Far-Right mobilization and the european crises : electoral and protest politics
Introduction: The core question of the project Far-Right Mobilization and the European Crises (FARMEC) is whether and how far-right political mobilization has changed throughout three critical moments of recent European politics: the sovereign-debt crisis, the refugee crisis, and the security crisis linked to Jihadist terrorism. The overarching expectation is that these junctures facilitated the realignment of far-right actors in the electoral and protest arenas, increasing the pervasiveness of far-right messages in national public spheres. This, in turn, contributed to crucially transforming political conflict in Europe. FARMEC relies on an innovative research design focusing on: (1) different national contexts (in North-West, South and Central-East Europe), (2) different arenas of conflict (protest and elections) and overtime change (from the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 to 2018). The project’s interdisciplinary perspective, at the crossroads between comparative political science and political sociology is supported by a pluralist methodological approach. A quantitative Large-N study compares far-right mobilization in 12 European democracies, using existing datasets on party positions and protest events. A quali-quantitative Small-N study focuses on four country-case studies (France, Germany, Italy and Hungary), using original data gathered through web scraping. FARMEC will contribute to the long-lasting debate on the relationship between the far-right and crisis. Its results will shed new light on the drivers of far-right mobilization, crucially contributing to the scholarship on political conflict in Europe, party politics and social movements, and providing insight for NGOs and public organization confronting the far right. In doing so, the project engages with the timely public debate on how can liberal democracy deal with right-wing extremism, radicalism and populism.