Still blurry? Economic salience, position and voting for radical right parties in Western Europe

Abstract

Do radical right parties present blurry economic stances, or have they clarified their positions while moving towards the economic left? This article questions the strategic behaviour of radical right parties in Western Europe. It shows that although radical right parties have increased their discussion of economic issues, and expert placements of this party family on the economic dimension have become more centrist over time, the uncertainty surrounding these placements continues to be higher for the radical right than any other party family in Europe. The article then moves on to examine to what extent voter-party congruence on redistribution, immigration and other issues of social lifestyle predict an individual's propensity to vote for the radical right compared to other parties. Although redistribution is the component of economic policy where the radical right seems to be centrist, the findings indicate that it remains party-voter congruence on immigration that drives support for radical right parties, while the congruence level for redistribution has an insignificant effect. The article concludes that while radical right parties seem to have included some clearly left-leaning economic proposals, which shifted the general expert views of these parties to the economic centre, their overall economic profiles remain as blurry as ever.

Radical right parties and their welfare state stances – not so blurry after all?

“…This newer research has shown that against the expectations of the 'winning formula', RRPs no longer present distinctly rightwing economic positions and argued that RRPs have very good reasons to refrain from advocating staunchly welfare-critical stances. On the contrary, a range of studies have placed RRPs around the centre of the economic dimension (Afonso and Rennwald 2018;de Lange 2007;Kitschelt 2004) or have at least observed them moving to the left Valdez 2015, 2019;Lefkofridi and Michel 2014;Rovny and Polk 2020). Consequently, when in government, they are rather reluctant to engage in welfare retrenchment (R€ oth et al 2018) or then target cutbacks to specific social groups (Chueri 2020).…”

Those were the days: welfare nostalgia and the populist radical right in the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden

“…These successes are not unrelated to the political upheavals that punctuated these years: the global financial crisis, the Eurozone crisis and the migration crisis, which are likely to have nourished welfare chauvinism across the EU (Marx & Naumann, 2018;Otjes et al, 2018). At the same time, socioeconomic issues gained salience for PRRPs and their voters (Lefkofridi & Michel, 2017;Rovny & Polk, 2020) while mainstream parties accommodated the welfare chauvinist positions of their populist competitors (Schumacher & van Kersbergen, 2016).…”

A Radical Right-Wing Failure in Canada

“…In response to this loss of national identity, people may turn to nationalism, popular xenophobia, racism, and ethno-pluralism (Rydgren, 2007, p. 251). A vast majority of research supports this reasoning (Ambrose & Mudde, 2015;Arzheimer, 2008;Arzheimer, 2018;Arzheimer & Berning, 2019;Bélanger & Aarts, 2006;Betz, 1994;Daigle et al, 2019;Davis et al, 2019;Gidron & Hall, 2019;Goerres et al, 2018;Halikiopoulou & Vlandas, 2019;Ignazi, 1992;Ivarsflaten, 2005;Ivarsflaten, 2008;Lubbers & Coenders, 2017;Lubbers et al, 2002;Minkenberg, 2000;Muis & Immerzeel, 2017;Nevitte et al, 1998;Rooduijn, 2015;Rovny & Polk, 2019;Rydgren, 2002;Rydgren, 2007;Rydgren, 2008;Van Der Brug et al, 2005;Zhirkov, 2014). A few studies find no link (Besco & Tolley, 2019;Kitschelt & McGann, 1995;Oesch, 2008;Turnbull-Dugarte, 2019), while Stockemer et al (2018) finds mixed results.…”