the growth of xenophobic politics in Switzerland. We focus particularly upon the referenda and initiatives since 1987 for which the NA/SDs, the APS/FPS, or the SVP took a distinctive position, in contrast with all or most other political parties, in their recommendations to voters on whether to accept or reject. These referenda and initiatives concern not merely immigrants, foreigners, and asylumseekers but, almost as important, several of them relate to issues that touch upon the difficult evolving relationship between Switzerland, as an historically neutral and non-aligned country, and the rest of Europe (including the European Union) and the world, all in the context of heightened globalization that makes retention of a non-aligned and non-involved status increasingly difficult for a country located so strategically in the geography of western Europe.There is no doubt that, just as many Swiss have felt offended by the critical international attention to the country’s war record, so the more conservative sections of the population feel correspondingly harassed by, and resentful of, external pressures towards greater European and global involvement. This, after all, is the country where a referendum held in March 1986 on joining the United Nations attracted positive votes from only 24.3 per cent of those voting. Several of the recommendations to voters on particular referenda or initiatives made by the NA/SDs and the APS/FPS make clear that the ideological profiles of the two parties are in some respects quite divergent. Although both are parties particularly located in the German-speaking east and north-east of the country and both have xenophobic reputations, their social bases are rather different. The NA/SDs have a much more working-class electorate, a fact that has produced recommendations for some issues in the direction opposite to those of the APS/ FPS. The APS did not, for example, favour NA’s 1988 popular initiative to limit immigration. In 1998 the SDs were the only party to oppose a Federal order on a temporary new article concerning cereals. In 1989 the APS (along with the tiny right-wing, Protestant-based, Liberale Partei der Schweiz (LPS)) endorsed the popular initiative to insert into the Constitution increased speed limits, 130 km/ hour on motorways and 100 km/hr in non-built-up areas; the SDs were opposed to this. In 1993 the FPS was the only party opposing a Federal order on firearms

Switzerland  205

control. In 1994 it was the only party to oppose a plan for needing a permit displayed on one’s windscreen in order to drive on the country’s motorways. In 1996 it was again the only party opposing the Federal Assembly’s counter-proposal to its own popular initiative ‘for a nature-friendly system of agriculture’. On occasions, both the SDs and the FPS are found to be positioned with otherwise very dissimilar ideological bedfellows. In 1992 they were both with the Partei der Arbeit (PdA) (the former Communist Party) and the Grüne Partei der Schweiz (GPS), along with the tiny fringe Eidgenössisch-Demokratische Union (E-DU), in their common opposition to joining the institutions of the Bretton Woods Agreement, the International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, albeit for different reasons. In 1999 the two parties and the PdA were the only ones to oppose a Federal order on a new Federal constitution. On environmental issues, as well as ones concerning international relations, it is also common to see SDs, the FPS, and the Greens in the same camp: for example, on the issue of building a new Alpine rail transit, although again for different reasons. It is also noteworthy that, as we shall see, there are occasional referendum issues that find the SVP also siding with the SDs and the FPS. In order further to buttress the point made earlier about the partial ideological distinction between the SDs and the FPS, one may look at evidence about the positions on a composite left-right scale of the members of the 1995–9 National Council (Jeitziner and Hohl 1999, p. 27). Its components are eighty issues of economic and non-economic liberalism on which there were parliamentary votes between 1996 and 1998; the reported scale runs from –10 (the most left-wing) to +10 (the most right-wing). The mean score of the six FPS members included in the study was 8.7, that of five SDs members (including those of the LT) was as low as 3.9, whilst, for a further revealing comparison, the twenty-nine SVP members averaged a score of 8.2. There are clearly strong elements of economic liberalism within the SDs. Considering the referenda and initiatives from 1987 to 1999, one notes several further facts. The idiosyncratic status of the canton of Ticino, largely Italian-speaking, emerges in several votes. It was the canton least disposed to the NA’s negative recommendation on a 1987 consultative referendum on future national rail policy but most disposed a year later to its popular initiative to limit immigration. Moreover, it is remarkable how, on so many occasions, one of the north-east German-speaking rural cantons emerges as the most reactionary in terms of its support for, or opposition to, a particular issue. Uri and Schwyz occupy this position in several instances and, coincidentally, are in the region of the country where the SVP does especially well.There is a further irony perhaps in the fact that these cantons are two of the three (along with Unterwalden) that supposedly swore the perhaps apocryphal ‘Rütli oath’ to establish the original Swiss confederation in 1291, an event commemorated with an annual national holiday on 1 August as the foundation of modern Switzerland! Three referenda that took place in 1992 deserve a special discussion because their results, especially that of the last one in December, have been far-reaching for

206  Country case studies

Switzerland. Two referenda held in May, about joining the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, actually produced unexpectedly large majorities, even at just above 55 per cent in favour, but were then widely seen as the first stage in what should have proven a relatively smooth and uneventful path for Switzerland to enter into the European Union. The approval of the Federal order on joining the European Economic Area, in the last of these referenda, was seen beforehand as a straightforward next step in this progress. The governing parties, except the SVP, came out strongly in favour in the weeks before the vote. Industry, the trade unions, and Switzerland’s banking community were equally forthright in their positive recommendations. The SDs and the FPS, along with the Greens, were the fringe parties that opposed the move. Emboldened and encouraged by the earlier votes in May on the Bretton Woods arrangements, many commentators clearly assumed that the Federal order would be accepted, even if the result might be close. There was thus considerable anguish and dismay when, on an historically high and wholly exceptional level of turnout of almost 80 per cent, the issue was lost, albeit narrowly – a result for which both the SDs and the FPS did not hesitate subsequently to attempt to take credit. A later inquest into the referendum result, conducted by the Bundesamt für Statistik, concluded that the proposition was particularly rejected in poorer, more traditional, German-speaking areas of the country (NZZ, 27/28 February 1993, p. 22). Whatever the reason for the outcome – and the SVP’s stance was undoubtedly quite pivotal – it set back, certainly by years, Switzerland’s stillstumbling approaches to join the European Union. Undoubtedly, the opponents of the measure touched a vein of isolationist and anti-globalization resentment that contributed to this result. It was, after all, a period when the whole of Europe was in especial turmoil, which could be pointed to in order to remind voters of the potential for chaos from too close an involvement with other countries: for example, right-wing extremist violence and the debate about changing the constitutional provisions on asylum were hotly debated ongoing issues in neighbouring Germany at that time. The SDs had also submitted a popular initiative ‘for a rational asylum policy’ in July 1992 but this was declared invalid by the Federal Assembly. In July 1999 the SVP, the SDs and the FPS together launched an initiative intended to reduce the time between the date of submission of a popular initiative with the requisite number of valid signatures and that upon which it is voted on (NZZ, 12 July 1999, p. 9).

Aspects of the social base of xenophobic politics in Switzerland Switzerland is a country where the canton is a particularly important unit of political organization and not even the main parties of government, including the purportedly pan-Swiss ones, put forward candidates in every canton at National Council elections. This diffuseness in party organization, likely to cause difficulties to poll respondents in being asked about certain parties in some cantons, is one reason why political opinion-polling concerning partisan preferences does not have

Switzerland  207

quite the mesmeric influence, or the frequency, that one sees in Austria, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and most other west European countries. True, relatively regular polling has long been conducted by Switzerland’s several private polling agencies, although with far less frequency than in these other countries mentioned, and without the complementary routine publication of results in the national press.7 There does not therefore exist quite the plenitude of data on support for xenophobic parties, disaggregated according to market researchers’ standard ‘facesheet’ social-base variables that one finds, for example, in the case of the French Front National (FN). However, the Institut der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für praktische Sozialforschung (ISGS), based at the Universities of Berne and of Geneva, has published regular analyses of voting in national referenda and initiatives and in National Council elections, based in part upon sample-survey data.Yet the level of support for the fringe xenophobic parties has on occasion been so low that national samples clearly fail to locate a sufficient number of respondents willing to admit to such a preference and so to provide the basis for reliably estimating parameters about characteristics of their total electorates. In such a situation one must resort to the more questionable practice of drawing individual-level inferences from aggregate (or ‘ecological’) data in communities and cities where support is relatively higher. Survey data with very small case-bases for NA/SRB support show that, in the 1979 and 1983 National Council elections, this electorate was strongly male, but findings with respect to age and occupation are so divergent between the two elections that one suspects small-case-base distortions.8 However, at that time, in the 1980s, it was incontestable that the SVP’s support was disproportionately or strongly Protestant, middle-aged, rural and farm-based, home-owning, married, and (almost exclusively) German-speaking (Longchamp 1988, pp. 22–3). By 1999, on the other hand, it was younger, with a noticeable increase in support among the very poorest, but still more Protestant and from the German-speaking part of Switzerland, although for the last two characteristics noticeably less so than in the 1980s (NZZ, 5/6 February 2000, Supplement, p. 95). A brief final note based on the twelve districts of the city of Zürich: support for NA was always a particularly working-class phenomenon, being distinctive in districts with a strong manualworker presence. On the other hand, support for the APS when it emerged was distributed more diffusely in geographical terms, a pattern that continued in Zürich after the party’s metamorphosis into the FPS.

Conclusions for the future With the traditional xenophobic parties of Switzerland in disarray, with the neo-Nazi fringe groups having little realistic chance of any sort of significance or breakthrough (despite a suggestion of recent greater strength), and with the mainstream SVP having co-opted the immigration/asylum issue, what then may the future hold for organized political xenophobia in Switzerland? One scenario would hypothesize the collapse of the four-party coalition that has governed the country since 1959. This is improbable, but not wholly impossible. In

208  Country case studies

March 2000 the SPS announced that it wanted to force the breakdown of meetings between the government parties scheduled for May 2000 by staying away from them, pending the withdrawal of remarks by Blocher about alleged totalitarian similarities between the Social Democrats and fascism, and it was being reported that the total lack of common ground between the SPS and the SVP did pose problems for the governing concordance (NZZ, 15 March 2000, p. 14). However, notwithstanding this, one is somehow sure that some compromise will prove inevitable, since all the participating parties have apparently become too accustomed to government seriously to contemplate break-up. In any case, the coalition has survived previous differences between its members; the SVP, alone of the four, counselled ‘no’ in the December 1992 referendum on entry to the European Economic Area, but the coalition lived on. Moreover, the SVP itself is far from monolithic; its Zürich wing, led by Blocher, is more intransigent and non-conciliatory than sections of the party in some other cantons, a fact that has itself caused internal party wrangles and disagreement. Were the SVP to choose to leave the coalition, or to be excluded from it, it might well – buttressed by right-wing xenophobia – cultivate the ‘outsider’ status held by Austria’s Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) until its participation in a governing coalition. With almost a quarter of the national vote, the SVP might be successful in this. However, Switzerland is not Austria and the hypothesizing of some trans-Alpine extreme-right surge is far from the mark. It looks now (in late March 2000) most probable that the SVP will continue in the government, keeping it ‘on its toes’ on immigration and asylum-related issues. The fact that the SVP has long been a governing party, as well as Switzerland’s non-combatant status during the War and the fact that, unlike Austria, it did not embrace the Third Reich and produce a substantial proportion of the latter’s most notorious figures, undoubtedly explain why Blocher’s success for the SVP in the 1999 National Council elections occasioned merely a short-lived frisson of slightly concerned international scrutiny, and none of the opprobrium and obloquy heaped upon Jörg Haider and his party when they entered Austria’s governing coalition with the Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP) at the beginning of February 2000. On that basis, the smaller and traditional xenophobic parties do face oblivion and extinction, despite their presence with varying degrees of salience during forty years of Swiss politics. Indeed, recent developments in Switzerland represent a routinization of genteel xenophobia that promises greater long-term viability for the phenomenon than its fringe and ephemeral manifestations during the second half of the twentieth century. Political science is littered with the skeletons of fringe parties that blossomed and spluttered, failing to break into the mainstream. Mainstream parties, on the other hand, usually prove themselves much better longterm survivors. The emergence to international prominence in 1999 of the SVP as a clearly xenophobic party achieving electoral success on that basis led to its rather sudden reclassification by some commentators as an ‘extreme-right’ party; this has led to the bizarre outcome in certain ‘league tables’ of west European right-wing extremism

Switzerland  209

of Switzerland’s having previously been relatively low in this league (based on its recent reduced level of support for the SDs and the FPS) to its being in sudden contention for prime spot, along with Austria, merely through this belated political reclassification of the SVP. However, even if, perhaps overreacting, the Council of Europe has in a recent report on extremist parties and movements in Europe characterized the SVP as ‘extremist’ because of its ‘xenophobic tendency’ (NZZ, 10 February 2000, p. 13), one may dispute the appropriateness of the ‘extreme right’ epithet. The party undoubtedly has its unsavoury aspects, but to equate it by such a labelling exercise in effect with, say, the French FN or the German Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) would be inaccurate and simplistic. After all, this is Switzerland: land of the cuckoo clock, not the Borgias!

Notes 1 See Clinard (1978) and, for a contrary view, see Balvig (1988). 2 Parties’ names are, where possible, their versions in the language with which they are particularly associated, although most have standard (if sometimes little-used) names in the other national languages. The genuinely pan-Swiss parties have been cited using the German version of their names. 3 For comprehensive histories of the NeF, see Glaus (1969) and Wolf (1969). 4 See Altermatt and Kriesi (1995). Although there have been numerous such movements, their existence is often ephemeral. The Patriotische Front (PF), for example, was much in the news in the late 1980s, when some of its activists attacked asylum-seekers’ hostels; by 1995 it had ceased to be significant. However, some locations, such as Winterthur in Zürich canton, do have a continuing reputation for extreme-right activism and skinhead presence. According to the Federal Chief of Police, the neo-Nazi scene in Switzerland has grown from a core of 300 individuals in 1997 to 500 in 1999 and has become more violent (NZZ, 19 July 1999, p. 8).These small and often violent non-electoral groups and movements are not, however, the principal subject of this chapter. 5 The last word, so to speak, on the etymology and uses of this repulsive Unwort is to be found in Schmitz-Berning (1998, pp. 615–17). The first mention of the word in a German-English dictionary is probably that in the revised ‘Breul’, although the meanings given (‘passing into the hands of foreigners, monopolization by foreign concerns’) are partial and sanitized; see Breul (1940, p. 613). [The claim in this respect for the first status of the ‘Breul’ has since turned out incorrect. Karl Wichmann’s Pocket Dictionary of the German and English Languages, first published in 1932, has an entry for Überfremdung, defining it simply as ‘control by foreign capital’ (Wichmann 1932, p. 319), although the post-war revision of Wichmann’s dictionary, by Ludwig Borinski and Hans B. Bussmann and first published in 1952, actually omitted it completely (Borinski and Bussmann 1952) – CTH, 2020.] It is part of German linguistic practice to use the ‘Über’-prefix for, among many other purposes, ethnic or nationalist slurs. Early nineteenth-century German even contained the now mercifully obsolete ‘überjüdeln’, meaning ‘to cheat’. The ethnic insult is already self-evident; see Kaltschmidt (1837, p. 418) or Feiling and Heimann (1845, p. 619). Both these sources pile Pelion on Ossa to their definition by adding for good measure ‘(like a cunning jew)’. [A curious further fact that I have since discovered is that Heimann was Jewish – CTH, 2020.] 6 For these anti-foreigner initiatives see, for example, Bory (1987, pp. 57–8).

210  Country case studies

7 Quarterly polling is the norm, rather than the monthly time-series of such polling in many other countries; before the 1999 National Council elections there was some publicity about poll findings; see, for example, NZZ, 7 October 1999, p. 15. 8 See Hertig (1980, p. 12) and Longchamp (1984, p. 12); the complementary publication for 1987 contains no such small-case-base analyses; see Longchamp (1988).

References Altermatt, Urs, and Kriesi, Hanspeter (eds.). 1995. Rechtsextremismus in der Schweiz: Organisationen und Radikalisierung in den 1980er und 1990er Jahren. Zürich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Balvig, Flemming. 1988. The Snow-White Image: The Hidden Reality of Crime in Switzerland (Scandinavian Studies in Criminology, vol. 9). Oslo: Norwegian University Press. Borinski, L., and Bussmann, H. B. (revisers). 1952. Wichmann’s Pocket Dictionary of the German and English Languages. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bory,Valérie. 1987. Dehors! De la chasse aux Italiens à la peur des refugiés, 1896–1986. Lausanne: Pierre-Marcel Favre. Breul, Karl. 1940. Cassell’s German and English Dictionary, revised and enlarged by J. Heron Lepper and Rudolf Kottenhahn. 1st ed.; London: Cassell and Company. Cantini, Claude. 1992. Les Ultras: Extrême droite et droite extrême en Suisse – les mouvements et la presse de 1921 à 1991. Lausanne: Éditions d’en bas. Clinard, Marshall B. 1978. Cities with Little Crime: The Case of Switzerland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feiling, C. A., and Heimann, A. (adapters). 1845. Flügel’s Complete Dictionary of the German and English Languages, Part II. 3rd ed.; London: Whittaker and Co. Frisch, Max. 1965.‘Vorwort’. Pp. 7–10 in Alexander J. Seiler (ed.), Siamo Italiani – Die Italiener: Gespräche mit italienischen Arbeitern in der Schweiz. Zürich: EVZ-Verlag. Glaus, Beat. 1969. Die Nationale Front: Eine Schweizer faschistische Bewegung, 1930–1940. Zürich: Benziger Verlag. Häsler, Alfred A. 1967. Das Boot ist voll…: Die Schweiz und die Flüchtlinge, 1933–1945. Zürich: Fretz & Wasmuth Verlag. Hertig, Hans-Peter. 1980. Analyse der Nationalratswahlen 1979. Bern: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Praktische Sozialforschung, Universität Bern, 11, May. Janowitz, Morris. 1979. ‘Collective racial violence: a contemporary history’. Pp. 261–86 in Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr (eds.), Violence in America: Historical & Comparative Perspectives. Revised ed.; Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Jeitziner, Bruno, and Hohl, Tobias. 1999. ‘Die konkreten Positionen von Parlamentariern in Zahlen: Ratings als Mittel der Transparenz in der Politik’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 8 October, p. 27. Joseph, Roger. 1975. L’Union Nationale, 1932–1939: Un Fascisme en Suisse Romande. Neuchâtel: Éditions de la Baconnière. Kaltschmidt, Jacob Heinrich. 1837. A New and Complete Dictionary of the English and German Languages. Leipzig: Druck und Verlag von Karl Tauchnitz. Longchamp, Claude. 1984. Analyse der Nationalratswahlen 1983. Bern: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Praktische Sozialforschung, Universität Bern, 20, June. Longchamp, Claude. 1988. Analyse der Nationalratswahlen 1987. Bern: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Praktische Sozialforschung, Universität Bern, 33, February. Schmitz-Berning, Cornelia. 1998. Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus. Berlin:Walter de Gruyter. Schwarzenbach, James. 1974. Die Überfremdung der Schweiz – wie ich sie sehe. Zürich: Verlag der Republikaner.

Switzerland  211

Urner, Klaus. 1990. : Hitlers Aktionspläne gegen die Schweiz – Zwei Studien zur Bedrohungslage der Schweiz im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Zürich:Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung. van den Berghe, Pierre L. 1981. The Ethnic Phenomenon. New York: Elsevier. Wichmann, K. 1932. Pocket Dictionary of the German and English Languages. London: George Routledge & Sons. Wolf, Walter. 1969. Faschismus in der Schweiz: Die Geschichte der Frontenbewegungen in der deutschen Schweiz, 1930–1945. Zürich: Flamberg Verlag. Zeller, René. 1999. Emil Sonderegger: Vom Generalstabschef zum Frontenführer. Zürich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

8 GREAT BRITAIN Selective legislative and political strategies against the extreme right, 2000–2008

And [he] deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast. The Revelation of St John the Divine, Chapter 13, verse 14

State surveillance and monitoring How has the British state sought to monitor extreme-right developments? The British situation regarding the level and mode of state surveillance of the extreme right is probably distinctive among the countries of western Europe.That is because the degree of overt support given by the British Government to the American administration [in 2008 – CTH] means that the UK is now probably the country in western Europe at highest risk of a serious terrorist attack by Islamist extremists, as is shown by the events in London on 7 and 21 July 2005, by the attempts in August 2006 to infiltrate transatlantic aircraft with liquid bombs to be detonated by on-board suicide bombers, or by the attacks in June 2007 in London and at Glasgow Airport. Thus, proactive state surveillance activities have concentrated on dangers from that source. Routine monitoring of the extreme right does occur, by such measures as the use of occasional informants (as undoubtedly happened in the past, e.g., the 1970s), but certainly less than was the case for the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in the 1930s. In fact, most monitoring of the extreme right is intelligence-led rather than ongoing and proactive; i.e., it is done only in response to awareness of known threats or crimes. The affair of the right-extremist David Copeland in 1999 (discussed below) showed that detection usually depends on conventional police detective methods implemented only after the event (principally, in that case, inspection of CCTV material and an adventitious tip-off from a work colleague of the perpetrator). The name ‘David Copeland’ had not been on any MI5 or police

Great Britain  213

Special Branch database and, when unarmed police finally went to his home, they were astonished to find a Nazi shrine. It is unlikely that matters in regard to such surveillance will have changed much since. One does not expect surveillance details to be publicized but, whilst there is doubtless some routine monitoring of the activities of the British National Party (BNP) such as keeping an eye on its publications for any expressions of incitement to racial hatred, this is the most common form of attention, if only because the BNP is a legitimate political party and all the other extreme-right groups are wholly marginal. Granted that one would expect state surveillance to be covert and unpublicized, but an inspection of the websites of the British Home Office, the (London) Metropolitan Police, MI5, and MI6 reveals nothing even to suggest that any systematic monitoring of such groups is ongoing. In October 2005 the British Home Secretary, then Charles Clarke, managed to find fifteen ‘international terror organizations’ to ban in Great Britain, ranging from Al Ittihad Al Islamia to Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan – there has been no such activity against any extreme-right groups operating or likely to operate in Great Britain. This is not necessarily for want of a will to do so, if necessary, but for want of the necessity for this. There has never been any serious suggestion that the BNP (or any extreme-right party) should be formally proscribed, although occasional calls have been made from minority voices for a proscription of tiny neo-Nazi groups such as the National Socialist Movement (NSM),1 and it has been suggested that greater sanction be taken by the state against the website Redwatch, not a BNP initiative but a site maintained by a member of the fringe British People’s Party (BPP) and giving personal details about anti-fascist activists and journalists (including some academics). Occasional BNP activists (though disavowed by the BNP) have been identified as involved in bombings or as stockpiling explosives. In April 1999, David Copeland, then a member of the NSM but from 1997 to 1998 in the BNP, set off three nail-bombs on successive weekends in London, the last at a well-known gay pub in Soho where three people were killed. The intention was to raise anti-immigrant and homophobic tensions. However, Copeland was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic acting alone and there is no reason to believe that his actions, or even similar involvements by extreme-right activists in weapons stockpiling, were part of any serious international conspiracy – in contrast to those who committed the actions of 7 and 21 July 2005 in London, who had proven connections to Al-Qaeda. What has happened instead is that the British state, after some mainstream media interest around 2001 that merely legitimized the BNP, has taken steps to seek to keep the BNP outside the political mainstream, using where possible ‘outcasting’ or a ‘cordon sanitaire’ approach. In 2004 the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the body that speaks and decides essential issues of internal policy for all police forces, decided to ban serving police officers and staff from being members of the BNP (as well as from the marginal Combat

214  Country case studies

18 and the National Front (NF)) on the ground that the aims of these groups contravened the police’s commitment to race equality.2 Combat 18 itself was in any case heavily harassed by the police between 1998 and 2000, and a number of its activists were convicted of various offences. However, there have been occasions when some police have been suspected of being BNP supporters; suspicions have been cast on the off-duty activities of some police in Greater Manchester, for example (Taylor 2007). Some of the actions that the state has used against extreme-right parties of the past have not been as feasible against the BNP. The BNP operates through a series of addresses that are Post Office box numbers in at least three towns. Two of these are far from London and a third, in Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire, is on the northern edge of Greater London and in a more middle-class area, where the extreme right will have attracted some sympathy in the past from those who over the past decades have moved out from inner London. It is not a stereotypical inner-city multicultural area. The physical locations of the BNP’s offices are not therefore highly sensitive issues, in the manner that was the case, for example, for the NF. The NF in its heyday operated successively from a number of different headquarters, most notoriously from a building in Great Eastern Street on the edge of the City of London and close to the NF’s then-heartland in the inner East End of London. The local borough authority, Hackney, moved to expel it from the site on the ground that the building had had a change of use without the necessary permission from the Council. After a lengthy hearing before an officer of the Department of the Environment, Hackney Council’s position was upheld and in 1980 the NF (by this time disintegrating into several factions after its electoral reverses) was obliged to leave. On the other hand, the BNP’s relative secretiveness about its offices and the fact that it has eschewed sites in provocative and racially sensitive or diverse locations has denied the state any complementary opportunity to act against it.

Legislative provisions against incitement to racial hatred Certain actual moves by the state against officers of the BNP have been unsuccessful, as exemplified by the experience of a failed prosecution of Nick Griffin and one of his lieutenants Mark Collett, then the BNP’s Director of Publicity, for incitement to racial hatred. The charges arose from comments made about Islam in a private meeting that was secretly filmed undercover by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and then televised in an exposé in July 2005. Griffin described Islam as a ‘wicked, vicious faith’ and claimed that Muslims had turned Britain into a ‘multiracial hell-hole’, remarks that were deemed actionable by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The law under which Griffin and Collett were charged was the Public Order Act 1986, which repealed certain sections of the Public Order Act 1936 and is now the basic legislation by which the British state seeks to prohibit acts intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.

Great Britain  215

S18(1) of the 1986 Act states: A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if – (a) he intended thereby to stir up racial hatred, or (b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby. S17 of the Act states: In this Part [III of the Act] ‘racial hatred’ means hatred against a group of persons in Great Britain defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins. Except for the addition of ‘(including citizenship)’, this definition goes exactly back to the criteria for direct race discrimination in the Race Relations Act 1976, s3(1). Griffin and his co-accused were acquitted on some charges at the first trial in January 2006 and the jury deadlocked on others. At a subsequent trial in November 2006 on the latter charges they were acquitted after another jury trial. Griffin’s principal argument that he had been criticizing a religion and not an ethnic or racial group was perhaps what convinced the jury of his innocence of the charges against him, although one more cynical commentator was of the view that few English juries, likely in many cases to be exclusively or largely white, would convict for such criticisms of Islam (Sardar 2006). Certainly, this contrasts with what happened in the case of one of the Muslim protesters in Britain on the occasion of the Danish cartoons episode.3 Wide publicity was given to the protester who publicly threatened death to all who insulted Islam and he was subsequently convicted and sentenced for inciting racial hatred. There seems little doubt that, with many voters and with his jury, Griffin’s description of Islam as ‘wicked’ would have attracted a degree of agreement. It is certainly the case that there is a high threshold for the bringing even of a prosecution, let alone securing a conviction, under this 1986 legislation and it has been applied only infrequently. Although it does give explicit protection to Jews and Sikhs, who constitute legally recognized ethnic groups, Home Office data revealed that the average number of prosecutions is about two per year. In the years 2001–3 the CPS was asked to review eighty-four cases, of which only four resulted in prosecutions and two of those in convictions.4 Griffin and Collett would have been charged under the 1986 Act because that was the relevant legislation when the acts for which they stood accused were committed. However, the 1986 Act was amended by the passage of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, which received its Royal Assent on 16

216  Country case studies

February 2006 and whose Commencement Order brought it into force on l October 2007. Even so, it is far from certain that their actions would have been successfully prosecuted, even had this been the legislation in force when the events relating to the charges against them had occurred. This legislation had a troubled passage through Parliament; before its final version was approved, a number of provisions that the Government had originally wanted to include were defeated, occasioned by widespread objections that these meant criticism of any religion, even if done by satirists or comedy-artists, could be construed as a criminal offence. The 2006 Act then amended the Public Order Act 1986 by creating new offences of stirring up hatred against persons on religious grounds. This was done by inserting, after Part III of the 1986 Act, a number of provisions with respect to religiously based incitement. The essence of these for the purpose of this analysis is: 29A Meaning of ‘religious hatred’ In this Part ‘religious hatred’ means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief. 29B Use of words or behaviour or display of written material (1) A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred. The dilution of the Government’s earlier intention is seen in the limitation to a prohibition on matters that are ‘threatening’, as opposed to being abusive or insulting. Thus, the burden of proof is placed explicitly upon the prosecution in such a case to prove that there was a threat with criminal intent rather than that a statement was merely made recklessly, i.e., engaged in only without thought or care for the consequences. In the British context, it is the Public Order Acts that are of most relevance in discussing initiatives that the state might take, or has taken, against those active on the extreme right. However, a number of other pieces of legislation include provisions that could be – and sometimes have been – invoked against extreme-right activists or organizations if there were evidence that they were inclined to illegality or terrorism. These include the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (whose principal emphasis was the introduction of anti-social behaviour orders but included in its Part II modifications of the criminal law by the inclusion of racial aggravation as a further criminalizing factor for the commission of certain standard crimes that already existed), the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (which was passed in the wake of the September 2001 events), and the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. However, there have been only a few occasions in which these have been so far used against any extreme-right activists (and never against any organization or party); even those offences for which they have been used have none of the wider implications of the actions by Islamist extremists, and the prosecutions have attracted no comparable publicity.

Great Britain  217

Trade unions – members who are extreme-right members or activists Some sections of the British judiciary have been sympathetic to, in particular, trade unions and employers who want to exclude BNP members from their membership or employment. There have been a number of legal cases that establish a precedent in this regard and the law is being progressively altered to give trade unions more autonomy. This stance can particularly assist trade unions who wish to exclude BNP activists from their membership. For trade unions, this is a specifically British problem which originated from the fact that, under the Conservative governments of 1979–97, the ‘American model’ of trade-union regulation was adopted. This meant that, unlike the state’s view of the status of trade unions in most of the rest of Europe where they were regarded as private organizations entitled to regulate their own affairs within the law, the British state in contrast arrogated to itself a considerable entitlement to interfere in their internal business in matters of membership and the mechanisms for the choosing of officers. The Conservative governments’ legislation gave rights to individuals to join the trade union of their choice (without the union being able to object or resist); this was intended to stop supposedly radical left-wing unions from seeking to exclude those not politically congenial to them. However, extreme-right activists and members, though not necessarily seeking to make any political point or even to take advantage of these legislative provisions, did join trade unions that had anti-fascist policies opposed to those of the BNP. In 2004 occurred one of the first significant trade-union related cases involving exclusion of a BNP member. In the matter of Potter v UNISON, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) dismissed an appeal by Mr Potter, a member of the BNP, against an employment tribunal’s support of the trade union UNISON’s refusal to allow him to rejoin after his earlier expulsion from that union on account of misconduct. However, the gravamen of that case was rather narrow, which meant that the claim by the BNP member was always likely to fail. A more important legal case in this area was decided in favour of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen (ASLEF, a trade union for train drivers) that sought to expel an already accepted member after it had become known that he was a member of the BNP and thus held views contrary to the principles claimed to be espoused by ASLEF. It is interesting for what it shows about what can be the ambivalence of the British state when faced by a particular conflict of legal principles. For a number of legal reasons, ASLEF short-circuited the usual legal pathway through progressively higher-instance courts and, after initial tribunal hearings, took its case directly to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), where it thus became Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen v United Kingdom.The ECHR ruled – in a decision with incidental ancillary implications on the legality of other current British trade-union legislation seeking to control the internal affairs of trade unions and to which the Government has now responded by changes in trade-union law – that British law in this respect breaches Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, s1 of which states that ‘everyone

218  Country case studies

has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests’. The ECHR ruled that Article 11 of the Convention could not be interpreted as imposing an obligation on associations or organizations to admit whoever wished to join. This case is interesting not so much because the British state sought to support what the BNP member concerned claimed to be a human right (as set out in Article 11), but because it sought to protect what had been its own domestic legislation (even if it had been passed originally by the previous Conservative government). The right of trade unions to exclude or expel those who espouse opinions contrary to the unions’ stated principles and policies does, it is true, affect very few individuals, but it represents a willingness by the state to control the activities of the extreme right, albeit responding to the implication of the ECHR judgment, because the United Kingdom chose not to appeal it.Thus, ASLEF v United Kingdom marked an important turning point in the development of the degree of autonomy given by the British state to trade unions to regulate their internal affairs, although even before this judgment in 2007, the law had been moving in that direction. As said, the Labour government that took power in 1997 had inherited from the previous Conservative administrations a body of employment law that, with respect to the control of trade unions, permitted far greater intervention into, and control of, internal trade union affairs than in the more typical European model of limited legislative intervention into the affairs of trade unions by governments – closer to what was seen in the United States. S174 of the Conservatives’ Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 had included a general statutory right not to be unreasonably excluded or expelled from a trade union.The only protection given to a trade union unlawfully excluding or expelling somebody was that the amount of compensation could be reduced if the person’s actions caused or contributed to the exclusion or expulsion, which would presumably have entitled a trade union to argue that at least extremeright activism or proselytizing, as opposed simply to passive membership of a respective organization or party, was a reason for the trade union’s behaviour and justified a reduction of compensation. S174 of the 1992 Act was superseded a year later by the replacement text of s14 of the Trade Union and Employment Rights Act 1993, which in s14(4)(a)(iii) explicitly made being a member of a political party a conduct that did not qualify as a criterion by which any exclusion or expulsion by a trade union could be argued to be reasonable. The Conservative government doubtless had the Conservative Party in mind by this formulation, but it necessarily included any political party, as long as it was legal, including extreme-right parties. In the light of the difficulties that trade unions were facing in seeking to exclude or expel BNP members and activists, the Labour government’s Employment Relations Act 2004 further modified s174 of the original 1992 Act by making taking part in the activities of a political party wholly or mainly a ground for exclusion or expulsion, and it introduced new

Great Britain  219

compensation arrangements for those unlawfully excluded for having membership of a political party. These changes left the issue of ‘passive’ membership largely unresolved, but ASLEF v United Kingdom forced the British Government’s hand. When it then said that it accepted the ECHR’s judgment, it was in effect agreeing that trade unions should be given greater internal autonomy to decide whether the political party membership of individuals should debar them from belonging to the union. After a public consultation of how this change in the law should be implemented, the option chosen by the Government for this purpose is that its Employment Act 2008, merely amends s174 of the 1992 Act by omitting any explicit reference to a special category of conduct, except simple membership, relating to political party activities.5

Employers – employees who are extreme-right members or activists Not all legal cases seeking exclusions against the extreme right have concerned trade unions. Some involved employers who had acted against employees who were BNP members. The early case of Greenwich London Borough v Dell saw the EAT uphold the right of Greenwich Borough Council not to have to re-engage a BNP activist whom it had dismissed. This overturned the judgment of a lowerinstance industrial tribunal (now called ‘employment tribunal’), which held that the person had been unfairly dismissed, inferring that the dismissal had been because of his political beliefs as opposed to his political activities, and deciding that he, the complainant, ought to be re-engaged. The further case of Redfearn v Serco Ltd trading as West Yorkshire Transport Service is, however, more central in indicating the view of the judiciary towards the issues of such cases, when employers have dismissed. Its importance derives from its recency during a period when the BNP had become a significant element in the politics of certain localities, the fact that the events occurred in one of those localities, and the fact too that the judgment came from the Court of Appeal, the secondhighest-instance British court. British employment law requires that, for a dismissal to be fair, as well as satisfying other criteria it has to satisfy the criterion of being within a ‘band of reasonable responses’ by a reasonable employer.6 BNP activism in the particular circumstances of this case was thus regarded as a reasonable ground for dismissal. Arthur Redfearn was a BNP member who in 2004 was a candidate and subsequently a BNP councillor on Bradford City Council. He was also a bus driver employed by West Yorkshire Transport Service transporting passengers, many of whom would have been of an ethnic minority, but his party’s stated policy wish was to restore the ethnic composition of the UK to that seen to exist before 1948. Redfearn had been dismissed by his employer for his BNP membership, and the Court of Appeal upheld this. There are, of course, precedents in European law for such a dismissal; counsel for the employer invoked, for example, the case of Glimmerveen and Hagenbeek v The Netherlands. Joop Glimmerveen headed the Dutch Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU).

220  Country case studies

The policy of ‘cordon sanitaire’ and its limits ‘Cordon sanitaire’ is a well-established response by the state and by sections of society towards the extreme right. These legal cases show that the courts can be willing to allow this approach to the BNP in trade-union and employment situations, even if it may have been necessary in the ASLEF case to invoke a European court to effect this. However, the fact that there have been very few such cases, and in the case of employers many fewer than there probably are employees known by their employers to be BNP members, shows that most employers would not want to intervene to dismiss in such circumstances and the reason for the dismissal must be reasonably related to the actual circumstances of the job concerned (e.g., in Redfearn the dismissed employee’s inevitably coming into contact with ethnicminority passengers of the bus company and his BNP activism meant his views about them would be generally known). Thus, it is in the political arena where ‘cordon sanitaire’ is most easily practised, specifically in those local councils where BNP councillors have been elected.There is much evidence – albeit anecdotal and invariably from BNP critics – that its councillors tend not to participate actively in local council affairs. Their attendance at council meetings can be patchy and there are examples of councillors who have been disbarred after a long period of non-attendance. It is easy for other parties’ councillors and council officers to ostracize such individuals. However, in some political situations, it has been apparent that there are practical limitations to the potential for that approach, especially where the BNP has won several seats to local municipal authorities, as in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Where an extreme-right party has gained representation in a municipality by a system of proportional representation voting with party lists, outcasting (e.g., refusal to work with, refusal of official assistance) by the other parties and by the officers of the authority may be feasible. This is less the case where, as in Great Britain, councillors are elected by first-past-the-post on a territorial-unit basis (e.g., the ‘ward’ or ‘electoral district’). Those elected in this way are the official councillors to whom all in the ward or electoral district concerned may turn with grievances, about which councillors are expected to act. Refusal by council officials to deal with them on local issues in the area concerned would be not so much outcasting the BNP councillors as it would be refusing to act on what may be legitimate issues raised by their constituents. In Barking and Dagenham, where the BNP since 2006 has had sufficient councillors to be the second-largest party in the Council and to become the official council opposition to the Labour administration, and where several of its councillors have been active and conscientious, this has raised particularly difficult issues for local officials. Given the status of the BNP in Barking and Dagenham, council treasury officials were obliged to comment on its proposed alternative budget to that of the Labour administration, albeit without making detailed criticisms or analyses of specific components and intentions.

Great Britain  221

Acknowledgement This chapter is an edited extract from ‘Country Report Great Britain’, in Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed.), Strategies for Combating Right-Wing Extremism in Europe (Gütersloh:Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2009), pp. 249–83.

Notes 1 This NSM is a tiny group, unrelated to the 1960s movement of the same name, and was formed as a breakaway in 1997 from Combat 18, a small violence-oriented group that had itself broken away from the BNP. 2 Decision of ACPO to ban Police Officers and Staff from being Members of the BNP; Document released as a Freedom of Information request, obtainable from Information and Record Management Services, the Home Office. 3 On 30 September 2005 the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, had published, to great international controversy, a number of cartoons containing images of the prophet Muhammad. 4 See www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/ria-serious-organised-bill-1104/incitementreligious-hatred.pdf, dated November 2004. 5 Legislative developments in the latter part of 2008 showed that the exclusion issue was not to be straightforward. As the Employment Bill, that became the 2008 Act, went through its final Parliamentary stages, the British Government uncritically accepted amendments made to it by the House of Lords that imposed some qualifications upon the otherwise absolute right of trade unions to expel members who belonged to parties with policies uncongenial to the unions’ own stand on the same issues. One Lords amendment accepted by the Government prevented trade unions from expelling members on political grounds if ‘the individual would lose his livelihood or suffer other exceptional hardship by reason of not being, or ceasing to be, a member of the union’. The Government claimed that this amended Bill nonetheless remained compliant with the ECHR ruling in ASLEF, although eleven trade unions (including ASLEF) disagreed and there was an unsuccessful campaign to have the qualifications removed from the legislation when it was eventually enacted. The Employment Bill was later enacted into the Employment Act 2008 in the version amended by the House of Lords. 6 For a discussion of this principle and of relevant case law, see, for example, Pitt (2007, pp. 246–8).

Legal cases mentioned Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen v United Kingdom [2007] EHRR, App No 11002/05, [2007] All ER (D) 438 (Feb). Glimmerveen and Hagenbeek v The Netherlands, Applications Nos. 8348/78 and 8406/78, 11 October 1979 [1982] 4 EHRR 260. Greenwich London Borough v Dell [1995] EAT/1166/94. Potter v UNISON [2004] EAT/0626/03/RN. Redfearn v Serco Ltd trading as West Yorkshire Transport Service [2006] Court of Appeal, EWCA Civ 659, [2006] IRLR 623.

222  Country case studies

References Pitt, Gwyneth. 2007. Employment Law. 6th ed.; London: Thomson/Sweet & Maxwell. Sardar, Ziauddin. 2006. ‘Wanted: new thinking on race hate’, New Statesman, 27 November, p. 27. Taylor, Matthew. 2007. ‘Inquiry into claim that police joined BNP event’, The Guardian, 12 May, p. 16.

Comparative studies

9 AGGREGATE-DATA ANALYSES OF URBAN RACIST VOTING Methodological limitations, lessons, and experiences from France, the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Switzerland

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5, line 166 Comparative analysis is often esteemed as a goal and as a tool of social science – both by those using historical approaches in an attempt to derive theoretical insights and also by those whose research is more straightforwardly empirical. Those who are historically oriented sometimes take on this task using a multiple-casestudy approach, deriving theoretical inferences from the different circumstances and historical experiences of the several cases. On the other hand, those who are empirically oriented tend to use a variable-based approach to a specific phenomenon, seeking to maximize the comparability of their units of analysis – either by similar sampling techniques and/or uniformity of definition – and then to ascertain any differences in the predictive significance of particular independent variables when models of analysis that are as similar as possible are employed. An example is Rose’s (1974) overview chapter on the comparability of the determinants of mainstream voting behaviour in his compilation of studies of this in a number of countries. All social research has to come to terms with restrictions imposed by the circumstances of the real world – restrictions of a practical and of a substantive nature. Certain departures from true comparability are almost always inevitable because of given situations that are in practice unalterable. Quantitative comparative research in political geography is as subject to this humbling truth as any other area of social science. In that light, this chapter has two major components. The first is an exercise in the methodology of political geography, discussing the validitythreatening factors that arise in comparative analyses of the spatial distributions of urban voting; some of these apply to voting for any political party, whilst others are specific to voting for racist/xenophobic parties. Examples are drawn from

226  Comparative studies

the electoral features of nine selected cities in four west European countries. The discussion concentrates on two aspects of the comparison process that arise in research such as this: • •

the comparability of the urban subareas1 that are the units of analysis; and the comparability of data used in different individual city-level analyses.

The second component of the chapter summarizes the results of the separate spatial analyses (conducted using correlation and multiple-regression techniques) that are the principal outcome of a study in the nine cities. In conclusion, it makes some interpretations from these results that bear upon the viability of a unitary theory of urban racist political behaviour – especially one that accommodates the features of its spatial distribution.

Bias and invalidity in comparative urban political geography Comparability of urban subareas An immediate complication of comparative urban research using area units is the lack of uniformity among those included and also the differing quality and quantity of available data. Electoral data for Great Britain, where voting uses paper ballots, exemplify these issues. Partly (though only partly) because Great Britain is a polity with a history of representation by first-past-the-post systems in defined geographical areas, voting results are generally publicly available only at the level of aggregation of the areas from which candidates are being chosen.2 Results of elections to the House of Commons are available only for individual parliamentary constituencies; one may aggregate these (say, to counties or regions), but the manner of their publication prevents their disaggregation into the results for constituent smaller areas. Thus, the lowest level at which election results are available in Britain is the ward or (in rural areas) the parish – and then only for elections of candidates from these specific units, which will always be local, not national, elections. The lowest unit of theoretical availability is the polling district (sometimes called the electoral district), each with its own single polling station and its own ballot box (or set of them, if it is populous). The preliminary tallying of ballots at the count is at the polling-district level – but this is done only for the relevant Returning Officer to be able to confirm that the number of ballot papers in the box(es) corresponds to the number known to have been issued by the poll clerks at the individual polling stations. Ballot papers from each ward are usually arranged for this counting purpose in multiples of some predetermined number. The ballots from each polling station are then deliberately mixed before the counting of votes for individual candidates and the public declaration of the result. Only from some surreptitious assessments by observers at the count of ballot papers as they are unfolded when their respective ballot boxes are first opened could one derive some indication of results at the level of the polling district – and technically, it would be

Analyses of urban racist voting  227

an offence to disclose information derived in this way since it would be deemed as an infringement of the secrecy of the count. Many other countries manage their electoral affairs differently. Irrespective of the size of area being covered by the election and often also irrespective of whether some variant of first-past-the-post or some form of list voting is being used, electoral data are available for quite small area units – and then at successively higher levels in a hierarchy of aggregation; in many cases such data are actually published soon after an election and in other cases they are available by personal application to the respective statistical office. Taking, for example, the German city of Frankfurt am Main, which has about 413,000 registered voters (Stadt Frankfurt am Main 1989). It contains 467 Wahlbezirke (polling districts), giving a mean of 884 voters per district. Its next level of aggregation is the Stadtbezirk (urban district), of which there are 118, although this reduces to 110 (a mean of 3,755 voters each) because of various idiosyncratic local accretions that are used for electoral purposes (e.g., of areas such as the airport, with very few voting residents). Then there are forty-five Ortsteile (local areas), although for the same reason these reduce to forty-two for electoral purposes (a mean of 9,833 voters each). Finally, there are sixteen Ortsbezirke (local districts). Units at each level of aggregation comprise complete subsets of subareas at lower levels; thus, one may use the lowest-level units to aggregate to all the higher-level ones. This pattern is typical of cities in the Federal Republic, although there is some specificity about nomenclature of subareas, as there is too between cities in some other countries (e.g., the Netherlands). The increasing subdivisions of this German example may be exceptional but most other countries offer a similar pattern of hierarchical subarea aggregation, although there may be fewer levels in the hierarchy. In Paris results are published and readily available for the city’s twenty arrondissements and exist for its eighty quartiers, although – because of data protection regulations – these latter are not publicly available. In Zürich electoral results are published for the city’s twelve Kreise (districts) but are not publicly available for its thirty-four Stadtquartiere (city quarters), although aggregate social and economic data are. The availability of electoral data for such small areas may not always be the boon that it appears. Such data may be published only as elaborate mappings of electoral results, and in any case one may doubt the usefulness of such univariate presentations, even if done on a large scale, if social and other data on these areas are not also available. In practice, one is constrained in one’s use of such data by the extent to which they can be matched for conterminous subareas with the type of aggregate social and economic data with which one is likely to want to compare one’s electoral data. In the Frankfurt am Main case, for example, some such data are publicly available for the smallest subareas, the Wahlbezirke, but not all that one would like in any comprehensive analysis. For each Wahlbezirk there exist published data on nationality, gender, age structure, and religious affiliation, variously for the entire resident population and the native-German resident population. The availability of up-to-date information even on these demographic characteristics for such small subareas is far from universal, even in West German cities, but – in

228  Comparative studies

any case – these factors do not include some of the most important for any analysis of the spatial distribution of political racism. It should also be noted that there are often straightforward practical limitations in composing a dataset of many very small subareas. Although all such data often exist in machine-readable form, it may not be possible to acquire them in such a form – or it would be expensive to do so. Thus, although a computer merge is technically quite simple, one is in practice reduced to re-entering such data in machine-readable form from their published version and, in effect, doing one’s own merging operation, having made adjustments for subareas (such as airports) for which social and economic data on a small resident population do exist separately but whose voters have their votes counted in some adjacent, larger subarea. In practice, then, various factors – the most significant being the availability of an acceptably comprehensive set of corresponding aggregate social and economic data – determine the choice of subarea units in urban political analysis. Thus, any inter-urban comparative analysis is likely to face its first potentially biasing circumstance: subareas with substantially different average populations. Thus, the average Paris arrondissement contains about 110,000 inhabitants; the average Amsterdam buurtcombinatie (neighbourhood) less than 9,000. This is not an insubstantial issue since there is quite a correlation – city by city – between the average population-size of subareas being used in an analysis and the inter-subarea variation or range demonstrated by the candidacy being analysed. Of course, this is what one would expect, since percentaging election results across larger subareas removes all the variation between smaller constituent subareas; this latter might be a large proportion of total variation if there are many smaller subareas relative to the number of larger subareas, especially if these latter have been drawn administratively in a manner that transcends significant aspects of the ecology of the city concerned – a matter taken up below. Nor is this issue without substantive importance, since spatial variation between subareas – indicating the degree to which voting support is concentrated in certain parts of a city as opposed to coming in relatively similar degree from all parts – is an important tool for inference. The effect of differently sized areas on the value of correlation coefficients may be very small or more significant, depending on how the variation by subarea is patterned. Of course, the degree of effect is unknown in those situations where data only for larger areas, and none for their constituent smaller subareas, are available. This matter is illustrated by an example, which uses the following vocabulary: a whole city is seen as an ‘area’, which is divided into subareas, which are in turn divided into sub-subareas. Figure 9.1 is then a simple depiction using confected data to show how different configurations of relationship among fifteen subsubareas within five constituent subareas (three per subarea) might affect the size of correlation coefficients and other statistics such as the index of dissimilarity. Assume that the values of the fifteen sub-subareas on an independent variable X are known, and those fifteen combine into five subareas whose values on the same independent variable X are necessarily also known; further assume that the values of a dependent variable Y for each of the five subareas are known, but that those of

0 50

x

10

20

30

40

60

0 0

10

20

30

40

~ Y =4.58+0.876x

B

50

60

x

graphical demonstration of the different overall correlational results from opposite-directed relationships within local areas between common dependent and independent variables

FIGURE 9.1 A

0

10

20

20

~ Y =1.00+1.00X

30

30

10

40

∆ = 3.62

50

r = 0.793

y

∆ = 2.30

60

r = 0.905

A

40

50

60 y

Analyses of urban racist voting  229

230  Comparative studies

each of these fives’ three sub-subareas are not known. If the sub-subarea data on Y were to have a within-sub-subarea relationship with X that is the same in direction as that of X and Y across the five subareas, the resulting correlation across these fifteen sub-subareas would be very similar to that across the five subareas, whether in a positive or negative direction; that case is depicted in A of Figure 9.1. However, if the within-sub-subareas relationship of X and Y were to be opposite in direction to that in the overall five-subarea relationship of X and Y, the absolute value of the correlation coefficient of X and Y in the former case would be significantly lower; that case is depicted in B of Figure 9.1. In the case of B, the more the degree of dispersion among the sub-subarea data, the lower will be the overall correlation coefficient; moreover, the univariate coefficients of variation across the five subareas are all somewhat lower than the corresponding ones across their fifteen constituent sub-subareas.3 In non-simulated real-life situations one may well know the X– values for all sub-subareas and the Y-values for the subareas, but not the Y-values for the latter’s sub-subareas. Political geographers may sometimes have the opportunity to construct custom-defined subareas, if both electoral data and appropriate aggregate social and economic data are available for the very smallest sub-subareas. In Frankfurt am Main, for example, this would have been possible if the researcher had been happy to accept the limits of available social and economic data; in the United Kingdom the availability of enumeration-district census data permits to some branches of urban geography almost any pattern of bespoke aggregation, but the non-availability of comparably disaggregated electoral data closes off this possibility to the political geographer. In practice, availability or practicality usually restrict one to existing subareas, which have been administratively defined without the requirements of political geographers in mind. One might debate just what form should be taken by ideally defined subareas; even theoretically, there is no single answer and in any real situation such a debate would have to incorporate the complications introduced by natural and artificial physical features and perhaps variations in population density. However, in an ideal situation – without such realities – one might argue that any set of mutually adjacent custom-defined subareas should be as numerous as practicable, each one being either square (or only slightly rectangular) or hexagonal and so forming in their totality something like a chequerboard or honeycomb pattern, comparable to blocks in American cities. Such subarea definition would reduce the risk of certain types of artefact.Thus, possible biases might follow from less-than-optimal subarea definition. If a phenomenon of interest has a tendency to concentricity in its spatial distribution, subareas defined with a tendency to sectorization will contain a bias. Such a definition would remove intra-subarea variation and so give artificially low indications of inter-subarea (i.e., intra-city) variation. In the extreme case it would imply no inter-subarea variation at all. The biasing effects of this would depend on the spatial distribution of other relevant variables and, of course, as long as some inter-subarea variation remains, the phenomenon is still available for (say) correlational analysis.

Analyses of urban racist voting  231

Analogously, a tendency to concentricity in subarea definition of a phenomenon with a tendency to sectorization would have analogous biasing effects. However, such an administrative approach to subarea definition would be unusual. Whereas one can observe various cities with an obvious tendency to sectorization in the definition of their subareas (e.g., political wards whose boundaries may have been drawn with electoral fairness in mind), such a definition into annuli or semiannuli is not usual. Many cities have subareas defined – albeit implicitly – by the combination of concentricity and sectorization. The Paris arrondissements, for example, would be a rough demonstration of this point.

Comparability of variables Problems of subarea comparability are important but perhaps less biasing than those potentially arising from variable-definition, of both dependent variable and of possible independent variables. Taking first the dependent variable: in studying racist political behaviour from a comparative urban perspective, this is usually the vote given to some candidacy emphasizing an anti-immigrant/anti-black/anti-foreigner/anti-asylum-seeker platform at a particular election – the precise outgroup target depending on specific circumstances. Such voting is percentaged for each subarea being used in the analysis. However, there is not even a consensus about the precise procedure for percentaging: the most common divisor is the number of valid casts cast in each subarea in the respective election, although some researchers use the number of actual votes (including those spoilt or otherwise not being counted as valid).4 This difference is in practice almost always likely to be inconsequential, since only a few voters cast invalid ballots.Yet there is a school of thought that prefers the use of all registered voters as the divisor, in order to accommodate the effects of inter-subarea variations in turnout. The riposte to this of the valid-votes-only school is that – at least in some countries – the electoral register is likely to be out-of-date (because of deaths, removals, etc.) and/or inaccurate (because of under- and over-enumeration); more serious, these shortcomings, and especially the rate of increasing obsolescence, vary by subarea, being higher in subareas of high population turnover. This debate is perhaps irresolvable and, to be on the safe side, some analysts present results based on both approaches to percentaging (e.g., Mayer 1987, 1989). In those situations where members of the target ‘outgroup’ for a xenophobic or racist party are themselves enfranchised, some researchers feel that any percentaging should be done upon only some base which pertains to the population minus that outgroup’s members (either actual voters or merely registered electors) – it being assumed that members of target-outgroups are unlikely to vote for parties campaigning for their exclusion or expulsion. If data on the outgroup/nonoutgroup ratio of each subarea are available, an approximate calculation of the size of the non-outgroup population for the purpose of such a correction is simple enough, although such data are usually available only for the full resident population and almost never merely for the voting and/or registered electorate. However, this

232  Comparative studies

is not a serious issue in the present study because, except in the case of recent municipal elections in the Netherlands where the electorate for such elections has been extended to include non-Dutch citizens, the electorates contain only nonoutgroup voters in all the cases being here analysed.5 Also on the subject of defining the dependent variable in the study of racist voting behaviour is the fundamental issue of whether different such parties are equally examples of an identical phenomenon, an issue to which we return in the second section of this chapter.The more intractable problems arise in the definition and/or measurement of likely independent variables. Within the issue of definition are problems both of relevance and of availability.

Relevance Most modern societies, and most certainly west European cities, contain a group in their population that it is self-defined and almost universally recognized as indigenous or autochthonous. Analogously, there are one or more groups defined (usually both self-defined and also certainly so defined by the indigenous population) as non-indigenous or allochthonous, to follow the usage in Dutch. Some or all such groups are also defined as outgroups. However, this is not an absolute distinction. As Hagendoorn and Hraba (1989) have shown in the case of the Netherlands, there is a scale of social distance with respect to different non-indigenous groups in modern societies.The perceived relevance and consequent use of particular evaluative criteria produce differences in social distance between the indigenous population and the other groups. Groups evaluated on the pejorative side of numerous criteria are more socially distant than those evaluated in this way on fewer criteria. A corollary of this social-psychological perspective is that the use by a high proportion of the indigenous population of a large number of evaluative criteria and the likelihood then of some group(s) being negatively evaluated on many or all of them increases the length of such a social-distance scale. However, because one cannot be sure that all relevant societies use all possible evaluative criteria in the same way, the possible length of a social-distance scale may vary from society to society. Of course, the rejoinder to this is that such social distance is relative, not absolute – that, even with a small number of evaluative criteria and with only small cognitive weighting being given to each, some group is going to become defined as the extreme outgroup of that society, as long as any degree of judgement in these terms is present. This may be true, but there is another problem. Because different countries’ indigenous populations have come to use different evaluative criteria or to weight them differently and/ or because objectively similar non-indigenous groups are not evaluated in the same terms, different non-indigenous groups become the extreme outgroups of different societies. For example, the long-standing stereotype about Asians in British society (of being keen to succeed and entrepreneurial) has been applied in the United States to those who came from the West Indies. Thus, extreme outgroups are not similarly defined in all west European societies, even when a group with this ascribed status (as defined by one country)

Analyses of urban racist voting  233

is demographically present in another. A number of reasons may be adduced for this but its implication for the comparative analyst of urban racism is the frequent need to make a judgement about the respective outgroup(s) of each case study. Of course, the same groups are eligible for this status only in certain societies because they are present in sufficient numbers only in those societies. One wonders, for example, what might be the reaction of the Irish on being asked their attitudes towards the Surinamese, or of the British towards the Maghrébins (i.e., Arabs from Algeria, Morocco, or Tunisia). Variable-relevance arises in other situations. Concepts such as unemployment, the foreigner-population, or the manual working class are common to all modern societies, although there may well be measurement variations in official statistics, or arising from legislative definition, that introduce further potential biases (and the scope for adjusting these in order to introduce full comparability of definition is usually limited or non-existent). More significant is the specificity of certain social cleavages. Language-differences may be of idiosyncratic relevance, as might be religious ones.

Availability Availability frequently varies by hierarchical subarea, as already explained, and is a major consideration in deciding which subareas are to be used as units of analysis. Availability also frequently varies over time. Certain data are routinely collected on a continual basis in some countries, even for very small urban subareas. Thus, the West German practice of ongoing computer-based population registration produces at very regular intervals updates of certain demographic information (e.g., gender, age, and nationality). Other data are available less frequently or with a longer timelag or are up to date only for the larger subareas. In some cases they may depend on a national census conducted only infrequently. Of course, the British practice concerning the census is to conduct one each decennium (except for the sample census of 1966), although certain surrogates have been available in the interim (e.g., from the National Dwellings and Housing Survey during the late 1970s).The recent French practice is a septennial census, though breached by the timing of the census about to be undertaken.The Dutch have stopped doing full-blown censuses, relying instead on large-sample government-sponsored studies on particular subjects. All sorts of factors, some of an improbable nature, may influence availability. Census data, although they exist, are frequently subject to restrictions related to confidentiality that may delay or prevent publication, especially for small areas. This seems to be a continuing issue with the recent West German census. Some data exist not in published form but only by application to the relevant statistical office. What, however, are some of the likely biasing effects from variations in availability, specifically as regards time? Clearly, particular examples introduce their own problems but some general observations are possible. The general model of analysis of racist voting assumes temporal priority or simultaneity of cause and effect. Thus, if the vote being analysed was at Timet one

234  Comparative studies

uses independent variables measured also at Timet, or at Timet – n, if a case may be made that this is defensible (and where n ≥ 1 and refers to a time-interval). Similarly, in assessing the effects of change, one may measure this as it occurred between Timet and Timet – 1, or perhaps Timet – 1 and Timet – 2. Let us assume that the time-intervals are single years, as is frequently likely to be the case with official data being used in aggregate spatial studies of this kind. Because urban ecology is relatively invariant and glacial in its pattern of overall change – the same spatial patterning of social class in industrial cities often persists for decades, at least relatively, although there are examples of more rapid change when the dirigisme of urban renewal or gentrification have been present – it is a matter of little consequence for measurement which year is used in the case of most crosssectional demographic data. This point could be demonstrated by any of several examples but let us revert to that of Frankfurt am Main. In Block A of Table 9.1 are the correlations between the year-end percentages of the foreigner population relative to total resident population in 1985, 1986, and 1987 in the city’s forty-two electorally relevant Ortsteile. It is clearly unimportant which year’s data are chosen when the lowest correlation coefficient there is 0.998. However, matters are rather different when one considers change. On 31 December 1985 22.3 per cent of the city’s resident population was classifiable as foreign. A year later the figure was 22.7 per cent and, at the end of 1987, 23.4 per cent (Stadt Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 12). These changes may be small but were not insignificant; moreover, they varied between Ortsteile. They raise two relevant issues: first, how should they be used in a study of racist voting in March 1989; and second, how should one operationalize change (e.g., as a percentage-point difference, or as a percentage difference, or as what?). Such data for 31 December 1987 were the most recently published ones when this study of Frankfurt was being done. If one hypothesizes that certain voters might have reacted to their perception of an increase in their locally resident foreign population, to be revealed in a vote for the xenophobic Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in 1989, one can be guided only by intuition about the likely temporal basis of such a process. There is no social-psychological literature to which reference may be made in order to determine its likely time-basis. Would such voters be reacting to a year-on-year change? If so, the 1986–7 time-period seems the choice of variable, although one may admit the possibility that change occurs with a lag of at least a couple of years before a consequent reaction is seen. Or, might voters react to a perception of change over two years, 1985–7? Decisions on such matters might be of some significance in determining a final causal model since, whichever of the two approaches to the measurement of change is employed, the inter-correlation between 1985–7 and 1986–7 is no more than about 0.6, as Block B of Table 9.1 reveals. Of course, if the ‘true’ period to use had been 1986–7 but data for the latter year had been unavailable and one had resorted instead to those for 1985–6, one might well have been misled, since Table 9.1 shows that both relevant inter-correlations are very low and one is actually negative. Of course, this point has implications for the study of voting in Frankfurt in 1989. As said,

Analyses of urban racist voting  235 TABLE 9.1  Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients among distributions of the

foreigner-population among forty-two subdistricts (Ortsteile) of Frankfurt am Main, 31 December 1985–31 December 1987 A: Foreigner-population as a percentage of total resident population 1985 1985 – 1986 1987

1986 0.999 –

1987 0.998 0.999 –

B: Changes in the foreigner-population as a percentage of total resident population1

1985–6 1985–7 1986–7

1985–6 – 0.840 0.112

1985–7 0.748 – 0.633

1986–7 –0.104 0.582 –

C: Coefficients between percentage-point changes and percentage changes of the foreigner-population for three periods 1985–6 0.895 1

1985–7 0.805

1986–7 0.684

 oefficients above the main diagonal are between percentage-point changes, while those below it are C between percentage changes.

data on the distribution of the foreign population on 31 December 1988 were not publicly available. However, what if (as seems not unreasonable) the ‘true’ period for inclusion in this analysis is 1987–8 but the coefficient between change-data for this period and those for 1986–7 was as low as that between 1986–7 and 1985–6? We might then be seriously deceived about the relevance of the change-in-theforeigner-population variable in any final model. As mentioned earlier, one may operationalize change over time in a number of ways, the two standard ones with percentages being: percentage-point change: Percentaget – Percentaget – 1 and: percentage change: [(Percentaget – Percentaget – 1)/Percentaget – 1] x 100 If people do react to local change, as hypothesized, there is no social-psychological literature to guide one in deciding how to operationalize this.Thus, would a change from 50 to 53 per cent have the same consequences as one of 5 to 8 per cent during the same period? One may advance reasons for both a positive and a negative answer. However, if one felt that these two examples were not likely to have similar consequences, could one sustain the view that the 60 per cent change represented by going from 5 to 8 per cent is genuinely much more important than that of 6 per cent going from 50 to 53 per cent? If we may regard these latter change-scores as part of a ratio scale, is the former instance really ten times more significant than the

236  Comparative studies

latter one? One doubts this but, however one resolves the matter in a theoretical sense, the coefficients in Block C of Table 9.1 show that, certainly for the 1986–7 period, the two different measurement approaches might well produce different research outcomes, being inter-correlated at less than 0.7. It is a fact of life for the political geographer that these manifold problems of relevance, availability, and measurement are present, both as factors that should incline him or her to a certain tentativeness – even diffidence – in presenting research results but also as weapons in the armoury of the determinedly critical, especially as aggregate data are often in any case the bluntest of tools for seeking any individual-level effects.There is therefore little purpose in belabouring the so-called ‘ecological fallacy’, the inference of an individual-level relationship calculated from data aggregated for units that those individuals respectively comprise. This style of analysis was once much in vogue, as exemplified by early literature on delinquency (e.g., Shaw and McKay 1969 [1942]) or on political behaviour (e.g., Gosnell 1968 [1937]), before this particular error of inference was pointed out to sociologists by Robinson (1950).6 One may, however, within certain statistical constraints (Duncan and Davis 1953; Goodman 1953, 1959), nonetheless extract a degree of validation from the features of the models produced by such analyses.7

The spatial analysis of racist voting behaviour: results This section of the chapter summarizes the findings of numerous regression analyses of city-level racist voting in nine cities, five of them in the Federal Republic. Table 9.2 contains an overview of these results for the nine cities in the analysis. These data are not presented as being necessarily representative of all cities in their respective countries, still less in the countries as wholes. They are no more than ‘convenience’ data that it was possible to compile, albeit not without some considerable effort in reviewing relevant published data sources in official yearbooks or newspapers, or sometimes by visiting municipal offices in the cities concerned. Nonetheless, the analysis covers one or more of the major cities of each of the four countries. The columns, ‘Party/candidacy’ and ‘Years and numbers of elections’, give background details of the candidacies and the time-periods being considered in each case, and those for ‘No. of urban subareas’ and ‘Average population per subarea’ define the units of analysis for each city. As can be seen, the number of units of analysis ranges from twelve (in Zürich) to 171 (in Hamburg). The largest in terms of population are the Parisian arrondissements and the smallest are the Bremerhaven Ortsteile. The column on ‘% Support’ reveals the range of success of xenophobic and/ or racist political movements in west European cities in recent years from the 14.2 per cent for Vigilance in Geneva in 1985 and the five-year average of 12.2 per cent for the Front National (FN) in Paris down to the less than 1 per cent achieved by the Hamburger Liste [für] Ausländerstopp (HLA) in Hamburg. This variation in support raises an issue that was postponed in the discussions of the first

FN/J.-M. Le Pen

1982–6 (3)

1986–7 (2)

CDs

1986–7 (2)

CDs

CP

1982–6 (2)

CP

Berlin (West)

REPs

1989 (1)

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY

Rotterdam

Amsterdam

1984–9 (5)

Party/candidacy Years and numbers of elections

THE NETHERLANDS

Paris

FRANCE

Country and city/ canton1

countries, 1979–1989

71

25

78

77/78

20

No. of urban subareas

30,544

22,639

8,754

109,448

Average population per subarea

7.5

1.2

5.1

1.0

2.1

12.2

% Support

0.245

0.367

0.341

0.465

0.429

0.191

Coeff. of variation

0.156

0.739

0.806

0.303

0.444

0.547

Corr. (r) with % foreigners2

0.839

0.642

0.739

0.458

0.592

0.722

R2

1

1

1

2.5

2.5

2

0.081

0.098

0.092

0.123

0.150

*

Average no. of Increase in independent R2 with variables sectoral variables3

(Continued)

12

8

17

*

No. of sectors

TABLE 9.2  A summary of various findings about the locational distribution of support for racist political parties in nine cities in four west European

Analyses of urban racist voting  237

1987 (1)

1989 (1)

1987 (1)

REPs

Frankfurt am Main NPD

Hamburg

1975–9 (2)

NA

SRB

Zürich

12

44

171

42

22

83

30,124

7,756

8,777

14,704

5,584

6,096

3.2

5.3

14.2

0.4

6.7

1.7

5.4

1.1

3.0

0.119

0.315

0.317

0.750

0.270

0.294

0.167

0.364

0.300

0.067

0.482

0.490

0.372

0.120

–0.324

0.280

0.161

0.120

0.298

0.799

0.597

0.368

0.834

0.169

–

0.091

0.251

14

1.25

3

3

3

1

–

1

2

*

*

*

0.153

0.069

0.117

–

0.180

0.033

*

*

*

7

16

2

–

5

1

 he entries in all columns including and to the right of ‘% Support’ are unweighted means of the respective individual analyses. The coefficient of variation is intended as a T dimensionless measure of dispersion and is calculated by dividing the standard deviation of a distribution by its mean. The entry, ‘R2 of model’, is the coefficient of determination of the respective regression model and the entry, ‘No. of ind. vars.’ is the number of aggregated, non-sectoral independent variables that it contains. 2 In some cases there exist average correlation values for more specifically defined outgroups: Paris, with Maghrébins, 0.605; Amsterdam, with Turks and Moroccans, 0.707 (for the CP) and 0.603 (for the CDs); Rotterdam, with Surinamese, 0.869 (for the CP) and 0.814 (for the CDs); and Frankfurt am Main, with Turks, 0.390. 3 ‘Sector’ in this case does not have the conventional meaning used in urban ecology; it is merely used as a suitably general English word for the numerous names in different languages of the highest-level subarea aggregation of the cities concerned. An asterisk means that no sector-level analysis was possible and a dash means that no multivariate analysis was possible. 4 One distribution of SRB voting in Zürich could not be satisfactorily modelled with available data; the entries pertaining to the regression analysis refer to the analysis that was possible.

1975–87 (4)

Vigilance

Geneva, Canton of

SWITZERLAND

1985 (1)

1987 (1)

DVU–Liste D

HLA

1987 (1)

REPs

Bremerhaven

1987 (1)

DVU–Liste D

Bremen

TABLE 9.1  (Continued) 238  Comparative studies

Analyses of urban racist voting  239

part of this chapter – to what extent are these comparable movements, analysable as essentially the same phenomenon in different contexts. Because of the Swiss political experience,Vigilance was able at the time of its success to avoid some of the connotations of being on the extreme right that have readily attached themselves to all the other movements being considered in Table 9.2, whatever have been the attempts by their leaders to disavow this association. Perhaps Die Republikaner (REPs) in the Federal Republic had an image that dissociated them in the minds of some sections of the public from conventional neo-Nazism, although this dissociation may now be breaking down under the impact of events since their West Berlin breakthrough in January 1989. The entries in the column headed ‘Coeff. of variation’ – the standard deviation of each percentage-distribution divided by its mean, calculated across all subareas being used as units of analysis – begin to show the virtues of this comparative approach; these movements do not occur with the same spatial configuration. Even beyond the artefact introduced by variations in the size of different sets of subareas (as mentioned earlier), they clearly differ in the degree of their intra-city concentration. The Dutch examples show particular strength in certain localities. The Swiss examples (except the maverick Schweizerische Republikanische Bewegung (SRB) in Zürich) also show a degree of territorial concentration, especially remarkable for Nationale Aktion (NA) in Zürich, given that this analysis is based only on twelve subareas. Five of the seven West German examples have coefficients of variation of 0.3 or less, although the REPs’ vote in Bremen in September 1987 and that for the HLA in Hamburg in May of the same year are higher – in the latter case very much so, although this is clearly partly an artefact of its low overall support. On the other hand, the FN in Paris, though having its relative strongholds (tending now to be in the north-east of the city), has usually drawn reasonably evenly from across the whole city. Intra-city variation might be thought to depend on the inter-subarea distribution of the relevant outgroup, although there is no significant universal correlation between the degree of spatial variation (i.e., intra-city territorial concentration) in a movement’s vote and the extent to which this vote correlates by subarea with the percentage of foreigners in the total resident population. The correlates between voting and the presence of foreigners by subarea of each city-level analysis are shown in the column headed ‘Corr. (r) with % foreigners’, and, again, important differences are revealed. If we may assume that a coefficient at 0.6 or higher is to be considered impressive, only Rotterdam’s data produce correlations of this magnitude. Between 0.4 and 0.6 are Paris, Amsterdam (for the Centrumpartij (CP)), Geneva, and Zürich. Below 0.4 are Amsterdam (for the Centrumdemocraten (CDs)), all the German cases, and Zürich (for the SRB). Among the German examples only Hamburg has a coefficient even approaching 0.4; most are insignificant and for one – the REPs in Bremerhaven in September 1987, when it was competing against the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) – the coefficient is moderately negative. This latter shows that competition by two parties with a similar appeal fighting the same election may have different outcomes; as with the SRB in the Swiss case, the REPs on that

240  Comparative studies

occasion appealed more to a traditional conservative vote, whereas in a comparable Dutch case the CDs attracted a vote that was merely a ‘fuzzier’ version of that given to their rival, the CP. Thus, there may be different scenarios concerning patterns of support when such a split occurs. There are certainly qualifications to some of what has been said in the above paragraph. As note 2 of Table 9.2 reveals, where data on certain more specific outgroups than ‘foreigners’ as a whole could be obtained, there were frequently higher zero-order correlations. Moreover, in Paris the correlation between FN voting and the presence of Maghrébins is well-known to have increased significantly between, on the one hand, 1984 and, on the other, 1986 and later (Mayer 1989). Also, although the NPD’s vote in Frankfurt am Main correlated in modest degree with the percentaged presence of Turks in the total population, the coefficient (rather exceptionally) was noticeably higher – at 0.607 – with the presence of Turks in the local foreigner population. Thus, it may be inferred the local presence of foreigners, or even a more specifically defined outgroup, is not always a catalyst for racist voting. In the West German examples, in particular, such micro-spatial hostilities are not noticeable and, instead, one seeks explanation in factors that are not especially space-related. On the other hand, ‘contact racism’ (Amir 1976; Husbands 1988) as a reaction to the local presence of some societally defined outgroup is an apparent factor in the Netherlands, certainly in Rotterdam. The R2-values reveal that, despite uncertainties about data and the logistics of such modelling, it is possible in most cases to derive regression models (based in the first place on stepwise regression, before subsequent refinement) that are robust and have a strong predictive value with only a small number of necessary independent variables.8 However, despite extensive efforts with a reasonable mix of potential variables, it was difficult to achieve satisfactory models of support for both The Republicans and the DVU in both Bremen and Bremerhaven – for the latter party impossible in the second city. Also, less than satisfactory models were obtained for the HLA in Hamburg and for the SRB in Zürich (in one case it was not possible to derive an acceptable model). These failures may be the reflection of a serious data-deficiency – some missing ‘true’ variable from the assembled dataset. However, this is unlikely. Rather, they show the diffuse character of these specific candidacies and the loose attachment of their support to conventional structural/demographic categories with a distinctive intra-urban distribution in that city’s ecology. Most of the other models were extremely successful, often needing only one independent variable effectively to maximize their coefficients of determination. The vote for the REPs in West Berlin in January 1989 – when the party emerged from the shadows after nearly three years in decline – was highly predicted, and by only one independent variable. Having established that the local percentage of foreigners or even of some more specific outgroup was not always – indeed not usually – the best predictor of racist voting, it is instructive to seek for what was. Thus, in Paris in 1984 and 1986 the single best predictor of FN support by arrondissement was the percentage of

Analyses of urban racist voting  241

the economically active employed in the private sector – a finding corroborating other evidence that the earlier voter support for the FN had been superseded by other determinants by the end of the 1980s. Only in 1988 and 1989 was the local percentage of Maghrébins the best individual predictor. In Amsterdam the percentage of Turks and Moroccans of the total population in 1987 was the best predictor, but in Rotterdam – despite the high zero-order correlations involving the Surinamese – the best predictors were either the percentage unemployed of the economically active population or average annual income (which had to be taken for 1982). Clearly, there is strong collinearity between the Surinamese presence within Rotterdam and these aggregate indices of disadvantage and economic status and so one cannot with this analysis exclude the significance of the Surinamese presence; however, one may certainly conclude that disadvantage and poverty did have an additional impact, over and above that of any contact racism directed against the Surinamese. A final example of a non-foreigner independent variable: in West Berlin there was an overwhelming relationship with the percentage of the German population with only basic secondary education (r = 0.916); nothing else survived the stepwise-regression elimination process, thus suggesting – with a caveat about a possible ecological fallacy – the character of many of the individual voters for the REPs’ candidacy. Finally in Table 9.2 are presented, where possible, analyses that attempt to assess in a manner more specific than was done by the coefficients of variation the degree to which there was a distinctive spatial element in the respective vote-distributions, over and above the degree to which they were to be analysed using aggregate social and economic data by subarea.The entries in the column headed ‘Increase in R2 with sectoral variables’ show the arithmetic difference between the coefficient of determination for the basic multiple-regression model and that for this same model with the addition of so-called sectoral variables entered as dummies. As note 3 of Table 9.2 explains, ‘sectors’ does not here have the standard connotation of urban ecology but has been chosen as a general English-language word for all such subareas at the highest level of aggregation (e.g., the sixteen Ortsbezirke in the case of Frankfurt am Main, or the seventeen stadsdelen (city areas) in the case of Amsterdam). Some original models show significant improvements in R2 with the additional presence of these locational variables, indicating that the parties concerned have benefited from a locality-based social process (e.g., a differential network effect) that transcends the local presence of an outgroup, or whatever the significant aggregate variable happened to be. As might be expected, there is some tendency for larger improvements in R2 with the addition of sectoral variables to be associated with lower R2-values in the original regressions; however, this tendency is not large and could be attributable to a ‘reverse ceiling-effect’ – where, in an increase situation, there is an arithmetic potential for a larger absolute increase because of a lower starting point. More encouraging for the argument that these movements benefit from independent locality-based effects in varying degree is the fact of a reasonable positive correlation between the absolute size of increase in R2 and the earlier coefficient of variation.

242  Comparative studies

Conclusions The lesson of these analyses is important, if basic. Intra-subarea analyses of such phenomena are both feasible and worthwhile, providing insights hard to obtain in any other way, despite the limitations of these data. Indeed, because of the frequent lack of dedicated individual-level data (e.g., from polls or surveys on a citywide level, as opposed to the national level), such analyses may be the only quantitative possibilities. What these reveal will be unsurprising to specialists: that there is no single ‘theory’ covering the determinants of racist voting.The virtue of the mode of analysis used in this chapter is to show that such techniques of political geography reinforce that point and also give clues as to some of the factors that are relevant in specific cases. Factors vary in their relevance, as was seen; most important for political geographers, locality-based processes occur more obviously in some cities than in others, either as ‘surplus reactions’ to locally present outgroups or perhaps as local network effects. It is then the task of more focused, on-the-ground, analyses to determine the circumstances that determine the varying importance of these individual factors.

Notes 1 The word ‘subarea’ is used to cover intra-urban areas covering less than a city as a whole. It is intended as a catch-all English-language word to cover a wide range of terms used in the original languages. ‘Subareas’ comprise in turn what are here called ‘sub-subareas’ in the discussion in this chapter where that distinction is necessary. 2 One small exception is the results of referenda, which are available at lower levels of aggregation. 3 This may therefore be a degree of invalidation to the Paris coefficient of variation in Table 9.2, given that, unlike the other cities, it is based on very large subareas with average populations each exceeding 100,000. For a general discussion of some of the methodological details in analysing the structure of spatial data, see Duncan, Cuzzort, and Duncan (1961, pp. 80–99). 4 There is also the complicating case of multi-candidate, multi-seat elections, as many British local elections are. These may involve any or all of several complications: incomplete slates for one or more parties; cross-party ballot-splitting by voters; the number of votes for one (or more) candidates of a party’s full candidate slate being much more than that for the other(s); and use of less than their full votes-entitlement by some voters. The last factor means that the number of actual voters (the conventional base for the calculation of support) cannot be derived merely by summing the numbers of votes cast for each candidate and dividing by the number of votes to which each voter is entitled. Newspaper reports of such results often omit the number of valid ballot papers issued, which would equal the number of individual voters, although this information may perhaps be estimated or obtained in fully accurate form by application to the appropriate Returning Office. Because of the unfairness in the case of incomplete slates of estimating their percentage support from the across-slate total of votes over the total cast for all candidates, it is preferable to use the across-slate mean or the best performance in the slate, percentaged on the estimated or actual number of ballot-papers issued.

Analyses of urban racist voting  243

5 This therefore removes in the non-Dutch cases a further source of potential bias in the calculation of the dependent variable of political racism. Adjustments in percentaging when assessing support for such candidates should be made when members of targetoutgroups may also vote in the elections concerned; such adjustments are usually made on the reasonable enough assumption that no or few outgroup members vote for the racist candidacy concerned. 6 In the second editions of neither Shaw and MacKay’s book nor Gosnell’s do the included commentaries on the original studies concede any relevance to the ecological fallacy. 7 A collection of essays on crime that are introduced by an editorial contribution that does include some discussion of the ecological fallacy is Voss and Petersen (1971, esp. pp. 1–44); see also some of the articles in Section B of Theodorson (1961, pp. 77–126). 8 The later discussion of Table 9.2 is based on the results in the individual cities of a large number of regression analyses; these are too numerous to be individually reported.

References Amir, Yehuda. 1976. ‘The role of intergroup contact in change of prejudice and ethnic relations’. Pp. 245–308 in Phyllis A. Katz (ed.), Towards the Elimination of Racism. New York: Pergamon Press. Duncan, Otis Dudley, Cuzzort, Ray P., and Duncan, Beverly. 1961. Statistical Geography: Problems in Analyzing Areal Data. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Duncan, Otis Dudley, and Davis, Beverly. 1953. ‘An alternative to ecological correlation’, American Sociological Review, 18(6), 665–6. Goodman, Leo A. 1953. ‘Ecological regressions and behavior of individuals’, American Sociological Review, 18(6), 663–4. Goodman, Leo A. 1959. ‘Some alternatives to ecological correlation’, American Journal of Sociology, 64(6), 610–25. Gosnell, Harold F. 1968 [1937]. Machine Politics: Chicago Model. 2nd ed.; Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hagendoorn, Louk, and Hraba, Joseph. 1989. ‘Foreign, different, deviant, seclusive and working class: anchors to an ethnic hierarchy in The Netherlands’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 12(4), 441–68. Husbands, Christopher T. 1988. ‘The dynamics of racial exclusion and expulsion: racist politics in western Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 16(6), 701–20. Mayer, Nonna. 1987. ‘De Passy à Barbès: deux visages du vote Le Pen à Paris’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 37(6), 891–906. Mayer, Nonna. 1989. ‘Le vote FN de Passy à Barbès (1984–1988)’. Pp. 249–67 in Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau (eds.), Le Front National à découvert. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Robinson, W. S. 1950. ‘Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals’, American Sociological Review, 15(3), 351–7. Rose, Richard. 1974. ‘Comparability in electoral studies’. Pp. 3–25 in Richard Rose (ed.), Electoral Behavior: A Comparative Handbook. New York: Free Press. Shaw, Clifford R., and McKay, Henry D. 1969 [1942]. Juvenile Delinquency in Urban Areas: A Study of Rates of Delinquency in Relation to Differential Characteristics of Local Communities in American Cities. Revised ed.; Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Stadt Frankfurt am Main. 1988. Statistisches Jahrbuch Frankfurt am Main, 1988. Frankfurt am Main: Amt für Statistik, Wahlen und Einwohnerwesen.

244  Comparative studies

Stadt Frankfurt am Main. 1989. Frankfurter Statistische Berichte, Sonderheft 50: Strukturdaten der Wahlbezirke zu den Kommunalwahlen 1989. Frankfurt am Main: Amt für Statistik, Wahlen und Einwohnerwesen. Theodorson, George A. (ed.). 1961. Studies in Human Ecology. Evanston, IL: Harper & Row. Voss, Harwin L., and Petersen, David M. 1971. ‘Introduction’. Pp. 1–44 in Harwin L. Voss and David M. Petersen (eds.), Ecology, Crime, and Delinquency. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

10 SUPPORT FOR RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN WESTERN EUROPE An examination of the ‘wave hypothesis’ on the basis of time series of polling results in five countries

The windcapt waves discover That wild will be the night. Robert Bridges, ‘The Evening Darkens Over’

Introduction The electoral successes since the mid-1980s of extreme-right racist political parties in various countries of western Europe have occasioned numerous commentaries and analyses.1 Some authors see in the increase of support for these parties a potential danger for democratic political systems, one of whose causes is the deterioration of relations between the indigenous population and foreigners or members of ethnic minorities. Extreme-right parties may equally represent a melting pot for all sorts of protest voters. The expectation once earlier expressed, especially in Germany in connection with the electoral successes of the Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP) in the 1950s, that extreme-right parties and ideologies represented a hangover from the pre-war period and would slowly with time die out, was revealed as naïve. In discussion about the successes of extreme-right parties in western Europe, a large number of authors have proposed several reasons, and numerous possible causes have been held responsible for the emergence of right-wing extremism (e.g., Husbands 1988, 1992a; Hainsworth 1992b; Betz 1994, pp. 36–106), though it is not proposed here to go into detail on these. Instead, the rise of extreme-right parties throws up the question whether and to what extent there has been a ‘wave’ of right-wing extremism in western Europe in which there were reciprocal influences between countries. The question to be asked is: to what extent, in looking at the extreme-right parties in western Europe, is one looking at a homogeneous phenomenon, or to what extent is one looking at phenomena largely specific to individual countries. It is not a novelty to note that the problems of right-wing

246  Comparative studies

extremism do not have the same salience and importance in the various countries of western Europe (Miles 1994; Leggewie and Meier 1995). However, for evaluating a wave hypothesis it is not crucial that the extreme-right parties in several countries are successful to the same degree (that is self-evidently not the case). The question being posed is rather whether the increases and decreases in their support over time unfold in parallel manner in various countries, or to what extent they behave as independent phenomena. Answering this question is of considerable importance for explaining right-wing extremism. If it should transpire that the successes of extreme-right parties in one country have a positive influence on the successes of extreme-right parties in another country, this would have important implications for the formulation of a general model for the explanation of right-wing extremism. For example, one consequence would be that one also has to consider supernational factors instead of putting the explanation down to explanatory events only within the context of conditions in individual countries. In order to be able to answer this research question I investigate trends in mass support for extreme-right and racist political parties in various countries – and in relevant cases also taking into account the geographical distribution of their votes. In one part of the analysis I concentrate on the five west European countries in which, during the 1980s and 1990s, extreme-right parties pushed racist and xenophobic agendas: France, the Netherlands, Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Belgium (looking just at Flanders).2 The main focus is therefore upon the larger parties that, because of their electoral successes, are covered by the regularly conducted political opinion polls. The data employed have been collected by the respective polling organizations and have been appropriately edited for the purposes of analysis. The dependent variable being used is answers to the so-called ‘Sunday question’ – what is asked is voting intention on the assumption of an election for the national parliament.3 I proceed on the basis that the data being used are valid and contain no major measurement errors. Apart from minor exceptions, I have used the poll data as they were reported and published by the organizations concerned. Since some organizations collected no data in the months of August and/or December, but for the purposes of analysis complete time series of monthly data were necessary, I calculated the monthly values missing in a few of the time series by means of a simple process of interpolation and added these to the original data as estimated values. The quarterly figures were calculated simply as unweighted means of the relevant monthly data. Finally, it should be said that I made no full attempt to submit these poll data to any sort of smoothing process – for example, median smoothing (Mosteller and Tukey 1977, pp. 43–77; Marsh 1988, pp. 157–79) or the process of moving averages (Bortz 1977, pp. 37–9). Exploratory analyses using these sorts of process had no significant effects upon the results. Nations or near-nations were considered as the units of analysis of the study and no attempt has been made to conduct equivalent analyses on subgroups, such as different social classes or separate genders, in order to test, for example, the extent to which voting tendencies are similar across social groups.

Support for right-wing extremism  247

I start by giving short sketches of the parties that are included in the analysis and their actual electoral successes between 1981 and 1995, which may then be compared with voting intentions for them as expressed in the opinion polls. There follows an analysis of trends in support of extreme-right parties in the five named west European countries on the basis of their poll data in the years from 1982 to 1995 and these time-series data allow one to see the respective trends. In order to learn the relationships between the chronological developments in the various countries, the data are additionally submitted to correlational and principal-components analysis. I finally discuss some conclusions that may be drawn from the empirical analysis.

The extreme-right and racist parties in five west European countries As said already, the focus of the study is the extreme-right parties in five west European countries. In order to be able to understand the account, those such parties that are included in the empirical analysis are briefly listed.4

France The Front National (FN): this party has had a significant level of support since 1983. National polling studies allow its development to be tracked from the beginning of 1982 (Husbands 1991; Hainsworth 1992c; Safran 1993; Marcus 1995).5

The Netherlands The Centrumdemocraten (CDs) and the Centrum Partij ’86 (CP ‘86): in 1983 and 1984 the predecessor of the CP ’86, the Centrum Partij (CP) received a degree of support in the polls, but it then split and a part became the CDs.The CP thereupon dissolved itself but was re-established in 1986 as the CP ’86 (Husbands 1992b; Buijs and van Donselaar 1994).6

Austria The Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) (since January 1995 renamed Die Freiheitlichen (Fs)): this party, without doubt the most successful contemporary example of right-wing extremism in western Europe, was founded inVienna in 1955 by representatives of the Verband der Unabhängigen (VdU) and the Freiheitspartei (FP). It initially represented itself in Austrian politics as a proponent for a free market economy. Jörg Haider, as a member of the self-consciously nationalist wing of the party, was chosen as its leader at the party’s Eighteenth Conference in September 1986. After years of decline, Haider’s victory brought about a change in the party towards xenophobia, exclusionary nationalism, and a culture war against artists and the left that led to considerable electoral gains (Luther 1992; Bailer and Neugebauer 1993; Januschek 1993; Plasser and Ulram 1995).7

248  Comparative studies

Federal Republic of Germany Die Republikaner (REPs): this party has been around since 1983 but first emerged as an influential national force only in January 1989 after an unexpected success in the election for the Berlin House of Deputies. After the unification of the two German states, the REPs had only modest success in the new federal regions (Leggewie 1990; Stöss 1990; Falter, with Klein 1994).8

Belgium (Flanders) The Vlaams Blok (VB): this party split off at the end of the 1970s from the Volksunie (VU) and is the strongest force of organized Flemish nationalism. It emerged electorally for the first time to a significant degree in November 1991 (Husbands 1992c; Swyngedouw 1994; Billiet and de Witte 1995).9

The electoral successes of extreme-right parties from 1981 to 1995 Before reporting the details of the statistical analysis it is meaningful to present the development of extreme-right parties’ voting in the five countries.The observation period is limited, as said, to the fifteen years encompassing 1981 to 1995.Table 10.1 shows the parties’ proportions of valid votes cast for all national elections in which the parties have participated. In addition, the table also includes for some countries the results of regional elections. Because of the different candidacies and the varying length of legislative periods there is great variation in the number of elections of the five nations. Thus, in France, for example, fourteen electoral time-points are considered, for the Netherlands eight, for the Federal Republic of Germany (old federal regions) seven, for Belgium (Flanders) eight, for Austria six, and for the new federal regions of the Federal Republic of Germany three. In so far as there are existing data, Table 10.1 also contains the results that could be taken from opinion polls in order to be able to determine whether the respective party in the election concerned was performing worse or better in comparison with its opinion-poll results. As can be seen, a comparison of the data in no way always supports the supposition that extreme-right parties would in real elections achieve higher figures than in simultaneously taken opinion polls – allegedly because of the inability of polling organizations to capture all the supporters of extreme-right parties. Table 10.1 provides information on two important matters: first, about the extent of the success of some of these parties; and second, about the performances of extremeright parties in real and hypothetical elections when these are compared. In France in 1984 extreme-right political party support was considerably underestimated in comparison with elections. Until the end of the period being considered, these parties were able, with a couple of exceptions, to win around 10 to 15 per cent of the votes. The exceptions were the cantonal elections of March 1985 and of September 1988. In nine of fourteen cases the FN’s actual election result exceeded corresponding figures

NL 13 Oct

Can 10 Mar

1985

8.7

7

EP 14–17 Jun 11.0 8

1984

NL 24 Apr

NL 6 Mar

1983

NL 8 Sep3

1982

NL 8 Nov

NL 26 Mar2

1981

The Netherlands

Austria

FRG (West)

FRG (East)

Belgium (Flanders)

–1.7

–3.0 2.5

0.8

0.1

–

–

–

1.2

*

*

–1.3

*

*

5.0

*

*

–

–

0.8

0.2

–

–

*

*

*

*

–

–

–

*

*

*

(Continued)

1.4 *

1.3 *

1.1 *

FN Polls Diff. CP/CP’ 86 CDs Polls1 Diff. FPÖ Polls Diff. DVU NPD REPs Polls Diff. DVU NPD REPs Polls Diff. FN VB Polls Diff.

France

European countries, 1981–1995, in percentages

TABLE 10.1  Support for extreme-right parties in elections at the national or near-national level (with simultaneous opinion-poll support figures) in five west

Support for right-wing extremism  249

5.2

8

NL 6 Sep

–

0.4

–

–1.7 –

+2.8

–1.7

9.7

8

–2.7

–6.4

7

9.7

–2.6

14.4 8

7

9.6

EP 15–18 Jun 11.7 10

1989

Can 25 Sep

5

NL 5 Jun

Pres 25 Apr

1988

NL 13 Dec

Reg 18 Mar

1987

NL 23 Nov

NL 21 May

NL 16 Mar

Reg 16 Mar

NL 26 Jan

1986

The Netherlands

Austria

FRG (West)

FRG (East)

Belgium (Flanders)

0.9

0.8

0.3

0.1

*

*

*

0.24

*

*

*

–0.2 9.7

3.9

–5.8

1.6

–

–

0.6

7.1

–

6

*

–1.1

*

–

–

4.1 *

1.9 *

*

*

FN Polls Diff. CP/CP’ 86 CDs Polls1 Diff. FPÖ Polls Diff. DVU NPD REPs Polls Diff. DVU NPD REPs Polls Diff. FN VB Polls Diff.

France

TABLE 10.1  (Continued)

250  Comparative studies

NL 16 Oct

NL 9 Oct

EP 9–12 Jun

NL 3 May

Can 20 Mar

1994

NL 21 Mar

1993

12

+2.2

–1.5

+1.1

+2.8

0.4

0.3

10.5 12.5 +2.0 –

9.8

12.5 11

13.9 15

Reg 22 Mar

Pres 26 Apr

12.2 15

Can 22 Mar

1992

NL 24 Nov

Reg 6 Mar

1991

NL 2 Dec

NL 7 Oct

1990

1.0

2.5

1.0

1.7

2.7

0.5

+0.7

+0.2

–0.5

22.6

16.4

16.6

22.0 –0.6

13.3 –3.1

13.5 –3.1

–

–

–

–

–

0.6

2.0

4.2

2.3

*

2

1

*

–

–2.2 –

–1.3 –

–

–

–

1.3

3.0

1.3

*

1

*

*

–0.8

–2.6

(Continued)

–2.0 2.9 7.8 7

1.1 6.6 46

Support for right-wing extremism  251

Austria

FRG (West)

FRG (East)

Belgium (Flanders)

15.0 13

–2.0

0.1

1.0

1.4

+0.4

22.1

25.0 +2.9

2.3 7.8 9

+1.2

2

1

Where there is more than one party, the poll rating refers, with one exception, to the score of the party in the immediately adjacent column Also, 0.2 per cent for the Boerenpartij and 0.1 per cent for the Nederlandse Volksunie 3 Also, 0.3 per cent for the Rechtse Volkspartij (the former Boerenpartij) 4 This is the exception mentioned in note 1; this poll rating is that of the Centrum Partij 5 Also, 0.1 per cent for other extreme-right groupings 6 The poll ratings for the Vlaams Blok in this table have been adjusted to represent its support in the whole of Belgium. The original samples of the polling organizations were restricted just to Flanders 7 Also, 0.2 per cent for the Nederlands Blok 8 Also, 0.3 per cent for the Fédération pour une nouvelle Solidarité-+

France: FN, Front National; the Netherlands: CP, Centrum Partij; CP ’86, Centrum Partij ’86; CD, Centrumdemocraten; Austria: Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (since January 1995, Die Freiheitlichen); FRG: DVU, Deutsche Volksunion; NPD, Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands; REPs, Die Republikaner; Belgium: FN, Front National;VB,Vlaams Blok

Polls: Simultaneous opinion-poll ratings Diff.: Difference (a negative number means underestimation by the polls and a positive one the opposite) –: No candidacy *: Data not available EP: Election to the European Parliament Can: Cantonal elections (in France) Reg: Regional elections (in France, regions; in the Netherlands, provinces) NL: Election to the national legislature (in France, Assemblée nationale; in the Netherlands, Second Chamber; in Austria, National Council; in the FRG, Bundestag; Belgium, Chamber of Deputies) Pres: Presidential election

Explanations

NL 17 Dec

NL 21 May

Pres 23 Apr

8

Reg 8 Mar7

1995

The Netherlands

FN Polls Diff. CP/CP’ 86 CDs Polls1 Diff. FPÖ Polls Diff. DVU NPD REPs Polls Diff. DVU NPD REPs Polls Diff. FN VB Polls Diff.

France

TABLE 10.1  (Continued) 252  Comparative studies

Support for right-wing extremism  253

in the opinion polls. The average excess in these nine elections is 2.6 percentage points, which compares with its mean support level of 11.4 per cent in these same elections. In the five cases where the FN performed worse than in corresponding polls (three cantonal elections, a round of regional elections, and, surprisingly, a vote for the European Parliament),10 it achieved a mean 10.3 per cent of votes and so a figure 2.2 percentage points lower than the figures in the corresponding opinion polls.These differences reveal the variable inability of polling research when it comes to assessing the level of support of the FN. It is noteworthy that this problem is not limited to the organization that collected these data. I will show that matters are no better with other polling organizations in other countries. Also, were the objection to be raised that not all polling data were collected on the basis of a ‘Sunday question’ for an election to the national parliament, one could respond by pointing out that the average underestimation in the cases of the three elections that were to the national legislature also amounted to –2.0 percentage points. In the Dutch case there are different relationships. There are also polling data available for comparison with election results for six of the eleven Dutch elections in Table 10.1. Whilst in the three elections where extreme-right support was less than that of its polling, its average result of 1.3 per cent was 0.7 percentage points less than in the polls; in the three other elections its average result of 1.5 per cent was better than its average poll support by 0.4 percentage points. On the other hand, in this respect the Austrian Fs rather resemble the French FN. After the party had on 18 September 1986 resolved on a change of course and had chosen Haider as its leader, in the elections for the National Council on 23 November 1986, it exceeded its poll rating by almost 6 percentage points. In the two national elections at the beginning of the 1990s (including the Presidential one), in which the FPÖ experienced an apparently permanent uplift, the difference still amounted to more than 3 percentage points. Only in the legislative election on 9 October 1994 were the electoral and polling results about the same.The result of the National Council election in December 1995 then showed two interesting developments: first, the vote level of the Fs had receded in comparison with public expectations expressed by the party (though, to be sure, by only 0.5 percentage points in comparison with 1994); and second, the extent of their support expressed in the polls had been significantly overestimated. In the Federal Republic and in Belgium (Flanders) we can see further examples of underestimation by the polling organizations of support for extreme-right parties. In the three cases in the old federal regions in which the REPs achieved a mean percentage of votes of 4.5 per cent, they were underestimated in the polls by an average of 1.5 percentage points. In two elections in the new federal regions they averaged only 2.15 per cent of the vote, and the poll results were even lower at 1 per cent. In Flanders there are just three cases where the actual election outcomes and also polling results are to hand. In two cases the extreme-right parties’ support (averaging between them 7.2 per cent) was underestimated by, on average, 1.7 percentage points. On the other hand, in the election on 21 May 1995 for the Chamber of Deputies the VB failed to reach the level of support expressed in the opinion polls. Perhaps it is not by chance that only in the very recent period of this analysis have the extreme-right

254  Comparative studies

parties in the Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium (Flanders) been achieving better results in the opinion polls than in actual elections. Perhaps a small section of the electorate that is actually close to the extreme right turns away just before the actual election. Or it could simply be that the over- or underestimation in the polls of support for extreme-right parties has a technical cause. It is probable that weighting methods are being used by the polling organizations because of the supposed reticence of voters for extreme-right parties and the end result of this practice is to introduce distortions. Fortunately, one can develop some performance indicators that provide information about the accuracy of the polling data in the five countries. One possibility would be to divide the mean of the absolute differences between election and poll results (i.e., ignoring minus signs) as numerators by the mean of the election results as denominator. If one conducts that exercise, the individual countries have the following values: France, 0.22; the Netherlands, 0.39; Austria, 0.18; West Germany, 0.34; East Germany, 0.53, and Belgium (Flanders) 0.21. If one considers the whole time series, these indicators show that French, Austrian, and Belgian poll data are closer to reality than those for Dutch and German ones (especially so for the east), although it must be conceded that this method incorporates only a provisional statistical control for the different levels of support.

The trajectory of voter percentages in polls between 1982 and 1995 This is the point at which the polling data can be submitted to a more exact analysis with the intention of looking comparatively at longer-term trends. There are available in the first instance data collected and reported monthly for the five countries being considered (in the Netherlands data were even collected weekly). On the basis of these I have calculated a quarterly mean, as explained above. It has to be noted that the time series are in no way complete; the availability of poll data on extreme-right parties depends partly on whether the respective polling organizations thought that it would be useful to show separately the voting intention for the parties concerned. In the case of France, for example, there exists from 1982 to the present a continuous time series of voting intentions in favour of the FN. Data from the further past are also available for Austria, but attention in this analysis is directed to the period of Haider’s taking power in the party, thus to data from the later part of 1986 to 1995. The case of Belgium presents a problem. Although the VB was no longer an insignificant political phenomenon after its electoral success in December 1987, the Belgian polling organization DIMARSO started reporting voting intentions for the VB only from the beginning of 1990. The time series for Belgium therefore begins only in 1990. Finally, in the Netherlands and in the Federal Republic we have several interrupted time series; for periods in which the relevant extreme-right parties had only slight support, continuous data are missing. Figure 10.1 presents voting intentions for the extreme-right parties in the five west European countries from 1982 to 1995. Although on first glance the image seems somewhat complicated, one can immediately recognize certain tendencies

1982.4

1982.2

FIGURE 10.1 

0

5

10

15

Belgium (Flanders) (Vlaams Blok)

FRG (new regions) (Die Republikaner)

1995.1

1994.4

1994.2

1993.4

1993.2

1992.4

1992.2

1991.4

1990.2

1989.4

1989.2

1988.4

1987.4

1987.2

1986.4

1986.2

1985.4

1985.2

1984.2

1983.4

1983.2

Percentage quarterly opinion-poll support for racist political parties in five west European countries, 1982–1995

1988.2

20

FRG (old regions) (Die Republikaner)

Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs)

1990.4

The Netherlands (Centrum Partij [1983–86] and Centrumdemocraten [1990–95])

France (Front National)

1991.2

25

1984.4

Key

Support for right-wing extremism  255

256  Comparative studies

and patterns. The graphical presentation is particularly suited to giving a first overview of the developing tendencies. The precise time structures of the data in Figure 10.1 (as well as their monthly equivalents) will later be determined using statistical techniques. A long- or medium-term trend upwards over time is clearly seen in the French, Austrian, and Flemish figures, although there are naturally a couple of irregularities in the series. On the other hand, the German (in both old and new regions) and Dutch data show no unambiguous trends. Voting intentions in favour of extremeright parties apparently fluctuate up and down according to the circumstances of the time. In mobilizing their potential electorate, their support is often limited to a collection of ‘true believers’ (sometimes less than 1 per cent of the electorate). However, in more favourable external circumstances – often after the political and economic climate has been influenced by some extreme-right theme such as xenophobia – the vote level of these parties can frequently increase very suddenly. The rise of the REPs in the first half of 1989 is a good example of this. Table 10.2 summarizes this picture in statistical form and reinforces it. It contains various univariate statistical values of quarterly and monthly data. As is to be expected, the cases of France, Austria, and Flanders stand out. The figures for Austria make it clear how much favour the Fs under Haider have gained among its electorate during the last decade.

The relationships between trajectories in the five countries A principal question about the trajectories of the extreme-right parties in the countries of western Europe is the time-related relationship among respective intentions to vote for them. In order to be able to see to what extent the garnering of votes by such parties in the individual countries depends on each other, it is meaningful in the first instance to consider the relationships between the percentages of the parties calculated on the basis of available quarterly and monthly data. Since, on the one hand, the monthly data might contain greater random errors and, on the other, display genuine short-term fluctuations, the calculations based on them show, as to be expected, a somewhat more heterogeneous picture than do those based on the quarterly data.Table 10.3 presents the bivariate relationships between countries’ party percentages separately for quarterly and monthly time series. It is clear that the bivariate relationships are of several sorts. For example, the calculations based on both the monthly and the quarterly data show a very strong positive relationship between the time series for 1990 to 1994 in the cases of France and Austria as well as old and new federal regions of the Federal Republic of Germany. On the other hand, there is a moderately negative relationship between the performances of the extreme-right parties in Germany and in France. In order to explore further the structure of these relationships, I conducted two principal-components analyses. The matrices presented in Table 10.3 are the basis for these.11 The results of these exercises are presented in Table 10.4. If one conducts a factor analysis of the coefficients for the quarterly data, the result is a single factor

3.0

82.4–94.12

Minimum

Time period

83.1–86.12

0.0

2.0

0.6

0.9

0.1

1.9

90.1–95.3

0.1

5.6

1.4

2.0

86.1–95.1

2.1

22.0

5.1

11.9

Austria

86.1–95.4

1.3

23.0

5.2

12.0

Austria

Monthly data The Netherlands (2)

90.1–95.1

0.5

5.0

1.4

2.0

The Netherlands (2)

The relevant parties correspond to those in the opinion-poll data in Table 10.1.

17.0

Maximum

1

3.4

France

Standard deviation

82.2–95.2

Time period

9.3

The Netherlands (1)

3.0

Minimum

Mean

83.1–86.4

15.3

Maximum

0.6

3.4

Standard deviation

0.9

9.4

The Netherlands (1)

Mean

France

Quarterly data

European countries during relevant time periods (in percentages)

89.1–91.4

1.0

10.0

2.5

3.1

92.3–94.9

1.0

8.0

2.1

4.4

FRG (West) (1) FRG (West) (2)

89.1–94.3

1.0

7.5

2.3

3.4

FRG (West)

90.1–94.4

4.4

13.0

2.9

9.0

92.3–94.8

1.0

5.0

1.2

2.8

89.12–94.12

3.5

13.4

3.0

9.0

FRG (East) Belgium (Flanders)

90.4–94.3

0.5

4.0

1.3

2.0

FRG (East) Belgium (Flanders)

TABLE 10.2  Various univariate statistical values about support levels of extreme-right parties as seen in quarterly and monthly opinion polls in five west

Support for right-wing extremism  257

83.1–86.4

90.1–95.1

86.1–95.1

89.1–94.3

90.4–94.3

90.1–94.4

The Netherlands (2)

Austria

FRG (West)

FRG (East)

Belgium (Flanders)

–

The Netherlands (1)

France

France

–

–

–

–

–

–

–0.820

90.1–94.4

90.4–94.3

90.1–94.3

90.1–95.1

–

–

–0.432

The Netherlands (1)2 The Netherlands (2)3

–

0.065

–

0.777

Austria

90.1–94.4

90.4–94.3

89.1–94.3

Quarterly data

right parties in pairs of west European countries during relevant time periods1

90.1–94.3

90.4–94.3

–

–0.270

0.574

–

–0.486

FRG (West)

90.4–94.3

-

–.957

–0.140

0.631

–

–0.355

FRG (East)

–

0.680

0.667

0.481

0.716

–

–0.194

Belgium (Flanders)

TABLE 10.3  Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients of quarterly and monthly opinion-poll data on levels of support (in percentages) of extreme-

258  Comparative studies

90.1–95.3

86.1–94.12

89.1–91.4

92.3–94.9

92.3–94.8

89.12–94.12

The Netherlands (2)

Austria

FRG (West) (1)

FRG (West) (2)

FRG (East)

Belgium (Flanders)

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–0.798

The Netherlands (1)

90.1–94.12

92.3–94.8

92.3–94.9

90.1–91.4

90.1–95.3

–

–

–0.098

The Netherlands (2)

89.12–94.12

92.3–94.8

92.3–94.9

89.1–91.4

–

0.030

–

0.701

Austria

89.12–91.4

–

–

–

–0.473

–0.073

–

–0.436

92.3–94.9

92.3–94.8

–

–

–0.040

–0.036

–

–0.011

92.3–94.8

–

0.688

–

–0.067

0.131

–

–0.075

FRG (West) (1) FRG (West) (2) FRG (East)

–

–0.142

–0.028

0.276

0.413

0.638

–

–0.168

Belgium (Flanders)

1

 alues above top-left/bottom-right diagonal of these matrices are Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients. Figures under the diagonal are the relevant time periods V of the respective coefficients. 2 The data for the Netherlands (1) are those for the Centrum Partij. 3 The data for the Netherlands (2) are those for the Centrumdemocraten.

83.1–86.12

–

The Netherlands (1)

France

France

Monthly data

Support for right-wing extremism  259

260  Comparative studies TABLE 10.4  Loadings from principal-components analyses of relevant Pearson product-

moment correlation coefficients of quarterly and monthly opinion-poll support levels (in percentages) of extreme-right parties in five west European countries, as introduced in Table 10.31 Quarterly data Factor I –0.9942

France

0.927

The Netherlands (2)

–0.871

Austria FRG (West)

0.982

FRG (East)

0.984

Belgium (Flanders)

0.838

Percentage of variance explained:

87.4

Monthly data Factor I

Factor II

0.721

–0.664

–0.040

0.962

0.935

–0.247

FRG (West) (2)

–0.858

–0.431

FRG (East)

–0.917

–0.322

0.325

0.896

France The Netherlands (2) Austria

Belgium (Flanders) Percentage of variance explained:

52.5

40.8

 sing Kaiser normalization; in the case of the monthly data the extracted factors were rotated by U varimax rotation. 2 Factor loadings of more than 0.7 or less than –0.7 are printed in italics. 1

on which France and Austria load strongly negatively, whereas the Netherlands, Germany, and Flanders load strongly positively. However, the factor analysis based on the monthly data produces several factors. France and Austria load positively on the first factor, whereas the old and new federal regions of Germany have negative loadings. On the second factor, the Netherlands and Belgium (Flanders) load positively, which shows that the trajectories of right-wing extremism in these

Support for right-wing extremism  261

two countries behaved relatively similarly during most of the period from the end of 1989 until 1995, even though their levels of support differed considerably. Only in the most recent period – when the Dutch CDs have suffered reverses in their support, whilst the Flemish VB has seen continuing success – do the trajectories considerably vary from each other. However, a clear model of a Flemish–Dutch trajectory can be perceived, one that could be the result of reciprocal influences. The matter is the same for the two parts of Germany. Being directly neighbouring countries and having the same language might be responsible for the Flemish– Dutch covariation. Because of the general minority status of the Dutch language, the Netherlands and Flanders paradoxically form rather more a single cultural community than the larger German-speaking area with its different trajectories of extreme-right parties. Concerning the trajectory in France and Austria, the case is differently based. Why should France and Austria show similar trajectories during such a long period, when these are not consistent with the trends in the other west European countries? Probably because of endogenous factors for the most part that coincidentally assumed significance in the same time periods. When one seeks to test for contagion effects between the countries on western Europe and their neighbours – for example, from a country in which right-wing extremism has earlier been able to achieve electoral success – contradictory results result. If such effects do exist, one should expect stronger relationships between the negatively lagged data for the source-country and the non-lagged data of the follower-country than those between their simultaneously collected data. For example, if it is the data for France that are lagged on the suggestive ground that right-wing extremists recorded their earliest major successes there, and one correlates its data with the unlagged Austrian figures, then – contrary to expectations – one gets not higher but lower coefficients than in a comparison using the unlagged time series of the two countries. Only the relationship between the voting intentions for the Flemish and Dutch extreme-right parties is strengthened by lagging. If one considers Flanders, with the strong emergence of the VB around 1991, as the country from which Dutch right-wing extremism might have received an impulse, and hence one lags the monthly Flemish data by two months, the correlation with the Netherlands rises slightly from 0.638 to 0.681. That is a further, if tentative, pointer to the existence of a specific Flemish–Dutch configuration. A yet further observation countenances against the general correctness of the wave hypothesis. If such waves were to grip several different countries, it would be expected that just one model would deliver the best description of the successes of extreme-right parties in these west European countries. However, this analysis has shown that, in order to best predict the successes of extreme-right parties during the time frame being considered here (say, by looking at Figure 10.1), different explanatory models are needed: sometimes a linear model is suitable, on other occasions a parabolic model, and sometimes again a logarithmic model in which even the strength of the influences as well as their direction differ (Bortz 1977, pp. 232–45).

262  Comparative studies

Conclusion It is seductive to apply the metaphor of a wave as the general description of an initially unexpected and unwanted phenomenon like right-wing extremism, especially if people connect this with the dangers symbolized by water. This labelling practice is nowadays less widespread than at the very beginning of the 1990s, at least amongst social scientists rather than journalists. The danger and the centrality of right-wing extremism are clearly not identical in the various countries. The possibility of the simultaneous and perhaps reciprocally operating ebb and flow of its support does continue to exist; however, the analysis presented does not offer unambiguously interpretable results favouring this and it shows the complexity of these relationships. The efficiency of polling research varies in its measurement of the strength of right-wing extremism in the various countries. Voting intentions favouring extreme-right parties do not follow any single uniform trend. The correlational and factor analyses allowed three groups of countries to be identified: Flanders and the Netherlands; West and East Germany; and France and Austria (although the exact connection between these last two countries is not immediately apparent). What implications are then to be taken from the empirical analysis? The findings confirm an often-encountered perspective about the development of right-wing extremism in elections. At least two types of right-wing extremism exist, according to which of the five countries are being considered. These may be grouped in a way different from the classification mentioned above. On the one hand, one can then distinguish so-called ‘flash’ parties, whose voters commit themselves only temporarily and tangentially to a party (e.g., in the Netherlands and the Federal Republic), and, on the other hand, so-called ‘commitment parties’, whose voters display both a general political and ideological orientation and also an emotional attachment to their party (e.g., in France, Austria, and Flanders). It is this second type that represents the real danger for west European democracies. In the countries with extreme-right parties of the first type these are an irritation that is certainly not without significance but is not a real threat to their democratic structures.

Acknowledgements I thank the British Academy, the Nuffield Foundation, and the London School of Economics and Political Science for their financial support in data collection.

Notes 1 This is not the place for a discussion about how one should define right-wing extremism or racism and what the relationship is between the two phenomena. Others have taken on such matters and I leave to them the intricacies of this debate (e.g., von Beyme 1988; Elbers and Fennema 1993, pp. 10–17; Meijerink, Mudde, and van Holsteyn 1995; Mudde 1995; and many others).

Support for right-wing extremism  263

2 Italy is not considered in the following analysis and I limit myself instead only to countries of northern and central Europe. The history of right-wing extremism in Italy since the end of the Second World War is considerably different from that of the named countries. 3 Note that the Netherlands is the only one of the countries where elections are not held on a Sunday. 4 References to a few of the most important summarizing works about the respective parties are given at the end of each of the following sections. Overviews about the extreme-right and racist parties in several countries are given by, among others, Hainsworth (1992a), Butterwegge and Jäger (1993), Elbers and Fennema (1993), Merkl and Weinberg (1993), Betz (1994), and Ignazi (1994). 5 The data concerned measure the percentage support for the FN among interviewees with a party preference. I am grateful to Romain Pache of the organization Brulé,Ville et Associés (BVA) for providing me with the political poll data regularly collected by his firm since 1982. 6 The Dutch data, based on proportions of interviewees with a party preference, relate to the CP from 1983 and 1986 and to the CDs from 1990 to 1995. I am grateful to Dr René Bos of the Nederlandse Instituut voor de Publieke Opinie en Marktonderzoek (NIPO) for the weekly data of his organization since 1983; the monthly values being used here are unweighted means of the weekly figures. 7 I am grateful to Dr Imma Palme of the Institut für empirische Sozialforschung for most of the data in the Austrian time series.The most recent data for 1995 are the results of the Austrian Gallup-Institut, which are regularly published in the weekly magazine NEWS. 8 For the data for the REPs I thank the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen. 9 The Belgian data were collected by the DIMARSO organization, today a sister company of the French polling organization SOFRES. The figures until the end of 1992 have been extracted from the Political Years of Belgium (which is published by the Belgian political-science journal Res Publica; those from the beginning of 1993 are from the De Morgen newspaper. I am grateful to Walter Pauli, who has provided the data for me. The collection of the VB data is limited to Flanders. It would desirable to conduct a separate analysis of trends for the FN in the Wallonian part of Belgium; however, this wish is frustrated by the fact that, in its polling carried out there, DIMARSO counts among ‘Others’ all voters for the FN (and also for the Avant-garde d’initiative régionaliste (AGIR), another extreme-right grouping). 10 This finding is surprising because European Parliament elections are often considered ‘second-order elections’ in which extremist and protest parties perform better than in national elections (e.g., Reif and Schmitt 1980) or in their normal simultaneous poll ratings. 11 The two matrices contain coefficients for different time periods, and are therefore not fully rectangular. For that reason the negative eigenvalues had to be replaced by zeros.

References Bailer, Brigitte, and Neugebauer, Wolfgang. 1993. ‘Die FPÖ: vom Liberalismus zum Rechtsextremismus’. Pp. 327–428 in Stiftung Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (ed.), Handbuch des Österreichischen Rechtsextremismus. Vienna: Stiftung Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes. Betz, Hans-Georg. 1994. Radical Right-wing Populism in Western Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

264  Comparative studies

Billiet, Jaak, and de Witte, Hans. 1995. ‘Attitudinal dispositions to vote for a “new” extreme right-wing party: the case of “Vlaams Blok”’, European Journal of Political Research, 27(2), 181–205. Bortz, Jürgen. 1977. Lehrbuch der Statistik für Sozialwissenschaftler. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Buijs, Frank, and van Donselaar, Jaap. 1994. Extreem-rechts: Aanhang, Geweld en Onderzoek. Leiden: Leids Instituut voor Sociaal Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (LISWO). Butterwegge, Christoph, and Jäger, Siegfried (eds.). 1993. Rassismus in Europa. 2nd ed.; Cologne: Bund-Verlag. Elbers, Frank, and Fennema, Meindert. 1993. Racistische partijen in West-Europa:Tussen nationale traditie en Europese samenwerking. Leiden: Stichting Burgerschapskunde, Nederlands Centrum voor Politieke Vorming. Falter, Jürgen W., with Klein, Markus. 1994. Wer wählt rechts?: Die Wähler und Anhänger rechtsextremistischer Parteien im vereinigten Deutschland. Munich:Verlag C. H. Beck. Hainsworth, Paul (ed.). 1992a. The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. Hainsworth, Paul. 1992b. ‘Introduction: the cutting edge: the extreme right in post-war Western Europe and the USA’. Pp. 1–28 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. Hainsworth, Paul. 1992c. ‘The extreme right in post-war France: the emergence and success of the Front National’. Pp. 29–60 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. Husbands, Christopher T. 1988. ‘The dynamics of racial exclusion and expulsion: racist politics in western Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 16(6), 701–20. Husbands, Christopher T. 1991. ‘The support for the Front National: analyses and findings’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 14(3), 381–415. [In this volume as Chapter 2.]. Husbands, Christopher T. 1992a. ‘The other face of 1992: the extreme-right explosion in western Europe’, Parliamentary Affairs, 45(3), 267–84. Husbands, Christopher T. 1992b. ‘The Netherlands: irritants on the body politic’. Pp. 95–125 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. [In this volume as Chapter 5.]. Husbands, Christopher T. 1992c.‘Belgium: Flemish legions on the march’. Pp. 126–50 in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA. London: Pinter Publishers. [In this volume as Chapter 6.]. Ignazi, Piero. 1994. L’Estrema Destra in Europa. Bologna: Società Editrice Il Mulino. Januschek, Franz. 1993. ‘Jörg Haider und der Rechtspopulismus in Österreich’. Pp. 144– 60 in Christoph Butterwegge and Siegfried Jäger (eds.), Rassismus in Europa. Cologne: Bund-Verlag. Leggewie, Claus. 1990. Die Republikaner: Ein Phantom nimmt Gestalt an. New ed.; Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag. Leggewie, Claus, and Meier, Horst. 1995. Republikschutz: Maßstäbe für die Verteidigung der Demokratie. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag. Luther, Kurt Richard. 1992. ‘Die Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs’. Pp. 247–62 in Herbert Dachs et al. (eds.), Handbuch des Politischen Systems Österreichs.Vienna: Manzsche Verlagsund Universitätsbuchhandlung. Marcus, Jonathan. 1995. The National Front and French Politics:The Resistible Rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Marsh, Catherine. 1988. Exploring Data: An Introduction to Data Analysis for Social Scientists. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Support for right-wing extremism  265

Meijerink, F. G. J., Mudde, C. E., and van Holsteyn, J. J. M. 1995. ‘Rechtsextremisme: opmerkingen over theorie en praktijk van een complex verschijnsel’, Acta Politica, 30(4), 381–97. Merkl, Peter H., and Weinberg, Leonard (eds.). 1993. Encounters with the Contemporary Radical Right. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Miles, Robert. 1994. ‘A rise of racism and fascism in contemporary Europe? Some sceptical reflections on its nature and extent’, New Community, 20(4), 547–62. Mosteller, Frederick, and Tukey, John W. 1977. Data Analysis and Regression: A Second Course in Statistics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Mudde, Cas. 1995. ‘Right-wing extremism analyzed: a comparative analysis of the ideologies of three alleged right-wing extremist parties (NPD, NDP, CP ’86)’, European Journal of Political Research, 27(2), 203–24. Plasser, Fritz, and Ulram, Peter A. 1995. ‘Wandel der politischen Konfliktdynamik: Radikaler Rechtspopulismus in Österreich’. Pp. 471–503 in Wolfgang C. Müller, Fritz Plasser, and Peter A. Ulram (eds.), Wählerverhalten und Parteienwettbewerb: Analysen zur Nationalratswahl 1994.Vienna: Signum Verlag. Reif, Karlheinz, and Schmitt, Hermann. 1980. ‘Nine second-order national elections – a conceptual framework for the analysis of European election results’, European Journal of Political Research, 8(1), 3–44. Safran, William. 1993. ‘The National Front in France: from lunatic fringe to limited respectability’. Pp. 19–49 in Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg (eds.), Encounters with the Contemporary Radical Right. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Stöss, Richard. 1990. Die ‘Republikaner’:Woher sie kommen;Was sie wollen;Wer sie wählt;Was zu tun ist. 2nd revised and expanded ed.; Cologne: Bund-Verlag. Swyngedouw, Marc. 1994. ‘De opkomst en doorbraak van Agalev en Vlaams Blok in de jaren tachtig en negentig’, Acta Politica, 29(4), 453–76. von Beyme, Klaus. 1988. ‘Right-wing extremism in post-war Europe’, West European Politics, 11(2), 1–18.

APPENDIX List of parties and institutions with abbreviations and translated titles

Title of party or institution

Initials

Translation of title

Bündnis Zukunft Österreich

BZÖ

Alliance for the Future of Austria

Die Freiheitlichen

[The] Fs

The Liberals

Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs

FPÖ

Freedom Party of Austria

Freiheitspartei

FP

Freedom Party

Österreichische Volkspartei

ÖVP

Austrian People’s Party

Verband der Unabhängigen

VdU

Association of Independents

Agalev

−

Green Party

Avant-garde d’initiative régionaliste

AGIR

Vanguard for a Regionalist Initiative

Centre de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Politiques

CRISP

Centre for Social and Political Research and Information

Centre d’Étude et de Recherche Socio-biologiques et Raciales

CERSBER

Centre for Sociobiological and Racial Study and Research

Christelijke Volkspartij

CVP

Christian People’s Party

Front de la Jeunesse

FJ

Youth Front

Front National–Nationaal Front

FN–NF

National Front

Jong-Nederlandse Gemeenschap

JNG

Young Dutch Community

Lijst Dedecker/Libertair, Direct, Democratisch

LDD

Dedecker List/Libertarian, Direct, Democratic

AUSTRIA

BELGIUM

Appendix  267

Title of party or institution

Initials

Translation of title

Mouvement d’Action Civique

MAC

Movement of Civil Action

Mouvement Nationaliste Wallon

MNW

Walloon Nationalist Movement

Nationaal Front

NF

National Front

Nationaal-Socialistisch Jeugdverbond

NSJV

National Socialist Youth Alliance

Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie

N-VA

New Flemish Alliance

Parti de la Liberté du Citoyen

PLdC

Party of Liberty of the Citizen

Parti des Forces Nouvelles

PFN

Party of the New Forces

Parti Libéral Chrétien

PLC

Christian Liberal Party

Parti National Belge– Belgisch-Nationale Partij

PNB–BNP

Belgian National Party

Partij voor Vrijheid en Vooruitgang

PVV

Party for Freedom and Progress

Rex National

RN

National Rex

Socialistische Partij

SP

Socialist Party

Union Démocratique pour le Respect du Travail

UDRT

Democratic Union for the Respect of Labour

Union Nationale des Francophones

UNF

National Union of French-Speakers

Union Nationale et Démocratique

UND

National and Democratic Union

Verbond van Dietse Nationaal-Solidaristen

VERDINASO Alliance of Greater Dutch National Consolidators

Vlaams Belang

VBg

Flemish Interest

Vlaams Blok

VB

Flemish Bloc

Vlaams Blok Jongeren

VBJ

Flemish Bloc Youth

Vlaams Nationaal Verbond

VNV

Flemish National Alliance

Vlaams Nationale Partij

VNP

Flemish National Party

Vlaamse Concentratie

VC

Flemish Concentration

Vlaamse Militanten Orde

VMO

Flemish Militant Order

Vlaamse Militantenorganisatie

VMOrg

Flemish Militant Organization

Vlaams-Nationale Raad

VNR

Flemish National Council

Vlaamse Nieuwe Orde

VNO

Flemish New Order

Vlaamse Volkspartij

VVP

Flemish People’s Party

Volksunie

VU

People’s Union

Voorpost

Voorpost

Outpost

268 Appendix

Title of party or institution

Initials

Translation of title

Were Di,Verbond van Nederlandse Werkgemeenschappen

WD,VNW

Were Di, Alliance of Dutch Work Communities

Westland New Post

WNP

Westland New Post

Fremskridtspartiet

[The] FP

The Progress Party

Ventre

Ve

Liberal Party

DENMARK

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Aktionsfront Nationaler Sozialisten/Nationale Aktivisten

ANS/NA

Action Front of National Socialists/ National Activists

Alternative für Deutschland

AfD

Alternative for Germany

Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern

BSI

Bavarian Ministry of the Interior

Brandenburgische Volkspartei

BVP

Brandenburg People’s Party

Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz

BfV

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

Bundeskriminalamt

BKA

Federal Crime Office

Bundesministerium des Innern

BMI

Federal Ministry of the Interior

Bundesministerium für Frauen und Jugend

BMFJ

Federal Ministry for Women and Youth

Bundesverfassungsgericht

BVG

Federal Constitutional Court

Christlich-Demokratische Union CDU

Christian Democratic Union

Christlich-Soziale Union

CSU

Christian Social Union

Deutsche Allianz

DAL

German Alliance

Deutsche Alternative

DA

German Alternative

Deutsche Bürgerinitiative

DBI

German Citizens’ Initiative

Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund

DGB

German Trade Union Confederation

Deutsche Liga für Volk und Heimat

DLVH

German League for People and Homeland

Deutsche Nationalisten

DN

German Nationalists

Deutsche Rechtspartei

DReP

German Right Party

Deutsche Reichspartei

DRP

German Reich Party

Deutsche Volksunion

DVU

German People’s Union

Deutsche Volksunion–Liste D

DVU–Liste D

German People’s Union–List D

Appendix  269

Title of party or institution

Initials

Translation of title

Deutscher Kameradschaftsbund

DKB

German Comradeship Association

Deutsch-Russisches Gemeinschaftswerk – Förderverein Nord-Ostpreuβen

DRGW– FNOP

German-Russian Community Work–North-east Prussian Support Association

Die Republikaner

[The] REPs

The Republicans

Direkte Aktion/ Mitteldeutschland

DA/MD

Direct Action/Central Germany

Förderwerk Mitteldeutsche Jugend

FMJ

Support Group for Central German Youth

Fraktion der Mitte

FM

Grouping of the Centre

Freie Bürger-Union

FB-U

Free Citizens’ Union

Freie Demokratische Partei

FDP

Free Democratic Party

Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

FAP

Free German Workers’ Party

Freundeskreis Freiheit für Deutschland

FFD

Friendship Circle for Freedom for Germany

Freundeskreis Unabhängige Nachrichten

FUN

Friendship Circle for Independent Intelligence

Gemeinsames Landeskriminalamt GLKA

General Regional Crime Office

Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front

GdNF

New Front Partisan Group

Hamburger Liste [für] Ausländerstopp

HLA

Hamburg List for Stopping Foreigners

Heimattreue Vereinigung Deutschlands

HVD

Homeland-loving Union of Germany

Hilfsorganisation für nationale politische Gefangene und deren Angehörige

HNG

Organization for the Assistance of National Political Prisoners and Their Dependants

Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands

KPD

Communist Party of Germany

Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz

LfV

Regional Office for the Protection of the Constitution

Landeskriminalamt

LKA

Regional Crime Office

Ministerium für Staatssicherheit

MfS

Ministry for State Security (the ‘Stasi’)

National-Demokraten

N-D

National Democrats

National-Freiheitliche

N-F

National-Liberal Right

Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands

NPD

National Democratic Party of Germany

270 Appendix

Title of party or institution

Initials

Translation of title

Nationale Liste

NL

National List

Nationale Offensive

NO

National Offensive

Nationale Sammlung

NS

National Assembly

Nationaler Block

NB

National Bloc

Nationalistische Front

NF

Nationalist Front

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

NSDAP

National Socialist German Workers’ Party

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei–Auslands- und Aufbau-organisation

NSDAP–AO

National Socialist German Workers’ Party–Overseas Construction Organization

Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus

PDS

Party of Democratic Socialism

Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands

SPD

Social Democratic Party of Germany

Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands

SED

Socialist Unity Party of Germany

Sozialistische Reichspartei

SRP

Socialist Reich Party

Ständige Konferenz der IMK Innenminister und -senatoren der Länder

Standing Conference of Interior Ministers and Senators of the Regions

Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann

WSG Hoffmann

Hoffmann Defence and Sporting Group

Wiking-Jugend

W-J

Viking Youth

Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung

ZfJ

Central Institute for Youth Research

Action Française

AF

French Action

Centre d’Étude de la Vie Politique Française

CEVIPOF

Centre for the Study of French Political Life

Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail

CFDT

French Democratic Confederation of Labour

Confédération Générale du Travail

CGT

General Confederation of Labour

Front National

FN

National Front

Force Ouvrière

FO

Workers’ Force

Groupement de Recherche et d’Études pour la Civilisation Européenne

GRECE

Research and Study Group for European Civilization

FRANCE

Appendix  271

Title of party or institution

Initials

Translation of title

Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques

INSEE

National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies

Jeune Nation

JN

Young Nation

Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche

MRG

Movement of Left Radicals

Ordre Nouveau

ON

New Order

Organisation de l’Armée Secrète

OAS

Secret Army Organization

Parti Communiste Français

PCF

French Communist Party

Parti des Forces Nouvelles

PFN

Party of the New Forces

Parti Socialiste

PS

Socialist Party

Parti Socialiste–Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche

PS–MRG

Socialist Party–Movement of Left Radicals

Rassemblement National

RN

National Rally

Rassemblement pour la République

RPR

Rally for the Republic

Union de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans

UDCA

Union for the Defence of Tradesmen and Craftsmen

Union pour la Démocratie Française

UDF

Union for French Democracy

Fidesz

Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance

Alleanza Nazionale

AN

National Alliance

Lega Nord

LN

Northern League

Movimento Sociale Italiano

MSI

Italian Social Movement

Aktiefront Nationaal Socialisten

ANS

National Socialists’ Action Front

Binding Rechts

BR

Bonding on the Right

Boerenpartij

BP

Farmers’ Party

Centrumdemocraten

CDs

Centre Democrats

Centrumpartij

CP

Centre Party

Centrumpartij ’86

CP ’86

Centre Party ’86

HUNGARY Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség ITALY

THE NETHERLANDS

272 Appendix

Title of party or institution

Initials

Translation of title

Christen-Democratisch Appèl

CDA

Christian Democratic Appeal

Europese Sociale Beweging

ESB

European Social Movement

Forum voor Democratie

FvD

Forum for Democracy

Katholieke Volkspartij

KVP

Catholic People’s Party

Lijst Pim Fortuyn

LPF

Pim Fortuyn List

Nationaal Europese Sociale Beweging

NESB

National European Social Movement

Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging

NSB

National Socialist Movement

Nationale Centrum Partij

NCP

National Centre Party

Nederlands Blok

NB

Dutch Bloc

Nederlandse Oppositie Unie

NOU

Dutch Opposition Union

Nederlandse Volksunie

NVU

Dutch People’s Union

Partij van de Arbeid

PvdA

Labour Party

Partij voor de Vrijheid

PVV

Freedom Party

Rechtse Volkspartij

RVP

People’s Party of the Right

Stichting Oud Politieke Delinquenten

SOPD

Foundation of Former Political Offenders

Stichting Toezicht Politieke Delinquenten

STPD

Foundation for the Supervision of Political Offenders

Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie

VVD

People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy

PiS

Law and Justice

Autopartei der Schweiz

APS

Car Party of Switzerland

Bundesamt für Statistik

BfS

Federal Statistical Office

Christlichdemokratische Volkspartei der Schweiz

CVP

Christian Democratic People’s Party of Switzerland

Demokratische Partei

DP

Democratic Party

Eidgenössisch-Demokratische Union

E-DU

Swiss Democratic Union

Fédération Fasciste Suisse

FFS

Swiss Fascist Federation

Freiheitspartei der Schweiz

FPS

Freedom Party of Switzerland

Freisinnig-Demokratische Partei der Schweiz

FDP

Liberal Democratic Party of Switzerland

POLAND Prawo i Sprawiedliwość SWITZERLAND

Appendix  273

Title of party or institution

Initials

Translation of title

Grüne Partei der Schweiz

GPS

Green Party of Switzerland

Institut der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für praktische Sozialforschung

ISGS

Institute of the Swiss Society for Practical Social Research

Landesring der Unabhängigen

LdU

National Association of Independents

Lega Nazionale Ticinese

LNT

National League of Ticino

Lega dei Ticinesi

LT

Ticinese League

Liberale Partei der Schweiz

LPS

Liberal Party of Switzerland

Nationale Aktion

NA

National Action

Nationale Aktion für Volk und Heimat

NAVH

National Action for People and Homeland

Nationale Aktion gegen die Überfremdung von Volk und Heimat

NAgUVH

National Action against Excessive Foreign Influence on People and Homeland

Nationale Front

NeF

National Front

Neue Front

NFr

New Front

Partei der Arbeit

PdD

Labour Party

Patriotische Front

PF

Patriotic Front

Schweizer Demokraten

SDs

Swiss Democrats

Schweizerische Republikanische Bewegung

SRB

Swiss Republican Movement

Schweizerische Volkspartei

SVP

Swiss People’s Party

Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz

SPS

Social Democratic Party of Switzerland

Union Nationale

UN

National Union

Vigilance

Vigilance

Vigilance

British National Party

BNP

–

English Defence League

EDL

–

National Front

NF

–

UK Independence Party

UKIP

–

UNITED KINGDOM

Union Movement UM – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA American Independent Party

AIP

–

INDEX

Aalst (East Flanders) 184 Action Française (AF) 200 Adorno, Theodor 28 Agalev (Anders Gaan Leven) 190 Age of Reform,The 27, 32 aggregate-data analysis 49, 57–61, 69, 76, 184, 236–41; extreme-right voting, problems for analysing: availability of variables 233–5; comparability of aggregate areas 226–8; comparability of variables 231–2; relevance of variables 232–3; size of subareas 228; variation within subareas, effects of 228–31 Aktiefront Nationaal Socialisten (ANS) 159 Aktionsfront Nationaler Sozialisten/ Nationale Aktivisten (ANS/NA) 94, 98 Al Ittihad Al Islamia 213 Al-Qaeda 213 Algeria 78n1, 142, 233; see also immigration/immigrants (rapatriés/ ex-colonial settlers) in France Algérie française 23 Allianz Versicherung, threat to sue 135n12 Allport, Gordon W. 29 Almere (Flevoland) 158, 159 Altena (North Rhine-Westphalia) 18n1 Althans, Ewald Bela 99, 106n19 Alto Adige 187 American Independent Party (AIP) xiii, 19n3, 27 Amnesty International 103

Amsterdam (North Holland) 143; data availability for 168n7, 168n9; extreme-right voting in 146–49, 150–2, 153, 154, 156–61, 167n4, 239, 241; size of buurtcombinaties 228 Amsterdam in cijfers 168n7 Anderlecht (Brussels) 173–4 Andorra 198 Andres, Bernard 123 Angola, see immigration/immigrants, in former GDR Anne Frank Stichting 159 anomie 16, 35, 38, 55, 57, 58 anti-abortion 178, 183 anti-globalization 7, 34, 206; see also globalization anti-intellectualism 26 Anti-Nazi League 190 anti-Semitism 9, 18–19n1, 28, 29, 32, 209n5; cemetery desecration 92; in Belgium 178, 182, 185; in FRG 92, 98, 104n1, 115, 119; in Switzerland 201 Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 216 Antilles, Dutch 142, 143 Antillianese; in NVU propaganda 155; see also immigration/immigrants, the Netherlands Antwerp 192n8; as base for VB 181, 183, 184; data availability for 193n13; extreme-right activism in 176, 177, 187; Flemish nationalism in 192n5; foreigner

Index  275

population of 185, 189;VB support in 172, 181, 182, 184–6, 192n11 Army-McCarthy hearings 26 Arson attacks 87, 88, 89, 90, 96, 97, 173 Asians, in Britain 232 Assemblée nationale 50, 55, 67–8, 71, 74, 252 Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen (ASLEF) 217–18, 219, 220, 221n5 Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) 213, 221n2 asylum-seekers/refugees xviii, 144, 231; attacks on hostels 87, 88, 91, 93, 96, 103, 104, 209n4; in Belgium 190, 191; in FRG 34, 35, 83, 84, 93, 102, 111–13, 133; in the Netherlands 145, 146, 158, 160, 166; in Switzerland 198, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208; see also immigration/immigrants Augsburg (Bavaria) 123 aus der Fünten, Ferdinand 142 Aussiedler 35, 39n3 Authoritarian Personality,The 28, 33 Autopartei der Schweiz (APS) 199; nature of appeal of 204; support for 201–2, 207 Avant-garde d’initiative régionaliste (AGIR) 263n9 Backes, Uwe 30, 31, 112, 115, 116, 134n10 Baden-Württemberg 95, 104, 113, 121, 131, 138 Ballin, Ernst Hirsch 145 Balvig, Flemming 209n1 banlieue, la 35 Barbier, Marcel 174 Barking and Dagenham, London Borough of 220 Basel-City, Canton of 201 Basel-Country 202 Basic Law, German 94, 109, 117, 127; Article 16(2) 93, 112 Baudet, Thierry 1–2 Bavaria 95, 112, 121–3, 130–1, 138 Bayreuth (Bavaria) 99 Belgium: extreme-right movements in 175–7, 178–9; linguistic divisions in 174, 178, 179, 180, 187–8, 191n3, 192n5; pre-war right-wing movements in 175; suspected state conspiracies in 171–2, 172–4; wartime accommodations with Germans in 175; see also immigration/ immigrants, Belgium; Vlaams Blok (VB) Bell, Daniel 26, 115, 116, 117

Berggiesshübel (Saxony) 104 Berlin 35, 90, 91, 103; House of Deputies, West 111, 112; extreme-right voting in 112, 121, 123–4; see also Republikaner, Die (REPs) Berne, City of 201 Bernrath, Hans Gottfried 112–13 Berto, Juliet 198 Bettelheim, Bruno 28 Betz, Hans-Georg 10, 31, 32, 38 Binding Rechts (BR) 154 ‘black years’, Belgian 173 Blalock, Hubert M., Jr. 27 Blocher, Christoph 202, 208; see also Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) Boeden, Gerhard 119–20 Boerenpartij (BP) 23, 146, 149, 150–2, 154, 155, 252; support for 153 Bon, Frédéric 58–9 Bonapartism 26 Boot ist voll, Das 198 Borer, Roland 202 Borgerhout (Antwerp) 186 Borinski, Ludwig 209n5 Bosnia 104 Bossi, Umberto 203 Boulangism 9, 26, 32 Bovenkerk, Frank 156 Brabant (Belgium) 172, 192n8 Brabant, North (The Netherlands), see North Brabant Brabant massacres, the 173, 189 Bracher, Karl Dietrich 134 Brandenburg 86 Brandenburgische Volkspartei (BVP) 97 Brandt, Willy 116 Brants, Kees 157 ‘Breda, The Two of ’ 142 Brehl, Thomas 98 Bremen 85, 103–4, 112, 120, 124, 133, 133n4, 138–9; extreme-right voting in 238, 239, 240 Bremerhaven 112, 236; DVU–Liste D in 133, 238, 239, 240 Bretton Woods Agreement 205, 206 Breul, Karl 209n5 Brexit 2, 8, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 214 British National Party (BNP) xv, 2, 5, 17, 213, 214, 221n1n2; legal cases associated with membership of 217–19; policy of ‘cordon sanitaire’ towards 220 British People’s Party (BPP) 213

276 Index

British Union of Fascists (BUF) 212 Brookman, Henry 157 Brownshirts 102 Brulé,Ville et Associés (BVA) 71 Brusati, Franco 197 Brussels 173–4, 177–9, 181–4, 187, 189, 191, 192n6n8 Buchenwald 95, 96 Buijs, Frank 166 Bull-BVA 68 Bull, Hans Peter 129 Bundesamt für Statistik (Switzerland) 206 Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) 16, 36n2, 83, 84–8, 85, 89, 90, 91, 93, 100, 105n3, 123, 124, 129, 132, 186; attitudes to monitoring REPs 109–13, 119–21; labelling practices for extreme right 115–18 Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) 93, 98 Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI) 109, 113, 120, 130 Bundesministerium für Frauen und Jugend (BMFJ) 104 Bundesrepublik Deutschland, see Germany, Federal Republic of Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVG) 25, 94, 117 Bündnis Zukunft Österreich 2 Büsch, Otto 114 Busse, Friedhelm 94 Bussmann, Hans B. 209n5 Buxtehude (Lower Saxony) 91–2 cantons, Swiss 30, 197, 201, 202, 205, 206, 208 Cappelle, Jan 175 ‘catacombs period’ 175, 188, 200 CD-actueel 160 Centre de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Politiques (CRISP) 175 Centre d’Étude de la Vie Politique Française (CEVIPOF) 79n6 Centre d’Étude et de Recherche Socio-biologiques et Raciales (CERSBER) 175 Centrumdemocraten (CDs) xv, 1, 24, 146, 149, 150–2, 153, 158–60, 193n14, 247, 261, 263n6; ideology of 167n6; support for 36, 160–6, 162–3, 237–8, 239, 240, 249–52, 255 Centrumpartij (CP)/Centrumpartij ’86 (CP ’86) xv, 1, 24, 146, 166, 167n6, 182, 193n14, 247; founding of 157; ideology of 159–60; support for 148, 150–2, 154,

157, 158, 159, 160–6, 162, 163, 165, 237–8, 239, 240, 249–52, 255, 263n6 Chicago, University of xiii, xiv Chirac, Jacques 66–7, 74, 77 Christelijke Volkspartij (CVP) 190 Christen-Democratisch Appèl (CDA) 157 Christian extreme-right 24 Christiansen, Lars 97 Christlich-Demokratische Union (CDU) 92–3, 110, 119, 121, 124, 126, 130; in Hesse 131; in Lower Saxony 132; in North Rhine-Westphalia 126; in Rhineland-Palatinate 128 Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU) 110, 112, 121–3, 128, 131 Christlichdemokratische Volkspartei der Schweiz (CVP) 197 Christophersen, Thies 98 Claes, Lode 180 Clarke, Charles 213 class politics 26 Clinard, Marshall B. 209n1 Cold War xvi, 93 Collett, Mark 214, 215 Cologne 18n1, 100, 109 Columbia University 26 Combat 18 213–14, 221n1 ‘commitment parties’ 262 Commons, House of 226 ‘communal riots’ 200 Communism 26, 28 Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT) 79n7 Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) 79n7 Congo, Belgian 175 ‘contact hypothesis’ 31, 37, 56; ‘contact racism’ 15, 56, 72, 158, 240, 241 Copeland, David 212, 213 ‘cordon sanitaire’, see ‘outcasting’ correlation coefficient, Pearson product-moment 36, 49, 55, 58, 154, 157, 161, 229, 230, 234, 235, 239, 240, 258–9 Corsica 68, 78n2 Cottbus (Brandenburg) 86, 94, 105 Coughlinites xiii, 117 Council of Europe 209 Court of Appeal 219 Courts, German, sentencing practices 88, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 103, 106n17 Crime and Disorder Act 1998 216 Criminality 53, 57, 58, 59, 61; in FRG 84, 87–92, 89, 90, 91, 96, 97

Index  277

Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), British 214 CSA 68 Cuba, see immigration/immigrants, in former GDR Czech Republic 13 Czechoslovakia, see immigration/ immigrants, in former GDR Dam-Eilandje (Antwerp) 186 Daudt, H. 164–5 de Benoist, Alain 176 De Bock, Walter 173 de Hond, Maurice 158, 164 De Jong, L. 147 De Marchant et d’Ansembourg, Graaf 142 De Morgen 182, 184, 185, 263n9 De Schampheleire, Hugo 30, 31 De Winter, Lieven 184, 185, 190 Degrelle, Léon 175 Deleu, Eric 186 Demokratische Partei (DP) 203 Deutsch-Russisches Gemeinschaftswerk– Förderverein Nord-Ostpreussen (DRGW–FNOP) 98 Deutsche Allianz (DAL) 135n12 Deutsche Alternative (DA) 85, 94, 110 Deutsche Bürgerinitiative (DBI) 98 Deutsche Demokratische Republik, see German Democratic Republic Deutsche Liga für Volk und Heimat (DLVH) 94, 131 Deutsche Nationalisten (DN) 97 Deutsche Rechtspartei (DReP) 114 Deutsche Reichpartei (DRP) 23 Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) 24, 83, 103–4, 110, 122, 125, 127, 132, 134n10, 209, 239; cooperating with NPD 111; merger with NPD 1; monitoring of 113, 129; support for 239, 240, 249–52 Deutsche Volksunion–Liste D (DVU–Liste D) 110–12, 122, 124, 133, 187, 238 Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB) 133n4 Deutscher Kameradschaftsbund (DKB) 94 Dewinter, Filip 192n9, 193n14 D’Hondt, Paula 190 Die Republikaner, see Republikaner, Die (REPs) Dienel, Thomas 94 Diksmuide (West Flanders) 186 Dillen, Karel 180–1, 183, 187, 193n14 DIMARSO 184, 192n11, 254, 263n9

Direkte Aktion/Mitteldeutschland (DA/ MD) 98 Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party 196 Dordrecht (South Holland) 159, 193n14 Dossier gastarbeid 182 Dreher, Michael E. 201 Drenthe 152, 155, 167n4 Dresden (Saxony) 86, 105n6; murder of Mozambican immigrant in 90–1 Dreux (Eure-et-Loir) 35, 47 Dumont, Serge 177 Durkheim, Émile 38, 56, 61 East Flanders 172, 181, 184, 192n8 East Indies, Dutch 142 East Prussia 98 Eastern Bloc 35, 86 ‘ecological fallacy’ 58, 236, 241, 243n6n7 Egmont Pact 177, 180 Eidgenössisch-Demokratische Union (E-DU) 205 Elbers, Frank 30, 262n1, 263n4 Employment Act 2008 219, 221n5 Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) 217, 219 Employment Relations Act 2004 218 Entzinger, Henri Bernard 144 Etchebarne, Serge 50, 52–5 Eurobarometer 78n6, 145 European Convention on Human Rights 217–18 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) 217–18, 221n5 European Economic Area 206, 208 European Parliament 47, 179; Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia 166, 193n14; elections to 8, 67–8, 74, 78–9, 112, 149, 151–2, 162–3, 168n7, 185, 252, 253, 263n10; European Right group in 187; extreme-right membership of 47, 128, 181, 183, 186 Europese Sociale Beweging (ESB) 148 ‘Euroring’ 192n7 ex-colonial settlers, see immigration/ immigrants (rapatriés/ex-colonial settlers), in France factor analysis 57, 58, 59–60, 168n9, 256–7, 260, 260 Farthmann, Friedhelm 126 Federal Bureau of Investigation 98 Federal Constitutional Court, see Bundesverfassungsgericht

278 Index

Fédération Fasciste Suisse (FFS) 199–200 Feiling, C. A. 209n5 Fennema, Meindert 30, 262n1, 263n4 Féret, Daniel 178 Ferkiss,Victor C. 32 Fetscher, Iring 115, 133n5 Fiche, Alexandra 123 Fidesz 11, 18 Fischer, Franz 142 Flanders 173, 180, 182, 184, 187, 246, 261, 262; extreme-right movements in 174–9, 192n8; see also Vlaams Blok (VB) Flanders, East, see East Flanders Flanders, West, see West Flanders ‘flash’ movements/parties xv, 26, 71, 76, 262 Flevoland 152, 158, 167n4 Fondation Saint-Simon 37, 39n4 Fonjallez, Arthur 200 Force Ouvrière (FO) 79n7 Förderwerk Mitteldeutsche Jugend (FMJ) 98 Forschungsgruppe Wahlen 263n8 Forum voor Democratie (FvD) 1–2 Fraktion der Mitte (FM) 123 France i, xiv, 2, 23–4, 25, 47–79, 247; gender-gap on voting in 14; immigration as a political issue in 144, 145; neo-Nazi groups in 166; police support for extreme right in 172; polling organizations in 47, 248, 254; post-war extreme right in 23; urban support for extreme right in 16, 37; victory of La République en Marche! In 7; wartime experience of 142; see also Front National (FN); immigration/immigrants, France; Le Pen, Jean-Marie; Poujadism Frankfurt am Main (Hesse) 35, 98; data availability for 227, 230, 234, 235; extreme-right voting in 238, 240, 241 Frankfurt an der Oder (Brandenburg) 86, 105n6 Frederik, Hans 115, 133n5 Freie Bürger-Union (FB-U) 123 Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP) 92, 93, 110, 123, 132, 134n11 Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (FAP) 83, 85, 94, 97, 110 Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) 2, 24, 208, 247, 253; support for 255 Freiheitlichen, Die (Fs) 30, 247, 253, 256 Freiheitspartei (FP) 247 Freiheitspartei der Schweiz (FPS) 24, 201–7 passim, 209

Freisinnig-Demokratische Partei der Schweiz (F-DP) 197 Fremskridtspartiet (FP) 23 Freundeskreis Freiheit für Deutschland (FFD) 95 Freundeskreis Unabhängige Nachrichten (FUN) 95 Frey, Gerhard 110, 112, 186–7 Friedrich, Walter 105n5 Friesland 152, 167n4 Frisch, Max 198 Front de la Jeunesse (FJ) 173, 174 Front National (FN) xiv, 2, 8, 24, 35, 38, 75–9, 178, 182, 187, 190–1, 207, 209, 236, 247; overall support for xiv, 12, 13, 14, 36, 62–8, 69–74, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 249–52, 253, 254, 255, 263n5; aggregate data on support for, 48 49–50, 51–5, 56–8, 59–60, 61; manual workers’ support for 64, 69, 70–2; political sources of support for 74–6; see also Le Pen, Jean-Marie; Le Pen, Marine; Rassemblement National (RN) Front National–Nationaal Front (FN–NF) 178, 179, 187, 188, 189 Fulda (Hesse) 94, 99 Fundamentalism 9, 72 Furth, Peter 114 Gallup-Institut, Austrian 263n7 Gallup International 166, 184 Gantzer, Peter Paul 122 Gaullism 25 Gelderland 152, 155, 167n4 Gemeinsames Landeskriminalamt (GLKA) 87 Gemkow, Hans-Eberhard 131 Geneva, Canton of 200; extreme-right voting in 201, 236, 238, 239 Genscher, Hans-Dietrich 92 Gera (Thuringia) 95 German Democratic Republic (GDR) i, 34; neo-Nazism in former 86–7, 90–1, 95–102 passim; policies on immigration in 34, 90; young people in 87 German unification 2, 34, 83, 84, 87, 96, 102, 110, 112, 132, 248; Day of German Unity 99 Germany, Federal Republic of (FRG) 83–107, 109–35; data availability for 227; see also Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV); Republikaner (REPs), Die Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front (GdNF) 98

Index  279

Ghent (East Flanders) 181 Giblin-Delvallet, Béatrice 50, 52–5, 56 Gijsels, Hugo 174, 179, 186, 192n10 Giscard d’Estaing,Valéry 66, 74 Gladdish, Ken 167n1 Glazer, Nathan 32, 33 Glimmerveen, Joop 29, 155–6, 219 Glimmerveen and Hagenbeek v The Netherlands 219 globalization xiv, 6, 7, 11, 34, 204, 206; see also anti-globalization Goldwater, Barry 23, 27 Goretta, Claude 197–8 Great Britain, data availability for 226–7; legislation against extreme right in 214–16, 218–19; legal cases involving extreme right in, Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen v United Kingdom 217–19, 221n5, Greenwich London Borough v Dell 219, Potter v UNISON 217, 218, Redfearn v Serco Ltd trading as West Yorkshire Transport Service 219, 220; legislation against extreme right in 214–16, 218–19; monitoring of extreme right in 212–13 Greene, Graham 196 Greens, The (FRG) 123, 134, 135n13 Greens, The (Switzerland) 202, 205, 206 Grenoble (Isère) 36, 51, 56 Griffin, Nick 214, 215 Groningen 167 Groupement de Recherche et d’Études pour la Civilisation Européenne (GRECE) 176, 188 groupuscules 172 Grüne Partei der Schweiz (GPS), see Greens, The (Switzerland) Grünen, Die, see Greens, The (FRG) Gulf War 132 Gypsies, Romanian 91 Haarlem (North Holland) 159 Hackmann, Werner 103 Hackney, London Borough of 214 Hagendoorn, Louk 144–5, 161, 232 Hague, The (South Holland) 147, 158, 166, 167n4; CDs and CP ’86 in 159; data availability for 168n7n9; non-Dutch population of 143, 159; NVU in 155–7; extreme-right voting in 143, 146, 149, 150–2, 159, 160, 161, 164, 165 Hahnzog, Klaus 22 Haider, Jörg 2, 30, 208, 247, 253, 256; founded Bündnis Zukunft Österreich 2

Hainaut 192n8 Halle (Saxony-Anhalt) 99 Hamburg 94, 98, 103, 113, 126; data availability for 236; LfV and its monitoring of REPs 113, 120, 124–5, 128, 129, 139; extreme-right voting in 236, 238, 239, 240 Hamburger Liste [für] Ausländerstopp (HLA) 236, 238, 239, 240 Haquin, René 173, 174, 189 Harris, Geoffrey 191n1 Hartfiel, Günther 133n6 Häsler, Alfred A. 198 Heimann, A. 209n5 Heimattreue Vereinigung Deutschlands (HVD) 95 Heitmeyer, Wilhelm 15–16; and Modernisierungsverlierer theory 12, 34, 101, 135; on new regions 107, 135; on youth and the extreme right 34, 101 Hendrickx, Robert 178 Hennig, Eike 34, 101 Hess, Rudolf 94, 99, 104, 156 Hilfsorganisation für nationale politische Gefangene und deren Angehörige (HNG) 97, 98, 106 Hirsch, Kurt 86, 106n14, 115, 133n5, 134n10 Hoffman, Stanley 26 Hofstadter, Richard 9, 26, 27, 32, 33, 35, 134n8 Hogendoorn, Willem 157 Hohenschönhausen (Berlin) 97 Holland, North, see North Holland Holland, South, see South Holland Hollstein, Andreas 18n1 Holocaust, The 97; denial of/revisionism about 98, 156, 178; victims’ assets in Switzerland 198 Homosexuality 106n19; opposition to 104n1, 183, 213 Hoogendoorn, J. 164 Hoyerswerda (Saxony) 91, 103, 104 Hraba, Joseph 144–5, 161, 232 Hübner, Frank 94, 104 Hungary 2, 5, 10, 11, 18; see also immigration/ immigrants, in former GDR IFOP 74 IFOP-Etmar 68, 75, 77 IFOP-RTL-Le Point 68 IFRES 68 Ignazi, Piero 30, 32, 33, 263n4 Imhoof, Markus 198

280 Index

immigration/immigrants: Algerians, in France 50, 52; Angolans, in former GDR 105n7; Antillianese, in the Netherlands 142–3; Cubans, in former GDR 105n7; Czechoslovakians, in former GDR 105n7; from former Soviet Union, in former GDR 105n7; Hungarians, in former GDR 105n7; Italians, in Switzerland 198, 200; Maghrébins, in France 50, 52, 57, 58, 59, 238, 240, 241; Moluccans, South, in the Netherlands 142, 145; Moroccans 78n1, 233, in Belgium 185, 186; in the Netherlands 36, 143, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 238, 241; Mozambicans, in former GDR 105n7; North Africans 143, 177, 178, 182; Poles, in former GDR 105n7; rapatriés/ex-colonial settlers, in France 50, 53t, 55, 57, 58, 59t, 61, 73, 76; Romanians, in former GDR 105n7; Surinamese, in the Netherlands 142–3; Turks, in Belgium 177, in FRG 84, 92, 112, 240, in the Netherlands 36, 143, 145, 155, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 238, 241;Vietnamese, in former GDR 91, 105; as catalyst for extreme-right support 4–5, 14, 35, 36–8, 50, 51, 61, 69, 77, 145, 155 Institut der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für praktische Sozialforschung (ISGS) 207 Institut für empirische Sozialforschung 263n7 Institut für Praxisorientierte Sozialforschung 104 Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE) 70–1 International Monetary Fund 205, 206 IPSOS-Le Point 68 Iranian refugees, in Belgium 190 Islam 214, 215 Islamophobia 5, 10 Italians, see immigration/immigrants, Switzerland Italy 2, 5, 12, 23, 24, 171, 172–3, 181, 200, 263n2; see also Lega Nord/Lega; Movimento Sociale Italiano Jackson, Kenneth T. 27 Jaffré, Jérôme 51, 53, 54, 68, 69, 73, 76n6, 192n11 Janmaat, Hans 157–9 Janowitz, Morris 28, 200 Jeambar, Denis 61, 68, 69, 73 Jenke, Manfred 114

Jesse, Eckhard 115, 116 Jeune Nation (JN) 175 Jews 83, 87, 91, 215 John Birch Society xiii, 23 Jong-Nederlandse Gemeenschap (JNG) 183 Kaltschmidt, Jacob Heinrich 209n5 Kanther, Manfred 95 Katholieke Volkspartij (KVP) 157 Kitschelt, Herbert 38 Klingemann, Hans D. 29, 115, 116 Know Nothing Movement 27 Knütter, Hans-Helmuth 114, 133n6 Koekoek, Henrik 153 Kohl, Helmut 92, 128 Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD) 117 Kooy, G. A. 147 Kornhauser, William 28, 37 Kortrijk (West Flanders) 192n7 Kosto, Aad 145 Kristallnacht 99 Ku Klux Klan xiii, 27 Kühnen, Michael 83–98 passim, 105n2, 106n19, 110 Kühnl, Reinhard 115 Kupfer, Lothar 93 Küssel, Gottfried 98–9 Lajoinie, André 67, 75 Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) 130; Baden-Württemberg 113, 121, 131, 138; Bavaria 122, 130–1, 135n13, 138; Berlin 123–4, 132, 138; Bremen 124, 138–9; Hamburg 113, 124–5, 130–1, 139; Hesse 125–6, 131, 135n13, 139; Lower Saxony 126, 132, 139; North Rhine-Westphalia 126–7, 139; Rhineland-Palatinate 128, 139–40; Saarland 128, 140; Saxony 131; Schleswig-Holstein 107n27, 129, 132, 140 Landesring der Unabhängigen (LdU) 202 Lauck, Gary Rex 98 Le Bras, Hervé 51–4, 56, 57, 61, 76 Le Pen, Jean-Marie 47–79 passim; background of 47; in European Parliament 47, 186–7; ‘Le Pen equation, the’ 56; victory in 1983 Paris municipal election; see also Front National (FN) Le Pen, Marine 2, 14 Lecluse, Marcel 55 Lega dei Ticinesi (LT) 203 Lega Nazionale Ticinese (LNT) 200 Lega Nord (LN)/Lega 11, 203 Leggewie, Claus 134n10, 246

Index  281

Leipzig (Saxony) 86, 131 Lelystad (Flevoland) 156, 158 Lenski, Gerhard E. 27 Leopold III 173 Liberale Partei der Schweiz (LPS) 204 Libert, Michel 174 Liège 192n8 Liepelt, Claus 115 Limburg 152, 167n4, 186, 192n8 Lincoln (Nebraska) 98 Lipset, Seymour Martin 4, 25, 26, 27, 29, 35, 134n8; on ‘radical right’ and Rechtsradikalismus 114–17, 134n7 Lochte, Christian 113 Loef, K. 161 Long, Huey xiii Lords, House of 221n5 Lower Saxony 94, 114, 126, 132, 133n4, 139, 199 Lübcke, Walter 18n1 Lübeck (Schleswig-Holstein) 92 Lucardie, A. P. M. 167n6 Luxembourg 192n8 Lyssy, Rolf 197 McCarthy, Joseph R. 26, 32, 116 McCarthyism xiii, 23, 28, 29, 32, 33, 116, 117; see also Army-McCarthy hearings McEvoy, James, III 27 MacRae, Donald 31 MacRae, Duncan, Jr. 26 Maes, Bob 176, 177 Maesschalk, Anne 173 Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt) 95, 103 Maghrébins, see immigration/immigrants, France Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate) 97 Mannheim (Baden-Württemberg) 90–1 Marchais, Georges 66, 74, 75 Martens, Wilfried 189 Martin, Pierre 37, 38 Maurras, Charles 175, 200 Mayer, Nonna 14, 37, 38, 47, 50, 51–5, 56, 57, 58, 79n6, 231, 240 Mechelen (Antwerp) 181, 185 Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 92, 93 Mecklin, John Moffatt 27 median smoothing 246 MI5, British 212, 213 MI6, British 213 Mik, G. 161 Milieu du Monde, Le 198 Militias, extreme-right 24t Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) 110, 131, 132

Minkenberg, Michael 3, 32–3 Mitteldeutschland 98, 106n18 Modernisierungsverlierer 12, 34, 35, 100 Molenbeek (Brussels) 179 Mölln (Schleswig-Holstein) 92 Moluccans, South, see immigration/ immigrants, in the Netherlands Morel, Bernard 79n8 Moroccans, see immigration/immigrants, in the Netherlands Mort de Mario Ricci, La 198 Mosler, Jürgen 94 Mosley, Oswald 23 Mottard, Jean 173, 189 Mouvement d’Action Civique (MAC) 175 Mouvement Nationaliste Wallon (MNW) 177 ‘Movement, The’ 85 Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) 23, 25, 171, 187 moving averages 246 Mozambicans, see immigration/immigrants, in the former GDR Müller, Jan-Werner 10 Müller, Leo A. 86, 134n10 Müller, Ursula 97 Munich (Bavaria) 99, 112; City Council of 123, 131 Mussert, Anton Adriaan 147 Namur 192n8 Nationaal Europese Sociale Beweging (NESB) 148, 149 Nationaal Front (NF) 192n7 Nationaal-Socialistisch Jeugdverbond (NSJV) 183 Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB) 142, 147, 148, 155; electoral performances of 147–8 National Assembly, French, see Assemblée nationale National Council, Austrian 252t 253 National Council, Swiss 201–8 passim, 210n7 National-Demokraten (N-D) 110 National Dwellings and Housing Survey 233 National-Freiheitliche (N-F) 110 National Front (NF) xiv, 23, 24, 29, 214 National Socialist Movement (NSM) 213, 221n1 Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) 1, 23, 29, 105n11, 111–15, 122, 125, 127, 132, 134n10; support for 238, 240, 249–52

282 Index

Nationale Aktion für Volk und Heimat (NAVH) 201 Nationale Aktion gegen die Überfremdung von Volk und Heimat (NAgUVH) 201 Nationale Centrum Partij (NCP) 157, 160 Nationale Front (NeF) 199, 209n3 Nationale Liste (NL) 94 Nationale Offensive (NO) 85, 94 Nationale Sammlung (NS) 85 Nationaler Block (NB) 95 Nationalistische Front (NF) 83, 93, 98, 110 Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) xiv, 105n2, 148 Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei–Auslands- und Aufbauorganisation (NSDAP–AO) 98, 99 Nature of Prejudice,The 29 Nazism 28, 29, 35, 141 Nederlands Blok (NB) 24 Nederlandse Instituut voor de Publieke Opinie en Marktonderzoek (NIPO) 166, 263n6 Nederlandse Oppositie Unie (NOU) 149 Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU) xv, 24, 29, 146, 149, 153, 219; support for 150–2, 154, 155–7; see also Glimmerveen, Joop neoconservatism 33, 198 Neo-Nazism xiv, 8, 18n1, 110, 111, 126; changing character of 83, 98–9; computer games and 99; criminality and 87–92, 89, 90; future trends in 102–4; ideology of 83; in Belgium 173, 186, 192n7; in FRG 83–107; in former GDR i, 34, 83, 85, 86–9, 90, 91, 94, 95, 97, 101, 102, 106n13, 107n22, 132; in Switzerland 200, 207, 209n4; in the UK 213; music and 84; state apparatuses and monitoring of 92–7; support for 83, 99, 100, 101–2; see also Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BFV) Netherlands, the i, xv, 1, 2, 5, 13, 23–4, 29, 141–68, 179; attitudes to immigrants in 144–5, 161, 232; demography and immigration in 142–4; policy on asylum-seekers in 145; policy on immigration in 144, 167n2, 232; post-war extreme right in 23, 148–9; pre-war extreme right in 147–8; urban policy in 30; wartime experience of 141–2, 200; see also asylum-seekers/ refugees, in the Netherlands; Boerenpartij (BP); Centrumdemocraten (CDs); Centrumpartij (CP)/

Centrumpartij ’86 (CP ’86); immigration/immigrants, in the Netherlands; Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU) Neubauer, Harald 125 Neue Front (NFr) 199 Neue Front, Die 98 Neue Zürcher Zeitung 198–9 Neues Deutschland 105n8 Neusel, Hans 113 New American Right,The 26, 116, 117 new regions, German i, 34, 80, 83, 85, 86–95, 90, 91, 97, 101, 102, 106n13, 107n22, 110, 132, 255, 256; see also German Democratic Republic (GDR); Neo-Nazism NEWS 263n7 Nols, Roger 178, 179 Nooij, A. T. J. 153, 154 North Brabant (The Netherlands) 152, 155, 167n4 North Holland 143, 152, 156, 159, 167n4 North Rhine-Westphalia 90, 95, 187; policy on monitoring REPs in 113–30 passim, 139 Nouvelle France, La 56–7 NS Kampfruf 98 Ó Maoláin, Ciarán 166, 174 oil crisis of 1973 177 old regions, German 35, 83, 87, 90, 90, 91, 91, 104, 121, 145, 255 Orbán,Viktor 10, 18 Ordre Nouveau (ON) 178 Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS) 175, 188 Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP) 208 Oud-Borgerhout (Antwerp) 186 Oudenaarde (East Flanders) 184 ‘outcasting’ 213, 220 Overijssel 155, 167n4 Pane e Cioccolata 197 Paris 16, 35, 47, 50, 56, 236; data availability for 227, 228, 231, 242n3; extreme-right voting in 50, 51–5, 75, 79n8, 236, 237–8, 239, 240 Parsons, Talcott 28, 29, 35, 116 Partei der Arbeit (PdA) 205 Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS) 131, 135n13 Parti Communiste Français (PCF): relationship of PCF and FN voting 40, 74–6, 79n8; support for 57, 67

Index  283

Parti de la Liberté du Citoyen (PLdC) 196n6 Parti des Forces Nouvelles (PFN): in Belgium 178, 179, 188; in France 69, 78 Parti Libéral Chrétien (PLC) 192n6 Parti National Belge–Belgisch-Nationale Partij (PNB–BNP) 175, 192n6 Parti Socialiste (PS) 67, 75, 79n8 Parti Socialiste–Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche (PS–MRG) 67, 75 Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) xv, 1, 5, 13 Partij voor Vrijheid en Vooruitgang (PVV) 190 Passchier, N. P. 147, 148 Patriotische Front (PF) 209n4 Patzold, Erich 124 People’s Party, American 9 Perrineau, Pascal 36–8, 47, 51–5, 56, 68, 69–71, 77, 85 Persilschein 122 Peters, Michael 97 Petri, Michael 97 Pfahl-Traughber, Armin 31, 32 Platone, François 79 Poland 2, 18, 106n18; see also immigration/ immigrants, in former GDR Police: Belgian, alleged extreme-right sympathies of 171–4, 189; British, prohibition on membership of extreme-right organizations 213–14; German, alleged indifference to racial attacks 91, 93, 95–6, 103 Political Man 25, 26 Politics of Mass Society,The 28, 37 Politics of Unreason,The 27 Politikverdrossenheit 25 Polling organizations, French 68, 69–71, 73, 78n5, 79n7, 263n9 Populism 3–5, 9–11, 19n2, 31–2, 149; American, see People’s Party, American Postma, Bernard 155 Postmaterialism 25, 32–3 Poujade, Pierre 25 Poujadism 23, 25, 26, 29, 153, 178 Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 216 principal-components factor analysis, see factor analysis Progress Parties, Scandinavian 155; see also Fremskridtspartiet (FP) Progressive Movement, American 27 Provence 56, 60 pseudo-conservatism 35, 134n8 Public Order Act 1936 214 Public Order Act 1986 214, 216 Purmerend (North Holland) 159

Qualunquismo (Indifference) 25 Raab, Earl 4, 27, 29, 134 Race Relations Act 1976 215 Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 215–16 racial attacks 106n12, 200; see also asylum-seekers/refugees, attacks on hostels racial hatred, incitement to 99, 122, 156, 213, 214–16 Radical Right,The 26, 27, 29, 116, 117 Randstad 35, 143; see also Amsterdam; Rotterdam; The Hague; Utrecht rank-order correlation coefficient, Spearman’s 52, 55 rapatriés/ex-colonial settlers, see immigration/immigrants, in France Rassemblement National (RN) 2, 14, 16, 18 Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) 48, 67, 70, 79n8 Rath, Jan 144, 166 Rau, Johannes 127 Rechtse Volkspartij (RVP) 154 Rechtsextremismus/rechtsextrem/ rechtsextremistisch 4, 39n2, 113–17 Rechtsradikalismus/rechtsradikal 4, 25, 39n2, 113–17; German–English dictionary translations of 133n7 Redwatch 213 Referenda: in Switzerland 197, 202–8; in the UK 7, 8, 242n2 Reisz, Heinz 94 Reker, Henriette 18n1 religious hatred, incitement to 215–16 Republikaner, Die (REPs) xiv, 1, 24, 83, 181, 187, 239, 248, 256; in West Berlin 111–13; monitoring of 109–40 passim; support for 237–8, 239, 240, 241, 249–52, 253, 255, 263n8; see also Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV); Schönhuber, Franz Rex movement 175 Rey, Henri 56, 79n8 Riesman, David 32, 33 rim-weighting 78n5 Riva, Alfonso 200 Robinson, W. S. 58, 256 Roeder, Manfred 98 Rogin, Michael Paul 9, 27, 29, 32, 116 Röhm Putsch 105n2 Romania, see immigration/immigrants, in former GDR Rost van Tonningen, Meinoud Marinus 141–2

284 Index

Rostock (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) 91, 93, 95, 103, 104 Rotterdam (South Holland) 4, 37, 141, 166; data availability for 167n4, 168n7, 168n9; extreme-right voting in 143, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150–2, 153–61, 163, 164, 237–8, 239–41 Roubaix (Nord) 50, 52, 55 Roy, Jacques 56 Rudolstadt (Thuringia) 99 Rush, Gary B. 27 ‘Rütli oath’ 205 Saarland 110, 128, 140 Sanmarco, Philippe 79n8 Sarkowicz, Hans 86, 105n8, 134n10 Saxony 94, 95–6, 110, 131 Saxony-Anhalt 110 ‘scapegoat theory’ 34 Schaerbeek (Brussels) 178, 179 Schaffhausen, Canton of 199 Schain, Martin 77 Schäuble, Wolfgang 92–3, 117–18, 131 Scheuch, Erwin K. 29, 115–16 Schiedam (South Holland) 155, 159 Schildersbuurt (The Hague) 159 Schleswig-Holstein 92, 107n27, 131, 132, 140; LfV and its monitoring of REPs 120, 129 Schmidt, Michael 86, 107n25 Schmidt, O. 148 Schmitz-Berning, Cornelia 209n5 Schnoor, Herbert 148 Schönborn, Meinolf 93 Schönhuber, Franz 112, 120, 122, 125, 134, 135n12; see also Republikaner, Die (REPs) Schröder, Burkhard 99, 105n6 Schröder, Thomas 131 Schulpen, Luc 184, 185, 190 Schwarzenbach, James E. 30, 201, 203, 204; ‘Schwarzenbach initiative, the’ 203 Schweizer Demokraten (SDs) 24, 202, 203, 209; programme of 202–5; support for 202 Schweizerische Republikanische Bewegung (SRB) 23–4, 201, 203, 207; support for 238, 239, 240 Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) 197, 198, 199, 202–9; see also Blocher, Christoph Schweizermacher, Die 197 Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) 96

Schwyz, Canton of 205 Sechet-Poisson, Raymonde 78n4 ‘second-order elections’ 263n10 secularization 54, 57, 60, 73 Seine-Saint-Denis 50, 52, 79 Seiters, Rudolf 93, 96 Share Our Wealth movement xiii Siedenbrünzow (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) 103 Sikhs 215 Sint-Niklaas (East Flanders) 184 Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan 213 skinheads, neo-Nazism and 55, 83, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92, 95, 175, 200 Smit, Ronald E. 147 Smith, Al (Albert E.) 27 Smith, Stevie 182 Social Change and Prejudice 28 ‘social strain theory’ 28, 29, 35, 38, 116 Socialistische Partij (SP) 190 SOFRES 68, 71, 72, 75, 76, 78n6, 263n9 Solingen (North Rhine-Westphalia) 92 Sonderegger, Emil 199 Sonntag, Rainer 90–1 SOS-Racisme 190 South Holland 143, 152, 156, 159, 167n4 South Tyrol 187 Soviet Union, former 39n3, 98, 202; Soviet bloc countries xv, 2, 6, 13, 17; see also immigration/immigrants, in former GDR Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz (SPS) 197, 208 Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) 93, 112–13, 119, 130, 133n4; Bavaria 122, 123; Berlin 124; Bremen 133; Hamburg 124; Hesse 131; Lower Saxony 132; North Rhine-Westphalia 126, 130; Rhineland-Palatinate 128; Schleswig-Holstein 129 Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) 131 Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP) 4, 23, 25, 95, 113, 114, 117, 133n4 Special Branch, British 212–13 Ständige Konferenz der Innenminister und -senatoren der Länder (IMK) 119, 120, 121, 124, 126 Stasi, the, see Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) status consistency/crystallization 27 status politics 26, 27, 116, 117 status scores: in Dutch city subareas 161, 162–3, 164, 165, 168n9

Index  285

Sterne, Laurence 184 Stichting Oud Politieke Delinquenten (SOPD) 148, 149 Stichting Toezicht Politieke Delinquenten (STPD) 148 Stikkelbroek, J. H. 161 Stoiber, Edmund 122, 138 Stöss, Richard 116, 134n10, 248 Strasser, Gregor 105n2 Strasser, Otto 105n2 Strasserism 84, 93, 105n2, 110 Streibl, Max 131 Streit, Wolfgang 114 Stuivenberg (Antwerp) 185–6 Süddeutsche Zeitung 105n9, 122 ‘Sunday question’ 246, 253 Surinam 142 Surinamese 142, 143, 156, 166, 233, 238, 241; in NVU propaganda 155; see also immigration/immigrants, in the Netherlands Swierczek, Michael 94, 104 Swyngedouw, Marc 184, 185, 190 Tamil refugees, in the Netherlands 145 Tanja, J. 164 Tanner, Alain 197–8 Taufkirchen (Munich) 123 Tell, Wilhelm 197 temperance movement, American 27 Ten-Point Plan, German 96 Terrorism 110, 132, 189, 216; extreme-right and 111, 188; Islamist 5 Thanassekos,Yannis 30, 31 Third Man,The 196 Third Reich 92, 104n1, 208 Thuringia 110, 133n2 Ticino, Canton of 200, 203, 205 Tixier-Vignancour, Jean-Louis 23, 53 Tobback, Louis 189 Todd, Emmanuel 51–5, 56, 57, 58, 60, 69, 72 Tolstoy, Leo 171 Trade Union and Employment Rights Act 1993 218 Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 218 Trade unions 79, 134n11, 196, 206, 217, 218, 219. 220, 221n5 Transvaalkwartier (The Hague) 159 Trois France, Les 56 Trump, Donald 10, 11, 12, 13, 18 Tueries du Brabant, Les 189 Turkey 18, 143, 177 Turks, see immigration/immigrants, in FRG, in the Netherlands

Überfremdung 29–30, 201, 209n5 unemployment 182, 196, 233; as possible determinant of extreme-right support, in France 53, 57–8, 59, 61, 66, 74; in the Netherlands 147, 161, 166, 241 unification, German, see German unification Union de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans (UDCA) 23, 25 Union Démocratique pour le Respect du Travail (UDRT) 178 Union Movement (UM) 23 Union Nationale (UN) 200 Union Nationale des Francophones (UNF) 192n6 Union Nationale et Démocratique (UND) 192n6 Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF) 48, 67, 70 United Nations 204 Unterwalden, Canton of 205 ‘urban stranger’ 35, 36–8 Uri, Canton of 205 Utrecht (Utrecht) 156, 167n4; extreme-right voting in 143, 152, 156, 158, 159 van Amersfoort, Hans 143, 161, 167n2, 175 van den Berghe, Pierre 196 van der Wusten, Herman 147, 167n1 van Donselaar, Jaap 23, 29, 148, 149, 153, 154, 157, 158, 164, 247 van Praag, Carlo 144, 158, 164 Van Steen, Werner 192n7 van Tienen, Paul 148 Vander Velpen, Jos 176, 179, 192n10 Vander Zanden, James W. 27 variation, coefficient of 162–3, 164, 165, 168n8, 237–8, 241, 242n3 Ventre (Ve) 167n5 Verband der Unabhängigen (VdU) 247 Verbond van Dietse Nationaal-Solidaristen (VERDINASO) 175 Verhoeyen, Étienne 176, 177 Vermander, Eduard 113 Verzet 183 verzuiling 153 Vietnam, see immigration/immigrants, in former GDR Vigilance (Geneva) 183, 201, 236, 238, 239 Vlaams Belang (VBg) xv, 2, 8, 13 Vlaams Blok (VB) xv, 2, 8, 24, 171, 172, 248; background of 180–1; foreign links of 186–7; in European Parliament 181, 187; leadership and membership of 177; organization of 183; programme

286 Index

emphases of 177, 182–3, 187, 193n14; propaganda material of 181; reactions to 189–91; support for 181, 184–6, 189, 192n11, 246, 248, 249–52, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257–9, 260, 260, 263n9; see also Dewinter, Filip; Dillen, Karel Vlaams Blok 183, 193n14 Vlaams Blok Jongeren (VBJ) 183, 192n9 Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV) 175, 176, 177 Vlaams Nationale Partij (VNP) 180 Vlaams-Nationale Raad (VNR) 183 Vlaamse Concentratie (VC) 176 Vlaamse Militanten Orde (VMO) 173, 175, 176, 177, 186, 192n7 Vlaamse Militantenorganisatie (VMOrg) 176 Vlaamse Nieuwe Orde (VNO) 177 Vlaamse Volkspartij (VVP) 180 Voerman, Gerrit 167n6 Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD) 159 Volksunie (VU) 176, 183, 188, 190, 248; loss of support to VB 180, 181, 184, 193n12; considered insufficiently Flemish-nationalist 177, 185 von Beckerath, Erwin 133n6 Voorpost 193n14 Vorprüfung 118, 122 Waffen-SS 112, 148; Westland regiment 148 Wagner, Bernd 105n8 Wagner, Carl-Ludwig 128 Wahrig, Gerhard 115 Wald, Eduard 25, 114, 135n4 Wallace, George Corley xiii, 23, 29 Wallonia 179, 180, 192n8, 263n9; extreme-right movements in 173, 175, 177, 178 Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann (WSG Hoffmann) 111 Weimar (Thuringia) 96

Welles, Orson 196 Were Di,Verbond van Nederlandse Werkgemeenschappen (WD,VNW) 177 Werthebach, Eckart 132 West Flanders 192n7, 192n8 Westland New Post (WNP) 173, 174, 175 Wichmann, Karl 209n5 Wijninckx Commission 173 Wiking-Jugend (W-J) 95, 111 Wilders, Geert xv, 1, 2, 5 Wilhelmshaven (Lower Saxony) 94 Willems, Helmut 106n21 Willemsen, A.W. 191n4 Winterthur (Canton of Zürich) 209n4 Wolf, Michael 107n27 Worch, Christian 94, 98 World Bank 205, 206 Worms (Rhineland-Palatinate) 92 Wulff, Thomas 94 xenophobia 12, 102, 104n1; criminality and 86, 87, 87–93, 91, 106n12, 106n21; nationalism and 10, 129; neo-Nazism and 84, 86, 94, 102, 103; political movements and 29, 199, 200, 201, 203, 207, 208, 246, 247; relationship to racism 4, 31, 32, 56, 164 Zachert, Hans-Ludwig 98 Zeeland 167n4 Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung (ZfJ) 86, 105n5 Zolberg, Aristide, R. 192n4 Zündel, Ernst 106n19 Zürich, City of 208; data availability for 227, 236; extreme-right activism in 199; extreme-right voting in 201, 203, 207, 238, 239, 240; riots in 199, 200 Zürich, Canton of; extreme-right activism in 209n4; extreme-right voting in 199 Zwickau (Saxony) 96