This study offers an explanatory model for variation in electoral results for ‘populist radical right’ parties in Europe over time and across countries. We build on and fuse previous explanations to offer a theoretical model that combines supply- and demand-side explanations. We argue that such parties succeed when they are able to avoid the stigma of extremism by initially catering to an unsatiated demand of right-wing voters on a ‘less controversial’, highly salient issue. With their relatively minor place in the party system confirmed and equipped with a ‘reputation shield’ that extremist parties do not enjoy, they are able to refocus on more controversial, other highly salient issues, typically immigration, potentially leading to greater potential mobilisation. We use the case of the Spanish party Vox, as well as the erstwhile, anomalous lack of success for similar parties across Portugal and Spain, to test our framework. We show that both the historic lack of populist radical right party success across Iberia, the relative greater success in the rest of western Europe and the recent rise of Vox can be explained neatly by this framework of salience, stigma and supply.

This is an abstract of a working paper by James Dennison and Mariana S. Mendes.