In a Guardian opinion article, Cas Mudde and Duncan McDonnell argue that many of western Europe’s most successful populist radical right leaders previously led their parties’ youth wings. They cite Matteo Salvini in Italy, Jordan Bardella in France, Jimmie Åkesson of the Sweden Democrats and Tom Van Grieken of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, another former radical-right youth-wing leader, has described such activism as a formative training ground.
The authors say little was known until recently about these organisations, which they describe as incubators for populist radical right parties. For their book Youth Wings of the Populist Radical Right, they examined 10 such groups across Europe, from the youth wing of Austria’s Freedom Party to that of France’s National Rally. They found that the wings help recruit, train and promote grassroots members, representatives and future leaders. They also encourage young people to vote for the parties, provide campaign labour, run party branches and influence policy.
The research identifies three goals that youth wings help the radical right pursue as its parties expand in the 2020s: internationalisation, professionalisation and normalisation. On internationalisation, the authors say youth wings go further than older equivalent organisations in building transnational alliances. They point to a proliferation of international far-right workshops and conferences, including the Transatlantic Patriot Summit, held each year in Budapest since 2022. Those events have brought together youth leaders from Europe, India, Israel, Latin America and the US, and some youth leaders said such ties would benefit them once they were in government.
On professionalisation, the authors say the parties invest considerably in political training at international, national and local levels. Young members are taught policies and history as well as rhetoric and media communications, and are trained as future politicians. The authors cite Åkesson, Bardella, Meloni and Salvini as proof of concept. On normalisation, they say recruitment of university-educated young people - who differ from the stereotypical media image of angry far-right youth - helps the parties appear more legitimate. More articulate and presentable leaders can distance the parties from earlier generations of leaders such as Jean-Marie Le Pen in France or Umberto Bossi in Italy.
But the authors argue that a smoother public image does not mean a softer message. The young leaders they interviewed will not take their parties toward moderation, they write; the ideology remains exclusionary and nationalist. The regeneration of the radical right through its youth wings therefore makes it an even more significant challenge to liberal democracy, they conclude.
They also suggest how mainstream parties could respond. One step would be to stop treating the radical right as the root of their problems and examine their own youth wings. Research into youth-wing membership has found that centre-left and centre-right youth groups are dominated by men, people from political families and careerists; changing this would be necessary to regain ground with young voters. Governing parties could also do more to address problems facing young people. The authors note that the postwar expectation that younger generations would have better lives than their parents has been broken, and that insecure employment and the housing crisis have left a significant minority of young Europeans living with their parents into their late 20s and early 30s. Many have little faith that mainstream parties can change their lives. By contrast, the radical-right activists they interviewed said their parties addressed their concerns clearly and offered solutions; mainstream parties should do the same.
Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia and author of The Far Right Today. Duncan McDonnell is professor of politics at the Jeff Bleich Centre at Flinders University in Adelaide. Their book, Youth Wings of the Populist Radical Right, is co-authored by McDonnell, Sofia Ammassari, Ann-Cathrine Jungar, Anders Ravik Jupskås and Mudde, and published by Oxford University Press.
Sources: The Guardian Politics.