Going Populist. Explaining the Vote for Right-Wing Populist Parties in Europe after the Great Recession

Right-wing populist parties (RWPP) have obtained outstanding electoral results during the Great Recession in Europe. Some authors have adopted a macro level approach to explain this success, highlighting the relevance of the context of crisis; while other authors have focused on micro explanations to analyse how the ‘losers of globalisation’ (the older, less educated and lower class) comprise the main electoral base of these parties. However, the performance of RWPP has been much better in those countries less affected by the crisis and, in certain contexts, the so-called ‘winners’ of globalisation have been its main electoral base. In this paper we demonstrate that the combination of these two sets of explanations (at the macro and micro levels) is necessary not only for empirical, but also for conceptual reasons to understand the phenomenon. While the general profile of this family of voters tend to be older, less educated and belonging to the lower class, in the poorer countries the RWPP voters -and losers of globalisation- tend to be younger and better educated. For both profiles the perception of immigration as a problem is a key factor in understanding its vote.