Far-right party-movement interactions in Italy and the United Kingdom

Understanding how political parties and social movements interact and what are the results of these relations is important for both scholars of Political Science and Sociology. This is particularly true for far-right actors since there is a broad variety of organisational forms that these actors take – political parties, movement parties, social movement organisations, youth organisations. Understanding how these different types of organisations interact and influence each other can help shed light on the dynamics behind the strategic choices made by leaders, the beliefs of the militants, and ultimately also on the electoral success of political parties. This paper investigates the interactions between established radical-right parties and extreme-right social movement organisations in Italy and the United Kingdom. One way the relations between political parties and social movements have been studied is by looking at the institutionalisation of social movements that have resulted in the creation of new political parties. Another way is to look at how the protest and electoral arenas are used by the different types of organisations. Building on these two strands of scholarship, this paper investigates the relations that exist between far-right parties and social movements and how through their interactions both actors change and adapt their discourse, actions, and organisational characteristics. I advance a theory of party-movement interactions that aims to explain when parties and movements are more likely to develop stronger interactions on three different dimensions and how through these interactions the actors change their discourse, actions, and organisational characteristics. This theory is tested by looking at two sets of far-right parties and movements, Lega and CasaPound Italia in Italy and the United Kingdom Independence Party and the English Defence League in the United Kingdom. The analysis is carried out through a Political Claim Analysis, a Frame Analysis, and a document analysis of parties and movements documents for the period 2009-2019. The analysis finds that parties and movements tend to have closer interactions on the frame dimension when issues such as immigration gain prominence in the public debate and when political parties are weak electorally and in search of new messages. In the actions dimension, interactions tend to be closer when parties are in opposition and movement organisations moderate drastically their repertoire of actions. Finally, in the organisational dimension, relations are closer when parties are weak electorally and in proximity of electoral campaigns or protest events. This paper makes two contributions to the study of far-right parties and movements. The first is theoretical, for the paper advances a new theory of party-movement interactions that could be tested in different scenarios. The second is empirical, for the paper provides indications on when parties and movements are more likely to have closer interactions and how through these interactions they change and develop their strategies.