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Still blurry? Economic salience, position and voting for radical right parties in Western Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2026

Jan Rovny  and
Jonathan Polk
Jan Rovny*
Affiliation:
Sciences Po, Paris, France
Jonathan Polk
Affiliation:
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
*
Address for correspondence: Jan Rovny, Sciences Po, Paris–CEE, 28 rue des Saints‐Pères, Paris 75007, France. Email: jan.rovny@sciencespo.fr
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Abstract

Do radical right parties present blurry economic stances, or have they clarified their positions while moving towards the economic left? This article questions the strategic behaviour of radical right parties in Western Europe. It shows that although radical right parties have increased their discussion of economic issues, and expert placements of this party family on the economic dimension have become more centrist over time, the uncertainty surrounding these placements continues to be higher for the radical right than any other party family in Europe. The article then moves on to examine to what extent voter‐party congruence on redistribution, immigration and other issues of social lifestyle predict an individual's propensity to vote for the radical right compared to other parties. Although redistribution is the component of economic policy where the radical right seems to be centrist, the findings indicate that it remains party‐voter congruence on immigration that drives support for radical right parties, while the congruence level for redistribution has an insignificant effect. The article concludes that while radical right parties seem to have included some clearly left‐leaning economic proposals, which shifted the general expert views of these parties to the economic centre, their overall economic profiles remain as blurry as ever.

Keywords

political partiesradical rightblurring

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
European Journal of Political Research , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 248 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 European Consortium for Political Research

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