Far-Right Ascendancy, Affective Polarisation, and Democratic Attitudes: Southern Europe and the Role of Historical Memory

The rapid electoral consolidation of the far right has fundamentally reshaped party competition across Southern Europe, challenging the long-held assumption that countries with recent authoritarian pasts would remain comparatively resistant to far-right mobilisation. The region has experienced a delayed yet remarkably rapid breakthrough of far-right parties, signalling the end of Southern Europe's exceptionalism in the European politics of the far right.
This transformation raises important questions about its broader consequences for political conflict and democratic politics. The rise of the far right is widely associated with the intensification of affective polarisation, as political competition increasingly revolves around identity-based divisions, mutual hostility, and the delegitimisation of political opponents rather than programmatic disagreement alone. Yet we still know relatively little about how these dynamics unfold in societies where memories of authoritarianism remain part of the political landscape.
Southern Europe provides a unique comparative laboratory for addressing this question. The region combines three characteristics that rarely coexist elsewhere in Western Europe: the late but rapid electoral ascendancy of the far right, shared legacies of right-wing authoritarianism, and significant variation in the temporal distance from those authoritarian experiences. These differences make it possible to examine whether historical memory continues to constrain the polarising effects of the far right, or whether its influence is weakening as generational replacement increases the distance from authoritarian rule.
This panel asks whether societies in which memories of authoritarianism remain socially and politically salient display greater resilience to the divisive effects of far-right competition, and whether younger generations - whose political socialisation has taken place entirely under democracy, but in an era marked by multiple crises, democratic backsliding, and political backlash - are becoming more susceptible to identity-based conflict and affective polarisation.
By bringing together comparative and country-specific analyses from across the region, the panel seeks to advance our understanding of how legacies from the past continue to shape contemporary political behaviour and democratic resilience in Southern Europe. More broadly, it contributes to comparative debates on the consequences of far-right ascendancy by assessing whether Southern Europe is converging towards the increasingly polarised patterns of political competition observed elsewhere in Europe.