Proscribing right-wing extremist organizations in Europe: variations, trends, and prospects

Among the legal instruments that address organized right-wing extremism in Europe, proscription is one of the most severe. Yet there is scant comparative work on where, how frequently, and against which right-wing extremist organization proscriptions have been applied. This article presents a new dataset on Proscribed Right-wing Extremist Organizations (PREOs) in Europe. A typology of countries’ proscriptive regimes illuminates how proscription by executive decrees is more frequent than proscription by judicial ruling, and how proscription by executive decrees appears to be more responsive to high-profile incidents of extremist violence. We complement this descriptive overview with a close investigation of patterns in Germany, the state that has most frequently used proscription against right-wing extremist organizations. Furthermore, the article presents paired case studies of the proscriptions of Blood & Honour in Germany (by executive decree) and the Nordic Resistance Movement in Finland (by judicial ruling), which point to the causal factors underlying proscription of right-wing extremist organizations.