Support For Far-right Parties Research Articles

Pollution, severe health conditions, and extreme right-wing ideology: A tale of three contemporary challenges

By exploiting the microgeography of local air pollution at the 1km-by-1 km grid-level, we link local air quality to the voting intentions of a nationally-representative sample of 27,000 UK residents. We find a causal link between air pollution and support for far-right parties: a unit increase in pollution leads to a 3% rise in the probability to support these parties. These intentions are stronger for lung disease and cancer sufferers.

Uncovering the flash potential of immigration: attitudes, salience, and far-right support in Europe

Abstract Attitudes toward immigrants and immigration are a central explanation for the electoral support of far-right parties. However, while these parties gained strength over the last two decades, European citizens’ views about immigration have not changed much. In this study, we contribute to solving this puzzle by uncovering the flash potential of immigration. With its salience as a politically contested issue increasing, negative yet previously less relevant immigration preferences and evaluations transform more often into politically tangible attitudes and behaviors, such as support for far-right parties. We uncover this flash potential with individual-level ESS data and aggregated measures of issue salience among the public, allowing us to model the conditioning effects of contextual-level immigration salience on the individual-level relationship between immigration attitudes and far-right support. The results from random-effects within-between models analyzing 208,794 individual respondents from 141 country-rounds and 24 countries over the period of 2002–2018 show that the effects of citizens’ attitudes on support for far-right parties are stronger in contexts and periods in which the salience of immigration is higher. Accordingly, while immigration attitudes among European public have not turned more negative over time, they have become more influential for citizens’ party attachments and vote choices.

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

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

Economic Distress and Support for Far-Right Parties - Evidence from Sweden

This paper studies the effects of economic distress on support for radical right parties. Using Swedish election data, I show that layoff notices among low-skilled native-born workers account for 31 percent of the increased vote share for the Swedish radical right party the Sweden Democrats. The effect of layoff notices on support for the Sweden Democrats is larger in areas with a high share of low-skilled immigrants, and in areas with a low share of high-skilled immigrants. These findings are in line with theories suggesting that voters attribute their impaired economic status to immigration, due to labor market concerns. In addition, I use individual-level survey data to show that self-reported unemployment risk is positively associated with voting for the Sweden Democrats among low-skilled respondents while the opposite is true for high-skilled respondents, echoing the aggregate-level findings.

The German grand coalition of 2005–09 and party system change: Catalyst or continuity?

Two times in the last fifty years grand coalitions have altered traditionally bi-polar patterns of German electoral competition, changing the electoral context by making it difficult for voters to endorse anti-incumbent alternatives. How have voters reacted under these circumstances, and were their responses different because of the weakening of partisan attachments in the forty years between the two grand coalitions? This study explores these questions by examining voter behavior in German state elections under the federal grand coalitions of 1966–69 and 2005–09, comparing voters’ responses with long-term trends in German party system development. The second grand coalition saw a continuation of trends in declining turnout and increasing electoral volatility, but in contrast to the first grand coalition there was no surge in support for far-right parties. Such a change may be the result of differences between the party systems in the two period, with voters in unified Germany having many more options for expressing discontent.