The Re-emergence of Extreme Right-Wing Parties in Europe

Abstract: This paper focuses on the re-emergence of the extreme right. This recent event is analyzed in the context of the party system change all over Europe. After having identified the parties which belong to the extreme right political family through the adoption of a threefold criteria, some hypotheses about their recent sudden rise are offered. In particular, their re-emergence is mainly attributable to some basic changes, either at the cultural and mass opinion level, and at the societallevel. At the cultural level, the neoconservative mood has legitimized a series of themes which were previously almost banned from political debate. At the societal level, the decline of the party as such, the growing dissatisfaction vis-a-vis the political system and the decline of confidence in its efficacy to respond to new demands such as immigration control and law and order enforcement have facoured a mounting sense of doom and alienation. The extreme right parties have highly profited ofthis widespread "crisis of legitimacy.";