Friday, December 5, 2014

The Rise of the Right

I forget who asked me over Thanksgiving, but someone was puzzled by the rise of the far right, especially Nazi-types in places that experienced the Nazis.

Well, for Greece, the answer is obvious:
What more do you need to know?  In really harsh economic times, people turn to blaming others and supporting politicians who do so.  People were surprised by the rise of xenophobia in Finland, for instance, but this figure would make that seem a bit less puzzling.  An interesting study for a comparativist would be to see where the far right did less well during these difficult times and perhaps where the far right is doing better than they should (UK, Germany). 

Of course, this is just about the state of the national economy--it does not speak to inequality within these economies nor to anything else.  Still, pretty damned instructive.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Helen Smith and a colleague had a long read in the Guardian detailing how the British shifted their support away from the resistance in late 1944 and rehabilitated many who collaborated with German occupation. The claim here is that the far right has never been expunged from Greek politics because the Greeks never had a period of review (revenge?) like France for example. UKIP is hardly a neo-nazi party. We shouldn't conflate those types of parties that often are co-opted within mainstream right of centre parties with neo-nazis.