Linking Austerity and Nationalism in Right-wing Populism: A Cross-National Analysis of Western Democracies

• In Event: 2152 - White Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia

Abstract

This article evaluates to what extent fiscal austerity after the global financial crisis sowed fertile soil for nationalist political entrepreneurs. It argues that scarcity of public goods, real or perceived, arising from austerity exacerbated publics’ antipathy toward those they define as falling outside the national community. Drawing on a multinational comparison of twenty Western democracies and a subnational analysis of local authorities in the United Kingdom, findings show that recent fiscal contractions strongly predict more stringent ethnic criteria for national identity and anti-immigrant attitudes among survey respondents. I conclude by suggesting that nationalist political entrepreneurs’ ability to displace public anxiety away from public goods scarcity and toward perceived out-group threat helps us understand why the populist resurgence
across Western democracies has tended toward ethno-nationalism.

Author

• Ned Crowley, New York University