A Theoretical Framework to Explore Multiple Processes of Far-Right Mainstreaming: Focusing on France and Italy

The chapter aims to highlight multiple approaches for understanding the mainstreaming of far-right parties, using the French and the Italian cases to demonstrate that such a complex phenomenon cannot be attributed to a single factor (or approach). Instead, it argues it typically results from the simultaneous influence of multiple factors. And for their ideological nature, the mainstreaming of the far-right can have far-reaching consequences for liberal democracies: (a) far-right parties often exhibit a hostile stance towards minority groups and civil liberties, such as freedom of the press, expression, and association; (b) far-right parties tend to be authoritarian and, thus, anti-democratic, leading to attempts to limit democratic participation and political competition; (c) far-right governments manifest through forms of majoritarianism that implicitly rely on restrictions on political and civil rights, implementing laws that undermine political pluralism. Eventually, the normalisation process of far-right ideas is a phenomenon that, in the long run, produces hatred and discrimination, as people may perceive far-right values as acceptable, resulting in increased discrimination and violence from the relative ethnic/political majority against multiple minorities that coexist in nowadays societies.