ABSTRACT
Introduction ‘Youth’ is a fluid concept and a fluid phenomenon. This is, first, because of the different cultural and social contexts that define different age boundaries of ‘youth’; and second, because of the very intensive temporality and rapid transition from one status to another, each conferring different civil and political rights; and third, because of the dynamic political socialisation. Far-right populism is also a fluid concept and a fluid phenomenon: it stubbornly refuses to fit into the Procrustean bed of definitions (for the different definitions, see Chapter 1) and it encompasses a wide range of phenomena – from nationalism to extremism to radicalism. The difference between these last two is significant for a number of authors, who make a distinction between extreme and radical right, where the first opposes the essence of democracy – namely, popular sovereignty and majority rule – while the second accepts that essence, but opposes key features of liberal democracy – namely, pluralism and the protection of minority rights (Mudde 2007). Indexes have been elaborated for measuring the degree of radicalisation, assigning an increasing score to the different forms of action – conventional, demonstrative, expressive, confrontational, light violence, heavy violence – according to their growing degree of radicalism (Caiani and Parenti 2013: 207). For the purposes of this analysis, I will follow the approach of Cas Mudde (2014), whose concept of ‘the far right’ includes both extreme-and radical-right groups. This flexible concept encompasses a wide range of parties, from the Progress Party (FRP) in Norway to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and Golden Dawn in Greece; as well as organisations like the Bulgarian National Union (BNU; in Bulgaria) and the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR; in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark) or associations like Lealtà – Azione (in Italy); marches such as the Salem March in Stockholm and the Lukov March in Sofia; subcultures of soccer fans, skinheads and digital hate networks. Understanding how and why far-right parties, groups and subcultures become attractive to young people is the first objective of the chapter. What happens when two fluid concepts and phenomena meet and interfere with each other? They do not crystallise into firm, clear figures, trends and patterns; on the contrary, they multiply fluidities, problematise boundaries, contest
rigid concepts. Hence, this analysis will focus on the diverse manifestations of farright youth populism and its fluid and dynamic boundaries with agency, identities, (sub)cultures and citizenship. The analysis will be based on Paul Ricoeur’s concept of Oneself as Another (Ricoeur 1990) – a concept informed by the interaction of identity and ipseity, by the understanding of the complex intertwining of narratives that weave fluid, dynamic identities: insider narratives designed for the microcommunity; insider narratives designed for the macro-society; outsider narratives designed for the micro-community; outsider narratives designed for the macrosociety. Although the present study cannot cover the whole spectrum of narratives, identities and the complex interactions between them, it takes this fluid complexity into account. The analysis will focus on two poles. The first is centered on the second type of narratives – insider narratives designed for outsiders; the interviews with young activists, conducted under the RAGE Project, are precisely of this type. This pole allows us to outline the image promoted by young extremists to society at large, an image which is often that of people devoted to the patriotic cause. The other pole is dominated by the outside gaze, which labels, guides, evaluates. The activists themselves are situated in different positions across the wide spectrum of far-right agency, forming a bricolage of identities, images, imaginaries. Two hypotheses – those of the lost generation and of contestatory citizenship – will be examined from the point of view of their sphere of validity in explaining far-right youth. Those two conceptions differ, both in their subject of research and in their analytical focus. The lost generation conception looks for the socio-economic and political factors for the emergence and development of youth extremism. The contestatory-citizenship conception focuses on the dynamic processes of the construction of youth agency as political commitment, identity formation and citizenship in societies marked by ‘expansion of conflict’ (Schattschneider 1975), ‘protest populism’ (Kriesi 2014: 361) and ‘counter-democracy’ (Rosanvallon 2006).
