Inside the political supply of the radical right
This chapter empirically investigates the political supply of radical right-wing parties. Not only to make sure that the FN and the PVV are actually comparable, which is a necessary condition to justify a comparison of their voters. But also to find out whether there are differences in their political messages, which, in turn, might account for different demands within their respective constituencies. Based on a fine-grained analysis of 1,378 hand-coded tweets of Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, the chapter shows which reference groups they denounce and which groups they claim to support, which issues they prioritize and how they articulate these issues. The findings indicate that the political supply of the two politicians is highly comparable. Rather than offering standardized ‘products’ to a general electorate, both radical right politicians use relatively similar forms of ‘product differentiation’ (Eatwell, 2000), by articulating the demands and identities of multiple societal groups in a nativist fashion. Importantly, both leaders do so through ‘dual closure’ (Parkin, 1979), denouncing both elites (above) and non-native out-groups (below).