How political violence strengthened Hitler and Mussolini—and what that means for today

• Political violence shifts election results: Right-wing extremists benefit.
• Asymmetrical effect: right-wingers win, other camps - such as the communist left - lose.
• Counter-strategies unclear - but: power-sharing has a stabilising effect.

Where political violence prevails, right-wing extremist parties gain votes. This is the central finding of the research project "Democracy, Anger, and Elite Responses" (DANGER) at Witten/Herdecke University (UW/H). Project leader Prof Dr Nils-Christian Bormann and his team spent five years investigating how European democracies came under pressure in the interwar period - between 1919 and 1939 - and what this means for today's democracies.

The results are clear: Mussolini's Fascists and Hitler's National Socialists won a disproportionate number of votes in Italian municipalities and German districts where political violence occurred. Similar patterns emerged in Austria and Czechoslovakia. The communist left, on the other hand, hardly benefited or even lost voters. "Violence has an asymmetrical effect," says Bormann. "It favours the radical right in particular."

A finding that extends to the present day: recent studies suggest that violence can also benefit radical right-wing parties in today's Germany.

What can political leaders do?

The answers to perhaps the most pressing political questions are less clear: what can democratic elites - i.e. those with political responsibility - do today to counteract the rise of anti-democratic forces? The DANGER project analysed various strategies, from the consistent exclusion of extreme parties, as in Belgium and Czechoslovakia, to inclusion, as in Finland. None of these strategies proved to be effective in all contexts.

And the second central question also remains unanswered: What helps against political violence? "The fact that political violence can benefit right-wing extremist parties is empirically well documented. However, we are not yet able to say unequivocally how it can be effectively curbed - there is a lack of reliable data and clear empirical findings," says Bormann.

However, the researchers have found a cautious glimmer of hope. In the democracies of post-war Europe, governing parties share power and ministerial posts more readily than in the interwar period and than in any other region of the world. This behaviour, which the DANGER project was able to systematically demonstrate for the first time, distinguishes today's Europe from earlier and other democracies - and is considered to be stabilising, because broadly shared power tends to balance out political conflicts and makes a dangerous concentration of influence more difficult.

New data basis for research

In addition to the political findings, the project has also created an important database. The "Archive of Interwar European Election Data and Assemblies" (AIEEDA) is the first comparative dataset on election results, coalitions and party characteristics for 25 European democracies of the interwar period. It is supplemented by a systematic event dataset on political violence in European democracies of this period. At the same time, the project reveals a central gap: There is a lack of reliable, systematically collected data on political violence in Europe today. "This is where future research must start - because without better data, it remains unclear how dangerous current developments really are," says Bormann.

Further information:

The DANGER project was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with a Starting Grant totalling 1.5 million euros. The ECR was established by the European Union in 2007 and is the first European funding organisation for outstanding research. Funding is available to independent young researchers of any nationality with two to seven years of experience after completion of doctoral studies (or equivalent academic degree) and a promising scientific track record.

You can also find out more about the project and its results in the Review of Democracy podcast: revdem.ceu.edu/2026/03/19/violence-elites-democratic-stability/