Extreme Reactions: Radical Right Mobilization in Eastern Europe

Description

Focusing on the rising support for the populist right in Eastern Europe, this book examines how anger and resentment towards minorities is being utilized in politics. Bustikova details the process by which the acquisition of political power and demand for rights by ascendant minority groups precipitates a backlash of mobilization from the radical right. However, this book also argues that prejudice against minorities is not a sentiment exclusive to right-wing voters and is not the root cause of increasing support for the radical right. Rather, this study reveals variation in how minorities are accommodated by the government and explains the electoral successes and failures of radical right parties. By examining the capitalization on these feelings of discontent towards politically assertive minorities and with the governmental policies that yield to their demands, Bustikova exposes volatile, zeitgeist-dependent conditions under which once fringe right-wing parties have risen to prominent but precarious positions of power.

Lenka Bustikova is Associate Professor of Political Science at Arizona State University. She serves as editor of East European Politics. She received the 2015 Best Article Prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association's European Politics and Society Section, and the 2017 Best Paper Prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association's Comparative Democratization Section.

'This important and highly illuminating study demonstrates that extreme right parties mobilize against politically ascendant ethnic minorities, rather than in response to economic crises or widespread xenophobia. Bustikova's clear and rigorous analysis of the politics of ethnic resentment and backlash resonates well beyond the borders of post-communist Europe.' Anna Gryzmala-Busse, Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, Stanford University, California 'In a work that is both timely and timeless, Bustikova explores the causes of radical right party popularity in Eastern Europe. Her book makes a convincing case for the role of ethnic minority accommodation - as opposed to economic insecurity or xenophobia - in shaping the calculus of radical right elite and voters. In doing so, she further advances an important correction to the longstanding claim that radical right fortunes can only be affected by the behavior of proximal parties.' Bonnie M. Meguid, University of Rochester, New York 'The best research monographs offer an original thesis on a highly relevant topic, test it on the basis of systematic, comparative research, and come to conclusions that have much broader consequences. Lenka Bustikova has written such a book! Extreme Reactions is crucial to understanding the radical right in Eastern Europe and also offers novel insights into the rise of the far right around the globe.' Cas Mudde, author of The Far Right Today 'Lenka Bustikova offers an interesting insight on the political dynamics that set radical politics in Central and Eastern Europe alight ... Bustikova provides an impressive piece of empirical research wrapped in a careful and convincing analysis.' Jeffrey Mazo, Survival