Economic conditions and populist radical right voting: The role of issue salience

In this article, we show with the European Election Study from nine Western European countries that issue salience of the economy and immigration contributes to our understanding of the puzzling relation between economic conditions and populist radical right support. In countries with relatively weak or worsening economic conditions, the economy is considered more salient, whereas immigration loses salience – also compared to other issues. Voters who perceive the economy as most important problem are less likely to opt for the populist radical right than people who perceive immigration or even other issues as most important. Populist radical right parties appear to not only win votes on the immigration issue, they also lose votes on the economic issue. Finally, in contrast to actual economic conditions, negative perceptions of the economy increases populist radical right voting, despite stronger salience of the economy and partly due to stronger salience of immigration compared to other issues.     

Populism in election times: a comparative analysis of 11 countries in Western Europe

Abstract

The article comparatively examines the levels of populism exhibited by parties in Western Europe. It relies on a quantitative content analysis of press releases collected in the context of 11 national elections between 2012 and 2015. In line with the first hypothesis, the results show that parties from both the radical right and the radical left make use of populist appeals more frequently than mainstream parties. With regard to populism on cultural issues, the article establishes that the radical right outclasses the remaining parties, thereby supporting the second hypothesis. On economic issues, both types of radical parties are shown to be particularly populist. This pattern counters the third hypothesis, which suggests that economic populism is most prevalent among the radical left. Finally, there is no evidence for the fourth hypothesis, given that parties from the south do not resort to more populism on economic issues than those from the north.     

The electoral consequences of the financial and economic crisis in Europe

The electoral consequences of the Great Recession are analysed in this article by combining insights from economic voting theories and the literature on party system change. Taking cues from these two theoretical perspectives, the impact of the Great Recession on the stability and change of Western, Central and Eastern European party systems is assessed. The article starts from the premise that, in order to fully assess the impact of the contemporary crisis, classic economic voting hypotheses focused on incumbent parties need to be combined with accounts of long‐term party system change provided by realignment and dealignment theories. The empirical analysis draws on an original dataset of election results and economic and political indicators in 30 European democracies. The results indicate that during the Great Recession economic strain was associated with sizable losses for incumbent parties and an increasing destabilisation of Western European party systems, while its impact was significantly weaker in Central and Eastern European countries, where political rather than economic failures appeared to be more relevant. In line with the realignment perspective, the results also reveal that in Western Europe populist radical right, radical left and non‐mainstream parties benefited the most from the economic hardship, while support for mainstream parties decreased further.     

Three decades of populist radical right parties in Western Europe: So what?

The populist radical right constitutes the most successful party family in postwar Western Europe. Many accounts in both academia and the media warn of the growing influence of populist radical right parties (PRRPs), the so‐called ‘verrechtsing’ (or right turn) of European politics, but few provide empirical evidence of it. This lecture provides a first comprehensive analysis of the alleged effects of the populist radical right on the people, parties, policies and polities of Western Europe. The conclusions are sobering. The effects are largely limited to the broader immigration issue, and even here PRRPs should be seen as catalysts rather than initiators, who are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the introduction of stricter immigration policies. The lecture ends by providing various explanations for the limited impact of PRRPs, but it is also argued that populist parties are not destined for success in opposition and failure in government. In fact, there are at least three reasons why PRRPs might increase their impact in the near future: the tabloidisation of political discourse; the aftermath of the economic crisis; and the learning curve of PRRPs. Even in the unlikely event that PRRPs will become major players in West European politics, it is unlikely that this will lead to a fundamental transformation of the political system. PRRPs are not a normal pathology of European democracy, unrelated to its basic values, but a pathological normalcy, which strives for the radicalisation of mainstream values.     

Still blurry? Economic salience,position and voting for radical right parties in Western Europe

Do radical right parties present blurry economic stances, or have they clarified their positions while moving towards the economic left? This article questions the strategic behaviour of radical right parties in Western Europe. It shows that although radical right parties have increased their discussion of economic issues, and expert placements of this party family on the economic dimension have become more centrist over time, the uncertainty surrounding these placements continues to be higher for the radical right than any other party family in Europe. The article then moves on to examine to what extent voter-party congruence on redistribution, immigration and other issues of social lifestyle predict an individual's propensity to vote for the radical right compared to other parties. Although redistribution is the component of economic policy where the radical right seems to be centrist, the findings indicate that it remains party-voter congruence on immigration that drives support for radical right parties, while the congruence level for redistribution has an insignificant effect. The article concludes that while radical right parties seem to have included some clearly left-leaning economic proposals, which shifted the general expert views of these parties to the economic centre, their overall economic profiles remain as blurry as ever.     

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.     

Is extreme right-wing populism contagious? Explaining the emergence of a new party family

Abstract.  This article presents a new model for explaining the emergence of the party family of extreme right-wing populist parties in Western Europe. As the old master frame of the extreme right was rendered impotent by the outcome of the Second World War, it took the innovation of a new, potent master frame before the extreme right was able to break electoral marginalization. Such a master frame – combining ethnonationalist xenophobia, based on the doctrine of ethnopluralism, with anti-political-establishment populism – evolved in the 1970s, and was made known as a successful frame in connection with the electoral breakthrough of the French Front National in 1984. This event started a process of cross-national diffusion, where embryonic extreme right-wing groups and networks elsewhere adopted the new frame. Hence, the emergence of similar parties, clustered in time (i.e., the birth of a new party family) had less to do with structural factors influencing different political systems in similar ways as with cross-national diffusion of frames. The innovation and diffusion of the new master frame was a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the emergence of extreme right-wing populist parties. In order to complete the model, a short list of different political opportunity structures is added.     

Gender and the radical right in Western Europe: a comparative analysis of policy agendas

ABSTRACT

Systematic research comparing the views of populist radical-right parties with respect to gender issues is still scarce. Akkerman’s article aims to fill this gap by comparing the positions of the six most successful populist radical-right parties in Western Europe. Her focus is on gender issues in the policy domain of family relations, on the one hand, and in that of immigration and integration, on the other. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses of external and internal party documents has been used to assess the positions of the main populist radical-right parties with regard to these two policy domains. Akkerman's analysis shows that, in the domain of family relations, the parties are traditionally conservative or adopt a more flexible modern conservative position. Compared to mainstream right-wing parties, which are consistently more liberal than their radical-right counterparts, conservatism on issues relating to the family sets the radical parties clearly apart. Yet, as this particular profile tends to become less salient over time, it is doubtful that gender issues in this traditional policy domain will continue to be a defining characteristic of these parties. Gender issues have gained importance for populist radical-right parties in the domain of immigration and integration policies but, in this context, the parties do not display a conservative profile. They tend to emphasize the principles of gender equality and sometimes also gay rights, although these commitments are mainly rhetorical and instrumental to anti-immigration and anti-Islam agendas. Conservative views of gender remain the defining, albeit less salient, characteristic of these parties.     

Radical Right Populism in Sweden: Still a Failure,But for How Long?

Although radical right populist (RRP) parties were successful elsewhere in Western Europe during the 1990s, Denmark and Norway included, the Swedish RRP parties have been more or less failures. Besides the short-lived party New Democracy, which disappeared in 1994, no Swedish RRP party has managed to escape electoral marginalization. The main purpose of this article is to explain this failure. Such an explanation is approached by using explanatory factors identified from earlier research on RRP parties elsewhere. We find some factors that have worked against the emergence of a strong Swedish RRP party, namely: enduring class loyalties, especially for working-class voters; an enduring high salience of the economic cleavage dimension (and a corresponding low salience of the sociocultural cleavage dimension); a relatively low salience of the immigration issue; and finally, a low degree of convergence between the established parties in political space. However, we also find some important indicators that there may be an available niche for the emergence of a Swedish RRP party in the near future, namely: widespread popular xenophobia; a high level of discontent with political parties and other political institutions; and a potential available niche for an anti-EU party of the right. Hence, this article concludes that if a sufficiently attractive party emerges in Sweden, with a certain degree of strategic sophistication and without too visible an anti-democratic heresy, it might be able to attract enough voters to secure representation in the Swedish parliament.     

Direct and Indirect Welfare Chauvinism as Party Strategies: An Analysis of the Danish People's Party

This article develops a theoretical distinction between direct and indirect welfare chauvinism in order to analyze how electorally successful populist right‐wing parties transmit social policy preferences with significant redistributive implications for the shape of the welfare state. Direct welfare chauvinism occurs as a result of legislative changes that explicitly exclude recipients from social protection or reduce the level thereof on the basis of ethnicity. Indirect welfare chauvinism is the result of policy measures that apply to both natives and immigrants, but which deliberately negatively affect immigrants the most. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis of labour market reforms in Denmark, where one of the most successful populist right‐wing parties in Europe – the Danish People's Party – held a pivotal position in the period 2001–11, the article traces the intentions and deliberate policy‐making strategies of the party. It shows that the distinction between direct and indirect chauvinism is a useful theoretical tool for understanding how the Danish People's Party can fulfill the expectations of both its electorate and its coalition partners, even if they point in different directions.     

Voting for extreme right parties in Israel: Evidence from the 2009 elections

In recent years, extreme right parties have received considerable electoral support in Europe. Accordingly, many scholars have examined the factors attracting voters in many Western democracies to extreme right parties. In this study, we sought to determine what factors are responsible for the support of extreme right parties in Israel. Using Israel National Election Studies micro-data for the 2009 elections, we found evidence that political dissatisfaction and security issues significantly contribute to support for extreme right parties. In contrast to other countries where economic issues are more salient, our results suggest that economic views do not significantly explain one's support for extreme right parties.     

Religion,partisanship and preferences for redistribution

This article offers a new theoretical explanation of the relationship between religion and the demand for redistribution. Previous literature shows that religious individuals are less likely to favour redistribution either because (a) religion provides a substitute for state welfare provision, or (b) it adds a salient moral dimension to an individual's calculus which induces them to act contrary to their economic interests. In this article, it is argued that the effect of religion on an individual's redistributive preferences is best explained by their partisanship, via a process of partisan motivated reasoning. In contexts where parties are able to combine religion with pro-redistribution policies, religious individuals are more likely to favour redistribution as doing so reinforces their partisan identity. In advanced democracies, religious individuals are more likely to be supporters of centre-right parties that oppose redistribution. However, in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) the historical and political context leads to the opposite expectation. The nature of party competition in CEE has seen nationalist populist parties adopt policy platforms that combine religion and leftist economic programmes. They are able to credibly combine these two positions due to the way in which religion and the welfare state became linked to conceptions of the nation during the inter-war state-building years. Using data from 2002–2014, the study shows that religiosity is associated with pro-redistribution attitudes in CEE. Furthermore, religious supporters of nationalist populist parties are more likely to favour redistribution than religious supporters of other parties. The results of this research add greater nuance to our understanding of the relationship between religiosity and economic preferences.     

Demonisation and electoral support for populist radical right parties: A temporary effect

Since the 1980s, Western Europe has experienced the surge of populist radical right parties. In an attempt to ward off these electoral newcomers, established parties have pursued strategies of disengagement, such as exclusion and de-legitimisation. This study examines the electoral effects of an excessive form of de-legitimisation, which we label ‘demonisation’. We estimate the effects of demonisation on electoral support for the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and its predecessor Groep Wilders. Time series analyses show that demonisation has a negative effect on electoral support, but only for Groep Wilders. Once the populist radical right party has made a successful entry into the party system, demonisation does not have its intended consequences.     

The Contemporary Relationship of ‘New Left’ and ‘New Right’ Parties with Interest Groups: Exceptional or Mainstream? The Case of Norway's Socialist Left and Progress Party

Allegedly, the new green and left parties that were established in Western Europe during or after the 1960s tend to be characterized by informal but significant links with social movement organizations. In contrast, weak links or virtual lack of such connections is often seen as one of the enduring characteristics of the new populist (radical) right parties. However, there are both empirical and theoretical reasons for examining these conventional wisdom(s) more closely. To date, only limited evidence is available on this aspect of new European parties in general. Examining Norway's successful new left and populist right party, and based on rich original data, this case study adds to our knowledge in several ways. The analysis reveals that the socialist left has even closer and more wide‐ranging relationships with interest groups than traditionally suggested and that the Progress Party enjoys organized contact with various interest groups. Since these parties are only two, and not necessarily quintessential examples of the party families in question, the results cannot overturn the conventional wisdom, but they nonetheless question and supplement it by throwing light on the conditions favouring the development of stronger, and more varied, links to interest groups. Together with other presumably ‘atypical’ party examples mentioned in scholarly literature, the case of Norway calls for further empirical investigation. Finally, with an eye to future comparative research, the possible explanations for these findings are briefly discussed.     

To adapt or to defend? Comparing position shifts among Bundestag candidates between 2013 and 2017

In this research note, candidate survey data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) is used to analyse positional shifts of German Bundestag parties between 2013 and 2017. Two developments make Germany a particularly interesting case: (1) the liberal but also controversial policies of the Merkel cabinet during the European refugee crisis and (2) the change of leadership within the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Applying scaling techniques to locate candidates of both elections in the same two-dimensional policy space, the analysis demonstrates that in 2017 the AfD took a distinct radical right position in the party system of Germany. Moreover, the study finds that almost all parties moved to the right on the cultural left–right dimension in 2017, whereas for the economic left–right dimension this has not been the case. Contrary to the mantra of an ideological delineation against right-wing populism, there has been a robust socio-political conservative shift in the German party system.     

Blind spots in the party system: Spatial voting and issue salience if voters face scarce choices

Drawing on spatial models of political competition, this research investigates whether decision weights vary across groups of voters defined by their policy positioning in a two-dimensional space. Our analyses of electoral survey data from England, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland reveal that the economic and cultural dimensions of electoral competition are salient for the vote choice of most groups of voters. However, those voters who hold economically right and culturally libertarian preferences weigh their preferences on the economic dimension more and discount parties’ position on cultural issues when no party represents their configuration of preferences. Consequently, left parties are less able to attain votes of economically right but culturally libertarian voters for cultural policy reasons, when electoral choices are scarce, while right parties are successful in attaining votes based on both dimensions. As a result, significant representation gaps can occur.     

Right‐wing populist parties in Austria and Switzerland: A comparative analysis of electoral support and conditions of success

This article analyses the electoral support and parliamentary representation of right‐wing populist parties in Austria (FPO) and Switzerland (SD, AP/FPS, Lega dei Ticinesi). Contrary to the empirical evidence in many other fields of the political systems in these two Alpine republics, the analysis reveals strong differences rather than similiarities in the electoral support of right‐wing populist parties in both countries. This is explained by the differences in political culture and historic circumstances, performance of the established (governing) parties, party political penetration of social institutions, structure of the party system and the contrasting importance of direct‐democratic structures in the two countries. The exceptional skill of the right‐wing populist leader in Austria can also be seen as a significant factor. In contrast, neither social and economic variables, such as the economic situation, the unemployment rate and the overall number of asylum‐seekers, nor the strength and performance of green‐alternative parties seem to be important factors in explaining the differing success of right‐wing populist parties in Austria and Switzerland.     

Economic crisis and the variety of populist response: evidence from Greece,Portugal and Spain

Abstract

Greece, Portugal and Spain are among the countries worst hit by the 2008 Great Recession, followed by significant electoral and political turmoil. However, one of the dimensions in which they differ is the presence and varieties of populism in parties’ political proposals. Drawing on holistic coding of party manifestos, we assess the varying presence of populist rhetoric in mainstream and challenger parties before and after the 2008 economic downturn. Our empirical findings show that populism is much higher in Greece compared to Spain and Portugal. We do not find a significant impact of the crisis as the degree of populism remains rather stable in Greece and Portugal, while it increases in Spain, mainly due to the rise of new populist forces. The study confirms that populist rhetoric is a strategy adopted mainly by challenger and ideologically radical parties. In addition, inclusionary populism is the predominant flavour of populist parties in new Southern Europe, although exclusionary populism is present to a lesser extent in the Greek case. We contend that the interaction between the national context – namely the ideological legacy of parties and the main dimensions of competition – and the strategic options of party leadership is crucial for explaining cross-country variation in the intensity of populism and the specific issues that characterise populist discourse.     

Strategic Eurosceptics and polite xenophobes: Support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2009 European Parliament elections

While Euroscepticism is the most important driver of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) support, other attitudinal drivers – namely dissatisfaction towards mainstream parties and xenophobia – are also important. Examining vote‐switching between first‐ and second‐order elections evidence is found of a distinction between two types of supporter: more affluent and middle‐class ‘strategic defectors’ from the mainstream Conservative Party who support UKIP to register their Euroscepticism, and more economically marginal and politically disaffected ‘core loyalists’ who are attracted to UKIP by its anti‐immigration rhetoric and populist anti‐establishment strategy. UKIP also succeeds in attracting core support from groups such as women who have traditionally rejected extreme right parties such as the British National Party (BNP). This suggests that UKIP is well positioned to recruit a broader and more enduring base of support than the BNP.     

Understanding varieties of populism in times of crises

Abstract

This introduction presents the conceptual and analytical framework which constitutes the background for the special issue entitled ‘Varieties of Populism in Europe in Times of Crises’. More specifically, this contribution investigates how different populist parties in the European Union have been affected by the recent economic crisis and the more long-lasting political and cultural crises. Analytically, the article disentangles the role of the Great Recession vis-à-vis other factors (such as political and party system factors, but also structural social changes or cultural opportunities) in the growing strength of populist parties in various European countries. It argues that although the economic crisis has without any doubt provided a specific ‘window of opportunity’ for the emergence of new political actors, which have capitalised on citizens’ discontent, long-lasting political factors – such as the increasing distrust toward political institutions and parties – and the more recent cultural crisis connected with migration issues have offered further fertile ground for the consolidation of populist parties in several European countries. Furthermore, as confirmed by the articles presented in the special issue, the various crises have offered differential opportunities for different types of populism – both inclusionary and exclusionary.