Can individuals support for radical right parties in European countries be explained as a consequence of globalization? This quantitative study proceeds from the cleavage theory and examines the theory of winners and losers of globalization by studying the importance of three mechanisms on a micro level. It compares the importance of the economic, cultural and political mechanisms effect on individual support for radical right parties in countries within the European Union.  The study finds evidence that supports the theory of winners and losers of globalization and evidence that indicates that the cultural mechanism is the most important of the three to explain individual support for radically right parties.

The thesis aims primarily to analyse the communication strategies of radical right parties. More specifically, the research examines three cases of radical right parties in Western Europe during the first decade of the twenty-first century with particular emphasis on the political communication along with marketing and branding techniques used to engage with the electorate to gain and maintain electoral support. These case studies comprise the Greek Popular Orthodox Rally (LA.O.S.), the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and the Italian National Alliance (AN). Different forms of content analysis are used in order to pinpoint the characteristics that identify the parties as members of the radical right family. Through this approach the thesis provides evidence that the parties, in their effort to become more appealing to their audiences, avoid direct engagement with issues, which reflect traditional ideological tenets of the radical right issues such as fascism, racism or xenophobia. Rather, they attempt to present a more mainstream and competitive profile in the political arena. From a market-oriented perspective, the thesis addresses questions on marketing and related explanations which focus both on how the parties choose to communicate with the electorate, what is their message and, through comparative analysis, whether there are similarities in communication techniques among the three parties and whether it can be argued that parties in the radical right family project a common profile in terms of their communication strategies. Furthermore, the application of such an approach to the use of political communication techniques of the selected radical right parties can contribute to a wider understanding of how the concept of ‘consumption’ has come to be applied increasingly in activities undertaken in the political arena.

I analyse whether coalitions consisting of one or several parties from both political blocs have a causal effect on the following election results of the Sweden Democrats using election data. I find that, when the largest bloc is unable to reach a seat majority in a municipal assembly and forms a coalition with one or several parties from the other bloc, the Sweden Democrats increase their municipal vote share by on average 11.71 percentage points the following election. I interpret the result as support for the view that Swedish voters punish the established parties when they are perceived as becoming more similar in terms of policy and ideology. Moreover, my results show that the effect is only significant in municipalities where no small and/or local parties exist, indicating that the largest bloc in many municipalities prefer to form a coalition with these parties when the opportunity exists.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the internal and external supply in relation to citizens’ demand for radical populist parties. To explore how the Sweden Democrats between 2010 and 2018 has developed its party organisation and how this has changed over time. The essay is based on the theory of Cas Mudde which claims demand and supply as a reason and understanding for the increasing growth of radical right parties in Western democracies. The theory divides Sweden Democrats into three different aspects; demand, internal and external supply which explain the stability and increased support for the party. Socio-economic factors such as unemployment, education and level of immigration are significant explanation factors for radical right parties to establish on long term. However, the essay concludes that the internal aspects of the party organisation, in relation to lack of trust for the traditional parties and low party identification, are crucial explanations. The importance of these factors have gradually increased during the years 2010-2018, while the level of significance for socioeconomic factors have decreased.

<p>How can we explain variation in support for radical right parties over time and across post-communist democracies? This project suggests that support for radical right parties is driven by the politics of accommodation, and is aimed at counteracting the political inroads, cultural concessions and economic gains of politically organized minorities. It differs from other studies of extremist politics in three primary respects: (1) Unlike current approaches that focus on competition between the extreme and mainstream parties, I emphasize dynamics between the radical right party and non- proximate parties that promote minority rights. (2) Several approaches argue that xenophobia drives support for the radical right, whereas I show that xenophobia is not a distinct feature of the radical right party support base; what differentiates radical right voters from other voters is opposition to governmental transfers towards politically organized minorities. (3) I endogenize issue salience and identify coalition politics - i.e., coalitions of mainstream parties and parties supporting minority protection - as a key mechanism that increases the salience of identity issues in political competition, and benefits radical right parties. The project tests these propositions empirically, and finds supportive evidence using two unique micro-level surveys and an original party-election-level data set covering all post-communist democracies.</p> / Dissertation

In the past decade, scholars have discovered how European populist radical right parties have increasingly resorted to instrumentalizing issues of gender equality within broader anti-immigration and anti-Islam campaigns. This phenomenon has been coined as femonationalism by sociologist Sara R. Farris; building on her theorization, this thesis aims to investigate thisfurther in a Nordic context by examining whether and how femonationalism can be traced within the politics of the Finns Party (FP) and the Sweden Democrats (SD). This has been achieved by conducting an ideational analysis of the parties’ official election material and policy documents provided on their respective party websites. The analytical framework applied is political scientist Mats Lindberg’s VDP-triad, in which the central task is to capture the proposed value, descriptive, and prescriptive statements in a text. The thesis’ main findings indicate that for the FP, femonationalism could most closely be linked to their policy implications. Here, the FP advocates for extensive anti-immigration and anti-Islam policies, while also promoting policies that uphold a traditional gender order amongst Finns. For the SD, femonationalism was mostly found in their expressed value statements concerning the supremacy of western values in relation to gender equality, which migrants are supposed to internalize and respect. Implications for future research are to examine the phenomenon of femonationalism further in different country settings in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how it presents itself.

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Cette thèse porte sur les impacts réels et potentiels des partis de droite radicale (PDR) sur l'économie et évalue ces impacts - quantitativement et qualitativement - en considérant la politique économique et les performances économiques de 27 pays européens.Nous commençons par discuter les définitions de pdr (chapitre 1) et leur position sur les questions économiques (chapitre 2). Nous en déduisons une taxonomie des positions de ces partis sur les questions économiques et confirmons l'hétérogénéité entre les PDR sur ces questions. Le chapitre 3 résume la littérature sur les déterminants politiques de l'économie, dont nous tirons nos hypothèses. Le chapitre 4 teste ces hypothèses à l’aide d’économétrie sur des données de panel. Nous montrons que la présence de PDR semble avoir des effets sur l’économie mais différent en europe de l’est et de l’ouest. En europe de l'est, les scores électoraux des PDR, ainsi que leur inclusion dans une coalition au pouvoir sont significativement liés à l'augmentation des importations et de la diminution des exportations. En europe de l’ouest, leur inclusion dans une coalition au pouvoir est lié à l’accroissement de l'écart entre les taux de chômage de la main-d'oeuvre autochtone et étrangère.Afin de comprendre les mécanismes qui sous-tendent nos résultats, le chapitre 5 propose une contribution originale à l'approche néo-réaliste d'amable et palombarini (2005). Nous soutenons que la politique économique est le résultat de la régulation politique des conflits sociaux et illustrons notre point de vue avec l'étude de cas de la ligue du nord italienne. / This PhD Thesis discusses the actual and potential impacts of Radical Right Parties (RRPs) on the economy and assesses these impacts – quantitatively and qualitatively – by considering the economic policy and performances of 27 European countries.We start discussing the different definitions of RRPs (Chapter 1) and their position on economic issues (Chapter 2 We derive an original taxonomy of RRPs’ positions on economic matters confirming the heterogeneity between RRPs. In Chapter 3, we critically review the literature on the political determinants of the economy and identify three conceptualisations of the ‘political’ in neo-classical economics: opportunistic, partisan, and institutional models. Chapter 4 tests our main hypotheses by using a dynamic panel data model. Results show no significant and robust evidence in support of an impact on authoritarian (e.g. security) and populist (e.g. deficits) indicators. We find evidence in support of a nativist impact, different in Eastern and Western European countries. In Eastern Europe, RRPs’ electoral scores, as well as their inclusion in a ruling coalition, are a significant predictor of increased imports and decreased exports. In Western Europe, RRPs’ strength and presence in a ruling coalition are a significant predictor of increasing gap in unemployment rates between native and foreign workforce.In order to understand the mechanisms behind our results, Chapter 5 proposes an original contribution to Amable and Palombarini (2005)’s neo-realist approach. We argue that economic policy is the result of the political regulation of social conflict and illustrate our framework with the case study of the Italian Lega Nord.

Do Populist Radical Right Parties have an impact on the attitudes of other parties? Despite drawing much attention from the general public as well as academics, there is no clear answer to this conundrum. In this paper I examine how mainstream political parties change their positions in parliamentary debates on immigration and refugees after Populist Radical Right Parties enter parliament. In order to do this, I use theoretical concepts such as discourse coalitions and storylines in combination with network methodology to map out how parties in the Swedish parliament relate to one another through their attitudes towards key themes in the debate on immigration and refugees. This paper focuses on the relations between parties through language by applying Discourse Network Analysis on parliamentary debates. Thus, it contributes with a new relational aspect and methodological tool on a relatively underutilised material. The findings indicate that there is a change in other parties’ attitudes towards immigration and refugees, with two mainstream right parties moving closer to the Populist Radical Right Party. However, the datatype does not support causal language and the findings are limited due to small amounts of data.

The rise of right-wing populism has been identified as a major threat to multilateralism, and its negative consequences for climate policy have already materialised. However, its impacts on environmental policy have been less studied, especially so regarding policy outcomes. In this paper, I strive to narrow this research gap by investigating the impacts of right-wing populism on environmental protection expenditure. I employ a panel regression analysis to examine populist government participation in all European Union member states, and I also separate countries that have experienced a right-wing populist government to explore differences across the party family. The results show no profound effects, which is anticipated. Environmental concerns are more easily conveyed within the right-wing populist logic than climate change mitigation measures, and many European PRRPs express pro-environmental policy stances - they are so-called green patriotists. Based on previous studies, I expand on this concept. Finally, the results indicate green patriotism might be influential for policy outcomes, which is another contribution of this paper to the research field.