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Extreme Right Analysis

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In an effort to further understand extreme Right parties, scholars have broken into two dominant camps: the demand-side/externalist camp and the electoral- behavior internalist camp. The externalist camp views the extreme Right as the product of a series of external factors- they analyze the economic, social, cultural environments that preceded the rise of the far right (Blee, 2007). This camp adopts a macro-level approach when studying the extreme right and as such look at immigration, anti-establishment sentiment, social breakdown, the ‘losers’ of modernization, and the reaction to the ‘new’ politics of feminists and ecologists (Goodwin, 2006). Although he admits that externalism points scholars in the right direction, Goodwin says this …show more content…

The internalist approach is more concerned with what the party has done to become prominent-therefore this approach focuses on party activists, leadership, organization and ideology (Goodwin, 2006). Proponents of the internalist approach believe that the success of the extreme right is based on them finding a winning balance of the four factors mentioned above. To them, the extreme right must have a strong charismatic leader, passionate engaged activists; a strong organizational system consisting of high quality and quantity party membership, staffing, actors and finance as well as strong willingness and ability to deploy the resources (Goodwin, 2006). Although the internalist perspective grants incredible insight into the mindset of the supporters and members of the extreme right, papers with this perspective are rare because of the suspiciousness of such characters- they do not trust intellectuals, entry into the group is difficult, and gaining access to the group can be dangerous (Blee, 2007). Furthermore, the rarity of internalist approaches is made more difficult by how intellectuals view the extreme right, in that intellectuals have relegated the extreme right to the edge of politics and have casted them and their reasoning as ‘alien’-especially since the end of WW2 (Blee,

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