THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF THE FAR RIGHT

Recent developments in Europe, including the financial crisis of 2008 and its economic repercussions and the refugee crisis intensifying eight years later, created favorable conditions for increased mobilization of far-right organizations and movements. There is a large and growing literature showing this (see e.g., Benček and Strasheim, 2016; Garland and Treadwell, 2012; Inglehart and Norris, 2016; Kriesi and Pappas, 2015; Mudde, 2016b; Almeida, 2019; Arzheimer, 2015: 552; Caiani and Weisskircher, 2019). Empirically, this was visible in the success of Trump(ism) and related organizations (i.e. the invasion of the Capital, "Save America March", on January 2021), Brexit (which was supported by far-right groups) and the emergence of new nationalist movements such as the ‘alt-right’ and Pegida (Boros et al., 2016). It was also accompanied with the rising electoral success and social penetration of far-right groups at the national and local level all across Europe and beyond. The research literature on the far right has mainly focused on populist right-wing political parties and electoral behavior, and has been paying less attention to the non-partisan milieu of the far right that surrounds and often supports them (for exceptions, see Caiani et al., 2012; Hutter and Kriesi, 2013; Leeson et al., 2012; Morrow and Meadowcroft, 2019; Ruzza, 2017; Veugelers and Menard, 2018; Minkenberg, 2011; Castelli Gattinara and Pirro 2024). Moreover, the boundaries between far-right movements and populist radical right-wing parties are increasingly ‘blurred’ (Mudde, 2016a; Rydgren 2018), in the current fourth wave of radical right-wing mobilization (Mudde 2019) and it is hence of key importance to focus on far-right movements. Building on decades of scholarly research on far-right movements, this handbook brings attention to the movement sector of the far right and, simultaneously, to a social movement approach to the far right and its methodological implications. It also makes an important contribution to the field of social movements, which, as will be further discussed below, until recently focused primarily on left wing and green movements, and showed less interest in right-wing movements. This has changed the past decade, and it is now time to bring together and synthesize this research as well as pointing out new avenues for coming research. The far right has a powerful appeal to commentators and academics alike. The recent growth of far-right movements across the world, combined with the rapid increase in research on this topic means, we argue, that there is a strong case for a handbook that seeks to provide an authoritative and broad overview of far-right movements and that by analyzing the far right from a social movement perspective seeks to integrate what have to date largely been perceived as disparate fields. The quality and reputation of the existing Oxford handbooks makes this press the natural home for the proposed volume.