The (un)contained shout. Reflections on academic interpretations of the “extreme right”

Abstract

This paper proposes a theoretical reflection on the academic interpretations of the “extreme right”. We will focus particularly on three prominent and dissimilar authors who sought a comprehensive analytical approach to this phenomenon, such as Chantal Mouffe, Cas Mudde and Pablo Semán. The article seeks to scrutinize the theoretical elements and epistemological assumptions that configure each explanatory hypothesis, recognizing in them a replicated reflexive scheme based on the political bond. We argue that these authors understand this political bond from an expressive function, considering the the political to the institutional-partisan as a sphere of expression and translation of a sense of a pre-political character inaugurated in “the social”. Exploring these notions of the “extreme right” allows us, in the conclusions, to problematize the definition of a founding instance that would explain the nature of any emerging sociopolitical phenomenon.