What Drives the Vote for the Extreme Right? Absolute Vs. Relative Deprivation
18 Pages Posted: 13 Aug 2009 Last revised: 1 Sep 2009
Date Written: 2009
Abstract
We offer a structural explanation for the emergence of ‘extreme right’ parties in Eastern and Western Europe. Notwithstanding all the substantial differences between Eastern and Western Europe, we can trace similar processes of economic change, that have had analogous social consequences, which are reflected in a similar profile of the core partisan constituencies of the extreme right-wing parties. We demonstrate this by analyzing the socioeconomic and demographic profile of the constituencies of two of the most successful right wing parties in Europe – the Greater Romania Party and the French National Front. Thinking about the motivations behind the electoral support for the two parties, it appears that in both cases, the extreme right vote was initially driven by relative deprivation – i.e., the objective social and economic conditions of the extreme right electorates were not the worst. Later on, though, this position has shifted from relative to absolute deprivation, an evolution which suggests the notion of a life cycle of the extreme right-wing parties.
Keywords: voting behavior, extreme right, relative deprivation, absolute deprivation, Romania, France
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