Voting for Radical Right Parties in Europe: The Role of Cultural Change and Party Polarization (Part 2)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of rapid growth in recent decades of electoral support for radical right-wing parties in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. It presents the results of empirical testing of the theory of silent counterrevolution and two-dimensional party polarization. Data from the European Social Survey (ESS 2006-14) and content analysis of electoral party manifestos (CMP/MARPOR), and statistics on migrants, electoral institutions and liberal culture for 56 parliamentary elections in 24 European countries were analyzed using two-level logistics modeling. The results show that anti-immigration attitudes and distrust of parliament are the most important distinguishing features of supporters of nationalists and populists. In accordance with the silent counter-revolution theory, the voting mobilization of nationalist supporters in parliamentary elections, according to the facts revealed, depends on the spread of liberal culture in society. The analysis also revealed that the conditions for their mobilization are favorable when party positions in the economic dimension converge and cultural polarization increase at the same time, although this conclusion needs further verification.