Ex-Colonials, Voluntary Associations, and Electoral Support for the Contemporary Far Right

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Veugelers
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Support

Empire's Legacy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W.P. Veugelers
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Middle Part ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Southeast Region ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Postwar Europe

Building on the idea of latent political potential, this book offers an alternative interpretation of the contemporary far right. Its main thesis is that relations between colonizers and colonized implanted a legacy that, under certain conditions, translated into support for the far right in France. To make this argument, the book offers a model for the study of political potentials that combines a situational approach to identity relations, a networks approach to subcultural practice, and a historical approach to political opportunity. The early part of this book traces the origins and development of this potential among the European settlers of French Algeria. The middle part examines its transmission via voluntary associations and its channeling into mainstream parties. The latter part examines the conditions under which this potential redirected into the far right. Starting with colonial Algeria, after independence in 1962 the book moves between politics at three levels: France, the southeast region, and Toulon (which in 1995 became the largest city in postwar Europe to elect a far-right administration). Complementing economic explanations for nativism, this book argues that our understanding of modernity errs when it disregards the potency of anachronistic remnants.

scholarly journals Political and ideological normalization: quality of government, mainstream-right ideological positions and extreme-right support

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Christos Vrakopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Extreme Right ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Post War ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Extreme Right Parties

Abstract This article aims to explain the variation in the electoral support for extreme-right parties (ERPs) in Europe. The extant literature on the far-right party family does not answer this question specifically with regard to the extreme-right variants for two main reasons. Firstly, theories did not expect the electoral success of these parties in post-war Europe due to their anti-democratic profiles and association with fascism. Secondly, despite the fact that they acknowledge the differences between the parties under the far-right umbrella – namely, the extreme and the radical – they normally do not take these differences into account, and if so, they focus on the radical-right parties. This article shows that electoral support for ERPs is associated with low quality of government and highly conservative mainstream-right parties. The former creates political legitimization for anti-democratic parties and the latter ideological normalization of extreme right.

International Social Work and Social Welfare: Europe

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
The Eu

Europe includes not only some of the most economically and socially developed countries in the world but also some of the poorest. Social work as a profession has been well established for over 100 years within a variety of social welfare models; the countries in Central and Eastern Europe have re-established social work since the 1990s. The financial crisis of 2007/2008 and its aftermath, followed by the challenges of migration from war zones and Africa, have had a significant impact on the politics and social policy of the region and the resources available for social services and social work in most countries. These events are provoking a re-evaluation of the European Social Model. Some argue that they have also fueled the rise in electoral support for far right, nationalist, anti-immigration, and populist parties, seen also in other continents. The decision of the United Kingdom to break away from the EU, following a referendum in 2016, and the increase in support for anti-EU parties in other countries are having a profound social and political impact across the region.

Arrived in Power, and Yet Still Disgruntled? How Government Inclusion Moderates ‘Protest Voting’ for Far-Right Populist Parties in Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Jasper Muis ◽  
Tobias Brils ◽  
Teodora Gaidytė
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Important Determinant ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Political Dissatisfaction

Abstract While debates about far-right populism often concentrate on Central and Eastern Europe, research on these parties predominantly focuses on Western countries. Addressing this remarkable gap, this article revisits the ‘protest voting’ explanation for electoral support for the far right. Using European Social Survey data (2002–16) from 22 countries, we show that political dissatisfaction is a stronger explanatory factor when far-right parties are in opposition, but is a less important determinant of electoral support when they are in government. Previous findings based on Western Europe – which similarly showed that the anti-elite hypothesis is less relevant when far-right parties join government coalitions – travel well to post-communist European countries. In Hungary and Poland, we even find that far-right voters have become less distrustful of national political institutions than the rest of the electorate. Our conclusion implies that anti-elite populism is context-dependent and has limited use for understanding successes of leaders such as Wilders, Salvini and Orbán.

A City under the Far Right

2019 ◽  
pp. 117-130
Author(s):  
John W.P. Veugelers
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Far Right ◽  
National Front ◽  
Book Fair ◽  
The City ◽  
Annual Book

This chapter examines how the far right won power in Toulon, and how it governed between 1995 and 2001. When corruption scandals damaged the moderate right, the National Front followed through by winning the city elections. It triumphed due to its efforts to organize, the disgrace of the moderate right, the left’s refusal to withdraw, and critical support from the ex-colonials. Constrained by law, the far right could not implement the party program of national preference. Instead, it bolstered the police force; turned the city’s annual book fair into a cultural battleground; and punished opponents and rewarded friends by fiddling with city grants to voluntary associations. Faithful to the memory of French Algeria, the far right courted the ex-colonials but also annoyed them by insisting on partisan politics. The far right reduced the city’s debt but lacked the means of proving itself.

scholarly journals Immigration and Electoral Support for the Far-Left and the Far-Right

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Edo ◽  
Yvonne Giesing ◽  
Jonathan Öztunc ◽  
Panu Poutvaara
Keyword(s):  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Support

scholarly journals Immigration and electoral support for the far-left and the far-right

2019 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 99-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Edo ◽  
Yvonne Giesing ◽  
Jonathan Öztunc ◽  
Panu Poutvaara
Keyword(s):  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Support

scholarly journals Do TJ policies cause backlash? Evidence from street name changes in Spain

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 205316802110585
Author(s):  
Francisco Villamil ◽  
Laia Balcells
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
Electoral Support

Memories of old conflicts often shape domestic politics long after these conflicts end. Contemporary debates about past civil wars and/or repressive regimes in different parts of the world suggest that these are sensitive topics that might increase political polarization, particularly when transitional justice policies are implemented and political parties mobilize discontentment with such policies. One such policy recently debated in Spain is removing public symbols linked to a past civil war and subsequent authoritarian regime (i.e., Francoism). However, the empirical evidence on its impact is still limited. This article attempts to fill this gap by examining the political consequences of street renaming. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we show that the removal of Francoist street names has contributed to an increase of electoral support for a new far-right party, Vox, mainly at the expense of a traditional right-wing conservative party, PP. Our results suggest that revisiting the past can cause a backlash among those ideologically aligned with the perpetrator, and that some political parties can capitalize on this.

scholarly journals Undocumented Migration and Electoral Support: Evidence From Spain

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 196-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismael Gálvez-Iniesta ◽  
José L. Groizard
Keyword(s):  
Right Wing ◽  
Undocumented Migration ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Western Democracies

Unwrapping the political discourse against immigration is key to understanding the rise of populism in Western democracies. A growing body of literature has found ample evidence that immigration pays a premium to conservative political forces that propose tighter policies. Using data on presidential elections in Spain from 2008 to 2019, we shed light on this debate by highlighting the role played by irregular migration. Some studies show that undocumented immigrants consume less and earn lower wages than documented immigrants with similar observable characteristics. In addition, since they are relegated to working in the informal sector, they cannot contribute to the welfare state with direct taxes. This suggests that undocumented migration might intensify support for right-wing politics and that the effect is independent from the one caused by the presence of documented migrants. We apply an instrumental variable strategy to deal with the non-random distribution of migrants across political districts. Our findings indicate that increasing undocumented migration increases support for the right, while increasing documented migration rises support for the left. When we consider the irruption of the far-right into electoral competitions, we find that undocumented migration redistributes votes from the left to the right, as has been observed in other countries.

scholarly journals Dissecting Electoral Support for the Far Right: A Comparison between Mature and Post-Communist European Democracies

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Tobias Brils ◽  
Jasper Muis ◽  
Teodora Gaidytė
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Immigration Attitudes

Abstract This article investigates three explanations for electoral support for the far right – ‘cultural backlash’, ‘economic grievances’ and ‘protest voting’ – in a novel way. Our main contribution is that we contrast far-right voters with voters of centre-right parties, traditional left-wing parties and abstainers. Equally innovative is the comparison between mature and post-communist democracies. Using European Social Survey data (2014–16), we conclude that anti-immigration attitudes are most important in distinguishing far-right voters from all other groups. Yet, these differences are significantly smaller in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, far-right voters are not the so-called socioeconomic ‘losers of globalization’: this is only true when compared with centre-right voters. Concerning protest voting, distrust of supranational governance particularly enhances far-right voting. Overall, our study concludes that more fine-grained distinctions pay off and avoid misleading generalizations about ‘European far-right voters’ often presented in public debates.

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