Extreme Right Movements and on line Politics: Identity Building, Mobilisation and Organisation through the Web

Internet is generally regarded as an important tool in diffusing global thinking, universalism, and equality. But what do we know about its dark side? Focusing on extreme-right organisations in five Western Democracies (the USA, Italy, France, Spain, Great Britain and Germany), this paper addresses the political use of the Internet by extremist groups and its potential role for the formation of their collective identity, the organisational contacts and their mobilisation. Whereas these phenomena are well-known and studied concerning left-wing social movements, so far scarce scientific attention has been devoted to the extreme right and the internet. This paper aims to fill this gap. Through a standardized web content analysis of 292 web sites, we argue that various forms of usage of the Internet by right wing organisations are on the rise, with the exploitation of Internet for diffusing propaganda, promoting ‘virtual communities’ of debate, creating transnational organizational contacts with other similar groups and for organising mobilisation and political campaigns. The analysis includes different types of extremist right wing organizations from neo-nazi groups to subcultural violent skinhead. The various specificities of the usage of the Internet by extreme right organisations in the six countries are demonstrated and linked to the offline political opportunities. The paper also highlights how different types of extreme right organisations use Internet for different functions and purposes. Manuela Caiani is Assistant Professor in Comparative European Politics at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) of Wien. After her Phd in political science at the University of Florence she worked as research assistant for 5 years at the EUI. She has worked on several comparative projects on contentious politics and European integration (Europub, CID I and CID II) and, more recently, on right wing extremism in Europe and the USA (VETO). She is currently working on a project on extreme right organizations in the USA and Europe and their political use of the Internet financed by the Austrian National Bank . Her main research interests concern social movements and collective action, Europeanization and right wing extremism. Among her publications: “Quale Europa, Europeizzazione, Identità e Conflitti”, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006 (with della Porta Donatella) and “Social Movements and Europeanisation”, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009 (with Donatella della Porta). Linda Parenti has received her PhD in Political Science at the University of Florence with a thesis on democratic conceptions and practices of pro-immigration groups in Italy and Spain. She works on immigration policy, pro-migrant organizations and European politics. Her main research interests are social movements and civil society associations, political participation, democracy and immigration, Europeanization.