(iPoster) Explaining Variation in the Electoral Success of Far-Right Parties

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Candidates and Elections; Education Politics and Policy; & Creating Spaces for Civic Engagement
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Candidates and Elections

Abstract

When societal changes give rise to new constituencies that have not yet mobilized, what determines whether they achieve electoral success? The liberal international order, based on free trade, open markets, and international cooperation, has generated considerable economic growth but has also increased inequality within advanced economies. Rising import competition and immigration have accelerated the decline of labor-intensive sectors, leaving many workers economically insecure. These “losers of globalization” have become receptive to nationalist, protectionist, and anti-elite appeals.
The electoral rise of nationalist and populist right-wing parties has therefore attracted sustained scholarly attention, not only because it echoes patterns from the interwar era but also because it poses new challenges to the liberal international order and democratic representation. Yet despite widespread demand for far-right policies, these parties’ electoral performance varies considerably across countries and over time. In some cases, economic dislocation has coincided with far-right breakthroughs; in others, similar grievances have been absorbed by mainstream parties or have failed to produce a significant political response. This variation suggests that economic and cultural demand alone may be insufficient to explain far-right success.
I explore the conditions under which constituencies experiencing economic dislocation translate their grievances into electoral support for far-right parties. I argue that this translation depends in part on the permissiveness of electoral institutions. Permissive systems, typically those with proportional representation and higher district magnitudes, lower barriers to entry for new parties and reduce incentives for strategic voting. In such systems, instrumentally motivated voters can support their preferred party without fearing that their votes will be wasted, while expressively motivated voters tend to do so regardless of electoral prospects. Conversely, restrictive systems, such as single-member districts under first-past-the-post rules, encourage strategic coordination, often to the disadvantage of smaller or newer parties. This argument highlights the potential for institutional context to shape how economic grievances are expressed politically. Because far-right parties often emerge as new entrants, their success depends not only on demand but also on whether the electoral environment makes representation feasible and credible. Where institutions are more permissive, both instrumental and expressive voters may support these parties; where they are not, far-right preferences are less likely to be translated into votes. This perspective complements existing work on the political consequences of globalization by emphasizing the institutional mediation of economic shocks. Much of the literature links import competition and immigration to rising support for populism, but institutional factors are often treated as background conditions rather than active mechanisms.
I use district-level election results from 15 European countries between 2002 and 2020, combined with measures of economic dislocation developed in the China import shock literature. The measure of electoral permissiveness is district magnitude. Taken together, I examine whether the effect of import competition on far-right vote shares increases as district magnitude increases. Preliminary findings show that the conditional effects of the China import shock on far-right vote shares increase with district magnitude; however, these effects are not statistically significant. In the discussion section, I explain both theoretically and methodologically why the results are statistically insignificant and propose directions for future research.

Author

• Sunhee Kim, Texas A&M University