Explaining Far Right Local Electoral Success: UKIP in English Local Elections

• In Event: Poster Session: European Politics and Society & Presidents and Executive Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: European Politics and Society

Abstract

Far from being a momentary aberration, it is becoming increasingly clear that the European far right is here to stay, as distinct parties or tendencies within right parties. However, there has been relatively scarce attention paid to the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and less attention to their results in local elections. This is a problem in the study of far right parties; existing research suggests that local elections can narrow the third-party “credibility gap” and build electoral infrastructure for national success. My paper aims to fill this deficit in the scholarly literature by investigating the determinants of UKIP’s local election results. To undertake this investigation, this study engages in a comparative sub-national analysis of three years of local elections across 271 English local authority elections using a Tobit regression model. The results find that UKIP’s electoral determinants are highly unstable between elections so as to suggest that UKIP’s vote share broadens, rather than deepens, over time. Beyond this, the paper makes two further suggestions. First, explanations of far right success should not presume the stability of explanatory factors between elections. Second, UKIP’s vote share was significantly bolstered in those local authorities with stronger performances by the Conservative Party in the previous local election, thus lending support to the position arguing that UKIP’s rise came at the expense of the Conservatives.

Author

• Aaron Cardoso, University of California - Santa Cruz