From Resources to Violence: Local-Level and Organizational Drivers of Far-Right Political Violence

How and to what extent do resources shape far-right political violence? Existing scholarship on the far right has largely concentrated on electoral dynamics and the determinants of far-right voting, while protest mobilization—and especially violent repertoires employed by far-right actors—remain comparatively understudied. Within social movement research, political opportunities, grievances, and resources have all been used to explain far-right violence, yet these approaches are often treated as competing rather than complementary. This article advances a synthetic framework that conceptualizes political opportunities, grievances, and resources as mutually reinforcing dimensions. It places particular emphasis on resources, arguing that far-right actors’ capacity to mobilize material, organizational, and symbolic resources is central to understanding the emergence and variation of violent tactics. Drawing on original event-level data from the FARPE Project, the analysis examines far-right violent events between 2008 and 2018. The findings show that access to resources—especially at the local level—creates organizational pathways that facilitate violent repertoires of contention. Local political contexts matter insofar as the establishment of local branches and networks enables coordination, persistence, and escalation of violence. At the same time, resources interact with political opportunities and grievances in context- specific ways. More broadly, the article argues that there is no single explanatory model for far-right political violence across Europe. Instead, it proposes a theoretically grounded framework that highlights the relational and organizational mechanisms through which far-right violence develops, thereby contributing to a more integrated understanding of violent far-right mobilization.