Becoming a young radical right activist: Biographical pathways of the members of radical right organisations in Poland and Germany

Abstract

With the increasing popularity of the radical right, much research has tried to explain the motives of voters. Less attention has been paid to the motives of people to become radical right activists – specifically young people, a group with a high tendency to join right-wing parties. Within the context of the internationalisation of the radical right, this article draws on 28 narrative interviews conducted between 2019 and 2021 with young radical right activists in Poland and Germany, two countries with considerably different political and discursive opportunity structures. We propose to recognise a new motive for becoming involved in political activism: career-oriented individual self-realisation in Germany, as opposed to fulfilling a duty to the nation in Poland. While we identify two different types of radical activism within the different contexts – the (nationalist) anti-establishment populist career type in Germany and the (nationalist) anti-political intellectualism/elitism type in Poland – they both point to the normalisation of the radical right in the two countries.