A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different political positions in relation to one another. These positions sit upon one or more geometric axes that represent independent political dimensions. The expressions political compass and political map are used to refer to the political spectrum as well, especially to popular two-dimensional models of it.
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sentiment, as well as opposition to liberal democracy, social democracy, parliamentarianism, liberalism, Marxism, capitalism, communism, and socialism. As with classical fascism, it proposes a Third Position as an alternative to market capitalism.
Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property, religion, biology or tradition. Hierarchy and inequality may be seen as natural results of traditional social differences or competition in market economies.
Far-right politics, or right-wing extremism, is a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies. The name derives from the left–right political spectrum, with the "far right" considered further from center than the standard political right.
The left–right political spectrum is a system of classifying political positions, ideologies and parties, with emphasis placed upon issues of social equality and social hierarchy. In addition to positions on the left and on the right, there are centrist and moderate positions, which are not strongly aligned with either end of the spectrum. It originated during the French Revolution based on the seating in the French National Assembly.
What constitutes as a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets debated amongst historians, political scientists, and other scholars ever since Benito Mussolini first used the term in 1915. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall".
Stanley George Payne is an American historian of modern Spain and European fascism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He retired from full-time teaching in 2004 and is currently Professor Emeritus at its Department of History.
Herbert P. Kitschelt is a political science scholar and George V. Allen Professor of International Relations at Duke University, North Carolina. Kitschelt's key intellectual contribution is arguably his redefinition of the competitive space for political parties in Western Europe. Kitschelt claims that the traditional patterns along which parties competed had progressively shifted to a new pattern of political division: left-libertarian versus right-authoritarian as a result of social changes in advanced capitalist societies. He was also one of the first scholars to systematically study the rise of Green parties in Europe, which he understood as a form of 'left-libertarian' politics.
In political science and sociology, a cleavage is a historically determined social or cultural line which divides citizens within a society into groups with differing political interests, resulting in political conflict among these groups. Social or cultural cleavages thus become political cleavages once they get politicized as such. Cleavage theory accordingly argues that political cleavages predominantly determine a country's party system as well as the individual voting behavior of citizens, dividing them into voting blocs. These blocs are distinguished by similar socio-economic characteristics, who vote and view the world in a similar way. It is distinct from other common political theories on voting behavior in the sense that it focuses on aggregate and structural patterns instead of individual voting behaviors.
Palingenetic ultranationalism is a definition of "true fascism" proposed by political theorist Roger Griffin. The phrase was first coined by Griffin in his 1991 book The Nature of Fascism. A key element is the belief that fascism can be defined by what Griffin posits in his book to be the true core myth of fascism, namely that of the need for a social revolution to occur first before a "national rebirth", palingenesis, could then take place.
The Fatherland Front was the right-wing conservative, nationalist and corporatist ruling political organisation of the Federal State of Austria. It claimed to be a nonpartisan movement, and aimed to unite all the people of Austria, overcoming political and social divisions. Established on 20 May 1933 by Christian Social Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss as the only legally permitted party in the country, it was organised along the lines of Italian Fascism, was fully aligned with the Catholic Church, and did not advocate any racial ideology, as Italian Fascism later did. It advocated Austrian nationalism and independence from Germany on the basis of protecting Austria's Catholic religious identity from what they considered a Protestant-dominated German state.
Far-left politics, also known as the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some scholars consider it to be the left of communist parties, while others broaden it to include the left of social democracy. In certain instances—especially in the news media—far left has been associated with some forms of authoritarianism, anarchism, communism, and Marxism, or are characterized as groups that advocate for revolutionary socialism and related communist ideologies, or anti-capitalism and anti-globalization. Far-left terrorism consists of extremist, militant, or insurgent groups that attempt to realize their ideals through political violence rather than using democratic processes.
Jean-Pierre Stirbois was a French far-right politician. Elected deputy mayor in 1983 of Dreux, a city of around 30,000 inhabitants at the time, he was one of the main architects, along with his wife Marie-France Stirbois, of the first electoral breakthrough of the National Front.
Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics is a 1948 book by Francis Parker Yockey, using the pen name Ulick Varange, that argues for a pan-European fascist empire. Imperium presents an antisemitic theory of history, asserts that the Holocaust was a hoax, and is dedicated to "the hero of the Second World War", meant to describe Adolf Hitler.
The Italian Social Movement was a neo-fascist political party in Italy. A far-right party, it presented itself until the 1990s as the defender of Italian fascism's legacy, and later moved towards national conservatism. In 1972, the Italian Democratic Party of Monarchist Unity was merged into the MSI and the party's official name was changed to Italian Social Movement – National Right.
Welfare chauvinism or welfare state nationalism is the political notion that welfare benefits should be restricted to certain groups, particularly to the natives of a country as opposed to immigrants. It is used as an argumentation strategy by right-wing populist parties, which describes a claimed connection between the problems of the welfare state and, in essence, immigration, but also other social groups such as welfare recipients and the unemployed. The focus is placed on categorizing state residents in two extremes: the "nourishing" and "debilitating" and the contradiction between them in the competition for the society's scarce resources.
Roger Eatwell is a British academic currently an Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Bath.
In political science, the terms reactionary right and populist right have been used to refer to the range of nationalist, right-wing to far-right parties that have grown in support since the late 1970s in Europe. Populist right groups have shared a number of causes, which typically include opposition to globalisation and immigration, criticism of multiculturalism, and opposition to the European Union, but do not oppose democracy.
Anton Volodymyrovich Shekhovtsov is a Ukrainian political scientist, academic and writer. He is known for his writings on the European radical right and in particular its connections to Russia. He is the editor of the Explorations of the Far Right book series at ibidem-Verlag and sits on the board of the open access journal Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies.
