A Radical Right Revival?

Abstract

Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market. By Pippa Norris. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 366 pp., $70.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-521-84914-4), $24.99 paper (ISBN: 0-521-61385-X). In Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market , Pippa Norris has provided a significant contribution to the growing literature on the rise of radical right-wing parties in the Western world. Although much of the book is focused on the radical right in Western Europe, she extends her analysis far beyond the French National Front and the other usual suspects to include parties vying for votes in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, Israel, and the United States. One might quibble here and there about her choice of parties. (Identifying Ross Perot's Reform Party as belonging to the radical right seems a stretch, to say the least.) Nonetheless, the heterogeneity of countries with radical-right parties permits Norris to employ a novel and ambitious research design. One might ask what motivates the recent interest in the rise of right-wing parties? Is this interest a reaction to a realignment of political ideology in these countries, or does it reflect a deep-seated fear of a fascist revival? Much of the current literature on radical right-wing parties, including Radical Right , is premised on the belief that there has been an important and possibly enduring surge in support among voters for these parties over the past decades. Norris, for example, describes the radical Austrian Freedom Party as having solidified its support following a “critical” breakthrough election in 1999 (p. 248). Yet, even though the radical right has enjoyed success in some places (for example, France), it has not flourished elsewhere (for example, Germany). Nor is it clear just how enduring the successful parties are likely to be. Norris recognizes that the postwar history of the radical right in Europe abounds with examples of skyrocket or “flash” parties (for example, the French Poujadists in the early 1950s). These …