Over the last decade, scholarly and political interest in the far right has surged, driven by the growing influence of nativist actors in both institutional and extra-institutional arenas. Movement Parties of the Far Right enters this field with a clear aim: to understand how far-right actors that originated from protest movements evolve organizationally and strategically, especially once they enter party politics. Pietro Castelli Gattinara and Andrea L.P. Pirro — established scholars of radical and extreme-right politics — build on their prior contributions (Gattinara, Reference Gattinara2020; Pirro, Reference Pirro2023) to offer a conceptual and empirical framework for understanding radical and extreme-right parties and their organizational and mobilization capabilities.
The book's key theoretical innovation is a new typology of “movement parties,” structured around two axes: the degree of electoral institutionalization and the level of street protest activity. This yields a categorization in four ideal-types—dormant, unfulfilled, institutional, and accomplished movement parties—used to analyze ten radical and extreme-right actors across Europe: VMRO (Bulgaria), EKRE (Estonia), NPD (Germany), Golden Dawn (Greece), Jobbik (Hungary), CasaPound Italia and Forza Nuova (Italy), RN (Poland), ĽSNS (Slovakia), and the Sweden Democrats (Sweden). Methodologically, the book combines protest event analysis, interviews, party documentation, and — in a significant innovation for political science — Social Network Analysis (SNA) to trace patterns of protest coordination and party organization.
This multi-method design, covering roughly two decades (with some concentration on 2008–2018), is one of the volume's strengths. Particularly commendable is the effort to validate semi-structured interviews and the decision to weigh protest data by country size, which improves cross-country comparability. Chapters 2 to 4 map the evolution of the selected parties in terms of ideology, organization, and protest engagement, while Chapter 5 applies SNA to analyze the network of connections in protest arenas. The book is clearly structured and written in accessible language, making it useful not only for scholars, but also for a broader public interested in far-right mobilization.
Still, the volume contains several conceptual and methodological shortcomings. First, the low number of cases constrains generalizability. A more nuanced design, such as disaggregating cases temporally or electorally by considering party iterations for each national and European election, could have increased degrees of freedom and analytical robustness.
Chapter 2 is where many of these issues emerge. While the inclusion of Jobbik as a stable “radical- right” party aligns with the book's classificatory ambition, the authors themselves acknowledge its internal moderation process under Gábor Vona (2006–2018) and its alliance-building with liberal forces (2.3; 5.2.1). Yet these developments are not reflected in the panel data. More problematic is the exclusion of Mi Hazánk Mozgalom (MHM), founded in 2018 by Jobbik hardliners. Although briefly mentioned, its absence leaves the reader with an incomplete picture of the Hungarian radical/extreme-right landscape. A parallel gap appears in the Italian case. The 2020 schism within FN, which led to the creation of Movimento Nazionale–Rete dei Patrioti (MN-RdP), is referenced (4.2.6) but not analytically developed, despite its implications for coordination among extreme-right actors in Italy—recent reporting (e.g., Tizian, Reference Tizian2024, November 12) shows increasing collaboration among these splinter groups.
Chapter 3's organizational analysis also raises questions. ĽSNS and XA are described as lacking formal membership due to their “personalistic party nature” (3.4), but the comparable case of FN — also continuously led by the personal leader Roberto Fiore — is not treated similarly. The conclusion that personalization correlates with low formalization thus appears selective. Likewise, grassroots strength is assessed primarily through interviews offering vague estimates (e.g., “maybe 300 people,” Interview PL1; “volunteers were estimated at 5–10,000,” Interview HU4), without triangulation through membership or mobilization data. Moreover, internal comparability across cases also poses challenges. The authors do not account for parties running solo (e.g., CPI, FN) versus those in coalition (e.g., RN, VMRO). Controlling for this would enhance the reliability of their panel data findings.
One of the most persistent limitations of the book is its terminological inconsistency. Although the authors acknowledge the difference between radical-right (RRP) and extreme-right (ERP) parties, they often revert to using the umbrella term “far-right” (Pirro, Reference Pirro2023) without clear justification. For instance, NPD is referred to both as the “most important point of reference in German far-right politics” and as “an extreme-right organization” (2.6). Similarly, Giorgia Meloni's FdI is labeled far- right (3.2.5), while CasaPound and FN — clearly more ideologically extreme — are placed in the same macro category. A more consistent use of terms would enhance the typological clarity the book seeks to establish.
This overlapping of labels risks undermining the very typology the authors propose. Although Chapter 5 temporarily adopts the ERP/RRP distinction for the purposes of SNA, this differentiation is not consistent across the volume. Given that the authors themselves define ERP actors as possessing “extremist anti-democratic profiles” (5.4), the casual use of “far-right” blurs meaningful ideological and organizational differences. This is particularly problematic in a book aiming to offer a new classificatory scheme, which at several points does not meet the authors’ own expectations.
The book's embrace of SNA (Chapter 5) is commendable, yet the methodology raises concerns. The Radicalness Index lacks transparency, and the treatment of co-presence at protests as a network tie (e.g., CPI and the Partito Democratico appearing at the same event) is questionable without edge- weighting or qualitative context. Even more problematic is the treatment of organizational offshoots and party branches as independent nodes. For example, in Figure 5.2.6b, FN's ego network includes “Il Presidio” (former FN Milan Headquarter), “Lotta Studentesca” (its youth wing), and “Roma ai Romani” (a Giuliano Castellino-led spin-off). Treating these as separate actors distorts centrality metrics and inflates network density.
The use of static SNA over a 20-year period also misses ideological and relational evolution. A panel network approach could have better captured changes over time. Additionally, the lack of social media data is a missed opportunity. Interview PL1 (5.2.2) highlights a shift from street to online mobilization—“many have moved from the street to social media”—yet the book relies almost exclusively on interviews to assess grassroots vitality. Given the availability of social media APIs during the study period, a digital component would have added valuable triangulation.
Movement Parties of the Far Right offers a valuable attempt to conceptualize the hybridization of protest and party politics among nativist actors. Its empirical breadth, methodological innovation, and typological ambition mark it as a noteworthy contribution in the field. The use of SNA, in particular, represents an important step further in analyzing protest-party dynamics in the far-right field. The book also stands out for its accessible language, wide comparative coverage, and willingness to tackle an increasingly complex and relevant subject.
Nonetheless, inconsistencies in case selection, terminological vagueness, and methodological gaps — especially concerning network analysis and party organizational detail — limit its theoretical coherence and analytical strength. For sure this book will still be of use to scholars of party-movement dynamics, contentious politics, and especially radical/extreme-right mobilization. But readers should approach it as a good starting point for further refinement, not as a definitive framework. The distinction between radical and extreme right, which the volume at times tends to overlook, is and remains crucial, and this volume's tendency to collapse them under the “far-right” label weakens the analytical clarity it otherwise strives to achieve.
