can leoprads change their spots

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Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 16:111–134, 2010 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1353-7113 print / 1557-2986 online DOI: 10.1080/13537110903583385 Can Leopards Change Their Spots? Between Xenophobia and Trans-ethnic Populism among West European Far Right Parties MICHELLE HALE WILLIAMS University of West Florida Racism and xenophobia have fueled radical right-wing party electoral success across Western Europe. This article investigates whether key changes have occurred in radical right-wing xeno- phobia in recent years, mainly a moderating trend and a shifting out-group focus. The analysis in this article suggests such a 21st- century transformation. Radical right-wing party programmatic orientations have moderated and their appeals have broadened. The out-groups and immigrant enemies of the postwar era have been superseded, especially as anti-Semitism has been traded for anti-Muslim Islamophobia. Populism is explored in its potential causal logic for observed changes. The 1990s were a period of tremendous growth in electoral support for radical right-wing parties across Western Europe. Looking at seven prominent radical right parties from 1990 to 2000, one study shows a mean increase of 55% in vote share during this decade of high growth. 1 By all accounts, radical right-wing parties emerged as a political force to be reckoned with across Western Europe and their rapid rise elicited attention. Much has been written about their formula for success. In sum, they were able to create a target out-group in the immigrant population and to generate public fear or xenophobia. Yet all immigrant “others” are not equally contemptible nor is their situation static. This analysis explores the possibility that a decisive 21st-century shift has occurred in the construction of enemy out-groups. It investigates the logic for such a shift, especially as it emanates from the party strategy of populist appeals. This article contends that a predictable and decisive shift has occurred as radical right-wing party positions have Address correspondence to Michelle Hale Williams, Department of Government, University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, FL 32514. E-mail: [email protected] 111

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Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 16:111–134, 2010Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1353-7113 print / 1557-2986 onlineDOI: 10.1080/13537110903583385

Can Leopards Change Their Spots? BetweenXenophobia and Trans-ethnic Populism among

West European Far Right Parties

MICHELLE HALE WILLIAMSUniversity of West Florida

Racism and xenophobia have fueled radical right-wing partyelectoral success across Western Europe. This article investigateswhether key changes have occurred in radical right-wing xeno-phobia in recent years, mainly a moderating trend and a shiftingout-group focus. The analysis in this article suggests such a 21st-century transformation. Radical right-wing party programmaticorientations have moderated and their appeals have broadened.The out-groups and immigrant enemies of the postwar era havebeen superseded, especially as anti-Semitism has been traded foranti-Muslim Islamophobia. Populism is explored in its potentialcausal logic for observed changes.

The 1990s were a period of tremendous growth in electoral support forradical right-wing parties across Western Europe. Looking at seven prominentradical right parties from 1990 to 2000, one study shows a mean increaseof 55% in vote share during this decade of high growth.1 By all accounts,radical right-wing parties emerged as a political force to be reckoned withacross Western Europe and their rapid rise elicited attention. Much has beenwritten about their formula for success. In sum, they were able to createa target out-group in the immigrant population and to generate public fearor xenophobia. Yet all immigrant “others” are not equally contemptible noris their situation static. This analysis explores the possibility that a decisive21st-century shift has occurred in the construction of enemy out-groups. Itinvestigates the logic for such a shift, especially as it emanates from theparty strategy of populist appeals. This article contends that a predictableand decisive shift has occurred as radical right-wing party positions have

Address correspondence to Michelle Hale Williams, Department of Government,University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, FL 32514. E-mail:[email protected]

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112 M. H. Williams

moderated and turned their animosity toward Muslims who largely replaceJews as the target out-group.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Scholarship on radical right-wing parties proliferated toward the end of the1990s and into the early 21st century.2 Much of the work produced duringthis time attempted to create typologies of these parties cross-nationally.3

Characterizations of the parties and their voters also emerged.4 Other workattempted to explain the rise and electoral success of these parties in the1990s.5 Still other work has focused on the populism and oppositional natureof these parties.6

Immigrant Out-Groups

Of particular significance for this investigation, radical right-wing parties haveoften been defined by their positions in opposition to immigration.7 This hasbeen a populist position inasmuch as public concerns over immigration havedominated the West European political landscape and mainstream partieshave struggled to deal with the issue. Far right positions on immigrationhave typically been characterized as exclusivist, nativist, and xenophobic.8

Yet despite the common rhetoric of xenophobia among radical right-wingparties, the specific enemies and the degree to which they are despised varyfrom country to country. The reason for the animosity has to do with theunique history and context of each country. During the rise of the radicalright through the 1990s, certain groups were targeted in each country asthe immigrant out-group. Even though the broader message from radicalright-parties was that all immigrants are bad for their host country, publicopinion and national context appear to determine the exigencies that dictatethe out-group target at any given time. This means that hypothetically, thetarget out-group can change.

The target out-group populations of the 1990s reflect several key factorsincluding historic enemies, the postcolonial legacy of many West Europeancountries, the emigrants resulting from the breakup of the former SovietUnion, and the wave of asylum-seekers at the end of the 20th century fromunderdeveloped countries and oppressive regimes. For many former fasciststates, such as Germany, Austria, and Vichy France, anti-Semitism remainedprominent and Jews a target. Evidence of this can be found as Jewish ceme-teries were desecrated and anti-Semitic comments were made by key leadersof far right parties in these countries. Turkish guest workers from the post-war period were top enemies of the radical right in Germany and Sweden.9

In Germany, Turks have formed a sort of Parallelgesellschaft (“parallel

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society”) that remains separate and distinct in many ways from Germansociety; a development that fuels German resentment of them.10 Major citiesin Austria, namely Vienna, reflected resentment of Turkish guest workers inthe 1980s and early 1990s. The Belgian Vlaams Blok—since 2004 the VlaamsBelang—also mentions guest workers as a key problem from its first partymanifesto in 1980, yet the emphasis on these outsiders increased throughthe 1980s and continued into 1990s party documents.11

North African immigrants continued to be a focus of animosity for theFrench radical right, stemming from postcolonial attempts of the French stateat restitution. Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French National Front (FN),personally made the Algerian War a reference point in many of his publicstatements and party publications. In the Netherlands, North Africans suchas Moroccans were portrayed as social outsiders by the Center Democrats.By the early 1990s, this party had already begun to raise an alert in its partyliterature that fundamentalist Islam connotes danger for Dutch society.12 Thedanger emerges in part from Muslim segregation in Dutch society. Pillar-ization (verzuiling), generous welfare benefits, and policies that have longpromoted multiculturalism through difference rather than assimilation havecome under criticism for producing a segregated society.13 Muslim youthviolence has been linked to Islamophobia in Dutch society, yet a recip-rocal effect appears. For instance, Moroccan youth perceive themselves asmarginalized and Dutch society as indifferent toward them.14 In Denmark,the Progress Party initiated the anti-immigrant populist rhetoric in the mid-1980s. However, during that period it was based on the model of the FrenchFN for issue promotion and it had asylum-seekers as the primary target.15

In the United Kingdom, the British National Front positioned itself as anti-immigrant from the 1970s. Immigrants from West Africa and Asia, includingIndia, had streamed into the United Kingdom in the 1950s,16 providing aprimary target. The British National Party (BNP) replaced the National Frontin the early 1980s and continued the anti-immigrant rhetoric. Most recentlythe primarily anti-European Union party, the Independence Party (UKIP),has emerged with what it claims to be a nonracist, anti-immigrant message.17

Despite contextual differences on the question of how far right partieshave characterized their out-group targets, the formula of constructing insid-ers and outsiders proved ubiquitous. Commonly, the 1980s and 1990s anti-immigrant message of far right parties promoted cultural purity as a value. Itportrayed native culture as threatened by immigrants. Specifically, immigrantdifference could weaken, blur, or eradicate national identity by underminingnational unity. This created clear in-groups and out-groups in society whereimmigrants were the outsiders. Therefore, in order to defend the traditionalorder and way of life that have made the nation great, immigrants must beremoved.

Following this logic, the self-proclaimed spiritual leader of the DanishProgress Party, Mogens Glistrup, made anti-immigrant sentiment an issue

114 M. H. Williams

of patriotism saying “Of course I am a racist—all good Danes are. Eitheryou’re a racist, or else you’re a traitor.”18 Glistrup has also been quotedas saying that Muslims should be “chased away” or else “they will kill usall.” The French FN expressed its policy of “national preference” in the1993 party program, the brainchild of the then second-in-command leaderBruno Megret. The “300 measures” in the 1993 program recommended thatFrench and European Union nationals be considered the primary recipientsof welfare state benefits such as unemployment compensation, housing, andhealth care. The policy was criticized widely as a form of anti-foreignerapartheid, racist in its intention. However, the National Front defended theaims of the plan, which it said were to preserve the French nation, a rooted,“historic, traditional, ethnically-inspired entity that can easily be underminedby alien values, groups, culture and influences.”19

The National Democratic Party in Germany also has invoked the argu-ment for the defense of the nation against foreign incursion. It has claimedthat German culture has been “infiltrated by foreign influences” since WorldWar II and that “German virtues have been undermined by American cul-tural imperialism and non-European immigrants.”20 In the Netherlands, PimFortuyn’s List Party became a junior partner in the right-of-center Dutch gov-ernment in 2002 on a platform opposing immigrants as a cultural identitythreat. The Netherlands hosts the highest proportion of non-European for-eigners, at 10% of its population of 16 million. Pim Fortuyn commented that“the previous Dutch government ignored public concern about the effectsof largely Muslim immigration on traditional Dutch values.”21 The List partyexpressed concern that immigrants, particularly the 800,000 Muslims livingin the Netherlands, threatened Dutch culture.

The Swiss People’s Party led by Christoph Blocher took its messageof too many people competing for too few resources to voters in the 1999parliamentary elections with resounding success. They won 22.5% of thepopular vote, the most of any party contending. Blocher’s party emphasized“abuse of asylum” and presented themselves as against illegal immigrationbecause immigrants take resources away from the local population.22 TheDanish People’s Party under the leadership of Pia Kjaersgaard claimed thatDenmark “is not and never has been an immigration country.”23 Under thedirection of Carl Hagen, the Norwegian Progress Party criticizes taxes but alsotakes an anti-immigrant position because immigrants drain national economicresources.24 Its program stated that “continued immigration of asylum seekersto anything like the extent seen in recent years will lead to serious conflictsbetween ethnic groups in Norway.”25

Populist Positioning as an Impetus for Change

Hans Georg Betz provided one of the first widely recognized characteriza-tions of the radical right-wing parties of Europe as “populist.” In his analysis,

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Betz suggested that the radical right-wing parties of the late 1980s and early1990s were deliberately “distancing themselves from the backward-looking,reactionary politics of the traditional extremist (i.e. neo-fascist and neo-Nazi)right.” Betz labels them populist based on their “unscrupulous use and in-strumentalization of diffuse public sentiments of anxiety and disenchantmentand their appeal to the common man and his allegedly superior commonsense.”26 Meindert Fennema largely concurs, characterizing populism as apolitical strategy whereby the state and its governmental elites are consid-ered “technically incompetent and morally corrupt” while “the common manis basically good and his opinions are always sound.”27 Populism provesinstrumentalist in its calculation, as “[its] rhetoric aims at provoking popularresentments and exploiting them for political ends.”28 In other words, thepopulist strategy pays attention to the demands of the public because elitesof government prove incapable of responding to them. It is in this vein thatpopulism is taken in this article as a catalyst for change over time. To theextent that radical-right parties operate instrumentally based on the positionsthat appeal at any given time to their publics, they can be expected to shifttheir focus with public opinion and changing circumstances.

Unlike more ideologically-oriented parties, populist parties derive them-selves out of opposition to more mainstream institutional actors and haveto alter their positions accordingly and with regularity. Betz used the term“reactionary” above to emphasize the oppositional character of contempo-rary radical right-wing parties. Two contrasting possibilities likely account forreactionary strategic shifts. First, as radical right-wing parties achieve a markof success by having their positions co-opted by more mainstream politicalparties,29 they must readjust to find new avenues of opposition. This may beloosely characterized as the mainstream party success explanation. Second,radical right-wing parties compete more directly with their mainstream rivalsbroadening their appeals and moderating their fringe-party qualities, claim-ing to represent the people more directly than their mainstream rivals. Thismay be loosely characterized as the “mainstream party failure” explanation.It assumes that a moderation or watering down has occurred in order to bemore politically correct and legitimate.30 Either way, this rationale providesthe basis for expecting that radical right-wing parties will shift their positionsas they construct their opposition to certain enemy out-groups or they willdomesticate their rhetoric altogether, depending on how they gauge cur-rent public demands and context along with their position in a competitiveelectoral system. Populist parties can be expected to adjust their positionsstrategically either because the state and its mainstream political party actorshave co-opted their out-groups and dealt with them relatively effectively, orbecause they claim party failure in the mainstream and step up to isolateand address the contemporary out-group enemies more directly and effec-tively than mainstream actors. While testing these two causal aspects of pop-ulism lies beyond the scope of this particular analysis, it remains worthy of

116 M. H. Williams

exploration in future work. Meanwhile, the assumptions built into populismunderlie the theoretical orientation of this analysis.

Argument, Method, and Approach

This article investigates whether contemporary radical right-wing partieshave moderated their xenophobia and have decisively shifted their focusaway from a varied list of their traditional out-groups (including the Jewsand the Turks) to a new, focused Islamophobia with Muslims as their mainout-group. The populist orientation is thought to be at least partially respon-sible for these changes because populism by its nature implies adjustmentto keep pace with the evolution of public concerns and demands. Populismis reactionary and instrumentalist in nature, suggesting that it changes withits context.

The hypothesis presented here anticipates that radical right-wing partiesin Western Europe are changing the nature of their appeals. This may bemanifested in the broadening of platforms and appeals to include other issueconcerns beyond immigration or in the weakening of harsh opposition toimmigrants as the key focus of their rhetoric. The logic of this propositioncomes from the assumption that populism and its oppositional characterare sustainable in the short term only. In other words, parties cannot bemerely protest parties indefinitely; to remain viable, the public expects themto present themselves eventually as legitimate competitors with more main-stream parties, especially as they win their argument of mainstream partyfailure and strive for participation in coalition governments. Furthermore,this article hypothesizes that radical right-wing parties have traded old out-groups for new out-groups in their attempt to remain contemporary andviable. As times have changed and West European publics express evolvingissue priorities, the context of immigration has altered accordingly. Radicalright-wing parties mirror these shifting issue concerns and specifically thecontext surrounding the immigration issue. This proposition derives fromthe very nature of populism: its embrace of the wisdom and supremacy ofthe insights of the common man.

The following analysis draws upon prominent cases in the literatureon radical right-wing parties across Western Europe. The cases selectedclosely follow the typology devised by Cas Mudde of a populist radicalright category.31 I have deleted one party from his list, the Danish People’sParty (DFP), and added another, the British National Party (BNP), but I basi-cally maintain the integrity and rationale for his categorization of the populistexemplars among the radical right-wing. Thereby, particular attention will bepaid to key exemplars such as the French National Front (FN); the AustrianFreedom Party (FPO) and its 2005 breakaway party, the Austrian Alliancefor the Future of Austria (BZO); the German Republicans (REP); the British

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National Party (BNP); the Belgian Vlaams Blok (VB); and the Belgian Na-tional Front (B-FN).

ANALYSIS OF POTENTIAL CHANGES IN POPULISTRADICAL RIGHT XENOPHOBIA

Moderating Effects and Toned-Down Far-Right Appeals

As the anti-immigrant position has been a defining aspect of radical right-wing populism, this section examines the anti-immigrant positions acrosstime. If radical right-wing parties have tempered the language of their em-phasis on xenophobia and opposition to immigration, then they may be saidto be moderating their views. On the other hand, if they continue the levelof commitment to the anti-immigrant message over the period considered,or if they try to domesticate their language only to be more politically cor-rect, then it may be argued that they have not moderated their position.This section will consider data reflecting the amount of emphasis placed onthe anti-immigrant position in party manifestos, manifesto rhetoric itself, andselect media accounts of notable changes to this position.

Data from the second iteration of the Comparative Manifesto Project(CMP) suggest key trends in the emphasis placed on the immigration issuesby radical right-wing parties since 1990.32 This project codes political partymanifestos from election years in 49 countries between 1990–2003. Oneof the coded categories from these manifestos is the negative position onimmigration (that is, exclusivist and promoting cultural integration, oppositeof multiculturalism). The statistic shows the percentage of quasi-sentencesthat represent a negative position on immigration divided by the total numberof quasi-sentences in the party manifesto.33 This provides some indicationof the weight that these parties are placing on the anti-immigration positionrelative to other issues. The data across election cycles and manifestos foreach party reveal a trend considered in this analysis from 1990–2003.

Index scores provide a weighted count of the number of anti-immigrantquasi-sentences. The data are compiled in Appendix 1 and summarizedin Table 1. Overall, two groups of parties emerge in Table 1. Either the

TABLE 1 Typology of the Intensity Trends in Anti-Immigrant Platform Positions 1990–2003

Intensity declines Intensity dipsor remains lacking then rebounds

Austrian Freedom Party French National FrontBelgian Vlaams Belang

Source: Based on patterns in Appendix 1.Note. CMP data does not include the Austrian BZO (founded in 2005), German REP, Belgian FN, or theBritish BNP.

118 M. H. Williams

intensity of their anti-immigration position declines or initially declines butthen rebounds. Most importantly, none of these cases suggest a trend ofincreased emphasis on the anti-immigration issue.

Content analysis of the most recent party manifesto for each party con-sidered in this investigation provides additional insight on the voracity andtone of the anti-immigration issue position proffered by radical right-wingparties. The most recent party manifestos available for each party rangefrom 2002–2008. The importance of the anti-immigration issue position wasgauged by taking the amount of page space dedicated to this issue rela-tive to other issues. The operative assumption was that if anti-immigrationpositions truly drive these parties and if the parties continue to focus theirappeals through the lens of immigration, then this issue should be positionedprominently in the order of issues addressed in the manifestos. Considerableweight should also be placed on this issue as measured in terms of pagelength. The manifesto analysis shows quite the contrary. Only one partyplaces the immigration and identity issue first, namely, the French FN. Onaverage, the immigration/ national identity issue falls within the first quarterof the manifestos with 74% of the manifesto sections coming after this issue(Table 2). For the two Belgian parties identity is the first issue discussed,specifically as it pertains to the Flemish state. For the German and Austrianparties freedom comes first, with the exception of a brief introduction inthe REP manifesto regarding the German intellectual tradition and its roots,which are traced to Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, inter alia. For the BNP, theeconomy is the first issue discussed.

Regarding the relative weight placed upon the anti-immigration issue,Table 2 reveals that the average proportion of the manifesto devoted to thisissue is 6%. The range varies to a limited extent, with the FPO on the lowend at 2% and the B-FN along with the BNP on the higher end at 8%. Themanifestos overall reflect issue diversity, with an average of 14 issue-specific

TABLE 2 Summary of Manifesto Analysis on the Immigration/Identity Issue

Proportion Proportion of thePages on Total # of Total # manifesto sections

immigration of pages on Section of coming after theParty Date issue pages∗ immigration priority sections immigration issue

VB Belgium 2008 0.75 10.09 0.07 2 11 0.82FN Belgium 2007 2 25.9 0.08 13 36 0.64REP Germany 2002 1.75 32.69 0.05 11 26 0.58FPO Austria 2005 0.5 31 0.02 4 17 0.76BZO Austria 2005∗∗ 0.25 5.74 0.04 5 20 0.75FN France 2007 2 50.98 0.04 1 25 0.96BNP-Britain 2007 1 12 0.08 3 11 0.73

∗Total pages of substantive text (no covers, contents, or blank space); partial pages are measured inthirds or quarters of the page.∗∗Document date not located; presumably the first manifesto after party founding in 2005.

West European Far Right Parties 119

sections per manifesto. One manifesto had as many as 36 sections, althoughit was most common to have approximately 20 to 25 sections. Issue sectionsdealt with a range of concerns including economic policy, defense policy,environmental protection, and health.

The manifesto content further reveals a generally mild tone with respectto the discussion of immigration. Most of the manifestos I explored refrainfrom blanket statements opposing immigration in principle or for more prag-matic reasons. The BNP discusses both pragmatic and identity challenges,arguing that “[n]ot only is Britain increasingly overcrowded, but . . . that acountry is the product of its people and if you change the people you in-evitably change the nature of the country.”34 Both Belgian parties refer toimmigration as a challenge to cultural values. Islamic culture is mentionedovertly by both parties as particularly problematic in this regard. The VB dis-cusses the need for better integration of immigrants, where the implicationseems to be that they assimilate and take on the native norms of behavior;although they do not overtly demand assimilation.35 The BZO is perhaps themost elusive with respect to an anti-immigration position. In section threetitled “Austria and Europe: Our Home,” the manifesto states: “The connectionof the threads of life, from the history and culture of a country, gives theperson identity.”36 This section of the BZO manifesto places some emphasison identity, yet with only vague detail of what threatens it, apart perhapsfrom the European Union. Two exceptions where more direct anti-immigrantlanguage is used are the FN and FPO manifestos. The first sentence followingthe preamble of the manifesto of the FN reads as follows: “At the root ofmost evils afflicting our country is the immigration policy pursued for overthirty years by successive governments.”37 Chapter four, section four of themanifesto of the FPO states: “Due to its topography, population density, andlimited resources, Austria is not an immigration country.”38

Overall, the manifesto analysis suggests a rather moderate emphasis andstance taken on the immigration issue. The issue is not positioned as the firstissue for consideration by parties in their manifestos, with the exception ofthe FN. Additionally, the manifesto analysis suggests that the weight of thisissue relative to other issues discussed in these manifestos is relatively lightand balanced with no outstanding emphasis. The actual vocabulary usedby these parties as they discuss immigration is clearly concerned with chal-lenges that it poses both in principle and pragmatically. Yet only two partiesovertly indicate that they are anti-immigrant. Others call for restrictions onimmigration or for policies to address integration, yet they do not makeclaims and demands that are terribly far removed from what more main-stream parties make, especially those of the right. Taken together with theCMP data indicating that there has not been an increase in their emphasis onthe anti-immigrant position, the content analysis of manifestos suggests thatthe intensity of xenophobic appeals has not increased and likely may havedecreased and moderated since the early 1990s. While further comparison

120 M. H. Williams

with earlier manifestos might add additional insight, the clear conclusionfrom the most recent manifesto evidence, taken together with the CMP trendsfrom the early 1990s, suggests some moderation of xenophobic rhetoric andappeals by these measures.

Shifting Out-Group Focus: Increased Islamophobia

Several scholars of the radical right in Europe have suggested an increasedemphasis in anti-Muslim rhetoric among radical right-wing parties in re-cent years.39 Some assert explicitly that this is a “turn of the millennium”phenomenon;40 others consider the prospect that the European interwaranti-Semitism has been traded for Islamophobia.41 This section summarizesrecent scholarly contributions, analyzes radical right anti-Muslim positionsfound in their manifestos and then considers public opinion data on thepublic perception of Muslims in Western Europe. Finally, it concludes witha brief discussion of the potential shift from the Jewish out-group to theMuslim out-group.

Scholars concur that 21st century radical right-wing parties have madetheir anti-Islamic message increasingly overt. In fact, Hans Georg Betz char-acterizes a post-11 Sept. 2001 shift when “virtually all parties and formationon the radical right made the confrontation with Islam a central politicalissue.”42 In the case of France, he notes a speech given in 2001 by Jean-Yves Le Gallou, formerly of the French National Front and later a key figurein the National Republican Movement (MNR). Betz describes the turn as a“new strategy” that emphasized the cultural incongruity between the Westernworld and the Muslim world where Islam appears to threaten the Westernway of life.43 The idea that Western values are at stake provides a strongmobilizing basis for the radical right position in opposition to Muslim im-migrants. Betz and Susi Meret capture the notion of difference that provespivotal in the radical right rhetoric against Islam in a quote from Filip Dewin-ter, leader of the Belgian Vlaams Belang, who said in 2000 that “everyone isequal but not all are the same.”44 The fact that Muslims value different thingsstands as a fundamental objection by the radical right to their European citi-zenship. Betz calls this populist exclusivism “nativism,” and he suggests thatwhile nativism is in itself not a new phenomenon—he traces it to early 19th-century America—it is a recent shift for the populist radical right,45 whichargues that Muslim immigrants lack both the cultural compatibility and thedesire to assimilate.

Two broad themes arise when classifying all mentions of Muslims andIslam from the most recent radical right-wing party manifestos: cultural iden-tity and national security. In considering the overall impression of the entireset of manifestos, the two Belgian parties stand apart as the most openlyhostile toward Muslims in their manifesto rhetoric. On the other hand, theBZO provides the most veiled reference not once mentioning Muslims or

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Islam directly. Despite the common characterization of Jorg Haider, itsfounder, as racist and the fact that arguably the more racist-nationalist wingof the FPO formed the breakaway BZO in 2005, the sidestepping of the anti-Islamic message and of any overt naming of ethnic targets in the manifestomay be attributable to two factors. First, the FPO learned strategic lessons inpolitical correctness in 1999 when their right coalition government with theOVP met with international scrutiny and reprimand from the EU. Anotherfactor was the brevity and lack of specificity of the (nine-page) manifestoof this relatively new party. In fact, attempts to reconcile the past and payhomage to the Jews figure prominently in both the BZO and FPO manifestos.The BZO describes the “lessons of the wars and the inhumane systems ofthe twentieth century (Nazism, fascism and communism)” under the head-ing “Security for Austria.”46 The FPO, in article one of chapter 5 of 17 titled“Christendom: The Foundation of Europe,” holds Judaism up as having a keycultural influence on European development and characterizes the enduringEuropean cultural tradition saying “the oldest European civilization has itsroots in antiquity.”47

All parties for which manifesto analysis was carried out emphasize thecultural identity exception of Muslims. The FN arguably made the first shifttoward overt anti-Islamic rhetoric among the radical right with its 50 mea-sures asserted in 1991. In these measures, the FN placed direct emphasis onavoiding “the implantation of Islam in France” on the grounds that Islam isalien to French identity.48 Other FN literature from the early 1990s distin-guished between immigrants from Catholic countries and those from Muslimones, suggesting that integrating Catholics was possible whereas integratingMuslims was not.49 The most recent FN manifesto from 2007 continues thisthread of reasoning where religious difference becomes the basic problemregarding Muslim immigrants to France. The first of 25 issue areas coveredis immigration and policy measure five suggests implementing a policy ofassimilation that includes “reaffirmation of the principle of secularism,” pre-sumably aimed at Muslims in France regarding their overt religious practices,including the wearing of the headscarf or hijab.50 A similar call for reinforc-ing the value of laıcite, or secularism, comes in section 8 of 25 dealing witheducation, where the role of the state notably includes enforcing “politicalneutrality and the principle of secularism in the public sphere and opposingall sectarianism.”51

The VB is perhaps clearest in its articulation of Muslims as unintegrat-able. In the second point of their manifesto, section 2 of 11 titled “Immigra-tion: The Choice for Europe,” it writes of a value conflict: “Western versusIslamic values.” It goes on to claim that

[T]he adjustment of aliens with a Muslim background is proceeding veryslowly. Sometimes there is . . . no adjustment at all. The cultures of theseimmigrants are also much farther from ours—values such as equality

122 M. H. Williams

between men and women, freedom of speech and the separationof church and state—even though our basic principles of Westerndemocracy—are often alien to them.52

In its section on religious freedom, the B-FN points to specific incom-patibilities when expressing its favor for a measure to abolish public fundingof Muslim organizations and the teaching of Islam in public schools because“the Qur’an is full of lessons that are outrageously sexist, grossly unequal,and warrior-like.”53 They go on to advocate more “humane approaches” inteaching values with the implication being more humane than the approachof Islam.

To avoid cultural erosion, presumably by Muslim immigrants, the BNPparty invokes a provision found in the section on education specificallycalling for the “reintroduction of daily Christian Assemblies in schools,”54

suggesting an attempt to bring back Christendom. Furthermore, on the BNPWeb site the first networking group link where one can join and participate inonline forums is called “Protect our Children from Islam.”55 The FPO invokesopposition to Islam in Austria on the grounds that it is one of several namedthreats to cultural identity. “The preservation of the intellectual foundationsof the West requires a Christianity that upholds its values. . . . A wide rangeof currents endanger these basics. The increasing fundamentalism of radicalIslam and its penetration into Europe, but also a hedonistic consumerism,aggressive capitalism, the increase of occultism and pseudo-religious sects,and finally in all spheres of life increasingly detectable nihilism threaten theconsensus of values that threaten to be lost.”56 The REP party names Turkeyin its manifesto and clearly opposes Turkish membership in the EU onlyvaguely implying the underlying implication that it is ethnically Muslim.57

Finally, only the BZO manifesto makes no explicit reference to Islam orMuslims. Still, this manifesto overall conveys heavy emphasis on identity butonly vague details of what threatens it apart from loss of sovereignty to theEuropean Union.

The second category of anti-Muslim statements emerging from the man-ifesto analysis makes connections between Islam and militancy or terrorism.Particularly since the terrorist attacks in the United States of 11 Sept. 2001,radical right-wing party propaganda frequently equates Muslims with Islamicterrorists.58 The FN manifesto specifies a need to monitor mosques for sus-picion of terrorist connections and suggests the closing of mosques foundto be “under the control of fundamentalist persuasions openly advocatingterrorism and Islam.”59 In section 11 of 25 dealing with defense, the FN urgesaction to secure French territory “where networks Islamo-terrorists attemptto take control of certain immigrant populations.”60 Other manifestos followsuit, pointing to national security concerns surrounding Muslim immigrantsin the form of militant Islamic fundamentalism. The REP calls for the “ter-mination of the stay of foreigners who are unwilling to integrate, especially

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Islamic fundamentalists.”61 In its chapter on “Law and Order,” the FPO speaksof the threat arising from legal protections afforded “fundamentalist pseudo-religious sects.”62 The BZO names religious fundamentalist terrorism as oneof the three major challenges of the 21st century, the other two being natu-ral catastrophes and military conflict particularly over resources.63 The BNPbegins its discussion of national defense by stating that “militant Islam is alsoon the rise, and international terrorism is a constant threat.”64 Additionally,on its Web site by clicking the “policies” tab and choosing “immigration”one finds a photo preceding the policy statement on immigration depictinga long line of varied immigrants; at the front of the line is a Muslim immigrantwith one’s face wrapped holding a rocket-propelled grenade.65 This clearlylinks Muslims to terrorism.

Evidence based on public opinion surveys across Western Europe re-veals a hierarchical ranking of immigrant out-groups. Such evidence allowsdiscernment within the category of immigrant so that degrees of animos-ity can be ascertained. This article contends that to the extent that radicalright-wing parties are populist, they may be expected to be cognizant of andresponsive to ethnic hierarchies if they intend to be a voice of the peopleand compete as such in the electoral marketplace.

Using Eurobarometer survey data across West European countries, onecan analyze public preferences regarding various immigrant subgroups. TheEurobarometer survey began asking questions regarding attitudes of the ma-jority population toward immigrants in their countries in the late 1980s.66 The2000 survey on racism and xenophobia, through the European MonitoringCenter on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), included a question that askedrespondents to rank the degree to which they accept migrants in five cate-gories based on region of origin or the reason for the migration. The patterngenerally revealed the lowest acceptance rate of immigrants from Muslimcountries (Table 3). Muslims were the least preferred group in each countryexcept Greece and the United Kingdom. Table 4 confirms this trend withEurobarometer evidence from 2000 showing the percentage of respondentsindicating a lack of acceptance for various categories of immigrants. Muslimsagain were least preferred. Overall, the first two columns reflect higher lev-els of nonacceptance compared with the second two columns. This suggeststhat survey respondents express greater tolerance for people fleeing a crisisand lowest tolerance for East European and Muslim immigrants.

Public opinion data suggest significant and consistent anti-Muslim sen-timent in Western Europe. A GfK Group public opinion survey carried outin the fall of 2004 on behalf of the Wall Street Journal found that more than50% of West Europeans thought that Muslims in Europe were viewed withsuspicion while 40% perceive strong anti-Muslim feelings in Europe.67 The2004 Special Eurobarometer 60.1 on “Citizenship and the Sense of Belong-ing” shows clearly that EU citizens believe that Muslims in their societieshold different values than do Europeans.68 Respondents to the question of

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TABLE 3 Degree of Acceptance of Immigrants in 2000

Muslim Eastern Countries in Asylum-countries Europe Conflict seekers EU

Austria 1.69 1.69 1.93 1.91 1.82Belgium 1.74 1.77 1.93 1.83 2.17Denmark 2.11 2.22 2.33 2.28 2.53Finland 2.02 2.12 2.13 2.08 2.37France 1.85 1.96 2.12 2.02 2.22Germany 1.64 1.79 1.93 1.95 1.98Greece 1.86 1.92 1.77 1.91 2.27Ireland 1.78 1.82 1.98 1.83 2.09Italy 2.1 2.12 2.21 2.1 2.41Luxembourg 1.75 1.83 2.01 2.01 2.26Netherlands 1.85 1.89 2.17 2.27 2.07Portugal 1.74 1.83 1.91 1.87 2.17Spain 2.11 2.16 2.29 2.26 2.41Sweden 2.15 2.28 2.33 2.26 2.46UK 1.77 1.79 1.75 1.69 1.89

Source: Adapted from Westin (2003), p. 117.The scale is 1 to 4 with 1 being the lowest level of tolerance the survey respondent feels toward aparticular category and 4 the highest.

the top four values best representing their country named “democracy” firstat 46%, followed by “peace” at 39%, “human rights” at 34%, and “the ruleof law” at 32%. In contrast, when EU citizens were asked which values bestrepresent the Arab world, the top answer was “religion” at 45%, followedby “don’t know” at 24%, “none of these” at 13%, and “the rule of law” at

TABLE 4 Percentage Indicating Immigrants “Not Accepted” by Origin

Muslim Eastern Countries Asylum-countries Europe in Conflict seekers

Austria 12 9 6 5Belgium 30 27 20 22Denmark 8 5 3 2Finland 11 8 9 9France 21 13 12 14Germany 30 21 14 12Greece 20 15 25 13Irelannd 12 10 7 9Italy 10 9 8 9Luxembourg 26 20 12 10Netherlands 16 14 7 5Portugal 18 15 13 12Spain 5 2 2 2Sweden 8 4 4 4UK 17 17 18 23EU 15 18 14 12 12

Source: Eurobarometer EB53 (2000).

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11%. The “difference” between Muslims and their European host societiesproves a prominent focal point in the analysis of survey evidence on anti-Muslim attitudes. In 2006 the EUMC published a report on “Muslims in theEuropean Union.”69 In its summary, the report concludes that discrimina-tion against Muslims is widespread; that “discrimination against Muslims canbe attributed to Islamophobic attitudes as well as to racist and xenophobicresentment, as these elements are often intertwined;” and that Muslims arebeing victimized by a range of threats from verbal to physical attacks.70

If Muslims have become the target enemy outsider across Western Eu-rope, a further question becomes whether this implies a corresponding de-cline in anti-Semitism. In other words, has one enemy outsider been tradedfor another? A GfK Group public opinion survey carried out in the fall of 2004on behalf of the Wall Street Journal found that one in three West Europeansthought that anti-Semitism had increased in their countries over the past fiveyears.71 Anti-Semitism has not disappeared in Europe. In fact, a 2008 PewGlobal Attitudes Project report shows a rise in anti-Semitism across five yearsin three of four West European countries considered (Table 5). The studyalso notes that anti-Semitism is found in Russia and Poland, while the UnitedStates shows an aggregate decline from 8% in 2004 to 7% in 2008. However,the study finds that the degree of negativity toward Muslims is considerablyhigher than that aimed at Jews across all countries.72 Crime statistics con-firm this difference as anti-Jewish acts are far fewer than anti-Muslim attacksacross Western Europe. Despite the general lack of cross- national crimestatistics showing acts of violence against Muslims, a 2006 EUMC study re-veals limited national-level data for some countries.73 In the United Kingdom,where data are collected on “religious crimes” and categorized by differentreligious groups for England and Wales by the Crown Prosecution Service, ofthe 40 reported cases of “religiously aggravated crime” across 2003–2004, 22

TABLE 5 Comparing Negative Feelings Toward Jews and Muslims in 2008

Britain France Germany Spain

% indicating Anti-Jewish Feeling2004 9 11 20 202005 6 16 21 212006 6 13 22 392007 8 17 24 422008 9 20 25 46

% indicating Anti-Muslim Feeling2004 18 29 46 372005 15 34 47 372006 20 35 54 622007 22 36 51 562008 23 38 50 52

Source: Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, “Unfavorable Views of Jews and Muslims on the Increase inEurope,” (2008), pp. 4–5. http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/262.pdf (accessed 11 Dec. 2009).

126 M. H. Williams

incidents or 55% were committed against Muslims. This compares with onlyfive cases or 12.5% committed against Jews.74 Finally, Matti Bunzl observes akey aspect of what he calls the “new anti-Semitism” in that the perpetratorsof anti-Semitic acts in Western Europe tend increasingly to be Muslims. Bunzlengages a 2003 report on anti-Semitism conducted at Berlin’s Technical Uni-versity emphasizing the idea of a “new development” whereby anti-Semiticacts were committed by Europe’s Muslim minorities.75 Claiming an increasein anti-Semitic acts since 2002, Bunzl writes that “many of these, in departurefrom traditional patterns of anti-Semitism, have been perpetrated by Muslimyouth.”76

With respect to the shifting out-group enemy toward Islamophobia, sev-eral conclusions may be drawn from the evidence presented. First, radicalright rhetoric and anti-Muslim positions feature prominently in most partymanifestos and reveal two threads of thought surrounding the anti-Muslimposition. One thread suggests that they pose a cultural threat, based on thebelief that Islamic values and culture cannot be assimilated by European val-ues and culture. Another thread often equates all Muslims with terrorists andmilitant fundamentalists. Second, public opinion data confirm a strong anti-Muslim trend across West European publics. Third, it appears that a shift hasoccurred whereby the Jewish out-group has been largely displaced by a Mus-lim out-group. This is evident anti-Muslim sentiment outpacing anti-Semiticsentiment to the extent that these parties behave as populists. Also notably,overall in the manifesto analysis Muslims surfaced as the only ethnic groupnamed specifically in radical right-wing party discussions of their policy con-cerns and key issue positions. Several parties analyzed actually praise Jewsand embrace the notion of a Judeo-Christian foundation of European values.

Considering Two Key Cases of Apparent Moderationand Revised Ethnic Appeals

In order to offer additional preliminary case study evaluation of the dynamicsuggested above, this section selectively relates some of the rhetoric of partyleaders as portrayed in the media in an attempt to contextualize key momentswhere the former in-group/out-group dynamic evolves in two cases: VBand FN. For this brief case analysis, media files and news accounts alongwith scholarly articles have been assembled in an effort to trace key partydevelopments with respect to in-group and out-group framing. Such caseanalysis of the conclusions drawn thus far in this article should be an areafor future scholarship.

The Belgian Vlaams Belang has been one of the most often-cited Eu-ropean far right parties in recent news accounts. Its calls for secession fromBelgium became increasingly vocal in the 2007 election campaign, and thisissue proved decisive in the postelection failure to form a new government.

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However, despite the visibility and influence of this party in recent years,it experienced several major setbacks in the early years of the 21st century.The VB rebound has had much to do with adaptation and shifts.

In 2004 the Vlaams Belang was founded as a successor party to theVlaams Blok. The former made several overt changes along with the namechange in 2004. It changed the rhetoric within the party platform in partto comply with Belgian law strictly prohibiting “incitement to hate and dis-crimination.” Similar laws exist in Germany, France, and Italy; compliancein the Belgian case, however, appears linked to governmental enforcement.The former Vlaams Blok motto, “Eigen volk eerst” or “Our own people first,”was also dropped from public rhetoric in 2004 even though it is still usedby party leaders and members in internal meetings. Party members votedto modernize the party’s statutes and tone down its views on immigration,saying instead that non-European immigrants wishing to remain in Belgiumshould adopt Belgian rules and values.77 The emphasis on assimilation cameas a striking turnabout from earlier party positions maintaining that all non-European immigrants should be expelled and returned to their home country.

The impetus for these changes did not come from a party wishing torefine itself; instead, it came when the party lost a high court appeal in Nov.2004 against the charge that it was guilty of violating antiracist legislation.Party chairman Frank Vanhecke said of the ruling, “Today, our party hasbeen killed, not by the electorate but by the judges.”78 Vanhecke astutelycaptured the fact that the party was one of the most popular parties amongvoters in Flanders at the time. In the summer of 2004 it won approximatelyone-fourth of all votes in regional and European Parliament elections.

In addition to general domestication of its message, the VB has alsoactively courted a former out-group as a new constituent. The party, whichat its founding in 1977 included former SS members and Holocaust deniers,extended an olive branch to Jews.79 During the early 1990s, as the VlaamsBlok was rapidly on the rise with other radical right parties across WesternEurope, it took overtly anti-Semitic stances and spoke out about a “Jewishplot against Europe.”80 However, in campaigning for regional and Europeanelections in 2004, the party reached out to the Hasidic community in par-ticular, both through mass mailings and by speaking out on issues affectingJews. It also spoke out against the prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister ArielSharon for war crimes in Lebanon.81 Filip Dewinter, its leader, called on Jewsto look at the VB as allies, in particular on the position regarding the Stateof Israel.82

In the case of France, the FN also gives many indications that it ismoderating its stance toward Jews. This may be the result of widespreadacceptance or assimilation of French Jews over the decades since WorldWar II. In 1946 only slightly more than one-third of French people felt thatFrench Jews were just as French as any other French person compared with92% in 2005.83 The same source reported that in 1966, 50% of French people

128 M. H. Williams

surveyed indicated that they would not want a Jewish person as FrenchPresident compared with 17% in 2005. As French anti-Semitism has declined,corresponding changes in strategies for mobilizing far right supporters alongxenophobic lines becomes predictable.

An additional factor in France has emerged in the leadership successionof Jean Marie Le Pen. Recently Le Pen’s daughter Marine has stepped for-ward and become increasingly politically active within the party. She seemsa likely successor to her father as party leader. However, she represents aquite different ideological faction within the party than Bruno Gollnisch, akey rival for party leadership. Gollnisch maintains a stance that is truer tothe party origins as one with pro-Nazi leanings and anti-Semitic inclinations.In late 2004, Gollnisch was quoted as saying “there is not a serious histo-rian who still totally agrees with the conclusions of the Nuremberg Trials”and as suggesting that the magnitude of the Holocaust genocide had beenexaggerated.84 By contrast, Marine Le Pen is seeking a fresh and more mod-erate image for the party. In October 2004, she expressed sympathy for theplight of Jews and she denounced anti-Semitism in an interview on Frenchradio.85 She condemned the remarks made by Gollnisch just prior to herradio interview. She is reported to have indicated a desire to travel to Israeland she joined the European Parliament’s friendship caucus with Israel.

The former primary out-group, the Jews, have now become a highlydesired constituent for some far right parties seeking to expand their legit-imacy and also to expand their base of electoral support. Conveniently, orperhaps instrumentally, the Jews are the enemy of the West European radicalright’s newest primary enemy: Muslim immigrants. Where Turks and otherMuslim guest workers and postcolonial immigrants were an out-group pri-marily because they looked different and posed a threat to the appearance ofhomogeneity, they took a back seat to anti-Semitism. Today, however, withIslamic terror threats in all advanced industrial Western countries looming assecurity concerns, the cosmetic difference is increasingly framed as a threatto native ways of life. With debates about how to handle assimilation andintegration across West European governments and publics, in addition tothe demographic deficit common to most as well, the awareness of differ-ence has turned to a violent reaction to what is increasingly perceived asthe threat of annihilation. What was at one time uncomfortable is today theprimary threat to existence.

Pierre-Andre Taguieff, a scholar of the French far right and anti-Semitismin France, has suggested that racism today constructs boundaries alongthe lines of cultural difference rather than biological difference. In recentworks he presents provocative arguments, including the position that Jewsrather than “Semites” (Arabs and Jews) are the target today and that anti-Zionism is the larger dimension of this antagonism with an overlap to anti-Americanism.86 He correlates the rise of radical Islamism in France with therise of what he calls “Judeophobia” and with attacks on Jews, suggesting that

West European Far Right Parties 129

the two groups are at odds in France. Taguieff structures a debate on Frenchxenophobia with the premise that the character of in-group and out-groupconstruction for the purpose of establishing enemy groups has changed.Furthermore, the reason for animosity, according to his argument, has moreto do with cultural difference than with biological difference, suggesting thatthe lack of assimilation in multicultural society provides the basis for manycontemporary animosities. In sum, Muslims are less able to be assimilatedthan Jews, who have largely assimilated.

Xenophobia has become Islamophobia for many prominent radicalright-wing parties in this century. The focus appears to be shifting deci-sively and exclusively toward fear of Islamic immigrants. A 2005 interviewby VB frontman Filip Dewinter with the American-Jewish newsweekly TheJewish Week included a question of whether Jews should vote for a partythat espouses xenophobia. Dewinter responded by saying: “Xenophobia isnot the word I would use. If it absolutely must be a ‘phobia,’ let it be‘Islamophobia.’”87 In France, Jean Marie Le Pen said during a speech leadingup to the 2007 French elections that “Islam is to the twenty-first century whatcommunism was to the twentieth.”88 He went on to talk about the necessityof converting Muslims and portrayed the danger of Islamic culture to France.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

The first question pursued in this analysis asked whether radical right-wingparties have moderated their positions, especially their anti-immigrant ap-peals. Such moderation was found in the evidence evaluated. Several in-sights may account for the toned down appeals. As fascism and neo-Nazisentiments have become taboo in the postwar years, far right racism hastaken on a much more politically correct character. Far right ethnic intoler-ance, however, is not presently acceptable across European societies.89 Farright parties have also had to be increasingly careful about which groups theytarget. This is one characteristic that has kept radical right parties in Germanyfrom having the degree of success that others have had, in addition to con-stitutional provisions relating to undemocratic parties, laws forbidding hatespeech, and a lack of unity among several small radical right formations—toname a few obstacles—although they have been reluctant to modify theirmessage.90 Therefore, it stands to reason that radical right parties must payattention to public opinion when it comes to their concerns raised aboutspecific subgroups within the immigrant population. Changing contexts andinternational affairs have much to do with the way that the public viewsparticular immigrant subgroups at any given time.

This article suggests that such moderation proves predictable when onedeals with populist parties. These parties may initially burst into the politicalparty system opposed to all other parties and in particular to the government

130 M. H. Williams

and its bureaucracy. However, as other parties begin to co-opt key issuesfrom the radical right, it must evolve in its message and expand its repertoireof issue concerns if it intends to expand its base and to enhance its legitimacy.

A second question motivating this project was whether traditional out-group enemies of radical right-wing parties have been traded for new ones.The present analysis finds overwhelming evidence to confirm this shift froma variety of sources including party manifesto analysis and public opiniondata. This article contends that the evidence of shifting ethnic appeals char-acterized by increased Islamophobia may be anticipated by the logic ofpopulism. As the radical right-wing parties considered here approach 20- to30-year anniversaries since their founding in the 1970s to mid-1980s,91 theyhave strategically adjusted in ways that may be readily anticipated by theirpopulist politics.

The conclusion presented in this article differs somewhat from thatsuggested by Hans Georg Betz and Susi Meret, who posit the anti-Islamicposition of extreme right parties as “not primarily the result of strategicconsiderations and insist that it is a reflection of their core ideology.”92 Theygo on to argue that this turn to anti-Islamic nativism results from a refinementof the core identity politics of the radical right parties in the face of an attemptto redefine West European identity amidst identity crises. This article, incontrast, contends that there is a competitive political party logic in populism,requiring that the radical right must both reflect public demands and opposethe established political parties when they fail do to so. This logic presentsitself irrespective of cultural context, such as a European identity crisis. Ratherthan suggesting that Europeans are unclear about their self-perception, thisarticle maintains that they are actually quite clear in their perception of whothey are and who they are not. As Jose Zuquete notes, there is “renewedemphasis on the ‘Christian identity’ of the ‘original communities,’ who arenow endangered by the advance of Islam in Europe.”93 Furthermore, whilethe contention of populism amidst mainstream party failure and a Europeanidentity crisis do not present mutually exclusive arguments, they provideseparate rationales to account for the changes observed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank the journal editor and the anonymous refereesfor their constructive comments.

NOTES

1. Pippa Norris, Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market (New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2005), Figure 1.1.

West European Far Right Parties 131

2. For an overview, see Jens Rydgren, “The Sociology of the Radical Right.” Annual Review ofSociology 33(1): 241–62 (2007).

3. See Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2007), Ch. 2; Piero Ignazi, Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2003).

4. See Terri Givens, Voting Radical Right in Western Europe (New York: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 2005); Martin Schain, Aristide Zolberg, and Patrick Hossay, eds., Shadows over Europe: TheDevelopment and Impact of the Extreme Right in Western Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

5. See Elizabeth Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe: Success or Failure? (Manchester:Manchester University Press, 2005); Rachel Gibson, The Growth of Anti-Immigrant Parties in WesternEurope (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002).

6. See Wouter Van der Brug, Meindert Fennema, and Jean Tillie, “Anti-immigrant parties inEurope: Ideological or Protest Vote?” European Journal of Political Research 37(1): 77–102 (2000); Hans-Georg Betz and Stefan Immerfall, eds., The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movementsin Established Democracies (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).

7. Michelle Hale Williams, The Impact Of Radical Right-Wing Parties In West European Democ-racies (New York: Palgrave, 2006).

8. Mudde, “Populist Radical Right,” Ch. 3.9. Norris, 171.

10. Ayse S. Caglar, “Constraining Metaphors and the Transnationalisation of Spaces in Berlin.”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27(4): 601–13 (2001), 604.

11. Cas Mudde, The Ideology of the Extreme Right (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press,2000), 97–98.

12. Ibid., 135.13. Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas, eds., European Immigration: A Sourcebook (Burling-

ton, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 259.14. Ibid., 259.15. Jens Rydgren, “Explaining the Emergence of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties: The Case of

Denmark.” West European Politics 27(3): 474–502 (2004), 492.16. Norris, 171.17. Ibid., 72.18. Anders Widfeldt, “Scandinavia: Mixed Success for the Populist Right.” Parliamentary Affairs

53(3): 486–500 (2000), 490.19. Hainsworth and Mitchell, 445.20. Winkler and Schumann, 102.21. Migration News (2002), “France, Netherlands: Le Pen, Pim Fortuyn,” http://migration.ucdavis.

edu/mn/Archive MN/jun 2002-08mn.html (accessed 6 Oct. 2006).22. Christopher Husbands, “Switzerland: Right-Wing and Xenophobic Parties, from Margin to Main-

stream?” Parliamentary Affairs 53(3): 501–16 (2000), 508.23. Widfeldt, 491.24. Gibson, 25.25. Widfeldt, 491.26. Hans-Georg Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (New York: St. Martin’s

Press, 1994), 3–4.27. Meindert Fennema, “Populist Parties of the Radical Right,” in Jens Rydgren, ed., Movements

of Exclusion: Radical Right-Wing Populism in the Western World (New York: Nova Science Publishers,2005), 1–24.

28. Hans-Georg Betz, “Against the System: Radical Right-Wing Populism’s Challenge to LiberalDemocracy,” in Jens Rydgren, ed., Movements of Exclusion: Radical Right-Wing Populism in the WesternWorld (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2005), 25–40, 28.

29. Martin Schain, “The Impact of the French National Front on the French Political System,”in Martin Schain, Aristide Zolberg, and Patrick Hossay, eds., Shadows over Europe: The Developmentand Impact of the Extreme Right in Western Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); MichaelMinkenberg, “Context and Consequence: The Impact of the New Radical Right on the Political Processin France and Germany.” German Politics and Society 16(3): 1–23 (1998); Williams, 45.

30. Van der Brug et al. revisited by Wouter Van Der Brug and Meindert Fennema, “Protest ormainstream? How the European anti-immigrant parties have developed into two separate groups by1999.” European Journal of Political Research 42(1): 55–76 (2003).

132 M. H. Williams

31. Mudde, Ch. 2.32. Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara, Ian Budge, and Michael MacDonald,

Mapping Policy Preferences II: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments in Central and EasternEurope, European Union and OECD 1990–2003 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

33. For a discussion of the “quasi-sentence” and more on the coding procedure, see Klingemann,Appendix I, 153–154, and Appendix II.

34. British National Party, Summary Manifesto: Putting Local People First (London: British NationalParty, 2007). http://bnp.org.uk/manifestos/mini-manifesto-2007/ (accessed 13 Nov. 2009), 5.

35. Vlaams Belang, 2008.06 Programma (Brussels: Vlaams Belang, 2008). http://www.vlaamsbelang.org/21/ (accessed 13 Nov. 2009), 2.

36. Bundnis Zukunft Osterreich, Bundnispositionen (Vienna: Bundnis Zukunft Osterreich, 2005).http://www.bzoe.at/index.php?content=bzoe positionen (accessed 13 Nov. 2009), 5.

37. Front National, Election Presidentielle 2007 Programme (Paris: Front National, 2007).http://www.frontnational.com/?page id=504 (accessed 13 Nov. 2009), 5 (author’s translation).

38. Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs, Das Parteiprogramm der FPO (Vienna: FreiheitlichePartei Osterreichs, 2005). http://www.fpoe.at/dafuer-stehen-wir/partei-programm/ (accessed 13 Nov.2009), 6.

39. See Hans-Georg Betz, “Against the ‘Green Totalitarianism:’ Anti-Islamic Nativism in Contem-porary Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe,” in Christiana Schori Liang, ed., Europe for theEuropeans: the Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right (New York: Ashgate, 2007); RogerEatwell, “Community Cohesion and Cumulative Extremism in Contemporary Britain.” Political Quarterly77(2): 204–16 (2006).

40. Jose Pedro Zuquete, “The European Extreme-right and Islam: New Directions?” Journal ofPolitical Ideologies 13(3): 321–44 (2008), 321.

41. Matti Bunzl, “Between Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Some Thoughts on the New Europe.”American Ethnologist 32(4): 499–508 (2005).

42. Betz, “Against the Green”, 42.43. Ibid., 42.44. Hans-Georg Betz and Susi Meret, “Revisiting Lepanto: The Political Mobilization Against Islam

in Contemporary Western Europe.” Patterns of Prejudice 43(3–4): 313–34 (2009), 314.45. Betz, “Against the Green,” 34–5.46. Bundnis Zukunft Osterreich, 5.47. Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs, 7.48. Betz and Meret, 314.49. Jean-Yves Le Gallou and Philippe Olivier, Immigration: Le Front National Fait le Point (Paris:

Editions Nationales), 20–23.50. Front National-France, 6.51. Front National-France, 23.52. Vlaams Belang, 2.53. Front National, Manifeste du Front National, (Brussels: Front National, 2008). http://www.fn.

be/le-manifeste.html (accessed 13 Nov. 2009), 8.54. British National Party, 12.55. British National Party Web site. http://bnp.org.uk (accessed 13 Nov. 2009).56. Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs, 8.57. Republikaner Bundesparteiprogramm (Berlin: Republikaner, 2002). http://www.rep.de/

content.aspx?ArticleID=321c1608-6b17-4adb-a9de-d6bc64552d63 (accessed 13 Nov. 2009), 11.58. Betz and Meret, 319.59. Front National-France, 9.60. Front National-France, 32.61. Republikaner, 15.62. Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs, 17–18.63. Bundnis Zukunft Osterreich, 5.64. British National Party, 8.65. British National Party Web site. http://bnp.org.uk/policies/immigration/ (accessed 8 Nov 2009).66. Charles Westin, “Racism and the Political Right: European Perspectives,” in Peter Merkl and

Leonard Weinberg, eds., Right-Wing Extremism in the Twenty-First Century (Portland, OR: Frank Cass,2003), 98.

West European Far Right Parties 133

67. GfK Group, “Religion-a Personal Matter: Findings of the GfK Survey on Religious Attitudes inEurope” (2004). http://www.gfk.com/group/press information/press releases/00642/index.de.html (ac-cessed 1 Nov. 2009).

68. European Opinion Research Group, Special Eurobaromter 60.1 “Citizenship and Sense of Be-longing” (2004). http://ec.europa.eu/public opinion/archives/ebs/ebs 199.pdf (accessed 10 Nov. 2009).

69. EUMC (European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia), “Muslims in the Euro-pean Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia” (2006a). http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/attachments/Manifestations EN.pdf (accessed 6 Oct. 2009).

70. Ibid., 1.71. Gfk Group.72. Pew Global Values Survey, “Unfavorable Views of Jews and Muslims on the Increase in Europe”

(2008). http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/262.pdf (accessed 6 Oct. 2009), 4–5.73. EUMC “The Annual Report on the Situation Regarding Racism and Xenophobia in the Mem-

ber States of the EU” (2006b). http://www.raxen.eumc.eu.int/1/webmill.php?id=32835&doc id=56129(accessed 6 Oct. 2009), 67–89.

74. EUMC, “Muslims in the European Union,” 84.75. Bunzl, 500.76. Bunzl, 503.77. BBC News, “Court Rules Vlaams Blok is Racist” (9 Nov. 2004). http://news.bbc.co.uk/

2/hi/europe/3994867.stm (accessed 9 Oct. 2009).78. Ibid.79. Betz, “Against the Green,” 33.80. Nick Ryan, “Voter’s Blok: Political Power of Belgian Ethnocentrism.” The Walrus, (Feb. 2004).

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2004.02-field-notes-belgium-government/) (accessed 12 Sept.2007).

81. Ibid.82. Betz, “Against the Green,” 33.83. Nonna Mayer, “Transformations in French Anti-Semitism.” International Journal of Conflict

and Violence 1(1): 51–60 (2007).84. Simon, “Sympathy for the Devil?” Lebanon Wire, The Jerusalem Report (3 Jan. 2005). http://

www.lebanonwire.com/0501/050301JREP.asp (accessed 18 Aug. 2007).85. Ibid.86. Pierre-Andre Taguieff, The Force of Prejudice: On Racism and its Doubles (Minneapolis: Uni-

versity of Minnesota Press, 2001); Pierre-Andre Taguieff, La Nouvelle judeophobie (Paris: Mille et uneNuits, 2002).

87. Stewart Ain, “The Season Of Dewinter?” The Jewish Week (9 Dec. 2005). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-121443251.html (accessed 12 Sept. 2007).

88. Sylvia Poggioli, “Anti-Immigrant Policy Boosts France’s Le Pen Again.” NPR–Morning Edition(22 Nov. 2006). http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522463 (accessed 26 Aug. 2007).

89. Rene Cuperus, “The Fate of European Populism,” Dissent 51: 17–20 (2004).90. Mudde, “The Ideology,” 172, 45.91. The FPO moved from the left under Norbert Steger to the radical right-wing populist orientation

under Jorg Haider beginning in 1986.92. Betz and Meret, 334.93. Zuquete, 326.

Michelle Hale Williams is Associate Professor of Political Science at theUniversity of West Florida. Her research interests include far right parties, po-litical party systems, European politics, nationalism, and ethnic politics. Herbook The Impact of Radical Right-Wing Parties in West European Democra-cies was published in 2006 (Palgrave). Her articles appear in Party Politics,German Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics, and the Journal of PoliticalScience Education.

134 M. H. Williams

APPENDIXTREND IN INTENSITY OF FAR RIGHT PARTY ANTI-IMMIGRANT

POSITION SINCE 1990

Country Election Date Party

NegativePosition onImmigration Trend Summary

Austria 7 Oct 1990 FPO Freedom Party 0.20Austria 9 Oct 1994 FPO Freedom Party 0.63Austria 17 Dec 1995 Freedom Movement 0.00Austria 3 Oct 1999 Freedom Movement 0.37Austria 24 Nov 2002 Freedom Movement 0.00 Intensity declines after

1994Belgium 24 Nov 1991 VB Flemish Bloc 1.17Belgium 21 May 1995 VB Flemish Bloc 0.00Belgium 13 Jun 1999 VB Flemish Bloc 0.00Belgium 18 May 2003 VB Flemish Bloc 0.00 Intensity evaporates after

1991France 21 Mar 1993 FN National Front 2.01France 25 May 1997 FN National Front 0.00France 9 Jun 2002 FN National Front 1.92 Intensity dips then

rebounds

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