The Sociology of the Radical Right - jens.rydgren of the radical right.pdf · ethnic relations,...

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The Sociology of theRadical RightJens RydgrenDepartment of Sociology, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden;email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2007. 33:241–62

First published online as a Review in Advance onFebruary 21, 2007

The Annual Review of Sociology is online athttp://soc.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131752

Copyright c© 2007 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

0360-0572/07/0811-0241$20.00

Key Words

ethnic relations, extreme right, nationalism, political sociology,populism

AbstractDuring the past two decades, the radical right has reemerged asan electoral force in Western Europe, as well as in other stabledemocracies such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Asidefrom discussing the ideology of this party family and how it re-lates to older forms of right-wing radicalism and extremism, such asfascism, this review deals with the question of how the emergenceof radical right-wing parties can be explained and why such par-ties have been considerably more successful among voters in somecountries than in others. Possible explanations are grouped into twoparts: The first consists of so-called demand-centered explanations,that is, explanations that focus on changing preferences, beliefs, andattitudes among voters. The second consists of so-called supply-sideexplanations, that is, explanations that focus on political opportunitystructures and party organizational factors.

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INTRODUCTION

During the past two decades, the radical righthas reemerged as an electoral force in WesternEurope, as well as in other stable democraciessuch as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.Since the early 1980s, parties such as theFrench Front National, the Belgian VlaamsBlok, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), theItalian Lega Nord, and the Danish People’sParty, among several others, have establishedthemselves in their respective party systems,sometimes with voter shares exceeding 20%.Austria (2000) and Italy (1994 and 2001) haveformed governments involving the FreedomParty and the Lega Nord, respectively. Hence,for the first time since World War II, the radi-cal right constitutes a significant force in WestEuropean democracies (Betz 2001, p. 407).

This development has revived the inter-ests of social scientists in the radical and/orextreme right. Much like the social scientistsin the 1950s and 1960s, who tried to under-stand the rise of interwar fascism in Europe(e.g., Arendt 1951, Lipset 1981) and earlypostwar right-wing radicalism in the UnitedStates (Bell 2002b, Shils 1956), contempo-rary social scientists have been intrigued bythe question of why millions of voters livingin liberal democracies give support to radicalright-wing parties that promote xenophobia(and sometimes racism), ethno-nationalism,sociocultural authoritarianism, and antisys-tem populism. Moreover, the reemergence ofa strong radical right has provoked sociolog-ically significant questions because it contra-dicts several of the core hypotheses of postwarpolitical sociology, such as Lipset & Rokkan’s(1967) freezing hypothesis (which failed topredict the emergence of new party families)and Inglehart’s (1977) postmaterialist theory(which predicted only new left-liberal partiesand movements) (cf. Veugelers 1999).

This review consists of three parts. Thefirst part deals with how the party familyof new radical right-wing parties can be de-fined. What are its characteristic ideologicaland programmatic features? How does it re-

late to older forms of right-wing radicalismand extremism, such as fascism? The remain-ing two parts deal with how the emergenceof radical right-wing parties can be explainedand why such parties have been considerablymore successful among the voters in somecountries than in others. The first of theseparts reviews so-called demand-centered ex-planations: explanations that focus on chang-ing preferences, beliefs, and attitudes amongthe voters. The last section discusses supply-side explanations: political opportunity struc-tures and party organizational factors.

WHAT IS RADICALRIGHT-WING POPULISM?

The literature on the new radical right lacksconsensus on core definitions and ideolog-ical characteristics of this new party family(cf. Fennema 1997, Mudde 1996a), despite thenear consensus on which parties should be in-cluded in the party family. This is certainly nota satisfying situation; thus, I devote this sec-tion to the ideology of the new radical rightand to definitions of this party family. This isnot a question merely of semantics; it is an im-portant step in understanding the parties andexplaining their emergence.

The new radical right-wing parties sharean emphasis on ethno-nationalism rooted inmyths about the distant past. Their programis directed toward strengthening the nationby making it more ethnically homogeneousand by returning to traditional values. Theygenerally view individual rights as secondaryto the goals of the nation. They also tendto be populists in accusing elites of puttinginternationalism ahead of the nation and ofputting their own narrow self-interests andvarious special interests ahead of the interestof the people. Hence, the new radical right-wing parties share a core of ethno-nationalistxenophobia and antiestablishment populism.In their political platforms this ideologicalcore is embedded in a general socioculturalauthoritarianism that stresses themes such as

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law and order and family values (Rydgren2005a; see also Minkenberg 2001). Below, Iaccount for these ideological core themes, butfirst I discuss the two constituting conceptsof the definition—“radical” (or extreme) and“right-wing”—as well as how this new partyfamily differs from other (and older) forms ofright-wing extremism, such as fascism.

Radical

In what manner are the new radical rightparties radical, or even extremist (as manyscholars would have it; see, e.g., Mudde 2000,Eatwell 1994)? According to Powell (1986,p. 359), an extremist party “represents a de-mand for major transformation of the society,either towards some future vision or back to anidealized past. Such demands diverge from thegeneral, current policy consensus.” Accord-ing to this definition, the new radical rightcan in most instances be considered exam-ples of extremist parties. However, it may alsobe useful to consider Lipset & Raab’s (1970)more specific definition of political extremismas antipluralism or monism. The “operationalheart of extremism,” to follow the argument ofLipset & Raab (1970, p. 6), “is the repressionof difference and dissent, the closing down ofthe market place of ideas. More precisely, theoperational essence of extremism, or monism,is the tendency to treat cleavage and ambiva-lence as illegitimate.”

Political monism of the extreme right isexpressed in two ways: as a rejection of thedemocratic political system and/or a rejectionof universalistic and egalitarian, sometimescalled democratic, values. We should heredistinguish between two different subtypesof right-wing extremism, namely the parlia-mentary and the nonparliamentary. Whereasthe latter is opposed to the constitution, theformer is only hostile toward the constitution(see Mudde 2000, p. 12). It is common toreserve the use of the term right-wing ex-tremism exclusively for the nonparliamentarytype, which has chosen to take action outsidethe parliamentary arena, whereas the parlia-

mentary type, which participates in publicelections and aspires to win representationwithin democratic political institutions, isreferred to as radical right (see, e.g., Eatwell2000, pp. 410–411; Zaslove 2004b, p. 66).Furthermore, the new radical right does notusually oppose democracy per se (as an idea),although they typically are hostile to rep-resentative democracy and the way existingdemocratic institutions actually work. In fact,these parties argue that they represent truedemocracy (in contrast to the sham democ-racy characterizing contemporary WesternEurope).

Hence, although the radical right-wingparties reject cleavages and division lineswithin “the people”—they are typically an-tiparty parties (Ignazi 1996, Mudde 1996b)—they are extremists primarily because they re-ject pluralist values. Despite the radical right’sacceptance of procedural democracy, its idealsociety is ethnocracy, which in many waysruns counter to the pluralistic values of liberaldemocracy (Betz 2005, Minkenberg 2000).

Right

One common way to distinguish between leftand right is to view the former as egalitarianand the latter as nonegalitarian (Bobbio 1996)or the left as universalistic and the right as par-ticularistic (see, e.g., Eatwell 2004). Two prob-lems with this distinction, of course, are thatit is unclear on what policies parties should bejudged and that parties can, for instance, benonegalitarian and universalistic at the sametime. More specifically, we may define a partyas left or right according to its position on so-cioeconomic politics, which concerns the de-gree of state involvement in the economy (i.e.,economic socialism versus economic liberal-ism), or on its positions on sociocultural poli-tics, which relates to value-laden issues such asnational identity, law and order, immigrationpolicy, abortion, and so on (i.e., socioculturalliberalism versus authoritarianism). The newradical right is right-wing primarily in the so-ciocultural sense of the term.

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The new radical right gives priority tosociocultural issues, in particular to issuesrelated to national identity, and its cen-tral political program can be understood as“a response to the erosion of the system of‘ethno-national dominance’, which character-ized much of the history of modern nationstates” (Betz & Johnson 2004, p. 323). Morespecifically, the new radical right builds onthe idea of ethno-pluralism, an idea that isin line with right-wing ideas going back toHerder (Berlin 1976, Holmes 2000) and thatin modern times was elaborated by the FrenchNouvelle Droite. Nouvelle Droite was a com-posite term for intellectual groups that, in-spired by Gramsci’s notion of cultural hege-mony, formed in France during the late 1960sand 1970s to counter the intellectual and cul-tural dominance of the left. For the NouvelleDroite, as for related groups in Italy andGermany, the principal aim was Kulturkampf,and not party politics (Minkenberg 2000). De-parting from the left’s notion of difference—on which the doctrine of multiculturalism(that is, the idea that migrants should havethe right to preserve habits and traditionsof their home countries) is largely based—the notion of ethno-pluralism states that, topreserve the unique national characters ofdifferent peoples, they have to be kept sep-arated. Mixing of different ethnicities onlyleads to cultural extinction (see Griffin 2000,Minkenberg 1997, Taguieff 1988). More-over, in this doctrine, which claims the rightto difference, culture and ethnicity are de-terministic and monolithic; chances for in-dividual change and ingroup variation arebelieved to be slight. Yet, contrary to the tra-ditional conception of racism, the doctrineof ethno-pluralism, as such, is not hierarchi-cal: Different ethnicities are not necessarilysuperior or inferior, only different, incompat-ible, and incommensurable (Betz & Johnson2004, Taguieff 1988). Hence, whereas oldracism, common in colonial settings, aimedat subordination, the ethno-pluralist doc-trine basically aims at expulsion (Fennema2005).

The French Front National adopted thisnotion from the Nouvelle Droite and made itthe core of the party’s political program andrhetorical profile (see Rydgren 2003b). Todayit is the most distinguishing ideological char-acteristic of the new radical right party family(Rydgren 2005a; see also Betz 2005). By usingthe ethno-pluralist ideology, the radical right-wing parties claim the right of European na-tional cultures to protect their cultural iden-tity. According to the new radical right, thereare several threats against their national iden-tity, of which the alleged invasion of im-migrants is the most important. Immigrantsfrom Muslim countries are singled out as par-ticularly threatening to European values, al-legedly because they are the least commen-surable and the least inclined to assimilation(see, e.g., Zaslove 2004b). Other threats aresupranational entities such as the EuropeanUnion and, increasingly, multinational corpo-rations and economic globalization, as well ascosmopolitan elites, and other processes be-lieved to foster universalization and homoge-nization (Betz & Johnson 2004, Griffin 2000,Zaslove 2004a).

Also, more generally, anti-immigration is-sues are the core message of the new radi-cal right.1 These parties have used four ar-guments to frame immigrants as national/cultural threats: First, as implied above, forthe radical right, immigrants are a threat toethno-national identity; second, they are amajor cause of criminality and other kinds ofsocial insecurity; third, they are a cause of un-employment; and fourth, they are abusers ofthe generosity of the welfare states of Westerndemocracies, which results in fewer state sub-sidies, etc., for natives (see, e.g., Rydgren

1Hence, scholars such as Kitschelt (1995), Knigge (1998),and Taggart (1996) are incorrect in claiming that the newradical right only uses the immigration issue as a catalystfor their discontent with contemporary, parliamentary pol-itics as a whole. There are several reasons for this misun-derstanding, the most important being that they have notanalyzed the ideology and rhetorical strategies of these par-ties, but rather have looked at the reasons voters gave forvoting for them.

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2003a). Using the third and fourth frames, thenew radical right-wing parties have promotedthe idea of national preference, that is, givingnatives priority when it comes to jobs, hous-ing, health care, and so on. Their proposalscan be characterized as a sort of reversed af-firmative action (e.g., Zaslove 2004a, Rydgren2003b). For all these reasons, radical right-wing parties promote an ethnic view of citi-zenship ( jus sanguinis) and oppose models ofresidential citizenship ( jus soli ) (cf. Brubaker1992).

The picture is more ambiguous as far aseconomic policies are concerned. Most of theradical right-wing parties backed neoliberaleconomics of one sort or another during the1980s, often manifested in campaigns for rad-ical tax cuts. However, during the 1990s, mostof the new radical right parties changed po-sitions and have become more economicallyprotectionist, which implies a more centristposition on economic policies. As a result,many radical right-wing parties today sup-port the capitalist system nationally, while atthe same time strongly opposing globaliza-tion (Zaslove 2004b). In this vein, for ex-ample, Bruno Megret, then member of theFrench Front National, launched the ideaof national capitalism (see Rydgren 2003b).Simultaneously, however, welfare chauvinismbecame increasingly important to the newradical right-wing parties and led some ofthem to present themselves as ardent support-ers of the welfare state (Betz & Johnson 2004,Evans et al. 2001).

Building on data from 1990, Kitschelt(1995) argued that radical right-wing partieshad to present a winning formula of market(neo-)liberalism and right-wing authoritari-anism to become electorally successful, a viewthat he still defends a decade later (McGann& Kitschelt 2005). This view has several fail-ings. First, Kitschelt does not support his ar-gument with an analysis of the program andpropaganda of the radical right-wing parties,but on the attitudes of their voters. It is un-tenable to infer the former from the latter:That a segment of their voters are promarket

does not necessary imply that the parties pro-mote promarket politics. Second, Kitscheltis conflating neoliberalism and populism. AsEatwell (2000) has argued, the radical right-wing parties’ attacks on “the big state” havebeen more populist than (neo-)liberal. In fact,the radical right is opposed to liberal values:“[T]here is no fundamental commitment tomarkets in the sense of liberal values (individ-ualism, economic nonegalitarianism, interna-tionalism, and so on). The underlying extrem-ist Weltanschauung is based more on featuressuch as family, religion and distrust of out-siders” (Eatwell 2000, p. 413).

Populism

Some scholars (e.g., Betz 1993, 1994; Taggart1996, 2000) have argued that populism isa defining characteristic of the new radicalright. This is true insofar as these parties tendto view society as “ultimately separated intotwo homogeneous and antagonistic groups,the ‘pure’ people versus ‘the corrupt elite’”—a worldview that, according to Cas Mudde(2004, p. 543), is characteristic of populism—and that the populist antiestablishment strat-egy has been crucial to the success of the newradical right-wing parties. In the case of thenew radical right-wing parties, not only elitesbut other groups as well (immigrants, eth-nic minorities) are excluded from the “purepeople.” A party that uses the antiestablish-ment strategy tries to construct an image ofitself as in opposition to the political class,while trying actively not to appear antidemo-cratic. A party that is viewed as antidemocraticwill be stigmatized and marginalized as long asthe overwhelming majority of the electorate isin favor of democracy per se (Schedler 1996;see also Van der Brug et al. 2005).

To create distance between themselves andthe established political parties (i.e., both thegovernment and the anti-incumbent oppo-sition), populist parties aim at recoding thepolitical space, with its diversity of parties,into one single, homogeneous political class.One way of achieving this goal is to argue


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that the differences between government andestablished opposition parties are irrelevantsurface phenomena. According to the newradical right-wing parties, in reality the es-tablished parties do not compete but collude[Schedler (1996); cf. Abedi (2002); see alsoSartori’s (1976) conception of antisystem par-ties]. Part of this strategy is often also to crit-icize the established parties for focusing onobsolete issues, while at the same time sup-pressing political issues associated with thereal conflict between national identity andmulticulturalism.

The populist antiestablishment strategymakes it possible for the new radical right-wing parties to present themselves as the realchampions of true democracy—as a new kindof party—which takes the worries and inter-ests of the common man into account (see,e.g., Betz & Johnson 2004, Mudde 2004).Yet, the Manichean worldview of the newradical right-wing parties makes the poli-tics of compromise and bargaining of lib-eral democracy difficult. Thus, the new rad-ical right-wing parties commonly demandmore referenda, which encourage clear yes orno answers, while discouraging compromise(Eatwell 2004).

Yet one can argue that populism is a charac-teristic but not a distinctive feature of the newradical right. Other parties use the populistantiestablishment strategy as well, and severalparties of other political shades in WesternEurope can be said to be populist in some wayor another.

Fascism

By examining the three mythic componentsthat, according to Griffin (1991, p. 201), con-stitute the fascist minimum—populist ultra-nationalism, the myth of decadence, and therebirth myth—we find similarities as well asdifferences between fascism and the new rad-ical right-wing parties. First, although thepopulist ultranationalism (i.e., organic ethno-nationalism) of the new radical right is lessaggressive and expansive, and rather turned

inwards, it still constitutes the ideological coreof these parties. The new radical right’s long-ing for ethnic purity, homogeneity, and or-ganic order places them in the same tradi-tion as fascism. Second, decadence has beena recurrent ideological and rhetorical themeof some of the new radical right-wing parties(e.g., the French Front National), but less soin others (e.g., Lega Nord). In any case, theideological differences between fascism andthe radical right-wing parties mainly concernthe third point, the rebirth myth. Accordingto Griffin (1991), the fascist myth of rebirth,what he calls the palingenetic myth, refers “tothe sense of a new start or of regeneration aftera phase of crisis or decline . . . . At the heart ofpalingenetic political myth lies the belief thatcontemporaries are living through or aboutto live through a ‘sea-change,’ or ‘water-shed’or ‘turning-point’ in the historical process”(Griffin 1991, pp. 33, 35). Although such amyth also exists among the new radical right-wing parties, it is much weaker, and it does notaim at replacing the democratic system with anew order (Griffin 2000). Equally important,whereas fascism was oriented toward the fu-ture (Sternhell 1986), these parties are ratheroriented toward the past (or, in fact, toward anidealized idea of the past). Rather than createa new society, rising “phoenix-like after a pe-riod of encroaching decadence” (Griffin 1991,p. 38), the new radical right-wing parties wishto restore the status quo ante (see von Beyme1988).2

Yet, although the new radical right-wingparties are not fascist, there are affinities tofascism. In conducting interviews with repre-sentatives of the new radical right-wing par-ties in the European Parliament, Fennema& Pollman (1998) showed that representa-tives of these parties (the Italian MSI, theBelgian Vlaams Blok, and the French FrontNational) made quite explicit references to

2Using slightly different defining criteria of fascism,Michael Mann (2004, p. 370) came to a similar conclu-sion, claiming that the new radical right-wing parties are“not seriously fascist under the terms of my definition.”

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prewar fascist intellectuals and cited themas their ideological inspiration. However, al-though they also displayed other fascist ideas,such as ethnic nationalism, antimaterialism,and conspiracy theory, there were few signsof the antidemocratic elements of fascism (seealso Fennema 2005, p. 8).

EXPLAINING THE EMERGENCEOF NEW RADICAL RIGHT-WINGPARTIES

Most research on the new radical right-wingparties has focused on singular national cases(see, e.g., Hainsworth 1992, 2000; Betz &Immerfall 1998; Merkl & Weinberg 1993,1997, 2003). Because this research takes alarge variety of factors into account, it of-ten provides important insights. Sometimes,however, it is also highly problematic: By ig-noring research done on similar parties inother countries, it often leads to ad hoc theo-rizing. Owing to limited space in this review,however, I mainly examine research that iscomparative in scope.

In discussing different explanations ofthe emergence and electoral fortunes of thenew radical right, it is useful to distinguishamong different types of explanations. Themost common family of explanations focuseson the demand-side of politics: factors thathave changed the interests, emotions, atti-tudes, and preferences of West European vot-ers. These explanations often depart frommacrostructural processes. Another impor-tant group of explanations focuses on supply-side factors: the political program that the newradical right-wing parties offer, their party or-ganization, and a number of so-called politicalopportunity structures, such as electoral sys-tems, elite responses, and the media.

Demand-Side Factors

The most common demand-centered expla-nations have been the anomie/social break-down thesis, the relative deprivation the-sis, the modernization losers thesis (which is

based on both the social breakdown thesisand the relative deprivation thesis), the eth-nic competition thesis, as well as other ex-planations focusing on popular xenophobiaand political discontent. Most of these expla-nations have in common that they are basedin different ways on grievance theory, in fo-cusing on the objective—mostly macrostruc-turally shaped—conditions that have in-creased grievances and discontent among thepeople (De Witte & Klandermans 2000,Koopmans et al. 2005).

Anomie/social breakdown. The use of theanomie or social breakdown thesis within theliterature on the new radical right—which ar-gues that isolated individuals living in atom-ized, socially disintegrated societies are partic-ularly likely to support ethno-nationalist andpopulist politics—is a remnant from mass so-ciety theory (Arendt 1951, Kornhauser 1959),which was one of the dominant theoriesfor explaining the rise of interwar fascismand Nazism. This theory lost influence afternew empirical research (e.g., Hamilton 1982)demonstrated that interwar fascism was of-ten strongest in communities that remainedstrong, rather than in weak communities, andthat support for Hitler was not overrepre-sented among socially isolated voters (Eatwell2005, Fennema 2005), yet it still lingers. How-ever, in its original form the anomie/socialbreakdown thesis has received little supportin the empirically oriented literature: Votersof the new radical right-wing parties are notthe isolated, asocial individuals that would bepredicted from this theory (see, e.g., Eatwell2003).

The relative deprivation/modernizationlosers thesis. Relative deprivation theory fo-cuses on the frustration arising from feelingsof relative deprivation. Feelings of relative de-privation, in turn, are caused by disappoint-ing comparisons with one’s own past (that is,when the trajectory of one’s life suddenly de-viates from the expected) or with social ref-erence groups (that is, when one’s ingroup is


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negatively evaluated in comparison with sig-nificant outgroups) (see, e.g., Gurr 1970,Runciman 1966). In practical terms, much re-search that builds on the relative deprivationthesis has been operationalized in economicterms as declining market situations for in-dividuals or groups, or fear of economic de-cline in the near future. This has occurreddespite the early emphasis by Bell (2002a),Lipset (1959), and others that loss of status(or fear of loss of status) may be at least asimportant—and possibly more important—inexplaining support for the radical right.

The modernization losers thesis, in turn,has been one of the central tenets in the liter-ature on the new radical right-wing parties. Itis basically a combination of the social break-down thesis and the relative deprivation the-sis. Minkenberg (2003, p. 151), for instance,argues that the rise of new radical right-wingparties can be understood as “the radical effortto undo” social change associated with mod-ernization, that is, “a growing autonomy ofthe individual (status mobility and role flexi-bility) and ongoing functional differentiationof the society (segmentation and growing au-tonomy of societal subsystems).” The ethno-nationalistically defined, homogeneous com-munity and the virtue of traditional rolesstressed by the new radical right constituteappealing counterweights for people who donot feel at home in a modernizing society.

Betz (1994, pp. 26–27) proposed a similarexplanation in arguing that the emergence ofthe new radical right-wing parties is largely“a consequence of a profound transformationof the socioeconomic and sociocultural struc-ture of advanced Western European democ-racies,” and more specifically from an indus-trial to a postindustrial economy. Accordingto Betz, this transition is largely character-ized by dissolution, fragmentation, and dif-ferentiation, which are the result of increasedindividualization. These processes also haveimplications for the cultures of contempo-rary Western societies, in which, accordingto Betz (1994, p. 29), “established subcul-tures, milieus, and institutions, which tra-

ditionally provided and sustained collectiveidentities, are getting eroded and/or are be-ing destroyed . . . , and are giving way to a‘flux of contextualized identities’.” Taken to-gether, these developments increase the im-portance of cultural capital, flexibility, and in-dividual entrepreneurship for people’s effortsto adapt to the rapidly changing circumstancesof contemporary Western societies. Hence,those who possess these characteristics canbe expected to be among the winners in thepostindustrial societies (Betz 1994, pp. 29–30). However, the losers, those who are unableto cope with the “acceleration of economic,social, and cultural modernization” and/or arestuck in full or partial unemployment, run therisk of falling into the new underclass and ofbecoming “superfluous and useless for soci-ety” (Betz 1994, p. 32). This situation may fa-vor the emergence of radical right-wing par-ties in three ways, according to Betz. First, thelosers in the postindustrialization processesmay be supposed to become anxious, bewil-dered, insecure, and resentful, sentiments thatmay be channeled into support for policy pro-posals that stress the need to return to thetraditional values of the status quo ante. Sec-ond, as a response to the established politicalparties’ inability to cope with the (at least per-ceived) perverted effects of rampant economicand cultural transformation processes, manyhave become increasingly discontented anddisenchanted, which has opened up a niche forparties ready to exploit popular political dis-content to win protest votes. Third, the frag-mentation and individualization of postindus-trial societies lead to a decline in cleavagepolitics, i.e., to a decreased salience of the eco-nomic cleavage dimension, which may openup a space for parties that address new issues,such as the immigration question (Betz 1994,pp. 34–35).3

3See also Bell (2002a, p. 42), who has described the politicsof the radical right as the politics of frustration, based on“the sour impotence of those who find themselves unable tounderstand, let alone command, the complex mass societythat is the polity today.”

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In practical terms, “modernization losers”has usually come to refer to unemployedpeople and unskilled workers threatened byunemployment in the near future (see, e.g.,Betz 1994, 1998). However, others, such asMinkenberg (2000), have argued that mod-ernization losers should be defined morebroadly to include “the second-to-last fifth”stratum of society, a stratum that is “rather se-cure but objectively can still lose something”(Minkenberg 2000, p. 187). One may com-plain that this definition makes for poor pre-dictions of which voter groups will turn to thenew radical right-wing parties, but it largelyagrees with Lipset’s (1981, p. 489) well-knownargument that the interwar fascist parties weredisproportionately supported by sections ofthe old middle class (such as self-employedcraftsmen and small shop owners) that were“displaced or threatened by the emergenceof centralized, large-scale industry and thegrowing power and status of organized la-bor.” Empirical research clearly shows thatworkers and the old middle classes are indeedoverrepresented among new radical right vot-ers (Ivarsflaten 2005, p. 465; Lubbers et al.2002, p. 364; Norris 2005, p. 139). Whenconsidering voters’ education, however, em-pirical findings seem to support the relativedeprivation theory better than the modern-ization losers thesis (or at least Betz’s ver-sion of it). Although support for the new rad-ical right-wing parties varies inversely withthe level of education—lower-educated vot-ers are overrepresented and highly educatedvoters are underrepresented (Lubbers et al.2002)—the relationship seems to be curvi-linear: The new radical right receives itsstrongest support from the mid-school stra-tum (Arzheimer & Carter 2006, Evans 2005).[Moreover, male voters tend to be highly over-represented among the voters of the new radi-cal right-wing populist parties (Givens 2004).]

However, for the unemployed we find amore ambiguous picture. Although there issupport for the claim that the unemployed areoverrepresented among the voters of the newradical right (see, e.g., Lubbers et al. 2002,

p. 134), unemployment rates have been shownto be a bad predictor of cross-national varia-tion in the electoral fortunes of the new radicalright-wing parties. Several macrolevel stud-ies have shown that there is either no sig-nificant relationship (Lubbers et al. 2002) ora negative relationship (Arzheimer & Carter2006, Knigge 1998) between unemploymentrates and differences in the electoral fortunesof radical right-wing parties. Swank & Betz(2003) find no significant association betweeneither the unemployment rate, slower eco-nomic growth, or inflation rates and the suc-cess of radical right-wing parties, althoughthey do find a significant negative associationbetween having a universal welfare state sys-tem (including an active labor market pro-gram) and electoral success of new radicalright parties.4 Only Jackman & Volpert (1996)have reported a positive relationship for un-employment, whereas Golder (2003) founda positive interaction effect: high unemploy-ment rates are favorable to new radical right-wing parties only in countries with a large (i.e.,6.3% or more) presence of foreign residentpopulations. I return to Golder’s finding whendiscussing the ethnic competition thesis,below.

Yet, although the class profile of the radi-cal right-wing parties is in line with the pre-dictions of the modernization losers thesis, itwould be premature to conclude that it hasbeen supported. These groups may supportthe new radical right for a variety of otherreasons. Research findings are needed thatshow that the voters feel relatively deprived,or that they are afraid of becoming so in the fu-ture. Moreover, the common assumption thatthe political establishment is rewarded whenthe economy is good, whereas nonestablishedcontenders such as the new radical right-wingparties are successful in times of economic cri-sis, is open to question. As already implied by

4However, I am unsure that these results would hold today.Swank & Betz’s data are from 1998, and since then newradical right-wing populist parties have grown considerablystronger in Denmark and Norway.


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Hofstadter (2002a,b), a good economic sit-uation may increase the salience of political“issues of affluence,” such as status politicsand identity politics, and the radical right islikely to be more successful when such socio-cultural politics is salient and socioeconomicpolitics plays a secondary role. “Times of de-pression and economic discontent,” accord-ing to Hofstadter (2002b, p. 84), are likely tobe dominated by socioeconomic interest pol-itics. Such issues are less salient in times ofeconomic prosperity and well-being. I discussthis further below.

Ethnic competition thesis. In contrast tothe three explanations so far discussed, whichfocus on more diffuse changes in political de-mand, the ethnic competition thesis focusesspecifically on the immigration issue as thereason for the emergence of the new radicalright-wing parties. This makes some sense.Although not the only attitudinal factor forpredicting which voters will support a radicalright-wing party, anti-immigration is a veryimportant one, arguably the most important(Lubbers & Scheepers 2000, Lubbers et al.2002, Norris 2005). Even if not all voters whohold anti-immigration attitudes vote for a newradical right-wing party, most voters who dovote for such parties hold such attitudes.

According to the ethnic competition the-sis, voters turn to the new radical right be-cause they want to reduce competition fromimmigrants over scarce resources such as thelabor market, housing, welfare state benefits,or even the marriage market. From this fol-low two hypotheses: that radical right-wingparties will be more successful in areas withmany immigrants, where this kind of competi-tion is more manifest; and that the new radicalright-wing parties will be supported foremostby voters who are more likely to be confrontedby competition from immigrants, that is, bylower-educated, unskilled, male voters whoaspire to the same jobs and consumption asmost immigrant groups in Western Europe(Fennema 2005, Koopmans et al. 2005, Kriesi1999; see also Olzak 1992).

Several studies have presented findingsthat support the first hypothesis, that the elec-toral turnouts of new radical right-wing par-ties are positively correlated to the numberof immigrants in a country (Knigge 1998,Lubbers et al. 2002) or to the number ofasylum seekers (Swank & Betz 2003, Vander Brug et al. 2005). Golder’s (2003) anal-ysis showed a positive relationship betweenthe proportion of immigrants in a countryand electoral turnout for the new radicalright in situations in which the unemploy-ment rates exceeded 1.3%. In contrast, theanalysis of Norris (2005) failed to show asignificant relationship between ethnic het-erogeneity (number of refugees, number ofasylum seekers, or proportion of noncitizensand people born abroad) and the electoralfortunes of the new radical right-wing par-ties. Nor did possible interaction effects be-tween such indicators of ethnic heterogeneityand unemployment prove significant. Yet, de-spite the positive associations found in severalstudies, I argue that research results presentonly weak support for the ethnic competi-tion thesis. Although some competition is dueto the national proportion of foreign-borns(i.e., competition over welfare state benefits),most competition is more local in character.It is an ecological fallacy to conclude fromcountry-level data that voters living in eth-nically heterogeneous countries also live inethnically heterogeneous local settings. Someof them probably do, but many others donot, and we do not know from these studieswhether those who vote for the new radicalright-wing parties belong to the former or thelatter category. To test this hypothesis morethoroughly, more fine-grained analysis (anddata) is warranted. A first step in this directionwas taken by Bon & Cheylan (1988), who intheir study of Toulouse and Marseille showedthat the vote for the French Front Nationalwas higher among voters living close to areaswith a high concentration of non-Europeanimmigrants than for those living within theseareas. Moreover, using individual-level data,Rydgren (2006b) showed that voters living

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in areas with many immigrants were signifi-cantly more likely to vote for the radical rightin Denmark and the Netherlands, but not inAustria, Belgium, France, or Norway.

Popular xenophobia. The fact that voterswho hold anti-immigrant attitudes are heav-ily overrepresented among the new radicalright voters is not necessarily associated witheconomic trends and market competition. Itmay also be identified as popular xenophobia,ethnocentrism, and defense of a national andcultural identity that is perceived to be un-der threat. Congruent with the moderniza-tion losers thesis, Knigge (1998, p. 271) hassuggested that popular xenophobia and eth-nocentrism have grown more common and/orimportant as a result of “a crisis of nationalidentity among the postindustrial democra-cies brought about by the transformation intoa multicultural society.” As Koopmans et al.(2005, p. 5) have argued, for instance, manypeople experience a loss of identity as a resultof globalization, and, because there “is noth-ing beyond the nation-state that can serve asa new anchor for collective identities and canrenew the sense of control,” people turn to na-tionalism as a way to find such an anchorage.

It has also been suggested that the riseof the new radical right can be explained bythe expansion of the European Union and itsstronger role as a supranational actor after theMaastricht Treaty. This expansion may havebenefited political parties of both the right andleft that opposed the EU; in the case of thenew radical right, leaders claimed that the EUeroded national supremacy, and they decriedelites and multinationalism. This is a plausiblesuggestion, but it fails to explain why similarparties have emerged outside of Europe (e.g.,in Canada, Australia, New Zealand) duringthe same period (cf. Norris 2005, pp. 67–68).

Political discontent. Finally, one strandwithin the literature on the new radical rightclaims that the growing political alienationand discontent in Western European coun-tries (see, e.g., Putnam et al. 2000, p. 14) have

created an audience receptive to antisystemand antiestablishment messages, and thus pro-vided an opportunity for the new radical right-wing parties to mobilize protest voters. Thisexplanation hinges on the populist characterof the new radical right. Several studies havedemonstrated that voters who are dissatisfiedwith the way democracy works, as well as vot-ers who express lower trust and confidence inpoliticians and in democratic institutions, aremore likely to vote for new radical right-wingparties (Lubbers et al. 2002; Norris 2005,pp. 157–159). However, Van der Brug et al.(2000) found no evidence that the new radicalright-wing party voters are more motivatedby alienation and protest than other voters.

Furthermore, it is reasonable to suspectthat political protest plays a more importantrole in breakthrough elections of new radi-cal right-wing parties than in subsequent elec-tions. As protest voters tend to move back totheir old parties after one or two deviant elec-tions, voters who find themselves in ideologi-cal agreement with the new radical right-wingparty or in other ways identify with the partytend to stay. Rydgren (2003b) indicated thistendency in France, where the Front Nationalbenefited from protest votes in particular be-fore 1988, but further research is needed toelaborate and generalize these findings.

Yet, one problem with this hypothesis isthat it remains rather unclear why voters whoare dissatisfied with the government shouldturn to a new radical right-wing party in-stead of to any other opposition party (inparticular to some other nonestablished one).Moreover, as Norris (2005, p. 164), amongothers, has emphasized, political discontentdoes not account for the substantial variationin the electoral results of new radical right-wing parties. Mistrust of politicians and polit-ical institutions has increased in most WestEuropean countries, but new radical right-wing parties have only been electorally suc-cessful in some of them. This is the case,to a somewhat varying degree, with mostof the demand-centered explanations dis-cussed above. Grievances, postindustrialism,


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increased cultural heterogeneity, and so on,are phenomena that most West Europeancountries have experienced over the past twodecades and are therefore bad predictors ofcross-national variation in electoral supportfor the new radical right. Moreover, demand-side explanations may overestimate the im-portance of attitudinal change. As Eatwell(1994, p. 318), among others, has observed,the “relationship between belief and actionis complex,” and the increased dispositionamong voters to vote for the xenophobic andpopulist new radical right-wing parties is notnecessarily associated with a change at thelevel of xenophobic and populist attitudes.There may be very little change in attitudes atall, or the change may be in salience and rel-ative rank between different political issues,rather than in the attitudes themselves. AsIvarsflaten (2005, p. 467) has argued, the wayvoters trade off political issues against eachother “changes more frequently and less pre-dictably than issue preferences” as such.

These limitations of the demand-centeredapproach are increasingly recognized. As a re-sult, a growing number of researchers haveturned to so-called supply-side factors. As willbe clear from the next section, demand-sideexplanations and supply-side explanations donot necessary contradict one another and canbe quite successfully combined.

Supply-Side Factors

Among the supply-centered explanations, wecan distinguish three subgroups, those that fo-cus on (a) different political opportunity struc-tures; (b) party organizations; and (c) the mes-sage of the radical right-wing parties, that is,their ideology and discourse. The latter wasdiscussed above; here, I focus on a and b.

Political opportunity structures. Politicalopportunity structures are commonly definedas “consistent—but not necessary formal, per-manent, or national” resources that are ex-ternal to the party or movement in question(Tarrow 1998, pp. 19–20). The following po-

litical opportunity structures have been dis-cussed in relation to the new radical right:realignment processes; convergence betweenestablished parties in political space; electoralsystems and thresholds; the presence or ab-sence of elite allies or, more specifically, therelationship with the established political par-ties within the party system; and the structureof mass media.5

However, few of these political opportu-nities distinctively benefit radical right-wingparties. Opportunities associated with elec-toral systems and thresholds and with con-vergence processes are likely to benefit allkinds of new parties; realignment processesmay present opportunities not only for theradical right, but also for new left-wing par-ties that promote identity politics based onsociocultural liberal values (focusing on femi-nism, multiculturalism, etc.). In addition, op-portunities related to the structure of massmedia and the presence or absence of eliteallies may benefit all kinds of parties, par-ticularly populist parties. This indicates thatpolitical opportunity structures, in isolationor combined, may be necessary but not suffi-cient explanatory factors. To be effective theyshould be combined with demand-centeredexplanations.

Realignment processes. It has been suggestedthat dealignment and realignment processesmay present favorable political opportunitiesfor new radical right-wing parties (see, e.g.,Kriesi et al. 1995; Rydgren 2003b, 2005a,2006a; Diani 1996). Several cleavage dimen-sions always exist simultaneously (Lipset &Rokkan 1967, Rokkan 1970), most of them ul-timately based on social identity or interests.Although these cleavage dimensions exist sideby side, either manifest or latent, their salience

5Hence, I will not deal explicitly with political opportuni-ties created by the demise of established parties. The situ-ation in Italy, for instance, where the largest non-Socialistparty, the Christian Democrats, almost disappeared be-cause of the corruption scandals of the early 1990s, nat-urally presented huge opportunities for other right-wingparties such as the Lega Nord.

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increases or declines during certain periods(Hout et al. 1996, pp. 55–56). Contempo-rary Western European democracies are char-acterized by two major cleavage dimensions:the economic cleavage dimension, which pitsworkers against capital and concerns the de-gree of state involvement in the economy; andthe sociocultural cleavage dimension, whichis a cleavage over values and concerns issuessuch as immigration, law and order, abortion,and so on (see Cole 2005, p. 206).

Although issues belonging to the socio-cultural cleavage dimension have existed atan attitudinal level throughout the twentiethcentury (Hofstadter 2002a), the economiccleavage dimension has structured most po-litical behavior in the postwar era (Bartolini2000, Bell 2002a, Budge & Robertson 1987).However, there are certain indications thatthe salience of the sociocultural cleavagedimension has increased at the expense of theeconomic cleavage dimension during the pastfew decades, not least because of the politi-cization of identity politics, and in particularissues such as immigration, multiculturalism,and feminism, as well as then environment(for discussion and empirical indications,see, e.g., Betz 1994; Clark & Lipset 2001;Ignazi 1996, 2003; Inglehart 1997; Kitschelt1995, Rydgren 2003b). It is plausible that thisdevelopment has created expanding politicalopportunities for the new radical right-wingparties.

More specifically, we may expect that therelative strength or salience of old cleavagesinfluence the potential for mobilization onissues and frames connecting to new cleav-ages (Kriesi et al. 1995), and the crosscut-ting sociocultural dimension is considerablymore important than socioeconomic politicsfor the new radical right-wing parties’ votermobilization. As Kriesi et al. (1995, p. 4) havestressed, old cleavages may provide “a shieldagainst the framing attempts of rising col-lective actors.” For instance, although xeno-phobic attitudes may be at least as commonin countries that are strongly dominated bythe socioeconomic dimension, voters sharing

these attitudes are less likely to base their vot-ing decisions on these particular attitudes be-cause there are other issues (and attitudes)deemed to be more important (partly, thisis also a result of the fact that other issuesare likely to dominate the media). As wasestablished above, a defining characteristicof the new radical right-wing parties duringthe 1990s has been their ability to mobilizeworking-class voters. This ability has not nec-essarily been the effect of increased xeno-phobia and authoritarianism among workers;an alternative plausible interpretation is thatit depends on the increased salience of im-migration matters, and of sociocultural is-sues generally, vis-a-vis socioeconomic issues.As Lipset (1959, 1981) has argued, althoughmanual workers have traditionally been atodds with the left parties’ positions on socio-cultural issues—by being considerably moreauthoritarian, on average—this did not haveany practical effect on their voting patterns aslong as they identified with the socialist par-ties’ economic positions. In such a situation,they voted for the left despite their conflict-ing opinions on sociocultural issues. However,in political systems in which the economiccleavage dimension has lost salience—andthe sociocultural cleavage dimension hasgained salience—this has started to change (cf.Ivarsflaten 2005). Hence, it has been arguedthat support for new radical right-wing partiesis likely to be weaker in countries in whichold social institutions of the left (e.g., tradeunions, left mass parties) have retained a rel-atively strong hold over working-class voters(Eatwell 2000, Rydgren 2002).

Convergence between established parties

in political space. Many have argued thatconvergence in political space presentsexpanding political opportunities for newradical right-wing parties (Kitschelt 1995). Aconvergence may result in a feeling that theestablished parties “are all the same.” This, inturn, may fuel popular distrust and discontentin politicians and political parties and createan audience receptive to parties ready to


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mobilize protest votes. A convergence mayalso have direct effects in that it facilitatesthe emergence of niches within the politicalspace (Kriesi 1999). Finally, a convergencewithin the dominant cleavage dimension (i.e.,the economic dimension) may contribute toa depoliticization of this cleavage by makingit less engaging and vivid for the voters andthe media (Schattschneider 1975), whichmay favor new contenders mobilizing onalternative cleavage dimensions, such as thesociocultural dimension.

The convergence hypothesis has beentested a number of times. However, one prob-lem with these studies is that they have mostlyused a one-dimensional scale for measuringconvergence. It is often unclear exactly whata position to the left or to the right onthe scale signifies (whether the scale is con-structed from expert interviews, the voters’perceptions of the parties’ positions, or—toouncommonly—the programs of the partiesthemselves). There are reasons to suspect thatthese scales mainly measure left-right posi-tions on socioeconomic politics. At the sametime, we may assume that if the new radicalright-wing parties were to benefit at all, theywould benefit directly only from convergencein the sociocultural dimension and indirectlyonly from convergence in the socioeconomicdimension.

Nevertheless, keeping these shortcomingsin mind, Norris (2005) found no supportfor the convergence thesis, whereas Van derBrug et al. (2005) found that the new radicalright-wing parties tend to be more electorallysuccessful in situations in which the largestmainstream competitor occupies a centristposition than when it is more right lean-ing. Abedi (2002) also found support for theconvergence hypothesis. In the same vein,Arzheimer & Carter (2006) found that sup-port of the radical right almost doubled whenthere was a grand coalition government be-fore the election.

Electoral systems and thresholds. Scholarshave suggested that the relative openness or

closedness of the institutionalized politicalsystems (cf. McAdam 1996) influences thenew radical right-wing parties’ potential tomobilize voters. The idea that the majorityvoting system places constraints on the emer-gence of new parties is an idea that goes backto Duverger (1954). According to Duverger,there are two reasons for this constraint onnew parties. First, there is a mechanical ef-fect in that the third and fourth parties in anelection held within a majority voting systemwill receive a much smaller share of legislativeseats compared with the votes they received.Second, there is a psychological effect in thatmany voters will feel that a vote for a smallparty is a wasted vote, which makes them votefor one of the two major parties instead. Insuch a situation, the emergence of new polit-ical parties is less likely. Similarly, whether apolitical system has an entrance threshold of2% or 4%, for instance, is believed to make adifference for the emergence of new parties.The same psychological effect identified byDuverger is likely to be operative here, as well.

This hypothesis receives mixed support inthe literature. Van der Brug et al. (2005) andCarter (2002) found no evidence that radicalright-wing parties are more electorally suc-cessful under proportional electoral systems.Norris (2005) found that the main effect ofproportional systems is that radical right-wing parties receive more parliamentary seatsin relation to their voter shares than theydo in majority electoral systems, but propor-tional systems had no strong effect on howmany votes the parties received. Yet Swank& Betz (2003), Jackman & Volpert (1996),Golder (2003), and Veugelers & Magnan(2005) concluded from their studies thatvoter support for the new radical right-wingparties tended to be higher in countries withproportional electoral systems.

Media. Several researchers have suggestedthat the mass media play a pivotal role inthe emergence of new radical right-wing par-ties. As Koopmans (2004, p. 8) has argued, forinstance, the “action of gatekeepers [within

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the mass media] produce the first and mostbasic selection mechanism . . . visibility.” Themedia also play a role in their own right,by taking part in agenda-setting and fram-ing of political issues. There also seems tobe a growing tendency to personalize issueswithin the media, which may benefit partieslike the new radical right-wing parties thatgive the party leader a pronounced centralrole (Eatwell 2003, 2005). With the increas-ing struggle for readers and viewers that hasresulted from new technologies and from thegrowing privatization of mass media in manycountries, the media have exhibited a strongertendency to focus on the most scandalous as-pects of politics, which may contribute to anti-establishment sentiments (Mudde 2004).

To date, there has been no systematic studyof the role of the mass media in the rise of newradical right-wing parties. Yet there are scat-tered indications that important changes inmass media over time, as well as rather largedifferences between different countries, mayplay a role in the electoral fortunes of newradical right-wing parties. Rydgren (2006a),for instance, argued that the development inSweden from only two public service TVchannels in the early 1980s to a variety ofcommercial channels in the 1990s increasedthe opportunities for visibility of emerg-ing new political contenders in the media,which benefited the right-wing populist partyNew Democracy, which emerged in the early1990s. Moreover, Eatwell (2005) has pointedto the fact that the French Front Nationalreached its electoral breakthrough shortly af-ter Le Pen was given access to state television.The fact that the newspaper with the high-est per capita readership within any country,the Neue Kronen Zeitung in Austria, supportedJorg Haider probably also partly explains theFPO’s electoral success in the 1990s (Art 2006,Eatwell 2005). That the Danish media havegenerously published articles by representa-tives and supporters of the Danish People’sParty, whereas the Swedish media have largelyput up a cordon sanitaire to keep the SwedenDemocrats out partly explains why the former

has been electoral successful, while the latteris still highly marginalized (Rydgren 2004).

The presence or absence of elite allies. Thereseems to be a consensus in the literaturethat the relationship between the establishedparties and the new radical right-wing partiesmatters for the latter’s chances of successin voter mobilization (on the cooperationbetween radical right-wing parties and main-stream parties generally, see Downs 2001).However, there are two opposing hypothesesregarding the effect this relationship mayhave.

The first hypothesis claims that when theestablished parties choose to collaborate withemerging new radical right-wing parties orassociated actors, this collaboration lends le-gitimacy to the emerging parties and lessenstheir stigma in the eyes of the voters (e.g.,Minkenberg 2003, Eatwell 2003, Jackman &Volpert 1996). By being controversial, suchevents are also likely to arouse the interestof the mass media and hence give radicalright-wing parties increased coverage. Simi-larly, the propensity of mainstream parties andother political actors to approach policy po-sitions originally taken by new radical right-wing parties or to adopt similar frames—a notuncommon phenomenon according to Bale(2003)—may provide the radical right with ex-panding political opportunities by giving in-creased legitimacy to the radical right-wingparties and the issues they pursue. These is-sues also tend to become more salient as main-stream parties talk about them. Hence, thishypothesis claims that cooperation betweenthe established parties and new radical right-wing parties results in more attractive, andthus successful, radical right-wing parties.

The second hypothesis claims that theradical right tends to lose voters when theycooperate too closely with established par-ties. The reason is that cooperation betweenmainstream parties and radical right-wingparties may also result in shrinking niches forfurther electoral mobilization. Under certainconditions, a situation in which mainstream


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parties occupy the same ideological space asthe radical right-wing parties has a preemptiveeffect (see, e.g., Koopmans & Kriesi 1997),as the mainstream parties are likely to win(back) some of the voters that otherwise wouldhave voted for the radical right. Cooperationmay also make it more difficult for radicalright-wing parties to use the antiestablish-ment strategy, that is, to present themselvesas in opposition to the political class, whereasa radical right-wing party may be seen as theonly real opposition in the face of a cordonsanitaire, especially if the mainstream partiesare forced to form grand coalitions to keep theradical right out.

Unfortunately, there are no conclusivecomparative studies that demonstrate whichof the hypotheses fits reality best, although astudy by Van der Brug & Fennema (2003) hasconcluded that cordon sanitaire has no effecton electoral turnouts for radical right-wingparties.

Party organization. Whether new radicalright-wing parties emerge and attract vot-ers not only hinges on the presence of ben-eficial political opportunity structures; it isalso a matter of how well the parties them-selves manage to exploit the opportunities thatpresent themselves. However, their ideologi-cal/rhetorical profiles are not the only criti-cal issues here; the structure of their internalorganizations and the available internal re-sources are critical as well, and these issueshave become increasingly noticed within thefield.

Political parties have to act in a way thatdoes not undermine the cohesion of the partyorganization and its members’ willingness todo vital yet unpaid party work. Without a crit-ical mass of loyal volunteers on hand to dis-tribute leaflets, put up posters, or give outvoting slips during elections, most politicalparties would find themselves in difficulties(cf. Gamson 1975, p. 60). The political par-ties still require a member organization. How-ever, because party members identify withthe party ideology, with different policies,

or with particular party leaders, any attemptby the party executive to modify certain as-pects of the political program can potentiallymeet with resistance from the party organi-zation. Proposed changes may generally notdepart too radically from the party line al-ready embarked upon without a great deal ofhard, time-consuming work to win acceptanceand approval in the organization. Otherwiseparty unity is jeopardized or may even disin-tegrate into opposing factions. This trade-offmay help us understand why emerging radi-cal right-wing parties sometimes fail to capi-talize on what would otherwise seem a favor-able political opportunity structure for votermobilization.

As mentioned above, the populist anti-establishment strategy is one of the most im-portant tools for emerging radical right-wingparties. In using this strategy, a party must beable to neutralize, in a credible way, radicalmembers of the organization who push for anuncompromising, radical party line that mayseem overly extreme and/or antidemocraticto voters. Such members are not uncommon:As Klandermans & Mayer’s (2005) researchshows, activists of these parties are often moreradical than the radical right-wing voters, andthe activists also usually have a long historyof continued affinity with the radical right.In fact, their parents were often supportersof older forms of right-wing radicalism orextremism. Hence, this is a difficult task formany parties, particularly for those that havetheir roots in extraparliamentary right-wingextremism and those that have scant accessto alternative resources such as governmen-tal party support, external sponsors, and themedia and are therefore more dependent onvolunteers.

If a new radical right-wing party succeedsin winning representation in the legislature,it is likely to be forced to transform, in whichcase the new party develops a broad and rela-tively coherent political platform and a moreextensive party organization. These problemsare likely to be exacerbated when a radicalright-wing party is included in a governing

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coalition (Heinisch 2003) in which it may beconsiderably more difficult to pursue the pop-ulist antiestablishment strategy in a credibleway, and in which the party may be forced intocompromises that alienate core activists.6

However, there has been conspicuously lit-tle research on the nonparty sector of the newradical right: the think tanks and more infor-mal circles of intellectuals, the party press andradio stations, and civil society organizations(youth organizations, women’s organizations,veteran organizations, circles for professionalgroups, etc.) associated with the new radicalright (Minkenberg 2003). In the 1990s, for in-stance, the French Front National had 24 as-sociated organizations (DeClair 1999, p. 168).Such groups and organizations often play animportant role in ideology production andthe transnational diffusion of ideas, as wellas in grassroots socialization (see, e.g., Betz1999). Moreover, no systematic research hasbeen done on the dynamics between differentradical right-wing or extreme right organiza-tions within a country. In countries with twoor more radical right-wing organizations, weare likely to see more competition over poten-tial activists, which we may assume decreasesthe chances for any of them to grow large.As Veugelers (1999) has suggested, populationecology models would be well suited for com-parative analysis of this sort.

6Several scholars have argued that the charismatic partyleaders of the new radical right-wing parties are a majorreason for their emergence and electoral successes (see inparticular Eatwell 2003, 2005). However, as Van der Bruget al. (2005, p. 542), among others, have argued the “use-fulness of the term ‘charisma’ to explain electoral successis . . . doubtful.” The reasoning easily becomes circular inthat successful politicians “are easily called charismatic, andan unsuccessful politician will never be called charismatic.”

CONCLUSIONS

The political landscape of Western Europehas undergone rather radical changes over thepast two decades, and here the emergence ofthe new radical right stands out as a princi-pal event, along with the emergence of thenew social movements and related politicalparties (i.e., green parties and new left par-ties). However, with some important excep-tions there has been a rather strict divisionof labor between scholars studying the newsocial movements and scholars studying thenew radical right. Granted, a certain measureof specialization is necessary, but the literatureon the new radical right would benefit frombetter integrating theoretical mechanisms andresearch findings from the social movementfield, as well as from related sociological ar-eas such as organizational studies, networkanalysis, and the sociology of ethnic relations.More systematic comparative historical stud-ies are warranted to answer questions abouthow a history of past radical right-wing mo-bilization, or a colonial past, for instance, in-fluences cross-national variation in the elec-toral fortunes of the new radical right-wingparties.

Still, I am fairly optimistic about develop-ments within the field. Much of the earliertheorizing about the new radical right overfo-cused on singular, national cases, and in com-parative studies there was a tendency to sam-ple from the dependent variable in includingonly countries in which the radical right hadbeen successful (see, e.g., Knigge 1998). Dur-ing the past several years, studies have becomemore theoretically and methodologically so-phisticated and increasingly comparative inscope.

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Annual Reviewof Sociology

Volume 33, 2007Contents

FrontispieceLeo A. Goodman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � x

Prefatory Chapter

Statistical Magic and/or Statistical Serendipity: An Age of Progress inthe Analysis of Categorical DataLeo A. Goodman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �1

Theory and Methods

Bourdieu in American Sociology, 1980–2004Jeffrey J. Sallaz and Jane Zavisca � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 21

Human Motivation and Social Cooperation: Experimental andAnalytical FoundationsErnst Fehr and Herbert Gintis � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 43

The Niche as a Theoretical ToolPamela A. Popielarz and Zachary P. Neal � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 65

Social Processes

Production Regimes and the Quality of Employment in EuropeDuncan Gallie � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 85

The Sociology of MarketsNeil Fligstein and Luke Dauter � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �105

Transnational Migration Studies: Past Developments and Future TrendsPeggy Levitt and B. Nadya Jaworsky � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �129

Control Theories in SociologyDawn T. Robinson � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �157

Institutions and Culture

Military Service in the Life CourseAlair MacLean and Glen H. Elder, Jr. � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �175

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School Reform 2007: Transforming Education into a ScientificEnterpriseBarbara L. Schneider and Venessa A. Keesler � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �197

Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects of Economic SociologyGreta R. Krippner and Anthony S. Alvarez � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �219

Political and Economic Sociology

The Sociology of the Radical RightJens Rydgren � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �241

Gender in PoliticsPamela Paxton, Sheri Kunovich, and Melanie M. Hughes � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �263

Moral Views of Market SocietyMarion Fourcade and Kieran Healy � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �285

The Consequences of Economic Globalization for AffluentDemocraciesDavid Brady, Jason Beckfield, and Wei Zhao � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �313

Differentiation and Stratification

Inequality: Causes and ConsequencesKathryn M. Neckerman and Florencia Torche � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �335

Demography

Immigration and ReligionWendy Cadge and Elaine Howard Ecklund � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �359

Hispanic Families: Stability and ChangeNancy S. Landale and R.S. Oropesa � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �381

Lost and Found: The Sociological Ambivalence Toward ChildhoodSuzanne Shanahan � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �407

Urban and Rural Community Sociology

The Making of the Black Family: Race and Class in Qualitative Studiesin the Twentieth CenturyFrank F. Furstenberg � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �429

Policy

The Global Diffusion of Public Policies: Social Construction,Coercion, Competition, or Learning?Frank Dobbin, Beth Simmons, and Geoffrey Garrett � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �449

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Workforce Diversity and Inequality: Power, Status, and NumbersNancy DiTomaso, Corinne Post, and Rochelle Parks-Yancy � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �473

From the Margins to the Mainstream? Disaster Researchat the CrossroadsKathleen J. Tierney � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �503

Historical Sociology

Toward a Historicized Sociology: Theorizing Events, Processes, andEmergenceElisabeth S. Clemens � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �527

Sociology and World Regions

Old Inequalities, New Disease: HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan AfricaCarol A. Heimer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �551

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 24–33 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �579

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 24–33 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �583

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Sociology chapters (if any, 1997 tothe present) may be found at http://soc.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml

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The Sociology of the Radical Right - jens.rydgren of the radical right.pdf · ethnic relations,...

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