Caterina Froio (Sciences Po)

The far-right protest observatory (FARPO) and its applications

Abstract: The global rise of far-right movements has attracted considerable attention in recent years. The Far-Right Protest Observatory (FARPO) emerges as a comprehensive database documenting various aspects of these protests, encompassing their ideological foundations, repertoires of action, interactions with political parties, and societal impacts in Europe from 2008 to 2021. This presentation explores the construction, structure, and potential applications of the FARPO. The methodology employed in compiling and categorizing protest data (Protest Event Analysis) is outlined, emphasizing encountered challenges and limitations. Subsequently, two main theoretical and methodological applications of the FARPO are examined. Firstly, it is used to study far-right mobilization during significant events such as the Great Recession, shifts in the EU asylum policy, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, a methodology is proposed to automate data collection for protest event analysis, utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyse protest events across various countries via multilingual newspaper articles. Through these examples, the presentation demonstrates how the FARPO enables nuanced analyses of far-right mobilization dynamics, aiding researchers, and practitioners in identifying trends, anticipating future developments, and formulating evidence-based interventions. Overall, this underscores the significance of the FARPO as a valuable tool in understanding and addressing the challenges posed by far-right activism in contemporary democracies.