Podcast: Becoming a young radical right activist - an analysis of Poland and Germany

Professor Vera Trappmann, Dr Janina Myrczik and Dr Justyna Kajta discuss their paper - “Becoming a young radical right activist, biographical pathways of the members of radical right organizations in Poland and Germany”. 

With the increasing popularity of the radical right, much research has tried to explain the motives of voters. Less attention has been paid to the motives of people to become radical right activists – specifically young people, a group with a high tendency to join right-wing parties. Within the context of the internationalisation of the radical right, this research draws on 28 narrative interviews conducted between 2019 and 2021 with young radical right activists in Poland and Germany, two countries with considerably different political and discursive opportunity structures.   

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1826016726&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/leedsunibschool" title="Leeds University Business School" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Leeds University Business School</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/leedsunibschool/becoming-a-young-radical-right-activist-an-analysis-of-poland-and-germany" title="Becoming a young radical right activist - an analysis of Poland and Germany" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Becoming a young radical right activist - an analysis of Poland and Germany</a></div>

Read the paper here. “Becoming a young radical right activist, biographical pathways of the members of radical right organizations in Poland and Germany.”, Current Sociology, Janina Myrczik, Justyna Kajta, Arthur Buckenleib, Mateusz Karolak, Marius Liedtke, Adam Mrozowicki and Vera Trappmann. 

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in May 2024. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. A transcript of this episode is available.    

About the speakers:  
Vera Trappmann is Professor of Comparative Employment Relations at Leeds University Business School. Her research engages with the comparison of labour relations across Europe, focusing on the dynamics of economic and organisational restructuring and its impact on working biographies, and organized labour.   

Justyna Kajta is a Professor Assistant at the Institute of Social Sciences, SWPS University (Warsaw, Poland). Her main research interests concern youth, social movements, class (im)mobilities, and social and political changes in Central and Eastern Europe. She is the author of several publications, including the book (in Polish) Young Radicals? On the Identity of the Polish Nationalist Movement and Its Participants (Nomos, 2020). 

Janina Myrczik is a Lecturer in Qualitative Methods and a Researcher at Medical School Berlin. Her research centres on rehabilitation, ageing, and the radical right. She is particularly interested in qualitative research, social inequality and political sociology.