A R T I C L E

Economic crisis and politicalextremism in Europe: from the 1930sto the present

Antonis Klapsis

� Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies 2014

Abstract The Great Depression of the 1930s greatly affected political devel-opments in Europe. Economic stagnation proved beneficial for far-right parties,which generally saw their influence increasing. Authoritarian regimes becameestablished in most European countries at the time, the most important beingthe Nazi regime in Germany. In recent years, the global financial crisis has alsoincreased the appeal of far-right extremists. All over Europe anti-system politicalparties that are anti-liberal, racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic and Eurosceptic aregaining ground: the European Parliament elections held in May 2014 offer thelatest example of this. Historical experience shows that when economic condi-tions remain bad for a significant period of time people tend to become moreradical as far as their electoral behaviour is concerned. However, no matter howstrong the linkage between economic crisis and the rise of political extremismmight be, economic crisis is not the only factor to be taken into account whenanalysing the phenomenon of political extremism, as other parameters (histor-ical, social and so on) are also important.

Keywords Economic crisis � Political extremism � Far-right � Democracy �Europe

A. Klapsis (&)Konstantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy,340 Syngrou Ave., 176 73 Kallithea, Greecee-mail: klapsis@idkaramanlis.gr

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European ViewDOI 10.1007/s12290-014-0315-5

Introduction

You do not have to be an expert on explosives to know that a detonator isessential in order to trigger an explosion. You do not need to be a chemist tounderstand that a catalyst rapidly increases the rate of a chemical reaction. Andit is most definitely not necessary to have a Ph.D. in history or political science tocome to the conclusion that an economic crisis boosts political extremism. It isjust common sense. But is this actually true? Does an economic crisis necessarilylead to political extremism or are there other things that need to be examined inorder to understand the phenomenon of the rise of extreme-right parties? Thisarticle argues that the deterioration of economic conditions plays an importantrole in facilitating the success of parties with extreme political leanings,especially far-right ones. However, it also argues that attributing this successonly to economic factors can sometimes lead to a rather one-sided analysis.

Past: the Great Depression and the rise of authoritarianism in the 1930s

Father used to joke a lot in those days. But after two years the picturechanged. One day father came home looking downcast. Mother looked athim and knew what had happened. He had lost his job . . . Now my fatherhas been unemployed for over three years. We used to believe he wouldget a job again one day, but now even we children have given up all hope.(Cited by Mazower 1998, 106)

This is how a 14-year-old girl described her family’s misfortunes in December1932. They were among the millions of citizens severely affected by the GreatDepression in the inter-war period.

In late October 1929 the New York Stock Exchange collapsed. Billions ofdollars were wiped out in just a few hours. Stock market prices continued to fallfor a long time. As a result, thousands of enterprises went bankrupt. Anunprecedented tidal wave swept across the US. Production levels declinedrapidly and at the same time unemployment took off. The American economywas being shaken by an avalanche that threatened to destroy everything as itgot bigger and bigger. Very soon the American Crash affected Europe. Theeconomic crisis hit more or less every European country, one after the other. Themost severely injured was Germany since it had been largely dependent on USloans. In the panic of the Crash, American investors withdrew their money fromGerman industries, which unavoidably led to bankruptcy. At the same time,German and other European exports to the US dropped almost to zero(Galbraith 1954).

The economic crisis of the 1930s had a profound effect on European politics.The vicious circle of underdevelopment, unemployment and poverty thatstarted in 1929 created massive social problems and thus favoured thestrengthening of extremist parties, especially far-right ones (Table 1). The caseof Germany was probably the most characteristic and definitely the most

important one as far as its long-term consequences were concerned. Before 1929Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist party was nothing more than a marginal politicalforce. In the German federal elections of May 1928 they won only 2.63 % of thevote. Just two and a half years later, in September 1930 they secured 18.25 %. Inthe elections of July 1932 they came first with 37.27 %, a place that theymanaged to hold in November of the same year despite the fact that their shareof the vote was reduced to 33.09 % (Gonschior 2005). On 30 January 1933 Hitlerbecame chancellor of Germany and gradually began to impose his dictatorialand racist regime. The Weimar Republic was dead. Europe was, little by little,sliding towards the abyss of the Second World War.

The establishment of Benito Mussolini’s FASCIST regime in Italy in 1922 hadalready paved the way towards the dominance of political extremism. However,it was only in the 1930s that anti-democratic parties across Europe became more

Table 1 Election results for far right anti-system political parties in Europe before and after the GreatDepression

Country Last election pre-1929a Peak result post-1929

% Seats % Votes Year % Seats % Votes Year

Austria 0 0 –b 4.8 9.2 1930

Belgium 0 0 1929 18.3 18.6 1936

Bulgaria 0 0 1927 0 0 1931

Czechoslovakia 6 – 1929 22.4 15.2 1935

Denmark 0 0 1929 0.7 1.8 1939

Finland 14 14.5 1929 21 18 1930

France 6.6 – 1928 7.9 – 1936

Germany 2.4 2.6 1928 43.9 43.2 1932

Greece 0.4 5.3 1928 2.3 3.9 1936

Hungary 0.8 3.8 1926 17.4 22.8 1939

Ireland 0 0 1927 0 0 1932

Italy 8.2 1.6 1921 NA NA –

The Netherlands 0 0 1929 4 4.2 1937

Norway 0 0 1927 0 2.2 1933

Poland 0 0 1928 NA NA –

Romania 0 1.2 1928 27.2 25.1 1937

Spain – – – 3.5 – 1933

Sweden 0 0 1928 0 0.7 1936

Switzerland 0 0 1928 0.5 1.5 1935

United Kingdom 0 0 1929 0 0 1935

Yugoslavia 0 0 1927 NA NA –

Mean 1.92 1.45 – 9.66 9.24 –

Source: de Bromhead et al. (2013).a Pre-1929 elections include elections held in 1929.b Last votes data are for 1923, last seats data for 1927.

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successful. The negative effects of the Great Depression were reflected inelection results all over the continent. From Romania to Austria and Czecho-slovakia to Belgium, the trend was more or less the same. Almost everywherefar-right political parties gained significant ground. In most cases, a similar ruleapplied for extreme-left political parties; however they did not have the successof right-wing ones. During the 1930s FASCIST, FASCIST-like and other authoritarianregimes were established all over Europe. Totalitarianism was thriving in more andmore parts of the continent. Democracy was retreating.

The electoral behaviour of European citizens in the post-Depression years wasobviously affected by the dreadful economic situation. Being populist, anti-system parties offered easy answers to difficult questions. For many voters theseparties seemed to offer a way out of the crisis. However, electoral behaviour wasnot identical all over Europe. Extremists were, on average, more successful incountries where there was not a long democratic tradition and where theelectoral system posed fewer obstacles to representation in the nationalparliaments. They were also more successful in countries like Germany, Hungaryand Austria, which had been defeated in the First World War. This isunderstandable since far-right extremists were ultra-nationalists and thus theywere promising a revision of the peace treaties signed in Paris in 1919–20.Regardless of whether it was justified or not, the feeling of being suppressed byforeign powers made voters more susceptible to right-wing extremism.However, most importantly, the extremists’ success was greatest whereeconomic conditions remained bad for longer periods of time. People whohad little or even nothing to lose were naturally more easily attracted by partiesthat appeared to be ready to destroy the existing social and economic systemand put a new one in its place (de Bromhead et al. 2013).

The rise of political extremism, especially in Germany, was among the maincauses of the Second World War. In most cases (but not always—for exampleGreece under the Metaxas dictatorship was a striking exception; Klapsis 2013),authoritarian regimes aligned with one another. However, this was notnecessarily always for purely ideological reasons, but also for practicalgeopolitical ones. The aid given by Nazi Germany and FASCIST Italy to theNationalists of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was onlya prelude to what was to follow (Payne 2012, 133–43). Totalitarianism coupledwith nationalism and territorial expansionism created an explosive mixture. Thecollapse of democracies in the 1930s eventually led to the collapse of the post-First World War international system.

Present: the global financial crisis and the rise of political extremism

After the end of the Second World War increasingly stable democratic regimeswere established across Western Europe. The fall of dictatorships in Portugal,Greece and Spain in the mid-1970s meant that all Western European countrieshad become parliamentary democracies. The success of the European Commu-nity, which by the mid-1980s had incorporated most liberal democracies in

Europe, was seen as an additional victory of liberalism over totalitarianism. Theghosts of right-wing political extremism seemed to belong to the past. Far-rightpolitical parties had only marginal (if any) influence on public opinion. It ischaracteristic that until the 1980s academic literature on the radical right wasconcerned almost entirely with past experiences (Cakmak and Postaci 2013). Inthe 1970s and 1980s violent far-left extremism, in the form of terrorist activitiesorganised by groups like the Red Army Faction in Germany, the Red Brigades inItaly and the 17 November in Greece, posed a much greater threat.

After the end of the Cold War democracy spread across Central and EasternEurope. In countries like Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia (later divided into theCzech Republic and Slovakia), Romania and Bulgaria, Communist regimes wereabolished and parliamentary democracies were established. However, politicalextremism was gaining ground in other parts of the continent. In the 1980s and1990s far-right political parties like the National Front in France and the FlemishBlock in Belgium saw their share of the vote rapidly increasing (Betz 1993). Anti-liberalism, Euroscepticism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism were among the maincharacteristics of similar parties all over Europe, even if they did not share thesame success. At the same time, neo-Nazi groups were also spreading acrossEurope, including to former Communist countries in the East.

The global financial crisis, which started in the US in 2007–8 and very soonaffected the whole world, proved to be a turning point that boosted politicalextremism in Europe. The crisis affected all EU countries, though not necessarilyto the same extent. Economic stagnation led to an increase in unemploymentand consequently to a fall in living standards among a great part of thepopulation. As in the 1930s, these developments triggered a political reaction. Itis definitely no coincidence that since 2008 far-right political parties havegenerally gained significant ground in national as well as European Parliamentelections (Table 2). In some cases far-right parties have been able to secure thirdplace in national elections and second or even first place in European Parliamentelections. The National Front in France, the Freedom Party of Austria, Jobbik inHungary, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and Golden Dawn in Greeceare among the most striking examples of far-right success in elections in the lastfew years. The results of the 2014 European Parliament elections have provedthat the phenomenon has a pan-European dimension (Elgot 2014).

As in the 1930s, today most far-right extremists promise to overthrow theestablished political system. In general, they describe politicians (excludingthemselves, of course) as corrupt and decadent. They take advantage of themass media (with special emphasis on social media which give them theopportunity to attract the attention of younger audiences) in order to get theirmessages across. They make extensive use of stereotypes to address the publicand they use black-and-white arguments which, despite their poor reasoning,sound reasonable to the average voter. They are conservative on societal issuesand sometimes openly homophobic. They reject liberal ideas and they haveracist tendencies. They underline the threat of the expansion of Islam in Europe,while at the same time some of them are anti-Semitic. They point to immigrantsas one of the main causes (if not the main cause) of all sorts of problems, from

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Table 2 Election results for far-right political parties in the European Union before and after theglobal financial crisis

Country Name of party National parliamentelections year/%

EuropeanParliament elections%

2004 2009 2014

Austria Freedom Party of Austria 2006

11.04

2008

17.54

2013

20.51

6.31 12.71 19.72

Belgium Flemish Interest 2007

11.99

2010

7.76

2014

3.67

14.34a 9.85 4.26

Bulgaria Attack 2005

8.14

2009

9.36

2013

7.30

14.20b 11.96 2.96

Denmark Danish People’s Party 2005

13.25

2007

13.86

2011

12.32

6.80 15.28 26.61

Finland The Finns 2003

1.57

2007

4.05

2011

19.05

0.54 9.79 12.87

France National Front 2002

11.34

2007

4.29

2012

13.60

9.81 6.34 24.86

Germany National Democratic Party of Germany 2005

1.58

2009

1.78

2013

1.46

– – 1.03

Greece Golden Dawn 2009

0.29

2012c

6.97

2012d

6.92

– 0.46 9.39

Hungary Jobbik 2006

2.20

2010

16.67

2014

20.54

– 14.77 14.67

Italy Northern League 2006

4.58

2008

8.30

2013

4.08

4.96 10.21 6.15

The Netherlands Party for Freedom 2006

5.89

2010

15.45

2012

10.08

– 16.97 13.32

Slovakia Slovak National Party 2006

11.68

2010

5.08

2012

4.56

2.02e 5.56 3.61

People’s Party—Our Slovakia – 2010

1.33

2012

1.58

– – 1.73

Sweden Swedish Democrats 2002

1.44

2006

2.93

2010

5.70

1.13 3.27 9.70

Source: Author’s own compilation.a As the Flemish Block.b In Bulgaria, European Parliament elections were held in 2007 after the country officially became amember of the EU.c May.d June.e Together with the True National Party.

unemployment to high criminality. In some cases, they do not disapprove of andtalk with respect or even admiration about FASCIST and Nazi leaders of the past.There are also those who do not hesitate to resort to violence in order tointimidate others.

They are also ultra-nationalist and utterly Eurosceptic since they perceive theEU as a supranational organisation which undermines nation states’ power andauthority. It is definitely no coincidence that many far-right parties in the EUhave pro-Russian leanings (Hockenos 2014), seeing Russia as an ally againstEuropean integration. In this context, Moscow has established close connectionswith and offers indirect or under-the-table support to European far-right parties.This is done in an attempt by Moscow to use them as Trojan horses in order tocreate problems with the internal cohesion of the EU. Even if Russian PresidentVladimir Putin does not get to see parties with pro-Russian leanings forminggovernments, he can still hope that their growing influence will exercise severepressure on EU governments, especially as far as relations with Russia areconcerned (Orenstein 2014).

Naturally, all these parties may differ in their approach to certain subjects. Butthe general trend is more or less the same. One additional characteristic thatbinds them together is that they have profited from the economic crisis. As inthe 1930s, the current economic crisis has proven beneficial for politicalextremism. Depression is indeed the key factor behind the rise of politicalextremism all over Europe. It is not, of course, the only one. Historicalexperiences, political culture, national/local peculiarities and social structure areamong the other factors that need to be taken into consideration. People do notat all times and in all places react in the same way, and thus electoral behaviourcan vary. For example, while in Greece neo-Nazis are gaining ground, the same isnot happening in Ireland, Spain or Portugal, that is, those countries which havebeen equally affected by the crisis. On the other hand, extremist political partiesare attracting more and more voters in countries like France and theNetherlands, which have not been that seriously affected by the crisis. Andthere has also been a significant increase in the popularity of and public supportfor far-right parties in some of the wealthiest and most prosperous members ofthe EU, like Austria and Sweden.

Conclusion

The interaction between economic crisis and political upheaval has beenrepeatedly highlighted by scholars and researchers. In the last few yearsnewspaper headlines and articles have been full of comparisons between the1930s and the 2010s. The fear that the rise of far-right parties might lead topolitical instability similar to that experienced after the Great Depression of 1929is constantly being discussed. Nevertheless, the rise of political extremism inEurope cannot be attributed to the economic crisis alone.

Some far-right parties had been quite successful even before the crisis. TheNational Front in France is perhaps the most striking example. Others, like

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Golden Dawn, emerged from political obscurity only after the crisis. However,the crisis has definitely been of great significance in creating the right climate forextreme political parties to blossom. It has been the catalyst in this process, butit did not per se create political extremism. The seeds of authoritarianism,nationalism, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and so on had been planted wellbefore the bursting of the US housing bubble and the collapse of LehmanBrothers in 2008. The crisis made the ground more fertile for these seeds togrow. What far-right parties did was to take advantage of a situation that wasfavourable to them. Their populist message became much more appealing tovoters because of the crisis. This is no surprise: the same trend was followed inthe 1930s. Interestingly enough, in both the inter-war period and 2008 the crisisbroke out in the US but affected the European political landscape much moreprofoundly than the US one.

Economic crisis tends to push people to their limits and thus make them moresusceptible to demagogy and populism. It brings to the surface the fears andanxieties that affect political affiliation and consequently electoral behaviour.Extreme economic situations facilitate extreme political leanings. Equally theyfacilitate the radicalisation of choices, even when living conditions have notdeteriorated: the fact, for example, that even in countries like Sweden or Austriafar-right parties have gained votes amongst previously left-leaning working-classelectorates (Wodak 2012) is tangible proof of this. Crisis also tends to change theframework of the political debate. In this new context political extremists find iteasier to bring their agenda into the limelight. In order to avoid electoral losses,even mainstream politicians are sometimes lured into more conservative andless liberal positions.

The critical questions remain. What lies ahead in Europe’s future? Is there areal danger to democracy? Overcoming the crisis will probably not totallyeliminate the phenomenon of political extremism but it will minimise itsinfluence. And it will certainly take out one critical element from the complexequation that facilitates the rise of political extremism. Even if the otherelements are still there, the catalyst will have been removed. From this point ofview, probably the most efficient way to counter political extremism is to giveemphasis to economic growth in terms of social justice. The social marketeconomy has been successful in the past and can be used as a model for thefuture. Historical experience has proven that people who are convinced thatthey have no future are more likely to follow the path of political extremism. Ifthe economic situation does not improve and if people do not see the positiveeffects in their lives, and not only in numbers related to state budgets and fiscaldeficits, then far-right extremists might have more to gain in the next elections.Macroeconomics is good, but when it comes to the everyday lives of ordinarypeople microeconomics is even better. In the early 1930s, Hitler’s promises forthe economic recovery of Germany and for tackling unemployment by creatingjobs for every German worker probably had a much more profound influence onGerman voters than the rest of his rhetoric (Tooze 2006).

There is also another threat that in the long term might prove reallydangerous: the prospect of citizens across Europe gradually becoming

accustomed to (possibly even violent) anti-democratic behaviours. The answerto this challenge is to use the weapons that anti-democrats most fear: more, notless, democracy, both at a national and a European level. Rule of law, democraticlegitimacy, and respect for human rights and otherness are among thecornerstones of the EU and cannot be negotiated. On this ground, firmconfrontation of political extremism is achievable if European citizens can beconvinced that extremism is not the answer to their problems but a problem initself.

History does not have to repeat itself. In comparison to the 1930s today’sEurope is more effectively defended against political extremism. Democraciesare better established and much more deeply rooted than they were eightdecades ago. Social safety nets, which were in fact created in the echo of thedevastating consequences of the Great Depression, are much more extensivetoday and can offer minimum security to larger parts of the population than inthe 1930s (The Economist 2011). And of course, we have historical experience onour side. We know what happened in the 1930s and we should have learned ourlesson and know not to make the same mistakes again.

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Antonis Klapsis, Ph.D. is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Hellenic Open Universityand at the Open University of Cyprus. He is the Head of International Coop-eration and Research Programmes at the Konstantinos Karamanlis Institute forDemocracy. Since June 2014 he has been a Visiting Fellow at the WilfriedMartens Centre for European Studies.