Across the world, right-wing politics has seen tremendous popular appeal for the better part of the last two decades. While most say that the shift to the right has been an ongoing process, with electoral victories simply reinforcing a trend that has existed for years, the year 2022 has seen an intensification of this trend. The rise of the right was perhaps best encapsulated by Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. The former US President is far from the only right-wing leaders to have shocked observers with their swift and unfathomable ascent to the upper echelons of power. In Italy and Israel, right-wing candidates won decisive electoral victories in 2022 but even countries like France and Sweden, where similarly ideologically inclined candidates failed to secure a majority, their increasing popularity and subsequent normalisation indicates future gains. Europe Earlier this year, Hungary’s divisive Prime Minister Viktor Orban followed up on his 2018 victory with an even bigger win against an opposition candidate that was closely aligned with the European Union. In Sweden, the far-right Sweden Democrats doubled its support amongst young voters since the last election. Further South, Italy elected the nationalist politician Georgia Meloni in a victory that CNN described as ushering in “the most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini.” In France, despite incumbent Emmanuel Macron’s staunch support for Ukraine, and his opponent Marie Le Pen’s historical ties with Vladimir Putin, the race between the two was far closer than most predicted. While Macron won the Presidential contest with a vote share of 58 per cent, Le Pen’s party won a historic 87 seats in the French National Assembly, after winning eight in 2017. Along with a slate of other right-wing parliamentary victories, Le Pen’s success has resulted in France’s most divided parliament since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958. Other countries may see similar electoral wins in 2023. Spain heads to the polls next year with a far-right victory not outside the realm of possibility. For the first time, the Spanish far-right party Vox won a seat in regional government this year. In Belgium, the two parties leading the polling are far-right populists and Poland’s governing Law and Justice party is likely to win re-election. However, not everyone views these developments as a cause for concern. For one, the advance of the far-right is seen as an ongoing process rather than a recent phenomenon. Analysis from Politico’s Poll of Polls suggests that far-right parties in the region on average did not increase their support by even one percentage point from the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February to today. The report concludes that if an increase in support occurred for far-right parties, it happened several years ago. Cass Mudde, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, concurs with this assessment. He states that the rise of the right has been a decades long process, but what has shifted is that far-right parties have become more “mainstream” and “acceptable.” However, Sheri Berman, a professor at Barnard College argues that these right-wing parties have “recognized that winning votes and political power requires moving away from those roots, moderating their appeals and policy platforms, and pledging to adhere to democratic norms.” In a recent article for Foreign Affairs Magazine, she writes that “rather than showing that European democracy is endangered, the evolution of the Brothers of Italy and the Sweden Democrats offers reasons for cautious optimism.” In America however, rather than moderate its stance, the right-wing Republican party has embraced its extremes. America Berman describes the contrasting trajectories of right-wing parties in Western Europe and the US as having begun during the late 1990s. As Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the United States House of Representatives, lays out in his 1994 book Contract with America, during this time, the Republican party became increasingly negative in its rhetoric, its policies shifted from moderate to conservative, and its behaviour in Congress became overwhelmingly obstructionist. Trump, more than anyone, represented this shift in the party and after his loss in 2020, Republicans were further radicalised, refusing to condemn his failure to accept election results and distance themselves from the Capitol rioters. Take for instance, this year’s midterm elections, in which the party fielded nearly 300 election deniers in 48 out of 50 states. While the party did manage to take control of the House, it failed to orchestrate the ‘red wave’ that many commentators had predicted. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, the Democrats actually capitalised on its opponents shift to the right, by intervening in 13 primary races to support the more extreme right-wing republican candidate. Their strategy was based upon the belief that most Americans reject extremist policies and would vote for a moderate candidate (whether on the left or the right) over one on the far ends of the political spectrum. Their gamble seems to have paid off. Of the 13 extreme Republicans covertly backed by liberal organisations, six won their respective primaries. All six lost their general election races. In the 36 House races that the Cook Political Report rated as toss-ups, Trump endorsed five Republicans, each one of whom lost their races. While the very fact that these candidates were considered viable in the first place is concerning, their defeats suggest that America is not yet prepared to welcome the far-right into Washington. Rest of the World In India, the BJP won a resounding victory in Gujarat, solidifying its already formidable dominance over Indian politics. Despite the party seemingly suffering a setback in recent years due to its handling of the pandemic, anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and farmers’ protests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s victories in 2022 suggest that the party continues to maintain its grip. Meanwhile, in Israel, after five elections in three years, Benjamin Netanyahu returned as the prime minister of the country’s most right-wing government in history. This is in-keeping with public opinion. The number of Israelis who identify as right-wing has risen steadily in recent years to over half of all adults, including 64 per cent of the Jewish population according to the Jewish National Library. Similarly, in Brazil, while the leftist candidate Lula da Silva narrowly defeated the incumbent Jair Bolsenaro, the latter’s influence in Brazilian politics remains firm. Take Nikolas Ferreira, for example. The 26-year-old became a Tik Tok star by lashing out against communism and secularism in the country. “They want our Brazil to become a Canada, where there’s quality buses, quality schools, but there’s no morality?” he asked in a recent interview. Ferreira received 1.5 million votes in his run for Brazilian Congress — 500,000 more than any other candidate nationwide for that chamber. In elections in the Philippines in May this year, the incumbent and far-right politician Rodrigo Duterte was ineligible to compete due to term limits, but again, his legacy dominated the elections. The winner, Bongbong Marcos, is the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the Vice-Presidential winner, Sara Duterte, is the daughter of outgoing President, Rodrigo. Marcos has promised to continue Duterte senior’s policies, including pursuing closer ties with China, and has described himself as “Machiavellian” in nature. Implications The rise of the right has implications on foreign alliances and policies of any country. According to non-profit Freedom House, the prominence of right-wing politicians globally could be disastrous on a global scale. Consider the example of Netanyahu. Since 2009, he has nurtured relations with authoritarian regimes from Azerbaijan to Chas, and forged relationships with strongmen like Orban, Modi, Trump, and Putin, even going as far as to tout his friendship with the latter during the elections. Freedom House further writes that “authoritarian leaders are no longer isolated holdouts in a democratizing world. Instead they are actively collaborating with one another to spread new forms of repression and rebuff democratic pressure.” In certain cases, that support is economic. Russia, China and Turkey have established trade relations with the authoritarian Venezuelan regime, diminishing the impact of sanctions levied by countries like the US. In other cases, autocratic alliances can have a more direct impact. Orban, Modi and Alexander Vucic of Serbia have all offered tacit or direct support to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. India was among four countries that abstained on a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council condemning the referendum organised in Russia across four regions of Ukraine. In terms of policies, far-right leaders tend to favour a radical approach. Lydia Khalil, an extremism expert at the Lowy Institute outlined some of those policies in a paper called the Rise of the Extreme Right. In it, she states that right-wing forces tend to favour racial supremacy, propagate conspiracy theories pertaining to establishment corruption, and deny scientific findings such as those related to vaccines and climate change. However, perhaps most concerning is the undermining of institutions. In Hungary, Orban has obstructed EU action on Ukraine and has undercut judicial and academic freedoms. Moises Naim, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, states that recent populists have “reengineered the old dictator’s playbook to enhance their will on others,” showing “decidedly undemocratic proclivities” along the way. Adding to that point, he states that right-wing governments are able to “defy any constraints on their power and concentrate it in their own hands, launching frontal attacks on the institutions that sustain constitutional democracy, stacking the judiciary and the legislature, declaring war on the press, and scrapping laws that check their authority.” As Freedom House warns, the ascendency of the right-wing to the mainstream is concerning, not least because it represents a targeted attack on the tenets of liberal democracy.
