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.

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.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Abbreviations

Introduction

• Recent Challenges in Swiss Politics and Society
• The Swiss Radical Right:
• Underrated in Academic Research
• An Actor-oriented Approach
• Main Arguments and Structure of the Book
• Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. The Concept of the Radical Right

• Distinctions and Boundaries
• The Ideology and Politics of Exclusionism
• A Political Family and a Collective Actor

Chapter 2. Success Conditions and Organisational Variation in Switzerland

• National Traditions: The Front Movement in the 1930s
• Social Changes and the Support for the Radical Right
• The Openness of the Swiss Political System
• National Identity, Swiss Exceptionalism and Fears of ‘Overforeignization’
• The Political Family of the Radical Right in Switzerland

Chapter 3. An Early Precursor: The Movement against Overforeignization in the 1960s and 1970s

• A Divided Movement of Fringe Parties
• The Power of Direct Democracy
• Populist Strategy and Exclusionist Ideology

Chapter 4. Outsiders in the Party System: Fringe Parties in the 1980s and 1990s

• The Swiss Democrats: Survivors of the Movement against Overforeignization
• The Swiss Democratic Union: A Fundamentalist Party and its Exclusionist Worldview
• The Car Party/Freedom Party: Rise and Fall of a New Radical Right-wing Populist Party
• The Lega dei Ticinesi: A Regionalist, Anti-establishment Party

Chapter 5. Entering the Mainstream: The Emergence of the New SVP in the 1990s

• The Old SVP: The History of a Right-wing, Mainstream Party
• Towards the New SVP: The Process of Structural Transformation
• The Extraordinary Electoral Rise of the New SVP
• Political and Ideological Radicalisation
• Reasons for the Success of the New SVP

Chapter 6. A Supplier of Ideology: The New Right in the German-speaking Part of Switzerland

• The Neoconservatives: Renewing Conservatism and Approaching the New Right
• The Ecologists: A Right-wing Version of Environmentalism
• The Neo-nationalists: For the Defence of Swiss Exceptionalism

Chapter 7. An Intellectual Elite: The New Right in the French-speaking Part of Switzerland

• The Counter-revolutionaries: Contesting Pluralistic and Parliamentarian Democracy
• The Integrists: Catholicism and Politics
• The Nouvelle Droite: Importing the French Legacy

Chapter 8. At the Margins of Society and Politics: The Subculture of the Extreme Right

• Ideologues and Propagandists: Disseminating Thought and Ideas
• Combative and Violent Groups: Emergence and Consolidation since the Mid 1980s
• Between Distance and Proximity: Linkages with Political Parties

Conclusions

• The Process of Normalisation
• The Radical Right as a Collective Actor: Linkages and Collaborations
• The Radical Right as a Political Family: Ideology and Intellectual Agenda
• The 1990s and Beyond

References
Notes
Index