Mobilizing on the Extreme Right—Germany, Italy, and the United States

Research on the extreme right is rare, and the extreme right has rarely been analysed as a social movement. In this volume, the extreme right is compared in Italy, Germany, and the United States using concepts and methods developed in social movement studies. In particular, the book describes the discourse, action, and organizational structures of the extreme right, and explains these on the basis of the discursive and political opportunities available to the social movement as a whole. Three main empirical methods are used in the research. The frame analysis looks at the cognitive mechanisms that are relevant in influencing organizational and individual behaviour. The network analysis looks at the (inter-) organizational structural characteristics of right-wing organizations. Finally, protest event analysis allows for an empirical summary of the actions undertaken by right-wing extremists over the last decade. The substantive chapters address the organizational structure of the extreme right, their action repertoires, the framing of protest events, the definition of 'us', the struggle against modernity, old and new forms of racism, opposition to globalization, and populism.

Donatella Della Porta has directed the Demos project, devoted to the analysis of conceptions and practices of democracy in social movements in six European countries. She is now starting a major ERC project Mobilizing for Democracy, on civil society participation in democratization processes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Among her recent publications are: L'intervista qualitativa, Laterza 2011; (with M. Caiani), Social Movements and Europeanization, Oxford University Press, 2009; (ed.) Another Europe, Routledge, 2009; (ed.) Democracy in Social Movements, Palgrave, 2009; Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences (with Michael Keating), Cambridge University Press. She is professor of Sociology in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute.

Manuela Caiani has worked on several comparative projects on collective action and European mobilization and on right wing extremism and violence. She has been recently awarded by the European Commission with the Marie Curie fellowship for a project on 'Disengagement from Terrorism: underground organizations in Spain and Italy'. Her main research interests concern social movements and collective action, right wing extremism in Europe, Europeanization and the public sphere. Among her publications: "Quale Europa, Europeizzazione, Identita e Conflitti", Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006 (with della Porta Donatella) and "Social Movements and Europeanisation", Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009 (with Donatella della Porta). She is Assistant Professor in Comparative European Politics at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) of Wien.

Claudius Wagemann graduated from the European University Institute (EUI) with a thesis on breakdown and change of Private Interest Governments and continued to work at the EUI as a research assistant. He is also an international expert on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and fuzzy set methodology. His publications include; Set-Theoretic Methods: A User's Guide for Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Fuzzy Sets in Social Science (with C. Q. Schneider), Cambridge University Press, 2012, and Breakdown and Change of Private Interest Governments, Routledge, 2011. He works at the Istituto italiano di scienze umane (SUM) in Florence as a lecturer and scientific secretary of the doctoral program.