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Explaining working-class support for extreme right parties: A party competition approach

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Abstract

Although the over-representation of working-class members among the electorates of Extreme Right Parties (ERPs) in Western Europe is well documented, previous studies have usually explained this pattern as a result of this voter group's changing political preferences. In contrast to these studies, this article argues that it is not the changing political preferences of the working class that lead them to vote for ERPs, but changes in the supply side of party competition that have caused the re-orientation of these voters from left-wing parties toward the extreme right. Differentiating between an economic and a cultural dimension of party competition, it is shown that both the policy options offered by parties to voters as the salience of the two issue-dimensions have changed dramatically over the last three decades. While the salience of economic issues as well as of party system polarization among these issues have declined in most Western European countries, the very opposite trend can be identified for non-economic issues, including the core issues of ERPs (for example, immigration, and law-and-order). These changes on the supply side of party competition cause working-class voters to base their vote decisions solely on their authoritarian, non-economic preferences and not – as in the past – on their left-wing economic demands. The theoretical assumptions are tested empirically with data from the Eurobarometer Trend File for the period from 1980 to 2002. In contexts where the economic dimension is more polarized or more salient than the cultural dimension, the positive impact of being a member of the working class on the vote decision for an ERP is significantly reduced.

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Notes

  1. As not all 13 countries analyzed in the final section have participated in all years since 1980, Figures 1 and 2 report values for only seven countries.

  2. As the Belgium party system is segmented into two independent parts, referring either to the French or Flemish community, the two measures of party competition have been calculated separately for each region.

  3. For the salience of the economic dimension, all categories of the fourth CMP domain (economy) and categories 504 (social services expansion), 505 (social services limitation), 701 (labor groups: positive), 702 (labor groups: negative), 703 (agriculture) and 704 (middle class and professional groups) were summarized.

  4. The following CMP categories were used for the non-economic dimension: 107 (internationalism: positive), 109 (internationalism: negative), 601 (national way of life: positive), 602 (national way of life: negative), 603 (traditional morality: positive), 604 (traditional morality: negative), 605 (law-and-order), 607 (multi-culturalism: positive), 608 (multi-culturalism: negative) and 705 (minority groups).

  5. Although the CMP is the only cross-national data covering the 13 countries for the whole period of investigation, it only offers coding of party manifestos from parties that have won at least one seat in the respective election. This restriction does not allow analyzing the issue–saliences and positions of many minor ERPs. The presented measures of salience and polarization take this limitation into account by weighting for the parties’ vote-shares. Therefore, the exclusion of minor ERPs – with vote-shares about 1–3 per cent – will hardly affect these measures.

  6. An alternative approach for dividing the economic by the non-economic measures would be to subtract them from each other. This measure is strongly correlated with the ratio-variables presented here (0.56 and 0.58, respectively). Although the measures based on subtraction are much harder to interpret because of their units (especially for the salience-measure), their use does not change the empirical results presented.

  7. Unfortunately, the Eurobarometer Trend File does only offer a very limited selection of items accounting for the political attitudes of voters, be they authoritarian values or preferences for economic redistribution. While other cross-national data sets offer a wider range of appropriate items, the Eurobarometer Trend File covers the greatest possible number of countries and time-points. As my theoretical focus is on the effect of variables of party competition, I decided to raise the number of (supply-side) contexts at the cost of a more fine-graded analysis of the demand-side. See Arzheimer (2008, 2009) and Arzheimer and Carter (2006) for a similar strategy.

  8. Although occupation is the key indicator for the assignment of social class, the Eurobarometer Trend File does not offer a detailed coding of occupation categories according to ISCO codes in its earlier waves. Therefore, and in order to attain over-time consistency, the categories of the class schema used in this article are limited by the less-detailed occupational category schemes used in the earlier Eurobarometer surveys. The precise coding resembles the Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero (EGP) class scheme and follows Elff (2009).

  9. The following parties were considered to be ERPs: Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austria); Vlaams Blok, Front National and Waardig ouder Worden (Belgium); Fremskridtspartiet and Dansk Folkeparti (Denmark); Soumen Masseudun Pouloe und Perussuomalaiset (Finland); Front National and Allez la France (France); Deutsche Volksunion, Die Republikaner, Nationale Partei Deutschlands, Aktion unabhängiger Deutscher, and Freisoziale Union (Germany); Ethniki Politici Enosis and Politici Anixi (Greece); Movimento Sociale Italia, Allianza Nazionale, and Lega Nord (Italy); Centrum Partij and Centrum Democraten (the Netherlands); Fremskrittspartiet (Norway); Partido da Democracia Crista (Portugal); Falange Espanola y de la JONS (Spain); and Ny Democraty (Sweden).

  10. The following parties were considered as left-wing: Kommunistische Partei Österreichs and Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (Austria); Parti Communiste, Parti Socialiste, Socialistische Partij, and Partij van de Arbeid (Belgium); Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti, Socialistik Folkeparti, Kommunistiske Arbeijderpartii, Fælles Kurs, Socialdemokratiet, Venstre Socialisterne, and Socialistisk. Arbejderpartii (Denmark); Vasemmistoliitto, Suomen Kansan Demokraattinen Liitto, Demokraattinen Vaihtoehto, Kommunisten Työväen Poulue, Suomen Kommunistinen Poulue, and Soumen Sosialidemokraattinen Pouloe (Finland); Parti Communiste Français, Lutte Ouvrière, Parti Socialiste, Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière, and Movement des Citoyens (France); Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, Marxistisch Leninistische Partei Deutschlands, Aktion Demokratischer Fortschritt, Linke Liste – Partei Deutscher Sozialisten, and Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Germany); Sinaspismos, Kommounistiko Komma Elladas, Eliniki Aristera, Eniaia Dimokratiki Aristera, and Panhellenic Sozialist Party (Greece); Partito Comunista, Partito Socialista Italiano di Unita Proletaria, Rifondazione Comunista, Partito Democratico della Sinistra, Democrazia Proletaria, Partito Socialista Italiano, Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano, Progressisti, Socialdemocrazia per la Liberta, Parti Socialista Italiano et Allianza Democratia, and Partito Radicale (Italy); Communistische Partij, Partij van de Arbeid, Pacifistisch Socialistische Partij, and Socialistische Partij (the Netherlands); Norge Kommunister Partiet, Arbeide Kommunister Partiet, Radikale Venstre, Arbeiderpartiet, Socialistik Venstre, and Socialistik Folkepartiet (Norway); Coligacao Democratica Unitaria, Partido Comunista, Portuguesa, Alianca Povo Unido, Uniao Democratica Popular, Partido Socialista, Centro Democratico Social, Unida Esquerdas Democratica Socialista, Partido Renovador Democratico, and Movimento Democratico Portugues (Portugal); Izquierda Unita, Partido de los Trabajadores de Espana – Unitad Communista, Partido Comunista de los Pueblos de España, Nueva Izquierda, and Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spain); Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti – Vensträpartiet Kommunisterna and Socialdemokratistika Arbetareparti (Sweden).

  11. In addition, all models have also been run using an alternative dependent variable, coded ‘1’ if a respondent intends to vote for an ERP and ‘0’ if he reports a vote intention for any other party or would abstain from voting. While this alternative greatly increases the number of first-level units (then: 251.671), the results concerning the main and interaction effects of the salience and polarization variables of party competition are not affected in a meaningful way (see Table A1, Appendix).

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  1. University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, Cologne, 50923, Germany

    Dennis Spies

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Appendix

Appendix

Table A1

Table A1 Results of multi-level models (alternative dependent variable)
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Figures A1 and A2

Figure A1
figure 5

Salience of economic and non-economic issues.

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Figure A2
figure 6

Party system polarization among economic and non-economic issues.

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Spies, D. Explaining working-class support for extreme right parties: A party competition approach. Acta Polit 48, 296–325 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2012.37

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