The Radical Right in Postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe: Comparative Observations and Interpretations Michael Minkenberg The writer Tom Wolfe is said to have observed that "the specter of fascism is constantly hovering over America but always seems to land in Europe." With the break-up of the Soviet empire and the world of socialist (and "anti-fascist") regimes in Eastern Europe, there seems to be even more landing ground now. But in contrast to the widespread literature on the transformation process in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE),1 scholarly attention to right-wing radical or ultranationalist parties and movements in the region and their impact on democratic consolidation is scattered. So far, only a few essays and contributions to edited volumes have addressed the topic; most of the literature is journalistic rather than academic, and country-specific rather than comparative.2 Often, analogies are drawn between the post-1989 CEE radical right and interwar fascism in terms of images of a "Weimarization" of Eastern European politics and the return of the precommunist, ultranationalist or even fascist past.3 However, 1. "Central and Eastern Europe" and "Eastern Europe" are used interchangeably throughout. 2. See, e.g., Luciano Cheles et al., eds., The Far Right in Western and Eastern Europe. 2nd ed. (London/New York: Longman, 1995); Peter Merkl and Leonard Weinberg, eds., The Revival ofRight-Wing Extremism in the Nineties (London: Frank Cass, 1997); Sabrina Ramet, ed., The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999); Paul Hainsworth, ed., The Politics of the Extreme Right: From the Margins to the Mainstream (London: Pinter, 2000). Among the truely comparative pieces are Klaus von Beyme, "Rechtsextremismus in Osteuropa," in Jürgen Falter et al., eds., Rechtsextremismus. Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung; special issue of Politische Vierteljahresschrift 27 (1996) (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1996):423^13;and Cas Mudde," Extreme-right Parties inEasternEu-rope," Patterns of Prejudice 34:1 (2000): 5-27 3. See Paul Hock enos, .Free to Hate. The Rise of the Right in Post-communist Eastern Európ e (New York/London: Routledge, 1993); Walter Laqueur, Fascism. Past, Present, Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), chap. 3. East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 16, No. 2, pages 335-362. -1-1 c ISSN 0888-3254;online ISSN 1533-8371 -"-> © 2002 by the American Council of Learned Societies. All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223 with few but notable exceptions such as Russia or Croatia, these groups have very little success at the polls. Thus, another interpretation of the phenomenon argues that since Central and Eastern European party systems increasingly resemble their West European counterparts, so does the radical right, at least where it is successful electorally.4 Another line of thought, explored here however, suggests that the Central and Eastern European radical right after 1989 is neither a return of the pre-democratic and precommunist past, nor the equivalent of today's Western European radical right. The dominant forces of the radical right in the transformation countries are ideologically and structurally different from most western varieties: Ideologically, they are more extreme and openly antidemocratic, organizationally they are less a party and more a social movement phenomenon. Besides country-specific histories and opportunity structures, the overall analytical frame for the CEE radical right is a multiple modernization process, i.e., a transformation from authoritarian regimes to liberal democracies, from state-socialist to capitalist market economies, and from industrialism to postindus-trialism. The resulting strains of economic and political insecurity, especially the uncompleted process of democratization and consolidation of the new regimes, provide opportunities for the radical right which present western democracies do not, but at the same time, the "transformation" of these movements into solid political parties and electoral success is limited. The Radical Right in Perspective: Some Conceptual Remarks A workable definition of right-wing radicalism in comparative perspective seems best tied to the theoretical concepts of social change that underlie most analyses of the radical right. Here, modernization theories provide some conceptually grounded criteria for such analyses. Generally, modernization can be understood as a growing autonomy of the individual (status mobility and role flexibil- 4. Mudde, "Extreme-right Parties in Eastern Europe," 25. 336 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe ity) and an ongoing functional differentiation of the society (segmentation and growing autonomy of societal subsystems).5 In this light, right-wing radicalism can be defined as the radical effort to undo such social change. The counter-concept to social differentiation is the nationally defined community, the counter-concept to individualization is the return to traditional roles and status of the individual in such a community. It is this overemphasis on, or radicalization of, images of social homogeneity that characterizes radical right-wing thinking. The historical origins of right-wing radicalism are seen to lie in the interdependence of nation-building, democratization, industrialization, and the growing importance of the natural sciences. Variants of right-wing radicalism can be distinguished according to the criteria of ideology and organizational structures (for the application of the following to CEE, see table 4). Ideology. Right-wing radicalism is defined as a political ideology, whose core element is a myth of a homogeneous nation, a romantic and populist ultranationalism directed against the concept of liberal and pluralistic democracy and its underlying principles of individualism and universalism. This definition focuses explicitly on the idea of the nation that lies somewhere between the poles of demos and ethnos. The nationalistic myth is characterized by the effort to construct an idea of nation and national belonging by radicalizing ethnic, religious, cultural, and political criteria of exclusion and to condense the idea of nation into an image of extreme collective homogeneity. Several ideological variants can be identified according to the respective concept of nation and the exclusionary criteria applied: authoritarian-fascist, classical racist (including colonialist), xenophobic or ethnocentric, and religious-fundamentalist versions. All four variants have in common a strong quest for internal homogeneity of the nation and a populist, anti-establishment political style, but the latter two share the characteristic of a culturally (rather than biologically) defined rejection of ethnic differences. In reality, some groups (e.g., Deutsche 5. See Dieter Rucht, Modernisierung unineue soziale Bewegungen (Frankfurt/New York: Campus 1994). East European Politics and Societies 337 Volksunion (DVU) or skinheads) may spill over into several categories but generally this classification can be applied analytically to structure the field of right-wing radical actors.6 Structures. Starting from the concept of party or movement "families,"7 it is important to ask when the radical right manifests itself in the form of a movement rather than a party and how much other organizational forms of the radical right support or constrain the particular organization's mobilization efforts.8 The organizational variants are distinguished by their approach to institutional political power and public resonance. Parties and electoral campaign organizations participate in elections and try to win public office. Social movement organizations try to mobilize public support as well but do not run for office, rather they identify with a larger social movement (a network of networks with a distinct collective identity) and offer interpretative frames for particular problems.9 Finally, smaller groups and sociocultural milieus operate relatively independent of either parties or larger social movements and do not exhibit formal organizational structures but can also be characterized as networks with links to other organizations and a collective identity which tends to be more extreme than that of the parties or movement organizations (including higher levels of violence). They represent a "micromobilization potential" for the radical right.10 An explanatory approach of the success of right-wing radicalism, which dwells on the central aspects of nationalism and modernization theory and follows earlier work by Theodore W. Adorno and Seymour M. Lipset, is provided by German sociologists Erwin Scheuch and Hans-Dieter Klingemann.11 Their 6. See Michael Minkenberg, Die neue radikale Rechte im Vergleich. USA, Frankreich, .De»íscWíWJŕ/(Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998),chaps. 1,7, esp. 236-45 7. Klaus von Beyme, Parteien in westlichen Demokratien (München: Piper, 1984);Rucht, Modernisierung. 8. See Minkenberg, Die neue radikale Rechte, chap. 8. 9. See Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 135f.; Rucht, Modernisierung, 177 10. Werner Bergmann, "Ein Versuch, die extreme Rechte als soziale Bewegung zu beschreiben," in Werner Bergmann and Rainer Erb, eds., Neonazismus und rechte Subkultur (Berlin: Metropol, 1994), 183-207 11. Erwin Scheuch and Hans Dieter Klingemann, "Theorie des Rechtsradikalismus in westlichen Industriegesellschaften," Hamburger Jahrbuch für Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik 12 (1967); 11-29. 338 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe model is based on the assumption that the potential for radical right-wing movements exists in all industrial societies and should be understood as a "normal pathological" condition. In all fast-growing, modernizing countries there are people who cannot cope with rapid economic and cultural developments and who react to the pressures of readjustment with rigidity and closed-minded-ness. These reactions can be mobilized by right-wing movements or parties offering political philosophies that promise an elimination of pressures and a simpler, better society. These philosophies do not describe any conceivable utopia but usually a romanticized version of the nation before the first large wave of modernization. That is, the two sociologists postulate that the core of the problem consists of a specifically asynchronous reading of the past, especially a dissent about the evaluation of modernity in the respective societies. The notion that the mobilization of the radical right often occurs in times of accelerated social and cultural change provides a fruitful starting point for explaining right-wing radical mobilization in both Western Europe (before and after 1989) and Eastern Europe (after 1989). The rebirth of the radical right in the West can be understood as a result of a general modernization shift in the wake of "1968," and specific mobilization shifts in the context of each country's opportunity structures.12 The modernization shift includes a transition of western industrial societies into a phase of "postindustrialism" and a new political dynamism that opened opportunities for new parties on the left and right along a new, value-based cleavage, with the latter mobilizing the "normal pathological" right-wing potential. This new radical right is not simply the extension of conservatism towards the extreme right but the product of a restructuring of the political spectrum and a regrouping of the party system. Ideologically and sociologically, it represents the right-wing pole of a new conflict axis which cuts across the established lines of partisan conflict and societal cleavages while politically, it establishes a (neo)conservatism and an explicitly antidemocratic, latently violent right-wing extremism. 12. See Michael Minkenberg, "The Renewal of the Radical Right: Between Modernity and Anti-modernity," Government and Opposition35:2 (Spring 2000), 170-88. East European Politics and Societies 339 The new radical right is distinguished from the old by its softening of antidemocratic rhetoric, its playing according to the rules of the game, and its emphasis on ethnocentrism rather than classical biological racism while its electoral base, especially the growing number of working-class voters, signifies a new place in the changing structures of party competition and cleavages. In terms of its support, the new radical right does not simply represent "modernization losers" since most of their supporters are not "losers" in any objective sense. As shown elsewhere,13 these supporters constitute an ideologically motivated segment of the public that reacts to the social and cultural changes outlined above by trying to slow the effects of these changes and overcoming its own insecurities by scapegoating immigrants, leftists, and feminists as threats to the integrity of the national community. As such, these voters or supporters are modernization opponents or "subjective" modernization losers. A closer look at the German scenario reveals some distinct East-West differences as a consequence of German unification, the ongoing process of transformation in the East, and some legacies of the past. To these belongs the official ideology of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) which contained a symbolic framework around the principles of antifascism, democracy, and socialism. But the continuous repression of an open discourse about Germany's Nazi past and the constant interpretation of fascism as a consequence of capitalism amounted to the dogma of an "antifascism by decree" rather than a truly antifascist education of the GDR's population. Not surprising, by the second half of the 19 80s, a right-wing extremist youth culture developed in the GDR in conscious demarcation from the Socialist Unity Party (SED) regime.14 In general, the situation is characterized by a general fragmentation of the spectrum along with higher levels of radicalization and violence in the new Länder (see table 1). While the total number of adherents of the radical right fluctuates at a rather high level 13. See, e.g., Kitschelt, The Radical Right in Western Europe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995). 14. See Michael Minkenberg, "German Unification and the Continuity of Discontinuities: Cultural Change and the Far Right in East West," German Politics 3: 2 (Aug. 1994); 169-92. 340 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe Table 1. Development of the German Radical Right Groups (upper row) and Members (lower row) 1990-1999 (Reports of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 Militant Right-wing extremists, Skinheads3 4 1 3 5 3 5 5 4200 6400 5600 5400 6200 6400 7600 8200 9000 Neonazis 27 30 33 27 33 43 48 40 41 49 1400 2100 1400 2450 2940 1980 2420 2400 2400 2200 Political Parties 8 4 4 3 3 3 3 55130 45400 35900 33500 34800 39000 37000 "National-freiheitliche"/ DVU 3 3 3 22000 24000 26000 26000 20000 15000 15000 15000 18000 17000 "National-demokratische" /NPD 5 5 5 7300 6700 5300 5000 4500 4000 3500 4300 6000 6000 "Republikaner" 23000 20000 16000 15000 15500 15000 14000 Others 34 38 41 40 45 56 52 63 65 77 2900 3900 4000 3120 3830 3560 2660 4300 4500 4200 Sum totalb (minus multiple memberships) 96 108 109 114 134 32200 39800 41900 64500 56600 46100 45300 48400 53600 51400 sour ces: Michael Minkenberg, Die neue radikale Rechte im Vergleich. USA, Frankreich, Deutschland (Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998), 301, table 7.19; Bundesministerium des Inneren, Verfassungsschutzbericht 1999 (Bonn 2000), 18. notes: "After 1995, militants of the extreme right included manifestly violent persons and those with sufficient evidence of a tendency toward bBeginning with the 1994 Report (i.e., 1993 data), the "Republikaner" were included, thus the dramatic increase of total membership. s violence. compared to pre-1989 West Germany (when total membership was around 25,000), the membership in radical right-wing parties — where East Germans are clearly underrepresented15 —has significantly declined from its all-time high in 1993. But in the late 1990s, signified by the elections in Saxony-Anhalt in April 1998, when the DVU entered the state parliament with 12.9 percent of the vote, there has been an upswing for the radical right among East German voters. In the new Länder, the more extreme DVU receives more support than Die Republikaner (REP), although both parties are West German imports. The DVU attempts to appeal to the GDR's past by combining in its electoral campaigns social and nationalist messages and cultivating the East German distinctness. This is also accomplished by the much smaller, but well organized and more extreme Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) which behaves more like a political movement than a political party. Organizationally, there is a big difference between the REP and the DVU since the DVU is largely run by one man, its wealthy leader Gerhard Frey, and has no identifiable intraparty organizational structures. There are also striking East-West differences among the supporters and voters of these parties. While both the REP and the DVU enjoy a disproportionate support among male and working-class voters, East German adherents of the parties of the radical right are much younger than the REP voters in the West. In the non-party sector of militant and violent right-wing extremists, the number of individuals has increased since unification, reaching a record-level of 9,000 at the end of the decade, with almost half of them in the eastern Länder. Considering that only one-fifth of the German population lives in the East, this is a remarkable overrepresentation.16 From the early nineties on, movement-type activities and subcultural milieus of the extreme right flourished in the East, especially among younger East Germans. One could observe the emergence of cliques and a "structural in- 15. See Richard Stöss, "Rechtsextremismus in einer geteilten politischen Kultur," in Oskar Niedermayer and Klaus von Beyme, eds., Politische Kultur in Ost- und Westdeutschland (Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1996), 123. 16. Richard Stöss, Rechtsextremismus im vereinten Deutschland (Bonn: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1999), 100. 342 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe Table 2. The Right-wing Radical Attitude Potential in Germany (in percent) 1998 Germany West East In ideological components Authoritarianism 11 10 16 Nationalism 13 13 13 Xenophobia 15 14 20 Welfare chauvinism 26 23 39 Pro-Naziism 6 6 5 Anti-Semitism 6 6 5 In occupational groups Unemployed 14 7 22 Workers 19 18 24 Employees 8 7 12 Civil Servants 2 1 11 Self-employed 12 12 15 Non-working 15 15 18 Total__________________________13____________12__________17__ source: Richard Stöss, Rechtsextremismus im vereinten Deutschland (Bonn: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1999), 30,35 tegration" of the extreme right-wing scene by various neo-Nazi organizations.17 This trend was accompanied by a dramatic increase in right-wing violence in the second half of the nineties, again with the center of gravity in the East. When measuring official reports of right-wing violent acts in proportion to population size, all five new Länder have consistently topped the list over the past years.18 Finally, recent survey data add to the picture of a higher degree of radicalization in the East (see table 2). Whereas 13 percent of all Germans adhere to a right-wing radical agenda, this figure is significantly higher in the East than in the West. But while there are no East-West differences regarding nationalistic, pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic attitudes, East Germans tend to be more authoritar- 17. See Bergmann, "Ein Versuch," 192f. 18. See Minkenberg, Die neue radikale Rechte, 306. East European Politics and Societies 343 ian, xenophobic, and "welfare chauvinistic" than West Germans, the latter defined as the refusal to share the nation's wealth with "foreigners." This means that we are not dealing with the return of the Nazi past but a reaction to the radical transformation of East German politics, society, and economy in terms of the aforementioned rigidity and "normal pathology" in fast-changing societies. The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe: Text The overview of East-West differences within Germany leads to some questions regarding the radical right in Central and Eastern Europe as a whole. They concern the emergence and strength of right-wing party formation in comparison to movement-type or other non-party groups; the nature of the radical right as a response to the process of transformation or the return of old, deep-seated traditions; the degree of ideological extremism, especially antidemocratic (anti-system) and racist attitudes; and the support patterns.19 In general, the mobilization potential for the radical right in Eastern Europe seems rather large but not significantly larger than in western democracies.20 Survey data reveal sizable currents of nationalism, anti-Semitism and right-wing self-identification among the public of various Eastern European countries (see table 3). Patriotic or nationalist attitudes are only slightly higher in the East than in the West but not as high as in the United States. Anti-Semitism is relatively strong in Poland as are irredentist feelings regarding "lost territories."21 In general, there is a greater concern 19. Although East Germany is not typical of the rest of Eastern Europe, and one must be careful with generalizations, it remains a (special) case of postsocialist transformation, see Helmut Wiesenthal, ed., Einheit als Privileg. Vergleichende Perspektiven auf die TransformationOstdei4tschlands(Fľ3.ntíuľt/M-3.in: Campus, 1996);Patricia Smith,ed., After the Wall. Eastern Germany since 1989 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1998). 20. For the concept and measuring of the radical right-wing mobihzationpotential which includes components of right-wing self-identification, nationalism, anti-system orientations, anti Semitism and racism, authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism, see Minkenberg, Die neue radikale Rechte, chaps. 5 and 6. For the problem of nationalism in Eastern Europe, see Rogers Brubaker, NationalismReframed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 21. An international comparison of anti-Semitic attitudes in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovakia Federation Republic (CSFR) revealed that Poland ranked consistently higher than the other two countries across various measures. Communica- 344 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe Table 3. The Radical Right-wing Mobilization Potential in East and West (early 1990's data) L-R Patriot. Right or Irredent Control Author Anti-semit (1) (2) wrong (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) USA — 88 55 — — — 6 UK - 72 56 20 79 - 14 F - 64 37 12 86 - - E - 70 46 48 66 - - I - 69 39 29 84 - - GR - 72 28 39 70 - - D-W - 74 31 43 70 - 26 D-E - 69 16 25 70 - - CS 31 70 28 39 65 17/26* 14/33 H 13 70 30 68 68 27 11 PL 20 75 47 60 58 26 34 BG 23 75 53 52 38 - 9 R 9 60 42 22 45 45 22 UR - 62 36 24 31 46 22 LI 26 63 39 46 54 23 10 Sources: Klaus von Beyme, "Rechtsextremismus in Osteuropa," in Jürgen Falter et al., eds., Rechtsextremismus. Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung, special Issue of Politische Vierteljahresschrift 27/1996 (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1996), 429, 438; Gert Pickel, "Tendenzen der Demokratisierung und politischen Unterstützung in Osteuropa," in Gert Pickel et al., eds., Demokratie. Entwicklungsformen und Erscheinungsbilder im interkulturellen Vergleich (Frankfurt/Oder and Bamberg: VDF, 1997), 115. Questions: (1) Right-wing self placement in 1992/1993 (in %, EU average 20%) (2) "I am very patriotic" (% agree) (3) "We should fight for our country, right or wrong" (% agree) (4) "There are parts in neighboring countries which belong to us" (% agree) (5) "We should increase the control of access to our country" (% agree) (6) Authoritarianism (7) (negative opinions about Jews). Countries: UK: United Kingdom, F: France, E: Spain, I: Italy, GR: Greece, D-W: West Germany, D-E: East Germany, CS: Czechoslovakia (* Czech Republic/Slovakia), H: Hungary, PL: Poland, BG: Bulgaria, R: Russia, UR: Ukraine, LI: Lithuania. among East Europeans over territorial issues, especially in Hungary, Poland, and Romania, where sizable ethnic minorities live in neighboring countries, and/or a large part of the former terri- tion by Werner Bergmann, Technische Universität Berlin, Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung (February 1999). See also Wolf Oschlies, "Antisemitismus im postkommunistischen Osteuropa (I)," in Berichte des BlOst 21 (1995). East European Politics and Societies 345 tory was lost after the Second World War. On the other hand, anti-migration feelings seem rather low compared to western countries, a result of the general direction of migration in Europe from East to West while there is widespread resentment of the largest regional minority, the Roma, which, except for Poland, ranges between 5 percent (Hungary) and 9 percent (Romania) of the population in Central and Southeast Europe.22 These trends occur in the context of a declining trust in democracy and low levels of confidence in parliament and political parties. For example, between 1993 and 1996, the proportion of Romanian respondents who would support an authoritarian "iron-hand government" rose from 27 percent to about 33 percent.23 And between 1991 and 1995, the proportion of those satisfied with the present working of democracy shrank from 34 percent to 21 percent in Hungary, 46 percent to 14 percent in Bulgaria, 62 percent to 27 percent in Lithuania, and 18 percent to 7 percent in Russia. Only in the Czech Republic and Poland, were the trends reversed.24 In sum, it seems that the atti-tudinal profile of the Eastern European mobilization potential for the radical right is shaped in rather classic terms by high levels of nationalism mixed with anti-Semitism and territorial concerns and fed by sizable anti-system affects. This, in fact, resembles the situation in Weimar Germany. But how do these attitudes translate into political behavior? To begin with, radical right-wing parties exist in almost all of the transformation countries, but their electoral success varies greatly from less than 1 percent in some countries to more than 10 percent in Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, and, most recently, in Romania. At first glance, most of these parties exhibit clear tendencies of authoritarian and antidemocratic orientations, justifying their classification as "fascist" in the sense outlined above, and of racist and/or anti-Semitic attitudes with blurred lines between bi- 22. See Zoltán Barany, "Ethnic mobilization and the State: the Roma in Eastern Europe," Ethnic and Racial Studies 21: 2 (March 1998), 308-27. 23. Data in Michael Shafir, "Marginalization or mainstream? The extreme right in post-communist Romania," in Hainsworth, ed., Politics of the Extreme Right, 264. 24. Gert Pickel, "Tendenzen der Demokratisierung und politischen Unterstützung in Osteuropa," in Gert Pickel et al., eds., Demokratie. Entwicklungsformen und Erscheinungsbildern interkulturellen Vergleich (Frankfurt/Oder and Bamberg: VDF, 1997), 121. 346 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe Table 4. Dominant Actors in the Central and Eastern European Radical Right-wing Family (after 1989): Russia (R), Romania (RO), Poland (PL), Czech Republic (CR), Hungary (H) party/campaign organization social movement organization (SMO) subcultural milieu Fascist-authoritarian right PL: ROP R: LDPR RO: PRM Racist-ethnocentrist right Religious-fundamentalist right PL: KPN H: MIÉP CR: SPR-RSC RO: PSM RO: PUNR PL: ZChN PL: LPR R: Pamyat R:RNU RO: MPR RO: PDN PL: PNR RO: Vatra Roman easca PL: PWN-PSN PL: Radio Maryja PL: Radio Maryja R: Werewolves skinheads skinheads note: KPN: Konfederacja Polski Niepodleglej (Confederation for an Independent Poland); LDPR: Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia; LPR: Liga Polskich Rodzin (League of the Polish Family); MIEP: Magyar Igazság ésElet Pártja (Hungarian Justice and Life Party); MPR: Miscarea pentru Romania (Movement for Romania); PDN: Partidul Dreapta Nationala (Party of the National Right); PNR: (Polish National Rebirth); PRM: Partidul Romania Mare (Party for Greater Romania); PSM: Partidul Socialist al Muncii (Socialist Workers Party); PUNR: Partidul Unitatii Romane (Party of Romanian Unity); PWN-PSN: Polska Wspólnota Narodowa: Polskie Stronnictwo Naro-dowe (Polish Nationalist Union); RNU: Russian National Unity; ROP: Ruch Odbudowy Polski (Reconstruction of Poland); SPR-RSC:Sdruzeni pro republiku —Republikánská strana Československa (Republicans); Vatra Romaneasca: Romanian Cradle; ZChN: Zjednoczenie Chrzešcijaňsko —Narodowe (Christian National Union). ological racism and ethnocentrism. An overview of these parties and other groups and movements that do not fall into the category of political party is presented in table 4. In Russia, the Liberal Democratic party (LDPR) dominates the right. Its leader Vladimir Zhirinowsky entertained relationships with the French intellectuals of the Nouvelle Droite as well as with Jean-Marie Le Pen and Gerhard Frey.25 Other groups such as the Russian National Unity (RNU) supporting Russian revolutionary ultrana-tionalism, the Russian National Assembly (RNA), and the Front 25. Martin L. Lee, The Beast Reawakens (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1997),318ff.,325ff.; Judith Revlin, Slavophiles and Commissars; Enemies of Democracy in Modern Russia (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), 138-56. East European Politics and Societies 347 of National Rescue (FNR), an alliance of about 40 parties and movements, failed to attract a significant number of votes. However, they claim to have more members than the LDPR; estimates put the LDPR at some 50,000 members while the other groups range at around 120,000. Whether Gennadii Zyuganov's Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) by far the most important of today's Russian parties, with its blend of Russian imperialism and nationalist reinterpretation of Stalinism falls into the category of the radical right, as some observers argue,26 is debatable. After all, nationalism and xenophobia are not core elements of the CPRF's ideology although contacts between Zyuganov and ultranationalist and anti-Semitic organizations are documented.27 A similar situation exists in Romania, where easily identifiable right-wing radical parties coexist with the successor party of Ceausescu's Communist party. Among the former are the Party for Greater Romaina (PRM) and the Party of Romanian Unity (PUNR). The PRM, founded in 1991 by Eugen Barbu and Cor-neliu Vadim Tudor and led by Tudor, claimed 35,000 members in the mid-nineties and is characterized by an openly anti-Semitic and xenophobic, i.e., particularly anti-Hungarian and anti-Roma, ideology coupled with an antidemocratic and anti-western doctrine derived from a glorification of the Partida Nationala, a nationalist movement of the 1830s, the fascist ideology of the Iron Guards, and the communist past under Ceausescu. In the 2000 presidential and parliamentary elections, Tudor and his party attracted more votes than ever. The party is now the second largest in parliament, and Tudor managed to enter the second round of the presidential elections where he received one-third of the vote against Iliescu (see table 5). By comparison, PUNR, founded in 1990 but recently dissolved, seemed slightly less extreme. They were also chauvinist, dirigist, and particularly anti-Hungarian, but not as openly anti-Semitic and antidemocratic as PRM. The Socialist Workers party 26. See Christopher Williams and Stephen Hanson, "National-Socialism, Left Patriotism, or Superimperialism? The 'Radical Right' in Russia," in Ramet, ed., Radical Right, 2b7-77. 27. Mudde, "Extreme-rightParties in Eastern Europe," 16; see also Williams and Hanson, "National-Socialism, Left Patriotism, or Superimperialism ?" 267; and Revlin, Slavophiles and Commissars, 157-80. 348 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe (PSM), which succeeded the Romanian Communist party but fares less well than other postcommunist parties in CEE, fuses nationalist with socialist ideas and openly rejects democracy and western values and culture. All three parties were temporary members of an informal majority coalition from 1992 to 1994 under the leadership of the Party of Romanian Social Democracy28 Similarly, the Polish situation is characterized by a high degree of fluidity which often leads to a restructuring of the party system and a reorganization and renaming of individual parties. There were six radical right-wing parties in Poland in the early 1990s but none of them entered parliament in the first elections.29 The most important are the National Front Party of the Fatherland (Stronnictwo Narodowe 'Ojczyzna' [SN]) which advocates an explicit anti-Semitic and anti-German platform and is based on the nationalist ideas of Roman Dmowski of the interwar period,30 and the Confederation for an Independent Poland (Konfederacja Polski Niepodleglej [KPN]) which is ideologically modeled on the ideas of Pilsudski. Finally, as a Polish peculiarity, there is a clerical-nationalist party, the Christian National Union (Zjednoczenie Chrzešcijaňsko-Narodowe [ZChN]) which advocates that Catholic dogma should be the basis of Polish politics and which claims to embrace the interests of ethnic Poles in all of Eastern Europe.31 Unlike the previous two country cases, the Polish radical right parties have only a small following owing to the lack of "a persuasive 28. See Shafir, "Marginalization or mainstream?", and Anneli Ute Gabanyi, "Politische Parteien in Rumänien nach der Wende," Südosteuropa 44:1-2, (1995); 1-50; id., "Rumänien: Parlaments-und Präsidentschaftswahlen 1996," Südosteuropa 46:3-4 (1997): 119-45. See also Tom Gallagher, Romania after Ceausescu: The Politics of Intolerance (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 25-47. 29. For a detailed but very descriptive overview of all post-1989 national, nationalist, and right-wing radical parties, see Tomasz Kalina, "Polskie Partie Narodowe" (master's thesis, Institute of Political Science, Warsaw University, Warsaw 2000); see also Bogumil Grott, "Ruch narodowy w Polsce postkommunistyczenj," Arka 53/54 (1994), 13-34; and Anita J. Prazmowska, "The New Right in Poland: Nationalism, anti-Semitism and parliamentarianism," in Cheles etal., eds., The Far Right, 198-214. 30. See Andrej Walicki, "The Troubling Legacy of Roman Dmowski," in East European Politics and Societies 14:1 (Winter 2000), 12-46. 31. See Kalina, "Polskie Partie Narodowe," 78-82,114-18; see also Thomas Szayna, "The Extreme Right Political Movements in Post-Communist Central Europe," in Merkl and Weinberg, eds., The Revival of Right-Wing Extremism, 116; David Ost, "The Radical Right of Poland: Rationality of the Irrational," in Ramet, ed., The Radical Right, 98ff. East European Politics and Societies 349 Table 5. Electoral Performance of the Central and East European Radical Right: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Russia Country Election Votes (in %; and date Type Candidate/Party bold if seats)" Poland 1990 Pres.b Leszek Moczulski (KPN) 1991 Parl.c KPN ZChN and allies 1993 Pari. KPN ZChN and allies 1997 Pari. [AWS]d 2001_____________Pari. LPR__________________ Czech Rep. 1990e Pari 1992e Pari 1992 Pari 1996 Pari 1998 Pari Hungary 1990 Pari. MIÉP — 1994 Pari. MIÉP 1.6 1998 Pari. MIÉP 5.5 target against which to mobilize constituents."32 However, with the growing importance of accession to the European Union (EU), the Polish radical right, like that in the following two country cases, might very well get such a persuasive target. This is shown by the results of the most recent parliamentary election in September 2001, which combine the elements of fluidity in the party system on the one hand, and of stability and even some growth in support for the far right on the other. While older right-wing parties such as the KPN and ROP virtually disappeared, a new party —the fundamentalist League of the Polish Family LPR (Liga Polskich Rodzin)—that is allied to Radio Maryja and oriented to the ideas 32. Ost, "The Radical Right in Poland," 88. 350 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe 2.6 7.4 8.7 5.8 6.3 [33.8] 7.9 SPR-RSC 7.5 SPR-RSC 6.0 SPR-RSC 8.0 SPR-RSC - Country Election Votes (in %; and date Type Candidate/Party bold if seats)" Russia 1991 Pres.b V. Zhirinowsky (LDPR) 7.8 1993 Pari. LDPR 22.9 1995 Pari. LDPR 12.0 1996 Pres.b V. Zhirinowsky (LDPR) 5.7 1999 Pari. Zhirinowsky Bloc 6.0 2000 Pres V. Zhirinowsky 2.7 Romania 1991 Pari. — — 1992 Parl.c PUNR, PRM, PSM 14.6 1996 Parl.c PUNR, PRM, PSM 11.4f 1996 Pres.b Gheorghe Funar (PUNR) 3.2 Corneliu Vadim Tudor (PRM) 4.7 2000 Pres.b Corneliu Vadim Tudor (PRM) 28.3 2000 Parl.c PRM 19.5 notes: "Most East European electoral systems are based on the principle of proportional representation with a threshold of 4 or 5 percent (in Poland, electoral alliances such as AWS needed at least 8 percent to enter parliament) bPresidential election, first round only "Parliamentary elections, first chamber only dAn alliance of the moderate right (Solidarnosc) and radical right (ROP, ZChN, Radio Maryja) eCzech part of the CSFR's national assembly fNo seats for PSM of Roman Dmowski, scored 7.9 percent of the vote (see table 5). Like the right-wing populist Self-Defense of Andzrej Lepper (Samoobrona) which gained 10.2 percent in 2001, the LPR mobilized their electorate around the issue of opposition to Poland's accession to the EU. In the Czech Republic, the most important party on the radical right is the "Republicans" (Sdružení pro republiku — Republikánská strana Československa, [SPR-RSC]), founded in 1989 and led by Miroslav Sládek. Modeled on the Russian LDPR and the German Republikaner, this openly xenophobic party is the only Czech party that does not accept the secession of Slovakia. Its dreams of an "ethnically pure" greater Czechoslovakia (comprising only Slavic people) are combined with visions of a paternalistic and corporatist, East European Politics and Societies 351 i.e., authoritarian, state.33 In 1994, the party had about 25,000 members, thus making it the third largest party in the Czech Republic and, compared with the German Republikaner or DVU, an unusually strong radical right-wing party.34 Nonetheless, in the 1998 parliamentary elections, the SPR-RNC lost all their seats. The Hungarian radical right is dominated by Istvan Czurka's Hungarian Justice and Life party (Magyar Igazság és Elet Pártja [MIEP]) which split in 1993 from the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (Magyar Demokrata Fórum) [MDF]), one of the major players in the 1989-90 velvet revolution. The MIEP espouses anti-Semitic and biological-nativist views and advocates a recovery of the old Hungarian territory that now belongs to Romania, Ukraine, and Slovakia, thus refusing to accept the Treaty of Trianon of 1919 which settled the current borders between Hungary and its neighbors. Although Czurka claims that he is not anti-Semitic, he shares with openly anti-Jewish neo-Nazis the goal to expose what he sees as a worldwide Judeo-liberal-cosmopolitan conspiracy, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and George Soros.35 An overview of the electoral fate of these parties or their candidates reveals signs of an electoral strength of the Eastern European radical right which is comparable to that of the Western European new radical right (see table 5). Obviously, these parties are not temporary protest organizations, but can attract a signifiant portion of the electorate over several elections. When looking at the social characteristics of this electorate, one finds a mix of working-class and rural support in addition to specific regional variations. In Poland as in Hungary, the radical right is stronger in the East than in the West, i.e., in regions that lag in economic development. Data from the Czech Republic show that in 1996, working-class voters constituted 35 percent of the Republicans' electorate, more than in any other party's electorate.36 Thus, the Czech case resembles strongly the Western European situation 33. See Szayna, "The Extreme Right Political Movement," 125. 34. Guido Brendgens, Demokratische Konsolidierungin der Tschechischen Republik (master's thesis, University of Heidelberg, 1998), 60. 35. See Laszlo Karsai, "The Radical Right in Hungary," in Ram et, ed., The Radical Right, 143. 36. Brendgens, Demokratische Konsolidierung, 60. 352 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe where by the mid-to-late 1990s, the electorates of the new radical right contained a higher proportion of workers than in any other party. The Romanian case deviates from this pattern since only the PSM can count on lower-class support, mainly in rural areas whereas the PRM is supported largely by medium-to-higher status strata and has a disproportionately young electorate with 90 percent of their voters under 40 years.37 In the movement sector, the group Pamyat (Remembrance) played an important role in the last days of the Soviet Union. A right-wing social movement organization led by Dimitri Vasiliev (who since 1992 has portrayed himself as a fascist and monarchist), Pamyatwas formed in the mid-1980s and began to fragment after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But many of the current leaders and activists of the Russian radical right went through Pamyat in the late 1980s and early 1990s.38 One of the numerous Nazi organizations in Russia, the Werewolves, officially supports the National Socialist ideology but disintegrated when its leaders were arrested in 1994. In the mid-1990s, experts counted some 30 extreme right organizations in Russia, with the RNU the biggest and best organized. According to one estimate, the RNU has attracted around 6,000 hard core, armed members and 30,000-50,000 active non-member supporters.39 In Romania, too, there is a visible and active movement sector. Most prominent is Vaträ Ro-maneasca, the Romanian Cradle, made infamous by its violent activities against ethnic minorites, especially the sizable Hungarian group, right after the fall of Ceausescu's regime. Vaträ Romaneasca has been considered an extra-parliamentary arm of PUNR.40 Other groups include the Movement for Romanina (MPR), the first movement to openly acknowledge its descent from the Iron Guard, and the Party of the National Right which adopted the Iron Guard's statutes and organizational structures (including identical uniforms) and favors an ethnocratic, authoritarian state. Though 37. Gabanyi, "Politische Parteien in Rumänien," 22-28. 38. See Revlin, Slavophiles and Commissars, 23-30,34-60. 39. Victor Parfenov and Marina Sergeeva, "Russia: Showing Nationalist Grapes of Wrath," Transitions 5 (July 1998); 34. A recent estimate reports more than 40 right-wing radical and ultranationalist groups, along with a growing number of skinheads, see Berliner Zeitung, 18 July 2000,9. 40. Gallagher, Romania after Ceausescu, 194ff.. East European Politics and Societies 353 neither group is registered as a party, both court support especially among Romania's youth.41 The Polish case also reveals a strong and partially violent movement sector of groups that act and mobilize support in the pre-institutional arenas. One of the larger groups is the neofascist movement Polish Nationalist Union (Polska Wspólnota Narodowa: Polskie Stronnictwo Narodowe [PWN-PSN]) led by Boreslav Tejkovski, which numbers about 4,000 members and became notorious internationally with its attacks on Jewish property and the Catholic Church in 1991 and 1992.42 Another right-wing movement organization is the Party of National Rebirth (PNR), the major fascist organization in Poland, under the leadership of 30-year-old Adam Gmurczyk, PNR set up local branches in many cities, including Lodz, Krakow, and Warsaw.43 Finally, since the mid-1990s, the ultra-Catholic radio station Radio Maryja has attracted millions of listeners and followers, mainly poor retired workers, the unemployed, and all kinds of "transformation losers," with its mix of religious, anti-modernist, nationalist, xenophobic, at times also anti-Semitic, messages. Although not a political party, Radio Maryja nonetheless scored a significant political success in the late 1990s by finding parliamentary allies in several representatives of the Sol-idarnosc group Akcja Wyborcza Solidarnošc AWS in the Sejm.44 Beyond these organizations, a growing right-wing extremist scene of violent groups and Nazi skinheads is evident across Poland —in many towns, meetings of several hundred militants are rather frequent events, as are anti-Semitic or fascist graffiti on buildings.45 Also in the Czech Republic, there is a visible scene of violence-prone, right-wing extremists who by targeting Roma people (see above) can count on some sympathy from their fellow citizens. As in Poland and in Hungary, the Roma were/are the least-liked ethnic minority in Czechoslovakia (followed by Arabs, blacks, Asians, Russians, and Jews).46 Between 1990 and 1998, a total of 21 people 41. See Shafir, "Marginalization or mainstream?" 255-59. 42. Prazmowska, "The new right in Poland," 208f. 43. Ost, "The Radical Right in Poland," 96. 44. Letter to the author from Dr. Karol Kostrzebski, Inst, of Political Science, Warsaw University, 12 June 2000. 45. Die Tageszeitung, 13 November 1998,13. 46. Data from Werner Bergmann, "Euro Social," Meinungsprofile Ostmitteleuropa 1991. 354 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe have died in the Czech Republic in racist attacks which, considering the country's population, sharply exceeds the level of racist violence in neighboring Germany.47 Taken together, these sparse figures suggest an active and violent subcultural milieu of right-wing extremism in Central and Eastern Europe. That it unfolds under the conditions of transformation implies a particular dynamism of this development towards growth and expansion rather than a downswing or disappearance. The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe: Context If radical right-wing mobilization is a reaction to intense modernization processes and resulting insecurities, as argued above, then we should have expected, 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of state socialism, an active and growing scene of radical right-wing parties and movements in Eastern Europe. But the data yield mixed results. The party sector is not as strong as in some western democracies (especially France, Austria, Belgium), and the militancy of the movement sector is less than in others (especially Germany, Sweden, and the United States). Is Eastern Europe only "catching up" with the West, or is right-wing radicalism in the East a genuinely different variant? Several reasons suggest that the latter is closer to the truth, and they concern the nature of the transformation process, traditions of nationalism, the political culture, and the new cleavage structures and emerging party systems. The transformation process in Eastern Europe is more far-reaching, deeper, and complex than the current modernization process in the West.48 First, it includes the collapse not only of political regimes but also of their legitimating ideologies. Thus, a simple return to left-wing or socialist ideas as a recourse by the "losers" of this modernization process is not a viable option. Right-wing groups or those that combine socialist with nationalist ideas can benefit from this constellation. Second, the democ- 47. Stanislav Pene and Jan Urban," Czech Republic: Extremist Acts Galvanize Roma Population," Transitions 5 (July 1998); 39. 48. Klaus von Beyme, Systemwechsel in Osteuropa (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1994), 12-14. East European Politics and Societies 355 ratization of regimes is accompanied by an economic and social transformation that touches all aspects of life (thus making it different from earlier waves of democratization or "redemocratiza-tion" as in German and Italy after the Second World War). The complexity of the transformation process produces large "transformation costs" which can benefit the radical right. Third, the exchange of entire social systems causes high levels of social disorientation and ambivalence towards the new order. Again, political entrepreneurs who offer simple solutions and appeal to the people or nation rather than a particular social class or universalist vision of progress have a competitive advantage. In sum, these transformation-induced opportunity structures, which lie behind the institutional settings of liberal democracy as they are put into place in most Eastern European countries, must be seen as generally favorable to the radical right. It is also clear that these processes differ fundamentally from the western transition from industrial to postindustrial society, one of the key context factors for the emergence of a new, or postindustrial, radical right (see above). However, the transformation process is still more complicated because it is a multiple modernization process, i.e., the transition to liberal democracy and market capitalism, along with elements of change from industrialism to postindustrialism, which often involves aspects of simultaneous nation- and state-building as well. Thus, the radical right combines postindustrial aspects such as the use of modern mass media and the decreasing role of mass (party) organizations with the ideologies of a particular past, i.e., the mix of traditional nationalism in the East and the legacy of state socialism. Organizationally, they belong to a new type of party that has emerged inpostcommunist Eastern Europe: "associations of sympathizers run by a political elite and professional party apparatus as tertiary sector organizations providing political services for a loosely constituted electoral clientele."49 Unlike many cases of western nation-building, most Eastern European nations did not emerge in conjunction with a bourgeois revolution, a strong liberal movement, or the establishment of lib— 49. Paul Lewis, Party Structure and Organization in East-Central Europe (Cheltenham and Brookfield: E. Elgar, 1996),184. 356 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe eral democracy. In general, the western type of nation can be characterized as a "political nation" as opposed to a cultural or even an ethnically/racially defined nation. As is well known, the German path to national unity and the subsequent national identity diverges from the western model in its heavy emphasis on the German Kulturnation that after unification in 1871, resulted in the myth of an ethnic community of Germans, or Volksnation. Its legacies today are, among other things, the outdated citizenship laws of 1913, the absence of an immigration policy despite the fact of immigration, and the problem for the new radical right to find its political space between the moderate right, which clings to the völkisch concept of the German nation, and the openly racist and antidemocratic extremists.50 If the German experience is that of a late nation-building and a mix between political and cultural nationalism, then the Eastern European model is that of a very late or blocked nation-building and the prevalence of cultural and ethnic nationalism.51 Even as the western process of nation-building entered a phase of consolidation and liberalization (the last third of the nineteenth century), almost all of Eastern Europe was subject to multinational empires, i.e., the Hapsburg, the Russian, and the Ottoman empires. Nation-building here was always in the style of the risorgimento,52 directed against the existing order and dependent upon its collapse. The dates of national independence were 1881 for Romania, 1882 for Serbia, 1908 for Bulgaria, and 1919 for all the others. In sum, the dominant pattern was (a) the emergence of a national identity without the nation-state, i.e., an ethnic nationhood, and (b) the establishment of a nation-state along with democratization after the first World War, i.e., in the context of the first wave of democratization.53 Except for Czechoslovakia, in the interwar period all Eastern European na- 50. See Kitschelt, The Radical Right, chap. 6; and Minkenberg, Die neue radikale Rechte, chap. 9. 51. It has been argued that this typology makes little, if any, sense; see Stefan Auer, "Nationalism in Central Europe —A Chance or a Threat for the Emerging Liberal Democratic Order?" in East European Politics and Societies 14:2 (2000), 213-45. However, ignoring the relevance of particular historical trajectories of nation-building or democratization in certain parts of Europe seems overly ahistorical. 52. See, for example, Peter Alter, Nationalism (New York: Arnold, 1985). 53. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave:Democratizationin the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). East European Politics and Societies 357 tions experienced a relapse into authoritarianism. And apart from the brief democratic intermezzo between 1944 and 1948, this constellation was extended after the Second World War with the forced transition from a right-wing to a left-wing dictatorship and the "dissolution" of the nation-state into an international socialist order. Against this background, the development of political cultures in Central and Eastern Europe diverges from the West. What has been found for the intra-German situation after unification,54 seems to hold true for Europe in general, too. Only the Czech Republic exhibited early signs of a civic culture with relatively high and stable levels of "system affect", underpinned by pluralistic principles.55 Beyond significant intraregional differences, the political cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, shaped by socialization in the socialist past and by the rigors of the present transition, tend to be characterized by a lower acceptance of liberal market principles than in the West (a commitment to somewhat socialist and egalitarian values), by dissatisfaction with the transformation process and its outcomes, and by what Ronald Inglehart calls values of "traditional authority" (as opposed to secular-rational authority) and "survival values" (as opposed to values of well-being).56 Because participation cannot be equated with liberalism and tolerance, occasional outbreaks of protest activities in Eastern Europe are not necessarily indicators of a participatory political culture. Instead, and in sharp contrast to the democratization of (West) Germany after 1945, the anticommunist thrust of the 1989 upheavals has automatically rehabilitated the nation-state in Eastern Europe. Thus, nationalist rhetoric and the ethnic concept of nationhood are widespread among the political class and the public and are not a fringe phenomenon, which explains why, despite the enormous pressures and insecurities of the transformation process, 54. See Dieter Fuchs, "The Democratic Culture of United Germany," in Pippa Norris, ed., Critical Citizens: GlobalSupport ofDemocratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); also Michael Minkenberg, "The Wall after the Wall: On the Continuing Division of Germany and the Remaking of Political Culture," Comparative Politics 26:1 (October 1993); 53-68. 55. vonReyme, Systemwechsel, 340f.; and Pickel, "Tendenzender Demokratisierung," 121. 56. vonBeyme, Systemwechsel, 349-54;Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmod-ernization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), 93; William Miller, Stephen White, Paul Heywood, Values and Political Change in Post-Communist Europe (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998). 358 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe and the potential for radical right-wing mobilization, the ultra-nationalist messages receive only limited support from the voters. This also helps explain why the radical right in Central and Eastern Europe, in order to distinguish itself from the nationalist but also nominally democratic parties of the moderate right and the rest of the political spectrum, advocates clearly antidemocratic and anti-system visions of a new political order. Usually, theirs is a nationalism explicitly derived from the myth of an organic, ethnically pure nation and from the glorification of authoritarian regimes of the not so distant national past. Finally, the Central and Eastern European cleavage structures and party system differ markedly from those in western democracies. In the West, the new radical right is situated at the right-wing pole of a New Politics cleavage that cuts across the older class-and religion-based cleavages.57 In Central and Eastern Europe, all cleavages are new (or renewed) and must be seen in the context of the transformation process. If Lipset and Rokkan's "freezing hypothesis" was already questionable for western party systems in the 1970s and 1980s, then it is even more difficult to apply to Eastern Europe simply because there were hardly any stable party systems in the 1920s that could have frozen. Traditional cleavages re-emerged only in those countries where the most dominant conflict, that between supporters of the old regime and supporters of the new order, was settled and democratic consolidation had advanced.58 Accordingly, Klaus von Beyme identifies eight cleavages in the East but hastens to add that the older, presocialist cleavages (urban-rural, state-church, monarchist-republican) have been eroded by state-socialist modernization policies.59 This leaves four others: center-periphery and workers-owners, which von Beyme suggests are irrelevant for the radical right, and westerners-indi-genists and internationalists-nationalists, which are better seen as two sides of the same coin than two distinct cleavages.60 57. See Kitschelt, The Radical Right, chaps. 1, 2; Minkenberg, Die neue radikale Rechte, chaps. 7, 8. 58. See Timm Beichelt, Demokratische Konsolidierung im postsozialistischen Europa (Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 2001). 59. von Beyme, "Rechtsextremismus in Osteuropa," 424 f. 60. See Richard Stöss and Dieter Segert, "Entstehung, Struktur und Entwicklung von Parteiensystemen in Osteuropa nach 1989 —eine Bilanz," in Dieter Segert, Richard East European Politics and Societies 359 Most research on party systems in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe identifies some central cleavages such as the one between forces that promote the ideas of market liberalism and those that favor political redistribution, or between modernizers and opponents of modernization.61 But there is disagreement about the number and characteristics of other cleavages unrelated to the first one, and where to situate parties of the radical right. For example, Plasser et al. suggest considering two more cross-cutting cleavages, one between transformation losers and transformation winners and another between orientations of self-reliance and the need for guidance. But"self-reliers", transformation winners, and market liberals do not appear sufficiently distinct as a basis for different cleavages. On the other hand, Glaesner suggests condensing all conflict models into one between "structural conservatives" (including ex-communists, nationalists, social populists, etc.) and "modernizers" (market liberals, forum parties, etc.).62 This approach, however, oversimplifies the conflict structure and overlooks the variety of cleavages within and across countries. Thus, the idea of a dual modernization conflict along a socio-economic axis and along a sociocultural or value-related axis seems more persuasive because of the distinct logical and historical differences of the two cleavages.63 For the case of Central and Eastern Europe, Kitschelt and collaborators have adopted his earlier model to the context of transformation and redefined the two main cleavages as one between market liberals and social protectionists on the one hand, and secular libertarians and religious authoritarians on the other.64 When applied to the radical right in the five Central and Eastern European countries under discussion here, this model suggests situating the parties at the authoritarian end of the libertarian- Stöss, Oskar Niedermayer, eds., Parteiensysteme inpostkommunistischen Gesellschaften Osteuropas (Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1997), 379-428, esp. 386-98. 61. Herbert Kitschelt, "The Foundations of Party Systems in East Central Europe," Politics and Society 20:1 (1992) 31; Fritz Plasser et al., Politischer Kulturwandel in Ost-Mitteleuropa. Theorie und Empirie demokratischer Konsolidierung (Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1997), 134; Stöss and Segert, "Entstehung, Struktur und Entwicklung," 398-401. 62. In Stöss and Segert, "Entstehung, Struktur und Entwicklung," 400. 63. Ibid., 399. 64. Herbert Kitschelt et al., Post-Communist Party Systems Competition, Represenation, andInter-Party Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1999). 360 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe authoritarian axis and closer to the state end of the market liberal and social protectionist axis. So far, however, the evidence is not conclusive. While Kitschelt et al. show that in Poland and Hungary the parties in question are situated at the far end of the authoritarian scale (with the exception of the Czech SPR-RSC) but in the center of the protectionism scale, others find these parties at the far end of both cleavages.65 This, in fact, is congruent with the findings for the new radical right in western democracies, but it does not determine the degree of electoral success of these parties. Alternative models of institutional opportunity structures such as electoral systems do not explain much by themselves, either.66 Therefore, it is important to consider political traditions such as nationalism, the particular ideologies of the Central and Eastern European radical right in comparison to that of other actors, and the degree of radicalization and militancy beyond the party spectrum as potentially limiting or reinforcing factors. Conclusions Studying the radical right in transformation countries in Central and Eastern Europe not only resembles shooting at a moving target but also shooting with clouded vision. Because of the region's distinct history both before and during the days of state socialism, in particular its lack of democratic experience and practice, and because of the dynamism and openness of the transformation process, resulting, among other things, in unstable political alliances and a fluid party system, the categories and approaches of analyzing the radical right in western democracies must be applied with caution. Generally, a radical right springing from populist and antidemocratic ultranationalism has emerged in most of these countries, and the socio-economic and political conditions for its appearance seem rather favorable. But so far, these groups have 65. Jürgen Dieringer, "Die ungarischen Parlamentswahlen 1998," Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 29 (Dec. 1998): 656; and Brendgens, Demokratische Konsolidierung, 77. 66. In part because they are also the result of the emerging structures of the party system; see Dieter Nohlen and Mirjana Kasapovic, Wahlsysteme und Systemwechsel in Osteuropa (Opladen: Leske and Budrich 1996); and Timm Beichelt, "Die Wirkung von Wahlsystemen in Mittel- und Osteuropa, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 29 (Dec. 1998); 605-23. East European Politics and Societies 361 had only limited electoral success so that at the moment, the radical right is no serious threat to the transformation and democratization process in Eastern Europe. It could be shown that the dominant forces of the radical right in these countries are ideologically and structurally different from most western varieties. Organizationally, the Central and Eastern European radical right is less developed than its western counterpart, a fate it shares with most other political parties in the region. Thus an analysis of the phenomenon must take into account both its party-type and its movement-type characteristics. Such a combined look reveals that the party sector — measured in both electoral and organizational strength —is not as strong as in most Western European democracies, in particular Austria, Belgium, or France. On the other hand, the militancy of the movement sector is hard to assess but does not seem as high as in Germany, Sweden, or the United States. Moreover, given that the most robust right-wing radical parties in terms of membership and votes have emerged in Romania, Hungary, and —until 1998—in the Czech Republic suggests there is no direct relationship between the degree of democratic consolidation and the strength of these parties. Ideologically, the radical right in Central and Eastern Europe is more reverse oriented than its western counterpart, i.e., more antidemocratic and more militant. In most countries where democracy is not yet "the only game in town" (Linz), opportunities exist for the radical right that are preempted in the West. But at the same time, the political space for radical right-wing parties is rather limited because nationalism informs the ideology of most dominant actors and because historical fascism is largely discredited. Therefore, the behavior of elites and the political class seems more crucial for the further development of the radical right than such institutional arrangements as electoral hurdles or laws against racism. 362 The Radical Right in Postsocialist Europe