Redefining Security, Bordering the Regime: The Far-Right and the EU-NATO Organizational Overlap

The European security regime is formed by overlapping security organizations, such as the EU and NATO, which engage in areas such as crisis management, counterterrorism, and security assistance. While the regime and its overlaps derived either from states’ sense of community or from a balancing power exercise, the commitment to cooperation by European governments is put in question by the emergence and electoral success of far-right parties. These parties often oppose foreign interventions and are wary about multilateral cooperation due to their concerns over sovereignty. Nevertheless, they do not stop cooperation but continue to play in an environment they contribute to shape. They often take extreme positions on traditional security concerns, while at the same time they securitize some issues, such as migration, bringing them to the forefront of institutional agendas. This paper investigates how far-right parties influence overlapping organizations by exploring two Italian governments’ responses to Ukraine—a traditional security issue—and migration—a non-traditional, securitized issue. I argue that far-right actors redirect the focus of overlapping organizations like the EU and NATO from mainstream security concerns to perceived threats, with consequences for the regime. These findings demonstrate that far-right actors actively reshape the content and institutional overlap of the European security regime by prioritizing their ideologically driven agendas.