The Radical Right

The tragic terror attacks in Norway on 22 July, 2011 drew Europe’s gaze to the dangers of the growing presence of the radical right across Europe and the increasing legitimisation of anti-immigration and anti-Islamic discourses within mainstream European politics. In recent years, European intelligence services have focused on radical Islam as Europe’s greatest terrorist threat. However Europol records a significant number of attacks committed by the extreme right in recent years. European policy has tended to focus almost exclusively on countering Al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism and has overlooked the risk of violent right-wing radicalisation in Europe.

The events in Norway and recent attacks in Germany challenge the idea that extremism from the right is only a minor security threat. Media coverage of the attacks on Oslo and Utøya were torn between portraits of the attacker as a ‘lone wolf’ and exposés of his relationships with well-established and organised far right networks, political parties, and local-level movements. The blurred relationship between violence from the extreme right and broader trends of Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiment poses several challenges for policy makers seeking to address the increasing risk of violent right-wing extremism. One critical area of inquiry following the Norwegian terror attack is the mechanisms through which radical right-wing politics and ideologies have the potential to develop into violent extremism. There is a need to construct policies which not only support local-level prevention of these mechanisms, but which address and seek to change macro-level drivers of violent right-wing extremism.

In 2012, ISD will launch a new programme of work to enhance understanding of the threat from the far right, and help policy makers to develop effective responses. It will be launched at an international event at ISD in January 2012, and will be followed by a series of projects, events, and papers.