How the ‘movement’ helps and hinders the ‘party’: Evidence from the development of the Golden Dawn

The paper analyzes how “movements” help and hinder far right parties by examining the development of one of the most extreme European parties, the Greek Golden Dawn. Using rare interviews with party leaders and functionaries and hundreds of party events, the paper first explores the utility of “movements” for far-right parties and then focuses on the problems they generate for their development. In early stages of development, the party utilizes the movement milieu to overcome resource deficiencies and communicate its ideas. In subsequent phases, the movement is also an organizational hedging strategy, especially in times of high environmental uncertainty. But the movement can also hinder party development: the militancy associated with the movement complicates the institutionalization of the party. Hindering the development of institutional infrastructure to distribute selective incentives and manage conflicts, movements can become an organizational liability for far-right parties.