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Fear, Insecurity and the (Re)Emergence of the Far Right in Europe

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The Palgrave Handbook of Global Political Psychology

Abstract

With their 24 per cent support, the far right party Front National has been described as the largest party in France, larger than the ruling Socialist Party and larger than the conservative bloc. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, the EU (European Union)-critical UK Independence Party (Ukip) is stealing votes from the Conservative party and became the biggest party in the 2014 EU elections. In Finland the True Finns, a party striving to keep cultural groups separate, gained almost 20 per cent of the votes in the 2011 election, and in Hungary paramilitary demonstrations have been organised by Jobbik, another far right party, against Roma people. In Greece the extreme right-wing party Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi) has entered the city council of Athens for the first time, while extremist militias have taken over law and order in some areas with a dense immigrant population. Throughout Europe, we see how the far right is gaining votes, power and influence at the expense of other, more mainstream parties.

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© 2014 Catarina Kinnvall

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Kinnvall, C. (2014). Fear, Insecurity and the (Re)Emergence of the Far Right in Europe. In: Nesbitt-Larking, P., Kinnvall, C., Capelos, T., Dekker, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Political Psychology. Palgrave Studies in Political Psychology Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-29118-9_18

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