Political opportunities and mobilisation on the far-right in Ukraine

Abstract

The Ukrainian far right has attracted massive media interest, from Russian media condemning Ukraine’s alleged Nazi takeover to international media warning of it becoming a transnational far-right hotspot. Countering these misconceptions, this article empirically studies the Ukrainian far-right movement to explain its mobilisation dynamics 2004–2020. Why did mobilisation peak in 2010–2014, and decline after? I argue that a combination of political and discursive opportunities offers an answer. However, these opportunities played out differently in Ukraine – a hybrid regime at war – than conventional social movement theory suggests. The Ukrainian case thus furthers our understanding of far-right movements beyond consolidated democracies.