Correlates of aggregate support for the radical right in Portugal

Alexandre Afonso

doi:10.1177/20531680211029416

Alexandre Afonso

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680211029416

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Abstract

This article explains variation in local aggregate support for the populist radical right in Portugal, a country long considered immune to the rise of this political force. Using local electoral results of the 2021 presidential election, I find positive statistical associations between the radical right vote share and the share of social assistance benefit recipients, as well as with the size of the local Roma minority. I also show that the effect of the percentage of social assistance recipients is conditioned on a higher size of the local Roma minority. In contrast, factors such as unemployment, average income levels or the share of immigrants and their change over time do not explain variation in radical right vote shares. The research points to the presence of outgroups that can be construed as ‘outsiders’ as a relevant factor explaining aggregate support for the radical right in contexts where the salience of immigration is low.

Highlights

Portugal has long been considered an exception in Europe because of the absence of a significant radical-right party (Alonso and Kaltwasser, 2015: 23; Mendes and Dennison, 2020)
It is important to understand the drivers of support for this new phenomenon in a country hitherto devoid of a substantial political force on the far right of the political spectrum, and where the salience of immigration has been low (Carvalho and Duarte, 2020; Mendes and Dennison, 2020)
We could expect support for the radical right in Portugal to be greater in areas where the share of immigrants or the size of the Roma minority is greater

Summary

Introduction

Portugal has long been considered an exception in Europe because of the absence of a significant radical-right party (Alonso and Kaltwasser, 2015: 23; Mendes and Dennison, 2020). This research note uses electoral data at the local level to explain variation in the vote share of the radical-right candidate across Portuguese municipalities in the presidential elections of 24 January 2021, showing how the size of outgroups (the Roma and social assistance recipients) is associated with higher vote shares for the radical right.

Results

Conclusion