The organizational origins of the contemporary radical right: The case of Belgium

Comparative Politics

Volumn 40, Issue 4, 2008, Pages

  Art, David ^a  

^a TUFTS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 51149108303     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5129/001041508x12911362383318     Document Type: Review

References (85)

1. This article does not address the definitional debate surrounding radical right parties. For attempts to define this party family, see Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
2. Rachel Gibson, The Growth of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2002);
3. Jens Rydgren, "Is Extreme Right-Wing Populism Contagious? Explaining the Emergence of a New Party Family," European Journal of Political Research, 44 (2005), 413-37;
4. Piero Ignazi, Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003);
5. Hans-Georg Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994);
6. Herbert Kitschelt, The Radical Right in Western Europe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995);
7. Hans-Georg Betz and Duane Swank, "Globalization, the Welfare State and Right-wing Populism in Western Europe," Socio-Economic Review, 1 (2003), 215-45.
8. Elisabeth Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe: Success or Failure? (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005);
9. Pippa Norris, Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005);
10. Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties.
11. Few studies of the radical right use interview data from radical right politicians and activists. An exception is Nonna Mayer and Bert Klandermans, eds., Through the Magnifying Glass: The World of Right-Wing Extremism (London: Routledge, 2005). Although open-ended interviews with partisans introduce problems of validity and reliability, I have attempted to mitigate them by interviewing multiple subjects from the same organization (ten current and former members of the Front National, eleven members of the Vlaams Belang) and by cross-checking the data gleaned from them during six additional interviews in Belgium with academics and journalists who research the radical right.
12. Both Norris and Mudde identify organizational factors as important.
13. This point is made by Mudde.
14. Carter, p. 99.
15. For an experimental study of canvassing, see Alan Gerber and Donald Green, "The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment," American Political Science Review, 94 (September 2000), 653-63.
16. For empirical studies, see Robert Huckfeldt and John Sprague, "Political Parties and Electoral Mobilization: Political Structures, Social Structure, and the Party Canvass," The American Political Science Review, 86 (March 1992), 70-86;
17. David Niven, "The Mobilization Solution? Face-to-Face Contact and Voter Turnout in a Municipal Election," Journal of Politics, 66 (August 2004), 868-84.
18. On youth organizations, see Marc Hooghe, Dietland Stolle, and Patrick Stouthuysen, "Head Start in Politics: The Recruitment Function of Youth Organizations of Political Parties in Belgium (Flanders)," Party Politics, 10 (2004), 193-212.
19. On social sanctions against radical right activists, see David Art, The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 167-68. It is important to note that the strength of these sanctions varies across states.
20. On New Democracy, see Paul Taggart, "New Populist Parties in Western Europe," West European Politics, 18 (1995), 34-51;
21. Jens Rydgren, From Tax Populism to Ethnic Nationalism: Radical Right-Wing Populism in Sweden (New York: Berghahn, 2006).
22. On the DVU, see David Art, "The Wild, Wild East: Why the DVU Doesn't Matter but the NPD Does," German Politics and Society, 22 (Winter 2004), 122-33.
23. On the LPF, see Philip van Praag, "The Winners and Losers in a Turbulent Political Year," Acta Politico, 38 (2003), 5-22.
24. Herbert Kitschelt, The Logic of Party Formation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).
25. Sidney Verba, Kay Schlozman, and Henry Brady, Voice and Equality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995).
26. The Brussels Capital Region is not included in the comparison. On the institutional complexity of this region, see Hilde Coffé, "The Vulnerable Institutional Complexity: The 2004 Regional Elections in Brussels," Regional and Federal Studies, 16 (2006), 99-107.
27. On institutional differences, see Terri Givens, Voting Radical Right in Western Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005);
28. Norris, Radical Right.
29. Robert Jackman and Karin Volpert, "Conditions Favouring Parties of the Extreme Right in Western Europe," British Journal of Political Science, 26 (1996), 501-21.
30. One example is Gibson. For a critique of the immigration argument, see Norris, Radical Right, pp. 166-87.
31. These percentages are from the International Labour Organization, at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/ protection/migrant/papers/imp23/ch2.htm. See also Hilde Coffé, Extreem-rechts in Vlaanderen en Wallonië: Het verschil (Roeselare: Roularta Books, 2005).
32. Hilde Coffé, "Do Individual Factors Explain the Different Success of the two Belgian Extreme Right Parties?," Acta Politica, 40 (2005), 74-93.
33. Patrick Hossay, "Why Flanders?," in Martin Schain, Aristide Zolberg, and Patrick Hossay, eds., Shadows over Europe: The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in Western Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 160.
34. Hugo Gijsels, Het Vlaams Blok (Leuven: Kritak, 1992), p. 41.
35. Marc Swyngedouw, "The Extreme Right in Belgium," in Hans-Georg Betz and Stephen Immerfall, eds., The New Politics of the Right (New York: St. Martin's, 1994), p. 60.
36. Christopher Husbands, "Belgium: Flemish Legions on the March," in Paul Hainsworth, ed., The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA (London: Pinter, 1992), pp. 126-50.
37. Frank Seberechts, "Beeldvorming over coUaboratie en repressie bij de naoorlogse Vlaams nationalisten," in R. van Doorslaer et al., eds., Herfsttij van de 20ste Eeuw: Extreem-rechts in Vlaanderen 1920-1990 (Leuven: Kritak, 1992), pp. 65-82.
38. Husbands, p. 132.
39. Hugo Gijsels and Jos Vander Velpen, Le Chagrin des Flamands (Brussels : EPO, 1994).
40. Vos, p. 39.
41. Gijsels and Velpen, pp. 101-3.
42. Cas Mudde, The Ideology of the Extreme Right (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 84.
43. Marc Swyngedouw and Maarten Van Craen Maarten, Het Vlaams Blok: Een overzichtsstudie (Leuven: K. U. Leuven, Departement Sociologie/ISPO, 2002).
44. Quoted in Hossay, p. 176.
45. See Giovanni Capoccia, Defending Democracy: Responses to Extremism in Inter-war Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 116-33.
46. Ibid., p. 115.
47. Martin Conway, Collaboration in Belgium: Léon Degrelle and the Rexist Movement 1940-1944 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 17.
48. Alain Colignon, "Les commémorations en Belgique francophone." in Alain Colignon, Chantal Kesteloot, and Dirk Martin, eds., Commémoration: Enjeux et débats (Brussels: Centre de recherches et d'études historiques de la seconde guerre mondiale, 1996), pp. 13-65.
49. François Balace, "Le Tournant des Années Soixantes," in François Balace et al., L'Extrême Droite en Belgique Francophone (Brussels: De Boeck-Wesmael, 1994), pp. 107-211.
50. Hossay, p. 170.
51. Interview with Gerolf Annemans, Vlaams Belang, Brussels, February 2007.
52. Mudde, The Ideology of the Extreme Right, p. 87; interview with Bob Hulstaert, Vlaams Belang, Antwerp, February 2007.
53. Interview with Filip De Man, Vlaams Belang, Brussels, February 2007.
54. Hans De Witte, "Extreme Right Activism in the Flemish Part of Belgium: Manifestation of Racism or Nationalism?," in Mayer and Klandermans, eds., p. 133.
55. Swyngedouw, p. 61, for example, claims that the figures from the mid 1990s are exaggerated.
56. The biographical information can be found in Gijsels and Velpen, pp. 164-67.
57. Interview with Charles Pire, FN, Brussels, February 2007.
58. Interview with Michel Delacroix, Brussels, February 2007.
59. Pascal Delwit, "The Belgian National Front and the Question of Power," in Pascal Delwit and Phillipe Poirver, eds., Extreme Right Parties and the Power (Brussels: Editions de L'Université de Bruxelles, 2007).
60. Manuel Abramowicz, Les Rats Noir (Brussels: Luc Pire, 1996).
61. Interview with Daniel Féret, FN, Brussels, February 2007.
62. Interview with Delacroix.
63. Interview with Patrick Cocriamont, FN, Brussels, February 2007.
64. Interview with Pire.
65. Interview with Bert Schcofs, VB, Brussels, February 2007.
66. ResistanceS, Feb. 5, 2005.
67. Rinke van der Brink, L'International de la Haine (Brussels: Luc Pire, 1996), p. 65.
68. Ibid., p. 67.
69. Interview with François Xavier-Robert, FNB, Brussels, February 2007.
70. Van der Brink, p. 61.
71. Interview with Féret.
72. The Guardian, Mar. 9, 2001.
73. Interview with Luc Sevenhans, VB, Brussels, February 2007.
74. ResistanceS, Aug. 27, 2000.
75. Abramowicz, p. 173.
76. Ibid., p. 130.
77. Interview with Schoofs.
78. According to Wouter van der Brag, Meindert Fennema, and Jean Tillie, "Why Some Anti-immigrant Parties Fail and Others Succeed," Comparative Political Studies, 38 (2005), 563, "sociostructural developments within the European Union are so similar in all member states that those developments cannot explain the enormous differences in aggregate support for anti-immigrant parties."
79. Interview with Hugo Vejsels, VB, Antwerp, February 2007.
80. John Veugelers, "Ex-Colonials, Voluntary Associations, and Electoral Support for the Contemporary Far Right," Comparative European Politics, 5 (2005), 408-31.
81. Making this argument for the Dutch case is Cas Mudde and Joop Van Holsteyn, "The Netherlands: Explaining the Limited Success of the Extreme Right," in Hainsworth, ed., Politics of the Extreme Right, p. 164.
82. Stathis Kalyvas The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).
83. Anna Gryzmala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
84. I am indebted to Adam Ziegfeld for providing the analogy to the study of Social Democratic and Christian Democratic parties.
85. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschmeyer, Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).