Right-wing Parties Research Articles

Electoral change through generational replacement: An age-period-cohort analysis of vote choice across 21 countries between 1948 and 2021

People’s generation may have become one of the core predictors of their vote choice. This study examines this hypothesis across 21 Western established democracies between 1948 and 2021. An age-period-cohort analysis on 258 national election surveys (N = 462.084) reveals that the most recent generations are much less likely to vote for the major right-wing party in two-party systems. In multi-party systems, the gradual decline of Christian democratic parties has been largely driven by the generational replacement of pre-WW2 cohorts. Social democratic and conservative parties may face a challenge in future decades because their support is particularly low among the most recent generations whereas liberal, socialist, and particularly green parties stand to gain from generational replacement. Far-right parties have been least popular among voters who came of age during the 1930s and 1940s. A small life-cycle effect points out that people over the age of 65 vote slightly more conservative.

Political realignment in Western Europe in the twenty-first century: eroding satisfaction and trust in democracy and its institutions?

ABSTRACT European democracies appear to be facing substantial difficulties. Challenges arise from the emergence of right-wing populist parties and the withdrawal of citizens from established political parties. These changes it is claimed have led to an erosion of trust in the democratic political system. Drawing on ten waves of the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2020 in 11 Western European countries we test the evidence for a decline in democratic sentiment. Results do not support any deterioration in satisfaction with the way democracy works and trust in parliament, legal and police systems. Nor have hostile attitudes to immigrants increased in this period. Given the general rise in the electoral support for these parties our findings appear puzzling. However, while the evidence indicates no deterioration, attitudes to political parties and parliaments were far from positive in 2002 providing fertile ground for the emergence of populist radical right-wing parties.

Contestations of Liberal Globalism and the Rise of the Retrograde Party

The crisis of the liberal order opened up space for ideas that only some years ago had appeared out of time. During globalization’s heyday, parties that called for a rollback of liberal globalism were either stuck in a marginal position or unable to implement fundamental reforms. This has changed as the main political approaches toward liberal globalism are now being publicly and electorally contested. We argue that this has triggered the rise of a phenomenon we refer to as retrogradism. This article applies the concept of retrogradism to the case of the German right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). It argues that we may be witnessing the rise of a new type of political party that pursues a retrograde agenda. We suggest that the current debate on the AfD fails to take into account that its defining features may be its politics of time and its retrograde opposition to liberal globalism.

Why do majoritarian systems benefit the right? Income groups and vote choice across different electoral systems

Abstract This research note investigates how the voting behavior of middle-income citizens explains why right-wing parties tend to govern under majoritarian electoral rule. The growing literature that investigates the ideological effects of electoral systems has mostly focused on institutional explanations. However, whether the electoral rules overrepresent parties with some specific ideologies is also a matter of behavior. Building on Iversen and Soskice (2006), we test two arguments. First, middle-income groups are more likely to vote for the right under majoritarian rules because they fear the redistributive consequences of a victory of the left in these contexts. Second, middle-income earners particularly concerned with tax rates are particularly prone to vote differently across electoral systems. Combining survey evidence from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the New Zealand Election Study, we show that the voting behavior of middle-income citizens is indeed responsible for the predominance of the right under majoritarian systems.

Chilean-Style Populism: Carlos Ibáñez's Electoral Support Base

Abstract Based on his record as president, Carlos Ibáñez is usually considered a populist caudillo in Chilean historiography. However, there are few studies of whether his electoral base permits this classification or of the type of populism he represented. In his four presidential bids between 1927 and 1952, Ibáñez ran with the support of both left- and right-wing parties. Using municipal-level data, we assess his electoral support in the 1942 and 1952 presidential campaigns and support for Ibañista parties in the 1953 legislative elections. In 1942, Ibáñez's electoral base was similar to that of right-wing candidates while, in 1952, his support increased in areas where the Left was historically strong. While he received consistent support in agricultural areas, it fluctuated in mining and industrial areas.

Immigrant threat, perception of unsafety, and political articulation of immigration and multiculturalism in European countries

A large body of work has examined the relationship between population composition and risk of victimization. Past research has also suggested that the nature of political rhetoric may have profound impacts on perceived threat, fear of crime, and moral panic. This study constitutes the first attempt to examine the relationships between the negative political articulation of both immigration and multiculturalism by extreme right-wing parties and the perception of unsafety risk in European countries. We employ data from the 2018 European Social Survey (ESS), which we merge with data from the Manifesto Project Dataset, a comparative dataset on political statements. The results reveal that individuals who reside in countries with higher levels of negative political articulation of immigration and multiculturalism express greater perceived unsafety. The results also show that higher levels of perceived immigrant threat amplify the relationship between negative political articulation of immigration and perceived unsafety. Finally, news exposure amplifies the effect of the negative political articulation of immigration on the perception of unsafety when perceived immigrant threat is higher. Our findings underscore the importance of the political context and the potential of political elites to shape public perceptions, including the perception of unsafety.

Adopting restriction: how coalition governments respond to radical right parties

Radical right parties (RRPs) have gained representation in parliaments across Europe, but little is known about their impact on government policy. Even though RRPs tend to end up in opposition, they have considerable influence on policy making within coalition governments. One expectation is that coalition governments are tough on immigration to optimise voter support when being exposed to right-wing parties in parliament. Coalition negotiations temporarily reduce accountability and allow cabinets to adjust policy positions without bearing the costs associated with opportunistic behaviour. This argument is tested using novel data on pre-electoral policy positions and post-electoral immigration policies for coalition cabinets in 24 European democracies from 1980 to 2015. The findings reveal that governments shift to more restrictive immigration policies in face of RRPs. This article expands on prior research on the influence of the radical right by demonstrating its direct influence on coalition governments’ joint immigration policy plans.

Public support for the cordon sanitaire: Descriptive evidence from Spain

Reactions to the rise of far-right parties that advocate democratic backsliding, and the dilution of socially liberal democratic norms present a dilemma for existing political parties. How should existing political parties respond to this challenge? A commonly adopted strategy is to apply a cordon sanitaire which excludes radical right-wing challengers from the government-forming process. Do voters support this policy? Leveraging data from Spain – where the mainstream right has accommodated the radical right-wing party, VOX, via numerous governing coalitions – I rely on individual citizens’ views on how parties should respond to rise of the far-right party, to answer this question. Empirically, the results show very low-level support for the cordon sanitaire in Spain. Indeed, the modal position of the electorate, regardless of their ideological position, is to treat the party just like any other. These results are not conditioned by the propensity of individuals to identify VOX as indeed being a “radical right” party. These descriptive findings suggest that whilst radical right-wing parties may present an inimical threat to democratic norms, citizens do not necessarily view the means of squashing this threat to be one of strategic exclusion. This likely explains why the mainstream right has been able to institutionalise VOX as a political ally: where strategic exclusion is not expected, the mainstream right need not fear violating an expectation that does not exist.

The Domain of the Right? Explaining National Parliamentary Preferences on EU-Related Self-Empowerment

Abstract In the academic debate about the deficits of representative democracy in the European Union, the views of members of parliaments about their EU-oriented roles remain largely unknown. Against this background, we exploit a novel dataset from an author-designed survey conducted in seven national parliaments to unravel MPs’ preferences with regard to their EU-oriented empowerment. Our findings allow us to identify the dominant cognitive schemas mobilised among parliamentarians which attribute particular legitimacy-related meanings to proposed institutional reforms. They point to a stronger explanatory power of party ideological position over national constitutional orientations, with right-wing parties being more supportive towards parliamentary empowerment than their centre and centre-left counterparts, and mainstream parties being more sceptical of it than radical groups on both sides of the spectrum.

In your face! Bringing Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial to Thuringia: reaffirming German memory culture through creative place-taking

ABSTRACT This article analyses one act of informal creative place-making/taking. In 2017, the Berlin art collective Centre for Political Beauty installed a partial replica of Peter Eisenman’s 2005 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in a back garden in the Thuringian village of Bornhagen. The site was chosen because of who lived next door: a leading figure in the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany), Björn Höcke. This DIY, guerrilla-like intervention by activist artists raises broader questions about both “informality” and “place-making.” As we suggest, the work Deine Stele (2017-ongoing) represents a profound paradox: an otherwise highly critical art collective, not least towards the government, replicates an official state-sanctioned memorial in order to defend and enforce the so painfully won hegemonic memory culture. Both the work and its realisation combine complex elements of formality and informality. Moreover, while located very intentionally in Bornhagen, Deine Stele sits somewhere between, and connects, Berlin, Bornhagen and digital space. Rather than engaging deeply with local stories, it makes a more abstract theme – German commitment to Holocaust memory – concrete. We read this antagonistic intervention as a playfully provocative act of creative place-taking rather than place-making.

Becoming a young radical right activist: Biographical pathways of the members of radical right organisations in Poland and Germany

With the increasing popularity of the radical right, much research has tried to explain the motives of voters. Less attention has been paid to the motives of people to become radical right activists – specifically young people, a group with a high tendency to join right-wing parties. Within the context of the internationalisation of the radical right, this article draws on 28 narrative interviews conducted between 2019 and 2021 with young radical right activists in Poland and Germany, two countries with considerably different political and discursive opportunity structures. We propose to recognise a new motive for becoming involved in political activism: career-oriented individual self-realisation in Germany, as opposed to fulfilling a duty to the nation in Poland. While we identify two different types of radical activism within the different contexts – the (nationalist) anti-establishment populist career type in Germany and the (nationalist) anti-political intellectualism/elitism type in Poland – they both point to the normalisation of the radical right in the two countries.

Mainstream partisans’ affective response to (non) cooperation with populist radical right parties

What is the role of elite-level inter-party strategies in promoting or reducing negative affective evaluations of citizens? This article explores this puzzle by focusing on the decision of mainstream parties to exclude or cooperate with populist radical right-wing parties (PRRPs) in Western European countries. The analysis is based on CSES cross-national data and the LISS Dutch panel data merged with the record on whether PRRPs are subject to a cordon sanitaire or (in)formally cooperate with mainstream parties in a government coalition. The findings suggest that political exclusion fuels loathing for PRRPs among mainstream party supporters, while cooperation reduces dislike of PRRPs both among supporters of PRRP coalition partners and left-wing voters. Distinguishing between informal and formal coalitions, the cross-national data shows that only formal cooperation has a significant effect. However, the longitudinal Dutch data shows a temporary decrease of dislike also during informal cooperation.

Labor Unions and the Electoral Consequences of Trade Liberalization

Abstract We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a contraction in manufacturing and formal employment in the more affected regions, and despite the left’s identification with protectionist policies. To rationalize this response, we consider a new institutional channel for the political effects of trade shocks: the weakening of labor unions. We provide support for this mechanism in two steps. First, we show that union presence—proxied by the number of workers directly employed by unions, by union density, and by the number of union establishments—declined in regions that became more exposed to foreign competition. Second, we show that the negative effect of tariff reductions on the votes for the left was driven exclusively by political parties with historical links to unions. Furthermore, the impact of the trade liberalization on the vote share of these parties was significant only in regions that had unions operating before the reform. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that tariff cuts reduced the vote share of the left partly through the weakening of labor unions. This institutional channel is fundamentally different from the individual-level responses, motivated by economic or identity concerns, that have been considered in the literature.

The political consequences of technological change that benefits low-skilled workers

Abstract Technological change often increases demand for high-skilled jobs, with low-skilled losers turning to the populist right in response. The political effects of technological change that increases demand for low-skilled workers are largely unknown. The growth of the salmon fish-farming industry in rural Norway improved the labor-market situation for low-skilled workers, and we find that support for the populist right-wing party increased in municipalities that benefitted from the industry growth. The electoral change is due to a right-wing shift on the economic, but not the cultural dimension. Our results support political economy frameworks that point to lower demand for state interventions after positive labor market shocks, but raise the question of in what contexts support for populism will decline.

The influence of government ideology on the rate of e-waste recycling in the European Union countries.

This study examines the impact of government ideology on e-waste recycling in 30 European countries from 2008 to 2018. This study seeks to enhance the e-waste recycling literature by introducing a novel determinant, examining the unexplored relationship between government ideology and e-waste recycling rates in European countries, thus addressing a substantial research gap. Utilizing panel quantile regression on an unbalanced dataset, the findings revealed that the increased influence of right-wing parties in government was associated with lower e-waste recycling rates. Conversely, greater influence of left-wing or center-wing parties was correlated with higher recycling rates across all quantiles analyzed. The estimation results remain robust when different indicators of government ideology were employed. Overall, the study underscores the importance of political ideology in shaping e-waste recycling policies and environmental sustainability efforts. It emphasizes that effective policies should align with the political commitment of the governing body.

Bordering Democracies, Democratising Borders

Over the past 30 years, border scholars have written extensively on what borders are, where they are located, and how they operate, not just to critically understand their changing role, but also to criticise and denounce their violence and discrimination. Yet borders continue to proliferate, in particular as a response to alleged crises affecting Europe. If borders have always constituted markers of social and cultural identity, the more recent process of European re-bordering, I argue, constitutes a challenge for the democratic system as a whole. Implemented by left-wing and right-wing parties alike, this process seems indeed to have been taken away from public discourse and treated as a technical necessity to solve the crises. Far from being neutral or non-political, however, it has disclosed new forms of racial discrimination, political and economic power, and colonial violence. In order to substantiate my argument, I will 1) provide a brief examination of the recent changes in the concept and practice of democracy, as well as their interrelations with the process of European re-bordering, 2) investigate the socio-political and economic conditions under which the current process of European re-bordering has come about, with particular attention to the increasing role of media and political discourses in shaping public opinion, and 3) discuss the repercussions of the process of European re-bordering on the democratic system. The article will conclude by inviting scholars, civil society members, and any interested party to open up a more open and democratic debate around the unequal and discriminatory practices of bordering.

Parties’ Platforms, Migration, and Security: Patterns and Determinants

ABSTRACT The integration of national security concerns in states’ treatment of international migration has become a prominent issue in recent years as global migration is regularly presented as a security threat to host countries. In this paper, we illuminate a number of patterns and determinants of political parties’ treatment of immigration as a security matter–the securitisation of migration–through the comparative study of a new data set of parties’ platforms in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States that spans seven decades. We distinguish between the salience of migration and of security in parties’ platforms and explore the effect of various migration-related domestic-level factors in accounting for both phenomena. Our empirical strategy to assess the extent to which political parties have presented, promoted, and framed the security concerns associated with migration is based on textual data from parties’ platforms. We report three findings. First, parties have increasingly mobilised migration in their platforms regardless of ideological or partisan commitments since the 1990s, and the number of refugees hosted by a country constitutes the primary migration-related explanatory factor for this fact. Second, we show that mainstream right-wing parties account for the increase in the securitisation of migration in parties’ platforms. Finally, among migration-related domestic factors, the number of refugees has (surprisingly) a negative impact on the securitisation of migration in platforms. Overall, this paper illuminates important patterns in how parties discursively link security and migration, and investigates the determinants of this widespread phenomenon.

Logistic hubs and support for radical-right populism: Evidence from Italy

Increasing discontent and the associated growing support for populist parties have been attributed to several drivers, including globalization, technological change, and migration waves. We analyse a phenomenon that encompasses a mix of economic and cultural grievances — the logistic revolution. The Italian logistics industry is characterized by a heavy reliance on low-paying and precarious contracts, it employs a large number of foreign workers, and is dominated by multinational corporations. The construction of large logistic hubs can increase the feeling of economic insecurity and trigger cultural backlash against foreign workers and large corporations. This, in turn, can create a favourable environment for populist radical right-wing parties that portray themselves as protectors of traditional values and national identity, and as defenders of the working class against the perceived threats posed by globalization, immigration, and large corporations. Through an IV and a DiD approach, we provide evidence that the support for Lega, a populist radical-right party, grew in Italian municipalities where new logistic hubs have been built.

From ‘Anomaly’ to ‘Laboratory’? Fratelli d’Italia, Illiberalism and the Study of Right-Wing Parties in Western Europe

Once considered an anomaly for its polarized pluralism, then marked, over the last three decades, by frequent alternations between populist and technocratic governments, Italy is now the only country in Western Europe whose coalition government is led by a party usually classified in the populist radical right family, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia). While this means that the country has finally its first female Prime Minister, understanding the trajectory of the party is important not just for the state of Italian politics but also for comparative politics more in general. Taking stock of the recent literature on Meloni’s party, it appears that the choices made by the Fratelli d’Italia – in Italy and in Europe – can resonate beyond the national borders especially in terms of illiberal ideologies and practices of right-wing parties.

Political context of the European vaccine debate on Twitter

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, fears grew that making vaccination a political (instead of public health) issue may impact the efficacy of this life-saving intervention, spurring the spread of vaccine-hesitant content. In this study, we examine whether there is a relationship between the political interest of social media users and their exposure to vaccine-hesitant content on Twitter. We focus on 17 European countries using a multilingual, longitudinal dataset of tweets spanning the period before COVID, up to the vaccine roll-out. We find that, in most countries, users’ endorsement of vaccine-hesitant content is the highest in the early months of the pandemic, around the time of greatest scientific uncertainty. Further, users who follow politicians from right-wing parties, and those associated with authoritarian or anti-EU stances are more likely to endorse vaccine-hesitant content, whereas those following left-wing politicians, more pro-EU or liberal parties, are less likely. Somewhat surprisingly, politicians did not play an outsized role in the vaccine debates of their countries, receiving a similar number of retweets as other similarly popular users. This systematic, multi-country, longitudinal investigation of the connection of politics with vaccine hesitancy has important implications for public health policy and communication.