The Effects of Far-Right Challenges on International Organizations

Project Information

FARRIO

Grant agreement ID: 101040070

DOI

10.3030/101040070

EC signature date 11 February 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 30 September 2027

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 498 855,00

EU contribution

€ 1 498 855,00

Coordinated by

JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE-UNIVERSITAET FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FARRIO (The Effects of Far-Right Challenges on International Organizations)

Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2025-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Over the past decade, the far right has reshaped domestic politics globally. It has gained parliamentary seats and government participation in many European countries, thereby altering the political landscape worldwide. It includes political parties, civil society groups, networks, and social movements. Although populism and far-right discourse often coincide, they can also appear separately. Far-right groups do not share a uniform set of political positions. Still, as these groups focus on national sovereignty and share a stance against globalization, they often contest international organizations (IOs) and their policies. However, their impact on IOs differs.
The ERC-funded project FARRIO examines the impact of the far right on international organizations. While scholars have analyzed far-right actors in domestic politics, knowledge about their transnational activities and effects is limited. FARRIO fills this gap empirically, theoretically, and methodologically to develop a new approach to understanding and analyzing the effects of the far right on global politics. FARRIO analyzes networks, positions, and strategies of transnational far-right groups, and the reactions of international organizations across various policy areas: gender, climate change, migration, and finance/development.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main objectives of FARRIO are to compare transnational far-right networks and their strategies in different policy fields, and to assess and theorize the effects on and reactions of different international organizations. The project employs a diverse range of methods, including qualitative interviews and observation, and quantitative statistical analysis. A crucial innovative element is the consistent integration of elaborate qualitative methods with recent quantitative approaches of causal inference in FARRIO research tasks.
For example, our research on the effects of far-right participation in government on IO funding was both surprising in its findings (far-right government participation leads to no strengthening of conditionality by governments but to direct budget cuts for IOs), and significantly advances existing research in this field, which has, so far, primarily focussed on effects on bilateral foreign aid or on the explanatory factor of populism instead of far-right ideology.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Existing debates in IR research, in broad consensus, study current challenges under the rubric of populism and aim at understanding the effects of populism (as represented in political leaders or public opinion) on IOs. Populism is primarily understood as a “thin” ideology distinguishing “elites” from “the people.” FARRIO breaks with this trend and tries to show how “thick ideology,” nativism and its variations, translate into preferences in different policy fields and international negotiation and global governance contexts more broadly. This approach significantly advances existing research in the field and bridges more qualitative research on the “history of ideas”, which examines the ideological backgrounds of far-right preferences, with more quantitative research that aims to identify patterns and effects in IO decision-making and policy processes. In addition, FARRIO aims to understand conditions that explain variation in IO reactions and resilience – a research field that has so far not been dealt with in a broader comparative way. Its comparative and mixed-methods approach is unique. Both aspects are fundamental to understanding and managing the challenges to the current multilateral order.