David Art

Reacting to the Radical Right Lessons from Germany and Austria

This article seeks to explain the variation in the electoral success of far-right parties in Germany and Austria over the past several decades. It argues that the reaction of existing political parties, the tabloid press and civil society to right-wing populism has been different in the two states, and that these differences help explain the divergent development of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the German Republicans (REPs). The article explores how the strategies of mainstream political forces affect the coalition markets, party organizations, political recruitment and perceived legitimacy of right-wing populist parties. It concludes by surveying recent developments concerning the far right in Austria and eastern Germany.

Using the Past in the Nazi Successor States from 1945 to the Present

This article examines the political uses of memory in the three successor states of the Third Reich. The focus is on how political elites offered stylized histories of the Nazi past in the service of broader political goals, both domestic and international. After reviewing key junctures in the politics of memory, the authors discuss contemporary debates about history, particularly in Germany, the country often viewed as the model for coming to terms with a traumatic past. Despite the massive and growing literature about confronting the Nazi past, the authors note that there are few studies that link ideas about history to broader political outcomes and suggest that this represents a fertile area for future research. The article concludes by considering whether German memory politics will serve as a model for European memory.

Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market

China he argues that the communist party has become a rapacious and self-serving elite accountable only to itself, profiteering at the expense of hundreds of millions of helpless Chinese citizens. Because each of the four syndromes of corruption has its own systemic logic and implications and differs in crucial ways from the others, the remedies for each must differ as well. Johnston criticizes simplistic anticorruption measures that may have little impact and can be strategically manipulated by politicians. It makes little sense to call for leaders to show political will to limit corruption when they themselves are the source of state capture and other corrupt acts. Similarly, naive moralizing about a system of laws backfires when the law itself is used as a veil to obscure corrupt shemes. Contemporary corruption is sophisticated and involves a host of “illicit connections between wealth and power” (195). One important proposition that needs more careful exploration involves Johnston’s suggestion that over time societies transition from one type of corruption to another, and that this development may have positive political consequences. Maybe so—but these transitions may may also have consequences harmful to the consolidation of democracies and systems of justice, such as increasing popular cynicism about the workings of government. In addition to its conceptual and empirical contributions this work excels as a sourcebook and overview of the existing literature on political corruption, reflecting Johnston’s lifework in this field. Yet, as he also notes, much more comparative research on corruption is urgently needed. Indeed, corruption studies can well serve as a key to a new perspective on comparative politics analysis.

Book Review: Paul Hainsworth, The Extreme Right in Western Europe. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. £15.99 (pbk), xii + 160 pp. ISBN 9780415170970

The literature on extreme right political parties in Western Europe is already massive. And as Paul Hainsworth points out in the conclusion to his book, the issues on which these parties campaign are unlikely to dissipate in the near future, virtually ensuring that the literature on them will continue to expand apace. Hainsworth does an excellent job of summarizing what two decades of research has taught us about the phenomenon, of outlining the major debates in the field, and of highlighting open questions. The book, part of Routledge’s series ‘The Making of the Contemporary World’, is ideally suited to undergraduate teaching, but also provides both graduate students and scholars a concise introduction to one of the most vibrant subfields in European politics. Readers will appreciate Hainsworth’s brevity. In a mere 133 pages of text, he outlines the debate over the nature of the extreme right (Chapter One), traces the development of both the most successful extreme right parties (Chapter Two) and those with more mixed fortunes (Chapter Three), before turning to questions of ideology (Chapter Four), voters (Chapter Five), and impact (Chapter Six). The analysis is crystal-clear throughout, while at the same time not ‘dumbing-down’ the many debates in the field. For example, while Hainsworth himself prefers the label extreme right, he explains why other scholars have used other terms, such as right-wing extremist, neo-fascist, and radical right. At certain points, the rapid-fire references to different scholars may prove a bit overwhelming to undergraduate students, although graduate students and scholars will certainly welcome such concise literature reviews. Instructors might want to have their students read the fourth chapter before the first, as the former does an exemplary job of outlining the political ideology of the extreme right, while the latter is more concerned with conceptual debates that might seem arcane at first blush. Hainsworth more than makes up for the flurry of names – which is itself a reflection of the volume of the literature – by continuously referring back to the big picture and placing extreme right parties in their historical context. Students will gain an appreciation for how the extreme right is related to some of the most significant changes in advanced industrial societies since the 1970s, such as the rise of post-material values, the increased pace of globalization and European integration, the growing political salience of immigration, and the outbreak of what many have termed the crisis of representative democracy. Another laudable feature of the book is its cross-national reach. Hainsworth covers extreme right parties in no less than fourteen West European countries, B O O K R E V I E W S

Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market – By Pippa Norris

China he argues that the communist party has become a rapacious and self-serving elite accountable only to itself, profiteering at the expense of hundreds of millions of helpless Chinese citizens. Because each of the four syndromes of corruption has its own systemic logic and implications and differs in crucial ways from the others, the remedies for each must differ as well. Johnston criticizes simplistic anticorruption measures that may have little impact and can be strategically manipulated by politicians. It makes little sense to call for leaders to show political will to limit corruption when they themselves are the source of state capture and other corrupt acts. Similarly, naive moralizing about a system of laws backfires when the law itself is used as a veil to obscure corrupt shemes. Contemporary corruption is sophisticated and involves a host of “illicit connections between wealth and power” (195). One important proposition that needs more careful exploration involves Johnston’s suggestion that over time societies transition from one type of corruption to another, and that this development may have positive political consequences. Maybe so—but these transitions may may also have consequences harmful to the consolidation of democracies and systems of justice, such as increasing popular cynicism about the workings of government. In addition to its conceptual and empirical contributions this work excels as a sourcebook and overview of the existing literature on political corruption, reflecting Johnston’s lifework in this field. Yet, as he also notes, much more comparative research on corruption is urgently needed. Indeed, corruption studies can well serve as a key to a new perspective on comparative politics analysis.