Introduction

In recent years scholars have begun to recognize the surprising growth of various forms of international cooperation and identification among radical right-wing movements, especially in Europe. This book aims to explore this phenomenon further by opening up new directions for scholarly inquiry following trajectories of radical or extremist right-wing activity and thought across the European continent and even across the Atlantic to the US. ¹ Although right-wing groups have for the most part avoided formally organizing across borders, there is a surprisingly long tradition of international networking of texts, ideologies, and tactics going back at least to the widespread distribution of such anti-Semitic texts as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford’s The International Jew. Contemporary developments suggest that such international networking is on the rise, and formal international cooperation among right-wing extremists may indeed be on the horizon. Scholars rightly have been critical of journalistic accounts that tend to overestimate the internationalization of right-wing extremism. However, recent studies have demonstrated the existence of some troubling trends. In particular, globalization and the rise of Islamophobia have provided renewed motivation for transnational cooperation and an increase in populist movements, while the simultaneous introduction of the Internet has supplied the medium. The studies in this volume investigate various manifestations of such trends and show that these developments are not restricted to the European continent alone.