Warum ist die extreme Rechte so erfolgreich?
Eine der drängendsten Fragen für das Jahr 2025 ist die nach den Ursachen für das anhaltende Erstarken der extremen Rechten. Ein Netzwerk junger Forscher:innen untersucht die Hintergründe dieses internationalen Phänomens. Spoiler: Es geht um mehr als TikTok.
The question of what drives the success of far-right groups has grown increasingly urgent over the past year. Regardless of where you look or which election from 2024 you analyze, the rise of the far right is impossible to ignore and warrants close attention. Researchers in political science, communication studies, and sociology within the "Contemporary Research on Far-Right Politics" network have been studying these groups for years, focusing on deeper, long-term dynamics rather than fleeting headlines. When asked about their reaction to recent political events, their response is both sharp and telling: "Disappointed, but not surprised."
In November 2024, around 15 of these experts gathered at the Weizenbaum Institute. This informal network of social scientists—comprising members from the Weizenbaum Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität, and the Berlin Social Science Center—meets roughly three times a year to exchange insights and discuss ongoing research. At this meeting—organized by Baoning Gong from the Weizenbaum Institute and Florian Primig from Freie Universität Berlin—their discussions centered on the societal conditions that allow far-right movements to thrive and the strategies and tactics these groups deploy to achieve their goals.
Conditions for Success and Radicalization
In their talks, Lorena Drakula, Steffen Göths, and Florian Primig explored specific factors that create fertile ground for the success of far-right ideologies. In addition, Luciano Santander Hoces focused in his contribution on what shapes the radicalization of far-right actors themselves.
Lorena Drakula (Freie Universität Berlin) argued that the concept of alienation is central to understanding the appeal of far-right narratives. She explained how the far-right offers a retreat to past social norms—grounded in an idealized, unified identity—and romanticizes traditional order at a time when systems of meaning are eroding. This address of subjective alienation, she noted, resonates with people facing genuine grievances caused by globalization and democratic disillusionment. Drakula highlighted how far-right ideologies appropriate leftist critiques of the status quo, but face a critical limitation: their rhetoric, which valorizes order and tradition, is fundamentally unequipped to address the objective dimension of alienation, instead assimilating individuals into the very systems that reproduce it.
Steffen Göths (Freie Universität) examined the allure of conspiracy theories, framing them as attempts to restore a sense of control and understanding in a chaotic world. As they locate centers of power and attribute responsibility to those perceived to hold it, they are seductive counter narratives to official or hegemonial explanations, often connected to structural problems. For example, public frustration with vaccine manufacturers profiting during the COVID-19 pandemic fueled beliefs that the virus was intentionally created. Göths argued that many counter-strategies, such as fact-checking or media literacy programs, fall short because they treat conspiracy theories as individual failings rather than structural phenomena.
Florian Primig (Freie Universität) focused on the appeal of a far-right “counter-knowledge order”, linking it to the failings of modern knowledge society. Knowledge societies often foster neoliberal competition over who “knows best” and value people differently depending on their perceived success in the knowledge economy. Primig explained that far-right counter-knowledge becomes attractive because it rejects these hierarchies on a surface level, offering an alternative that allows people to “know best” without having to participate in competition of ideas—to “dominate without difficulty” even if the shared information is false. By subverting the established knowledge structures, far-right ideologies pretend to free individuals from the pressures of the existing system and simultaneously aim to reinstate an unjust status quo based on unjust social hierarchies.
Luciano Santander Hoces (Freie Universität Berlin) examined the role of emotions in distinct phases that shaped the radicalization of far-right actors in Chile. Santander's methodological approach, showcased through interviews with far-right leaders, mapped the engagement phases of these political actors. Hoces identified comparable narratives across interviewees, with an emphasis on the role of emotions and personal trajectories in understanding far-right backlash politics. The use of life narratives uncovered emotional stories that became central to the analysis. A key finding was the identification of a radicalization phenomenon following the 2019 Chilean protests, characterized by a heightened focus on defending authoritarian neoliberalism and the 1980 Constitution.
Public Communication Infrastructures Skewed Towards the Right
The day’s keynote by Curd Knüpfer (Associate Professor of Political Communication at University of Southern Denmark and Associate Researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute), offered a comprehensive analysis of public communication ecosystems, particularly focusing on the United States. He made the argument that the left is fighting an uphill battle for attention, that our current public communication structures are in crisis, and in such a way that they skew to favor the far-right in several respects. He demonstrated that, from YouTube influencers to multi-media corporations, newspapers, and social media platforms, the far-right controls more media, is better connected, and maintains a greater ideological discipline. Furthermore, the far-right’s populism is well-suited to media networks that reward engagement, provocations, and oversimplifications. Knüpfer contended that this has allowed the far right to position itself as a “phantom counter-public,” viewed by many as a disenfranchised subculture despite wielding considerable political power.
The Far-Right’s Mobilization and Networking Tactics
The workshop contributions by Zita Seichter, Baoning Gong and Dominika Tronina focused on the media tactics, digital mobilization and international networking strategies employed by far-right actors.
In her project “Doing Ordinary Spaces,” Zita Seichter (HafenCity University Hamburg) explored how far-right imaginaries of spatial futures are co-constructed on TikTok and contribute to the normalization of far-right ideologies. Videos of peaceful, scenic urban places devoid of racialized others, are posted, watched, and engaged with on the platform. Such Prefigurative Practices collectively shape imaginaries and subtly idealize these spaces—precisely because they are exclusively white. This reframing of exclusionary spaces as “ordinary” and appealing reshapes far-right ideology in implicit ways, contrasting with the grandiose urban imaginaries usually envisioned by the far right. While not a formal political strategy, the presumed ordinariness of these spaces reinforces far-right ideologies by making exclusion seem natural and desirable.
In an ongoing project Baoning Gong (Weizenbaum Institute) and Kilian Buehling (Weizenbaum Institute) are analyzing far-right activity on Telegram, specifically how Germany’s AfD party strategically used the platform’s message deletion feature during state election campaigns in 2024. Gong noted that while retrospective message deletion can encourage users to share more freely, it also enables manipulation of public discourse. Their analysis showed a noticeable spike in message deletions after elections, prompting further exploration into the potential reasons behind this trend. Telegram’s message deletion features incentivize politicians, particularly radical and extremist far-right actors, to manage their public image during campaigns or even remove traces of their activity. Gong stressed the importance of being able to reconstruct why content was deleted in order to hold actors accountable.
Dominika Tronina (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), focusing on the anti-gender movement, analyzed its strategies for transnational networking online. By studying tweets from movement accounts across five EU countries, she found that international networking is often influenced by national contexts. Anti-gender movements facing resistance within their own country, tend to reach out to allies abroad; once a movement gains traction domestically, its members seek out institutional pathways for growth.
Jazmín Duarte Sckell (Freie Universität Berlin / SCRIPTS) analyzed the mobilization tactics of the far-right in the Southern Cone of Latin America—Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile—as well as the conditions for their rise. She distinguished between contextual factors, such as economic conditions and the decline of mainstream political actors, and intentional aspects, like far-right communication strategies and transnational networking. Duarte Sckell emphasized that the economic crisis, while significant, began years before the far-right gained power. The political vacuum was crucial, but it was the far-right candidate’s ability to position themselves as political outsiders that truly enabled their rise. She identified common far-right strategies, such as fear-based polarization linking anti-LGBTQ and anti-feminist narratives with anti-communism, an emphasis on security and order, and access to real-life networks like churches. In their transnational networking, they aimed to gain international recognition, exchange knowledge, and secure funding. Networks like “Family Values” and “Tradition, Family, and Property” play a significant role in connecting far-right actors globally.
Overall, the workshop underscored the complexity and multifaceted nature of the factors driving the success of far-right ideologies. Those working to counter these movements seem to have their work cut out for them. It’s clear that protecting liberal democracies and pluralistic societies will take more than a few quick fixes or individualistic solutions. While digital platforms and communication structures are far from neutral in their current form, it would be perilous to overlook the economic grievances and democratic disillusionment that preceded the far-right's electoral rise. Members of the “Contemporary Research on Far-Right Politics" network will continue to meet and help us get a better understanding of what we will be facing going forward.
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. More