Electoral soci ology – who votes for the Extreme Right and why – and when?

Abstract

This chapter profiles the social base of electoral support for the parties of the Extreme Right in Western Europe, i.e. the question of whether some groups in society are more susceptible to the appeal of these parties than others. This issue is relevant for a number of reasons: First, by looking at the social composition of European societies we might be able to better understand why parties of the Extreme Right are more successful in some countries than in others. Second, a careful analysis of the link between the social and the political might help us to gauge the potential for future right-wing mobilisation in countries which currently have no electorally successful parties of the Extreme Right. Third, knowing who votes for a party might help us to get a clearer understanding of the underlying motives to cast a vote for the Extreme Right. Over the last 15 years or so, analyses of the Extreme Right’s electorate(s) have become a minor industry within the larger context of (comparative) Political Sociology. By necessity, this chapter aims at summarising the main findings from this research program, but cannot strive for a comprehensive presentation of all that has been achieved during these years. More specifically, findings from national and small-n studies are (almost) completely ignored. Much by the same token, I will not delve into the fascinating literature on the social bases of the Interwar Extreme Right in Germany and in other countries (Childers, 1983; Falter, 1991; King, Tanner and Wagner, 2008; Kuchler, 1992; O’Loughlin, 2002). Recent events in Central and Eastern Europe (Mudde, 2005) provide a fascinating complement to this Western perspective. However, much like Central and Eastern European parties and electorates themselves, our (comparative) knowledge of the social base of the Extreme Right in CEE in still very much in flux. Therefore, the chapter aims to provide a comparative perspective on developments in West European electoral politics since the 1980s.