Resisting the far right. A systematic analysis of civil society strategies

Christin Jänicke, Hans Jonas Gunzelmann, Teresa Sophie Völker and Swen Hutter

No ZZ 2026-602, Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Center for Civil Society Research from WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Abstract: The rise of the far right in the 21st century poses fundamental challenges for democracy. In this context, understanding how democratic societies respond to the far right is a crucial question. This question concerns not only politicians from democratic parties, but also civil society actors ranging from large trade unions to local sports clubs and grassroots initiatives. However, the existing scholarly work on societal responses to the far right remains scattered across subdisciplines, addresses a narrow range of questions, and focuses on specific segments of civil society only. We address this gap by synthesizing these literatures and providing an analytical framework of civil society strategies against the far right. We conduct a systematic review of 56 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters published between 1972 and 2024, which forms the core of the analysis. We complement this review with a qualitative content analysis of 191 guidance documents from 42 German civil society organizations across nine organizational fields to capture strategies that are less visible in the academic literature. Our analysis identifies five types of civil society strategy: contentious, public-sphere, cultural and educational, networking, and organizational strategies. It shows that the academic literature is heavily skewed toward contentious action, whereas organizational and networking strategies play a central role in practice but remain largely understudied. At the same time, the evidence on effectiveness is limited and unevenly distributed across strategy types, highlighting important gaps in comparative and cross-national research. By integrating scholarly and practitioner knowledge, the study provides a comprehensive overview of civil society strategies against the far right and outlines a research agenda for more systematic analysis of their effects.

Keywords: Civil Society; Contentious Politics; Counterstrategies; Democratic Resilience; Far Right (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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