ABSTRACT
To develop precise explanations of far right violence, we need to match our theories with empirical evidence documenting variation in violence across time and place. However, as this chapter shows, available evidence on far right violence suffers from several shortcomings hindering comparative research and theory testing from moving forward. In particular, existing datasets fail to ensure that a) all relevant incidents are included; b) all irrelevant incidents are excluded; and c) the target selection is based on right-wing motives. To illustrate the problem, we relate these and other shortcomings to five more general methodological themes concerning availability, representativity, measurement validity, replicability, and comparability. We also propose three strategies for overcoming some of these methodological challenges: (1) crowdsourcing; (2) international standardized police reporting; and (3) victimization surveys. The combination of these three strategies will enable scholars to provide empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated answers to pressing questions regarding the prevalence, patterns and perpetrators of far right violence.
