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Are the Kids Alright? Exploring the Relationship Between Far Right Youth Wings and Senior Parties

Political Parties
Populism
Youth
Anders Ravik Jupskås
Universitetet i Oslo
Anders Ravik Jupskås
Universitetet i Oslo

Abstract

Just as most other party families, far right parties across Europe have created specific institutional structures to incorporate youth participation: youth wings. What is the role of these youth wings? One key assumption in the literature is that they are ‘the lifeblood of the party, which ensures the organization’s survival beyond its historic founding leaders’. However, existing scholarship have not yet scrutinized this assumption with systematic empirical evidence. This paper explores the relationship between the youth wing and senior party for seven long-standing far right parties in Europe (i.e. DF, SD, PS, LN, FN, VB and FPÖ). Combining elite interviews with youth wing executive members and organizational data, the paper focuses on four key dimensions of party organization: autonomy, integration, policy influence and recruitment. First, to what extent does the senior party control the youth wing? Second, to what extent is there regular (formal and informal) interaction between the youth wing and the senior party? Third, to what extent is the youth wing able to influence policies of the senior party? Fourth, to what extent does the youth wing function as a recruitment pool of candidates? Answering these questions allow us to assess the relevance of contemporary far right youth wings in particular, and the internal workings of far right parties more generally.