The Trans-European Mobilization of “Generation Identity”

FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER THE FALL OF FASCISM AND THE END OF THE Second World War, right-wing radical movements and parties are part of the political normalcy in many Western democracies. In the face of the twentieth-century experiences of fascism and state socialism, and their failures, this stubborn persistence seems at the same time anachronistic and frightening. While there is no shortage of explanations and interpretations of this phenomenon in an evergrowing body of literature, most studies focus on national trends and derive their criteria from country-specific histories and discourses. Serious comparative scholarship on the radical right is still in its infancy.