Who votes for the radical right PiS Party in Poland?
We examine how the governing radical right Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) has a unique voter profile. Our findings reveal that in addition to strong anti-immigrant attitudes, voters that…
Posts by author
James Downes
19 posts
Centre-Right Party Electoral Success on Immigration in Europe: Diverse Macro-Economic & Macro-Political Contexts in the 21st Century
Dr James F. Downes finds that across the span of the twenty-first century, mainstream centre-right parties have been able to benefit electorally from adopting different strategies on the immigration issue…
The Center Right Goes Hardline On Immigration In Europe
The Importance Of The Immigration Issue The European Refugee crisis, which began in 2015, has provided significant challenges for mainstream political parties in Europe, both on the center left, the…
Explaining Electoral Support for the Far-Right Sweden Democrats (2016–2017)
Drawing on public opinion data from 2016–2017, Dr James F. Downes and graduate Jeremy Lok examine the ‘rise’ in support for the Sweden Democrats, in the context of the refugee…
Disunity within the Ranks? Party Expulsions in the European Radical Right: 2000–2020
Drawing on an original database of party expulsions of radical right parties in Europe across twenty countries from 2000-2020, Felix Wiebrecht, James F. Downes, Edward Chan and Anna Kam devise…
Ideological Ambiguity, Issue Blurring & Party Dissent: The Electoral Decline of the Populist Italian Five Star Movement
James F. Downes and Nicola Palma argue that Italian Five Star Movement’s (M5S) future as a governing party is uncertain. Drawing on data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (2014,…
‘Syncretic’ Populism in Contemporary 21st Century European Politics
What is ‘Syncretism’? ‘Syncretism’, also known as “Catch-all Populism” in the academic literature, is an ambiguous term that has often been applied to political parties that are ideologically centrist and have…
What Drives the Center Right’s Electoral Success?
Center-right parties recognized the 2008 economic crisis as a time of greater voter volatility when the populist radical right sought to secure more support through appeals over immigration. The 2008…
The Far-Right Party Family in the 21st Century: A Guide
Ideological Diversity Contemporary Far Right parties in Europe are often grouped into two distinct ideological wings. It is first important to differentiate between populist radical right parties (PRR) and extreme…
From ‘Challengers’ to ‘Incumbents’: The Populist Radical Right in Government
Electoral Breakthroughs Following the electoral breakthrough of the populist radical right (PRR) in continental Europe in both recent national parliamentary elections covering the 2015–2018 refugee crisis period and the 2019…