The New Right in Europe: Supply, Demand, and Electoral Performance: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of New Right Parties, 2000-201

The New Right is the fastest growing party family in Europe. Factors contributing to its success have been grouped broadly into two types: demand-side factors and supply-side factors. Demand-side factors comprise socio-economic developments such as unemployment, public mistrust in the political establishment, and levels of immigration. Supply-side factors relate to the mechanics of the party system, the type of the electoral system, and endogenous features of parties such as ideology, leadership and organization. Demand-side factors dominate in the literature on New Right party success. This study concentrates on party ideology in order to explain the electoral credibility of the New Right. Through a QCA analysis of party manifestos, this study shows how successful New Right parties achieve electoral success by composing a party platform that translates the New Right ideological markers of nativism, exclusion, and authoritarianism into policy output that upholds democratic standards and avoids inflammatory language. Unlike most comparative studies on the New Right, which focus on Western European parties, this study includes the New Right in Central and Eastern Europe. The findings indicate that although there is no single pathway to success, successful parties in both Western and Central and Eastern Europe formulate exclusion as the enforced assimilation of minorities, and they incorporate the promotion of traditional values in their party programs. Thus, successful parties in both regions secure the support of voters in a very similar way by identifying contemporary threats to national identity.