Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
Maracaibo, Venezuela
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Vol.39 N° 70
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cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas de la Uni ver si dad del Zu lia.
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ción, dis cu sión y con fron ta ción de las ideas y avan ces cien tí fi cos con com pro mi so so cial.
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avan ces o re sul ta dos de in ves ti ga ción en las áreas de Cien cia Po lí ti ca y De re cho Pú bli-
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Vol. 39, Nº 70 (2021), 504-523
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
Political Extremism in Modern
Democratic Transformations
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.3970.30
Ivo Svoboda *
Olena V. Novakova **
Olena B. Balatska ***
Olena V. Karchevska ****
Valentyn S. Tulinov *****
Abstract
Modern political transformations involve free choice of
ideology, ability to communicate with society and maintenance
of their political preferences. Political struggle often leads to
radical action and political extremism. The aim of this study
involved an analysis of political extremism that occurs in modern
democracies, and identication of the main factors underlying
the development of political extremism. The determinants of
the political stability/extremism are analysed based on the algorithm of
hierarchical clustering. It is proved that 26 European countries studied
in the work can be grouped into four clusters, which are characterised by
the number of parties of extremist ideology in the national parliaments of
European countries; Elite Quality Index (EQx); the Freedom in the World
Index; Political Stability and Absence of Violence Index, which is part of
The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). It is revealed that today
ideological trends of authoritarian populism, conservatism and extremism
are spreading in European countries. Cluster analysis has shown that the
political extremism is inuenced by the level of quality of national elites,
the development of fundamental rights and freedoms, the political stability,
* Associate Professor, guarantor of security management studies, AMBIS, a.s. Vyská škola, 18000
Prague, Czech Republic. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0941-4686. Email: Svoboda.Ivo@
seznam.cz
** Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor Department of Political Science, Faculty of Political Science and
Law, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, 01601, Kyiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-0402-1904. Email: elenanovakova_61@gmail.com
*** Doctor of Political Sciences, Associate Professor at Department of Philosophy, Faculty of History
and Philosophy, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, 04053, Kyiv, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.
org/0000-0003-3596-3467. Email: balatskaya_81@gmail.com
**** PhD in Political Sciences, Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, and International
Relations, Educational and Scientic Institute of International Relations, Volodymyr Dahl East
Ukrainian National University, 93400, Severodonetsk, Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-
0002-8046-5208. Email: karchevskaiahelen@gmail.com
***** PhD in Law, Dean of the Faculty #2, Donetsk State University of Internal Aairs, 87500, Mariupol,
Ukraine. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3972-348X. Email: valentin_tulynov@ukr.net
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 70 (2021): 504-523
and the absence of violence. Further research should focus on econometric
simulation of factors shaping political extremism through economic
development indicators.
Keywords: political activity in Europe; status; democracy; political
extremism; radicalism.
El Extremismo Político en las Transformaciones
Democráticas Modernas
Resumen
Las transformaciones políticas modernas implican la libre elección de
ideología, la capacidad de comunicarse con la sociedad y el mantenimiento
de las preferencias políticas. La lucha política a menudo conduce a una
acción radical y al extremismo político. El objetivo de este estudio involucró
un análisis del extremismo político que ocurre en las democracias modernas
y la identicación de los principales factores subyacentes al desarrollo del
extremismo. Los determinantes de la estabilidad política se analizan con
base en el algoritmo de agrupamiento jerárquico. Está comprobado que
26 países europeos estudiados en el trabajo pueden agruparse en cuatro
clústeres, que se caracterizan por el número de partidos de ideología
extremista en los parlamentos nacionales de los países europeos; Índice
de calidad de élite (EQx); el Índice de Libertad en el Mundo; Índice de
Estabilidad Política y Ausencia de Violencia, que forma parte de los
Indicadores de Gobernanza Mundial (WGI). Se revela que hoy en día
las tendencias ideológicas de populismo autoritario, conservadurismo y
extremismo se están extendiendo en los países europeos. Se concluye que,
el análisis de conglomerados ha demostrado que el extremismo político está
inuenciado por el nivel de calidad de las élites nacionales y el desarrollo de
los fundamentales.
Palabras clave: actividad política en Europa; estado; democracia;
extremismo político; radicalismo.
Introduction
The dynamism of political life in the state is the result of the inuence
of internal and external factors on society. These multi-vector actions form
certain preferences, which further determine the activities of active social
groups. Forms of expression of political views, which sometimes leads to
quite severe consequences, are a reaction to social stimuli, changes in the
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Ivo Svoboda, Olena V. Novakova, Olena B. Balatska, Olena V. Karchevska y Valentyn S. Tulinov
Political Extremism in Modern Democratic Transformations
established way of life, the realization of the political will of the majority.
Political activity is often shifted from centrist currents to extreme right
or left ideologies, which in essence can be based on radical views and
reactions. The results of democratic transformations and approaches to the
expression of citizens’ will be broad support for those areas that profess
radical and extremist actions in politics.
Radicalisation and extremism are a major problem for societies around
the world. The consequences of radical behaviour are unauthorised actions
during political speeches and demonstrations, causing physical inuence
on citizens, government ocials and law enforcement agencies, terrorist,
and cyberterrorist acts. According to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI),
about 100,000 people died in terrorist attacks between 2014 and 2017
(Institute for Economics and Peace, 2018). Systemic surveys conducted in
recent years have found that 5 to 10% of adults in Germany have far-right
worldviews (Best et al., 2016). Many rallies of hatred and violence in recent
years have been linked to the adherents of far-right and right-wing ideology,
including the neo-fascist movement in Italy (Gattinara et al., 2018), national
action in Britain (Macklin, 2018), the refugee crisis in Germany (Koehler,
2018), federalist and Christian fundamentalist ideologies in the United
States (Sweeney and Perliger, 2018, Windisch et al., 2018), and others.
In recent years, populists and extremists have had strong electoral
positions in Europe, Asia and America, both in relatively new democracies
(Latvia, the Czech Republic) and in more established ones (Germany,
France). In some countries (Hungary, Poland, Venezuela), extremist
parties have received signicant electoral support to legally inuence the
government and make signicant changes to laws and the constitution
(Schupmann, 2020). A recent study by Western scholars based on an
analysis of data from 18 Western European countries for 1985-2018 showed
that growing electoral support for right-wing radical parties is forcing
systemic parties to adjust their socioeconomic policies toward left-wing
ideology (Krause and Giebler, 2019).
Support for political parties with extremist ideologies is often seen as a
protest vote against mainstream politics or the political system as a whole
(Kutiyski et al., 2021). The change in the economic system by right-wing
radical parties was the result of the proletarianisation of their electorate,
the formation of a new model of class voting in Western Europe with the
involvement of voters from the working class, opponents of globalisation,
and others.
Extremism is seen as an ideological phenomenon, an instrument of
domination and legitimacy that serves the interests of dominant groups
and blocks utopian thinking (the idea of better ways of life). Extremism
is part of the modern positional struggle initiated from the camp of liberal
elites. Conceptually, extremism usually gets its essence through association
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with other ideas — fundamentalism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism,
and terrorism, referring to the opposition of such concepts as democracy,
openness, liberalism, tolerance and moderation. Extremism contains
ideological and behavioural elements: substandard values; anti-democracy;
anti-liberalism (hostility or indierence to rights, tolerance, choice,
pluralism); utopianism and the struggle against the present; totalization;
justication of illegality (El-Ojeili and Taylor, 2020).
1. Literature Review
Extreme political beliefs are often seen as a mechanism for combating
feelings of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. People perceive rigid ideological
beliefs because it allows them to defend simple solutions to complex
social and political problems (Van Prooijen and Krouwel, 2019). Political
extremists are particularly prone to distrust other competing political
parties and are more likely to demonstrate a high level of Euroscepticism
(Kutiyski et al., 2021).
The ndings of a study of voters in the Netherlands (Kutiyski et al., 2021)
indicate that radical voters have a common feature characterized by lower
political trust than moderate centrist voters, as evidenced, for example, by a
case study on Sweden (Krouwel et al., 2017). The results show that political
radicalism, regardless of its specic ideological orientation, is associated
with a low level of trust. Similarly, the high level of Euroscepticism has
also been linked to the preferences of radical parties. Radical political
orientations provoke a negative attitude towards both national and
European politics.
Extremists perceive and legitimise political violence, seek to restore
the past, becoming anti-democratic with restrictive conceptions of human
rights, having problems of coexistence with democracy (Bötticher, 2017).
Ideology is a major driver of extremist threats and terrorism (Ackerman
and Burnham, 2019). More generally, ideology is seen as a worldview with
a set of ideas that provide a person with a collective context, meaning and
belonging (Campion, 2019).
Popular support for political extremism in democracies gives these
parties and movements the visibility of democratic legitimacy they need
to legitimately make illiberal and anti-democratic changes to legislation.
They seek to transform a liberal-democratic state into an illiberal and anti-
democratic one (Schupmann, 2020).
The vectors that best understand extremism are world economic and
class structures, posthegemonic geopolitics, and geocultural features. It
can be assumed on the basis of (Davies, 2017) that liberalism, in general,
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Political Extremism in Modern Democratic Transformations
has gone through three phases since the 1970’s: the period of militant
neoliberalism (early 1970’s — late 1980’s); victorious neoliberalism (late
1980-s — 1990’s); and post-hegemonic liberalism, which began in the late
1990’s. This last period was marked by the crisis of intellectual and moral
leadership and the fragmentation of the liberal project into three tendencies:
punitive neoliberalism, fear liberalism, and neo-Keynesianism. Acceleration
of extremist action is a symptom of this period of posthegemonic liberalism
(El-Ojeili and Taylor, 2020).
Variables such as unemployment, lack of education, self-doubt,
loneliness, stress are dened as encouraging aversion to society and a
tendency to extremism. Since the late 1990’s, the extremism industry has
begun to increase its presence caused by the anti-systemic dynamics of the
alternative globalisation movement and the rise of right-wing nationalism,
accelerating even more after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“Extremism” stands next to a number of other phenomena: protectionism,
populism, utopianism, ideology, irrationality, bigotry (El-Ojeili and Taylor,
2020).
At the broadest level, political extremism is dened as a signicant
deviation in attitude and behaviour from basic legal and political norms
and values within a social system (society or state) that seek to abolish and
replace them (Beelmann et al., 2017). The development-oriented model of
radicalisation begins with the denition of extremism in the following ways:
a signicant deviation in attitudes and actions from specic fundamental,
political, legal and humanitarian systems of norms and values. In addition,
the main issue of denition is the values and goals that underlie views and
actions, not the means, such as violence, used to achieve them (Beelmann,
2020).
Researchers (Doosje et al., 2016) identied three phases of
radicalisation. In phase 1, individual feelings may be inuenced by the
search for signicance, uncertainty, and social factors such as globalisation.
In phase 2, a person joins a radical group and accepts its ideology. Finally,
in phase 3, the person commits violence against other groups. Another
theory emphasises the motivational underpinnings of radicalisation,
such as personal revenge or social discontent, arguing that they play an
important role in explaining why people are involved in the process of
radicalisation (Kruglanski et al., 2019).
The main assumption from the point of view of development is that
radicalisation and extremism can be described as the result of a number
of (social, individual) determinants and transactional (interdependent)
processes of ontogenetic development (Lerner, 2018). Interconnected but
dierent processes of social development are central to radicalisation and
extremism: problems of identity, prejudice, political or religious ideologies,
antisocial attitudes and behaviour. These processes are caused by real social
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or individual conicts (such as the economic crisis) and are marked by
constant intergroup processes (Beelmann, 2020). In addition, a signicant
role is played by the lack of proper and well-established communication
between public authorities and radical representatives of ideological trends.
Based on the features most often mentioned in the existing denitions
of right-wing extremism/radicalism, it can be noted that authoritarianism,
anti-democracy and nationalism determine the properties of extremism/
radicalism. In contrast, xenophobia, racism and populism are concomitant
characteristics of the concept. Right-wing extremism/radicalism is an
ideology that embraces authoritarianism, anti-democracy and nationalism
(Carter, 2018).
Europe’s left-wing movements have succeeded in addressing those most
aected by austerity, with signicant growth in Greece, Ireland, Portugal
and Spain. The rise of right-wing parties correlated with the propaganda
of populist Euroscepticism, combined with constant anti-immigration
comments and opposition to multicultural integration. The terrorist attacks
in Europe in 2015-2016 directly contributed to the development of support
for these parties, in some cases advocating fascist rhetoric. The British
Independence Party was one of the driving forces behind Britain’s decision
to leave the European Union, openly described as a right-wing populist
party (Corbet and Larkin, 2019).
Given the signicant relevance of this topic, the purpose of this study
is to analyse political extremism as a phenomenon in modern democratic
transformations and identify the main factors shaping the development of
political extremism. The research provided for the following main objectives:
identify key sources of political extremism; study the factors inuencing
the formation and development of political extremism; identify the main
clusters of division of European countries on the basis of the formation of
political stability/extremism; analyse the clusters identied in the study;
suggest approaches that can curb the development of political extremism.
2. Methods
The research methodology involves determining the criteria by which
countries will be grouped, the choice of research methods, the use of software.
The analysis of the countries in the obtained clusters was conducted. To
model the level of political stability of individual countries, it is proposed
to choose criteria that allow a detailed analysis of the determinants of the
formation of political stability/extremism: the number of extremist parties
in the national parliaments of European countries; Elite Quality Index
(EQx); the Freedom in the World Index; Political Stability and Absence
of Violence Index, which is part of The Worldwide Governance Indicators
(The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI)).
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Political Extremism in Modern Democratic Transformations
It should be noted that the data on extremist parties used in the study
were based on information from the Timbro Authoritarian Populism Index
(TAP) (2021), which provides an analysis of election data to improve
knowledge and understanding of change among politicians, the media
and the general public. The Elite Quality Index (EQx) provided a unique
interpretation of national political economies and their medium- and
long-term perspectives. EQx uses elite quality as an analytical framework
designed to promote sustainable and comprehensive value creation and
the transformation of the elite business model. Elites shape human and
economic development, the fate of societies, the wealth of nations, as well
as their rise and fall.
To maintain their position, elites use business models that accumulate
wealth. Quality elites use value creation business models that give society
more than they accept. Low-quality elites do the opposite and work with
value models (Casas Klett and Cozzi, 2021). The Freedom in the World
Report consists of numerical rankings that analyse the electoral process,
political pluralism, government functioning, freedom of expression,
association and organisation rights, the rule of law, personal autonomy
and individual rights. Countries are assessed by 10 indicators of political
rights and 15 indicators of civil liberties. Accordingly, a score of 0 means the
lowest degree of freedom and 4 — the highest degree of freedom. Another
indicator used is the World Governance Indicators (WGI) sub-indicator -
political stability and the absence of violence/terrorism, which measures
perceptions of the likelihood of political instability or politically motivated
violence (Kaufmann et al., 2010; World Bank, 2021).
The European countries on the ground of political stability/extremism
will be grouped using a hierarchical clustering algorithm. The generated
indicators, which have dierent dimensions and units of measurement,
are reduced to a standardised form using the software environment
STATISTICA, Version 10. The sample of countries provides for the inclusion
on the ground of at least one extremist party. We identied 26 European
countries on this ground. Standardisation is performed in accordance with
the formula:
(1)
where x
ij
– the value of the i
th
feature for the j
th
population;
x
i
— the average level of the i
th
feature;
σ
і
— the standard deviation of the i
th
feature.
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
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The classication of European countries is carried out by a hierarchical
method of clustering using Euclidean distance. Euclidean distance is
calculated by the formula:
(2)
where х = (х1, х2,…, хі), y = (y1, y2, …, yі) – vectors of the features of two
observations.
3. Results
The data were used according to the methodology ss indicators that
can characterise the factors of political extremism in European countries
(Table 1).
Table 1. Initial data describing the factors of political extremism
Country Number of
extremist parties
EQx Freedom in the World WGI
Belgium 5 56.08 96 61.90
Bulgaria 4 51.60 78 66.19
Cyprus 1 56.26 94 63.33
Czech Republic 4 59.17 91 80.48
Denmark 5 63.43 97 83.81
Spain 10 57.30 90 59.05
Estonia 1 62.91 94 68.10
Finland 7 62.58 100 79.05
France 4 58.33 90 58.57
Germany 4 62.44 94 66.67
Greece 16 51.80 87 57.14
Hungary 3 55.61 69 71.43
Ireland 3 60.77 97 82.38
Italy 12 54.25 90 60.95
Latvia 2 54.17 89 60.00
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Political Extremism in Modern Democratic Transformations
Lithuania 2 57.85 90 75.24
Netherlands 6 64.54 98 75.71
Norway 6 63.50 100 92.38
Poland 1 55.15 82 64.29
Portugal 8 57.25 96 90.95
Romania 3 51.70 83 65.24
Serbia 5 48.20 64 45.24
Slovak Republic 2 53.41 90 72.38
Slovenia 2 57.18 95 73.81
Sweden 3 63.67 100 86.67
Switzerland 3 67.64 96 94.76
Source: Timbro Authoritarian Populism Index (2021), Casas Klett and Cozzi (2021), World
Bank (2021).
As Table 2 shows, some parties that profess extremist ideology have
considerable public support and have won seats in national parliaments
(for example, in Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Spain, Hungary,
etc.). Besides, the countries analysed in the study have dierent levels of
indicators that describe the quality of national elites, the level of freedom,
political stability and the absence of violence.
Table 2. European extremist parties represented in national
parliaments, 2015-2021
Country
Party name and
abbreviation
Ideological
direction
% in elections,
year
Belgium
Partij van de Arbeid
van België (PVDA)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
8.6%, 2019
Bulgaria Ataka (ATAKA)
Nationalism, right-
wing extremism
0.5%, 2021
Cyprus
Ethniko Laiko Metopo
(ELAM)
Ethno-nationalism,
right-wing extremism
6.8%, 2021
Czech
Republic
Komunistická Strana
Čech a Moravy (KSCM)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
7.8%, 2017
Dělnická strana
sociální spravedlnosti
(DSSS)
Neo-nazism, right-
wing extremism
0.2%, 2017
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 70 (2021): 504-523
Denmark Stram Kurs
Nationalism, right-
wing extremism
8.7% 2019
Spain
Izquierda Unida (IU)
socialism,
communism, left-
wing extremism
12.8% 2019
Partido Comunista de
los Pueblos de España
(PCPE)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
0.1%, 2019
Estonia
Eesti Iseseisvuspartei
(EIP)
Nationalism, right-
wing extremism
0.2%, 2015
Finland
Finlands
kommunistiska parti
(SKP)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
0.1%, 2019
France
Parti Communiste
Francais (PCF)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
2.7%, 2017
Germany
Nationaldemokratische
Partei Deutschlands
(NPD)
neo-nazism,
nationalism, right-
wing extremism
0.4%, 2017
Greece
Chrysi Avgui (XA)
Nationalism, right-
wing extremism
2.9% 2019
Antikapitalistiki
Aristeri Synergasia
gia tin Anatropi
(ANTARSYA)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
0.9%, 2019
Hungary
Jobbik
Magyarországért
Moszgalom (JOBBIK)
Nationalism, right-
wing extremism
19.1%, 2018
Magyar Munkáspárt
(MM)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
0.3%, 2018
Ireland
Workers Party of
Ireland (WP)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
0.2%, 2016
Italy CasaPound (CPI)
Neo-fascism, anti-
semitism, right-wing
extremism
0.9%, 2018
Norway Rödt (R)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
2.4%, 2017
Portugal
Partido Comunista
Português (PCP)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
6.3%, 2019
Partido Nacional
Renovador (PNR)
Right-wing
extremism, ethno-
nationalism, right-
wing extremism
0.3%, 2019
Romania
Partidul România Mare
(PRM)
Nationalism, right-
wing extremism
0.6%, 2020
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Political Extremism in Modern Democratic Transformations
Serbia
Srpska Radikalna
Stranka (SRS)
Nationalism, right-
wing extremism
2.1%, 2020
Srpska stranka
Zavetnici (SSZ)
Right-wing
extremism
1.4% 2020
Slovakia
Ľudová Strana Naše
Slovensko (ĽSNS)
Nationalism, neo-
fascism, neo-nazism,
right-wing extremism
8.0%, 2020
Slovenia Naprej Slovenija (NPS)
Nationalism, right-
wing extremism
0.2%, 2018
Sweden
Alternativ för Sverige
(AfS)
Etno-nationalism,
right-wing extremism
0.3%, 2018
Switzerland
Partei der Arbeit der
Schweiz (PdA)
Communism, left-
wing extremism
1%, 2019
Source: Nordsieck (2020), Parties and Elections in Europe (2019), Timbro Authoritarian
Populism Index (2021).
One of the most eective methods has been chosen for clustering
countries was the Ward’s method, which minimises the sum of squares for
any two clusters that can be formed at each step. A horizontal dendrogram
was constructed to visualise the results of cluster analysis (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Dendrogram of clustering of European countries on the
ground of political stability/extremism
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Four groups of countries were obtained according to the results of
cluster analysis (Table 3), which have certain similarities and dierences.
Table 3. Groups of countries depending on the level of
achievement of individual indicators
Clusters Countries
1
Belgium, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Germany,
Latvia, Lithuania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia
2 Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia
3 Greece, Italy, Spain
4
Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Sweden, Switzerland
Regarding the specics of certain clusters, it should be noted that
Cluster 1 included countries that have average among the surveyed countries
indicators of the index of freedom and the index of political stability and
absence of violence. Cluster 2 consists of countries with low indicators of
the freedom index and average values for other studied indicators. Cluster
3 includes the countries with the largest number of extremist parties and
characterised by low and below average indicators in terms of the freedom
index, the index of political stability and the absence of violence, and the
quality index of national elites. Cluster 4 contains countries that have
high indicators of the index of freedom, the index of political stability and
absence of violence and the quality index of national elites, while having a
higher average among the surveyed countries number of extremist parties.
4. Discussion
Modern society is often seen as degenerate, constantly in crisis, while
conservative concepts are seen as idealised and desirable. This continues
in structural discourses that portray modern political and economic
systems as dysfunctional and depressing (Campion, 2019). The actions of
political extremists create a hidden tension between democratic and liberal
constitutional commitments. The reality of the democratic legal revolutions
of extremists in liberal democracies today forces us to seek an answer as to
the priority of democratic or liberal choice. In such circumstances, limited
democracy provides a wider range of mechanisms to deter the threat of
extremism to the constitution without undermining basic constitutional
obligations (Schupmann, 2020).
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Political Extremism in Modern Democratic Transformations
If we focus on the methodological approaches used in the study, it
should be noted that the use of only European countries as a basis for signs
of political stability/extremism narrowed the representativeness of the
analysis. At the same time, the use of 26 European countries has proved to
be sucient to demonstrate the heterogeneous range of extremist parties
in parliaments. The results of the study showed that the low institutional
development of indicators that characterise political stability, lack of
violence, development of democratic freedoms and the quality of national
elites leads to a signicant increase in political extremism and its electoral
supporters. The average values of the level of these indicators are formed
by the moderate spread of political extremism. The results shown by the
group of countries that are included in Cluster 4 and have high values of
indicators of the development of freedom, political stability and quality
of elites are interesting. At the same time, the countries included in this
cluster have the above-average number of extremist parties.
The results of the study showed that the low institutional development
of indicators that characterise of political stability, lack of violence,
development of democratic freedoms and the quality of national elites leads
to a signicant increase in political extremism and its electoral supporters.
The average values of the level of these indicators are formed by the
moderate spread of political extremism. The results shown by the group of
countries that are included in Cluster 4 and have high values of indicators
of the development of freedom, political stability and quality of elites are
interesting. At the same time, the countries included in this cluster have the
above-average number of extremist parties. This result rather indicates the
shortcomings of modern democratic approaches to freedom of expression.
Various political directions (including extremist ideas) have the opportunity
to freely express their own political preferences, which may counter the
centrist orientation, gender approaches, European integration, and others.
Democracy requires not only the restriction of the rights of the majority by
minority rights, but also modern democracy protects individual freedom
and provides eective guarantees of civil liberties against state power
(Sartori, 2016). In addition, there is a claim that the historical experience
of authoritarianism helps to explain the dierence in the reactions of
democracies to extremism (Moroska-Bonkiewicz and Bourne, 2020).
This data set, which relates to the political sphere, did not give a complete
picture of the factors that may inuence the formation of political extremism.
A slowdown in economic growth causes a shift in political preferences to
the right, while an increase in economic growth causes a shift in political
preferences to the left. Brückner and Grüner (2020) proved that economic
growth is an important determinant of right-wing extremism. Low GDP
growth per capita increases support for far-right parties. Thus, the growth
of right-wing extremism can occur even with a high level of material well-
being. Empirical analysis shows a signicant negative impact of economic
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growth on the support of right-wing extremism, but no signicant eect
on the support of far-left parties. A possible explanation is that, unlike far-
right parties, the main goal of far-left parties is to redistribute income from
rich to poor.
It is important to strengthen the empirical framework to expand the list
of countries used in the analysis provided the availability of data in open
sources. After all, the involvement of countries with dierent economic
development and political freedoms will have a more objective picture of
the inuence of certain democratic and economic factors on the political
extremism.
These scientic approaches can be used to counter extremism by
addressing issues such as the impact of democracy on extremist political
parties; proles of the use of the Internet as a means of detecting
membership in extremist groups (Hale, 2012); simulating attitudes toward
potential violent extremists (Kebbell and Porter, 2012).
Regarding the analysis of the study, it should be recognised that in
recent years of crisis and austerity in Europe there has been a signicant
rise in extremist and nationalist parties that won the election and caused
signicant changes in the rules of the political game (Rooduijn and
Akkerman, 2017). Although the distribution of votes for dierent ideologies
in 1998 and 2018 (Figure 2) demonstrates a gradual decline in the ideas of
political extremism, in fact popular dissatisfaction with elites, immigration
and supranationalism fuels radical sentiment (Timbro Authoritarian
Populism Index, 2021).
Figure 2. Percentage of votes for dierent ideologies in 1998 and 2018
(Timbro Authoritarian Populism Index, 2021)
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Political Extremism in Modern Democratic Transformations
The rise of hatred and violence requires a better understanding of the
causes of political extremism and its subjects, which attracts the attention
of researchers in various elds. Research on the propensity for political
extremism is based on surveys and ethnographic research. The survey is
conducted on both random and target samples to determine those whose
responses fall on the extreme limits of the liberal-conservative spectrum
(Kruglanski et al., 2012, Van Prooijen et al., 2015). The presented research
allows us to look more broadly at the ground for the development of
political extremism in terms of the maturity of individual institutions of a
democratic society.
The study of political extremism and its consequences is closely related
to the issues of state security and cybersecurity (Kruhlov et al., 2019). The
European approach to radicalisation, which seeks to legislate and soften
broader societal processes of expression between communities and link
them to the problem of security from violent extremism, requires huge
volumes of security resources in the areas of monitoring and intervention.
The experience of combating extremism and terrorism in the modern era is
that such a policy is fraught with complications and controversy when it is
perceived as the creation of “suspicious communities” and the separation of
local communities under national ideas. Extremely authoritarian measures
can signicantly increase the long-term risk of lack of trust between certain
communities in the state, making authoritarianism even more destructive
of the basic principles of democracy and freedom (Richards, 2017).
The representative closeness between extremism, violence and
terror increases the importance of such topics as security, deterrence,
prejudice, protection of democratic institutions; political proposals
aimed at re-education, deradicalisation; relevance of diagnosis of social
and psychological factors in extremism (El-Ojeili and Taylor, 2020). As
a rule, liberal democracies take various measures in response to political
extremism. They range from extremely repressive measures, such as banning
associations and parties, or criminalising oensive language; cooperation
between the main parties to exclude extremists from the government; to
more liberal, adaptive, and persuasive strategies (Downs, 2012).
In general, nding a rational balance between the implementation of
democratic approaches to the development of ideologies, political activity
and containment of destructive actions of certain ideological directions
remains a rather dicult task for the state. But, given the research, it is
possible to emphasise the importance of public policy aimed at ensuring
balanced approaches to the development of democratic values, political
pluralism, the formation of ideological trends that focus on various social
and ideological groups, expanding communication through social and
political dialogue, while strengthening certain aspects of security and law
enforcement.
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Conclusion
The study of the causes of political extremism is a very topical issue,
as evidenced by literature review and conducted analysis. Signicant
consequences of political extremism for society and states include non-
acceptance of democratic ideas, restriction of civil liberties, intensication
of radical actions, increased number of terrorist acts. Democratic
transformations, the development of pluralism, openness, tolerance, and
moderation contributed to a wide range of public choices of close political
ideologies. However, disagreement with certain areas of public policy, lack
of sucient communication, a separate view of the country’s development
has intensied the emergence of radical approaches to the political will
of citizens. Ideological directions that profess authoritarian populism,
conservatism and extremism are becoming widespread.
The analysis proves that the formation of political extremism is inuenced
by the level of quality of national elites, the development of fundamental
rights and freedoms, the political stability and the absence of violence. The
classication of European countries by the hierarchical clustering method
divided the countries into 4 clusters according to the available indicators.
It is determined that low indicators of political stability, lack of violence,
development of democratic freedoms and quality of national elites increase
the level of political extremism, which leads to increased support for it in
national parliaments. The moderate level of political extremism corresponds
to the average values of the level of the indicators used in the study. High
indicators of the development of freedom, political stability and the quality
of elites can produce a signicant level of political extremism. This indicates
the possibility of democratic expression of will, pluralism and tolerance of
radical/extremist ideas, which dier signicantly from democratic political
views, environmental trends, tolerant gender approaches, European
integration, and others. This result was based on a study of countries with a
high level of economic development and democratic institutions. It will be
appropriate to strengthen further analysis by including certain economic
indicators that will demonstrate economic stability, income levels, attracting
foreign investment. Further research may involve econometric models of
the dependence of the level of political extremism on individual social and
economic indicators of countries with dierent levels of development.
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