Contemporary Research on Far-Right Politics

In April 2024, around 20 young scientists gathered at the Weizenbaum Institute to discuss their current research projects. What all of them have in common: they’re researching the far-right. “We meet up three times a year” says Weizenbaum researcher Kilian Bühling, who co-organized the workshop, “to exchange feedback on the current status of our work and discuss certain issues common to our field.” The other co-organizers: Susanne Reinhardt (Freie Universität Berlin) and Dominika Tronina (Humboldt University). The meetings are part of an informal network of social scientists mainly from the Weizenbaum Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt University and Berlin Social Science Center. And the spectrum of research topics brought to the workshop by political scientists, communication scholars and sociologists is broad.

There’s Francesca Feo, for example, who analyzed the gender gap in far-right voters in Italy and their attitudes towards gender politics – like access to abortion, among others. In the Italian context, gender is a polarizing issue. Sexist attitudes are an important factor in favoring far-right votes, even the main factor in predicting voters, says Feo. But a lot of questions are still left unanswered, more data and more indicators are needed. The last election was the first where issues of gender were politicized. The far-right is currently trying to build up a cultural hegemony and influence public opinion in this direction. But it is still unclear if people voted for the party explicitly because of their positions on gender politics.

The workshop in April was already the fourth installment of this kind. The meetings began in 2023, when researchers from the Center for Comparative Research on Democracy at the Humboldt University reached out to other early career researchers from Berlin-based institutions that focus on the far-right. Researchers from the Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin Social Science Center and Freie Universität Berlin joined in. Bühling, who investigates how right-wing groups use conspiracy theories to mobilize their base through social media platforms and alternative media, was already part of the first workshop. “Within our own institutions, we’re a small group of scientists among many, the topic rather marginal,” says the communication scholar, “so the exchange in this larger group of peers is really helpful.”

Helpful feedback also came for David Meiering. His research project looks at instances of state level cooperation between Germany’s conservative party CDU and the far-right AfD. He identified common narratives to ban gender-neutral language – which have been successful in some states led by conservative governments. Part of the project is a salience study of the gender debates in parliamentary discussions, identifying debates as well as their frames, and analyzing them. These discursive alliances between the conservatives and the right can be understood as backlash coalitions to progressive politics. But it is unclear if the CDU is adapting AfD positions out of competition, or if right-wing fractions within the conservative party are simply gaining in strength and are dominating inner party conflicts.

The idea of a backlash against radical feminism is the focus of paper presented at the workshop by Ann-Kathrin Rothermel, now at the University of Bern. She’s part of a Horizon Europe project on the role of gender in the far-right electoral success across Europe. Drawing on data from this project, Rothermel analyzes in what way the far-right in Germany and Switzerland is twisting the radicality of feminism in order to claim itself as a counter-public movement, rebelling against a “mainstream gender push” that aims to “radically transform society.” This narrative helps right-wing parties to frame themselves as niche and as protest-voter parties. As Rothermel explains, radical left theories are often blamed for the rise of the radical right, just as post-structural discourses are often discussed as paving the way for post-truth discourses. By disentangling the dynamics of far-right claims about radicality and comparing them to the ‘radicality’ of feminism, however, the paper exposes that both claims are unfounded.

In his dissertation, Luciano Santander Hoces looks at the far-right backlash in Chile and the current revival of authoritarian neoliberalism. At the workshop, he reflected his own role as researcher in interviewing far-right political leaders, and investigated the reasons why these informants agreed and felt comfortable to speak with the social scientist. Santander identified social class, Eurocentrism – a fascination with Germany and the European heritage – and white masculinity as supporting factors. He had gone to University with some of the interviewees, they showed interest in getting to know his German co-researcher, and they were all men. None of the women who were asked had agreed to an interview. The group later discussed how he could include these insights into his thesis.

After the presentations, the discussion turned to alliances between neoliberal policy groups and the far-right, through funders, international summits or global networks, and debated to what extent neoliberal policies are being covered up by issues of culture or gender. A second group discussed the discrepancies between the far-rights policy proposals and campaigning narratives, and what they actually do once they are in power. “The right talks a lot about traditional family values, but when it comes to care-related issues, they don’t do much when they are in office,” one attendee noted.

The group will meet again later this fall, and return to the Weizenbaum Institute. Baoning Gong is already in the midst of preparing the upcoming workshop together with Florian Primig (Freie Universität Berlin). As a doctoral researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute, she investigates how the functionalities of social media platforms influence right-wing mobilization, comparing mainstream and fringe platforms, as well as far-right activist movements in Germany and the United States. “In the next workshop, we will be discussing the conditions under which the far-right is thriving, why they are so attractive to many people,” says Gong, “in order to make better sense of their success, but also of what constitutes resistance to those forces.”

This report is part of a special focus "Solidarity in the Networked Society." Scientists from the Weizenbaum Institute provide insights into their research on various aspects of digital democracy and digital participation through interviews, reports, and dossiers.
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