German Perspectives on Right-Wing Extremism

Johannes Kiess, Oliver Decker, Elmar Brähler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317231837
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica

This book discusses right-wing extremism by analysing Germanophone research on this topic for the first time in English, including unique survey data from Germany and Austria. Highlighting how questions of terminology can become complicated when country cases are compared, the authors analyse theoretical and methodological issues in relation to the question of right-wing extremism. In Anglo-American academia, the term is often associated with fairly rare phenomena in the form of extremist political groups, whereas in Germany the term is often applied to a wide range of attitudes, behaviours and parties, including those which operate more within the mainstream political sphere.

Covering an array of sub-fields such as right-wing terrorism, iconography of the extreme right and the Germanophone discussion on the differentiation of right-wing populism and right-wing extremism, the authors account not only for the centrality of right-wing extremist attitudes in Germanophone research, but also point at its often overlooked relevance for the phenomenon in general. Offering an important insight into the nuanced definition of right-wing extremism across Europe and enhancing both international debate and cross-country comparative research, this book will be of interest to students and scholars researching extremism, German politics and European politics more generally.

Part I

Methodological challenges and innovations for comparative research

1 Comparing right-wing extremist attitudes

Lack of research or lack of theory?

Johannes Kiess and Oliver Decker

Introduction

Comparing right-wing extremism is a complex and difficult task: looking at the literature, it seems that every contribution starts with complaints about the diversity of concepts and the lack of comprehensive and systematic cross-country research. There exists considerable comparative work, for example, on right-wing extremist parties. Beyond right-wing parties and their electoral successes, which are the main topics, “latent electoral support for extreme right-wing parties (i.e. vote intention),” is often taken as a measure to examine how far-reaching a problem right-wing extremism is in a comparative perspective (e.g. Knigge 1998). Much less common, however, are comparative studies on right-wing extremist attitudes. The aim of this chapter is to examine what we know about right-wing extremist, racist and anti-democratic attitudes in a comparative perspective. The chapter thus critically reviews the state of research and emphasises its blind spots while it suggests putting more effort into theoretical and conceptional work.

Phenomena have to be taken asunder, as Taggart pointed out in regard to new populist parties to properly analyse them: “The success of the sharp-suited far right is not unrelated to the growth of extremist violence of the boot boys, but we have a clearer picture if we separate the two phenomena” (Taggart 1995: 47). While it is just as important to analytically separate the sphere of attitudes from the sphere of behaviour, this, particularly in political science, often means neglecting the sphere of attitudes. Even though attitudes are commonly expected to be an important factor for the electoral success of right-wing parties, be they more populist or more extremist in orientation. This concentration or bias on parties and movements might not be the fault of scholars, at least not one committed deliberately. The problem is more systematic in that there is no easily accessible data – for example, there is no designated right-wing extremist attitude scale in the European Social Survey, the International Social Survey or the Eurobarometer. And individual efforts by research groups are often not viable, at least over a longer period, due to the size of such a project, the methodological problems of cross-cultural attitude measuring and, last but not least, the monetary and coordination efforts needed.

But what actually needs to be investigated more comprehensively? The definition of right-wing extremism and how the concept should be operationalised for different fields of research (attitudes, ideologies of parties etc.) are highly controversial throughout academia. Various sub-disciplines have different approaches to the subject. In the social-psychological context, for example, the focus lies on in-group and out-group perceptions and ethnocentrism. Since political science focuses on political institutions and, within the research on right-wing extremism, on political parties, the right–left continuum often plays the dominant role. Consequently, right-wing populism, radicalism and extremism are popular concepts and labels, but (neo-)nazism and (neo-)fascism are also used depending on theoretical assumptions. Within national discourses, too, the definitions vary significantly and often compete – sometimes, but not always, productively.¹ These differences become quite complex by considering additional variations between national discourses. For comparative research and to explore the state of the art, it seems advisable to start with an exploration of the different concepts that are used in a general, interdisciplinary field of research and to phrase exactly what should be addressed by increased study.

This chapter proceeds as follows. First, it discusses what to understand when using the term “right-wing extremism.” The concept of right-wing extremism is further distinguished from other concepts in the field. It is pointed out that it offers additional analytical potential compared to for example social-identity approaches that leave out the political sphere of the phenomena. In the next section, four major cross-country surveys are searched for data used for comparative research on right-wing extremism and related phenomena. While there is quite a basis of knowledge on (anti-)democratic and group-based attitudes, further research can shed more light on the phenomenon and its causes by asking more consistently and consequently for right-wing extremist attitudes.

Right-wing extremist attitudes in comparative perspective

The concepts and approaches in the wide field under investigation here vary in two main respects: between academic disciplines and between language areas (e.g. Weins 2004: 6). As mentioned, one may add a third respect, since concepts may be contested on an ideological level – in the case of right-wing extremism maybe more than in general since it is the topic closely related to political discourses. The first point calls for greater interdisciplinary openness. Furthermore, it is argued here that in the interdisciplinary discussion, models may prevail that rely on social identity theory and that other theoretical perspectives are outweighed. This leads to neglected aspects of the phenomena that are albeit part of it. The second is directly linked to the purpose of this volume: the stimulation of cross-country research on right-wing extremism. The third point calls for a more open and diverse discussion of concepts. In this section, a definition and operationalisation of right-wing extremism are thus offered and discussed to make eventual shortcomings of preliminary research and nationally or otherwise narrowly focused operationalisations visible.

A milestone for empirical research on right-wing extremist attitudes was the studies of the Frankfurt School on authoritarianism, namely the studies on family and authority (Horkheimer, Fromm & Marcuse 1987) in 1936 and, in 1950, the famous “Authoritarian Personality” (Adorno et al. 1964), conducted by German expatriates in the United States. Indeed, under the impression of the fascist risings in Europe of the 1920s and 1930s, Adorno, Horkheimer and their colleagues tried to locate, study and understand the “authoritarian type of man” (Adorno et al. 1964: ix), or, as they name it on another occasion, the “potentially fascist individual, one whose structure is such as to render him particularly susceptible to antidemocratic propaganda” (Adorno et al. 1964: 1). A range of methods (qualitative and quantitative) and scales were used, including the famous fascism scale (f-scale) as well as a scale for ethnocentrism. Needless to say, the most relevant concepts, vocabulary and terms were already applied. The concepts of ethnocentrism, racism, authoritarianism, fascism, extremism and the like continue to be relevant in the field today as they all focus on specific characteristics within the phenomenal domain. What is more, the concepts also include theoretical assumptions for each specific area. In the following, some of them shall be addressed in more detail.

Authoritarianism, in a more recent version of the concept, is conceived as an attitude dimension with three basic components (Altemeyer 1988): conventionalism (rigid conformism to conventional norms and strict moral codes), authoritarian submission (uncritical and full submission to in-group authorities) and authoritarian aggression (fierce rejection and punishment of violators of conventional norms). The classic concept of Adorno and colleagues, however, was criticised for being “too political,” which had its reason in differing theoretical assumptions: the “unpolitical” concepts are not based on psychoanalytical assumptions but rely on learning theory (Altemeyer 1988; Oesterreich 1998). Even for the single term “authoritarianism,” different concepts with their own theoretical backgrounds are used. Correlations of scales measuring authoritarianism with other dimensions and scales, for example right-wing extremist attitude, are reported to be high (Decker et al. 2013: 210; Pearson’s .51). In relation to right-wing extremism, the concept of authoritarianism is to be understood as part of a person’s personality and as such shall help explain right-wing extremism or anti-democratic attitudes and behaviour (Decker & Brähler 2006: 14).

Ethnocentrism, too, is a central concept with a long history of research, the term itself going back at least to Sumner (1906). Ethnocentrism is understood as “the disposition to read the rest of the world, those of different cultural traditions, from inside the conceptual scheme of one’s own ethnocultural group. The ethnocentric attitude assumes that one’s own ethnic Weltanschauung (world view) is the only one from which other customs, practices, and habits can be understood and judged” (Goldberg 2005: 722). The concept is not necessarily limited to “ethnic” group but includes groups in a wide sense. For example Schmidt and Heyder put ethnocentrism in a theoretical model between authoritarianism on one side and anti-democratic/right-wing extremist attitudes on the other. Thus authoritarianism is seen as the source of ethnocentrism, which, consisting of out-group devaluation and in-group idealisation, then leads to antisemitism, nationalism and xenophobia (Schmidt & Heyder 2000: 446). The concept of ethnocentrism is today closely linked to social identity theory (Tajfel 1974; Tajfel & Turner 1979).

Fascism may be the most iridescent term to discuss here, mostly because it, like the term “extremism,” is not only an academic but also a political term, if not a fighting word (Wippermann 1983: 9). Adorno and colleagues used the fascism scale, in distinction to the ethnocentrism scale, to cover the authoritarian personality, including conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotype, power and toughness, destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity and sex (Adorno et al. 1964: 228), which together should explain ethnocentrism and antisemitism. For here, it seems, authoritarianism and fascism are synonyms, but this is not nearly a consensus. Hacker, in his own attempt to reach a clear definition, describes a fascist syndrome as containing ten categories: maximisation of inequality, law of the jungle, Führer principle, irrationality, permanent mobilisation, unification, organic totality, total commitment, violence and terror from above, and a combination of the age-old and brand-new (Hacker 1992: 34, original German terms are our translation). Whereas he explicitly discusses the psychological roots of the fascist syndrome, the concept focuses on detecting – not necessarily explaining – fascist tendencies. Kühnl investigates the historic formation of fascism as a form of dominion and sees the concrete conditions for its rise in the socio-economic situation of a (capitalist) country (Kühnl 1971). For others, fascism has to be analysed in a totalitarian framework (see e.g. the discussion in Iordachi 2010), an undertaking not uncommonly resulting in a rather under-complex, one-dimensional framework of analysis (Kowalsky & Schroeder 1994: 10). Also, more recently, Griffin conceptualised “fascism as a revolutionary form of ultra-nationalism that attempts to realise the myth of the regenerated nation” (Griffin 2012: 1). There are many more concepts using the term “fascism,” and discussing them all cannot be achieved here. All these concepts, reported and not reported, have different theoretical assumptions on how to explain the phenomena but share a rather “political” understanding of the term. Indeed, it is difficult to tell whether all concepts using the term “fascism” really talk about the same thing since Adorno and fellows and Hacker had more of a syndrome, personality or an ideology itself in mind, whereas for example Kühnl, Wippermann or Griffin seems to aim more at historical phenomena, political parties and movements.

Today, most research, especially within social psychology, is based on social identity theory. This concept explains prejudices based on the assumption that people always try to increase the value of their own group in part by devaluating other groups. One well elaborated example in this tradition is the concept of “group-focused enmity” (most recently Heitmeyer 2011), and it is the merit of the members of this research team to have conducted an independent study comparing eight European countries (Zick, Kupper & Hovermann 2011, see later in this chapter). It must be stated, however, that concepts concentrating on social identity theory are, in principal, individualistic concepts that do not include a “societal” or “political” dimension. Moreover, this approach “naturalises” prejudices as being an inevitable part of social interaction. This is, overall, also the case for the concept of group-focused enmity. Of course, unemployment, the general economic situation, fear and the feeling of insecurity are taken to explain out-group discrimination, too. But these factors are not reconnected to the overall social and political situation, be it capitalist production regimes, (collective) belief systems or other societal constraints that – as Adorno and colleagues argued based on Sigmund Freud’s work – structure the individual personality.

Even from this short and only very brief discussion of some main terms in the field, it is obvious that with the same term something different can be meant and that theoretical assumptions vary widely. It is argued here that a comprehensive concept of right-wing extremism needs to include the individual and person-to-person level as well as the societal and political dimension. For surveys in Germany, we used a six-dimensional instrument to measure right-wing extremist attitude. The definition is based on a consensus conference in 2001 and reads as follows: right-wing extremism is an attitude pattern that connectively represents an ideology of inegality. This is represented on the political level by an affinity towards authoritarian regimes, chauvinism and the playing down or justification of National Socialism. On the social level, this ideology features antisemitic, xenophobic and social Darwinistic attitudes. Of course, authoritarian attitudes or for example sexist attitudes highly correlate with empirical results. However, for the case of Germany, the six-dimensional approach is very consistent (Decker et al. 2013), and opening the definition to more dimensions would impact it negatively.

We cannot ask for a simple takeover of “our” instrument, most importantly because it is obviously specific to Germany, for example in its concentration on xenophobia and National Socialism. Also, using this instrument for comparative work might not be possible due to the overall design relying on the German case (and translation problems may be the easiest to solve). Furthermore, there is no consensus among researchers using the preceding definition on which items that were originally proposed to use. We do emphasise, however, the strength of this instrument since it covers both the in-group/out-group dimension (ethnocentrism, group-focused enmity) and the societal/political dimension (anti-democratic attitudes). This leaves the concept open to various theoretical concepts that explain the different aspects of the phenomenon. It is open to the social identity theory–based concepts of ethnocentrism or group-focused enmity but also accounts for the points emphasised by the theories of fascism, such as the Führer principle and other National Socialist elements.

Comparing right-wing attitudes cross-country: the current state of research

The Eurobarometer – not a comprehensive basis

For scholars searching for Europe-wide comparative data, the Eurobarometer is usua...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Introduction: German perspectives on right-wing extremism: challenges for comparative analysis
• Part I Methodological challenges and innovations for comparative research
• Part II Comparing right-wing extremism: exemplary case studies
• Index