The Far Right Today

The far right is back with a vengeance. After several decades at the political margins, far-right politics has again taken center stage. Three of the world’s largest democracies – Brazil, India, and the United States – now have a radical right leader, while far-right parties continue to increase their profile and support within Europe.

In this timely book, leading global expert on political extremism Cas Mudde provides a concise overview of the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics, exploring its history, ideology, organization, causes, and consequences, as well as the responses available to civil society, party, and state actors to challenge its ideas and influence. What defines this current far-right renaissance, Mudde argues, is its mainstreaming and normalization within the contemporary political landscape. Challenging orthodox thinking on the relationship between conventional and far-right politics, Mudde offers a complex and insightful picture of one of the key political challenges of our time.

He was elected by the prestigous Britisch magazine Prospect as one of the top 50 Thinkers of 2019. Mudde is a Dutch academic who had witnessed the rise of the extreme right in the Netherlands, in 2004 he defined modern populism, and laid the groundwork for the next decade of research and reporting. With work that is devoid of some of the sensationalism of other academics working on this issue, Mudde has been a voice of authority, and has persuasively demonstrated to the left that it will never win by playing on the turf of the anti-immigrant parties. His latest work on understanding the different strands of the far right in western politics today could be just as important.