European Party Research Articles

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

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.

Generational (re)alignment: emerging issues and new voters in Western Europe

Voting behaviour in Western Europe has become increasingly structured by attitudes towards socio-cultural issues, such as immigration and European unification. This study examines whether generational differences affect this form of realignment. By combining data from the ESS and the CHES, it explores party–voter alignment on specific issues across 17 West European party systems from 2002 to 2020. ‘Age-Period-Cohort’ (APC) analyses demonstrate that younger generations are more strongly aligned than older generations on immigration, LGBTQ+-rights, the environment and left–right placement, but not on the EU and income redistribution. The results also show over-time increases in issue alignment for three of the six issues, but these period effects are more country-specific than the generational differences. Consequently, generational replacement can be expected to increase party–voter alignment on the left–right dimension and (some) new issues.

Influencing People’s Populist Attitudes With Rhetoric and Emotions: An Online Experiment in the United States

Interest in populist voters has risen with the election of Donald Trump in the United States, the rise of right-wing populist parties in Europe, and the longevity of populist leaders in countries like Italy, Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela. Yet, little attention has been given to what mechanisms may affect populist attitudes, leaving us without recommendations for media or politicians on how to mitigate populism’s known negative effects. This study investigates one such mechanism—political rhetoric working through emotional states—to determine whether grievances centered on subjective perceptions of injustice and inequities in the system operate through negative emotions to increase populist attitudes, as is often assumed in the literature, and whether an antidote to those perceptions may be found in a sense of solidarity and mutual support. For our analysis, we conducted a nationally representative online survey experiment of 2,006 respondents in the United States in November 2018. Broadly, we find evidence that negative emotional states increase populist attitudes, but positive emotions do not have an impact. Likewise, political rhetoric reinforcing a sense of unfair advantage for some people further increases populist attitudes. Importantly, we find that reducing these negative emotions by emphasizing solidarity can reduce populist attitudes. These findings not only deepen our understanding of the triggers of populism, but also take the first step in building a tested toolbox of strategies to minimize its negative effects.

Google Trends of political parties in Europe: a fractal exploration

Abstract Google Trends, despite its controversial nature for some authors, can be considered an illustrative tool in exploring the political inclinations of a given audience. In the current European Union context, understanding the views and opinions of the public is of paramount importance. Through the analysis of search trends, Google Trends can provide valuable insights into the popularity of political parties in the context of the European Union along with other jurisdictions and how these trends change over time. Furthermore, by incorporating fractal dimensions and ARFIMA (Autoregressive Fractionally Integrated Moving Average) analysis into the data obtained, it is possible to reveal previously non-evident relationships, thereby providing a more comprehensive understanding of the audience‘s political leanings and their interest in specific political parties. The aim of this exploratory study is to assess the potential of ARFIMA, applied to Google Trends data, in characterizing political parties. Preliminary results indicate that this apparatus can be useful for that purpose.

The blurred lines between center-right and far-right: “Reverse contamination” and the People’s Party’s environmentalism in Spain

Scholars have recently focused on the eco-nationalist “turn” of the far-right right parties in Europe and their obstruction of a substantive environmental agenda. However, we argue that the analysis of the far-right eco-nationalism must be broadened to include certain established and impactful centre-right European parties. By focusing on the single case-study of the centre-right People’s Party (PP) in Spain, we argue that it has articulated Manichean, negationist, anti-elitist, and conspirative discursive elements typical of the far-right eco-nationalism before the emergence of Vox, the Spanish far-right party. In actuality, starting with 2019, Vox adopted and developed an eco-nationalist narrative advanced first at the “centre” by the ex-Prime Minister José María Aznar and still influential today at the level of PP’s leadership, namely a narrative framing ecology as “the new communism” and the (global) progressive elites and “consensus” as threatening the free Spanish nation and “freedom” worldwide.

The (unintended) consequences of ineffective corruption control on populism in Europe

The literature on populism in European politics contends that the inability of mainstream parties to address effectively economic challenges and immigration issues fosters protest voting for anti-establishment figures. This article proposes an alternative perspective centred on corruption control and delineates two pathways through which corruption influences support for populist parties in Europe. First, populists exploit growing public discontent with mainstream policymakers’ incapacity to advance sustainable corruption mitigation measures. They espouse an anti-corruption stance and pledge to rectify what ‘the establishment’ fails to address. The second connection arises from the European Union’s (EU) approach to combating corruption. The EU employs an ineffective anti-corruption strategy and attributes unfavourable outcomes to member states and their citizens. This flawed approach contributes to nationalist sentiments across Europe, which populist politicians leverage by adopting an anti-EU rhetoric. Drawing from an original dataset encompassing every national election across 28 European nations from 1990 to 2020, this study probes the circumstances under which populist parties expand their electoral support. Various statistical analyses reveal that the rise in corruption is a fundamental factor driving support for populism. Not only does the EU fail to assist in tackling national corruption, but its anti-corruption strategy inadvertently bolsters public approval of populist politicians. This effect is accentuated in member states where corruption becomes more pronounced post-EU accession.

Euroscepticism and anti-establishment parties in Europe

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between party-based Euroscepticism and parties taking anti-establishment positions in contemporary Europe to map the relationship between these positions. The paper reports on an expert-informed qualitative comparative classification (EiQCC) of parties in 30 European countries conducted 2018–2019 to present a classification of 77 parties as Eurosceptic and anti-establishment. With this, we show that there were a number of different clusters of parties with various relationships between anti-establishment and Eurosceptic positions. The largest cluster showed a strong association between anti-establishment discourses and Euroscepticism. But there were also significant clusters where there was little or no interaction and were either anti-establishment and not Eurosceptic, or Eurosceptic without being anti-establishment. We also identify clusters where there was a weak association between anti-establishment and Eurosceptic positions and where anti-establishment parties had Eurosceptic stances but their position on European integration was either very weakly articulated or of very low salience.

Does Health Vulnerability Predict Voting for Right-Wing Populist Parties in Europe?

Abstract: Introduction: A recent article by Kavanagh et al. (2021) in American Political Science Review suggested that health vulnerability predicts voting patterns for the populist far-right. Aim: We sought to distinguish socioculturally conservative from antielite voting, expecting health vulnerability to predict only the former. Methods: We combined data from the European Social Survey (round 7) with the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (2014). We preregistered several other hypotheses regarding associations between health and voting and predetermined the smallest effect size of interest (SESOI: r = .05). Results: Health vulnerability did not predict socioculturally conservative voting, and the results for antielite voting were mixed. To investigate why our result differed from Kavanagh et al.’s, we reran their analysis employing covariate specification curve analyses. The statistical significance and the direction of the association between health vulnerability and voting depended on which covariates were included. Across 1,000 models with randomly drawn covariate specifications, 59.6% showed a positive, 29.8% a zero, and 10.6% a negative association between health vulnerability and voting for far-right populist parties. However, all effect sizes were more consistently smaller than our predetermined SESOI. Conclusions: Our study illustrates the necessity of causally justifying and preregistering all covariates and predetermining an SESOI.

Populism and the quest for political power: the pitfalls to populist electoral success in Canada

Recent electoral inroads by anti-establishment political parties in Europe and around the world have led to the resurgence of the debate on populism. Within the burgeoning theoretical and analytic interpretations of the surge of populism, competing arguments have been deployed. Economic dislocation and the demographic shift within liberal democratic societies have provided fertile ground for the rise of populism. However, the success of these populist political parties, particularly the radical right populist parties, in utilizing prevailing societal resentment is to a great extent conditional upon a perceived threat to national identity. While the vestiges of political distrust and social and economic indignation can be found in Canadian society, the absence of a historically ingrained strong sense of nationhood, consolidation of multiculturalism, the eclipse of class from national political discourse, and the implausibility of resorting to Anti-Americanism as a mobilizing tactic has made it difficult for both Canadian right and left-populist forces to replicate the success of their international counterparts at the national level.

All roads lead to Rome? Analysing the electoral performance of populist radical left parties in Europe (2008-2018): a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

ABSTRACT In the last decade, there have been numerous studies on the rise, characteristics, and consequences of the emergence of populist parties in Western liberal democracies. However, most analyses of European populist parties have focused on the right-wing populist parties. Although some scholars have made valuable efforts to understand left-wing populism in Europe, these studies have paid attention to their ideological-organizational idiosyncrasies or the characteristics of their electoral bases. This paper aims to fill the gap in the economic and political contexts in which Radical Left Populist Parties have achieved significant electoral results putting into practice a fsQCA analysis and examining their uneven electoral performance in Europe. Following some previous work applying QCA techniques, this paper tests the theory on the importance of economic and political factors. Findings indicate that the electoral performance of radical left populism cannot be explained in a univocal way, highlighting the crucial role of equifinality in understanding this political phenomenon.

Digitalisation and political parties in Europe

In this article we have attempted to improve our understanding of the influence of various factors, such as the level of organizational resources, age, ideology and values, on the digitalization of political parties oriented towards participation and resource mobilization. To do this, we use version four of the Political Party Database Round (PPDB) (2022), which covers 187 parties in 26 European countries. We focus on 10 of the largest party families. The data and variables have been analyzed using various descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicate an important level of similarity between political parties in the adoption of digital instruments. The level of resources, age and ideology, and values associated with the different party families present important explanatory and predictive limitations. We consider that the indicated results may be a consequence of a process of institutional isomoformism.

Young democrats, critical citizens and protest voters: studying the profiles of movement party supporters

AbstractThe rise of movement parties in Europe has disrupted traditional notions of party politics, introducing new avenues for citizen engagement and political mobilisation. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the electorate of movement parties, using nationally representative survey data from six European countries. We identify four types of movement parties: green/left-libertarian, far-right, eclectic, and centrist, and examine the distinct profiles of their voters. The only common characteristic we find across movement party supporters is their belief in the influence of protests. We argue that green/left-libertarian voters embody a generational gap in political participation, as they utilise both electoral and non-electoral engagement to express their post-industrial demands. Far-right voters are distinguished by their discontent with the democratic system and political elites, following the pattern of what others have referred to as 'protest voters'. Meanwhile, centrist and eclectic voters embody the profile of 'critical citizens', who support the democratic system but are dissatisfied with its current functioning. While we see movement parties as a genuine innovation in the internal structuring of party organisations, our study calls into question the utility of this concept when seeking to understand the behaviour of their electorate. We emphasise the importance of recognising the diverse motivations behind movement party support, enriching our understanding of the changing dynamics of party politics in Europe.

Can the party family approach explain Polish partisan positions? A case study on the policy field of higher education in post-socialist Poland

ABSTRACT Research on partisan positions on higher education policies has focused to date mainly on parties in sustained democratic regimes in Western Europe. This study compares these findings with Polish parties’ positioning and investigates the extent to which parties’ preferences in post-socialist Poland can be explained by their party family affiliations. Poland provides an interesting case because of its socialist heritage of strong government control in the higher education sector and the rather fluid party system with a comparatively large share of populist right parties. By means of a qualitative content analysis of 41 party manifestos from 1989–2019, partisan positions of Christian democratic, social democratic, liberal, agrarian, and populist right parties are categorized along the re-distributive and control dimension of higher education policies. While party families can explain Polish parties’ positioning on the control dimension, there is a cross-party consensus to expand the sector and increase public funding due to strong popular demand after the transformation which contrasts with the positions of West European parties. Key results are a rising salience of this policy field in party manifestos and a detailed description of populist right parties’ preferences for government control of higher education institutions and expansion of this sector.

Legal Framework for Russian Federation Leaving the Jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights

Article aims to compare the legal framework for ceasing of a state’s membership in the Council of Europe and Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental freedoms with the factual application of relevant framework in respect of the Russian Federation leaving the CoE in 2022. Analysis shows that foreseen procedures were o complied with, leading to defect actions and decision on the part of European party, and to somewhat inconsistent legal framework adopted in Russia. Lack of dialogue between the parties resulted in creation of two virtually unconnected legal realities. While the Council of Europe bodies and the Russian authorities apparently do not experience substantial adverse effects of this situation, the burden of such consequences is placed on the applicants, particularly on Russian citizens. It is assumed that very limited opportunities remain for interaction between Russian and European legal systems in terms of ensuring the rights of citizens.

Does a Lack of Trust Boost Populist Political Parties in Europe? Causal Evidence from Three Methodologies

Does a Lack of Trust Boost Populist Political Parties in Europe? Causal Evidence from Three Methodologies

Does a Lack of Trust Boost Populist Political Parties in Europe? Causal Evidence from Three Methodologies

Does a Lack of Trust Boost Populist Political Parties in Europe? Causal Evidence from Three Methodologies

Tirer La Couverture À Soi. PSOE Factions’ Views on French Socialism and the Popular Front

The Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) has been interpreted as exceptional among its European counterparts because of its internal divisions, radicalization and the impossibility of reaching cross-cutting agreements. This article demonstrates how, during the 1930s, the PSOE's evolution went hand in hand with other socialist parties in Europe, especially with the Section Française de l’International Ouvrière (SFIO). In particular, this article focuses on the views of the Spanish socialist factions – prietismo and caballerismo – on the formation and development of the Popular Front in Spain and France. The press of these factions – El Socialista, Claridad and Leviatán – had a similar role in the evolution of both parties. Furthermore, this study points out how the different factions of Spanish socialism used the French experience to legitimize their positions during the first part of 1936.

Negative campaign statements, coalition heterogeneity, and the support for government parties

European party systems have become increasingly complex in recent years, resulting in ideologically more heterogeneous coalition governments with far-reaching policy compromises. Consequently, an important goal of the parties' electoral campaign strategies is to present the voters a distinct policy profile on which the electorate can evaluate the competing parties. We argue that voters reward those coalition parties that attack their government partners in the election campaign and try to clarify their programmatic positions with the help of a more aggressive campaign strategy. Based on data from the CSES, the Comparative Manifesto Project database and a novel data base on party campaign statements in seven European countries from 2007 to 2018, we find that voters’ support for coalition parties increases if the latter attack their partners in the last four weeks before election day. Yet, this relationship is only observable in contexts when the ideological diversity of the incumbent coalition government is rather low.

Migration debates in the political party arena during the Covid‐19 pandemic in Austria

AbstractThe Covid‐19 pandemic highlighted the economic contribution of migrant workers in maintaining essential services and access to goods. This new perspective on migrants as essential workers raised expectations in migration studies that it could reinvigorate an inclusive setting in terms of migration debates and policies. Building on this potential, we examine migration debates in the political party arena with a focus on centrist parties. The analysis focuses on Austria, a country with a high dependence on migrant labor in key sectors and a long‐standing contestation of migration across the political party spectrum. Drawing on an analysis of parliamentary contributions and press releases by the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) during the pandemic, the study finds that the debates did not change fundamentally. Whilst external shocks such as the Covid‐19 pandemic have a limited potential to reverse the focus on unwanted migration in European party politics, crises can lead the political center to reemphasize bifurcation strategies in response to shifts in public discourse, as this study of the Austrian case during the pandemic suggests.

Whitewashing white Power: a Rhetorical Political Analysis of the parliamentary ambition of the Nordic Resistance Movement in Sweden

ABSTRACT Since 2018 the largest National Socialist organization in the Nordic countries, The Nordic Resistance Movement, has been taking part in national and local elections in Sweden. Although the organization has no real political influence, it consistently feeds individuals and groups against immigration with racist and antisemitic propaganda or so-called ‘evidence’ of a Jewish conspiracy. In this article, the organization’s political manifesto and a series of speeches given at three public demonstrations are subjected to a rhetorical political analysis demonstrating how leading figures of the organization attempt to persuade and motivate new and existing members. The analysis provides insight into a rhetoric that articulates established social concerns in public discourse to legitimate a National Socialist ideology. As opposed to most far-right parties in Europe and certainly in the Nordic, the organization has not abandoned traditional antisemitism in favour of anti-Islamism. The NMR, in turn, uses the fact that they do not hide their racism to provide credibility as the only authentic nationalist actor in Sweden. The findings should be relevant for anyone working on understanding and preventing such parties from gaining support and potentially mainstreaming antisemitism in a time when extreme nationalism is growing all over the world.