Support for the Far Right in the 2014 European Parliament Elections: A Comparative Perspective

The May 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were characterised by the success of far‐right Eurosceptic parties, including the French Front National, UKIP, the Danish People's Party, the Hungarian Jobbik, the Austrian FPÖ, the True Finns and the Greek Golden Dawn. However, a closer look at the results across Europe indicates that the success of far‐right parties in the EP elections is neither a linear nor a clear‐cut phenomenon: (1) the far right actually declined in many European countries compared to the 2009 results; (2) some of the countries that have experienced the worst of the economic crisis, including Spain, Portugal and Ireland, did not experience a significant rise in far‐right party support; and (3) ‘far right’ is too broad an umbrella term, covering parties that are too different from each other to be grouped in one single party family.     

Towards a ‘Civic’ Narrative: British National Identity and the Transformation of the British National Party

This article examines the ways in which the BNP utilises the elements of British national identity in its discourse and argues that, during Griffin's leadership, the party has made a discursive choice to shift the emphasis from an ethnic to a civic narrative. We put forward two hypotheses, 1: the modernisation of the discourse of extreme right parties in the British context is likely to be related to the adoption of a predominantly civic narrative and 2: in the context of British party competition the BNP is likely to converge towards UKIP, drawing upon elements of its perceived winning formula, i.e. a predominantly civic rhetoric of national identity. We proceed to empirically test our hypotheses by conducting a twofold comparison. First, we compare the BNP's discourse pre‐ and post‐1999 showing the BNP's progressive adoption of a civic narrative; and second the BNP's post‐1999 discourse to that of UKIP in order to illustrate their similarities in terms of civic values.     

Britain First: The ‘Frontline Resistance’ to the Islamification of Britain

The British National Party and English Defence League forged new frontiers in British political spaces in relation to anti‐Islam, anti‐Muslim ideologies. Whereas the former sought to do so in formal political arenas, the latter did so as a street‐level movement. With the subsequent waning of both, Britain First has emerged seemingly to fill the political void they left. In many ways, Britain First combines the strategies and actions of the parties that preceded it, at both the formal and street levels. This article considers what is known about Britain First, about its history, development and its ideology, and how this is manifested in terms of its political strategies and actions. This includes such activities as standing for European elections and also undertaking ‘Christian patrols’ and mosque ‘invasions’. The article considers how Britain First, while having some similarities with the BNP and EDL, is more confrontational and militaristic and is informed by apocalyptic Christianity.     

Keeping the rascals in: Anti‐political‐establishment parties and their cost of governing in established democracies

Coalition governments in established democracies incur, on average, an electoral ‘cost of governing’. This cost varies across coalition partners, and is higher for anti‐political‐establishment parties. This is because, if such a party participates in a coalition, it loses the purity of its message by being seen to cooperate with the political establishment. In order to demonstrate that anti‐political‐establishment parties suffer an additional cost of governing, this article builds on the work by Van der Brug et al. and refines the standard cost of governing theory by ‘bringing the party back in’. The results of the analyses, based on 594 observations concerning 51 parties in seven Western European countries, cast doubt on the conventional concept of a cost of governing that pertains to all parties equally. The findings call for a major revision of the standard cost of governing literature, while adding a significant contribution to the debate on strategies against parties that may constitute a danger to democracy.     

The Rise of the Far Right in Debtor and Creditor European Countries: The Case of European Parliament Elections

While the 2014 European Parliament elections were marked by the rise of parties on the far right‐wing, the different patterns of support that we observe across Europe and across time are not directly related to the economic crisis. Indeed, economic hardship seems neither sufficient nor necessary for the rise of such parties to occur. Using the cross‐national results for the 2004, 2009 and 2014 EP elections in order to capture time and country variations, we posit that the economy affects the rise of far right‐wing parties in more complex ways. Specifically, we compare the experience of high‐debt countries (the ‘debtors’) and the others (the ‘creditors’) and explore the relationship between far right‐wing party success on the one hand, and unemployment, inequality, immigration, globalisation and the welfare state on the other. Our discussion suggests there might be a trade‐off between budgetary stability and far right‐wing party support, but the choice between Charybdis and Scylla may be avoided if policy‐makers carefully choose which policies should bear the brunt of the fiscal adjustment.     

From apathy to obsession: the reactions of A. K. Chesterton and the British far right to imperial decline

ABSTRACT

Mulhall sets out to explain how, contrary to what one might expect, imperial decline was rarely a pressing issue for the British far right, usually falling below both the perceived threats of Communism and immigration on their list of priorities. By first explaining these unexpected findings and then placing them in an international comparative context, new evidence emerges that supports those imperial historians who subscribe to the ‘minimal impact’ orthodoxy regarding the effect of empire on the metropole. In addition, however, those aspects of the radical right that did concern themselves with imperial decline, namely A. K. Chesterton and the League of Empire Loyalists, are explored in depth, revealing a peculiarly British form of conspiratorial antisemitism that blamed imperial decline on secret Jewish power. This strand of conspiracy thinking, best articulated by Chesterton, is traced back to its origin so as to illuminate the continuity of ideas and ideologies between the interwar and post-war periods within the British far right. The result is an article that contributes to several existing historiographical debates and provides an exploration of a less well-known aspect of the work of A. K. Chesterton and conspiratorial antisemitism more generally.     

The Discourse of the Extreme Right and Its Ideological Implications: The Case of the Alleanza nazionale on Immigration

Against the background of research on Italian parliamentary debates on immigration, ter Wal looks at the ideological positions of the extreme-right Alleanza nazionale (AN) concerning both immigration and integration policy. In order to unravel the ideological implications she focuses on examples of various rhetorical strategies enacted in speeches by several of the party's MPs: including stategies of self- and other-presentation, and of justification and causal explanation. This analysis shows how the AN manages to propagate an ideology of ethnic nationalism that eschews the egalitarian norms and cultural pluralism necessary for full participation by migrants. The AN's transformation and re-interpretation of the meaning of the key values of equality andsolidarietàfunction as a justification for the restriction of migrants' rights. Speakers shift the perspective from immigrants' problems to the socio-economic problems of Italians in order to recommend a policy of 'the own people first'. While the AN's discourse thus continues to build on traditional extreme-right beliefs and claims, on the other hand it also espouses New Right ideologies of cultural relativism. Moreover, unlike that of radical-right parties, the AN's discourse does not express blatant forms of ethnic prejudice in the form of stereotypical beliefs and negative representations of immigrants' personal characteristics, nor does it blame immigrants, who are rather represented, and sympathized with, as victims. The moderation of and internal contradictions in its discourse makes the AN difficult     

The Impact of the Australian Government Job Network Contracting on Not‐for‐Profit Service Providers

This article examines the impact of Australian government contracting for the provision of Job Network services on not‐for‐profit organisations ¹ . The term not‐for‐profit is used to categorise organisations which are variously described as non‐government, non‐profit, community and third sector organisations ( Lyons 2001 ).     

The Great British Education ‘Fraud’ of the Twentieth and Twenty‐First Centuries

The role played by educational credentials in British labour market recruitment changed radically during the mid‐twentieth century. Having higher or better credentials than others became a key determinant in selection for society's best‐paid jobs. The resulting race for them has had perverse effects. A large minority of graduates earn no more than non‐graduates or are in jobs for which they are ‘overeducated’. In various ways, the incentive to ‘stay ahead’ has prompted large expenditures by families to improve the qualifications a child obtains at school, while there is also now huge demand for postgraduate qualifications. Not only is there resulting social waste but also social injustice; while education was understood previously as a means of breaking down barriers to social mobility, it now has the opposite effect. This article explores the causes of these developments and outlines briefly how a new centre‐left agenda for education might be constructed.     

和谐语境下社会公益权研究——公益诉讼中社会中间层角色考量

在建设和谐社会的背景下,对公共利益的救济成为关注的焦点问题。公共利益是公益诉讼的利益源头,以利益出发,对公共利益进行法权凝练,进而建构社会公益权这种新型的权利,并以此为权利契机,对公益诉讼的主体进行分析,赋予社会中间层组织以原告资格,是对现有权利体系与诉讼制度的完善与修正。     

Why Right‐Leaning Populism has Grown in the Most Advanced Liberal Democracies of Europe

Immigration and new class divisions, combined with a growing anti‐elitism and political correctness, are often used as explanations for the strong gains for right‐leaning populist parties in national elections across Europe in recent years. But contrary to what we might assume, such parties have been very successful in the most developed and comprehensive welfare states, in nations—such as the Nordic countries—with the best scores on economic equality and social inclusion and long established political and judicial institutions enjoying a high degree of popular legitimacy. As argued in this article, this seems to happen because a duopoly of the centre‐left and centre‐right political establishment has kept issues such as immigration and new class divisions off the public agenda and hence paved the way for right‐leaning ‘disruptor’ populist parties with an anti‐immigration agenda in times of increasing immigration.     

Explaining the ‘quiet earthquake’: voting behaviour in the first election to the National Assembly for Wales

This paper examines voting behaviour in the inaugural election to the National Assembly for Wales (NAW), held in May 1999. We address two questions: (i) why did the election produce a ‘quiet earthquake’ in Welsh electoral politics, with the nationalist Plaid Cymru denying the Labour party their expected majority in the Assembly?; and (ii) what broader lessons does this case-study offer for the study of elections in the UK under devolution? Drawing on data from the Welsh National Assembly Election Study, we find that while some features of second-order election theories, such as lower turnout and a lower vote share for the governing party were manifest, contrary to the predictions of such theories the surge in electoral support for Plaid was largely prompted by Welsh-specific factors rather than UK-wide ones. The findings are argued to indicate limits to the applicability of second-order approaches to the study of devolved elections in the UK.     

The Impact of Affirmative Action on the Employment of Minorities and Women: A Longitudinal Analysis Using Three Decades of EEO‐1 Filings

What role has affirmative action played in the growth of minority and female employment in U.S. firms? This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of this question by exploiting rich variation across firms in the timing of federal contracting to identify affirmative action effects over the course of three decades spanning 1973 to 2003. It constitutes the first study to comprehensively document the long‐term and dynamic effects of affirmative action in federal contracting on employment composition within firms in the United States. I use a new panel of over 100,000 large private‐sector firms from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including both firms that obtain federal contracts and are therefore mandated to implement affirmative action and firms that are noncontractors, across all industries and regions. The paper's key results indicate that the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action in federal contracting over 1973 to 2003 were black and Native American women and men. Dynamic event study analysis of workforce composition around the time of contracting reveals that a large part of the effect of affirmative action on increasing protected group shares occurred within the first four years of gaining a contract, and that these increased shares persisted even after a firm was no longer a federal contractor. The paper also uncovers important results on how the impact of affirmative action evolved over 1973 to 2003, in particular that the fastest growth in the employment shares of minorities and women at federal contractors relative to noncontracting firms occurred during the 1970s and early 1980s, decelerating substantially in ensuing years.     

‘Family Businesses Distributing America's Beverage’: managing government relations in the National Beer Wholesalers Association

Over the past decade, America's National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) has transformed itself from an organisation lacking much political influence into one of the most powerful interest groups on Capitol Hill. The NBWA has been described as “the toughest lobby you never heard of” (Birnbaum 1998: 148). Its strategy over this period provides an ideal case study of how to manage government relations within a trade association. It demonstrates the importance of establishing and implementing a measurable strategy, maximising the impact of a range of lobbying tools and leveraging the political environment to operate as effectively as possible. Senator Ben Nelson (Dem, Nebraska) has stated that, ‘NBWA is one of the most effective trade associations in Washington DC, with a staff that is savvy to the public relations and marketing strategies required to be influential on Capitol Hill’ (Nelson 2001). Indeed, the fact that the NBWA's government relations programme is so explicitly based upon marketing principles is unusual from a British perspective; even in the American context, the strategy is executed particularly effectively. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Delivering Science into Public Policy: An Analysis of Murray‐Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Assessment as a Model for Impact

The desire to base policy at least in part upon scientific information is a clear trend in Australian governance. The growing literature on how to facilitate this intent highlights a few important principles complemented by examples from the application of social sciences. An example from a very large research project based on physical sciences responding to a national crisis is presented in the context of how it approached delivery to policy‐makers. The Murray‐Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Assessment, widely considered an outstanding success in both scientific terms and for its impact, is reviewed with respect to how the scientific challenge of assessing the future security of water resources in Australia's most important and politically contentious catchment translated into the policy domain. The lessons learned offer a potential template for science with policy intent.     

Bridging the ideological space: A cross‐national analysis of the distance of party switching

Scholars have investigated the characteristics of volatile voters ever since the first voter surveys were carried out and they have paid specific attention to the role of political sophistication on vote switching. Nevertheless, the exact nature of this relationship is still unclear. With increasing volatility over the past decades this question has furthermore grown in relevance. Is the growing unpredictability of elections mostly driven by sophisticated voters making well‐considered choices or is the balance of power in the hands of unsophisticated ‘floating voters’? Several scholars have argued that even under conditions of increasing volatility switching is still mostly confined to changes to ideologically close parties. Most researchers, however, have used rather crude measures to investigate this ‘leap’ between parties. To advance research in this field, this article directly models the ideological distance bridged by volatile voters when investigating the link between political sophistication and volatility. This is done using Comparative Study of Electoral systems (CSES) data that encompass a broad sample of recent parliamentary elections worldwide. Results indicate that voters with an intermediate level of political knowledge are most likely to switch overall. When taking into account the ideological distance of party switching, however, the confining impact of political knowledge on the vote choices made is clearly dominant, resulting in a linear decrease of the distance bridged as voters become more knowledgeable.     

Confidence and Caretakers: Some Less‐Obvious Implications of the Fixed‐Term Parliaments Act

This article explores the 2011 Fixed‐term Parliaments Act's less‐obvious implications. First, it discusses why Theresa May found calling the 2017 election so straightforward, and notes what this implies for how FTPA works. Second, it looks at executive–legislative relations. FTPA removed the government's ability to designate controversial parliamentary votes as matters of confidence, and introduced a fourteen‐day cushion between a no‐confidence vote and Parliament's dissolution. In the process, it shifted the balance of power from ministers to backbenchers, to an extent potentially greater than most observers recognise. Third, it considers the more outlandish possibilities raised by FTPA's imposition of a fourteen‐day waiting period after a government's defeat on a no‐confidence motion before a new election can be called. It is possible, for example, for rebel MPs from the governing party to use the no‐confidence procedure to force concessions from the cabinet. Finally, it assesses FTPA's long‐term survival prospects, and what repeal would involve.     

Working the Spaces in between: A Case Study of a Boundary‐Spanning Model to Help Facilitate Cross‐Sectoral Policy Work

Since the 1990s, ‘joined‐up government,’ ‘whole‐of‐government,’ and ‘horizontal governance’ approaches have emerged in many industrialized countries, resulting in the devolution of government functions to diverse policy networks. From these shifts, complex systems of networked actors have emerged, involved in designing, implementation, and influencing policy. Arguably, networked approaches to policy may solve some problems. However, as with all paradigm shifts, new problems have emerged. Specifically, skill and knowledge gaps have opened up, reflecting the need for new collaborative and networked relationships that can increase the capabilities and agility to work in these ways. In response to these gaps, we developed the Power to Persuade initiative. Power to Persuade is an annual symposium and online forum, aimed at deepening knowledge and awareness of current problems faced by policy networks, and providing the skills and knowledge to overcome them. In this paper, we discuss how Power to Persuade works within the spaces in between as a vehicle for relationship building and better policy.     

Co‐Production of Public Services in Australia: The Roles of Government Organisations and Co‐Producers

This article adds to the emerging empirical literature on citizen co‐production. Based on a telephone survey of 1000 Australian adults, it replicates a five‐country European study focusing on three policy domains: neighbourhood safety, environment, and health (Loeffler et al. 2008). It shows that individually performed and closely reciprocal activities with high levels of private value are performed the most often, whereas group activities producing mainly public value are the least performed. We found no evidence of a relationship between service satisfaction and co‐production, or between information provision/inclusion/consultation and co‐production, which challenges some of the previous literature on what might motivate citizens to co‐produce. Citizen self‐efficacy has a modest relationship with co‐production levels in each of the three policy domains. These findings have implications for policymakers, and pave the way for future empirical research in this field.     

Anti-capitalism in the name of ethno-nationalism: ideological shifts on the German extreme right

ABSTRACT

Sommer examines the (re-)emergence of anti-capitalist and anti-globalization themes within the ideology and discourses of the German extreme right. He argues that it would be short-sighted to interpret this development simply as another opportunistic attempt by the extreme right to incorporate Zeitgeist issues into its political agenda in order to appeal to a broader spectrum of supporters. An analysis of the latest campaigns of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD)—the most successful extreme-right party in recent years—as well as the activities of groups that exist within the larger German extreme-right milieu, the so-called freie Kameradschaften, reveals that the taking up of social questions as well as anti-capitalist and anti-globalization themes marks a deeper shift within the political agenda of the extreme right in Germany. However, the analysis shows that racist and antisemitic issues do not disappear with this shift, but are linked with and incorporated into anti-capitalist and anti-globalization discourses.