Political and ideological normalization: quality of government, mainstream-right ideological positions and extreme-right support

Christos Vrakopoulos

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

This article aims to explain the variation in the electoral support for extreme-right parties (ERPs) in Europe. The extant literature on the far-right party family does not answer this question specifically with regard to the extreme-right variants for two main reasons. Firstly, theories did not expect the electoral success of these parties in post-war Europe due to their anti-democratic profiles and association with fascism. Secondly, despite the fact that they acknowledge the differences between the parties under the far-right umbrella - namely, the extreme and the radical - they normally do not take these differences into account, and if so, they focus on the radical-right parties. This article shows that electoral support for ERPs is associated with low quality of government and highly conservative mainstream-right parties. The former creates political legitimization for anti-democratic parties and the latter ideological normalization of extreme right.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)56-73
Number of pages18
JournalEuropean Political Science Review
Volume14
Issue number1
Early online date21 Oct 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Feb 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the journal editors for their excellent comment. We are also grateful to Daphne Halikiopoulou, Tim Vlandas, Christoph Arndt, Tom Long, and colleagues from the University of Reading and University of Bath for feedback on earlier versions of the article.

Keywords

  • extreme-right
  • Keywords:
  • mainstream-right
  • party competition
  • quality of government

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Political Science and International Relations

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