The radical right in Switzerland: Continuity and change, 1945-2000

Damir Skenderovic
Berghahn Books , New York and Oxford, 2009 , 470pp. , £55.00/$90.00 ,

ISBN: 978-1845455804

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In The radical right in Switzerland: continuity and change, 1945-2000 , Damir Skenderovic provides an exceedingly comprehensive view of the development and recent success of Switzerland's radical right from the post-war era up to the new millennium. What sets this contribution apart from other studies on the radical right is its explicit focus on the actor perspective and the rich historiographic approach to the topic. With this shift from contextual factors to the actor, the author 'echoes recent claims in the new literature on the radical right stating the need for more attention to be paid to agent and agency' (p. 331). The resulting rich and extensive picture on Switzerland's radical right actors strongly contributes to a broader comprehension of the central role that political entrepreneurs, organizational formations and ideological suppliers assume in the development of radical right politics.

The broad conceptualization of the radical right as 'political family' and 'collective actor' is laid out in Chapter 1. The author identifies three members of the radical right family: radical right-wing populist parties, the New Right and the extreme-right. Although all members share an exclusionist ideology and agendas marked by identity politics, they strongly vary in terms of their means of action, intellectual sophistication and most importantly in their differing positions in the political and public sphere. By including non-party actors such as subcultures, individuals, groups and even publications propagating exclusionist ideas, this approach clearly surpasses the extensive party-focus prevailing in radical right studies.

At the same time, the tripartite categorization of the radical right proposed by the author is not completely convincing. Such a categorization does not take into account the very different nature of the New Right, which the author describes as providing the ideological fundament for both right-wing populist parties and the extreme-right. Although the inclusion of such a variety of actors is highly revealing, a more subtle categorization would have facilitated an initial assessment of the relative importance of these actors, as well as an identification of the relevant links and interactions within the radical right political family.

In Chapter 2, the author discusses the 'success conditions' of the Swiss radical right. The chapter...