What Is the Far Right?
A short conceptual overview
The political term “far right” has three aspects: “right”, “far”, and their combination.
It is useful to understand the meaning of the “right” as part of the political distinction between Left and Right with a reference to the issues of equality and inequality. Humans are simultaneously equal and unequal, but people on the political Left believe that humans are more equal than unequal, while people on the political Right think otherwise.
The Left also has a tendency to interpret the majority of inequalities, which are seen as the most outrageous political issues, as social problems, implying that they can be removed through societal change. For its part, the Right believes that such inequalities are predominantly natural and, thus, cannot be eradicated.
This distinction also shapes the expectations of the Left and the Right of power structures: the Left expects them to tackle inequalities through social reforms, while the Right opposes addressing those disparities which it considers to be, if not entirely natural, then decidedly inevitable.
The categories of Left and Right outlined above should be treated as simplified analytical abstractions rather than as absolute descriptions of political reality. In political practice, most political forces on the Left understand that it is not possible to eliminate all inequalities (although they can perhaps be mitigated), while political forces on the Right tend to agree that pragmatic reforms reducing inequalities can be beneficial for societies (although any change in this regard should not be radical or undermine the underlying principles of the existing order).
The term “far” means that the far right goes beyond the traditional Right: power structures are expected to defend the existing inequalities and suppress, in one way or another, attempts to address them.
In contemporary academic literature, the term “far right” is generally used more specifically than a simple combination of “far” and “right”, as it refers to political forces that focus on real and/or imagined differences between particular ethnocultural communities and insist on maintaining, reasserting, or constituting those differences even at the expense of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Due to the many interpretations and conceptualisations of “ethnocultural communities” (nations, races, linguistic or religious groups, etc.), as well as many methods to affirm real and/or imagined differences between them, the “far right” is an umbrella term that refers to a broad range of ideologues, groups, movements, and political parties to the right of the mainstream Right usually associated with traditional conservatism.
Moreover, in the academic and expert literature of at least the last three decades, the “right-wing” dimension of the “far right” has been used as a political rather than an economic marker. While it is true that many far-right organisations of the postwar period were right-wing both politically and economically – meaning that, in economic terms, they were neoliberal, pro-free market, or simply pro-capitalist – the term “far right” was used to refer primarily to their political stances.
This also means that when a movement or party espouses far-right political views while advocating a left-wing economic agenda (for example, wealth redistribution, progressive taxation, or strong labour protections), the political dimension takes precedence over the economic one. In such cases, the adjective used to describe the organisation remains “far-right”. For example, national-communism – an ideology that combines radical nationalism with elements of a communist economic agenda (such as collective ownership of the means of production or the distribution of wealth according to need rather than market forces) – is a far-right rather than a far-left ideology.
The broad range of ideologies, ideologues, and organisations to the right of the mainstream Right covered by the umbrella term “far right” can be divided into two large categories: the radical right and the extreme right.
Drawing on long-standing legal distinctions in Germany, political radicalism is associated with attempts to address social problems and conflicts in a radical manner while remaining within the bounds of legitimate political competition. By contrast, political extremism aims to abolish the democratic constitutional order and eliminate the fundamental values of liberal democracy. In other words, the radical right harshly criticises liberal democracy, whereas the extreme right openly rejects it.
Usually, it is parties of the radical right – often also described as radical right-wing populist parties – that participate in the electoral processes of Western democracies, while right-wing extremist organisations tend to remain on the margins of socio-political life. However, in some European countries, even right-wing extremist parties are permitted to run for office, although they may be subject to surveillance by the relevant security agencies. Nevertheless, openly fascist or neo-Nazi organisations are frequently barred from contesting elections, depending on national legal frameworks.