The great debate about democracy in Norway revisited

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Electoral competition in Europe’s new tripolar political space : class voting for the left, centre-right and radical right

In a growing number of countries, the two dominant political poles of the 20th century, the parties of the Left and the Centre-Right, are challenged by a third pole made up by the Radical Right. Between 2000 and 2015, the Radical Right has obtained more than 12 per cent of the vote in over ten Western European countries and in over twenty national elections. We argue that the three poles compete with each other for the allegiance of different social classes. Our analysis shows the micro-foundations of class voting in nine West European countries where the political space was tripolar for part – or all – of the period between 2000 and 2015. Based on the European Social Survey 2002-2014, we find that socio-cultural professionals still form the party preserve of the Left, and large employers and managers constitute the party preserve of the Centre-Right. However, the Radical Right competes with the Centre-Right for the votes of small business owners, and it challenges the Left over its traditional working-class stronghold. These two contested strongholds attest to the coexistence of old and new patterns of class voting. The analysis of voters’ attitudes shows that old patterns are structured by the economic axis of conflict: production workers’ support for the Left and small business owners’ endorsement of the Centre-Right. In contrast, new patterns are linked to the rise of the Radical Right and structured by the cultural axis of conflict: the support for the Radical Right by production workers and small business owners

Contextual effects of immigrant presence on populist radical right support: testing the ‘halo effect’ on Front National voting in France

This paper examines the relationship between immigration and populist radical right (PRR) support, based on an analysis of the contextual effects of immigrant presence on Front National vote in France in 2017. Using a unique set of survey data geolocalising respondents at the subcommunal level, it finds evidence for the existence of a curvilinear “halo effect,” with substantial increases in the probability of PRR vote in areas surrounding communities with significantly higher-than-average immigrant populations, and independent of other socio-economic context, as well as individual socio-demographic characteristics. Most importantly, a path analysis confirms the presence of individual attitudinal mediators of this halo effect on PRR vote, thus testing the foundation of the halo, namely that the contextual effects of immigrant presence act on attitudes which drive PRR support. These findings provide a significant step forward in understanding the mechanisms linking subjective experience of immigration with voting for the populist radical right

Union members at the polls in diverse trade union landscapes

This article investigates to what extent social democratic parties still benefit from the support of union members at the polls. Not only are social democratic parties confronted with new competitors in the party systems, but also the union confederations of the socialist labour movement are in some countries losing their dominant position due to the rise of separate professional confederations. It is argued in the article that the effect of union membership on voting choice is conditioned by the structure of the trade union movement. The support of union members for social democracy is fostered by the strength of the confederations historically close to this party family, while it is hampered when strong separate (or politically unaffiliated) white-collar confederations exist. Using European Social Survey and Swedish Public Opinion data, the article shows that social democratic parties still enjoy important support from trade union members, but at the same time are under fierce competition from bourgeois and green parties among members of white-collar confederations. This reinforces the challenges for social democracy to build new voters’ coalitions in post-industrial societies

Workplace characteristics and working class vote for the old and new right

This article focuses on the role of plant size for working class vote. We argue that workplace size does matter for political behaviour. Workers in smaller plants are less unionized and therefore base their voting decisions more strongly on their cultural attitudes, which undermine the support for social democratic parties. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–2010), we find that workers in small plants have more right-wing attitudes and, consequently, vote for new and old right parties, contrarily to workers in larger plants. Our research points towards important structural explanations of working class support for the right and its cross-national differences

Broadening the individual differences lens on party support and voting behavior: Cynicism and prejudice as relevant attitudes referring to modern-day political alignments

Social-cultural and economic-hierarchical ideological attitudes have long been used to explain variation in political partisanship. We propose two additional, stable attitudes (political cynicism and ethnic prejudice) that may help explaining contemporary political alignments. In a Belgian (N = 509) and Dutch sample (N = 628), we showed that party support can be segmented into four broad families: left, libertarian, traditionalist, and far-right parties. Both studies revealed that social-cultural and economic-hierarchical right-wing attitudes were negatively related to left party support and positively to libertarian, traditionalist and far-right support. Importantly, additional variance was consistently explained by political cynicism (lower libertarian and traditionalist support), ethnic prejudice (lower left support), or both (higher far-right support). Study 2 additionally demonstrated these patterns for self-reported voting

Risks, costs and labour markets: explaining cross-national patterns of far right party success in European Parliament elections

What is the impact of the economy on cross national variation in far right-wing party support? This paper tests several hypotheses from existing literature on the results of the last three EP elections in all EU member states. We conceptualise the economy affects support because unemployment heightens the risks and costs that the population faces, but this is crucially mediated by labour market institutions. Findings from multiple regression analyses indicate that unemployment, real GDP growth, debt and deficits have no statistically significant effect on far right-wing party support at the national level. By contrast, labour markets influence costs and risks: where unemployment benefits and dismissal regulations are high, unemployment has no effect, but where either one of them is low, unemployment leads to higher far right-wing party support. This explains why unemployment has not led to far right-wing party support in some European countries that experienced the 2008 Eurozone crisis

Nationalist Reframing of the Finnish and Swedish Welfare States - The Nexus of Nationalism and Social Policy in Far-right Populist Parties

The rise of right-wing populist parties in the Nordic countries is slowly redefining the Nordic social democratic discourse of the universal and egalitarian welfare state. The nexus of nationalism and social policy has been explored in regions and countries such as Quebec, Scotland, Belgium and the UK, but the change of discourse in the Nordic countries has received less attention. Taking the case of Sweden and Finland, this article argues that Nordic populism does not question the redistributive welfare state per se as many other European neo-liberal far-right parties have done. Instead, it reframes the welfare state as being linked to a sovereign and exclusive Swedish and Finnish political community with distinct national boundaries. Although Sweden and Finland largely share a common welfare nation state discourse, the article also points to important differences in the way this discourse is able to frame the welfare nation state where access to, and the design of, social services are no longer universal and egalitarian but based around ethnicity. The article aims to demonstrate this through an analysis of the welfare discourses of two populist parties: Sweden Democrats and True Finns