Abstract
There are few regions in Europe where parties often referred to as far, extreme or radical right have enjoyed public support and political influence to the extent seen in the Balkans over the last 20 years. Surprisingly, scholars have largely ignored this phenomenon, and Stojarová’s book constitutes a much-needed contribution to this field. In The Far Right in the Balkans, Stojarová provides a comparative examination of Balkan far right parties since 2000, drawing parallels with their more thoroughly researched Western European counterparts. She analyses parties generally identified as ‘far right’ in the literature and that have gained at least one parliamentary seat in at least one primary election, namely: the Croatian Party of Rights, the Serbian Radical Party, the Serbian Radical Party of Dr Vojislav Šešelj in Montenegro, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation-People’s Party, the Albanian National Front, the Greater Romania Party as well as the Internal Macedonia Revolutionary Organisation and Ataka in Bulgaria.
The book begins with a discussion of the complex conceptual and terminological issues that stem from the fluid and diverse nature of parties espousing far right ideologies and addresses the abundance of different terms scholars have employed when referring to them. Stojarová then briefly depicts the historical legacies of the Balkan far right, followed by a short overview of contemporary far right parties. The following chapter considers the ideologies of the Balkan far right. Drawing on Mudde’s conceptualization, Stojarová examines party stances on nationalism, xenophobia, law and order and welfare chauvinism. She also addresses Balkan-specific issues that reflect each party’s core values, including attitudes towards communism and revisionism, the church and religion, as well as the party’s position on NATO, the EU and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the party’s economic policy. Although, as Stojarová notes, far right parties in each country focused on specific domestic issues, nationalism – mostly in the form of external exclusivity seeking creation of ‘greater’ states – xenophobia, populism, a desire for law and order and, to some extent, welfare chauvinism were common ideological features of the far right. Given the general preoccupation of Balkan parties with statehood issues, Stojarová unsurprisingly finds that stances on the economy were of secondary importance for this party family. It appears, therefore, that despite opposing historical experiences and different social and political contexts, these parties have shared similar ideological patterns with their Western European counterparts.
Next, Stojarová examines the external political, social and economic variables that may account for the electoral success of far right parties in some countries and their failure in others. She finds that the positions and strategies of mainstream parties were an important factor; claiming, for example, that the weakening of the Socialist Party of Serbia played a dominant role in the success of the Serbian Radical Party that attracted Socialists voters after 2000. Conversely, the dominant Croatian Democratic Union and the Democratic Party of Socialists in Montenegro were the bearers of nationalism that played the national card, strongly promoting independence, which left no space for far right parties to emerge.
Furthermore, Stojarová convincingly argues that successful far right parties exploited such issues as ethnic-cultural variables related to the nation’s diasporas (e.g. the Serbian diaspora in Bosnia and Croatia), the presence of national minorities (Hungarian in Romania or Turkish in Bulgaria) or country-specific issues, such as the status of Kosovo or the relations between Romania and Moldova, for the purpose of electoral gains. The markedly different international context of these countries has also proved to be an important factor. While the extremely unfavourable international position of Serbia was used by its far right parties, evident in their mobilization of strong anti-EU and anti-NATO sentiments, similar parties in Romania and Bulgaria employed only soft Eurosceptic rhetoric. In Albania, however, the international community ‘contained’ far right politics, pressuring parties to abandon nationalistic policies in exchange for financial and political assistance. Stojarová also finds that the level of unemployment did not correlate with a party’s electoral success, while the electoral system made some difference in Romania and Bulgaria where far right parties failed to win parliamentary seats following the switch from a proportional to majoritarian system.
The final chapters deal with the ‘typical’ individuals who vote for far right parties, namely, young male peasants and blue-collar workers who, unlike in Western Europe, are religious. The book concludes with an overview of the strategies and tactics adopted by far right parties as well as their internal organization that tends to be centralized containing efficient mechanisms for enforcing discipline. Finally, the lack of any cooperation between these parties is not surprising given their strong nationalistic outlook that precluded any international affiliation.
Overall, Stojarová provides a solid introduction to far right politics in the Balkans. The book’s key strength lies in its comparative approach. While rarely used in the study of Balkan politics, this approach allows Stojarová to draw a more general conclusion and deepen existing knowledge about the contemporary far right. However, this approach also precludes a more in-depth analysis of the nature of individual parties, a limitation most visible in a brief and cursory account of party ideologies. Thus, rather than dealing with small, irrelevant parties (such as the Serbian Radical Party of Dr Vojislav Šešelj) or parties that do not appear to fully fit into this party family (such as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation – People’s Party), the book may have benefited from a more focused analysis of the most significant far right parties. Another downside of the book is its time frame since it deals with parties only up to 2011. Accordingly, it does not consider events that significantly limited the importance of these parties, such as the electoral fiasco of 2012 in which the Serbian Radical Party lost its parliamentary seats. Nevertheless, given the challenges researchers, including Stojarová, face in gaining access to far right groups in the Balkans, her analysis is empirically rich and represents a welcome contribution to this area.