scholarly journals The Radical Right as Niche Parties? The Ideological Landscape of Party Systems in Western Europe, 1980–2014

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 84-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Wagner ◽  
Thomas M Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Niche Parties ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
The Right

The emergence of the radical right as a strong competitor to mainstream parties has fundamentally reshaped patterns of competition in many European party systems. In this article, we systematically explore changes to the ideological landscape in Western Europe by examining whether there has been programmatic mainstreaming of radical right parties due to (a) accommodation to and (b) moderation by radical right parties. We examine positions and salience on liberal-authoritarianism and the salience of economic issues using manifesto data from 68 parties in 17 countries. Our findings provide empirical support for a rightward shift in European party systems: on liberal-authoritarianism, mainstream left and right parties have increased their emphasis and moved to the right. Yet radical right parties have generally remained niche competitors; they are increasingly extreme and more focused on liberal-authoritarianism. Our analysis has important implications for understanding party systems, party competition and citizen representation in Europe.

scholarly journals The Centre Does Not Hold: Coalition Politics and Party System Change in the Netherlands, 2002–12

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huib Pellikaan ◽  
Sarah L. de Lange ◽  
Tom W.G. van der Meer
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Party System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Coalition Formation Process ◽  
The Impact

Like many party systems across Western Europe, the Dutch party system has been in flux since 2002 as a result of a series of related developments, including the decline of mainstream parties which coincided with the emergence of radical right-wing populist parties and the concurrent dimensional transformation of the political space. This article analyses how these challenges to mainstream parties fundamentally affected the structure of party competition. On the basis of content analysis of party programmes, we examine the changing configuration of the Dutch party space since 2002 and investigate the impact of these changes on coalition-formation patterns. We conclude that the Dutch party system has become increasingly unstable. It has gradually lost its core through electoral fragmentation and mainstream parties’ positional shifts. The disappearance of a core party that dominates the coalition-formation process initially transformed the direction of party competition from centripetal to centrifugal. However, since 2012 a theoretically novel configuration has emerged in which no party or coherent group of parties dominates competition.

The Rise of Challenger Parties

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-39
Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries ◽  
Sara B. Hobolt
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Government Experience ◽  
Degree Of Stability ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
Historical Origins

This chapter discusses the rise of challenger parties. Challenger parties are those parties that have not yet held the reins of power: the parties without government experience. There are three main ways of distinguishing between challengers and mainstream parties in the existing literature. One focuses on the historical origins of the parties, another focuses on the specific issues they mobilize, and the third focuses specifically on populism as a distinguishing feature. The chapter then presents three examples of “waves” of challenger parties over the past century (social democratic parties, green parties, and populist radical right parties) and explores the commonalities in the strategies these parties have pursued, despite their very different ideological outlooks. It also considers the evolution of party competition in postwar Western Europe, demonstrating both the remarkable degree of stability the established party families enjoyed for much of the postwar period and then the increasing fragmentation resulting from the strengthening of challengers on both the right and the left.

Migration and the Extreme Right in Western Europe

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Nedelcu ◽  
Chris Miller
Keyword(s):  
Full Text ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Relationship

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

Party Systems and Radical Right-Wing Parties

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Kitschelt
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Strategic Interaction ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Issue Ownership ◽  
Initial Rise ◽  
Radical Right Parties

This chapter presents an introduction to different theories of party competition, as exemplified by the substantive puzzle of radical right-wing partisan rise. The first task, however, is to conceptualize radical right party fortunes within the context of competitive party systems. The next three sections discuss the initial rise of radical right parties through three lenses: spatial theories of party competition, institutional and historical mediators of current competitive opportunities for radical right entry, and non-spatial theories of party competition based on valence and issue ownership. This is followed by a report on research about the ongoing strategic interaction between radical right parties and their competitors after the former’s initial rise to electoral prowess. The chapter concludes with several general synthesizing hypotheses about the life cycle of political parties, with the radical right’s rise and possible future demise being a particular application.

Populist Rhetoric and Nativist Alarmism

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-76
Author(s):  
Barbara Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Politics ◽  
Close Affinity ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
European Parties ◽  
Radical Right Parties

Using the 2017 Chapel Hill Expert Survey of party positions, this study compares the AfD with other European parties outside the political mainstream across several ideological/attitudinal dimensions. The paper explores the changing character of European party systems and multiple axes of party competition. It regards populism and nativism as distinct political phenomena, but as ones that are symbiotic and coupled together provide a particular powerful narrative. The paper finds that the AfD shares a close affinity with radical right parties in Europe but also emerges as one of Europe’s most populist and nativist parties. This explains the AfD’s affiliation with the Identity and Freedom Group in the European Parliament; it also supports the argument it is the blend of populist anti-elitism and nativist alarmism that has made the AfD the potent force in German politics that it is today.

Radical Right Parties: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market and Voting Radical Right in Western Europe

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 267-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Immigration Politics ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Electoral Market

Radical Right Parties: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, Pippa Norris, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 349.Voting Radical Right in Western Europe, Terri E. Givens, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 178The growing importance of immigration politics in Western Europe during the past two decades and the connected rise of radical right parties have justifiably received much scholarly attention. While a first generation of scholars treating this phenomenon were mostly concerned with the social bases for the growing political influence of such parties, recent studies have begun to emphasize the importance of purely political factors, such as institutional frameworks and strategic party competition. The books on this topic by Norris and Givens are two of the most prominent accounts in this second generation of studies.

scholarly journals Migration and the Extreme Right in Western Europe

1970 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Nedelcu ◽  
Chris Miller
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Relationship

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.

scholarly journals Exploring Gender Differences in Support for Rightist Parties: The Role of Party and Gender Ideology

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 80-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosie Campbell ◽  
Silvia Erzeel
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Right

This contribution to the Special Issue on Gender and Conservatism uses expert and election surveys to explore the extent to which the feminist or traditional gender ideology of parties of the right relates to their economic and liberal/authoritarian ideology. We show that although parties of the left generally espouse more feminist ideologies than parties of the right, there are a significant number of rightist parties in Western Europe that combine laissez-faire economic values with liberal feminist ideals. That said, there is more homogeneity among parties of the populist radical right than rightist parties more generally. We find that despite some variation in their gender ideology, parties of the populist radical right overwhelmingly—with the exception of one party in the Netherlands—continue to adopt traditional or antifeminist gender ideologies. In terms of attracting women voters, we find that rightist parties who adopt a feminist gender ideology are able to attract more women voters than other parties of the right. We detect several examples of center-right parties that include feminist elements in their gender ideologies and are able to win over larger proportions of women voters than rightist parties that fail to adopt feminist positions.

Ideological voting for radical right parties in Europe

Acta Politica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Ortiz Barquero ◽  
Antonia María Ruiz Jiménez ◽  
Manuel Tomás González-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Party Systems ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Election Study ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Political Dissatisfaction ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
European Election ◽  
Ideological Voting

AbstractThe aim of this research is to examine to what extent the electoral support for radical right parties (RRPs) is driven by ‘policy voting’ and to compare this support with that of centre-right parties. Using the European Election Study 2019, we focus on six party systems: Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom. Our analyses reveal that party preferences for RRPs are better explained by policy considerations than by other alternative explanations (e.g. by ‘globalization losers’ or ‘protest voting’). Additionally, the results show that although preferences for both party families are mainly rooted in ‘policy voting’, notable differences emerge when looking at the role of specific policy dimensions. Overall, these findings suggest that the support for RRPs cannot be understood fundamentally as a mere reaction against economic pauperization or political dissatisfaction but instead as an ideological decision based on rational choice models.

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