Rally ’round the barrack: Far-right support and the military

Abstract

Literature on the determinants of far-right support has increased markedlyduring the last few years, expanding our knowledge on who votes for these par-ties. Little is known, however, about the relationship being a member of the mil-itary and voting for the far-right. Recent scandals within the armed forces ofsome developed democracies underscore this gap. In this paper, we argue thatthere is an ideological affinity between the military and far-right parties based onshared values over nationalism and authoritarianism. We use two distinct empir-ical strategies to test this argument in Spain. First, we pool together data fromseveral survey rounds to show that individual military personnel are significantlymore prone to support Spain’s new populist radical right-wing party, VOX. Sec-ond, we show that the location of military facilities across Spain is linked to highersupport for VOX. Using spatial statistics, we show evidence of a diffusion effect.Our findings are relevant to both the literature on far-right support and our knowl-edge of civil-military relationships.

Analyzing Text and Images in Digital Communication: The Case of Securitization in American White Supremacist Online Discourse

“…In Austria, veterans have been linked with the popularization of populist radical right ideas (Art 2011). And in Spain, support for right-wing populism is especially high among military personnel (Villamil, Turnbull-Dugarte, and Rama 2021). Furthermore, this relationship between security-minded and security-linked individuals and the extreme right in Europe is not new.…”

They’re Still There, He’s All Gone: American Fatalities in Foreign Wars and Right-Wing Radicalization at Home

“…Belew (2019) highlights that U.S. military engagements predict surges in membership of far-right organizations as veterans "bring the war home," and experts note military and law enforcement personnel are disproportionately represented in far-right political organizations and events (see Belew 2019; Donnelly 2021; Jackson 2020; Ware 2019), including the Capitol insurrection (see Jones et al 2021;Miller-Idriss 2020b;Milton and Mines 2021). Individuals with close connections to military personnel are most affected by war fatalities, and evidence suggests social proximity to the military is associated with radical right politics, for example, voting for far-right parties (Villamil, Turnbull-Dugarte, and Rama 2021). Because political ideology is shaped predominantly by group attachments, individuals are far more likely to radicalize within their pre-existing political camp than within ideologies that contradict long-held beliefs (Achen and Bartels 2017).…”