Do Voters Polarize When Radical Parties Enter Parliament?

Abstract

Do voters polarize ideologically when radical views gain political legitimacy, or does the rise of radical voices merely reflect societal conflict? We argue that elite polarization as signaled by radical parties' first entrance into parliament leads to voter divergence. Immediately after the election, legitimization and backlash effects mean that voters on both ideological sides move toward the extremes. In the longer term, this polarization is solidified because of radical parties' parliamentary presence. A panel study of Dutch voters shows that the 2002 parliamentary entrance of a radical-right party indeed led to immediate ideological polarization across the political spectrum. Estimating time-series cross-sectional models on Eurobarometer data from 17 countries shows an additional long-term impact of radical-right party entry on polarization. The presence of radical voices on the right has polarizing effects, illustrating how such institutional recognition and legitimization can have a far-reaching impact on society.

Does Radical-Right Success Make the Political Debate More Negative?

“…Concretely, the success of candidates whose rhetoric is deemed unacceptable increases the incentives to use emotions as a tool to mobilize voters against such rhetoric. Our findings also support and provide further detail to previous research showing that the success of radical-right candidates can have a polarizing effect (Bischof and Wagner 2019). While this research has focused on the effect of radical-right success on voters, we find a similar effect on the rhetorical style of political elites.…”

“…Moreover, the voter who support these politicians are also likely to be the ones who more strongly react by condemning radical-right discourse. As Bischof and Wagner (2019) show, after an initial legitimization effect, radical-right success leads to a backlash effect brought about by left-wing individuals becoming more likely to enforce the norms that the radical-right breaches. Consequently, if mainstream politicians react to radical-right success by strategically counterbalancing their negative rhetoric, the effect should be stronger on MP's of left-wing parties, who have have stronger intrinsic (their own values) and strategic (their voters' reactions) motivations to distance themselves from the radical right.…”

“…Virtually all European countries have a radical-right party with parliamentary representation. Their success has been shown to shift the policy positions of the remaining candidates (Abou-Chadi and Krause 2018; Abou-Chadi 2016), affect the preferences of voters (Schain 2006), polarize the electorate (Bischof and Wagner 2019), put new issues in the political agenda (Hobolt and De Vries 2015), and normalize previously stigmatized behavior (Bursztyn, Egorov, and Fiorin 2017;Valentim 2018). One of the most distinctive characteristics of radical-right candidates is their rhetoric, which makes extensive use of negative emotions (Widmann 2019).…”

“…On the other hand, among mainstream parties, the effect should be stronger on left-wing MPs, because their values are more affected by the divisive negative discourse of the radical right. Moreover, the strategic incentive for these parties to distance themselves from the negativity brought about by the radical right is stronger, because previous research has shown that its voters themselves tend to react to radical-right success by holding closer to the democratic norms breached by the negative discourse of the radical right (Bischof and Wagner 2019).…”

A Rare Moment of Cross-Partisan Consensus: Elite and Public Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada

“…Polarization can only be avoided if elites send signals of consensus (Berinsky, 2009;Zaller, 1992). Most research on cue-taking has been situated in the United States, but some work has illustrated the importance of elite cues comparatively (Bischof and Wagner, 2019) and in Canada specifically (Merolla et al, 2016).…”