Saturday, March 15, 2014
Executive (Omni Shoreham)
While previous research (e.g. Mayer, 2002; Ignazi, 2003; Betz, 2004, Bornschier & Lachat, 2009) has extensively captured the individual as well as the structural determinants (e.g. Berezin 2007; Oesch 2008; Mudde 2013) of the success of European radical right-wing parties, there is a dearth of scholarship that comprehensively looks at the interplay between individual and structural factors on an individual’s decision to vote for the radical right. I aim at filling this gap by calculating a three level model. In the model, I include data from more than 30,000 individuals that are clustered in more than 150 regions in 16 countries. I hypothesize that an individual’s decision to vote for the radical right can hinge upon individual factors (e.g. education or the person’s political socialization), regional contextual factors (e.g. regional unemployment or immigration) and national factors (the electoral system type and the type of welfare system). In support of my hypothesize I find that the variance in an individual’s decision to support the radical right is split between micro- and macro-level factors. More precisely, my results indicate that individuals, who are socialized into a populist rightist milieu with low education and an adherence to traditional values, who live in a rural region in a country with a generous welfare state have the highest propensity to support the radical right.
