Populism, radical rigth, extreme rigth: affinities and false equivalences

Abstract

The new forms of populism that have appeared in the European political scene in recent decades have been insistently framed within the category of “extreme right”. However, despite the fact that in some áreas the categories of “populism” and “extreme right” can be close to each other and even, in some cases, coincide, they are clearly two distinct subjects. The concept which the “extreme
right” formula expresses is very vague and both its connotation and denotation have an extremely variable geometry, therefore using it to interpret the contents and forms of action of populist parties is useless and constitutes a mistake that needs to be abandoned. This false equivalence, in the scientific field, impoverishes the possibilities of better understanding both populism and extreme right. Today, a growing number of analysts have realized that this approach to the problem is inadequate and often counterproductive, since it has little use for a serious analysis that allows an understanding of the passions, concerns and expectations that have driven important sectors of the European electorate to gather around populist parties. It is necessary to examine the empirical relations
between populist and extreme right political groups in order to find out on the theoretic field the affinities and differences between this two ideal matrices. In this article, some differences between the two categories are presented, with the intention of highlighting some key elements of this difference.