Writing prior to the refugee crisis and Brexit, Dr. Alina Polyakova provides a prescient and cogent analysis of the role of nationalism in the growing support for radical right political parties. With its focus on Europe, the book frames the issue within the broader context of the challenges of integration facing the unprecedented experiment that is the European Union.
The book begins with an informative introduction to the EU project, the concept of nationalism, and the evolution of radical right parties in Europe. The contradiction of the dominance of economic and political integration in Europe over cultural integration, even though the latter was central to the vision of the EU’s founders, is discussed here and is a reoccurring theme throughout the book. The work of Karl Polanyi is introduced effectively to examine the economic and social forces at work in Europe from 1945 to the present. This leads to one of the fundamental questions of the book:
“If the national government fails to protect its people from the incursion of the market, the countermovement must emerge from society.... Specifically, does the emergence of populist radical right parties and the increasing salience of national identity provide evidence for an emerging protective movement in response to the single European market?”.
With this question in mind, Polyakova makes an important distinction between civic nationalism, which is the “loose cultural definition of nationalism—as a set of taken-for-granted narratives, traditions, and practices” and ethnic nationalism which is “inherently intolerant and exclusionary” and in which “ethnicity and ancestry characterize national belonging, not participation in a common civic culture”.
The first chapter begins with a more in-depth introduction to the history of radical right parties in Europe and the evolving role of nationalism in their message. It then moves to the statistical analysis which aims to identify which factors lead to an increase in votes for radical right nationalist parties. Polyakova puts forward five possible answers to this question:
1. Unemployment and economic decline
2. High numbers of immigrants
3. Proportional electoral systems as opposed to majoritarian systems
4. Political instability
5. Low civic participation and lack of trust.
In addition to these five factors, Polyakova introduces into the analysis the distinction between Western and Eastern Europe. A dataset constructed by the author of parliamentary elections from 1990 to 2012 for 27 countries (16 in Western Europe and 11 in Eastern Europe) is used for the analysis.
(Spoiler alert—to avoid, skip the following three paragraphs). The first surprising element of the data is that support for radical right parties over the sample period is lower in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe, which runs contrary to conventional wisdom. Also surprising and contrary to popular belief, is the finding that economic conditions (GDP and unemployment) are not significant contributors to a rise in the popularity of radical right parties. This finding holds across the sample as a whole and for Eastern Europe alone.
The next popular culprit, immigration, is significant for the sample as a whole, but is not significant explaining the difference in support for radical right parties between Eastern and Western Europe once the other variables are introduced. According to Polyakova, this result “suggests that higher immigration may be a necessary but not sufficient precondition for successful radical right parties” and she later adds that “The persistence of the assumption that rising immigration increases support for radical right parties is a reflection of the radical right’s successful framing of immigration as a threat to economic chances and national culture”. Since only ten percent of the elections in the data were held in a majoritarian electoral system, although the variable returns significant results, the hypothesis that proportional electoral systems facilitate the rise of radical right parties “cannot be accepted or rejected” due to data limitations.
Next, an increase in political instability is found to increase support for radical right parties and the effect is particularly significant in Eastern Europe. The final factors, civic participation and trust, are found to be insignificant for the sample as a whole, but are significant for the analysis of just Eastern Europe. There follows a thorough analysis of each of the results and in particular those that are particularly significant for Eastern Europe. Since this is one of the first analysis of radical right parties in Eastern Europe and due to the author’s extensive knowledge of the region, this makes for very interesting and informative reading. While it would definitely be challenging in terms of data availability, I would have been curious to see how increases in crime levels and terrorist attacks affect voting for nationalist parties.
Having looked at the macro variables that cause citizens to vote for radical right parties, Polyakova next moves to a more micro analysis of the increasing success of radical right parties. More specifically, she uses a case study of a radical nationalist party in Ukraine, the Freedom Party, to examine the recruiting tactics of these parties and to see what causes individuals to join. In order to carry out the analysis, Polyakova, who is originally from Ukraine but moved to the United States at a young age carried out extensive field work in Ukraine (in a touching moment in the book, she expresses her gratitude to her parents for the sacrifices they made in order to provide her with greater opportunities in the United States). This included attending political rallies and other events put on by the Freedom Party, as well as over 100 interviews with party leaders and members that were only made possible “after months of personal networking” (p.105). These interviews provide great insight into the inner workings of the party and descriptions of the various reasons and ways that members become a part of the movement. It includes many direct quotes such as this gem from a young party member:
“I had a beer one night and went to the Freedom Party tent on the main square. Talked to the people in the tents about the party, then went to an anti-communist rally, got beat up, and [as a result] became more interested in party events after that”.
Once again, the author’s extensive knowledge and familiarity with the history, politics, and culture of Ukraine prove invaluable in her analysis of the party’s development and current role in Ukrainian politics. Using analysis of several cities in Western Ukraine, Polyakova describes how the party changes its approach depending on the options and opportunities available to it in that particular city. In addition to being one of the first analysis of radical right parties in Eastern Europe, it is also one of the first to focus on the initial recruitment and indoctrination of members into radical right parties, with most prior analysis of these questions having focused almost exclusively on left-wing liberal movements. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Polyakova finds that most members of radical right parties (the Freedom Party in this case) do not come into contact with the party as a result of strong radical beliefs, but through social interactions such as volunteer opportunities, athletic activities and even dance parties. They only become supporters of the message after repeated exposure and influence from other party members. This interesting and important finding should be helpful for European political party leaders and other public officials who are looking to increase political participation amongst young people and other voters as well as promoting an agenda to oppose radical nationalism. It also lends support to Aristotle’s famous claim that “man is a social animal” and to the message of the 1995 movie “Higher Learning” ([...]). The only thing that could have made this section better is if it had been written after the Maidan revolution and with more updated figures, but hopefully this will all be forthcoming in further research from the author.
The next section of the book looks at the interaction between social movements and political parties from a theoretical perspective and this is where Polyakova is at her political scientist best. The issue that she explores is “how political parties influence and generate social movements” and circumstances under which they are not “mere reflections of social movements” but “agents of social change”. With a very thorough, but succinct, description of the social movement literature from 1950 to the present, Polyakova sets the stage for introducing her contribution to the literature. She proposes a new framework to examine the interaction and development of political parties and social movements.
Using the concept of field theory (which is lucidly explained), Polyakova proposes that “two key components structure the form and strategies of political movements: state openness to challengers and field structuration”. These two variables are then used to overcome the “party/movement dichotomy” and describe circumstances under which “a political movement can take either an institutional (political party) or non-institutional form (social movement), or both can develop as mutually-constitutive political actors”. Using several examples (including Occupy Wall Street and the recent Tea Party movement), Polyakova illustrates how this framework sheds light on the development and eventual fate of social movements and political parties.
The proposed framework and the buildup to it in the chapter allow the reader to understand the radical right movement in a broader theoretical context and this is the genius of Polyakova as a political scientist (for example, it allows the casual reader to see why the Know-Nothings were able to become a legitimate party in mid-19th century America, but would have almost no chance of successfully entering the political arena today). She proposes that further research into radical right parties in Europe can focus not exclusively on what causes people to vote for these parties, but on a “broader view of political movements to examine the interplay between these parties and other organizational actors in the political field”. While this is clearly important and beneficial for further research, it leaves the reader with something to be desired. In reading this section one anticipates its application to the radical right movement in Europe, but unfortunately this does not happen. In particular, it would have been interesting to see it applied to the Freedom Party in Ukraine and the more well-known LFN in France. In Ukraine, it could probably be considered a very unstructured field but difficult to say on the degree of openness. For France, the rise of LFN probably took place in a period of lowered structuration due to economic turmoil and a high degree of openness. Again, it would have been interesting to see Polyakova bring to bear her extensive knowledge of these places and issues on the subject. But inevitably, this would have extended the research and length of the book significantly, so as in the previous case, one hopes that the research will be forthcoming soon from the author.
The book concludes with a brief summary of the findings and then returns to the subject introduced at the very beginning, European integration. In one sense Polyakova is hopeful that a young generation of Europeans will grow up with a stronger feeling of Europeanness, stemming from having known only the existence of the EU and the Euro in their lifetimes. But, on the other hand, she points out that this young generation of Europeans is facing extremely high unemployment levels, so their affection for the EU integration project may be limited. In closing Polyakova proposes two possible scenarios for the future of the EU. The first is “the continued reassertion of national or even regional categories of belonging”. An example of this scenario being Britain having “already expressed its extent to pull away from deepening ties with the European continent” (p.157, the book is copyright 2015). The second scenario is “that once economic growth is restored, more Europeans will once again begin to embrace their Europeanness. National belonging will cease to be as important, and a new European identity will unite a truly integrated Europe.”.
While unemployment levels in many European countries have decreased slightly, economic growth rates remain low and Europe now faces new challenges in the form of a refugee crisis, Brexit and increased tensions with Russia over Ukraine. These signs point in the direction of the first scenario and it is clear that the European Union is operating at a very high level of uncertainty and risk of further dissolution. Its leaders, at both a national and European level, must make significant efforts at reform. They would be very well served to read this book, as would anyone else that is interested in the issues of Europe, Ukraine, nationalism, politics, radical right parties, multinational integration…the list could go on and on.
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