One of the most significant events in European politics the past two decades is the emergence of radical right-wing parties, mobilizing against immigration and multiethnic societies. Such parties have established themselves in a large number of countries, often with voter shares exceeding ten and sometimes even twenty percent. Many of these parties exert a real influence on the policy within respective country.

The emergence of the recent wave of radical right-wing party politics has generated a large and growing literature, spanning a variety of dimensions—such as ideology, voting, and policy impact. This volume will cover all these dimensions, but it will in particular focus on two questions: why is it that the working class tends to be especially attracted by the radical right-wing parties? And what does the radical right-wing parties growing electoral successes mean for Social Democracy and the traditional left in Europe, which are meeting growing competition from the radical right over working class voters?

Bringing together the leading scholars within this field, this book makes a unique contribution by focusing on the relationship between class politics and the radical right.

Contents

Introduction: Class Politics and the Radical Right Jens Rydgren 1. The Populist Right, the Working Class, and the Changing Face of Class Politics Simon Bornschier and Hanspeter Kriesi 2. The Class Basis of the Cleavage between the New Left and the Radical Right: an analysis for Austria, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland Daniel Oesch 3. Radical right parties: Their voters and their electoral competitors Wouter van der Brug, Meindert Fennema, Sarah de Lange and Inger Baller 4. Working Class Parties 2.0? Competition between Centre Left and Extreme Right Parties Kai Arzheimer 5. In or out of proportion? Labour and social democratic parties responses to the radical right Tim Bale, Dan Hough, and Stijn van Kessel 6. Right-wing Populist Parties and the Working Class Vote: What Havne for Us Lately? Hans-Georg Betz and Susi Meret 7. Voting for the populist radical right in Western Europe: The role of education Elisabeth Ivarsflaten and Rune Stubager 8. Gender, class and radical right voting Hilde Coffé 9. The Class Basis of Extreme-Right Voting in France: Generational Replacement and the Rise of New Cultural Issues (1984-2007) Florent Gougou and Nonna Mayer 10. Another kind of class voting: The working class sympathy for Sweden Democrats Maria Oskarson and Marie Demker 11. Mobilizing the Workers? Extreme Right Party Support and Campaign Effects at the 2010 British General Election Matthew J. Goodwin and David Cutts 12. The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe: Class Politics in Classless Societies? Michael Minkenberg and Bartek Pytlas 13. Social Class and Radical Right: Conceptualizing Political Preference Formation and Partisan Choice Herbert Kitschelt

Author Bio

Jens Rydgren holds the Chair in Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Stockholm Un...