Not everyone suffers equally: The effect of electoral overlap on mainstream party responses to radical right parties

Abstract

The rise of radical right parties in Europe has led to a number of strategic responses from mainstream parties (MSPs). However, not all MSPs are equally affected by the rise of challenger parties. This idea has been neglected in much of the quantitative work in the field. This paper extends this argument and investigates electoral overlap in a cross-country study of multiparty systems. Using Propensity to Vote (PTV) data to measure the electoral overlap between MSPs and radical right parties in eight Western European countries, I estimate the effect of right-wing threat on the positions of MSPs on immigration. A higher threat of losing voters to the radical right is associated with a move towards more restrictive immigration policies; on the other hand, a party’s chance to win voters back from the radical right has no significant impact on its positions.