The Dutch identitair verzet and the European identitarian movement: alone at the table

Abstract

Historically, the far-right movement has been "fragmented, leaderless and multi-dimensional" (Davey & Ebner, 2017). However, in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections and with the concurrent global rise of the alt-right, many academics and commentators have noted that the European far right have become emboldened (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018). In this climate, far-right groups have begun to put aside their differences and cooperate to increase their influence, reach, and impact. Notable examples of such collaboration include the Defend Europe campaigns in the Mediterranean and Alps regions, which appeared to unite various national branches of the Generation Identity movement and groups associated with the pan-European Identarian movement. Nonetheless, despite anecdotal evidence that the far right is currently expanding beyond national borders, the relationship between the far right and transnational politics is both ambiguous and understudied.

In order to address this knowledge gap and improve understanding of transnational collaboration within the wider Identarian movement, this chapter investigates how the Dutch identarian group Identitair Verzet cooperates and interacts both online and offline with other European identarian groups in France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Italy. In doing so, this chapter not only sheds light on the underexamined Dutch identarian movement but also contributes to a wider debate on the role played by shared identities (including shared ideology, symbolism, and terminology) in mobilizing distinct groups across national boundaries. Using the framework inspired by the work of Hall (1995) and Ackerman and Bale (2012), and leveraging data from social media, journalistic accounts, and government and law enforcement reports, we find that Identitair Verzet – due to its small scale and divergent identity – has largely been relegated to the fringe of the wider European Identarian movement. In fact, the instances of collaboration are mostly limited to the digital sphere, are rhetorical in nature, and are generally initiated by Identitair Verzet as the group attempts to secure itself a "place at the table," with limited success.