Exorcising Europe's Demons: A Far-Right Resurgence?

Is Jörg Haider the tip of the iceberg ... the first of many yet to come? The charismatic chief led the Freedom Party (FPO) to win 26.9 percent of the vote in the October 1999 Austrian general election, coming second behind the Social Democrats. Even though the FPO beat the mainline conservative People's Party for second place by a mere 415 votes, the result sent shockwaves through the Austrian political system and throughout Europe. It threatened to overturn the cozy power-sharing arrangements between conservatives and social democrats that had governed Austria for most of the post-war era. Other EU countries effectively put Vienna on notice that there would be serious consequences if Haider and his supporters entered government. Threats notwithstanding, in early February, a new coalition containing Freedom Party ministers (but not Haider himself) was sworn in, and all 14 of the other EU governments took immediate steps to downgrade their bilateral ties with Vienna.

Isolating Vienna within the EU was an unprecedented step. At one level it was a gesture of principle: a declaration that certain ideas are beyond the political pale. At another level, it was a defensive response: a harbinger of fears that the far-right contagion might spread to other countries where right-wing extremists, though entrenched in local politics, have hitherto been denied national office.

The United States too expressed its deep concerns about the Freedom Party's involvement in government. Kathryn Hall, the U.S. ambassador to Austria, was recalled to Washington for consultations and, on her return to Vienna, stressed that the Clinton administration would be following the actions of the new Austrian coalition closely. Nonetheless the ambassador noted that the United States intended to continue working with the Austrian government on a variety of issues like Holocaust restitution and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, then chaired by Austria.

But if Washington's initial response to events in Vienna was more restrained, is this simply because the Europeans overreacted? Just how concerned should the United States be about a resurgence of the far right on the European continent? The answer of course depends upon a careful assessment of the phenomenon itself. The rise of Austria's Freedom Party mirrors the emergence of similar political formations in a number of other European countries. In France, the xenophobic National Front's candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen won 15 percent of the vote at the last presidential election in 1995. The French far right also has a strong presence in local government, as does the anti-immigrant Northern League in Italy. In 1994, the political heirs of Italian fascism entered into a coalition government. The Flemish nationalist Vlaams Blok has done well in northern Belgium, and in Germany the extreme right has shown signs of harnessing discontent in the eastern part of the country. More recently, the Swiss People's Party became the second largest bloc in Switzerland's lower parliamentary chamber. In Eastern Europe, regressive, ultranationalist, and anti-Semitic groups are rearing their heads.

The diversity of these countries, and (with the exception of Eastern Europe) their relative affluence and political stability, suggests that this is a complex phenomenon. It cannot be easily reduced to a simple resurgence of the fascist or Nazi tendencies of the past. But I believe that many of these parties do have sufficient commonalities to talk about an emerging far right in Europe. This is a new phenomenon, however, arising out of a new context--a reaction to the prevailing uncertainties. Now that global integration rushes forward and a new millennium beckons, their strident nationalism stands in opposition to the prevailing winds driving the world economy and supranational bodies like the EU. It is prompted as much by fear of change and a fear of the future as by relative economic disadvantage. Its populism often finds a traditional scapegoat in immigrants, and in many cases its anti-immigrant message covers an underlying anti...