In an extensive book review published in the journal YOUNG, Katrine Fangen offers a nuanced assessment of Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right, by Cynthia Miller-Idriss (Princeton University Press, 2020).
The book has been instrumental in drawing attention to the 'mainstreaming' of extremism, defined as 'the kinds of places where young people in particular may encounter extremist messages and ideas in their ordinary lives' (p. 4 in the book).
On this count, argues Fangen, the analysis of the book is 'ground-breaking', throwing a light on 'how young people stumble across extremist ideas in their everyday lives, perhaps long before any serious engagement in a far-right group' (p. 300). This leads to recommendations of shifting the focus from hardcore expressions of far-right extremism to the periphery, where new prospective recruits have their first encounters, with major implications for prevention policies. Apart from this, the book is also a very useful primer on far-right politics today, says Fangen, even though its main contribution lies in developing – and empirically illustrating – mainstreaming.
The book review in YOUNG (behind pay-wall) can be found here.
A version of the review is also published in Norwegian in Norsk Sosiologisk Tidsskrift (here), open access.
