n 2014, it became the first far-right party to enter the lower house of the country’s parliament since World War II. The party gained 94 out of 709 seats in that lower house in 2017, shaking the traditional balance of the parliamentary government. However, whereas the party won 10.6% of the votes in the southern state of Thuringia in 2014, it captured almost a quarter of the vote in 2019. Headlines began comparing the party’s leader to Adolf Hitler, wondering if its rise marked fascism’s return to Germany.
Clearly, within the last decade, Alternativ for Deutschland (AfD) has become a far-right force to be reckoned with. That is, until October 2020, when the polls found that support for the party in right-leaning eastern Germany had fallen from 24% to 18%, polling behind Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Left party. Within a year, violent incidents perpetrated by far-right extremists and infighting within the party had resulted in a loosening of AfD’s grip on its former eastern stronghold. Though the party’s support has remained unchanged in the traditionally conservative southeast, its decline within the general eastern region might signal a global trend very different from that seen across the United States and Europe within the last five years. In 2020, it finally makes sense to wonder—are far-right parties finally facing a decline?
In 2016, American president Donald Trump’s victory validated many countries’ rightward shifts. In contrast, his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden spells a loss of legitimacy for right-wing voices around the world. Andras Biro-Nagy, a researcher at Budapest think tank Policy Solutions, argues that Trump’s loss will make life harder for populist leaders like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. Biro-Nagy hypothesizes that the Trump defeat will place populist policies that went unchecked over the last four years under increased scrutiny. Similar sentiments were expressed by other European opponents of populism following the U.S. election in November. Following the election, Gergely Karacsony, the opposition mayor of Budapest, wrote on Facebook that while “President Trump was good for the Orban government, President Biden will be good for Hungary.”
However, some commentators are quick to point out that populist and far right movements in other countries (including Germany, France, and Italy) existed without Trumpism. In France, for example, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen lost the presidential election to Emmanuel Macron in 2017, who captured a whopping 66% of the votes compared to LePen’s 34%. At the time, some wondered if the election spelled a death sentence for the far-right in France. However, in 2020, the tables have turned: Le Pen is polling for a comeback in 2022 as Macron has become deeply unpopular.
Additionally, though support for Italy’s far right Northern League party has decline recently (slipping from 24% to 20% in the polls), another far right party within the country is rising. The Brothers of Italy, which ultimately derives from the party that supported Benito Mussolini in the 1940s, offers an even harsher opposition to issues like abortion and same-sex marriage than the Northern League. As the Northern League has declined, however, Brothers of Italy has risen in popularity, jumping in the polls from 10% to 14% this year.
Overall, it doesn’t seem that a consistent trend can be drawn from the behavior of right-wing parties this year. There is some evidence and explanation to suggest that the European far right is in decline. Experts speculate that the pandemic is linked to the decline of parties like Germany’s AfD, since the global issue has taken focus from the immigration debates which brought the party together. Daphne Halikiopoulou, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Reading, England, even argues that while some far-right parties in countries like France and Spain haven’t been affected by the pandemic, no far-right party is benefitting from the pandemic, a marked reversal of recent European trends.
However, in contrast with Halikiopoulou’s theory, some far-right parties have gained increased support this year. Specifically, Brothers of Italy has gained 4% in the polls during the coronavirus crisis and overtaken the once-popular anti-establishment Five Star Movement party; The Economist even identified them as “the outstanding beneficiary of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Ultimately, the world will have to wait to understand the full impact of this last year’s events on Europe’s far right.
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Is the Far-Right Finally in Decline?
Photo via Unsplash.
December 30, 2020
I
n 2014, it became the first far-right party to enter the lower house of the country’s parliament since World War II. The party gained 94 out of 709 seats in that lower house in 2017, shaking the traditional balance of the parliamentary government. However, whereas the party won 10.6% of the votes in the southern state of Thuringia in 2014, it captured almost a quarter of the vote in 2019. Headlines began comparing the party’s leader to Adolf Hitler, wondering if its rise marked fascism’s return to Germany.
Clearly, within the last decade, Alternativ for Deutschland (AfD) has become a far-right force to be reckoned with. That is, until October 2020, when the polls found that support for the party in right-leaning eastern Germany had fallen from 24% to 18%, polling behind Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Left party. Within a year, violent incidents perpetrated by far-right extremists and infighting within the party had resulted in a loosening of AfD’s grip on its former eastern stronghold. Though the party’s support has remained unchanged in the traditionally conservative southeast, its decline within the general eastern region might signal a global trend very different from that seen across the United States and Europe within the last five years. In 2020, it finally makes sense to wonder—are far-right parties finally facing a decline?
In 2016, American president Donald Trump’s victory validated many countries’ rightward shifts. In contrast, his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden spells a loss of legitimacy for right-wing voices around the world. Andras Biro-Nagy, a researcher at Budapest think tank Policy Solutions, argues that Trump’s loss will make life harder for populist leaders like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. Biro-Nagy hypothesizes that the Trump defeat will place populist policies that went unchecked over the last four years under increased scrutiny. Similar sentiments were expressed by other European opponents of populism following the U.S. election in November. Following the election, Gergely Karacsony, the opposition mayor of Budapest, wrote on Facebook that while “President Trump was good for the Orban government, President Biden will be good for Hungary.”
However, some commentators are quick to point out that populist and far right movements in other countries (including Germany, France, and Italy) existed without Trumpism. In France, for example, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen lost the presidential election to Emmanuel Macron in 2017, who captured a whopping 66% of the votes compared to LePen’s 34%. At the time, some wondered if the election spelled a death sentence for the far-right in France. However, in 2020, the tables have turned: Le Pen is polling for a comeback in 2022 as Macron has become deeply unpopular.
Additionally, though support for Italy’s far right Northern League party has decline recently (slipping from 24% to 20% in the polls), another far right party within the country is rising. The Brothers of Italy, which ultimately derives from the party that supported Benito Mussolini in the 1940s, offers an even harsher opposition to issues like abortion and same-sex marriage than the Northern League. As the Northern League has declined, however, Brothers of Italy has risen in popularity, jumping in the polls from 10% to 14% this year.
Overall, it doesn’t seem that a consistent trend can be drawn from the behavior of right-wing parties this year. There is some evidence and explanation to suggest that the European far right is in decline. Experts speculate that the pandemic is linked to the decline of parties like Germany’s AfD, since the global issue has taken focus from the immigration debates which brought the party together. Daphne Halikiopoulou, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Reading, England, even argues that while some far-right parties in countries like France and Spain haven’t been affected by the pandemic, no far-right party is benefitting from the pandemic, a marked reversal of recent European trends.
However, in contrast with Halikiopoulou’s theory, some far-right parties have gained increased support this year. Specifically, Brothers of Italy has gained 4% in the polls during the coronavirus crisis and overtaken the once-popular anti-establishment Five Star Movement party; The Economist even identified them as “the outstanding beneficiary of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Ultimately, the world will have to wait to understand the full impact of this last year’s events on Europe’s far right.
