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This chapter describes the concept of right-wing extremism. It addresses the existing studies that have sought to show the diversity that exists among the West European parties of the extreme right. It then develops an alternative typology of right-wing extremist parties. Right-wing extremism is defined by two anti-constitutional and anti-democratic elements. Right-wing extremist parties can be divided into three categories according to their attitudes on race. The contemporary right-wing extremist parties of Western Europe can also be categorized into three groups according to the kind of attitudes they have towards democracy, parliamentarism and pluralism. The types of right-wing extremist party include neo-Nazi parties, neo-fascist parties, authoritarian xenophobic parties, neo-liberal xenophobic parties, and neo-liberal populist parties. It is suggested that the type of ideology to which the different parties of the extreme right adhere is quite likely to help account for their levels of electoral success.

This chapter examines the elaboration of and experimentation with diverse therapeutic and reformative procedures on which the governance of hate in Germany relies, with the aim of highlighting their sometimes desperate, sometimes bizarre struggles to exorcize the right-wing extremist malaise from bodies, minds, and souls. It shows how the excesses that present themselves in such efforts bear witness to the troubled place reserved for right-wing extremism in contemporary Germany. The chapter considers three interventionist modalities designed to reform political delinquents, each of which locates the right-wing extremists in a different site: states of resentment within the affective self, cognitive incoherencies within the rational individual, and corporeal deviance within the physical body. It explains how the affective subject, the rational subject, and the corporeal subject emerged as particularly salient domains for the management of hate.

This chapter focuses on campaigns for the production of positive affective orientations to cultural difference at the neighborhood level. In the wake of reunification, the national crusade against right-wing extremism has supplied one key answer to the national question. The post-reunification resignification of the national community has proceeded under the slogans of tolerance, democracy, open-mindedness, and civil society, which have been promoted as the banners of the war against the peril posed by right-wing extremists. The chapter examines how efforts to mobilize forces to the cause of tolerance and love of multicultural diversity intertwine with the capacity of affective governance to effectively recruit social actors, just as much as they betray its limits. It shows how the fabrication and rebranding of German nationalism has held a fundamental stake in the management of hate.

Chapter 2 provides an overview of German right-wing extremism. A history of German right-wing extremism is first discussed, tracing the formation of right-wing political parties and militant groups in this country in the post–World War II period. Critical periods and events are highlighted, including, among others, the reunification of East and West Germany and the current “refugee crisis.” The chapter describes important groups and organizations that operate or have operated within the right-wing milieu over the last decades. These groups include political parties, subcultural groups, and organizations that have committed terrorist attacks. These latter groups are discussed in terms of their formation, terrorist actions, and consequences.

This chapter examines how Germany's young right-wing extremists articulate their relations to cultural and ethnicized difference as they discursively constitute their own political selves, focusing in particular on their identification and self-identification as easterners. It considers some developments that have reshaped the extreme right in Germany over the past couple of decades, paying attention to the contemporary legacy of the East–West divide in the post-reunification era and its political significance both nationally and, more specifcally, for the young right-wing extremists. It also analyzes the vulnerability of Ossis (East Germans) to right-wing extremism right-wing extremism in today's Germany and concludes with a discussion of important trends that have reconfigured far right nationalism across the Continent, including Germany, in recent decades.

This book examines the affective management of German nationalism, or what it calls “the management of hate,” in Germany after reunification, taking as its point of departure the daily realities of young right-wing extremist groups in the East Berlin district of Treptow-Köpenick. It explores the governance of right-wing extremism within a project of German nationhood and how the troubled enterprise of the country's national question proceeds under the sign of broader contemporary processes. Topics include the ways that young right-wing extremists articulate their relations to cultural and ethnicized difference; the juridical production of the so-called “political delinquency”; how the management of hate seeks to inoculate and fortify broader affective publics against illicit forms of nationalism; and “national vision.” This chapter reviews the relevant historical background and provides an overview of some of the crucial theoretical frameworks that guide the study as well as the fieldwork and research methods.

In light of many incidents, it is not surprising that the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) occasioned considerable opposition. This chapter discusses the opposition from both the government and private monitoring groups. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has been in the forefront in confronting right-wing extremism in the United States. The WCOTC came under particular scrutiny by the federal government. In May 2004, the FBI released a critical report on Matt Hale titled, “A Different Breed of Terrorist.” In the aftermath of 9/11, law enforcement authorities are increasingly prosecuting any known illegal activity by extremists while at the same time infiltrating the potentially more dangerous groups to guard against future attacks. Still other legal problems continued to mount for Hale. In particular, he and his organization became embroiled in a trademark suit with another entity over the Church of the Creator name.

This chapter examines the far right's disillusionment with Christianity, which originally commenced in Germany and Austria in the early part of the twentieth century, but later spread to America after World War II. Over the past few decades, other non-Christian religions have gained currency. Increasingly, Aryan revolutionaries in both North America and Europe are adopting neopaganism as their new religion. This development is suggestive of a trend in which the far right has moved away from mainstream Christianity. Arguably, there is an inherent tension between contemporary Christianity and some variants of right-wing extremism. To better understand the influence of non-Christian religions on the contemporary extreme right, this chapter examines the events surrounding the rise of the Third Reich. Not only did various neopagan and nature cults influence National Socialism, but the historical period of the Third Reich looms large in the mythos of contemporary rightist pagans and Creators as well.

Chapter 8 reports on circumstances and reasons that our interviewees disengaged from the right-wing movement. The chapter begins by combining our 3N approach with a commonly cited “push–pull” framework to understand the mechanisms through which disengagement may typically occur. Analyses revealed that it was unlikely for a singular event to cause disengagement; rather, circumstances pertinent to several radicalization factors (the three Ns) were likely to be present. Diverging from other accounts of disengagement, the most frequently cited reason for leaving pertained to disillusionment with the ideological narrative advanced within the right wing. Throughout, the authors highlight the commonalities of their findings with those of past research, revealing the universal process of radicalization and deradicalization that underlies seemingly disparate special cases. The chapter also discusses the components of disengagement from extremism that appear to be unique to the German context.

The book’s penultimate chapter focuses on the late 1960s, as whatever tenuous accountability mechanisms Orlando Wilson had implemented were destroyed by his successor. With Black Power and left-wing critiques of the police ascendant, Chicago’s police, like those elsewhere, became increasingly reactionary and flirtatious with right-wing extremism, such as supporting George Wallace’s presidential candidacy and a cell of Ku Klux Klan members operating with the CPD. It also led to an overwhelmingly repressive operating ethos. While public memory canonizes that best in the CPD response to protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the chapter shows that a more representative display of police violence can be found in an urban uprising on Chicago’s West Side that same year, following the assassination of Martin Luther King. During that event, police visited extraordinary and lethal violence on Black citizens, culminating in a rash of police shootings and Mayor Richard Daley’s infamous “shoot-to-kill” order. That sort of violence was part and parcel of a larger culture of harassment and violence that pervaded the police department by that point, and that was made manifest in everything from the “War on Gangs” to the routine killing of unarmed Black people.

Chapter 7 turns to the interviewees’ phase of membership within the movement. For the majority of the interviewees, membership satisfied their quest for significance, purpose and acceptance. Nonetheless, life on the fringes of society was not all pleasant. Analyses revealed a significant increase over time in hardships experienced by our research participants, specifically, hardships related to the experience of discrimination and physical harm. The chapter explores these experiences in some detail and examines their impact on members’ commitment to the extreme movement. Finally, we examined participation in violence, and whether belief in various ideological ploys of the right-wing narrative (i.e., those that justify violence on moral grounds or denigrate the opposition) augmented individuals’ tendency to participate in violence.