Empirical Results: Why Populists Win or Lose—A Two-Level Theory

Abstract

This chapter presents the empirical findings of the media and qualitative comparative analyses (QCA). It shows how the national debates on identity politics amongst established parties perfectly account for the varying advances of populist radical right parties in the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden. At first glance, no clear pattern appears to explain why or how established parties politicize immigration issues. But the QCA results point to the political mechanisms behind the immigration debates that decide the fate of populist radical right parties: a two-level theory explains the varying rationales of established moderate parties in identity politics. Finally, this allows the revelation of a generalizable political mechanism that explains the rise and fall of populist radical right parties, such as the French Front National (FN), in Western Europe.