The Radical Right in Southern Europe
This chapter examines the connections between the trajectory of the radical right in Italy, Spain, and Greece and the impact of the 2007 economic crisis and its aftermaths. The crisis sparked sweeping anti-political sentiments directed against the mainstream political actors that had been ruling these countries in recent decades, and which were held responsible for the disproportionate impact of the crisis on these countries. However, it is argued that distinctive supply-side and contextual political factors affected the relevance of radical right parties in the countries examined. Competition from new types of populist formations such as Podemos and the Five Star Movement limited the viability of the radical right in Italy and Spain, while in Greece the radical right emerged in association with conventional extreme right ideologies. In addition, in Spain a perception of migrants as less threatening and competition from ingrained ethnonationalist identities further limited the viability of the radical right.