Combining an in-depth case study of the Italian Northern League with a comparative focus on other parties, Andrej Zaslove employs a socio-economic, institutional, and ideological analysis to argue that the new wave of right-wing parties in Western Europe converged into a radical right populist party family in the 1990s. He examines the transformation of the Northern League from its regionalist roots while focusing on the party's nationalism, authoritarianism, support for a market economy, opposition to globalization, and scepticism regarding Italian integration into the European Union. He also scrutinizes the Northern League's participation in political power between 2001 and 2006 and its influence on federalism, immigration, economic policy, and European integration. A thorough and thought-provoking work, The Re-invention of the European Radical Right offers remarkable insight into the ongoing effects of radical right populism on politics and public policy in Europe.

A look at the forces behind the rise of contemporary Europe's radical right.

Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg’s critical look at the far right throughout Europe reveals a prehistory and politics more complex than the stereotypes suggest and warns of the challenges it poses to the EU’s liberal-democratic order. These movements are determined to gain power through legitimate electoral means, and they are succeeding.

The 2014 Ukrainian crisis has highlighted the pro-Russia stances of some European countries, such as Hungary and Greece, and of some European parties, mostly on the far-right of the political spectrum. They see themselves as victims of the EU “technocracy” and liberal moral values, and look for new allies to denounce the current “mainstream” and its austerity measures. These groups found new and unexpected allies in Russia. As seen from the Kremlin, those who denounce Brussels and its submission to U.S. interests are potential allies of a newly re-assertive Russia that sees itself as the torchbearer of conservative values. Predating the Kremlin’s networks, the European connections of Alexander Dugin, the fascist geopolitician and proponent of neo-Eurasianism, paved the way for a new pan-European illiberal ideology based on an updated reinterpretation of fascism. Although Dugin and the European far-right belong to the same ideological world and can be seen as two sides of the same coin, the alliance between Putin’s regime and the European far-right is more a marriage of convenience than one of true love. This unique book examines the European far-right’s connections with Russia and untangles this puzzle by tracing the ideological origins and individual paths that have materialized in this permanent dialogue between Russia and Europe.

The first comprehensive and truly pan-European study of populist radical right parties in Europe.

This book investigates the historical roots of the Italian Republic’s oldest surviving political party, the populist far right Lega (Nord), tracing its origins to post-war Italy. The author examines two main case studies: the Movements for Regional Autonomy (MRAs), the Piedmontese Movement for Regional Autonomy (the MARP) and the Bergamascan Movement for Autonomy (the MAB), both of which formed a first wave of post-war populist regionalism from 1955 until 1960. The regionalist leagues which later emerged in both Piedmont and Lombardy in the 1980s – and which would later form part of the Lega Nord – represented in many ways a revival of the MRAs’ populist regionalist discourse and ideology and, therefore, a second wave of post-war populist regionalism. Despite this, neither the MRAs nor the twenty year gap between these waves of activism have received the attention they deserve. Drawing on a series of archival and secondary sources this book takes an innovative approach which blends concepts and theories from historical sociology and political science. It also provides a nuanced examination of the continuities and discontinuities between the MRAs and the Lega from the 1950s until time of publication. This contributes to debates not only in contemporary Italian history, but also populism and the far right. While rooted in historical approaches, the book’s interdisciplinarity makes it suitable for students and researchers across a variety of subject areas including European history, modern history, and political history.

Since the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, Russia’s support to the European far right—and to a variety of populist leaders more globally—has become a cornerstone of the West’s perception of Moscow as a “spoiler” on the international scene. The fact that Russia’s most fervent supporters are now to be found on the right of the ideological spectrum should not be a surprise. The European far right has always had Russophile tendencies, but these were obscured during the Cold War, when rightist politics were most of all anti-Communist. Entangled Far Rights traces the “intellectual romance” that existed between European far right groups and their Russian-Soviet counterparts during the twentieth century and accounts for their recent re-emergence.