Sociograph N°31 Sociograph Cal Right

Working-class voters no longer systematically support left-wing political parties. This finding was initially viewed as signalling the end of class voting and the decline of the class cleavage’s salience. Yet, in Western Eu- rope, it would seem to be turning to a new party family: the populist radi- Sociograph n°31 Sociograph cal right. This realignment is thought to be linked to globalization and the Sociograph n°31 societal and economic changes that it brings. Sociological research studies Populist radical right parties are thought to channel the frustrations of working-class voters with culturally “open” or “liberal” views of society Voting for the Populist Radical Right while the effects of economic changes are less clear and more contingent on national context. in Switzerland The present work links the debate on the decline of class voting and the A Panel Data Analysis rise of the populist radical right parties. Using individual-level longitudinal studies Sociological research Dan Orsholits data from Swiss Household Panel, it aims to more robustly assess the determinants of voting for the populist radical right. Dan Orsholits is currently a PhD student within the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES. His main area of research is the modelling of vulnerability. – Orsholits in Switzerland Right Radical the Populist for Voting FACULTÉ DES SCIENCES DE LA SOCIÉTÉ ISBN: 978-2-940386-40-6 INSTITUT DE RECHERCHES SOCIOLOGIQUES Couv_Sociograph_31.indd 1 11.09.2017 10:35:55 V OTING FOR THE P OPULIST R ADICAL R IGHT IN S WITZERLAND : A P ANEL D ATA A NALYSIS Dan Orsholits Sociograph n°31 1 How to cite: Orsholits, Dan (2017). Voting for the Populist Radical Right in Switzerland: A Panel Data Analysis. Genève: Université de Genève (Sociograph - Sociological Research Studies, 31) ISBN: 978-2-940386-40-6 Online publication : www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/socio/sociograph 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES 7 ACRONYMS 9 ABSTRACT 11 1. INTRODUCTION 13 2. CLASS VOTING 17 2.1. PERSISTENCE, DECLINE, “TRENDLESS FLUCTUATION”? A SUMMARY OF EMPIRICAL FINDINGS 17 2.2. EXPLAINING THE DECLINE 27 2.2.1. The Relevance of Social Class 27 2.2.2. Measuring Class Voting 36 2.3. THE NEW CLASS APPROACH 39 3. (RADICAL) RIGHT-WING POPULIST PARTIES 45 3.1. DEFINING RADICAL RIGHT-WING POPULIST PARTIES 46 3.2. EXPLAINING SUPPORT FOR RADICAL RIGHT-WING POPULIST PARTIES 55 3.2.1. Demand-Side Explanations 55 3.2.2. Supply-Side Explanations 65 3.3. THE CASE OF SWITZERLAND 67 3.3.1. A Brief History of the Radical Right 68 3.3.2. The Transformation of the Swiss People’s Party 70 3.3.3. The Swiss People’s Party Electorate 72 4. A PANEL ANALYSIS OF POPULIST RADICAL RIGHT-WING PARTY SUPPORT IN SWITZERLAND 77 4.1. HYPOTHESES 78 4.2. OPERATIONALIZATION 80 4.2.1. The Data Set 80 4.2.2. Dependent Variable 81 4.2.3. Independent Variables 84 3 4.3. METHODS 88 4.4. RESULTS 91 5. CONCLUSION 103 6. REFERENCES 107 APPENDIX 113 SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION ON INDEPENDENT VARIABLES 113 Numeric Independent Variables 113 Categorical Independent Variables 116 4 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Professor Lucio Baccaro for providing the impetus to study this topic and for his support during the writing of my master’s thesis which forms the basis of the present Socio- graph. I would also like to thank Professor Gilbert Ristchard for his many useful comments and for accepting to be the jury member for my thesis defence. Dr. Matthias Studer provided helpful comments on the methodology in the early stages of writing. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the Institute of Sociological Research’s scientific committee for giving me the opportunity to publish my master’s thesis in the Sociograph series. This study has been realized using the data collected by the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), which is based at the Swiss Cen- tre of Expertise in the Social Sciences FORS. The project is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. 5 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Proportion of Votes for Main Parties 82 Table 2: Empirical Transition Probabilities 83 Table 3: Frequencies of the Dependent Variable by Year 84 Table 4: Fixed effects regression models 92 Table 5: Random effects regression models 95 7 ACRONYMS CVP: Christian Democratic People’s Party of Switzerland/Christian Democratic Party EGP: Erikson–Goldthorpe–Portocarero FDP: Free Democratic Party/Radical Democratic Party OFS: Swiss Federal Statistics Office (Office fédéral de la statistique) SHP: Swiss Household Panel SP: Swiss Socialist Party/Social Democratic Party of Switzerland SVP: Swiss People’s Party 9 ABSTRACT Working-class voters no longer systematically support left-wing political parties. This finding was initially viewed as signalling the end of class voting and the decline of the class cleavage’s salience. Yet, in Western Europe, it would seem that the working class is turning to a new party family: the populist radical right. These parties which mobilize an anti-establishment and xenophobic, or “na- tivist”, discourse seem to appeal more to the working-class than left-wing parties who in recent times have gained voters among sections of the middle class. This realignment is thought to be linked to globalization and the societal and economic changes that it brings. Populist radical right parties are thought to channel the frustrations of working-class voters with culturally “open” or “liberal” views. The effects of economic changes are less clear and are more contingent on national context with some parties espousing pro- tectionist economic measures while others have no clear economic stance or even adopt (neo)liberal positions. The present work returns to the debate on the end of class voting and looks at methodological, empirical, and theoretical aspects before moving to the “new class” approaches which seek to link the decline of traditional class voting to a realignment of voters and parties. It then goes on to investigate how the populist radical right family is defined, and the characteristics of the parties that belong to it, with a focus on the case of Switzerland. Finally, using individual-level longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel, the work aims to assess the determinants of voting for the populist radical right in a more robust manner than previous studies em- ploying only cross-sectional data. We find that there may be an 11 explanation beyond just class position in itself for the overrepre- sentation of the working class within populist radical right parties’ electorate. However, there would seem to be a genuine class effect explaining why the culturally liberal segment of the middle class – socio-cultural (semi-)professionals – do not vote for such parties. 12 1. INTRODUCTION In Western Europe populist radical right-wing parties have en- tered the political mainstream and this is especially the case in Switzerland with the rise of the Swiss People’s Party. In the most recent elections it obtained nearly 30% of the seats in the National Council (Office fédéral de la statistique 2015). Explanations for the rise of the populist radical right in Western Europe put socio- cultural issues, principally related to immigration, at the centre and posit that political preferences are no longer primarily dictated by economic positions. Moreover, the profile of the populist radical right’s electorate brings together two social classes who by classic accounts should be opposed to one-another politically: small busi- ness owners and blue-collar workers. The political realignment of the working class goes against traditional views of class voting which consider that the working class should vote for left-wing parties in accordance with their economic interests. This shift in voting behaviour, along with a growing part of the middle class voting for left-wing parties, was initially viewed as signalling the end of class voting. However, accounts of the radical right con- tend that class voting hasn’t necessarily disappeared but has in- stead taken on a new form as “voting behavior continues to have a structural basis” (Bornschier 2010:4–5). Thus, class voting hasn’t declined but has taken on a new shape with the working class sup- porting culturally “authoritarian” populist radical right parties with the electorate of the (new) left being increasingly composed of a new segment of the middle class: socio-cultural specialists (Kriesi 1998:170). The present paper will first retrace the debate on the end of class voting by presenting empirical findings and explanations for the decline or persistence of class voting. Empirically, the debate 13 focuses on whether class no longer has any impact on voting or if it continues to play a role, albeit a reduced one, in determining voting outcomes. Another issue central to the debate is the operationalization of social class. Traditionally, studies on class voting used a simple dichotomous class variable distinguishing between manual and non-manual workers. However, critics argue that this is an oversimplification of reality and that more complex class schemas are necessary to fully measure class voting. Conceptually, there is also an argument over what constitutes class voting. In the narrow sense, class voting considers that classes vote principally according to their economic interests and as such the working class should vote for left-wing parties and the middle class for right-wing parties. In a less restrictive view, characterized by the “new class” approaches, class voting is simply the fact that certain social classes will systematically vote for a specific party. Such a view of class voting leaves room for the possibility of political realignment, and this realignment need not be limited to economic questions.

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