scholarly journals Center-Right Political Parties in Advanced Democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Gidron ◽  
Daniel Ziblatt
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Mass Attitudes ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Advanced Democracies

This review proposes a comparative research agenda on center-right parties in advanced democracies, bringing together research in American and comparative politics. Political scientists have recently closely examined the decline of the center-left and the rise of the radical right but have paid less attention to the weakening of center-right parties. Yet cohesive center-right parties have facilitated political stability and compromises, while their disintegration has empowered radical challengers. After presenting an overview of right-wing politics in Western democracies and weighing different definitions of the electoral right, we discuss two factors that shape variations in center-right cohesion: organizational robustness of center-right partisan institutions and the (un)bundling of conservative mass attitudes on different policy dimensions. Last, we argue that a full account of the rise of the radical right cannot focus solely on the strategies of the center-left but must incorporate also the choices, opportunities, and constraints of center-right parties.

Roads to the Radical Right

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Damhuis
Keyword(s):  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Unique Material ◽  
Marine Le Pen ◽  
To Come ◽  
National Perspective ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Do So ◽  
Cross National

Trump, Wilders, Salvini, Le Pen—during the last decades, radical right-wing leaders and their parties have become important political forces in most Western democracies. Their growing appeal raises an increasingly relevant question: who are the voters that support them and why do they do so? Numerous and variegated answers have been given to this question, inside as well as outside academia. Yet, curiously, despite their quantity and diversity, these existing explanations are often based on a similar assumption: that of homogeneous electorates. Consequently, the idea that different subgroups with different profiles and preferences might coexist within the constituencies of radical right-wing parties has thus far remained underdeveloped, both theoretically and empirically. This ground-breaking book is the first one that systematically investigates the heterogeneity of radical right-wing voters. Theoretically, it introduces the concept of electoral equifinality to come to grips with this diversity. Empirically, it relies on innovative statistical analyses and no less than 125 life-history interviews with voters in France and the Netherlands. Based on this unique material, the study identifies different roads to the radical right and compares them within a cross-national perspective. In addition, through an analysis of almost 1,400 tweets posted by Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen, the book shows how the latter are able to appeal to different groups of voters. Taken together, the book thus provides a host of ground-breaking insights into the heterogeneous phenomenon of radical right support.

The Portuguese ‘New State’ and the Diffusion of Authoritarian Models in Interwar Latin America

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942110660
Author(s):  
António Costa Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Political System ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
System Model ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Power Capacity ◽  
Reform Processes

As an authoritarian ‘gravity centre’ in the interwar period, the Portuguese New State was not the product of strong propaganda or power capacity. Its force of attraction derived, essentially, from having an international means of diffusion: important segments of the Catholic Church's organizations, its associated intellectual politicians, and particularly from having led a corporatist and authoritarian political system model. How and why did Salazar's New State inspire some of the new political institutions proposed by radical right-wing elites or created by many of these regimes? This article tackles this issue by adopting a transnational and comparative research approach, paying particular attention to the primary mediators of its diffusion and analyzing institutional reform processes in selected processes of crises and transitions to authoritarianism in Latin America.

Some Dilemmas in Comparative Research

1967 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney Verba
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
The Revolution

There has been a revolution in comparative politics. But as with X all revolutions, it is difficult to date its beginning, hard to chart its course, and now, when the revolution has become established, difficult to say what has been accomplished. The publication of Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, edited by Robert A. Dahl, provides a good occasion to reconsider the revolution and to review some of the problems that have emerged. It is a good occasion because the book is both a splendid comparative work and one that illustrates some of the dilemmas of comparative research.

scholarly journals Who Is Open to Authoritarian Governance within Western Democracies?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Ariel Malka ◽  
Yphtach Lelkes ◽  
Bert N. Bakker ◽  
Eliyahu Spivack
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
Cultural Conservatism ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Western Democracies

Recent events have raised concern about potential threats to democracy within Western countries. If Western citizens who are open to authoritarian governance share a common set of political preferences, then authoritarian elites can attract mass coalitions that are willing to subvert democracy to achieve shared ideological goals. With this in mind, we explored which ideological groups are most open to authoritarian governance within Western general publics using World Values Survey data from fourteen Western democracies and three recent Latin American Public Opinion Project samples from Canada and the United States. Two key findings emerged. First, cultural conservatism was consistently associated with openness to authoritarian governance. Second, within half of the democracies studied, including all of the English-speaking ones, Western citizens holding a protection-based attitude package⸺combining cultural conservatism with left economic attitudes⸺were the most open to authoritarian governance. Within other countries, protection-based and consistently right-wing attitude packages were associated with similarly high levels of openness to authoritarian governance. We discuss implications for radical right populism and the possibility of splitting potentially undemocratic mass coalitions along economic lines.

scholarly journals Who is Open to Authoritarian Governance within Western Democracies?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Malka ◽  
Yphtach Lelkes ◽  
Bert N. Bakker ◽  
Eliyahu Spivack
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
Cultural Conservatism ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Western Democracies

Recent events have raised concern about potential threats to democracy within Western countries. If Western citizens who are open to authoritarian governance share a common set of political preferences, then authoritarian elites can attract mass coalitions that are willing to subvert democracy to achieve shared ideological goals. With this in mind we explored which ideological groups are most open to authoritarian governance within Western general publics using World Values Survey data from fourteen Western democracies and three recent Latin American Public Opinion Project samples from Canada and the United States. Two key findings emerged. First, cultural conservatism was consistently associated with openness to authoritarian governance. Second, within half of the democracies studied, including all of the English-speaking ones, Western citizens holding a protection-based attitude package — combining cultural conservatism with left economic attitudes — were the most open to authoritarian governance. Within other countries, protection-based and consistently right-wing attitude packages were associated with similarly high levels of openness to authoritarian governance. We discuss implications for radical right populism and the possibility of splitting potentially undemocratic mass coalitions along economic lines.

Constitutionalizing Sophisticated Racism: Israel's Proposed Nationality Law

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 40-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amal Jamal
Keyword(s):  
External Factors ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Nationality Law

This essay analyzes the political motivations behind the Jewish Nation-State Bill introduced in the Knesset in November 2014, shedding light on the ascendancy of the Israeli political establishment's radical right wing. It argues that there were both internal and external factors at work and that it is only by examining these thoroughly that the magnitude of the racist agenda currently being promoted can be grasped. The essay also discusses the proposed legislation's long history and the implications of this effort to constitutionalize what amounts to majoritarian despotism in present-day Israel.

Ukranian radical right-wing parties after the revolution of dignity

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-48
Author(s):  
Igor Tanchyn ◽  
◽  
Halyna Lutsyshyn ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Revolution

How and Why the Populist Radical Right Persuades Citizens

2019 ◽  
pp. 813-837
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten ◽  
Scott Blinder ◽  
Lise Bjånesøy
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Large Share ◽  
The Past ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Established Democracies

The “populist radical right” is a contested concept in scholarly work for good reason. This chapter begins by explaining that the political parties usually grouped together under this label are not a party family in a conventional sense and do not self-identify with this category. It goes on to show how political science scholarship has established that in Europe during the past thirty or so years we have seen the rise of a set of parties that share a common ideological feature—nativism. The nativist political parties experiencing most electoral support have combined their nativist agenda with some other legitimate ideological companion, which provides deniability—a shield against charges that the nativist agenda makes the parties and their supporters right-wing extremist and undemocratic. The chapter goes on to explain that in order to make progress on our understanding of how and why the populist radical right persuades citizens, we need to recognize: first, that nativism is the only necessary ingredient without which the populist radical right loses its force; and second, that nativism in contemporary established democracies has tended not to persuade a large share of voters without an ideological companion.

Political Competition and Right-Wing Terrorism: A County-Level Analysis of the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110067
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Nemeth ◽  
Holley E. Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
County Level ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Economic Anxiety ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Level Analysis

While many previous studies on U.S. right-wing violence center on factors such as racial threat and economic anxiety, we draw from comparative politics research linking electoral dynamics to anti-minority violence. Furthermore, we argue that the causes of right-wing terrorism do not solely rest on political, economic, or social changes individually, but on their interaction. Using a geocoded, U.S. county-level analysis of right-wing terrorist incidents from 1970 to 2016, we find no evidence that poorer or more diverse counties are targets of right-wing terrorism. Rather, right-wing violence is more common in areas where “playing the ethnic card” makes strategic sense for elites looking to shift electoral outcomes: counties that are in electorally competitive areas and that are predominantly white.

scholarly journals The radical Right, realism, and the politics of conservatism in postwar international thought

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Jean-François Drolet ◽  
Michael C. Williams
Keyword(s):  
World Politics ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Conceptual Innovation ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
International Thought

Abstract The rise of the radical Right over the last decade has created a situation that demands engagement with the intellectual origins, achievements, and changing worldviews of radical conservative forces. Yet, conservative thought seems to have no distinct place in the theoretical field that has structured debates within the discipline of IR since 1945. This article seeks to explain some of the reasons for this absence. In the first part, we argue that there was in fact a clear strand of radical conservative thought in the early years of the field's development and recover some of these forgotten positions. In the second part, we argue that the near disappearance of those ideas can be traced in part to a process of ‘conceptual innovation’ through which postwar realist thinkers sought to craft a ‘conservative liberalism’ that defined the emerging field's theoretical alternatives in ways that excluded radical right-wing positions. Recovering this history challenges some of IR's most enduring narratives about its development, identity, and commitments – particularly the continuing tendency to find its origins in a defining battle between realism and liberalism. It also draws attention to overlooked resources to reflect upon the challenge of the radical Right in contemporary world politics.

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