The Support Base of Radical Right Parties in the Enlarged European Union

Abstract It was shown on the basis of 1994 data that support for most radical right parties was motivated by the same kind of ideological and pragmatic considerations as support for established parties. On the basis of 1999 data, this was seen to be true only for a small group of successful radical right parties. The current study replicates these analyses on the basis of data from the European Elections Studies 2004. It shows that, by 2004, voters for almost all radical right parties are less motivated by left–right ideology than voters for the established parties. The implications of these results — which are at odds with the literature on niche parties — are discussed.

[1]  M. Fennema,et al.  Anti-immigrant parties in Europe: Ideological or protest vote? , 2000 .

[2]  C. Eijk,et al.  Choosing Europe?: The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union , 1996 .

[3]  Pamela Paxton,et al.  Anti-Immigrant Sentiment, Policy Preferences and Populist Party Voting in Australia , 2006, British Journal of Political Science.

[4]  Wouter Van Der Brug Meindert Fennema.  Protest or mainstream? How the European anti-immigrant parties developed into two separate groups by 19991 , 2003 .

[5]  Marcel Lubbers,et al.  Extreme right-wing voting in Western Europe , 2002 .

[6]  Jocelyn Evans.  comparative mapping of extreme right electoral dynamics: an overview of ereps (‘extreme right electorates and party success’) , 2001 .

[7]  M. Franklin,et al.  One electorate or many? Differences in party preference formation between new and established European democracies , 2008 .

[8]  David Art,et al.  Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market , 2007, The Journal of Politics.

[9]  W. Rogers.  Regression standard errors in clustered samples , 1994 .

[10]  C. Mudde,et al.  Populist radical right parties in Europe , 2007 .

[11]  M. Fennema,et al.  Dealing with Extremists in Public Discussion: Front National and 'Republican Front' in France , 2000 .

[12]  P. Ignazi,et al.  Extreme right‐wing parties in Europe , 1992 .

[13]  H. Witte,et al.  Attitudinal dispositions to vote for a 'new' extreme right-wing party: The case of 'Vlaams Blok' , 1995 .

[14]  D. Farrell,et al.  Political parties in advanced industrial democracies , 2002 .

[15]  M. Fennema,et al.  A Rational choice for the extreme right , 1998 .

[16]  C. Mudde,et al.  The Netherlands: explaining the limited success of the extreme right , 2000 .

[17]  Bonnie M. Meguid.  Competition Between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy in Niche Party Success , 2005, American Political Science Review.

[18]  K. Aarts,et al.  Explaining the Rise of the LPF: Issues, Discontent, and the 2002 Dutch Election , 2006 .

[19]  Cees van der Eijk,et al.  Policy preferences and party choice , 1999 .

[20]  Romain Lachat.  The economy and the vote: Economic conditions and elections in fifteen countries , 2009 .

[21]  Frederick D. Weil,et al.  Who Voted for Hitler , 1982 .

[22]  John R. Petrocik,et al.  Explaining and Predicting Elections: Issue Effects and Party Strategies in Twenty-Three Democracies , 1983 .

[23]  C. Eijk,et al.  What Voters Teach Us About Europe-Wide Elections: What Europe-Wide Elections Teach Us About Voters , 1996 .

[24]  P. Scheepers,et al.  Individual and contextual characteristics of the German extreme Right–Wing vote in the 1990s. A test of complementary theories , 2000 .

[25]  Hermann Schmitt,et al.  Political representation and legitimacy in the European Union , 1999 .

[26]  Anders Westholm.  Distance versus Direction: The Illusory Defeat of the Proximity Theory of Electoral Choice , 1997, American Political Science Review.

[27]  P. Ignazi.  The silent counter‐revolution , 1992 .

[28]  James D. Wright,et al.  The Political Consciousness of Post-Industrialism@@@The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics. , 1978 .

[29]  M. Kroh,et al.  Rethinking the dependent variable in voting behavior: On the measurement and analysis of electoral utilities , 2006 .

[30]  Hans‐Georg Betz.  Radical right-wing populism in Western Europe , 1995 .

[31]  C. Eijk.  Design issues in electoral research: taking care of (core) business , 2002 .

[32]  Anthony J. McGann,et al.  The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. , 1997 .

[33]  Jean Tillie,et al.  Party utility and voting behavior , 1995 .

[34]  D. Hillam,et al.  The Silent Revolution , 2020, Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Technology International.

[35]  P. Nieuwbeerta,et al.  Class voting in western industrialized countries, 1945—1990: Systematizing and testing explanations , 1999 .

[36]  P. Hainsworth.  The politics of the extreme right : from the margins to the mainstream , 2000 .

[37]  M. Franklin,et al.  Electoral Change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries , 1992 .

[38]  Sergio Fabbrini.  Citizen Politics in Western Democracies. Public Opinion and Political Parties in the United States, Great Britain, West Germany and France , 1990 .

[39]  Linda Bos,et al.  Public images of leaders of anti-immigration parties: Perceptions of legitimacy and effectiveness , 2010 .

[40]  James A. Stimson.  Regression in Space and Time: A Statistical Essay , 1985 .

[41]  R. Griffin.  The ‘post‐Fascism’ of the Alleanza Nazionale: A case study in ideological morphology , 1996 .

[42]  Joel Waldfogel,et al.  Introduction , 2010, Inf. Econ. Policy.

[43]  Mark Swyngedouw.  The subjective cognitive and affective map of extreme right voters: using open-ended questions in exit polls , 2001 .

[44]  W. Brug.  How the LPF Fuelled Discontent: Empirical tests of explanations of LPF support , 2003 .

[45]  Wouter van der Brug,et al.  Voters' Perceptions and Party Dynamics , 1999 .

[46]  Timothy Hellwig.  West European Politics in the Age of Globalization . By Hanspeter Kriesi, Edgar Grande, Romain Lachat, Martin Dolezal, Simon Bornshier, and Timotheos Frey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2008. 468p. $99.00 cloth, $39.99 paper. , 2009, Perspectives on Politics.

[47]  M. Jennings,et al.  Continuities in Political Action: A Longitudinal Study of Political Orientations in Three Western Democracies , 1990 .

[48]  P. Scheepers,et al.  Multilevel modelling of Vlaams Blok voting: Individual and contextual characteristics of the Vlaams Blok vote , 2000 .

[49]  Hans‐Georg Betz,et al.  The new politics of the right : neo-populist parties and movements in established democracies , 1998 .

[50]  Wouter van der Brug,et al.  Charisma, Leader Effects and Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties , 2007 .

[51]  Meindert Fennema,et al.  Some Conceptual Issues and Problems in the Comparison of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe , 1997 .

[52]  R. Eatwell.  The dynamics of right‐wing electoral breakthrough 1 , 1998 .

[53]  Stuart Macdonald,et al.  Issues and Party Support in Multiparty Systems , 1991, American Political Science Review.

[54]  M. Fennema.  Legal repression of extreme-right parties and racial discrimination , 2000 .

[55]  E. Voegelin.  The Origins of Totalitarianism , 2020, On Violence.

[56]  Richard I. Hofferbert,et al.  Parties, Policies, And Democracy , 1994 .

[57]  Jaap van Donselaar.  Post-war fascism in the Netherlands , 1993 .

[58]  J. Spanje,et al.  Immigration, Europe and the ‘new’ cultural dimension , 2009 .

[59]  Pascal Perrineau,et al.  Why do they vote for Le Pen , 1992 .

[60]  D. Bell.  The French National Front , 1994 .

[61]  I. Budge,et al.  Ideology, strategy and party change : spatial analyses of post-war election programmes in 19 democracies , 1987 .

[62]  S. Hix.  Dimensions and alignments in European Union politics: Cognitive constraints and partisan responses , 1999 .

[63]  R. Eatwell.  Ten theories of the extreme right , 2003 .

[64]  M. Hees,et al.  The Ideology of anti-immigrant parties in the european Parliament , 1998 .

[65]  M. Lubbers.  Exclusionistic electorates: extreme right-wing voting in Western Europe , 2001 .

[66]  R L Williams,et al.  A Note on Robust Variance Estimation for Cluster‐Correlated Data , 2000, Biometrics.