This publication contains contributions around the concept of “extremism” – from aspects of its history, its implicit political settings to possible alternatives. The focus is on the categories “right-wing extremism” and “left-wing extremism”. The editors of IDA e.V. (Informations- und Dokumentatiosnzentrum für Antirassismusarbeit e.V.) aim to provide “a critical overview of central concepts and assumptions of the classical model of extremism” with a focus on youth and educational work.
On about one hundred pages, authors from the fields of social and cultural sciences, anti-Semitism research, pedagogy, and extracurricular educational work deal with “extremism” – divided into the chapters “Alternative Descriptions,” “Fundamentals, Criticism, and Reflection,” and “Perspectives for Practice.”
In their introduction, the editors write about their central approach:
“Concepts are elements of theories, and it is within these theories that they acquire their meaning. This means that we are not interested in demonizing the term “extremism” per se, but in analyzing the edifices of thought that are built around this term, that give it its meaning, and that have problematic premises and consequences in the specific case of the classical model of extremism. In this context, the professional and public debate around the extremism model is particularly vehement.”
Prominent examples of such “problematic presuppositions and consequences” of the “concept of extremism” are often binary-structured concepts and terms such as “left/right extremism” and grossly simplistic diagrams such as the so-called “horseshoe” model. Which focuses its observations on the so-called “fringes of the political spectrum” and thus constructs a “social center”. The theory argues that this is characterized by the alleged absence of, for example, racist and inhuman attitudes.
The reader can be downloaded free of charge from this link or ordered from IDA e.V. for a postage fee.
Philip Baron, Ansgar Drücker, Sebastian Seng (eds.): Das Extremismusmodell. Düsseldorf: Own publishing house 2018