The Radical Right in Switzerland

Continuity and Change, 1945-2000

Damir Skenderovic

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781845455804
• eBook ISBN: 9781845459482
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

There has been a tendency amongst scholars to view Switzerland as a unique case, and comparative scholarship on the radical right has therefore shown little interest in the country. Yet, as the author convincingly argues, there is little justification for maintaining the notion of Swiss exceptionalism, and excluding the Swiss radical right from cross-national research. His book presents the first comprehensive study of the development of the radical right in Switzerland since the end of the Second World War and therefore fills a significant gap in our knowledge. It examines the role that parties and political entrepreneurs of the populist right, intellectuals and publications of the New Right, as well as propagandists and militant groups of the extreme right assume in Swiss politics and society. The author shows that post-war Switzerland has had an electorally and discursively important radical right since the 1960s that has exhibited continuity and persistence in its organizations and activities. Recently, this has resulted in the consolidation of a diverse Swiss radical right that is now established at various levels within the political and public arena.

Table of contents

• Title page-The Radical Right in Switzerland
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1-The Concept of the Radical Right
• Chapter 2-Success Conditions and Organisational Variation in Switzerland
• Chapter 3-An Early Precursor: The Movement Against Overforeignization in the 1960s and 1970s
• Chapter 4-Outsiders in the Party System
• Chapter 5-Entering the Mainstream
• Chapter 6-A Supplier of Ideology
• Chapter 7-An Itellectual Elite
• Chapter 8-At the Margins of Society and Politics
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index