ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to understand the psychological processes that explain the rise of the Far Right in Europe and discusses how political developments shape our individual, social and collective psychological experiences. We review areas of psychological inquiry that complement non-psychological accounts of socio-political conditions (rise in relative deprivation, economic frustrations, rise in migration, and challenges of globalization and EU integration). We discuss ‘who engages with the Far Right’, focusing on the personality and qualities of far right followers and leaders, ideological orientations, values, emotions, group identification, social identity, psychoanalytical approaches, gender and far right masculinity, media use and online activism, radicalization and engagement. We discuss the psychological dynamics of far right politics alongside phenomena such as populism, extreme politics and extreme Islamism, and offer an integrative model of researching the Far Right, which calls for conceptually sound, methodologically diverse, and ethically grounded scholarship.
