Category: 11

Jobbik, described as a radical right-wing populist party, has enjoyed considerable success in Hungary’s elections. What accounts for the party’s popularity among certain segments of the Hungarian electorate?

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his FIDESZ party have consolidated their status as preponderant political actors in Hungary. Further along the right angle of the political spectrum, Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary) currently stands as the second most popular party in the country. This short piece sets in context the reasons behind Jobbik’s appeal to certain segments of the Hungarian electorate, including an overview of the party’s formation trajectory and a brief assessment of Jobbik’s prospects for the future.

Jobbik’s political origins and intra-party structure

Jobbik was made up by a variety of grass-roots nationalist groupings. At its early stage (2003-2004), the party had brought under its auspices initiatives as diverse as an aggregate of nationalist student groupings (the Jobboldali Ifjúsági Közösség, Right-Wing Students Association) and a nucleus of political activists that later evolved, at least partially, into the (unarmed) self-styled militia of the Magyar Gárda (‘Hungarian Guard’). From an instrumental perspective, Jobbik has been highly keen on political activism and the intensive mobilization of its popular bases of support. In particular, the party has been harshly criticized for its links with the Magyar Gárda and the ensuing implications for a more militant (occasionally violent) engagement into politics. By contrast to other far right parties across the ‘new’ Europe and the preponderant status of their leaders, the chairman Gábor Vona does not enjoy a status comparable to that of, say, Marian Kotleba in the ‘Our Slovakia’ party or Volen Siderov in Bulgaria’s Ataka. This more ‘horizontal’ and devolved arrangement has enabled Jobbik to approach a variety of target-groups within the frame of its political campaign.

Reaching out to the masses: Capitalizing on corruption and Hungary’s economic crisis

The period between 2006 and 2008 saw the delegitimization of the Socialists (MSZP), on charges of corruption. This resulted into MSZP’s rapid decline of popularity and the decisive restructuring of Hungary’s party landscape. For a start, Jobbik demanded that political crime is introduced to the Hungarian penal code as a separate legal category. In light of these developments and the subsequent outbreak of the economic crisis (2008), the absence of potent political forces on the left of the MSZP facilitated Jobbik’s campaign of artificial anti-capitalism. The party embedded the concept of so-called ‘Eco-social National Economics’ into its political programme (2010). In this platform, Jobbik has called for the renegotiation of Hungary’s foreign debt, the establishment of a banking system independent from the interference of multinational corporations, the state-ownership of sectors such as health and education and the long-term renationalization of various others. This campaign of artificial anti-capitalism enhanced Jobbik’s appeal to these segments of the society mostly imperiled by Hungary’s economic stagnation. Jobbik’s more concrete emphasis on social issues and adoption of an, ostensibly, leftist platform on the economy signified the major departure from MIÉP (Hungarian Justice and Life Party) and older initiatives of the Hungarian far right.

Appealing to the youth

Jobbik’s extensive involvement in social media such as Facebook serves as a rough indication of the party’s popularity among the Hungarian youth. Its leadership has been successful in orchestrating a fashionable youth sub-culture around the party with plenty of happenings and other infrastructure (e.g. nationalist rock-bands such as Hungarica and Kárpátia and Internet portals such as barikad.hu and kuruc.info, etc.). In addition to economic and social welfare anxieties, Jobbik has managed to take advantage of a rather common grievance among the younger generation in Hungary and throughout Central and Eastern Europe. This is, namely, the allegation that mainstream parties are either built upon nepotism or dominated by the older generation, leaving little space for the political representation of young people. By contrast, Jobbik’s links to the Magyar Gárda, and its political activism as a whole, have refrained pensioners and other elderly voters from opting for the party.

Centering on unresolved problems

Jobbik has also capitalized on social grievances and unresolved problems that do not necessarily interweave with corruption and the economic crisis. In its political programme (2010), the party dedicates an entire section to ‘Gypsy Issues’. In its own words ‘. . . the coexistence of Magyar and Gypsy is one of the severest problems facing Hungarian society . . . a potential time-bomb’. ‘Gypsy crime’ is introduced as a separate category and the programme acknowledges that ‘. . . certain criminological phenomena are predominantly and overwhelmingly associated with this minority’. Further along the text, the party equates ‘Gypsy integration’ with ‘assimilation into society-at-large’ through ‘work and not welfare’.

Words have matched with deeds. Between 2007 and 2011, the Magyar Gárda performed a string of ‘patrolling operations’ in areas seen as threatened by ‘Gypsy crime’ and other activities such as blood-donation and charity work. These activities took place in impoverished localities across the Hungarian northeast (e.g. Miskolc and Debrecen). This is one of the least developed parts of the country, with a long record of friction between the local population and the Roma minority. In October 2011, the successful mobilization of the Magyar Gárda in the northeastern district of Gyöngyöspata resulted in the departure of the Roma community, the resignation of the local mayor and the Jobbik candidate’s victory in the elections that followed. The utilization of the Magyar Gárda undoubtedly brandished Jobbik’s image to these rural residents that consider themselves excluded by the remote, or even absent, state. Most importantly, Jobbik has managed to establish its electoral stronghold in the northeast.

An apparent shift?

The last few years have witnessed the more decisive turn of the ruling FIDESZ towards the right. In particular, Viktor Orbán has displayed a tough stance in regards to the refugee crisis and staunchly objected to the soft borders principle within the EU. Back in autumn 2015, the Hungarian Premier rushed to justify the erection of a razor-wire fence along the Serbian-Hungarian border on the basis that ‘European and Christian values must be safeguarded…Hungary must be free to defend its borders’. More recently, on October 2^nd, 2016, Orbán called an (unsuccessful) referendum on the EU refugee quotas for Hungary.

Until lately, the ruling party’s gradual shift towards the right also facilitated Jobbik’s political engagement. Nevertheless, now this seems to be evolving into a boomerang for Vona and his associates. Although it remains Hungary’s second most popular party in its own right, some of the latest opinion polls demonstrate that Orbán’s capitalization on public anxieties over the refugee crisis has cost a non-negligible percentage of voters to Jobbik. In this light, the party assumed a neutral stance during the latest referendum. Although he also objects to the refugee quotas arrangement, Vona refrained from granting his assent to what he dubbed ‘Viktor Orbán’s personal project’.

Consequently, the last months have witnessed an apparent shift on the part of Jobbik. In its programmatic statements, Jobbik’s leadership declares the party ‘non-Islamophobic’. Gábor Vona, Márton Gyöngyösi, and other high-rank affiliates have been networking extensively in countries such as Turkey and Kazakhstan. Moreover, Jobbik has been quick to strike a ’pro-Palestine’ outlook and castigate Israel not solely for its aggression against the Palestinians but also over the, allegedly, belligerent foreign policy towards other states in the Middle East (namely Iran). Nevertheless, the new realities of the refugee crisis and the wave of sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2016, have demonstrated that the party can be situationally-adaptive in its outlooks on the Muslim world. Endorsing a body politics approach, Jobbik has recently become highly vocal over the necessity to safeguard Europe’s Christian pillars of identity and protect Hungarian and European women from the ‘rapacious Islamic invaders’.

Furthermore, the party has intensified its charges of corruption against FIDESZ and ostensibly watered down its rhetoric on ‘Gypsy crime’. The extent to which this new strategy may facilitate Jobbik to reclaim its lost voters from FIDESZ remains to be seen within the immediate future. Lastly, Gábor Vona’s decision to purge the more extremist elements from the party (April 2016) was interpreted by various commentators, in Hungary and abroad, as an early indication of Jobbik’s firmer shift towards the mainstream of Hungarian politics. Nevertheless, it is still rather precarious to jump to concrete conclusions; let alone presume that Jobbik might drastically antagonize FIDESZ’s predominance in the country’s political scene in the near future.

Vassilis Petsinis is a visiting researcher at Tartu University (Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies). His specialisation is European politics and ethnopolitics with a regional focus on central and eastern Europe (including the Baltic States). He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham. His personal profile on academia.edu can be accessed here.

Originally set up the mid-1980s, the temporary village guard system’s purpose was to act as a local militia in towns and villages, protecting against attacks and reprisals from the insurgents of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Has this system been successful as a counter-terrorism strategy and does it still have a role in the Turkey of today?

In any counterinsurgency strategy, the separation of “bad guys” from the rest of the population is a significant objective which has a direct impact on the effectiveness of the campaign. To achieve this objective, forming, arming and using local militias may be a viable strategy, particularly in rural, remote, harshly mountainous and tribal contexts in which security forces face difficult challenges to reach the local population. In recent years, the “Sons of Iraq” or the “Anbar Awakening” case in Iraq and the “Tribal Security Forces (Arbakai)” case in Afghanistan are contemporary examples of this strategy.

Does the strategy of forming local militias yield successful results? The existing, yet limited, literature on this subject has opened the door to speculations and interpretations that are more journalistic than scholarly. To better elucidate the effectiveness of forming local militias, this article presents the case of the “Temporary Village Guard System” (Geçici Köy Koruculuğu Sistemi)” in Turkey, which was first initiated in 1985 and has been fully active since.

Turkey’s Village Guards System

Since being founded in 1978, Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has caused approximately 20,000 fatalities, including about 11,000 civilians and 9,000 security personnel. In the meantime, about 20,000 PKK members were killed and about 6000 were captured and imprisoned. In order to thwart PKK-initiated violence, Turkish authorities have implemented many different countermeasures ranging from repressive to accommodative strategies, including the village guard system. As of January 2016, the monthly salary is approximately the equivalent of U.S. $400, along with clothing expenses and some social security benefits that came with passage of the amendments between the 74^th article and 82^nd article of the Village Law on March 26, 1985.

With this legally founded, centrally appointed, and state-paid “security force,” the Turkish government created a civilian militia in the Kurdish populated southeast provinces of Turkey. Except for 300 Ulupamir Guards, who immigrated to the Van province from Kyrgyzstan, all village guards are ethnically Kurd. To supplement the employed village guard system, a “voluntary village guard” program was added in 13 more provinces, which led to the expansion of this system to 22 provinces in 1993, the year in which violence reached its peak level over the course of the conflict with the PKK. The difference between the two programs is that, while the employed village guards receive monthly salary and health benefits, the voluntary village guards do not receive a salary but are entitled to health compensation and benefits. The size of temporary and voluntary civilian armed force reached almost 60,000 by the end of the 1990s, accounting for almost one-third of the armed forces in the Kurdish region.

As of August 2013, Muharrem Güler, then the Interior Minister of Turkey, announced that there are currently 65,456 village guards, 46,113 of whom are employed (interestingly 337 of them are women) and 19,343 of whom are voluntary (161 of them are women). Currently, the village guard system is implemented in 23 provinces. Most of the village guards are employed on the border between Iraq, Iran, and in the extremely mountainous provinces of Hakkari, Sirnak and Van because PKK has been using safe heavens in Iraq and Iran for years.

All village guards, whether voluntary or hired, work under the supervision of the provincial Gendarmerie Commands and receive two weeks of basic military training from their provincial governor immediately after joining.

To better understand the debate, it may be useful to examine the existing arguments for and against the Village Guard System.

Arguments Favoring the System

1. The village guard system has been seen a success story in Turkey’s strategy against the PKK-initiated violence to such an extent that it has become one of the main pillars of counterterror strategy. If the village guard system had not been initiated, the state authority in the region would have eventually collapsed.
2. The village guards have first denied the mobility of the PKK both by separating them from the rest of the population as a bottom-up means of isolating them, and then prevented them from gaining territorial control.
3. The village guards have provided intelligence to the security forces both on the territory and the activities of the PKK.
4. The village guards have not been forced by the security forces to join this system. The existence of more than 25,000 voluntary village guards, who are not paid by the government, is a proof of this.
5. PKK’s numbers has never exceeded the number of the village guards, even during the early 1990s, the period in which the number of the armed terrorists reached its peak level of 11,000. This is an indicator showing the low level of popular support to the PKK.

Arguments against the System

1. The state pitched brother against brother. If it hadn’t been for the village guards, this conflict would have never reached this intensity.
2. The village guard system is a typical reflection of state tradition on the Kurdish issue. Enmeshed in the Kurds’ tribal networks, it exacerbated the tensions in the region. The equipping of the village guards, who were without even basic military training, increased instability in the entire region. The guard system introduced virtually extinguished social order in Kurdish daily life.
3. The village guard system was used by the state officials as a repressive mechanism to recruit villagers.
4. The village guards are poorly disciplined and inadequately trained.
5. The village guards have been accused repeatedly in past years of drug trafficking, corruption, theft, rape, and other abuses. Inadequate oversight exacerbated the problem, and in many cases the security forces allegedly protected village guards from prosecution.
6. Several reports document concerns regarding human rights violations resulting from the village guard system in Turkey.
7. The village guard system has been responsible for deepening mistrust and ethnic divisions in an already troubled region.
8. The village guards have moved with their families into villages that were evacuated in the 1990s and now the original villagers are returning to their villages to find the Village Guards already living there.
9. The establishment of village guards made civilians more vulnerable to attacks.

Has the village guard system in Turkey really worked as a counterterror strategy?

In military terms, and despite its drawbacks and unintended consequences, the village guard system in Turkey worked well as a counter-terror strategy between 1985 and 1993 and achieved the objectives of separation of the local population from the terrorists and denying the PKK control of their hoped-for secessionist territory. Early success gained just after the implementation of the militia system needed a follow-up before the insurgency adapts. In the following years, however, it gradually waned in effectiveness when considering the increased number of PKK attacks in the period of 1993-1999, and caused increasing socio-economic and political micro-level cleavages in the region. As the big inertia in a dispersed system means resistance to change, the guards system could not easily be modified, meaning the strengthening of the existing micro-cleavages and the emergence of the new ones.

Reasons for the decline in effectiveness

The village guard system in Turkey was originally initiated under the assumption that the emergent threat (PKK bandits) was so local and small that it was not considered to require commitment of national security forces. This perception of PKK fighters as “a few bandits” led the Turkish government officials to the authoritization of the system in a temporally (initially, the system was designed for a two-years long period ) and spatially (only in three provinces) limited setting. However, there emerged many institutional problems as the number of village guards was enormously expanded from 800 men to 40,000 men only within a one-year-long period. The primary sources of these shortfalls would be sorted as follows: the absence of comprehensive vision at the national level and the implementation of the planning and recruitment strategy of the system at the provincial level. The absence of a national-level institutional framework which would standardize the system led to the differentiating practices in the provinces. The dramatic rise within a short period of time, when combined with the attempt of government to micro-manage the village guard system at the provincial level, led not only to confusion about the rights, missions and responsibilities of the village guards but also caused different (sometimes contradicting) practices in the following years. Fast expansion meant both weak control at the national level and different interpretations of the operational use of the guards at the provincial level.

Furthermore, the formation of local militias may not only have pros and cons in the sphere of security but also may lead to implications in the socio-cultural sphere. The persistent characterization of the village guards as “traitor,” and the prevalent use of the term “Jash” (a Kurdish slang word for donkey) by PKK supporters to refer to Kurdish village guards, indicates the significance of the local political structure when analyzing the local dynamics of the conflict in Turkey. It is not hyperbole to suggest that the system has also changed the nature of conflict by first pushing the conflict into new areas and creating new micro-cleavages (whether tribal or at the family level) in the provinces.  These results, which clearly emphasize the explanatory power of local political structures in an ethnic conflict, confirm Stathis Kalyvas’s theorization. That is, when examining the dynamics of an ethnic conflict in a comparative perspective, Kalyvas points out that local political structures and rivalries among local groups have a great impact on shifting alliances, which are considered as acts of treason by rival factions.

The allegation of human rights violations by militias seem to be inevitable. The absence or lack of sufficient legal mechanisms to investigate accusations, especially in combination with low levels of transparency and accountability, may lead to structural legal problems and emotional conflicts over justice in the Afghan and Iraq cases as in the Turkish case.

To demobilize or not to demobilize?

The Turkish government has been in a dilemma when deciding on the fate of the village guard system. Opinions about this issue highlight two options for the government, each of which can take two forms.

The first option is demobilization. One form of this option is “honorable demobilization,” which implies that the government will end the guard system after providing all material and social rights and benefits to the retired and serving guards, and publicly elevating the history of the guards for their role in the Turkish state’s armed struggle against the PKK.  The other form, “dishonorable demobilization,” implies that the government will end the guard system with few rights and benefits for retired and serving guares, and will meticulously search the history of the guards to bring to justice those who allegedly committed crimes.  Interviewees who favor dishonorable demobilization argue the need to establish memorial sites for those crimes and brutalities allegedly committed by the guards, with periodic visits by government officials to these sites to keep the collective memory fresh.

The second option is to maintain and continue the guards system. With this option, there again appear to be two alternative forms.  One form is the maintainance of the system after a comprehensive revision that examinines the strengths, drawbacks and conseuqences of the system in the domains of security, law and politics so as to make it more effective and efficient. The other form is the maintainance of the status-quo which implies the continuation of the village guards as an open-ended commitment not restrained by definite limits, restrictions, or structure.

Currently, the Turkish government seems to embrace the last altenative; that is, maintainance of the system as it is in an open-ended process. With the information at hand, it is difficult to predict which option the Turkish government will embrace in the near future. Sooner or later, however, when the government decides on the village guard system, this decision will surely be a strategic one which directly affects the evolution of ongoing clashes.

Metin Gurcan is an Istanbul Policy Center Researcher specializing in security issues.

In our two-part discussion ‘Countering Militarised Public Security in Latin America’,  Sarah Kinosian and Matt Budd explore the roots of the increasing trend towards militarisation of  public security across Central and South America and ask what lessons can be learnt from alternative methods. Part 2 is available here.

Across Latin America, governments are sending their militaries into the streets to act as de facto police forces in the face of disproportionally high crime and violence rates. This trend has been going on for several years, but has accelerated in 2013. With the move to deploy over 40,000 troops for citizen security in Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro joined a growing list of leaders throughout the region – in Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and Dominican Republic, to name a few– that have relied on their militaries to carry out police duties. Yet, in the past 20 years, there are no regional examples in which relying on soldiers for the security of citizens for an extended period of time has brought crime rates down.

Aside from being ineffective, there are other problems associated with militarization of law enforcement. This tactic might offer short-term political or security gains, but it does not provide a long-term solution to the causes of crime. While the presence of the armed forces can slow violence initially, it often just displaces crime to another area, which can return once the troops leave. Sending soldiers to the streets also raises human rights concerns, as the armed forces are trained to track and kill an enemy with as much force as necessary.

Police, on the other hand, are theoretically trained to use minimal force, investigate crimes, and respect the rights of citizens. When governments deploy troops, the differences between the functions of the police and the military get lost and the line between citizen and enemy becomes blurred. Yet each of the countries mentioned above has weak, corrupt, public institutions, particularly penal and justice systems, which have yielded high rates of impunity and crime. Shifting tides in the drug trade, the expansion of organized crime and rampant inequality, has exacerbated these problems. While police reform efforts are underway, they are flagging, largely due to a lack of funding and/or political will.

So why, instead of heavily investing in police reform, have governments in Latin America increasingly turned to the military to solve public security problems? With the highest murder rate in South America, and a corrupt government with a strong military tradition, Venezuela provides an ample case study.

The Shadow of Chávez

When Hugo Chávez died in March, he left behind an economy in shambles, a dysfunctional judicial system, a broken prison system, security forces rife with corruption, and a politicized government bureaucracy incapable of tackling the resulting spike in organized crime, violence and drug trafficking. In the two decades since Chávez took power, murder rates doubled  – or tripled according to some sources  – and in 2012, Venezuela had the second-highest homicide rate in the world[1]. Caracas, the country’s capital, on its own registers one of the highest murder rates globally, as gang warfare and high levels of street crime plague most urban centers. The country also has become a major hub for drugs transiting from Colombia to the United States and Europe.

In a post- Chávez Venezuela, the dire security situation appears to be getting worse. In May, just two months after taking office, Chávez’s handpicked successor, President Nicolás Maduro, sent 3,000 members of the military and police to man roadblocks, carry out raids and patrol the streets of Caracas. The deployment was part of an initiative known as “Plan Patria Segura,” (or “Safe Homeland Plan”) which has been expanded to include over 40,000 members of the security forces. Soon, about 80,000 security forces will have been deployed and the military will have an active role in every state. Although the initiative was set to end this October, it looks like troops will be on the streets well past 2013.

Police Corruption

One reason Maduro has turned to the troops is that Venezuela’s police are among the most corrupt in Latin America. As in Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras, police in Venezuela have been dismissed by the public as ineffective, corrupt, abusive and complicit with organized crime. In 2012, a Transparency International survey found Venezuelans considered the police to be the most corrupt entity in the country.

This is not a recent problem – even before Chávez’s reign, the country’s police forces were accused of excessive use of force, unlawful killings of civilians, extortion, torture, forced disappearances and involvement in organized crime. By 2009, even the government admitted police were responsible for up to 20 percent of all crimes. In one poll, 70 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: “Police and criminals are practically the same.”

As with many forces throughout Latin America, police are underfunded, poorly trained and many times outgunned by criminals. This, compounded by high levels of impunity for officers and officials and a lack of central government control over the country’s 134 police units, has allowed organized crime to penetrate state institutions at every governing level.

Reform measures put into motion by Chávez in 2009 aimed to centralize law enforcement and create a professionalized national police force. The new body, the National Bolivarian Police (PNB), would be less militarized and given human rights training from a civilian-run policing university. Officers would be vetted and their salaries would be doubled while a council that included human rights activists would oversee the reform’s implementation.

According to Venezuela experts David Smilde and Rebecca Hanson, while “Venezuelans do not seem to think police corruption or inefficiency are major causes of crime, they do seem to believe that a professional police force and improved judicial and penal system could reduce crime.”

However, challenges still exist. With just under 14,500 officers, the reformed force lacks manpower, as well as the funding and political will necessary to tackle the spiraling violence. Also, several of the reforms, such as the increased wages, have yet to be implemented.

Despite Venezuelans support for the idea of citizen security reform, public support for the PNB appears to be one of its obstacles. For many citizens, the PNB’s tactics appear ineffective and “soft,” according to Smilde. While many residents prefer the humanist theory behind the force, many people in poor, crime-heavy areas see a more hard-line approach as the only option to target the sky-high levels of insecurity.

A History of Military culture 

Part of this public acceptance lies in the country’s entrenched military culture. The military dominated politics in Venezuela throughout the 19^th century until the fall of a military dictatorship in 1958. The institution’s role then subsided, until Hugo Chávez was elected in 1998. Under Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution,” strong civil-military ties were forged, with troops being deployed to oversee social projects like food distribution and housing construction. Military members also gained personal voting rights and were placed in top positions in the government.

Although Chávez initiated police reform, he focused even more attention and resources on the armed forces. Around the same time that he created the PNB, he set up two more militarized initiatives: the Bolivarian National Militia, a military-trained group of civilians that would act as liaisons between the army and the people, and the Bicentennial Security Dispositive, a military unit intended to target high-crime areas.

Maduro has continued the military’s social and political role by surrounding himself with former and current military members, increasing the armed forces’ salary budget, creating new “Bolivarian militias” headed by former military members and pledging $4 billion (USD) to “increase the defensive capacity of the country.” He has also announced the creation of a new bank, television channel and cargo company, all for the armed forces.

Given this context, as Smilde has noted, it is no wonder that for the average Venezuelan citizen, the military “represents order and efficiency against a background of chaos and dysfunction, and giving it an important social role appears logical.”

Political motivations

Maduro also has political motivations for sending in the military. Stuck in Chávez’s image, Maduro has been parroting his predecessor’s strategies and playing up the tight links between the military and the “Bolivarian Revolution.” In part, the troop deployment is a way to continue Chávez’s legacy and rally support for the government. Because of lingering popular support for Chávismo, the public has not turned on him and despite high inflation, shortages of basic goods, power blackouts, soaring murder rates, and corruption scandals, most polls indicate Maduro maintains a 45-50 percent approval rating.

By deploying the military, Maduro has shown the public he is responding to the security problem. In general, amid calls for security improvement, it becomes politically difficult to wait for the gradual progress of police reform. “It is a political response to a political problem” according to Venezuelan expert and NYU professor Alejandro Velasco.

What impact?

Although the Maduro administration claims murders have dropped by over 30 percent, the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence projects the country will record 25,000 homicides in 2013 – 4,000 more than in 2012. Even in the areas where military presence has mitigated crime, what happens when the military leaves?

Another concern is the lack of accountability for the military in Venezuela. Unlike the PNB, the armed forces are given no civilian human rights training and there is no mechanism for civilians to report incidents of abuse. There have been at least ten incidents of violations since July, including the shooting of a mother and her daughter by the National Guard. And while Maduro’s approval ratings have barely dipped, those for Plan Patria Segura show a downward trend.

What now?

In Venezuela and elsewhere, there are not a lot of hopeful choices to curb the immediate high crime levels. However, police reform is a key part of improving the security situation. As one U.S. State Department official recently said of Honduras, where a military police unit was just created, “the creation of a military police force distracts attention from civilian police reform efforts and strains limited resources.” This same logic applies to Venezuela – Maduro must politically and financially invest in police reform to strengthen and expand the role of the PNB. Police must also receive sufficient training, resources and supervision to ensure transparency. The public can begin to trust the police when they are the ones enforcing the rule of law.

A line must be drawn between civilian and military leadership, and the role of the armed forces clearly defined and distinct from that of the police. To curb corruption, improved mechanisms for investigating police and military criminality must be established while civilian-led vetting and oversight systems put in place for police and military members. Finally, strong justice and penal systems are fundamental, otherwise those committing crimes will have little reason to stop doing so and prisons will continue to be violent bastions of criminal education. Police reform must not be pushed aside due to short-sighted politics; without a concerted effort to get troops off the streets, Venezuela is vulnerable to descending into an unchecked cycle of criminality, both in society and within its security forces.

Golden Dawn, a Greek Neo-Fascist party, has gradually enjoyed greater success in Greek and European parliamentary elections. What are the drivers behind this development?

The Greek Golden Dawn, a violent neo-Nazi party, has remained in the margins of the Greek political system for most of its political life. However, within the context of the emerging economic crisis both in Europe and in Greece, the party marked an electoral breakthrough in May and June 2012, receiving 7 per cent of the vote in May and 6.9 per cent in June, translating into 21 and 18 parliamentary seats out of 300 respectively. As the economic crisis unfolded, and societal upheaval in Greece became reinforced by the emerging migration crisis, the party retained its support in the 2014 European Parliament Elections receiving 9.38 per cent of the vote; and in the January and September 2015 general elections, when it retained third place in the party system with 6.28 and 6.99 per cent of the vote respectively.

The ideology of Golden Dawn

The Golden Dawn is unlike all other parties in the Greek parliament; and most other far right parties in Europe. While the party itself rejects the fascist label, it nonetheless espouses all core fascist- and more specifically Nazi- principles. In our book, we show the party rejects liberalism and socialism and endorses what it terms the ‘third biggest ideology in history’, i.e. nationalism, combined with support for an all-powerful state premised on ‘popular sovereignty’. In its manifesto the party states that being a member of the Golden Dawn entails the acceptance of the following principles: the establishment of the state in accordance to nationalism; the moral obligations that derive from this ideology including the rejection of any authority that perpetuates societal decline; the acceptance of nationalism as the only authentic revolution; the establishment of the popular state in which there are no inequalities on the basis of wealth; racial supremacy and more specifically the belief in the continuation of the ‘Greek race’ from antiquity to the modern day; the idea that the state must correspond and be subservient to the nation/race; and the nationalization of all institutions.

The fascist myth of palingenetic ultra-nationalism constitutes a key ideological premise underpinning the party’s discourse. The ideology of the Golden Dawn may indeed be categorised within the ‘ethnic nationalism’ variant, emphasising blood, geneaology and the perennial nature of the Greek nation. The party emphasises ties with ancient Greece, past wars, imperial experience during the Ottoman years and invasion in the 1940s. In this context, the party makes frequent references to ancient Greece, emphasising the heroic traits of those belonging to the Greek nation. Historical figures, whether heroes of ancient Greece, Byzantium, the Greek War of Independence, the Second World War or Cyprus are glorified for their heroism, bravery and sacrifice. By referring to a very large array of officially recognised historical events, personalities and national identity traits and placing them within the ethnic election framework, the Golden Dawn successfully integrates them into its ultra-nationalist palingenetic ideology.

The Golden Dawn seeks ‘catharsis’. The party’s key goal is to eliminate all political divisions and cleanse the nation from outsiders. Communists are identified as those internationalists that seek the annihilation of the Greek nation. Contributing to this ethnocide are also Greece’s external enemies, which include all foreigners who according to the Golden Dawn contribute to the moral and cultural decay of Greece, for example people of Jewish origin and all immigrants.

Militarism hence is the key to both the Golden Dawn’s ideology and organizational structures. The army is the ultimate value, they claim. A value that encloses within it ‘blood, struggle and sacrifice’. The party’s members see themselves as ‘street soldiers’ fighting for the nationalist cause. This places violence at the heart of Golden Dawn’s activities and illustrates their distinctive view of democracy as a bourgeois construct only to be used as a means for achieving their ultimate goal: its abolition, as its leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos claims. It also explains the link between Golden Dawn members and army officials, as well as the organization of ‘paramilitary orders’ or ‘battalions’.

Therefore the party should be understood as neo-Nazi, not because of its past use of Nazi paraphernalia, but rather because its ideology and organizational structures fulfil the criteria of what constitutes a neo-Nazi group. Its association with a large number of violent acts resulted in the imprisonment of the majority of its MPs including the party leader in 2013/2014. 70 defendants, which include the party leader and the party’s MPs, went on trial in Spring 2015 on charges including murder, grievous bodily harm and sustaining a criminal organization. The trial remains on-going.

Accounting for the rise of Golden Dawn

How may we explain the rise and sustained support for the Golden Dawn? The Golden Dawn’s electoral fortunes have coincided with both the economic and migration crises that have affected Europe as a whole. For example, in 2012 during the peak of Greece’s economic crisis, the country’s unemployment was at 24.5 per cent with youth unemployment at 55.3 per cent. In 2013 these figures increased to 27.5 and 58.3 respectively. The government deficit was -8.6, which increased in 2013 to -12.1. In addition, Greece experienced the bulk of the migration crisis as the entry point for a high number of refugees who travel from Turkey to the islands of Kos, Chios, Lesvos and Samos. For example, an estimated number of 856.723 refugees arrived by sea in 2015 and 169.459 in 2016.  It would make sense to seek causal links between the economic and migration crises on the one hand, and the rise of the Golden Dawn on the other. However, the adoption of a comparative logic suggests that this argument does not hold when subjected to empirical scrutiny. Other European countries that were also severely affected by the Eurozone and/or migration crises have not experienced a comparable rise in support for the far right. For example, Spain’s unemployment levels are second in the EU after Greece with 24.8 per cent in 2012 and 26.1 per cent in 2013. Youth unemployment in Spain is also very high at 52.9 per cent in 2012 and 55.5 in 2013. Portugal’s somewhat lower unemployment rates at 15.8 per cent in 2012 and 16.4 per cent in 2013 are still above the EU average. The same goes for the country’s youth unemployment rates at 37.9 per cent in 2012 and 38.1 in 2013.

We posit an alternative explanation that takes into account the broader implications of the crises of Greek society. We understand the rise of the Golden Dawn as a response to a perceived breach of the social contract in Greece. Therefore, we see this rise not as question of intensity of economic and/ or migration crisis, but rather as a question of the nature of the crisis, i.e. economic and/migration versus overall crisis of democratic representation. Extreme right parties such as the Golden Dawn are more likely to experience an increase in their support when a societal crisis culminates into an overall crisis of democratic representation. This is likely to occur when severe issues of governability impact upon the ability of the state to fulfil its social contract obligations. The perceived inability of the state to mediate the effects of the crisis and to deliver services based on the redistribution of the collective goods of the state. When state capacity is limited or perceived to be limited, then the result is the delegitimization of the party system as a whole. This is because the system is perceived as incapable to address the crisis and mediate its socioeconomic effects. This breach of the social contract is accompanied by declining levels of trust in state institutions, resulting in party system collapse.

Conclusion

If we are right, then the Golden Dawn is a specific symptom of a broader institutional pathology. Therefore in order to contain this phenomenon, political actors should focus on institutional reform in order to restore the domestic social contract and reintegrate key social groups back into the political mainstream. More specifically:

1. Empower the middle class: because the middle class is key to both economic prosperity and democratic stability. Weak democratic institutions and widespread corruption have resulted in the weakening of the middle ground and this is what allows extremist groups to co-opt middle-class voters. Unless we address this institutional pathology at its core, extremism will keep recurring.
2. Welfare reform: because the appropriation of key social groups into the mainstream depends on social security. The greater the insecurity, and the broader the populace it affects, the greater the potential of extremist elements to co-opt these social groups that would otherwise support mainstream alternatives.
3. Strengthen civil society institutions: Because civil society fosters tolerance. Greek civil Society is weak at all levels: weak structure, limited impact and limited membership. There is a wider sentiment of public distrust towards this type of organisations in Greece because of the long tradition of corruption and clientelistic relations that prevail.
4. Reform the education system: Because education is a key means of socialisation that institutionalises political culture. The type of socialisation that occurs from an early age at the school level is the one that becomes most embedded. And, because people of a younger age are more easily moulded into violence and extremism, they tend to occupy a large portion of far right party membership. As long as the Greek education system promotes exclusion and vilifies the other through official textbooks, it will continue to offer opportunities for right-wing extremism.

Dr Sofia Vasilopoulou is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of York.

Dr Daphne Halikiopoulou is an Associate Professor in Comparative Politics at the University of Reading.