The paper will present a theory of radicalization processes within the German Far-Right, retrieved through the qualitative analysis of 10 interviews with former high ranking right-wing extremists in Germany. The paper rejects the idea of right-wing extremism as a ‘pathological’ phenomenon and tries to understand individual attraction to the right-wing ideology and movement through a focus on the need for expression (in the entry phase) and a self-sustaining circle of political idealism, occupational professionalization within the group, and ideological indoctrination during the belonging phase. Thus the model tries to explain why and how individuals continued to invest large amount of resources to advance within the right-wing movement – next to status and power, which all of the individuals interviewed could have gained in other groups as well. All of them had stable family backgrounds and a normal educational development. In addition the research findings stand in strong contrast to most ‘classical’ theories explaining right-wing radicalization in Germany, e.g. disintegration theory, authoritarian personality, relative deprivation or lack of education. The paper will thus give a short overview of the most widely used explanation theories within the German right-wing extremism research, present the findings of the interview analysis and subsequently the deduced radicalization process model.
The interviews were analysed using Grounded Theory methodology and MAXQDA software.
