The leaders of the most successful populist radical right parties in western Europe have one thing in common that is often overlooked. Italy’s Matteo Salvini, Jordan Bardella from France, Jimmie Åkesson from the Sweden Democrats, and Tom Van Grieken from Belgium’s Vlaams Belang all led the youth wing of the parties they now run. These movements shaped the politicians they are today, and they are now shaping Europe’s political future.
As Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, another former radical right youth-wing leader, put it: “Even more than my growth as a politician, I owe my growth as a person and as an Italian to my youth-wing activism. There is no more formative training ground than this.” And yet, until recently, we knew little about these incubation chambers of populist radical right parties. In researching our new book, Youth Wings of the Populist Radical Right, we looked at 10 such organisations from across Europe.
From the youth wing of Austria’s Freedom party to that of France’s National Rally, we found they help to recruit, train and promote the radical right’s grassroots members, their representatives and leaders of the future. They also perform important functions for their parties in the present, encouraging young people to vote for them, providing a key source of labour during election campaigns, running party branches and influencing policy. In particular, we found that youth-wing leaders and their rank and file members are helping to achieve three key goals for the radical right as their parties expand in the 2020s: internationalisation, professionalisation and normalisation.
First, these youth wings go even further than their older equivalent organisations in building new transnational alliances. Away from the spotlight, there has been a proliferation of international far-right workshops and conferences, such as the Transatlantic Patriot Summit, held each year in Budapest since 2022. These and similar events have brought together youth leaders from Europe, India, Israel, Latin America and the US, to talk about common aims and establish ties that will last through their careers.
Many of the youth leaders we spoke to talked openly about how these international ties will benefit them “when we are the ones in government”. Second, they are heavily involved in political training at international, national and local levels. Once derided as a bunch of amateurs (and with good reason, in some cases), the populist radical right now invests considerably in professionalisation.
The young people who join are taught not only about policies and history, but also rhetoric and media communications. They are being trained as future politicians, and the likes of Åkesson, Bardella, Meloni and Salvini are proof of concept. Third, the recruitment of university-educated young people – who look and sound very different from the stereotypical media image of the angry far-right youth – feeds into the growing normalisation of the populist radical right.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
