Over the past decade, the far right has reshaped domestic politics around the world. It has gained parliamentary seats or even government participation in many European countries and has changed the political landscape worldwide. The far right encompasses radical-right groups – which aim to change discourse and policies away from the liberal paradigm, and extreme–right groups – which aim to change the underlying polity. It includes political parties (from Austria’s Freedom Party to Greece’s Golden Dawn), civil society groups, networks (from the Identitarian Movement to the vigilante group Soldiers of Odin), and social movements (e.g., protests against the so-called Islamization of Europe). Although populism and far-right discourse often coincide, they can also appear separately. These various groups are far from agreeing on all political positions, but they share a focus on sovereignty, strict immigration policies, “nativism”, and are skeptical of the authority of international organizations (IOs).
However, the effects of far-right contestation of IOs vary: Far-right civil society actors have contributed to a halt of policy development on women’s rights at the UN. Far-right positions influenced the decision of the Trump administration to withdraw from the World Health Organization. Far-right parties in European governments reshaped negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration, while far-right civil society groups and media mobilized online and offline on this international issue. At the same time, far-right contestation had more diffuse effects in other contexts, such as in the case of decision-making in the European Parliament (EP), where the policy influence of radical right parties remained limited, despite their ever-growing representation in the EP over the past decade. In the five-year ERC-funded project, Farrio will analyze how the far right affects international organizations, and where and why we see differences.
In addition to general conceptualization and identification of the transnational far right (and its strategies), FARRIO analyzes networks, strategies, and reactions by international organizations across different policy areas: gender, climate change, migration, and finance/development.