Far-Right Politics and Ableism

Over the last three decades, the far right has become increasingly normalised in liberal democracies. Next to electoral breakthroughs, government participation, and street mobilisations, their reactionary demands and discourses are increasingly accommodated by mainstream parties (Wodak 2020; Krause et al. 2023). These developments not only threaten democratic institutions, but also endanger groups targeted by far-right actors’ reactionary politics. Existing research extensively documents how far-right actors mobilise on a right-wing populist and authoritarian platform attacking the rights of perceived outgroups (Mudde 2007). This work shows how far-right actors flexibly define outgroups across contexts, mobilising on nativist and racist (Mudde 2007; Mondon 2022), as well as antifeminist (Volk 2025) and transphobic agendas (Amery and Mondon 2025). However, we know less about far-right actors’ ableist politics (Harnish 2017; Goodley and Lawthom 2019). This is an important gap given mounting evidence that far-right actors target people with disabilities and mental illness. Recent examples include Reform UK’s 2025 pledge to cut disability benefits, the AfD’s call for increased use of incarceration and preventive detention of people with mental illness, as well as the repeated use of ableist discourses by Donald Trump. This paper addresses this gap by systematically analysing far-right ableist politics in five liberal democracies. Employing a comparative case study design, I combine expert interviews with members of disability justice organisations with content analysis of party manifestos, position papers, and media interviews. The paper makes three contributions. First, it maps how far-right actors construct disability within their broader right-wing populist ideologies, as well as their policy positions and political demands in this area. Second, it situates contemporary far-right ableism in historical perspective, tracing continuities with ableism in fascist regimes in the twentieth century. Third, it examines the extent to which there is potential for mainstreaming whereby the far right’s ableism shapes the agendas of the mainstream – much as its anti-migration and transphobic mobilisations have.