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Home , Cas Mudde, Fidesz, Forza Italia (2013), Freedom Party of Austria, Greater Romania, Isamaa

University of Georgia

From the SelectedWorks of Cas Mudde

2011

Radical Right Parties in : What, Who, Why? Cas Mudde, DePauw University

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/cas_mudde/46/ Features | Dossiers Participation Vol. 35, no 1 12

Radical Right Parties in Europe: What, Who, Why?

iven the dominance of party politics in So, what are they? In my own work, I GEurope, political parties have always define these parties as populist radical been at the forefront of European compar- right, itself a combination of nativism, ative politics. And no group of political , and . Nativism parties has attracted so much academic entails a combination of and interest as the ‘radical right’. Described by xenophobia, i.e. an ideology that holds that a plethora of terms – ranging from ‘neofas- states should be inhabited exclusively by cist’, ‘extreme right’ and ‘far right’, to members of the native group (‘the nation’) Cas MUDDE ‘right-wing populist’ and ‘anti-immigrant’ and that nonnative (or ‘alien’) elements, Professor of Political Science at – these parties have been the topic of liter- whether persons or ideas, are fundamental- DePauw University (, USA) ally hundreds (if not thousands) of articles ly threatening to the homogeneous nation- and books in all major languages. state. Authoritarianism refers to the belief in a strictly ordered society, in which While this academic interest might be dis- infringements of authority are to be pun- proportionate to the political relevance of ished severely. Populism, finally, is an ide- the parties in question, it is matched by the ology that considers society to be ultimate- non-academic interest. Throughout Europe ly separated into two homogeneous and journalists, intellectuals, and politicians antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ and have been debating the ‘rise of the radical ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that right’ after virtually every electoral victory politics should be an expression of the of an alleged radical right party in the past volonté générale (general will) of the peo-

Essentially, the populist radical right is Biography democratic, in that it accepts popular and majority rule. Cas Mudde is a Dutch politi- cal scientist and currently the Hampton and Esther three decades. What has the combined ple. It is the combination of all three ideo- Boswell Distinguished Uni- intellectual labor of at least one hundred logical features, however, that makes a versity Professor of Political political scientists taught us about radical party populist radical right. Science at DePauw Universi- right parties in Europe? In this short piece I will address the what, who and why ques- Essentially, the populist radical right is ty (Indiana, USA). He is the tions on the basis of the state of the art of democratic, in that it accepts popular sov- author of Populist Radical the study of the radical right, with particu- ereignty and majority rule. It also tends to Right Parties in Europe lar reference to my own work, most accept the rules of parliamentary democra- (Cambridge University Press, notably Populist Radical Right Parties in cy; in most cases it prefers a stronger exec- utive, though few parties support a tooth- 2007), which won the Stein Europe (2007). less legislature. Tensions exist between the Rokkan Prize in 2008, and What are we talking about? populist radical right and liberal democra- the editor of Racist Extrem- It is not surprising that a phenomenon that cy, in particular arising from the constitu- ism in Central and Eastern goes under many different names will also tional protection of minorities (ethnic, Europe (Routledge, 2005). be defined in many different ways. And political, religious). In essence, the pop- ulist radical right is monist, seeing the peo- Next year the co-edited vol- while there are definitely widely different definitions out there, today most authors ple as ethnically and morally homoge- ume (with Cristóbal Rovira define the ‘radical right parties’ in roughly neous, and considers pluralism as under- Kaltwasser) Populism in similar ways. This is in part a consequence mining the (homogeneous) ‘will of the Europe and the Americas: of the professionalization of the study of people’ and protecting ‘special interests’ Threat or Corrective to the radical right, or perhaps better: the (i.e. minority rights). ? will be pub- increasing dominance of social scientific studies over mainly historic or pseudo-sci- Who are they? lished by Cambridge Univer- entific studies. For example, today few Logically, the question “what they are” sity Press. authors still use terms like ‘neofascist’ and influences the answer to the question “who ‘extreme right’ or argue that the parties in they are”. In the study of the radical right, question are anti-democratic, racist, or vio- however, this is often not the case; authors lent. using very different definitions will come Participation Vol. 35, no 1 Features | Dossiers 13

up with very similar lists of parties. This is largely the consequence of a lack of atten- Table 1. Electoral Results of Parliamentary Populist tion to the classification of parties. While Radical Right Parties most authors will devote at least some sen- tences to explaining the choice of term and Country Party Highest Latest definition, few if any will show on the Result Result basis of secondary, let alone primary, (%) (%) sources that the listed parties indeed share the definitional features. Austria Alliance for the Future of Austria 10.7 10.7 (BZÖ) This is in part a consequence of a continu- ing lack of detailed party studies. As hap- (FPÖ) 26.9 17.5 pens in other areas, the bulk of the academ- Belgium Flemish Interest (VB) 12.0 7.8 ic writing on radical right parties focuses predominantly on the big European coun- National Union Attack (NSA) 9.4 9.4 tries: , , , Poland, and Denmark Danish People’ Party (DFP) 13.8 13.8 the . It is clear that the choice of these countries is not led by the Greece Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) 5.6 5.6 national relevance of the radical right par- ties, as both Germany and the United Movement for a Better Hungary Kingdom lack strong radical right parties. () 16.7 16.7 At the same time, some of the most rele- Italy Northern League (LN) 10.1 8.3 vant parties that come from smaller coun- tries like Belgium, Denmark, Hungary or National Alliance (NA) 7.7 7.7 Switzerland, are barely studied outside Netherlands (PVV) 15.5 15.5 their own country (and sometimes not even within it). This is undoubtedly in part a (PRM) 19.5 3.2 consequence of the economics of publish- ing, which rewards studies of phenomena Slovakia (SNS) 11.6 5.1 in big countries. Sweden Sweden (SD) 5.7 5.7

Table 1 lists the electorally most successful radical right parties in member states since 1980. The average share some of the features of the populist that different authors come to different highest result of these 13 successful parties radical right – nativism, authoritarianism conclusions. is 12.7 percent, while their average most and populism – but not all three. In most recent result is 9.8 percent. In fact, in only cases the debate is over the question In terms of socio-demographic profile, we four countries have radical right parties whether the nativism (most often anti- know that white, -collar men are dis- gained more than 10 percent of the nation- immigrant sentiments) is ideological or proportionately represented within the rad- al vote. In two of these countries, Hungary and the Netherlands, the successful parties are also very new, and time will tell whether they will follow the common pat- In terms of socio-demographic profile, tern of relative quick disintegration, or the rarer path of party establishment and insti- we know that white, blue-collar men tutionalization. are disproportionately represented It is important to note that Table 1 includes within the radical right electorate. just 12 of the 27 current EU member states. In the other 15 countries radical right par- ties are either electorally unsuccessful, gaining less than 5 percent of the national opportunistic, i.e. only used strategically in ical right electorate. We also know that vote (e.g. , Germany, election campaigns. radical right voters tend to consider immi- United Kingdom), or they do not contest gration more important than the average national elections at all (e.g. Iceland, Why are they relevant? voter, believe there are more immigrants Ireland). In addition, there are some politi- The last question has two different, if con- than there really are, and want to limit cal parties whose radical right status is nected, meanings here. First, why are radi- . At the same time, the major- debated, that is, some scholars include cal right parties successful? In a discipline ity of voters in most countries share these them, but others do not. It would go too far dominated by ‘why’ questions, even if the values, so the difference is not so much in to get into a detailed discussion of these ‘what’ question has not been answered terms of attitude toward the issue of immi- cases here, but the most notably ‘border- completely, most scholars of the radical gration (crime or corruption), but the line cases’ are the True Finns (PS), right study the reasons why radical right salience of the issue to the individual. Hungarian Civic Union (), Italian parties have been successful in post-1980 (FO) and National Alliance Western Europe. Given the many concep- Most quantitative analyses look for the (AN), the Norwegian Progress Party (FP), tual, data, and methodological constraints usual suspects, that is, the easily available and the Swiss People’s Party (SVP). All and differences, it should not be surprising socio-demographic and attitudinal data, at Features | Dossiers Participation Vol. 35, no 1 14

the macro (i.e. national) level. Inconclu- sive results exist for the influence of levels of economic development, (individual) The political effects of most radical unemployment, (increase in) number of right parties in government are limited immigrants or refugees, etc. While these are meant to explain the demand side of for two reasons: (1) they tend to be the radical right politics, institutional variables junior partner in the government; and (like type of electoral and political system) and party variables (like ideological con- (2) they are controlled by a resilient vergence) should gauge the supply side. judicial apparatus that protects the While much needs to be done to answer fundamentals of . the ‘why’ question convincingly, running roughly the same problematic data over and over again, but using different advanced statistical methods, will not European governments are of the 21st cen- ner in the government; and (2) they are bring us much closer to the truth. Most tury. Still, in mid-2011, only two European controlled by a resilient judicial apparatus scholars now agree that the key is not the countries have governments that include a that protects the fundamentals of liberal demand side – through a variety of interre- radical right party: Italy and Switzerland. democracy. In most cases radical right par- lated processes ‘globalization’ has created, In addition, two countries have minority ties tighten immigration and integration at least since the 1990s, a fertile breeding governments that are supported by a radi- legislation and enforce a more strict law ground for the radical right in Europe. cal right party: Denmark and the and order agenda; often with clear support Hence, the real question is: why, given this Netherlands. of their senior coalition partner (and some- fertile breeding ground, are so few radical times with tacit support of the opposition). right parties able to establish themselves as The political effects of most radical right Yet while countries that have or have had significant political actors in their country? parties in government are limited for two governments with radical right participa- reasons: (1) they tend to be the junior part- tion or support have some of the strictest The full answer to this study will require a broader research agenda, combining inno- vative qualitative and quantitative meth- ods, and focusing on a wider range of suc- Table 2. Participation in Government by Populist cessful and unsuccessful cases. It will have Radical Right Parties to look more at the supply side, in particu- lar at the role of the radical right party in Country Party Period(s) Coalition its own success or failure. Unfortunately, Partner(s) this will mean money- and time-intensive Austria Freedom Party of Austria 2000-2002 ÖVP studies of relatively unknown parties in (FPÖ) 2002-2005 ÖVP small countries, which is not much reward- Alliance for the Future of ed in the contemporary publish-or-perish Austria (BZÖ) 2005-2006 ÖVP market. Croatia Croatia Democratic Union 1990-2000 The second part of the ‘why’ question is (HDZ) the ‘so-what’ question: why are radical right parties relevant to European politics? Estonian National 1992-1995 To a large extent the relevance question is Independence Party (ERSP) a direct consequence of the public debate: Italy Northern League (LN) 1994 AN & FI media and politicians alike are obsessed 2001-2005 AN & FI with radical right parties. The main reason & MDC for this public attention is the difficult rela- 2008- PdL & MpA tionship of radical right parties and liberal democracy, discussed above, which is Poland League of Polish Families 2005-2006 PiS & often (for ideological or opportunistic rea- (LPR) Samoorona son) inflated by debaters. Romania Romanian National 1994-1996 PDSR & PSM Party (PUNR) In terms of direct power, i.e. government Greater Romania Party (PRM) 1995 PDSR & PSM participation, radical right parties play a fairly secondary role in European politics. (SRS) 1998-2000 SPS & JUL Table 2 lists all government participation of radical right parties in European states Slovakia Slovak National Party (SNS) 1994-1998 HZDS & ZRS since 1990. These cases are fairly equally 2006-2010 HZDS & Smer spread over the eastern and western parts Switzerland Swiss People’s Party (SVP) 2004- SPS & FDP of the continent, but most East European & CVP) governments with radical right participa- tion are of the 1990s, while most West Participation Vol. 35, no 1 Features | Dossiers 15

immigration laws in Europe, they are not the only ones. In other words, there is a broader European trend towards tighter immigration legislation and stricter policies, which seems at best only partially related to the electoral and political strength of radical right parties.

But while political influence is not limited to government participation, studying the radical right’s indirect influence on European politics is not an easy feat. First of all, it is difficult to establish exactly how radical right parties influence other parties to do things. Do other governing parties respond to pressure from radical right par- ties or from the population (and can these pressures be meaningfully disaggregated)? Second, on many issues we lack longitudi- nal or reliable data, which makes the study of highly contested issues impossible – like the relationship between the level of support of radical right parties and anti- immigrant sentiments at the mass level or racist violence.

Conclusion Radical right parties are among the most studied political phenomena in contempo- rary Europe. Consequently, we know more about this relatively new party family than about established groups like the Christian democrats, the social democrats, or the lib- erals; despite the fact that these party fam- ilies still constitute the backbone of most government coalitions in Europe. There remains much to discover, but this will require departing from well-beaten paths and from mainstream comparative politics. Let me finish this short overview by sug- (...) what is the relationship between gesting a couple of original research pro- the radical right and religion? grams on the two aspects of the ‘why’ question, which are highly relevant and long overdue. nation (the ‘native’) and the preferred role cratic’ parties are in coalition against the First, we still know very little about the of (Christian) religion in political life? For VB. Yet in Italy the LN has been a major context of electoral success. While elec- example, the FPÖ emerged out of the anti- component of the two-block system, in toral success varies between countries, it clerical subculture in Austria, but has which multiple parties are essentially clus- also differs significantly within countries. recently become the most vocal defender tered into two opposing blocks. Intra-national comparisons can have the of some orthodox Catholic priests in the advantage of controlling for various inde- country. Yet in the Netherlands the PVV Fourth, and finally, what have been the pendent variables, particularly on the sup- seems to be willing to attack long-estab- effects on , on the ply side (e.g. electoral system, radical right lished Christian privileges in its struggle essential features of the liberal ), and are perfectly set for meso level against Islam. political system? This is the key question, studies, which look directly at the immedi- as much of the attention paid to radical ate political and social context in which Third, what exactly are the effects of radi- right parties as well as opposition to them radical right parties flourish or falter. cal right parties on the various European is a direct effect of their alleged anti-dem- party systems, particularly on the way the ocratic program. And while there are clear- Second, what is the relationship between main political parties structurally interact? ly tensions between the monist radical the radical right and religion? More specif- And what explains the differences? For right ideology and the pluralist essence of ically, with the main ‘enemy’ redefined example, in Belgium the cordon sanitaire liberal democracy, so far little actual dam- from ethnonational ‘Turk’ into ethnoreli- against the VB has in many cities trans- age seems to have been done... or has it gious ‘Muslim’, how has this redefinition formed de jure multiparty systems into de simply not been studied? affected the self-definition of the host facto two-party systems – i.e. all ‘demo-