Class 12: Individuals in the far right

Violence

Dr. Michael C. Zeller

Opening notes

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Presentation groups

Date Presenters Method
3 July: Alexander V., Luis G., Oscar O., Mia C. descriptive inference
10 July: Lina S., Stephen W., Philomena B., Aarón Z. ethnography
17 July: Corinna Z., Eva M., and Rostislav N. TBD
24 July: Sebastian K., Thomas R., Emilia Z., Florian P. quant. text analysis
24 July: Lorenz F., Daniel B., Medina H. quant. text analysis
Presentations line-up
Date Presenters Method
15 May: Idil M., Zeynep P., Liesl W., Selin K., Chiara W. logistic regression
22 May: Gabriel W., Lina M., Florian S., Julian B. discourse analysis
29 May: NO CLASS MEETING
Date Presenters Method
5 June: Rasmus B., Andre D., Josefine E., Ioanna L., Santiago C. surveys
12 June: Omar B., Lela E., Niclas W. network analysis
19 June: NO CLASS MEETING
26 June: Colombe I., Konstantin S., Jakob W., Veronika L. ethnography
26 June: Maksim K., Felix S., Jon L.D., Damir S., Korbinian M. case study

Course evaluations

  • course evaluations are available
  • scoring is appreciated
  • comments can be very helpful, for example:
Rachel Berry Rachel Berry Quote GIFfrom Rachel Berry GIFs
  1. how is the course website? any suggested improvements?
  2. what did you like and dislike about the class slides?
  3. what did you like and dislike about class meetings?
  4. did you watch the recorded lectures? (evaluations are anonymous, so you can be totally honest) how were they?
  5. are course assignments clear? (e.g., add another report example?)

Patterns of violence and the far right

  • ‘patterns of violence’ framework
    • repertoires, targeting, frequency, techniques
  • applying this framework to far-right violent
Dont Get Aggressive Violence GIFfrom Dont Get Aggressive GIFs

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

a pattern of violence on the part of an armed organization (state force, rebel group, or militia) as the relatively stable and recognizable configuration of violence in which it engages. This configuration consists of …

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

repertoire

targeting

frequency

technique

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

targeting

frequency

technique

repertoire

  • what forms of violence are used
    • beatings, stabbings, sexual violence, homicide, etc.
  • violent repertoires used by far-right actors vary
    • several far-right groups we have discussed are associated with low-level, low intensity violence (e.g., beatings and non-lethal assault), such as CasaPound Italia

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

repertoire

targeting

frequency

technique

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

repertoire

frequency

technique

targeting

  • the social groups against whom actors regularly use violent repertoires
    • an ethnic group, political opponents, LBGTI persons, militants of rival organisations, residents of certain areas, etc.
  • collective targeting tends to be most prominent among (contemporary) far-right actors

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

repertoire

targeting

frequency

technique

targeting taxonomy (and related conceptual space) (Zeller and Noschese 2025)

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

repertoire

targeting

frequency

technique

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

repertoire

targeting

technique

frequency

  • count: number of attacks deploying a repertoire against a target
  • rates (common in criminology research as well):
    • incidence: incidents per member of some referent population
    • prevalence: fraction of population that suffered an incident
    • perpetration: number of incidents or persons of the targeted group per member of the group of violent attackers

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

repertoire

targeting

frequency

technique

Patterns of Violence

borrowing a conceptual framework from armed conflict research (Gutiérrez-Sanín and Wood 2017)

repertoire

targeting

frequency

technique

  • how the actor(s) carry out their violence
  • techniques are about the tools or instruments used (e.g., clubs, knives, guns, bombs)

Patterns of Violence

repertoire

  • what forms of violence are used
    • beatings, stabbings, sexual violence, homicide, etc.

targeting

  • the social groups against whom actors regularly use violent repertoires
    • an ethnic group, political opponents, LBGTI persons, etc

frequency

  • count: number of attacks deploying a repertoire against a target
  • incidence rates, prevalence rates, perpetration rates

technique

  • how the actor(s) carry out their violence
  • techniques are about the tools or instruments used (e.g., clubs, knives, guns, bombs)

Far-right patterns - Italy (Zeller and Noschese 2025)

Explore further - RTV

https://www.sv.c-rex.uio.no/RTVMapTool/

Explore further - HRCW

  • Reported hate crime incidents per year, by country. (most populous countries on top)

  • Data are collected by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)

https://hatecrime.osce.org/

  • any issues to discuss if we reported on these data?

Poll: far-right violence

A QR code for the survey.

Take the survey at https://forms.gle/EJmHdaqQpbBdvKDx7

  • Patterns of far-right violence similar or different to other extremist violence?
  • Generally, are ‘lone actors’ or violent far-right groups the greater societal threat?
  • ‘regular’ violent crime: just like other individual violent offenders; domestic terrorism: violence to terrift, advance movement goals. State authorities’ understanding?: crime or terrorism?
  • Groups, parties responsible for members’ violent crimes?
  • Is anti-fascist violence sometimes legitimate?

Are patterns of far-right violence largely similar to other extremist violence or rather different?

Poll: threat and response

greater societal threat?

response: crime or terrorism?

Contextual causes of far-right violence

  • country-level causes of right-wing terrorism (Ravndal 2018)
  • development of right-wing terrorism within a country (Germany) (Manthe 2021)
    • is right-wing terrorism ‘still’ a within-country phenomenon?
Context Robin Hood Memefrom Context Memes

Explaining right-wing terrorism (Ravndal 2018)

  • RQ: Why do some Western liberal democracies experience more right-wing terrorism and violence (RTV) than others?
  • data: RTV in 18 West European countries between 1990 and 2015
    • (quite hard to gather valid, reliable data for Central and Eastern Europe, as it happens)
  • method: qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)
    • suited to explaining (more so than describing or predicting)
    • built on set theory: does this concept (set) describe this case
  • outcome: high RTV in a country
    • non-outcome: ‘not-high RTV’

Country-level causes of RW terrorism (Ravndal 2018)

Conditions Theoretical foundation
Ethnic diversity or immigration Grievances
Socioeconomic hardship Grievances
Radical right support Opportunities
Authoritarian legacies Opportunities
Left-wing militancy (aggression) Polarisation
Radical right repression Polarisation

Ravndal (2018) - RTV outcome data table

Country events deadly events (no. killed) per million inhabitants
Austria 23 1 (4) 0.1
Belgium 6 3 (5) 0.3
Denmark 19 1 (1) 0.2
Finland 8 –
France 16 9 (11) 0.1
Germany 122 82 (104) 1
Greece 55 6 (7) 0.6
Ireland 4 3 (4) 0.8
Italy 99 5 (6) 0.1
Netherlands 10 3 (3) 0.2
Norway 25 3 (79) 0.7
Portugal 3 3 (3) 0.3
Spain 39 22 (22) 0.5
Sweden 89 17 (20) 1.9
Switzerland 1 1 (1) 0.1
United Kingdom 59 31 (33) 0.5
Sum 578 190 (303)

Calibrated data (set membership) (Ravndal 2018)

Country RTV Diversity Hardship Support Legacies Repression Aggression
AUT 0.25 1.00 0.00 1.00 1.00 0.00 0.00
BEL 0.25 1.00 0.25 0.75 0.25 0.75 0.00
DEN 0.25 0.75 0.00 0.75 0.00 0.00 0.25
FIN 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.00
FRA 0.25 0.75 0.00 0.75 0.25 0.75 0.25
GER 1.00 0.75 0.25 0.00 1.00 1.00 0.75
GRE 0.75 0.75 1.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 1.00
ICE 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
IRE 0.25 0.75 0.75 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
ITA 0.75 0.25 0.75 0.75 1.00 0.00 0.75
LUX 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
NED 0.25 0.75 0.00 0.25 0.00 0.75 0.00
NOR 0.25 1.00 0.00 0.75 0.00 0.00 0.00
POR 0.00 0.25 0.75 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00
SPA 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.75
SWE 1.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.25
SWI 0.25 1.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.25 0.00
UK 0.75 0.75 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.75 0.00

Ravndal (2018) - sufficiency

inclS PRI covS covU cases
HARDSHIP∗ LEGACIES∗ AGGRESSION 0.909 0.875 0.345 0.310 ITA; GRE, SPA
DIVERSITY∗ ~SUPPORT∗ REPRESSION 0.867 0.818 0.448 0.414 NED, SWE, UK; GER
Solution 0.880 0.833 0.759

Sufficiency plot

Ravndal (2018) - conclusions

  • The two ‘causal recipes’ both appear “to fuel hostility, polarisation and violence”
    • North European pattern (Diversity* ~Support* Repression)
      • “a predominantly pro-immigration elite perceived as hostile towards people with anti-immigration concerns might be exploited by the extreme right to mobilise new followers and to motivate terrorism and violence”
    • South European pattern (Hardship* Legacies* Aggression)
    • both recipes contain elements of grievances and opportunities
  • Ravndal: high polarisation might be necessary for extensive RTV, but the data do not offer firm conclusions about this.

Ravndal (2018, 862) - conclusions: ‘paradox of tolerance’

By implication, a potentially effective cure for RTV could be to limit immigration and be more accepting towards radical right actors and opinions. However, considering the inherently intolerant policies these actors seek to implement, this cure comes with a bitter aftertaste from a liberal democratic perspective. This liberal dilemma has no easy solution…

Right-wing terrorism within Germany (Manthe 2021)

calculated action of groups or individuals… who, with attempted or actual severe violence against people or property, conspiratorially pursue at least two of the following goals:

  • to create a climate of fear in the general/certain populations;
  • to attract public attention;
  • to influence the actions of states, leaders, and/or to provoke;
  • to destabilize political and social order (which can include challenging the state and its policies); and
  • to defend political and social order (vigilantism).

  1. Verfassungsschutz: “persistent fight for political goals enforced by attacks on life, limb and property of others particularly through severe criminal acts as named in 129a Strafgesetzbuch or through other acts of violence meant to prepare these criminal acts.”

  2. scholarship definition: terrorism aims to send a message in order to “achieve an effect on others besides the direct victim or target of the violence.” (Bjørgo)

Right-wing terrorism within Germany (Manthe 2021)

  • data: mainly from Bundesarchiv
    • 22 groups and lone actors between 1970 and 1980
  • common activities: robberies, illegal weapons, militant training, shootings, planning bombings and attacks
  • common targets: leftists (GDR, USSR, communists), Jews (incl. cemeteries), U.S. buildings and troops, memorials

want to know more? consider a visit to NS-Dokumentationszentrum München

bans against right-wing extremist groups in Germany

Manthe (2021) - postwar era

Causes of (relatively) peaceful period in postwar era until the 1970s:

  1. criminally prosecuting far-right offenders and banning far-right groups
  2. lack of strong de-nazification and Vergangenheitsbewältigung (‘dealing with the past’) means ‘less impetus for violence’
    • several members of Adenauer’s governments had been in NS regime, e.g.,
      • Hans Globke, Chief of Staff for the West German Chancellery, helped draft Nuremberg Laws and worked closely with Adolf Eichmann to administer parts of the Holocaust;
      • Interior Minister Gerhard Schröder, longtime Nazi party member;
      • minister for refugees Theodor Oberländer, served in SS battalion implicated in war crimes; and
      • Bundesnachtichtendienst president Reinhard Gehlen, NS intelligence officer
  3. NPD creation in 1964 led the far-right scene to transfer expectations of success through parliamentary victory; also led to strategic restraint with regards to openly violent activities.

how do these explanations relate to the movements analytical concepts we have discussed?

Manthe (2021) - phases of 1970s RW terrorist activity

  • early 1970s: (larger) group emergence
  • mid-1970s: smaller groupings, radicalisation
  • late 1970s: escalation in violence
    • participation of German RW extremists in Lebanese civil war, later in Yugoslav wars

Manthe (2021) - a new era

  • In last phase, two events in particular provoked state reaction:
    • Oktoberfest bombing (26.09.1980): 12 dead, 200+ injured
      • attacker: Gundolf Köhler (member of WSG Hoffmann)
      • ‘lone attacker’ theory re-opened for investigation in 2014
    • Assassination of Shlomo Lewin & Frida Poeschke (19.12.1980)
      • attacker: Uwe Behrendt (member of WSG Hoffmann)

An example of the curious relationship of opposed movements

after the RAF had killed the Generalbundesanwalt (Public Prosecutor General) Siegfried Buback on April 7, 1977, the neo-Nazi magazine Wille und Weg (Will and Way) celebrated the assassination, calling it a “relieving act.” Statements by right-wing terrorists, such as Christine Hewicker, indicate that they admired the RAF for its determinedness. However, other activists at the same time deeply objected to the group” (Manthe 2021, 61)

(use and misuse of the ‘horseshoe theory’?)

Poll: responsibility and anti-fascism

groups, parties responsible for members’ crimes?

anti-fascist violence sometimes legitimate?

Groups responsible for members: pro arguments

  • UN Security Council Resolution 1373
    • states bound to prevent and suppress terrorist activity by groups in their territories (state responsibility)
  • UN Security Council Resolution 1820
    • recognises state and non-state armed groups bear responsibility for acts of sexual violence committed by their members ([armed] group responsibility)

Groups responsible for members: contra arguments

Venice Commission of the Council of Europe provided advisory guidelines about the regulation of political parties that stated a “political party as a whole cannot be held responsible for the individual behaviour of its members not authorised by the party within the framework of political/public and party activities. (European Commission 2003)

Any questions, concerns, feedback for this class?

Anonymous feedback here: https://forms.gle/pisUmtmWdE13zMD58

Alternatively, send me an email: m.zeller@lmu.de

References

European Commission. 2003. “Opinion on the Proposed Amendment to the Law on Parties and Other Socio-Political Organisations of the Republic of Moldova Adopted by the Venice Commission at Its 54th Plenary Session (Venice, 14-15 March 2003).” Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. https://www.coe.int/en/web/venice-commission/-/cdl-ad-2003-008-e?p_l_back_url=%2Fen%2Fweb%2Fvenice-commission%2Fdocuments%3FYears%3D277145199%26Languages%3D274802870%26Series%3D274804643.
Fielitz, Maik, Vasiliki Tsagkroni, and Andreas Dafnos. 2020. “The Banning of Golden Dawn.” In CARR Organisation Research Unit Year in Review Report 2020, 27–29. Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR).
Gutiérrez-Sanín, Francisco, and Elisabeth Jean Wood. 2017. “What Should We Mean by ‘Pattern of Political Violence’? Repertoire, Targeting, Frequency, and Technique.” Perspectives on Politics 15 (1): 20–41. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592716004114.
Kotonen, Tommi. 2021. “Proscribing the Nordic Resistance Movement in Finland: Analyzing the Process and Its Outcome.” Journal for Deradicalization 29 (Winter): 177–204.
Manthe, Barbara. 2021. “On the Pathway to Violence: West German Right-Wing Terrorism in the 1970s.” Terrorism and Political Violence 33 (1): 49–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1520701.
Ravndal, Jacob Aasland. 2018. “Explaining Right-Wing Terrorism and Violence in Western Europe: Grievances, Opportunities and Polarisation.” European Journal of Political Research 57 (4): 845–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12254.
Zeller, Michael C, and Pasquale Noschese. 2025. “Targeting Taxonomy and Patterns of Political Violence in Stable Societies: Evidence from the Far Right in Italy.” Terrorism and Political Violence 0 (0): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2025.2528059.
Zeller, Michael C, and Michael Vaughan. 2024. “Proscribing Right-Wing Extremist Organizations in Europe: Variations, Trends, and Prospects.” Terrorism and Political Violence 36 (8): 985–1007. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2023.2240446.