One root, different branches: Identity, injustice and schism.

The chapter examines the psychosocial processes connected to the dissolution of a parent right-wing party and the development of major vs. minor right-wing parties by taking as an exemplary case what happened in Italy after the Fiuggi Congress in 1995. At the Fiuggi Congress, the Movimento Sociale Italiano was dissolved. While the most of its members joined Alleanza Nazionale, a minority founded two more extremist, though minor, parties. The chapter investigates different levels of collective identities in extreme right-wing activists’ accounts of political involvement. Ideological identity turns out to be very strong in all party activists. Furthermore, activists of the major extreme right-wing party perceive the party as a container of many and diverse people; as a consequence of such heterogeneity, they develop a strong sub-party identity associated with a more homogeneous specific section inside the party (e.g., the juvenile movement). Activists of the minor extreme right-wing parties are strongly committed to their party and charge their membership with both an affirmative and a normative valence.