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The barbaric and targeted killings of police officers have become a growing epidemic facing the nation. An immediate consequence has created the monumental task in protecting the men and women who daily put their lives on the line on behalf of the public. Staggering national numbers over these last ten years has indicated a strong surge in the number of law enforcement officers being ambushed by domestic extremists. The purpose of the current research study was to present an overall awareness and threat picture to the law enforcement and academic communities to better educate men and women in law enforcement and to explain who exactly are these domestic extremist groups and/or individuals carrying out this violence and their ideologies and traits that make them crave such an outcome. The current research study utilized a strong exploratory qualitative focus by interviewing several law enforcement members and intelligence personnel in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area to (a) gauge their jurisdictional domestic extremist threat picture; (b) to understand what policing tactics were being employed currently to produce effective “officer safety” protocols while embracing community relationships (if any); and (c) what recommendations they may have for other jurisdictions that will keep safe law enforcement men and women. If one law enforcement life can be saved from the current research study, then every second spent on the research was well worth it.

Far-right parties and their supporters have long been associated with climate skepticism and opposition to climate action. However, all far-right supporters do not share these views, and some even emphasize the importance of caring about the environment. Prior research has not paid much attention to this question; this thesis hence aims to investigate which kinds of far-right supporters are more likely to hold pro-environmental views. The study argues that it is essential to disentangle different eco-friendly attitudes related to the (national) environment on the one hand, and to (global) climate change on the other hand. Using prior research on far-right values and climate change attitudes, the study focuses on regional differences and various individual-level characteristics such as attitudes towards the nation- state, state sovereignty, and individuals’ socio-economic background. The empirical analysis uses the European Social Survey’s data from 2016 and employs multiple linear regression. The results demonstrate that there is indeed a “green divide” between concern for the environment and for the climate among the European far-right, particularly in Eastern Europe. Nationalist attitudes were statistically related to caring for the (national) environment, and not as much to climate responsibility. Female and older far-right supporters care more for the environment, while younger far-right supporters have higher climate responsibility. These results demonstrate the heterogeneity of far-right supporters and their pro-environmental attitudes. They also suggest that certain groups within the far right may be more open to environmentally friendly politics than others, and that an emphasis on the environment instead of on climate may greatly impact polarization in modern environmental politics.

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There has been a rise in Right-wing extremism (RWE) mobilizing within what is known as the setter-colonial state of Canada, with some groups espousing values and narratives grounded in White nationalist ideology which have led to instances of violence and harm against community members. These incidents of harm and violence occur in the context of the Canadian state's claims to inclusive multiculturalism, civility and benevolence. While there are many looking into the presence of RWE groups to document their existence, mobilizing patterns and tactics, very little analysis exists that offers a deep analysis into these groups and situates their political ideology within the broader context of the Canadian state’s governance logics. Therefore, to push the discussion on this topic further, this project looks at the specific case of the Canadian Nationalist Front's (CNF), a White nationalist group in Canada, and unpacks the discourse shared on their blog. Through dissecting the CNF's blogpost with a theoretical framework of analysis that moves beyond understanding this group as merely a fringe group which holds fundamentally different values than the Canadian state, I make links to the existing literature that demonstrates the parallels between the two. I argue that the racialized governance logics of White nationalist groups, like the CNF, are also shared in the settler-colonial logics of the Canadian state's border governance strategies. Further, I highlight the ways in which groups like the CNF ground their movements in the superiority of Whiteness, while using the state's claims of inclusivity and multiculturalism to justify their entitlement to hold these exclusionary ideologies while presenting themselves as victims of those that they "Other". Finally, I contextualize their discourse within the context of neoliberalism, which has intensified the harms of racial capitalism in a way that has also impacted the White working class and allowed groups like the CNF to use economic grievances to mobilize their movements.

Die vorliegende kumulative Arbeit untersucht, inwiefern lokale Aushandlungsprozesse im Umgang mit extrem rechten Mobilisierungen zu deren Normalisierung beitragen. Die Studie adressiert zwei Forschungsdesiderate: Erstens externalisieren viele Beiträge die extrem Rechte von städtischen Demokratien. Folglich ist die Literatur nicht in der Lage zu erfassen, wie extrem rechte Agenden und Ideologien innerhalb lokaler partizipativer Prozesse in liberalen Demokratien normalisiert werden. Zweitens sind die Akteure und Prozesse, welchen diesen lokalen Aushandlungen zugrunde liegen, nicht ausreichend untersucht. Um diese Lücken zu schließen, verbindet die Studie Theoriestränge aus der Urban Governance - Literatur mit sozialwissenschaftlichen Debatten über den Aufstieg der extrem Rechten. Der methodische Rahmen der Arbeit besteht aus einem qualitativen Forschungsdesign in Form einer explorativen Einzelfallstudie in der Stadt Cottbus. Die Analyse zeigt, dass das Narrativ der Externalisierung in dreierlei Hinsicht eine falsche Dichotomie zwischen der extremen Rechten und lokalen Aushandlungsprozessen schafft: Erstens ignoriert es, dass deliberative Prozessen zwar das Versprechen auf Demokratisierung innewohnt, dieses aber durch bestehende gesellschaftliche Machtverhältnisse durchkreuzt wird, die Näherböden für autoritäre Mobilisierung bieten können. Zweitens übersieht es die Verflechtung zwischen Rassismus und den städtischen Institutionen, die auf extrem rechte Mobilisierung reagieren, und oftmals Anknüpfungspunkte für extrem rechte Ideologien bieten. Drittens wird argumentiert, dass dies auf den lokalen Staat als umkämpftes Terrain hinweist. / This doctoral dissertation explores to what extent local negotiations of far-right contestations contribute to the latter’s normalisation. The project is prompted by the crux that even though the central role of cities and local participatory planning processes in countering far-right contestations is widely acknowledged, far-right contestations have hardly been challenged. It seeks to address two scholarly blind spots: First, mainstream accounts engaging with the question of how municipalities deal with far-right contestations have largely externalised the far right from urban democracy. Consequently, the current literature is not able to grasp how far-right agendas and ideologies can indeed be normalised within local participatory processes. Second, the actors and processes involved in the local negotiation of far-right contestations remain understudied. To fill these gaps, the cumulative dissertation connects discussions on urban governance with recent debates on the rise of the far right. The methodological framework of this thesis consists of a qualitative, explorative single-case study in the city of Cottbus, Germany. The analysis reveals that the liberal narratives of externalisation create a false dichotomy between far-right contestations and local negotiations in liberal democracies in a threefold way. First, they ignore how far-right contestations can be strengthened within traditional deliberative processes, as their promise of equal participation for all citizens is juxtaposed with the inability of such processes to re-negotiate the power relations aggravating the social inequalities giving rise to the far right in the first place. Second, by externalising the divisiveness propagated by far-right contestations, they overlook the interconnectedness between racism and the institutions governing cities, which offers points of contact for far-right ideology. Third, it is argued that this points to the local state as contested terrain.

The year 2024 started with newspapers filled with articles on farmers taking over European cities. In Germany, the farmers protested the recently announced tax break reduction on agricultural diesel. The protests were quickly instrumentalized by various political actors, which made them highly controversial. This thesis explores how two actors, the German radical right AfD and the center-right CDU, discursively construct climate change within the debates surrounding the farmers’ protests. The focus lies on their use of populism as a strategic communication tool and legitimation strategies that politicize climate change. As such, climate change and environmental discourses are critically reviewed and contextualized, and theories on populism and politicization are presented. The thesis applies a discourse-historical approach (DHA) based on the analytical tools of nomination, predication, and legitimation. The findings conclude that discourses of climate policy conservatism, green patriotism, and climate elitism are applied to re-politicize climate change according to the right-wing agenda. As expected, the AfD mainly applied green patriotism, whereas the CDU applied climate policy conservatism. Both also relied on a newly identified discourse of climate elitism, highlighting the protest dynamics.

近年來許多歐洲國家的極右派政黨打著反移民與反歐洲整合之主張，受到國內民眾的支持度越來越高。然而也有些國家如荷蘭的極右派政黨之表現卻正好相反，其支持率於2010年達到高峰後便逐年下降。本論文旨在探討荷蘭極右派政黨發展之歷史、荷蘭移民政策在「自由黨」於2006年創黨前後是否發生轉變，及其在創黨後至2014年年底為止中三次國會大選中所取得之成果，且勝選後又如何依其政見主導荷蘭移民政策之產出。 除了參考許多相關學術文獻，本論文亦以歷史研究途徑與文獻分析法對荷蘭近三次國會選舉結果與移民政策法規進行研究。研究結果顯示，荷蘭移民融合政策在自由黨成立前後之方向並無太大差異，其主要轉變在1980年代以後便開始逐漸醞釀，由起初對多元主義之嘗試走向90年代強調社會參與的整合主義，並在2000年後開始實施強調荷蘭單一國族認同與主流價值觀的同化主義至今。然而在自由黨於2010年成為國會第三大黨後，其藉由支持少數聯合內閣之方式，將其反移民之理念體現在2010年的政黨協議中，使移民接納政策在依親移民、申請獨立居留與享有社會福利的等待期、對非法居留外國人之待遇，以及境外移民整合考試等規定均漸趨嚴格。 / With their political ideologies strongly against immigrants and further integration of European Union, many far-right parties across Europe have been gaining more supports than ever in recent years, while the electoral outcomes for some far-right parties appear to be totally opposite. For instance, Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) in the Netherlands only reached its peak of political success in 2010, after which less and less supports from the public have been shown. To know better of such an unusual circumstance, not only the development of the far-right parties in the Netherlands will be discussed, this thesis also aims to probe into the difference of Dutch migration policy before and after PVV was founded, its election results in three times of general election until the end of 2014, and how it once successfully influenced the making of Dutch migration policy. In addition to taking many related literatures into account, in this thesis the results of the recent three times of general election, migration policy, migration law and regulations in the Netherlands are also being analyzed with historical approach and document analysis. The finding shows that there has been no major changes to Dutch integration policy before and after PVV was founded, for they already started to change gradually from multiculturalism in 1980s to integrationism in 1990s, and ended in assimilationism in 2000s as of today. Futhermore, after PVV became the third biggest party in 2010, it also obtained the power to influence the making of Dutch migration policy by supporting the formation of minor coalition government of VVD and CDA, followed by writing its ideologies against immigrants and the EU in the coalition agreement. With such a power, PVV successfully tightened the law and regulations for immigrants, such as imposing stricter qualification for family reunion, harder cultural integration exam to pass, and longer period to enjoy social welfare and political rights.

The focus of this thesis is on the process of myth-making (mythopoeia) in the Dutch National Socialist Movement (NSB) and the Swedish National Socialist Workers' Party (NSAP), using a cultural pragmatic approach to analyse the practicalities and implementation of mythopoeia comparatively. A variety of fascist performances, scripted and unscripted, are considered as having mythopoeic potential, and understood as performative in character, i.e. constituting the thing they claimed to represent. Multiple parts of this mythopoeic process are analysed: the resources, organisation, and technologies required to implement it, and the nature of the process, the events, performances, in other words the actual implementation, and reception by audiences. Secondly, it uses respectability as a means of seeing how in a national context this process was limited, inhibited, or otherwise defined by the standards of the public and media, to which fascists ultimately tried to appeal, thus providing an external perspective on fascist activities to contextualise them. The thesis is divided into four chapters, which deal with the party apparatus, leader myth, political uniforms, and the role of aesthetics and spectacle respectively. Together these chapters explore the relationship between mythopoeia and respectability as refracted through party organisation and administration, as embodied by the 'charismatic' fascist Leader, in the day-to-day behaviour and appearance of the rank-and-file, and ultimately the holistic experience of fascist aesthetics, i.e. the fully scripted and organised spectacles of party congresses. Ultimately it is shown that the fascist movements of Sweden and the Netherlands were highly innovative organisations. Mythopoeia had a powerful mobilising capacity, which could make up for the diminutive financial power and low membership figures of fascist parties. Finally it appears that the relationship between myth and respectability was not a straightforward dialectical one, but multivalent, and highly dynamic.

Cette thèse interroge les continuités de l’extrême droite allemande après 1945 en s’intéressant aux femmes du Parti national-démocrate d’Allemagne (NPD) créé en 1964 en République fédérale. Focalisée sur les actrices, elle éclaire les spécificités des générations de femmes qui s’y sont succédé, des militantes « postfascistes », légalistes et républicaines des années 1960 aux militantes « néofascistes », nationales-révolutionnaires et antisystème des années 2000. Partant du constat de leur marginalité politique, ce travail étudie les rapports de genre et questionne l’agency féminine dans une extrême droite masculiniste. Afin de surmonter leur isolement, les femmes nationales-démocrates ont ponctuellement élaboré des stratégies d’auto-affirmation, passant notamment par des rassemblements féminins : après la fondation d’un Conseil des Femmes en 1968 et de groupes de femmes en 1976/1977, le Cercle des Femmes nationalistes, fondé en 2006, marque l’aboutissement de leurs revendications antisexistes, revendications qui posent également la question du rapport ambivalent qu’elles entretiennent avec le féminisme politique. Cette thèse propose, enfin, une analyse de l’idéologie des femmes nationales-démocrates : en politisant le « domaine féminin » (famille, culture, société), elles ont contribué à définir la ligne du NPD qui, au gré des transformations historiques, est passé de son souverainisme nationaliste initial à un nationalisme identitaire dans les années 1970/1980, avant d’aboutir, après 1990, à un nationalisme völkisch. Cette thèse pose ainsi un regard inédit sur les processus de féminisation dans l’extrême droite allemande et propose une lecture différente de l’histoire de la République fédérale. / This PhD thesis deals with the continuities of the far right in Germany after 1945 by examining the special case of extremist women in the National Democratic Party of Germany, founded in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964. It analyses the characteristics of the generations of national-democratic women who succeeded each other, from the “postfascist” legalist and democratic activists of the 1960s to the national-revolutionary and anti-system “neofascists” of the 2000s. It examines their political marginality within the party and therefore questions the female agency in the masculinist far right. In order to break out of their isolation, national-democratic women have occasionally developed some self-affirmation strategies : after the foundation of a Federal Women’s Council in 1968, they founded Women’s Groups in 1976/1977 and a Circle of nationalist Women in 2006. This women’s organisation can be considered as the culmination of their antisexist claims, it therefore puts into question their relationship with political feminism. This thesis finally analyses the women’s ideology : through their “female domain” (family, culture, society), they have contributed to the definition of the NPD’s general party line which changed from a sovereigntist nationalism in the 1960s to an identitarian nationalism in the 1970s/1980s, and finally to a völkisch nationalism from 2000 onwards. Thus, this thesis sheds a light on feminisation processes on the far right and offers a different understanding of German history.