Radical right parties seldom break into a national party system all of a sudden. Rather, they usually set foot in subnational parliaments first, but the enhancing effect of subnational representation for their electoral performance in national elections is less well-studied. In fact, subnational parliamentary representation can help leverage radical right parties to the national level,… Continue reading “The Effect of Subnational Representation on Radical Right Parties”
Though estimating the vote share of radical right parties in advance of an election is politically important, it is always a challenge. This can be due to sampling bias in the polling, in which the sample may not represent the population of radical right party supporters, or critical events, such as scandals about radical right… Continue reading “Estimating vote share of radical right parties with “Wisdom of Crowds””
“The vote starkly demonstrates… the splintering and polarization of the electoral base across Europe. However, it also indicates a new, if disruptive, re-engagement by citizens in politics.” With the highest turnout in 20 years, European voters had a chance to express their support for a broad range of parties in the recently completed European Parliament… Continue reading “Euro-election results 2019: a wake-up call to traditional parties”
The vision of a fascist Europe proved to be a chimera. Today’s watchers of the radical right must hope that things will be no different when the heirs of ‘classic fascism’ meet in Milan next week. It was reported on 5 April that Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s League Party (formerly the Northern League) and the country’s… Continue reading “A pan-European radical right – contradiction in terms?”
Only time will tell if Vox’s rise is borne of disappointment with the country’s political process, or whether there is a real solidarity with the movement’s ideological principles. In recent years, Spain’s political system has gone through a number of convulsions. The traditional alternation in government between the conservative People’s Party (PP) and the Spanish… Continue reading “Is a New Style of Politics Coming to Spain?”
On November 27, 2018, I was invited to a panel discussion at Amherst College entitled “The Global Rise of Nativism and Illiberalism: A Conversation on the Contemporary Political Pathology”. Based on my talk and remarks at that panel, I will write three blog entries. The first below discusses my thoughts on the media’s treatment of… Continue reading ““The Global Rise of Nativism and Illiberalism: A Conversation on the Contemporary Political Pathology”. Part One – The Radical Right in the Headlines.”
In a recently published article in European Political Science, my colleague Sarah Valdez and I show that nationalism not only increasingly characterizes contemporary radical right parties but also increasingly distinguishes them from other major party families in Western Europe. To demonstrate this, we relied on data from the Manifesto Project, a cross-national, longitudinal database of… Continue reading “From radical right to neo-nationalist: A research note on the Danish case”
The Hungarian political sphere has been nothing if not interesting in recent months – especially in terms of the old Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times.” Events have also been anxiety-inducing of late, with new ideas and proposed bills coming thick and fast from parliament’s supermajority. April and May 2018 saw Orbán’s encouragement… Continue reading “Hungary’s Population Crisis: More Babies and Less Migrants”
The death of the categories of Left and Right is a frequent trope in political analysis. The familiar distinction borne out of the French Revolution has seen its relevance challenged on several occasions throughout the Western world, including in the 2017 French presidential election. In an election fought between the ‘both Left and Right candidate’… Continue reading “Right? Left? Neither? Why Radical Right Parties Reject the Politics of Left and Right.”