Right-wing Populist Parties Research Articles

Politicizing the minimum wage: A multilingual text analysis of minimum wages in European electoral manifestos

This article examines the determinants of the growing political salience of minimum wages in European party manifestos. By using multilingual quantitative text analysis, I show that the electoral salience of minimum wages has increased in the past decades. Although left-wing parties emphasize minimum wages more than right-wing parties, I find that the electoral salience of this policy follows a U-shaped relationship: right-wing populist parties dedicate greater attention to minimum wages than centre-right parties do. A sentiment analysis finds that compared to other policies designed to supplement the income of low-wage workers, such as strengthening collective bargaining institutions and in-work benefits/wage subsidies, there do not seem to be specific party-political characteristics, which determine the sentiment with which discussions on minimum wages are framed.

Effects of populism: The agenda of fact-checking agencies to counter European right-wing populist parties

European right-wing populism is a widely studied phenomenon in recent years. At the same time, many fact-checking projects have been launched with the purpose of assessing statements from the most relevant social actors. The role of fact-checkers is growing, but there is scant literature on their agenda. In this study, we investigate the communication strategies on Twitter of European right-wing populist parties and their relationship with the agenda of fact-checking initiatives in Germany, France, Spain and Portugal. Based on a content analysis of tweets covering political content ( n = 4212), we analyze not only the agenda but also the use of propaganda mechanisms and the scope of the tweets. The results show how the agenda of right-wing populism was composed of ideological thematic issues. Fact-checkers focus on competitor leaders and generate lower interaction. These findings contribute to increasing research on both actors, arguing that the focus on political leaders impacts on fact-checking.

Multiscalar strategies in right-wing populism: a comparison of West European parties in borderlands

ABSTRACT This paper demonstrates the heuristic value of using a multiscalar perspective to analyse right-wing populist discourse, especially in borderland regions. While it is commonly posited that right-wing populist ideology implies a Manichean dichotomy between in- and out-groups, this study reveals that right-wing populist discursive strategies can thrive in multiscalar contexts. To substantiate this claim, the article conducts a comparative analysis of the discourses employed by a set of right-wing populist parties in borderland regions of Western Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings highlight that although these parties’ discourse predominantly revolves around the national scale, there is a complex interplay among subnational, national, cross-border and supranational scales. By advocating for the reinstatement of border controls during the crisis, European right-wing parties engage in scalar reconfiguration.

The Complexity of Climate Positions of Right-wing Populist Parties in Europe

The rise of anti-climate right-wing populist parties urgently threatens mainstream climate governance goals in Europe. However, it is an oversimplification to portray all right-wing populist parties as outright climate deniers. In reality, the climate positions of right-wing populist parties are complex. While some right-wing populist parties continue to deny climate science and oppose climate action, others acknowledge the evidence but distance themselves from mainstream climate policies. This complexity arises from the tension between these parties’ ideological convictions and strategic considerations. On the optimistic side, the complexity of right-wing populist parties’ climate positions could create openings for cross-party cooperation based on scientific consensus and help transform some right-wing populist parties into constructive actors on climate governance. However, most right-wing populist parties remain deeply hostile to climate action; it is hard to expect that the opportunism of such parties in their climate positions will prompt them to make real policy concessions.

Populism in Times of a Pandemic

Abstract This article provides an analysis of the COVID-19 discourse within six European populist parties from Spain, Germany, and France, with the aim of shedding light on the diverse interpretations and presentations of the pandemic by these parties. While most studies focus on right-wing or far-right populism, this study looks at both right and left ideologies paired with populism. By applying the discourse-historical approach of critical discourse studies, we highlight similarities and differences across the right-left political spectrum, as well as variations within and between different countries. The study contributes thus to the existing literature on populism and extends our understanding of the relationship between populist parties and the pandemic beyond right-wing populist parties only. Results, consistent with previous research, show that the host ideology decisively shapes parties’ discourses about COVID-19 and the need to consider alternative perspectives in populism research.

Immigration und Soziale Integration – Was sind die Konsequenzen von ethnisch-residentiellen Grenzen und Halos für die soziale Integration in Deutschland?

AbstractDoes immigration erode the social integration of contemporary mass-scale societies? Continued immigration and corresponding growing ethnic, racial, and religious diversity have prompted this important and highly controversial question. This article gives a brief introduction to the scientific literature on this question and derives from it the following gap that it seeks to address: According to a small number of studies on related but different topics, immigration may be detrimental to social integration if it physically manifests as one of two specific types of ethnic residential segregation. The contested boundaries hypothesis has it that border regions sandwiched between ethnically defined neighborhoods are particularly conflict prone and characterized by increased rates of crime. The halo-effect hypothesis claims that majority members who live in homogenous mainstream neighborhoods that border on ethnically diverse ones (or are even encircled by them) are more likely to vote for right-wing populist parties. In this article, we expand both approaches to the study of social integration in theoretical and empirical terms. With respect to theory building, we discuss why social integration, as indicated by social trust and community attachment, should suffer from these two types of ethnic segregation. To test these claims empirically, we use data from the geo-coded German General Social Survey (ALLBUS/GGSS) 2016 and 2018 that we merge with 100-m × 100‑m spatial grid data from the German Census 2011. These data allow us to apply edge detection techniques to identify ethnic residential boundaries, and our recently developed donut-method to measure ethnic residential halos. To our knowledge our study is the first investigation into the arguably important question whether ethnic residential boundaries and halos erode social integration.

From opposition to government: how populist parties change their political communication in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT Political communication is central to the electoral ascension of populist parties across the world. Several studies investigate how communication is used by populists to gain power, but we know very little about how the communication varies when moving between opposition and government office. The few studies on the topic focus exclusively on right-wing populist parties and neglect left-wing populism. This article addresses this gap in the literature and analyses the political communication of left- and right-wing populist parties by comparing their periods in opposition and in government. It focuses on the Northern Ireland case and compares Sinn Féin and the DUP and uses deductive thematic analysis for each election manifesto for the Northern Ireland Assembly between 1998 and 2022. The analysis includes four themes: people-centrism, anti-elite bad manners, crisis talk and volonté générale solutions. Contrary to theoretical expectations, we find that the right-wing populist DUP has changed more substantively its political communication than the left-wing Sinn Féin when moving from opposition to government.

An Exploration of the Reasons Why Right-Wing Populist Parties in Europe are Anti-Immigration: The Case of Italy

Populism has become a prevailing political phenomenon in Europe, as evidenced by the repeated electoral victories of right-wing populist parties, which have transitioned from the political periphery to the centre stage. These parties frequently espouse anti-immigration rhetoric, which poses significant obstacles to European integration and globalization while simultaneously fueling racism and xenophobia. Such sentiments may foster political polarization within Europe and destabilize the global political economy. Despite Italy's former status as a leading destination for migrants in Europe, it has recently implemented increasingly restrictive immigration policies and experienced notable electoral gains for right-wing populist parties. The xenophobic tenets of right-wing populism account for these developments, making it crucial to investigate the reasons for their anti-immigrant stance. Accordingly, this study will examine the interplay between the tightening of Italy's immigration policy and the rise of right-wing populist parties, specifically investigating the underlying reasons for the anti-immigration stance of such parties by analyzing the cultural dilemma and economic crisis. By scrutinizing the origins of right-wing populist anti-immigration claims, this study seeks to uncover the driving factors behind the heightened stringency of immigration policies in countries like Italy in the wake of the rightward shift in European politics.

Government participation and populist discourse transformation of radical left Syriza and radical right Anel

This study examines how the government participation within an EU country can affect the discourse of the left-wing and right-wing populist parties. We analyzed this question by tracing two Greek populist parties' discourse, the left-wing Syriza and the right-wing Independent Greeks (Anel), during the 2012-2019 period. We have split the examined period into two subperiods (2012 to July 2015, and August 2015 to 2019). The turning point was the Syriza-Anel government’s signature of the third EU bailout program in August 2015. The first hypothesis was that the government accession within the EU context would slightly decrease the populist logic of the two parties. The next two hypotheses referred that the EU leverage emerged by the signing of the bailout agreement will decrease the populist rhetoric of the two parties towards the external elites (mainly the EU). However, the right-wing populists (Anel)- even after this decrease- will target the external elites to a larger extent than the left-wing populists. To examine the hypotheses in-depth, we applied a combination of quantitative content analysis with qualitative discourse analysis. The findings have corroborated our three initial hypotheses. Simultaneously, the qualitative discourse analysis offered us some additional findings concerning the two parties' use of topos of “History” to increase their populist appeal within the electorate.

Philo-Semitic Civilisationism or Anti-Semitic Nationalism? The Ambivalent Stance of the Alternative for Germany Towards Judaism, Jews, and Israel

ABSTRACT This article follows up on assumptions of Rogers Brubaker and Benjamin Moffitt, according to whom, some Western and Northern European right-wing populist parties use ‘civilisationist’ and liberal-illiberal narratives that are, for instance, characterised by a ‘philo-Semitic stance’. The paper analyses to what extent the German right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) fits into this concept, considering the party’s ambivalent attitude towards Judaism, Jews, and Israel. Using qualitative content analysis, the study is based on an examination of AfD electoral manifestos and parliamentary documents from the federal level as well as from states such as Berlin, Baden-Württemberg, and Thuringia between 2014 and 2019. Our results reveal differences that range from open anti-Semitic statements to self-definitions as a ‘pro-Jewish’ party. We argue that different positions can be explained by regionally divergent discursive opportunity structures as well as personnel heterogeneity across the party sections under study. Furthermore, we reason that a combination of anti-Semitic and pro-Jewish/Israeli statements fits into the AfD’s strategy of addressing both voters from the radical right with anti-Semitic prejudices and more moderate, conservative voters that reject open hostility towards Jews and Israel. We conclude that the AfD fulfils Brubaker’s and Moffitt’s concepts only to a rather limited extent.

AUSTRIAN POPULIST RIGHT AND TÜRKİYE: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS FOR FPÖ

The rise of populist radical right parties in the last decades is one of the most significant political developments in Europe. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) which was founded in 1956 is considered as a remarkable example in terms of using anti-immigrant and xenophobic discourses and affecting Austrian politics for more than half a century. In this article the FPÖ’s anti-Türkiye rhetoric is investigated by using discourse analysis. The Turkish community in Austria growing since the 1960s, the cultural differences and Türkiye’s EU membership discussions are the main topics used by the FPÖ to influence the public opinion. Therefore, it is aimed to reveal how and why FPÖ relates its nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam rhetoric to Türkiye and Turks. The FPÖ’s anti-Türkiye discourse is a noteworthy example of how a radical populist right-wing party targets another country, part of its own population and its cultural identity for its political pursuits.

Risk Narratives on Immigration During the COVID-19 Crisis in Italy: A Comparative Analysis of Facebook Posts Published by Politicians and by News media

This work explores how the narrative on immigration changes when society is threatened by “real” risks, i.e., during the COVID-19 health crisis. We compared the frequency and engagement of over 348,684 posts published on Facebook between December 2019 and November 2020 by Italian politicians and news media. We identified two waves of “tangible crisis” assuming that in these two periods the risk stemming from COVID-19 was strongly perceived by the Italian population, contrasting our observations to the periods preceding the first wave and between both waves. Our findings suggest that the political discourse and risk narratives on immigration decreased during times of “tangible crises” for right-wing populist parties and news media. This happened at a time when key policies regarding immigration and regularization of migrants were highly discussed by the Italian government, receiving unexpectedly low reactions. This leads us to theorize that anti-immigrant communication decreases during times of “tangible crises.”

Investigating the discourse of right-wing populists

Right-wing populist parties in Europe have developed an electoral agenda based on strengthening state border control. How do these parties adapt their discourse in cross-border regions characterized by strong economic interdependences? We spoke to Dr Christian Lamour and Professor Oscar Mazzoleni about their work in analysing populist discourse in cross-border regions

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.

Existential anxieties and right-wing populism in Europe—why people unconcerned by globalisation vote against it

In recent years several contributions have made the argument that right-wing populist voting is interrelated with individuals being negatively affected by globalisation. While there is certainly merit to this argument, it cannot explain why voters unconcerned by globalisation vote for right-wing populist parties. In this article we answer this question and argue that ontological insecurity or, the way we frame it, existential anxieties are a previously overlooked determinant of right-wing populist voting, as these anxieties make people vulnerable to right-wing populist crises narratives even when they are not affected by the crises. Using European Social Survey data for 12 Western European countries between 2004 and 2018, we construct a novel index that measures existential anxieties on the individual level. Our index shows (1) that existential anxieties increase the likelihood of right-wing populist voting and (2) that the fear fuelling narratives of these parties especially mobilise individuals with moderate globalisation attitudes.

Blurred positions: The ideological ambiguity of valence populist parties

While the diversity of populism has received considerable attention, surprisingly little is known about populist parties that defy clear-cut left-right categorization. We show that valence populist parties are non-positional and substantially different from both left-wing and right-wing populist parties. First, we demonstrate that valence populist parties deliberately take blurry positions on both the economic and socio-cultural dimensions of competition. Second, we show that such an ambiguity is counterbalanced by a disproportionate emphasis on anti-corruption appeals, the most paradigmatic example of a non-positional dimension. Our results have important implications for our understanding of varieties of populism, in particular, and the positional and non-positional competition strategies of political parties, in general.

How Right-Wing Populists Influence Citizenship Education—Evidence from Poland

As the importance of right-wing populist parties (RPPs) has grown significantly in Europe, with some even forming governments, the attendant political and policy programs are attracting greater attention. However, to date most of the relevant research has been focused on the core slogan policies of RPPs, relating to immigration and the economy. This has left the parties’ educational policies understudied. In seeking to address this situation, we analyse changes in the citizenship-education curricula that Poland’s schools pursued during the years 2017 to 2022, with the country’s ruling party ( Law and Justice— PiS), thus offering a case study of a typical RPP. This article scrutinizes citizenship-education curricular changes pursued by PiS—with an approach that regards this as the field that best allows the desire to reconstruct the model of citizenship to be discerned. We also explore a process of “civic de-socialization,” and the new system of values being put in place in the curricula, by the Polish government. We examine whether the new provisions this entails fit into the ideological system of right-wing populists, and we conclude by developing hypotheses, and seeking to conclude theoretically, that ideological radicalization in education is being observed, in the wake of years of rule by an RPP. Interesting in this regard is the finding that more profound changes were not put into effect until a second stage to the reforms was reached. Overall, the case of the curriculum pursued in Poland by PiS points to a new ontology of citizenship, more nativism, and an anti-progressive agenda.

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.

A typology of right-wing populism in Europe: Intersections of gender, religion and secularity

This study attempts to advance our understanding of the role gender plays in populist politics by proposing a typology of gendered populism. Our argument is that populist parties' discursive construction of “the people” against “elites” and “non-people” is a gendered process, in which gender operates as a constitutive element for determining who is included in or excluded from “the people”. We also argue that the gendered construction of “the people” intersects with parties' configurations of religion and secularism. We propose that this intersection forms a four dimensional space of gendered populism composed of inclusionary or exclusionary and religious or secular populisms. Our analysis comparatively examines the discourses and policies of the right wing populist parties (RWPPs) and their leaders in France, Sweden and Turkey. Despite sharing an exclusionary understanding of “the people”, the selected RWPPs represent a variegated gendered populism because of their diverging approaches to gender, religion and secularity. Our comparative analysis approaches national-institutional backgrounds concerning the legal status of secularism, political and socio-cultural secularization as possible explanatory factors for the formation of religious and secular exclusionary populism in the four dimensional space. We believe, a four dimensional approach to populism sheds light on our understanding of gendered populism and proposes a fruitful avenue for future comparative studies of populism.

A divorce of convenience: exploring radical right populist parties’ position on Putin’s Russia within the context of the Ukrainian war. A social media perspective

ABSTRACT Over the last decade there has been a growing convergence between Putin’s Russia and West European right-wing populist parties (WERPPs) that are growing in consensus around Europe. Such relationship, depicted as “marriage of convenience”, benefits both Putin in his quest for the international legitimization of his political regime and WERPPs in their rally for power at both the national and the European levels. Grounded on a mix of populism, opposition to the European Union and radical right-wing ideology, does this marriage survive the Ukrainian crisis or does it transform itself in a “divorce of convenience”? This work uses an original dataset of more than 900k tweets collected in the period between 2013 and 2022 and produced by two Italian populist parties and shows what shapes WERPPs’ communication about Russia. Moreover, it empirically demonstrates how fragile, mutable and exposed to the influence of contextual factors this relationship is.