Far Right, Radical Right, Extreme Right

What's the difference?

Dear friends,

Words matter. Especially when they’re accusations of extremism and of trying to subvert democracy.

So speaking of words, let me tell you that I heard some pretty strong ones over the past two weeks, as I was doing a round of interviews on the Italian election results. From Australian to British broadcasters, it struck me how their introductions to the interview were all different when it came to describing what had actually happened in Italy with the vote.

“Italy now has a neo-fascist government” was the opening salvo from a programme that shall remain nameless and should have known better. But mainly it was in the description of Giorgia Meloni’s ‘Brothers of Italy’ party that everyone differed.

From far-right, to ultra nationalist, to hard right, to radical or extreme right, I heard them all, used interchangeably and without being anchored in clear definitions.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Hey, it’s easy to criticise, and I know what it’s like to have to bash out a script and interview questions on something one isn’t an expert on (honestly, that is almost the dictionary definition of working in 24-hour news). But while journalists can occasionally get creative with words, academics tend not to. So I called one of the leading experts on right wing populism, the co-director of the Centre for Britain and Europe at the University of Surrey, Professor Daniele Albertazzi. He had also just emerged from a round of interviews, including for the agenda-setting BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, and had encountered the same issue. He told me he wasn’t surprised:

Unfortunately, in common speak and in the media, you can find these terms used interchangeably. I don't think that people really know why they're choosing one or the other.

I think there is a lot of confusion in the media because people are throwing around the term Far-Right when they just mean somebody with some radical ideas.

I understand that journalists don't always have the time to check the academic definition.

But we definitely have time to check academic definitions in this newsletter, so please break it down for us Daniele: what do you think are the main differences we should look out for?

“In academia, the three terms used are:

Radical right

Extreme Right and

Far Right.

Radical and Extreme right are at times pretty similar, in the sense that they both tend to focus on authoritarianism and extreme forms of nationalism, including nativism which is the idea that foreign influences and foreign people are by definition a threat to the national community.”

But according to Daniele, academically speaking, there is a key distinction between Radical and Extreme:

• Radical Right parties work within the institutions and therefore they are regarded as compatible with democracy

• Extreme Right movements are not only much more likely to be involved in violence, but they have the ideological imperative of wanting to bring down democracy. They may not be strong enough to be able to do it, but that is their mission. And that’s a crucial distinction with the Radical Right.

If you are a nazi or a fascist, you cannot be compatible with democracy. Otherwise, you haven't understood what the ideology is about.

OK. So that clears up the difference between Radical vs Extreme Right. But what about that catch-all term ‘Far Right’? Which also happens to be the one that gets thrown around most often. Daniele clears it up:

“Some academics subscribe to the idea that because the messages have become increasingly similar, for example of conspiracy theories that there are forces trying to destroy national identities, we should use a term that brings the two together because of the ideological similarities, and that term is Far Right.”

“A lot of it comes from the work of Cas Mudde who published a book a few years ago called The Far Right Today. And from then on, it's kind of caught on.”

“But I think we risk causing a lot of confusion. Because we end up with the Swiss People's Party which has been in government for 30 years, has some radical ideas but is fully compatible with democracy in the same box as Casa Pound in Italy or neo Nazi groups in Germany. Which, in my view, doesn’t help.”

Thank you Daniele.

So there you have it. I suspect we’ll be talking about the Far Right a lot in months to come, and not just in the context of Italy. The sentiments behind it are on the rise across the West and it helps to know how to describe the various political parties and forces, and what to look out for specifically.

And if any of you London dwellers want to know more, join me at the Frontline Club in Paddington on Thursday October 13th (link for tickets), where I’m chairing a debate on this very issue with Daniele and the inimitable Otto English, journalist and author of Fake History, who is as sharp and funny as he is knowledgeable.

And thank you to Tony Prado, a journalism professor at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo who emailed me asking whether European journalists were mentioning Umberto Eco’s definitions of Fascism. The short answer is no, but it gave me a good excuse to dust off my memory of Eco’s list of the 14 common features of Fascism, which is definitely worth reading.

Remember that all paid subscribers can email me directly at barbaraserra@substack.com - Just make sure you’re sending it from the email address you used to subscribe. Feedback is always great, I love hearing from you.