Does accommodation work? Mainstream party strategies and the success of radical right parties

2022/03/25 by Werner Krause, Denis Cohen, Tarik Abou‐Chadi · 8 voices · 43 citations
Social Sciences · #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Gender Politics and Representation

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/psrm.2022.8

Abstract

Abstract This research note investigates how mainstream party strategies affect the success of radical right parties (RRPs). It is a widespread view that mainstream party accommodation of radical right core issue positions would reduce the radical right's success. Empirical evidence for this claim, however, remains inconclusive. Using party level data as well as micro-level voter transitions between mainstream and RRPs, we re-evaluate the effectiveness of accommodative strategies and also test whether they work contingent on specific conditions, e.g., the newness of radical right challengers or the existence of a cordon sanitaire. We do not find any evidence that accommodative strategies reduce radical right support. If anything, our results suggest that they lead to more voters defecting to the radical right. Our findings have important implications for the study of multi-party competition as they challenge what has become a core assumption of this literature: that accommodative strategies reduce niche party success.

Citations

• Who sets the agenda and who responds to it in the Danish parliament? A new model of issue competition and agenda‐setting
• Competition Between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy in Niche Party Success
• The Causal Effect of Radical Right Success on Mainstream Parties’ Policy Positions: A Regression Discontinuity Approach
• The Evolution of the Immigration Debate: Evidence from a New Dataset of Party Positions Over the Last Half-Century
• When Does Accommodation Work? Electoral Effects of Mainstream Left Position Taking on Immigration
• Niche Party Success and Mainstream Party Policy Shifts – How Green and Radical Right Parties Differ in Their Impact
• Competing for Loyalists? How Party Positioning Affects Populist Radical Right Voting

Cited by

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• What makes ethnic majorities support the radical right? A combination of relative deprivation and social dominance approaches
• Mainstreaming vs. normalisation: Towards more conceptual clarity on how mainstream parties legitimise the far right
• When does accommodation fail? The electoral consequences of intra-party divisions and mainstream party strategies
• How the media cordon sanitaire crumbles: lessons from Germany
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• Partisan affect and political tolerance in the context of shifting norms: the effect of coalition signals towards the radical right
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• Re-Stigmatizing the Radical Right: A One-Way Street?
• Cleavage size and stability in turbulent times: introducing the bloc volatility and fragmentation dataset
• Populism, the far right and EU integration: beyond simple dichotomies
• The mainstreaming of the far right and democratic erosion. Three analytical pathways
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• Under pressure? How regional dominant parties shift their EU positions when challenged by Euroskeptic parties
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• Authenticity Over Imitation: Lessons from the 2025 German Election
• When is gender on party agendas? Manifestos and (De-)democratisation in Greece, Portugal, and Spain
• The pretence of the cordon sanitaire: non-collaboration as a distraction from discursive congruence
• Green Party Entry and Conservative Backlash: Evidence from Germany
• The young, the radical and the dissatisfied: the transformation of the Portuguese right-wing electorate in the 21 ^st century
• The stigma on right-wing parties: perceptions and voting behaviour
• Vom „totalen Migrationsstaat“ zum „Ordnungsstaat“. Über die Rechtsstaatsverständnisse der Neuen Rechten
• Voices of the party base: How supporters want established parties to respond to new parties
• To what extent do political elites influence public opinion about immigration?
• Legitimising prejudice? The impact of radical right party presence on anti-immigration attitude expression
• Careless whisper: Political elite discourses activate national identities for far‐right voting preferences
• Voting for the Populist Radical-Right in Austria and Germany: A Comparative Analysis
• Populist electoral success and party system concentration: A cross-national analysis
• Firewall against the far-right in Germany [wikipedia]

Discussions

• 2) More anti-immigrant positions do not weaken the radical right Our research shows that when established parties move to the right on immigration this does not weaken the radical right but if anythin [bsky, 214 points, 3 comments]
• Which would be a mistake. Exhibit A: doi.org/10.1017/psrm... Exhibit B: doi.org/10.1080/1350... [bsky, 13 points, 0 comments]
• Schönes Best-Practice-Beispiel für den journalistischen Verweis auf wissenschaftliche Forschung! Wenn man hier z. B. oben auf den hinterlegten Link klickt, kommt man direkt zu: Krause, W., Cohen, D., [bsky, 10 points, 0 comments]
• Krause et al. (2022) "We do not find any evidence that accommodative strategies reduce radical right support. If anything, our results suggest that they lead to more voters defecting to the radical r [bsky, 6 points, 0 comments]
• Folge: Mehr Menschen betrachten radikale Parteien als legitime und wählbare Alternative. Und dann wählt man doch lieber gleich das Original. – Im Zweifel führt das dann eher zu einem *Anstieg* des Wäh [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]
• Würde hier beginnen: doi.org/10.1017/psrm... [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
• Reacting to the success of the radical right (and sometimes, radical left), we have seen mainstream parties across the EU adopt more anti-immigration and Eurosceptic sentiments. However, plenty of res [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
• In meiner Bubble helfen tatsächlich wissenschaftliche Paper, insbesondere in Bezug auf den Umgang mit der AFD. Funktioniert besonders, wenn ich es zutreffender Weise so rüberbringe, dass ich der Frag [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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• The Impact of Radical Right-Wing Parties on the Positions of Mainstream Parties Regarding Multiculturalism