Far-right Support Research Articles

Echoes of a fading past: Authoritarian legacies and far-right voting

In recent years, electoral support for the far-right has increased dramatically across the world. This phenomenon is especially acute in some new democracies; however, little attention has been devoted to the effects of the legacies of past authoritarian ideologies. We argue that the ideology of the past regime affects far-right support because voters that were politically socialized under authoritarianism will be biased against its ideological brand. To test this argument, we conduct an individual-level analysis across 20 countries between 1996 and 2018 using a difference-in-difference estimation and a country-level analysis using data from 39 democracies between 1980 and 2018. We demonstrate that voters socialized under right-wing dictatorships are less likely to support far-right parties compared to citizens that were socialized under different circumstances. Moreover, support for far-right parties is significantly lower in countries that transitioned from right-wing autocracies. Findings are discussed in light of the contribution to the far-right movement literature.

‘Cologne Changed Everything’—The Effect of Threatening Events on the Frequency and Distribution of Intergroup Conflict in Germany

Abstract In this article, I study the role that threatening events play in shaping both the occurrence and the distribution of intergroup conflict. Using the case of anti-refugee attacks in Germany, the study finds that the 2015 New Year’s Eve (NYE) sexual assaults led to a dramatic surge in the daily rate of violence, far surpassing the more short-lived effect of domestic and European terrorist attacks. Importantly, this effect was more pronounced among districts with low prior levels of anti-refugee hostility and far-right support. The NYE event both increased the frequency and changed the distribution of subsequent attacks—mobilizing new, previously peaceful communities to behave aggressively towards local refugee populations. Together, these findings reveal that threatening events not only affect the amount of intergroup conflict, but may also alter the structural conditions under which such conflict emerges in the first place.

Who Is a Right-Wing Supporter? On the Biographical Experiences of Young Right-Wing Voters in Poland and Germany

This article explores the selected cases of the biographies of right-wing supporters from a larger sample of narrative interviews with young (18-35 years old) people in Poland and Germany. In the existing literature, we can find the socio-economic explanations of the sources of the right-wing turn (related to economic deprivation, precarisation, social exclusion, labor market competition with immigrants and others), as well as cultural explanations connected with new identity politics, symbolic exclusion and divide between society and political elites, the disembedding from previously solid communities, and the fear of new risks related to the inflow of cultural Others. Despite notable exceptions, it is rather uncommon to discuss in this context the actual biographical experiences of right-wing and far-right supporters. In the article, we take a closer look at four biographical cases of people declaring their political support for far right parties. The analysis of the cases leads to the distinction of socio-economic and socio-political pathways to right-wing populist support.

Immigration and right-wing populism: An origin story

Previous studies of right-wing populist (RWP) parties primarily investigate how domestic factors as well as external forces, such as immigration, incite the emergence and electoral success of RWP parties. Studies examining the link between migration and far-right support have found mixed empirical results, using various measures of immigration. In this article, we construct our own measures of immigration that highlight the economic and cultural dimensions of migrant-sending states in relation to migrant-receiving states. Our empirical analysis of 15 Western European countries uses these measures to examine whether the economic and cultural characteristics of migrant-sending states can enhance RWP success in wealthy, advanced democracies. We find some evidence that relatively large economic and cultural differences between natives and immigrants are conducive to RWP support in Western European countries. But the findings suggest that future research should identify and examine other factors that strengthen or undermine the extent to which RWP parties can make electoral gains by focusing on immigration.

Broadening the individual differences lens on party support and voting behavior: Cynicism and prejudice as relevant attitudes referring to modern‐day political alignments

AbstractSocial‐cultural and economic‐hierarchical ideological attitudes have long been used to explain variation in political partisanship. We propose two additional, stable attitudes (political cynicism and ethnic prejudice) that may help in explaining contemporary political alignments. In a Belgian (N = 509) and Dutch sample (N = 628), we showed that party support can be segmented into four broad families: left, libertarian, traditionalist, and far‐right parties. Both studies revealed that social‐cultural and economic‐hierarchical right‐wing attitudes were negatively related to left party support and positively to libertarian, traditionalist and far‐right support. Importantly, additional variance was consistently explained by political cynicism (lower libertarian and traditionalist support), ethnic prejudice (lower left support), or both (higher far‐right support). Study 2 additionally demonstrated these patterns for self‐reported voting.

Does unemployment matter? Economic insecurity, labour market policies and the far-right vote in Europe

What is the impact of unemployment on far-right party support? This article develops a framework that links unemployment to far-right party support, while taking into account both the heterogeneity of the workforce and the role of labour market policies. More specifically, we focus on unemployment as a driver of economic insecurity and examine its effect on outsider and insider labour market groups. We identify the extent to which two labour market policies—unemployment benefits and Employment Protection Legislation (EPL)—mediate the effect of unemployment on economic insecurity, thus limiting the impact of unemployment on far-right party support. We carry out a large N analysis on a sample of 14 Western and 10 Eastern European countries between 1991 and 2013. We find that unemployment only leads to higher far-right support when unemployment benefits replacement rates are low. The results with regard to the mediating effect of EPL are more complex as EPL only mediates the impact of unemployment when we take into account the share of foreign-born population in the country.

What to expect when you’re electing: the relationship between far-right strength and citizenship policy in Europe

The analysis builds on previous research exploring the impact of far-right support on citizenship policy. Using Bayesian analyses, this research evaluates the impact of far-right success on citizenship policy restrictiveness and citizenship policy outcomes per year across 29 European countries between 2003–2014. Results reveal that far-right success is a statistically and substantively significant factor in determining citizenship policy restrictiveness as well as rates of naturalization. However, differential levels of impact suggest that far-right influence is not uniform throughout the policy process.

The Far Right Vote in France: From Consolidation to Collapse?

The presidential and legislative elections of 2007 are widely seen to have marked the end of the far right as a major political force in France. How could this occur only five years after Le Pen’s qualification for the presidential run-off, and with his party seemingly in the ascendant? This article discusses recent fluctuations in far-right electoral performance in France. It focuses largely on the presidential elections of 2002 and 2007, re-examining the (supposed) upswell of far-right support in 2002 and its (supposed) subsidence in 2007. Both elections require nuanced interpretation. Both confounded poll predictions, which in 2007 failed to measure the effect of Sarkozy’s hard-right campaign and, crucially, the extent to which the border between “mainstream right” and “far right” had shifted since 2002. This allowed Sarkozy to drain part of Le Pen’s electorate, and raises questions over the longer-term impact of Le Pen and the FN on the political agenda in France.

Ex-Colonials, Voluntary Associations, and Electoral Support for the Contemporary Far Right

This article examines the effects of voluntary association on democratic politics and the social bases of support for the far right in the aftermath of European imperialism. Theoretical issues pertain to the historical sources of contemporary right-wing extremism, the conditional relationship between voluntary associations and democracy, and the problem of translating social structure into the structure of party politics. Exploratory and confirmatory (OLS) analyses of individual-level data on voting in the 2002 presidential and parliamentary elections in France show that support for the far right was high among European ex-colonials. Within this social category, however, levels of far-right support varied by type of association membership. Support was higher among those belonging only to associations that value the colonial past; conversely, there was no far-right voting among respondents belonging only to associations that expose them to cross-cutting influences. The analysis also reveals the independent importance of racial prejudice, and the relative unimportance of background variables (sex, age, occupation, education, union membership, Church attendance). Comparative implications of the findings are discussed with respect to other European countries that decolonized after 1945, particularly Portugal.