2015/07/08 by Trevor J. Allen · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #German legal, social, and political studies #Far right #Communism #Populism #Western europe #Political science #Politics #Political economy #Radical right #Democracy #Extreme right #Turnout #Redistribution (election) #Law #Sociology #Voting #European union #Economics
paper · doi:10.1177/1354068815593457
openalex publication_date 2015/07/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Scholarship on far right parties in Post-Communist Europe has borrowed findings and analytical frameworks from studies on the Western European far right. Similarly, studies on Western European far right parties have increasingly referenced instances of far right success in post-communist states. These parties are similar in their Euroskepticism and exclusionary populism. However, little work has compared voters for the far right between regions. Different political opportunity structures have consequences for far right voter profiles in four important respects. First, the linkage between anti-immigrant attitudes and far right support is stronger in Western Europe. Second, far right voters in Western Europe are less religious than their post-communist counter-parts. Third, post-communist far right voters are economic leftists, whereas rightist attitudes toward income redistribution slightly predict a far right vote in Western Europe. Finally, far right voters in Western Europe are more satisfied with democracy as a regime type.