This chapter seeks to probe the generalizability of the findings outside the Greek context by examining the organizational development of extremist right-wing parties in Germany and Slovakia. Utilizing the analytical framework developed and tested in the previous chapters, this chapter investigates the organizational development of two relatively similar parties in two distinct settings, the German National Democratic Party of Germany and the Kotleba – People’s Party Our Slovakia. The postwar and postcommunist contexts in which the NPD and the LSNS have developed are different from the postauthoritarian setting in which the GD evolved. The main purpose of this chapter is to show that, despite these notable contextual differences, the organizational development of the NPD and LSNS is affected by endogenous and environmental factors similar to those analyzed in Greece. The first section of the chapter briefly describes the basic characteristics of the two parties, highlighting their similarities to and differences from the GD. The second section utilizes interviews with the party leadership, organizational data from official and party documents, and the secondary literature to sketch the organizational development of the German and Slovak parties. The last section examines in turn the endogenous, electoral, institutional and societal factors affecting the development of the two parties.

This chapter borrows insights from the extant literature on the far right and the broader literatures on political parties, social movements and militant democracy to develop a theory of local party development. It explicates a theoretical framework examining how endogenous and environmental factors shape the development of extremist right-wing party organizations, at the national and, more importantly, at the subnational level. It first looks at how internal party characteristics shape the capacity of extremist right-wing parties to grow roots in local societies. It then focuses on environmental factors: it examines how electoral, institutional and societal factors affect local party trajectories.

This chapter begins the examination of how environmental factors shape the local organizational development of extremist right-wing parties by looking into the way electoral dynamics shape organizational choices and outcomes. It first engages with the broader and extant literature examining the link between electoral and organizational factors. It uses this literature to generate hypotheses on how electoral incentives shape the organizational trajectories of local party branches. The first empirical section of the chapter focuses on how electoral considerations shaped the organizational choices the GD made. The second empirical section investigates how various electoral factors, such as electoral performance, district size or local incumbency, helped shape organizational outcomes.