Strategic Moves of Mainstream Parties
Faced with Radical Challenger
4.1. Power of the Party? The Influence of the Tea Party Label in the 2010 House Elections
Katelyn Mehling (Duke University)
The results of the 2010 midterm elections transformed the legislative landscape for the House of Representatives; 63 seats shifted hands from the Democrat to Republican party. In a time where the public was displeased with the state of the nation, the grassroots Tea Party movement caught fire. The Tea Party supported a conservative social agenda and economic policies focused on cutting programs. As a result of highly visible protests, extant political organizations seized on the ebullience of the Tea Party movement, soliciting donations from the grassroots and organizing to aid candidates reflective of their political preferences. As the movement gained national attention, many political hopefuls began to associate themselves with the Tea Party. Despite the splash made by the Tea Party, I argue that Tea Party affiliation provided challengers no greater probability of defeating the incumbent in general or Republican primary elections, and instead seek to demonstrate that prior political experience is the trait critical to electoral success. In examining the general election, I find support for my expectations. In the primary, however, I find mixed results for my expectations. I find that the quality challenger and Tea Party effects are only statistically significant in reducing incumbent vote share, not in affecting the overall probability of reelection.
4.2. The Absence of a Japanese Radical Right. Consistent with Current Theory of the Radical Right?
Harunobu Saijo (Duke University)
One set of theories pertaining to radical right success examines the strategy of mainstream right-wing parties. One mechanism that seems to have been ignored is the extent to which mainstream right-wing parties include or exclude ”radical right” individuals and supporters within their own ranks. I argue that giving “radical right” elements a place within mainstream parties, allows center-right parties to prevent potential radical right voters from switching support to parties more extreme than itself, by presenting a more credible alternative. This raises the issue of internal party dynamics, and non-unitary parties, which the existing literature ignores, due to the largely unitary nature of Western European parties. The Japanese case demonstrates such a mechanism. Furthermore, the validity of this thesis can be tested more rigorously over time, as the state allows more immigrants to enter Japan, which may strain this outcome.
Tarik Abou-Chadi (University of Zurich) and Eelco Harteveld (University of Amsterdam)
We investigate how the composition of governments affects voting for challenger parties. While a growing body of research has identified supply-side conditions under which the policy appeals of challenger parties are more successful, no such comparative work exists for their anti-establishment appeals. We argue that the composition of governments plays a crucial role for challenger parties’ capacity to mobilize anti-elite sentiment and investigate two mechanisms: representation and contestation. If voters feel that their policy preferences are not represented in government and that changing their vote has only little effect on the composition of governments, then this will increase the credibility of challenger parties’ anti-establishment appeal. Analyzing data on voting behavior from the CSES for 13 countries between 1996 and 2011, we find that the congruence of consecutive governments, the policy range of positions in government, and policy distance to government all affect individuals’ likelihood to vote for a challenger party.
4.4. The better, the worse? The macro-economic conditions for populist anti-immigrant success
Sergi Pardos-Prado (Merton College, Oxford University)
The expanding literature on radical right populism has reached contradictory conclusions on the macro-level determinants of populist success, especially as regards macro-economic conditions. On the basis of theories of issue constraint, I show that the interaction between bad macro-economic performance and immigration pressure increases distributional conflicts associated with immigration, and subsequently turns political competition more unidimensional. The increased alignment between economic and immigration preferences minimizes ideological fragmentation, and favors the opportunity structure of conservative mainstream parties. The findings, obtained via a survey experiment in the US and large-N analyses in Western Europe, shed light on why countries particularly hit by economic crises are resilient against anti-immigrant parties. They also highlight the importance of redistribution preferences and political dimensionality to understand radical right fortunes.
