Right-wing Parties Research Articles

Not only a territorial matter: The electoral surge of VOX and the anti-libertarian reaction.

Although previous work has shown the complexity of motives behind the VOX vote, its emergence is often associated mainly with the Catalan conflict. Our analysis shows that VOX's first electoral success was marked importantly by preferences related to territorial conflict, but also by opposition to immigration, authoritarianism or ideology. The main contribution of the paper lies in demonstrating something that until now had not been empirically verified: the relevance of anti-feminist attitudes amongst the VOX electorate. This shows how, since its onset, these voters have not been so different from voters of other European radical right-wing parties, and how VOX has channelled into elections the reaction against different expressions of a more diverse and egalitarian society.

Islamophobia and Twitter: The Political Discourse of the Extreme Right in Spain and Its Impact on the Public

This paper analyzes the discourse concerning Islam and Muslims by assessing the extreme right-wing party, Vox, on Twitter. In addition, this paper examines the incidence (impact and reactions) of this party on the users of this social network. The objectives of this study are as follows: to identify themes and topics concerning this discourse; to analyze how the discourse is articulated and represented; and to understand the impact of this discourse by measuring the engagement of the most viral publications. To do so, we observed the publications posted by the party via its official account throughout 2022. The research methodology was based on qualitative and quantitative content analysis, and the publications themselves were monitored to ascertain the level of engagement. The results of this study clearly show that Vox created Islamophobic narratives; thus, Islam and Muslims are explicit targets of Vox’s hate speech. Their rhetoric referred to security threats and threats to national identity, with the recurrent use of the idea that there is a “danger of Islamization” in Spain. The party uses disinformation and hoaxes, and users respond in a polarized way. The results of this study alert us to the worrying levels of radicalization and the normalization of Islamophobic racist discourse in the examined context.

Choosing among the chosen? Electoral lists and party primaries in Europe

ABSTRACT Primaries are becoming the preferred mechanism to select parliamentary elites in an increasing number of parties across Europe. Recent literature has shown that certain party-level characteristics favour the implementation of this inclusive method of selection. However, despite its great relevance in party life, the impact of the electoral system has not attracted enough attention. In this article we wonder if the type of electoral list (blocked or not blocked) has an effect on how participative the method of candidate selection is. We expect primaries to be more popular where electoral lists are blocked, as an intermediate mechanism for the electorate to influence an otherwise leadership-driven process of candidate selection. However, the results of a survey of 2,561 candidates from 37 parties show that this expectation is not met, as primaries seem to be more common precisely in non-blocked lists systems, with this effect being especially visible among right-wing parties. These findings suggest that the type of list might play a key role in this important aspect of internal party life.

Mean Streets: Power, ideology and the politics of memory

What determines whether contested places of memory are kept or officially removed in a democracy? To answer this question, we look at Francoist street names in Spain to identify the effect of party ideology on the manipulation of lieux de mémoire. Using a regression discontinuity design, we analyze 5,500 municipalities over a period of 16 years. We find that mayors of the main right-wing party are more likely to preserve Francoist names, whilst mayors of the main left-wing party are more likely to replace them. Upon replacing, right-wing local governments are more likely to choose new names leaning to the right than left-wing governments. Our findings illustrate that, even within a democratic framework, the public space can be shaped beyond citizens’ preferences in favor of the ruling power. Additionally, we show that parties can be important actors in qualifying what is to be remembered, imprinting ideological biases in the landscape.

Populist Right Parties on TikTok: Spectacularization, Personalization, and Hate Speech

Populist parties use social media as a fundamental element of their online communication strategies. This article aims to identify the strategies of right-wing populist parties and politicians on TikTok by measuring a set of features of their videos: It evaluates the presence of hate speech in these messages and the identification of certain groups as “enemies” of “the people,” and also pays special attention to the differences in engagement according to the presence of hate speech and entertaining or humoristic features. We apply a content analysis to a transnational sample (<em>N</em> = 293) of videos posted by the following populist right-wing parties and politicians on TikTok: Vox and Santiago Abascal (Spain), José Antonio Kast (Chile), and the UK Independence Party (UK). Findings show that while Vox and UKIP use TikTok to convey their ideology and values and to target the state as the main enemy of “the common person,” Kast used the same platform to build and project his image of leadership and to broadcast humoristic and entertaining content. Only 19% of the analyzed videos included hate speech elements. Not only was hate speech uncommon; it deterred engagement in terms of the number of comments as well. Contrarily, humour and entertainment favoured engagement. We conclude that TikTok might downplay the most controversial issues of the populist right.

Бразильские правые: краткий очерк исторической траектории в XX – первой четверти XXI вв.

Right-wing parties and movements, as well as right-wing ide-ology, are an important factor in the political life of Latin American countries. By the end of the second decade of the XXI century. more than half of the political regimes of Latin American countries were right-wing or center-right. In the ar-ticle, on the example of the analysis of the Brazilian version of the phenomenon of the right trend, an attempt is made to show the reasons for the very existence and political survival of the right and their popularity in society, the deep rootedness of the right ideology in the depths of public consciousness, its influence on public sentiment. A brief analysis of the ideology and politics of right-wing movements and right-wing political leaders is given – from Getúlio Vargas to Jair Bolsonaro.

Erik Hornung discussion of: Women in politics

In 2021, women held 31.6% of seats in parliaments across OECD countries (OECD, 2021). A vast number of initiatives aim to achieve gender parity in politics. Changing electoral rules to induce gender equality might, however, come with unintended and unpredictable consequences. This paper exploits a change in electoral rules to study gender discrimination as an unintended outcome of gender parity legislation. In 2013, the electoral code for the election of departmental councils in France was amended to state that voters elect two members of the opposite sex in a tandem. As a result, these assemblies became gender-balanced by design. Because their names needed to be arranged in alphabetical order, some pairs listed female candidates first (treatment group) whereas others listed male candidates first (control group). The authors of this paper argue that voters did not understand the electoral rules well enough and assumed that the first listed candidate was the main candidate. This had consequences for the electoral results if the pair listing a female candidate first was nominated by a right-wing party, whereas the ordering did not affect results for other parties. Female-first right-wing pairs received 1.5% fewer votes.

Challenges of the leftist current in Brazil during the era of President (DaSilva)

There have been sharp fluctuations in the political regimes that Latin America has experienced in recent years. And the developments in several Latin American countries over the past years have revealed the dominance of leftist parties on the political scene. This dominance began to recede after the right-wing parties advanced in large countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Paraguay. These developments came as a result of the decline of the democratic approach of the left-wing parties, or as a result of the prosecutions of corruption scandals, as happened in Brazil during the era of President (De Silva) 2003-2011, who failed to face the prosecutions, which affected the bright image of the Latin left.
 De Silva was not the first leftist to win the rule of their country in South American countries. He was preceded - during the last two years - by the presidents of Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Honduras, and Colombia, whose rule (Gustavo Petro) won as its first left-wing president. This was not the only round won by the symbols of the left by ruling the countries of the southern continent, but they also won in a previous round in the first decade of this century, such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Jose Mojica in Uruguay, and Evo Morales. in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador.

Populism and its impact as a response to illegal immigration: Causes and implications

This study aims to shed light on the phenomenon of populism and its importance in terms of its transformation into an ideology, and to study its manifestations and spread in democratic and non-democratic societies. The study examines the roots and reasons for the return of populism to modern political life.
 Populism is a process of building political opinions and critical intellectual orientations among the general public. This phenomenon is often transformed into ideologically packed mass beliefs with the aim of gaining power.
 Populism appeared in the nineteenth century, and the actual interest in studying it emerged more in the twentieth century, following the rise of political currents and parties in Europe, especially the nationalist and extreme right-wing parties. It came as a means of expressing a political ideology that combines the policies of extremist Right and its rhetoric, through major events such as the US elections, which were the cause of the rise of Donald Trump and the rhetoric of the far-right populist, as well as the exit of Britain from the European Union in protest against the increasing flow of immigration coming from the Middle East and North Africa and increasing suspicions. European countries, and dissatisfaction with the economic policies of the European Union created a large gap within societies, and greatly affected the political, economic and social future of these countries.

The impact of corona populism: Empirical evidence from Austria and theory

I study the co-evolution between public opinion and party policy in situations of crises by investigating a policy U-turn of a major Austrian right-wing party (FPÖ) during the Covid-19 pandemic. My analysis suggests the existence of both i) a “Downsian” effect, which causes voters to adapt their party preferences based on policy congruence and ii) a “party identification” effect, which causes partisans to realign their policy preferences based on “their” party's platform. Specifically, I use individual-level panel data to show that i) “corona skeptical” voters who did not vote for the FPÖ in the pre-Covid-19 elections of 2019 were more likely to vote for the party after it embraced “corona populism”, and ii) beliefs of respondents who declared that they voted for the FPÖ in 2019 diverged from the rest of the population in three out of four health-related dimensions only after the turn, causing them to underestimate the threat posed by Covid-19 compared to the rest of the population. Using aggregate-level panel data, I study whether the turn has produced significant behavioral differences which could be observed in terms of reported cases and deaths per capita. Paradoxically, after the turn the FPÖ vote share is significantly positively correlated with deaths per capita, but not with the reported number of infections. I hypothesize that this can be traced back to a self-selection bias in testing, which causes a correlation between the number of “corona skeptics” and the share of unreported cases after the turn. I find empirical support for this hypothesis in individual-level data from a Covid-19 prevalence study that involves information about participants’ true vs. reported infection status. I finally study a simple heterogeneous mixing epidemiological model and show that a testing bias can indeed explain the apparent paradox of an increase in deaths without an increase in reported cases. My results can, among others, be used to enrich formal analyses regarding the co-evolution between voter and party behavior.

Demonising Migrants in Contexts of Extremism: Analysis of Hate Speech in UK and Spain

Hate speech has been seen as a problem within democratic societies that has been exacerbated by social media. While platforms claim to moderate content, this proves impossible. Studying popular platforms in the UK and Spain and examining content within community pages dedicated to right-wing parties, we use framing analysis to identify the predominant frames in user comments that contained hate speech against migrants. Our research demonstrates a frequent use of arguments that encourage xenophobic and discriminatory attitudes to flourish. Specifically, we find that immigrants are commonly framed as potential criminals, people who steal resources and erode norms of the dominant culture and traditions. The fact that these frames are commonly used is worrying and indicates xenophobic attitudes exist within both societies under study. However, it is difficult to imagine regulatory systems that would prevent these attitudes from being expressed. Rather, we argue that it is more important to focus on correcting the conditions that cause such attitudes to take hold within a society.

Swedish Foreign Policy, 1809-2019

Reading Graeme D. Eddie’s book – Swedish Foreign Policy, 1809–2019: A Comprehensive Modern History – is a remarkable history lesson. And don’t get me wrong, it is in no way like the boring, never-ending, tedious history lectures held by a dull teacher whotalks way too slowly; it’s something else. While being a historical review, the book is a real page turner! It’s detailed, it’s informative, yet gripping. In the current reality, where Sweden is joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and where the SwedenDemocrats, a populist right-wing party, are now the second largest party, it is relevant to look back in order to understand the present. Reading this book is an excellent start.

How active are right-wing party members? Portuguese right-wing delegates, from a comparative and a General Incentives Model (GIM) perspective

This contribution explores the role of the incentives and benefits of party affiliation, along with the ideological reasons for being politically active, in particular as a party delegate. The rational for party affiliation and for activism has developed over recent decades, ranging from individual to collective reasons. The incentives that explain activism have been an essential part of the discussion on the reasons for becoming a party member, particularly following the seminal study on the General Incentives Model (GIM)’s, Seyd and Whiteley (1992). Later developments from Whiteley et al. (2019) provided evidence on the activism of radical political forces, as is the case of UKIP in the United Kingdom. Following the GIM framework, this study explores these themes within a Portuguese context, and from a comparative perspective. To date, investigations in this field have rarely focused on Portugal. The research question is: how do delegates view their party’s incentives and benefits, and how is this influenced by their ideological self-positioning on the left–right scale? We argue that the larger the party, the lower the members’ assessment will be of the incentives and benefits achieved. In methodological terms, this study is based on the MAPP project and surveys, applied to Portuguese political party members, including delegates from right-wing parties. The relevance of this article lies in the application of the GIM to delegates of right-wing political parties, in a comparative perspective, considering a downward trend and a Southern European country that has, to date, been little explored in this context (Sierens et al. 2022). The goal is to find evidence of how right-wing party members and delegates view the incentives and benefits that play a role in party activism.

Gender segregation in parliamentary committees of Turkey: Intermediary spaces of women's political representation

Do the Turkish parliamentary committees exhibit gendered appointment practices? If so, what are the driving factors behind women's limited representation in some committees? Previous studies find a division of labor in committees based on the perceived gender roles: women legislators are over-represented in low-prestige committees with “feminine” themes such as family, health, and education, whereas they are under-represented in strategically key policymaking committees. These studies —mostly on Western democracies— explain this gender bias with the appointment practices of the conservative right-wing parties. Using an original dataset of appointments between 2002 and 2020, this paper examines the partisan effects on the under- and over-representation of women on certain committees in the Turkish context. We find that all parties except the small left-wing Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) perform in a similarly biased way. We argue that parliamentary committees are gendered institutional spaces greatly affected by the institutional culture of political parties. Even though institutional culture is mostly shaped by ideological stances, political parties are still among institutional spaces where ideologies of masculinity are effectively shaping power relations. We conclude that institutionalizing mechanisms that enhance agential capacities and practices at the party level are vital for gender equality within the political sphere.

Choosing Women in Postwar Elections: Exposure to War Violence, Ideology, and Voters’ Gender Bias

AbstractThe level of women’s parliamentary representation often increases after armed conflict, but do voters in postwar societies actually prefer female electoral candidates? We answer this question by analyzing a unique data set containing information on nearly 7,000 candidates running in three elections with preferential voting in postwar Croatia. Our analysis demonstrates that voters’ gender bias is conditional on the local electorate’s ideology and exposure to war violence, with voters of right-wing parties and voters in areas more affected by war violence being more biased against female candidates. These effects of ideology and exposure to war violence also exhibit a strong interactive relationship, suggesting that bias against women is strongest among right-wing voters in areas exposed to war violence and reversed among left-wing voters in areas exposed to war violence. Our findings highlight the need to better understand the relationship between gender, ideology, and violence in postconflict societies.

Vaccine or catalyst? Christian religion and populism in Europe: A rejoinder to Inglehart's “Religion's sudden decline”

The strength and direction of the association between Christian religion and support for radical right-wing parties is strongly debated. On the one hand, there is work that shows that in Western European countries with a strong Christian democratic party, the relationship between church attendance and voting for populist radical right (PRR) parties is negative (Marcinkiewicz and Dassonneville 2022). Such findings contradict with the conclusions reached by Inglehart (2021), who reported that adherence to religious norms correlates positively with support for PRR parties. In this research note we shed light on the reasons for these contrasting conclusions, by systematically assessing the role of empirical choices in terms of the operationalizations of the dependent and the key independent variables, and how heterogeneity is dealt with.

The Political Salience of Animal Protection in the Netherlands (2012–2021) and Belgium (2010–2019): What do Dutch and Belgian Political Parties Pledge on Animal Welfare and Wildlife Conservation?

The Netherlands and Belgium are European Union (EU) states with a shared border and cultural similarities. Article 13 of the EU Treaty of Lisbon recognises animals as sentient beings. EU laws protect animal welfare and conservation, and member states can implement more stringent legislation. Political salience refers to the extent to which citizens are concerned about political issues. Issue salience can be measured by assessing references to animal protection in party political manifestos. This research analyses the political salience of animal protection in the Netherlands and Belgium. It analyses over 2600 statements on animal protection in Dutch (2012–2021) and Belgian (2010–2019) party manifestos across three consecutive national elections. Quantitative analysis reveals that in both the Netherlands and Belgium, animal protection became more salient during successive elections, with the total number of positive statements increasing and the total number of negative statements decreasing. Farmed animal welfare and wildlife/biodiversity were the most salient issues, although the focus in countries and regions differed. Dutch parties and those in the Walloon region of Belgium focused on farmed animal health and unnecessary suffering; Flemish parties stressed intensive agriculture and animal welfare. In Belgium, wildlife/biodiversity statements stressed the protection of local species; Dutch statements were strongly linked to agriculture. In both the Netherlands and Belgium, left-wing parties had more progressive policy statements, whilst right-wing parties prioritised economic prosperity over animal protection. This research provides the first academic analysis of animal protection policies in political manifestos in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Unlikely Expropriators: Why Right-Wing Parties Implemented Agrarian Reform in Democratic Brazil

AbstractWhat motivated right-wing and conservative parties to endorse a policy of land expropriation and redistribution in Brazil? I argue that urban-dominated right-wing parties endorsed agrarian reform in order to: (i) reduce crime in wealthier metropolises by reversing rural–urban migration; and (ii) gain competitive advantage against left-wing challengers. To test this argument I conduct process tracing, analysing over 500 elite statements about agrarian reform, drawn from archival, interview and survey data. In addition, I model land expropriations at the municipal level and show how right-wing administrations disproportionately expropriated land in the states of origin of migrants and, within those, in localities where the Left was more competitive. My results portray how two externalities of inequality – crime and competition with the Left – motivated conservative support for agrarian reform in Brazil.

Left and Right in Space and Politics

The terms left and right can refer to spatial or political orientations. We hypothesized that a match (vs. mismatch) of spatial position and political orientation would lead to more positive political judgments. In three experiments, German participants (total N = 517) evaluated statements from the political left-wing and right-wing spectrums as well as German political parties presented either on the left or on the right side of their screens. When statements were presented on the left, politically left statements as well as left-wing parties were evaluated more favorably than when these statements were presented on the right. Conversely, politically right statements and right-wing parties were evaluated more favorably when the statements were presented on the right versus left side of the screen. Cultural conservatism, need for cognitive closure, and openness to experience were assessed but did not mediate these effects. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the results.

Problems in the Relations of the Visegrad Group States with the European Union in 2014-2022.

The subject of the study is the historical conditions in which the disloyal attitude of the Visegrad Group towards the solutions proposed by the EU began to grow during the specified period of time. The analysis of the migration crisis, which has aggravated political, economic, financial, social, and religious problems in the EU countries, is carried out. The EU's efforts to overcome it have become the basis for strengthening the role of right-wing parties in the Quartet. The role of Hungary, which represents itself as a defender of "Europe as a continent for Europeans", which has pursued the most active restrictive migration policy, is considered. The plans of the leadership of Germany and Austria for the management of migration flows, reflecting the ambitions of Berlin and Vienna for the transit and reception of refugees, are presented. The "central" line of Brussels on overcoming the migration crisis is being studied. The tools used by V4 to overcome the migration crisis caused by the vulnerability of the Quartet countries to refugee flows are considered. The article also examines criticism from the "quartet" of the process of overcoming the migration crisis, which saw in the measures proposed by Brussels a threat to the national identity of its small states and a sign of disrespect for the interests of small states in the EU. In general, the migration crisis has resulted in the strengthening of far-right parties in Hungary and Poland, the radicalization of public opinion, which contradicts the main goals of European integration. Thus, the internal political development in some countries of the "Visegrad Four" has actually become a new noticeable element of confrontation with the European Union. Hungary and Poland reacted extremely painfully to criticism of the EU, appealing for support to partners in the Visegrad Group, to other countries where right-wing and conservative parties are also popular (Italy, Austria). As a counteraction, the EU leadership raised the issue of a threat to EU values in Poland and Hungary and considered the possibility of using a mechanism to influence countries that do not respect the values of the European Union.