Radical (and Populist) Parties in European Governments

Abstract

Abstract Existing studies on the coalitionability of radical and—oftentimes—populist (right or/and left) parties have concluded that government inclusion of these parties follows a complex and multi-causal pattern, and that the explanatory power of the conventional “size and ideology”-framework is limited. Starting from this observation, the present study sets out to further strengthen our understanding of radical government participation. First, the paper seeks to substantiate the relationships observed in a previous configurational cross-case analysis focusing on factors related to size and ideology: How is size and ideology related to radical government participation? The second aim of the paper is to further improve our understanding of why and when radical parties participate in coalition governments: If well-known factors related to electoral and parliamentary strength and ideological aptitude are—as recent cross-case evidence indicate—able to explain radical government participation only partly, which are the additional components that should be included in an enhanced explanatory framework?