Over the past few years, many European countries have experienced a revival of Far-Right extremist violence, with a surge of anti-immigration and Islamophobic incidents, as well as attacks on LGBT communities. However, public debate has not ascribed this the same level of importance as EU policy makers and intelligence agencies have focused most of their attention on Islamic extremist terrorism. Nonetheless, most violent crimes committed by individuals or groups strongly motivated by a Far-Right agenda are not considered because some EU Member-states do not know whether to classify attacks from these radicals as terrorism, or as less premeditated forms of violence, such as racist violence or hate crime. This form of political violence is quite elusive in some European political parties’ populist narratives by facilitating the transmission of grievances, opportunities, and polarization between citizens. The erosion of trust on governments is caused by a plethora of intricate topics. However, the crises of political representation are carried out as benchmark of nationalist and xenophobic groups’ activities to catalyse public anxiety about the changing social order and the deteriorating national economic conditions. Thus, the purpose of this paper, is to explore the Far-Right’s narrative, support base and impact on the rise of national Far-Right political parties.
Keywords: Far-right political parties discourse; Violent extremism; EU Internal Security
Carlos Morgado Braz |International Centre for Policing and Security/University of South Wales, University of South Wales, United Kingdom
My main areas of expertise are, EU politics, security studies, conflict resolution and military interventionism in peacekeeping processes. In the previous successful stage of my academic rack at the School of Economics/University of Coimbra, I came forward with a PhD thesis addressing the transnational terrorism threat, focusing on how international events have influenced Portuguese decision-makers, regarding the model adopted to fight against terrorism. Additionally, this also involved a cross-sectional interactions design established between policy and decision-makers and security forces as key role players of the Portuguese internal security framework. This innovative approach led me into another promising field of research on the EU’s security structure and its polity, policy and political dynamics.