scholarly journals Economic Distress and Support for Radical Right Parties—Evidence From Sweden

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110243
Author(s):  
Sirus H. Dehdari

This paper studies the effects of economic distress on support for radical right parties. Using Swedish election data, I show that one layoff notice among low-skilled native-born workers increases, on average, support for the Swedish radical right party the Sweden Democrats by 0.17–0.45 votes. The relationship between layoff notices and support for the Sweden Democrats is stronger in areas with a high share of low-skilled immigrants and in areas with a low share of high-skilled immigrants. These findings are in line with theories suggesting that economically distressed voters oppose immigration as they fear increased labor market competition. In addition, I use individual-level survey data to show that self-reported unemployment risk is positively associated with voting for the Sweden Democrats among low-skilled respondents while the opposite is true for high-skilled respondents, echoing the aggregate-level findings.

2021 ◽  
pp. 147892992110291
Author(s):  
Guillermo Cordero ◽  
Piotr Zagórski ◽  
José Rama

This article deepens the analysis of the effects of immigration on the vote for Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, focusing on education levels of both natives and immigrants. By analysing the immigrant population in 101 regions from 11 European countries, we show that in contexts with a large immigrant presence, the low-educated voters tend to support Populist Radical Right Parties to a greater degree than those who are more educated. However, when the ratio of skilled immigrants is high, also the more educated population tends to support these parties. Hence, our analysis adds insight into the relationship between immigration, education and Populist Radical Right Parties voting, highlighting the need of focusing at lower levels of aggregation and combining the characteristics of both foreign-born and host populations.


Author(s):  
Martijn Felder ◽  
Iris Wallenburg ◽  
Syb Kuijper ◽  
Roland Bal

In this commentary, we reflect on Rinaldi and Bekker’s scoping review of the literature on populist radical right (PRR) parties and welfare policies. We argue that their review provides political scientists and healthcare scholars with a firm basis to further explore the relationships between populism and welfare policies in different political systems. In line with the authors, we furthermore (re)emphasize the need for additional empirical inquiries into the relationship between populism and healthcare. But instead of expanding the research agenda suggested – for instance by adding categories or niches in which this relationship can be observed – we would like to challenge some of the premises of the studies conducted and reviewed thus far. We do so by identifying two concerns and by illustrating these concerns with two examples from the Netherlands.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 816-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilad Feldman ◽  
Huiwen Lian ◽  
Michal Kosinski ◽  
David Stillwell

There are two conflicting perspectives regarding the relationship between profanity and dishonesty. These two forms of norm-violating behavior share common causes and are often considered to be positively related. On the other hand, however, profanity is often used to express one’s genuine feelings and could therefore be negatively related to dishonesty. In three studies, we explored the relationship between profanity and honesty. We examined profanity and honesty first with profanity behavior and lying on a scale in the lab (Study 1; N = 276), then with a linguistic analysis of real-life social interactions on Facebook (Study 2; N = 73,789), and finally with profanity and integrity indexes for the aggregate level of U.S. states (Study 3; N = 50 states). We found a consistent positive relationship between profanity and honesty; profanity was associated with less lying and deception at the individual level and with higher integrity at the society level.


2021 ◽  
pp. 189-212
Author(s):  
Erik R. Tillman

This chapter analyses the evolution of the relationship between authoritarianism and party support from 1990 to 2017. The chapter presents the analyses of eight different countries, and two conclusions emerge. First, high authoritarians have shifted towards radical right parties over the past three decades though there was no prior cross-national relationship between authoritarianism and party support in each country. As a result, different mainstream parties in each country have lost support as high authoritarians increasingly vote for PRR parties. This finding challenges the popular narrative that PRR parties have gained at the expense of social democratic parties, which only holds true in certain countries. The analysis also shows that low authoritarians have shifted towards left-liberal parties such as the greens, further contributing to the worldview evolution. As high authoritarians move towards radical right parties and low authoritarians towards left-liberal parties, traditional centre-left and centre-right parties that were based on twentieth-century class and religious conflicts struggle for support, particularly as generational replacement results in the depletion of their traditional voters.


2021 ◽  
pp. 115-144
Author(s):  
Erik R. Tillman

This chapter examines the relationship between authoritarianism and the likelihood of voting for populist radical right parties in Western Europe. Radical right parties share an ideology based around nativism, authoritarianism, and populism. This ideology appeals to high authoritarians because it promises tough measures to preserve social cohesion, so high authoritarians are more likely to vote for radical right parties. This prediction is tested using national election study data from a range of West European countries. The results show that high authoritarians are more likely to vote for radical right parties, but even more so if they have weaker attachments to the political mainstream. The final set of analyses examines whether economic anxieties or anti-immigration attitudes moderate this relationship. While economic anxieties matter little to radical right party support, high authoritarians who oppose immigration are more likely to vote for a radical right party. These findings build on existing research by providing a stronger explanation of previous findings linking anti-immigration attitudes or cultural anxieties to radical right party support.


2021 ◽  
pp. 167-188
Author(s):  
Erik R. Tillman

This chapter examines the relationship between authoritarianism, age, and radical right party support. This book’s worldview evolution proposes that the relationship between authoritarianism and radical right party support should be stronger among younger voters. However, a rival cultural backlash argument suggests that the relationship should be strongest among older voters, who were socialized in an era of traditional values and less diversity. The analysis finds evidence consistent with the worldview evolution argument while leading to a rejection of the cultural backlash hypothesis. Neither older voters nor older high authoritarians are more likely to support radical right parties. However, the relationship between authoritarianism and radical right party support is stronger among younger voters in each country besides the United Kingdom. This finding suggests that the worldview evolution is driven more by younger voters with fewer prior party attachments, and it also should lead to a rejection of the claim that populist radical right party support comes mostly from ageing demographic groups who will soon be replaced in the electorate.


Author(s):  
Harry Nedelcu ◽  
Chris Miller

The relationship between migration and extremist parties has been an overlapping topic in studies of party systems, citizenship, and migration. This body of work has collectively challenged the view that the success of radical right parties in Western Europe is an unavoidable consequence of increased immigration flows. Through a review of four recent studies, this article will attempt to unpack recent scholarly literature with the aim of investigating the salience of the causal link between immigration and the success of radical right parties. The four works studied arrive at separate conclusions due to their different conceptual understandings of agency in party systems as well as their assumptions about the nature of political mobilization. While three feature the mobilization of immigration as an electoral issue as being an important factor for the success of far right parties, one makes the claim that national definitions of citizenship shape both responses to migration within the host state as well as the space available for the radical right.   Full text available: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v6i1.209


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316801882239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen Jie Im ◽  
Nonna Mayer ◽  
Bruno Palier ◽  
Jan Rovny

This paper studies the association between the risk of automation and vote choice in 11 West European countries. We extend upon labour economics literature on the effects of automation on the labour market by focusing on the political consequences of automation. We also build on existing work relating labour market risks to support for radical right parties. We argue that automation threat is most likely to increase support for radical right parties. We demonstrate that those more inclined to vote for the radical right rather than the average voters are those who are both threatened by automation and are still “just about managing” economically. They are more receptive to the narrative of the radical right, which simultaneously highlights the risk, and proposes protection. Using cross-sectional individual level data drawn from the European Social Survey (rounds 6, 7 and 8), we find that individuals who perceive themselves as “coping on present income” are significantly more likely to vote for radical right parties as risk of automation increases. They are also less likely to vote for major right parties.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sjoerdje Van Heerden ◽  
Didier Ruedin

Over the past two decades populist radical right parties have become established political actors in many European countries. We examine to what extent the share of immigrants in a neighbourhood is associated with popular support for the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV). We examine individual-level changes in sympathy for the PVV using panel data, complemented with geo-spatial data to capture the share of immigrants at the level of the neighbourhoods. We use fixed-effect multilevel models for the period 2007–2014. In line with contact theory, an increased share in the proportion immigrants is associated with a decrease in sympathy for the PVV. This is particularly the case for an increase in the proportion of non-Western immigrants in the neighbourhood. At the same time, respondents who have moved to a neighbourhood with more immigrants within the period under analysis, have significantly more sympathy for the PVV. In addition, we find a statistical interaction effect for Western immigrants: Residents of traditionally ‘native’ neighbourhoods express more sympathy for the PVV when Western immigrants move in, than do residents of neighbourhoods that have been of mixed composition for a longer time.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (47) ◽  
pp. e2111611118
Author(s):  
Massimo Anelli ◽  
Italo Colantone ◽  
Piero Stanig

The increasing success of populist and radical-right parties is one of the most remarkable developments in the politics of advanced democracies. We investigate the impact of industrial robot adoption on individual voting behavior in 13 western European countries between 1999 and 2015. We argue for the importance of the distributional consequences triggered by automation, which generates winners and losers also within a given geographic area. Analysis that exploits only cross-regional variation in the incidence of robot adoption might miss important facets of this process. In fact, patterns in individual indicators of economic distress and political dissatisfaction are masked in regional-level analysis, but can be clearly detected by exploiting individual-level variation. We argue that traditional measures of individual exposure to automation based on the current occupation of respondents are potentially contaminated by the consequences of automation itself, due to direct and indirect occupational displacement. We introduce a measure of individual exposure to automation that combines three elements: 1) estimates of occupational probabilities based on employment patterns prevailing in the preautomation historical labor market, 2) occupation-specific automatability scores, and 3) the pace of robot adoption in a given country and year. We find that individuals more exposed to automation tend to display higher support for the radical right. This result is robust to controlling for several other drivers of radical-right support identified by earlier literature: nativism, status threat, cultural traditionalism, and globalization. We also find evidence of significant interplay between automation and these other drivers.


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