“Far right” or “extreme right-wing” parties have emerged across Europe in recent years, if with varying levels of electoral success, demonstrating that they cannot be termed as constituting a pan-European movement. But they do have characteristics in common. Chief among them, from the perspective of European politics as a whole, is that they’re driving mainstream right-wing parties to the fringe.

In several countries, including Britain, Ireland and Spain, the far right has repeatedly failed to garner a considerable share of the votes whereas in France, the Front national‘s Marine Le Pen got almost 18 percent support in the first round of last year’s presidential election, consolidating the nationalist party’s position as the “third force” in French politics.

The rise of far-right movements is closely linked to mass immigration into Europe, especially from developing countries that used to be European colonies and former communist states in Eastern Europe. The inclusion of some of the latter in the European Union has brought about a loss of national sovereignty in the traditional Westphalian sense, moreover, and has also served to foster a malaise among populations whose sense of national identity is in a state of flux. Right-wing parties tend to take advantage of this social identity cleavage within European communities, coupling it with an alarm over high immigration.

The ideological core of these movements is the concept of the sovereign nation state. Their narrow definition of who and what constitutes the nation is of key importance to understanding their motivations. In their view, the nation is confined to those within the territory who share the same culture and ethnicity. It is through this lens that far-right parties frame their political positions to their supporters, especially their Euroskepticism and opposition to immigration, and it allows them to draw on a disenfranchised element of society that is susceptible to simple explanations for complex problems. (more…)