Minority Group Size, Unemployment, and the Extreme Right Vote: The Crucial Case of Latvia

Abstract

ObjectivesI test the importance of demographic and economic contextual variables for the success of extreme right parties.MethodsI employ subnational data from the crucial case of Latvia to capture the effects of minority group size and economic change on the extreme right vote. Ethnic Latvians constitute a bare majority of the Latvian population and GDP dropped by 18 percent in 2009.ResultsI find that localities with high or rising unemployment were less likely to support extreme right parties. The dampening effect of unemployment on the extreme right was greater in localities with large minority populations.ConclusionsThese counterintuitive findings raise questions about the logic and generalizability of existing explanations of extreme right voting. The study of the extreme right is hampered not only by ill‐suited measures of group size and economic conditions, but also by overarching theories that predict group‐based outcomes.