ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. First, it aims to offer a model for the analysis of right-wing extremism in Central and Eastern Europe (and elsewhere), which focuses – at its core – on the interplay between political agents, as well as structural and cultural conditioning. Employing Archer’s morphogenetic approach, it shows that the success of right-wing extremism depends on whether the agent–structure–culture interplay results in structural and/or cultural elaboration (morphogenesis) or reproduction (morphostasis). Second, the chapter employs this framework in an analysis of contemporary Romania. Here, it argues that the decline of extreme right parties against the background of continuous support for and presence of right-wing extremism within Romanian society is a consequence of how logical contradictions within and between the structural and the cultural systems have been negotiated by political actors.
