Introduction. On Tradition, Common Sense and Conspiracies: Strategies and Insights of the Contemporary Far Right

This year, beyond the numerous electoral victories (as in Italy), the real result at the political level has been a gradual but unstoppable convergence among the right-leaning of the political spectrum. That convergence is in fact a two-way process that has occurred both (a) with the extreme right going mainstream and (b) the ‘moderate’ right radicalising. The result is that it is now very difficult to distinguish where one ends or the other begins. Another equally important element is that this gradual but continuous process of interpenetration between centre-right and far right, often labelled as conservative, represents fertile ground for an overall ideological shift increasingly to the right.