Accelerationism: the belief that historical forces should be accelerated to effect societal collapse and revolutionary changes. Some far-right extremists advocate for violent forms of accelerationism (sabotage, assassinations, terrorism, etc.) in the hope of sparking off a race war and ultimately achieving a white ethnostate.

Anti-partyism: the rejection of mainstream political parties, denunciation of their incompetence or corruption and/or representative democracy as a whole.

Alt-right: abbreviation of “alternative right:” the alt-right is a decentralized far-right political movement that emerged in the U.S. in the late 2000s and espouses authoritarian, racist, antifeminist and homophobic ideas. It has had a wide presence online, notably on web forums like 4chan, where its ideology spread via memes with a satirical edge, notably by targeting political correctness.

Anti-egalitarianism: The belief that people are not all equal and do not all have the same rights and opportunities. The term can apply to conservative or neoliberal opposition to state policies designed to reduce wealth inequalities, as well as to far-right rejections of notions of human rights.

Anti-intellectualism: hostility to intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education, art, literature, the humanities and science as unproductive and/or politically motivated. Anti-intellectualism usually deprecates intellectuals themselves as impractical and conceited elites out of touch with the concrete concerns of ordinary people. Similar to philistinism.

Antifa: contraction of the word “antifascist:” a leaderless and non-hierarchal global movement of left-wing activists involved in the fight against right wing policies and far-right extremism.

Antisemitism: discrimination, hostility, persecution, and prejudice targeting Jews.

Apocalyptism: the religious belief that the end of the world is imminent; the belief that a political system or country is declining irreversibly or approaching civil war.

Authoritarianism: the belief in a strictly ordered society where executive power is strong, and infringements are punished severely. As a political regime, authoritarianism is characterized by highly concentrated and centralized power, while civil rights and political challengers are restrained. As a penal policy, authoritarianism consists in advocating measures that protect “law and order” and are “tough on crime”. Similar to illiberalism.

Autocracy: a system of government in which a single person or party possesses supreme power. E.g., dictatorship or absolute monarchy.

Big lie: a blatant falsehood used as a political propaganda technique. The “big lie” is designed to appeal strongly to the biases and prejudices of certain listeners, and repeated  as if it were self-evidently true so as to sway the course of debates in a direction that takes the big lie for granted rather than critically questioning it or ignoring it. The German expression was first coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, Since 2020, the term “Big lie” has been used to refer to the conspiracy theory that the U.S. presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump through voter fraud.

Black bloc: a tactic used by left-wing protesters that consists in wearing black clothing and face-concealing items to appear as one large, unified mass, and conceal their identities from both the police and political opponents.

Cancel culture: a cultural phenomenon in which an individual or group thought to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner is ostracized, boycotted, fired or assaulted, often aided by social media. The term has mostly negative connotations and came into circulation in the U.S. in the late 2010s to criticize the alleged intolerance of the left.

Christian right: in the US, the Christian right is an informal coalition formed around a core of conservative evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. The movement has its roots in American politics going back as far as the 1940s and has been especially influential since the 1970s. Its influence draws from grassroots activism as well as from focus on social issues and the ability to motivate the electorate to push for socially conservative policies.

Clash of civilizations: the thesis that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. The thesis was developed by American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, who predicted that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures in a “Foreign Affairs” article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?” (1993), in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama’s book, The End of History and the Last Man (1992). Huntington later expanded his thesis in the book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996).

Clientelism: a strategy to gain voters by offering them goods (e.g., direct payments or privileged access to employment, goods, and services) in exchange for their support.

Conservatism: a political philosophy that favors institutions and policies that enhance social order and historical continuity, and seeks to preserve institutions, customs and values. Conservatives generally oppose efforts to bring about rapid or fundamental change in the existing order of society and that injustices are either justified or about as close to fairness as is practically attainable.

Conspiracy theory: an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful actors, often political in motivation. Conspiracy theories appeal to prejudice rather than reason; they resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning. The term has a pejorative connotation.

Cronyism: the practice of favoritism in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations.

Cuck: abbreviation of cuckold: an insulting word for a weak man, used especially by the alt-right to refer to men with politically liberal views or simply not far right enough.

Cuckservative: a portmanteau of “cuck” and “conservative” used especially by the alt-right to denigrate mainstream conservatives.

Cultural Marxism: a catch-all label used by the American far right for liberal and progressive ideas, referring to their roots in the works of the Frankfurt School and proponents of critical theory in the 1950s and 1960s.

Culture war: the conflict between different social groups who struggle to impose their own ideology upon mainstream society. It commonly refers to the kind of societal topics that polarize societies such as abortion, homosexuality, pornography, multiculturalism, and other cultural conflicts based on values, morality, and lifestyle.

Declinism: the belief that a society or institution is tending towards decline. It comes along with the predisposition to view the past favorably.

Deep State: an American conspiracy theory according to which a secret network of power manipulates or controls government policy in pursuit of their own agenda.

Demagoguery: the action of winning support by whipping up the emotions of ordinary people rather than by having good or morally right ideas. In Ancient Greece, the term demagogue originally referred to a leader of the common people, such as Cleon of Athens, but quickly took on a pejorative turn (i.e., a rabble-rouser).

Democracy: a system of government in which effective political power is vested in the people. In older usage, the term was reserved exclusively for governmental systems in which the populace exercised this power directly through general assemblies or referenda to decide the most important questions of law or policy. This is now commonly referred to as direct democracy, as opposed to indirect or representative democracy.

Digital populism: a new type of political behavior marked by the political use of the Internet (social media, etc.) as both a form of political participation and an instrument of mobilization, campaigning, recruitment, but also antagonism and harassment. Similar to cyber-populism.

Dictatorship: government by a single person or group with few to no limitations. Dictators’ discretion in using the powers and resources of state is unrestrained by any fixed rules and are in no effective way held responsible to the general population or their elected representatives.

Dog whistle politics: the use of coded or suggestive language that can only be understood or heard by a select target group, just like ultrasonic dog whistles which are audible to dogs but not humans. The term usually refers to veiled racist and/or far right messages that would otherwise be illegal or inappropriate.

Echo chamber: a situation in which people seek out information that repeats and amplifies their existing views. This increases social and political polarization and extremism.

E-democracy: the use of information technology to enhance democracy, by promoting transparency and engagement

Elitism: the notion that elites have greater abilities than the average and deserve greater influence or authority in society.

Establishment: the dominant people and social groups that wields power in a country; also the institutions and places where these people meet, are trained, make decisions, etc. Similar to elite.

Euroscepticism: criticism of the European Union, which can range from soft Euroscepticism, which consists of critiques of specific EU institutions and policies and/or objections to further European integration, and hard Euroscepticism, which considers the EU unreformable, opposes membership or advocates for withdrawal.

Europhobia: hostility towards Europe and/or the E.U.; in the context of the U.K., this consists of negative attitudes towards mainland Europe, the E.U., anti-German and/or anti-French sentiments. Similar to anti-Europeanism.

Fake news: a form of news consisting of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via online social media and, often in a second stage, traditional news media. Fake news is written and published usually with the intent to mislead in order to damage an agency, entity, or person, and/or gain financially or politically, often using sensationalist, dishonest, or outright fabricated headlines to increase readership.

Far right: a broad term for politics further on the right of the left-right spectrum than the standard political right. The term covers both the radical right and right-wing extremism.

Fascism: a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist populist ideology that takes its name from the anti-liberal and anti-communist movement led by Benito Mussolini that took power in Italy in 1922. Fascism regimes spread in Europe in response to the Bolshevik Revolution and the economic devastation of WWI, and relied on militarized mass politics and personality cult around their leaders, glorifying national, racial, or cultural unity and collective rebirth while purging political enemies and “alien” populations. The term neo-fascist is applied to right-wing extremist groups with similar ideas which have formed since WW2.

Filter bubble: a term coined by Internet activist Eli Pariser in the early 2010s for the sort of echo chamber inherent to Internet usage, i.e., website algorithms selectively guessing what information users would like to see based on data such as location, past click-behavior and search history. As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological prejudices.

Fundamentalism: a type of conservative religious movement characterized by the advocacy of strict conformity to sacred texts. Fundamentalists have literalist interpretations of these texts and believe that the laws of God are above those of men.

General will: in political theory, a collectively held will that aims at the common good or common interest. The phrase was coined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract (1762).

Globalization: the process of integration of the world’s economies, politics, and cultures, notably through technological innovation and the freer circulation of goods, services, capital and people.

Great Replacement: a white supremacist conspiracy theory popularized by the French far-right writer Renaud Camus in 2011, according to which white Western populations are being replaced by non-white immigrants with the complicity of “replacist” elites.

Hate crime: a legal term that describes criminal acts where the motive is the victim’s appearance or perceived membership of a particular social group, like race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation. Hate crimes are meant to intimidate other individuals pertaining to the victim’s group.

Hate group: an organisation that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation.

Heartland: a term used by the political scientist Paul Taggart for the place “in which, in the populist imagination, a virtuous and unified population resides.” It is often associated to an idyllic, nostalgic representation of the country’s past.

Homophobia: negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality and/or the fear, discrimination and/or persecution of gay people.

Ideology: a comprehensive and coherent set of basic beliefs about political, economic, social and cultural affairs that is held in common by a sizable group of people within a society. These beliefs purport both to explain how political, economic, social and cultural institutions work and to prescribe how such institutions ought ideally to operate.

Indoctrination: the process of inculcating a person or people into an ideology uncritically.

Islamophobia: the fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general.

Liberalism: a 19^th century political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, right to private property, free trade and equality before the law. In the U.S., since the 1930s, the term has described an ideology with similar views on civil liberties and personal freedom issues, but also supporting a much stronger role for government in regulating the economy and providing public support for the economically and socially disadvantaged.

Liberal democracy: a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, separation of powers into different branches of government, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, a market economy with private property and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights and political freedoms for all people. After a period of sustained expansion throughout the 20^th century, liberal democracy became the predominant political system in the world.

Libertarianism: a 20^th century ideology holding that government should play only the most minimal possible role in economic, social and cultural life, with social relationships to be regulated as much as possible by voluntary contracts and generally accepted custom and as little as possible by statute law. Libertarians are generally suspicious of government interferences in all facets of public life.

Lone wolf: terrorist who acts on his or her own, without operational assistance or communication with other extremists.

Majoritarianism: a political philosophy that asserts that a majority of the population is entitled to primacy in society and has the right to make decisions that affect the whole of it. In extreme versions, majoritarianism is the idea that a 51% share of the popular vote entitles the winner to rule without interference from institutions like the judiciary, a free press and civil society organizations.

Masculinism: an ideology that claims to eliminate discriminations against men or promote attributes regarded as typical of males. The ideology is commonly associated to antifeminism and opposition to women’s rights.

Meritocracy: a political system in which economic goods or political power are vested in individual people based on ability and talent, rather than wealth or social class. The term is commonly used for societies that allow for a satisfactory degree of social mobility.

Moral panic: a widespread overreaction, exacerbated by mass media coverage and politicians, regarding a thing, a person or a group that is perceived to threaten the values, interests, or well-being of a society. The term was developed by the British sociologist Stanley Cohen.

Nation: a type of social organization where a collective identity has emerged from a combination of shared features, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory or society. Ethnic nationalism defines the nation on the basis of ethnicity while in most liberal democracies, civic nationalism defines it around constitutional principles.

Nationalism: an ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests. Nationalists usually elevate their nation above all others and place primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nationalities, or supranational groups. The term nationalism can also refer to the support of the political independence or self-determination of a people.

Nativism: the belief that the interests of native-born people should be promoted over those of immigrants. In the most extreme cases, nativists consider that non-natives fundamentally threaten the homogeneous nation state and that it should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group.

Nazism: the far-right totalitarian ideology associated to Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party and the state it controlled in Germany and Europe from 1933 to 1945. Nazism was defined by a doctrine of Aryan racial supremacy, demonization of the so-called Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy, a program of German military conquest, and systematic genocide against Jews and other people considered racial enemies or racially inferior. The term neo-Nazism is applied to right-wing extremist groups with similar ideas which have formed since WW2.

Neoliberalism: a term referring to an economic philosophy that emerged during the 1930s but which became widespread in the 1980s and is associated with a set of economic liberalization policies, including free trade, monetarism, privatization, deregulation, and reductions in government spending. The term is often used pejoratively.

Ochlocracy: a degenerative form of democracy in which government is ruled or intimidated by the mass of people or mob. Similar to mob rule or mobocracy.

Oligarchy: a system of government in which virtually all power is held by a small number of people who shape public policy primarily to benefit themselves financially while displaying little or no concern for the broader interests of the rest of the citizenry.  The term is also used to denote all the individual members of the small ruling group in such a system.

Overton window: the spectrum of acceptability of ideas and policies in a society at a given time outside of which they will appear extreme. To gain or keep public office, politicians can either remain within the Overton window or attempt to shift it so that their radical ideas are gradually normalized. The term was popularized by Joseph Overton, a American libertarian political scientist.

Pluralism: the view that diversity is beneficial to society and that power should be dispersed among a variety of economic, ideological, and cultural groups and not held by a single one. Pluralists generally consider that liberal democracy is the most adequate form of government to permit the peaceful coexistence of different interests, convictions, and lifestyles.

Political correctness (PC): a term used to refer to language or policies that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of groups defined by ethnicity, gender, culture, sexual orientation or disability. Since the late 1980s, the term has been used to describe a preference for inclusive language and avoidance of behavior that can be seen as excluding or insulting to said groups. The term is generally used as a pejorative to imply that these policies are excessive, unwarranted and/or useless.

Popular sovereignty: the principle that the government in a country is sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political legitimacy.

Populism:  a political stance that consists in championing the interests of the common people against those of the elite. 

Post-truth politics: a political culture in which debate is framed by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored.

Racism: discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity. The underlying ideology assumes that a person’s abilities may be determined by his or her race and that particular races are superior to others.

Radical right: a broad term for reactionary, nationalist and/or populist right-wing parties that typically oppose globalization, immigration and multiculturalism, and advocate for law-and-order policies. Some of these parties oppose liberal democracy and advocate for a degree of authoritarianism. In the U.S., the term radical right is often used synonymously with right-wing extremism.

Radicalization: the process by which an individual or a group increasingly accepts and supports radical views and/or actions.

Reactionary: a person or group that wants to reverse political changes and seeks to restore society to an earlier state that they believe was preferable. It is often used pejoratively to describe a conservative opposed to modernity.

Red pill: a reference to the 1999 film The Matrix, in which the protagonist has to choose between taking a red pill, which will enable him to see reality for what it is, or a blue pill, which will allow him to remain in a state of blissful ignorance. In the far right, the term means being ideologically aware: a “red-piller” has converted to far right views; “red-pilling” is recruiting people to the far-right cause.

Right: the portion of the political spectrum associated with conservative political thought. Right-wing politics views certain social orders and hierarchies as natural and inevitable.

Right-wing extremism: a spectrum of political thought that is radically conservative, ultra-nationalist and/or nativist and authoritarian. This includes neo-fascist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups and “Patriot” militias, as well as “single-issue” movements such as anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim extremists. These groups usually advocate for the use of violence and intend to overthrow the existing democratic order. Similar to far-right extremism or ultraright.

Sexism: discrimination against one sex or gender based on the belief of its inferiority. The term usually applies to prejudice against women. Extreme sexism includes sexual harassment, rape and other forms of sexual violence.

Social conservatism: a variety of conservatism that places emphasis on traditional social structures over social pluralism. Social conservatives generally advocate for traditional religious and family values, gender roles and sexual relations.

Social justice warrior (SJW): a derogatory term used for an individual who promotes socially progressive, left-wing or liberal views, including feminism, civil rights, gay and transgender rights, and multiculturalism. The accusation also implies that a person’s advocacy of such causes is insincere or done for appearances.

Sovereigntism: a doctrine that supports acquiring or preserving the political independence of a nation or a region in the exercise of its sovereignty. It opposes federalism and supranationalunions. The term has been used in France and other European countries synonymously with Euroscepticism.

Terrorism: the use or threat of violence against non-combatants or serious damage to property so as to achieve political aims, i.e., influence governments political, intimidate the public and/or advance a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

Theocracy: a form of government in which one or more deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities and religious law is dominant over civil law and enforced by state agencies.

Totalitarianism: domination by a single, like-minded governing elite of all (or virtually all) organized political, economic, social and cultural activities in a country by means of a single-party monopoly of power, police repression of all forms of opposition and of independent organizations, censorship of the mass media, centralized state planning and administration of the economy, and pervasive propaganda to inculcate the principles of the obligatory official ideology.

Ultranationalism: an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts hegemony over other nations to pursue its specific interests. Ultranationalists usually endorse fanatic loyalty to their nation and demonstrate aggressive hostility towards people of other nations.

Vox populi: a Latin phrase meaning “voice of the people,” synonymous with the opinion of the majority of the people.

​White supremacy: the belief that whites are superior to all other races and ethnic groups, that they should live among themselves and/or dominate the others. Similar to white nationalism and white pride.

Woke: an awareness of social inequalities, such as racial injustice, sexism and denial LGBT rights. The term comes from the African-American expression “stay woke” and its was popularized by Black Lives Matter activists in 2014. The right generally uses the terms “woke”, wokery and wokism as anti-progressive snarl words against individuals or groups promoting a socially progressive message, with connotations of intolerance and disingenuousness.

Xenophobia: fear of or distaste for people, ideas, or customs thought to be strange or foreign.